Thursday, November 4 top stories
It is Thursday, November 4. Here are today’s top stories.
The Biden administration announced they would order all businesses with at least 100 employees to either mandate Covid-19 vaccines for their workers or undergo weekly testing. The order will be enforced by the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), using emergency rules. This mandate will impact about 80 million workers.
Businesses with more than 100 employees will have to decide to either require full vaccinations for all workers or weekly testing within 30 days. They must implement the mandate within 60 days, by January 4, 2022. If businesses do not comply with the mandate, they can be fined up to $14,000 per employee.
President Biden said we’ve made incredible progress with the pandemic over the past nine months but that we have to keep on going.
But there is fierce opposition to Biden’s mandate. At least 24 states’ attorneys general are filing legal challenges. Several businesses and industries are also expected to file lawsuits.
ProPublica reported that at least 18 billionaires in the U.S. received stimulus payments from the CARES Act in 2020. The money was supposed to only go to those who earned up to $75,000 a year or $150,000 for married couples and if you remember, the money automatically went to those who qualified according to information on their IRS tax returns. ProPublica said the billionaires received the checks because their tax returns showed that they earned less than $75,000, or even less than zero, from them taking advantage of business write-offs or deductions. This news report has made several lawmakers call for tax reform so the ultra wealthy would be required to pay taxes like the everyday American. There was a previous effort for a “billionaire tax” that failed due to lack of support in the Senate.
A juror in the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial in Wisconsin was kicked out of the case over an inappropriate joke he made to a deputy on Tuesday night. The juror, only known as “Juror No. 7,” told a deputy that the reason why police officers shot Jacob Blake seven times was because they ran out of bullets. The shooting left Blake paralyzed and when videos of the shooting surfaced online, it sparked protests and riots in Kenosha. Rittenhouse went to the protests with a rifle with the goal of helping other armed individuals to protect businesses — and that’s when he shot and killed two protesters who confronted him. So it’s all connected. The deputy informed the judge about the joke, and the judge asked the juror to repeat the joke, but he refused to, and the judge kicked the juror out out of concerns of bias.
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The jury selection process in the Greg and Travis McMichael murder trial over the death of Ahmaud Arbery has concluded with one Black juror and 11 white jurors. ABC News said prosecutors raised objections that several Black jurors were cut because of their races and that the judge acknowledged that the attorneys for the McMichaels appeared to have used “intentional discrimination” to shape jury selection, but the judge said Georgia law limited his authority to intervene. There were 48 potential jurors that were narrowed down to 12 yesterday. The judge said the defense attorneys gave various reasons on why they cut the other potential Black jurors and said it was not about race. Arbery’s mother told reporters that she was devastated that there is only one Black juror but that she is still confident that the jurors will make the right decision after seeing all the evidence. The McMichaels and a third man, William Bryan, are accused of shooting Arbery on a street after they suspected him of stealing things in the area. ABC News said race is a central issue in the trial, so it is a big deal that the jury has only one Black juror.
Special Counsel John Durham, who is investigating how and why U.S. law enforcement during Obama’s presidency started probing potential links between President Trump’s campaign and the Russian government, has indicted a person named Igor Danchenko with five counts of lying to the FBI. Danchenko was one of the key sources of information for the Steele dossier, which is a 35-page unverified document about Trump’s alleged ties with Russia. That dossier is now considered worthless after the Special Counsel Mueller investigation found that there was no criminal election conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Durham said when the FBI interviewed Danchenko, he lied about having conversations with other sources. Danchenko was arrested today. It is the third indictment from the Durham investigation.
Jenna Ryan, who was one of those who broke into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, was sentenced to 60 days in jail. Ryan had tweeted in the past that she wouldn’t go to jail because she was blonde and white. The judge in the case said Ryan obviously knew what she was doing when she left her hotel in D.C. to go to the Capitol after watching news coverage of the riot. Ryan worked as a real estate agent in Texas and flew to D.C. to attend Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally. She then went to the Capitol and posted a photo of herself standing next to a broken window with a statement that said “if the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next.” She also streamed on Facebook saying, “Here we are, in the name of Jesus!” Ryan’s defense attorney said she was simply a social butterfly who didn’t stay long in the Capitol and was not a violent person. The judge said she is sentencing Ryan to jail because it will show that the courts take what happened on January 6 seriously.
That is all the top stories for today. Check out our other news videos. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-covid-vaccine-mandate-implement-january-4/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stimulus-check-18-billionaires-wealthy/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/juror-booted-kyle-rittenhouse-murder-trial-jacob-blake/story?id=80969678
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/jury-selection-nears-end-trial-ahmaud-arberys-death-80950196