Welcome back to another week of Robertson’s Reportings! Graduation will officially take place for Page High School seniors on Tuesday, June 8. It will begin at 8:30AM at the Greensboro Coliseum. Before the ceremony, each student will be given five tickets to distribute to their friends and family. These tickets will be required for entry to the graduation.
A 20-year-old African American man, Daunte Wright, was pulled over by a police officer, Kimberly Potter, on Sunday in Minnesota. Wright was pulled over for an expired vehicle registration, but he did not follow Potter’s orders. She pulled out her gun, apparently confusing it with her Taser, and fired, killing Wright. Potter turned in her badge and was charged with second-degree manslaughter with a maximum penalty of ten years behind bars, but the story does not end here. In response to the shooting, riots have broken out for days in Minnesota, especially with George Floyd’s killer Derek Chauvin being on trial in the same city at the same time. People have destroyed their own city, and citizens and politicians alike are calling for the police to be abolished. Calling policing in America racist, Representative Rashida Tlaib Tweeted, “I am done with those who condone government funded murder. No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be reformed.” However, the police and a majority of Americans will not let abolishing the police happen, as many are concerned with America’s safety without officers.
The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine has been temporarily paused as a result of at least six incidents of blood clotting post-vaccination. All of the people affected were women under the age of 50. One has been released from the hospital, four are under watch in hospitals, one is in critical condition, and another woman died. The blood clots occur in unusual places, such as veins that drain blood from the brain, and in people with low levels of clot-forming platelets. While there were only six cases out of the seven million doses administered, officials in Europe declared that their AstraZeneca vaccine also can cause clotting, but like the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this is rare. The vaccine is on hold for now, but Dr. Anthony Fauci declared that the situation should be cleared up within a few weeks.
Republicans are expressing concern over the “court packing” bill that Democrats introduced. This bill would expand the number of seats, or justices, in the court from nine to thirteen in order to transform the court into out of the favor of Republicans. This move has been attacked as a Democratic “power grab.” The idea of packing the courts was initially created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt who wanted to add new justices to the court that he knew would support him. At the time, this caused controversy, and history seems to be repeating itself once again, as many Democrats today are fighting for expanding the court while moderate Democrats and Republicans are expressing their opposition.
See you next time on Robertson’s Reportings, coverage you can count on!
Photo Credits: Reason.com