Thursday, November 11 top stories
It is Thursday, November 11. Here are today’s top stories.
The death toll from crowd surges during the Astroworld Festival last Friday night in Houston has increased to nine when a 22-year-old woman named Bharti Shahani died last night. She was a student at Texas A&M.
Shahani’s cousin, who also attended the concert, said she had to fight for her life during the concert because people were pushing against each other and when people started to fall, it caused even more people to trip and fall, and she had to fight to come up to the top to breathe.
There were some rumors that a security guard was injected with some kind of drug, but the Houston Police Chief said there is no evidence of this happening.
A 9-year-old boy named Ezra is in a coma due to injuries he sustained in the crowd surges. He was with his father, who passed out from the crowd surges, but later awakened.
There are about 60 lawsuits already filed against Travis Scott and those who organized the concert. There are multiple investigations underway on what went wrong and how something like this could have happened.
A Newsmax reporter named Emerald Robinson was permanently banned from Twitter after she tweeted that the Covid-19 “vaccines had a bioluminescent marker called LUCIFERASE so that you can be tracked.”
She directed her warning to Christians and told them to read the last book of the New Testament to see how this ends.
Luciferase is a real word, although it might seem like it’s from one of the names that refer to the devil or satan, Lucifer. Lucifer is actually a Latin word that means, “light-bearing.”
According to scientists, luciferase is a “group of enzymes that emit light.” Fireflies have luciferases.
So, this Newsmax reporter, who was a White House correspondent, was tweeting that the vaccines were a type of a “Mark of the Beast” because of the luciferase.
An article in “Health Feedback” explained that luciferase is a common tool in scientific research to monitor biological processes and was used in the development and evaluation of Covid-19 vaccines, but it is not an ingredient in the Covid-19 vaccines.
CNN Business reported that Newsmax has pulled Robinson from its airwaves as the company reviews her social media posts. This is an example of one of many forms of misinformation out there about the Covid-19 vaccines.
Elon Musk sold about $5 billion worth of Tesla stock in the past two days. Musk tweeted a poll on Saturday to ask whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock.
Recently there was a failed proposal in Congress for a “billionaire tax” to tax the super-wealthy on their stock gains even if they do not sell it. Our system currently does not tax billionaires when they become wealthier from the increased value of the stocks they own as long as they hold the stocks. They are only taxed if they sell the stock. Musk does not have to pay income taxes because he doesn’t have an income — he can take out loans against the value of his stocks.
Musk was asking the question on whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock and promised he would abide by the results of the poll. There were 3.5 million people who voted on his poll and almost 60% said, “yes.”
I read several news analysts who said about $1 billion of the sales were already planned in advance of his poll on Saturday, but that the other $4 billion seemed to be based on the Twitter poll. The numbers haven’t met Musk’s 10% threshold so he will have to keep on selling more stocks to keep his promise.
Musk would have to pay taxes of about 50% on the stocks that he sells, so he would in theory be a contributing taxpayer. Is Musk trying to start a new trend in which billionaires voluntarily sell their stocks so they can pay taxes on their wealth?
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A federal judge in Texas ruled that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R)’s ban on school districts from issuing mask mandates is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This means the judge said it is a violation of the ADA if a school is barred from requiring mask-wearing.
The ADA violation is based on concerns that children with underlying health issues are more likely to experience adverse health impacts if they are exposed to Covid-19. An advocacy group, Disability Rights Texas, filed the lawsuit on concerns of ADA violations. The group said children with Down syndrome, organ transplants, lung conditions, heart conditions, and weakened immune systems are at risk of being hospitalized if they contract Covid-19. The federal judge said if there are no mask mandates, vulnerable children would not have equal benefits of an in-person education.
The ruling means local districts in Texas can decide whether to issue mask mandates or not.
The Texas attorney general responded to the ruling by saying he strongly disagrees and would consider all legal avenues to challenge this decision.
Malala Yousafzai, who is the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize based on her activism for female education in Pakistan, announced that she got married to a man named Asser Malik. Many people celebrated her announcement on social media.
When Malala was 15 years old, she was shot in the face by a Taliban member in Pakistan who was acting on orders to kill her because of her rising profile in demanding equal rights for female education. Malala survived the shooting and she received even more support from world leaders and celebrities, and would later receive the Nobel prize at 17 years of age. Malala is still doing activism work and has spoken out in recent weeks about concerns that girls are not getting education in Afghanistan after the Taliban took power.
In Nicaragua, there is controversy over its president Daniel Ortega winning an election to give him a fourth straight term. U.S. President Joe Biden said he rejects the election results and called the elections a “pantomime” and has signed a bill that imposes sanctions on the Ortega administration.
Al Jazeera reported that the elections took place on Sunday after “a month-long government crackdown during which dozens of opposition leaders, including seven presidential hopefuls, were arrested and others forced into exile.”
Ortega has denied any wrongdoing and said the U.S. critics were “Yankee imperialists” who were trying to undermine Nicaragua’s electoral process.
Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia are supporting Ortega, but the U.S., UK, Spain, and Costa Rica have said the election is illegitimate.
That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/11/us/travis-scott-concert-houston-thursday/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/10/media/newsmax-twitter-emerald-robinson-banned/index.html
https://www.axios.com/elon-musk-sells-tesla-stock-76f45395-7eae-4ed4-b2dd-c45ae015f1d3.html
https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/10/22775485/elon-musk-twitter-poll-tesla-stock-option-sold-taxes
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/malala-yousafzai-married-husband-asser-malik/