Conversation

Shareholders Led by Yi Zhang Announce Successful Results of Removal of Directors and Election of New Directors of YS Biopharma Co., Ltd.

Retrieved on: 
Friday, February 16, 2024

Yi Zhang thanks his fellow shareholders for their support in achieving this positive outcome today.

Key Points: 
  • Yi Zhang thanks his fellow shareholders for their support in achieving this positive outcome today.
  • The actions taken reflect an overwhelming shareholder repudiation of the prior board of directors  of the Company (the "Board") and the total disregard for shareholder perspectives shown by the prior Board and management team.
  • Given the result of the vote, Yi Zhang is confident that YS will now be able to focus its full efforts on executing its business strategy and preserving and growing long-term value for all shareholders.
  • These statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, events or achievements to differ materially from the information expressed or implied by these statements.

CPKC and TCRC labour negotiations update

Retrieved on: 
Friday, February 16, 2024

The TCRC - T&E represents CPKC's roughly 3,200 locomotive engineers, conductors and train and yard workers, and the TCRC - RCTC represents approximately 80 rail traffic controllers, all in Canada.

Key Points: 
  • The TCRC - T&E represents CPKC's roughly 3,200 locomotive engineers, conductors and train and yard workers, and the TCRC - RCTC represents approximately 80 rail traffic controllers, all in Canada.
  • Since September 2023, CPKC has been negotiating in good faith with the TCRC - T&E and TCRC - RCTC.
  • However, Federal Conciliation has been required in nine of the 10 collective bargaining rounds of negotiations between the TCRC - T&E and CPKC since 1993.
  • While the two TCRC collective agreements expired on December 31, 2023, they remain in effect under Canadian labour law until the parties reach new agreements.

How tax breaks strangle American schools − billions of dollars that could help students vanish from budgets, especially hurting districts that serve poor students

Retrieved on: 
Friday, February 16, 2024

Bubbling paint mars some walls, evidence of leaks spreading inside the aging building.

Key Points: 
  • Bubbling paint mars some walls, evidence of leaks spreading inside the aging building.
  • The lack of funds is a result of tax breaks Kansas City lavishes on companies that do business there.
  • The program is supposed to bring new jobs but instead has starved schools.

Property tax drain

  • Read more:
    Students lose out as cities and states give billions in property tax breaks to businesses − draining school budgets and especially hurting the poorest students

    Abatements have long been controversial, pitting communities against one another in beggar-thy-neighbor contests.

  • A three-month investigation by The Conversation and experts in economic development, tax laws and education policy shows that the cash drain is not equally shared by schools in the same communities.
  • In multiple cities examined, tax abatements often take critical funding from districts that disproportionately serve low-income students from racial minorities.


In Kansas City, for example, nearly $1,700 per student was redirected in 2022 from poorer public schools, while between $500 and $900 was taken from wealthier schools. Other studies found similar demographic trends elsewhere, including New York state, South Carolina and Columbus, Ohio.

The result

  • All told, tax abatements can harm a community’s value, with funding shortfalls creating a cycle of decline.
  • Researchers agree that a lack of adequate funding undermines educational outcomes, especially for poor children.
  • The study estimated a 21.7% increase could eliminate graduation gaps faced by children from low-income families.
  • Perversely, some of the largest beneficiaries are politicians who boast of handing out breaks that inflict so much pain on poorer communities.
  • In Philadelphia public schools, asbestos is a major problem, and the district needs $430 million to clean up such environmental hazards.

A tale of two cities


Baton Rouge is a tale of two cities, with some of the worst outcomes in the state for education, income and mortality, and some of the best outcomes. “It was only separated by sometimes a few blocks,” said Edgar Cage, the lead organizer for the advocacy group Together Baton Rouge. “Underserved kids don’t have a path forward”

