Here are the headlines you Need2Know for Tuesday, August 3, 2021:
BILES ON THE BEAM **SPOILER BELOW**
Simone Biles won a bronze medal on the balance beam in her return to competition in Tokyo. Guan Chenchen, 16, of China took gold and Tang Xijing, also of China, took silver. Team USA’s Suni Lee finished fifth after wobbling on the beam in an otherwise solid routine. With her bronze, Biles now ties the record for most Olympic medals won by an American gymnast. TODAY
N2K Mea Culpa: In Monday’s newsletter, we conflated the U.S. men’s soccer win against Mexico in the Gold Cup with the Olympics final. The men’s team did not qualify for the Olympics this year. We regret the error!
USA 70% VAXXED
A month later than President Biden had hoped, the U.S. has finally reached the milestone of having 70% of adults at least partially vaccinated. Public health officials say that benchmark should be considered a floor rather than a ceiling, especially as the Delta variant continues to rip through under-vaccinated areas. In New York, Gov. Cuomo asked private businesses like restaurants to require vaccinations, while NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio stopped short of calling for a new mask mandate for vaccinated New Yorkers. In Congress, Sen. Lindsey Graham tested positive for a breakthrough case of Covid and said that without vaccination, “my symptoms would be far worse.” NY TIMES
D.C. POLICE SUICIDES
Two more police officers who responded to the Capitol riot have died by suicide, their department announced, bringing the number of known suicides among police who worked the Capitol that day to four. Gunther Hashida of the Metro D.C. Police was found dead at his home last week. Fellow Metro Officer Kyle DeFreytag was found dead earlier last month. Their suicides follow those of Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood and Metro Police Officer Jeffrey Smith, both of whom took their lives in the days after Jan. 6. CNN
TURKEY FIRES
The EU has sent planes to Turkey to help battle wildfires that are raging out of control along that country’s famed Turquoise Coast. The Turkish government is facing growing anger at home for its inability to bring the situation under control after a week of fires that have blackened the coastline and forced evacuations of resort towns. The wildfires are being exacerbated by a heat dome that’s been parked over southeastern Europe. Greece came within a degree of Europe’s all-time heat record on Monday. NPR
WALL ST. MINIMUM WAGE
Goldman Sachs is the latest -- and among the last -- of the Wall Street power hitters to raise its base salary for junior bankers. First-year analysts at Goldman, who are typically just out of college, will be paid $110,000 plus bonus. That’s up from a $85,000 starting salary. Rivals like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Barclays have already raised their base salaries above $100,000, meaning the entry-level investment banking jobs at all the top firms now start at over six figures. WSJ
REESE SELLS
Reese Witherspoon’s production company Hello Sunshine has been sold to a newly formed media venture backed by the private-equity giant Blackstone for close to $1 billion -- an eye-popping sum given that Hello Sunshine doesn’t own a library of content. But Witherspoon and her media arm have been behind several hit streaming series, including The Morning Show, Little Fires Everywhere and Big Little Lies. DEADLINE
SPACE LAUNCH
While Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson have been jockeying for supremacy in the “billionaire space race,” an arguably much more consequential space race has been playing out in the private sector. Later today, Boeing will try to launch an unmanned capsule to the International Space Station as part of NASA’s commercial program. Boeing’s trying to play catch up with SpaceX, which has already successfully delivered astronauts to the ISS. The Boeing Starliner was supposed to launch last week, but a problem with a module on the space station knocked it out of rotation for a brief time. The launch is scheduled for just after 1 p.m. ET: WATCH LIVE
KATHY GRIFFIN CANCER
Kathy Griffin is recovering from surgery to remove part of her lung after revealing that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer. The comedian says the cancer is in the early stages and she expects to recover. Griffin told ABC’s Nightline that a tumor was discovered in her lung a few weeks ago, even though she had never been a smoker. She also revealed an addiction to pills that led to a suicide attempt in the wake of the controversy over her holding a fake severed head of former President Trump. ABC NEWS
SPOTTED...
...Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand, the first openly trans woman to compete at the Olympics, making a heart gesture after a disappointing early exit from the women’s weightlifting final: SEE PIC
… the first image from the upcoming Lord of the Rings TV series. Amazon is spending close to $500 million for a single season of the fantasy epic, set to premiere in September 2022: SEE PIC
$500 million? Now THAT’S precious.
LEFTOVERS: EUREKA!
Researchers at Google’s quantum computing lab may have made a scientific breakthrough that could one day solve one of the most lasting problems in physics: how to get matter to stay in motion without expending energy. The discovery concerns “time crystals,” which the scientists think they created inside one of Google’s supercomputers. Time crystals are an entirely new phase of matter -- think of a snowflake that could change configurations back and forth without losing or using any energy. The discovery is early, but could eventually lead to the holy grail of quantum physics: a perpetual motion machine that can run without an external energy source. NEXT WEB
