Veezu has donated £1,000 to Whitchurch-Heath Cricket Club

Private hire car venture Veezu had donated £1,000 to a Cardiff cricket club to replace equipment damaged in an arson attack at its ground.

Whitchurch-Heath Cricket Club has received a £1,000 donation after vandals targeted its facilities earlier this year, with its scoreboard set on fire and other equipment damaged. It left the volunteer-run club facing an unexpected bill to replace essential equipment.

The contribution from Cardiff headdquartered Veezu has helped Whitchurch-Heath replace the destroyed scoreboard with a new electronic model.

Sally Krouma, brand activation manager at Veezu, said: “When we heard what had happened at Whitchurch-Heath we wanted to see what we could do to help.

“Grassroots sports clubs play such an important role in their communities and rely on an enormous amount of hard work from volunteers.

“It was really disappointing to see the damage that had been caused, so we were very happy to provide £1,000 to help the club replace some of the equipment.”

Alastair Milburn, chair of Whitchurch-Heath Cricket Club, said: “We are incredibly grateful to Veezu for their amazing support.

“The damage was heartbreaking for everyone involved with the club. Our facilities and equipment have been built up through years of hard work by members and volunteers, so seeing the scoreboard destroyed by fire was particularly difficult.

“What was uplifting was the response we received from people who wanted to help. Sally contacted me almost immediately after seeing what had happened and simply asked what Veezu could do to support us.

“Their incredibly generous contribution has helped us replace the damaged scoreboard with a new electronic one, so there is now something really positive to come out of what was a very distressing and hurtful incident.

“Support like this makes a genuine difference to a community sports club and we can’t thank Veezu enough for standing alongside us when we needed it.”

Whitchurch-Heath Cricket Club provides cricket for players of different ages and abilities and is run with the support of volunteers from across the club.

THOMASVILLE, GA. — Intensifying economic pressures, changing consumer preferences and stiffer competition translated into weaker second-quarter results at Flowers Foods, Inc. than the company had anticipated. Particular pressure on the company’s loaf bread business, including its Wonder and Dave’s Killer Bread brands, contributed to decreases in sales and profits during the period.

The setback in the second quarter has prompted Flowers to take additional cost-reduction efforts while accelerating growth initiatives. Sales and earnings guidance for the current year were lowered.

Net income in the second quarter ended July 18 totaled $40.66 million, equal to 19¢ per share on the common stock, down 30%, from $58.37 million, or 28¢ per share, in the second quarter of 2025. Sales were $1.19 billion, down 4% from $1.24 billion a year earlier. The sales decrease marked a reversal from the company’s first quarter, when Flowers Foods generated an increase of 1.1% in sales.

In the second quarter, volume dropped 5.8% while pricing/mix were up 1.8%.

A. Ryals McMullian, chairman and chief executive officer, pinpointed soft demand for bread as the key to the weak financial results, reflecting “ongoing pressure on household budgets, evolving consumer purchasing behavior, and continued competitive dynamics.”

The competitive dynamics were responsible for a “more difficult operating environment” than Flowers had anticipated, McMullian said.

“While we expected many of these headwinds to persist, their pace and magnitude intensified during the quarter, contributing to softer demand across much of our portfolio and results that fell short of our expectations,” he said.

Economic weakness prompted consumers to trade down to more affordable options as well as toward formats where Flowers is still building scale, McMullian said.

 “Those shifts were compounded by consistent promotional intensity and strong competition across pricing and assortment,” he said.

Flowers is accelerating initiatives to strengthen competitiveness, improve execution, advance innovation, and prioritize the highest-value opportunities, McMullian said. He said the efforts already are generating “tangible commercial momentum.”

“Recent progress includes new business wins, entry into new markets, and key wins in away-from-home and cake categories, which we expect to contribute meaningfully to sales as those opportunities fully ramp,” he said.

The effects of the consumer and competitive pressures McMullian cited were particularly pronounced in the loaf bread category, including the company’s major Nature’s Own and Wonder brands. In the case of Nature’s Own, mainline product sales were weak, but the brand overall benefited from strength in its Perfectly Crafted sub-brand, with sales rising more than 9%. McMullian described new sourdough and Italian herb varieties as growth drivers.

The relaunch of Nature’s Own, reformulated with fewer ingredients and without flour enrichment, was described by McMullian as a “a key step” in the company’s efforts to revitalize its bread business. The move was announced midway through the second quarter.

