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Maine is getting Loony again as population of beloved bird doubles since 1983

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Loons are on the mend in Maine, filling more of the state’s lakes and ponds with their haunting calls, although conservationists say the birds aren’t out of the woods yet.

Maine is home to a few thousand of the distinctive black-and-white waterbirds — the East Coast’s largest loon population — and conservationists said efforts to protect them from threats helped grow the population. An annual count of common loons found more adults and chicks this year than last, Maine Audubon said this week.

The group said it estimated a population for the southern half of Maine of 3,174 adult loons and 568 chicks. Audubon bases its count on the southern portion of Maine because there are enough bird counters to get a reliable number. The count is more than twice the number when they started counting in 1983, and the count of adults has increased 13% from 10 years ago.

“We’re cautiously optimistic after seeing two years of growing chick numbers,” said Maine Audubon wildlife ecologist Tracy Hart. “But it will take several more years before we know if that is a real upward trend, or just two really good years.”

Maine lawmakers have attempted to grow the population of the loons with bans on lead fishing tackle that the birds sometimes accidentally swallow. Laws that limit boat speeds have also helped because they prevent boat wakes from washing out nests, conservation groups say.

It’s still too early to know if Maine’s loons are on a sustainable path to recovery, and the success of the state’s breeding loons is critical to the population at large, Hart said. Maine has thousands more loons than the other New England states, with the other five states combining for about 1,000 adults. The state is home to one of the largest populations of loons in the U.S., which has about 27,000 breeding adults in total.

Minnesota has the most loons in the lower 48 states, with a fairly stable population of about 12,000 adults, but they are in decline in some parts of their range.

While loons are not listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, they are considered threatened by some states, including New Hampshire and Michigan. The U.S. Forest Service also considers the common loon a sensitive species.

The birds migrate to the ocean in late fall and need a long runway to take off, meaning winter can be a treacherous time for the birds because they get trapped by ice in the lakes and ponds where they breed, said Barb Haney, executive director of Avian Haven, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Freedom, Maine.

“We’re getting a lot of calls about loons that are iced in,” Haney said, adding that the center was tending to one such patient this week.



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Rob Reiner’s 32-year-old son in jail after fatal stabbing at Los Angeles home

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Rob Reiner’s younger son, Nick Reiner, was in jail Monday after being booked for what investigators believe was the fatal stabbing of the director-actor and his wife at their Los Angeles home a day earlier, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear what charges Nick Reiner, 32, would face. A police statement said he was being held without bail and the case will be presented to the district attorney’s office on Tuesday.

Representatives for the Reiner family did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and it wasn’t immediately clear if Nick Reiner had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

Nick Reiner has spoken publicly of his struggles with addiction. By 18, he had cycled in and out of treatment facilities with bouts of homelessness and relapses in between. Rob and Nick Reiner explored their difficult relationship and Nick Reiner’s struggles with drugs in a semi-autobiographical 2016 film, “ Being Charlie.”

Rob and Michele Singer Reiner were found dead Sunday afternoon at their home in Los Angeles, and investigators believe they were stabbed, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official, who was briefed on the investigation, could not publicly discuss the details and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Nick Reiner was arrested Sunday around 9:15 p.m., police said.

Reiner was long one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, and his work included some of the most memorable movies of the 1980s and ’90s, including “This is Spinal Tap,” “A Few Good Men,” “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Princess Bride.”

His role as Michael “Meathead” Stivic in Norman Lear’s 1970s TV classic “All in the Family” as a liberal foil to Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker catapulted him to fame and won him two Emmy Awards.

The son of comedy legend Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner married photographer Michele Singer Reiner in 1989. The two met while he was directing “When Harry Met Sally.” They had three children together: Nick, Jake and Romy.

Reiner told The New York Times in 1989 that the cinematographer on “When Harry Met Sally,” Barry Sonnenfeld, predicted he would marry her. “I look over and I see this girl, and whoo! I was attracted immediately,” Reiner said.

Michele Singer Reiner was a producer for “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” “God & Country,” “Albert Brooks: Defending My Life” and “Shock and Awe,” according to IMDB. Earlier in her career, she photographed the cover image of President Donald Trump’s 1987 bestseller “The Art of the Deal.”

