Category Archives: Progress

SF Giants President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi. (Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images)

Heading into the winter, the SF Giants identified a left-handed bat, starting pitching depth, and bullpen depth as offseason priorities. To an extent, they have addressed those needs with the following signings:

In the case of Vosler, Wisler, and Brebbia, they are on rookie contracts so the Giants have control of them after 2021. Despite how slow the baseball offseason has been as stars such as Trevor Bauer and D.J. LeMahieu remain on the market, the SF Giants have been zigging when everyone else has been zagging.

So far, they have committed roughly $27.5 million to 2021 through free agency this winter. When the offseason began, they had in the neighborhood of $85 million available below the competitive balance tax (CBT), which is set at $210 million for 2021.

With the decision to non-tender Tyler Anderson, who was due a modest raise from his $1.75 million salary in 2020, and the moves they have already made, the Giants have $61 million remaining below the CBT. I should caution that just because they have that much available does not mean they will necessarily spend all of it.

Rather, the Giants have been looking to limit the long-term contracts they hand out with the money they have already committed to Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt, Evan Longoria, and Johnny Cueto.

With that being said, the Giants have shown that they have been willing to spend this offseason. Despite the lost revenues from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Giants seem to be in a better financial position than many teams. So far, no team has spent more on the 2021 roster than the Giants have this winter.

There is still work to be done as the starting rotation is light on depth.Since taking over as the president of baseball operations, Farhan Zaidi has been aggressive in January and February. We may see more of that this year, especially when it comes to signing veteran pitchers on minor league deals. They likely have room to make three or four more additions of that nature.

In terms of the bullpen and lineup, the Giants seem pretty content and much of the legwork appears to be done. They should still target a left-handed bat to give them another option behind Vosler, but it will likely be a minor league deal as well.

With only six weeks remaining before pitchers and catchers are projected to report, there are still a lot of free agents on the market. The Giants might not be in the market for the top-end names, but they will likely continue shopping in the bargain section as they get the roster ready for 2021.

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SF Giants: Offseason Check-In and Progress Report - Around the Foghorn

Credit Keldon Johnson, for putting up the best scoring night of his professional life while also being asked to defend LeBron James.

Kudos to Derrick White, for showing up for his first game since offseason toe surgery and almost immediately adding to his charges-taken ledger.

High-five to Dejounte Murray, who didnt play as well as he did two nights earlier against the same Los Angeles Lakers, but neither did he rest on that laurel.

There will be a time when simply making the defending NBA champions work for a 109-103 victory will not be cause for celebration in the Spurs locker room.

At this point in the teams youth-laden rebuilding effort, coach Gregg Popovich had to be pleased with the Spurs close-but-no-cigar effort to open 2021 on Friday at the AT&T Center.

We played a heck of a basketball team, Popovich said, and we were a good basketball team tonight also.

Johnson scored a career-best 26 points, made a career-best five 3-pointers and collected 10 rebounds, while DeMar DeRozan recorded 23 points with nine rebounds and seven assists.

It wasnt enough for the Spurs to overcome the LeBron James and Anthony Davis show.

Davis led Los Angeles with 34 points, while James posted 26 points, 10 assists and 11 rebounds for his 95th career triple-double as the Lakers won at the AT&T Center for the second time in three days.

Theyre good, White said, who played in his first game since the 2019-20 season ended in Orlando, Fla.. Theyre the defending champs for a reason.

The Spurs (2-3) at least made the Lakers (4-2) break a sweat Friday.

With 2:34 remaining, the Spurs took a 103-100 lead when Rudy Gay stepped through Wesley Matthews in the post, made a basket and drew a foul.

That would mark the Spurs final points of the night.

From there, the Lakers clamped down with championship-level defense to claim the game.

Davis followed Gays 3-point play with a 3-pointer of his own to knot the score again. The Lakers took the final lead they would need with 57.9 seconds left, as Kyle Kuzma cleaned up James miss at the rim.

The Spurs missed all five of their final shots, with five different players contributing the game-ending futility.

Still, it was not difficult to see the progress the Spurs made from one defeat against the Lakers to the next.