  • Dawn Collins, a district school board member from 2016 to 2022, said that with more funding, the district could provide targeted interventions for academically struggling students.
  • The campus of Exxon Mobil, which has received $580 million in tax abatements since 2000, sits not far from schools in desperate need of maintenance.
  • The company received its latest tax exemption, $8.6 million, to install facilities at the Baton Rouge complex that recycle plastic and purify isopropyl alcohol.
  • Meanwhile, school bus drivers staged a sickout in protest of low pay and a lack of air-conditioned vehicles.
  • Christine Wen worked for the nonprofit organization Good Jobs First from June 2019 to May 2022 where she helped collect tax abatement data.
  • Nathan Jensen has received funding from the John and Laura Arnold Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

Pulse Seismic Inc. Reports 2023 Financial Results and Declares Dividend

Retrieved on: 
Friday, February 16, 2024

The Company has included these non-GAAP financial measures because management, investors, analysts and others use them as measures of the Company’s financial performance.

Key Points: 
  • The Company has included these non-GAAP financial measures because management, investors, analysts and others use them as measures of the Company’s financial performance.
  • These non-GAAP financial measures are defined, calculated and reconciled to the nearest GAAP financial measures in the Management's Discussion and Analysis.
  • Pulse owns the largest licensable seismic data library in Canada, currently consisting of approximately 65,310 square kilometres of 3D seismic and 829,207 kilometres of 2D seismic.
  • Pulse does not publish specific financial goals or otherwise provide guidance, due to the inherently poor visibility of seismic revenue.

Ukraine recap: prospect of renewed US funding a boost for beleaguered Zelensky

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

We had just published a piece by two security analysts from the Paris-based research university Sciences Po, who had outlined three possible scenarios for the 12 months ahead.

Key Points: 
  • We had just published a piece by two security analysts from the Paris-based research university Sciences Po, who had outlined three possible scenarios for the 12 months ahead.
  • The first two options were major military setbacks for Russia or Ukraine, with major losses of troops and territory.
  • Months of bitter, attritional fighting resulted in few Ukrainian gains at a significant cost in terms of both manpower and precious materiel.
  • But, as Stefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko point out, Syrskyi is also associated with the defence of Bakhmut, a battle that consumed so many lives on either side.
  • But fresh supplies of weapons and ammunition from the EU and the US began to dry up in 2023, seriously hamstringing the Ukraine army’s ability to gain the initiative on the battlefield.
  • You can also subscribe to our fortnightly recap of expert analysis of the conflict in Ukraine.
  • After months of bitter debate the bill finally passed the senate this week.
  • Read more:
    Ukraine war: what the US public thinks about giving military and other aid

Friends and enemies

  • One of Trump’s greatest allies in the media, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, sat down with Putin for a two-hour interview last week.
  • Inderjeet Parmar, an expert in US politics at City, University of London, watched the interview and gives us his verdict.
  • He concludes: “Putin’s early history of Ukraine is part of a Russian imperialist story that has been told for centuries.
  • He says more than 7,000 criminal cases have been opened accusing Ukrainians of giving aid to the enemy.
  • Others are less so: people who continued to do their jobs after their town was occupied: local government officials, garbage collectors and the like.

Ghana’s new vehicle tax aims to tackle pollution – expert unpacks how it’ll work and suggests reforms

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

It’s only the third African country to introduce an explicit carbon tax, after South Africa and Mauritius.

Key Points: 
  • It’s only the third African country to introduce an explicit carbon tax, after South Africa and Mauritius.
  • The tax is intended to address harm associated with vehicle emissions.

Why is the government taxing emissions?

  • The proposed vehicle emissions tax under the Emissions Levy Act, 2023 is one of several environmental fiscal reform measures being introduced by the government.
  • Environmental tax reform aims to shift the burden of taxation to environmentally damaging activities, such as pollution.
  • Ghana’s government believes the vehicle emissions tax is a more cost-effective and equitable way to make sure the polluter pays, prevent harm and protect the public.

What has been done so far to reduce air pollution?

  • In 2021, the government introduced a sanitation and pollution levy on petrol and diesel under the Energy Sector Levies Act to raise revenue to improve air quality, among other goals.
  • The levy accrued GHS452 million (US$55 million) in 2022.
  • These measures weren’t well designed from a tax policy point of view as they were not tied to actual vehicular emissions.

How should an emissions tax work and how does the new tax work?

