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Business Journals
23-07-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
BBB Awards: Ethical Excellence & Community Impact – Applications Now Open!
Is your business or organization making a real difference through integrity and positive impact? The Better Business Bureau of Northeast California is excited to announce that applications are now open for our prestigious awards, designed to celebrate those who uphold the highest standards in the marketplace! The BBB Torch Awards for Ethics are our premier honor. They recognize established organizations whose leaders show exceptional personal character and ensure their practices consistently meet the highest ethical standards. This award highlights businesses that truly earn trust with their customers and the community, proving that integrity is at the core of what they do. If your company has been in business for three years or more and leads with ethics, we encourage you to apply and get recognized for your commitment to trust. The BBB Spark Awards celebrate the dynamic spirit of new entrepreneurs and businesses. This award honors eligible business owners (under 35 years old) or businesses operating for less than three years who are already demonstrating strong Character, Culture, and Community. Spark Award recipients are the innovators shaping the future of a trusted marketplace, building their ventures on a foundation of integrity and a commitment to positive impact. If you're a rising star in the business world, this is your chance to shine! The Community Collaborator Award recognizes organizations that go above and beyond in giving back to their communities. This award specifically honors businesses, non-profits, chambers of commerce, and other entities that generously contribute their time, talent, or money to charitable causes or community initiatives. Recipients of this award actively participate in and lead community-based efforts, showing how businesses can be vital partners in improving the well-being of their local areas. If your organization champions community involvement and philanthropy, we invite you to apply. This is a fantastic opportunity to gain recognition, boost your credibility, and showcase your dedication to ethical practices and community betterment. Don't miss your chance to be celebrated among the best in our local business community. Application deadline is September 2, 2025.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Ramy Youssef and Pam Brady Took ‘Fearless' Swings with ‘#1 Happy Family USA'
On June 5, the IndieWire Honors Spring 2025 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for some of the most impressive and engaging work of this TV season. Curated and selected by IndieWire's editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the creators, artisans, and performers behind television well worth toasting. We're showcasing their work with new interviews leading up to the Los Angeles event. Ramy Youssef and Pam Brady were big fans of each other who had never met — and as soon as they did, they started to work together on a television show. The duo teamed up for A24 and Prime Video's '#1 Happy Family USA,' an animated series about a Muslim family in post-9/11 America that 'has no business being as funny as its first season proves to be.' More episodes are on their way, thanks to a two-season order from the streamer, and Youssef and Brady will receive this year's Spark Award for animation at this season's IndieWire Honors. More from IndieWire Sheryl Lee Ralph Remembers Sidney Poitier's Early Support: 'I Expect Great Things from You' 'Squid Game' Creator Teases Potential Spinoff: 'I Want to Show What They Did' Between Seasons 1 and 2 As a millennial stand-up and creator of his own show, Youssef was (of course) influenced by 'South Park,' which he describes as an ''Oh shit' moment' breakthrough about the possibilities of animation and 'the crazy things that you could say when it's just coming out of like little animated children's mouths.' Brady had been impressed by Youssef's work and begged her manager to set up a meeting, just to 'understand how [his] mind worked.' She played it cool when he asked her about working together, while inside she was freaking out. She wasn't alone. As the show went into pre-production — and production and post-production — Youssef said that at the studio, 'everyone, at every time' was nervous about how it would go ('including right now'). 'It's so interesting, because the show is in a lot of ways about fear, but working with Ramy, the creative process was pretty fearless,' Brady told IndieWire. 'It didn't feel like we were being provocative for no reason, just to be provocative. We were just telling the story. We're exploring a 12-year-old boy's mentality at a really tough time, and the fact that it felt true gave us the confidence to push it.' 'In a lot of ways, making an animated show was less daunting than making a live-action show that was not only dealing with things that were sensitive to me, but also using my face and my name and all that stuff,' Youssef said, referencing Hulu's award-winning 'Ramy.' 