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Spacecraft manufacturer York Space Systems won a Pentagon contact worth up to $200 million to build experimental satellites for the military’s Space Development Agency (SDA).
Known as the T1DES system, York will build and operate 12 prototype satellites that will test satellite communications from low Earth Orbit.
SDA director Derek Tournear said during a press briefing on Thursday that work on the T1DES satellites will begin shortly, with launches planned for 2025.

The S-CLASS platform, designed for missions for a wide variety of government and commercial customers.
York Space Systems

Spacecraft manufacturer York Space Systems won a Pentagon contact worth up to $200 million, announced Thursday, to build experimental satellites for the military’s Space Development Agency (SDA).
Known as the T1DES system, York will build and operate 12 prototype satellites that will test satellite communications from low Earth Orbit, as an addition to the “Tranche 1 Transport Layer” (T1TL) network that SDA is already building. York previously won $328 million as part of a larger contract to build satellites for T1TL.

“We are very appreciative to have the continued trust of SDA in helping to fulfill their vision of the future,” York founder and CEO Dirk Wallinger said in a statement.
York earlier this week announced new private equity ownership and investment by AE Industrial Partners and BlackRock. As CNBC reported on Tuesday, the deal makes York the latest space unicorn – with a valuation over $1 billion.
SDA director Derek Tournear said during a press briefing on Thursday that work on the T1DES satellites will begin shortly, with launches planned for 2025 and the program’s timeline of flight operations extending out to 2031.

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Tournear explained that T1DES is experimental since the system will attempt to use satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) to demonstrate communications capabilities currently served by satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO).
“There are actually a lot of technical challenges that we need to prove out to show that the technology can be applied from moving it from geosynchronous down to LEO,” Tournear said.

SDA received six bids for the T1DES contract, Tournear noted before declining to comment on the price ranges of the other companies’ bids. At less than $17 million per satellite, Tournear said “the York solution came back to be very affordable.”
The Space Force acquisition group is now focused on building its Transport Layer system, although SDA has already seen supply chain issues from the various companies under contract.
“Every day we continue to chase down gremlins to make sure that we can get the parts and and the labor needed to deliver on time,” Tournear said.

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The third quarter of every year is historically the busiest for apartment rentals, but demand fell this year, according to RealPage.
It’s the first time the rental technology platform has recorded a third-quarter drop in the 30 years it’s been tracking the metric.
Asking rents, which had already been growing at a slower pace at the start of this year compared with last year, dropped in September for the first time since December 2020

The third quarter of every year is historically the busiest for apartment rentals, but demand fell this year, according to RealPage.
It’s the first time the rental technology platform has recorded a third-quarter drop in the 30 years it’s been tracking the metric. Demand fell by more than 82,000 units nationally, according to the report.

This came after a record number of new renters filled apartments during the first two years of the Covid pandemic. Now, household formation appears to have stalled, with more renters now moving out than moving in.
Apartment vacancies popped 1 percentage point to 4.1%, still very low due to that previous demand surge.
“Soft leasing numbers coupled with weak home sales point to low consumer confidence,” said Jay Parsons, head of economics and industry principals at RealPage. “Inflation and economic uncertainty are having a freezing effect on major housing decisions. When people are uncertain, human nature is to go into ‘wait and see’ mode.”
As a result of the slowdown in demand, asking rents, which had already been growing at a slower pace at the start of this year compared with last year, dropped in September for the first time since December 2020, down 0.2%.
Higher rents in general may be turning some potential tenants away, but the slowdown appears to be across all price points.

And current renters seem to be in a pretty good financial position overall. Household incomes among new lease signers were up 13%, year over year, through August, and rent collections improved as well, at 95.4%, up from 94.9% the year before.
“If jobs and wages continue to hold up as they have and inflation cools to some degree, we should see pent-up rental demand unlocked ahead of the spring 2023 leasing season,” Parsons said.
There’s still one red flag for investors in apartment stocks, though: Apartment construction is now at a 40-year high. Apartment REITs were already getting hammered by higher interest rates, and more supply in the face of falling demand is not a good mix.
Completions of roughly 917,000 new units are on track to peak in the second half of next year — the majority at the higher rent tiers.
“Peak rent growth is clearly in the rearview mirror,” said Carl Whitaker, senior director of research and analysis at RealPage. “That’s true coast to coast. And with apartment supply set to start increasing, it’s unlikely we’ll see rents reaccelerate even as demand returns.”