Of course we want to win, no matter who we are playing against, DeRozan said. We fought hard and played them tougher. It just shows you when we go out there and compete at a high level and play hard on both ends what can happen for us.

Truth be told, the Spurs werent terrible two nights earlier against the Lakers either.

LeBron and Co. did not fully run them out the AT&T Center in the first game of the Lakers two-game residency in San Antonio this week.

The Spurs hung around Wednesday behind Murrays career-best 29 points, but the Lakers had enough juice to keep them at bay.

The Spurs cut out some mistakes Friday, and the results were a tied score heading into the final minute.

We played better, Popovich said.

The difference in the end was the Spurs had neither James nor Davis on their roster.

Davis hit four of the Lakers 14 3-pointers, and grabbed 11 rebounds to go with his first 30-point scoring night of the season.

James meanwhile packed the box score as few other players can. Among active players, only Russell Westbrook (150) has more triple-doubles.

Lakers coach Frank Vogel likes to preach to his team about playing no-stress offense. Apparently, having two first-team All-NBA performers on the same roster is quite a stress reducer.

LeBron and Anthony make plays at the end of games, Popovich said. Thats what they do.

Before the game, Vogel said he wasnt sure what to expect of his team, given the Lakers had just beaten the Spurs by 14 points two nights earlier on the same floor.

Theres a big psychological component to tonights game, Vogel said before tipoff.

Vogel did know what to expect from the Spurs.

He expected the Spurs best shot. Thats something that comes with the territory of being the champs.

We know were going to get everybodys best shot, Vogel said. Thats the biggest challenge. Everybodys best effort is going to come our way.

Vogel was right.

Give a special game ball to Johnson, the Spurs 21-year-old forward who capped an eight-day stretch in which he guarded All-Star-caliber scorers in Pascal Siakam, Zion Williamson and James twice by pumping in a career scoring high.

He surpassed the 24 points he twice scored in games in the Orlando, Fla., bubble as a rookie last season.

Johnson has now recorded at least 20 points four times in first 25 career contests. The last Spurs player to accomplish that feat was Johnsons former assistant coach, Tim Duncan, who had six in his first 25 games of the 1997-98 campaign.

Hes a competitor, Popovich said. Hes a fine young player, and hes going to have a great career.

For now, silver linings and moral victories will have to do for the Spurs.

Having lost to the Lakers in consecutive games at the AT&T Center, the Spurs dont have to deal with LeBron and Co. for another six days.

The teams meet again Thursday in Los Angeles.

Popovich, for one, is looking forward at taking another crack at the champs.

Its not good for the record, Popovich said, but its good for our basketball team as far as long term is concerned.

jmcdonald@express-news.net

Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

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Spurs show signs of progress, even in defeat - San Antonio Express-News

Metrics might help speed vaccinations

To the Editor: I am a Bedford Democrat who has crossed party lines for Governor Chris Sununu for the past two elections. I have met him at charity events and am convinced he is the right guy for our state, for our time. That said, we have a population that we need to vaccinate as soon as humanly possible. Early indications about our progress on vaccinations do not give a lot of confidence.

After spending most of my career in the private sector, one leadership lesson I have learned is that it is important to drive focus and alignment on a shared mission. While I understand that the negative severity of our challenge may sell more media, it is important for all our leaders to focus peoples attention on our ability to address this situation. Mask wearing is hugely important but not measurable. But our ability to vaccinate our citizens is the measurable priority we have been waiting for and it should be publicly broadcasted.

People want and, candidly, deserve progress from here. We should be increasingly focused on vaccination execution. We need a shared and understood vaccination target, a shared plan to get there, and frequent communication on our progress to that goal.

Anything less is noise and the kind of banter that the Live Free or Die state pushes itself to rise above.

In the words of my 11 year old, LETS GO!

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Letter: Vaccination metrics needed to drive progress | Letters to the Editor - The Union Leader

Posted: Jan 1, 2021 / 01:03 PM EST / Updated: Jan 1, 2021 / 01:04 PM EST

(WSYR-TV) Gov. Andrew Cuomo updated New Yorkers on the states progress with the COVID-19 pandemic on Friday.

