Thursday, September 9 top stories
It is Thursday, September 9. Here are today’s top stories.
On Wednesday in Richmond, Virginia, a 21-foot statue of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general during the Civil War, was removed in front of a cheering group. Check out this video.
[Video clip showing the statue being hoisted off its base by a crane. The captions say crowds are cheering and saying, “Nah, nah, nah” or “Hey, hey, hey, goodbye!”]
The New York Times said the statue “was the first of six monuments that became symbols of white power along the main boulevard in Richmond, the Virginia state capital and the former capital of the Confederacy.”
During the resurgent Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, one of the statues were torn down.
The mayor of Richmond then ordered the removal of three other statues honoring Confederate leaders the same summer.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the Lee monument to be removed, but there were legal issues that delayed the process for about a year until yesterday.
The statue stood for 131 years, since 1890. When it was removed, the Virginia governor said in a statement that the statue symbolized more than 400 years of history that we should not be proud of — referring to slavery.
Former President Donald Trump issued a statement criticizing the removal, saying a beautiful piece of art was ruined and that Lee was the greatest military strategist of them all. Trump said that “our culture is being destroyed… by the Radical Left.”
AP News reported that about 200 foreigners, including Americans, left Afghanistan on a Qatar Airways plane out of Kabul today. This is the first evacuation since U.S. forces left the airport last week. The new Taliban administration allowed the plane to leave.
AP News showed images of the Kabul airport with white Taliban flags flying over it. One of the buildings at the airport had a large sign on the front of it that said, “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan seeks peaceful and positive relations with the world.”
It is not known the exact number of Americans who are still in Afghanistan. Before the flight today, the White House said there were about 100 Americans who were still there. There are also many Afghans who used to work for the U.S. government who want to evacuate. It is unknown what the future will look like for them.
President Joe Biden will sign an executive order to mandate most federal employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. The order will not allow employees to have the option of declining the vaccine and undergo regular testing. Biden’s vaccine mandate will also apply to employees of companies that have business contracts with the federal government. Biden will also direct the Labor Department to establish a new emergency rule that would require businesses with more than 100 employees to mandate vaccines for all workers or be tested once a week with strict penalties if they do not comply.
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The Department of Energy said it has a goal of the U.S. being able produce almost half of its electricity from solar energy by 2050. The price of solar panels is a lot cheaper now, which makes the idea more realistic. In 2020, solar energy only provided 4% of the country’s electricity, but studies show that if there is a rapid expansion of solar energy infrastructure, solar could support the electricity needs of all American homes by 2035 and almost half of the entire country’s electricity needs by 2050.
The New York Times said this kind of expansion is in line with what climate scientists say is needed to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) announced that she was diagnosed with Stage 1A breast cancer earlier this year and that it has gone away after treatment at the Mayo Clinic. Klobuchar admitted that the experience was scary, but she said her doctors explained that she has a very low risk of developing cancer again. She said she wanted to take the time to urge Americans to not delay routine physician examinations.
Facebook and Ray-Ban announced they are offering the “Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses,” which are sunglasses that have two 5MP cameras that can take pictures and videos. The glasses also have speakers for music and voice phone calls. The images and videos taken by the glasses would be uploaded to Facebook’s new “View” mobile phone app. There are buttons on the glasses that will allow you to take pictures and videos. When a video is recording, there will be a white LED glow on the corner of the glasses. The glasses cost $299 and up. Is it something you want? Maybe I could use it for interviews.
The National Football League will kick off its 2021 season with tonight’s season opener between the defending Super Bowl champions Tampa Bay Buccaneers and its 44-year-old quarterback Tom Brady against the Dallas Cowboys. The game will be in Tampa Bay.
That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/us/robert-e-lee-statue-virginia.html
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-issues-statement-against-removing-robert-e-lee-statue
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/09/klobuchar-breast-cancer-treatment-510822
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/09/facebook-debuts-its-ray-ban-stories-smart-sunglasses/