Yahoo MoviesRichaun Holmes with a dunk vs the Detroit Pistons
Richaun Holmes (Sacramento Kings) with a dunk vs the Detroit Pistons, 02/26/2021
Richaun Holmes (Sacramento Kings) with a dunk vs the Detroit Pistons, 02/26/2021
The "Specialty Paper Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2021-2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
SpaceX's reusable Crew Dragon spaceship is reviving human spaceflight for NASA. It's about to launch astronauts from the US, Japan, and Europe.
CS Executive and Profession exams will start form 1 June 2021, while the foundation exams will start from 5 June.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/GettyBad news for someone as emotionally invested in Katie Holmes’ happiness as I am: It sure looks like the actress and her chef boyfriend, Emilio Vitolo Jr., are headed for splitsville. They haven’t broken up—yet. As Page Six put it, the pair’s eight-month-long romance is “fizzling out.” An “insider” told OK! that things were moving “very fast,” and the couple has agreed to “pump the brakes,” on the relationship. And: Daily Mail paparazzi spotted Holmes “buying flowers solo,” which both sounds like a really lovely way to spend an afternoon and irrefutable proof that she’s single.It wasn’t always this way. The 41-year-old actress met Vitolo, 33, last September. He was fresh off of a breakup with his fashion designer fiancée, whom he dumped through a text message. Despite this, a source told Us Weekly that Holmes found Vitolo to be “a stable guy in her life.”Well, at Least Katie Holmes Is Having a Good TimeThey were photographed all over downtown Manhattan eating al fresco, Holmes wearing amazing coats throughout the entire affair. She was, reportedly, “absolutely head over heels in love with Emilio.”Vitolo described Holmes as “The most amazing, kindest, beautiful person,” in an Instagram post honoring her birthday in December. “Every time I see your face it makes me smile,” he wrote. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Emilio Vitolo (@emiliovitolo) Very cute stuff. But now things appear to have cooled. Holmes was once dubbed the “queen of public makeouts” due to her Dolce Vita-esque tendency to publicly smooch Vitolo at every opportunity. But the world has reopened, and like all of us Holmes is preparing to get back to the office. She’s focused on a movie shoot, Page Six reported, and raising her daughter Suri Cruise. (Suri just turned 15 and happens to be her mother’s total double.)So Katie Holmes’ pandemic bae may not be The One. Is yours? The famous couple’s trajectory closely matches that of plebeian coronavirus romances: meeting during quarantine, getting close quickly, and passionately expressing their new love online.As the horniest among us prepare for the “whoring ’20s,” “shot girl summer,” or whatever you want to describe that impending bacchanalian season, many are rethinking the romances they got in for convenience sake.“When we talk about relationships that began during the pandemic, it’s sort of like how there were those grabs for any brand of toilet paper or hand sanitizer last spring,” relationship expert Heather Dugan told The Daily Beast. “We were filling a different need, but the attitude was, ‘anything is better than nothing.’ We have since found out that’s horrifically untrue.”Pandemic partners were helpful to curb loneliness when our lives consisted solely of Zoom birthdays and virtual Netflix-watching “parties.” Pods felt like an ethical way to find some connection during the era of social distancing.“But if you made your bubble just the two of you, that tiny little bubble is going to run out of oxygen eventually,” Dugan warned. “It doesn’t matter how witty the banter after a while—if your perspective is that narrow, [a partner’s] perceived defects will loom larger and larger.”Many of us can attend (small) gatherings again. We can meet new people, albeit awkwardly and hesitantly.“That means we can return to being selective,” Dugan said. “There’s a lot more available. We can do things with other people and the world’s a little bigger. If you filled your [quarantine] life with the idea of the first available person, you don’t have to succumb to them anymore.”People who began dating during the pandemic might not know what their partner’s “old lives” looked like. A post-vaccine return to that daily grind could prove jarring, said Mary Beth Harvey, a co-founder and chief wellness officer of the networking app Friended.“It is an intimate thing to be alone with someone for such a long period of time,” Harvey explained. “You’re going to go back out and show them your friends, coworkers, and show them a whole different side to yourself. There might be some parts of that life they like, and some parts they don’t like as much.” Even if that person is Katie Holmes. At least she’ll always have New York—and her fabulous coats. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
The "Global Digital Collaboration Boards Market 2021 - Blended Learning and Hybrid Work Power the Industry" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
As Hindus celebrate Kamada Ekadashi today, 23 April, devotees will observe a fast to get free from cycles of rebirth and to attain salvation
