Month: April 2021

Categories
Business

The Oscars Are a Week Away, however How Many Will Watch?

The Oscars Are a Week Away, but How Many Will Watch?

Mr. Soderbergh recognized that there is only so much that producers can do.

“People’s decision-making process about whether or not to watch doesn’t seem tied to whether the show is fantastic or not,” he said, citing the strong critical response to this year’s Grammys, which were particularly risky by Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B.

The Oscars show, on the other hand, peaked in 1998 when 57.2 million people tuned in to watch the box office juggernaut “Titanic” drive to the best-picture win. Since the turn of the century, 2004 was the year with the highest ratings, when the academy honored another box-office hit: “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”.

Analysts point to a variety of challenges driving the decline. Old broadcast networks like ABC are not as relevant, especially to young people. The ceremonies, even if limited to a relatively brisk three hours, are too long for contemporary attention spans. Last year’s Oscars ran for three hours and 36 minutes (the equivalent of 864 videos on TikTok).

Why stroll through the show when you can only see snippets on Twitter and Instagram?

Additionally, the Oscars have become overly polished and predictable. “The Oscars used to be the only time you saw movie stars in your living room, and very often it was a scream,” said Ms. Basinger, the Hollywood historian. “Some seemed a little drunk. Some wore strange clothes. A few had hair on their faces. “

Increasingly, the ceremonies are less about entertainment honors and more about progressive politics, which inevitably annoys those in the audience who disagree. A recently produced producer of the Oscars, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential metrics, said minute-by-minute analysis of the post-show ratings revealed “swaths” of people turning off their televisions as celebrities started talking about politics.

And there are simply awards that show tiredness. There are at least 18 television ceremonies held every year including the MTV Video Music Awards, the BET Awards, the Teen Choice Awards, the Academy of Country Music Awards, the Billboard Music Awards, the CMT Music Awards, the Tony Awards, the People’s Choice Awards, the Kids’ Choice Awards and Independent Spirit Awards.

As audience ratings for the upcoming show are expected to drop, ABC has asked for 30 seconds of advertising time to be $ 2 million, a decrease of around 13 percent from last year’s starting price. Some loyal advertisers (Verizon) are returning, but others (Ferrero Chocolates) are not.

“We really don’t get a lot of interest in advertisers,” said Michelle Chong, director of planning at Atlanta-based agency Fitzco.

Tiffany Hsu contributed to the coverage.

Categories
Health

It is OK Our Our bodies Have Modified Throughout the Pandemic

It's OK Our Bodies Have Changed During the Pandemic

If your own mind is spitting out negative thoughts on its own, try practicing “thought-stopping,” a technique often used in cognitive behavioral therapy, said Dr. Cox. When a negative thought about your body penetrates your brain, say “stop”. Then, mindfully replace that thought with a positive one. For example: when you stand in front of the mirror and focus on your belly fat, stop this thought and remind yourself that your body carried a baby, ran marathons, or you can haul mulch around your yard.

Diet culture is everywhere. For example the terms “Quarantine 15” or “Covid 19”. These weight gain conditions fueled the idea on social media and pop culture websites that an aspect worthy of your emotional energy stayed thin enough to fit your jeans in the face of mass sickness, unemployment, and other pandemic issues.

Even if no one has ever found a flaw in your body, you most likely have internalized ideas about what bodies should look like. Probably these ideas are separate from our actual health. These ideas are tied to capitalism’s relentless need to sell diet products, said Connie Sobczak, co-founder and executive director of Body Positive, a nonprofit that leads body positivity training. Creating a hierarchy of good, better, and best bodies creates market opportunities for selling what we need to sustain those bodies.

Take a close look at your media and social media consumption. Consider unfollowing or muting friends, influencers, and celebrities who advocate thinness. One more step? Examples of fat phobia in TV shows, movies, and more – if only for yourself. When you start deliberately jotting down diet culture whenever you watch it, you’ll be amazed at how it has permeated our daily discourse.

People who live in larger bodies often don’t feel welcome in certain rooms – like the gym, said Dr. Cox. But practicing body acceptance can change that.

