Daily Business Report: April 26, 2024
‘Devastating’ wait times at Mexico border
strain California small businesses
By Wendy Fry | CalMatters
Government agencies are spending billions of dollars to improve wait times at the U.S.-Mexico border, but the checkpoints remain severely clogged — and border communities are hurting.
In recent months lines at the border often stretched for several hours, frustrating more than 150,000 students, cross-border families, health care workers, small business owners, and others who daily cross to and from Mexico. Experts say some fronterizas have stopped crossing the border as often, and the loss of foot traffic in the region has resulted in heavy sales losses for small businesses.
“Money we can replace, but time will never come back. Those people are wasting their time in that line,” said Sunil Gakherja, 49, who owns a small perfume store in San Ysidro, a neighborhood in San Diego, close to the border.
U.S. border officials point to the need to shift resources to handle irregular migration — people who come into the United States in places other than official ports of entry, usually to seek asylum. San Diego surpassed Tucson this month as Border Patrol’s busiest sector in the nation.
But border-area residents and business leaders say the federal government should staff the border effectively so that the $741-million expansion of the San Ysidro Port of Entry has its intended impact, to reduce wait times and stimulate the regional economy.
Research published by the Atlantic Council says a 10-minute reduction in wait times could lead to an additional $26 million worth of cargo entering the United States each month and an annual impact of $5.4 million on the U.S. economy from purchases by families and individuals entering the United States from Mexico.
Top Photo: A clothing store in the San Ysidro neighborhood of San Diego on April 16, 2024. (Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters)
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British Airways begins twice-daily flights to London from San Diego
Thirteen years after San Diego International Airport began offering daily flights between San Diego and London on British Airways the route has become so popular that British Airways is increasing the frequency from one flight per day to two.
Since 2011, British Airways has served about 2 million passengers traveling between San Diego and Europe. The market for this flight has grown 50 percent from 2019 to 2023.
While London is the final destination for roughly 60 percent of the passengers flying this route, 40 percent connect to other cities, including Edinburgh, Dublin, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Cairo, Rome, and Mumbai.
“We are looking forward to giving passengers on both sides of the Atlantic more options to fly nonstop between San Diego and Europe, while providing the same comfort and convenience of the popular route with British Airways that we already offer,” said Kimberly Becker, President and CEO of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.
With this second daily flight, the current flights will be retimed, arriving in San Diego from London at 6:10 p.m. and departing San Diego for London at 8 p.m. The new second flight will arrive in San Diego at 3:25 p.m. and depart for London at 5:15 p.m.
The route will be served by the airline’s Boeing 777 and 787 aircraft.
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Breakthrough study on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
The Psychiatric Genetics Consortium (PGC), a consortium of researchers led by scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine has made significant advancements in the understanding of the neurobiology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition the World Health Organization says affects some 250 million people around the world.
The group recently announced their findings from a genome-wide association study of 1,222,822 people in a paper recently published in the journal Nature Genetics.
Caroline M. Nievergelt, professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine, is the co-first author on the paper, together with Adam X. Maihofer, an assistant project scientist in Nievergelt’s lab. PTSD co-chair Murray B. Stein M.D., professor of psychiatry and public health at UC San Diego, is also a co-author of the study.
The paper underscores the importance of heritability in PTSD risk and notes that the identified genes influence processes related to PTSD symptoms such as stress, fear and threat responses. She said their findings also point to possible associations among PTSD and other mental and physical disorders.
Top photo: Leaders of the PTSD study from UC San Diego review their data over coffee. From left: Adam Maihofer, Caroline Nievergelt and Murray Stein. (Photo by UC San Diego Health Sciences).
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County to begin annual mosquito larvicide drops as insect season arrives
By City News Service, via Times of San Diego
County officials said helicopter larvicide drops will be done Thursday, if necessary, to cover nearly 1,400 acres of hard-to- reach potential mosquito breeding areas in 52 local waterways. San Diego County started using helicopters to drop solid, granular larvicide on hard-to-reach areas of standing water in rivers, streams, ponds and other waterways where mosquitoes can breed in the early 2000s after West Nile virus arrived, a statement from the county reads. The aerial larvicide drops are conducted roughly once a month from April through October.
The larvicide does not hurt people or pets but kills mosquito larvae before they can grow into biting mosquitoes.
West Nile virus is mainly a bird disease. However, mosquitoes can pass the potentially deadly virus on to people by feeding on infected birds and then biting people.
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NeoVolta names Ardes Johnson s its new chief executive officer
NeoVolt Inc., a San-Diego based leader in smart energy storage solutions, announced the appointment of Ardes Johnson as its new chief executive officer. Johnson will officially assume his new role on April 29, 2024, bringing with him a wealth of experience and a proven track record of transformative leadership in the energy sector. His predecessor, Brent Willson, founder and CEO of NeoVolta, will continue his role as chairman of the board and now serve as CTO.
Johnson joins NeoVolta from Meyer Burger Americas, where, as president and general manager, he spearheaded the company’s successful transition to module sales in the U.S. Under his leadership, Meyer Burger’s expansion in the Americas has achieved a multi-gigawatt backlog of over $1 billion dollars and is scaling to 2 gigawatts per year of manufacturing in just 18 months.
