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Bell Announces Results of its Cash Tender Offers for Five Series of Debt Securities

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This news release contains forward-looking statements. For a description of the related risk factors and assumptions, please see the section entitled “Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements” later in this news release.

MONTRÉAL, March 24, 2025 /CNW/ – Bell Canada (“Bell” or the “Company”) today announced the release of the results of its previously announced five separate offers (the “Offers”) to purchase for cash the outstanding notes of the series listed in the table below (collectively, the “Notes”).

The Offers were made upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase dated March 17, 2025 relating to the Notes (the “Offer to Purchase”) and the notice of guaranteed delivery attached as Appendix A thereto (together with the Offer to Purchase, the “Tender Offer Documents”). The Notes are unconditionally guaranteed as to payment of principal, interest and other obligations by BCE Inc. (“BCE”), Bell Canada’s parent company. Capitalized terms used but not defined in this announcement have the meanings given to them in the Offer to Purchase.

The Offers expired at 5:00 p.m. (Eastern time) today, March 24, 2025 (the “Expiration Date”). The Guaranteed Delivery Date is 5:00 p.m. (Eastern time) on March 26, 2025. The Settlement Date will be March 27, 2025.

According to information provided by D.F. King & Co., Inc., the Information and Tender Agent in connection with the Offers, US$844,352,000 combined aggregate principal amount of Notes were validly tendered prior to or at the Expiration Date and not validly withdrawn. In addition, US$8,937,000 combined aggregate principal amount of Notes were tendered pursuant to the Guaranteed Delivery Procedures and remain subject to the Holders’ performance of the delivery requirements under such procedures. The table below provides certain information about the Offers, including the aggregate principal amount of each series of Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn at or prior to the Expiration Date and the aggregate principal amount of Notes reflected in Notices of Guaranteed Delivery delivered at or prior to the Expiration Date pursuant to the Tender Offer Documents.

 

Acceptance
Priority
Level

Title of Notes

CUSIP / ISIN
Nos
.(1) 

Principal
Amount
Outstanding (in
millions)

Total

Consideration(2)

Principal
Amount
Tendered
(3)

Principal
Amount
Accepted
(3)

Principal
Amount
Reflected in
Notices of
Guaranteed
Delivery

1

3.200% Series US-6

Notes due 2052

0778FP AH2 /

US0778FPAH21

US$650

US$662.16

US$191,019,000

US$191,019,000

US$2,342,000

2

3.650% Series US-7

Notes due 2052

0778FP AJ8 /
 US0778FPAJ86

US$750

US$718.46

US$217,410,000

US$217,410,000

US$2,380,000

3

3.650% Series US-4

Notes due 2051

0778FP AF6 /

US0778FPAF64

US$500

US$724.85

US$78,609,000

US$78,609,000

US$0

4

2.150% Series US-5

Notes due 2032

0778FP AG4 /

US0778FPAG48

US$600

US$836.81

US$182,973,000

US$182,973,000

US$4,215,000

5

4.300% Series US-2

Notes due 2049

0778FP AB5 /

US0778FPAB50

US$600

US$804.40

US$174,341,000

US$174,341,000

US$0

(1)

No representation is made by the Company as to the correctness or accuracy of the CUSIP numbers or ISINs listed in this news release or printed on the Notes. They are provided solely for convenience.

(2)

The total consideration for each series of Notes (such consideration, the “Total Consideration”) payable per each US$1,000 principal amount of such series of Notes validly tendered for purchase. 

(3)

The amounts exclude the principal amounts of Notes for which Holders have complied with certain procedures applicable to guaranteed delivery pursuant to the Guaranteed Delivery Procedures. Such amounts remain subject to the Guaranteed Delivery Procedures. Notes tendered pursuant to the Guaranteed Delivery Procedures are required to be tendered at or prior to 5:00 p.m. (Eastern time) on March 26.

Overall, US$844,352,000 aggregate principal amount of Notes have been accepted for purchase, excluding the Notes delivered pursuant to the Guaranteed Delivery Procedures. A condition of the Offers is that the aggregate Total Consideration payable for Notes purchased in the Offers shall not exceed US$750,000,000 (the “Maximum Purchase Amount”) and that the Maximum Purchase Amount is sufficient to pay the Total Consideration for all validly tendered and not validly withdrawn Notes of a series (after accounting for all validly tendered Notes that have a higher Acceptance Priority Level) (the “Maximum Purchase Condition”). The Maximum Purchase Condition has been satisfied with respect to the Offers for all the series of Notes. Accordingly, all Notes that have been validly tendered and not validly withdrawn at or prior to the Expiration Date have been accepted for purchase. 

Upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase, Holders whose Notes have been accepted for purchase in the Offers will receive the applicable Total Consideration specified in the table above for each US$1,000 principal amount of such Notes, which will be payable in cash on the Settlement Date.

In addition to the applicable Total Consideration, Holders whose Notes have been accepted for purchase will be paid the Accrued Coupon Payment. Interest will cease to accrue on the Settlement Date for all Notes accepted in the Offers, including those tendered pursuant to the Guaranteed Delivery Procedures. Under no circumstances will any interest be payable because of any delay in the transmission of funds to Holders by the Depository Trust Company (“DTC”) or its participants.

The Company has retained RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Mizuho Securities USA LLC and Wells Fargo Securities, LLC to act as lead dealer managers and BMO Capital Markets Corp., BofA Securities, Inc., TD Securities (USA) LLC, Scotia Capital (USA) Inc., CIBC World Markets Corp., Desjardins Securities Inc., National Bank of Canada Financial Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc. and Barclays Capital Inc. to act as co-dealer managers (collectively, the “Dealer Managers”) for the Offers. Questions regarding the terms and conditions for the Offers should be directed to RBC Capital Markets, LLC at +1 (877) 381-2099 (toll-free) or +1 (212) 618-7843 (collect), Mizuho Securities USA LLC at +1 (866) 271-7403 (toll-free) or +1 (212) 205-7741 (collect) or Wells Fargo Securities, LLC at +1 (866) 309-6316 (toll-free) or +1 (704) 410-4235 (collect).

D.F. King & Co., Inc. is acting as the Information and Tender Agent for the Offers. Questions or requests for assistance related to the Offers or for additional copies of the Offer to Purchase may be directed to D.F. King & Co., Inc. in New York by telephone at +1 (212) 269-5550 (for banks and brokers only) or +1 (800) 967-5084 (for all others toll-free), or by email at bell@dfking.com. You may also contact your broker, dealer, commercial bank, trust company or other nominee for assistance concerning the Offers. The Tender Offer Documents can be accessed at the following link: www.dfking.com/bell.

If the Company terminates any Offer with respect to one or more series of Notes, it will give prompt notice to the Information and Tender Agent, and all Notes tendered pursuant to such terminated Offer will be returned promptly to the tendering Holders thereof. Upon such termination, any Notes blocked in DTC will be released.

This announcement is for informational purposes only. This announcement is not an offer to purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell any Notes or any other securities of BCE, the Company or any of their subsidiaries. The Offers were made solely pursuant to the Offer to Purchase. The Offers were not made to Holders of Notes in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities, “blue sky” or other laws of such jurisdiction. In any jurisdiction in which the securities or “blue sky” laws require the Offers to be made by a licensed broker or dealer, the Offers will be deemed to have been made on behalf of the Company by the Dealer Managers or one or more registered brokers or dealers that are licensed under the laws of such jurisdiction.

No action has been or will be taken in any jurisdiction that would permit the possession, circulation or distribution of either this announcement, the Offer to Purchase or any material relating to us or the Notes in any jurisdiction where action for that purpose is required. Accordingly, neither this announcement, the Offer to Purchase nor any other offering material or advertisements in connection with the Offers may be distributed or published, in or from any such country or jurisdiction, except in compliance with any applicable rules or regulations of any such country or jurisdiction.

Forward-looking Statements

Certain statements made in this news release are forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to statements regarding settlement of the Offers. All such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the “safe harbour” provisions of applicable Canadian securities laws and of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements, by their very nature, are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties and are based on several assumptions, both general and specific, which give rise to the possibility that actual results or events could differ materially from our expectations expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and we caution you against relying on any of these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release describe our expectations at the date of this news release and, accordingly, are subject to change after such date. Except as may be required by applicable securities laws, we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this news release. Forward-looking statements are provided herein for the purpose of giving information about the Offers referred to above. Readers are cautioned that such information may not be appropriate for other purposes.

About Bell

Bell is Canada’s largest communications company,1 providing advanced broadband Internet, wireless, TV, media and business communication services. Founded in Montréal in 1880, Bell is wholly owned by BCE. To learn more, please visit Bell.ca or BCE.ca.

Through Bell for Better we are investing to create a better today and a better tomorrow by supporting the social and economic prosperity of our communities. This includes the Bell Let’s Talk initiative, which promotes Canadian mental health with national awareness and anti-stigma campaigns like Bell Let’s Talk Day and significant Bell funding of community care and access, research and workplace leadership initiatives throughout the country. To learn more, please visit Bell.ca/LetsTalk.

