2025 State of the County Luncheon provides residents with several updates
During the luncheon, a presentation was presented by Smith County Judge Neal Franklin, who provided residents with several updates about the newest projects and events going on in the county. Franklin stated that the theme of this year's event is collaboration, due to the countries' efforts to work with others to achieve their goals.
Bullard PD identify individuals involved in tire slashing spree
'We have got a lot of things going with a lot of different entities and our goal is to work together and make these things happen,' Franklin said.
Franklin provided residents with an update about the new courthouse that is currently under construction. 'The courthouse is going well, and we are getting to the point where we were almost off the ground,' Franklin said.
An update about the Smith County Animal Shelter was given during the luncheon. The shelter is currently off East Ferguson Street and the city is looking to move into a more central part of town.
'We're trying to move to a location that is more prominent and more central where more adoptions can take place,' Franklin said.
The event was held at the Green Acres Baptist Church and went on from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m..
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Monroe Capital Supports Summit Professional Education's Acquisition of Herman & Wallace Pelvic Rehabilitation Institute
CHICAGO, August 20, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Monroe Capital LLC ("Monroe") announced it acted as sole lead arranger and administrative agent on the funding of a senior credit facility and equity co-investment to support the acquisition of Herman & Wallace Pelvic Rehabilitation Institute ("Herman & Wallace") by Summit Professional Education ("Summit"), an existing portfolio company of Avathon Capital. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Seattle, WA, Herman & Wallace provides comprehensive, hands-on and evidence-based curricula for treating pelvic floor dysfunction in all people throughout the life cycle. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Franklin, TN, Summit is a provider of in-person and online continuing and professional education courses for physical therapists and assistants, occupational therapists and assistants, and speech language pathologists. Together, Herman & Wallace and Summit will expand access, innovate clinician education, and continue to raise the standard of care in pelvic health. This transaction is representative of Monroe's ability to provide comprehensive "one-stop" solutions for private equity sponsors seeking debt and equity capital to finance their acquisitions and recapitalizations. About Monroe Capital Monroe Capital LLC ("Monroe") is a premier asset management firm specializing in private credit markets across various strategies, including direct lending, technology finance, venture debt, alternative credit solutions, structured credit, real estate and equity. Since 2004, the firm has been successfully providing capital solutions to clients in the U.S. and Canada. Monroe prides itself on being a value-added and user-friendly partner to business owners, management, and both private equity and independent sponsors. Monroe's platform offers a wide variety of investment products for both institutional and high net worth investors with a focus on generating high quality "alpha" returns irrespective of business or economic cycles. The firm is headquartered in Chicago and has 11 locations throughout the United States, Asia and Australia. Monroe has been recognized by both its peers and investors with various awards including Private Debt Investor as the 2024 Lower Mid-Market Lender of the Year, Americas and 2023 Lower Mid-Market Lender of the Decade; Inc.'s 2024 Founder-Friendly Investors List; Global M&A Network as the 2023 Lower Mid-Markets Lender of the Year, U.S.A.; DealCatalyst as the 2022 Best CLO Manager of the Year; Korean Economic Daily as the 2022 Best Performance in Private Debt – Mid Cap; Creditflux as the 2021 Best U.S. Direct Lending Fund; and Pension Bridge as the 2020 Private Credit Strategy of the Year. For more information and important disclaimers, please visit View source version on Contacts For more information, please contact: Zia UddinMonroe Capital LLC312-523-2374zuddin@ Daniel AbramsonBackBay Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Becton, Dickinson and Company Stock: Is Wall Street Bullish or Bearish?
With a market cap of $56.2 billion, Becton, Dickinson and Company (BDX) is a global medical technology leader that develops, manufactures, and sells medical devices, laboratory equipment, and diagnostic products. Headquartered in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, BD serves healthcare institutions, life science researchers, and the pharmaceutical industry worldwide. Shares of the medical device manufacturer have underperformed the broader market over the past 52 weeks. BDX stock has decreased 16.8% over this time frame, while the broader S&P 500 Index ($SPX) has gained 16.1%. Moreover, shares of the company have declined 13.4% on a YTD basis, compared to SPX's 9.6% rise. More News from Barchart Trade the Warren Buffett Rally in UnitedHealth Stock With This High-Reward, Low-Risk Options Strategy Lyft Generates Huge FCF Margins - LYFT Stock Is Too Cheap Billionaire Philippe Laffont Just Ditched Super Micro Computer Stock. Should You? Markets move fast. Keep up by reading our FREE midday Barchart Brief newsletter for exclusive charts, analysis, and headlines. Looking closer, the medical device manufacturer stock has also lagged behind the Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund's (XLV) 10.5% drop over the past 52 weeks. Shares of Becton Dickinson climbed 8.9% on Aug. 7 after the company reported stronger-than-expected Q3 2025 results, with adjusted EPS of $3.68 and revenue of $5.5 billion. Growth was driven by a 14.4% increase in sales from its medical unit to $2.93 billion, slightly topping forecasts, as demand for drug-delivery devices remained strong. Additionally, BD raised its 2025 adjusted profit forecast to a range of $14.30 per share - $14.45 per share. For the fiscal year ending in September 2025, analysts expect BDX's adjusted EPS to grow 9.1% year-over-year to $14.33. The company's earnings surprise history is promising. It beat the consensus estimates in the last four quarters. Among the 18 analysts covering the stock, the consensus rating is a 'Moderate Buy.' That's based on seven 'Strong Buy' ratings, one 'Moderate Buy,' and 10 'Holds.' This configuration is slightly less bullish than three months ago, with eight 'Strong Buy' ratings on the stock. On Aug. 11, Morgan Stanley raised its price target on Becton Dickinson to $197 and maintained an 'Overweight' rating. As of writing, the stock is trading below the mean price target of $216.21. The Street-high price target of $285 implies a potential upside of 45.4% from the current price levels. On the date of publication, Sohini Mondal did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
