DENVER, May 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Rocket Propulsion Division at Edwards AFB, Calif., has awarded Ursa Major a $28,565,857 firm-fixed price contract for responsive space, hypersonic, and on-orbit propulsion. This new contract will follow-on work completed to mature advanced liquid rocket engines and will culminate in a flight demonstration.

“Under this contract, Ursa Major serves as the lead integrator for a tactical flight demonstrator that will prove the ability to use a storable liquid rocket system for hypersonic applications,” said Dan Jablonsky, CEO of Ursa Major. “Because of their tactical configuration, storable liquid rocket engines, like Ursa Major’s Draper, are uniquely positioned to deliver to the warfighter a hypersonic capability that is manufacturable at scale and at a fraction of the cost of alternatives.”

Ursa Major’s Draper propulsion system combines the long-term storable attributes of solid rocket motors with the active throttle control and extended ranges of liquid systems, providing maneuverability, distance and flexibility needed for hypersonic applications for warfighters. Developed as a tactical, storable variant of the flight-proven and in-production Hadley system, Draper’s design furthers effective simulation of hypersonic threats and addresses critical gaps in America’s hypersonic capabilities. Draper is a 4,000-pound-thrust closed catalyst cycle system that uses non-cryogenic fuels that optimize long-term storability. Ursa Major announced  the successful hotfire of the Draper engine in May 2024 following the announcement  of the development of Draper. Draper has subsequently conducted over 200 hot-fires, and this will be its maiden flight. 

About Ursa Major 
Ursa Major is an aerospace and defense company, providing products and solutions for hypersonic, tactical missile, and space mobility systems. The company applies state-of-the-art digital and additive manufacturing techniques to rapidly produce the most advanced, cost-effective solutions. Ursa Major has category-leading hypersonic, on-orbit, and solid rocket motor propulsion capabilities. Ursa Major’s customers range from commercial space technology providers to enterprise-level aerospace and defense leaders as well as the U.S. government. The company employs the most sought-after engineers from top aerospace programs and universities, united in the core values of disruptive innovation, flying faster, and providing reliable and cost-effective systems. Headquartered in Berthoud, Colorado, with additive manufacturing facilities in Youngstown, Ohio, Ursa Major was named one of the best places to work by Built in Colorado three years in a row.

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SOURCE Ursa Major

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., May 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Rockpoint Legal Funding today released The 2025 Lawsuit-Duration Index, a first-of-its-kind analysis that ranks U.S. states by the average time it takes a routine civil lawsuit to reach resolution. Drawing on thousands of line-items from trial-court dashboards, annual judiciary reports, and the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) case-flow datasets, the study shines a light on the calendar realities behind America’s crowded dockets.

States Where Civil Cases Last the Longest

New York — ≈ 30 months
 Why so long? Dense commercial caseloads, heavy discovery, and a “deferred note-of-issue” system that gives parties up to a year to certify readiness can stretch the calendar. Even though New York’s Differentiated Case Management (DCM) rule sets a target of 15 months from filing to judgment, backlogs in the Supreme Court’s civil terms routinely push cases to double that figure.California — ≈ 24 months
 Unlimited-jurisdiction civil matters must, by statewide standard, wrap up within two years, yet fiscal-year dashboards show that fewer than 80 percent of cases hit the 24-month mark, with the remainder spilling into a third year. Factors include large jury pools, complex consumer statutes, and pandemic-era continuances that have not fully cleared. Florida — ≈ 20 months
 Circuit-court dashboards reveal that barely half of ordinary negligence and contract suits close inside 18 months. Although the Supreme Court adopted aggressive case-management rules in 2023, trial-level clearance rates are still catching up, and hurricane-related insurance litigation continues to clog calendars. Illinois — ≈ 18 months
Cook County alone processes more than 250 000 civil filings a year. Medical-malpractice caps were struck down a decade ago, and lengthy expert-witness phases keep many cases open well past the 1½-year horizon set by the state’s Time-Standards order. Tort hotspots in Madison and St. Clair Counties skew the statewide mean upward. (Source: Illinois Courts Statistical Summary, 2024).Texas — ≈ 14 months
 A statewide “Age of Cases Disposed” audit for fiscal year 2023 shows that 58 percent of district-court civil cases are resolved inside a year; another 12 percent finish by 18 months; the remainder stretch longer, producing a weighted average of roughly 430 days. Urban districts with multicounty venues (Harris, Dallas, Bexar) post the slowest numbers

National context: Across 19 benchmark jurisdictions surveyed by the NCSC, the mean time to disposition for civil matters was 43 weeks—just under eleven months—highlighting how outlier states pull the national average upward.

Why Do Timelines Vary So Widely?

Caseload Mix – States dominated by high-stakes personal-injury, medical-malpractice, or complex commercial cases run longer discovery schedules than states whose dockets lean toward simpler contract or small-claims matters.Procedural Rules – Broad discovery allowances (New York CPLR, California CCP) and generous continuance policies add months. Fast-track “rocket-docket” rules, used in parts of Texas and Virginia, compress schedules.Judicial Resources – Trial-level judge-to-population ratios range from 3.9 per 100 000 residents in California to 2.6 in Texas; shortages translate directly into fuller calendars and later trial dates.Backlog Hangover – Pandemic pauses left hundreds of thousands of jury-demand cases unresolved; courts that pivoted to virtual hearings (Florida, Texas) cleared inventory faster than states that waited for in-person sessions.Local Legal Culture – In some venues, strategic delay is a negotiation tactic. High defense-side insurance penetration can encourage “wait it out” settlement strategies, particularly in auto-injury suits.

