CAMBRIDGE, Ont. — Landlords posting tenant reviews on so-called blacklist websites is a trend some in the industry worry could add to the housing crisis.

Websites like Tenantscore, Openroom and other similar blacklisting sites allow landlords and tenants to air their grievances, potentially preventing tenants from finding housing in the future.

A legal expert said that even if tenants have had negative relationships with landlords in the past, it shouldn’t hinder their ability to find a place to call home.

The danger with these sites is your information will be out there and anyone can see it. It can put you in a very vulnerable position, said Cynthia Iheanacho, a lawyer and renter advocate at Waterloo Region Community Legal Services (WRCLS).

I tell all my clients not to add any information in these and just be careful if you see your name on a site, said Iheanacho. If there are any issues, it should be handled through the tenant board. You never know how this could be used against you.

Some landlords renting in Cambridge are afraid they will rent to the wrong person and lose money if the tenant runs into financial difficulty and decides not to pay.

Credit score is the most important thing because we need to pay our mortgage and we can’t have people who have a bad history of making payments, said property owner and realtor Kamal Khanna.

Before, if you needed to get rent payments from a tenant, the Landlord Tenant Board (LTB) would take forever to schedule a meeting, he said.

As a realtor, Khanna works with other property owners and tells them all the same thing; they need to make sure that whoever they are bringing in is able to cover their rent.

Tenant rating websites are being touted as a useful tool to assist landlords in finding the right candidates to rent their units, but he agrees if someone withheld rent in the past it could hurt them in the future.

The way more non-traditional defense companies will grow their business with the Defense Department is for more of them to be successful in doing so, which will provide more courage for acquisition organizations within the department to accept the risk of working with startups, the head of the DoD unit focused on accelerating the use of commercial technology said this week.

The biggest challenge for DoD in working with startups is culture, which Doug Beck summed up as everything from learned behavior to ego to rice bowls. In the end, he said, it’s human. And that takes time to change. And the way you change it is with success.

I think the door is open for businesses to enter, Tara Murphy Dougherty, CEO of the defense software company Govini, said on Wednesday alongside Beck at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. But, she said, after the initial development and prototype contracts, it comes down to the procurement agencies like the contracting commands and program executive offices and they have not changed.

One example highlighted by Dougherty is a potential $1 billion, 10-year software multiple-award contract vehicle announced by the Army last spring to meet service-wide software development needs. That is something Govini would want to compete for but the problem is the contract is being structured as cost-plus rather than fixed-price, and no venture capital-backed company can bid on that, she said.

Later, Dougherty told Defense Daily cost-plus contracts are fine with services where the cost of business is having contractor personnel in place and the profit has a fixed-ceiling. For commercial companies that have developed software with their own resources, often with venture capital, the companies and their investors are expecting a greater return because they have better control of their product costs.

Compared to traditional defense contractors, the commercial companies believe they provide a greater value proposition to the government because their products require minimum further development and therefore can be delivered faster, and at higher quality with modern DevSecOps as part of their core business practices.

Cost-plus contracts are typically used when there are unknowns, like in development work where government takes on more risk but in return a company’s profit is lower, Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Baroni Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University told Defense Daily on Thursday. For commercial software companies, cost-plus is not their business model, he said.

Troy Demmer, co-founder and chief product officer of Gecko Robotics, said that even when high-level demand is present, obstacles remain. Gecko offers its customers a turnkey asset inspection solution that combines the Pittsburgh-based company’s robotic systems and artificial intelligence-powered software platform to quickly analyze and manage asset health.

Gecko’s solution has helped the Navy drastically reduce the time it takes to plan for a ship availability in dry dock, Demmer said.

And so, this is a capability that the entire Navy wants, he said. However, we’re getting blocked at the contracting level because the contracting vehicles that exist today don’t fit that business model of a firm fixed-[price contract]. And so, we get into a scenario where the existing structures that Navy could use to directly contract with us don’t work. Now we’re looking at other avenues like GSA, etc., and there you run into some other challenges which is there’s not a PM (program manager) to staff it despite having a three-star Admiral bang on the table saying, ‘We want this.’

Dougherty agreed that there is high-level support at DoD and among the armed services who are pushing for the adoption of commercially-developed capabilities but there is a disconnect when it comes to writing contracts and creating a program of record.

What strikes me is that while this group broadly has been having this conversation about driving innovation in DoD for a decade now, it was always with the acquisition community, and we left the contracting community out, she said. We’ve got to bring that group of people into this conversation so that we can raise the aptitude about business models and our kinds of companies and how we can work with DoD and raise the comfort level to Doug’s point about culture to.

Beck said there is still a long way to go to get the broader acquisition community on board with buying at scale from startups and that part of the solution is training, some of which is happening at the Defense Acquisition University. He wants more points on the board.

