Higginbotham Printing building is being demolished
The sounds of crashing bricks, mortar and metal echoed through downtown Anniston on Monday morning as crews demolished the old Higginbotham Printing building on Moore Avenue.
Jackson Hodges, Anniston's public information director, said the property was generously donated to the city by Richard Thompson.
'This key parcel, located adjacent to the soon-to-be-completed Chief Ladiga Trail and just steps away from The City Market, will soon play a vital role in downtown Anniston's future,' Hodges stated in a press release Monday.
Before the building was demolished, the city's communications team explored the site, recovering cherished memorabilia, including family photos, historical documents, and records of an old Linotype printing press that once played a role in shaping Anniston's written history, Hodges said.
'Among the treasures found were old high school yearbooks and a special centennial booklet celebrating Anniston's 100-year anniversary. These items serve as a reminder of the generations who lived, worked, and built memories within these walls,' Hodges said.
Higginbotham Printing shared the building with Business Systems Inc.
Higginbotham Building BW 10.JPG
On Monday city crews began tearing down the old Higginbotham Printing building on Moore Avenue. Anniston city officials said the site will be developed to serve the community in a "meaningful way." Photo by Bill Wilson, The Anniston Star
Future Plans for the Site
Karla Eden, Main Street Anniston director, said that while Main Street programs prioritize the preservation and adaptive reuse of historic properties, the Higginbotham building, constructed in 1970, does not hold significant historical value. However, it did serve the community for years as a thriving business before sitting vacant after its closure.
'We are incredibly grateful for the generous donation of this property, as it presents an opportunity for the city to redevelop the land and continue serving our community in a meaningful way,' Eden said. 'While city leadership has not yet determined the future use of the site, I personally see great potential in leveraging this space to further the revitalization of our downtown district.'
Eden said each Main Street community operates under a 'transformation strategy' that guides revitalization efforts.
'For Main Street Anniston, our focus is on outdoor sports and recreation, as well as tourism. Given the site's proximity to the Chief Ladiga Trail, I believe it would be beneficial to explore the potential for another public recreation area that aligns with our strategy,' she said.
She noted that the abundance of large commercial properties downtown can create a high barrier to entry for small business owners.
'We take pride in our locally owned businesses and restaurants, and fostering a 'shop local, shop small' culture remains a priority. To support this, I have spent the last year researching a concept inspired by the Western Market in Muskegon, Michigan. Their model of small business chalets has created a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem, and I have attended workshops at the Main Street America National Conference to gain insights into how we might implement a similar initiative in Anniston,' Eden said.
She said the old Higginbotham property could potentially serve as a location for such a market, providing an accessible space for small businesses to thrive.
'Though the exact plans for the Higginbotham property remain undetermined, its demolition offers a clean slate for our city leadership to make a well-informed decision about its best possible use. I am eager to see what the future holds and excited about the possibilities this redevelopment could bring to our community,' she said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Johnson City Horizon 2045 project in final phase
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) – For the last two years, Johnson City leaders have conducted citizen surveys and launched research projects into what the future of the city should look like. Thursday, the Johnson City Commission held a work session during which commissioners discussed updates to the city's Horizon 2045 project. Johnson City launches advisory committee for 'Horizon 2045' growth plan The joint session with the city planning commission went over the plan for the final phase of the project. During that time, planning consultant for Johnson City Whitney Hodges said officials have been listening to what the public said they want to see in Johnson City. 'We've had a citizen advisory commission just to kind of look through what we currently do, what we would like to see in the future, and kind of develop tools in order to create that vision,' said Hodges. 'We have done three kind of traditional public input sessions. We've done, I think, 15 different pop-up events where we've gone out to the public to ask their opinions. And then we've had 3-4, I would say, different online engagement.' A future land use map was shown in the presentation. Hodges said the map displays a vision for the mix and distribution of what land across Johnson City could be used for. Some of the uses include downtown, neighborhoods, and industrial. 