Wednesday, August 20
Headlines
Nexstar, Tegna
Nexstar buys Tegna, creating local TV juggernaut. The biggest player in local US TV stations is getting even bigger after it agreed to purchase rival Tegna for $6.2 billion, the companies announced yesterday. The deal would give Nexstar control of 265 stations across 44 states and Washington, DC, which CEO Perry Sook argued is necessary to compete with the tech giants. But critics worry the consolidation will stifle competition and commandeer local programming, and it’s likely to spark regulatory scrutiny. The deal has to be approved by the FCC, whose chair, Brendan Carr, has signaled an openness to relax existing limits on how much broadcasters can own.
Home Depot is raising some prices due to tariffs. After previously saying it didn’t plan to hike prices as a result of tariffs, the home-improvement giant said things have changed, and it will now impose “modest price movement in some categories.” CFO Richard McPhail told the Wall Street Journal that tariffs on certain imported goods are “significantly higher” today than they were during the last quarter. Home Depot gets slightly less than half of its products from suppliers outside the US and has said it’s trying to ensure it doesn’t get more than 10% of its inventory from any single country. Shares were up ~3% yesterday.
The Air Canada strike is over. Flights resumed last night after the airline reached a deal with the union representing its flight attendants to end a three-day work stoppage that had grounded Canada’s flag carrier. Nearly 3,000 flights were canceled after more than 10,500 flight attendants walked off the job last week following months of unsuccessful contract negotiations, arguing they were not compensated fairly. The two sides did not divulge the details of their agreement, but Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau said the company’s offer attempted to satisfy the union’s demands over unpaid work. It’s likely to take a few days before the airline’s operations return to normal.—AE
Robert Reich
How do Trump's Republican enablers in Congress, the Cabinet, and the White House justify their roles in dismantling American democracy?
Friends,
I’ve been wondering what Trump’s Republican enablers and lapdogs in Congress, in his Cabinet, and in his White House tell themselves to justify their roles in helping Trump dismantle American democracy. Have they no consciences?
Recall that the consciences of just two Republicans, Brad Raffensperger and Mike Pence, spared America a coup d’état after the 2020 election.
Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, refused Trump’s demand to steal “exactly 11,780 votes” so that Trump could carry Georgia. And Pence, in the face of the violent occupation of Congress, refused Trump’s direct order to reject the electoral count.
At A Glance
Dig for gems at the world's only public diamond mine.
Snag a reservation at Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce's steakhouse.
Florida wildlife officials need help finding a rare rainbow snake.
... and a special moment between seahorses caught on camera.
Las Vegas nightclub tricked by a Justin Bieber impersonator.
Ranking the most popular dog breeds in every state.
From Iowa to Fiji, 100 travel destinations for movie lovers.
The controversial rise of grandma showers.
Clickbait: See the Milky Way during this weekend's black moon.
Historybook: First around-the-world telegram sent (1911); "Valley of the Dolls" author Jacqueline Susann is born (1918); Actress Amy Adams born (1974); NASA launches Viking 1 probe toward Mars (1975); Comedian Jerry Lewis dies (2017).
In The NEWS
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> MSNBC to change name to MSNOW, which stands for "My Source for News, Opinion, and the World," as part of Comcast's spinoff from NBCUniversal (More)
> Texas and Penn State lead all schools with three players apiece selected to college football's AP Preseason All-America team, with the regular season set to begin Saturday (More)
> Final defendant in Matthew Perry's October 2023 drug overdose case, the "Ketamine Queen," pleads guilty to five federal charges, including ketamine distribution (More)
Science & Technology
> Tennessee Valley Authority enters a deal with Google and nuclear startup Kairos Power to purchase electricity from a small modular reactor slated for 2030, marking the first US utility offtake agreement with an advanced nuclear plant (More)
> Surgery-free alternative to LASIK that uses electricity instead of lasers to reshape the cornea proves effective on rabbit eyeballs; initial results suggest the method could be a promising technique for correcting human vision (More)
> Largest-ever space antenna, spanning 39 feet, deployed to detect changes within fractions of an inch on Earth's surface, such as shifting ice sheets and subtle movements caused by earthquakes, landslides, and volcanoes (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close near flatline (S&P 500 -0.0%, Dow -0.1%, Nasdaq +0.0%) as investors await annual policy speech from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at the central bank's Jackson Hole, Wyoming, summit Friday (More) | How the Fed works (1440 Topics)
> OpenAI employees, current and former, look to sell $6B worth of shares to an investor group in a deal that values the AI company at $500B (More) | Japanese tech giant SoftBank to invest $2B in Intel (More)
> GoodRx shares jump 37.3% after online pharmacy announces it will begin selling Novo Nordisk's GLP-1 drugs Ozempic and Wegovy (More) | Novo Nordisk shares rise 3.7% following US approval of Wegovy to treat MASH liver disease (More) | Why semaglutides like Ozempic could transform the economy (1440 Topics)
Politics & World Affairs
> President Donald Trump says the US will help provide security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia, encourages territory swaps; see other takeaways from Trump's meeting with leaders of Ukraine and Europe (More)
> Cable news channel Newsmax agrees to pay $67M to settle defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems over 2020 election claims (More) | President Donald Trump announces he will sign an executive order to end mail-in ballots (More)
> Texas declares the end of its measles outbreak, which has sickened 762 people since January, state data reveals; last confirmed case was reported July 1 (More)
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
Best Time to Live
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My father received a master's degree in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, joined the Navy during WWII as an aviation officer and at the end of the war, went to work for the Federal Government in the Department of Agriculture.
