Checkpoint announces update to revolutionary antenna

Checkpoint Systems – a global leader in retail technology solutions – has launched an updated version of its market-leading NS40 antenna. The NS42 benefits from all the same award-winning features as the NS40, but with different installation options available, meaning this revolutionary free-standing sensor can now be located anywhere in-store, rather than being confined to a checkout. As a result, it provides grocery retailers with a discreet but powerful loss prevention solution that can provide protection at any point on the shop floor.

Developed in response to demand from retailers for an NS40 antenna that could be placed in different locations around a store, the NEO-based NS42 antenna features the same award-winning design, detection and ease-of-installation characteristics as the NS40. These include an ultra-slim, unobtrusive and slick design that can be tailored to any different retailer requirements without an adverse impact on detection rates.  Read more here
 

Killing to Protect Stores
More NYC bodega workers could kill to protect themselves as store crime up 70%: industry leader
More Big Apple bodega workers may end up killing violent customers to protect themselves and their business, an industry leader told The Post Thursday — as he claimed crime is up 70 to 80% in bodegas and supermarkets citywide.

Frank Garcia, chairman of the National Association of Latinos State Chambers of Commerce, issued the grim warning after Manhattan bodega clerk, Jose Alba, wound up charged with murder for fatally stabbing an ex-con he was trying to fend off.

“Crime is up 70% to 80% at our bodegas and supermarkets,” Garcia said, citing a recent survey conducted by the Bodega Association and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

The survey also found that 80% of respondents who work in bodegas said crime was their biggest issue, according to Garcia. Supermarkets in The Bronx and northern Manhattan also cited crime as their top concern, he added.

“The crime is not just in the bodegas. It’s in the supermarkets. It’s in the retail stores that sell cellphones. We have issues with the restaurants,” Garcia said. He warned more bodega workers, as well other merchants, are going to “kill more people because we have to defend our business.”

Currently, there is no specific NYPD crime statistics for locations like bodegas. If the NYPD won’t collate the data in a bid to reduce the crime rates, Garcia said he was going to rope in The City University of New York and John Jay College of Criminal Justice to help.

Garcia said the concerns about rising crime was raised with city Small Business Commissioner Kevin Kim three weeks ago. He added his chamber was going to have a town hall meeting on crime and invite Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul in an attempt to convince them to take rising crime in bodegas and supermarkets more seriously. nypost.com

Bomb-Sniffing Dogs with Electronic Harnesses Roll Out Across NYC
NYPD deploys K-9s with innovative electronic harness to prevent terrorist attacks
The New York Police Department is equipping its bomb-sniffing canines with an upgraded electronic harness that can sense biological and radiological threats that go unnoticed by the dogs. Police officials say the dogs will patrol the city’s subway system — an area frequently targeted by terrorists.

The new technology, called “Transit Enhanced Detection Dog,” or TREDD, equips regular explosive detection K-9s with a wearable harness replete with sensors that detect a variety of threats, including explosive, biological, chemical or radiological weapons. The device then sends the readings to a mobile command post in real time.

Lieutenant John Pappas, commander of Transit Bureau K9 in Queens, came up with the idea for the device after receiving intelligence that terrorist organizations were looking to bypass the city’s security systems.

Pappas explained that terrorists were building explosive devices that dogs were not trained to detect. With the help of grant money, Pappas and the NYPD partnered with Massachusetts-based private technology company Blueforce Development Corporation to address the new threat.

Readings are sent from the device to a mobile command post in real time, which allows NYPD officers on the ground to detect threats that would otherwise be imperceptible. Command post officers can also see where the dogs are at all times.

More recently, the technology was deployed during the April 12 Brooklyn subway shooting, when the NYPD initially responded to reports of several undetonated explosive devices in subway stations before determining the reports were unfounded.

For the NYPD and other departments around the country, COVID lockdowns afforded more time to revamp their K-9 units. The NYPD also shared the tech with the Pentagon, giving them the option to upgrade their K-9 capabilities.  apbweb.com

From Defund to Refund in Crime-Ridden Philadelphia
Philadelphia spends almost a billion dollars on policing in new budget aimed at addressing gun violence
In an effort to combat gun violence, Philadelphia has approved one of its largest budget increases in recent years, allotting nearly a billion dollars to the city’s police department for 2023.

