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☆ Michael Jordan’s ‘Last Dance’ sneakers are being auctioned off. They could go for millions, and become the most expensive sneakers ever sold.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Aditi Bharade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Michael Jordan's sneakers from 1998 could sell for $4 million, breaking auction records. They are a pair of Air Jordan 13s Jordan wore in the last NBA finals he played for the Chicago Bulls. If sold at their estimated $4 million, they will set a record for the most expensive sneakers ever sold. The shoes are a pair of black and red Air Jordan 13s from Jordan's "Last Dance" — the last championship final Jordan played for the Bulls in 1998. If sold for their estimated price, the Air Jordan 13s will set the record for the most expensive sneakers ever sold, per CBS News, citing Sotheby's.

☆ House weaponization panel seeks to eclipse January 6 committee's $18M+ budget despite rocky start
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Warren Rojas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

House weaponization panel chair Jim Jordan is already seeking more money from leadership. Jordan requested a $19 million budget, which is roughly what the January 6 select committee spent. His pitch for an additional $17 million in resources, first reported by Axios, includes doubling his initial $2 million budget and carving out a $15 million "reserve fund" the new political investigation unit can draw from as needed. Between the select committee disbanding after releasing its politically damning final report and House Republicans rearranging things on every committee after narrowly reclaiming control of the chamber last fall, tracking every select committee financial statement has gotten tricky. Sherman scolded House GOP leaders for demanding budget cuts elsewhere, but then throwing money at poorly received pet projects like the "flameout that the weaponization committee just experienced with its so-called whistleblowers hearing."

☆ ChatGPT and generative AI could be stopped in their tracks by copyright law. Here's how it could play out.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( John Eden | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Copyright rules could derail the technology of generative AI, writes copyright law expert John Eden. Copyright holders do not understand how their protected works are used by generative AI platforms — so they assume the worst. In both of these cases, copyright law may not provide human creators with the protection they want or need. Still, fair learning alone probably won't resolve all conflicts between copyright holders and generative AI platforms. An expert on copyright law, John also advises clients on how to protect their copyrighted works in an ever-changing commercial ecosystem.

☆ Norwegian Cruise Line shares fall 10% as soft outlook, wider losses eclipse strong demand
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Rebecca Picciotto | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Norwegian Cruise Line shares fell more than 10% on Tuesday after the company posted wider losses than expected and offered soft guidance for the year, despite persistent travel demand. The cruise company reported fourth quarter losses of $1.04 per share, more than analysts' estimates of 85 cents. Norwegian is projecting losses of 45 cents per share in the first quarter, 10 cents higher than Wall Street had anticipated. "We've seen very, very strong record – near record booking levels dating back to November," said Del Rio. Royal Caribbean saw its stock jump after posting narrower than expected fourth quarter losses and bookings earlier in February.

☆ 6 sneakers Michael Jordan wore during game-clinching NBA Finals games are about to go on sale — and the price could set a record
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Matthew Kish | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sotheby's this week will put up for sale a collection of six Air Jordan sneakers. Each of the six sneakers was worn by Michael Jordan during an NBA Finals game. Auction house Sotheby's on Tuesday will unveil a collection of six Air Jordan sneakers in Dubai. For perspective, a jersey Jordan wore during the 1998 NBA Finals sold last year for $10.1 million. "This set represents the most valuable and significant collection of Air Jordan sneakers ever brought to market," Sotheby's said, in a listing.

☆ Air India's order for 470 jets at list price of $70 bln
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

NEW DELHI, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Tata group-owned Air India's order for a record 470 aircraft from Airbus (AIR.PA) and Boeing Co (BA.N) will be at a list price of $70 billion, Chief Executive Campbell Wilson said on Monday, as the airline seeks opportunities to expand in long haul international. Air India had, earlier this month, announced provisional deals for 220 planes from Boeing and 250 from Airbus in an order that would eclipse previous records for an order by a single carrier. The airline plans to fund the order with a combination of resources, including internal cash flow, shareholder equity and sale-and-leaseback of aircraft, Wilson told reporters at a press conference. Air India, once considered a world-class airline in India, saw its image tarnish in the mid-2000s due to financial troubles, an ageing fleet and poor service. "Air India has embarked on probably the greatest transformation in aviation history," Wilson added.