As we enter this new year, New Yorkers should be energized with a bright hope for the future. We know what we have to do to defeat this invisible enemy and we are reminded of what can be achieved when we come together and work toward a united solution. As we start 2021, I encourage all New Yorkers to look to their better angels and continue the practices we know stop the spread of this virus wash your hands, socially distance, andwear a mask. I am confident that we will win this war together because we are New York Tough.

Cuomos office released the following data on Friday:

Below you can find the hospital bed capacity and occupancy in each region:

Below you can find a breakdown of ICU bed capacity and occupancy in each region:

On Thursday, 219,523 test results were reported to the state. Out of those, 7.52% were positive. Below is a breakdown of positivity rates over the last three days:

The governors office also broke down the number of positive cases in each county:

On Thursday, 166 New Yorkers died from COVID-19. This brings the total number of deaths in the state to 30,208, according to the governors office.

More from NewsChannel 9:

For more local news, follow NewsChannel 9 on Twitter @NewsChannel9.

Link:

Gov. Cuomo updates New Yorkers on COVID-19 progress in the state - WSYR

The COVID-19 pandemic has defined our past year, upending the way we learn, interact with each other, and see our families. None of us is immune to the coronavirus or its impact on our daily lives.

But this pandemic is no equalizer not in terms of who has gotten sick or who has been hit hardest by its calamitous economic repercussions.

For our states communities of color, COVID-19 has proven especially devastating.

In Maryland, the rate of cases among Latino residents, per 100,000 people, is nearly three times the rate of their white counterparts.

Black people make up less than a third of Marylands population, compared to 59% who are white. But 37% of the people confirmed to have died from COVID-19 in our state as of Friday were Black, and 48% were white.

Black residents are dying from the virus at a rate of 122 people per 100,000, a rate thats 33% higher than it is for white Marylanders.

These epidemiological outcomes are not random. They have little to do with any unique biological characteristic of the COVID-19 virus.

Ultimately, the wrenching public health disparities we see today are the consequence of broader entrenched inequality and decades of disinvestment in historically marginalized communities.

In our region, Black, Latino and poor residents are more likely to work critical frontline jobs and rely on public transportation, making social distancing more difficult and contracting the virus more likely. Those same marginalized populations disproportionately face pre-existing conditions tangled up in poverty like heart disease, asthma and diabetes that can turn this virus especially lethal.

These disparities in transmission then compound with adjacent conditions of inequality.

The need to transition schooling online has run up against a stark gulf in technology access between students from wealthy and low-income backgrounds. The already-dire achievement gap in our schools is worsening during remote learning.

On average in Montgomery County this academic year, the percentage of Hispanic students in poverty who received failing grades was up 24 points from last year. For Black students in poverty, the increase was 16 points.

Those previously on precarious financial standing have seen the ground disappear beneath them. Food insecurity in our county has exploded, with local food banks unable to meet the demand of newly stretched lines. Unemployment rates, including the number of first-time claims, skyrocketed.

More and more working people, struggling to pay their bills, are reaching into already thin savings.

With the first batch of vaccine doses reaching Montgomery County recently, the beginning of the end of the pandemic is in sight.

But the damage to progress on racial and socioeconomic equity will not vanish on its own. Addressing the inequality exposed and exacerbated by COVID-19 is the primary moral charge of our political leaders in the new year.

Maryland should follow the excellent lead of our countys council members and invest in targeted African American and Latino health programs. The countys emphasis on bridging public health gaps in historically marginalized communities through culturally competent resources sets an exemplary standard for the rest of the state.

Our states leaders must also give new focus politically and fiscally to a heightened achievement gap. New legislation must protect those who have fallen behind on their rent during the pandemic who will face eviction when the states moratorium is eventually lifted.

And retroactive financial support must be doled out for our states frontline workers, who have done the essential work of keeping our state running but have not been paid an essential wage.

There is an urgent need to extend Marylands Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program. Deep investments in rental assistance, food assistance and workforce development will be necessary to give those pushed to the financial brink the freedom to not only survive, but put money away, afford their childs higher education and invest in new businesses.