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The gun industry has broad immunity from the fallout of mass shootings. Experts say plaintiffs in new lawsuits face an uphill battle.
But survivors, victims, family members and gun law advocates see an opportunity to hold manufacturers and dealers liable by calling into question their sales and marketing practices.
If successful, these suits, stemming from this year’s mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Highland Park, Illinois, may reshape how guns are sold to Americans.

People lay flowers and cards near a spot where a mass shooting took place during the 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois on July 6, 2022.
Jacek Boczarski | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

The survivors and families of victims of recent mass shootings in Texas and Illinois are taking on gun companies and stores in dozens of lawsuits, alleging the businesses bear responsibility for the massacres.
Last week, survivors of the July 4 mass shooting at a parade in Highland Park, Illinois, sued gun maker Smith & Wesson Brands, two gun retailers and others for their alleged role in the attack that left seven dead and more than 40 injured. The families of three children who survived the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting earlier this year are pursuing legal action in separate cases, as well.

The gun industry, under federal law, has broad immunity from the fallout of mass shootings. Experts say plaintiffs face an uphill battle. But survivors, victims, family members and gun law advocates see an opportunity to hold manufacturers and dealers liable by calling into question their sales and marketing practices. If successful, these suits may reshape how guns are sold to Americans.
“The shooter in Highland Park didn’t act on his own,” said Eric Tirschwell, executive director of Everytown Law, one of the firms representing plaintiffs.
The Highland Park suits were filed in Lake County Circuit Court on behalf of the family members of people who were killed. The plaintiffs allege Smith & Wesson used deceptive marketing strategies to “appeal to the impulsive, risk-taking tendencies of civilian adolescent and post-adolescent males.”
The plaintiffs also accuse online distributor Bud’s Gun Shop and retailer Red Dot Arms of negligently and illegally selling the murder weapon — a Smith & Wesson M&P assault-style rifle — to the shooter despite a ban on selling such weapons in Highland Park. (Last month, a gun rights group sued the city, targeting the ban.) The man charged with killings and his father are also being sued.
The plaintiffs seek a jury trial and monetary damages from each of the defendants. CNBC reached out to Smith Wesson, Bud’s Gun Shop and Red Dot Arms for comment.

The Uvalde plaintiffs, meanwhile, are seeking punitive damages against gun manufacturer Daniel Defense, Firequest International Inc., which designed the accessory trigger system used by the gunman, and gun store Oasis Outback.
The complaint, filed last week in Texas’ Western District Court, also seeks to hold accountable the school district, city and law enforcement officials. It alleges that the failures and negligence by each of these entities played a role in the attack that left 21 students and teachers dead on May 24 after an 18-year-old gunman began firing into classrooms at Robb Elementary School.
According to the suit, Daniel Defense “directly sold the Uvalde shooter a DDM4 V7 days after his 18th birthday,” and alleges that the gun manufacturer’s marketing to young adult males is “reckless, deliberate, intentional, and needlessly endanger American children.”

“This is a company that chooses to stay ignorant of the harm they cause communities like Uvalde so they can continue to recklessly market their products and make millions,” said Stephanie Sherman, who is representing the families, in a press release.
The plaintiffs are also suing Firequest International for selling an accessory trigger system used to convert a semiautomatic rifle into the equivalent of a machine gun, and accusing local firearms dealer Oasis Outback of selling weapons to the gunman “knowing he was suspicious and likely dangerous.”
CNBC reached out to Daniel Defense for comment, Firequest International and Oasis Outback for comment.
The accused Highland Park shooter has pleaded not guilty. The Uvalde shooter was killed.

