Rob Gough, with the 1952 Mickey Mantle card he paid a record-setting $5.2 million for last month. Photo: Berk Communications This time last year, the only sports cards Rob Gough owned were the ones he’d collected as a kid. Somewhere in his possession are plastic sheets filled with Michael Jordans, Shaquille O’Neals, and assorted members of the 1990s Cincinnati Reds, all mass-produced and worth roughly the cardboard they were printed on. These days, Gough’s collection looks a bit different. The entrepreneur says that by mid-January of this year, he had spent $10 million on various trading cards, a spree that culminated with his biggest purchase yet: $5.2 million for a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle in nearly perfect condition. With that, he shattered the record for the price of a single card. It was a jaw-dropping purchase but hardly an isolated event in a suddenly torrid sports-card market. The previous record for the priciest sale ever had been set just months before, in August 2020, when a one-of-a-kind 2009 Mike Trout baseball card sold for $3.936 million — a massive jump from the $400,000 it went for in 2018. In September, a Giannis Antetokounmpo card sold for $1.812 million (a record for a basketball card), and earlier this year, one of Patrick Mahomes sold for $861,000 (setting a record for football). On eBay, overall domestic sales for trading cards were up 142 percent in 2020. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like this in my career,” says Jeff Rosenberg, the president and CEO of Tristar Productions, a Houston-based memorabilia company that promotes collectible shows. Some of the increased interest in trading cards can be attributed to onetime collectors rediscovering their childhood hobby during the pandemic, as people stuck at home direct their disposable income to a sentimental pastime. But another trend, which had already begun before last March, has helped drive the headline-grabbing, six- and seven-figure purchases. Historically, ...
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UK Health Chief Warns Britons Against Gwyneth Paltrow’s Advice for Coronavirus Cures
The United Kingdom’s top health official, Stephen Powis, the national medical director for NHS England, is warning Britons to take actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s coronavirus treatment advice with a hefty grain of salt. On Wednesday, Powis told the BBC that he urges caution to anyone looking to the eccentric actress for advice on how to cure the coronavirus. “In the last few days, I see Gwyneth Paltrow is, unfortunately, suffering from the effects of Covid. We wish her well, but some of the solutions she’s recommending are really not the solutions we’d recommend in the NHS,” Powis said. After noting that she had been suffering from the virus, Paltrow told fans that a “functional medicine practitioner” said to her that she should engage in an “intuitive fasting” program to help her get over the illness. Paltrow went on to tell fans that this program includes eating nothing before 11 a.m., taking infrared saunas, eliminating sugar and alcohol, and adopting a plant-based and ketogenic-based diet. “Everything I’m doing feels good, like a gift to my body. I have energy, I’m working out in the mornings, and I’m doing an infrared sauna as often as I can, all in service of healing,” the Avengers: Endgame star wrote in the blog post. But Powis pushed back on Paltrow’s suggestions and said that people should look to “serious science” instead of listening to the Hollywood actress. “Like the virus, misinformation carries across borders, and it mutates, and it evolves. So I think YouTube and other social media platforms have a real responsibility and opportunity here,” Powis said. “We need to take long Covid seriously and apply serious science. All influencers who use social media have a duty of responsibility and a duty of care around that,” Powis added. The UK health chief also scolded the media for not taking its “responsibility” seriously by even reporting Paltrow’s claims. This is not the first time that a British health official has blasted health advice ...