'To go into something that's like, 'He's just a cartoon' actually felt way more liberating, and felt like let's just fucking throw it at the wall.' Early on, the show brought Youssef back to his stand-up roots, riffing on a joke with an audience — the writers room — for immediate feedback and finessing. The comprehensive process of animation allowed them to be what Brady calls 'joke maximalists' in terms of fine tuning something for as long as possible. 'In live action, we do so much iterating, but at a certain point you go home with the footage, and that's just what it is,' said Youssef. 'Here, as long as you don't need to move a background, that mouth is yapping and moving. You could have it say whatever the hell you want it to say, pretty much up until the last day.' Each episode of '#1 Happy Family USA' opens with a cheeky disclaimer. They're rated H for haram, and not intended to serve as cultural representation. It started as just that — a humorous insurance policy for Youssef, whose work is often tasked with speaking for large swathes of the Arab and Muslim community — and grew into a reliable running joke. 'It started from the sincere place, and then became this really funny runner where every episode we list off the things we're not representing,' he said. 'So immediately there's a joke as the episode starts, but then you also kind of know what we're about to satirize, and you go, 'Oh, well, how's that going to happen?'' '#1 Happy Family USA' goes to some pretty surreal places — the code switching, the talking lamb, the musical interludes, and, of course, George W. Bush — but that's not unusual for animation, or indeed for those familiar with Youssef's work. The series grew from the same seed that informed Episode 104 of 'Ramy,' a 9/11 flashback with a strawberry-loving Osama Bin Laden hallucination. Breaking that particular story, Youssef said, showed him that 'there's this whole era here. The best parts of the live-action episode were very surreal, and then I got really inspired by pushing it even further and taking it into something that was animated.' In the show, Youssef also voices the young Rumi Hussein, and his father Hussein — a deliriously entertaining track that Brady pushed for. 'If I look back, probably my favorite thing about making this show is finding that character of Hussein Hussein. I think he's the heartbeat of the show,' Youssef said. 'There's a depth to the idea that that Ramy as a kid lived through 9/11 as a 12 -year-old, and now he's playing it as a 12-year-old but also seeing the experience through a father's eyes,' said Brady. The show excels because it sees the world through Rumi's eyes, or Hussein's, or sister Mona (Alia Shawkat) or mother Sharia (Salma Hindy). Consider Rumi's dalliance with illegally downloading music, which puts him on the radar of a not-so-mysterious pen pal known as Curious_George_Bush43! By the end of the season, President George W. Bush arrives at the family's doorstep, masquerading as Rumi's friend while barely concealing his sinister intentions. 'What's so great about getting to know his character through Rumi is that he just gets to be a mischievous adult, who at first is like, 'Hey, I'm your pal,' until the other shoe drops,' said Youssef. 'I think kids have that experience of adults: 'Hey, you're a really good kid. You get to do this, but first you got to do your homework,' or whatever the kid doesn't want to do. But in this case it's the President of the United States, and he wants to implicate this kid in his global fight on terror.' 'We also wanted to make sure we didn't present him in the way that he's just this boob and this puppet, because we all felt pretty clearly that he knew exactly what he was doing,' said Brady. 'We just wanted to show him being a bastard to Rumi, and show this guy is not your friend.' As for the central family, Brady said, 'The thing that's funny about 'South Park' that people don't talk about that much is it's a story about four best friend boys. At its core, it's very sentimental — not in the bad way, but it's about friendship. That's why you can get crazy, because you buy their relationship. [This show,] at its core, it's showing the the bonds of the family.' Youssef likes to start broad with his humor and then add layers of specificity. He gives a perfect example: in the show's pilot, there is a crisis over where to bury Rumi's grandfather (Azhar Usman), a crisis which culminate in Uncle Ahmed (Elia) being arrested at the airport on the morning of September 11, 2001. 'You have this family that is so loving they really care where their dead relative is about to be buried, but then there's so much dysfunction that the body has to be stolen,' he explained. 'That is its own can of worms, before you even add on the layer that they're Arab and Muslim and add on what happens at the airport. What would it look like for this family to have a dead body at the airport on 9/11? That is a very wild thread to connect, and is emblematic of the kind of things we try to pull off on the show.' It's clear that Youssef and Brady take pride in the show, as much as the artist's impulse often leans toward self-criticism. They've also got the second season coming, and were thrilled to draw on a well of ideas that supplied both installments. Brady is happy with with the audience response, and hopeful that a show like this one won't always feel so radical. For Youssef, it's a welcome addition to a diverse body of work. 