☆ Kristoffersen wins slalom, historic silver for Greece
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

France's 2022 Olympic slalom champion Clement Noel was fourth, missing a medal by 0.03 seconds. I’ve done both plenty of times, but the finish is worse because you’ve done your run, and you can’t change anything," said the 2019 giant slalom gold medallist. "I won most things in slalom except Olympic gold and world championship gold. He was also second in a World Cup slalom in Chamonix on Feb. 4, a first World Cup podium for his country. "He went to chase his dream for Greece after so many injuries and he never let go.

☆ Inside a Colombian flower farm sending Valentine's Day bouquets abroad
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Jillian Kumagai | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

An employee of Eclipse Flowers prepares flower bouquets ahead of Valentine's Day at the Eclipse Flowers farm in Tocancipa, Colombia. Colombia's flower industry is struggling to contend with an aging workforce as youth shun the industry in favor of...moreAn employee of Eclipse Flowers prepares flower bouquets ahead of Valentine's Day at the Eclipse Flowers farm in Tocancipa, Colombia. Colombia's flower industry is struggling to contend with an aging workforce as youth shun the industry in favor of jobs elsewhere, stifling productivity, according to industry sources. REUTERS/Luisa GonzalezClose

MILAN, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Italy's government on Tuesday dropped legislation aimed at giving top flight soccer league Serie A the option of extending domestic broadcast deals beyond their scheduled expiry next year, documents seen by Reuters showed. That is only a half of the amount England's Premier League collects under its existing TV deals in its home market, according to UEFA data. Home to storied soccer clubs such as Juventus (JUVE.MI), AC Milan and Inter Milan, Serie A plans to seek bids for the rights to screen its matches in Italy for subsequent seasons. It was not immediately clear whether the measure would be included in any other bill at a later stage. ($1 = 0.9291 euros)Reporting by Elvira Pollina and Giuseppe Fonte, editing by Pritha Sarkar and Keith WeirOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Canada's Crawford wins super-G gold by slimmest of margins
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

COURCHEVEL, France, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Canada's James Crawford won the men's super-G by the slimmest of margins in a stunning upset at the Alpine skiing world championships on Thursday. Switzerland's World Cup overall leader Marco Odermatt was fourth and surprisingly out of the medals on a course set by the Swiss coach. The 25-year-old is the first Canadian super-G world champion since Erik Guay in St Moritz in 2017. Austria's 2021 super-G champion Vincent Kriechmayr finished 12th. Italy's Dominik Paris, the 2019 super-G world champion, crashed heavily at speed after pushing too aggressively and catching a ski edge on a gate.

☆ Google, Microsoft ChatGPT Clones Will Destroy Internet Search
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

The other kind of search — "exploratory search" — is the hard one. That's where you don't know what you don't know. When you're scrolling through the links in a Google search, looking for "esoteric shit," as one search expert calls it, you see some pages that just look dodgy, maybe in ways you can't even totally articulate. But search chatbots can fake all that. Google's search pages already aren't fully trustworthy — they overindex YouTube video results, for example, because YouTube is a subsidiary of Google.

☆ The 'Chosen One' fulfils destiny as James claims scoring record
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Steve Keating | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

[1/3] Feb 7, 2023; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (6) celebrates after breaking the all-time scoring record in the third quarter against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Crypto.com Arena. For almost four decades fellow Lakers great Abdul-Jabbar had owned the mark and watched as James climbed the scoring table. The Chosen One, now widely referred to as "King James," finished the night with 38 points, bringing his career total to 38,390. The scoring record adds new fuel to the debate over who is the greatest basketball player ever, James or Jordan. "Me personally, I'm going to take myself against anybody that has ever played this game," said James after setting the record.

☆ The massive selloff in Adani shares eclipses those of other short-seller targets like Enron and Wirecard
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Adani Group companies have lost over $110 billion in market value in the past fortnight. These losses eclipse those at other short seller targets like Enron and Wirecard. Enron lost more than $65 billion between August 2000 and December 2001 when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, per Bloomberg's record. In Wirecard's case, it was short seller Fraser Perring, who in a 2016 report, accused the payments firm of money laundering and fraud. Shares of Adani Transmission, Adani Green Energy, and Adani Power were also up.