The Philadelphia Police Department will receive an increase of nearly $30 million under the new $5.8 billion city budget approved by the City Council in late June, bringing the total police allotment to $800 million.

The budget, proposed initially by Mayor Jim Kenney, aims to cover contractually obligated pay raises for officers. What began as a $23.7 million budget grew into nearly $30 million after additional expenses were added for recruitment, crime lab improvements and anti-violence programs.

The new budget puts Philadelphia police at the top when it comes to city spending. It is worth noting that two years ago the City Council froze police funding following the killing of George Floyd.

A large chunk of the budget will go toward a broad anti-violence plan pushed by the City Council last year, with $4 million going toward security camera installation and addressing quality-of-life issues, such as removing abandoned vehicles and cleaning up short dumping sites.

Citywide violence in the form of shootings remains an urgent issue debated by officials.

According to the Philadelphia P.D., there have been around 1,100 shooting victims in the city this year. Around a fifth of shooting victims died. The grim trend comes after an especially deadly year in 2021, which recorded a high of 562 homicides, with the majority due to gunfire. privateofficerbreakingnews.blogspot.com

The Link Between Gun Deaths & Gun Sales
The staggering scope of U.S. gun deaths goes far beyond mass shootings
The spate of shooting attacks in communities such as Highland Park, Ill.; Uvalde, Tex.; and Buffalo has riveted attention on America’s staggering number of public mass killings. But the rising number of gun deaths in the United States extends beyond such high-profile episodes, emerging nearly every day inside homes, outside bars and on the streets of many cities, according to federal data.

The surge in gun violence comes as firearm purchases rose to record levels in 2020 and 2021, with more than 43 million guns estimated to have been purchased during that period, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal data on gun background checks. At the same time, the rate of gun deaths in those years hit the highest level since 1995, with more than 45,000 fatalities each year.

Guns are used in most suicides and are almost entirely responsible for an overall rise in homicides across the country from 2018 to 2021, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There is not one clear answer as to what is driving the rise in bloodshed, experts said, but possible factors include the stress of the coronavirus pandemic, fraying ties between the police and the public, mounting anger, worsening mental strain and the sheer number of guns in America.

“You put all that into a pressure cooker,” said Alex Piquero, a criminologist at the University of Miami, “and you let the pressure cooker blow up.”

The ample access to guns plays a significant role, experts said. Americans are arming themselves in the face of deepening fears and divisions, frightening public incidents involving gunfire or violence, or simply because they know others may also have guns. washingtonpost.com

New Federal Gun Safety Legislation
Biden says gun violence has turned America's communities into 'killing fields'
President Joe Biden on Monday said gun violence has turned everyday places in America into "killing fields" as he marked the passage of the first significant federal gun safety legislation in 30 years.

Biden said the package he signed into law represents "an important start," but more needs to be done to curb the alarming rate of shootings.

"Now's the time to galvanize this movement because that's our duty to the people of the nation. That's what we owe those families in Buffalo, where a grocery store became a killing field. That's what we owe those families in Uvalde, where an elementary school became a killing field. That's what we owe those families in Highland Park, where on July Fourth, a parade became a killing field," Biden said.

Biden touted the investments the new legislation makes in community violence prevention, including $750 million to help states implement and run crisis intervention programs. The money can be used to implement and manage red flag programs -- which through court orders can temporarily prevent individuals in crisis from accessing firearms -- and for other crisis intervention programs like mental health courts, drug courts and veterans courts.

It also closes a years-old loophole in domestic violence law, known as the "boyfriend loophole," which barred individuals who have been convicted of domestic violence crimes against spouses, partners with whom they shared children, or partners with whom they cohabitated, from having guns. Old statutes didn't include intimate partners who may not live together, be married or share children. cnn.com

There are too many mass shootings for the U.S. media to cover
News organizations must make agonizing decisions about which shootings deserve on-the-ground reporting, and for how long

Private security guards coming to downtown Annapolis this summer

Neighborhoods with more dogs have less crime, study suggests

US: 90.4M Cases - 1M Dead - 86M Recovered
Worldwide: 561.8M Cases - 6.3M Dead - 534.7M Recovered

Former Senior Loss Prevention Executive
Know of any fallen LP exec? Let's remember & recognize.