JERUSALEM — Israel and Bahrain say they have reached an agreement to recognize each other’s coronavirus vaccination certificates, allowing travellers between the countries to forgo quarantine and other restrictions. The agreement builds on a U.S.-brokered normalization accord reached last year and marks a further improvement of ties between Israel and the small Arab country in the Persian Gulf. Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday that the latest deal “represents a global precedent for a bilateral agreement on mutual recognition of vaccination certificates.” Israeli Tourism Minister Orit Farkash Hacohen welcomed the agreement in a tweet, calling it “an important step in Israel’s reopening to tourists.” She said she looked forward to hosting her Bahraini counterpart again and invited him to go diving in Eilat, on the Red Sea. Israel has carried out one of the most effective vaccination campaigns in the world, leading to a sharp drop in infections and allowing it to reopen schools and businesses, including restaurants, hotels and museums. But it remains largely closed off to international visitors. Israel plans to allow a limited number of tour groups to enter starting May 23, with individuals allowed at a later stage. All visitors will need to be tested before boarding flights to Israel and show proof of vaccination. ___ THE VIRUS OUTBREAK: — Drop in vaccine demand has some places turning down doses — India’s hospitals desperately plea for oxygen, fire kills 13 — Oregon: CDC investigating woman’s death after J&J vaccine — California has gone from worst to first in the rate of coronavirus infections. Data from Johns Hopkins University shows the state surpassed Hawaii on Thursday with the lowest average number of COVID-19 cases per capita. — Dutch caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte has defended his decision to ease his country’s lockdown next week even after the Netherlands recorded 9,648 new coronavirus infections. — Since the COVID-19 vaccines haven’t been around that long, it’s not yet known how long their protection lasts. Experts are still studying vaccinated people to determine if and when boosters might be needed. ___ Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine ___ HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING: LONDON — Scientists at Oxford University have released more data that confirm coronavirus vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca both significantly cut the risk of infection after a single dose. In studies published on Friday, researchers said there was no apparent difference in the vaccines’ ability to reduce COVID-19 infection rates. The research has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal but is based on data from nose and throat swabs taken from more than 370,000 participants in England and Wales between December and April. The scientists said that three weeks after people had been given a single dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca vaccine, the rates of all COVID-19 infections fell by 65%. The reduction was bigger after a second dose and the vaccines appeared to protect people against the variant that was first identified in the U.K. Dr. Koen Pouwels, a senior researcher at Oxford University, noted there was some evidence of vaccinated people catching COVID-19 and that there was some limited spread of the disease from people who had been immunized. “This emphasizes the need for everyone to continue to follow guidelines to reduce transmission risk, for example through social distancing and masks,” Pouwels said in a statement. ___ BANGKOK — Thailand’s health authorities announced Friday they have confirmed 2,070 new COVID-19 cases, a new daily record that brings the country’s total to 50,183. The rising numbers are severely straining the supply of hospital beds and ICU capacity. The record number of new infections came a day after a new daily high of seven deaths was announced. Four more deaths were announced Friday, bringing Thailand’s total to 121. At the beginning of March, Thailand had 26,031 cases with double-digit daily increases, but a new outbreak sent the numbers skyrocketing. Taweesilp Visanuyothin, a spokesman for the Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration, said Bangkok, with the highest number of cases, has only 69 empty ICU beds left out of a total of more than 400. He said that is enough for the next six to eight days according to the projected demand of 10-13 additional ICU beds per day. Nationwide demand, forecast at 52 ICU beds per day, would use up the capacity in 19 days, he said. Under Thai law, infected patients must be held in hospital facilities, but even with the addition of field hospitals there are not enough beds. There are 19,873 people in hospitals and field facilities nationwide, but in some areas that are short of beds, infected people are isolating at home. ___ ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has imported half a million doses of Chinese Sinovac vaccine after relying on donated vaccines, as its coronavirus cases surge, officials said Friday. The country purchased the vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech, the National Command and Control Center said. It said a plane carrying 500,000 doses arrived at an airport Thursday. Previously, Pakistan largely relied on vaccines donated by China. Pakistan is currently in the middle of a new wave of cases which are flooding hospitals, mainly because of widespread violations of social distancing rules. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday was expected to approve new COVOD-19-related measures. So far, the government has resisted demands from doctors that it impose a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the virus. Pakistan on Friday reported 144 deaths in the previous 24 hours. It has reported 16,842 deaths among 784,108 cases since last year. ___ PERTH, Australia — The Australian west coast city of Perth will lock down for three days after a returned traveller was apparently infected with the coronavirus while in hotel quarantine. Western Australia state Premier Mark McGowan said on Friday masks will also become compulsory in the city of 2 million people for three days from midnight. “I know this is hard to take and I wish we didn’t need to be doing this. But we can’t take any chances with the virus, we just can’t,” McGowan told reporters. The cause of concern was a 54-year-old man who arrived in Perth on April 3 on a flight from China and went into mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine. A couple from India on the same floor of the hotel were infected with a virus variant identified in that country as more contagious. The variant spread to a mother and daughter from Britain who shared a room across a corridor. The man was released from quarantine on April 17 after testing negative but tested positive after flying to the east coast city of Melbourne on Wednesday. The test result was announced on Friday. It is not yet known if he has the same variant as the other infected people on his hotel floor. Authorities assume he was infectious during the five days he was free to move around Perth before flying to his hometown. A friend he stayed with overnight in Perth tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday, becoming the first case of community transmission in Western Australia in more than a year. ___ COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Authorities in Sri Lanka have imposed lockdowns on several villages and postponed the reopening of state universities amid a sharp increase of COVID-19 cases. According to a government statement, a small town and a village in the Kurunegala district, about 103 kilometres northeast of the capital Colombo were placed on lockdown. The local Lankadeepa newspaper reported five other villages in the area have been isolated. Separately, the Education Ministry said the reopening of state-run universities will be postponed by another two weeks based on instructions from the health department. They had been scheduled to reopen April 27 after several months of being closed. The number of positive cases rose to 672 on Thursday, pushing the nation’s total to 98,721 people infected with 634 fatalities. ___ BEIJING — China says three of its citizens working in the United Arab Emirates tampered with the results of their coronavirus tests required to return home. A statement from the Chinese Embassy said the three, working in the main business centre of Dubai, altered information provided by local clinics to show they had not been infected. It said they were referred to UAE authorities for “seriously interfering with the prevention of epidemics and posing a significant risk to the health and safety of other passengers on the same flight.” China has largely stamped out domestic infection but continues to report citizens arriving from abroad who test positive for the coronavirus. That comes despite demands that travellers prove they are virus-free, leading to speculation that test results are being falsified by citizens desperate to return home after more than a year of travel restrictions and demands they be quarantined for as many as 21 days. China reported 19 new cases on Friday, all of them brought from overseas and most arriving in the major travel hubs of Shanghai and Guangdong. ___ LAS VEGAS — Topless dancers can shed coronavirus restrictions beginning next weekend in Las Vegas and get face-to-face with patrons again. But masks still will be required for adult entertainment employees and recommended for customers under rules accepted Thursday by a state pandemic task force. Sin City strip clubs that went dark when Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered casinos, clubs and nonessential businesses closed more than a year ago can reopen May 1 at 80% of under strict social distancing guidelines. The rules will allow strip club entertainers to get closer than 3 feet to patrons if the entertainer has received at least a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine at least 14 days earlier or if the dancer tests negative in a weekly virus test. ___ AUSTIN, Texas — Texas health officials say the U.S. government has reported that a Texas woman is hospitalized with possible blood clots associated with Johnson and Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine. The announcement by Texas quotes the FDA and CDC as saying the adult woman has “symptoms that appear to be consistent with those few other reported cases” of a rare blood clotting disorder developed after receiving the J&J vaccine. No