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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Kansas City region’s 816 area code is about to get a new number.

The Missouri Public Service Commission announced Monday that it will soon begin to implement the new area code of 975 in the Kansas City region.

The 816 area code serves communities like Kansas City, St. Joseph, Blue Springs, Odessa, Harrisonville, Parkville and more.

All existing 816 area code customers will still keep their current area code, and their phone numbers will not change.

But as soon as August 2023, companies can start requesting telephone numbers with the 975 area code. By October 2023, those new numbers can be activated.

The Missouri Public Service Commission said this change is called an overlay plan and is happening because the 816 area code will soon exhaust available phone numbers.

The North American Numbering Plan Administrator projects that the Kansas City area will run out of 816 phone numbers by the second quarter of 2024.

The new 975 area code will co-exist everywhere in the region that the 816 area code exists, and the cost of a phone call or other rates will not change.

All local calls must be dialed using 10 digits rather than seven. This shouldn’t be too much of a change for the 816 area code. In July 2022, the 816 area was one of many across the United States that was required to start 10-digit dialing to accommodate the new 988 mental health hotline.

This isn’t the first time the Missouri Public Service Commission and North American Numbering Plan Administrator have introduced a new area code in Missouri.

Just last year, the commission announced a new 557 area code for the St. Louis region. Mid-Missouri also got a new 235 area code last year in the current 573 region.

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ST. LOUIS – A teenager is in custody in connection with a recent carjacking outside a south St. Louis church.

According to Evita Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, a 13-year-old has been remanded to the Juvenile Division of the city’s Family Court and is being held on a robbery charge.

Police claim the teen was one of two juveniles responsible for an armed carjacking Friday evening in the parking lot of Carondelet Baptist Church, located in the 7300 block of Virginia Avenue in the Patch neighborhood.

The victim, a 62-year-old man, told police he parked his 2016 Dodge Caravan just after 7 p.m. when he was approached by two youths, who demanded he exit the vehicle. The victim got out of the Caravan and gave the suspects his wallet. The teens got in the Caravan and attempted to drive away. However, the struck several cars in the process and ran off on foot.

The incident was captured on church surveillance cameras.

 

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Dive Brief:

  • Adding another digital service, David’s Bridal has introduced Pearl by David’s, a new wedding planning platform that includes a vendor marketplace for couples, the company announced Thursday.
  • Through the platform, customers can view wedding advice content, access various wedding vendors, take advantage of the bridal retailer’s loyalty rewards program and get discounts on certain vendors. Couples can also manage their registry, build a wedding website, book appointments at David’s Bridal and create a wedding checklist.
  • Vendors can join the platform for free, create their own web pages on the site and showcase their offerings, according to the announcement. Alternatively, vendors can pay $49 per month to access trunk shows and other networking events, or $119 per month for a premium membership.

Dive Insight:

David’s Bridal has been working to improve its digital services for the past few years and step further into the wedding planning process. That has included acquiring wedding site Rustic Wedding Chic in 2020 and rolling out its own wedding planning tools. Through its new platform, David’s Bridal is connecting couples with local vendors like Bach to Basic, Nash Taps and Ravel Events.

“Pearl was developed at the request of our very own brides,” Jim Marcum, CEO of David’s Bridal, said in a statement. “Brides told us they wanted easier planning tools, a more seamless experience from planning to buying the dress, and more ways to earn Diamond points. Pearl also addresses pain points and gaps in the market couples experience when planning their wedding.”

The platform is an extension of a series of digital efforts David’s Bridal has invested in over the years. In April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic upended the wedding industry, the company debuted virtual styling appointments. Two months later, the retailer introduced appointments via Zoom to help bridal parties plan remotely and in the fall, the company teamed up with Vertebrae to upgrade product pages with 3D and augmented reality visualizations of its best-selling dresses.

As the coronavirus pandemic continued to increase demand for digital services, David’s Bridal continued its tech push. In May 2021, the company launched a 24-hour YouTube Live channel showcasing content from couples, vendors and photographers. Later that year, the retailer introduced the David’s Bridal Planning App, where customers could access various wedding planning tools. Last July, the retailer worked with ad agency January Digital to create and post shoppable content on TikTok.

David’s Bridal has also worked to vary its product assortment, both through launching new product lines and through acquisitions. The retailer bought the assets of Anomalie, a custom wedding dress company, for an undisclosed sum last year. As part of the acquisition, Anomalie’s co-founder and CEO, Leslie Voorhees Means, joined David’s Bridal to manage “new strategic initiatives.”

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Billionaire Gautam Adani’s sprawling business empire has lost a stunning $68 billion in market value through Monday — despite a 413-page attempted rebuttal to a short seller’s fraud allegations that blasted them as an “attack on India.”

Most of the Adani Group’s publicly traded stocks have plummeted in value in three days of trading since influential short-selling firm Hindenburg Research accused Adani of running “the largest con in corporate history.”

The biggest losses hit Adani Total Gas Ltd. and Adani Green Energy, which each plunged as much as 20% during trading Monday, according to Bloomberg data. The stock slump threatened to detail Adani Group just as it embarked on a $2.5 billion stock sale.

Adani Group tried to dismiss Hindenburg’s allegations in the lengthy report released Sunday, alleging the short seller’s allegations amounted to “calculated securities fraud” aimed at driving down the conglomerate’s value and hurting the country of India’s economic progress.

“This is not merely an unwarranted attack on any specific company but a calculated attack on India, the independence, integrity and quality of Indian institutions, and the growth story and ambition of India,” Adani Group said in its response.

Adani also repeated its threat to pursue legal action against Hindenburg.

In a sharp response to Adani’s rebuttal, Hindenburg said the company had failed to address 62 of the 88 specific questions it had raised about its operations and internal governance.

“Fraud cannot be obfuscated by nationalism or a bloated response that ignores every key allegation we raised,” Hindenburg said.

Hindenburg also slammed Adani’s assertation that its claims of fraud were harmful to India itself.

“To be clear, we believe India is a vibrant democracy and an emerging superpower with an exciting future. We also believe India’s future is being held back by the Adani Group, which has draped itself in the Indian flag while systematically looting the nation,” the firm said.

Last week, Hindenburg said it had “uncovered evidence of brazen accounting fraud, stock manipulation and money laundering at Adani, taking place over the course of decades.” The firm said its findings were based on a two-year investigation.

Hindenburg said it had identified a network of shell companies in tax havens operated by Adani family members and close business associates that were allegedly used to inflate the corporation’s earnings.

Adani’s personal wealth has taken a major hit since Hindenburg’s allegations surfaced. The 60-year-old has lost nearly $28 billion on paper since the start of the year and fallen from third to seventh on Bloomberg’s list of the world’s richest individuals.

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