Here are the headlines you Need2Know for Friday, July 23, 2021:
LET THE GAMES BEGIN
A year late, billions of dollars in the hole, and amid a state of emergency, the Summer Olympics are underway from Japan. The Opening Ceremony from a nearly deserted National Stadium in Tokyo began at 7 a.m. ET (8 p.m. local) and is being broadcast live on NBC. It will be re-aired tonight in primetime starting at 7:30 p.m. ET. The first medals will be handed out tomorrow in the women’s air rifle final, while the first major medal events will be in the pool tomorrow night, featuring U.S. star Katie Ledecky going for gold in the women’s 400m freestyle. WEEKEND VIEWING GUIDE
DELTA 'MOST INFECTIOUS EVER'
The CDC director is warning that the U.S. is at “another pivotal point” in the pandemic as the Delta variant tears through under-vaccinated communities. Dr. Rochelle Walensky called the Delta variant of COVID one of the most infectious respiratory diseases ever seen by scientists, with infected people carrying as much as 1,000 times more virus in their noses than the original strain. Because of how contagious the variant is and the plateauing vaccine rate, the White House has reportedly started discussions about whether to urge vaccinated Americans to put their masks back on. WASH POST
BORDER CROSSINGS
Texas has started arresting migrants on charges of trespassing and sending them to state prisons on the orders of Gov. Greg Abbott. The controversial and potentially illegal move -- states aren’t supposed to enforce federal immigration law -- comes amid a sustained crush of illegal crossings along the southern border. U.S. Border Patrol reported nearly 180,000 apprehensions in June, the highest monthly total since 2000. TEXAS TRIB
BROKEN INTERNET
A major internet outage took out airline booking systems, streaming platforms, e-commerce sites and even 911 call centers before the problem was patched. The networking company Akamai says a software update triggered a bug that took down a good chunk of the internet for about an hour -- and that the outage was not the result of a cyberhack. Large-scale internet outages have been on the rise as more of the web’s infrastructure is controlled by a handful of companies. ARS TECHNICA
BATTERY BREAKTHROUGH
A battery startup says it has made a major breakthrough on what is considered to be the holy grail of the renewable energy industry. Form Energy claims that it can make a battery that is able to store energy for days on end using iron pellets. That would theoretically solve the problem of what to do about solar and wind reliability, as the energy created by those systems could be stored in batteries and then put back into the grid when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. WSJ
VENMO PRIVACY
Venmo announced this week it was killing its controversial global feed that shows transactions between not just your friends, but complete strangers. That feature had long been considered a privacy nightmare, especially after BuzzFeed was able to use it to easily find President Biden’s private account that he uses to send money to his grandkids. Privacy advocates are welcoming the change but note that you can still see a person’s transactions if you know their Venmo username and they haven’t set their account to private, which is still not the default option. WIRED
NFL VAX POLICY
The NFL has told teams ahead of the season that if a game has to be postponed due a COVID outbreak among unvaccinated players and it cannot be rescheduled, the team with the outbreak will have to forfeit and take the loss. Players will also not be paid for the game, and the team with the outbreak must pay the opposing team’s expenses. The league is taking a hard line as a way to incentivize teams getting to the 85% vaccinated threshold, or else it becomes a competitive disadvantage. According to the NFL, 14 of the 32 teams have reached that threshold. CNN
HBO MAX EXCLUSIVES
Warner Bros. will make 10 movies exclusively for HBO Max next year as the streaming platform prepares to lose access to content from rival studios that are keeping more of their shows and films exclusive to their own streaming services. HBO Max has been quietly gaining subscribers in the U.S. as Netflix slips, adding another 2.8 million subs in the last quarter. AT&T, which is in the process of selling HBO parent WarnerMedia, says it expects there to be as many as 73 million paying subscribers to HBO and HBO Max by the end of next year. THR
SPOTTED...
...J. Lo and Ben Affleck, making it Instagram official: SEE PIC
...Kim Kardashian, making a surprise appearance with kids in tow at Kanye West’s listening event for his new album, which drops today: SEE IT
LEFTOVERS: BAD OLD DAYS
Add a new one to the list of shortages: catalytic converters, the part of your car that filters out chemicals from the exhaust. Once a fairly common target of thieves, catalytic converter thefts had been on the decline for years. Now they’re back on the rise as the price of the rare metals contained in the device has soared, making them an attractive target for criminals looking to make a quick buck on the scrap metal market. Catalytic converter thefts went from about 100 per month in 2018 to an estimated 5,000 a month this year. Replacing the part is not cheap, sometimes more than the value of the car, and they’re in short supply. Experts say the best defense is parking your car in a garage or a well-lit area with plenty of foot traffic. USA TODAY
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