US: 42.6M Cases - 688.4K Dead - 32.3M Recovered
Worldwide: 227.9M Cases - 4.6M Dead - 204.6M Recovered

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

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 314  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 406
*Red indicates change in total deaths

Businesses Face Challenges & Questions Over Vaccine Mandate
Companies Grapple With Questions About Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate
Companies preparing to implement the Biden administration’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate face logistical challenges and unanswered questions about how to comply, employment and compensation lawyers say.

Businesses are awaiting more details in a formal rule that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration plans to issue in coming weeks.

One of the biggest unknowns is who will be responsible for covering the cost of testing for employees who choose to remain unvaccinated, lawyers said. Under the mandate announced last week, all employers with 100 or more workers would have to require that their workers be vaccinated or undergo at least weekly Covid-19 testing. Employers that don’t comply can face fines of up to about $14,000, according to the administration.

Companies also are wondering exactly how OSHA will determine the threshold for which businesses are covered by the requirement, and about exemptions for employees who continue to work from home or who have religious or medical accommodations that are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Although some companies already had vaccine requirements or were considering them before President Biden’s announcement, the move puts pressure on many others to begin determining how to comply with a rule that hasn’t been fully articulated and that is likely to face a flurry of legal challenges and conflicts with state laws.

The first question many companies will face is whether they want to allow employees to opt out of getting a vaccine and instead undergo weekly testing, employment and compensation lawyers said. The logistics and costs of providing such tests to what could be a sizable percentage of a company’s workforce could pose serious challenges for some businesses. And the federal government already has made it clear that companies can require vaccines for employees physically entering a workplace, with certain exceptions. wsj.com

COVID's Impact on Food Retailers
FMI sizes up pandemic’s financial impact on food retailers

Double-digit same-store sales gains partly offset by higher costs, Industry Speaks 2021 study finds

Consumer demand for groceries swelled by 50% last year, lifting food retailer same-store sales nearly 16% industrywide, according to new research in FMI-The Food Industry Association’s “The Food Retailing Industry Speaks 2021” report.

On average, grocery retail comparable-store sales rose 15.8% year over year in 2020, marking the fourth straight year of increases, FMI said in the Industry Speaks study, released Wednesday. Fueled by consumer stockpiling as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the gain dwarfed same-store sales growth in recent years, including 3.3% in 2019, 2.5% in 2018, 1.7% in 2017 and 1% in 2016.

Over 90% of the food retailers surveyed reported higher same-store sales for 2020, with double-digit increases across company sizes. Retailers operating more than 100 stores averaged gains of 15.8%, compared with 14.7% for those with 11 to 100 stores and 18.5% for those with one to 10 stores.

FMI’s study is based on responses from 103 food retail and wholesale companies representing a combined 38,000 stores. A third of respondents operate more than 100 stores, and over half are independent grocers with fewer than 10 stores. Forty-one percent of companies generate annual sales of more than $1 billion, and 45% report less than $250 million in yearly sales.

“Food retailers experienced significantly higher sales and transaction sizes during 2020, but expenses have also surged and impacted financial performance. And that situation continues in 2021,” FMI President and CEO Leslie Sarasin said Wednesday in a video press call on the Industry Speaks 2021 report. supermarketnews.com

'Reevaluating Cost-Benefit Equation for In-Person Meetings & Events'
Pandemic Reshapes the World of Corporate Travel

Deloitte survey examines when business travel will pick up & what factors will influence its return.

Deloitte surveyed 150 travel managers and executives with travel budget oversight. The survey and accompanying interviews shed light on when corporate travel is expected to come back, how companies will budget for travel, and what types of business travel will likely return first. (For the complete forecast, see the full report.)

62% of U.S.-based companies reduced travel budgets by 90% or more beginning in early 2020.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, spending on corporate travel is projected to reach between 25% and 35% of 2019 levels.

If U.S. vaccination rates continue to increase, and the vaccines' effectiveness proves durable-particularly for emerging variants of the virus-travel managers expect a big release of pent-up demand in the second half of 2022. More clarity about the health situation and the state of office versus remote work will better support both planned trips and last-minute visits to seal deals and execute projects.

By the end of 2022, U.S. corporate travel may near its new normal. Assuming significantly reduced quarantine requirements on arrival for Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas, and several months of a stable health situation, U.S. corporate travel could reach 80% of 2019 levels.

