Welcome back to Robertson’s Reportings! After a spike from the holidays, the number of COVID-19 cases per day has begun to drop. On January 11, cases increased to almost 10,000 in one day. However, two weeks later that number dropped to almost half. North Carolina reported the lowest daily increase in cases earlier in the week, and luckily, this trend is the same in the United States as a whole, as daily cases reached their lowest point since early December.

Freedom of speech has been limited after the storming of the Capitol earlier this month. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s Twitter has permanently been suspended because he claimed that there was voter fraud in the election. Kohl’s, Wayfair, Bed Bath & Beyond, and H-E-B all dropped the MyPillow brand as a result of his stance. In addition, Parler, a social talking app, was taken off of Google and Apple’s app stores after discussions of the protests took place, and Amazon stopped supporting Parler as well. Now, Parler is attempting to hold on before it’s completely gone from the internet.

On Thursday, President Biden signed new executive orders that reversed former President Trump’s actions related to Obamacare and abortion. Trump attempted to get rid of Obamacare and lessen support for abortion, but the new president is taking the opposite steps. President Biden has already signed more than three dozen executive orders in his first week in office.

New research shows the shark population has decreased by over 70% from 1970 to 2018. Out of 31 species, 24 species of sharks are threatened with extinction. Three species are “critically endangered,” and according to a Canadian biologist at Simon Fraser University, the last 50 years have been “devastating” for sharks. Sometimes sharks are caught intentionally, but most of the time they are accidentally caught by people fishing for other species.

See you next time on Robertson’s Reportings, coverage you can count on!