What’s New With This Story:
–AArrow Sign Spinners is the world leader in “human directional” advertising. They are making a big push in the South Florida market and just opened a new office in Hollywood.
-The company was founded by Max Durovic when he was in college. Durovic started the company with just $500. It now employs 2,500 sign spinners in 35 different global markets.
-The South Florida market is run by two Jamaicans named Kadeem. They are also considered some of the top spinners in the world.
Max Durovic is spinning mad.
And that’s a good thing.
Durovic, the founder of AArrow Sign Spinners sits at the top of an unusual advertising empire.
He doesn’t harvest people’s attention via television or on the radio, he does it using the human form on the side of the road.
Durovic reinvented the sign spinning form and turned it into a sport.
15 years after he founded the company, Durovic now has 2,500 sign spinners working for him across the world in 35 global markets.
He is also doubling down on South Florida, a market that he feels could soon rival his top earning areas.
The company recently opened a new office in Hollywood.
That office is managed by Kadeem Johnson and Kadeem Grant.
Both Johnson and Grant are Jamaicans who met Durovic while he was attending graduate school in Washington, D.C.
Both are also considered to be soon of the top spinners in the world.
Johnson is even a three time world sign spinning champion.
They have a world championship in Las Vegas every year.
Yep.
This company fits right at home in South Florida.
Watch More: Did this South Florida Entrepreneur Just Invent The Next Tofu?
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First Weekly Miami Shores Farmers Market Proves To Be A Hit With Community
What’s New With This Story:
-The first weekly Miami Shores Farmers Market was deemed a success by the organizer.
-Over 1,000 people attended the four-hour event.
-Over 20 booths were filled with local vendors and businesses.
-The event organizer hopes to extend the hours of the market by three hours starting next week, although no official announcement has been made.
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The Miami Shores Farmers Market opened Sunday to strong community support, a sign that the village may be able to maintain a successful weekly open-air market for the long haul.
According to Claire Tomlin, the organizer of the market, the event drew more than 1,000 people to Optimist Park (NE 94th Street & NE 2nd Avenue) in Miami Shores.
Tomlin runs The Market Company, a South Florida based organization that runs 15 markets across South Florida.
Tomlin has had her eye on Miami Shores for over a decade.
Claire Tomlin, owner of The Market Company, the organization that runs the Miami Shores Farmers Market. Photo: RISE NEWS
She said at one point in the mid 2000s, she approached the Miami Shores Village Council for approval to start a market on NE 2nd Ave, but was turned down.
But she said that the new Village Council has been much more welcoming towards her ambitions.
“The town manager and the council are aware that the Village has changed and that young families want a place to come together,” Tomlin said. “The reception has been phenomenal. It’s been such a successful day.”
Over 20 different vendors had booths set up around Optimist Park, including those selling fresh fruits, vegetables, hot foods, soaps, jams, plants and flowers.
The Miami Shores Farmers Market will run each Sunday at the Miami Shores Optimist Park (at the corner of NE 94th St and NE 2nd Ave).
While the market is officially set to be open between 12:00 PM and 4:00 PM, Tomlin told RISE NEWS that she hopes to extend the hours to 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM for next week.
She also said that there would be live music next week.
Photos: Scenes from the first weekly Miami Shores Farmers Market. (Credit: The Market Company)
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The Far Right In Germany Is Starting To Rise Again And It Should Worry Us All
Germany and the far right of the political spectrum do not historically mix.
So why is it that a party of the far right (granted, one not nearly as radical or hate-filled as the Nazi Party was) is picking up steam in the largest and most powerful European Union country?
In recent weeks, the Alternative for Germany (AFD) has achieved regional representation in eight German states. There are 16 German states in total.
AFD is a far right populist party in a similar vein as the National Front in France and UKIP in the United Kingdom.
The ragtag party has managed to bite at the heels of the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU), and appears to be gaining popularity across the country.
This is largely due to the anti immigration platform of the party in response to Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s policies on resettling refugees, primarily from Syria.
AFD has a unique opportunity for swift gains due to its novel position on the political spectrum.
A pro right wing backlash has been felt across the West, be it the Tea Party or Euroskeptics, but AFD has been making attempts at separating itself from the most extreme elements of German political life.
On the party’s official site, AFD disowns the support of NPD, a far right party infamous for its ties strong association with Nazis in both a fashion sense and in antisemitism.
According to the Q&A section of the party’s website, the AFD breaks with the ranks of other far right parties by being in support of continued German participation in both the EU and NATO, though with caveats to both of these organizations that favor a more independent foreign policy.
A German man walking with a beer. Photo Credit: Alexander Mueller/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
AFD also voices disapproval of TTIP (a proposed free trade agreement between the United States and Europe), subsidies for energy research, while favoring “re-nationalizing” of the banking sector, and promoting marriage between men and women as “politically desirable”.
All of these positions seem to indicate that AFD is interested in focusing inward, and is not particularly hostile to longstanding German policy.
Despite this resemblance closer to the American Republican Party than particularly sinister right wing parties like PEGIDA, the party has been moved more so to the extreme by the Party’s president Frauke Petry, who has brought anti-immigration rhetoric and closer ties to the Kremlin to the forefront of its public perception.
This will likely only continue due to the departure of the party’s moderating influence, Bernd Lucke, cofounder of AFD, left the party in 2015 when ousted from the party presidency by Petry.
Lucke founded another Euroskeptic party Alliance for Progress and Renewal (ALFA), and complained that AFD had grown far too xenophobic.
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Cover Photo Credit: Martin Fisch/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Report: AIDS Drug Price Gouger Martin Shkreli Arrested On Fraud Charges
Martin Shkreli, the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, a controversial company that gouged the price of an AIDS drug earlier in the year has been arrested on unrelated fraud charges according to multiple media reports.
From The New York Times:
“He was arrested in his Midtown Manhattan apartment, according to a law enforcement source, who declined to be identified because the indictment had not been unsealed. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn were expected to hold a news conference on the charges later Thursday.”
The arrest is related to Shkreli’s time running Retrophin, another pharmaceutical company.
According to Bloomberg, who first reported on the arrest, Shkreli has been charged with illegally taking stock from the company and selling it for his own personal gain in order to pay off debts. He was previously forced out of the company by its board.
“Shkreli was the paradigm faithless servant,” a civil complaint filed by Retrophin and obtained by the New York Times said. “Starting sometime in early 2012, and continuing until he left the company, Shkreli used his control over Retrophin to enrich himself and to pay off claims of MSMB investors (who he had defrauded).”
More to come. Stay with Rise News.
Cover Photo Credit: Martin Shkreli/ Facebook
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