  • Ideally, the tax should be based on the actual carbon dioxide and other pollutant emissions from a vehicle, measured in grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre.
  • Each car owner would pay an annual tax for the amount of CO₂ their car emits above that threshold.
  • The tailpipe emissions test would be done during the annual roadworthiness check by Ghana’s Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority.

What are the objections to the tax and can they be accommodated?

  • There is also no clear plan for what the tax will be used for after it is collected.
  • Several critics, especially in the manufacturing and transport sector, say there are already too many taxes.
  • But the government is under pressure to raise domestic revenue as part of its International Monetary Fund conditionalities.

How does Ghana’s tax compare with others in Africa?

  • For example South Africa introduced a carbon emissions tax on vehicles in 2010.
  • A 2018 study indicated that South Africa’s CO₂ emissions tax had failed to influence which new cars consumers were buying.
  • Ghana’s proposed emissions tax for vehicles up to 3 litre engine capacity is not unreasonable when benchmarked to South Africa’s.

Can the tax be implemented and will it meet its objectives?

  • The existing sanitation and pollution levy must first be scrapped and replaced with the vehicle emissions tax.
  • The tax bands should conform to emission standards set by the Ghana Standards Authority and the vehicle licensing authority.
  • Having both the sanitation and pollution levy and vehicle emissions tax operating at the same time amounts to double taxation.

What is the tax collection picture in Ghana?

  • Ghana tax collection is currently around 14% of GDP.
  • Its aim is to get to 18% by 2028, comparable with its peers such as Senegal, Namibia, Togo and Rwanda.


Theophilus Acheampong is affiliated with the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education in Accra, Ghana. He has also consulted for the Government of Ghana on environmental fiscal reform in a private capacity.

Nitazenes are a powerful class of street drugs emerging across the US

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

Researchers have relatively little information on how the human body reacts to nitazenes because the drugs have never gone through clinical trials.

Key Points: 
  • Researchers have relatively little information on how the human body reacts to nitazenes because the drugs have never gone through clinical trials.
  • As law enforcement has cracked down on other drugs such as fentanyl, illegal labs have used historical pharmacology research to formulate analogs of nitazenes as street drugs.
  • Although nitazenes are now identified as illegal street drugs in numerous countries, many medical providers aren’t even aware they exist.
  • Nitazenes are also mixed with other street drugs such as heroin and fentanyl and with fake oxycodone pills, without users knowing it.

Stock indexes are breaking records and crossing milestones – making many investors feel wealthier

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

The S&P 500 stock index topped 5,000 for the first time on Feb. 9, 2024, exciting some investors and garnering a flurry of media coverage. The Conversation asked Alexander Kurov, a financial markets scholar, to explain what stock indexes are and to say whether this kind of milestone is a big deal or not. What are stock indexes?When prices rise or fall overall for the shares of those companies, so do stock indexes.

Key Points: 


The S&P 500 stock index topped 5,000 for the first time on Feb. 9, 2024, exciting some investors and garnering a flurry of media coverage. The Conversation asked Alexander Kurov, a financial markets scholar, to explain what stock indexes are and to say whether this kind of milestone is a big deal or not.

What are stock indexes?

  • When prices rise or fall overall for the shares of those companies, so do stock indexes.
  • The number of stocks in those baskets varies, as does the system for how this mix of shares gets updated.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average, also known as the Dow, includes shares in the 30 U.S. companies with the largest market capitalization – meaning the total value of all the stock belonging to shareholders.
  • The Nasdaq composite tracks performance of more than 2,500 stocks listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
  • The S&P 500 index was introduced in 1957 because many investors wanted an option that was more representative of the overall U.S. stock market.

Why are there so many?

  • Most of them, including the Nasdaq composite and the S&P 500, are value-weighted.
  • That means stocks with larger market values account for a larger share of the index’s performance.

Do these milestones matter?

  • The DJIA first reached 1,000 in November 1972, and it crossed the 10,000 mark on March 29, 1999.
  • Investors and the media will treat the new record set when it gets to another round number – 40,000 – as a milestone.
  • Because there’s a lot of randomness in financial markets, the significance of round-number milestones is mostly psychological.
  • Index milestones matter to the extent they pique investors’ attention and boost market sentiment.
  • Many economists believe that the consumption boost that arises in response to a buoyant stock market can make the economy stronger.

