Wednesday, June 16th, 2021
Biden-Putin Summit, Toxic Makeup? & Charitable Giving Record
All the news you need in about 10 min:
This episode is brought to you by Rothys.com/newsworthy and Ritual.com/newsworthy
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…
Biden/Putin Meeting Preview
Today, President Biden is meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two are expected to cover a lot of extremely sensitive topics. For example, recent ransomware attacks on American companies and government agencies, which the Russian government has denied being behind. Biden is also likely to raise the issue of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who the U.S. believes was poisoned by Putin last year. Finally, they will discuss the future of the New Start Treaty which limits the U.S. and Russia’s nuclear capabilities. Biden and Putin are expected to talk for four or five hours.
Read More: Reuters, NY Times, AP, WSJ
Latest Gaza Violence
Violence started up again in the Gaza strip for the first time since the end of last month’s fighting. It started when the new Israeli government allowed a far-right Jewish march to pass through Palestinian areas of Jerusalem. In response, the Palestinian militant group Hamas sent arson balloons into southern Israel, which sparked several fires. The Israeli military then launched airstrikes in the Gaza strip, which reportedly struck military compounds. While the strikes did cause damage, no deaths have been reported so far.
Read More: BBC, NY Times, Reuters, Fox News
Public Donations for TX Border Wall
As President Biden moves to end border wall construction, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is promising to pick up where former President Trump left off. He says Texas will build its own wall on the southern border as part of a larger security plan. Details are slim, but Abbott is expected to lay out exactly how and when the border wall will be built at a news conference today. So far we know he plans to solicit donations for the wall from around the country. It won’t be cheap though. Federal lawmakers estimate the border wall cost the Trump administration about $27 million a mile in some parts of Texas.
Read More: Texas Tribune, Fox News, Politico, CBS News, WaPo
COVID Detected in the U.S. in 2019
A new study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found evidence that COVID-19 was circulating in the U.S. as early as December of 2019, long before anyone here knew about it. In this study, scientists analyzed blood samples from 24,000 Americans taken early last year. They found nine of those people already had antibodies against COVID-19, meaning they might have already had and recovered from the virus. The NIH hasn’t followed up with these people to know if they traveled outside the U.S. or had contact with anyone with international ties.
Read More: WSJ, Axios, WaPo, AP, Full Study
New Rules for Olympians
This week, organizers issued new rules for athletes at the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The final rulebook says athletes must get tested for COVID-19 every day, stay socially distanced during meals, avoid hugging or high-fiving, stay off public transportation, and allow GPS tracking on their smartphones. Athletes are also supposed to wear masks when they’re not competing, training, or eating, even if they’ve been vaccinated. If any of these rules are broken, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) says athletes could face fines, be disqualified from their competitions, or be stripped of medals.
Read More: AP, The Guardian, IOC, France24
SWA System Issues
Computer issues grounded hundreds of Southwest Airlines flights this week. Southwest says it ran into a “connectivity” issue yesterday that caused a system-wide outage. It impacted the airline’s reservation and check-in system. It canceled more than 500 flights and nearly a thousand more were delayed. This is the airline’s second major technical glitch in two days. Their weather data system was down on Monday, which delayed more than 15,000 flights. Southwest says the two system problems don’t appear to be related and they’re investigating what might have caused them. Operations should be back to normal today.
Read More: CNBC, Fox News, Business Insider, CNN, Southwest Airlines
New Study on Toxic Chemicals in Makeup
According to a new study from the University of Notre Dame, more than half of the makeup sold in the U.S. contains toxic chemicals that have been linked to serious health problems like cancer. Researchers tested more than 200 makeup products over three years and found evidence of a toxic substance called fluorine in many products. Researchers say the fluorine indicates there are so-called forever chemicals in the products, meaning they enter the bloodstream and stay there. While the FDA has yet to comment on this study, there is now a bipartisan effort in Congress to ban companies from using the chemicals in makeup.
Read More: WaPo, Fox News, AP
Charitable Giving Rose 5% in 2020
Americans donated more money in 2020 than they ever have before. A new report from the Giving USA Foundation looked into tax data and found charitable donations reached $470 billion last year, which is the highest amount in history. While donations from individual people and foundations went up, business donations went down. As far as where people donated, the report showed the largest increases were to civil rights groups and organizations focused on the environment. Educational initiatives, religious groups, and human services organizations also saw a bump.
Read More: The Conversation, NY Times, AP
MacKenzie Scott Donates Another $2.7B
One of the biggest charitable donors of the year was Mackenzie Scott, who is the ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. She gave away about $6 billion last year, divided among 500 organizations. Yesterday, Scott announced another round of donations worth $2.7 billion. She identified nearly 300 organizations to support, including universities, nonprofits focused on ending racial injustice and domestic violence, and arts groups. As Bloomberg reports, Scott’s donations have no strings attached, meaning that once she writes the checks the organizations are free to use the money as they wish. Scott’s net worth is about $60 billion.
Read More: Axios, NPR, Bloomberg
Work Wednesday: Companies Push Workers to Get Vaccinated
More businesses are asking workers whether they’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19 and some are making it a requirement before people can return to the office. That’s legal to do with exceptions made for those with health or religious reasons. A recent lawsuit in Texas backed this up. A hospital in Houston mandated its workers to get the shot and suspended nearly 200 workers for failing to do so. The workers sued, arguing that the mandate wasn’t fair, but the judge in the case sided with the hospital and threw out the case. Still, most places don’t have outright mandates and are simply encouraging workers to get the shot with some offering incentives.
Read More: NY Times, WSJ, NBC News