Friday May 7 Top News Briefs
Hello! I’m Renca and I will be taking Alex’s place for today’s top news. Today is Friday, May 7th. Ready to see what’s up?
Here are two updates related to Covid-19.
News reports say the FDA is likely to provide emergency use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine for young teenagers — those between 12 and 15 — by next week.
Pfizer said they are looking ahead to get emergency use approval for children between ages 2 to 11 in September and to get full FDA authorization for those 16 and up.
In India, the country reported over 414,000 new cases of Covid-19 today, which is a new record. Over 3,900 people died today.
In the U.S., on May 6 (yesterday), there were 47,000 new cases and 818 new deaths.
The U.S., India, and Brazil are the top three countries with reported infections and deaths.
An Ohio state senator, Andrew Brenner (R), joined in a Zoom meeting with his other legislators last Monday while he was in his car. He first was parked, seated in the driver’s seat, with seat belt on then after a while, he was seen fiddling with his phone. He changed his Zoom background to what it looks like an “home” space. After that he began driving, but could not hide that even with his Zoom background because of the diversion of his eyes.
He was questioned about his behavior and he defended himself by explaining that the Zoom call is like a phone call. He said he was not focused on the video and he was actually focused on the road. He was only listening like how you would listen to a phone call and he said he was actively participating by listening.
Yesterday, in St. Cloud, Minnesota, a man walked into a Wells Fargo bank and held 5 hostages who were employees of Wells Fargo for more than 8 hours. No one was hurt and the man who held the hostages has been identified as Ray Reco McNeary (35).
Around 1:45pm the branch manager called 911 because there were concerns for safety when Ray was seemingly a bit aggressive related to a dispute. By the time the police arrived, customers of the bank already left, but five employees were held as hostages.
The police and FBI worked with the SWAT team to watch over the bank. The FBI negotiated with Ray in different ways including writing notes placed on the drive-thru window. There was a brief time that Ray took one of the hostages’ phones, entered that person’s account, and started Facebook live, showing two of the employees calmly seated and the FBI agents outside of the window.
After many hours, the first hostage was released at around 6:30pm. The other hostages came after one by one until around 10:20pm, which was when the last hostage was released. There were about 200 people outside of the bank watching what was happening.
It is not clear if Ray had a weapon or not. Articles said the police did not find any when they investigated the building and it is still being investigated now.
Ray has been arrested and his possible charges are bank robbery and kidnapping. St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said this was a peaceful resolution and it was the best possible outcome.
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A principal, Melissa Carter, from Central Elementary School in Florida is now being investigated because she paddled a 6-year-old child for discipline in front of the child’s mother.
On April 13th, the child was accused of damaging a school computer so they called the mother to come in to pay the fee. It seems that there was a language barrier between the principal and the mother so she did not understand what was going on. She decided to film what happened.
That video that the mother posted went viral. It showed the principal and another woman holding the 6-year-old girl, forcing her to bend over, and then the principal swung a wooden paddle to spank her several times and told her that she “better be sorry.”
Florida is one of 19 states that has a law that allows physical punishment in school, but it has to be approved first. However, for the specific school where that incident happened, it does not allow physical punishment. As of yesterday the update is that the school district has not provided a comment and this situation is under investigation.
In South Carolina, an army trainee named Jovan Collazo (23) was arrested for hijacking a school bus with 18 children. Officials said that Jovan was in his training gear and armed with a rifle, but no one on the bus was hurt. After investigation, it seems that the rifle was not loaded, but people on the bus would not have known that.
Jovan was in his 3rd week of army training. It seems that he jumped the fence at Fort Jackson in an attempt to go home. He hijacked the bus and told the bus driver to keep driving. Jovan told the bus driver that he did not want to hurt him but he needed to get to the next town. Apparently, the children on the bus kept asking Jovan questions that caused him to be frustrated. He let the bus driver and the children off the bus then he continued driving by himself for a few more miles before leaving the bus and he also left the unloaded rifle on the bus too. He went through the neighborhood asking for rides and clothes.
The county sheriff applauded the bus driver for keeping his cool. There was a surveillance video on the bus and it showed how the bus driver remained calm. Jovan is likely to have multiple charges including 19 counts of kidnapping.
In one small Italian town named Isernia, a 2,000 year old marble head of the first emperor of Rome was found.
An archeologist was working on repairing a medieval wall that collapsed due to rain back in 2013. When the archaeologist was digging the wall, he noticed something was coming out so he continued to dig and the marble head was discovered. This is the head of Augustus Octavian who became Rome’s first emperor in 27 AD. The archaeologists do not know why the statue head was there. It could have been attached to a body of a statue and there is a possibility that the statue was placed in a temple for a cult but they need to look around more to determine what could be the reason.
The archeologists mentioned that this is such an important discovery to show time and connection to buildings of the ancient world. Isernia is not a popular destination for tourists, but it is rich in history. The city was destroyed after World War II, but was rebuilt. Archeologists said that there are many historical things buried underneath the whole city that need to be discovered.
That is all for now. See you later. Make sure this weekend you get some sunlight and of course, stay with the light too.
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Pfizer vaccine:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/07/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Senator Zoom:
https://www.thedrive.com/news/40485/ohio-politicians-fake-zoom-background-cant-hide-that-hes-driving
Minnesota Bank Hostages:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-hostage-situation-minnesota-bank-n1266628
Florida principal under investigation:
Army recruit hijacks bus:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jovan-collazo-school-bus-hicjacking-south-carolina/
2,000 Year Old Marble Head:
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/rome-emperor-marble-head-scli-intl-scn/index.html