theNewsWorthy: Wednesday, April 24th, 2019
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All the news stories mentioned in today's episode are listed with links below, so you can spend as much -- or as little -- time as you want perusing the latest happenings...
Company Charged in Opioid Crisis: For the first time, a major drug distribution company is facing federal charges for its role in the opioid crisis. Rochester Drug Cooperative and two of its former executives are accused of ignoring red flags and shipping tens of millions of highly-addictive and dangerous opioids to pharmacies, even when they knew those pharmacies were selling them illegally. Rochester Drug will pay a $20 million fine and will be supervised for the next five years. The two former execs could face prison time.
Read more: NYT, NBC News, AP
ISIS Claims Responsibility: ISIS is claiming responsibility for the attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday that killed more than 300 people, although the terrorist group hasn’t provided proof of its involvement. ISIS has lost its territory in Iraq and Syria, but experts say the group is not gone.
Read more: TIME, Washington Post
First Malaria Vaccine: Health officials are making history this week with the world’s first approved malaria vaccine. As part of a large-scale pilot project, the vaccine will now go to about 360,000 children in three African countries per year. The vaccine has been shown to prevent about 4 in 10 cases of malaria, which could save tens of thousands of children's lives.
Read more: NPR, CNN
Trump Roundup: As expected, the IRS did not meet House Democrats’ deadline yesterday to turn over President Trump’s tax returns. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he’ll decide by May 6th whether to release the returns. At the same time, Trump administration officials have been told to boycott the White House Correspondents' Association's annual dinner, which is meant to celebrate the First Amendment and a free press. Trump will skip the event for the third year in a row.
Read more (Tax Returns): CNN, WSJ
Read more (WHCA Dinner): AP, The Hill
Stocks at Record High: Stocks closed at a new all-time high yesterday. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq had their highest closings on record less than six months after both took a hit at the end of last year. Stocks have been doing better since the Fed stopped raising interest rates and dozens of large companies including Coca-Cola and Twitter, reported better-than-expected earnings.
Read more: WSJ, Fox Business
Tobacco-Buying Age: The age to buy cigarettes is going up – at least in Walgreens and Rite Aid stores. Soon, you’ll need to be at least 21. Rite Aid plans to make the change in the next three months, while Walgreens says it’ll change the age requirement in September. Some lawmakers are also interested in changing the age requirement from 18 to 21 across the country and will propose new legislation next month.
Read more: CNBC, Fox Business
Google Drone Deliveries: A drone company that’s part of Google just got the go-ahead to start delivering packages with drones. Wing Aviation is the first drone operator to get approval from the FAA as a small airline. Wing plans to operate in two rural Virginia towns for now.
Read more: Bloomberg, Gizmodo
Kohl’s + Amazon: Amazon and Kohl’s are teaming up even more to make returns easier. All Kohl's stores will take back items you ordered on Amazon, starting in July. You don’t even need to put things in a box to be shipped. Kohl’s will handle it, and it’s free.
Read more: The Verge, CNBC
Avengers: Endgame: The highly-anticipated superhero movie Avengers: Endgame is out in theaters around the world today, though it won’t be released in the U.S. until Friday. The movie already set an all-time presales record in China and is expected to have the biggest opening ever at the global box office.
Read more: THR, The Verge