Usher’s Third Album ‘8701’ Was Launched 20 Years In the past Immediately!

Roommates, Usher has been in the game long enough to have several classic and iconic albums…and one of them has officially turned 20 years old! On this day back on August 7, 2001, Usher released his third studio album “8701”—which permanently put him in the conversation of one of the greatest artists of all-time.

Not only did the album feature a collection of number one hit singles and Grammy wins, it also featured Usher’s choreography-heavy videos and legendary vocals. The album’s first hit single “U Remind Me,” shot up to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and won Best Male R&B Vocal Performance at the 44th annual Grammy Awards.

However, “U Remind Me” wasn’t the only hit on “8701,” as the second single “U Got It Bad” also hit number one, while the party anthem third single “U Don’t Have to Call” reached number three.

As soon as it was released, Usher’s “8701” easily debuted at number one on the Billboard R&B/Hip Hop chart and number four on the Billboard 200 chart. The album featured a collection of legendary producers/songwriters, such as Jermaine Dupri, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Babyface, The Neptunes, Bryan-Michael Cox, Mike City, and Soulshock & Karlin.

Usher also had a hand in the songwriting on the album, as well as a little on the production end, co-writing and co-producing “Intro-Lude 8701” and “Without U (Interlude),” with help from Jam & Lewis.

We definitely still play this album as much today as we did when it was released. Happy 20th anniversary!

 

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Third excessive precedence Covid vaccine for immunodeficiency

Federal health officials are working “ASAP” to get a third Covid-19 vaccine approved for Americans with weakened immune systems, said Dr. White House chief physician Anthony Fauci on Thursday.

It is now clear that such people – including cancer and HIV patients or those who have received an organ transplant – generally fail to produce adequate immune responses after receiving two doses of a Covid vaccine, Fauci said.

“Immunocompromised people are vulnerable,” said Fauci during a briefing at the White House. “It is extremely important for us to give these people their boosters and we are working on it now and we will do this as soon as possible. … It is a very high priority.”

Immunocompromised populations make up only about 2.7% of the adult US population. Still, they account for about 44% of hospitalized breakthrough Covid cases – an infection in a fully vaccinated person, according to recent data from an advisory group from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens during a Senate Fund Subcommittee hearing in Washington, DC, on Jan.

Stefani Reynolds | Swimming pool | Reuters

Studies suggest that a third shot might help people whose immune systems don’t respond as well to a first or second dose.

Four small studies cited by the CDC last month showed that 16% to 80% of people with compromised immune systems had no detectable antibodies to Covid after two shots. Among immunocompromised patients who had no detectable antibody response, 33 to 50% developed an antibody response after receiving an additional dose, according to the CDC.

“From the observational data we have made, it now appears that they are generally not giving an adequate response that we believe would be adequately protected,” Fauci said Thursday.

Other countries such as France are already giving third vaccinations to people with cancer or other immune deficiencies. Israel announced last month that it would offer booster syringes to people over the age of 60 as the syringe seems to be becoming less effective in these people.

Some doctors have pushed for the US to allow an extra dose to immunocompromised populations, and many immunocompromised Americans are already finding extra doses of the vaccines, medical experts say.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who headed the Food and Drug Administration during the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019, told CNBC on Monday that he believes the elderly and immunocompromised people will receive booster vaccinations through September or October.

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the board of directors of Pfizer, genetic testing startup Tempus, health technology company Aetion Inc., and biotechnology company Illumina. He is also co-chair of the Healthy Sail Panel of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean.

How altcoins comparable to ether captured increasingly more of the crypto market

Altcoins have become an increasingly larger part of the crypto market since the beginning of 2021.

“Crypto and blockchain is about moving money and property rights onto the internet,” said Matt Hougan, Bitwise chief investment strategist. “That’s one of the largest addressable markets that the internet has ever attacked.”

At the start of 2021, bitcoin made up more than 70% of the crypto market, according to TradingViews. By the end of July 2021, bitcoin’s market share dropped to 48% of the global $1.6 trillion cryptocurrency market, with altcoins such as ether and USDC eating into its dominance. In fact, the crypto market now contains more than 11,000 different kinds of altcoins, according to Coinmarketcap.com.

“Everybody’s trying to do something that hasn’t been done before,” Mati Greenspan, Quantum Economics founder and CEO, told CNBC in an interview.

Altcoins fall into several different categories. There are technology platforms such as ethereum, the blockchain that ether is built on and that provides the underpinnings for the growing “decentralized finance” movement. There are stablecoins, or digital currencies pegged to real-world currencies or other assets. And then there are meme currencies, like dogecoin.