3 days ago
- Forbes
The 'Layer 1' Fight Is Not About Stablecoins But The Future Of Finance
With the GENIUS Act signed, stablecoins are on a tear. According to the management consultancy McKinsey, the total value of issued stablecoins has doubled to $250 billion today from $120 billion 18 months ago, and it is forecast to reach more than $400 billion by year-end (and $2 trillion by 2028). Wow. In addition to stablecoins tokens, a number of yield-bearing tokens are out there now. These tokens, typically an investment in short-duration government securities, such as the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund ($2.9 billion) and the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund ($0.8 billion). Big money, and hence the reasons for the 'Layer 1' or 'Layer 2' discussions in decentralised finance (DeFi) circles. Who Cares About Layer 1 or Layer 2? I am sure you are all familiar with the distinction, but for those who are new to this space, when DeFi people talk about Layer 1 they mean a distributed ledger of some kind (such as the Bitcoin blockchain) whereas Layer 2 networks run on top of the Layer 1 blockchains in order to delivered improved performance or additional functionality. The Layer 2 networks execute transactions off of the ledgers but use Layer 1 to provide the underlying security and finality. So, for example: Bitcoin is a Layer 1 protocol, but on top of this people have built Lightning, which is a Layer 2 service that uses off-chain 'payment channels' to make Bitcoin transactions work at point-of-sale (POS). Similarly, Ethereum is a Layer 1 blockhain and Arbitrum is a Layer 2 service that uses a 'rollup' mechanism to anchor transactions. Well, so far, so technical. But there is escalating competition in this space and that has business implications. The news that major players, such as Circle and Stripe, are developing their own Layer 1 networks is rather interesting. Given their investments in the stablecoin space it seems logical for Stripe, for example, to create a new high performance Layer 1 blockchain specially designed to for payment processing. Their blockchain, known as 'Tempo', is compatible with Ethereum's programming language so developers will be able to easily migrate 'smart" 'contracts' to the new blockchain. Similarly, Circle announced its new Layer-1 blockchain 'Arc' (also compatible with the Ethereum programming language) which they say is optimised for stablecoin-based financial services. Arc has native support for the Circle Payments Network (CPN) and stablecoins including USDC, EURC and USYC1. It also has, rather interestingly from my point of view, an opt-in privacy schemes that offers selectively shielded transactions. Circle say that Arc is designed not only for stablecoins but for all forms of digital money and tokenized value in the future, a point I will return to later on. Now you might ask, since Bitcoin and Ethereum seem to work, why are serious players in the stablecoin space looking to build their own Layer 1 blockchains while others are already building Layer 2 rails (such as Robinhood's chain on Arbitrum and Coinbase's Base on the OP Stack) that also seem to work. There are, broadly speaking there are two business pressures: functionality and economics. Functionality first. A good reason to develop a Layer 1 is to ensure the development of features that are required by the ecosystem. Now that this infrastructure is no longer a technical detail but a defining factor in who leads the next phase of digital finance, business is paying attention and as stablecoins begin to be used in mainstream business applications, so operational pressures will increase and favour platforms that are secure, compliant and capable of high-throughput transactions. As the respected industry commentator Noelle Acheson noted in the case of both Circle and Stripe, these will be the priorities of most financial services players but they are not necessarily the priorities of blockchains such as the Bitcoin blockchain, which was optimised for censorship resistance. There is also the element of control: decentralisation sounds good but it would be annoying to find that your payroll payments to employees are held up because everyone is playing some sort of cryptokitties game or messing around with NFTs. Then there are the economics. The fact is that running decentralised network is expensive. If you want the censorship resistance of Bitcoin then you have to consume enormous amounts of energy and therefore charge significant fees. This is a key reason people started building Layer 2 networks in the first place. But if you don't need the pseudonymity and censorship resistance (ie, you are running a regulated financial service) then you can redesign the infrastructure in a far more cost-effective way. You can imagine, then, that if Stripe offers stablecoin services to its global customer base, it will offer them its own stablecoins running over its own network and the transactions will never go anywhere near the world's banking networks except for on- and off-ramps. Assuming, that is, that Stripe's customers won't want to hold stablecoin balances that are non-interest bearing. (Of course once the service is up and running then Stripe can offer their infrastructure to third-parties so that they can use the Stripe Layer 1 to provide stablecoin services to their own customers. Given that payments are such a huge, but vulnerable, profit pool for the TradFi incumbents they they will have to respond.) Layer 1 And The Real World Where does this take us then? I suspect that the average consumer (eg, me) will have zero interest in Layer 1 or Layer 2 of indeed how any payments get anywhere. If I tell my accounting package to go ahead and pay a supplier in Canada, I really do not care how the money gets there: if Stripe uses open banking to take the money out of my UK account, take Canadian Dollar stablecoins from their Treasury and then send these stablecoins over to Canada where they are then paid out to the supplier using Interac e-Transfer, or whether they send the money from my bank account via SWIFT to a Canadian bank account, I do not care. Hence the winners and losers here will be determined by their cost-benefit performance for business. The battle for Layer 1, though, is not only about the battle to control payments, because it is about much more than stablecoins. As Circle indicated, it is about the future of value, a future in which the continuous exchange of 'real world' digital assets replaces the traditional infrastructure (and associated overheads) of clearing and settlement vanish. In this world, the next-general financial market infrastructure of distributed ledgers, tokens and protocols (that is, 'defi') that will in essence become critical national infrastructure. Can this really be provided Circle or Stripe? Or will it ultimately need Big Tech or governments or someone else to deliver the platform for innovation?
