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| Richard Branson |
Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson and Subway CEO John Chidsey are PR heroes for the month of July.
Branson joined five others on the first crewed flight of the VSS Unity spaceplane to the edge of space. That was hardly a sure thing for the Virgin billionaire.
The images of Branson floating in the cockpit of the spaceplane are priceless PR and a step toward ushering in the era of space tourism.
Not to be outdone, Chidsey told CNN that he is a huge fan of Subway’s tuna sandwiches. "We’re very proud of our tuna,” said Chidsey who “absolutely” eats the sandwich.
A class action suit filed in January claims Subway’s tuna offering is a mix of various concoctions. Subway says the suit is bunk.
The New York Times joined the fun, sending the tuna sandwiches for testing by a lab, which was unable to identify the species of the tuna. Subway claims it uses skipjack and yellowfin.
Despite the PR kerfuffle, Chidsey calls tuna “one of my favorite sandwiches.”
Ireland’s Supreme Court in 2020 determined that Subway’s hero rolls contain too much sugar to meet the definition of bread.
One wonders what is Chidey’s favorite Subway bread. Is it Italian, flatbread, Monterey cheddar, Italian herb and cheese, honey oat or 9-grain wheat?
“Have you no shame,” worked on Republicans during the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s, but Joe Biden’s rhetorical question falls on the deaf ears of today’s GOP, which is hellbent on making it more difficult for millions of Americans to vote.
“We’re going to face another test in 2022,” Biden said July 13 in the understatement of the year. “A new wave of unprecedented voter suppression and raw and sustained election subversion. We have to prepare now.”
Biden’s solution is to educate and register new voters, which is the equivalent of playing softball compared to the hardball tactics of Republicans.
The Brennan Center for Justice in New York counts about 400 bills introduced in 48 states to make it harder for Americans to fulfill their Constitutional duty to vote. Twenty-eight of them passed in 17 states to restrict voter access.
Unless Biden rallies Democrats to kill the filibuster to pave the way for a federal voting law, 2022 will show a further erosion of American democracy that began with the Capitol Hill insurrection of Jan. 6.
Donald Trump, the leader of the no-shame caucus, has re-purposed the Jan. 6 insurrection, saying that “many tremendous people” participated in the storming of the Capitol that threatened the lives of US Representatives and his own vice president.
His statement echoed his “many fine people” hogwash that he used to defend racists and anti-Semites during the Charlottesville uprising.
Biden better step up to the plate.
No rest for the weary... No business was more impacted by COVID-19 than the hotel industry. As the future brightens for travel, the hotel business is hit with another crisis: finding workers.
In a bid to counter the employment shortage, the American Hotel & Lodging Assn. has launched a digital and print ad campaign in a bid to fill the more than 100K open jobs.
“On the heels of the worst economic crisis on record for our industry, hotels are now facing a rapidly emerging issue of staffing shortages, particularly in vacation destinations,” Chip Rogers, AHLA president, said in launching the ad push.
He said hotels in urban markets “have a long road to regaining what we lost during the pandemic,” and that it is critical to staff up to achieve a full recovery.
Good luck, AHLA.
The North American "united bid" for the World Cup doesn't look so united these days... State Dept muzzles political speech as it investigates deporting an influential opponent of Iranian war... Wall Street Journal "discovers" corporate communications.
Momentum is building for nuclear power but public support is not guaranteed, according to a survey conducted by Ruder Finn... America First PR founder admits to assaulting a woman in a London tube station... If they knew their presence would disrupt the lives of thousands of people, neither Barack Obama nor George W. Bush would have attended the NBA Finals. They were not narcissists-in-chief. 
Ukraine struck PR gold as its launches drone attack on St. Petersburg oil depot ahead of 'Putin's Davos' designed to put a positive spin on Russia's economy that is reeling under the 'special military operation' that has cost the lives of more than 500K soldiers... Defense Secretary Hegseth ups war against reporters... Extremist government ministers marching in NYC Israel Day Parade further hurts the country's image. 
Cuba will make or break Secretary of State Marco Rubio's bid for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination... Ballard Partners and BGR Group push for justice for the family of Robert Levinson, who was abducted and vanished in Iran 19 years ago... Robert Daley, the pistol-packing larger-than-life PR guy who was PA chief for the NYPD, dies at 96.
Pope Leo's encyclical on dangers of AI has JD Vance rethinking his justification for Trump's war with Iran... Software tools remove guardrails on Google, Meta AI models that aim to protect against biological war, child sex abuse, stealing credit card info, reports the Financial Times... US tech sector drops nearly 100K jobs during first four months of the year.
