I've got my eye on these post-Black Friday 2021 deals at Best Buy — you should, too

Normally $500, the Pro 5 Plus is on sale at Best Buy for just $250 — not the lowest price on record, but close, and a discount that comes around very infrequently. It's available in your choice of black, blue, red and silver. Widely regarded as one of the best active noise-canceling headphones you can buy, the WH-1000XM4 has a list price of $350.

Shanghai canceled over 500 flights, closed schools, and suspended hospital services because of 3 COVID-19 infections

Shanghai, China, canceled over 500 flights and locked down several residential areas over three COVID-19 cases. The sweeping response is part of China's strict COVID zero tolerance policy. Chinese financial hub Shanghai canceled hundreds of flights, closed schools, and suspended tourism programs on Friday after three locally-transmitted COVID-19 cases emerged in the city.

Arizona university students demand administration to 'withdraw' Kyle Rittenhouse: 'killer off our campus'

Several left-leaning student organizations at Arizona State University are demanding that their administration "withdraw" Kyle Rittenhouse from the university. The Arizona State University Students for Socialism, Students for Justice in Palestine, Multicultural Solidarity Coalition, and MECHA de ASU are all calling on the Arizona State University administration to take action against Rittenhouse by withdrawing him from the university and releasing a statement against him. The four groups are calling him "Murderer Kyle Rittenhouse."

One of the fastest growing motorcycle brands has 3 wheels, not 2

Throughout the pandemic, motorcycle brands such as Harley-Davidson (HOG) saw a surprising boost in sales as Americans gravitated toward outdoor leisure activities en masse. Among the motorcycle manufacturers experiencing a heyday in growth in North American markets, Can-Am On-Road makes motorcycles that ride on three wheels instead of two. “Can-Am On-Road [has performed] two times better than the motorcycle industry average,” Can-Am On-Road Director of Global Marketing Martin Ethier told Yahoo Finance.

White House Doctor Who Raved About Trump's Health Now Says Omicron Is Election Ruse

The former White House doctor who raved about Donald Trump's “excellent” health to a skeptical public is now claiming that the disturbing new COVID-19 variant omicron is nothing but a midterm election ploy by the Democrats. Dr. Ronny Jackson, now a Republican MAGA congressman from Texas, scoffed at the variant the World Health Organization has deemed “highly transmissible” and “concerning.” “Here comes the ... Midterm Election Variant!” Jackson quipped in a tweet Saturday, calling it nothing more than a trick to “push unsolicited nationwide mail-in ballots.”

Taiwan sends jets after 27 Chinese planes enter buffer zone

Taiwan said 27 Chinese aircraft entered its air defense buffer zone on Sunday, the latest in a long series of incursions as part of Beijing's pressure on the self-ruled island. The Defense Ministry said Taiwan scrambled combat aircraft to “warn” the Chinese planes to leave. Sunday's incursion included 18 fighter jets and five H-6 bombers, as well as a Y-20 aerial refueling aircraft, according to Taiwan's Defense Ministry.

• 
  Taiwan scrambles to see off Chinese air force as Xi meets top brass

  Reuters
• 
  Taiwan says China military trying to wear it out, but it can respond

  Reuters

How many people in your area are vaccinated against COVID? Here’s a ZIP by ZIP report

How does your southwestern Illinois community compare to others?

I watched 60 hours of My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell's 96-hour election fraud live stream so you don't have to. Here are 5 things you missed.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell held a marathon "Thanks-a-Thon" live stream for 96 hours from Thursday to Sunday, pushing a slew of voter fraud claims and conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. Lindell, who has long parroted Trump's voter-fraud claims and pushed a false theory that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, is facing a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems over his allegations involving the company. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, but this did not stop Lindell from continuing to make those claims during the marathon live stream, which kicked off at 1 a.m.

For cop who shot Daunte Wright, will 'wrong gun' plea work?

When a suburban Minneapolis police officer shot and killed Daunte Wright in April, her reaction on body-camera video seemed to instantly establish the key facts of the case: “I grabbed the wrong (expletive) gun,” Kim Potter said. The shooting of Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, by the white officer sparked intense protests in Brooklyn Center just as nearby Minneapolis was already on edge as that city's fired officer Derek Chauvin was on trial in George Floyd's death. The concrete barriers, chain-link fencing and National Guard soldiers that surrounded the courthouse for that trial are gone, but enhanced security will be in place for Potter's trial — with fewer entry points and the closure of a parking garage.

