The top names in entertainment, including such names as John Legend, Amy Adams, and LL Cool J, are hosting Zoom fundraisers through Richard Weitz's "Quarantunes" series to raise money for coronavirus frontline initiatives.
Hollywood agent Richard Weitz, a partner at WME, told Cheddar on Friday that the idea for the charitable musical series came from wanting to make his daughter’s birthday special amid the pandemic.
“I was throwing a surprise birthday for my daughter Demi who was turning 17, and I hired a piano player from Chicago named Dario Giraldo who played Redhead Piano Bar," Weitz said. "I wanted to organize some fun on Zoom for Demi and her friends.”
His daughter was actually the one who encouraged him to turn the concept into a fundraiser to help support those on the frontlines and others in need.
“From there we knew we had a platform and my dad kept doing it and it got a little more traction and he invited more friends," Demi Wietz told Cheddar. " I was like dad we need to raise money for the people in need right now, for charities, for organizations, for hospitals like we have this platform and we should do something with it, so we turned it into a charity benefit concert,”
The concert series, which streams over the videoconferencing platform, selects a different organization to support each week and has already raised almost $1 million to help aid workers on the frontlines
Last week, the Weitzes teamed up with Jake Wood, CEO and co-founder of Team Rubicon, a nonprofit that helps reintegrate veterans back into civilian life and already raised more than $500,000.
Woods said that the investment bank Goldman Sachs had been eager to support Team Rubicon’s efforts and during the Quarantunes event it donated almost $150,000 to the fundraiser.
“A couple weeks ago, a partner in the private wealth division at Goldman Sachs reached out to me and said, “Hey we’ve learned about this private concert series that’s going on and being hosted by this father-daughter duo in Los Angeles and we’d love to bring some of our clients into it and have the proceeds benefit Team Rubicon,’” he explained.
Team Rubicon has deployed more than 4,000 volunteers to the frontlines of the pandemic, staffing underfunded hospitals and running mobile testing clinics in major cities across the country.
A 2021 report from UK Research and Innovation found that the shipping industry makes up at least 2.5 percent of the world's total CO2 emissions. It's a problem that energy solutions company, Leclanché, is trying to solve. Founded in 1909, the company has been developing and producing batteries for more than 100 years. Today, Leclanché's lithium-ion battery is used to electrify not just ships, but also railroad locomotives, trucks, and specialty vehicles. Cheddar News spoke with Pierre Blanc, chief technology and industrial officer of Leclanché, to discuss.
Amazon is betting that ammonia could be the fuel of the future, participating in a Series A round for the Brooklyn-based company Amogy in December. Amogy aims to de-carbonize transportation with a clean energy system that uses ammonia as a renewable fuel. Amogy is partnering with Amazon on its first commercial product - an ammonia-powered cargo-shipping vessel. Amogy CEO Seonghoon Woo joins Cheddar Climate to discuss.
One of the world's largest transport companies is kicking off Black History Month with a new initiative aimed at the next generation of business leaders. Today, FedEx announced the launch of its Student Ambassador Program. Participants selected from eight historically black colleges and universities will receive career guidance from FedEx executives. The program is part of FedEx's ongoing commitment to HBCUs and will also help the company expand its pipeline for diverse talent. Cheddar News welcomes senior vice president at FedEx, Jenny Robertson, and Jerryl Briggs, President of Mississippi Valley State University, to discuss.
"Sing 2" has overthrown "Spider-Man: No Way Home" as the number one film at the UK box office. The animated sequel brought in $8.1 million, in just its two first weekends. However, "No Way Home" is still on track to beat "Avatar" as the number one grossing movie of all time.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has been a driving force for youth mentorship since 1904. The nonprofit organization is launching its annual Big Draft campaign this month in partnership with the NFL, and Artis Stevens, the first Black CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, joined Cheddar to discuss the push for adding more "Bigs" as mentors on his one-year anniversary leading the non-profit organization. "While the NFL is recruiting and drafting more players, they're also helping us to draft more mentors and, particularly, men all the way from across February to all the way to April of this year," Stevens explained.
The Supreme Court will reconsider race-based affirmative action in college admissions. The court will examine admissions policies at Harvard University and The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, which count the race of applicants as a factor in admissions. The court has upheld affirmative action policies in the past, saying it helps to create more diverse student bodies. However, the conservative Supreme Court could be skeptical and even possibly hostile to such policies. Nick Anderson, Higher Education Writer, Washington Post joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
The value of most cryptocurrencies have plummeted in recent months since reaching all-time highs in November, wiping out more than $1 trillion in value globally. The steep crash has some talking about the possibility of a crypto winter, a term referring to a prolonged bearish period where asset prices persistently fall over many months. This all comes as the Fed is expected to raise interest rates, and the Biden administration is working on an executive order to regulate Bitcoin and other assets. Josh Goodbody, COO of Qredo, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss the crypto crash, and how the industry might recover from it.
Recent data reveals that streaming giants are struggling to retain subscribers in the months following a major release.
According to data from Antenna, subscriber trends show that users will subscribe to a given streaming service just to watch a particular show, and then cancel those subscriptions shortly after. This comes as the streaming space continues to heat up as new entrants crowd the space. Jon Christian, Founding Partner + Digital Supply Chain Leader at OnPrem joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
The EU relaxed its Covid travel restrictions for vaccinated individuals among the union's 27 member states, doing away with testing or quarantine requirements for travelers. This comes soon after the World Health Organization said the omicron variant could help make the pandemic more manageable. The new rules take effect February 1st. Bryce Conway, Founder, 10xTravel joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