House subcommittee debates reparations bill for Black Americans
Members of a House subcommittee Wednesday debated the merits of legislation that would establish a federal commission to explore reparations for Black Americans, marking the first time the panel has held a hearing on the topic since 2019. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held a virtual hearing to discuss a bill first introduced by the late Rep. John Conyers John James Conyers House subcommittee debates reparations bill for Black Americans House subpanel to hold hearing on reparations for Black Americans Bottom line MORE (D-Mich.) in 1989. The legislation has never received a floor vote. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Sheila Jackson Lee House Judiciary split on how to address domestic extremism The Hill's Morning Report - Democrats ready mammoth relief bill for 10-day sprint House subcommittee debates reparations bill for Black Americans MORE (D-Texas) reintroduced the measure, H.R. 40, in January. The bill has 162 co-sponsors, all Democrats. ADVERTISEMENT “We believe in determination, and we believe in overcoming the many bad balls that we have been thrown; we've caught them, and we've kept on going. That is not the point of H.R. 40,” Jackson Lee said in her opening statement. “Now more than ever, the facts and circumstances facing our nation demonstrate the importance of H.R. 40 and the necessity of placing our nation on the path to reparative justice.” Several of the hearing’s witnesses mentioned the significant health disparities in communities of color that have taken center stage during the coronavirus pandemic. In particular, Black Americans have died from COVID-19 at a higher rate than white Americans, and initial vaccine distribution data has shown that Black Americans have received a disproportionately lower percentage of vaccinations. Civil rights proponents have for years argued that reparations could help close the multitude of inequities still ...
US Retail Sales Jump In January In Positive Sign For Economy
The U.S. retail sales were much higher than economists projected in January, ending a multi-month streak of underperformance, according to the Commerce Department. Retail sales increased 5.3% and totaled $568.2 billion in January, according to the Department of Commerce report released Wednesday. Economists had predicted retail sales to increase by 1.2%, The New York Times reported . “I think the main narrative is that things turned around,” Stephen Stanley, the chief economist at Amherst Pierpont, told CNBC . “November and December were quite negative. As the virus was gaining momentum, people were hunkering down. In January, you had an unwind of that to a little extent.” (RELATED: US Added 49,000 Jobs In January, Unemployment Rate Fell To 6.3%) President Joe Biden speaks to the press before departing the White House Tuesday. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images) January’s surge was likely driven by the relief package Congress passed in December, which included $600 stimulus checks for Americans, according to the NYT. The Commerce report represented an end to a three-month streak of declining retail sales. Retail sales declined 1% in December, 1.4% in November and 0.1% in October. Retail sales bottomed out at $412.77 billion in April as coronavirus quickly spread across the country and government restrictions shut down local economies, according to The Wall Street Journal . President Joe Biden, meanwhile, inherited an economy that has been sluggish in recent weeks and months. The U.S. lost 140,000 jobs in December, the first jobs loss since April, and gained a modest 49,000 jobs in January, according to Department of Labor data . The economy shrank 3.5% in 2020, according to a Jan. 28 Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) report, the worst performance since the 1940s. The U.S. also recorded its sharpest rise in poverty since the 1960s when the poverty rate spiked to 11.8% in December. Content created by The Daily Caller ...
Upton censured for vote to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from Education Committee
Rep. Fred Upton Frederick (Fred) Stephen Upton Upton censured for vote to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from Education Committee Is the 'civil war' in the Republican Party really over? Michigan GOP committee deadlocks on resolution to censure Meijer over impeachment vote MORE (R-Mich.) has been censured by Republicans in his local House district for his vote to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from her spot on the House Education Committee. "Tonight, the Cass County GOP censured me for voting to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from the education committee, and in their resolution they stated that 'her comments have not been out of line with anyone else's comments.' Really?" Upton tweeted. "She taunted a Parkland school shooting survivor, argued that California wildfires were started by a Jewish space laser, accused Democratic politicians of running a pedophile ring out of a pizza parlor, and questioned whether 9/11 really happened." ADVERTISEMENT Upton asked if the local Republicans in Cass County, which voted heavily for former President Trump Donald Trump Senators given no timeline on removal of National Guard, Capitol fence Democratic fury with GOP explodes in House Georgia secretary of state withholds support for 'reactionary' GOP voting bills MORE in both 2016 and 2020 "really think someone like that represents Republican values and should be serving on the education committee?" She taunted a Parkland school shooting survivor, argued that California wildfires were started by a Jewish space laser, accused Democratic politicians of running a pedophile ring out of a pizza parlor, and questioned whether 9/11 really happened... — Fred Upton #WearYourMask (@RepFredUpton) February 24, 2021 Upton was previously censured by the party for his vote to impeach Trump following a deadly riot carried out by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. "We believe Congressman Upton's vote is a ...