Missing 2-year-old found dead after dad pulled from submerged truck, Indiana cops say

Authorities in Indiana have found the body of a 2-year-old girl who was missing when her father was found inside his pickup truck partially submerged in a river. Dive teams found Emma Sweet's body roughly three miles down river from where her father's truck was found submerged two days before, the Bartholomew County Sheriff's Office said in a Nov. 28 social media post. “I have never in my 30 years in law enforcement seen such cooperation and teamwork in an investigation,” Sheriff Matt Myers said.

China Cash Flowed Through Congo Bank to Former President’s Cronies

“The account has finally been emptied,” Yvon Douhore, head of an in-house audit team in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, wrote in an email that day, July 5, 2018, after noticing the withdrawal. The previous month, Groupe BGFIBank's compliance department in Congo had frozen accounts held by the businessman's firm, Congo Construction Co., or CCC, because the client file was missing key documents, according to bank records. A history of transactions reviewed by Bloomberg News as part of the biggest leak of financial information from Africa showed an even bigger issue: its political connections.

China study warns of 'colossal' COVID outbreak if it opens up like U.S., France

China could face more than 630,000 COVID-19 infections a day if it dropped its zero-tolerance policies by lifting travel curbs, according to a study by Peking University mathematicians. In the report published in China CDC Weekly by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the mathematicians said China could not afford to lift travel restrictions without more efficient vaccinations or specific treatments. Using data for August from the United States, Britain, Spain, France and Israel, the mathematicians assessed the potential results if China adopted the same pandemic control tactics as those countries.

Fauci says 'we're going to have to start living with COVID'

Chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci said in an interview that aired Sunday that he believes people will have to begin "living with COVID," expressing doubt that the virus will be eradicated. Speaking to host Margaret Brennan on CBS's "Face the Nation," Fauci touched on previous remarks in which he said he would like to see daily infections fall below 10,000 in order for the U.S. to be able to "live with COVID." Brennan noted that current COVID-19 infection rates are now approaching 80,000 per day.

• 
  Fauci laughs at Sen. Cruz's claim he be prosecuted

  Reuters Videos
• 
  U.S. readies fight against Omicron but too soon for lockdowns -Fauci

  Reuters

Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen said the investigators looking into the Trump Organization could 'indict Donald Trump tomorrow' and be successful

Donald Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen said prosecutors could successfully indict the former president. New York prosecutors investigating the Trump Organization and its finances could indict "Donald Trump tomorrow if they really wanted and be successful," said Michael Cohen, the former president's ex-personal attorney. In a Sunday appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, Cohen discussed the ongoing criminal investigation against Trump, led by the Manhattan district attorney and New York attorney general. It's centered around a range of potential financial crimes by Trump's organization — most notably the question of whether he fraudulently inflated the value of his assets to gain an edge in financing deals.

• 
  Michael Cohen: prosecutors could ‘indict Trump tomorrow’ if they wanted

  The Guardian
• 
  Cohen says Weisselberg not 'key' to Trump case

  The Hill

Delta flight from South Africa to Atlanta diverted to Boston for "technical specifications"

Delta Air Lines said a flight from South Africa to the United States was temporarily diverted from Atlanta to Boston on Sunday for technical reasons. Flight 201, an Airbus A350, from Johannesburg was initially set to arrive at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Sunday but was instead routed to Boston's Logan International Airport, Delta said. The diversion "has to do with technical specifications of our A350 aircraft and the payload of this particular flight," the company said in an email.

Divers discovered a horrifying 26-foot sea worm that only comes out at night

Divers off the coast of New Zealand came face to face with a giant sea worm that was almost 30-foot long. The creature is called a pyrosome, and while it might look intimidating, it's actually perfectly safe to approach. Pyrosomes are part of a family of sea creatures known as tunicates or “sea squirts”.