other information is being released, because of patient privacy and confidentiality. Federal and state agencies have paused the J&J vaccine rollout due to concerns about blood clots. Federal officials already were examining six reports of the unusual clots, including a death, out of more than 6.8 million Americans given the one-dose vaccination so far. ___ HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont says the state is seeing a slowdown in demand for coronavirus vaccinations, prompting officials to look for new ways to encourage people to get the shots and move closer toward herd immunity in the state. Among the ideas is reaching out to major state employers such as submarine-maker Electric Boat Shipyard to hold clinics for workers. Requests for vaccine doses are now being accommodated for individual work sites that can put together a critical mass of people. About 60% of the adults in Connecticut have received at least one dose. Lamont said Thursday that he would ultimately like at least 70% to be vaccinated in Connecticut, noting that 89% of residents age 65 and older have received at least one dose. ___ DENVER — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis says the state has administered first doses of coronavirus vaccines to at least half of the eligible population and now needs to target people who have been hesitant to get a shot or have just procrastinated. He says the state will look to make vaccine access easy, convenient and quick. The governor says three of Colorado’s mass vaccination sites will start offering walk-in and drive-in vaccination in addition to the same-day vaccine appointments that are already available. Polis says that “the number of people who don’t want the vaccine is small.” ___ TORONTO — Canada is banning all flights from India and Pakistan for 30 days due to the growing wave of COVID-19 cases in that region. The announcement came Thursday, hours after India reported a global record of more than 314,000 new infections in the previous 24-hours. Canada’s health minister says half the people who are testing positive for the coronavirus after arriving in Canada by airplane came from India. Flights from India account for about one fifth of the country’s air traffic. There are than 1 million people who live in Canada who have Indian descent. There are 100,000 Canadians who have Pakistani ancestry. ___ JUNEAU, Alaska — Organizers say a four-day dance and cultural event billed as the largest gathering of Alaska Natives in the southeast region of the largest state will return next year as an in-person event after widespread immunizations. The Sealaska Heritage Institute says the Celebration event celebrating Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures will be held in Juneau from June 8-11, 2022. It was held virtually in 2020, and another event planned for this past January was scrapped. Institute president Rosita Worl says the cancellation was necessary “to protect our people” and officials look forward to celebrating in 2022. Worl said in a Thursday statement: “We survived this pandemic. We are still here.” The event first held in 1982 draws thousands of people to Alaska’s capital. ___ PARIS — France’s prime minister is offering some good news to a nation living under numerous pandemic restrictions, saying the country’s third wave appears to have crested and outdoor café terraces, some shops and sporting and cultural activities may be able to open around mid-May. Jean Castex said at a news conference that there has been a “real lowering of the viral circulation” in recent days in 80 per cent of French territory. Cafes — a major part of social life in France — have been closed since the fall. Castex says a nightly curfew from 7 p.m. will remain in place for now. But travel restrictions will be lifted May 3. Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer says some schools will open as of Monday, with middle and high schoolers sticking with distance learning until they too go back to class May 3. ___ SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox says the state’s vaccine supply is beginning to outpace demand in some counties, and he’s urging everyone who may be hesitant to get their shots. Cox said during his weekly coronavirus news conference that Utah has prioritized putting as many needles into arms as possible at mass vaccination sites and will start transitioning to focus on more regional and community-oriented sites. Cox added that authorities are starting to move some doses to Salt Lake County, Utah’s most populated, where demand remains high. State epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn urged vaccine-reluctant people to speak with their doctor or pharmacist about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy. She said it is “not totally unexpected” that demand for vaccines is softening, and “now we’re starting to work into those populations who might have some hesitancy or are just taking their time to get vaccinated.” More than 840,000 people in Utah have been fully vaccinated, or 51.8% of residents aged 16 and over. ___ Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine The Associated Press
A mandatory treatment order report was called for a man who pulled the emergency stop at Buona Vista MRT station.