Legislative frameworks for addressing structural inequality, like 2019s still underutilized racial equity law, should be fully implemented to guide this policy work moving forward with the dual goals of recovering a generations worth of progress on racial and socioeconomic equity and forging new ground in making our community a more equal, better place to live.

Last year was devastating. For our state and county leaders, the priority of 2021 must be intentional, justice-driven healing.

Nate Tinbite is a former student member of the Montgomery County Board of Education and a recent graduate of John F. Kennedy High School. Ananya Tadikonda is a former student member of the board and a graduate of Richard Montgomery High School. Matt Post is a former student member of the board and a graduate of Sherwood High School.

***

Editors note: Bethesda Beat encourages readers to send us their thoughts about local topics we have covered for consideration as a letter to the editor or op-ed piece in our Saturday newsletter. Email them to editorial@bethesdamagazine.com. Here are our guidelines. We require a name and hometown for publication. We also require a phone number (not for publication) for us to verify who wrote the letter. Please provide a source for any facts in your letter that were not part of our coverage; if they cant be verified, they likely will be omitted.

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Repairing progress on racial, economic justice must be priority in new year - BethesdaMagazine.com

Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 20% over the last three months. Given the company's impressive performance, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely as a company's financial health over the long-term usually dictates market outcomes. In this article, we decided to focus on Progress Software's ROE.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

View our latest analysis for Progress Software

Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Progress Software is:

16% = US$57m US$368m (Based on the trailing twelve months to August 2020).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.16 in profit.

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

At first glance, Progress Software seems to have a decent ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 12% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. This probably laid the ground for Progress Software's significant 43% net income growth seen over the past five years. We reckon that there could also be other factors at play here. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.

We then compared Progress Software's net income growth with the industry and we're pleased to see that the company's growth figure is higher when compared with the industry which has a growth rate of 30% in the same period.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Has the market priced in the future outlook for PRGS? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Progress Software's significant three-year median payout ratio of 59% (where it is retaining only 41% of its income) suggests that the company has been able to achieve a high growth in earnings despite returning most of its income to shareholders.

Moreover, Progress Software is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of four years of paying a dividend.

Overall, we are quite pleased with Progress Software's performance. In particular, its high ROE is quite noteworthy and also the probable explanation behind its considerable earnings growth. Yet, the company is retaining a small portion of its profits. Which means that the company has been able to grow its earnings in spite of it, so that's not too bad. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.

PromotedIf you decide to trade Progress Software, use the lowest-cost* platform that is rated #1 Overall by Barrons, Interactive Brokers. Trade stocks, options, futures, forex, bonds and funds on 135 markets, all from a single integrated account.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. *Interactive Brokers Rated Lowest Cost Broker by StockBrokers.com Annual Online Review 2020

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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Progress Software Corporation's (NASDAQ:PRGS) Stock's On An Uptrend: Are Strong Financials Guiding The Market? - Simply Wall St

News Photo by Julie RiddleHome health care worker Billie Jo Karsten checks on patient Chester Szymanski in his Alpena home.

ALPENA This is now the second installment of Progress, which we aim to be an annual feature examining the trends, entrepreneurs, and ordinary workers that drive Northeast Michigans economy (check out Progress 2019 stories at TheAlpenaNews.com).

This year, we considered tackling the undeniable effect the coronavirus pandemic had on local businesses in 2020. It hurt all of them in one way or another. It changed the way many operated. It killed some of them.

But we decided against that topic, which had been covered extensively in the news pages of this paper and which we know is but a blip in the long line of success of Northeast Michigan businesses.

So, instead, this section aims to discuss the things that make Northeast Michigans economy unique, examining the types of industries we offer the world and the people who make those industries hum. We hope you enjoy it.

* Economic, traffic shifts demark northern sector of state, experts say

* Area employers try unconventional methods to recruit talent Up North

* What works here?

* Home health care worker in-demand in rural Northeast Michigan

* Veteran artist part of thriving art scene in Northeast Michigan

* ACC welding teacher learns all he can for his students

* 45th Parallel offers good climate for hunting, farming, fishing, shipwrecks

* Big-money tourism, commerce travels U.S.-23

* Our towns

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

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PROGRESS 2020: All of The News's stories | News, Sports, Jobs - Alpena News

File image courtesy Taiwan National Airborne Service Corps

By The Maritime Executive 01-03-2021 09:06:00

A crewmember aboard a small product tanker was killed in an assault by one of his crewmates while the vessel was under way off the coast of Taiwan, according to Taiwanese authorities.