Want To Become a Millionaire? Put $200,000 Into These 2 Stocks and Hold Until 2030

MercadoLibre: The Latin American "everything" company MercadoLibre grew to become $65 billion in size because of its successful e-commerce operations, but the company has massively expanded its optionality and its revenue streams. Now the company makes money in its dominance in logistics and payment markets across 16 countries in Latin America. The company is seeing broad adoption from its newer services, and some of its new services are even growing faster than its primary segment -- its e-commerce business.

Taiwan scrambles to see off Chinese air force as Xi meets top brass

TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan's air force scrambled again on Sunday to warn away 27 Chinese aircraft that entered its air defence zone, Taiwan's defence ministry said, the latest increase in tensions across the Taiwan Strait as China's president met his top generals. Chinese-claimed Taiwan has complained for a year or more of repeated missions by China's air force near the democratically governed island, often in the southwestern part of its air defence identification zone, or ADIZ, close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands.

• 
  Taiwan says China military trying to wear it out, but it can respond

  Reuters
• 
  Taiwan sends jets after 27 Chinese planes enter buffer zone

  Associated Press

Teen worker at Brooklyn bodega shot in head by shoplifter, critically hurt

A teenager working at his family's Brooklyn bodega was clinging to life after being shot in the head during a struggle with a shoplifter, police and sources said Sunday. The 18-year-old victim, identified by friends as Zayid Muthana, was working at M&M Grocery Corp. on Nostrand Ave. near Avenue D in East Flatbush when two men came into the store about 6:05 p.m. Saturday, police said. In a Facebook post late Saturday, the Yemeni American Merchants Association said Muthana's father is staying by his side in the hospital.

It's being banned, killed with fire and there's a bounty. How to stop the Bradford Pear

Another way is to kill a certain white flowering tree, said landscape designer and contractor Durant Ashmore, who has written about the tree for The Greenville News. It will soon be banned in South Carolina and botanists are looking at fire, herbicides and other ways to kill the Bradford pear. The Bradford pear veils an ecological nightmare with beauty and it's better for everyone if it's dead, Ashmore said.

We're ready, Ukrainian soldiers say on frontier with rebels

Ukraine's military is ready and able to repel any attack, says Ukrainian soldier Oleksander, standing in a trench just a few hundred meters from pro-Russian separatists. Ukraine's military intelligence said last week that Russia had more than 92,000 troops massed around Ukraine's borders and was preparing for an attack by the end of January or beginning of February. Russia's foreign intelligence chief said on Saturday that such suggestions were "malicious U.S. propaganda".

Meredith Kercher’s Killer Blasts Amanda Knox: ‘She Knows the Truth’

Rudy Guede, who was convicted of raping and killing British student Meredith Kercher and who was released from jail early this past week, insinuated Amanda Knox and her ex-lover Raffaelle Sollecito were the ones who “inflict[ed] the stab wounds” in the gruesome 2007 murder. Guede, who spent 13 years in jail for the crime, maintained his innocence in his first post-jail interview with Britain's The Sun, even as Knox pleaded with him to clear her name. Knox, who was Kercher's roommate at the time of the slaying, has implored Guede to “restore my wrongly damaged reputation.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert silent on criticism after she said Pete Buttigieg was trying to 'chest feed' at same event she implied Rep. Ilhan Omar was a terrorist

GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert has so far not responded to criticism of her comments made about Transportation Sec. Boebert at an event this month criticized Buttigieg for taking parental leave and said he was trying to "chest feed" them. The comments were made at the same event where Boebert implied Rep. Ilhan Omar was a terrorist.

• 
  Rep. Boebert apologizes for anti-Muslim comments directed at Rep. Omar

  Axios
• 
  Marjorie Taylor Greene says 'never apologize to Islamic terrorist sympathizers' after Lauren Boebert apologized for Islamophobic comments about Ilhan Omar

  Business Insider

Flood watches issued in Northwest as some urged to evacuate

Residents in Washington state were preparing for possible flooding as “atmospheric rivers” once again threatened parts of the Northwest, which saw heavy damage from extreme weather earlier this month. People in the small communities of Sumas and Everson in northwest Washington were asked to voluntarily evacuate Saturday night, The Bellingham Herald reported. Flood watches have been issued for much of western and north-central Washington for the weekend, and the National Weather Service warned that flooding was possible through Sunday.