“Early feedback from customers and distribution partners has been excellent, particularly around the brand’s simpler ingredients, stronger better-for-you positioning, and Non-GMO Project verified offering at national scale,” McMullian said. “While this initiative remains in its early stages and has not yet meaningfully contributed to results, positive customer feedback and the brand’s growing presence in the better-for-you segment reinforce our confidence in Nature’s Own’s ability to extend its category leadership over time.”

To achieve success for the relaunch, McMullian said Flowers is focused on building awareness, securing displays, improving shelf communication, and supporting the brand across the full path to purchase.”

He said the marketing campaign associated with the launch featuring spokesperson John Cena has begun to “generate stronger consumer engagement and positive social media feedback.”

While citing Nature’s Own as brand with Wonder that was pressured during the quarter, McMullian later said the Nature’s Own brand “performed very well, gaining 30 basis points of dollar share and 20 basis points of unit share.”

“Nature’s Own Perfectly Crafted was the primary driver and continued to build momentum, increasing dollar sales and gaining 20 basis points of unit share in the quarter, helping offset some of the pressure on our overall performance in the category,” McMullian said. “During the July Fourth holiday period, we held unit share and grew dollar share during this important seasonal window.”

By contrast, Dave’s Killer Bread lost unit and dollar share during the quarter. McMullian attributed the performance to planned reductions in marketing spending, changing consumer preferences, intensifying competition and consumer price sensitivity. He said Flowers is working to improve performance through innovation, expanded distribution, and advertising.

During an analyst call Aug. 21, McMullian said marketing dollars redirected from core Dave’s Killer Bread products are shifting back.

“We should see more normalized levels of promo and marketing spend with DKB for the balance of the year,” he said.

Asked about the consumer shifts weighing on DKB, McMullian cited one product in particular.

“We think that it’s the growth of sourdough,” he said. “It’s pretty remarkable, actually. I mean that subsegment of the category has already grown to be a $1.3 billion subcategory, pretty tremendous growth. In DKB, we only have sourdough on the West Coast currently.”

Price sensitivity also factored into the results, he said.

“But I said earlier, I don’t think it’s all price,” he said. “It’s a combination of price for some consumers, but also offering and product attributes that are driving some of that decline.”

Canyon Bakehouse, the company’s gluten-free bread brand, gained both unit and dollar share, and Nature’s Own Keto gained dollar share during the quarter.  In the company’s better-for-you snacking business, McMullian said Simple Mills retail sales increased 13%, driven by strength in cookies and crackers, reinforcing the resilience and appeal of the brand.

The marketing campaign associated with the launch featuring spokesperson John Cena has begun to “generate stronger consumer engagement and positive social media feedback,” said A. Ryals McMullian, chairman and chief executive officer.

| Photo: Flowers Foods, Inc.

“This performance was driven by a combination of distribution expansion, ecommerce performance, and strong velocities on core lines in the food and mass channels,” McMullian said, noting that new product launches have exceeded distribution goals, fueling optimism that the brand’s growth will accelerate in the second half of 2026.

Amid rumors the company’s Tastykake business may be sold, McMullian said the company “generally held share” in the snack cake category, thanks to strong results from the company’s Wonder brand.

“Wonder cake was a clear standout, gaining 60 basis points of unit share while also growing dollar share, underscoring the brand’s strong consumer relevance and the important role our cake business can play within our broader portfolio,” McMullian said. “Wonder’s continued momentum gives us a strong foundation from which to build in this category.”

Speculation about the sale of Tastykake was not addressed either in McMullian’s remarks or during the analyst call.

Asked whether pricing Flowers took earlier in the year was responsible for the downturn in sales, McMullian again said other factors may have been more important.

“Under-penetration in half loafs, sourdough, protein, fiber, some of these more functional attributes that consumers are looking for —that’s where our primary focus is,” he said. “Which is not to say that we’re ignoring the price equation. We are taking a hard look at that, and my initial thesis is there probably are some pockets of the portfolio where that’s a factor. But I don’t think it’s the overall driving force of our performance.”

Flowers trimmed the company’s earnings per share guidance for 2026 to 75¢ to 80¢from its earlier guidance of 80¢ to 90¢ and compared with $1.09 in 2025. The company revised its sales forecast to $5.07 billion to $5.142 billion, down from earlier guidance of $5.163 billion to $5.267 billion, and down 2.2% to 3.5% from 2026.

“Given our first-half performance and the current category environment, we are updating our full-year outlook to reflect a more cautious view for the balance of 2026,” McMullian said. “While near-term conditions remain challenging, we are confident that the actions underway will strengthen our top-line trajectory and better position our portfolio to meet evolving consumer demand.”

