FRIDAY WRAP: Fox settlement WITHOUT apology, state abortion bans affect college matriculation, MillerKnoll's CEO asshole moment, Tennessee Walgreens pregnant shootout, and Taylor Swift goes governance

LIVE from HQ, it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here at April 21st Lane Studios, featuring all your favorites: Ari the data queen, Jessie the money whisperer, BS-man Matt Moscardi. On today’s weekly wrap up: Pity City, Diabetes Scoopers, Fake Apologies, Never-going-to-happen apologies, and corporate employees shooting pregnant people

Story of the Week (DR):

1. MillerKnoll CEO Andrea Owen goes viral telling employees to stop asking how to stay motivated without bonuses: 'Leave pity city'

1. CEO who went viral for 'pity city' comment on bonuses apologizes to staff: 'I feel terrible that my rallying cry seemed insensitive'

2. Elon Musk congratulated SpaceX for an 'exciting' launch of Starship after the rocket exploded

1. The mega-rocket cleared the launchpad but exploded nearly three minutes after liftoff.

3. Fox News-Dominion Settlement: Fox Not Required To Apologize For False Election Claims, Company Says MM AB JS

1. Fox News and its Fox Corporation parent company do not need to issue a formal apology to Dominion Voting Systems or have show hosts address false voter fraud claims under the terms of a massive financial settlement the two sides reached Tuesday.

2. Fox reached an agreement with Dominion on Tuesday to pay the voting machine company $787.5 million to resolve Dominion’s defamation lawsuit, which accused Fox of recklessly promoting false election fraud claims after the 2020 presidential election, including conspiracy theories suggesting Dominion’s voting machines were somehow rigged against former President Donald Trump.

4. Taylor Swift Asked FTX About Its Legality Before Balking On $100 Million Sponsorship Deal, Lawyer Claims

1. Pop star Taylor Swift was the only potential celebrity endorser of the disgraced cryptocurrency exchange FTX to vet the service on its compliance with federal financial regulations, the lawyer representing investors in a high-profile civil lawsuit against celebrities who backed FTX claimed Tuesday.

Goodliest of the Week (AB):

1. Ben & Jerry’s is all for its workers’ plans to unionize and shares their ‘goal of advancing justice’

1. Ben & Jerry’s said, in a statement, it shares “the goal of advancing justice, both inside and outside our company.” 

2. Currently owned by consumer goods conglomerate Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s has not shied away from social causes

2. School Districts Took On Juul With A Novel Legal Strategy. Now They’re Going After Social Media Giants DR

1. David & Goliath: Last year, lawyers representing hundreds of school districts got a surprising billion dollars from Juul in December 2022 and agreed to change some of its behavior. They used a super old legal argument and said the e-cig company was a “public nuisance” - a term for things that cause widespread harm.

2. They want to use the same argument for social media companies including Snap, Meta, and Alphabet, and ByteDance

3.  the San Mateo County Board of Education, adding that they “purposefully designed their platforms to be addictive and to deliver harmful content to youth.”

3. State Abortion Bans May Affect Where Americans Attend College, Poll Finds—Even Republicans MM JS

1. A new study from the Lumina Foundation and Gallup finds 72% of enrolled college students say reproductive health laws in their state at least somewhat affect their decision to stay enrolled, including 80% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. Andi Owen DR AB JS

1. MillerKnoll CEO Andi Owen apologizes after comments on bonuses - Crain's Detroit Business

2. Scientists talking about each individual way climate change will ruin us all

1. Scientists light the bat signal on climate change as study finds 81 of North America’s 154 bats face ‘severe population decline’ over 15 years

2. Climate change adds to baseball's offensive boom as warmer air means about 50 more home runs per season, new study finds

3. Bumpy airplane ride? Blame climate change

4. Why Your Swimming Pool May Be Worse for Urban Water Scarcity Than Climate Change

5. Somalis Are Among The Greatest Victims' Of Climate Change, Says UN Chief

6. Is having kids making climate change worse?

3. Republicans Fight a Solar Boom That’s Made Texas King of Clean Energy

4. Dominion

1. Fox News-Dominion Settlement: Fox Not Required To Apologize For False Election Claims, Company Says

2. Is there anything anyone wants to see more than Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo groveling?

Exhausting-est of the Week (JS):

1. As states replace lead pipes, plastic alternatives could bring new risks JS

1. Across the country, states and cities are replacing lead pipes to address concerns over lead-contaminated drinking water, an urgent health threat.

