College admissions cases

Eleven of the fifteen parents charged with fraud and money laundering in a federal investigation of college admissions fraud were indicted yesterday by a grand jury in Boston on additional charges of federal program bribery. The other four parents involved in the scandal changed their pleas to guilty on Monday to avoid the bribery charges.

Lebanon protests

In response to protests that have drawn hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens on to the streets, Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced several government reforms on Monday, such as cutting salaries of government officials by up to half, establishing an anti-corruption panel, abolishing several state institutions, and several others. Protesters continued strikes and demonstrations yesterday, saying that the reforms aren’t enough and demanding the government’s resignation.

Syria Update

Russian and Turkish officials met in Sochi yesterday and agreed to joint military patrols along the Turkish-Syrian border after demanding Kurdish forces withdraw from the region. The agreement came just hours before the five-day, U.S.-facilitated ceasefire between Turkey and Kurdish forces expired.

Musical CEOs

Under Armour founder & CEO Kevin Plank will be relinquishing his role to COO Patrik Frisk come January. This wasn’t the only retail giant CEO news announced yesterday – CEO of Nike Mark Parker will also be stepping down in January and will be replaced by ServiceNow CEO John Donahue, who in turn is being replaced by the recently departed SAP CEO Bill McDermott.

WeWon

Per the WSJ, SoftBank will be taking over WeWork after beating out JPMorgan’s competing offer. The deal values the company at around $8 billion, and will compensate co-founder and CEO Adam Neumann up to $1.7 billion for a portion of his stock – SoftBank will also offer around $2 billion to buy back shares owned by other WeWork employees and investors.

Stream team

Verizon will offer a free year of Disney+ to all new and existing Verizon Wireless unlimited customers, new Fios home internet customers, and new 5G home internet customers. This deal is expected to land Disney+ millions of early subscribers in a crowded streaming market as it prepares for its November 12 debut.

Sirius X-Men

Disney’s Marvel Entertainment has entered an agreement to create exclusive content for Sirius XM’s satellite radio and streaming services, which includes recently acquired subsidiary Pandora. The partnership will consist of scripted and unscripted podcasts, live events, and regular talk shows, and kicks off in 2020 with five new scripted series based on superhero characters.

Walk for life

When Travis Snyder, a Marine veteran, and the rest of his task force returned home from Afghanistan last spring, they should’ve been out of harm’s way. But it turns out they weren’t – tragically, Travis lost his former squadmate to suicide just a year later.

After that, Travis said, the statistics surrounding mental health struggles faced by veterans really started to sink in. So he decided to do something about it. Travis left his home and planned to walk all the way around Lake Michigan – 810 miles, on foot – to raise awareness for veteran suicides in the hopes that more of them can be prevented.

Forty-two days later, on October 7, Travis completed his mission. Along the way, he raised money for a nonprofit that he partnered with, connected with families who had suffered suicide losses, and inspired countless others to keep on going and seek help when things get rough. “We gave a voice to what was merely a whisper,” Travis wrote to his followers when he finished. “We turned it into a roar.”

Chief Recycling Officer

For most 3-year-olds, a life-changing outing might be to Disneyland, the toy store, or a waterpark. But for Ryan Hickman, it was when his dad brought him along to the recycling center.

Inspired, Ryan started collecting bottles and cans for their next trip to the center. And while his parents thought his passion for recyclables would run out after a couple of weeks, he’s still at it, five years later – and it’s become something bigger than they could’ve imagined.

Ryan and his parents now run Ryan’s Recycling, collecting bottles and cans from local businesses and organizing beach cleanups to capture recyclables that might otherwise end up in the ocean or a landfill. And while he’s making money at it, that’s not really the goal – he gives a portion of his proceeds to help protect the ocean’s animals. So far, he’s recycled 103,000 pounds of cans and bottles and donated more than $9,000 to the Pacific Marine Mammal Center. “He’s really turned it from what was a fun trip to the recycle center to saving the planet,” his mom told Today, “[Ryan’s] doing so much more than we’d even thought he could be doing.”