Is there a best stock index to follow?

  • However, because it is value-weighted, it’s heavily influenced by only seven stocks with very large market values.
  • But if you check out several stock indexes rather than just one, you’ll get a good sense of how the market is doing.
  • But the market rebounded, with stock indexes hitting new milestones and notching new highs by the end of that year.
  • This is why I believe advice from the immensely successful investor and fan of stock index funds Warren Buffett is worth heeding.


Alexander Kurov does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Students lose out as cities and states give billions in property tax breaks to businesses − draining school budgets and especially hurting the poorest students

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

Bubbling paint mars some walls, evidence of the water leaks spreading inside the aging building.

Key Points: 
  • Bubbling paint mars some walls, evidence of the water leaks spreading inside the aging building.
  • “It’s living history,” said Mayes during a mid-September tour of the building.

Property tax redirect

  • The lack of funds is a direct result of the property tax breaks that Kansas City lavishes on companies and developers that do business there.
  • Between 2017 and 2023, the Kansas City school district lost $237.3 million through tax abatements.
  • An estimated 95% of U.S. cities provide economic development tax incentives to woo corporate investors.
  • Tax abatement programs have long been controversial, pitting states and communities against one another in beggar-thy-neighbor contests.
  • All told, tax abatements can end up harming a community’s value, with constant funding shortfalls creating a cycle of decline.

Incentives, payoffs and guarantees

  • Incumbent governors have used the incentives as a means of taking credit for job creation, even when the jobs were coming anyway.
  • Fairleigh Jackson pointed out that her daughter’s East Baton Rouge third grade class lacks access to playground equipment.
  • The temporary site has some grass and a cement slab where kids can play, but no playground equipment, Jackson said.
  • “When I think about playground equipment, I think that’s a necessary piece of child development,” Jackson said.
  • The city has two bodies that dole them out: the Development Authority of Fulton County, or DAFC, and Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development agency.
  • The deals handed out by the two agencies have drained $103.8 million from schools from fiscal 2017 to 2022, according to Atlanta school system financial statements.
  • What exactly Atlanta and other cities and states are accomplishing with tax abatement programs is hard to discern.
  • Under city and state tax abatement programs, companies that used to be in Kansas City have since relocated.

Trouble in Philadelphia

  • On Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023, an environmental team was preparing Southwark School in Philadelphia for the winter cold.
  • While checking an attic fan, members of the team saw loose dust on top of flooring that contained asbestos.
  • Within a day, Southwark was closed – the seventh Philadelphia school temporarily shuttered since the previous academic year because of possible asbestos contamination.
  • A 2019 inspection of the John L Kinsey school in Philadelphia found asbestos in plaster walls, floor tiles, radiator insulation and electrical panels.
  • The study estimated that a 21.7% increase could eliminate the high school graduation gap faced by children from low-income families.
  • The same researchers found that spending increases were associated with reductions in student-to-teacher ratios, increases in teacher salaries and longer school years.
  • Other studies yielded similar results: School funding matters, especially for children already suffering the harms of poverty.
  • For families in school districts with the lost tax revenues, their neighbors’ good fortune likely comes as little solace.
  • Throughout the U.S., parents with the power to do so demand special arrangements, such as selective schools or high-track enclaves that hire experienced, fully prepared teachers.
  • If demands aren’t met, they leave the district’s public schools for private schools or for the suburbs.
  • Some parents even organize to splinter their more advantaged, and generally whiter, neighborhoods away from the larger urban school districts.

Rethinking in Philadelphia and Riverhead

  • A school serving students who endure housing and food insecurity must dedicate resources toward children’s basic needs and trauma.
  • But districts serving more low-income students spend less per student on average, and almost half the states have regressive funding structures.
  • Facing dwindling resources for schools, several cities have begun to rethink their tax exemption programs.
  • The Philadelphia City Council recently passed a scale-back on a 10-year property tax abatement by decreasing the percentage of the subsidy over that time.