Watch the video below to learn more about the world of altcoins, the different kinds of altcoins, and the steps regulators might take to rein them in.

The daddy of the chief Cuomo adviser campaigned within the governor’s workplace earlier this yr

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (L) speaks with Secretary to Governor Melissa DeRosa (R) during his daily press conference on March 20, 2020 in New York City.

Bennett Raglin | Getty Images

A firm run by the father of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s closest adviser was actively lobbying members of the governor’s team for clients earlier this year when former Cuomo advisors made allegations of sexual harassment and the governor was under investigation by the attorney general.

Giorgio DeRosa, the father of the governor’s powerful secretary Melissa DeRosa, is listed in lobbyists ‘disclosure reports as part of a group that actively engaged Cuomo’s staff in the Executive Chamber during Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into the governor for alleged sexual harassment of several women, as records show.

The disclosure reports show that Giorgio DeRosa, a head of the influential Bolton-St. Johns and his team lobbied the Cuomo Executive Chamber from January through April. Melissa DeRosa’s brother, who also works at the company, is also listed in disclosure reports showing the group targeted the governor’s office during the same period.

Bolton-St. Johns made just over $ 80,000 in that time lobbying Cuomo’s team, the revelations show.

The first former Cuomo adviser went public in December on allegations of sexual harassment against the governor. James announced in late February that he would take over the investigation.

The attorney general’s report found that Cuomo sexually molested eleven women and violated state and federal laws. It is also alleged that Melissa DeRosa was an architect to protect the governor from the allegations. Cuomo continues to deny wrongdoing. A new Quinnipiac poll says 7 out of 10 voters think Cuomo should step down.

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Between January and February, Giorgio DeRosa was part of a team hiring Cuomo’s consultants on a variety of topics for phone giant Verizon, food service company Delaware North and casino giant Caesars Entertainment.

Recent lobbying by the team also targeted members of the attorney general of the Live Nation ticket company later in the year, although those investigating Cuomo were not listed as the people contacted by Giorgio DeRosa and his team.

Melissa DeRosa said she has withdrawn from anything to do with her father and her entire family. Giorgio DeRosa has stood up for Cuomo’s team in the past.

Still, the lobbying reports show that he and his company continued to have access to the governor’s inner circle at the start of and during an investigation highlighting his daughter’s role in the alleged attempt to protect the governor from scrutiny.

After CNBC asked questions about Melissa DeRosa’s father’s recent lobbying efforts, a Cuomo spokesman dismissed CNBC’s coverage as “nonsensical”. The spokesman reiterated that the governor’s secretary had withdrawn from all matters related to her family.

“As has been publicly announced for years, Melissa is being proactively withdrawn on any specific matter that involves members of her family, and the premise of this article is nonsensical,” Rich Azzopardi, a Cuomo spokesman, said in an e- Mail to CNBC on Friday.

Azzopardi is also mentioned repeatedly in the attorney general’s report.

The attorney general’s report shows, among other things, that in March Melissa DeRosa twice requested that Larry Schwartz, who was Cuomo’s Covid vaccine czar at the time, call the Democratic district governments to take her pulse on whether the governor should resign in light of the allegations.

“On the call, Ms. DeRosa asked Mr. Schwartz to contact the Democratic District Councils to clarify their positions on whether the governor should resign in light of the sexual harassment allegations. Mr. Schwartz said he agreed to make the calls because Ms. DeRosa, the governor’s secretary, had asked, “the report said. “Two weeks after Mr. Schwartz made his first round of calls, Ms. DeRosa asked him to make another round of calls to the county boards to review their positions. Mr. Schwartz made those calls again and reported back to Ms. DeRosa.”

Ethics experts have previously questioned Melissa DeRosa’s attempt to distance herself from her father. Susan Lerner, the executive director of the guard dog Common Cause / New York, told CNBC in a telephone interview on Friday that after she and her group initially asked Melissa DeRosa for greater transparency, she received a call from the secretary to the governor.

“She refuses to provide a list of the matters that she has withdrawn from. When she was first appointed we raised this issue and she said she would withdraw herself,” Lerner said. “We said, ‘OK, let the public know which of these customers you are not going to discuss with.’ She refused and called to yell at me and say it was out of my turn to address these issues. “

Lerner said there were always the appearances of ethical issues when Giorgio DeRosa swayed the governor’s office while his daughter worked for the governor.