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ESET adds mew rebates amd benefits to 2024 Partner Connect Program
ESET, a global leader in digital security, announced its updated partner program with new benefits for MSPs, VARs, NSPs and distributor partners. Based on qualitative and quantitative feedback from partners, including third-party surveys, ESET has enhanced the 2024 ESET Partner Connect Program – recently recognized as a CRN 5-Star Partner Program – with new features that help partners to seamlessly onboard, drive new business, increase brand loyalty and reward mutual success.
Cymbiotika launches new pet line
Cymbiotika, a trailblazer in health and wellness, announce the launch of its new pet line, meticulously crafted to enhance the health and vitality of beloved pets. The new line includes four revolutionary products: Probiotic+, Calm, Hip & Joint, and Allergy & Immune Health, each formulated with premium ingredients to support optimal pet health.
Probiotic+is a groundbreaking formula designed to address core pet health issues by focusing on digestive well-being.
HomeSafe Alliance performs inaugural moves
HomeSafe Alliance has successfully completed the inaugural moves of the Global Household Goods Contract (GHC), using advanced technology, a digital moving portal and personalized customer service to transform the move experience for military families. HomeSafe’s program launched in the areas of San Diego and Seattle, Washington. HomeSafe revolutionizes the military move experience with best-in-class customer service and innovative technology.
The Reading League Summit 2024 to be in San Diego
The Reading League, a national nonprofit organization leading the advancement of evidence-aligned reading instruction, is expecting nearly 1,000 attendees at its second annual Summit, “Finding Alignment: From Research to Practice” Saturday at the Town and Country Resort in San Diego. The event will bring together renowned experts, educators, researchers, and advocates to discuss the latest advancements in literacy instruction.
PABLO AIR showcasing cutting-edge drone lineup at AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2024
PABLO AIR, a leader in autonomous swarm control of unmanned vehicles, announced its participation in AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2024, the world’s largest unmanned vehicle exhibition. The event will take place from April 23 to 25 in San Diego. “AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2024” brings together top players in the unmanned vehicle industry, including 560 companies like NASA and Lockheed Martin around the world, to showcase the latest technologies and industry trends.
QDOBA Mexican Eats introduces new Mexican Street Corn
QDOBA announced the newest addition to its menu, Mexican Steet Corn, featuring a warm blend of sweet corn, poblano chiles, red bell peppers, creamy elote sauce and lime juice. Inspired by the popular Mexican street food, the new offering can be enjoyed as a warm topping on any QDOBA entrée for no additional charge or guests can order a side of Loaded Mexican Street Corn topped with chile crema, cotija cheese and chopped cilantro. The new menu introduction demonstrates how QDOBA remains committed to satisfying guests evolving taste preferences.
Enstall joins Agile Electrification Project as founding sponsor
Enstall, the global leader in solar mounting and digital solutions, has joined the Agile Electrification Project as a Founding Sponsor. The project, a partnership with the University of California-San Diego and industry leaders, has been launched to help protect California’s 17,000 solar jobs by reducing costs and barriers to home electrification. The Agile Electrification Project is initially launching with research projects designed to improve bill calibration modeling, advance accurate customer proposals, and increase homeowners’access to incentives.
Grubhub brings grocerg to its Marketplae with Mercato partnership
Grubhub and Mercato, an online marketplace for independent grocery stores, have partnered to bring Mercato’s inventory of more than 950 merchants across the country to the Grubhub Marketplace. Customers can order from hundreds of locations today, with all merchants becoming available over the next few weeks. With this first-ever third-party delivery partnership for Mercato, Grubhub is expanding its Marketplace selection, and providing even greater value for its customers
ASTERRA launches firs ever API for commercial L-band SAR analytics
ASTERRA launched their new application programming interface (API), which unlocks the vast potential of SAR analytics to possible applications through partner collaboration. ASTERRA is the only commercial L-band SAR analytics technology to open an API to collaborate with Earth observation and GIS-based partners, creating a multiplier effect within the ultimate solution. The ASTERRA API is the first of its kind because it offers insights and not raw data, it can be easily integrated with other Earth observation platforms.
GoFundMe expands to Mexico
GoFundMe announced its expansion into Mexico, one of the largest economies in Latin America. Mexico becomes the 20th country fully supported on the GoFundMe platform and is the company’s first international expansion in nearly six years. GoFundMe organizers in Mexico can now create fundraisers, accept donations, and withdraw funds in Mexican Pesos (MXN). This expansion is part of the company’s broader effort to safely deliver even more help from its global community, which together with its nonprofit platform, already totals more than $30 billion since 2010.
RMS North America releases 2024 State of the Industry Report
RMS North America, a leading provider of reservation and property management systems to the outdoor hospitality industry, has released its annual State of the Industry Report. This year’s report examines all adult generations — from Gen Z to Baby Boomers — and offers a glimpse into how each age group approaches camping differently. In this report, campground and RV park owners and managers can gain better insight into their target markets, see what matters most to them in 2024, and ultimately attract more guests to their property