“Research shows that shame doesn’t work,” said Dr. Cox. “Shame does not actually lead to changes in behavior, but acceptance encourages behavior changes and encourages us to be active in spaces where we are traditionally not welcome.” She referred to a 2011 study in the journal Qualitative Health Research. Participants were invited to join the Fatosphere, an online community where the word “fat” was neutral and treated like any other descriptor: that is, having brown hair or being short or tall. Negative discussions about weight were not allowed and participants were encouraged to share their experiences in a safe, body-positive room. After a year of participating in the Fatosphere, participants reported positive changes in their general wellbeing. They also felt safer entering rooms that they would traditionally have avoided. When people begin to see their bodies as the wonder they are, not the things they are not, “people actually find the freedom to do things that society tells them they don’t can, “said Dr. Cox.

Taking that first step into a seemingly hostile room can be daunting – especially after a year at home. Dr. Cox recommends starting with positive statements.

Categories
Business

Billionaire Jeff Greene says this housing growth is in a bubble, too

Billionaire Jeff Greene says this housing boom is in a bubble, too

A real estate investor who made a fortune short of subprime mortgages more than a decade ago told CNBC on Friday it believed the current real estate market was in a bubble.

“Absolutely. I think we’re in an omni-bubble. How long does it take? It depends. How long do you keep the faucet open and this money running?” Billionaire Jeff Greene said on “Power Lunch”.

“There’s just so much money on corporate balance sheets … and on people’s balance sheets and in their bank accounts that it only increases the price of everything higher, but at some point it has to stop,” Greene said.

The real estate market was one of the strongest parts of the US economy during the coronavirus pandemic, which also left millions of people jobless and sparked a recession.

Mortgage rates have been historically low, and the rise in remote working has given Americans more flexibility in where they live. Property prices have risen as strong demand collided with low supply.

Greene isn’t the first person to claim the market has overheated, although his previous bet against the mid-2000s real estate market makes his comments on Friday noteworthy. Recently, Google did a search for “When is the real estate market going to collapse?” have shifted dramatically.

“When you see prices go up as they go up, you have to ask yourself: why did this happen?” Greene said the robust monetary and fiscal response to the pandemic played a key role.

“I think 80% of this was because of the extraordinary liquidity in the economy and 20% because of fundamentals,” he said. The investor also pointed to the rising cost of sawn timber, suggesting that different parts of the economy will see significant inflation as it recovers from the crisis.

“I think we’re going to have inflation that nobody … is predicting, and it’s going to have to lead to much higher interest rates, and that’s going to slow down all of these markets,” Greene said.

Jeff Greene

Cameron Costa | CNBC

Not everyone shares Greene’s view that the real estate market is in a bubble, even though they think real estate values ​​could see a brief correction. A big reason some people say this boom is different is that mortgage underwriting standards have improved because of the previous crash.

Others see it differently than Greene, which is what is causing the surge in demand. “I know there is great concern about possible speculation, but that’s really not what is happening in the market today,” Ryan Gorman, CEO of Coldwell Banker Real Estate, told CNBC on Tuesday.

Gorman’s company, owned by Realogy, recently conducted a survey that looked at why people are considering selling a home.

“About 40% is upsizing, the most classic reason people want to move. About 30% see an increase in value in their home, so they say, ‘Maybe I want to monetize that value. Maybe my retirement plans move forward,” Gorman told Power Lunch “.

“You still have about 30% who say, ‘If I can work remotely at least part of the time, maybe all the time, then maybe I want to live somewhere different from now, maybe somewhere a little cheaper,” said Gorman. “As home prices rise, affordability is a relative term and we are seeing some people benefit from it.”

Categories
Politics

AG Merrick Garland erases Trump limits on consent decrees for police

AG Merrick Garland erases Trump limits on consent decrees for police

President Joe Biden listens as Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on April 8, 2021, on gun violence prevention executive measures.

Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday lifted the Trump-era restrictions on consent ordinances that the Justice Department has used to enforce reforms in police departments allegedly allegedly widespread wrongdoing.

Garland, who fulfilled an election promise made by President Joe Biden, said in a memorandum that the Justice Department “will revert to the traditional process” that took place before former President Donald Trump’s administration placed severe restrictions on the civil rights instrument.

“Together we will continue the Department’s legacy of promoting the rule of law, protecting the public, and working with state and local government agencies to achieve these goals,” Garland said in the memo sent to US attorneys and other DOJs Leader.

The policy reversal is taking place amid historically strained relationships between police agencies and black communities. A number of deaths involving police over the past year, notably the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparked nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism.