James needs 36 points to eclipse Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record of 38,387 points and will get his first chance to do so at home on Tuesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Tickets for that game start at $284, 50% higher than the team's season average, according to ticket retailer StubHub. "This might be one of those things that helps endear him to L.A.," said longtime Lakers fan Mike DeMars. "For me it's hard to compare different eras because the game was different back in the 80s and 90s," said Ellis. Reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles Editing by Toby DavisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Meanwhile, Russia may be emerging as the new leader in sunflower oil trade. Sunflower oil exports, Russia and UkraineGlobally, sunflower oil is the least prominent of the major four vegetable oils (palm, soybean and rapeseed are the others), but it has been a vital source of revenue for Ukraine’s economy. In calendar year 2021, sunflower oil was Ukraine’s highest grossing agricultural export, valued at $6.4 billion. Sunflower meal added another $1.2 billion, and agricultural product exports accounted for 41% of all Ukrainian exports. RUSSIAN RISEIn the 2022-23 marketing year, USDA projects Russia will eclipse Ukraine in sunflower oil exports, accounting for 35% of trade versus 34% for Ukraine.

☆ Focusing on stable earnings growth helps this Olympic gold medalist beat the bear market
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

A mutual fund led by a gold-medal winning Olympic swimmer is rare enough, but Joe Hudepohl's Eaton Vance Atlanta Capital Focused Growth is also outperforming the stock market over the past five years. Maybe it's the former athlete's discipline and slavish devotion to patient training that's helping Focused Growth earn handsome long-run returns. " But despite falling 20.4% last year, the Focused Growth fund still enjoys a five-year annual trailing return of 13.97%, according to Morningstar. One of those long-time holdings is health technology company Danaher , which Focused Growth (EAALX) first bought in 2011, according to Morningstar. Morningstar rates the fund with five stars despite its 1.03% expense ratio, and says Focused Growth lands in the second percentile of more than 1,000 large growth funds for its five-year performance.

☆ Exclusive: Warner Bros Discovery licenses movies and TV shows to Roku, Tubi
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Dawn Chmielewski | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Jan 31 (Reuters) - Warner Bros Discovery Inc (WBD.O) has reached deals with streaming services Roku Inc (ROKU.O) and Fox Corp's (FOXA.O) Tubi to license 2,000 hours of movies and TV series, as it becomes the latest media company to embrace free, ad-supported streaming TV. The streamers announced Tuesday they plan to use the content to launch Warner Bros-branded free, ad-supported TV (or FAST) channels. For the first nine months of 2022, Warner Bros Discovery's streaming business, which includes HBO Max, lost $1.38 billion. The studio is seeking to capitalize on a growing segment of the streaming universe, which industry executives see as complementing subscription streaming services. AMC Networks Inc (AMCX.O), Comcast Corp's (CMCSA.O) NBCUniversal and the National Hockey League have launched FAST channels over the last year.

Jan 31 (Reuters) - Solar panels and home batteries have soared in popularity because they allow consumers to generate and store their own carbon-free power and save on their electricity bills. When used this way, they are called virtual power plants, or VPPs. "Virtual power plants are at the center of that." U.S. solar companies including Sunrun Inc (RUN.O) and SunPower Corp (SPWR.O) have pooled some of their customers' systems into virtual power plants in California, Hawaii and New England. Sunrun last year, for example, operated a virtual power plant with thousands of homes in New England that provided 1.8 gigawatt-hours to the grid during June through August.

☆ Australian Open sets Grand Slam attendance record
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 31 (Reuters) - The Australian Open set a Grand Slam attendance record with more than 900,000 spectators visiting over three weeks, organisers said on Tuesday, despite the absence of some big-name players and schedule disruptions due to rain. A record 839,192 fans flocked to Melbourne Park from Jan. 16-29 for the first tournament in two years free of COVID-19 restrictions, beating the previous mark of 812,174 set in January 2020. The figures eclipse last year's attendance numbers at other Grand Slam main draws - 515,164 visited Wimbledon, 613,500 were at the French Open and 776,120 went to the U.S. Open. The tournament, missing the retired Serena Williams, Roger Federer and last year's homegrown champion Ash Barty, broke its single-day attendance mark with 94,854 fans visiting on Jan. 21. Novak Djokovic beat Stefanos Tsitsipas on Sunday to win his 10th Australian Open crown, drawing level with Rafa Nadal on 22 majors, and reclaim the world number one rankingAryna Sabalena won her first Grand Slam title with victory over Elena Rybakina on Saturday.

