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Evergreen rockers the Rolling Stones celebrated the release of their first album of original music in 18 years with a surprise Manhattan club gig on Thursday.

Before a celebrity-strewn audience of invited guests that included Christie Brinkley, Elvis Costello and Trevor Noah at the downtown club Racket NYC, the Stones made a notable racket themselves over seven songs, four from the new Hackney Diamonds disc.

Mick Jagger alluded to past stunts the Stones had done in New York to tout new music over the years, including performing on a flatbed truck on Fifth Avenue.

He saluted the city by opening with the 1970s-era punkish tune, Shattered, with the lyric “my brain’s been splattered all over Manhattan”.

After performing the new single, Angry, Jagger noted to his bandmates: “There’s a first time for everything.”

With the death of drummer Charlie Watts in 2021, the Stones are down to a core trio of Jagger and guitarists Keith Richards and Ron Wood. They are supplemented onstage with four other musicians.

Hackney Diamonds, coming at a time many fans wondered if the Rolling Stones would ever bother again with new music, has been well received by critics, with many noting the crisp energy the band displayed.

That vigor was apparent at the performance in Manhattan’s Meatpacking district. Following an opening DJ set by Questlove, Jagger pranced and prowled a stage much smaller than he’s used to. Now 80, he moved like a man half his age. His tongue wagged slightly as he caught his breath after another punk-inspired tune, Bite My Head Off.

“You might be familiar with this one,” Jagger said before Richards began the opening riff to Jumpin’ Jack Flash, instantly trumping the thousands of bar band versions attempted in the 55 years since the song’s release.

Lady Gaga, dressed in a sequined maroon pantsuit, made an appearance to recreate her duet – duel, really – with Jagger on the new Sweet Sounds of Heaven.

“New York, the Rolling Stones!” she said before leaving, exchanging kisses with Jagger and Richards.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

A trendy Barcelona bar decorated in pastel pink and green hues has been named the world’s best bar of 2023.

Sips, located in the heart of Barcelona’s L'Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample district has not only earned the title of best in the world, but also best in Europe, according to this year’s The World’s 50 Best Bars list, an annual ranking of bars determined by the votes of 680 drinks experts from across the globe.

Don’t be fooled by the cozy interior, Sips can turn into a “a dark and sultry hideaway” as soon as the sun begins to set. Esencia, a bar inside the bar offers customers a wine tasting experience of sorts that breaks down the signature cocktails they offer in sips.

There is the off chance that any one of their “wondrous creations” may be served in a metal cast of two hands, or a glass, depending on how colorful the cocktail, of course.

This is the second year in a row that a Barcelona bar has taken possession of the top spot.

"When we started Sips, we strongly believed that the bar was a beacon name itself. The drinks, music and the architecture of the bar itself are like 'little drops that fill the glass,' creating an experience that is unique to Sips,” Marc Álvarez, co-founder of Sips shared with CNBC.

World's 50 Best Bars ceremony honors international drinking community

Honorees from 28 different cities around the world were recognized at a live awards ceremony in Singapore on Tuesday, marking the first time the ceremony has been held in Asia.

Double Chicken Please in New York City was named second best for the first time, while Handshake Speakeasy in Mexico City took third place.

The U.S. tied with England for most bars on the list, with a total of five U.S.-based bars included. Three of the bars named are in New York City. Café La Trova in Miami came in 24th place, while New Orleans bar Jewel of the South ranked 49 out of 50.

Mexico City follows the U.S. and London closely, with four bars making the list. Argentina and Singapore were the countries with the third most number of winning bars with three wins each.

Other special awards include the Roku Industry Icon awarded to Renato "Tato" Giovannoni of Florería Atlántico in Buenos Aires and The Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award bestowed upon Röda Huset in Stockholm, among many other awards presented that night.

More:Oyster outrage: Woman's date sneaks out after she eats 48 oysters in viral TikTok video

The World's 50 Best Bars 2023

The World’s 50 Best Bars List has been compiled annually since 2009 by U.K.-based business media company William Reed, the same group behind The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and The World’s 50 Best Hotels.

The goal of the list is to “celebrate the excellence of the international drinks sector and pay tribute to the visionary bartenders, enterprising bar owners and trailblazing brands that lead the charge in shaping cocktail culture around the world,” according to a news release by the company.

