Monday, August 19th, 2019

Wedding Attack, Recession Pushback & Stick-On Health Sensors

All the news you need in less than 10 min:

Today's episode is brought to you by MM LaFleur

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 perusing the latest happenings...

Attack in Afghanistan: A wedding in the capital of Afghanistan ended with this year’s deadliest terror attack there. At least 63 people died and more than 180 were hurt when a bomb went off. A local affiliate of the Islamic State claimed responsibility. Afghanistan's president is also blaming the Taliban for giving terrorist groups a platform. The group says it had nothing to do with this latest attack and condemned it. This all comes during negotiations between the U.S. and Taliban for a possible peace deal. If the deal actually happens, it could be a big step toward ending America’s longest-running war. It would involve the U.S. pulling thousands of troops out of Afghanistan, and the Taliban would agree not to support terrorist groups in any way. Critics of the deal aren't sure the Taliban can be trusted. To be continued...
Read more: BBC, CNN, AP, NYT

Peaceful Protest: Hundreds of thousands of protestors hit the streets again in Hong Kong, making it one of the largest marches in weeks, but this was a peaceful, calmer protest. It was the first weekend protest in nearly a month that police didn’t use tear gas. Protesting has been a way for people to voice their concerns about China’s government having more control in Hong Kong, which is an autonomous territory of China. Officials say as long as protests stay calm and peaceful they’re willing to talk.
Read more: WSJ, NYT, Reuters, NBC News

Recession Pushback: President Trump is brushing off worries that a recession is coming, saying the economy is doing “tremendously well.” His top economic adviser agreed, pointing to strong retail sales and low unemployment. They’re trying to calm fears following Wall Street’s worst day of the year last week. People aren’t quite as confident in the market as they were earlier this summer, and economic forecasters have raised the odds of another recession happening.
Read more: CNBC, CBS News, WSJ

Glacier "Funeral": Scientists wanted to draw attention to the effects of climate change, so they held a sort-of "funeral" for the first Icelandic glacier to melt and disappear. The Okjokull glacier in Iceland has been extinct for 10 years, but researchers made a death certificate and held a memorial for it over the weekend as a public warning. Experts say all of the Earth’s glaciers will be gone in the next 200 years if nothing is done.
Read more: AP, CNN

Sports News: NFL running back Cedric Benson died in a motorcycle crash over the weekend. He played eight years in the NFL with the Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals and Green Bay Packers.
Read more: ESPN

Tiger Woods is done for the season and won’t go on to defend his title at the Tour Championship next week. He was eliminated from the BMW Championship this weekend and didn’t make the cut for the FedEx Cup.
Read more: CBS Sports

The basketball jersey that former President Barack Obama wore in high school just sold for $120,000. Some of the money from the sale will go to the former president’s high school.
Read more: Bleacher Report

Twitter DMs: Twitter is testing out a new feature to keep offensive messages out of users’ inboxes. Twitter's first filter for direct messages hides potentially offensive messages and send them to a separate folder. Twitter is testing the new feature as a part of their plan to stop online abuse.
Read more: Gizmodo, The Verge

Stick-On Health Sensors: Researchers at Stanford and Berkeley are testing stick-on sensors (like a flexible bandage) that can track your pulse or sweat. The prototype from Stanford can monitor pulse and breathing by tracking how the skin stretches and contracts with each heart beat or breath. Berkeley’s version is moving from prototype to production. It monitors sweat to tell users several things, including what electrolytes they may need more of.
Read more: TechCrunch, Stanford News

Self-Driving Scooters: A new e-scooter that can take itself to a charging station could hit the streets as soon as next year. This KickScooter T60 was created by Segway-Ninebot. The scooter uses artificial intelligence and the cloud to guide itself to charging stations without a human. This could be big news for scooter sharing companies who have to pay people to gather them all up from sidewalks and streets to charge them.
Read more: The Verge, Reuters

IKEA Smart Home: IKEA is going all in on smart home tech with a brand-new business unit, their biggest since Children’s IKEA. The company already has had products for wireless charging and smart lighting, and announced a partnership with Sonos for a new line of wireless smart speakers. Now, IKEA says it’s just getting started with smart home technology.
Read more: TechCrunch, Engadget

Box Office: The movie Good Boys topped the box office this weekend, bringing in $21 million and exceeding expectations. It’s the first R-rated comedy to open in first place in three years and had the biggest opening compared to any other original comedy this year.
Read more: Variety, LA Times