London Bridge

• These tragic incidents not only resulted in the loss of innocent lives but were also immensely challenging for emergency response teams.
• Each of these events required coordination between several different emergency services: the police, fire services and medical teams.
• Therefore, decision making by emergency response teams is a high stakes game that can influence the outcomes of different crises.
• We have been part of a team from the universities of Portsmouth and Winchester investigating how virtual reality (VR) can help prepare responders for these scenarios.

VR and decision making

• This makes it an invaluable tool for studying decision making under high stress.
• For emergency responders, there are many benefits to working with VR.
• Firstly, it can act as a training simulator, allowing first responders to practice critical decision making during a crisis scenario played out in a simulated environment and with a VR headset.
• By harnessing 360-degree cameras to create immersive simulations based around simulated terrorist events, desktop VR can closely mirror real world emergency scenarios.

Outperforming older methods

• They show that desktop VR can be a particularly valuable tool in training.
• For example, VR-based training, especially the interactive kind that responds to a user’s input, has been shown to outperform traditional video-based training methods.
• This opens up possibilities for the wider adoption of VR in emergency response training, making it more accessible for agencies and organisations with different budgets.

• LONDON, June 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cadbury is delivering the future of premium gifting for travelers with a limited edition launch of 1,000 Dairy Milk Laser-Engraved 180g Bars.
• The groundbreaking release celebrates the first time that Mondelez World Travel Retail and Cadbury have launched Cadbury Dairy Milk Bars utilizing laser-etching technology, creating intricately detailed images on the chocolate.
• Clearly catching the eye of traveling consumers, the campaign drummed up significant excitement, resulting in all 1,000 bars being sold within two weeks of launching.
• The supporting activation at Heathrow, which also highlights the new location-exclusive Cadbury Great Britain 520g pouch, will continue delighting travelers until the end of May.

• The new office, which will be led by Thompson Brown, will be the company's first in Virginia and will mark the 6th office location for BCA.
• Recent deals include representing the sales of Tanglewood in Roanoke ($64M), London Bridge in Virginia Beach ($14.5M), and Ashland Hanover Shopping Center in Ashland ($22.4M).
• While the office will be based in Richmond, BCA anticipates Brown to build a team that will continue to serve all of the Virginia region.
• Bowen recently relocated and opened an office in Charleston, SC to serve BCA's local clients and deepen the firm's coastal footprint.

• Ariel Re, a global reinsurance business with offices in Bermuda, London and Hong Kong, has announced it has secured $270 million of capital from five new institutional and family office investors to support exciting growth opportunities in 2023.
• In addition to the new investors’ capital, Pelican Ventures and JC Flowers have meaningfully increased their underwriting capital commitments to support Ariel Re’s growth.
• As part of this capital raise, Ariel Re secured $170 million through LB2 – becoming the first sponsor to raise capital through the LB2 structure.
• We hope that Ariel Re will be the first of many to use LB2.”
  Howden Tiger Capital Markets & Advisory, the capital markets arm of reinsurance broker Howden Tiger, acted as exclusive financial advisor to Ariel Re.