50. Galaxy Bar, Dubai, UAE

49. Jewel of the South, New Orleans

48. Atlas, Singapore

47. The Clumsies, Athens

46. Locale Firenze, Florence

45. Baltra Bar, Mexico City

44. L'Antiquario, Naples

43. Carnaval, Lima

42. 1930, Milan

41. Scarfes Bar, London

40. Mimi Kakushi, Dubai, UAE

39. Panda & Sons, Edinburgh

38. The Cambridge Public House, Paris

37. Bar Benfiddich, Tokyo

36. The SG Club, Tokyo

35. A Bar with Shapes for a Name, London

34. Argo, Hong Kong

33. Freni e Frizioni, Rome

32. Sago House, Singapore

31. Röda Huset, Stockholm

30. Florería Atlántico, Buenos Aires

29. Wax On, Berlin

28. Satan’s Whiskers, London

27. Katana Kitten, New York

26. CoChinChina, Buenos Aires

25. Baba au Rum, Athens

24. Café La Trova, Miami

23. Caretaker’s Cottage, Melbourne

22. Hanky Panky, Mexico City

21. Drink Kong, Rome

20. Coa, Hong Kong

19. Mahaniyom Cocktail Bar, Bangkok

18. Zest, Seoul

17. Overstory, New York

16. Salmon Guru, Madrid

15. Maybe Sammy, Sydney

14. Jigger & Pony, Singapore

13. BKK Social Club, Bangkok

12. Line, Athens

11. Tres Monos, Buenos Aires

10. Himkok, Oslo

9. Alquímico, Cartagena

8. Tay?r + Elementary, London

7. Licorería Limantour, Mexico City

6. Little Red Door, Paris

5. Connaught Bar, London

4. Paradiso, Barcelona

3. Handshake Speakeasy, Mexico City

2. Double Chicken Please, New York

1. Sips, Barcelona

World's Best Bars 2022 winners:US leads with 8; New York has 6 of them

Staten Island’s Freshkills was once the world’s largest dump. In 2001, New York City shut it down and began the process of turning it into a park. A soccer field opened in 2013 and a bikeway in 2015. North Park, the first section allowing public access into the interior of the former landfill, opened last weekend.

When NYC Parks Commissioner Robert Moses selected Freshkills as a landfill site after World War II, it was a wetland. The plan was to build housing on top of it after three years. But New York was growing fast, and all the new trash needed to go somewhere. The site accepted as many as 29,000 tons of garbage daily, which consumed more acreage and created a mighty stink. After many lawsuits, the city began its transformation.

There are more than 2,600 municipal solid waste landfills in the US. Federal law requires maintenance of them even after they close, so they don’t pollute. If the methane released from dumps isn’t purified, it rises into the atmosphere, where it’s a particularly potent greenhouse gas.

Garbage compacts, creating shifting surface conditions. In North Park, the trash has been sculpted into four hills arranged around a tidal creek open for kayaking. There are roughly six layers of soil, sand and plastic lining on top of the garbage to prevent toxic leaks, including a vent layer, which moves any escaping landfill gas—a combination of carbon dioxide and methane—into pipes. “The biggest challenge posed by developing our park on a former landfill is managing the expectations between what we as a community want,” says Mark Murphy, the administrator for Freshkills Park, “and what the land is realistically able to be used for.”

More than 500 former US dumps have been turned into energy projects that transform landfill gas into fuel. Far beneath the 2,200 acres of Freshkills’ grass and soil, a gas collection system vacuums out the landfill gas and sends it to a purification plant, where it undergoes methane removal. The city sells 1.5 million cubic feet of this treated biogas to the local utility, which distributes it to Staten Island homes for cooking and heating. (The average American household uses 70,000 cubic feet of natural gas annually.)

NEW YORK (WABC) -- The upcoming United States winter looks likely to be a bit low on snow and extreme cold outbreaks, with federal forecasters predicting the North to get warmer than normal and the South wetter and stormier.

A strong El Nino heavily moderates and changes the storm tracks of what America is likely to face from December to February, with an added warming boost from climate change and record hot oceans, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday in releasing their winter outlook.

Eyewitness News Chief Meteorologist Lee Goldberg says this means we'll likely see above-normal temperatures for much of the winter. That does not mean we escape extreme cold, but the staying power will be limited, he said.

At the same time, the storm track will likely be more active, so expect more coastal storms or nor'easters as we go through the winter.

The question is whether cold air and a coastal storm will happen simultaneously. That will make the difference between more snow or more of a wintry mix.

While AccuWeather is predicting below-average snowfall, it's likely the New York City area will see more snow than last winter.

Most of the country is predicted to be warmer than normal with that warmth stretching north from Tennessee, Missouri, Nebraska and Nevada, along with nearly all of California. The rest of the nation is forecast to be near normal or have equal chances for warm, cold or normal. NOAA doesn't predict any part of the U.S. to be cooler than normal this winter.

"The greatest odds for warmer than average conditions are in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and northern New England," Gottschalk said.

A similarly large southern swath of the country is predicted to be wetter. The forecast of added moisture stretches from Massachusetts down the East Coast along most of the South below Tennessee, and extending west through Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and most of California, but excluding good chunks of New Mexico and Arizona.

The Great Lakes region and the furthest northern parts of the nation stretching from Lake Erie to eastern Washington are forecast to be drier than normal.

