Here are the headlines you Need2Know for Tuesday, July 20, 2021:
COVID-19 LATEST
MARKETS: Wall St. had its periodic reminder that there’s still a pandemic happening, with the Dow dropping more than 700 points for its worst day since October. The S&P fell as much as 2%. Stocks, oil prices and bond yields all slid over concerns that the economic reopening is being threatened by the spread of the Delta variant. Futures are on the rebound this morning. CHEDDAR
VAX MANDATES: A day after England dropped its remaining restrictions, the prime minister announced that vaccines will be mandatory for nightclubs and other venues with big crowds starting in September. In the U.S., a federal judge has upheld Indiana University’s vaccine mandate for students, giving cover to other colleges to require vaccines before the fall semester. CNN
MASK MANDATES: There are growing calls for the return of mask mandates in some places that are seeing a rise in transmission driven by Delta. After L.A. County reimposed its mandate, health officials in the Bay Area recommended that people return to wearing masks indoors. Some elected officials in NYC have joined those calls, though the city’s mayor shot them down. Both the current and former surgeon generals are warning people to brace for a broader return to masks, while the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that all kids over 2 wear masks when they return to school. WASH POST
SPACE RACE
Richard Branson beat Jeff Bezos to the edge of space, but Bezos went higher today -- if that counts for anything. Bezos, his brother Mark, aviator pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch teenager Oliver Daeman were in a capsule atop a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket when it launched from rural Texas this morning around 9 a.m. ET for an 11-minute flight about 60 miles above sea level. The Amazon founder and world’s richest man said that he agrees, kind of, with the critics who say billionaires should spend their money fixing problems on Earth before launching themselves into space. Speaking to CNN ahead of the launch, Bezos said: “We have lots of problems here and now on Earth and we need to work on those, and we always need to look to the future. We’ve always done that as a species, as a civilization. We have to do both.” WATCH THE LAUNCH
CAPITOL RIOTER TO JAIL
A man who entered the Senate chamber and raised a Trump 2020 flag on the dais during the Jan. 6 riot has been sentenced to eight months in prison, the first felony sentencing stemming from the events of that day. Paul Hodgkins of Tampa pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding and was spared the 18-month sentence that prosecutors had requested, with the judge noting that he did not hurt anyone or damage any property. The sentence is expected to become a sort of benchmark for the hundreds of other Jan. 6 cases pending before courts. POLITICO
WILDFIRES
The Bootleg Fire in Oregon is now so big that it’s creating its own weather patterns. The blaze is burning more than 300,000 acres and setting off “pyrocumulus clouds” that are known to spark rare fire tornadoes. The smoke from the fires burning in the West and Canada is being carried east by the prevailing winds, leading to a milky haze that is noticeable across the central and eastern U.S. NY TIMES
CHINA HACKING
The White House is blaming China for the recent hack of a Microsoft Exchange server that compromised email accounts around the world, as well as other cyberattacks that the administration says were approved by Beijing. The accusation was coordinated among allied governments around the world as a way to publicly shame China’s state-sponsored hacking operation. But unlike in the response to Russian hacking, the public shaming did not include sanctions against any Chinese officials. AP
SACKED FOR TALKING SMACK ON SLACK
Netflix is clarifying the reason why three senior marketing execs were abruptly fired last week, amid rumors that they were canned for criticizing their superiors over Slack. According to an internal message from co-CEO Ted Sarandos, the execs were let go for making comments critical of their fellow employees in a public Slack channel, sometimes while in a meeting with them. The comments were not characterized as hateful or derogatory but went against Netflix’s internal policy of “radical transparency” and “only saying things about fellow employees that you’d say to their face.” FORBES
COUNTDOWN TO TOKYO
An alternate for the U.S. gymnastics team is the latest person to test positive for Covid ahead of the Tokyo Games (it's not Simone Biles, as rumored). The men’s and women’s basketball teams have also had their rosters thrown into flux because of at least three positive test results. Covid cases at the Olympics are now up to 71 ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony. AP
NEW MUSIC
Two of the biggest acts in music are preparing to drop new albums. The Killers have announced that their seventh studio album, Pressure Machine, will be released on Aug 13. The band recorded the record during lockdown, saying it was inspired by frontman Brandon Flowers’ upbringing in Utah. Meanwhile, Kanye West is hosting a listening party in Atlanta this week for his long-delayed and much-anticipated new album, DONDA, named for his late mother. West reportedly played songs from the record at a secret event in Las Vegas last weekend. HYPEBEAST
SPOTTED...
…this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover models: Megan Thee Stallion, Naomi Osaka and Leyna Bloom, who becomes the first trans woman to cover the iconic issue: SEE PICS
...Halsey, announcing the birth of her first child, Ender Ridley Aydin. Ender is a Turkish word meaning ‘rare’: SEE PIC
LEFTOVERS: 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS
A California driver is lucky to be alive after surviving what can only be described as one of the craziest car crashes ever caught on camera. Dash cam video from a passing motorist last week on Highway 99 captured the car appearing to fly over an embankment -- getting so high it nearly clipped the overhead power lines. According to the local CBS station in Sacramento, the driver suffered only minor injuries and walked out of the hospital on her own: WATCH
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