A difficult fight

Under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA, signed into law in 2005, gun manufacturers and dealers have broad federal protections that shield them from consequences when crimes have been committed using their products.
Jake Charles, a law professor at Pepperdine University who specializes in firearms law, said these suits face an uphill battle because of PLCAA.
“PLCAA is quite clearly the biggest boon to manufacturers and dealers in cases like these,” he said. “It’s a strong shield against many types of claims arising from gun misuse.”
While PCLAA, added Charles, “prohibits most ordinary negligence claims against gun defendants in cases like this,” a claim has a chance at moving past it if it “alleges that the defendants violated a state or federal law applicable to the sale or marketing of a firearm.”
Earlier this year, the families of nine Sandy Hook school shooting victims settled a lawsuit for $73 million against Remington, the maker of the AR-15-style rifle used in the 2012 massacre in which 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school.
The families in that suit, which is believed to be the largest payout by a gun manufacturer in a mass shooting case, alleged that the rifle used by the Newtown shooter was marketed to younger, at-risk males in advertising and product placement in video games.
Remington, which twice filed for bankruptcy in recent years, could not be reached for comment.
Antonio Romanucci, one of the attorneys representing plaintiffs in the Highland Park case, notes PCLAA has multiple exceptions – “one of which is when a gun manufacturer violates state or federal law in the marketing or sale of its weapons, just as we’ve alleged Smith & Wesson has done here.”
For this reason, said Romanucci, he expects an Illinois court to side with him and “hold Smith & Wesson accountable for its illegal and negligent conduct.”
Charles said even with this exception, it’s difficult to anticipate how the cases in Highland Park and Uvalde will go.
“It will depend in large part whether the judges who hear these cases are persuaded by the ruling in the Sandy Hook and similar cases,” he said.

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Peloton has to prove that its recent spate of strategy changes can help the company grow, CEO Barry McCarthy told CNBC.
The fitness equipment maker is cutting another 500 jobs after multiple layoff rounds this year.
“The restructuring is done with today’s announcement,” McCarthy said. “Now we’re focused on growth.”

A man walks in front of a Peloton store in Manhattan on May 05, 2021 in New York.
John Smith | Corbis News | Getty Images

Peloton is cutting another 500 jobs in a move that CEO Barry McCarthy said should position the struggling fitness equipment maker to return to growth.
The cuts, which amount to about 12% of Peloton’s workforce, mark a pivot point for the company, McCarthy told CNBC on Thursday. Peloton already has had multiple rounds of layoffs this year.

“The restructuring is done with today’s announcement,” he said. “Now we’re focused on growth.”
McCarthy said the company now has to prove its recent spate of strategy changes, including equipment rentals and partnerships with Amazon and Hilton, can help it grow.
Shares of Peloton seesawed in premarket trading. The stock is down about 76% so far this year.
McCarthy has overseen drastic changes to Peloton’s business model this year as the company struggled with sales after a boom during the earlier days of the Covid pandemic. A former Spotify and Netflix executive, he has pushed the company’s business further into subscriptions while broadening the availability of its products beyond Peloton’s direct-to-consumer roots.
Earlier this week, the company said it would put its bikes in every Hilton-branded hotel in the United States. It recently announced partnerships to sell equipment in Dick’s Sporting Goods stores and on Amazon.

McCarthy talked to CNBC after The Wall Street Journal reported on remarks he made about where the company could stand in six months.
“If we don’t grow,” McCarthy, who took over as CEO earlier this year from co-founder John Foley, told the Journal, “We need to grow to get the business to a sustainable level.” The Journal also first reported on the layoffs.
Beyond that point, though, the company, which has slowed the rate of its cash burn, is “extremely well capitalized” and “highly liquid,” McCarthy said in the interview with CNBC. And it’s still on track to meet its cash flow goals for the fiscal year.
“I’m feeling about as optimistic as I’ve ever felt,” he said, reflecting on the changes the company made over the past several months.

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