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Archives for September 2021

Collectible Prices Skyrocket

Americans have become obsessed with collectibles, bidding up prices for trading cards, video games and other mementos of their youth. The frenzy has brought small fortunes to some, but a deep frustration for those who still love to play games or trade cards as a hobby.

Among the items most sought after — and even fought over — are the relics of millennials’ childhoods. These include copies of trading cards such as Pokemon’s Charizard and Magic: The Gathering’s Black Lotus as well as Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. game cartridges. Some cards are selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars and an unopened Super Mario game recently sold for an astonishing $2 million.

This is more than a case of opportunistic collectors looking to cash in on a burst of nostalgia triggered by the pandemic. Everyone seemingly is angling for a piece of the pie.

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Read this at Associated Press Link opens in new window.

SOURCE URL
https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-technology-business-b7ea3aead924ac3eb0423c22842684dd

Mississippi’s Lane Kiffin Catches Breakthrough COVID-19

Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin will miss the opener against Louisville with a breakthrough case of COVID-19.

Kiffin announced the positive test on Saturday, two days ahead of the Rebels’ opener in Atlanta.

Kiffin, his staff and his players are all fully vaccinated. He said no other members of the team are expected to miss the game because of COVID-19.

“I am grateful to be vaccinated and experiencing only mild symptoms,” Kiffin said in a statement released on Twitter. “So much so, I debated over being tested, but I’m relieved that I did.”

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Read this at Associated Press Link opens in new window.

SOURCE URL
https://apnews.com/article/sports-college-football-health-coronavirus-pandemic-978813f5766dc5e1241e97ba673d104d

Fully vaccinated NFL players will get COVID-19 tests weekly

Fully vaccinated players will be required to get tested for COVID-19 weekly instead of every 14 days as part of the revised protocols for the regular season agreed upon by the NFL and NFLPA.

The weekly testing applies also for fully vaccinated Tier 1 and 2 staff. There’s an option for a second test for those who want it, according to a memo sent to clubs and obtained by The Associated Press on Monday.

Fully vaccinated individuals do not need to wait for results prior to entering a team’s facility. Each club must conduct its testing over a three-day period.

Unvaccinated players will continue to be tested daily.

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Read this at Associated Press Link opens in new window.

SOURCE URL
https://apnews.com/article/sports-nfl-football-health-coronavirus-pandemic-f66f313b8bcd2bfce5d34b64fe911f7c

COVID-19 Kills Social Security?

The Social Security trust fund most Americans rely on for their retirement will run out of money in 12 years, one year sooner than expected, according to an annual government report published Tuesday.

The outlook, aggravated by the Covid pandemic, also threatens to shrink retirement payments and increase health-care costs for older Americans.

The Treasury Department oversees two Social Security funds: The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and the Disability Insurance Trust Funds. Those programs are designed to provide a source of income respectively to former workers who have retired at the end of their careers or to those who cannot work due to a disability.

Officials said that the Old-Age and Survivors trust fund is now able to pay scheduled benefits until 2033, one year earlier than reported last year. The Disability Insurance fund is estimated to be adequately funded through 2057, eight years earlier than in the report published in 2020.

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Read this at CNBC Link opens in new window.

SOURCE URL
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/31/social-security-trust-funds-set-to-be-depleted-sooner-than-expected.html

Salesforce CEO: ‘We’re not all coming back’ to the office

A growing number of companies are pushing back their plans for workers to return to the office as the Delta variant of COVID-19 soars, raising questions about whether employees will ever see their old workspaces again this year.

Amid the debate, Salesforce (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff sees a disconnect between the C-Suite and employees being asked to return to work — and his take may not be entirely popular with his fellow corporate leaders.

“I’m going to get calls from CEOs who do not agree with what I’m about to say. So I’m just putting that out there ahead of time. But look, we’re not all coming back,” Benioff told Yahoo Finance in an interview.

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Read this at Yahoo! Finance Link opens in new window.

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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-on-return-to-office-155418386.html

Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Released in Florida Keys

In an effort to fight insect-borne viruses like Zika, dengue fever and malaria, genetically modified mosquitoes are set to be released in the Florida Keys.

U.K.-based biotechnology company Oxitec has partnered with the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District in an effort to control the invasive and disease-spreading female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the region.

Oxitec’s male mosquitoes — which don’t bite, unlike the recently-discovered yellow fever-carrying Aedes scapularis mosquitoes — will be introduced in small areas in a select number of neighborhoods between mile markers 10 and 93 in the Keys.

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Read this at Fox News Link opens in new window.

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https://www.foxnews.com/science/first-genetically-modified-mosquitoes-florida-keys

Over-Vaccinated Israel is the World’s COVID Hotspot

Israel has become the COVID capital of the world despite leading the charge on vaccines, in a clear warning sign that Britain, the US and other highly-immunised nations are still vulnerable to another wave.

Stats compiled by Oxford University-backed research team Our World in Data shows there were a record 1,892 Covid cases per million people in Israel on Wednesday — nearly 0.2 per cent of the entire population in a single day.

That was significantly higher than second worst-hit Mongolia, where the rate was 1,119 per million, and double the figures for Kosovo (980), Georgia (976) and Montenegro (909), which rounded out the top five.

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Read this at Daily Mail Link opens in new window.

SOURCE URL
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9951117/Israel-worlds-Covid-hotspot-0-2-population-catching-yesterday.html