1 Based on total revenue and total combined customer connections.

Media Inquiries:
Ellen Murphy
media@bell.ca 

Investor Inquiries:
Richard Bengian
richard.bengian@bell.ca

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SOURCE Bell Canada (MTL)

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U.S. Quartz Workers: Strong Safeguard Remedies Needed to Save 100,000 American Manufacturing Jobs

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WASHINGTON, July 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Quartz Manufacturers Alliance for America (QMAA) released a powerful video featuring quartz manufacturing workers from across the country calling for free and fair trade policies to save 100,000 American jobs. QMAA, a coalition of leading U.S.-based quartz slab manufacturers, are calling for strong safeguard remedies after the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) found a huge flood of foreign imports had caused tremendous injury to the domestic quartz industry.

QMAA members are urging the Trump Administration to build on the ITC’s strong recommendation and address this major flood of quartz imports with a Tariff of 50% and a Reshoring Import Cap of 141 million square feet on imported quartz surface products. This will ensure a reshoring of the good-paying U.S. quartz manufacturing jobs stolen by companies who cheat U.S. trade law, distort competition and are decimating U.S. quartz manufacturing. Together, these trade remedies will provide the relief necessary to save the 100,000 jobs supported by the U.S. quartz industry.

The video features workers from LX Hausys, Guidoni USA and Cambria Company and is available here:
Save 100,000 American Quartz Jobs

Quotes from QMAA Quartz Manufacturing Workers
“This facility used to be a Husqvarna plant. Husqvarna closed down due to cheap foreign imports. There were over 1,000 people working here and all of a sudden…I’m worried I may see the same thing take place again.”
-Raymond Mack, Production Operator, Guidoni USA, Helena-McRae, GA

“Foreign countries, mainly China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, have been circumventing and cheating the American market. We believe in the industry. We believe in the American working power. We just want to level the playing field, make it fair for everyone and everyone will benefit.”
– Daniel Vas de Melo SA, Business Development Manager, Guidoni USA, McRae-Helena, GA

“In order for us to continue to compete, we need a strong Tariff and Import Cap on imported quartz surfaces. That will ensure we can play on an even playing field. That’s all we’re asking for. I would hate to see cheap, imported quartz have a negative impact on families such as mine and the other families that we employ here.”
– Mike Morici, Vice President – LX Hausys, Adairsville, GA

“The surge of foreign imports has shocked the U.S. economy, and the market for surfaces. It’s taken prices down to unsustainably low levels for any domestic supplier. The result of that is we’re not producing as much as we should, we can’t hire as many people as we would like to, and we can’t grow our business in the way that we and our peers in the U.S. want to grow.”
– Andrew Eich, President and Chief Operating Officer, Cambria

“As these foreign imports flood the market, we lose the ability to create and sustain jobs that ensure good paying conditions for manufacturing workers. There will be over 100,000 jobs that have the strong potential to go away.”
– Jack Sundry, SVP Core and Lexus – Cambria, Southern Minnesota

Background
In September 2025, QMAA filed a Global Safeguard petition with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) under Section 201 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974. The ITC’s thorough investigation found serious injury to the domestic industry caused by a massive import surge designed to undercut American businesses. Quartz imports have surged by 78.3% within the past five years, leading to a nearly 20% decline in domestic production, factory closures and major job reductions.

A final safeguard decision from the United States Trade Representative is expected by Aug. 1, 2026.

About the Quartz Manufacturing Alliance for America:
QMAA is a coalition of U.S.-based, American quartz slab manufacturing factories, united with other industry leaders to support and strengthen the American quartz industry. QMAA is committed to ensuring a free and fair, competitive marketplace born of free enterprise that provides the opportunity to compete on a level playing field for American quartz slab manufacturing factories and their valued workers. We also believe this effort will have a positive impact throughout the entire quartz surfacing industry, including to the strong benefit of American stone fabrication shops and upstream suppliers of quartz minerals and resin. Learn more at: https://www.qmaa.org/

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SOURCE Quartz Manufacturing Alliance of America

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Databricks and Microsoft expand partnership to help enterprises bring business context to enterprise AI

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Databricks and Microsoft extend strategic partnership through the 2030s to scale enterprise AIDatabricks deepens its bet on Azure, growing its use of Azure Databricks to run its own core business operations and analytics, while both companies advance native integration across the Microsoft stack, including Databricks Genie and Microsoft 365Databricks increases its use of Microsoft Azure Cobalt to improve performance and efficiency

REDMOND, Wash. and SAN FRANCISCO, July 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Microsoft Corp. and Databricks on Wednesday announced an expansion of their decade-long strategic partnership, extending into the 2030s. Databricks will deepen its use of Azure Databricks to run core business operations and build its unified lakehouse, while leveraging Azure Cobalt, Microsoft’s next-generation Arm-based infrastructure, to improve performance and efficiency. Microsoft will also continue integrating Databricks Data and AI platform across its products, bringing capabilities like Genie, Databricks’ AI co-worker, directly into customer workflows. Together, the companies are helping enterprises build AI grounded in their own business context with the cost efficiency, control and choice needed to scale successfully.