“We are taking targeted steps to strengthen competitiveness, sharpen execution, reduce costs, and better align resources with the opportunities that can create the greatest long-term value,” McMullian said. “Consistent with these priorities, we are executing additional cost actions designed to improve efficiency, reduce our cost base, and better align our operating structure with customer needs and current market realities. While difficult, we expect these actions to create a more agile organization and better position Flowers for profitable growth over time.”

Embedded in the outlook is improvements Flowers expects from its Nature’s Own relaunch, said Anthony Scaglione, chief financial officer.

“Additionally, it reflects the actions we are taking to improve performance, including cost controls, reorganization savings, targeted brand investment, innovation launches, and related execution,” Scaglione said.

The cost controls are expected to generate annualized savings over time of $20 million, including $9 million in 2026, but also will result in $6 million in one-time costs, Scaglione said.

Flowers sees longer-term headwinds for 2027, including escalating commodity ingredient and fuel costs, Scaglione said. He said the company is fully hedged for 2026 for its principal ingredients.

“We remain vigilant in implementing actions to help mitigate some of this risk, including expanding our hedging program and improving our price-pack architecture to better align with consumer preferences,” he said. “This work will lead to more stabilized cost inputs from a planning standpoint as well as opportunities to offer our best-selling brands in smaller loaf sizes and ensure our snack packs are appropriately sized for consumer demand.” 

The Trump administration is preparing to launch what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called an “economic D-Day” against Iran, escalating pressure not only on Tehran but also on foreign governments, financial institutions and businesses that continue providing the country with economic lifelines.

The campaign could raise the stakes for companies and countries with financial, shipping and energy ties to Iran, as Tehran threatens to treat participation in the U.S. pressure campaign as an “act of war” and potentially disrupt oil exports across the Persian Gulf.

“At dawn begins an economic D-Day — the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary,” Bessent wrote in a Financial Times op-ed published Sunday ahead of planned remarks Monday.

Bessent said the administration intends to target the remaining commercial and financial links sustaining Iran, including countries and entities involved in purchasing and transporting Iranian petroleum, moving money through exchange houses and free-trade zones, maintaining ship registries and facilitating other financial activity.

US WARNS OF ACTIVE CYBER THREAT TARGETING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Scott Bessent, U.S. Treasury secretary, and Bret Baier, Fox News anchor, speak during an Economic Club of New York (ECNY) event in New York on Tuesday, June 23, 2026. (Krisanne Johnson/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

“Any nation that serves as a financial artery of a withering regime should expect to share in its isolation,” Bessent wrote.

President Donald Trump has separately described the campaign as the “MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY,” warning that countries allowing their banks, businesses, airports or government entities to provide Iran with an economic “lifeline” could face U.S. economic consequences.

A POWERFUL COUNTRY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD IS QUIETLY SHAPING TRUMP’S LATEST TRADE FIGHT

Trump specifically cited oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries and front companies among the activities Washington is targeting.

Trump stands at the lectern alongside a group of tech and crypto executives on Aug. 19, 2026. (Al Drago/The Washington Post/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Iran, meanwhile, is seeking to raise the potential cost for countries that align with Washington’s campaign.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned Sunday that Tehran could move against oil exports from the region if the pressure continues.

“If the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will be exported, neither through the Strait of Hormuz nor from anywhere in the Persian Gulf,” Rezaei wrote on X. “Iran will regard any country’s participation in or support for America’s economic war against the Iranian people as an act of war.”

The dueling warnings are increasing pressure on governments and companies weighing whether to maintain economic ties with Iran and risk consequences from Washington or distance themselves from Tehran amid threats of Iranian retaliation.

The Iranian flag in rubble and debris in Tehran, Iran. (ATTA KENARE / AFP / Getty Images)

China said Monday that sanctions and pressure would not resolve the dispute and that Beijing would take necessary steps to protect its rights and interests, according to reporting from Reuters. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian also urged the parties to act with restraint.

Pakistan, meanwhile, has continued its efforts to mediate between Washington and Tehran. Pakistani army chief Asim Munir arrived in Tehran Monday for talks that Pakistan’s military said were part of efforts to promote regional peace and stability.

Bessent has not yet publicly detailed the full legal and financial measures that will make up the new campaign. His op-ed said the administration is prepared to use “every agency, every authority” to isolate Iran economically.

CLICK HERE TO GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO

FOX Business has reached out to the Treasury Department for additional details on the scope of the planned measures. Bessent is expected to provide additional details on the administration’s Iran strategy later Monday.