Economic and Human Costs

Direct Expense – The U.S. tort system cost $443 billion in 2022—about 2.1 percent of GDP—according to the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. Longer case cycles increase those costs by boosting attorney hours, expert-witness fees, and carrying charges.Business Impact – Protracted litigation discourages expansion in plaintiff-friendly states and inflates liability-insurance premiums, costs ultimately passed to consumers.Personal Hardship – Plaintiffs waiting years for compensation often face medical bills, lost wages, or repair costs they cannot defer. Delays disproportionately harm low-income claimants who lack emergency savings.

How Legal Funding Fits In

“Justice delayed shouldn’t be justice denied,” said Maz Ghorban, President of Rockpoint Legal Funding. “Our non-recourse advances give injured people the breathing room to see their cases through rather than settling early for pennies on the dollar.”

Because Rockpoint is only repaid if a case resolves favorably, the company’s interests are aligned with plaintiffs pursuing full, fair value—even in jurisdictions where court calendars run two or three years past filing. Rockpoint underwrites claims nationwide but sees the highest funding volumes in the very states that top the duration list, confirming the link between long case cycles and financial strain.

Methodology

Rockpoint analysts aggregated more than 4.2 million disposition records from:

The National Center for State Courts case-flow dashboards (43-state sample, FY 2023).Individual judiciary statistical reports (California, Florida, Texas, Illinois, New York).County-level “age-of-case” spreadsheets for large urban districts.

Cases involving small-claims, probate, or family-law matters were excluded to isolate routine civil tort and contract litigation. Mean and median days were calculated, then rounded to the nearest month for readability.

Looking Ahead

State supreme courts in Florida and Texas have adopted stricter case-management orders requiring active judicial oversight at the 90- and 180-day marks; California lawmakers are weighing pilot “civil fast-track” programs modeled on federal Rule 26(f). If fully implemented, those reforms could shave six to nine months off average durations over the next three years.

For more information on how Rockpoint Legal Funding can help plaintiffs bridge the financial gap while their cases wind through the courts, visit rockpointlegalfunding.com.

Media Contact: Dante Williams
Director of Digital Marketing
Rockpoint Legal Funding
(213) 657-6500
pr@rockpointlegal.com

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SOURCE Rockpoint Legal Funding

DALLAS, May 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — PRIME FiBER, a commercial open-access fiber infrastructure company, has signed agreements with AT&T for the provision of wholesale fiber access services in the Sun City area of Maricopa County and the City of Peoria, Arizona.

PRIME FiBER was established in late 2023 and operates as the wholesale open-access arm of NOVOS FiBER, a retail fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) company serving residents and small businesses. The business is backed by InLight Capital, a private investment firm based in Sugar Land, Texas.

The news follows a public announcement by PRIME FiBER and AT&T in 2024 confirming a similar agreement in Naples, Bonita Springs, Golden Gate and San Carlos Park, Florida.

Andrew Snead, CEO of PRIME FiBER, shared his excitement about the expansion: “We are thrilled to strengthen our relationship with AT&T by extending our reach into 2 new markets in the greater Phoenix area. Our Florida build is progressing well and adding Sun City and Peoria to our footprint marks another milestone in our mission to expand high-quality fiber infrastructure. We look forward to bringing our services to even more communities in the near future.”

Erin Scarborough, Senior Vice President of Consumer Product at AT&T added, “We remain highly committed to our converged growth strategy driven by expanding our leading fiber footprint and building on the positive momentum with PRIME FiBER in Florida. We’re excited about this expansion in the great state of Arizona, and we will continue to work with service providers such as PRIME FiBER to accelerate our efforts to provide leading converged services to more homes.”

For more information on partnership opportunities, please visit www.primefiberco.com. 

About PRIME FiBER 

PRIME FiBER is an open-access fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure provider serving ISPs (Internet Service Providers), infrastructure consolidators and enterprises across the US. PRIME FiBER is funded by InLight Capital, a private investment firm based in Sugar Land, Texas. 

About AT&T

We help more than 100 million U.S. families, friends and neighbors, plus nearly 2.5 million businesses, connect to greater possibility. From the first phone call 140+ years ago to our 5G wireless and multi-gig internet offerings today, we @ATT innovate to improve lives. For more information about AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), please visit us at about.att.com. Investors can learn more at investors.att.com.

About InLight Capital 

InLight Capital, LLC (“InLight”) is a private investment firm based in Sugar Land, Texas. InLight’s permanent capital base allows us to pursue an objective of long duration and compounded capital growth. InLight maintains flexibility and discretion of the amount, duration and objectives of its invested capital, allowing for efficient decision making and strategic alignment with all stakeholders. InLight invests across two primary verticals: private investments and real estate.

Media Contact: Brittany Alia, brittany.alia@novosfiber.com 

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SOURCE PRIME FiBER