February 3, 2022 Top Stories

It is Thursday, February 3. Here are today’s top stories.

U.S. military kills ISIS leader

President Biden announced today that the U.S. military killed a top ISIS leader in a raid in northwestern Syria. The ISIS leader’s name was Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.

Biden said he blew himself up along with others in a building as U.S. troops closed in on his compound. A total of 13 people died, including four to six children.

Biden said he wanted to send a strong message to terrorists around the world that “we’ll come after you and find you.”

Facebook loses daily users for first time

Facebook said it lost daily users for the first time in 18 years in the last quarter 2021. CEO Mark Zuckerberg put part of the blame on the popularity of TikTok.

The news caused Facebook and its parent company, Meta, to lose about 22% of its stock value. That means Zuckerberg lost about $29 billion in one day.

Facebook currently has about 1.9 billion users logging in daily, so it’s still a gigantic platform.

Truckers protest in Ottawa

Protesters driving 18-wheeler trucks are still blocking many areas in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. The protesters are speaking out against new vaccine mandates for truck drivers who enter the Canadian border and in general are speaking out against government mandates related to the coronavirus.

News reports say there are still hundreds of vehicles blocking main roads in the downtown area. The Ottawa Police Chief said police may not be able to solve the crisis, saying they are considering asking the military to come in.

But the Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau said it’s “not in the cards right now” to send in the army.

Many of the truckers have assembled under a group called the “Freedom Convoy.” A GoFundMe for the group raised over $10 million, but the fundraiser is currently suspended because it is “under review” by GoFundMe to make sure it is compliant with laws and regulations.

[Sponsored Video from Sorenson: www.sorenson.com]

New Covid-19 cases down 50%, but deaths rising

New cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. are down about 50% compared with two weeks ago. We’re seeing an average daily number of 385,000 new cases. That’s still a high number, but we saw some days with about 800,000 new cases a few weeks ago.

The average number of new deaths from Covid-19 is rising. We currently have an average of 2,650 deaths a day. The death numbers usually lag behind new cases, so we can expect that with declining new cases, the death toll will decline in a couple of weeks.

Those who are unvaccinated are dying at 20 times the rate as those who are fully vaccinated.

Truck crash involving monkeys

In the middle of Pennsylvania on January 21, a pick-up truck hauling a trailer with 100 macaques from Mauritius (an island in the Indian Ocean) got into an accident with a dump truck.

A female motorist saw the crash and stopped to help. She noticed crates strewn around and was told by someone else that cats might be inside. She peered close to one and realized it was a monkey. She said the monkey hissed and she felt a mist.

The woman, Michele Fallon, said she later had a filmy buildup and crust in her eye and some cold-like symptoms. She received the rabies vaccine, antiviral medication, and antibiotic eye drops. She also took several blood tests to check for monkey-related diseases. She told a news site several days later that she was feeling fine.

Three monkeys escaped from the crash site, but they were all captured. The CDC said the monkeys were euthanized but did not explain why. The monkeys were on their way to a quarantine facility after they arrived from a New York City airport when the crash happened.

The CDC said in an internal message that the remaining monkeys would be quarantined and monitored for infectious diseases for at least 31 days. The CDC said humans and monkeys can get many of the same types of diseases.

There were some concerns that the monkeys carried Ebola or other serious diseases. An infectious diseases expert told The New York Times that it is rare for this type of monkey to carry Ebola.

Kenya Airways was the airline that transported the monkeys. The company recently said it would no longer transport lab monkeys to the U.S. There is now a new controversy over the use of monkeys for lab experiments. There are about 25,000 to 30,000 monkeys imported into the U.S. each year.

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That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.

https://www.axios.com/us-special-forces-syria-raid-3d3cd11f-f0b6-4b4c-8b95-36b06ed4b45d.html

https://nypost.com/2022/02/03/biden-announces-death-of-isis-leader-abu-ibrahim-al-hashimi-al-qurayshi/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10471227/Facebook-loses-users-time-Zuckerberg-blames-TikTok-boom.html

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/trucker-convoy-gofundme-suspended-after-reaching-10-1-million-1.5765794

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/03/ottawa-freedom-convoy-military-intervention/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/us/cdc-monkeys-pennsylvania-truck-crash.html

https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/montour-county/four-monkeys-on-the-loose-in-danville-montour-county-pa-game-commission-state-police/523-b35915cc-ae20-444a-b0a7-dfe2c1986401

https://www.dailyitem.com/news/update-danville-woman-not-sick-from-monkey-exposure/article_92ccc8de-7e50-11ec-90ac-d7404d6e3782.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/02/02/airline-stop-monkey-shipment/

TOP STORIESAlex Abenchuchan