TechWire rewind: African American leaders speak out; Grifols expands; Triangle economy update + 68 more headlines

As Monday morning rolls in, we’re providing TechWire readers with a quick recap of the past week’s news headlines.

Last week, we continued our series of stories on how local African American tech leaders are demanding change in the wake of George Floyd’s death: Last week, the series interviewed Johnny Hackett of #BlackDollarNC, Katie Gailes of Wake Tech’s Entrepreneurship Initiatives, Creative Allies CEO Amie Thompson and Karen LeVert of Pappas Capital.

We also continued our ‘new normal’ series about how the local startup community is adapting to COVID-19: Read about the response from Chapel Hill’s coworking scene and the Triangle’s universities.

In other news: NC startups had their second-best year in 2019, raising $1.5 billion; local startup BioMedInnovations secured FDA emergency use authorization for its low-cost ventilator and is partnering with NASCAR teams to build components; global biotherapeutics firm Grifols is investing over $350 million to build a blood plasma facility in Clayton – the company is also producing a COVID-19 treatment at the campus; European crop protection firm Biotalys NV picked RTP for its U.S. headquarters; two new research reports indicate that the economic outlook for the Triangle is strong despite the pandemic; more furloughs, buyouts and layoffs could be in the future, but 61% of businesses have kept all workers and pay the same in the pandemic, according to a new survey.

As part of TechWire’s new “Startup Monday” segment, we recently launched a column that summarizes local startup news coverage over the past week. Read last week’s edition here.

And, in national news: Another wave of COVID-19 cases poses a huge risk to the still-recovering economy; tech stocks drove the Nasdaq above 10,000 for the first time ever; IBM is dropping its facial recognition service in a call for police reform; the U.S. is officially in a recession; Amazon and Microsoft banned police use of facial recognition technology; the Federal Reserve vowed to maintain its stimulus plan and revamped its loan program; GrubHub is being acquired by Europe-based Just Eat Takeaway in a $7.3 billion deal.

Keeping with our Monday tradition, here’s a look back at 71 local, state and national headlines as reported by WRAL TechWire last week: