Business Briefing | Retailing: Best Buy Shares Rally on Improved Holiday Sales

The Best Buy Company had better-than-expected holiday sales, setting off a gain of $2, or 16.4 percent, in its stock price, to $14.21 a share on Friday. The holiday quarter accounted for about a third of Best Buy’s revenue last year. The chain said that revenue at stores open at least a year fell 1.4 percent for the nine weeks ended Jan. 5. The company’s performance in the United States was flat. The chief executive, Hubert Joly, said in a statement that the result was better than the last several quarters. A Morningstar analyst, R. J. Hottovy, said the results showed that some of Best Buy’s initiatives, like more employee training and online price matching helped increase sales.

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Restored funding for prescription drug-monitoring program urged

California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris on Thursday called on Gov. Jerry Brown to restore funding to a prescription drug-monitoring program that health experts say is key to combating drug abuse and overdose deaths in the state.

Harris' appeal to restore funding to CURES, as it is known, follows an article in The Times last month that reported that the system, once heralded as an invaluable tool, had been severely undermined by budget cuts and was not being used to its full potential.

The CURES database contains detailed information on prescription narcotics, including the names of patients, the doctors prescribing the drugs and the pharmacies that dispense them. The system was designed to help physicians detect "doctor-shopping" patients who dupe multiple physicians into prescribing drugs such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Xanax.

Harris' request followed Brown's unveiling of a proposed $97.7-billion budget, which projects a surplus — a feat that has been accomplished only one time in the last decade. With California's fiscal condition improving, Harris said it was up to the state to make sure the money was "spent wisely."

"This includes smart investments that benefit Californians, such as restoring funding for the state's prescription drug-monitoring program," she said in a statement.

Brown's office had no comment.

The governor's budget does increase Harris' Department of Justice general fund allocation by 4.5% to $174.3 million, but it does not earmark money for CURES. Harris could seek legislative authority to spend some of her budget on the program.

"We are going to have a discussion on the funding and where the money will come from," said Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for Harris.

CURES is the nation's oldest and largest prescription drug-monitoring program and once served as a model for other states. Today, it has fallen behind similar programs elsewhere. CURES data could be used to monitor physicians whose prescribing puts patients at risk. But it is not.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommends that states use such data to keep tabs on doctors, and at least half a dozen states do so.

As part of spending cuts aimed at maintaining the state's solvency amid a deep recession, Brown gutted the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which ran CURES, in 2011, shortly after Harris succeeded him as attorney general. Harris kept the program alive with about $400,000 in revenue from the Medical Board of California and other licensing boards. But it is down to one employee and has no enforcement capacity.

State officials have estimated it would cost about $2.8 million to make CURES more accessible and easier to use, and $1.6 million more per year to keep it running. However, officials say the program — with little or no additional financial resources — could now be used to identify potentially rogue doctors.

Bob Pack, an Internet entrepreneur, has advocated using CURES more vigorously to track reckless physicians and pharmacies as well as doctor-shopping patients. He became active on the issue after a driver high on painkillers and alcohol struck and killed his two young children in the Bay Area suburb of Danville in 2003.

Pack, who helped design an online portal to give physicians and pharmacists immediate access to CURES, said he was happy to see Harris ask Brown to restore funds for the program.

"But that's only a request," he said. "No one knows if that's really going to happen. Meanwhile, doctors are continuing to over-prescribe and thousands of Californians are dying from prescription drug overdoses. I hope this … has some bite to it."

An aide to Harris said restoring the CURES program is a high priority.

"She's committed to fixing the database and making it as strong as possible," said Travis LeBlanc, special assistant attorney general. "When we have limited resources and in a budget crunch, we need to focus our resources and use it in smart, efficient ways, and [CURES] is one of those," he said.

lisa.girion@latimes.com

scott.glover@latimes.com

Times staff writer Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this report.

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Holiday sales of PCs slide for first time in five years: IDC

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Holiday season sales of personal computers fell for the first time in more than five years, according to tech industry tracker IDC, as Microsoft Corp’s new Windows 8 operating system failed to excite buyers and many opted for tablet devices and powerful smartphones instead of PCs.

PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co, Lenovo Group and Dell Inc sold 89.8 million PCs worldwide in the fourth quarter of last year, down 6.4 percent from the same quarter of 2011. That was slightly worse than expected by most.

For all of 2012, 352 million PCs were sold, down 3.2 percent from 2011. That was the first annual decline since 2001, according to IDC. (Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Gary Hill)

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BRIT Awards hand posthumous nomination to Winehouse

LONDON (Reuters) – Scottish singer Emeli Sande joined folk act Mumford and Sons and indie rockers Alt-J with three BRIT Award nominations apiece on Thursday, but the biggest surprise was a posthumous nod for Amy Winehouse 18 months after she died.

Winehouse was included in the “British female solo” category, in which she was up against Sande, Jessie Ware, Paloma Faith and Bat for Lashes.

She was shortlisted for “Lioness: Hidden Treasures”, an album of unreleased songs and demos dating back to 2002 which hit stores in December, 2011 and topped the British charts.

The “Back to Black” singer’s father Mitch Winehouse said he was “delighted” with what he called the first ever posthumous BRIT nomination, adding in a statement:

“It proves that her music still has an enormous effect on the public now and for the generations to come.”

The other surprise package in a list some critics said largely upheld the BRITs’ reputation for rewarding commercial success over musical originality, veteran rockers the Rolling Stones were nominated for British live act.

The ageing quartet returned to the stage for a short, sellout tour at the end of 2012 in London and the United States to mark 50 years in business.

Despite criticism of high ticket prices, the band won critics and audiences over with hit-laden performances that belied their age.

“We all had such a blast, everyone was at the top of their game & the hometown audiences at The O2 were just fantastic…” lead singer Mick Jagger wrote on Twitter. “It’s great to be nominated … we will see you soon.”

The last time the group was nominated was in 1996 and it is the only act to be nominated in both this year’s awards and at the first BRIT Awards in 1977.

OLYMPIC BOOST

Sande took part in the opening and closing ceremonies at the London Olympics, helping to boost sales of her debut album “Our Version of Events” which sold an estimated 1.4 million copies in Britain last year.

She was nominated for best British female, best British single for “Next to Me” and the coveted Mastercard British album of the year prize. Sande also features on another contender for the single prize, Labrinth’s “Beneath Your Beautiful”.

Among the best album contenders are the other acts who each picked up three nominations – Mumford and Sons, who have enjoyed success both in Britain and the United States, and Alt-J, the former for “Babel” and latter for “An Awesome Wave.”

Alt-J walked away with the prestigious Mercury Prize for the same record in November.

Rounding out the album category are rapper Plan B for “Ill Manors” and Paloma Faith for “Fall to Grace”.

Boyband sensation One Direction received a nomination for best British group, and are up against Alt-J, Mumford and Sons, Muse and The xx.

A new award will be introduced at the ceremony on February 20 at London’s O2 Arena.

The BRITs Global Success Award will go to the British act with the highest international sales during the 2012 calendar year excluding the domestic market.

Confirmed to perform on the night were Muse, Robbie Williams, Sande, Mumford and Sons, Ben Howard and One Direction.

This year’s statuettes were designed by artist Damien Hirst and feature his trademark spots on a white background.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Jason Webb)

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Parental Consent Rule May Proceed for a Circumcision Ritual, a Judge Says

New York City health officials may proceed temporarily with a plan to require parental consent before an infant may undergo a particular Jewish circumcision ritual, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

City officials say 12 cases of herpes simplex virus have likely resulted from the procedure, known as metzitzah b’peh, since 2000, including one Brooklyn case reported this week. Two infants died, and two suffered permanent brain damage. Most Jews no longer practice metzitzah b’peh, in which the circumciser uses his mouth to suck blood from the wound, but it remains common among some ultra-Orthodox communities.

Citing the risk of infection, health officials in September introduced a regulation that would require parents to provide written consent stating that they were aware of the health risks.

But the Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada, Agudath Israel of America, and the International Bris Association sued in October to stop the rule from taking effect, calling it an infringement of their constitutional rights. They also denied the procedure posed a risk and asked a federal court to put the rule on hold while the litigation proceeded.