FRANKFURT — German car and truck maker Daimler AG says net profit rebounded strongly to 4.4 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in the first three months of the year, as the global economic recovery and demand for the company's lineup of luxury vehicles in China fattened the bottom line. The company on Friday raised its outlook for an important measure of profitability this year, saying that it now expected profit of 10%-12% on sales of its Mercedes-Benz cars, up from an outlook for 8%-10% in its last estimate. Strong profits on conventional vehicles are key to funding the huge investments in new technologies such as electric cars and digital services that are shaking up the auto industry. Chief Financial Office Harald Wilhelm said that “after this promising start, we are very confident that we can keep up the pace to improve our margins on a sustainable basis and at the same time expand our electric vehicle line-up.” He said that earnings were boosted by a product mix weighted toward more-profitable vehicles, and by favourable pricing power. He cited tailwinds for the company's business in China, a key source of sales for Mercedes. The company is accelerating its introduction of new electric vehicles; on April 15 it showed off the EQS, the battery-powered equivalent of its flagship S-Class large sedan. The first-quarter profit compared to the 168 million euros scraped out in the first quarter of 2020, when the company shut down factories and shifted into cash preservation mode in the first phase of the coronavirus pandemic. Daimler AG revenue rose 10% to 41.0 billion euros as sales at the Mercedes-Benz car business jumped 15% to 538,869. Daimler's truck business, slated for spinoff later this year, saw sales revenue slip 1% to 8.66 billion euros but more than doubled adjusted operating profit to 518 million euros from 247 million in the year-ago period. The division's brands include Freightliner and Western Star trucks. Daimler shares were 0.35% higher after the announcement at 74.04 euros in morning trading in Europe. David McHugh, The Associated Press
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/ShutterstockTwo journalists at the center of recent internal drama at The New York Times are set to team up for a new media project.Bari Weiss, the controversial writer who recently departed the paper to launch a Substack newsletter, is close to inking a deal to launch a major podcast project, multiple people with knowledge of the matter told The Daily Beast. While the well-known former New York Times columnist will be the face of the podcast, Weiss has also enlisted her friend and former colleague Andy Mills, a former top Times audio staffer who left the paper in February following years-old allegations of workplace misconduct. The deal is being negotiated by talent agency powerhouse CAA, which represents a number of media figures including Weiss.A major-platform podcast is a natural next step for the former Times opinion writer. Weiss is close with the popular podcast host Joe Rogan, who netted a deal with Spotify reportedly worth $100 million, and she has regularly appeared on his show. Weiss has also in recent years become a regular presence on talk shows, appearing as a recurring guest on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher and as a fill-in host on ABC’s The View.Bari Weiss’ Curious Silence on Conservative Cancel CultureBut the podcast also represents something of a kiss-off to the Times, as it would join forces between two of the biggest lightning rods at the paper in recent years.Almost immediately after joining the paper in 2017, Weiss’ reputation and columns—many of which were critical of social justice movements or unskeptically boosted right-wing internet personalities—were often the source of external criticism from many of the paper’s liberal readers. Weiss also seemed to irritate some Times staff who shared those readers’ concerns and politics, as well as those who were embarrassed by various incidents, including her citing a fake social media post to bash campus liberals in one of her columns and a tweet in which she somewhat confusingly used a Hamilton reference to suggest figure skater Mirai Nagasu, a California-born woman of Japanese descent, was actually an immigrant.In her resignation letter from the paper last year, addressed to publisher A.G. Sulzberger, Weiss claimed that staffers who disagreed with her views had created a hostile work environment in which she faced “constant bullying” from colleagues and was “openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels.”