Day: December 29, 2021

A Singapore-based crypto exchange has scored one of the biggest naming rights deals in sports history with the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

The multi-purpose, 20,000-seat venue will be renamed Crypto.com Arena after the trading platform on Christmas Day, according to a Tuesday’s press release.

Crypto.com bought the naming rights to the arena from multinational sports and live entertainment company AEG for 20 years, the Los Angeles Times wrote, citing sources familiar with the matter.

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The deal was reportedly worth $700 million, making it one of the biggest naming rights deals in sports history, beating the LA Clippers’ $500 million deal on the Intuit Dome, and SoFi Stadium’s deal, reportedly worth more than $600 million.

The new branding is set to be revealed on December 25, the date of the NBA’s annual Christmas game, when the Los Angeles Lakers will host the Brooklyn Nets.

All current Staples Center insignias will be removed and changed to the new name by June 2022.

Under the terms of the deal, Crypto.com also becomes an official partner of the NBA’s Lakers, and the NHL’s LA Kings.

Crypto.com is not a newcomer to the world of sports; it has signed a number of deals this year – with Formula One and the UFC, among others. 

The Staples Center, however, is a prized addition, having hosted 19 Grammy Awards ceremonies, countless major sporting events, concerts, and public events, including memorial ceremonies for Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant. 

The arena has been in operation since 1999, bearing the name of Staples Inc., a major office supplies and retail company. 

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT’s business section

AUSTIN, TX – Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Saturday issued a warning to former President Donald Trump over his recent support for the COVID-19 vaccines that his administration assisted in developing, saying that he was either “ignorant” or “the most evil man who has ever lived” for advocating the jab.

On the December 25 episode of his InfoWars show, Jones – a staunch opponent of vaccination – thoroughly blasted his one-time ally, referring to statements that Trump had made during a recent interview with Candace Owens.

“This is an emergency Christmas Day warning to President Trump,” Jones said. “You are either completely ignorant about the so-called vaccine gene therapy you helped ram through with Operation Warp Speed, or you are the most evil man who has ever lived to push this toxic poison on the public and to attack your constituents when they simply try to save their lives and the lives of others. What you told Candace Owens is nothing but a raft of dirty lies.”

Jones apparently changed his tune on Trump due to statements he has been making lately, where the former Commander-in-Chief has publicly praised COVID-19 vaccines – admitting during a recent tour that he was fully vaccinated and boosted – and has been encouraging his followers who may be on the fence to get inoculated.

During Trump’s interview with Daily Wire host Owens – which took place on December 22 – the scene turned slightly confrontational when the former president directly contradicted her claims that COVID vaccines do not work.

“And yet more people have died under COVID this year, by the way, under Joe Biden than under you. And more people took the vaccine this year, so people are questioning how…” Owens said, before being cut off by Trump.

“Oh, no. The vaccine worked. But some people aren’t taking it. The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take the vaccine,” Trump said. “But it’s still their choice, and if you take the vaccine, you’re protected. Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get it, it’s a very minor form. People aren’t dying when they take the vaccine.”

Mr Trump has long been proud of the role his administration played in the development of the COVID-19 vaccine; during the final stop of his “The History Tour” with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly in Texas earlier this month, Trump boldly proclaimed that the vaccines have saved up to a “hundred million people.”

“Look, we did something that was historic. We saved tens of millions of lives worldwide. We together, all of us — not me, we — we got a vaccine done, three vaccines done, and tremendous therapeutics that have saved a lot of lives,” Trump said. “I think this would have been the Spanish Flu of 1917 where up to a hundred million people died. This was going to ravage the country far beyond what it is right now.”

Owens would later claim that Trump was supporting vaccines because he was “too old” to understand how to use the internet to conduct “independent research” on alternative COVID treatments.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Biden Administration’s chief medical adviser, stated Monday on MSNBC that it would be “reasonable to consider” a requirement for full vaccination against COVID-19 for people looking to take domestic air flights as a new surge in the pandemic –driven by the new Omicron variant – disrupts travel in the United States and worldwide.

In addition to suggesting that full vaccination should be mandatory for air travel, Fauci also suggested during a second interview later that day on CNN that people should weight the possibility of avoiding mass gatherings during this weekend’s upcoming New Year’s Eve celebrations.

“When you make vaccination a requirement, that’s another incentive to get more people vaccinated,” Fauci said. “If you want to do that with domestic flights, I think that’s something that seriously should be considered.”

Fauci also said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been weighing the possibility of shortening isolation time requirements for front-line workers; later on Monday, the CDC officially rolled out amended procedures, shortening quarantine time for essential workers exposed to COVID-19 from 10 days to just five.

These announcements come in the face of a massive spike in COVID-19 infections across the country, driven by the new Omicron variant, which experts say is typically less severe than previous variants but far more transmissible.

Nonetheless, hospitals around the U.S. have been overwhelmed by new Omicron cases – New York alone reported 49,708 new cases on December 24 – thus prompting the CDC’s updated guidelines for frontline workers in an attempt to address shortages.

