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[h=4]The Short List: Why Google became Alphabet, GOP debate aftermath, Jets locker room fight[/h]El Nino + 'the blob' could equal less drought in the West
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Google announced it will create a new parent company named Alphabet within the scope of Google's major restructuring.(Photo: Daniel Deme, epa)
The ABCs of Google becoming Alphabet
Google announced Monday it's now a new company called Alphabet. But we're not totally sure anyone actually googled the name before it was chosen. The company doesn't seem to be in control of @alphabet on Twitter, Facebook.com/alphabet — or even the domain alphabet.com. If you're confused about all this change, here's what you need to know: Everything's OK. The Google you're probably thinking of is still totally Google. What happened. Google has so many businesses now it wanted a better way to organize them. So it created a new publicly traded parent company called Alphabet to manage all the cool stuff it's doing. One of the companies that'll live under that parent company is Google (as you know it). Who's running what. Alphabet will be run by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google gets a new CEO, rising star Sundar Pichai. Inside Google. It'll be largely the same — it's search, YouTube and operating systems like Android and Chrome. Outside Google. Ventures like Nest (gadgets), Fiber (high-speed fiber-optic Internet) and Calico (extending human life) are split off and now live under Alphabet. Why the name Alphabet? "It's very powerful in its simplicity," said Allen Adamson, the North American chairman of Landor Associates, a major branding identity firm. "And it relates to Google's mission. They're going to have a collection of companies, just like an alphabet has a collection of letters." If you want more info on the new company, head to abc.xyz,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>And remember, G is for Google.
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Disruption Capital Founding Partner Michael Parekh discusses Google's plan to adopt a new holding structure under the name Alphabet. Bloomberg
How the GOP debate circus reshuffled the field
Last week's wild GOP debate — the most-watched primary debate ever — was a dream come true for late night hosts.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>But the fact-twisting,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>occasional misogyny and meh performances by some of the candidates also had serious consequences within the field. In one of the first quantitative measures of Thursday night's debate in Cleveland, a Suffolk University Poll in Iowa lays out the damage: 1. Donald Trump is still in the lead, but the debate dented his standing. (A third of Iowa Republicans say Trump "doesn't show appropriate respect for women.") 2. Jeb Bush sank to seventh place and narrowly trails former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. 3. Marco Rubio scored the biggest boost, rising to third. 4. Iowa Republicans like Fiorina, who didn't make the cut for the evening debate but was part of the "happy hour" debate earlier in the day. More than eight<span style="color: Red;">*</span>of 10 respondents say she should be invited to televised debates of the top-tier contenders. Check out the full standings here.
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USA Today's Susan Page asks if Donald Trump's rise is about to end Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY
Hackers stole news releases to help traders make millions
Hackers, if you really want news releases, our over-crowded journalist inboxes happily would have spared a few. (But not in a law-breaking way.) Federal authorities Tuesday unsealed charges against nine international traders and hackers who allegedly reaped illegal profits by gaining early access to pending corporate announcements. Translation: A group of hackers and traders broke into Marketwired, PR Newswire Association and Business Wire, services that issue news releases about companies' significant corporate news. The hackers and traders were on the hunt for market-moving news before it became public — and were robustly successful, to the tune of more than $30 million in illegal profits, according to authorities. The hackers allegedly stashed the payments under the names of shell companies in accounts in Estonia, Macau and elsewhere.
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Nine people in the U.S. and Ukraine were charged with making $30 million by hacking into business newswire services, reading corporate press releases before they came out, and then trading on that information ahead of the pack on Wall Street. (Aug. AP
The NFL season hasn't even begun, and it already bites for the New York Jets
Jets fans can't catch a break. Starting quarterback Geno Smith will be undergoing surgery "very soon" for a broken jaw after being "sucker punched" Tuesday in a locker room altercation. He'll be out for up to 10 weeks. So who was the culprit? Jets head coach Todd Bowles said that linebacker IK Enemkpali threw the punch — and has since been released from the team. "It's something we don't tolerate," Bowles said. "It's something we can't stand. You don't walk up to another man and punch him in the face." What triggered the scuffle? Bowles won't say, but he did say it was "very childish." What now? Ryan Fitzpatrick, the former Houston Texan whom the Jets traded for in March, becomes New York's starting quarterback while Smith recovers.
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USA TODAY Sports' Larry Berger discusses the latest drama surrounding the New York Jets.
El Niño + 'the blob' could equal less drought in the West
It's a match made in the heavens. First, there's El Niño, that weather phenomenon characterized by warmer-than-normal surface water temps in the equatorial Pacific (so from the coast of Peru to the international dateline). Then, there's "the blob," which emerged off the coast of the Pacific Northwest in late 2013. (Two other blobs emerged in 2014, off California and in the Bering Sea.) Now, these weather patterns with fun names are building hopes for a wet winter, which could help temper drought conditions in the West. The truth is, scientists don't really know how the blob and the Niño will interact — but they're watching closely. "They could accentuate each other or subtract from each other. They could multiply each other or they might cancel each other. The jury is out," said Kelly Redmond of the Western Regional Climate Center. In the meantime, remember The Blob? Yeah, OK, we didn't either. Is that on Netflix?
If you only read one thing tonight, read this: China's woes could mess with U.S. interest rates.
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Extra Bites:
We love when our readers share their photos, like this one of an amazing sunset over Westhampton Beach in Suffolk County, N.Y.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Swipe through more fabulous reader photos.
Have you seen it? Some never-before-seen photos from the not-so-long-ago<span style="color: Red;">*</span>fairy tale wedding of Charles and Di are about to be auctioned.
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Fourteen never-before-seen candid photos from Prince Charles and Princess Diana's wedding are being put on the auction block. Keri Lumm (@thekerilumm) reports. Buzz60
If it's August, it's time to start making educated guesses about the next iPhone. Today's guess? Better cameras. We can get on board with that.
We all need a little distraction at some point during the day (what else are smartphones for?), so add DISTRACTME on the YO app. It'll be fun, we promise.
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This is a compilation of stories from across USA TODAY.
Contributing: Susan Page, David Jackson, Jessica Guynn, Jon Swartz, Kevin McCoy, Eileen Rivers, USA TODAY; Lindsay Deutsch, USA TODAY Network; Lorenzo Reyes, USA TODAY Sports; Nina Mandell, For the Win; Jeff DeLong, Reno Gazette-Journal; Eugene Kiely, Brooks Jackson, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley, Dave Levitan and D'Angelo Gore, FactCheck.org
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