On January 1, the Cook Islands-flagged product tanker New Progress was under way about 30 nm to the northeast of Taiwan's northernmost tip. A Burmese crewmember - identified as Wai Phy Aung, 27 - was stabbed and badly injured by a crewmate in a fight.

The ship notified Taiwan's National Search and Rescue Command Center, which dispatched a helicopter to medevac the victim. According to state new agency CNA, he had sustained a severe abdominal injury and his blood pressure and heart rate dropped. The SAR helicopter delivered him to medical personnel at Songshan Airport, but he did not survive.

The tanker diverted to Keelung Port after the casualty, but the Keelung Marine Patrol Department says that it will not beconducting an investigation, as Taiwan lacks jurisdiction. The incident occurred aboard a foreign-flagged ship at a position well outside of Taiwanese territorial seas, and all on board are foreign nationals. The responsibility for investigating the crime falls to the Cook Islands, the vessel's flag state.

The New Progress is a 1995-built product tanker of about 8,000 dwt, and she is owned and operated by a firm headquartered in Taiwan. Her manager operates a fleet of 13 ships, the majority older than 25 years.

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Product Tanker Crewmember Stabbed and Killed by a Shipmate - The Maritime Executive

Years in the making, the NTT IndyCar Series introduced its aeroscreen safety device at the onset of the 2020 season. It wasnt perfect, but it appeared to serve its purpose by offering drivers a new and heightened level of cockpit protection.

The series took the lead on developing an aeroscreen of its own, which was tested on a few occasions in 2018, but lingering problems led to tabling the concept in favor of a blade-like deflection device, the Advanced Frontal Protection (AFP) piece. It was better than nothing, but felt like a token effort at the time.

Reflecting on the process of bringing the aeroscreen online and its performance, IndyCar president Jay Frye, who took control of the struggling project, expressed pride with how it eventually came together and built momentum leading into the most recent season.

It was a paddock-wide effort, he told RACER. And to me, the most amazing thing was we worked on this for a couple of years, and then at the COTA Open Test in 2019, we got the drivers together and basically told them we got to a certain point with our aeroscreen, but we were having trouble getting it over the finish line. So we had an idea, and the idea was, Hey, if we put an AFP on the car, we can do that quickly while we call our friends at Red Bull to see if they would be willing to work with us on this aeroscreen. We like their application. Its exactly kind of what we were thinking about doing anyway. And would this work? What do you think?

So everybody was enthused about that. We put the AFP device on the car. Red Bull immediately jumped on it, got PPG, Dallara, and Pankl involved. One year later, at the 2020 COTA Open Test, we had 26 cars equipped with aeroscreens. So it was a massive effort by so many people for something that really was turned around in 12 months. Thats unbelievable from an engineering perspective.

Drivers expressed few issues with adapting to racing behind a thick laminate screen, but the same cant be said about the corresponding lack of cool, onrushing air being delivered to the cockpit. With air now diverted over and around their helmets, ambient temperatures and heat soak from the side-mounted radiators could make sitting inside the Chevy- and Honda-powered cars feel like being stuck inside a cruel saunaall while trying to race and win.

Complicating matters, the arrival of COVID-19 led to a cancellation of all track testing, which meant the series and its drivers would be forced to learn about the cooling issues as they popped up from race to race. Solving problems in public, in the midst of an active championship, was never the intent, but Frye says his engineering team and aeroscreen partners did their best to adapt on the fly.

We did the COTA Open Test, and then we really did not turn another wheel until the Texas Motor Speedway race (in June) because of the pandemic, he said. So we get to Texas. Obviously its really hot, and cooling was put to an extreme test right off the bat. Obviously, we worked on lots of different cooling options throughout the course of the year.

