Tuesday, January 4 top stories
It is Tuesday, January 4. Here are today’s top stories.
A winter storm in the Virginia-Maryland area caused hundreds of people to be stranded on I-95, with many stuck in their cars overnight.
On Monday several semi-trucks jackknifed and became stuck. Other cars also lost control and became stuck. It caused cars and trucks to back up.
Transportation officials said there was a 50-mile portion of I-95 that had to be blocked off because it was covered with ice.
Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va), who once ran for Vice President with Hillary Clinton, said he was stuck for 19 hours.
[Full screen image:
Tweet: @TimKaine: I started my normal 2 hour drive to DC at 1pm yesterday. 19 hours later, I’m still not near the Capitol. My office is in touch with @VaDOT to see how we can help other Virginians in this situation. Please stay safe everyone.]
The Virginia Department of Transportation said they expect to have the road cleared up by tonight in time for the Wednesday morning rush hour.
On Monday, the U.S. reported over 1 million new Covid-19 cases, which is a new record. The unusually high amount may be because some reports were delayed due to the holiday weekend, but the omicron variant is causing infection rates to soar in many places.
About 100,000 Americans are now in the hospital due to the coronavirus. That number is high but it is not as high as 130,000 hospitalizations from last winter. The main difference between then and now is the wide availability of vaccines, which helps to prevent severe illness or death.
Here are three news briefs of well-known people and their criminal cases.
The first: Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of blood-testing company Theranos, was found guilty of four fraud charges. Almost ten years ago, Holmes raised about $1 billion from investors with false claims that her blood-testing technology could do a range of tests that required only a few drops of blood. Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison at sentencing.
There will be a separate trial for Theranos’ former company president Ramesh Balwani.
The second news: former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will not be prosecuted for his alleged groping of a former aide in the governor’s mansion in 2020. The Albany County D.A. said they found the complainant in the case “credible” but said they didn’t have enough evidence to be confident that they could convince a jury during a trial that Cuomo committed a crime.
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The third news: British Prince Andrew is hoping that a U.S. federal judge in New York will dismiss a sex assault lawsuit from Virginia Giuffre, who said the prince used Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking network to sexually assault her when she was 17. There is a photograph of the three in 2001 at Ghislaine Maxwell’s London home. On Monday a 2009 settlement between Epstein and Giuffre was unsealed, which revealed that Epstein paid Giuffre $500,000 to settle any claims related with her being a sexual servant while underage. That settlement agreement said it applies to “other potential defendants.” This could mean others who are accused are immune from lawsuits. Now the judge will decide whether Epstein’s settlement agreement applies to Prince Andrew, among other factors and things to consider. The prince has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct with Giuffre.
That’s the three news briefs.
That’s all the news for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://apnews.com/article/snow-storm-weather-195-virginia-660346cff578c655186ac517fb45f17f
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/01/04/winter-storm-power-outages-interstate-95-virginia/9087146002/
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/04/us-counts-over-1-million-new-daily-covid-cases-in-global-record-.html
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/04/1070218466/1-million-us-covid-cases-omicron-surge
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/nyregion/andrew-cuomo-albany-criminal-charges-dropped.html