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Freedom House Announces 2025 Award Recipients

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The honorees were recognized at Freedom House’s annual awards ceremony.

WASHINGTON, May 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Freedom House recognized a distinguished slate of advocates for democracy and freedom around the globe at its Annual Awards in Washington, DC, last night. Award recipients included Venezuelan democratic movement leader María Corina Machado, US Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Roger F. Wicker (R-MS), representatives from the government and civil society of Taiwan, and Server Mustafayev, an unjustly imprisoned Crimean Tatar human rights defender.

“The suppression of freedom anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere,” said Freedom House interim Copresidents Gerardo Berthin and Annie Boyajian. “For almost 85 years, Freedom House has worked tirelessly around the world to expand and defend freedom and democracy. Our latest research has shown that we are in the midst of a nearly two-decade decline in global freedom. But there is hope. The courage and commitment of these groups and individuals in their defense of democratic principles are a powerful reminder that democracy only endures through the resolve of those who rise up to protect it. Freedom House is thrilled to honor our 2025 awardees.”

The Freedom Award

María Corina Machado received the Freedom Award, which recognizes outstanding leaders in the cause of freedom and democracy. Machado, the leader of Venezuela’s democratic movement, won more than 92 percent of the vote in an October 2023 presidential primary election. Despite her triumph, the illegitimate regime of Nicolás Maduro disqualified her from running for president in the 2024 general election. Machado unified democratic forces behind Ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia’s candidacy in response, empowering nearly a million volunteers within Venezuela to safeguard the vote. Today, although she and her team remain under intense persecution by the regime, Machado continues to lead efforts alongside Venezuelans and the international community to achieve a democratic transition.

This year’s award was presented by Russian human rights activist and Free Russia Foundation advocacy director Evgenia Kara-Murza, who is married to former political prisoner and 2023 Freedom Award winner Vladimir Kara-Murza. The award was accepted by Rafael de la Cruz, an advisor to María Corina Machado.

Past recipients of the Freedom Award, which was launched in 1943, include the women of Iran; His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama; Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Václav Havel, the playwright, dissident, and first postcommunist president of Czechoslovakia; Saudi activist Hala al-Dosari; journalist Edward R. Murrow; Uyghur activist Ilham Tohti; and Pablo Casals, the musician and opponent of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.  

The Leadership Award

US Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Roger F. Wicker (R-MS) each received Freedom House’s Leadership Award, which recognizes outstanding dedication to principled US leadership on the world stage and support for those on the front lines of the struggle against tyranny, such as in Ukraine, Taiwan, and the prodemocracy movement of Belarus.

The Honorable Jeanne Shaheen has represented New Hampshire in the US Senate since 2009. As current ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Shaheen champions a strong national defense and robust engagement with transatlantic allies, and has been a consistent advocate for democracy movements around the world. The Honorable Roger F. Wicker has represented Mississippi in the US Senate since 2007. He is currently serving as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and chairman of the US Helsinki Commission, and is a champion for democratic values and human rights across Europe and Eurasia.

Previous recipients of the Leadership Award include then–Vice President Joe Biden, Senator John McCain, Senator Bob Corker, then–House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Lindsey Graham. This year’s award was presented by the Honorable Jane Harman, cochair emeritus of the Freedom House Board of Trustees.

The Beacon Award

The government and civil society of Taiwan received the inaugural Beacon Award for their steadfast efforts to protect their own vibrant democracy, and to support the global struggle for freedom, in the face of escalating pressure from the Chinese Communist Party. Representative Alexander Tah-Ray Yui, on behalf of the government of Taiwan, and civil society representative Chiang Min-yen accepted the award.

Alexander Tah-Ray Yui has been Taiwan’s representative to the United States since December 2023. He has over 35 years of experience in diplomacy and previously served as Taiwan’s vice minister of foreign affairs from 2021 to 2023. Chiang Min-yen is a nonresident fellow at the Taiwan Economic Democracy Union, where he focuses on Beijing’s economic coercion toward Taiwan, and at the Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), where he specializes in economic security and the semiconductor industry. The award was presented by Ambassador Robert Tuttle, a member of the Freedom House Board of Trustees.

The Alfred Moses Liberty Award

Server Mustafayev received the Alfred Moses Liberty Award, which honors exemplary courage by political prisoners or outstanding efforts to secure their release.

