These are the top maybe-not headlines from the past 84-hours presented by The Conversation Project from raw engagement data from our social media to the headlines posted over the past weekend.
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The 8 topics that our followers ranked as the most conversational are:
TENNESSEE CUT JEREMY BANKS AFTER ALLEGED VIOLENT THREATS AGAINST FEMALE STUDENT
As previously reported, Vols coach Jeremy Pruitt cut Banks on Friday and said it was due to new information he received about the linebacker. This, just days after a prior video surfaced showing Banks berating police officers during a recent arrest. So, what’s the new info that pushed Pruitt to cut ties with Banks? A female UT student tells TMZ Sports … on August 24, Banks threatened to “smack” her outside of a party in Knoxville after she refused to let him inside. She claims Banks had been harassing her for months. The woman claims she called 911 and while cops responded to the scene, Banks was not arrested. She says she was passed to the Univ. of Tennessee Police Dept. to follow up. Days later, the woman says she was contacted by Univ. of Tennessee school officials who had learned about the incident from police. The woman told school officials she had video of the August 24 encounter — which also showed Banks arguing with security guards, shouting aggressive phrases at them like, “I’ve been thuggin’.”
[SOURCE: tmz.com]
WEWORK EXPECTED TO ANNOUNCE MAJOR LAYOFFS
WeWork, the co-working business once valued at $47 billion, is expected to announce significant layoffs this month, Bloomberg reports. This follows reports the company was looking to slash as many as 5,000 roles, or one-third of its workforce. Now expected to go public in 2020 at a valuation as low as $10 billion, WeWork is also in negotiations with JPMorgan for a last-minute cash infusion to replace the capital expected from the now-postponed IPO, per reports. The company, now a cautionary tale, has been working with bankers in recent weeks to reduce the sky-high costs of its money-losing operation. News of potential layoffs come about two weeks after co-founder and chief executive officer Adam Neumann resigned from his post and the nine-year-old company postponed its highly anticipated initial public offering. Neumann is now serving as the company’s non-executive chairman, succeeded by WeWork’s former vice chairman Sebastian Gunningham and the company’s president and chief operating officer Artie Minson. The embattled company has been struggling to satisfy Wall Street skeptics, who were floored by the company’s eye-popping valuation. Since Neumann’s resignation, WeWork has begun several cost-cutting initiatives and is reportedly looking to sell off several of its acquisitions, including Managed by Q, Conductor and Meetup.
[SOURCE: techcrunch.com]
A 5-YEAR-OLD MASSACHUSETTS GIRL DIAGNOSED WITH A RARE MOSQUITO-BORNE VIRUS HAS RETURNED HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL, WEEKS AFTER DONORS RAISED THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FOR HER MEDICAL EXPENSES
Sophia Garabedian was hospitalized early last month with Eastern equine encephalitis, which can cause deadly brain swelling. Her condition sparked the concern of thousands online, and a verified GoFundMe effort has topped $190,000. Sophia was released after she reached a “major milestone,” her family said, but her recovery is ongoing. Sophia’s diagnosis came among a severe EEE outbreak, with at least 32 confirmed cases in six states. Five to 10 human cases are typically reported in the US each year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. About 30% of cases result in death.
[SOURCE: cnn.com]
4 HOMELESS MEN KILLED, 1 INJURED WHILE SLEEPING IN NEW YORK CITY TODAY
Four homeless men were beaten to death by a man wielding a metal pipe in New York City, police said. A fifth victim, who was believed to be homeless, was hospitalized with injuries. A 24-year-old person of interest was taken into custody. NYPD officers have recovered the murder weapon and said the man in custody is also homeless. Police responded to reports of a fight at 1:40 a.m. Saturday in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood, where first responders discovered a victim who suffered trauma to his head. They discovered three other victims just a block away. Police said the victims were apparently sleeping when the attack occurred. The fifth victim, a 49-year-old male, was hospitalized in serious condition. Police planned to hold a news conference on Saturday morning with updates on the killings. Police said the motive appears to be a random attack and not a hate crime. As of August, there were 61,674 homeless people living in New York City shelters, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. The advocacy group said “thousands of unsheltered homeless people” sleep on the city’s streets every night.
