Brand Story

Analyst Breakdown

• During a May 2018 roundtable with more than two dozen outdoor sporting and conservation organizations, after more than a year of leading the Trump administration’s fossil fuel-centric “energy dominance” push, then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke promised to make a “grand pivot” away from energy development and toward conservation
• Zinke’s decree was an admission that the agency had fallen short on its stewardship mandate, and an acknowledgment that Americans wanted better protection of public lands and waters
• And yet, Zinke’s grand pivot never came

Analyst Breakdown

• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined meatpacking giant Smithfield Foods $13,494 for failing to protect workers from the coronavirus at its plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
• More than 1,000 workers at the plant tested positive for the virus, and four of them died
• During the early days of the pandemic, the plant became a symbol of the hazards faced by front-line essential workers who clock in to put food on the tables of homebound Americans

Analyst Breakdown

• At first glance, the unemployment rate seems a lot less terrible than it did a few months ago
• In April, at the start of the COVID-19 shutdown, the jobless rate was a record-high 14
• This month, the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate had dropped to 8

Analyst Breakdown

• NEW YORK (AP) — Toilet paper is back on store shelves
• But you may not recognize some of the brands
• Demand for toilet paper has been so high during the pandemic that in order to keep their shelves stocked, retailers are buying up foreign toilet paper brands, mostly from Mexico

Analyst Breakdown

• This article is published in partnership with Newsy
• Worried officials in Sullivan County, Tennessee, called a press conference on July 10 to address the county’s spiking number of COVID-19 cases
• “Only this week have we seen those double-digit increases,” said Mayor Richard Venable, who instituted a mask mandate to try to slow the spread

Analyst Breakdown

• Contracting COVID-19 is putting already financially stressed Americans on the brink of economic disaster
• And the rest of the country isn’t that far behind
• Of the Americans who’ve contracted COVID-19, 63% are facing serious financial problems, according to a survey released Wednesday morning from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard University’s T