Workers board up shops in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020, in advance of Hurricane Marco, expected to make landfall on the Southern Louisiana coast. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Here are the headlines you Need2Know for Monday, August 24, 2020:
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION
TONIGHT: Behind in the polls, the Republican Party will try to jumpstart President Trump’s reelection campaign this week, and the president himself will be the main attraction. Trump is expected to speak in primetime every night of the RNC, with a former Celebrity Apprentice producer working behind the scenes and members of the Trump family making up half the featured speakers. Tonight, speakers include: Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott and Donald Trump Jr. giving the keynote. NPR
CONWAY OUT: Ahead of the convention, Kellyanne Conway announced that she’s leaving the White House at the end of the month for family reasons. Conway has been one of the president’s closest and longest-serving advisers, while her husband and daughter have been some of his fiercest critics. WASH POST
COVID-19: PLASMA APPROVAL: President Trump announced that the FDA would issue an emergency use authorization for convalescent blood plasma in treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The treatment had already been approved on a “compassionate use basis,” and the FDA was planning an emergency approval before Dr. Fauci and others urged it to pull back and gather more data. The president asked patients who have recovered to donate their plasma. Trump’s announcement came after he accused the FDA, without evidence, of being part of the “deep state” and intentionally slowing down approvals until after the election. BI
ONE-TWO PUNCH: The Gulf Coast is preparing for the extremely rare event of back-to-back tropical landfalls. Marco was downgraded overnight to a tropical storm and is tracking toward the coast of Louisiana, where it will make landfall tonight. Tropical Storm Laura is directly behind Marco -- and has the potential to be a bigger problem as the system is expected to strengthen significantly as it approaches the warmer Gulf waters. Laura’s path is less certain, but she’s tracking more westward, with Houston and the Louisiana coast in the cone. FORECAST
CALIFORNIA FIRES: The second- and third-largest fires in California history are still growing to the north and south of San Francisco. Firefighters will be hindered this week by thunderstorms that are expected to bring the worst possible combination of gusty winds, dry lightning and little rain. Progress was made over the weekend thanks to favorable weather conditions, but the next few days look grim. This month, 1.3 million acres have already burned -- about five times the acreage lost in all of 2019. Smoke from the fires has reached as far as Kansas. SFGATE
HERO FIREFIGHTER: A veteran Detroit firefighter lost his life when he jumped into the Detroit River to save three girls who were drowning. Sgt. Sivad Johnson, 48, was off duty when he heard the young girls screaming for help and raced toward the water. Authorities believe he was sucked under by a rip current. All three girls were safely rescued. DETROIT NEWS
BLACKBERRY: RESURRECTION: A new BlackBerry smartphone is in development, on schedule for a release in the first half of 2021. The handset will come with a physical keyboard, 5G capability and run on Android. TECHRADAR
NBA PLAYOFFS: The NBA postseason in the bubble is heating up. In the East, the Celtics and Raptors have advanced after sweeping the 76ers and Nets, respectively. The Heat look to do away with the Pacers today. In the West, Luka Doncic of the Mavericks is having a breakout performance in his first-ever playoff series. The 21-year-old from Slovenia scored the winning three-pointer in OT to even the series with the Clippers in one of the bubble’s most exciting moments yet: WATCH
BATMAN TEASER: Warner Bros. and DC Comics held their first ever virtual fan convention over the weekend, which included new trailers for Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Zack Snyder’s Justice League and the first look at Robert Pattinson as the new Batman: WATCH
SPOTTED...the new White House Rose Garden, unveiled by First Lady Melania Trump after a redesign and renovation: SEE IT
LEFTOVERS: FITTING END TO THE YEAR: An asteroid is set to pass just by Earth on November 2, the day before the presidential election. Fortunately for us, the space rock is just 6.5 feet long, and poses no threat even if it were to hit us head-on -- which it has about a 1 in 250 chance of doing, according to NASA. The asteroid is small enough that it would break just up in our atmosphere. INDEPENDENT
Listen to the N2K Podcast! Looking for more context and analysis on the big stories of the day? Check out our podcast! Hosts Jill and Carlo break down the headlines, every weekday morning Listen on Apple or Spotify, or watch on YouTube, and send us your feedback!
AT&T announced earlier today it is spinning off its media properties in WarnerMedia in a merger with Discovery in a $43 billion deal.Scott Rostan, founder and CEO at Training The Street, joined Cheddar to talk about what the unwinding of the telecom giant's Time Warner media properties means for investors. "I think the investor sentiment is they're digesting the new information, and they're looking into the dividend, especially the reduction of the dividend," said Rostan, noting the transaction allows AT&T to focus on its core telecommunications business.
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.
