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Blue Shield of California First Health Plan to Offer Innovative Blue Zones Challenge™ App to Members

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Blue Zones offerings help members live longer and happier through Blue Shield’s award-winning Wellvolution platform, improving health outcomes for members with holistic care solutions.

OAKLAND, Calif., July 31, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Blue Shield of California members now have access to the Blue Zones Challenge™ app, a first-of-its-kind program offered by a health plan to help its customers emulate sustainable, holistic lifestyle habits of people in the blue zones regions around the world that live longer, healthier, and happier lives. These regions were identified by Blue Zones founder, Dan Buettner, who has spent over 25 years researching the cultures of the world’s longest living populations.

Popularized in the Emmy Award-winning Netflix docuseries “Live to 100: Secrets of Blue Zones”, Blue Zones principles focus on goals including daily movement, socialization, and thoughtful food choices inspired by the daily habits of people living in blue zones regions.

The app is now available to Blue Shield members following a successful pilot program where 99% of the more than 1,000 participants self-reported improvement in their well-being.

Blue Shield members can access the app through the nonprofit health plan’s digital lifestyle medicine platform, Wellvolution, at no additional cost. For the last five years, Wellvolution has offered a suite of programs that address mental health, diabetes, hypertension, weight management, musculoskeletal health, and tobacco cessation. The addition of the Blue Zones Challenge app creates a new category of program focused on improving whole-person health and longevity, rather than a solution to address a specific chronic condition.

“With the Blue Zones Challenge app, members can not only build sustainable habits relating to healthy eating and natural movement, but also build personal connections and community,” said Angie Kalousek Ebrahimi, senior director of Lifestyle Medicine, Blue Shield of California. “We are in the midst of a nationwide loneliness crisis, which impacts both the mind and the body, so we are thrilled to provide a solution that emphasizes healthy living, including community building.”

Upon downloading the Blue Zones Challenge app, Blue Shield members will complete assessments regarding longevity, happiness, nutrition and purpose, set up their surroundings to aid in seamless healthy habits, and write their personal purpose statement. From there, members will track Blue Zones activities daily – examples include eating a cup of beans, going on a walk, and spending 30 minutes on a hobby. Each completed activity has a point value, with the goal of hitting 400 points per week. The app encourages activity outside of the phone screen – improving social connections and one’s surroundings by completing these simple tasks.

“The Blue Zones Challenge app is evidence-based and science backed,” said Ben Leedle, chief executive officer of Blue Zones. “By working with Blue Shield of California to offer the app to members at no additional cost, we can help Californians build community and live happier, healthier, and less stressed lives through simple changes to their lifestyle and diet habits.”

Members can go to Wellvolution.com/BlueZones to sign in or create a new account to get started with The Blue Zones Challenge app, which is currently available to all fully insured individual and family plan members, as well as Administrative Services Only (ASO) groups who buy Wellvolution.

About Blue Shield of California
Blue Shield of California strives to create a healthcare system worthy of its family and friends that is sustainably affordable. The health plan is a tax paying, nonprofit, independent member of the Blue Shield Association with more than 4.8 million members, over 7,100 employees and more than $25 billion in annual revenue. Founded in 1939 in San Francisco and now headquartered in Oakland, Blue Shield of California and its affiliates provide health, dental, vision, Medicaid and Medicare healthcare service plans in California. The company has contributed more than $77 million to the Blue Shield of California Foundation in the last three years to have an impact on California communities.

For more news about Blue Shield of California, please visit news.blueshieldca.com

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About Blue Zones
Blue Zones employs evidence-based ways to help people live better, longer. The company’s work is rooted in explorations and research done by founder and National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner in blue zones regions around the world, where people live extraordinarily long and/or happy lives. The original research and findings were released in Buettner’s bestselling books The Blue Zones Solution, The Blue Zones of Happiness, The Blue Zones, Thrive, Blue Zones Kitchen, and The Blue Zones Challenge—all published by National Geographic books. An Emmy Award-winning docuseries, Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones, was released on Netflix in 2023. Using original Blue Zones research, Blue Zones works with cities and counties to make healthy choices easier through permanent and semi-permanent changes to our human-made surroundings. Participating communities have experienced double-digit drops in obesity and tobacco use and have saved millions of dollars in healthcare costs.