Derek Chauvin, the white ex-cop who kneeled on Floyd’s neck more than nine minutes before he died, is on trial for murder. The recent shooting near Minneapolis by Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old black man, sparked further protests in Minnesota.

Consent ordinances are judicial agreements that can be used to remedy violations of the law or systemic misconduct that have been found in federal investigations against state or local law enforcement authorities.

For example, following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, the DOJ initiated an investigation by the Ferguson Police Department into “alleged patterns or practices of illegal misconduct” and other issues. Less than a year later, the DOJ said it had identified “a number of patterns or practices of unconstitutional behavior”.

A federal judge approved the consent decree between Ferguson and the DOJ in April 2016, which required major changes in the police force.

Just before he was fired by Trump in November 2018, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions signed a memo restricting the Justice Department’s use of consent regulations.

Changes to the sessions included a requirement that consent orders must be approved by top management and that they contain an expiration date, rather than only going into effect once the court believes the case can be closed.

“I am picking up the November 2018 memorandum,” Garland said in his memo.

As a presidential candidate, Biden vowed that under his administration, the DOJ “will again use its authority to eradicate unconstitutional or unlawful policing”.

Categories
Entertainment

Rusty Younger, Nation-Rock Pioneer, Is Lifeless at 75

Rusty Young, Country-Rock Pioneer, Is Dead at 75

Rusty Young, a founding member of popular country rock group Poco and a key figure in establishing the pedal steel guitar as an integral voice in West Coast rock of the late 1960s and 1970s, died Wednesday at his Davisville home. Mo. He was 75 years old.

His publicist Mike Farley said the cause was a heart attack.

Mr. Young played steel guitar with Poco for more than half a century. Along with other Los Angeles-based rock bands such as the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Poco was one of the architects of the country rock movement of the late 1960s, which incorporated traditional country instruments into predominantly rock arrangements. The Eagles and dozens of other bands would follow suit.

Formed in 1968, Poco originally included singers and guitarists Jim Messina and Richie Furay – both formerly Buffalo Springfield, another groundbreaking Los Angeles country rock band – plus Mr. Young, drummer George Grantham and bassist Randy Meisner, a future member of the Eagles. (Timothy B. Schmit, another future eagle, replaced Mr. Meisner after he left the band in 1969.)

Poco first got together for a high profile show at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, not long after Mr. Furay invited Mr. Young to play pedal steel guitar on his composition “Kind Woman,” the final track of Buffalo Springfield’s farewell album. “The last time.” The music that Poco made generally used a Twangier production and was more populist-oriented than that of Buffalo Springfield, a band that had at times gravitated towards experimentalism and obfuscation.

Mr. Furay’s song “Pickin ‘Up the Pieces”, the title track of Poco’s 1969 debut album, served as a letter of intent:

Well there is just a little bit of magic
In country music we sing
So let’s start.
We’ll bring you back home where people are happy
Sittin ‘pickin’ and a-grinnin ‘
You and me
We’ll pick up the pieces, um.

Sharp and lyrical at the same time, Mr. Young’s pedal steel work shaped the group’s music with its rustic signature sound and helped create a prominent place for the steel guitar among roots-conscious California rock bands.

“I put color in Richie’s country rock songs, and that was the whole idea of ​​using instruments with a country sound,” Young explained in a 2014 interview with Goldmine magazine, referring to the compositions of Mr. Furay.

But Mr. Young, who also played the banjo, dobro, and mandolin, was not averse to musical experiments. “I slipped the envelope onto the steel guitar and played it with a fuzz tone because nobody did that,” he told Goldmine. He also played the pedal steel through a Leslie speaker, much like a Hammond B3 organist would, leading some listeners to believe that he was actually playing an organ.

Mr. Young was not one of Poco’s original singers or songwriters. After the departure of Mr. Messina in 1971 and Mr. Furay in 1973, he appeared alongside newcomer Paul Cotton as one of the group’s front men. Mr. Young wrote and sang the lead vocals for “Crazy Love,” the band’s biggest hit, which reached # 1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Charts in 1979 (and # 17 on the Pop Charts).

He also wrote and sang the lead role on “Rose of Cimarron,” another of Poco’s more enduring recordings from the 1970s, and orchestrated the reunion of the group’s original members in 1989 for the album “Legacy,” which like the 1978 platinum Legend “, resulted in a pair of top 40 singles.