“I do not understand how you have allowed this kind of behavior to go on inside your company in full view of the paper’s entire staff and the public,” she wrote in the note published on her personal website. “And I certainly can’t square how you and other Times leaders have stood by while simultaneously praising me in private for my courage. Showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery.”And Mills, for his part, was a rising star within the paper after playing a key role in launching The Daily, one of the most popular podcasts in the country with more than 4 million downloads per day. But that goodwill dried up last year following his involvement in Caliphate, another Times audio venture with a much less successful outcome.New York Times Admits Its Caliphate Podcast Fell for ISIS Hoaxer’s BullshitThe podcast, which initially garnered rave reviews and praise upon release, centered around Shehroze Chaudhry, a Canadian man who told the podcast—hosted by reporter Rukmini Callimachi and produced by Mills—that he was radicalized online during the rise of ISIS and left the country to join the jihadist organization. But the narrative began to fall apart last year after Chaundhry was arrested by Canadian law enforcement for allegedly lying about his trip to Syria as part of a bizarre terrorism hoax.Chaundhry’s arrest had major implications for the Times, which retracted much of the podcast’s reporting and returned some awards, and Callimachi was eventually reassigned to a different beat but has not published a story since late December. And as the reporting publicly unraveled, misconduct allegations made against Mills during his time at Radiolab, first detailed in a 2018 article in New York magazine’s The Cut, resurfaced online. The report claimed that he gave unsolicited back rubs, asked colleagues on dates, and at one point poured a beer on the head of a coworker during a social event.CAA declined to comment on this story; Weiss and Mills did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
Dublin, April 23, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Esterquats - Global Market Trajectory & Analytics" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Global Esterquats Market to Reach $1 Billion by 2027Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global market for Esterquats estimated at US$897.2 Million in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$1 Billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 1.6% over the period 2020-2027. TEA-Quats, one of the segments analyzed in the report, is projected to record 1.8% CAGR and reach US$736.4 Million by the end of the analysis period. After an early analysis of the business implications of the pandemic and its induced economic crisis, growth in the MDEA & Other segment is readjusted to a revised 1.2% CAGR for the next 7-year period.The U.S. Market is Estimated at $243.1 Million, While China is Forecast to Grow at 3.2% CAGRThe Esterquats market in the U.S. is estimated at US$243.1 Million in the year 2020. China, the world's second largest economy, is forecast to reach a projected market size of US$192.3 Million by the year 2027 trailing a CAGR of 3.3% over the analysis period 2020 to 2027. Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 0.2% and 1.1% respectively over the 2020-2027 period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 0.6% CAGR.Select Competitors (Total 41 Featured): Abitec CorporationAkzo Nobel NVBASF SEClariant AGDongnam Chemical Co., LtdEvonik Industries AGHangzhou FandaChem Co., LtdItalmatch Chemicals SpAKao CorporationStepan Company Key Topics Covered: I. METHODOLOGYII. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Influencer Market InsightsImpact of Covid-19 and a Looming Global Recession III. MARKET ANALYSISIV. COMPETITION Total Companies Profiled: 41 For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/qk1u5w CONTACT: CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900
Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily BeastFor the past 14 months, Madam Dena has sat on a sprawling, abandoned ranch outside Las Vegas, overseeing an empty empire of themed bungalows, hotel rooms, and tennis courts. Usually tasked with managing nearly 100 staffers and contractors, the madam has been almost entirely alone, save for a skeleton crew of employees and a few lone men who sidle up to the locked front gates and pound on the front door, demanding to know if they are open for business.The answer, of course, is no. Nevada’s brothels—the only legal places to buy sex in the United States—shut their doors in March 2020, when Gov. Steve Sisolak shuttered all nonessential businesses due to the coronavirus pandemic. And they have remained closed since, even as other close-contact businesses have opened up around them.But starting May 1, Nevada’s brothels are back in business—and it’s going to be a wild ride.“When we made the announcement that we were opening on May 1, I could not believe it,” Madam Dena, the manager of Sheri’s Ranch in Pahrump, told The Daily Beast this week. “The phones started ringing off the hook; emails coming through for reservations.”