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 360  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 787
*Red indicates change in total deaths

America Facing 'Worst Version' of COVID Yet
As the BA.5 variant spreads, the risk of coronavirus reinfection grows
America has decided the pandemic is over. The coronavirus has other ideas. The latest omicron offshoot, BA.5, has quickly become dominant in the United States, and thanks to its elusiveness when encountering the human immune system, is driving a wave of cases across the country.

The size of that wave is unclear because most people are testing at home or not testing at all. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the past week has reported a little more than 100,000 new cases a day on average. But infectious-disease experts know that wildly underestimates the true number, which may be as many as a million, said Eric Topol, a professor at Scripps Research who closely tracks pandemic trends.

Antibodies from vaccines and previous coronavirus infections offer limited protection against BA.5, leading Topol to call it “the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen.” washingtonpost.com

Shopping: The Highest-Risk Activity for Catching COVID?
You Can Catch COVID From These "Unexpected" Places
COVID cases are on the rise again nationwide, thanks to the highly contagious subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, which are making both first-time infections and reinfections more common. Also playing a part: COVID fatigue and the relaxation of public-health precautions like mask mandates. You might think you know the best practices to avoid COVID, but if you've let your guard down in recent weeks, you're not alone. These are some unexpected places you may catch COVID.

A recent UK study found that people who visited stores once a week were nearly 2.2 times more likely to contract COVID than people who didn't. It was the highest-risk activity the researchers found, an even higher risk than going to indoor bars or taking crowded public transportation.

Since the early days of the pandemic, health experts have warned against large indoor gatherings as a major source of COVID transmission. But small indoor gatherings are risky too. The most important factor isn't the number of people but whether the gathering is held indoors or outdoors, says a new study, which reiterates that space and airflow are key to preventing COVID infections.

Researchers looked at two theoretical gatherings—​​an indoor conference of 3,000 people and an outdoor event attended by 50,000—and found that even large outdoor events would lead to fewer infections.  eatthis.com

Disney Mask & Vaccine Mandate Lawsuit
3 Florida Disney employees sue company over mask, vaccine requirements
Three former Disney employees are suing the company over masking and vaccine requirements for COVID-19, saying they were fired over lack of compliance. The three plaintiffs, residents of Florida, say their religious liberty was violated by the termination and requirements enforced by Disney.

The employees — Barbara Andreas, Stephen J. Cribb and Adam Pajer — are suing the Walt Disney Company and Disney Parks, Experience and Products, Inc., saying that while “Disney has brought wonder and magic into the lives and homes of millions,” the company had “cast itself as the villain” and “a shadow has come over Disney” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the lawsuit filed by the plaintiffs, Disney policies during COVID-19 “targeted cast members who declined COVID-19 vaccinations,” despite their filing of exemptions based on religious grounds. The plaintiffs said “taking these injections would violate their deeply-held convictions.”

When Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law on Nov. 18, 2021, that banned vaccine requirements, the company’s policies were updated to “pause the enforcement” for its Florida cast members. The plaintiffs allege that despite their employment records — all of them worked for Disney for minimum seven years or longer — they were terminated for choosing not to wear masks or be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. fox8.com

Operating Stores During a Pandemic
Balancing 12 Stores in a Global Pandemic

One multi-pharmacy owner shares how adaptability and the right set of tools set her up for success

As the new owners of 12 franchise locations of The Medicine Shoppe in central Pennsylvania and Binghamton, New York, they faced a unique situation: navigating their way through not only the challenges that came with first-time pharmacy ownership, but also operating 12 stores during a global pandemic.

Clark and Brown say they have seen and experienced more than they could have ever imagined in the past year since taking ownership of the 12 independent pharmacies, three of which are long-term care pharmacies. During unprecedented times, they quickly had to learn what opportunities would enhance the efficiency of their operations while providing the highest and safest levels of care for their patients.

Now, Clark is sharing what she has learned with the hope that other independent pharmacy owners can benefit and continue to serve their communities with the same passion. drugtopics.com

Undercounted Covid-19 cases leave US with a blind spot

Shanghai fears a second lockdown as China battles BA.5 outbreaks