In denying the request for a preliminary injunction, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the United States District Court for the Southern District wrote that the risks were clear.

“In light of the quality of the evidence presented in support of the regulation, we conclude that a continued injunction against enforcement of the regulation would not serve the public interest,” she wrote.

City lawyers said they were gratified by the ruling, but Andrew Moesel, a spokesman for the plaintiffs, said the groups would appeal. “We continue to believe that this case is a wrongful and unnecessary intrusion into the rights of freedom of religion and speech,” he said.

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Japan Approves $116 Billion for Urgent Economic Stimulus

TOKYO — The Japanese government approved emergency stimulus spending of more than $100 billion on Friday, part of an aggressive push by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to kick-start growth in Japan’s long-moribund economy.

Mr. Abe also reiterated pressure on Japan’s central bank to make a firmer commitment to stopping deflation by pumping more money into the economy — a measure the prime minister says is crucial to getting businesses to invest and consumers to spend.

“We will put an end to this shrinking, and aim to build a stronger economy where earnings and incomes can grow,” Mr. Abe told a televised news conference. “For that, the government must first take the initiative to create demand, and boost the entire economy.”

Under the plan, the Japanese government will spend about ¥10.3 trillion, or about $116 billion, on public works and disaster mitigation projects, subsidies for companies that invest in new technology and financial aid to small businesses.

Through these measures the government will seek to raise real economic growth by 2 percentage points and add 600,000 jobs to the economy, Mr. Abe said. The package announced Friday amount to one of the largest spending plans in Japan’s history, he stressed.

By simply talking about stimulus measures, Mr. Abe, who took office late last month, has already driven down the value of the yen, much to the relief of Japanese exporters whose competitiveness benefits from a weaker currency. In response, Tokyo stocks have rallied in recent weeks.

But the government’s promises to spend its way out of economic stagnation also raise concerns over Japan’s public debt, which has already mushroomed to twice the size of its economy and is the largest in the industrialized world.

At the root of Japan’s debt woes was a similar attempt in the 1990s by Mr. Abe’s own Liberal Democratic Party to stimulate economic growth through government spending on extensive public works projects across the country, which did little to bring growth to the wider economy.

Mr. Abe said, however, that the spending this time around would be better focused to bring about growth through investment in innovation. He said the government would also invest in measures that would help mitigate the fall in Japan’s population, by encouraging families to have more children.

“To grow in a sustainable way, we must help create a virtuous cycle where companies actively borrow and invest, and in so doing raise employment and incomes,” Mr. Abe said.

“For that, it is extremely important that we adopt a growth strategy that gives everyone solid hope that the future of the Japanese economy lies in growth.”

To help Japan chart its economic growth, Mr. Abe has assembled two panels of chief executives and academics, including Hiroshi Mikitani, chief executive of a major e-commerce operator and a harsh critic of Japan’s old economic guard, and Heizo Takenaka, a former economy minister and outspoken academic known for his disdain of pork-barrel spending.

Meanwhile, a more aggressive monetary policy designed to beat deflation could fall into place when the Bank of Japan’s board meets on Jan. 20-21 for its monthly review.

Mr. Abe has leaned on Japan’s central bankers – who he has criticized for being too cautious – to commit to an inflation rate of at least 2 percent, which would help convince businesses that Japan will not arbitrarily reverse course on its easy-money policy. For over a decade, Japan’s rate of inflation has been flat or negative, reflecting sluggish personal incomes and corporate profits.

Some at the central bank, still wary of the tremendous asset bubble that loose monetary policy triggered in the late 1980s, have warned of the dangers of stoking inflation. The Bank of Japan governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, has also bristled at the idea of bankrolling public spending by buying up more government bonds.

But with its benchmark interest rate already near zero, the bank has few other options left than to buy up government bonds and other financial assets if it is to inject funds into the economy.

In an interview with the Nikkei business daily published Friday, Mr.

Abe said that he would seek in writing an agreement from the bank to pursue a 2 percent inflation target, though he said the agreement would not set a deadline. He also said the bank should consider policies that would maximize employment.

