News N Things
Some dead and hundreds injured after a tragedy at Travis Scott concert; Elon sends a tweet that makes Tesla shares slide; retailers are scrambling to find employees for the holidays.
Top 3 Stories:
1) 8 Dead, Hundreds Injured at Travis Scott Concert:
“Investigators are expected to examine the design of safety barriers and the use of crowd control in determining what led to a crush of spectators at a Houston music festival that left eight people dead and hundreds more injured. Authorities planned to use videos, witness interviews and a review of concert procedures to figure out what went wrong Friday night during a performance by rapper Travis Scott. The tragedy unfolded when the crowd rushed the stage, squeezing people so tightly they couldn’t breathe. Billy Nasser, 24, who had traveled from Indianapolis to attend the concert, said about 15 minutes into Scott’s set, things got “really crazy” and people began crushing one another. He said he “was picking people up and trying to drag them out.” Nasser said he found a concertgoer on the ground. “I picked him up. People were stepping on him. People were like stomping, and I picked his head up and I looked at his eyes, and his eyes were just white, rolled back to the back of his head,” he said. Over the weekend, a makeshift memorial of flowers, votive candles, condolence notes and T-shirts took shape outside at NRG Park.” (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
2) Elon Twitter Poll Causes Tesla Shares to Slide:
“Elon Musk’s Twitter followers weighed in this weekend on whether the Tesla CEO should sell 10% of his stock in the company. Shares fell 5% in early Monday trading. The Twitter poll, which garnered more than 3.5 million votes closed Sunday, with nearly 58% in favor of Musk’s proposition and more than 42% against the idea. Musk said he would abide by the results of the poll, whatever the outcome may have been. The tweet came amid some Democrats pushing for billionaires to pay taxes when the price of the stocks they hold goes up, even if they don't sell any shares. It's a concept called "unrealized gains," and Musk is sitting on a lot of them with a net worth of roughly $300 billion. Much of Musk's wealth is held in shares of Tesla, which does not pay him a cash salary. "I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock," he tweeted.” (FOX BUSINESS)
3) The Retail Worker Shortage:
“Macy’s is offering referral bonuses of up to $500 for each friend or family member that employees recruit to join the company. Walmart is paying as much as $17 an hour to start and has begun offering free college tuition to its workers. And some Amazon warehouse jobs now command signing bonuses of up to $3,000. Retailers, expecting the holiday shopping season to be bustling once again this year after being upended by the coronavirus in 2020, are scrambling to find enough workers to staff their stores and distribution centers in a tight labor market. It is not proving easy to entice applicants to an industry that has been battered, more than most, by the pandemic’s many challenges, from fights over mask wearing to high rates of infection among employees. Willing retail workers are likely to earn larger paychecks and work fewer hours, while consumers may be greeted by less inventory and understaffed stores. “Folks looking to work in retail have typically had very little choice — it’s largely been driven by geography and availability of hours,” said Mark A. Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia University’s business school. “Now they can pick and choose who’s got the highest, best benefits, bonuses and hourly rates. And as we’ve seen, the escalation has been striking.” Or as Jeff Gennette, the chief executive of Macy’s, which plans to hire 76,000 full- and part-time employees this season, put it in a recent interview: “Everyone’s experiencing this — there’s a war for talent at the front lines. My sense is we all have to raise our game.” (NEW YORK TIMES)
Daily Verse:
Matthew 19:26 NIV Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
The President’s Schedule:
10:15 a.m. EST - The President delivers remarks on the October jobs report.
This Day in History
“On November 8, 1895, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) becomes the first person to observe X-rays, a significant scientific advancement that would ultimately benefit a variety of fields, most of all medicine, by making the invisible visible.” (HISTORY)
Daily Quote:
"It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well." - Rene Descartes
Daily Joke:
A shark can swim faster than me, but I can run faster than a shark… So in a triathlon, it would all come down to who is the better cyclist.