Mustafayev, a Crimean Tatar human rights defender, cofounded the Crimean Solidarity movement to support victims of political persecution in Russian-occupied Crimea. He was arrested by Russian authorities seven years ago on May 21, 2018, for alleged involvement with the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir—such charges are often fabricated by Moscow as a pretext to silence dissent. In 2020, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison alongside six codefendants. His detention is widely recognized as politically motivated and has been condemned by Amnesty International, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and Freedom House’s Fred Hiatt Program to Free Political Prisoners. The award was accepted on Mustafayev’s behalf by Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova and presented by Norman Willox, chairman of the Freedom House Board of Trustees.

Key Supporters

Freedom House is grateful to the Event Chairs Karen and Norman Willox, Co-Chairs Rodger Desai and Dr. Susan Gauthier, The Honorable Jane Harman, Maurice Perkins, Collin and Joanna Roche, and the Event Underwriters of the 2025 Annual Awards, Aegon Transamerica Foundation, Rodger Desai and Dr. Susan Gauthier, William and Sheila Konar Foundation, Collin and Joanna Roche; Freedom Supporters — Eileen Donahoe, Thomas and Susana Kahn, Karen and Norman Willox; and Freedom Advocates — Anonymous in Memory of Former Freedom House Trustee, Congressman Jim Kolbe, The Honorable Goli Ameri, The Honorable Jane Harman, Conrad Kiechel and Nancy Savage, Pan American Energy, Susan and Thomas Staudt, Telecom Argentina SA, Carlotta and Wendell Willkie, and David Willkie.

Freedom House is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to create a world where all are free. We inform the world about threats to freedom, mobilize global action, and support democracy’s defenders.

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RYAN KAVANAUGH TO RECEIVE OUTSTANDING VIRTUAL PRODUCTION AWARD AT INFINITY FESTIVAL’S 2026 MONOLITH AWARDS FOR ACME STUDIOS WORK

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Two-Day Showcase Expands Lineup with ACME’s Ryan Kavanaugh alongside George R.R. Martin, Brad Bird, Seth Rogen, Mel Brooks, Pola Maneli and Leading Animation Studios

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Infinity Festival announced today that Ryan Kavanaugh’s studio, ACME Media, is being honored for pioneering the Grey Box™, an AI-driven production methodology that integrates live-action performance, virtual environments and generative visual effects. ACME AI is taking virtual production beyond the stage and into the whole of filmmaking. 

They were selected for this honor as the company to make the biggest paradigm shift utilizing technology in film and entertainment today. Specifically, they were able to create a totally photoreal movie, preserve all actor performance and pioneer the use of the Grey Box™ methodology for actor capture, while utilizing their tech to create over 213 locations in 21 total days. 

The Grey Box™ is a stage and actor performance capture system built around the filmmaker. A Grey Box™ production makes films the way films have always been made – it shoots with the same cameras, the same crew and the same process as any other film, just with extra technology and a precise design to allow for a more cohesive and cost effective process. Department heads are employed and on set, the actor’s performance is not touched, and the director still owns the frame. 

ACME’s own systems, engines and artists (150 across multiple locations) then build the world around that performance, delivering fully photoreal 16-bit 4K output for theatrical release. 

The Grey Box’s™ proprietary performance capture methodology leads to a 50-75 percent reduction in production time and cost. This gives each film and filmmaker more flexibility, tools and coverage than was financially feasible previously. 

” Virtual production has never been about technology alone. It’s about expanding what filmmakers can imagine and achieve. ACME AI & FX is challenging the boundaries of traditional production by rethinking how live-action performances, digital environments, and emerging technologies come together,” said Jeroen Hallaert, Executive Producer, Infinity Festival Hollywood.

“Their approach represents exactly the kind of bold experimentation and convergence we celebrate at Infinity Festival. We’re proud to recognize ACME AI & FX with the Monolith Award for Outstanding Virtual Production.

ACME has spent in excess of 70 million dollars building its tech, which has led to its own process and program which runs off of over 500 tools and 175 film attributes with thousands of its own lawyers on its its internal program now running across its own network. “This was a two-year, multimillion-dollar, all-hands effort and we couldn’t be more proud of the team for what it built,” said Garrett Grant, ACME co-founder and partner. ACME is the only production company and/or studio to deliver an A list feature film utilizing AI which holds up against films shot traditionally for much larger budgets. 