Norman Russell Young was born on February 23, 1946 in Long Beach, California, the eldest of three children of Norman John and Ruth (Stephenson) Young. His father, an electrician, and his mother, a typist, took him to country bars where he was fascinated by the steel guitarists as a child.

He grew up in Denver where he started playing lap steel guitar at the age of 6. As a teenager, he worked with local psychedelic and country bands.

After moving to Los Angeles but before joining Poco, he declined an invitation to become a member of the Flying Burrito Brothers, which at the time included Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, formerly Byrds.

After Mr. Cotton left Poco in 2010 because of a financial dispute, Mr. Young became the group’s only front man. The band made their last album, All Fired Up, in 2013, the same year Mr. Young was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in St. Louis. In 2017 he released his first solo album “Waitin ‘for the Sun” and performed sporadically with the latest version of Poco until the coronavirus pandemic hit in March 2020.

Mr. Young is survived by his wife of 17 years, Mary Brennan Young; a daughter, Sara; a son, Will; a sister, Corine Pietrovich; and three grandchildren. His brother Ron died in 2002.

Mr. Young’s rise as a singer and songwriter in Poco in the late 1970s after nearly a decade as a supporting instrumentalist was as propitious as it was accidental.

“The band didn’t need another singer-songwriter when Richie and Jim were in the band,” he explained in his 2014 Goldmine interview, referring to Mr. Furay and Mr. Messina. “My job was to play the steel guitar and bring the music to it. When my job changed, a lot of opportunities opened up for me. So I liked the way things went. “

Categories
Business

One Strategy to Get Folks Off the Streets: Purchase Motels

One Way to Get People Off the Streets: Buy Hotels

With offices booming in San Francisco and plenty of overtime opportunities, Mr. Sanchez said that at its peak it could hit a maximum of $ 22 an hour, or just over $ 60, adjusted for inflation. He wasn’t worried about the rent either. He stayed in his family’s public housing unit until his mid-twenties and had a cheap after-hours life that consisted of floating around the neighborhood and hanging out with friends near the BART stop on 24th Street. “I was always on the street,” he said.

When he moved out of his family’s home, an event sparked by his brother’s murder in a drug deal, what he described as a series of falling wages, broken relationships, and unstable housing conditions began to rock him back and forth in the Bay Area and ended up pitching a tent in front of a church a block away.

“I started partying and stuff,” he said. “Starting cocaine and smoking weed.”

Mr Sanchez says he’s only got two formal leases for a few months each, and has seen enough wives and girlfriends in the process that he can’t say exactly how many of their names he tattooed and covered up.

“Bad call,” he said. “I have a heart for people.”

Mr. Sanchez jumped from rooms to floors and couches, saying he was functionally homeless even when he wasn’t on the street. At some point he moved to Sacramento, which is cheaper to rent, but had moved into landscaping and painting after his back injury, and that was only $ 10 an hour.

In early 2020, he slept on the floor of a friend’s hotel room and made about $ 1,000 a month in social security benefits and a little extra doing yard and gutter cleaning jobs every hour. One day he met a woman he knew and she offered to let him sleep in her tent next to an episcopal church one block from his children’s apartment. He said yes and soon got his own tent.

“I said, ‘Oh, is it like that? It’s not that bad, ”he said.

Homelessness, as experienced by Gregory Sanchez, is a relatively new phenomenon. In the early 1980s, scientists began documenting people sleeping in parks and bus stops. Then as now, researchers attributed this to a mix of falling wages, rising housing costs, and a frayed safety net associated with addiction and untreated mental illness.

Another factor that has largely been lost in history has been the loss of single occupancy hotels, which served as a crucial source of last resort housing. This has led the tenants to oppose Somerton’s conversion. When Mr Lembi asked the city for permission to renovate Somerton from residential to tourist hotel in 1984, it was challenged by Randy Shaw, a longtime housing attorney who founded the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in 1980 and still operates it today . He eventually negotiated an agreement that allowed the two dozen long-term residents to stay at the Hotel Diva.

Categories
Health

5 issues to know earlier than the inventory market opens Friday, April 16

5 things to know before the stock market opens Friday, April 16

Here are the top news, trends, and analysis that investors need to get their trading day started:

1. Dow will rise after closing above 34,000 for the first time

People walk past the New York Stock Exchange in New York City on April 15, 2021.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

2. Housing construction in March is strong

Contractors install floor joists on the foundation of a home under construction in Lehi, Utah, December 16, 2020.

