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!
Daniel Madrzykowski, research director at the UL Fire Safety Research Institute, joins Cheddar News to discuss the deadly Bronx fire that killed 19 people and fire safety tips that people need to know about.
Markets closed the day mixed, and well off their lows of the day following a market meltdown earlier in the session. The Nasdaq staged a comeback late in the day, even amid ongoing worries about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. Doug Flynn, certified financial planner and co-founder of Flynn Zito Capito, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss the markets' close and what's driving the major indexes.
Two companies recently announced a new partnership aimed at addressing the growing demand to borrow against crypto - digital assets capital markets firm CrossTower is partnering with commercial bank, BankProv. The companies are launching a crypto lending platform that will allow Bitcoin miners to receive loans to invest in crypto mining equipment. The companies say the program also addresses the difficulty of breaking into crypto mining due to the high cost. CrossTower research analyst Martin Gaspar joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Next-gen social sports platform Break the Love recently raised $2.5 million in seed funding. Break the Love's platform and iOS app allows users to discover and book group-based tennis activities, to either learn, train, or compete. The new company has already gotten support from a few big names in the world of tennis, including the coach of Naomi Osaka, as well as the United States Tennis Association and the brand Wilson. Break the Love founder and CEO Trisha Goyal joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
As the Omicron variant continues to sweep across the country. The US Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments at the end of this week on whether or not the Biden administration can force private companies to vaccinate or test millions of their employees. In addition, the National Nurses United has spearheaded legal action to protect nurses and health care workers, patients, and the public while on the job. President of the National Nurses Union, Zenei Cortez, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
China's ongoing crackdown of its own entertainment industry has been raising eyebrows for once now. With the ruling Communist Party instructing media companies to boycott immoral and overly entertaining stars. But the country has gone even further. Now experts warn that this could lead to further issues such as gender-based violence. Professor at the Institute of Sociology at National Tsinghua University, Hsiu-Hua Shen, and Associate Professor of Politics at Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame Joshua Eisenman, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Today marks one year since the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. The Country watched as supporters of then-President Trump stormed what was assumed to be the most secure building in the country in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 Election. Several lawmakers, including the Vice President, could be seen ducking down as they feared for their lives. Democratic Michigan Representative Dan Kildee, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Bed Bath & Beyond delivered disappointing fiscal third-quarter results for 2022. Shares initially dove more than 9% in premarket trading on the news but finished the day up nearly 8%. Bed Bath & Beyond has been a meme-stock target for online investors in the past -- so was meme-stock mania a factor in the recent stock movement for the company? Jaime Rogozinski, the founder of the subreddit WallStreetBets, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell for more, as his forum helped spark the meme stock phenomena. He also discussed some decentralized finance services and trends for the retail investor to watch for in 2022.
Digital medical care provider Pear Therapeutics rang the closing bell on the Nasdaq Friday and President and CEO Dr. Corey McCann, joined Cheddar to talk about how the company plans to grow the business of software-based therapeutics and how the first FDA authorized prescription digital therapeutics company will go about treating illnesses like insomnia and addiction. "These really are pieces of software. In many cases, they're apps and in the cases of our addiction products, these are based on something called cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT," he said. "These products change the patient's brain circuitry to help them be abstinent, to help them stay in treatment, and that's exactly what we see in randomized clinical trials and that's what we see in the real world." He also addressed the ongoing mental health crises brought on by the pandemic. **copy updated to remove IPO information as Pear Therapeutics went public in December**
