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Air France on Tuesday unveiled a new first-class suite as it expands efforts to lure wealthy travelers from business jets and lend a ‘French touch’ to the tussle for premium revenue. The CEO of parent Air France-KLM, Ben Smith, told Reuters the unspecified investment aimed to place Air France at the top of the European league in airline luxury, signalling a battle with British Airways and Lufthansa. “A large percentage of the customers are flying for business reasons Many of them have the choice of a private jet or flying in first class,” Smith said in an interview. “What is new for us over the last few years is a marked increase in the number of luxury customers that are flying for leisure purposes.” The air travel industry is locked in a battle for high fare-paying customers as it recovers from the pandemic but is split over the value of investing in first class, with many carriers focusing on steady improvements in business-class seating. Air France’s latest first-class cabin, laid out in four pairs of grey, red-accented beds and seats on select planes, follows a years-long effort to re-invent a once loss-making product since Smith joined the national carrier in 2018. The Canadian executive has long been a champion of first class even as many rivals retrench to business class. But he said only a handful of airlines had the depth of demand or ability to tap into assets like France as a destination. “A lot of people like to experience France. When they get on the airplane outside France, they want to start their journey from San Jose, Tokyo or Sao Paulo already in France through the environment on the airplane,” he said. The launch comes weeks after arch-rival British Airways launched its own new first-class cabin. Lufthansa also offers first class. Neither airline responded to requests for comment. French brand power Smith declined to say how much the investment in the new seats would cost, but the airline says its first-class service is already profitable, in part because the price of the ticket has risen in recent years. An average one-way Paris-New York ticket costs around 10,000 euros in May, according to the Air France website. Tuesday’s rollout reflected the airline’s efforts to strike a chord with France’s broader reputation for luxury, with waiters passing Michelin-starred snacks in the presence of specially invited influencers in a Paris Fashion Week location. Smith insisted, however, that Air France’s “La Premiere” brand could stand on its own feet as a luxury product. Partially state-owned Air France has long been synonymous with first class, with its passenger list so powerful that seats were once reputed to be bugged by the country’s spy agencies. Now, it must compete with now-common lie-flat seats in business class or increasingly accessible private jets. Much of the cost is wrapped up not just in the seats but in bespoke ground services such as special check-ins or limousines. There is also the hidden cost of creating a sub-fleet of airplanes that can only operate on a handful of routes. “Unless it’s rock solid, it can be quite marginal because of the operational complexity, the capital investment and the risk of substituting seats that they could be sure of selling in business class,” said aviation consultant John Strickland. Joanna Plucinska and Tim Hepher, Reuters
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Tuesdays news that Google would acquire the Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion was remarkable on several fronts. The deal, assuming it closes, will be the largest acquisition in Googles history. And its the biggest exit in Israeli history. Becoming part of Google Cloud is effectively strapping a rocket to our backs, Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport wrote in a blog post. [I]t will accelerate our rate of innovation faster than what we could achieve as a stand-alone company.” It also marks the close of a fast-paced, five-year chapter for the company. Founded in January 2020 by Assaf Rappaport, Yinon Costica, Roy Reznik, and Ami Luttwak, Wiz grew quickly, as the pandemic forced companies and workers online and cloud servers exploded in popularity. And as hybrid work has continued, so has the companys expansion. An IPO on ice In just 16 months, Wiz became a unicorn, with a $1.7 billion valuation. By October 2021, its valuation had ballooned to $6 billion and by February 2023, that figure had jumped to $10 billion. Last May, the company raised $1 billion in funding, giving it a $12 billion valuation. As Wizs fortunes rose, so too did its reputation. The companys researchers have alerted the public to a number of cloud vulnerabilities in everything from Microsofts Azure cloud system to the cloud systems of Oracle and IBM. In January, it raised a red flag about DeepSeek, finding that the Chinese AI system had inadvertently exposed a significant amount of sensitive data. The company has been on Googles radar for some time. Last year, Alphabet offered $23 billion to acquire Wiz but was rejected. Instead, Wizs founders planned to pursue an IPO. Saying no to such humbling offers is tough, Rappaport wrote at the time in a memo seen by CNBC. The move was a calculated gamble. Wiz officials were worried whether a takeover by Google would be approved by regulators, given the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)s fixation on Big Tech at the time and Googles own antitrust court battles then. But the IPO market has hardly been welcoming to most tech companies for the past several years. Wiz aimed to hit $1 billion in annual recurring revenue before it filed for a public listing, which gave it some breathing room, but market conditions havent improvedin fact, have worsened in the past two months. Between that stock market volatility and the change in White House administrations, which shifted regulatory sentiment, Wizs leadership began to reconsider its options. Why regulators might let this one through While Google is still facing a possible breakup following a verdict that found the company to be an illegal monopoly last August, Justice Department officials dropped the push for the company to sell off its AI investments. That could signal improved odds that Tuesdays deal will not face the same level of antitrust scrutiny it would have in 2024. Part of the secret to Wizs success is exactly why antitrust regulators might be amenable to the Google buyout. The company is a native multi-cloud platform. It works equally well on offerings from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, and more. That makes this both a security play for Google as well as an AI infrastructure one, as it can secure workloads across multiple platforms and doesnt force customers to use Google Cloud. Wiz and Google Cloud are both fueled by the belief that cloud security needs to be easier, more accessible, more intelligent, and democratized so more organizations can adopt and use cloud and AI securely, Wiz CEO Rappaport wrote in a blog post. We both also believe Wiz needs to remain a multi-cloud platform, so that across any cloud, we will continue to be a leading platform. We will still work closely with our great partners at AWS, Azure, Oracle, and across the entire industry. The deal is expected to close in 2026, pending regulatory approval.