Yves Bergquist, who is one of the most relied upon voices by studios and entertainment companies around technology and AI in relation to entertainment (he is the head of the AI Media lab at USC’s Entertainment Technology Center and a member of the generative AI working group at the Academy of Motion Pictures), said: “I am in the fortunate position where I see what I believe is all the most recent advancements in AI filmmaking. That includes from the biggest tech companies to the studios to highly respected filmmakers. More or less anyone doing AI production, I have seen their work. To date, I haven’t seen anyone that is even at 10 percent of the quality or output of where ACME is. What they have done is not just extraordinary; it’s a shift to the industry no one else has even begun to figure out. Their product is bar none, on par with the biggest, best productions to come out of Hollywood. There is a reason they are making movies for many of the studios and have so many films in their pipeline and that ACME has become the go to for studios and production companies alike and the reason they have become the go to not just for AI production but more and more for production overall.” 

Other features that they have built and incorporated include another 246 unique virtual production features 

A director’s dashboard that allows a director to seamlessly work between the real grey stage shooting with their traditional camera setups and team and the virtual portion with easeLens and Lighting Library: virtually every lens and lighting package filmmakers rely on, built and mapped so the finished world matches what the camera photographed, including anamorphic.Being able to adjust the camera, lighting, camera movement, lenses in postBeing able to adjust any part of a scene that isn’t the actor’s performance in post Full DI and finishing system Theatrical Finishing: photoreal 16-bit 4K output, mastered through to DCP and EXR delivery.Protected IP: a portfolio of 22 patent applications covering the core systems.

Kavanaugh said, “The ability to respect the integrity of the acting while being so tech-forward was a big part of our consideration. Obviously the tech itself and the artistic process that is required to make the tech work is another. They are literally bringing back the mid-budget film genre by making those stories financially feasible to make. The art of filmmaking is at the heart of everything we do. We built the Grey Box™ and our own engines so that every tool a director could want is available, even on a small-budget movie. Original films that sat for years because of cost are now getting made, at the same scale and with the same vision. We are grateful to Infinity Festival for recognizing that,” said Ryan Kavanaugh, founder of ACME and consider this a tremendous honor.”

The Monolith Awards honor Story Advanced by Technology. This award honors ACME for pioneering an AI-driven production methodology that integrates live-action performance, virtual environments and generative visual effects. With Bitcoin, ACME has taken virtual production beyond the stage and into the whole of filmmaking, bringing some 200 story locations to life around real performances captured over 20 days. We are delighted to celebrate it alongside this year’s honorees, including Brad Bird and George R.R. Martin, both receiving Lifetime Achievement.

Additional featured talent includes Sony Pictures Animation director Tyree Dillihay and President Kristine Belson; Netflix’s Steps directors Alyce Tzue and John Ripa; Disney/Pixar Hoppers director Daniel Chong; Toy Story 5 co-director/writer Kenna Harris; Hexed directors Fawn Veerasunthorn and Jason Hand; DreamWorks Forgotten Island filmmakers Joel Crawford and Januel P. Mercado; LAIKA’s Wildwood writer Chris Butler and cinematographer Caleb Deschanel; Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender director Lauren Montgomery; The Simpsons director David Silverman; Cartoon Saloon director Louise Bagnall; Tangles director Leah Nelson, Cat in the Hat directors Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Carloni, X-Men ’97, The Violinist directors Raul Garcia and Ervin Han and The Proud Family creator Bruce W. Smith and more.

 ABOUT ACME

ACME Media is a film and television studio and the parent company of ACME AI, the most prolific studio working in AI today. ACME’s principals have produced, financed or distributed more than 250 films with more than $17 billion in global box office. They created slate co-financing, built the structure that allowed Marvel to make its own films, co-created the subscription streaming window with Netflix and built the largest mini-major studio of its era. Their films have received over 60 Academy Award® nominations, Based in Los Angeles and London with AI artists worldwide, ACME pioneered the Grey Box studio and completed the first performance capture AI film BITCOIN, currently in post-production. The film is directed by Doug Liman and stars Casey Affleck, Gal Gadot, Pete Davidson and Isla Fisher. ACME has more than twelve films in various stages of production.

