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U.S. Immigration Services Furlough Canceled

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services canceled plans to furlough more than 13,400 employees - over ⅔ of its workforce - amid bipartisan pressure from Congress. The agency was projected to have a $571M deficit when it announced the furloughs in July, but a combination of cost-cutting measures (which the USCIS said will increase backlogs and wait times across the board) and an increase in fee revenue improved its financial situation.

DOJ Indicts Teva Pharmaceuticals For Price-Fixing

The DOJ indicted Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Tuesday on charges of conspiring with competitors to raise prices for generic drugs. The indictment is the highest-profile legal action in a long-running investigation of the generic drug industry that began in 2014, which has resulted in over ten cases against companies and executives to date.

WI Gov. Declares State Of Emergency

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers declared a state of emergency Tuesday and authorized 250 state National Guard troops (double the night before) to protect critical infrastructure in Kenosha. Monday night’s protests - sparked by the police shooting of Black man Jacob Blake - left government buildings and businesses across the city burned and looted. Other protests were held Monday in Portland, NYC, LA, Minneapolis, and San Diego.

More: Blake’s father and family lawyers on Tuesday said he is paralyzed from the waist down, with doctors unsure whether the condition is permanent.

Worth Noting: President Trump announced in a tweet that he will formally nominate acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf to serve permanently in that role.

📬 Following Suit… NY, HI, & NJ filed a joint federal lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to block policy changes to the USPS, joining more than 20 states who have filed similar suits.

🦠 Sickness, Be Gone! The Africa Regional Certification Commission officially declared the continent free from wild polio.

Airline Workers Grounded

On Tuesday, American Airlines said it plans to lay off 19k employees when federal aid that protected those jobs expires on Oct. 1. Together with retirements and temporary leaves of absence, the airline will be about 30% smaller in October than in March. United Airlines explored the possibility of furloughing half its staff in July (36k employees), while earlier this week Delta announced plans to furlough 1,941 pilots unless it reached a deal with their union.

Going Public

• Ant Financial - the fin-tech arm of Alibaba Group - filed for an initial public offering on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock markets on Monday. Some analysts say the company’s IPO could be the largest of all time.
• Palantir filed to go public on Tuesday, electing to debut with an NYSE direct listing (similar to Spotify in 2018 & Slack in 2019) rather than the more conventional initial public offering. In the filing, CEO Alex Karp criticized Silicon Valley tech culture in a letter to investors.

Epic Legal Battle Continues

A federal judge on Monday ruled that Epic Games can maintain access to Apple’s software-development tools (after Apple threatened to revoke them) but upheld, for now, the tech giant’s Fortnite App Store ban. Epic filed a lawsuit on Aug. 14 against Apple and Google after the two companies removed Fortnite from their respective stores in response to Epic introducing a payment system bypassing their typical 30% fee.

Worth Noting: Uber and Lyft both released polls that found their drivers “overwhelmingly” support the new benefits approach laid out by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

📈 Taking Stock… the S&P 500 (+0.4%) and Nasdaq (+0.8%) rose to all-time highs on Tuesday, while the Dow fell 0.2%.

Sweet Dreams

William Cabaniss, 14, was struck by the long lines at food banks across the U.S. while watching a recent news segment. He was baking brownies at the time, and as he continued to mix the chocolatey treat he was struck by an idea - what if he could help out by making and selling every baker’s best friend, vanilla?

Since then, William enlisted his family to help him set up a nonprofit called Vanilla Feeds Tomorrow, which sells bottles of vanilla extract to raise money for meals for the hungry. For each bottle sold, William and his family are able to provide 42 meals to people who are hungry, donating over 27,000 meals to date.

Keeping An Eye Out

With the reduction of conservation areas in Botswana, African lions are increasingly coming into contact with local human populations. The lions eat livestock, which negatively impacts the livelihood of subsistence farmers living in the area, often forcing them to resort to violent means to scare away the predators.

In a piece of “psychological trickery,” scientists are testing a new method to reduce cow depopulation - painting eyes on local cattle's butts. The researchers hope that this non-violent method of defending livestock will ensure the survival of the protected African lion species.

Self De-Fence

Last year, Brian Staley’s months-old puppy, Burger King, couldn’t resist digging under their backyard fence to say hello to passers-by, ruining the lawn in the process. In response, Brian cut a small hole in the fence so Burger King could gaze out.

When the pandemic hit, Brian and his 7-year-old son noticed an increase in foot and bike traffic in the street alongside Burger’s fence, and came up with the idea for a dog-themed painting to frame Burger’s head as it pokes out. So far, the pair’s projects include Pac-Man, several movie posters, classic art, and even Uncle Sam. (Photos)

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