Mr. Abe said that he hoped to pick as Mr. Shirakawa’s successor someone who shared the government’s position on inflation and employment, according to the interview. The central bank governor’s term runs out in April.

Hajime Takada, chief economist at the Mizuho Research Institute, said in a note to clients Friday that there were still too many unknowns to assess the effectiveness of Mr. Abe’s economic push.

But by setting a clearly pro-business policy agenda, Mr. Abe has started to change the mindset of investors and corporations who had all but given up on growth – and for that, the new prime minister scores high points, Mr. Takada said.

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Irvine City Council overhauls oversight, spending on Great Park

Capping a raucous eight-hour-plus meeting, the Irvine City Council early Wednesday voted to overhaul the oversight and spending on the beleaguered Orange County Great Park while authorizing an audit of the more than $220 million that so far has been spent on the ambitious project.

A newly elected City Council majority voted 3 to 2 to terminate contracts with two firms that had been paid a combined $1.1 million a year for consulting, lobbying, marketing and public relations. One of those firms — Forde & Mollrich public relations — has been paid $12.4 million since county voters approved the Great Park plan in 2002.

"We need to stop talking about building a Great Park and actually start building a Great Park," council member Jeff Lalloway said.

The council, by the same split vote, also changed the composition of the Great Park's board of directors, shedding four non-elected members and handing control to Irvine's five council members.

The actions mark a significant turning point in the decade-long effort to turn the former El Toro Marine base into a 1,447-acre municipal park with man-made canyons, rivers, forests and gardens that planners hoped would rival New York's Central Park.

The city hoped to finish and maintain the park for years to come with $1.4 billion in state redevelopment funds. But that money vanished last year as part of the cutbacks to deal with California's massive budget deficit.

"We've gone through $220 million, but where has it gone?" council member Christina Shea said of the project's initial funding from developers in exchange for the right to build around the site. "The fact of the matter is the money is almost gone. It can't be business as usual."

The council majority said the changes will bring accountability and efficiencies to a project that critics say has been larded with wasteful spending and no-bid contracts. For all that has been spent, only about 200 acres of the park has been developed and half of that is leased to farmers.

But council members Larry Agran and Beth Krom, who have steered the course of the project since its inception, voted against reconfiguring the Great Park's board of directors and canceling the contracts with the two firms.

Krom has called the move a "witch hunt" against her and Agran. Feuding between liberal and conservative factions on the council has long shaped Irvine politics.

"This is a power play," she said. "There's a new sheriff in town."

The council meeting stretched long into the night, with the final vote coming Wednesday at 1:34 a.m. Tensions were high in the packed chambers with cheering, clapping and heckling coming from the crowd.

At one point council member Lalloway lamented that he "couldn't hear himself think."

During public comments, newly elected Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer chastised the council for "fighting like schoolchildren." Earlier this week he said that if the Irvine's new council majority can't make progress on the Great Park, he would seek a ballot initiative to have the county take over.

And Spitzer angrily told Agran that his stewardship of the project had been a failure.

"You know what?" he said. "It's their vision now. You're in the minority."

mike.anton@latimes.com

rhea.mahbubani@latimes.com

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Samsung sets sights on RIM’s corporate users

Now that Samsung (005930) has bested Apple in the consumer smartphone market, at least where shipment volume is concerned, the company is setting its sights on Research in Motion’s (RIMM) corporate user base. The company is investing heavily in enterprise devices that incorporate a higher level of security and reliability than consumers require. Various government agencies and corporations aren’t fully sold on RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system and are still unsure if will satisfy their needs. As a result, they have begun to explore alternatives for their employees.

[More from BGR: iPhone 5 now available with unlimited service, no contract on Walmart’s $ 45 Straight Talk plan]

“The enterprise space has suddenly become wide open,” Kevin Packingham, chief product officer for Samsung Mobile USA, said in an interview with Reuters. “The RIM problems certainly fueled a lot of what the CIOs are going through, which is they want to get away from a lot of the proprietary solutions.”