 ACME AI pioneered the Grey Box, a stage and actor performance capture system that delivers photoreal 16-bit 4K theatrical output while cutting below-the-line costs and has over a dozen feature films in various stages of production, as well as endeavors in music videos, and advertising.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ryan-kavanaugh-to-receive-outstanding-virtual-production-award-at-infinity-festivals-2026-monolith-awards-for-acme-studios-work-302939407.html

SOURCE Infinity Festival

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The NYSE Welcomes vVARDIS as a Publicly Listed Company

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NEW YORK, Nov. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — vVARDIS (NYSE: VVVV) co-founders Dr. Haley Abivardi and Dr. Goly Abivardi aim to reshape the future of dental care with a drill-free treatment for the world’s #1 non-communicable disease: cavities.

vVARDIS Solves a Problem that Millions FaceTooth decay affects billions of people worldwide, and dental anxiety keeps millions from getting the care they need.vVARDIS is a Swiss dental technology company focused on changing the way early tooth decay is treated.vVARDIS has introduced a new approach that aims to treat decay earlier and more comfortably for patients.Its flagship product, Curodont® Repair Fluoride Plus, uses proprietary peptide technology to help repair early-stage tooth decay by supporting the natural remineralization of enamel — simply put No drill, No needle, or No filling.Tooth Decay is One of the Most Common Health Issues in the World2.5 billion people globally live with untreated tooth decay.Nearly 90% of U.S. adults have experienced tooth decay.Nearly 73% of U.S. adults report dental fear.21% avoid the dentist because of anxiety.The Story that Helped Shape vVARDISFor decades, treating early tooth decay often meant waiting until it worsened or getting a filling. The founders spent 25 years developing Curodont® Repair Fluoride Plus, a treatment that helps repair early tooth decay before it becomes a cavity.Curodont® gives dentists a way to treat early decay while making the experience easier and less intimidating for patients.The technology has already treated more than 2.5 million teethAvailable in more than 20% of U.S. dental practices

Click Here to Learn More about vVARDIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1p9hUR5Glk

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Yiren Digital Receives NYSE Notification Regarding Stock Price Requirement

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BEIJING, Nov. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Yiren Digital Ltd. (NYSE: YRD) (“Yiren Digital” or the “Company”), a leading company specializing in financial technology and artificial intelligence innovation across multiple industries in China and global markets, today announced that it received a letter dated October 20, 2026, from the New York Stock Exchange (the “NYSE”) notifying the Company that it was not in compliance with the NYSE’s continued listing standard under Section 802.01C of the NYSE Listed Company Manual (the “Price Criteria”) for the average closing price of the Company’s American depositary shares (the “ADSs”) was below US$1.00 per ADS over a consecutive 30-trading-day period.

The Company has six months following receipt of the notification (the “Cure Period”) to regain compliance with the Price Criteria. The Company can regain compliance during the Cure Period if, on the last trading day of any calendar month during that period, its ADSs have both a closing price of at least US$1.00 per ADS and an average closing price of at least US$1.00 per ADS over the 30-trading-day period ending on that day. In the event that at the expiration of the Cure Period, both a $1.00 closing price and a $1.00 average closing price over the preceding 30 trading days are not attained, the NYSE will commence suspension and delisting procedures.

The notification does not immediately affect the Company’s business operations. The Company’s ADSs will continue to be listed and traded on the NYSE subject to compliance with other applicable continued listing standards. The Company will continue to monitor the trading price of its ADSs and consider available measures to regain compliance.

About Yiren Digital

Yiren Digital Ltd. is a leading company specializing in financial technology and artificial intelligence innovation across multiple industries in China and global markets. The Company leverages advanced artificial intelligence and emerging technologies to enhance customer experience, optimize capital efficiency, and expand financial inclusion. Following the regulatory filing of its in-house developed Large Language Model Zhiyu and the significant enhancement of its MagiCube Agent platform, Yiren Digital is establishing a new growth engine to accelerate its evolution into an AI-native, multi-industry operating platform extending beyond traditional financial services. For more information, please visit https://ir.yiren.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the “safe harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “aim,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “hope,” “going forward,” “intend,” “ought to,” “plan,” “project,” “potential,” “seek,” “may,” “might,” “can,” “could,” “will,” “would,” “shall,” “should,” “is likely to” and the negative form of these words and other similar expressions. This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements can be identified by terminology such as “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” “target,” “confident,” and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations, assumptions, and assessments of current market and operating conditions. These statements involve inherent risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are outside the control of the Company, and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors and other risks described in the Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company undertakes no, and expressly disclaims any, obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required under applicable law.

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