George Frey | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Thursday’s March retail sales helped raise stocks – and on Friday, investors took a look at the glowing housing market. The Commerce Department said housing starts rose 19.4% in March, beating estimates. Building permits rose 2.7% and fell short of expectations. Privately owned residential completions in March rose 16.6%. Builders have been ramping up construction lately, and new government covid incentives could fuel that trend.

3. The Chinese economy grew 18.3% in Covid in the first quarter

China reported gross domestic product slightly below expectations in the first quarter as industrial production disappointed but retail sales exceeded estimates. The GDP rose in the first three months of the year by 18.3% compared to the previous year, the Chinese statistical office announced on Friday. In the first quarter of last year, the economy contracted 6.8% – during the peak of the domestic Covid outbreak.

4. WHO chief: Covid case rate is approaching the highest level ever

A physical therapist fits an oxygen mask on a patient with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the intensive care unit of the Parelheiros Municipal Hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on April 8, 2021.

Amanda Perobelli | Reuters

The head of the World Health Organization said on Friday that an alarming trend of rising Covid cases had caused infections around the world to reach their highest ever level. In the US, weekly cases are well below their all-time highs, but are in line with levels seen during the summer surge. Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, said people will likely need a booster dose of a Covid vaccine within 12 months of being fully vaccinated. Bourla said it is possible that annual vaccinations against the coronavirus will also be necessary.

5. The death of a gunman shoots at least 8 people in the FedEx facility in Indianapolis and kills himself

At least eight people died after a gunman opened fire at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis late Thursday and then killed himself, city police said. FedEx said in a statement: “We are deeply shocked and saddened by the loss of our team members. … We are fully cooperating with law enforcement agencies.” Last week, President Joe Biden announced a series of executive measures aimed at tackling what he calls the national gun violence epidemic. In March alone, 18 people were killed in two mass shootings in the Atlanta and Boulder, Colorado area.

– NBC News contributed to this report. Follow all market action like a pro on CNBC Pro. Get the latest information on the pandemic on CNBC’s coronavirus blog.

Categories
Business

Disneyland, Common Studios openings to spice up Principal Road companies

Disneyland, Universal Studios openings to boost Main Street businesses

Disneyland and Universal theme parks will reopen.

Paul Rovere | Getty Images

March was the best month for Michael Afram’s transportation company since closing California last year due to the pandemic. When the state eased some of its coronavirus restrictions and vaccination rates increased, the Carmel Shuttle Service began to recover.

“To give you an idea of ​​where we are, the revenue we booked for the entire month of March 2021 is one day in March 2020 before the shutdown,” said Afram. “So I think you can think of us as a thirtieth of where we need to go back.”

Before the pandemic, Afram made an average of 450 to 500 trips a day in the Los Angeles-San Diego area. A large percentage of his destinations were Disneyland, Universal Studios, and SeaWorld San Diego.

With California theme parks closed and air travel demand a fraction of 2019 demand, Afram’s business had massive financial success. With the reopening of Universal Studios on Friday and the opening of the gates through Disneyland on April 30th, companies like Afram’s are experiencing a small boom.

Full recovery will be slow, however, as these parks are being forced to limit their capacity and can only accommodate guests who are already resident in the state.

While bookings are strong in April and May, Afram doesn’t expect its business to fully recover until the second quarter of 2022.

“We survived the storm and see a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “Unfortunately, [we] saw and suffered so much destruction and despair on the way to get to this point. “

Around 50% of Afram’s business was in the Anaheim resort area, which is home to Disney’s two California parks and the Downtown Disney mall. His shuttle company traveled to local airports, hotels, theme parks, restaurants, and other local tourist destinations in the area.

The other 50% included Greater Orange County plus Los Angeles, where Universal Studios are located, and day trips to San Diego.

“The impact Disneyland and Universal Studios have on our local economies is important to all of our small businesses and the surrounding industries,” said Sharon Quirk-Silva, Democrat, who represents California’s 65th Congregation District, which includes northern Orange County belongs.

“There will no doubt be a surge in economic growth across Orange County when they reopen,” she said.

A slow and steady rebound

Direct travel-related spending in California was $ 145 billion in 2019, up 3.2% year over year, according to a report by Visit California, a tourism nonprofit.

In fact, residents of other states and countries accounted for 6 out of $ 10 spent locally in 2019.