CONTACT:

Kelly Nuckols

Blue Shield of California        

510-607-2359

media@blueshieldca.com     

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SOURCE Blue Shield of California

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Flō Networks Announces Intention to Launch Public Tender Offers to Acquire Up to 100% of Controladora Axtel, S.A.B. de C.V. and Axtel, S.A.B. de C.V.

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MEXICO CITY and EL PASO, Texas, Sept. 1, 2026 /CNW/ — Transtelco Holding, Inc. (doing business as Flō Networks, or “Flō”), a U.S.-based, independent digital infrastructure provider operating its own fiber-optic network across Mexico, the Southwestern United States and Latin America, today announced its intention to launch concurrent public tender offers (ofertas públicas de adquisición, or the “Offers”) to acquire up to 100% of the outstanding shares of Controladora Axtel, S.A.B. de C.V. (“Controladora Axtel”) and up to 100% of the outstanding CPOs of Axtel, S.A.B. de C.V. (“Axtel,” and together with Controladora Axtel, the “Axtel Companies”).

Flō has received preliminary approval from the Boards of Directors of both Axtel Companies to continue the process

Flō has received preliminary approval from the Boards of Directors of both Axtel Companies to continue the process toward launching the Offers, and is working to obtain the required regulatory approvals.

The commencement of the Offers remains subject to authorization by the Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores, clearance by the Comisión Nacional Antimonopolio, the receipt of any other required regulatory approvals, and the satisfaction of the applicable contractual and corporate conditions. Subject to the satisfaction of these requirements, Flō is prepared to move promptly toward commencement of the Offers. The terms and conditions of the Offers, including the applicable offering documents, will be published in accordance with Mexican securities laws and the regulations of the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores at the appropriate time.

“This is an important step in our long-term vision for Flō and for the digital infrastructure that will support Mexico’s continued economic and technological development,” said Miguel Fernandez, Chief Executive Officer of Flō Networks. “By bringing together the complementary networks, capabilities and talent of Flō and Axtel, we have an opportunity to create a stronger digital infrastructure platform with greater scale, reach and capacity to serve customers across Mexico and beyond. We believe that stronger infrastructure enables stronger businesses, greater innovation and new opportunities for the communities and economies we connect.”

The proposed acquisition would combine complementary assets and expertise to strengthen Flō’s ability to invest in network resilience, expand its portfolio of digital services and deliver greater value to businesses operating in Mexico and across the region. Flō believes the combination would create meaningful operational and commercial synergies while supporting continued investment in the infrastructure required for critical technologies for productivity and competitiveness. The transaction would also create opportunities for long-term value creation for customers, employees, shareholders, partners and the communities the companies serve.

About Flō Networks

Founded as Transtelco in 2001, Flō Networks is a leading digital infrastructure provider connecting companies on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and across the Americas. Flō provides comprehensive connectivity solutions and advanced cloud infrastructure to Fortune 500 companies, telecommunications providers and cable operators through a fiber-optic network spanning more than 30,000 route miles across the Southwestern United States and Mexico, with connectivity across fifteen countries throughout the Americas. For more information, visit flo.net.

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SOURCE Flō Networks

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Arista Demand Hires Jordanna Howard to Strengthen the Company’s Continued Growth

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SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Arista Demand, a leading provider of B2B demand generation solutions, is pleased to announce Jordanna Howard has joined the company as VP, Global Integrated Sales, effective September 1, 2026.

Prior to joining Arista Demand, Jordanna spent five years at Veritas Media Group, serving as VP of Client Services. Jordanna played a key part in growing VMG’s client portfolio and driving net-new revenue through new business partnerships, while also expanding and strengthening existing client relationships. She was instrumental in championing VMG’s reputation for white-glove service, exceptional client experiences, and long-term client success.

Jordanna joins Arista Demand as the organization continues to expand its capabilities, strengthen and build client partnerships, and help B2B organizations connect with the right prospects through results-driven demand generation and media initiatives.

“We are thrilled to welcome Jordanna to Arista Demand,” said Managing Director, Jennifer Sand. “She brings tremendous experience, energy, and a client-focused approach that aligns perfectly with how we work. Jordanna will be an important part of our continued growth, and we’re excited to have her on the team.”

