New York Times (September 10)
The Social Progress Index “finds that the quality of life has dropped in America over the last decade, even as it has risen almost everywhere else.” Steeper than any other country’s, the decline “is a reminder that we Americans face structural problems that predate President Trump and that festered under leaders of both parties. Trump is a symptom of this larger malaise, and also a cause of its acceleration.”
Tags: Acceleration, Festered, Malaise, Quality of life, Social Progress Index, Structural problems, Symptom, Trump, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (September 9)
“If the race comes down to a character contest, Mr. Trump will lose.” Nobody dislikes Joe Biden. “Americans have also seen Mr. Trump in office for 42 months, and even millions of his supporters dislike the way he conducts himself.”
Boston Globe (September 8)
The shift to online learning has been filled with challenges and pitfalls. For professors, “reinvention has meant reworking syllabuses, prerecording lectures, and reconsidering how to test students’ knowledge of material – and even how to bond with them virtually.” The universities want “to avoid a repeat of last spring, when disgruntled parents and students filed lawsuits claiming the online learning experience was not worth the thousands of dollars in tuition costs.” Meanwhile, one survey showed that roughly half of the students “feel that higher education is no longer worth the cost, and 40 percent believe it’s a bad deal now that It has moved online.”
Tags: Challenges, Disgruntled, Lawsuits, Online learning, Parents, Pitfalls, Professors, Reinvention, Students, Tuition, Universities
USA Today (September 8)
“Intense heat, parched conditions and high winds fueled record-shattering wildfires and strained the electrical grid across much of California on Monday…. California has been struggling with a record-breaking fire season this year – more than 2 million acres have been torched. The days ahead look equally grim.”
Tags: California, Electrical grid, Grim, Heat, Parched, Record, Strained, Struggling, Torched, Wildfires, Winds
Wall Street Journal (September 7)
“The stock market barely faltered in the 1918-20 pandemic,” but history is not repeating itself. The similarities are misleading. “Yes, the markets have bounced back, just as they traded higher in the months after the pandemic’s start 100 years ago. But a careful analysis of the two periods shows that economic uncertainty has been far higher during the current pandemic than it ever was then.”
Tags: 1918-20, Economic uncertainty, Faltered, History, Misleading, Pandemic, Similarities, Stock market
The Irish Times (September 7)
With nearly 50,000 new cases last week, “Spain passed a grim milestone of recording more than half a million coronavirus cases on Monday, becoming the first western European country to do so amid a steep upward trend that is mirrored in neighbouring France.” Moreover, there is “significant concern” that the UK is moving down the same path to resurgence. All this comes as wet pubs look poised to reopen in Ireland on September 21.
The Guardian (September 4)
“Donald Trump is the most repellent individual ever to have sought, let alone won, the presidency of the United States. The latest proof comes in a quadruple-sourced account of Trump describing US troops who died for their country as ‘losers’ and ‘suckers.’” But it’s not just what he says. The nation’s economy now “lies in tatters, racked by mass unemployment. And yet, despite that record of lethal failure, this inadequate, malignant man still has the support of 42% of the American people.”
Tags: Economy, Inadequate, Lethal failure, Losers, Malignant, Presidency, Repellent, Suckers, Support, Tatters, Troops, Trump, U.S., Unemployment, Won
Los Angeles Times (September 4)
The TV season usually begins during the third week in September. “For nearly seven decades, broadcast TV networks have used the season to launch new shows in the hope they become enduring hits—and to bring back fresh episodes of returning programs after the long summer hiatus.” The pandemic, however, closed down scripted production, “making it impossible for broadcast networks to premiere most of their new shows on schedule.” It may no longer matter in a world where streaming reigns. Ultimately, the pandemic may “accelerate change at broadcast networks” where the concept of a season seems increasingly anachronistic.
Tags: Broadcast, Change, Closed, Episodes, Networks, Pandemic, Premiere, Production, Scripted, Season, September, Shows, Streaming, TV
Plain Dealer (September 3)
“Greater Cleveland’s economy has been hit harder than most large metro areas across the country during the coronavirus crisis…. Just three of the 40 largest metro areas – New York, Las Vegas and Boston – have done worse in terms of job losses than Cleveland’s 12% decline from July 2019 to July 2020.”
Tags: Boston, Cleveland, Coronavirus, Crisis, Decline, Economy, Hit harder, Job losses, Las Vegas, New York
Reuters (September 3)
“Publicly listed family-owned firms, defined as those where the founder of their family owns 20% of shares or votes, returned 3 percentage points more than non-family owned stocks during the virus-struck first half of 2020.” It might be a coincidence, “but the same thing happened after the last crisis…. The effect persists across sectors, regions and company size,” perhaps because the firms have less debt and invest more in R&D.
Tags: 2020, Crisis, Debt, Family-owned, Founder, Listed, R&D, Regions, Sectors, Shares, Size, Stocks, Virus