His job was strictly 9:00 am to 5:00 pm with an hour off for lunch, which if my math is correct works out to 7 hours of work each day for just five days a week or 35 hours, always having the weekends off and earning twenty days of vacation a year.
Half of the year, he was either flying around the US or flying around the globe for his job but seldom did he work more than 35 hours a week and seldom did he work during the weekends.
While he was working for the Federal Government, he say in the Navy Reserves, going to training one weekend a month and two weeks a years that was no counted as part of his twenty days of vacation.
At age 55, he was promoted to a Navy Captain and at age 62 he retired after a 40-year career earning the same amount of money retired as he earned working because he received a government pension along with his Navy pension (26 years). After he retired, the Government stopped offering retirement benefits to their employees.
Some would say that my dad was born at the right time because of how he benefitted financially from the system that was latter disallowed. However, I would disagree with them, because the cancer cures that we have available now, were not available back then.
It is not just the cancer cures, but the computers, laptops, smart phones, the internet, and AI.
So, one might say my generation was the best time to live but that would not be true either because of all the advancement that are yet to happen or be discovered.
Perhaps, one might say that the BABY BOOMERS was the last generation to experience life before technology turned the world upside down.
Using sound to remember quantum information 30 times longer
While conventional computers store information in the form of bits, fundamental pieces of logic that take a value of either 0 or 1, quantum computers are based on qubits. These can have a state that is simultaneously both 0 and 1. This odd property, a quirk of quantum physics known as superposition, lies at the heart of quantum computing's promise to ultimately solve problems that are intractable for classical computers.
Many existing quantum computers are based on superconducting electronic systems in which electrons flow without resistance at extremely low temperatures. In these systems, the quantum mechanical nature of electrons flowing through carefully designed resonators creates superconducting qubits.
Tuesday, August 19
Headlines
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / Getty Images
Zelensky meets with Trump, who wants to set a meeting with Putin. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House yesterday, this time bringing a group of European leaders, wearing a suit, and getting a warmer reception from President Trump. The meeting happened after Trump met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine—but one that would involve Ukraine giving Russia land it had seized in its invasion, which Zelensky has said he will not agree to. After yesterday’s meeting Trump said he had begun arranging a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, and had discussed it with the Russian leader during a phone call, with a trilateral meeting to follow. Although no specific plan emerged, Trump also said the US could provide security guarantees to Ukraine.
Democrats return to Texas, clearing the path for GOP redistricting. State lawmakers— who fled Texas two weeks ago to block their Republican colleagues from using their majority to implement a new election map requested by President Trump that could add five Congressional seats for the GOP in the House—returned yesterday. This allowed the Texas House to have a quorum to meet for the first time in weeks. Republicans are now expected to pass the redistricting plan, after Gov. Greg Abbott, who accused the Democrats of having run “away from their responsibility,” called a second special legislative session for them to “finish” it. But the returning lawmakers said they were now “more dangerous,” having provoked a national conversation that included the governor of California’s threat to redraw his state’s map to counterbalance Texas.
US government mulls 10% stake in Intel as Softbank invests $2b. Negotiations are ongoing, but Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the government is considering becoming one of the beleaguered chipmaker’s biggest shareholders by converting grants the company was given under the Biden-era Chips Act into an equity stake. At Intel’s current valuation, a 10% stake would be worth ~$10.5 billion—though the exact size of the stake and whether the government will move forward with the plan remains to be determined. Meanwhile, over in the private sector, Softbank agreed to buy $2 billion worth of Intel stock, giving it a ~2% stake. Intel has been trying to turn itself around after losing ground to other semiconductor companies.—AR
Robert Reich
How I'm spending my retirement
In a word: teaching
Friends,
This morning, a former student came up to me where I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop and asked, “Professor Reich, are you enjoying your retirement?”
I said “no.”
My answer confused and embarrassed her. “I’m … I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.
“Oh, I’m enjoying life,” I reassured her. “But I haven’t retired.”
“But … you retired from teaching, right?”
“I retired from classroom teaching.”
I gestured to the seat opposite mine. “Please sit down. It’s Sarah, right?”
“You remembered!” Her face broke into a big smile, and she sat. “But I only have a moment.”
I felt proud of myself for recalling her name. I’m terrible with names.
At A Glance
How to make perfect chocolate, according to science.
These 14 states could see the northern lights this week.
Cambridge Dictionary adds over 6,000 new words, including "skibidi.”
Ranking the highest pro athlete salaries by sport.
Is the obsession with Labubus akin to gambling?
These seabirds only poop while flying.
Jazz group turns a delayed flight into a live concert.
The first known person to be struck by a meteorite.
Clickbait: Grandma and grandpa's $100K memoir.
Historybook: Fashion designer Coco Chanel born (1883); Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500, hosts first race (1909); Former President Bill Clinton born (1946); Comedian Groucho Marx dies (1977); Final US combat brigade leaves Iraq (2010).
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