Friday, October 16th, 2020
Town Halls Recap, First Ebola Treatment & Tony Nominations
All the news you need in less than 10 min:
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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 the latest happenings...
Trump/Biden Town Halls Recap
President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden answered different questions in different town halls. In Miami, Trump said he "probably" owes money to a foreign bank but it's a "peanut" in comparison to his net worth. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Biden was asked about his support of the 1994 crime bill and acknowledged that elements of the measure were a mistake. The two candidates will share the same stage next week. The final presidential debate is set to happen Thursday in Nashville, Tennessee.
Read More: AP, WSJ, Reuters, CNN, CDC
Kamala Harris Suspends Travel
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris is taking a break from the campaign trail. Two of her staff and crew tested positive for the coronavirus. Her communications director and a member of the flight crew now have COVID-19, but the campaign says neither of them have had contact with Sen. Harris in recent days. Still, travel is on hold until at least Monday to be safe.
Read More: AP, WaPo, SF Chronicle
New COVID-19 Cases Surge
New COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are surging around the U.S. Reuters counts nine states, including Michigan and North Carolina, that reported one-day increases in new cases yesterday. The Wall Street Journal reported hospitalizations have also hit records this week in places like Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and Utah. Deaths haven’t gone up yet, but they could since they usually lag behind cases and hospitalizations. So far, about 2.7% of reported cases in the U.S. have been deadly.
Read More: WSJ, Reuters, Johns Hopkins
NY Post on Controversial Email
A controversial article in the New York Post points to what it calls a “smoking gun email” about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. No one has independently verified the accuracy of the email though. It appears to come from a Ukrainian official that once paid Hunter, thanking him for setting up a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2015. However, the Biden campaign says there’s no evidence the meeting happened. If it did, it would be a major conflict of interest.
Read More: NY Post, Politico, WaPo, WSJ, PolitiFact
CA Power Outages
Pacific Gas and Electric cut power to more than 45,000 of its California customers, mainly in the San Francisco Bay area and the Sierra Nevada foothills. About 100,000 people are affected. This is the third time in less than two months PG&E purposely cut power. The idea is to prevent power lines and other equipment from sparking wildfires when conditions are prime for them to grow out of control. The San Francisco Bay area is dealing with warmer than usual temperatures and high winds.
Read More: AP, FOX News, SF Chronicle
FDA Approves First Ebola Treatment
The FDA approved the world’s first treatment for Ebola. It’s a mixture of three antibodies that block the virus. It can be used on both children and adults and the FDA says it dramatically improves the odds of survival. That’s big since Ebola can kill up to 90% of those who are infected. The drug was first tested back in 2018 in the middle of an African outbreak. Before that, health experts assumed you couldn’t run a trial during an active crisis because resources would be spread too thin. This helped prove it could be done and paved the way for researchers to test COVID-19 treatments.
Read More: AP, The Hill, Fox News, FDA
Women’s March This Saturday
Women’s marches are making a comeback in hundreds of cities around the U.S. this weekend. At most of them, marchers will focus on the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. They also want to urge Americans to vote President Trump out of office. More than 400 events are planned in all 50 states. In Washington D.C., thousands of people are expected to rally in-person. There are also virtual events planned and counter-protests. At the Supreme Court, there’s an “I’m With Her” rally planned in support of Judge Barrett.
Read More: WaPo, The Hill, Forbes, Women’s March
YouTube QAnon Crackdown
YouTube is the latest tech giant to crack down on QAnon. That’s the conspiracy theory that claims President Trump is a secret warrior against a supposed child-trafficking ring that’s run by celebrities and government officials. The FBI debunked the theory, but some people have kept sharing it anyway. Now, YouTube says it’s worried QAnon and other conspiracy theories could lead to real-world violence. So it changed the policy to ban content promoting them.
Read More: NY Times, AP, YouTube, The Verge
Starbucks Ties Executive Pay to Diversity
Starbucks is going to tie its executive’s pay to diversity targets. The coffee chain didn’t go into much more detail about the pay structure, but it did roll out several new goals. It says by 2025, it wants 30% of its corporate employees and 40% of its retail and manufacturing employees to be people of color. Starbucks will also require executives to take anti-bias training and will launch a mentorship program to connect employees of color to senior leadership.
Read More: WSJ, USA Today, CNN
Tony Nominations Announced
The nominees for this year’s Tony Awards are in, celebrating the best of Broadway, even though theaters have been shut down since March. The Jagged Little Pill musical got the most nominations, with 15. Also, Slave Play was nominated for 12 awards, the most of any play in Tony history. Because of shutdowns, only 18 shows were considered, compared to 34 last year. There’s also no word yet on when the award show will happen. Some reports say organizers are thinking about December.
Read More: WaPo, NY Times, Variety, Deadline
Feel Good Friday: Books Donated to Hurricane Laura Victims
A woman from Minnesota put together a donation drive for kids in Louisiana since people there are recovering from multiple hurricanes. Five of her family members died during Hurricane Laura in August. To honor their legacy, she started collecting items for kids. She gathered more than 1,000 children’s books, including copies of the ones she wrote, called Cameron Goes to School. She collected hundreds of stuffed animals too. Today, she’ll start handing all the items out to people in need.
Read More: KSTP