Thursday, April 22, 2021

BREW WITH HEADLINES

Daily Brew

TOGETHER WITH

Facet Wealth
Good morning and Happy Earth Day. Here are three fun facts from the Earth Day Wikipedia page:
  1. The man who coined "Earth Day," Julian Koenig, was a copywriter who also helped create the iconic "Think Small" campaign for Volkswagen. Koenig said he was inspired because "Earth Day" rhymes with "birthday," and his birthday is on April 22. He would've turned 100 today.
  2. The first Earth Day, held in 1970, remains the largest single-day protest in human history.
  3. Every Earth Day, Leonardo DiCaprio turns into a tree to honor the planet hey wait a minute...

MARKETS 1-DAY PERFORMANCE


 

Nasdaq
+1.19%
13,950.22
S&P
+0.93%
4,173.42
Dow
+0.93%
34,137.31


Bitcoin
-1.06%
$54,934.36
10-Year
-0.1 bps
1.561%
Intuitive
+9.90%
$891.38

 

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

  • Markets: Stocks rebounded after a two-day slump, and Intuitive Surgical, the biggest company you've never heard of, became the latest to join the $100 billion market cap club. It’s known for its “da Vinci” surgical robotic system.
  • Nation: Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a major probe into Minneapolis’s policing practices a day after a jury found former officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd. It’s the biggest action Garland has taken yet. 

Francis Scialabba

Remember the days of refreshing your browser every 10 seconds until a Covid vaccine appointment magically appeared? Now, in many locations, they’re handing 'em out like towels at a Steelers game. 

According to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, in just a few weeks the US will reach a “tipping point” on vaccine enthusiasm where the supply of doses will exceed the number of people who want to get jabbed. In fact, it's already starting to happen, writes the NYT:

  • A county health official in Wyoming asked the state to stop sending vaccines because the freezer was full of doses nobody wanted.
  • In Iowa, volunteers were told to stay home from a clinic because so few people had signed up for appointments.

Big picture: The reasons for not wanting to get the Covid-19 vaccine vary, but political leaning sticks out as a key variable. Both willingness to receive a vaccine and actual vaccination rates are lower in counties where a majority voted for Trump in 2020. And polls show that more than 40% of Republicans say they’re not planning on getting the vaccine.

President Biden is trying to encourage more demand

And he’s using his favorite legislative tool: a stimulus plan. Yesterday, Biden said the government will offer tax credits to small businesses that give employees paid time off to get their shots.

  • "No working American should lose a single dollar from their paycheck because they are doing their patriotic duty to get vaccinated," he said.

Biden also announced that the US hit the administration’s goal of administering 200 million shots in his first 100 days. While that’s great news...the next 200 million will be much harder. 

Some experts think that vaccine hesitancy levels are so high that the US will never fully achieve herd immunity against Covid-19. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb estimates that only 150 million Americans (less than half the population) will get a vaccine. 

While that’s not enough to achieve herd immunity, it is enough to substantially reduce the spread of the coronavirus, Gottlieb said.

        

AMAZON

That’s an Amazon Salon, Innit?

Augmented Reality

Amazon

Amazon has had a lot going on. In the past two weeks, Jeff Bezos delivered his final shareholder letter as CEO, while the company waited anxiously for a union vote at an Alabama warehouse and got into a Twitter fight over pee bottles. Now that the dust has settled, the company is getting back to its bread and butter of freaking out competitors with new product launches.

  1. Get the Bezos cut. The company announced yesterday it was opening a hair salon in London with augmented reality tech to show you how you’d look with different hair colors.
  2. Amazon to Wayfair: RUN! Amazon is reportedly planning to launch a new furniture assembly service to try and one-up Wayfair and loosen its grip on the housewares retail space.
  3. Use your palm to pay. In some of its retail locations, Amazon has already experimented with tech that lets you skip checkout lines. Now, its new contactless payment method will expand from Amazon Go and Amazon Books stores to seven Whole Foods locations in the Seattle area. 

The public doesn’t have full access to these services yet, but here’s an exclusive look into Amazon’s new salon, via Morning Brew’s TikTok.