Enterprises want AI that understands their customers, products, operations, metrics and business processes, all while running securely where work happens. Yet, most still struggle to connect AI to trusted business knowledge, govern models and agents consistently, and control costs. Microsoft and Databricks are helping customers close that gap: 

“For nearly a decade, Databricks and Microsoft have helped enterprises innovate with data and AI,” said Ali Ghodsi, Co‑Founder and CEO of Databricks. “Today, our partnership is stronger than ever. With Databricks Genie and Unity AI Gateway deeply integrated across Microsoft’s products, we’re helping enterprises unify their data and ground AI in business knowledge. This lets customers get the full benefits of agents and models while controlling costs and ensuring governance.”

“The next generation of AI will be defined by how effectively organizations turn their unique knowledge into intelligence,” said Judson Althoff, CEO, Microsoft Commercial Business. “Microsoft and Databricks are helping customers connect data, AI and business context to accelerate decision-making and drive measurable impact. With Databricks deepening its investment in Azure Databricks and Azure Cobalt-powered infrastructure, customers will benefit from greater performance, efficiency and scale for their most demanding workloads. Databricks’ decision to run its own core business operations on Azure Databricks also gives customers confidence in a platform proven at enterprise scale.”

Databricks runs core business operations on Azure Databricks 

As part of this latest deal, Databricks deepens its commitment to Azure, running its own core business operations and analytics on Azure Databricks, using the very platform it delivers to customers at scale.

Advancing performance with Azure Cobalt

Databricks will also expand its use of Azure Cobalt, Microsoft’s next-generation Arm-based infrastructure, to improve performance and efficiency for agentic and data-intensive workloads. Databricks currently uses Cobalt 100 and plans to adopt Cobalt 200, which delivers up to 50% better performance and includes memory encryption enabled by default.

Deep integrations for Databricks Genie and Unity AI Gateway with Microsoft product stack

By combining the Databricks Data + AI Platform with Azure’s global scale, customers can accelerate AI transformation while maintaining control and reliability. As a native Azure service, Azure Databricks makes its AI capabilities available directly within customers’ existing Microsoft environment, grounding and operating agents on enterprise data with Genie and Genie Ontology, and governing models, agents and cost through Unity AI Gateway. Deeply integrated across the Microsoft ecosystem spanning Microsoft Entra, Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure security, Microsoft OneLake, Power BI, Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Foundry, Power Platform, Microsoft 365, Teams and Copilot, these capabilities bring governed, real-time data and AI into business workflows, giving organizations the context, control, choice and cost efficiency needed to drive impact.

Continued investment is evident from our recent announcements with Databricks at Data + AI Summit in June.

Customer impact with Azure Databricks

The deepened collaboration strengthens support for joint customers running data, analytics and AI workloads on Azure Databricks, delivering improved performance, security, AI governance and enterprise readiness. Thousands of customers, including Banco Bradesco, the Cincinnati Reds, Electrolux, SMBC and Unilever, already use Azure Databricks to run critical workloads and scale AI with confidence.

Read more on the proven business value of the Databricks and Microsoft partnership on the Microsoft Azure blog.

About Databricks

Databricks is the Data and AI company. More than 20,000 organizations worldwide — including AT&T, Bayer, BMW Group, HSBC, T-Mobile, Unilever, and 70% of the Fortune 500 — rely on Databricks Data + AI Platform to build and scale data and AI apps, analytics and agents. Headquartered in San Francisco with 30+ offices around the globe, Databricks offers a unified platform that includes Genie, Lakebase, Agent Bricks, Lakeflow, Lakehouse, and Unity Catalog. To learn more, follow Databricks on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and Instagram.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) creates platforms and tools powered by AI to deliver innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers. The technology company is committed to making AI available broadly and doing so responsibly, with a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

 

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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

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Harness and Kong Expand Strategic Partnership to Deliver Comprehensive API and AI Security

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Joint solution extends proven API gateway security to the AI era — with automated AI discovery and runtime AI protection

SAN FRANCISCO, July 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Harness, the AI Software Delivery Platform™ company, and Kong Inc., a leading developer of API and AI connectivity technologies, today announced an expansion of their strategic partnership to address the growing security challenges posed by AI-driven architectures, autonomous agents, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) deployments.