As the pandemic ultimately subsides, corporate travel will be affected by the changes adopted and lessons learned over the past 18 months. Travel remains critical to many businesses' growth, but executives are reevaluating the cost-benefit equation for in-person meetings and events. wsj.com

Editor's Note: This "reevaluation" will end up impacting everyone. Especially with the advent of Zoom & Teams. With in-person conferences probably being the most impacted of all the travel categories. As we were witnessing some trade association consolidation pre-pandemic. Just some thoughts. - Gus Downing

‘The situation is dire’: Idaho activates crisis standards statewide over COVID-19
Doctors will now prioritize patients most likely to survive as COVID cases overwhelm hospitals.

Maryland surpasses 10,000 COVID-19 deaths; Hogan orders state flags lowered to half-staff in remembrance

FDA advisers to meet on highly charged issue of whether to recommend coronavirus vaccine boosters

U.S. vaccine booster policy is in flux as studies add to dissent

The Epitome of the Insider Threat Cost AT&T $200 Million
It all started on Facebook & Social Engineering

DOJ: Pakistan resident gets 12 years prison for long-running phone unlocking scheme to defraud AT&T

Overall loss to AT&T estimated at more than $200 million

Seattle: A resident of Pakistan was sentenced today in the Western District of Washington to 12 years in prison for his leadership role in a seven-year scheme to unlawfully unlock phones to defraud AT&T Inc. (AT&T). At the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik noted that Fahd had committed a “terrible cybercrime over an extended period,” even after he was aware that law enforcement was investigating. (Guess he didn't account for the long arm of the FBI)

Beginning in 2012, Muhammad Fahd, 35, conspired with others to recruit AT&T employees at a call center located in Bothell, Washington, to unlock large numbers of cellular phones for profit. Fahd recruited and bribed AT&T employees to use their AT&T credentials to unlock phones for ineligible customers. Later in the conspiracy, Fahd had the bribed employees install custom malware and hacking tools that allowed him to unlock phones remotely from Pakistan. In September 2020, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Unlocking a phone effectively removes it from AT&T’s network, thereby allowing the account holder to avoid having to pay AT&T for service or to make any payments for purchase of the phone.

In June or July of 2012, using the alias “Frank Zhang,” Fahd contacted an AT & T employee through Facebook. Fahd offered the employee significant sums of money if the employee would help Fahd secretly unlock phones at AT&T. Fahd also asked the employee to recruit other AT&T employees. AT&T employees also helped Fahd's developer design malware to unlock phones more efficiently and in larger numbers and over ride any new security features. Fahd also taught AT&T employees how to launder the money he was paying them with fake company's and bank accounts.

AT&T’s forensic analysis shows the total number of cellular telephones fraudulently unlocked by members of the scheme was 1,900,033 phones. AT&T has further determined that the loss it suffered because customers, whose cellular phones were illegally unlocked, failed to complete payments for their cellular telephones was $201,497,430.94.

Judge Lasnik ordered restitution of $200,620,698. (The difference between this amount and the total loss reflects restitution ordered against bribed AT&T employees in related prosecutions.)

Fahd was indicted in 2017, and arrested in Hong Kong in 2018. He was extradited and appeared in U.S. District Court in Seattle in August 2019. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in September 2020. justice.gov

DOJ: Retail CEO Gets 63 Months for $6.3M Fraud
VALDOSTA, Ga. – Rickey Carter, 60, of Nashville, Georgia, was sentenced to serve 63 months in prison to be followed by five years of supervised release after he pleaded guilty to bank fraud and orchestrating a complicated fraud involving millions of dollars of loans by multiple creditors, and ordered to pay $6.3M restitution to his victims for his crime.

Carter was the President and CEO of Nashville Tractor (NTI), a business that sold and leased agricultural and construction equipment, attachments and parts. In 2016, he obtained a United States Small Business Administration (SBA) loan with Farmers and Merchants Bank (FMB) in the principal amount of $5,000,000. At the same time, NTI obtained a new line of credit and signed a credit agreement with FMB in the amount of $625,000.

In 2015, NTI began having financial and cash flow issues which made it difficult to make payments due on the loans and to make payroll. During that time, Carter began a practice of selling equipment which it held in trust but not paying the cash over to CNH and other creditors as required. As part of the fraudulent scheme, Carter falsified NTI’s financial records in order to inflate the company’s net worth. As a part of falsifying records, on occasion Carter directed NTI employees to generate payments checks on accounts payable but not send the checks, thereby reducing accounts payable but not deducting the checks from NTI’s accounts. In 2016, Carter falsified documents provided to FMB to secure the $5M SBA loan and $600K line of credit.

