Not so local news

The U.S. surpassed 300,000 virus-related deaths recently, so for some, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine authorized by the Food and Drug Administration last week comes as a relief, a sign of hope. The first shots were given in the American mass vaccination campaign on Monday in Queens, NY. Nurse and Director of Patient Services in the intensive care unit at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Sandra Lindsay, was the first to be given the vaccine shot outside of a vaccine trial.

Over the course of 2020, the amount of SNAP benefits redeemed at farmers markets has steadily increased. According to anti-hunger advocates and the USDA, this 50% increase is due to key changes at the Agriculture Department as well as expanded funding of food benefits for low-income families and school age children during the pandemic. About 1500 farmers and markets have been able to nearly double their sales due to the access free equipment and support via MarketLing to accept SNAP.

William Barr is resigning as attorney general, and Harvard Law graduate Jeffrey Rosen will be taking over as acting attorney general and Richard Donoghue as Deputy Attorney General. Prior to joining the Justice Department, Rosen was the deputy secretary of transportation, and before that, general counsel and senior advisor for the White House Office of Management and Budget during George W. Bush’s administration.

More than a dozen Republican attorneys general and 126 House Republicans signed on to an amicus brief in support of a motion to sue Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin. The lawsuit, brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, attempted to block the ballots of millions of voters in those battleground states. The Electoral College affirmed Joe Biden as President-elect in a 306 to 232 vote on Monday.

Takahiro Shiraishi, 30, has been found guilty by the Tokyo District Court for the 2017 robbing, sexual assault and murder of eight women and one man, some of whom were minors. Shiraishi is famously known as the “Twitter Killer” as he used Twitter to lure suicidal women to his apartment to help them kill themselves. Once in their presence, however, Shiraishi would strangle them, dimember their bodies and store the body parts throughout his apartment.

Nine social media and tech companies were sent orders by the FTC on Monday to provide the commission with details on their data and collection and advertising practices. The inquiry is the latest move by federal regulators to crack the whip on big tech in an attempt to monitor their activities and get answers for perceived improper uses of consumer data and violations of federal anti-monopoly law. Amazon, TikTok owner ByteDance, Discord, Facebook, Reddit, Snap, Twitter and WhatsApp and YouTube have 45 days to respond to the order.

The NCAA announced Monday it’s plans to stage the entire Division I women’s basketball tournament in San Antonio who already hosts the Final Four. When it tips off in March, the Texas city will host 64 teams that will compete in the single-elimination tournament. Last month, it was announced that the Men’s Division I tournament, March Madness, would be held in Indianapolis.