Kansas City border politics


Like many cities, Kansas City has a long history of segregation, white flight and racial redlining, said Kathleen Pointer, senior policy strategist for Kansas City Public Schools.

  • Meanwhile, Kansas City is still distributing 20-year tax abatements to companies and developers for projects.
  • Developers typically have plans in place when they knock on our door.” In Kansas City, several agencies administer tax incentives, allowing developers to shop around to different bodies to receive one.
  • “That was a moment for Kansas City Public Schools where we really drew a line in the sand and talked about incentives as an equity issue,” Pointer said.
  • After the district raised the issue – tying the incentives to systemic racism – the City Council rejected BlueScope’s bid and, three years later, it’s still in Kansas City, fully on the tax rolls, she said.
  • Recently, a multifamily housing project was approved for a 20-year tax abatement by the Port Authority of Kansas City at Country Club Plaza, an outdoor shopping center in an affluent part of the city.
  • All told, the Kansas City Public Schools district faces several shortfalls beyond the $400 million in deferred maintenance, Superintendent Jennifer Collier said.

East Baton Rouge and the industrial corridor


It’s impossible to miss the tanks, towers, pipes and industrial structures that incongruously line Baton Rouge’s Scenic Highway landscape. They’re part of Exxon Mobil Corp.’s campus, home of the oil giant’s refinery in addition to chemical and plastics plants.

  • The company posted a record-breaking $55.7 billion in profits in 2022 and $36 billion in 2023.
  • A mile drive down the street to Route 67 is a Dollar General, fast-food restaurants, and tiny, rundown food stores.
  • East Baton Rouge Parish’s McKinley High School, a 12-minute drive from the refinery, serves a student body that is about 80% Black and 85% poor.
  • The experience is starkly different at some of the district’s more advantaged schools, including its magnet programs open to high-performing students.
  • Baton Rouge is a tale of two cities, with some of the worst outcomes in the state for education, income and mortality, and some of the best outcomes.
  • “It was only separated by sometimes a few blocks,” said Edgar Cage, the lead organizer for the advocacy group Together Baton Rouge.
  • “Underserved kids don’t have a path forward” in East Baton Rouge public schools, Cage said.
  • “Baton Rouge is home to some of the highest performing schools in the state,” according to the report.

Louisiana’s executive order

  • John Bel Edwards signed an executive order that slightly but importantly tweaked the system.
  • On top of the state board vote, the order gave local taxing bodies – such as school boards, sheriffs and parish or city councils – the ability to vote on their own individual portions of the tax exemptions.
  • And in 2019 the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board exercised its power to vote down an abatement.
  • Edwards’ executive order also capped the maximum exemption at 80% and tightened the rules so routine capital investments and maintenance were no longer eligible, Hansen said.
  • In 2019, the campaign worked: the school board rejected a $2.9 million property tax break bid by Exxon Mobil.
  • In fact, according to Hansen, loopholes were created during the rulemaking process around the governor’s executive order that allowed companies to weaken its effectiveness.
  • By receiving tax exemptions, Exxon Mobil was taking money from her salary to deepen their pockets, she said.
  • Christine Wen worked for the nonprofit organization Good Jobs First from June 2019 to May 2022 where she helped collect tax abatement data.
  • Nathan Jensen has received funding from the John and Laura Arnold Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

Aurinia Discloses 2023 Year-End Financial and Operational Results, Announces Corporate Actions Focused on Enhancing Shareholder Value

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

This includes corporate actions designed to enhance shareholder value, including an exclusive focus on driving commercial execution of the LUPKYNIS® (voclosporin) business, and a significant share repurchase program.

Key Points: 
  • This includes corporate actions designed to enhance shareholder value, including an exclusive focus on driving commercial execution of the LUPKYNIS® (voclosporin) business, and a significant share repurchase program.
  • The Company had cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and investments of approximately $350.7 million as of December 31, 2023.
  • There were approximately 2,066 patients on LUPKYNIS therapy as of December 31, 2023, compared to 1,525 at the end of 2022.
  • From January 1 through the end of December 2023, the Company recorded 1,791 PSFs, compared to 1,650 in the prior year.