        

Giphy

To ring in Earth Day, President Biden is hosting a virtual climate summit of 40+ world leaders, some of whom will inevitably forget to unmute themselves. 

Biden is expected to come hot out of the gate this morning to announce the US’ commitment to halve carbon emissions by 2030, nearly doubling the previous pledge of a 26–28% cut by 2025. 

From there, the summit could become an “international chess match.” Leaders are expected to announce their own commitments that match, exceed, or Wizard Chess-counter Biden’s proposal. How many leaders say “ditto” could define Biden’s presidency.

The guest list is a who’s who of politics and power

The pope, presidents and prime ministers, a chancellor (Germany’s), a king (Saudi Arabia’s), and a bitter rival (China's Xi Jinping) will Zoom in. Business royalty will also join the call: 

  • Bill Gates
  • Mike Bloomberg
  • Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser
  • Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan

Zoom out: From rejoining the Paris Agreement to his $2 trillion infrastructure plan to hosting this summit, President Biden is using his first 100 days to try and reassert American leadership on climate.

        

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Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Today’s KPI section is focused exclusively on the alarming surge of Covid-19 currently devastating India.

Stat: India accounts for one in three new coronavirus cases globally, tallying nearly 300,000 cases and 2,000 deaths a day. Experts blame relaxed restrictions, mass gatherings, and the spread of variants, including B1617.

Quote: "There's no oxygen. A hospital bed is hard to find. It's impossible to get a test. You have to wait over a week. And pretty much every system that could break down in the health care system has broken down.”

Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of New Delhi’s Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy to CNN.

Read: A deep dive into the situation. (John Burn-Murdoch)

        

WORK

It's Not You, It's Zoom

If your calendar looks like a Tetris field about to spill over, consider...not going.

Back-to-back meetings without breaks cause a measurable buildup in the brain of stress-related beta waves, according to a new study from Microsoft's Human Factors Lab. Even short breaks can help the brain "reset" and improve focus during meetings.

See for yourself . When Microsoft measured brain activity in 14 workers during four back-to-back meetings, the introduction of quick breaks with a downtime activity like meditation resulted in fewer beta waves. (Blue = less stress, red = more stress.)

 

Microsoft Human Factors Lab

Sound familiar? A recent Stanford study backs up that more video calls → more stress. "When someone's face is that close to ours in real life, our brains interpret it as an intense situation that is either going to lead to mating or to conflict," the authors wrote.

  • Microsoft's tips: Default to shorter meeting times and start five minutes after the hour or half-hour mark, giving everyone a five-minute break. 

Big picture: As more companies embrace a hybrid workforce, preventing digital overload is a growing concern.

        

TRAVEL

Dept. of Warm Fuzzies

In an effort to spur tourism, Australia and New Zealand opened a travel “bubble” on Monday that allows residents to visit each other without having to quarantine. 

Thousands of relatives, partners, and friends crossed the Tasman Sea to see each other for the first time in more than a year, and ... sorry ... dang allergies are so bad this spring ...

 

James D. Morgan and Jenny Evans via Getty Images  

        

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

  • Chipotle sales rose 23.4% last quarter thanks to all of you ordering burrito bowls to go.
  • SPAC deals have slowed to a trickle: There have been just 10 in April compared to more than 100 in March.
  • JPMorgan hired 190 bankers to help alleviate worker burnout.
  • UiPath, which makes software that automates repetitive office tasks, rose 23% in its IPO. It could end up being one of the biggest US software IPOs in history.
  • The French wine industry is concerned after professional tasters got Covid and lost their sense of taste and smell.

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You don’t see a light: In a viral LinkedIn post, a program manager at a London investment bank shared his thoughts on work after suffering a heart attack.

The best of that meme: You know, the one where people draw brackets on things and comment. Here are some good ones (rated PG-13).

Copycats: As this image of SUVs shows, there are no original thoughts. 

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GAMES

Three Headlines and a Lie

There are rumors that today’s Three Headlines and a Lie section is the reason the Super League fell apart—Manchester City looked at the four headlines, turned around, and left. See if you can spot which headline is fake out of these four:

  1. “Polar bears are mating with grizzlies to become ‘Pizzly Bears’”
  2. “France cuts two nuclear-powered submarines in half to make one new one”
  3. “UK sees garden gnome shortage after Suez Canal incident”
  4. “Mango White Claw only alcoholic beverage many can taste after Covid dulled their senses”

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ANSWER

Somehow, we did not make up the polar bear one. The White Claw headline is fake.