“I was like, ‘Whoa—it's almost like everybody was holding their breath."“Oh yeah, we’re booked out,” added Jennifer Barnes, a madam at the Mustang Ranch in Storey County, about the month of May. “Everybody’s been locked up. It’s gonna be fun.” Sheri’s Ranch is ready to open on May 1. Satori Son/Wikimedia Commons Nevada was one of the first states to begin reopening last May, even as infection rates were climbing nationwide. Since then, it has reopened most nonessential businesses at a limited capacity—casinos, tattoo parlors, even strip clubs. Brothels, however, never made the cut. “We’re going to have to look at getting kids back into schools before we look at getting folks back into brothels,” Sisolak said at the Nevada Independent’s conference in October.But the arrival of widespread vaccination programs and a declining case rate has opened the doors for the oldest profession to get back to business. Last week, Sisolak announced the state would fully reopen June 1 and gave back full control of social distancing policies to the counties starting May 1. Several counties quickly voted to reopen all businesses, brothels included.While some county politicians are charging full speed ahead (commissioners in Nye County are already attempting to override the statewide mask mandates,) brothel owners are proceeding with caution. Most are operating at a reduced capacity and heavily encouraging masks in common areas—”putting one foot in,” as Madam Dena put it. There will be the familiar trappings of pandemic life—temperature checks upon arrival, and questions about symptoms and recent travel—along with a few notable changes: Customers at the Mustang Ranch in Storey County will not be allowed to congregate at the bar, but will instead enter and meet up with their courtesans one at a time.Still, brothels say the increased safety measures haven’t put a damper on demand. All of the madams who spoke to The Daily Beast said they were nearly booked up for the month of May.“I’m not gonna lie, I was surprised,” Madam Dena said of the response from customers. “It’s like ‘Heck yeah, here we go!’”Inside the Risky Race to Reopen Nevada’s BrothelsAnd it's not just the customers who have been holding their breath: The pandemic year has been nothing short of devastating for the state’s sex workers.With the only legal place to conduct their work indefinitely shuttered, women accustomed to making six figures in a year were suddenly without a source of income. Applying for a “square job” was nearly impossible—five years at the Bunny Ranch isn’t exactly ideal resume fodder—and many found themselves locked out of the kind of government benefits provided for other service workers affected by the pandemic. It took months for lawmakers to extend unemployment benefits to independent contractors, and some pandemic-related grants and loan programs excluded sex workers completely.Katrina, a courtesan at the Chicken Ranch for more than 13 years, estimated she lost more than 30 percent of her income due to the pandemic.“It seems like anywhere I tried to go for help I was not getting it,” she said. “I'm in a legit business like everyone else, I pay my taxes. I applied for the [Small Business Administration loans] and I was denied because of what I do, and I think that is so unfair.”Katrina was one of the lucky ones: She earned her masters in computer science during the pandemic and was able to supplement her income by designing websites for friends. But others were not as fortunate. Barbara G. Brents, a sociology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and expert on the sex industry, said about a third of Nevada’s legal sex workers previously moonlighted in illegal markets. Post-pandemic, she said, that number is likely much higher.“Obviously sex workers are always resourceful and used to adjusting to the markets,” she said. “But given Nevada’s legal brothel system, one of these adjustments undoubtedly has for many sex workers been to move to a much more dangerous, illegal market.”The trend speaks to a larger problem among sex workers during the pandemic in general. Fearful of coming in close contact with other people, and facing markedly decreased demand, sex workers in both legal and illegal markets were forced to move their work online or suspend it completely. (The number of users on OnlyFans, a site where users can charge for explicit photos and videos, grew nine times between December of 2019 and December 2020.) And according to Brents, even online markets were only profitable for those who already had sizable followings or the resources to build them. “For the most marginalized, the impact has just been devastating,” she said.The pandemic’s effect on sex workers has driven calls for decriminalization, or the removal of criminal penalties for sex workers and their clients. It has also shone a light on some of the flaws in Nevada’s 50-year-old, fully legalized system.Alice Little, often described as one of the country’s highest-paid legal sex workers, sued the governor last November after being locked out of work for almost eight months. She claimed the order barring brothels from reopening was “blatant discrimination against Nevada’s legal sex workers,” and interfered with their freedom of association and right to earn a living. But a Lyon County district court judge ruled against her, claiming she could not represent the interests of the brothel owners as an independent contractor.