New Year, new, uhh… news. Here’s what went down while you were out on the town:
The founder of Papa John’s Pizza has stepped down as CEO
After disastrously speaking out against NFL players kneeling for the National Anthem, John Schnatter (AKA, the big Papa himself) has been ousted as CEO of the company he founded back in 1984. As of yesterday, current company President Steve Ritchie will take over as chief.
Blockchain re-brands give dud companies a new lease on life
Failing companies are now pivoting to crypto to boost their stock — and US regulators are skeptical. Case in point: soft drink-maker Long Island Tea Corp saw a 500% bump after renaming itself “Long Blockchain Corp,” despite striking a juice distribution deal just last week. Seems legit…
Twitter stock set to finish out the year up almost 25%
Turns out, a tweet by any other length still sounds as sweet. Twitter’s risque decision to double the character limit to 280 has been rewarded: tweets over 140 characters are retweeted and liked nearly 2x more than shorter ones. This, plus a good Q3 has their stock off to a strong 2018.
Apple admits to slowing down its old phones — offers $29 battery replacements as an apology
Last month, Apple admitted it had slowed down its old phone models to “maximize performance.” Now, as a quasi-apology, the company is offering $50 off out-of-warranty battery replacements to disgruntled iPhone owners.
18 states will increase the minimum wage in 2018
The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 per hour since 2009 — but on a local level, change is a-comin’: at least 18 states are set to bump up minimum wages by as much as $1/hour, and some cities will see increases of up to $2/hour.
Alphabet’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt to step down
After more than a decade in the Google family, Eric Schmidt (one of the tech juggernaut’s most influential supervisors) will step down from his role as Alphabet’s executive chairman. No reason was given for the change, but Schmidt says that he and the founders all agreed the time was right.
The World Health Organization dropped a bomb on gamers
In a new draft of their 11th International Classification of Diseases, the WHO has decided that “gaming disorder” AKA video game addiction will be recognized as a mental health disorder in 2018. And yet everyone’s crypto obsession is still perfectly acceptable.
Facebook is done with ‘disputed’ tags
The ‘book announced it will no longer use “Disputed Flags” to suss out fake news articles after research found that the red flags next to dubious articles actually make people want to click on them more. Instead, they will now use related articles to give users more context about the story.