Friday, January 20 top stories
It is Friday, January 20. Here are today’s top stories.
McDonald’s customer returns $5,000 in cash
In Indiana, a man named Josiah Vargas posted on his TikTok account four days ago that when he picked up a McDonald’s to-go order, he found several plastic bags with wads of cash. He filmed himself sitting in his car just outside a McDonald’s.
He said “Now I have to return this because I’m a good person, I guess. Do you know how bad I want this money?”
He filmed himself going inside the restaurant and showing the workers what he found. A news report said workers were very emotional and grateful.
Vargas said the employees rewarded him with $200 and free McDonald’s for a month.
People on TikTok commented that the guy should have free McDonald’s for at least a year. Another person said, “you probably just saved all their jobs.”
3 family members sentenced to life in shooting over mask
Three family members, a married couple and their son, were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the shooting death of a security guard who worked in a Family Dollar store on May 2020 in Flint, Michigan.
CBS News explained that one of the sentenced family members, Sharmel Teague, went into a Family Dollar store with her daughter. It was May 2020, so it was at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
The store’s security guard, Calvin Munerlyn, saw that Sharmel’s daughter was not wearing a mask and told her that she had to wear one. There was an argument and the security guard instructed the cashier not to serve them and told them to leave.
Sharmel and her daughter left, but about 20 minutes later, Sharmel’s husband and son showed up at the store and confronted the security guard, telling him that he disrespected Sharmel. The son shot at the guard’s head and the guard later died at a hospital.
The three family members were charged with murder and felony firearms charges. A jury sentenced each to life in prison.
CBS News said the security guard’s wife said, “They didn’t have to take my baby. All you people just have to do is listen to the law, listen to the governor… All my baby was doing was his job working…”
Supreme Court says it doesn’t know who leaked draft
The Supreme Court said after months of investigation and interviews on who leaked the draft opinion of a decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year, they don’t know who did it. The leak revealed that the court intended to throw out a constitutional right for Americans to have an abortion and allow states to ban abortions. It was a political earthquake at the time and the Supreme Court vowed to investigate and find out who leaked the draft.
The Supreme Court Marshal Gail Curley said yesterday that “it is not possible to determine the identity of any individual who may have disclosed the document or how the draft opinion ended up with Politico.” She said over 80 people besides the nine justices had access to the draft opinion. Curley said the pandemic and the ability to work from home created an environment where it was easy to remove sensitive information from the Court’s IT networks.
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Woman sprays flight attendants with fire extinguisher
On Wednesday night at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, a woman was arrested after she sprayed a fire extinguisher at several flight attendants.
Her name is Jennifer Holder. A video shows Holder walking and holding a red fire extinguisher in a Delta concourse. She then walks into a jetway and at least four flight attendants chase after her. The woman emerges back into the concourse and sprays the extinguisher, sending a huge blast of dense white fog.
Three flight attendants were treated for respiratory discomfort.
ABC News said police officers detained Holder and that she resisted arrest by spitting and kicking at officers. She was jailed and has several charges pending against her.
Google / Alphabet to lay off 12,000 workers
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, will be laying off about 12,000 jobs. This represents about 6% of the company’s workforce.
Alphabet’s CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is facing a different economic reality compared with the past two years. Pichai said he takes full responsibility for the layoffs.
Google / Alphabet is now the latest big tech company to lay off thousands of staff, with other recent tech companies being Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Twitter.
Updates on 6-year-old school shooter
Here are a few updates on the 6-year-old boy who shot his first-grade teacher in Newport News, Virginia on January 6 with a handgun.
The teacher, Abigail Zwerner, was released from a hospital. The bullet went through her hand and into her chest.
The boy’s family said their heart goes out to the teacher and that they are praying for her healing.
The family said the child has an “acute disability” and that normally a family member would accompany him to school, but there was no family member with the boy on the day of the shooting.
The New York Times reported that on the day of the shooting, staff at the school received a tip and searched the boy’s backpack but found no gun. The boy shot at the teacher one time in the afternoon. The teacher managed to get all the other children out of the classroom before moving to the administration office.
The handgun was legally owned by the boy’s mother. Police said the shooting was intentional. There is an ongoing investigation and no one has been charged so far.
The family said the boy has been under hospital care and receiving the treatment he needs.
That is all the top stories for this week. Have a good weekend and stay with the light.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/us/virginia-school-shooting/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/us/newport-news-teacher-shooting.html
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/us/family-dollar-mask-shooting-life-sentence-michigan/index.html
https://www.reuters.com/business/google-parent-lay-off-12000-workers-memo-2023-01-20/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/19/supreme-court-leak-roberts/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/woman-assaults-multiple-flight-attendants-cops-fire-extinguisher/story