“Had one brothel owner from Lyon County signed onto my lawsuit, it would have been successful,” Little told the Daily Beast this week. But not a single one did. In fact, none even bothered to attend the court hearings—something the judge said indicated that “owners may not desire to operate during the pandemic.” Alice Little sued the governor last November after being locked out of work for almost eight months. Courtesy Alice Little Little eventually dropped her lawsuit after incurring a six-figure bill and raising less than a quarter of her GoFundMe target.“I think that’s the most upsetting part of this: I paid $100,000 to be told that, as a sex worker, I have zero rights,” she said. “But a brothel owner would have had the rights? That’s not OK.”“We need to fix the brothel system and center the sex workers and prioritize our rights, our ability to stand up for ourselves,” she added. “And until that happens, it’s a desperately flawed industry."There are other, smaller difficulties with re-entering the sex trade after a year of social distancing: re-registering business licenses, getting up-to-date STD checks, shaking off the cobwebs on old skills. (“It’s been a year!” Madam Dena exclaimed. “Do I remember how to process a transaction? I don’t know!”) There have also been unexpected hurdles: Madam Dena said several ladies chose not to return to work rather than submit themselves to vaccinations or weekly COVID tests.But every sex worker who spoke to The Daily Beast said they were thrilled about getting back to work. Several were already back in Nevada in advance of the reopening, dusting off their social media feeds and booking appointments with customers they hadn’t seen in over a year. The reasons for their excitement ranged from a desire to reunite with customers and coworkers to a yearning—and in some cases, a deep-felt need—for the extra income. (Asked what she had missed most about her job during the pandemic, Mustang Ranch courtesan Nola Blue said simply, “The money!”)Even Little says she is excited to get back to work. She has switched from her brothel in Lyon County to the Chicken Ranch in Pahrump, where she says management has been more supportive. And she is excited to get back to her customers, who she knows have been struggling as well.“I keep joking with everyone that it’s like I’m going to see folks again and pretty much burst into tears upon being able to hold them and hug them and see them,” she said. “Because this year has been extremely stressful on everyone, to say the least.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. 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The "Global Airport Security CONOPS Industry Report 2020: Disruptive Technologies, Geo-Political, and Internal Challenges" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
She also directly accused the current generation of politicians of "giving up without even trying."
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SpaceX set for its second operational Crew Dragon mission (Crew-2) to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) at 5:49 AM ET today.
Harder, better, stronger, longer: how one Australian’s love of mules led him to import a mammoth donkeyIt took six months and $60,000 for Queenslander David Scholl to import ‘Moses’ but he argues it’s worth it because mules are better than horses Queensland mule breeder David Scholl with Diamond Creek Moonwatcher - an American mammoth donkey he imported from the United States at a cost of $60,000. Photograph: David Scholl
European stocks were on track for their first weekly loss in eight on Friday as a surge in global coronavirus cases offset optimism about a strong earnings season, while Madrid-based Allfunds jumped in its Amsterdam market debut. Global market sentiment was hit following reports on Thursday that U.S. President Joe Biden planned to raise income taxes on the wealthy, a proposal some said would be hard to pass in Congress. Spanish fund distribution firm Allfunds jumped over 18% in its first day of trading, boosting an IPO market dented by last month's underwhelming Deliveroo listing.
Changes to restrictions mean Wales will now complete its move to Alert Level 3 by May 3 – three days before the May 6 Senedd election.
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