All this is because of El Nino, which is a natural periodic warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather patterns worldwide and generally heats up global temperatures, Gottschalk and other NOAA scientists said. El Nino has its strongest effects, especially in the United States, during the winter. That's when it sends the jet stream, which moves storm fronts, on an unusual path that is dominated by warmer and wetter Pacific air plunging south.

That means more rain in the South and extra storminess in the late winter, Gottschalk said. El Nino often means "unusual severe weather across the state of Florida because of a strong subtropical jet stream," he said.

Those changes in the jet stream often can bring a storm along the East Coast with moisture from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico "to get very juiced up" and fall as heavy snow in big eastern cities, Gottschalk said. That depends on timing of temperatures and other conditions, so it's not likely to happen more than a couple times. But if the timing is right, "these storms can really explode off the East Coast," he said.

He pointed to Washington's paralyzing 2010 Snowmageddon storm that dumped more than 2 feet on the capital region during an El Nino.

Normally the South gets not just wetter but cooler during an El Nino, but Gottschalk said the warmer ocean temperatures and record hot summer temperatures led forecasters to ditch a cooler outlook.

NOAA scientists said climate change is an added factor to their forecast, especially with winter being a season where the world sees some of the most warming above old normals from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Winter in the Lower 48 has warmed on average 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) in the past 40 years, according to NOAA data.

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Some information from The Associated Press

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Continuing a crackdown on cryptocurrency companies, the New York attorney general accused three major players in the digital asset industry of lying to investors and concealing losses in a $1 billion fraud scheme, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday.

The suit targets Gemini Trust, the exchange run by the twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss; the lender Genesis Capital; and Digital Currency Group, the parent company of Genesis.

The attorney general, Letitia James, contends in the suit that Gemini lied to investors about the dangers of Gemini Earn, a program started by Gemini and Genesis that promised investors a high rate of return — up to 8 percent — if they essentially lent their cryptocurrency to Genesis.

But Genesis struggled after the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, founded by Sam-Bankman Fried, imploded last November. It froze accounts amid a crash in digital asset values, leaving Earn investors unable to reclaim hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency.

According to Ms. James’s suit, internal documents at Gemini show that just months after Earn was started in 2021, the company’s risk analysis teams deemed Genesis very risky — highly leveraged with limited liquidity. Gemini also knew that Genesis loans were at one point tied up in Alameda Research, the now-bankrupt crypto hedge fund also founded by Mr. Bankman-Fried, who is now being tried on criminal fraud charges.

But Gemini did not share the information with investors, leaving at least 29,000 New Yorkers and hundreds of thousands of others across the country in the dark about the dangers to their assets, Ms. James said.

The lawsuit accuses Genesis and Digital Currency Group of trying to conceal Genesis’ losses from Gemini Earn investors and the public. The two firms hid the financial troubles last year when Genesis entered into a $1.1 billion, 10-year promissory note with Digital Currency, a deal intended to give the false impression that Genesis was on stronger footing and to encourage investors to keep participating in the Earn program, according to the lawsuit.

“This fraud is yet another example of bad actors causing harm throughout the under-regulated cryptocurrency industry,” Ms. James said in a statement. “My office will continue our efforts to stop deceptive cryptocurrency companies, and to push for stronger regulations to protect all investors.”

Soichiro Moro, the former Genesis chief executive, and Digital Currency’s chief executive, Barry Silbert, were also named in the suit.

Gemini responded with a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that both applauded and condemned the lawsuit. The filing “confirms what we’ve been saying all along — that Gemini Earn users and other creditors were the victims of a massive fraud and systematically ‘lied to’ by these parties about ‘Genesis’s financial condition,’” the company said. But it “wholly” disagreed with the decision to name Gemini in the suit: “Blaming a victim for being defrauded and lied to makes no sense,” it said.

A spokesman for Digital Currency Group said in a statement that the company would fight the claims. “D.C.G. has always conducted its business lawfully and with integrity,” he said. The company’s founder and chief executive, Mr. Silbert, said in a separate statement that he was “shocked by the baseless allegations.”

Genesis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is not the companies’ first lawsuit stemming from Gemini Earn. The Securities and Exchange Commission in January charged Gemini and Genesis with offering unregistered securities, raising billions of dollars’ worth of digital assets from hundreds of thousands of investors without the requisite disclosures. Gemini also faces multiple proposed class-action lawsuits from investors in Earn.

Ms. James is seeking to bar Gemini, Genesis and Digital Currency Group from operating in the financial investment industry or doing any business related to the sale and purchase of securities in New York. She is also seeking restitution for investor losses.

The suit follows other recent efforts by the attorney general’s office to regulate the crypto industry. In May, Ms. James proposed legislation that would require public audits of crypto exchanges, limit conflicts of interest by banning certain ownership arrangements, build safeguards to prevent fraud, and compensate victims and strengthen oversight of the digital asset industry.

Inside the World of Cryptocurrencies