'They are place-type designations,' said Hodges. 'Those place types will have kind of attributes and characteristics so that as we make decisions, it can give us some guidance as to what the community wanted to see at the time in order to create the vision that they're looking for, for Johnson City.' The land use map will be available to be viewed by the public starting Friday morning on the Horizon 2024 website. Hodges encourages the community to comment on what they want to see from the plan. 'There's a 30-day public comment period,' said Hodges. 'And we will give those comments to both the Planning Commission and the City Commission because both of those entities are willing to adopt this plan in order for it to be enforceable.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
TechCrunch
30-05-2025
- TechCrunch
Eight things we learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group spyware lawsuit
On May 6, WhatsApp scored a major victory against NSO Group when a jury ordered the infamous spyware maker to pay more than $167 million in damages to the Meta-owned company. The ruling concluded a legal battle spanning more than five years, which started in October 2019 when WhatsApp accused NSO Group of hacking more than 1,400 of its users by taking advantage of a vulnerability in the chat app's audio-calling functionality. The verdict came after a week-long jury trial that featured several testimonies, including NSO Group's CEO Yaron Shohat and WhatsApp employees who responded and investigated the incident. Even before the trial began, the case had unearthed several revelations, including that NSO Group had cut off 10 of its government customers for abusing its Pegasus spyware, the locations of 1,223 of the victims of the spyware campaign, and the names of three of the spyware maker's customers: Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan. TechCrunch read more than 1,000 pages of court transcripts of the trial's hearings. We have highlighted the most interesting facts and revelations below. New testimony described how the WhatsApp attack worked The zero-click attack, which means the spyware required no interaction from the target, 'worked by placing a fake WhatsApp phone call to the target,' as WhatsApp's lawyer Antonio Perez said during the trial. The lawyer explained that NSO Group had built what it called the 'WhatsApp Installation Server,' a special machine designed to send malicious messages across WhatsApp's infrastructure mimicking real messages. 'Once received, those messages would trigger the user's phone to reach out to a third server and download the Pegasus spyware. The only thing they needed to make this happen was the phone number,' said Perez. NSO Group's research and development vice president Tamir Gazneli testified that 'any zero-click solution whatsoever is a significant milestone for Pegasus.' NSO admitted that it kept targeting WhatsApp users after the lawsuit was filed Following the spyware attack, WhatsApp filed its lawsuit against NSO Group in November 2019. Despite the active legal challenge, the spyware maker kept targeting the chat app's users, according to NSO Group's research and development vice president Tamir Gazneli. Gazneli said that 'Erised,' the codename for one of the versions of the WhatsApp zero-click vector, was in use from late-2019 up to May 2020. The other versions were called 'Eden' and 'Heaven,' and the three were collectively known as 'Hummingbird.' NSO confirms it targeted an American phone number as a test for the FBI Contact Us Do you have more information about NSO Group, or other spyware companies? From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or Do you have more information about NSO Group, or other spyware companies? From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email . For years, NSO Group has claimed that its spyware cannot be used against American phone numbers, meaning any cell number that starts with the +1 country code. In 2022, The New York Times first reported that the company did 'attack' a U.S. phone but it was part of a test for the FBI. NSO Group's lawyer Joe Akrotirianakis confirmed this, saying the 'single exception' to Pegasus not being able to target +1 numbers 'was a specially configured version of Pegasus to be used in demonstration to potential U.S. government customers.' The FBI reportedly chose not to deploy Pegasus following its test. How NSO's government customers use Pegasus NSO's CEO Shohat explained that Pegasus' user interface for its government customers does not provide an option to choose which hacking method or technique to use against the targets they are interested in, 'because customers don't care which vector they use, as long as they get the intelligence they need.' In other words, it's the Pegasus system in the backend that picks out which hacking technology, known as an exploit, to use each time the spyware targets an individual. NSO says it employs hundreds of people NSO Group's CEO Yaron Shohat disclosed a small but notable detail: NSO Group and its parent company, Q Cyber, have a combined number of employees totalling between 350 and 380. Around 50 of these employees work for Q Cyber. NSO's headquarters shares the same building as Apple In a funny coincidence, NSO Group's headquarters in Herzliya, a suburb of Tel Aviv in Israel, is in the same building as Apple, whose iPhone customers are also frequently targeted by NSO's Pegasus spyware. Shohat said NSO occupies the top five floors and Apple occupies the remainder of the 14-floor building. 