November 19 top news briefs

The CDC is recommending Americans to stay home for the Thanksgiving holiday and to celebrate it at home with family or friends or others who live in the same home. The CDC said because cases of Covid-19 are rapidly increasing with over 1 million new cases in the past week alone, traveling may increase your chance of getting the disease and spreading it.

Zoom announced that they would remove its “40-minute limit” on Thanksgiving so people could have unlimited video meetings with their loved ones.

On Friday in Brevard County, Florida, a police officer shot and killed two Black teenagers who were in a car. A dashcam video was released today and it shows two officers in their separate patrol vehicles trying to pull over a car in a residential street. The car drives up a driveway, goes into reverse, and appears to try and drive towards or around an officer, but one officer fires several times through the windshield. The teenagers’ names were A.J. Crooms (16) and Sincere Pierce (18). The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office said the two officers were pursuing a suspected stolen car and opened fire because they felt their lives were threatened.

Attorney Ben Crump is representing the teenagers’ families and said on Twitter that the video clearly shows that they were terrified of the officers and wanted to drive around them. There were some protests last night against the shooting.

In Michigan, two Republican members of the Wayne County (Detroit area) board of canvassers said they want to change their previous decision to certify the 2020 election results in the county. ABC News reported that President Trump called the two board members on Tuesday night. The board members initially did not want to certify the election results, which had Joe Biden winning by a large margin of about 150,000 votes, but decided to certify it after getting a lot of feedback and criticism. But after Trump called them, they now want to rescind their vote to certify it, citing concerns of “serious process flaws” with the election. We’ll see what happens.

A small owl was discovered in the Rockefeller Center’s Christmas tree in New York City. The tree is 75 feet long and was cut down last week in an area 170 miles north of NYC and was transported on a trailer. A transport worker discovered it, apparently during the process of setting up the tree, and now it is safely with a wildlife center. It is named “Rockefeller” and is an adult northern saw-whet owl. It was without water or food for three days, but is being cared of now.

A restaurant in New York City called City Winery is now providing rapid Covid-19 tests to customers before they can sit down and eat indoors, but is charging them $50 for the test. This is only for Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The restaurant said they are the first in the U.S. to do this. The restaurant’s CEO said he hopes this will inspire other restaurants to do the same, and for city governments and insurance companies to cover the costs of rapid testing until we get a vaccine.

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

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/holidays/thanksgiving.html

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/17/tech/zoom-time-limit-thanksgiving-trnd-wellness/index.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-shooting-video-black-teens-car-deputy/

https://www.wesh.com/article/protests-brevard-county-deputy-shooting-cocoa-teens/34718165#zzz

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wayne-county-republican-canvassers-rescind-votes-certifying-election/story?id=74290114&cid=clicksource_4380645_2_heads_hero_live_hero_hed

https://abcnews.go.com/US/tiny-owl-found-inside-rockefeller-christmas-tree-days/story?id=74290525&cid=clicksource_4380645_18_film_strip_icymi_hed

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-restaurant-to-require-customers-to-take-50-covid-test-before-indoor-dining/2733745/