Air travel over the Christmas weekend was severely impacted by Omicron, causing widespread shortages of airline personnel and the subsequent cancellation of approximately 2,800 flights, leaving countless travelers essentially stranded until alternate flights could be booked.

NEW YORK, NY – An MSNBC panel has called for an FBI investigation into an Oregon man who, during a live broadcast phone call with President Joe Biden and his wife Jill, signed off using the infamous phrase “Let’s Go Brandon,” a conservative dig that means, “F**k Joe Biden.”

Former Medford police officer Jared Schmeck had called into a live NORAD Santa tracker call on Christmas Eve and was put on-air live with the Bidens; the call progressed pleasantly enough until the President and his wife wished Schmeck and his family “a wonderful Christmas,” at which time the father of four responded with “Merry Christmas…Let’s go Brandon!”

This prompted Biden – who seemed completely unaware of the vulgar connotation – to innocently repeat the phrase with a chuckle. “Let’s go Brandon, I agree,” Biden said before a nationwide audience.

Later, appearing on Bannon’s “War Room” podcast to discuss the fallout from the call, the MAGA hat-wearing Schmeck – who had previously claimed he didn’t intend to be “vulgar” and that he had “nothing against Mr. Biden” – told Bannon that that he was a “Christian” and that he was a supporter of former President Donald Trump, repeating his currently unproven claims of voter fraud.

“I am a Christian man. For me, it’s God first and foremost,” Schmeck said. I don’t follow any one man blindly. Some of the media’s run with that and said I don’t support Donald Trump. That’s absolutely false, Donald Trump is my president and he should still be the president right now. The election was 100 percent stolen.”

Schmeck claimed that he was simply exercising his right to free speech, and had used the “Let’s Go Brandon” phrase simply to express frustration with “Joe Biden, the administration, the leftist mob, the cancel culture, the mainstream media.”

However, not all have seen it that way. MSNBC’s Deadline: White House anchor Nicolle Wallace was recently joined by Missouri senator Claire McCaskill and Jason Johnson political commentator and associate professor at Morgan State University Jason Johnson.

When the subject of Schmeck’s call with the President came up all three were aghast, with Wallace noting the irony of a man claiming to be devoutly religious using a vulgar phrase to directly address the president.

“So, what you heard there, was an Oregon dad, his four kids,” Wallace said. “He’s a self-described free-thinking American a follower of Jesus Christ. He called into the NORAD tracking center on Christmas Eve. What he said, ‘let’s go Brandon’ means ‘eff Joe Biden’ in very, very, very thinly coded right-wing lexicon.”

“This is the slow motion insurrection, Jason, in full color,” Wallace added – referring to the participants in the January 6 U.S. Capitol riots – to which Jason Johnson responded that “Let’s Go Brandon” has essentially become “the cry of insurrectionists.”

“When these people are speaking, they are not joking,” Johnson said. “MAGA isn’t about taxes. You know. ‘Let’s go Brandon’ isn’t about what you feel about supply chain issues and gas. It is the cry of insurrectionists. It is the cry of people who want to violently take over this country and oppress anyone who is not like them. And that’s what makes this dangerous.”

Johnson then seemed to shockingly suggest that the federal authorities should investigate individuals like Schmeck who use the “Brandon” phrase, as he said they could potentially be dangerous.

“And to the degree that Joe Biden can laugh it off or anything else like that, that’s fine,” he said. “But I hope we have a Justice Department and an FBI and a CIA that investigates where the anger that leads to these kinds of statements comes through. Because these people already attacked us with guns. Do you think they are going to come back with something less aggressive next time if they feel like they can speak this way to the president? I don’t think so.”

TALLAHASSEE, FL – The Florida Department of Corrections now bans people in prison from receiving traditional mail, such as greeting cards and handwritten letters, requiring that it be scanned and sent electronically, with few exceptions. The department says the change was made to reduce contraband from entering facilities, but Denise Rock, executive director of Florida Cares Charity Corp., sees it as choosing to punish the estimated 80,000 people in prison for an offense that affects less than 1% of the prison population.

Rock said the department is taking away important intangibles, such as being able to hold and smell the paper a loved one has written on, “or touch the colors of the crayons that your child wrote a card to you. What we have found from talking to people that are both incarcerated or formerly incarcerated is that this stuff provided an invaluable connection back home.”

Rock is urging the Department of Corrections to consider punishing only those who violate mail rules.

The new rule, finalized November 29, is being phased in beginning with four state-run facilities — the Calhoun, Lawtey, Polk and Martin Correctional Institutes – starting January 18.

Florida is following in the footsteps of several states that have banned or drastically restricted mail. Texas banned greeting cards and artwork in 2020. Michigan and Indiana have taken similar steps. Rock said she believes this approach is wrong.

“The overall goal of incarceration should be that someone comes out and is well connected to their family, and able to get readjusted and reacclimated,” she said, “and we feel like this just further isolates them from how the real world functions.”

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, 50 years of research has found that visitation, mail, phone and other forms of contact between incarcerated people and their families has positive effects on both. Also, an investigation by the Marshall Project after Texas limited its prison mail found drugs and other contraband still were entering facilities – smuggled in by corrections officers.