To get points on the board, the type of success that Beck said needs to be replicated to enable more of the acquisition engines within DoD to acquire from startups is U.S. Special Operations Command’s (USSOCOM) nearly $1 billion contract with Anduril Industries that was awarded in January 2022 to provide counter-drone capabilities. That effort began in 2020 by leveraging DIU’s rapid acquisition contracting vehicle and funding to acquire the defensive systems for eight sites, he said. When that was successful, SOCOM put its money on the table, Beck said.

But we need lots more success stories like that, so that it’s easier both inside to say, ‘I’m going to take a risk on that.’ And it’s also easier outside to say, ‘I’m going to take a risk on that, he said.

DIU in February released its plan for its next phase, which is to scale adoption of innovative, commercial technologies across DoD to achieve strategic effects. Part of the plan is further scaling DIU’s presence with the combatant commands and acquisition organizations to better understand and shape the needs for where commercial technology can quickly be sourced, and to work with engines of scale, he said.

DIU has also created the Defense Innovation Community of Entities to work across the various DoD innovation arms to identify synergies to better work together and define the systemic barriers that are in the way and so we can go knock them down, Beck said.

The DIU 3.0 journey began nearly a year ago and we are further along at this point than I ever could have dreamed that we would be in just a year, and we have so much further to go for all the reasons that we were just talking about, he said.

NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. — A man convicted of fatally shooting Nassau County Deputy Joshua Moyers during a traffic stop has been sentenced to death. Patrick McDowell, who pleaded guilty to Moyers’ 2021 murder, received the death penalty following the jury’s 11-1 recommendation in April. During his sentencing trial, McDowell encouraged jurors to choose the death penalty. Moyers was shot by McDowell while conducting a traffic stop, leading to a five-day manhunt before McDowell was apprehended. State Attorney Melissa Nelson acknowledged the jury’s decision, highlighting the pain caused by Moyers’ senseless murder and hoping for a start to healing.

Anchor Bay Entertainment has acquired worldwide rights to the horror film Cursed in Baja, which will have its world premiere at the FrightFest Film Festival in London. The movie follows ex-lawman Pirelli on a journey to Mexico to search for the heir to a Los Angeles fortune, delving into his own complex past. Starring Barbara Crampton, Jose Conejo Martin, and Jeff Daniel Phillips, who also directed and wrote the screenplay. The company recently secured the rights to the sci-fi film Daddy and expressed enthusiasm for welcoming Phillips’ vision to the Anchor Bay family. Cursed in Baja promises to be a genre-bending classic in indie film, a thrilling addition to the company’s lineup.

J.D. Martinez has been an integral part of the 2024 Mets’ success. His consistent, steady bat has produced a lot of great moments this year, including his first ever walk-off! J.D. was made available to chat because of the ‘This Is Your Shot’ initiative run through Pfizer, which is here to raise awareness about getting vaccinated against pneumococcal pneumonia.

J.D. is sharing his story as a professional baseball player with asthma, a condition he experienced playing in Little League, which led to frequent ER visits as a kid. As an adult, asthma puts him at over 5x greater risk for getting pneumococcal pneumonia compared to healthy adults in the same age range. Pneumococcal pneumonia is a potentially serious bacterial lung disease that can put you in the hospital and even be life threatening.

J.D. knows how important it is to advocate for his own health and has partnered with Pfizer to raise awareness on the dangers of pneumococcal pneumonia and the importance of getting vaccinated against pneumococcal pneumonia.

You can find out more about the This is Your Shot initiative at www.knowpneumonia.com.

NEW DELHI: The Indian opening batters Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana exhibited an impressive display of aggressive batting from the outset in the pursuit of a modest target of 109 runs in their Women’s Asia Cup 2024 opener at Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium in Dambulla, Sri Lanka.

Verma, known for her explosive batting style, contributed a crucial 40 runs to the innings, while her opening partner, Mandhana, complemented her efforts with a well-crafted 45 runs.

The duo’s partnership laid a solid foundation for India’s chase, as they consistently found the boundary with an array of powerful strokes.

The sixth over of the innings, bowled by Tuba Hassan, exemplified the aggressive mindset of the Indian openers. Mandhana and Shafali unleashed a barrage of boundaries, including two fours and a towering six, amassing 15 runs from the over. This onslaught not only dented the confidence of the Pakistani bowlers but also demonstrated the duo’s ability to seize control of the game.

Throughout their partnership, Mandhana and Shafali displayed a remarkable understanding of each other’s strengths, rotating the strike effectively and capitalizing on scoring opportunities. Their ability to find gaps in the field and clear the boundary with ease kept the Pakistani fielders on their toes, adding to the pressure on the bowling unit.

The aggressive approach adopted by the Indian openers was a calculated risk, but one that paid dividends as it allowed them to maintain a healthy run rate and keep the required run rate within manageable limits. Their ability to score freely also provided the subsequent batters with the luxury of playing their natural game without undue pressure.

While the Pakistani bowlers tried various strategies to stem the flow of runs, the Indian openers remained undeterred, showcasing their skill, temperament, and determination to succeed. Their partnership not only set the tone for India’s successful chase but also highlighted the depth and quality of the Indian batting lineup, leading the team to a convincing victory over their arch-rivals.