'I'm finding that this animated show is sitting with different fans in different ways, and that's really cool,' he said. 'There are people who love 'Ramy,' and then there are other people who go, 'Yeah, 'Ramy' was OK, but I really like 'Mo,'' and then there's people who are like, 'Hey, this is my favorite thing you've done.' I find all of that really exciting. You just get to learn more about different things that that can connect in different ways.' '#1 Happy Family USA' is now streaming on Prime Video. Best of IndieWire The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme' Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear'
Associated Press
12-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Dodd Roofing and Exteriors Recognized With BBB Spark Award for Ethical Business Practices
United States, May 12, 2025 -- Dodd Roofing and Exteriors has been awarded the prestigious Better Business Bureau (BBB) Spark Award Idaho, a recognition that honors businesses demonstrating exceptional ethics, transparency, and trustworthiness in the marketplace. This distinction places Dodd Roofing and Exteriors among a select group of companies known for their commitment to customer satisfaction and principled leadership. The BBB Spark Award is reserved for companies that show a strong dedication to integrity in their operations and a track record of positive community engagement. Dodd Roofing and Exteriors was selected based on its consistent delivery of high-quality service, overwhelmingly positive customer feedback, and efforts to educate homeowners on roofing practices—particularly in areas vulnerable to severe weather events such as North Dakota and Texas. 'This award validates our mission to deliver high-quality roofing solutions with honesty, professionalism, and a focus on community values,' said Isaac Dodd, CEO of Dodd Roofing and Exteriors. With active operations in Fargo, ND; Boise, ID; and Southlake, TX, the company provides a range of residential and commercial roofing solutions. Services include full roof replacements, inspections and certifications, emergency roof repairs, storm damage insurance restoration, and installation of flat and low-slope commercial systems. Dodd Roofing and Exteriors also specializes in energy-efficient and solar-ready roofing options and installs metal, TPO, and asphalt shingle systems. In each region served, the company tailors its approach to address specific local needs. In Fargo, services focus on ice dam prevention, hail and storm repair, roof leak inspections, and a mix of shingle and flat roof installations. The Fargo branch also supports surrounding areas including Moorhead and West Fargo. In Boise, the team handles full tear-offs, custom home re-roofs, and metal installations across Meridian, Nampa, Eagle, and Caldwell. In Southlake, roofing specialists assist homeowners with emergency tarping, leak control, impact-rated shingles, and insurance claim support throughout Southlake, Keller, Grapevine, and the greater Dallas–Fort Worth area. The company's reputation is bolstered by its BBB accreditation, certified installation crews, and licensure across all service regions. Dodd Roofing and Exteriors maintains five-star ratings on Google, emphasizing reliable timelines, clean project execution, and customer-first service. Financing options and insurance claim assistance are also available, making the process easier for property owners. Recognition from the BBB further reinforces Dodd Roofing and Exteriors' position as a trusted leader in the roofing industry. The award stands as a testament to the company's dedication to ethical standards and high-performance results across all markets it serves. Licensed, Certified, and BBB-Recognized Roofing Professionals. For more information, visit Fargo, North Dakota 4523 45th St S #156, Fargo, ND 58104 701-831-0710 Boise, Idaho 850 E. Franklin Road #411, Meridian, ID 83642 208-295-9421 Southlake, Texas 950 E State Hwy 114 Ste 160, Southlake, TX 76092 682-364-6330 Contact Info: Name: Isaac Dodd Email: Send Email Organization: Dodd Roofing and Exteriors Website: Release ID: 89159679 If there are any errors, inconsistencies, or queries arising from the content contained within this press release that require attention or if you need assistance with a press release takedown, we kindly request that you inform us immediately by contacting [email protected] (it is important to note that this email is the authorized channel for such matters, sending multiple emails to multiple addresses does not necessarily help expedite your request). Our reliable team will be available to promptly respond within 8 hours, taking proactive measures to rectify any identified issues or providing guidance on the removal process. Ensuring accurate and dependable information is our top priority.
