*By Michael Teich*
Nike debuted its [controversial new ad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq2CvmgoO7I) featuring Colin Kaepernick Wednesday, part of its "Just Do It" 30th anniversary ad campaign.
The roll out came after some public backlash and a tweet from President Trump criticizing the company's decision to sign on the former NFL player, who set off a string of player protests the last two seasons.
While Nike's campaign has proven to be a polarizing initiative, leaving some consumers to pledging to boycott the brand, military veteran and Sports Illustrated writer and producer Scooby Axson sees the move as a net positive for Nike.
"At the end of the day I don't think it's going to hurt their bottom line," Axson told Cheddar in an interview Wednesday.
Axson, who served 16 years in the U.S. Army, thinks those unhappy about NFL players kneeling for the anthem are demonstrating false outrage and that their anger is misplaced.
"If you want to say somebody is disrespecting the flag or the anthem, the NFL does this every single Sunday when they drape that flag across 100 yards, and that's per the flag code. The federal flag code says you shouldn't do that," said Axson.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/nike-doubles-down-on-kaepernick-with-thursday-night-football-ad).
President Joe Biden is taking a markedly more humble tone for a U.S. leader on climate change.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has opened a global climate summit, saying the world is strapped to a “doomsday device.”
Activists are getting a boost from CrowdLobby to press legislators to expand New York's Good Samaritan Law to teach high school students about being proactive in saving their peers from potentially dying of a drug overdose.
The United States has issued its first passport with an “X” gender designation for people who don’t identify as male or female.
A group of prominent academics and activists are calling on banks and insurers to avoid the kind of systemic collapse that crippled the world economy back in 2008.
Last spring, as false claims about vaccine safety threatened to undermine the world's response to COVID-19, researchers at Facebook found they could reduce vaccine misinformation by tweaking how vaccine posts show up on users' newsfeeds.
New York City's first immersive cannabis experience, The Stone Age, is seeking to change the narrative about cannabis, just in time for legalization.
The U.N. weather agency says greenhouse gas concentrations hit a new record high last year and increased at a faster rate than the annual average for the last decade.
Facebook the company is losing control of Facebook the product — and of the carefully crafted image it’s spent over a decade selling despite problems like misinformation, human trafficking, and pervasive extremist groups on its platform.
The Supreme Court is allowing the Texas law that bans most abortions to remain in place for now but has agreed to hear arguments in the case on Nov. 1.
