Here are the headlines you Need2Know for Friday, August 21, 2020:
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION: On the fourth and final night of the virtual DNC, Joe Biden formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, telling Americans in an emphatic speech that the country will “overcome this season of darkness” and pledging to “work hard for those who didn’t support me.” The night featured prominent Democrats of a younger generation, like Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who drew contrasts between Biden and President Trump on both temperament and policy. Biden’s speech is largely being described as his career best, with even critics saying he blew away expectations. WATCH
TRUMP & THE COURTS
BANNON INDICTED: President Trump’s former campaign manager Steve Bannon pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud along with three alleged co-conspirators. Federal prosecutors in New York took Bannon into custody on a 150-foot yacht, with the help of postal inspectors that were part of the investigation. He is being charged with defrauding donors who had given money to a private fundraiser for a border wall -- the feds say he used $1 million of that money for his personal expenses. Bannon is the sixth close Trump associate who has been indicted by the DOJ since Trump took office; he’s also the third Trump campaign manager to be arrested. NBC NY
TAX APPEAL: In an entirely different case, a federal judge denied President Trump’s effort to block the NYC district attorney’s office from getting his tax returns after the Supreme Court cleared the way. Trump’s lawyers immediately filed an appeal; the documents remain unlikely to see the light of day before the election. REUTERS
COVID-19: LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Coronavirus deaths should start dropping around the country -- particularly the South -- by next week, according to the director of the CDC, who urged Americans to keep up mitigation efforts even if numbers start going in a positive direction. Another 1.1 million people filed for unemployment last week, more than had been expected. Dr. Fauci is reportedly recovering following a successful surgery to remove a vocal cord polyp that likely developed from having to give so many media interviews. USA TODAY
CLIMATE CHANGE:
CALIFORNIA FIRES: Some of the wildfires burning in Northern California have merged together to create a massive inferno that’s being called the LNU Lightning Complex. Those fires have grown to 215,000 acres with zero percent containment. Four people have been killed. SF GATE
GREENLAND ICE: A NASA satellite analysis of Greenland’s ice sheet suggests that it lost a record 586 billion tons of ice last year, far surpassing the annual average loss of about 260 billion tons. Melted ice from Greenland contributed to .06 inches of global sea level rise in 2019, a number NASA calls “astounding” -- as in astoundingly bad. AP
TROPICS: Texas and Louisiana are now in the cone of a tropical depression that is headed toward the Gulf of Mexico, where it will almost certainly strengthen. A separate disturbance to the east now has Florida in its cone. There’s an increasingly good chance that the U.S. mainland will see two tropical landfalls at virtually the same time, around next Tuesday. TRACK
PUTIN FOE POISONED: The most famous opposition leader in Russia is fighting for his life in a Siberian hospital after a suspected poisoning. Alexei Navalny, who has been described as “the man who Putin fears most,” is in a coma, and Russian doctors have refused to transfer him to Germany for better care, saying he's too sick to travel. He fell ill while onboard a flight to Moscow, which then had to make an emergency landing so he could be intubated. The Kremlin has wished Navalny a “speedy recovery.” BBC
FLINT WATER SETTLEMENT: Residents of Flint, Michigan will be entitled to compensation from drinking lead-poisoned water as part of a $600 million settlement announced by the state. The vast majority of the funds are earmarked for children who were exposed to the tainted water supply, many of whom have developed learning disabilities and some of whom have died. DETROIT FREE PRESS
UBER BUYS TIME: Hours before they were set to shut down in California, Uber and Lyft were granted a temporary reprieve from a federal judge that will allow the ride-hailing companies to remain in service for now. Today would have been the deadline for Uber and Lyft to reclassify their drivers in the state as employees. They now have until Aug. 25 to agree to a new timeline on the appeal. There’s a referendum on the ballot in November that would give Uber, Lyft and other app-based services carve-outs on the employee classification issue. CNET
BOX OFFICE: It’s the biggest box office weekend of the summer. It’s also the only box office weekend of the summer. Movie theaters across the U.S. have slowly started to reopen, with AMC and Regal both opening some locations this weekend at reduced capacity. Unhinged, the Russell Crowe road-rage movie that debuted in Canada last week, is the only new film getting what could be considered a wide release. Pre-sale tickets for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet finally go on sale today, with sneak peeks still set to begin Aug. 31. FORBES
NETFLIX POSTER CONTROVERSY: Netflix has apologized after a torrent of criticism over the marketing of a new movie called Cuties, with people complaining that it overtly sexualized children. The plot of Cuties, an award-winning French film that follows an 11-year-old girl who joins a dancing troupe, is not at issue, but the poster and ads for the movie provoked a strong backlash. Netflix says it has replaced the offending artwork. DEADLINE
LEFTOVERS: FASTER, BETTER, CHEAPER: A new way of compressing online video is coming this fall, and while it isn’t generating many headlines, it could drastically improve how we all watch TV and movies now. A new codec, which is a computer program that encodes data for things like streaming, is set to be published that will reduce the amount of space a video file takes up by as much as 50 percent. That means buffering times will be shorter, resolution will be better and internet providers will have more bandwidth available, meaning potentially lower prices. DISCOVER
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