'We share the same elevator when we go up,' Shohat said during testimony. The fact that NSO Group's headquarters are openly advertised is somewhat interesting on its own. Other companies that develop spyware or zero-days like the Barcelona-based Variston, which shuttered in February, was located in a co-working space while claiming on its official website to be located somewhere else. Pegasus spyware cost European customers millions During their testimony, an NSO Group employee revealed how much the company charged European customers to access its Pegasus spyware between 2018 and 2020, saying the 'standard price' is $7 million, plus an additional $1 million or so for 'covert vectors.' These new details were included in a court document without the full context of the testimony, but offers an idea of how much advanced spyware like Pegasus can cost paying governments. While not explicitly defined, 'covert vectors' likely refer to stealthy techniques used to plant the spyware on the target phone, such as a zero-click exploit, where a Pegasus operator doesn't need the victim to interact with a message or click a link to get hacked. The prices of spyware and zero-days can vary depending on several factors: the customer, given that some spyware makers charge more when selling to countries like Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, for example; the number of concurrent targets that the customer can spy on at any given time; and feature add-ons, such as zero-click capabilities. All of these factors could explain why a European customer would pay $7 million in 2019, while Saudi Arabia reportedly paid $55 million and Mexico paid $61 million over the span of several years. NSO describes a dire state of finances During the trial, Shohat answered questions about the company's finances, some of which were disclosed in depositions ahead of the trial. These details were brought up in connection with how much in damages the spyware maker should pay to WhatsApp. According to Shohat and documents provided by NSO Group, the spyware maker lost $9 million in 2023 and $12 million in 2024. The company also revealed it had $8.8 million in its bank account as of 2023, and $5.1 million in the bank as of 2024. Nowadays, the company burns through around $10 million each month, mostly to cover the salaries of its employees. Also, it was revealed that Q Cyber had around $3.2 million in the bank both in 2023 and 2024. During the trial, NSO revealed its research and development unit — responsible for finding vulnerabilities in software and figuring out how to exploit them — spent some $52 million in expenses during 2023, and $59 million in 2024. Shohat also said that NSO Group's customers pay 'somewhere in the range' between $3 million and 'ten times that' for access to its Pegasus spyware. Factoring in these numbers, the spyware maker was hoping to get away with paying little or no damages. 'To be honest, I don't think we're able to pay anything. We are struggling to keep our head above water,' Shohat said during his testimony. 'We're committing to my [chief financial officer] just to prioritize expenses and to make sure that we have enough money to meet our commitments, and obviously on a weekly basis.' First published on May 10, 2025 and updated with additional details.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Yahoo
Here's How to Find Work When Entertainment Jobs Are Scarce
When did the entertainment industry start its downturn? Was it the rise of Netflix? The strikes? The COVID-19 pandemic? Brad Hall, founder of said the dip began in December 2019. During the final quarter of that year, he and his team noticed some very 'strange signals' that suggested jobs in production were about to take a massive hit. 'We felt that we had reached a pinnacle of production in our lifetime, especially in the United States, especially in Los Angeles, and we didn't see a meaningful recovery for 10 years,' he said. 'Then, of course, that was all hidden because the pandemic happened and then multiple labor strikes.' More from IndieWire Ana de Armas 'Hated' Singing in Ron Howard's 'Eden': 'I Would Rather Do 100 Stunts' Pete Davidson Uncovers a Retirement Community Serial Killer in 'The Home' Trailer Hollywood took a similar hit during the economic crisis and recession that began in 2008, but recovery came when tech companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Apple poured in cash to build platforms and libraries. Today, Hall doesn't see a savior — but there's still creative work to be found and a lot of it on Entertainment Careers, with members who pay $9.95/month or less depending on the plan they choose receiving the full benefits of the site. This work just might not be where you expect. 