We think weve got a lot at the teams disposals right now. We only mandated the helmet cooling hose, and the rest of the tools that the teams have are optional. At St. Pete, which was a really hot day, a really humid day, last race of the season, you saw a varying effect with different teams using different pieces, which is what we want. Its like, Guys, you have the tools. Use them. And some use more, some less. So well continue to work on it as we do everything, but we think the toolbox is pretty well equipped with cooling devices.

A few more improvements are in the works for 2021.

There was some dust and debris and things like that got in the cockpit, so filtration, and things like that that were working on, Frye said. Weve got anti-fogging heat elements in them. So were looking at all of the boxes we checked and asking how they performed, and if some things are or arent needed.

The aeroscreen was put through a couple of challenges at the Iowa race, where the flying car of Colton Herta was prevented from striking Rinus VeeKays helmet, and it also kept flying debris from the crash making its way into Marcus Ericssons cockpit. Of all the incidents where the aeroscreen served its purpose, Iowa as with Romain Grosjeans halo in the Bahrain Grand Prix offered clear answers as to why the safety device was commissioned.

Throughout the course of the year, there were a few incidents that certainly came into play that had the positive results that we will always want, which was the drivers walked away, Frye said. Overall, you dont get too loud when something does its job like the aeroscreen did; I mean, thats what its there for. But it was a real success that a lot of people were part of, and were really proud of it.

Frye says IndyCar will continue to share crash data and how the aeroscreen performs with the FIA and Formula 1, just as they share details on their findings with the halo with IndyCar. One area in the Grosjean crash that stood out for IndyCars review was the amount of time it took for the Frenchman to extract himself from the car.

With a tight head-surround device, a six-point racing harness, radio and drink bottle connections, and the aforementioned mandatory helmet cooling hose keeping IndyCar drivers tethered to the car in multiple ways, the series is looking into ways where unplugging all lines and hoses might be done in a shorter duration when faced with an emergency.

Thats something were looking at thats part of this off-season process, he confirmed. Weve had one off-season team manager meeting and another one coming up here shortly, and well go through this and standardize some things. We all saw what happened with [Grosjean], and whats the result? Well, the result was what you want, and the driver was okay.

And obviously it was a big incident, so we were already looking at some quick disconnect options on a few things, and when we get the report the findings on the F1 crash, well also see if theres anything in there we could do better, do differently with our frame and screen. Our system is different than theirs, but theres a lot of similar things that can carry over.

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INSIGHT: Progress made and changes to come with IndyCar's aeroscreen - RACER

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, James Graham is collaborating with music legend Elton John and Jake Shears of The Scissor Sisters on a musical take on the life of infamous TV evangelist, Tammy Faye Bakker.

Tammy Faye - The Musical held a workshop earlier this year, directed by Rupert Goold. The production is currently aiming for a 2021 bow at the West End's Almeida Theatre.

Graham revealed to The Guardian that the health crisis allowed for a lot of work to get done on the piece, accelerating the process.

"We've made real progress and we got a workshop together in November," said Graham. "We hope we might get it in to a theatre second half of next year."

Graham said that he was inspired to work on the piece by the intersection of evangelicalism and Reaganism and how that happened again with Trump.

"That sounds really boring and dry doesn't it," said Graham. "But it's with some kick-ass tunes by Elton John!"

Read more on The Guardian.

Tamara Faye was an American Christian singer, evangelist, author, talk show hostess, and television personality. She initially gained notice for her work with The PTL Club, a televangelist program that she co-founded with her husband Jim Bakker in 1974. They had hosted their own puppet show series for local programming in Minnesota in the early 1970s; Messner also had a career as a recording artist. In 1978, she and Bakker built Heritage USA, a Christian theme park.

Messner garnered significant publicity when Jim Bakker was indicted, convicted, and imprisoned on numerous counts of fraud and conspiracy in 1989, resulting in the dissolution of The PTL Club.

During her career Messner was noted for her eccentric and glamorous persona, as well as for her moral views that diverged from those of many mainstream Evangelists, particularly her acceptance of LGBT views and reaching out to HIV/AIDS patients at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

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James Graham Reveals Progress Has Been Made on Tammy Faye Bakker Musical, With Music From Elton John - Broadway World