Breaking News: Donald Trump Makes Shocking Confession...
Are You Prepared for the Unexpected?
 

April 22
Miguel de Cervantes
FEATURED BIOGRAPHY

Miguel de Cervantes

READ MORE
 
Earth Day
FEATURED EVENT
1970
First Earth Day

READ MORE

MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY
Paris climate agreement
2016: More than 170 countries signed the Paris Agreement on climate change, a landmark treaty that sought to control and reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere; it took effect in November 2016. [Is climate change real?]
2004: American football player Pat Tillman, who had left his lucrative NFL career to enlist in the army following the September 11 attacks, died in Afghanistan; although initial reports claimed he was killed by enemy forces, it was eventually revealed that he had died in a friendly-fire incident.
Richard Nixon
1994: Former U.S. president Richard M. Nixon, who was the first American president to resign from office, died. [Take our U.S. presidents quiz.]
Adolf Hitler
1983: The German magazine Stern created a sensation when it announced the discovery of the Hitler Diaries, 60 volumes of journals reportedly written by Adolf Hitler; however, they were quickly determined to be forgeries. [ How much do you know about Adolf Hitler?]
Jack Nicholson in Chinatown
1937: American actor Jack Nicholson—one of the most prominent motion-picture actors of his generation, especially noted for his versatile portrayals of unconventional, alienated outsiders—was born. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about movie actors.]
gas masks at the Second Battle of Ypres
1915: During World War I, German forces introduced the systematized use of chemical warfare when they released chlorine gas along a 4-mile (6-km) front at the Second Battle of Ypres. [ Take our quiz about wartime Germany.]
SEE ALL EVENTS ON THIS DAY

 
Donald Trump let Sean Hannity in on a secret that CNN is going to hate

Trey Gowdy dropped the hammer on Maxine Waters with one brutal reality check

[POLL] Will you boycott Major League Baseball cochise7787@gmail.com?

Donald Trump just admitted something about Joe Biden that left jaws on the ground

All hell broke loose when Fox News asked Jen Psaki the one question she feared the most

Chris Christie Reportedly Considering 2024 Presidential Run

Chris Christie Reportedly Considering 2024 Presidential Run

Here's What We Know >>

 
Learn more about RevenueStripe...

 

Lawmakers React to Guilty Verdict in Floyd Case

Lawmakers React to Guilty Verdict in Floyd Case

Read This Alert >>>

Dems Push $25B to Electrify School Buses, a Biden Priority

Dems Push $25B to Electrify School Buses, a Biden Priority

Read This Alert >>>

Verdict Reached in George Floyd Murder Trial

Verdict Reached in George Floyd Murder Trial

Read This Alert >>>

 

 April 22nd, 2021

"Get The F**k Out Of New York!": BLM Demand White Restaurant Owners Leave City
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,BLM protesters in New York reacted to the Derek Chauvin verdict by harassing diners and... Read More ›
GUN OWNERS: See How to Claim this Pro-Gun Collectible Coin for FREE Today!
This unique coin is a great way to honor our founding fathers and the decision they made to give us the right to bear arms Read More ›
NRA Has $2M Lobbying Plan Against Biden Gun-Control Agenda
The National Rifle Association, in the midst of its leaders being called in an ongoing bankruptcy trial, looks to be flexing muscle elsewhere: The gun rights group is launching plans to lobby Congress... Read More ›
"She Was A Child!" WH Decries Police Shooting Of Knife-Wielding Black Teen
Yesterday's guilty verdicts in the George Floyd murder case will almost certainly send former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin to prison... Read More ›
Stacey Abrams Lies AGAIN: 2018 Governor Election Was 'Stolen from GA Voters'
“It’s been over two years, and you still refuse to concede that you lost the race for governor in Georgia in 2018,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said... Read More ›
The Extremely Similar Case to Floyd You Never Heard About Because He Was White
This case could kill the left’s woke narrative on systemic racism in the police force.A year before the death of George Floyd, which... Read More ›
[Just Launched] Get Your Trump 2020 Key-chain Today
Are you a proud supporter of President Donald J. Trump? If so, you'll LOVE this Trump 2020 'Keep America Great' Keychain Read More ›