[More from BGR: CES has sadly become a complete waste of time]

The executive revealed that Samsung’s corporate market ambitions advanced after its flagship Galaxy S III smartphone gained various security certifications. He noted that companies “want something that integrates what they are doing with their IT systems,” and that “Samsung is investing in that area.” Packingham said that enterprise has been a focus of the company for a long time and its products have finally evolved enough to “really take advantage” of the market.

“We knew we had to build more tech devices to successfully enter the enterprise market,” he said. “What really turned that needle was that we had the power of the GS3.”

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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“Aladdin” coming to Broadway in overhauled version with new creative team

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Aladdin” is taking those three magical wishes to Broadway in a new stage show that will be substantially overhauled from an earlier version that premiered two years ago in Seattle.

The new version of the 1992 Disney animated hit will hit the Great White Way in spring 2014, according to an individual with knowledge of the production plans. It will replace “Mary Poppins” at the Disney-owned New Amsterdam Theater, the individual said. The stage version of P.L. Travers‘ children’s book will close in March 2013 after more than 2,600 performances.

A stage show of “Aladdin” that integrated the movie’s original score by Alan Menken, Tim Rice and Howard Ashman premiered on stage at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre in 2011. Chad Beguelin (“The Wedding Singer”) wrote the book for that production and Casey Nicholaw (“The Book of Mormon”) directed and choreographed the show.

However, the version of “Aladdin” that hits Broadway next year will be substantially overhauled and will not be a transfer of the 5th Avenue production, the individual said. That show was seen as a pilot production, designed to test the new book and additional score material. The Broadway production will involve a major new key player on the creative team, the individual said.

A spokesman for The Disney Theatrical Group did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Although “Mary Poppins” is closing to make way for “Aladdin,” it remains a moneymaker for Disney. Every year since it opened in 2006, it has ranked among the 10 highest grossing shows and among the five best attended. By the time it closes, it will have grossed more than $ 300 million, putting it on the level of other hits like “Jersey Boys” and “Wicked.” It has also earned more than $ 835 million worldwide.

The North American tour of “Mary Poppins” will end in June 2013 in Anchorage.

The New York Post first reported that “Mary Poppins” will close and be replaced by “Aladdin.”

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Flu Widespread, Leading a Range of Winter’s Ills

It is not your imagination — more people you know are sick this winter, even people who have had flu shots.

The country is in the grip of three emerging flu or flulike epidemics: an early start to the annual flu season with an unusually aggressive virus, a surge in a new type of norovirus, and the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years. And these are all developing amid the normal winter highs for the many viruses that cause symptoms on the “colds and flu” spectrum.

Influenza is widespread, and causing local crises. On Wednesday, Boston’s mayor declared a public health emergency as cases flooded hospital emergency rooms.

Google’s national flu trend maps, which track flu-related searches, are almost solid red (for “intense activity”) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly FluView maps, which track confirmed cases, are nearly solid brown (for “widespread activity”).

“Yesterday, I saw a construction worker, a big strong guy in his Carhartts who looked like he could fall off a roof without noticing it,” said Dr. Beth Zeeman, an emergency room doctor for MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham, Mass., just outside Boston. “He was in a fetal position with fever and chills, like a wet rag. When I see one of those cases, I just tighten up my mask a little.”

Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston started asking visitors with even mild cold symptoms to wear masks and to avoid maternity wards. The hospital has treated 532 confirmed influenza patients this season and admitted 167, even more than it did by this date during the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic.

At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 100 patients were crowded into spaces licensed for 53. Beds lined halls and pressed against vending machines. Overflow patients sat on benches in the lobby wearing surgical masks.

“Today was the first time I think I was experiencing my first pandemic,” said Heidi Crim, the nursing director, who saw both the swine flu and SARS outbreaks here. Adding to the problem, she said, many staff members were at home sick and supplies like flu test swabs were running out.

Nationally, deaths and hospitalizations are still below epidemic thresholds. But experts do not expect that to remain true. Pneumonia usually shows up in national statistics only a week or two after emergency rooms report surges in cases, and deaths start rising a week or two after that, said Dr. Gregory A. Poland, a vaccine specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. The predominant flu strain circulating is an H3N2, which typically kills more people than the H1N1 strains that usually predominate; the relatively lethal 2003-4 “Fujian flu” season was overwhelmingly H3N2.