“It’s built into the situation and that was clear from the start,” she said. “By the time she was selected, there would be at least the semblance of inappropriateness that everyone in the executive who met with her father was very much aware of the relationship between the governor’s secretary and the lobbyist’s meeting with. It certainly is obvious to customers. “

Melissa DeRosa was first appointed secretary in 2017.

Giorgio DeRosa defended the company, saying it always acted in accordance with the laws of the state.

“Bolton-St.Johns has been rated as the top lobbying firm in New York for over two decades. Clients hire our firm to leverage our diverse knowledge and political know-how to support effective results-oriented strategies, ”he said in an email on Friday. “This topic has been covered extensively by other media in the past, and only the impeccable compliance with state law has been reported.”

For Verizon, the Executive Chamber’s lobbying focused, according to the disclosure, on “New York State budget items that affect Verizon’s services” and an “ongoing approval issue at the Verizon workplace.”

During the same period, Giorgio DeRosa and his team, along with members of the state legislature, participated in the Cuomo Executive Chamber on “Sports Betting Issues in NYS”. [New York State]“For Caesars.

In April, Cuomo signed a budget bill for fiscal year 2022 that would enable online sports betting in the Empire State. Giorgio DeRosa’s group supported Cuomo’s team on the same issues for Delaware North, which also owns casinos.

Giorgio DeRosa’s lobbying work towards the Executive Chamber did not end there. It was not until April that he and his company continued to advocate for Caesars on issues related to sports betting.

From March through April, they also got access to the executive chamber of FuelCell Energy, a Connecticut-based clean energy provider.

Giorgio DeRosa and his law firm also targeted state legislators for FuelCell with discussions about the review of the “Definition of Renewable Energy in New York State”.

How the Solid of The Crown Compares to the Actual-Life Gamers

It’s time to bow down to a new queen.

On July 30, Netflix released the first look of Harry Potter actress Imelda Staunton‘s transformation into Queen Elizabeth II, a much anticipated image as Staunton’s casting was first teased back in November 2019.

In the first glimpse, Staunton donned the queen’s signature short bob, pearls and yellow-patterned outfit. But she’s certainly not the first to hold the throne as part of the Netflix series: Prior to Staunton’s reign, Claire Foy and Olivia Colman played Queen Elizabeth.

And it appears Colman is excited to hand over her crown. “Imelda is extraordinary,” she raved to the Radio Times in December, “and she’s going to do it all much better than me. I can’t wait to watch what she does.”

Of course, Staunton’s first pic as the queen isn’t the only tease we’ve gotten for season five.

California closes main hydropower plant amid extreme drought

In this aerial view, houseboats sit on Lake Oroville at low tide as the California drought emergency worsens in Oroville, California on July 25, 2021.

Robyn Beck | AFP | Getty Images

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – California closed a large hydropower plant on Lake Oroville when the water level fell near the minimum required to generate electricity, state water authorities said.

It is the first time since the power plant opened in 1967 that the state has shut down the Hyatt power plant due to a lack of water.

The blackout could trigger even more blackouts this summer as the state grapples with a historic drought and record-breaking heat waves.

Officials said the record low water level at Lake Oroville, an artificial water reserve in Northern California, was due to the drought aggravated by climate change.

Though California is experiencing constant drought, climate change has fueled high temperatures and arid soils, which significantly reduced water runoff to the reservoirs this spring, resulting in the lowest levels ever recorded at Lake Oroville, officials said Thursday.

“This is just one of many unprecedented impacts we are experiencing in California as a result of our climate-induced drought,” Karla Nemeth, director of the state’s water resources division, said in a statement.

Nemeth said the department anticipated the shutdown and planned a loss of water and network management. Officials have warned that the facility will no longer be able to generate electricity if the water level drops below 640 feet above sea level.

Dry land is visible in a section that is usually underwater on the shores of Lake Oroville, which is the second largest reservoir in California and has a capacity of nearly 35, according to daily reports from the state Department of Water Resources near Oroville, California % hat, 06/16/2021.

Aude Guerrucci | Reuters

Lake Oroville’s water levels are expected to reach 620 feet above sea level by the end of October. Nemeth said the state’s water board was working to “save as much water as possible”.

Although the facility is no longer generating electricity, officials said they will dump some water from the dam into the Feather River to help maintain the river’s temperature requirements.

Governor Gavin Newsom urged California residents in July to reduce household water use by 15% in order to maintain water supplies. Network operators have also urged residents to limit electricity usage to avoid blackouts as forest fires scorched the state, including the Dixie Fire, which has been burning for more than three weeks and decimated the gold rush town of Greenville.

