Trevor Noah Controversy "Much Ado about Nothing": Your Top Headlines for Wednesday

As predicted, Trevor Noah had a rough day. The social media pitchforks were drawn against the upcoming Daily Show host over a handful of offensive and unfunny jokes he tweeted in the past. No one’s losing their job just yet: Comedy Central came to its new hire’s defense. Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi, in an interview with LinkedIn, said the controversy was “much ado about nothing:” “There’s going to be a presidential candidate 25 years from now,” he said. “Are we going to go back and look at his Twitter feed from when he was 14 years old? Because it’s going to have a lot of really stupid things in there.” (Mandvi also discussed how he got the news of Noah’s promotion and why he did but didn’t want the job.)

Noah is the famous face of a new reality: professionals used to only have a stage once they got good – now they hone their skills in public, with no statute of limitation on the stumbles they may take along the way. Anyone with even passing name recognition is at the mercy of a Buzzfeed reporter, a Twitter archive and a slow news day. Noah's tweets were, yes, offensive, and no, not funny. But in creative professions especially, where taking risks is essential to finding your voice, we all lose if we shame young talents into playing it safe. I for one am glad the high school newspaper I once edited never was online – that stuff could shut down a political campaign.

While you were paying attention to Indiana, Arkansas passed a similar religious freedom law. Opponents say it would open the door to businesses discriminating against LGBT people. Wal-Mart, which is based in Bentonville, Arkansas, and is the state’s largest private employer, has urged the governor to veto the bill.

Nearly 100,000 oil industry jobs have been lost in the past four months in the US alone. That’s 10 times the losses of the newspaper business in the past decade, and that was a bloodletting already. The low price of oil has made expensive shale oil exploration in the US a bad bargain and delayed investments by oil companies and their suppliers.

Two-thirds of Americans who are getting a new job were not looking for a new job. They were either happily employed elsewhere or so recently unemployed they didn’t have time to sign up for benefits before a recruiter snatched them up. That’s according to new research by the San Francisco Fed. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make an effort: only than having the right skills and being easy to find matters more than sending out 100 résumés.

A cable company is apparently never too big. Charter Communications is acquiring Bright House Networks for $10.4 billion. Together they’ll be the second largest cable provider in the US, just behind Comcast.

Amazon is bringing one-click ordering into the physical world. The company has launched Amazon Dash to select Prime customers – it’s a very real wifi-connected plastic button emblazoned with the name of a household product you frequently run out of, say coffee or laundry detergent. Push the button and your product is ordered, billed and shipped. Designers will also be able to embed the system in their product, say a coffee maker or washing machine. A customisable button would be sweet, but the business development opportunity was too good for Amazon: right now, it’s only a partnership with major brands.

It’s April Fool’s Day: today even more so than most days, don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. (Amazon swears the one above is real.)

Also, you can play Pac-man on Google Maps. You’re welcome.

Every morning, we share the top headlines professionals need to know about right now. To not miss one, click the "Follow" button. Share with your network, read and discuss — and let us know what we missed in the comments below.