While the tariffs could mean changes for the Paloma Clothing company, other American companies are facing the same battle they have faced since Trump returned to office and began imposing his levies.

Bill Easton, owner of Terre Rouge Wines in Plymouth, California, has been unable to ship his wine north to Canada for the past year and a half due to a boycott of US alcohol.

He is currently paying $2,400 a month to store that wine in a warehouse in the hope that he will one day be able to ship it to the Canadian markets he sells to.

“The wine has just gotten better in the warehouse, but I can’t expect my customer in Canada to pay that extra cost that I’ve assumed over the last year and a half as part of the price, if I was able to sell it tomorrow,” Easton told the BBC.

And then there are the American businesses impacted by proximity to the Canadian border.

The number of Canadian customers travelling across the border to shop at Heather Seevers’ craft shop, Northwest Yarns and Mercantile in Bellingham, Washington, has gone down some 20% since the tariff war began over a year ago. What has further irked Canadians has been Trump musing on Canada becoming a 51st US state.

The shop sits 25 minutes from the US-Canada border and since the “war” ensued Seevers said her business received emails from Canadian customers saying they could not patronise her business “due to anti-Canadian rhetoric”.

“We completely understood that,” she said.

But the combined impact of fewer customers and higher prices has left the shop asking for help from the community recently via a fundraising initiative to stay afloat.

And then, over the weekend, when the new tariffs struck, Seevers saw another hurdle appear.

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” she said. “It’s going to take years and years and years to get a relationship back with Canada, and I think these new tariffs are digging us deeper into a hole.”

Additional reporting from Nadine Yousif

Laura Ward does not simply want R.I.S.E. Immigration Services to become bigger. She wants it to become better. That distinction sits at the center of how Ward thinks about growth, leadership, and the organization she is building. Her ambitions extend beyond increasing the volume of work or expanding the reach of a founder-led business. She is focused on a harder question: How can an organization grow while preserving the standards, knowledge, culture, and sense of responsibility that gave it purpose in the first place?

For Ward, the answer begins with infrastructure. Stronger operations, better technology, employee development, educational resources, consistent processes, clearer communication, and dependable client experiences are not secondary administrative concerns. They are part of the service itself. Her view is that an organization serving immigrant families cannot rely on good intentions alone. It needs systems capable of turning those intentions into consistent action.

That philosophy reflects Ward’s professional background as well as her ambitions for R.I.S.E. Before starting the project, she had more than 15 years of service as a social worker, an experience that her approved biography connects to a longstanding concern for the well-being of people in Latin America and the United States. Her leadership philosophy now brings that service orientation into an organizational context, where compassion must operate alongside accuracy, accountability, and professional discipline.

Excellence and Compassion as Operating Principles

Ward aims to implement a unique culture at R.I.S.E. combining excellence with compassion. Ward asserts that, in the area of immigration, both are crucial.

It is particularly important in immigration as clients are dealing with complex processes involving paperwork, deadlines, courts, systems, and languages. At the same time, the issues involved in immigration are often of a personal nature: family issues, job-related, emotional, and financial.

Compassion is relevant to understanding clients. Excellence is relevant to carrying out the agencies’ work. Ward believes that compassion cannot replace excellence and vice versa. In other words, technical process knowledge without compassion can leave people even more traumatized. On the other hand, compassion without professionalism may create problems as clients rely on the agency to take care of things.

Ward thus looks for certain qualities when hiring staff – not just those mentioned in CVs. She values accountability, discipline, communication, compassion, and willingness to learn which all affect how the agency works.

Exactness matters in a situation when processes require it. Communication matters in a situation when clients need to know what needs to be done. Compassion determines whether people are treated with patience. However, accountability and discipline are needed to ensure everything that should be done is carried out. Finally, willingness to learn becomes important because immigration issue processes and technologies are constantly developing.

This is the reason why Ward cares about teaching employees instead of just filling positions. In the long term, she wants the employees to evolve into qualified professionals.

Building an Organization That Does Not Depend on One Person

Founder dependence is a familiar challenge in entrepreneurship. In an organization’s early development, the founder can become the keeper of its relationships, standards, knowledge, decisions, and problem-solving habits. That concentration may work at a smaller scale, but it can also become a structural weakness as complexity increases.

Ward’s three-to-five-year vision for R.I.S.E. addresses that problem directly. She wants to strengthen operations, develop the team, improve technology and internal systems, expand educational reach, and create greater consistency in the client experience. Her interest in growth is therefore closely connected to organizational capacity.

Technology has a practical role in that vision. Ward sees appropriate systems as tools for improving communication, tracking responsibilities, reducing administrative mistakes, preserving institutional knowledge, and giving clients greater transparency. Her focus is not on technology for its own sake. It is on what stronger systems can make possible inside an organization where details and communication matter.

This is where Ward’s preference for “better” over merely “bigger” becomes most consequential. More activity creates more complexity. Serving more people or developing a larger organization would also create more responsibilities to coordinate, knowledge to preserve, employees to prepare, and standards to maintain. Sustainable growth therefore requires stronger foundations behind the visible work.

Ward’s own description of leadership reinforces that incremental approach. She views successful organizations as the product of thousands of decisions: improving a process, training someone, solving a problem, learning from a mistake, and repeating the work. Institution-building, in that sense, is less about a single expansion milestone than about steadily making quality reproducible.

Professional Development From the Founder Outward

Laura Ward’s recent accreditation by the U.S. Department of Justice adds another dimension to that emphasis on development. In July 2026, she was announced as a DOJ Accredited Representative. According to the accreditation announcement, she is authorized through the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review to provide qualified immigration legal services through a recognized organization.

The credential is significant within Ward’s professional development, but it also fits a larger pattern in how she describes R.I.S.E. She expects employees to remain teachable, develop competence, understand their responsibilities and limitations, and continue educating themselves. Her own continued professional development applies that same expectation to the founder.

That alignment matters for the culture Ward wants to establish. Leadership development is difficult to make credible if continuous learning is expected only from employees. Ward’s approach instead suggests that stronger organizations are built as people throughout them expand their capabilities, including the person at the top.

Her background in social work also helps explain why competence and service are so closely linked in her thinking. Ward advises people entering service-oriented careers to listen first, develop competence, respect the dignity of those they serve, and recognize that good intentions are insufficient when others depend on them. Those principles now inform her approach to organizational leadership.

Education as Institutional Capacity

Education is another component of Ward’s vision that reaches beyond individual client interactions. She wants people to become informed participants in their immigration journeys, with a clearer understanding of procedures, documentation requirements, deadlines, responsibilities, and when qualified legal advice may be necessary.

Her broader ambition includes community education, digital content, social media, and accessible educational resources, with particular attention to making information understandable for Spanish-speaking communities and people who may not know where to begin. These are presented as areas of continued development rather than a catalogue of completed programs.

The distinction is important because Ward sees education as a form of empowerment rather than simply information distribution. Her goal is for people to understand enough to ask better questions, identify potential problems earlier, and advocate more effectively for themselves and their families.

Education also serves an institutional purpose. Knowledge captured in useful resources can travel beyond a single conversation. Knowledge transferred to employees can become organizational capability. Employees who gain knowledge, judgment, confidence, and responsibility can eventually become leaders. In each case, value becomes less dependent on one person’s direct involvement.

That is the deeper thread connecting Ward’s interest in technology, processes, education, client communication, and employee development. Each can help turn individual expertise into organizational capacity.

A Definition of Legacy Built Around Continuity

Ward’s definition of success has evolved beyond conventional measures of organizational growth. She wants R.I.S.E. to be financially strong, operationally effective, respected, and capable of growing, but she does not consider numbers sufficient. Success, as she describes it, also means creating an organization people trust, developing capable professionals and leaders, establishing systems that function consistently, and producing educational resources that remain useful beyond the walls of an office.

Her view of leadership is particularly revealing: one of its greatest measures is whether an organization becomes stronger because someone led it, rather than permanently dependent on that person.

That idea brings the bigger-versus-better distinction full circle. Becoming bigger can be measured through scale. Becoming better requires examining whether an organization is more capable, whether employees are developing, whether knowledge is being preserved, whether clients receive consistent experiences, whether communication is improving, and whether the institution can uphold its purpose as responsibilities increase.

Ward ultimately describes herself as someone who wants to build. Her stated legacy includes organizations, opportunities, leaders, educational resources, and systems that continue creating value for other people.

For R.I.S.E. Immigration Services, that makes the long-term ambition larger than the founder without diminishing the founder’s importance. Ward’s role is to establish the standards, develop the people, strengthen the infrastructure, and create the conditions under which the organization can eventually carry its knowledge and purpose forward.

The clearest measure of that work may come much later. If R.I.S.E. can continue educating communities, creating opportunities, developing leaders, employing people, and serving immigrant families without requiring Laura Ward to remain at the center of every decision, it will have achieved the kind of growth she considers most meaningful. It will not simply have become bigger. It will have become strong enough to endure.