Environment:
THE REPUBLICANS FIGHTING TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE: “Republicans have been such a rare sight at international climate conferences that a Utah congressman borrowed a line from a support group to introduce himself at the COP26 summit. “My name’s John Curtis. And I’m a Republican,” he said, drawing laughs from fellow lawmakers and others at a panel session over the weekend. “And I’m at COP. How cool is that, right?” Mr. Curtis is among a handful of Republicans here working to persuade skeptics that climate change isn’t just a one-party issue. Others include Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas) and Rep. Garret Graves (R., La.), Republican leader of the House Select Climate Committee. In an interview, Mr. Graves said that many Republicans now want to champion the role U.S. companies and technology can play in transitioning the world to cleaner sources of energy. To help, they must bolster U.S. credibility by assuring allies and business leaders that U.S. policy won’t swing wildly with a new president or Congress every few years.” (WALL STREET JOURNAL)
Culture:
U.S. REOPENS FOR MANY FOREIGNERS TO MUCH FANFAIR: “Travelers prepared for emotional reunions with friends and family on Monday after the U.S. lifted restrictions imposed more than a year and a half ago at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The travel restrictions had barred non-U.S. citizens travelling from 33 countries — including China, India and much of Europe — and had also restricted overland entry from Mexico and Canada. In London’s Heathrow Airport, Gail and Paul Chamberlain said they looked forward to meeting their daughter’s fiancé in person as they prepared to catch a flight to Los Angeles. “I’m so joyful I could cry,” said Gail Chamberlain, 67. “I’m [going] wedding dress shopping. That I never thought I would be able to do with her.” U.S. citizens and permanent residents have always been allowed to enter the U.S. However, the travel restrictions meant that tourists, business travelers and family members were prevented from entering.” (NBC NEWS)
Sports:
AARON ROGERS VACCINE CONTROVERSY: “Aaron Rodgers has been prominently featured in State Farm's television ads for about a decade. This past weekend, he was almost nowhere to be found. The number of State Farm spots featuring the Green Bay Packers quarterback drastically decreased this weekend, following the revelation Rodgers is not vaccinated against Covid-19 and has apparently been bypassing NFL protocols for unvaccinated players. Rodgers recently contracted Covid and missed his team's game Sunday. Rodgers was featured in just 1.5% of the nearly 400 State Farm ads on TV on Sunday, according to data from Apex Marketing, which tracks national ad buying. That's a massive decrease compared to the two previous Sundays, during which the insurance company featured Rodgers in about a quarter of its ads. "Our monitoring indicates that this wasn't a planned reduction and more reactionary because there wasn't any new significant ads put in its place," said Apex president Eric Smallwood in a statement. Action Network first reported the news. State Farm didn't immediately return CNN Business' request for comment about the change. However, a spokesperson told Ad Age that it would be "inappropriate for us to comment on Aaron's vaccination status," and said it was focusing on new ads featuring former NFL player Terry Bradshaw.” (CNN)
Health:
VACCINES FOR KIDS ARE HERE, BUT IS IT A GOOD IDEA: “COVID-19 vaccination for 5-to-11-year-olds is finally a go. But even as the emergency-use-authorization process unfolded, so too did arguments over whether kids should (or would soon) be forced into getting shots. School mandates for new vaccines tend to lag behind CDC recommendations by about half a decade, but COVID-19 shots appear to be in the express lane. The Los Angeles Unified School District—the nation’s second-largest—will require students 12 or older to be vaccinated by mid-December if they want to continue attending in-person classes. The entire state of California plans to mandate shots for all of its public- and private-school students as soon as vaccines are fully approved for them, and New York City’s mayor-elect has said that he supports the same idea. The implementation of any statewide K–12 school mandates may still be a while off, given the expected delay before the FDA gives full approval of shots for kids—for reference, the same process for the adult vaccines took eight months. In the meantime, parents, pediatricians, and public-health officials will be left to ponder the pros and cons. COVID-19 may be an unprecedented disease prompting an unprecedented vaccination effort to match. But how, exactly, does the case for mandating COVID vaccines in schools compare to the one for all the other shot requirements—such as those for polio, chicken pox, and measles—that are already in place throughout the country?” (THE ATLANTIC)