Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021
Food Plants Hacked, Western Heatwave & BTS Breaks Records
All the news you need in about 10 min:
This episode is brought to you by Noom.com/newsworthy and HelloFresh.com/NEWSWORTHY12
Story Summaries
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 reading about the latest happenings…
White House Plan to Narrow Racial Wealth Gap
The White House has new plans to help narrow the wealth gap between white and Black Americans. President Biden is promising to give 50% more federal contracts to minority-owned small businesses. The administration also plans to issue new rules to help combat housing discrimination. President Biden announced the initiatives in the Tulsa, Oklahoma business district where white mobs killed Black people in the Tulsa race massacre 100 years ago. He said because of that attack, many black Americans lost out on financial security and generational wealth.
Read More: NY Times, Politico, WSJ, White House
Arctic Refuge Oil Drilling Suspended
The White House put oil drilling leases on hold in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Former President Trump put a first-ever drilling program in motion there to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil. Now, Biden’s Interior Department says that the program is paused until it can be analyzed under the National Environmental Policy Act. Eventually, oil leases there could be voided altogether. Democrats and Republicans have been fighting over whether to allow drilling there for more than four decades. Democrats say allowing drilling would hurt the environment, while Republicans argue that not drilling hurts the economy.
Read More: WSJ, NY Times, AP, WaPo, Interior Dept.
FL Bans Trans Athletes in Women’s Sports
Florida just became the 8th state this year to block transgender athletes from playing on girl’s and women’s sports teams. This affects sports from middle school through college, including intramurals and club teams. Florida Republicans who proposed the new law say it’s meant to keep sports fair for girls and women, but state Democrats argue it discriminates against transgender students. The legislation is set to go into effect next month.
Read More: Orlando Sentinel, Politico, Axios, Fox News, Gov. DeSantis
Cyberattack Hits Beef Plants
The world’s largest meat processing company, JBS, is now the latest victim of a sophisticated cyberattack. A ransomware attack caused some operations in the U.S., Canada, and Australia to shut down. The FBI is investigating. JBS reportedly told the White House the hackers came from a criminal organization out of Russia. The company says it made big progress in resolving the issue already, and their backup servers were untouched. Most of JBS’s plants will be fully operational today.
Read More: Bloomberg, WSJ, WaPo, Reuters, BBC
Western U.S. Gets Excessive Heat
The western U.S. is dealing with dangerous heat warnings this week. There are reports of record-setting temperatures in the triple digits from Central California and Nevada up to Oregon and Washington. In the Northern California town of Redding, temperatures have already hit as high as 109 degrees this week. That’s 22 degrees higher than the normal temperature for Redding this time of year. It’s expected to stay hot out west for at least a couple more days before heading east by next week.
Read More: CBS News, Forbes, NY Times, NWS
Twitter’s Weather Service
Twitter launched a local weather service called Tomorrow. It’s available in 16 cities and Twitter plans to add dozens more to that list by the end of this year. Meteorologists from across the country have already signed on to create free content, and they’ll be available to answer questions from Twitter users, especially during severe weather events like tornadoes and hurricanes. There is also a subscriber version of Tomorrow, which costs $10 a month and includes access to daily newsletters and live audio sessions.
Read More: Axios, Engadget, Fortune, Tomorrow Weather Service
Cancer-Killing ‘Trojan Horse’ Drug Trial
Medical researchers may have found a way to fight cancer without chemotherapy. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland say they developed a “trojan horse” drug. Researchers who tested it say it kills cancerous cells without touching healthy tissues, and they call it generally very safe. This system could help patients avoid the serious side effects typically associated with chemotherapy. The drug has so far been tested on zebrafish and human cells, but more research has to be done to determine whether it would be safe and effective on a cancer patient.
Read More: ITV, Daily Mail, University of Edinburgh
Sam’s Club & Costco Bring Back Samples
Both Sam’s Club and Costco are reintroducing free food samples this week. Sam’s Club says the sampler stations will be open at all locations nationwide on weekends with all food samples being sealed. Costco is bringing back its hot food samples at 170 store locations this week, and it has plans to reopen the sampler stations at all stores nationwide by the end of the month. Workers at these locations will prep the food behind plexiglass.
Read More: CNN, USA Today, Delish, Sam’s Club
First Foreign Athletes Arrive in Japan
Olympic athletes have started traveling to Tokyo for the Summer Games. Players and staff from the Australian women’s softball team were the first foreign athletes to arrive in Japan yesterday, with all of them being vaccinated against COVID-19. Despite this, they will be isolated from all other people for the next few weeks and leave their hotel for training only. Japan is still dealing with the fourth wave of COVID-19, with Tokyo and eight other districts under states of emergency. For now, the Olympics are still on, with the opening ceremony scheduled for July 23rd.
Read More: WSJ, NY Times, The Australian
BTS New Single Breaks Records
K-pop band BTS is breaking world records with its new single. The group released the song “Butter” last week, along with a music video. The video set a new record for YouTube views in the first 24 hours by getting more than 108 million views in one day. “Butter” also broke the record for the most streamed track on Spotify in the first 24 hours and received the most first-week streams of any song in the history of Amazon Music. It’s currently the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Read More: USA Today, Cnet, Billboard, Watch Video
Work Wednesday: Remote Job Postings Skyrocket
Despite pandemic restrictions lifting in many places, it looks like the work-from-home lifestyle is here to stay. LinkedIn says the number of job postings that offer remote work has shot up by more than 450% compared to last year and the companies that offer remote work are attracting a lot more applicants than those that don’t. Despite remote listings accounting for less than 10% of all jobs on LinkedIn, these listings attracted about a quarter of all applications submitted on the site last month.
Read More: LinkedIn, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Go Banking Rates