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Malynndra Tome was helping to map livestock ponds in the Navajo Nation when she saw something that inspired her to act. An elderly woman was filling milk jugs with water at the back of a gas station in the Native American reservation, where about 30% of people live without running water. How can we be living in the United States of America one of the most powerful countries in the world, and people are living like this here? asked Tome, a citizen who grew up in the community of Ganado, Arizona, in the nation’s largest Native American reservation at 27,000 square miles (69,930 square kilometers) in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. A report published Tuesday identifies ways historically neglected communities most vulnerable to climate change, like Tomes, can create resilient water and wastewater systems. Its highlights include nature-based solutions, tailoring approaches to each community and using technology all the while recognizing barriers to implementing them. What we hope to do with this report, what I hope, is that it actually gives people hope, said Shannon McNeeley, a report author and senior researcher with the Pacific Institute, which published the report with DigDeep and the Center for Water Security and Cooperation. In spite of some of the major federal funding sources becoming uncertain and possibly not available, I think people will find other ways. Climate impacts and the Trump administration Weather extremes made worse by climate change have disrupted peoples access to water. In September, more than 100,000 residents in western North Carolina were under boil-water notices for nearly two months after Hurricane Helene destroyed much of a local water system. In January, several water providers declared their drinking water unsafe after wildfires roared through Los Angeles. One utility in Pasadena, California, sent out its first notice since it began serving water more than a century ago. Aging water systems leak trillions of gallons, leaving residents in some of the countrys poorest communities with a substantial financial burden to fix them. An estimated 30% of the population in the Navajo Nation lives in homes that dont have running water, and many residents drive long distances to get water from public spigots, according to the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The report also notes that some federal resources and funding have become unavailable since Donald Trump returned to the White House. The Trump administration has cut or paused funding for critical water infrastructure projects, touted a reversal of diversity, equity and inclusion policies, and eliminated environmental justice policies meant to protect the communities the report centers on. Greg Pierce, director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the report comes at a very depressing moment where we’re not going to see federal action in this space, it doesn’t seem, for the next four years. Solutions come with challenges The report synthesizes existing literature about water, climate change and solutions. Its authors reviewed academic studies, government and private reports and interviewed experts to identify ways low-income and communities of color can build water and wastewater systems to withstand extreme weather. The report highlights technology like rainwater harvesting and gray water reuse systems that can decrease water demand and increase resilience to drought. But it adds that implementing and maintaining technology like it can be too expensive for poorer communities. The report also advocates nature-based solutions such as wetlands, which studies find can reduce the length and severity of droughts, provide flood control, reduce or remove pollutants in water and protect water supplies. Communities across the country are increasingly recognizing the benefits of wetlands. In Floridas Everglades, for example, officials have spent billions of dollars to build engineered wetlands that clean and protect a vital drinking water source. The report argues for government-funded water assistance programs to help poorer households pay water and sewer bills, like the Low Income Household Water Assistance Program launched during the COVID-19 pandemic. But some are benefiting communities Gregory Moller, a professor in the soil and water systems department at the University of Idaho, notes that some approaches are too complex and expensive for smaller or poorer communities. Our innovations also have to be on a scale and stage that is adaptable to small systems, he said. And thats where I think some of the most serious challenges are. Some solutions the report highlights are benefiting communities. In the Navajo Nation, hundreds of solar-powered home water systems have brought running water to more than 2,000 people. Kimberly Lemme, an executive director at DigDeep, which is installing the systems, said it can be a complex and lengthy process. But it shows that solutions do exist. Water is a basic human right, said Tome, whose encounter with the elderly woman inspired her to pursue a doctorate in water resources. And in order for people to live productively, to have healthy lives, I think water is a big part of that. Dorany Pineda, Associated Press The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of APs environmental coverage, visit apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.
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