BLM MINNEAPOLIS: ‘They Gonna Let Us Burn This Whole Motherf*cker To the Ground’

“The Squad” Spent Thousands On Security While Demanding Police Be Defunded

Controversial Biden Nominee Confirmed to Key DOJ Position with Just 1 GOP Vote

WH Announces Massive International Climate Summit with Bill Gates as Speaker


Columnists
This Trial Was A Disgrace

Kurt Schlichter


On Race, It's Heads the Left Wins, Tails America Loses

Larry O'Connor


Can We Be Honest About Democrats and George Floyd?

Derek Hunter


Mob Justice Overshadows Chauvin Verdict

Dinesh D'Souza


Thanks, Derek Chauvin Jurors! You’re Safe Now. We Aren’t.

Ann Coulter



Senator Daines: ‘Unfortunate Conservation Has Gotten So Politicized’

Gabriella Hoffman


Derek Chauvin: The Great White Defendant

Larry Elder


The Derek Chauvin Trial Was a Travesty, Prosecutors Violated Rules That Protect Us All

John R. Lott, Jr.


From Prince Philip to a New Chapter in the History of the English-Speaking Peoples

Emmett Tyrrell


ADVERTISEMENT
Beware of Dems' Proposed Domestic Terrorism Law

Betsy McCaughey


Conservatives Should Oppose the College Transparency Act

Jane Robbins


Marxism: 100 Years of Deception -- and Counting

Laura Hollis


Expecting Peace After Chauvin Verdict? Don't Hold Your Breath.

John Kass


Do Something Unusual: Be for Bipartisan Actions

Jackie Gingrich Cushman


A Woke Trojan Horse Approaches the Federal Trade Commission

Carl Szabo


The Chauvin Verdict

Cal Thomas


Has Socialism Harmed No One?

Jerry Newcombe


China’s Strange Endorsement of ‘Net Zero’

Duggan Flanakin


Congress Must Act to Address the Growing Credit Union Dilemma

Thomas Aiello


Policing: The Brutal Side of Civility

Will Alexander



INVESTING
Improving COVID Trends Bottom And Flatline In Arizona


Tipsheet
LeBron James Explains Why He Deleted Controversial Tweet About Ohio Officer Who Stopped Knife Attack

Leah Barkoukis


Fighting Against the Democrats’ Radical Agenda

Congressman Andy Biggs


Caught Red-Handed: NBC News Busted for Editing Out a Crucial Detail in the 911 Call of the Ohio Shooting

Matt Vespa


If You Need Another Reason to Hate USPS, It Turns Out They're Spying on You

Rebecca Downs


Rand Paul Takes Another Shot At Fauci, Suggests Biden Should 'Burn' His Mask To Promote Vaccines

Scott Morefield


‘Did the Lockdowns Write This’? Op-Ed Says We Should Stop Feeling Bad for Restaurants Torched by COVID

Matt Vespa


'Absolutely Disgusting': Byron Donalds Scorches Democrats for Response to Chauvin Verdict

Spencer Brown


LeBron James Tweets 'YOU'RE NEXT' About Police Officer Involved in Ma’Khia Bryant Shooting

Rebecca Downs


Wait, That's How the FBI Labeled the Attempted Assassination of Republicans on a Baseball Field?

Katie Pavlich


Jet-Setting John Kerry is Unimpressed with the World's Lack of Climate Alarmism

Spencer Brown


'Nope! Done': Tucker Shuts Down Interview with Ed Gavin

Leah Barkoukis


ADVERTISEMENT
Political Cartoons
Bearing Arms
Activist Wants A War On Words (And Guns) | John Petrolino

Boulder City Council Passes Resolution For More Of What Failed Them | Tom Knighton

TN Dem Offering Moms Demand Action Payback For Their Endorsement? | Mom at Arms

New Argument From The Left: "Knife Fights" No Big Deal | Cam Edwards

Utah Exploring Sanctuary State Status | Tom Knighton

 

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