“Falling reservoir levels are another example of why it is so important for all Californians to conserve water,” said Nemeth.

Expedia CEO requires Covid vaccine for everybody however says it isn’t required for workers

Expedia is holding back on a company-wide Covid vaccine mandate even as other large companies begin implementing them, CEO Peter Kern told CNBC on Friday.

“We’re trying to find solutions that are most widely used across our entire workforce, but there are no easy answers. … We all have to learn to live with Covid,” Kern said on Squawk Box. . “

“If we were all vaccinated in the US, we wouldn’t talk a lot about the Delta variant or anything else. But the world is a big place. We won’t vaccinate 8 billion people overnight,” said Kern of the US Census Bureau nearly 7.8 billion, and growing.

The online travel platform CEO’s comments came when United Airlines announced on Friday morning that its 67,000 US employees would have to get vaccinated or risk being fired by October 25th – a first among major US airlines and a move that will likely put pressure on its competitors. Other airlines, including Delta Air Lines, are still choosing to incentivize their employees and customers to get vaccinated instead of requiring them.

“We have offices in 55 countries around the world, there is no one-size-fits-all answer,” said Kern. “I think everyone gets vaccinated and I think companies are trying to find ways to motivate their employees in the right way and we definitely want our employees to be vaccinated too . “

The travel business has been adversely affected by the more contagious Delta variant spreading in the U.S. and around the world, Kern said. “We’ve certainly seen tremendous demand well into the summer and there is still pretty strong demand. But on the fringes, Delta has certainly had an impact.”

Kern said business travel “lagged significantly,” with delayed plans to return to the office likely to add to this trend. However, he believes that Expedia’s business, international and domestic bookings will return to pre-pandemic levels by next summer.

When travel made a comeback in April, Expedia changed its marketing strategy by updating its app and websites to focus more on collaborating with consumers in planning trips rather than just focusing on the number of bookings. The company raised $ 3.2 billion in new capital last year to help cut costs during the height of the pandemic.

“I think you will see that we are investing better, smarter and more organized against our brands,” said Kern. “You will see that our brands are working more clearly together for the common good rather than competing with one another.”

Expedia announced an adjusted loss per share of $ 1.13 for the second quarter after the bell on Thursday. Analysts had expected a loss of 65 cents per share. However, sales of $ 2.11 billion were better than expected. That’s a 273% increase from pandemic-related sales a year ago, but still about 40% less than in the second quarter of 2019 before Covid.

The company’s brands include the namesake Expedia.com as well as Hotels.com, Vrbo, Trivago, Orbitz and Hotwire.

Google billionaire Larry Web page granted New Zealand residency

Alphabet CEO, Larry Page. 

Emmanuel Dunand | AFP | GettyImages

Larry Page, the billionaire Google co-founder, has been granted residency in New Zealand and spent time in the country during the coronavirus pandemic, the New Zealand government confirmed to CNBC Friday.

Page, 48, applied for New Zealand residence in November 2020 via the nation’s “Investor Plus” residency visa but the application was unable to be processed because he was offshore at the time.

The visa, which requires applicants to have NZ$10 million ($7 million) to invest in New Zealand over a three-year period, was then processed after he landed in Auckland on Jan. 12, one day after the Page family filed an urgent application for the son to be evacuated from Fiji due to a medical emergency.

“Once Mr. Page entered New Zealand, his application was able to be processed and it was approved on 4 February 2021,” Immigration New Zealand said in a statement.

New Zealand health minister Andrew Little told Parliament on Thursday the nation gets roughly 100 medevac requests a year. “I’m advised all of the normal steps occurred in this case,” he said in response to a question about how Page had managed to enter New Zealand when the borders were shut to non-residents. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, New Zealand has kept its infection rates low by refusing entry to overseas travelers.

“Immigration New Zealand can confirm Larry Page met relevant requirements to be approved entry to New Zealand,” a spokesperson told CNBC.

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, said before Parliament that she hadn’t been briefed on Page’s visit. “With all [medevac] cases, those are decisions for clinicians, and I absolutely trust our clinicians to make decision,” Ardern said.

Located in relative isolation from the largest population centers of the world, New Zealand has become a popular destination with high net worth individuals in recent years.

The sparsely populated country, home to around 5 million people, has been hailed as one of the best places in the world to ride out a societal collapse, as it’s relatively self-dependent in terms of food and energy. It also boasts a temperate climate and a stable political system.