According to The State of AI-Native Application Security 2025 report, as enterprises race to deploy AI at scale, 62% have no visibility into where LLMs are in use across their environment, and 74% say AI sprawl will outpace API sprawl when it comes to risk — making embedded, infrastructure-level security more critical than ever. And companies are now deploying agents into their operations at an exponentially increasing rate, making it a necessity to protect the agents themselves and the systems interacting with those agents.

The two companies are extending their joint solution from Kong API Gateway to also include Kong AI Gateway, bringing Harness’s AI security intelligence directly into the AI infrastructure layer and enabling enterprises to discover, monitor, and protect every agent, AI asset, LLM-powered service, and MCP-connected workflow that traverses it.

A Proven Foundation: Harness and Kong API Gateway

Harness and Kong have been jointly trusted by enterprises to deliver best-in-class API security for years. The existing Harness and Kong API Gateway integration provides:

Comprehensive API traffic visibility and behavioral analysis across all Kong-managed servicesReal-time detection and blocking of API threats, including OWASP API Security Top 10 risks, credential stuffing attacks, and business logic abuseContinuous sensitive data tracking to identify PII exposure and regulatory riskZero-friction deployment alongside existing Kong configurations

This new offering of the AI Gateway solution applies the same level of security depth to AI infrastructure, ensuring that security teams are not left behind as their organizations adopt AI and agentic operations.

“Our partnership with Harness has given joint customers production-grade API security that works with the way they build, not against it,” said Ken Kim, Senior Vice President, Business Development at Kong Inc. “Extending to include Kong AI Gateway is a natural next step. The same enterprises are now moving AI into production through our gateway and need the same depth of visibility and control they’ve come to rely on for their APIs for all AI traffic types including LLM, MCP, and A2A. That’s exactly what this delivers and is crucial for organizations scaling in the agentic era.”

The New Frontier: Kong AI Gateway and Harness AI Security

As enterprises accelerate AI adoption, the attack surface has fundamentally shifted. AI agents, LLM-powered microservices, and MCP-enabled integrations introduce new vectors that traditional security tools were not designed to address. Unlike traditional software, AI agents are non-deterministic — the same agent can behave differently on consecutive runs, making it impossible to secure them the way you’d secure a static API. The new Harness and Kong AI Gateway integration directly tackles these challenges across two critical domains: AI discovery and AI protection.

AI Discovery
Harness automatically inventories every AI asset, API, MCP server, tool, prompt, and resource routed through Kong AI Gateway — providing security teams with a continuously updated catalog of their AI attack surface. No manual documentation. No blind spots.

AI Protection
Harness applies behavioral analysis and anomaly detection to AI traffic in real time, identifying prompt injection attacks, data exfiltration through AI responses, jailbreaking, malicious code in prompts, and other AI-specific threats. Enterprises gain the same depth of observability and protection for their agents and AI workloads that they already rely on for traditional APIs, with full prompt and response details available for incident investigation and inline policy enforcement through Kong AI Gateway.

“Shadow AI has become the defining security blind spot for enterprises today. Traditional tools were built for static code and predictable systems, not for adaptive AI models, agent-to-agent communication, and MCP-connected workflows that evolve continuously,” said Rahul Sood, GM of Application Security at Harness. “This integration of Harness AI Security with Kong puts security intelligence directly into the connectivity layer where AI traffic flows. Joint customers now have the visibility and control they need to move fast without losing sight of what’s happening across their AI infrastructure.”

Availability

The Harness and Kong API Gateway integration is generally available today for all joint customers. The Kong AI Gateway integration, including AI Discovery and AI Protection, is also generally available now. Joint customers can contact their account team or request a demo.

About Harness
Harness is the AI Software Delivery Platform™ company, enabling engineering teams to build, test, and deliver software faster and more securely. Powered by Harness AI and the Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, the platform brings intelligent automation to every stage of the software delivery lifecycle after code — removing toil and freeing developers from manual, repetitive work. Companies like United Airlines, Morningstar, and Choice Hotels use Harness to accelerate releases by up to 75%, cut cloud costs by 60%, and achieve 10x efficiency across DevOps. Based in San Francisco, Harness is backed by Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures, IVP, Unusual Ventures, and Citi Ventures.

About Kong

Kong Inc., a leading developer of API and AI connectivity technologies, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI-native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.

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SOURCE Harness

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