In 2020, California tourism spending fell to $ 59 billion, just 41% of the previous year’s spending. The last time the state’s tourism spending was below $ 60 billion was in 1996.

The Los Angeles tourism and hospitality sector supports more than 600,000 direct and indirect jobs, said Lawren Markle, senior director of communications at Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.

“Of course, LA County’s 10 million residents support this sector and its jobs as we frequent our local theme parks and hospitality businesses,” he said. “And LA also welcomes approximately 50 million visitors a year, and their spending is also a big engine of economic activity.”

“We’re still well below pre-pandemic tourism levels, so we see the reopening of theme parks as a very public signal that things are getting back to normal in LA and that trips to Los Angeles are looking practical and enjoyable again,” he said .

For Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, a restaurant chain with seven locations in California, including one at Disneyland Resort, local restrictions forced the company to close its doors to indoor dining. It stayed afloat during the pandemic by offering take-away and delivery and because it owned the buildings where its restaurants are located.

Diane Vara, the company’s creative director, said the company was able to hit around 75% of what it did last year in 2019, but is looking forward to the influx of companies that comes with the opening of the theme parks and the state will go hand in hand.

Vara noted that Roscoe’s Inglewood location near Los Angeles International Airport often attracts travelers who come to business with luggage in tow right after their flight lands.

“This is great for us,” she said of the state reopening.

Pandemic pressure

Of course, Disney and Universal will also benefit from the reopening.

Last year’s shutdown resulted in Disney laying off tens of thousands of workers and limiting an important source of income for the media company. The Parks, Experiences, and Consumer Staples segment accounted for 37% of the company’s total revenue of $ 69.6 billion, or approximately $ 26.2 billion, in 2019.

A year later, revenue shrank to $ 16.5 billion, or roughly 25% of the company’s total revenue of $ 65.4 billion.

“That was probably one of the toughest things I personally had to do in my career,” said Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney’s Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products division, in an interview with CNBC last week about the layoffs. “I’m very passionate about the performers here. I think they’re the real reason people come to these parks.”

D’Amaro said the company will have called back more than 10,000 employees when the Disneyland Resort reopens in late April. At the beginning, Disney’s parks will be occupied by around 15%. Mask wear and social distancing are required for guests visiting the park.

At Universal, too, revenue from theme parks declined in 2020. The Comcast-owned company said that theme park revenue fell 68.9% to $ 1.8 billion last year as the pandemic forced the closure of its California park, as well as its Florida and Japan parks will only be reopened with a limited number of visitors.

When the California park reopens, Universal guests must also wear masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines.

Universal Studios officials declined to comment.

“During my visits to Downtown Disney … I heard many of our constituents feel safer in the theme parks than in their own grocery store,” Quirk-Silva said. “We have supported our efforts to reopen our theme parks with hand washing stations, temperature checks and helpful staff who ensure that our residents are safely distanced.”

Florida parks are thriving

If the Florida theme parks reopening are any signs of this, there is a lot of catching up to do.

Universal’s two parks, Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios, have consistently reached capacity limits in recent weeks, and Disney’s four theme parks – Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Epcot – sell out days in advance.

Guests in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter as Universal Studios Hollywood welcome guests back to the theme park on Friday April 16 to experience the thrilling rides and attractions.

Al Seib | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

To date, there have been no public reports linking Orlando parks to coronavirus outbreaks.

“We continue to deliver an amazing entertainment experience,” said Brian Roberts, Comcast chairman and CEO, during the company’s earnings statement in January. “And our guests are reacting, as our steadily increasing number of visitors and our latest financial results confirm.”

“What we’ve seen in this fourth quarter, particularly in Orlando, gives us even more confidence in the momentum our theme parks will experience when we achieve sustained recovery,” he said at the time.

While Florida Governor Ron DeSantis allowed theme parks to return to normal operations with limited protocols for physical distancing, Disney and Universal, among other things, continued to restrict participation and force the wear of masks.

California lawmakers are aiming for a broader reopening of the state in June. However, it is unclear how this will affect the capacity limits of the theme park. It also remains to be seen when California will allow non-residents to purchase tickets to its parks.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.

Categories
World News

‘Roaring Kitty’ forgoes fast GameStop choices payday within the tens of millions, raises stake

'Roaring Kitty' Keith Gill defends GameStop posts, says he is as bullish as ever on the stock

Keith Gill, the favorite of the Reddit trading people and the man who inspired the epic GameStop Short Squeeze, just doubled his bet on the video game dealer and foregoing a quick million dollar win to increase his stake.