[SOURCE: cbsnews.com]
FIRST ELECTRIC CRUISE SHIP HOPES TO TURN THE TIDE IN WAR AGAINST OCEAN POLLUTION
Norwegian cruise operator Hurtigruten just launched the world’s first hybrid electric-powered expedition ship, the 530-passenger MS Roald Amundsen. The vessel is named for the Norwegian explorer who was the first person to navigate the Northwest Passage by boat and the first person to cross Antarctica and reach the South Pole. Hurtigruten’s sustainability policies include a ban on single-use plastics and the goal of being totally emission-free within 20 years. The Roald Amundsen moves the company towards that goal by featuring a hybrid operating system that uses large banks of batteries to supplement the power of the main engines, which run on low sulfur marine gas oil. “Excess, unneeded energy from the engines is stored in the batteries and when the engine needs extra energy, we draw it back from the batteries and feed it into the engines,” Hurtigruten CEO Daniel Skjeldam told NBC News. That reduces fuel usage, allows the engines to operate at their optimum levels and lowers CO2 emissions by 20 percent. The ship also has the option to run on battery power alone for limited periods, during which time it uses no fuel and creates zero emissions.
[SOURCE: nbcnews.com]
BOTHAM JEAN’S NEIGHBOR WHO TESTIFIED IN AMBER GUYGER TRIAL FATALLY SHOT IN DALLAS
Ten days after he testified in the murder trial of a former Dallas police officer, key witness Joshua Brown was gunned down at his apartment complex, according to the Dallas County medical examiner and Kimberlee Leach, spokesperson for Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot. Brown lived across the hall from Botham Jean at Dallas’ South Side Flats apartments last year when officer Amber Guyger walked into Jean’s apartment, mistaking it for her own, and killed Jean. Brown’s testimony during Guyger’s murder trial was key because he was able to describe the officer’s actions immediately after she killed their neighbor, a 26-year-old accountant. Brown was killed Friday at his current home, the Atera Apartments, about five miles from his former complex where he, Guyger and Jean all lived. Authorities have not said whether there’s any connection between Brown’s death and his testimony in Guyger’s trial, which ended last week.
[SOURCE: cnn.com]
TURKEY SUMMONS US DIPLOMAT OVER A TWITTER ‘LIKE’
Turkey summoned a top American diplomat Sunday after the U.S. Embassy’s official Twitter account “liked” a tweet that said the people of Turkey should prepare for a political era without the leader of Turkey’s national party, who is reportedly ill. The Foreign Ministry said the U.S. charge d’affaires Jeffrey Hovenier was summoned despite an embassy statement that said its Twitter account had liked “an unrelated post in error,” and apologized. Many interpreted the tweet as suggesting that the nationalist leader Devlet Bahceli could soon die. The tweet was posted by a journalist Turkey accuses of having links to a network led by a cleric who is blamed for a 2016 failed coup attempt. Turkish media reports say the journalist, Ergun Babahan, is wanted in Turkey. The tweet drew ire from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party and as well as Bahceli’s party, which are allies. Turkey’s main opposition party also said it regarded the embassy’s move as an insult to Turkey’s parliament. The embassy issued a second apology after Hovenier was called to the Turkish Foreign Ministry.
[SOURCE: apnews.com]
MOSBY LISTS 25 BALTIMORE POLICE OFFICERS AS DISCREDITED; PROSECUTORS BEGIN WIPING OUT 790 CONVICTIONS
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has begun asking the courts to throw out nearly 800 criminal cases handled by 25 city police officers, saying she found reason to distrust more than a dozen cops in addition to the eight convicted in the Gun Trace Task Force scandal. These additional officers had not previously been disclosed by her office. Three of them remain with the Baltimore Police, a police spokesman said. The three are Robert Hankard, a detective in central Baltimore; Kenneth Ivery, a sergeant in Southwest Baltimore; and Jason Giordano, a sergeant in the citywide robbery unit. Hankard has been suspended. They did not respond to a message to the department. The number of officers involved fluctuates as her office continues to investigate, Mosby said on Friday while clarifying that the total number of officers is 25, not the 22 in the initial release. Mosby said her office’s assessment of cases “is not over, this is just the first phase,” and that more cases could be dismissed as her attorneys gather more information. She said that all of the names her office released this week are included in court filings by her attorneys to vacate the nearly 800 cases handled by the tainted officers.
[SOURCE: baltimoresun.com]
Eight Things To Talk About uses the raw engagement data from the social media engagement from The Conversation Project to generate the top-ranking headlines over the course of a weekend.
A full weeks’ data (from Friday to Friday) is compiled, weighed, and sorted to produce the content for the Wrap-Up Show with J Cleveland Payne, published every Saturday as a podcast available at ThisIsTheConversation.com or wherever your favorite podcasts are found.
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