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Here are the headlines you Need2Know for Friday, December 10, 2021:
JUSSIE GUILTY
Jussie Smollett was found guilty of lying to police about being the victim of a hate crime nearly three years ago, in a case that quickly tapped into the country’s political polarization. The jury convicted the former Empire actor on five of six counts of felony disorderly conduct, and he could face up to three years in prison on each count. Smollett’s defense team said they will appeal the verdict, calling him an “innocent man.” NBC NEWS
BOOSTER ELIGIBILITY
Booster shots of the Pfizer vaccine are now available to 16- and 17-year olds, so long as they are six months past their second dose. The CDC granted the emergency authorization and strongly encouraged those teens to get boosted as soon as they become eligible, given the extra protection the boosters seem to provide against the Omicron variant. REUTERS
MIGRANT TRUCK CRASH
At least 53 people died and dozens more were injured when a tractor-trailer carrying over 100 migrants crashed in southern Mexico. The truck rolled over and crashed into a pedestrian bridge near Mexico’s border with Guatemala. Most of the victims appear to be from Central America and include some young children. AP
NZ TOBACCO BAN
New Zealand is implementing a novel approach to ending smoking entirely. Under a new plan, the minimum age to purchase cigarettes will be raised by one year every year. That means that children who are 14 when the law goes into effect will effectively be banned from ever legally buying tobacco. The government wants to reduce the national smoking rate to 5% by 2025, with a goal of eliminating it altogether. Critics of the plan say it will just push the sale of cigarettes onto the black market. BBC
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
You wouldn’t know it from his poll numbers, but President Biden is overseeing the fastest economic recovery in American history. Weekly jobless claims fell to 184,000 last week – the lowest level in more than half a century, as the labor force participation rate is now back to pre-Covid levels. The unemployment rate is down from 6.7% this time last year to 4.2% today – approaching the level economists call “full employment,” meaning virtually everyone who is able and willing to work is working. Still, the cost of goods remains near a 40-year high, as we will see when the monthly inflation data is released this morning. THE HILL
STARBUCKS UNION
Starbucks workers at a store in Buffalo, N.Y. have voted to unionize, creating the first U.S. labor union in the coffee chain’s 50-year history. In the first of three separate store elections in the Buffalo area, one location voted in favor of the union, one voted against, and the third vote hasn’t been ratified. The election is a big win for the resurgent organized labor movement in America, and a blow to Starbucks, which had fought the unionization attempts. BUFFALO NEWS
FOR THE WIN!
Rutgers pulled off the greatest buzzer beater of the college basketball season in its game against Purdue last night. Ron Harper Jr. drained a three from just inside half court as time ran out to give the Scarlet Knights the win over the Boilermakers. Purdue was playing in its first-ever game as the No. 1 team in the country: WATCH
TRAVIS SCOTT BREAKS SILENCE
Travis Scott is speaking out at length about the tragedy at his Astroworld music festival for the first time. The rapper sat down with radio host Charlamagne Tha God for a 50-minute interview, claiming that he had no idea that a mass casualty event was unfolding in the crowd in front of him until after he ended the Nov. 5 show. Scott suggested that the media was unfairly blaming him for the incident, in which 10 fans were killed in a stampede, and that he continued to perform after emergency personnel were on scene only because he wasn’t told in his earpiece how serious the situation had become. POWER 105.1
SPOTTED...
…Bob Iger, delivering the morning weather report on L.A.’s KABC, ahead of his retirement from Disney at the end of the year: WATCH
…an 850-lb. pot brownie containing 20,000 mg of THC, baked in Massachusetts and thought to be the biggest ever: SEE IT
LEFTOVERS: IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED...
The giant container ship that got itself wedged into the Suez Canal for six days in March – a canary in the coal mine for the supply chain breakdown, in retrospect – is about to give it another go. The Ever Given is currently steaming toward the canal once again, fully loaded up with cargo. Ship-tracking data estimates that she’ll reach the Suez sometime on Sunday. BLOOMBERG
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