The investor, who offers DeepF —— Value on Reddit and Roaring Kitty on YouTube, exercised his 500 GameStop call option contracts as they expired on Friday, giving him 50,000 more shares at an exercise price of only 12 USD. If he had sold the options at Friday’s price, he could have made more than $ 7 million on the bet.

In addition to exercising these options contracts, Gill bought 50,000 more GameStop shares and increased his total investment to 200,000 shares valued at more than $ 30 million.

While he’s been giving up the quick payday on this options trading, his long investment is now even wilder profitable at its average cost of $ 55.17, according to Gill’s latest update on the Reddit r / WallStreetBets forum on Friday. GameStop closed at $ 154.69 on Friday, bringing it to a profit of nearly $ 20 million. (The post hasn’t been independently verified by CNBC so we’ll assume it’s his actual account.)

Gill attracted an army of day traders who piled into the stationary video game and call options, propelling stocks up 400% in a single week in January. GameStop is up 720% over the year.

Shares rose slightly after close of business with some investors, perhaps encouraging Gill to exercise his call options to get even longer.

The investor was a former Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance marketer. Through YouTube videos and Reddit posts, Gill encouraged a group of retailers to drive out hedge fund short selling on GameStop.

The action got so wild at one point that brokers, including Robinhood, had to restrict trading in stocks as it blew up their clearinghouse margin. The mania also led to a series of Congressional hearings where Gill discussed broker practices and retail gamifying.

Gill owned 10,000 shares of GameStop at the end of 2020 and increased his stake to 50,000 shares in January and 100,000 shares in mid-February. Judging by the updates he posted on Reddit, he has not sold his GameStop stakes in the incredibly short period of time or in the period that followed.

The GameStop story is far from over. In addition to reviewing the retail saga, the company is itself in the midst of a transformation and hopes to capitalize on the massive price rally.

GameStop announced a $ 1 billion stock sale in early April to accelerate the transition to e-commerce led by activist investor and board member Ryan Cohen, co-founder of Chewy. The company also hired former Amazon and Google CEO Jenna Owens as its new chief operating officer.

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Categories
Politics

Donations Surge for Republicans Who Challenged Election Outcomes

Donations Surge for Republicans Who Challenged Election Results

WASHINGTON – Republicans who vocalized the loudest urge to come to Washington on January 6th to try to undo the loss of President Donald J. Trump, overturn the elections and fuel the grievances that make the deadly one The Capitol Rebellion sparked have profited amply in the aftermath, according to new campaign data.

Senators Josh Hawley from Missouri and Ted Cruz from Texas, who led the challenges to President Biden’s victory in their chamber, raised more than $ 3 million each in the three months following the January 6 attack on the Capitol in campaign donations.

Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who described the rampage as the “1776 moment” and was later exempted from committee duties for advocating bigoted conspiracy theories and advocating political violence, raised $ 3.2 million – more as the solo campaign of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, and almost every other member of the house leadership.

An analysis by the New York Times of the recent Federal Election Commission revelations shows how the leaders of the effort to undo Mr Biden’s election victory have benefited from the indignation of their supporters for raising huge sums of campaign money. Far from being punished for promoting the protest that became fatal, they have performed well in a system that often rewards the loudest and most extreme voices and uses insurrection anger to build their political brands . The analysis examined the individual campaign accounts of the legislature, not the joint fundraising committees or the leadership’s political action committees.

“The outrage machine is powerful at generating political input,” said Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican Congressman from Florida.

Shortly after the storming of the Capitol, some prominent corporations and political action committees vowed to end support for the Republicans who had fanned the flames of anger and conspiracy that led to violence. But any financial setback for Corporate America seems to have been dwarfed by a flood of cash from other areas.

North Carolina representative Madison Cawthorn, a freshman who urged his supporters to “gently threaten” Republican lawmakers to get them to question the election results, collected more than $ 1 million. Representative Lauren Boebert from Colorado, who, like Ms. Greene, compared January 6 to the American Revolution, raised nearly $ 750,000.

The amounts reflect an emerging incentive structure in Washington where the biggest provocateurs can convert their notoriety into achievements of small donors who can help them achieve even higher levels of notoriety. It also shows the appetite of a Republican electorate who subscribes to Mr Trump’s false claims of widespread electoral fraud and seeks to reward those who have worked to undermine the outcome of a free and fair election.