Trump on Monday blamed Rob Reiner’s outspoken opposition to the president for the actor-director’s killing, delivering the unsubstantiated claim in a social media post that seemed intent on decrying his opponents even in the face of a tragedy.

Relatives of Lear, the legendary producer who died in 2023, said the Reiners’ deaths left them bereft.

“Norman often referred to Rob as a son, and their close relationship was extraordinary, to us and the world,” a Lear family statement said. “Norman would have wanted to remind us that Rob and Michele spent every breath trying to make this country a better place, and they pursued that through their art, their activism, their philanthropy, and their love for family and friends.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the deaths a devastating loss for the city.

“Rob Reiner’s contributions reverberate throughout American culture and society, and he has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice,” Bass said in a statement. “An acclaimed actor, director, producer, writer, and engaged political activist, he always used his gifts in service of others.”

Reiner was previously married to actor-director Penny Marshall from 1971 to 1981. He adopted her daughter, Tracy Reiner. Carl Reiner died in 2020 at age 98 and Marshall died in 2018.

Killings are rare in the Brentwood neighborhood. The scene is about a mile from the home where O.J. Simpson’s wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman were killed in 1994.

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Balsamo reported from Washington. Associated Press Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed.



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AI investment pressures, supply-chain risks, and strategy misalignment are all on the line for CFOs

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The talk is over. In 2026, it’s time to execute.

When the CFO Alliance, a finance-professional peer community, released its latest report, called Project Greenlight, in late November, the organization said that finance experts expect 2026 to be “the most pivotal year the finance function has faced in a decade.” There’s a lot at stake for CFOs and their organizations, according to the report, including supply-chain risks, pressure to make big AI investments, and the perils of stakeholder misalignment on strategy.

CFO Brew recently spoke with Nick Araco, the CEO of CFO Alliance, to get a sense of why 2026 is shaping up to be a high-stakes year. He also shared what’s top of mind for the finance leaders he’s been speaking with.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What makes you think that 2026 will be such a pivotal year in finance?

2026 has to be a year where we replace debate with data and execution. I call it “informed execution.” We’ve seen such a rapid acceleration, given AI and technology advancements, converge with a year of volatility and uncertainty. Imagine you’re sitting in the seat of a CFO, where you’re at the intersection of that, and you’ve had a 2025 that’s caused you and your enterprises to hit a pause button. You had months, if not a whole year of pause. 2026 has to be a year of execution.

How did the group that worked on the Project Greenlight report identify the top execution risks, and how did it lay out a roadmap for addressing each?

What we did was convene about an hour-and-a-half’s time and openly debated until we got to a point where we agreed on the most material and critical areas of risk. You can imagine we started with a laundry list, because the CFO Alliance population of almost 10,000 or more is very diverse…At the end of the day, we identified four execution risks that most often stall plans, or stall action. [According to the report, these are geopolitical and regulatory disruption, technology and AI adoption, talent and team capabilities, and stakeholder alignment and governance.]

I want to focus on one specific risk: AI adoption. What would you say are the keys to identifying where an organization should be investing its money, but also how to track the ROI?

A year ago at this time, I would tell you that nine out of 10 of our members were saying, ‘We agree, it’s time to lean in, and it’s time to have the right discussions. Let’s bring in cross-functional leaders and cross-level leaders, and let’s make sure we are demonstrating comfort, and make sure that we’re demonstrating through our own actions, an embrace.’ Let me fast forward to where we are in 2025. These discussions need to be about enterprise value and performance. They need to be about, ‘How would this impact our business?’

I’m going to be very specific as to what the discussions need to be and are, because our members are using the following framework around AI. “What’s the specific opportunity or pain point that we are attempting to address…when it comes to AI? Why does it matter now? What’s blocking our progress that we’re even having this discussion? What’s one condition, and if we solve for this, what would be different by X date, and how would we know it helped us?” Those questions they’re using in every conversation, so they can tie it back to value.

What have been the biggest recurring topics in your conversations with CFOs from the past two or three months?