2. A new report released Tuesday by the advocacy group Beyond Plastics warns that pipes made from polyvinyl chloride, or PVC — a kind of rigid plastic commonly used in construction — can leach hazardous chemicals into drinking water, making them a “regrettable substitution” for lead pipes.

3. Among these chemicals are hormone-disrupting organotins and vinyl chloride, the key building block for PVC and a known human carcinogen. 

4. “PVC is a horror show,” Bruce Blumberg, a professor of development and cell biology at the University of California Irvine, told the authors of the report. 

2. Weight-Loss Surgery for Children AB

1. Bariatric surgery was performed on 506 children in 2022 at the more than 40 U.S. children’s hospitals, a fivefold increase from 2012

2. Many of the young people who undergo bariatric surgery didn’t lose weight through diet, exercise or weight-loss drugs. Bariatric surgery can be a faster, more lasting fix for patients with severe obesity

3. One-fifth of U.S. children were obese before the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and research shows weight gain among children surged during the pandemic

4. “There’s no evidence that there’s any benefit to watchful waiting,” said Dr. Sarah Hampl, a lead author of the AAP guidelines and a pediatrician at Children’s Mercy Kansas City in Kansas City, Mo. 

5. Then you have other accounts like Amy Scheiner, 32, who had a band inserted around the upper part of her stomach at age 17. She has gained nearly all the weight back. “For children who are still growing whose brains haven’t fully developed, who haven’t hit puberty yet, who don’t know why they’re eating, why their body is this size, to have such a permanent change in their biology is awful,” she said. 

3. Walgreens Employee Shoots Pregnant Shoplifting Suspect, Might Get Away With It Because TN Is So 'Pro-Life' MM JS

1. The state's supposed "culture of life" collided with its perverse gun obsession last week when an armed Walgreens employee in Nashville shot a woman he suspected of shoplifting. She's seven months pregnant.

2. A 21-year-old Walgreens "team leader," told the police that another employee had notified him that the 24 year-old pregnant woman and another woman were allegedly shoplifting cosmetics from the store. 

3. He followed the women to their car in the parking lot

4. After Boyd sneaked up on the women from the rear side of the car (probably freaking them out), one of them sprayed mace at him. That is an expected result when strange men approach women. That's when Boyd pulled out his semi-automatic pistol and started shooting. He claimed he was afraid for his life and didn't know if they were armed, but if they were, they probably wouldn't have led with mace, which unlike a firearm is a non-lethal self-defense tool.

5. Ferguson had multiple gun shot wounds, and the other woman took her to the hospital. Her baby survived after an emergency c-section. The child wasn't directly injured by the gunfire but remains in critical condition, along with Ferguson.

6. Walgreens announced in a statement Sunday that Boyd is "no longer employed at Walgreens," despite his valiant efforts at saving the company tens of dollars in drugstore cosmetics.

7. Boyd might walk away from all this because TN has the "stand your ground" law, which allows someone to use deadly force in public even if they have ample opportunity to retreat or simply mind their own business. There's also no obligation to use non-lethal force if possible.

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: TS

2. AB: DOMINION

3. MM: Tucker Carlson

4. JS: Taylor Swift- The Goddess of Governance 

Predictions

1. DR: Taylor Swift’s starts a the-worl-cares-about-governance revolution; Andi Owen causes an even further reduction in female CEO percentages

2. AB: Meta

3. MM: Andi Owen is replaced by Boomerang Mike Volkema