In her new role, Jordanna will focus on client development, partnerships, and sales. Her experience in digital and non-traditional media will further strengthen Arista Demand’s ability to deliver innovative and integrated, measurable solutions, beyond lead gen, for clients.

“I’m excited to join Arista Demand and become part of a team that is so focused on its clients and their success,” said Howard. “I look forward to contributing to the company’s growth and helping our clients achieve meaningful results.”

Jordanna lives in Napa, California, with her partner, Jeff, and daughter, Mackie. Outside of work, she loves spending time with family and friends and is passionate about giving back.

She serves on UCSF’s Board of Directors for “All May See” vision foundation as well as sfBIG’s Board, supporting and connecting the Bay Area advertising community. Jordanna is also actively involved in her daughter’s school and is the troop leader for her local Girl Scouts Brownie troop.

About Arista Demand

Arista Demand helps B2B organizations accelerate revenue through intent targeted demand generation programs designed to connect brands with their respective audience that matter most. Through a combination of intent, 1st party data, strategy, technology, and client-focused execution, Arista Demand helps marketers build pipeline and drive measurable business results. Arista Demand brings buyers and sellers together around the globe. 

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SOURCE Arista Demand

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Reducto Unveils a Frontier Parsing Model That Makes the World’s Hardest Documents AI-Ready for 1¢ a Page

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The new r-1 model is the first in a family of document intelligence models that reduces parsing errors by up to 20% while replacing complex, multi-tool pipelines with a single model that costs up to 6× less.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Reducto today introduced r-1, a frontier document parsing model that turns complex PDFs, scans, spreadsheets, and other files into accurate, structured data for AI systems.

Reducto has already established itself as a leader in document parsing by handling the long tail of complex files that break conventional tools. Available today in preview, r-1 extends that lead—reducing errors by up to 20%, improving latency at high volumes, and bringing the all-in cost down to 1¢ per page.

Before an AI system can reason over a document, it must first understand what is on the page. That becomes difficult when meaning is encoded not only in text, but also in tables, handwriting, reading order, formatting, checkboxes, strikethroughs, and the position of content. A parser that misreads a financial table can give an AI agent the wrong numbers. One that drops a strikethrough can reverse the meaning of a contract.

Established services such as Amazon Textract and Azure Document Intelligence helped make cloud document processing widely available. But organizations working with complex documents often still combine multiple tools, models, and layers of post-processing to achieve the accuracy they need. In Reducto’s evaluations, r-1 outperformed commonly used hyper-scaler products and large LLMs on complex documents while providing a complete parse at one all-in price.

Built from the ground up and trained on some of the most challenging document data in the world, r-1 combines layout detection, reading order, tables, formatting, grounding, and granular citations in a single model. It is designed for the long tail of documents where simpler parsers break down, including dense tables, unusual layouts, low-quality scans, handwriting, watermarked content, and files that do not follow predictable templates.

By combining these capabilities, r-1 can handle an organization’s full document workload without requiring teams to route files among providers or maintain separate pipelines for different document types. Its flat price of 1¢ per page includes the complete parse, without additional model charges or feature-based multipliers.

r-1 is the first in a broader family of Reducto parsing models designed for different points on the accuracy, latency, and cost curve. Planned additions include r-1 mini, a smaller model for speed- and cost-sensitive workloads, and automatic routing that selects the right model for each page.

Organizations using another parser can receive up to $5,000 in credits to test r-1 on their most difficult documents, along with hands-on benchmarking support, at reducto.ai/migrate. r-1 is also available today in preview through a configuration flag in the Reducto Parse API.

About Reducto

Reducto is an agentic document platform that turns complex, real-world documents into structured data for AI agents and document-intensive workflows. The company has raised more than $108 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital and has processed more than a billion pages a month. Its customers include Harvey, Scale AI, Vanta, Airtable, Toast, and Fortune 10 enterprises.

 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/reducto-unveils-a-frontier-parsing-model-that-makes-the-worlds-hardest-documents-ai-ready-for-1-a-page-302866077.html

SOURCE Reducto

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