'What we do now is try and point people to see themselves in a larger skillset,' said Hall, 'like pointing [producers] to experiential marketing or pivoting into live events.' Hall predicts 'massive growth' in live events: It's where companies like Amazon and Netflix are redirecting their investments with comedy and sports. He believes one of these platforms may stream music festivals like Coachella or live Broadway shows down the line. 'The cost of production is relatively low,' Hall told IndieWire. 'It's an event that's already happening. So we are trying to get people that have any experience in live events to start shifting in those directions.' At Backstage, vice president Luke Crowe takes a similar view. He said while self-tapes now make it easier for actors to audition, that glut also makes it harder to get noticed. Through its $24.99/month or $199.99/year membership fee, what Backstage wants to provide, Crowe said, is redirection. 'There's a lot of new types of work coming up,' Crowe said. 'Depending where somebody's interests are and where they are at in their career, there are some good opportunities. We've seen a lot of growth in online advertising — branded content that's not meant to really look like advertising.' These are typically TikTok or YouTube videos featuring actors using a product in a way that doesn't feel like too much of a pitch or when a company puts their name behind a live event or series that attracts its sales base. 'Branded content' does not sound as sexy as 'network pilot'; the work may not be union and the pay will be lower. However, it's still a paycheck and can go on a reel. It's also possible that it will be seen by more people than an independent feature or even some television shows. More importantly, Crowe said, working in this space of creative advertising will likely lead to more job opportunities. 'Actors and directors and crew who may not have even had those opportunities before, they get that one big nationwide commercial, now there's like a 1,000 smaller [commercial] spots for them to be able to get into,' he said. 'It can build up better reels and you can really create a living out of a lot of that, cumulatively.' Another key to creating long-term success is self reflection: Where are you, really, in your career? Dreams of fame, fortune, and the belief that your story is so special that it must be told are common; it's what draws many people to entertainment. However, the ability to stick around is based largely on the ability to get over yourself and focus on developing interpersonal skills and the ability to adapt. 'You've got to jump over this chasm from graduating or from career changing to becoming employable, to start getting consistent paid work,' said My First Job in Film founder and managing director Sam Kirkwood. As a 'hybrid film school/agency,' My First Job in Film offers a free service that focuses on teaching soft skills, like networking and the ability to cold-call with grace. They also aim to adjust mindsets, advising some to take jobs that may not do anything for your entertainment career other than making you available for it. 'We start advocating for what we call 'safety net jobs.' It's a job that gives you flexibility — typically shift work,' said Kirkwood, 'so if a job does come up last minute or tomorrow there's a great opportunity, you can get someone to cover.' Developing these soft skills and sense of determination can represent all the difference in making the leap across what he calls 'the employability chasm.' With each member, Kirkwood and his team assess what specific stage they're at and work to level them up. 'For a production PA, it might be you've gotta do half a dozen short films,' Kirkwood said. 'Why? Because on the fifth one you might meet somebody who's doing a favor for somebody and they're looking for a PA for their next paid gig. And so you've come from somewhere having no experience, met people, networked, had time to get comfortable in the environment, understand the lingo of being on set — all the soft skills that are required.' For jobs in development or at agencies, My First Job in Film promotes a challenge that requires members to execute 20 steps each day toward advancing their careers. That could be a LinkedIn post or a cold call, but it's all about getting in the habit of putting themselves out there — and being easier to find. Who you know in this industry always matters, but Hall added that experience you rack up is what recruiters find most attractive nowadays. 'I would say we're back into that era of the resume,' Hall said. 'For us, 85 percent of the people are applying incorrectly.' He said most people look at 'how awesome this job would be for them' rather than communicate how they fit 'the needs of the employer.' Truth is, chasing your dreams is a marathon. When creative work is impossible, it's always okay to redirect your skills to whatever lets you pay the bills. Said Hall, 'Any port in a storm.'Best of IndieWire Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear' Quentin Tarantino's Favorite Movies: 65 Films the Director Wants You to See The 19 Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in May, from 'Fair Play' to 'Emily the Criminal'