☆ Greatness is in the eye of beholder, says Shiffrin
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Steve Keating | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

A day after capturing her 83rd career win in Kronplatz to surpass American compatriot Lindsey Vonn's record for the most women's World Cup victories, Shiffrin turned her sights on Stenmark's mark of 86. With three more wins Shiffrin would statistically become the most successful Alpine skier ever, but for the 27-year-old, the title of greatest will remain open to debate. "If you know anything about ski racing at all and even if they don't they know about Ingemar Stenmark. "I don't think that is something that I can surpass, I don't know if I ever will." The slalom is Shiffrin's signature event with 51 wins, the most for any Alpine skier in any discipline.

☆ Why some cars from the 1990s are soaring in value
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Peter Valdes-Dapena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

CNN —Not that long ago, cars from the 1990s were just used cars. In addition to insuring collectible cars, Hagerty also owns the auction company Broad Arrow. Values for 1990s-era collectible cars have risen by an average of 78% over the past three years, “which is huge,” Rabold said. Cars from the ’90s have at least some modern comfort and safety features, and even relatively inexpensive cars can have respectable power and performance. We’re talking about “collectible” cars.

☆ Roman Abramovich transferred superyachts and private jets worth $4 billion to his children just before the Ukraine invasion, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-08 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Roman Abramovich transferred assets to his children before the Ukraine invasion, per The Guardian. Assets worth more than $4 billion were transferred to his seven children only three weeks before the start of the war, the report said. His children's beneficial interest in the trust's assets – including the Eclipse superyacht worth $700 million and shares in Russian companies – rose from 51% to 100%, per the report. Companies controlled by Abramovich's trusts had assets worth $2.5 billion at the end of 2021, per the reports. Abramovich seemingly reorganized other assets just weeks before the invasion of Ukraine.

☆ Fact Check-Moon visible during daytime is not proof of flat Earth
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The moon visible during the day is not proof that the Earth is flat, despite claims shared online. The moon is commonly visible during the day, however, and it is not always directly opposite the sun, experts told Reuters. At full moon, the moon rises as the sun sets and at the end of that night the moon sets at sunrise. During this lunar phase, we see part of the moon illuminated because only a part of the moon that is being illuminated by the sun is visible to us, he said. “However, the best argument against flat Earth (using the moon) is that during a lunar eclipse, the moon enters Earth shadow,” Fe McBride, assistant professor in the Physics and Astronomy department at Bowdoin College told Reuters.

☆ Investor sentiment is worse than it was at the depths of the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 - but that suggests a stock market bottom is near, Fundstrat says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Matthew Fox | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Investor sentiment is worse than it was at the depths of the 2008 Great Financial Crisis, according to Fundstrat. But stock market conditions today are not as bad as they were in 2008, suggesting a bottom is near. Based on a rolling 51-week average of bearish sentiment measured by the AAII Investor Sentiment Survey, sentiment is at its lowest level on record since the survey began in 1987, Fundstrat's Ken Xuan said in a Thursday note. All-in, the overly bearish investor sentiment, combined with inflation showing signs of falling "like a rock," means the stock market is near a bottom if it hasn't already been realized. And that sets the stock market up for a big rally in 2023, which Fundstrat's Tom Lee believes can eclipse more than 20% to his 2023 S&P 500 target of 4,750.

☆ The electric-car industry is set for a pivotal year. Here are 6 VCs' top predictions for 2023, from new trends to investment opportunities.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Alexa St. John | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

2023 is set to bring even more momentum to the electric-car industry than 2022 did. Even with challenges — and some executives' losing faith in the EV biz — the industry can't turn back on its ambitions. Robert Knopes/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesCharging, charging, chargingHistorically, charging hasn't been a money-making venture. Alexei Andreev, a managing director at AutoTech Ventures, said a shakeout could come in the battery industry, where hundreds of startups are racing to compete with giants. The autonomous-vehicle industry took several hits in 2022, but General Motors is still optimistic about Cruise.

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