The news of Page’s visit and his residency has reignited a longstanding debate over whether the super rich can essentially buy access the South Pacific county as and when they want. Billionaire Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and profited from an early bet on Facebook, was granted Kiwi citizenship in 2017 even though he’d only spent 12 days in New Zealand.

Thiel has invested in local start-up Xero and bought property across the country, as well as a 193-hectare estate in Wanaka on New Zealand’s rugged South Island. While he is yet to build anything on the site, he has been in contact with at least three architects.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told the New Yorker in 2016 that he and Thiel plan to get on a private jet and fly to one of Thiel’s properties in New Zealand in the event of some kind of systemic collapse event.

 

Actor Jake Gyllenhaal reveals in a brand new interview that he “thinks bathing is much less crucial”

# Roommates discussing their bathing habits after Hollywood couple Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, popular actor Jake Gyllenhaal also seems to share the belief that showering regularly is not necessary. In a recent interview, Jake Gyllenhaal was asked about his bathing habits and admitted that he found the procedure “less necessary” than what many people do.

@VanityFair sat down for an in-depth interview with Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal recently, but it’s his eyebrow-raising comments about his bathing habits (or lack thereof, in this case) that have gone viral on social media. When asked about his shower ritual during the interview, Jake stated that it wasn’t high on his list of things he considered “necessary”.

“Sometimes I find bathing less and less necessary. I believe, because Elvis Costello is wonderful, that good manners and bad breath go nowhere. So I do this. But I also think that there is a whole world of no bathing that is very helpful for skin care as well, and we naturally cleanse ourselves, ”he said. As expected, social media lit up and many questioned his comments, but also wondered why more and more celebrities are admitting not to shower regularly.

As we previously reported, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis admitted when they appeared on the Armchair Expert podcast last month that they don’t bathe their entire bodies with soap every day. The conversation started when Mila was talking about her laser hair removal process which quickly focused on hygiene.

Mila said, “I don’t wash my body with soap every day. I wash pits and tits, holes and souls. ”Her husband Ashton added,“ I wash my armpits and crotch every day and nothing else. ” The couple also said they wouldn’t wash their sons Wyatt, 6, and son Dimitri, 4, every day either.

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Berkshire Hathaway BRK earnings Q2 2021

Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Los Angeles, California. May 1, 2021.

Gerard Miller | CNBC

Berkshire Hathaway’s operating income continued to rebound as its myriad of businesses from energy to railroads benefited from the economic reopening.

The conglomerate reported operating earnings of $6.69 billion in the second quarter, up 21% from $5.51 billion in the same period a year ago, according to its earnings report released on Saturday.

Overall earnings, which reflect Berkshire’s fluctuating equity investments, increased 6.8% year over year to $28 billion in the second quarter.

Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett kept buying back Berkshire shares aggressively instead of making sizable acquisitions. The company repurchased $6 billion of its own stock in the second quarter, bringing the six month total to $12.6 billion. Berkshire bought a record $24.7 billion of its own stock last year.

At the end of June, Berkshire’s cash pile stood at $144.1 billion, holding steady from last quarter’s level and still near a record despite the company’s massive buyback program.

The results came as the conglomerate’s stock wiped out all of its 2020 losses and hit a record high in the period. So far in third quarter, Berkshire’s B shares are up another 2%, bringing their year-to-date gain to over 23%.

Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards

As economic activity continues to grind back to life from the pandemic with more commodities and goods being shipped around the country, Berkshire’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad stands to benefit. Earnings for railroads, utilities and energy jumped more than 27% from a year ago in the period to $2.26 billion, Berkshire said. The conglomerate’s other businesses, including homebuilders and a paint-maker, are also seeing a boost.

Though Berkshire acknowledged the quarterly results look stellar because they are bouncing back from a low base a year ago and the company is unsure of when results will truly return to normal.

“The COVID-19 pandemic adversely affected nearly all of our operations during 2020 and in particular during the second quarter, although the effects varied significantly,” Berkshire said in the earnings report Saturday. “The extent of the effects over longer terms cannot be reasonably estimated at this time.”

At the height of the Covid crisis, Berkshire experienced a drastic slowdown with its operating income falling 10% in the second quarter of 2020 year over year and tumbling 30% in the third quarter.

Berkshire said the risks from the pandemic still remain and could impact its results in the future.

“Risks and uncertainties resulting from the pandemic that may affect our future earnings, cash flows and financial condition include the ability to vaccinate a significant number of people in the U.S. and throughout the world as well as the long-term effect from the pandemic on the demand for certain of our products and services,” the conglomerate said.

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