No cases have been resistant to Tamiflu, which can ease symptoms if taken within 48 hours, and this year’s flu shot is well-matched to the H3N2 strain, the C.D.C. said. Flu shots are imperfect, especially in the elderly, whose immune systems may not be strong enough to produce enough antibodies.

Simultaneously, the country is seeing a large and early outbreak of norovirus, the “cruise ship flu” or “stomach flu,” said Dr. Aron J. Hall of the C.D.C.’s viral gastroenterology branch. It includes a new strain, which first appeared in Australia and is known as the Sydney 2012 variant.

This week, Maine’s health department said that state was seeing a large spike in cases. Cities across Canada reported norovirus outbreaks so serious that hospitals were shutting down whole wards for disinfection because patients were getting infected after moving into the rooms of those who had just recovered. The classic symptoms of norovirus are “explosive” diarrhea and “projectile” vomiting, which can send infectious particles flying yards away.

“I also saw a woman I’m sure had norovirus,” Dr. Zeeman said. “She said she’d gone to the bathroom 14 times at home and 4 times since she came into the E.R. You can get dehydrated really quickly that way.”

This month, the C.D.C. said the United States was having its biggest outbreak of pertussis in 60 years; there were about 42,000 confirmed cases, the highest total since 1955. The disease is unrelated to flu but causes a hacking, constant cough and breathlessness. While it is unpleasant, adults almost always survive; the greatest danger is to infants, especially premature ones with undeveloped lungs. Of the 18 recorded deaths in 2012, all but three were of infants under age 1.

That outbreak is worst in cold-weather states, including Colorado, Washington, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Vermont.

Although most children are vaccinated several times against pertussis, those shots wear off with age. It is possible, the authorities said, that a new, safer vaccine introduced in the 1990s gives protection that does not last as long, so more teenagers and adults are vulnerable.

And, Dr. Poland said, if many New Yorkers are catching laryngitis, as has been reported, it is probably a rhinovirus. “It’s typically a sore, really scratchy throat, and you sometimes lose your voice,” he said.

Though flu cases in New York City are rising rapidly, the city health department has no plans to declare an emergency, largely because of concern that doing so would drive mildly sick people to emergency rooms, said Dr. Jay K. Varma, deputy director for disease control. The city would prefer people went to private doctors or, if still healthy, to pharmacies for flu shots. Nursing homes have had worrisome outbreaks, he said, and nine elderly patients have died. Homes need to be more alert, vaccinate patients, separate those who fall ill and treat them faster with antivirals, he said.

Dr. Susan I. Gerber of the C.D.C.’s respiratory diseases branch, said her agency has not seen any unusual spike of rhinovirus, parainfluenza, adenovirus, coronavirus or the dozens of other causes of the “common cold,” but the country is having its typical winter surge of some, like respiratory syncytial virus “that can mimic flulike symptoms, especially in young children.”

The C.D.C. and the local health authorities continue to advocate getting flu shots. Although it takes up to two weeks to build immunity, “we don’t know if the season has peaked yet,” said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of prevention in the agency’s flu division.

Flu shots and nasal mists contain vaccines against three strains, the H3N2, the H1N1 and a B. Thus far this season, Dr. Bresee said, H1N1 cases have been rare, and the H3N2 component has been a good match against almost all the confirmed H3N2 samples the agency has tested.

About a fifth of all flus this year thus far are from B strains. That part of the vaccine is a good match only 70 percent of the time, because two B’s are circulating.

For that reason, he said, flu shots are being reformulated. Within two years, they said, most will contain vaccines against both B strains.

Joanna Constantine, 28, a stylist at the Guy Thomas Hair Salon on West 56th Street in Manhattan, said she recently was so sick that she was off work and in bed for five days — and silenced by laryngitis for four of them.

She did not have the classic flu symptoms — a high fever, aches and chills — so she knew it was probably something else.

Still, she said, it scared her enough that she will get a flu shot next year. She had not bothered to get one since her last pregnancy, she said. But she has a 7-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter, “and my little guys get theirs every year.”

Jess Bidgood contributed reporting.

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