Most of the dozen companies that pledged to cut off Republicans who advocated overturning the elections kept that promise and withheld political action committee donations for the last quarter. But that didn’t matter to the loudest voices on Capitol Hill, as a energetic base of pro-Trump donors stood by their side and more than made up for the deficit.

“We’re really seeing small donors emerge in the Republican Party,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist. “In the past, the Democrats have benefited most from small dollar donations. We see Republicans catch up quickly. “

Legislators have long benefited greatly from divisive reporting, particularly on important events that match the emotions of an angry or fearful electorate. However, the new records illustrate a growing gap between those who raise money through a bombastic profile – often supported by substantial fundraising expenses – and those who have turned their attention to serious political work.

When provocative newbies like Ms. Greene, Ms. Boebert, and Mr. Cawthorn took in high dollar numbers, other more conventional members of their class in competitive districts – even those who were praised for their fundraising ability – had lagged significantly.

For example, Ashley Hinson of Iowa and Young Kim of California, both against the election challenges and working on bipartisan bills, each made less than $ 600,000.

Ms. Greene, Ms. Boebert, and Mr. Cawthorn raised more money than the top Republicans on the most powerful committees in Congress, such as Funds, Budget, Education and Labor, Foreign Policy and Homeland Security.

In many cases, Republican lawmakers who started the flames of violence on January 6 have since benefited from posing and appealing to their supporters as victims of a political backlash developed by the Washington establishment.

“Pennsylvania didn’t obey its own state’s electoral law, but the establishment didn’t want to hear it. But that’s not what I work for, ”Hawley wrote in a fundraising message in January. “I objected because I wanted to make sure your voice was heard. Now Biden and his woken up mob are coming after me. I need your help.”

Ms. Greene raised funds from a successful attempt to ban her from committees, led by angry Democrats who were outraged by her earlier talk in support of the execution of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and who encouraged her supporters to say “Stop the Steal” on January 6th In the days before and after the unusual vote, she raised $ 150,000 every day, surpassing it every time.

“The DC swamp and fake news media are attacking me because I am not one of them,” was one such call. “I am one of you. And they hate me for it. “

However, Mr. Trump’s polarizing nature also helped some Republicans who held him accountable for his conduct in connection with the January 6th events.

Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican who voted for the indictment against Mr. Trump, raised $ 1.5 million, and Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who founded an organization, raised $ 1.5 million to lead the Republican Party away from allegiance to Mr. Trump. raised more than $ 1.1 million.

“It is obvious that there is a strong market for Trumpism in the Republican base,” said Curbelo. “There is also a strong market for truth-finding and constitutional support.”

Mr. Conant questioned how the increase in fundraising for some candidates was directly related to the Capitol attack. He said the conservative news media had generally “moved on” from reporting.

Instead, he said Republican voters were “very nervous” about the direction of the country under democratic control and ready to support Republicans who they saw as a fight against a liberal agenda.

“It’s worth being high-profile,” said Conant. “It’s further evidence that Milquetoast doesn’t offer a lot of grassroots support in the middle of the road. That doesn’t mean you have to be pro-Trump. It just means that you have to take strong positions and then connect with those supporters. “

But if the Republican Civil War has paid campaign dividends for both sides, individual Democrats involved in prosecuting Mr Trump for the insurrection in his impeachment have not achieved similar success.

With $ 3.2 million in the quarter, Ms. Greene raised more than the sum of all nine impeachment executives – although she received widespread applause in liberal circles for her case against the former president. According to the data, three of the managers have raised less than $ 100,000 each in the past three months.

With money flowing into campaigns, the January 6 attack also resulted in high security spending.

The Federal Election Commission expanded guidelines allowing lawmakers to use campaign submissions to install home security systems in their homes, and Capitol Hill Top Security urged lawmakers to consider upgrading their home security systems to Include panic buttons and key rings.

Campaign filings show that nearly a dozen lawmakers have made payments of $ 20,000 or more to security companies in the past three months, including Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, who voted to convict Mr. Trump; Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who gave a harrowing report on the uprising; and Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California and one of the impeachment executives against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Cruz and Mr. Hawley were also some of the biggest security issues.

Lauren Hirsch and Jeanna Smialek contributed to the coverage.