There are three key areas of focus: What type of leader do I want to be in ’26? How do I best stand up the highest performing finance function? And that includes accounting, treasury, FP&A, and capital markets or strategy functions. And then, from an enterprise standpoint, am I really at the forefront of understanding how technology and AI may disrupt our position in our industry, or our industry or business as a whole?

Standing up a high-performing finance function and team [is] more complex than ever before. I’m tired of the bashing of accounting…No one can do their job in finance without a strong accounting function. We’re done complaining about it; we’re going to do something about it. We’re going to try to make accounting sexy again by embracing the AI factor and bringing critical thinking into the accounting skill set.

This report was originally published by CFO Brew.



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Ford takes $19.5 billion hit, scraps some EV ambitions in pivot to more hybrid and gas models

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The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker will make a series of changes to its line of vehicles and production facilities to focus on producing affordable vehicles that better align with customer desires, it announced Monday.

The company will also scrap production of certain larger EVs—including the F-150 Lightning, which it will retool as an electric vehicle with a gas-powered generator—as well as redouble development of smaller, lower-cost cars, including a midsize pickup truck in 2027.

“This is a customer-driven shift to create a stronger, more resilient and more profitable Ford,” Ford president and CEO Jim Farley said in a press release. “The operating reality has changed, and we are redeploying capital into higher-return growth opportunities: Ford Pro, our market-leading trucks and vans, hybrids and high-margin opportunities like our new battery energy storage business.”

As EV demand trends downward, particularly following the end of the federal tax credit in September, Ford had struggled to sustain demand for its Model E line. Farley warned in September the end of the tax credit would throttle EV demand, cutting sales to 5% of total auto volume from roughly 10% to 12% at the time. Earlier this month, the automaker reported it sold 164,925 vehicles in November, a 0.9% year-over-year decline, with EV sales tumbling 61% to 4,247. With $3.6 billion in losses in the first three quarters of this year alone, Ford’s Model E division has lost more than $13 billion in less than three years.

In addition to regulatory challenges, Ford attributed the need to produce smaller, more affordable EVs as well as gas and hybrid vehicles, to battery prices remaining stubbornly high and an affordability crisis shaking consumer brand loyalty. The company said on Monday it would launch five new “affordable” vehicles by the end of the decade, four of which would be assembled domestically. The automaker intends to have 50% of its global vehicle volumes be hybrids, extended-range EVs, and full EVs, by 2030, up from 17% this year.

As a result of the changes to its production focus, Ford will also repurpose some of its facilities, including revamping its Tennessee Electric Vehicle Center into the Tennessee Truck Plant, which will no longer produce EVs, but rather manufacture the new Built Ford Tough truck models beginning in 2029. Its Ohio plant will similarly assemble new gas and hybrid cars in 2029.

Ford said it will employ thousands of workers in the next few years to staff its American plants. After concluding production for the 2025 F-150 Lightning model, Ford will redeploy one-third of that workforce to production on a gas and hybrid model of the F-150.

Ford will book $19.5 billion in charges, most of which will occur in 2026, as a result of the pivot, including an $8.5 billion asset write-down for its Model E division. The automaker raised its EBIT guidance for 2025 to about $7 billion, up from $6 billion, and it reaffirmed its adjusted free cash flow range of between $2 billion and $3 billion.

Ford has struggled to get returns from its ever-growing investment in its EV models, even as it continues to toy with strategy changes. Monday’s announcement follows Ford’s decision in August to invest $2 billion in retooling a Kentucky factory in order to manufacture EVs, as well as rejig its production process to a “universal EV platform” to lower the cost of its models.

Ford said it expects its Model E to be profitable by 2029; in early 2023, it predicted profitability by 2026.

At the time of the Kentucky factory announcement, analysts were hesitant to laud the company, warning that if Ford did not make a compelling product, its billions of dollars poured into factory changes and fresh vehicle production would be for nought, particularly as EV demand stays hot and cold.

“If the vehicles don’t appeal due to being EVs, then billions will be wasted,” Morningstar equity strategist David Whiston told Fortunein August. “That’s why you need a great product, great range, and lower battery cost and vehicle manufacturing techniques.”

He added, “The challenge is, do you have a great product or not? [It’s] hard to get excited about a vehicle you can’t see yet.”



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