CNN BUSINESS |Manufacturing CEO: Before Biden, it felt like we were fighting the pandemic alone

New York (CNN Business) – A former Republican operative who now leads one of the nation’s most powerful business groups is praising President Joe Biden’s efforts to defeat the coronavirus pandemic.

“It is fantastic to have a partner in the White House,” Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, told CNN Business. “We felt like we were fighting this fight, frankly, all alone for the last year.”

NAM, which represents more than 130,000 manufacturers, announced Friday it is planning to partner with the Biden administration to help fight the pandemic.  –read more— 

CNN BUSINESS | Warren Buffett admits to a rare ‘mistake’

New York (CNN Business) – The Oracle of Omaha said he made a mistake.

In his annual letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB), investing guru Warren Buffett disclosed that the company took an $11 billion writedown last year on its 2016 purchase of Precision Castparts, describing it as “a mistake.”

The 90-year-old billionaire, Berkshire’s chairman since 1970, said in the company’s annual letter to shareholders that the “ugly” writedown had a simple explanation.

“I paid too much for the company,” he said. “My miscalculation was laid bare by adverse developments throughout the aerospace industry.”  —read more— 

CNN | She was the Jackie Robinson of tennis

Long before Venus and Serena Williams, another tall, young Black woman shook up the staid world of tennis with her powerful serve and brilliant play.

She was Althea Gibson, and tennis had long been a segregated sport when her skill and strength broke the color barrier in the 1950s.  –read more— 

CNN BUSINESS | Hyundai’s recall of 82,000 electric cars is one of the most expensive in history

New York (CNN Business) – Hyundai will recall 82,000 electric cars globally to replace their batteries after 15 reports of fires involving the vehicles. Despite the relatively small number of cars involved, Hyundai’s recall is one of the most expensive in history, signaling how electric car defects could create hefty costs for automakers — at least in the near future.

The recall will cost Hyundai 1 trillion Korean won, or $900 million. On a per-vehicle basis, the average cost is $11,000 — an astronomically high number for a recall.

Replacing an entire battery is an extreme measure, requiring a similar amount of work and expense as replacing an entire engine of a traditional internal combustion-powered car. Very few recalls of gasoline powered cars require an entire engine to be replaced. One of the few exceptions was a 2014 recall of 785 of the Porsche 911 GT3 sports cars. Porsche did not release the cost of that recall, but it was certainly more expensive on a per-vehicle basis than this Hyundai recall.  —read more— 

CNN underscored | The best smart plugs of 2021

(CNN) — For those who want to enter the smart home realm without actually investing in smart devices, a smart plug — which adds a touch of automation to lamps, coffee machines and other everyday devices — is the way to go.

Essentially, a smart plug is a moveable outlet paired with connectivity to a smart home ecosystem — be it Amazon’s Alexa, the Google Assistant or Apple’s HomeKit. If you have multiple appliances you want to get online, there’s also smart outlet strips, which turn one regular outlet into many with smart control.

We researched hundreds of smart plug options — combing editorial and user reviews — to pull together the 11 most highly rated options. After weeks of testing, three options rose to the top:  —read more— 

CNN | Owner plunges into frozen pool to save dog

A dog owner in Tennessee wasted no time jumping into a frozen pool to save her dog, Sid, who was stuck under a sheet of ice.   —watch— 

CNN | NASA’s DC headquarters is being renamed for ‘Hidden Figures’ scientist Mary Jackson

(CNN) – The name of Mary Jackson, NASA’s first African American female engineer and one of the barrier-breaking inspirations for the book “Hidden Figures,” will officially adorn the space agency’s Washington, DC, headquarters Friday.

NASA announced its decision last year to name the building in Jackson’s honor. Members of her family, including granddaughter Wanda Jackson, are expected to be at Friday’s renaming ceremony along with Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk, the agency announced. Jackson died in 2005 at the age of 83.  –read more– 

CNN style Fashion | The club kid designer dressing the most powerful women in US politics

There are times in every successful designer’s career when they find something they created at the center of a viral sensation. For Max Mara’s creative director, Ian Griffiths, discovering that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had ignited a global frenzy by wearing his red “Fire Coat” for her infamous showdown with Donald Trump in 2018 was one of those moments. It was not, however, quite as he had imagined it.

“It was 7 in the evening and I got the phone call from our American communications office. I had just got home from work and was in the middle of getting changed with my trousers around my knees,” laughed Griffiths on the phone from his office in Reggio Emilia, northern Italy. “They needed urgent confirmation the coat was ours, then more and more calls came in to give quotes. I spent the whole evening shuffling around my apartment with my trousers around my ankles because I didn’t have time to take them off!  —read more— 

CNN BUSINESS | Zillow will now make cash offers for homes based on its ‘Zestimates’

New York (CNN Business)  – Zillow is no longer just an online platform for browsing available homes or for creeping on the value of your neighbor’s house. In recent years, the company has also begun actually buying, fixing up and selling homes itself through a new division called Zillow Offers — a major shift in its business model.

On Thursday, the company announced a new feature aimed at streamlining the process for homeowners considering selling to Zillow.

For certain homes, Zillow’s “Zestimate” — the online estimate of the home’s value — will now represent an initial cash offer from the company to buy the property. That could mean an even quicker timeline for homeowners looking to close a sale without going through the hassle of a formal listing, or a source of helpful data for would-be sellers who want to know how much money they’ll have to buy their next house.  –read more—