In total, Carter admitted to being accountable for an intended fraud loss totaling more than $3.5 million but not more than $9.5 million. Carter is responsible for restitution for actual monetary losses caused by the fraud which totaled $6.3 million. justice.gov

CFO Writing Checks & Transferring Funds to Himself Over 8 Years for $30M
DOJ: Former Chief Financial Officer of Alden Shoe Co Gets 70 Months for $30M Embezzlement
Boston - Richard Hajjar, 64, of Duxbury, the former Chief Financial Officer of Alden Shoe Co., was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to 70 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Hajjar was also ordered to pay restitution of $33,962,880 and forfeiture of $27,300,552. On May 5, 2021, Hajjar pleaded guilty to one count each of wire fraud, unlawful monetary transactions and filing a false tax return.

From at least 2011 through October 2019, when he was terminated by Alden Shoe Co., Hajjar embezzled money by writing checks to himself from company bank accounts and transferring funds from company accounts to his personal accounts and to another individual. In total, Hajjar embezzled approximately $30 million which he used to enrich himself and to buy gifts and luxury travel for others close to him, including private flights to the Caribbean and diamond jewelry.

In addition, between approximately 2014 and 2019, Hajjar failed to report the proceeds of his embezzlement as income on his tax returns, thereby failing to pay approximately $5,112,822 in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. justice.gov

New paper explores facial recognition biases beyond demographics
The well-reported biases surrounding skin tone and sex are not the only biases held by facial recognition systems, finds a new paper, which calls for far more development of face biometric systems in order for them to be fair.

‘A Comprehensive Study on Face Recognition Biases Beyond Demographics’ from a German-Spanish team tested the FaceNet and ArcFace facial recognition models with the MAAD-face dataset to see whether the models returned biases beyond explicit demographics such as age, sex and skin tone.

The team also tested non-explicit demographic attributes such as accessories, hairstyles and colors, face shapes, facial anomalies and make-up.

The early release of the full paper, which could be subject to further editing on final publication, includes the results for the different attributes tested, generating revealing graphs for the level of bias for both FaceNet and ArcFace, plotting the attributes which lead to bias causing a degraded level of biometric recognition, and those that lead to enhanced recognition performance.

Having a moustache, goatee, round face, an obstructed forehead or rosy cheeks or wearing lipstick or glasses can all lead to degraded recognition. Having gray hair improves it, as does having a beard or even just 5 o’clock shadow compared to no beard.

The authors were able to explain some of the reasons behind the results, but not all. “The findings of this work strongly demonstrate the need for further advances in making face recognition systems more robust, explainable, and fair. We hope these findings lead to the development of more robust and unbiased face recognition solutions,” concludes the paper. biometricupdate.com

Sears to close the last department store in its home state

Walgreens offering new round of employee bonuses, rewards

NRF Voices Strong Opposition to Business Tax Rate Increases
 

Senior LP & AP Jobs Market

Sr. Director, Executive Protection job posted for Ross Stores in Dublin, CA
The Senior Director, Executive Protection Services ensures the Safety and Security of select Senior Leaders and Assets within the organization. Responsible for safeguarding persons and property by identifying/monitoring potential threats, assessing/deploying security solutions and providing consistent awareness and education. The Senior Director, Special Services must demonstrate their ability to manage complex situations, maintain strong internal/external relationships, have proven security expertise and a drive for results. jobs.rossstores.com

Associate Manager – Assets Protection job posted for Yum! Brands in Plano, TX
This role’s primary focus will be to serve as the lead for Executive Protection, Major Events Security, and assist with Travel Security programs worldwide. In addition, this position will play a primary role in executing safety, security, and loss prevention programs and policies for all corporate-owned locations. This role’s work will entail (re)creating and implementing a worldwide executive program inclusive of security risk avoidance, risk management, and executive duty of care management. jobs.yum.com

Asset Protection Operations Manager job posted for PharmScript in Somerset, NJ
We’re looking for an Asset Protection Operations Manager to join our PharmScript team within our Corporate Administrative department. As an Asset Protection Operations Manager, you’ll be responsible for managing departmental operations and monitoring events that have the potential to impact the infrastructure, company assets, security, and employee safety. indeed.com