New York City’s public schools’ early COVID-19 testing shows surprising results

Early data from New York City’s public school COVID-19 testing is beginning to show a surprising result.

15,111 staff members and students were tested randomly by the school system in their first round of testing since schools opened three weeks ago, according to the New York Times.

In the random sample testing of New York City public school teachers and students, there were only 18 positive cases: 13 staff members and five students.

New York City fears a second wave of COVID-19 will bring schools, stores and businesses back to a close following recent, localized spikes in Brooklyn and Queens.

These spikes brought about new shutdown restrictions for the two boroughs that prompted the closure of 120 schools even though few people in them had tested positive.

In September, New York became the first big urban school district to open its doors for in-person learning. As the first round of test results come in with surprisingly low numbers of positive tests, the city’s efforts for its 1.1. million public school students to return to school may serve as an overarching model for other urban school districts across the country to follow.

Trump’s spending on border wall and “remain in Mexico” policy to be reviewed by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a challenge to the Trump administration’s use of Department of Defense funds to build more than 100 miles of a border wall.

According to NBC News, $2.5 billion of Pentagon counter drug program money was diverted improperly by the government, and the court said only Congress could approve such a transfer.

President Trump ordered the use of department money after a fight over his budget led to a partial government shutdown last year. The shutdown ended once Democrats approved spending for border wall construction, but nowhere near what President Trump originally wanted.

Opponents of the wall said the president cannot use more money than Congress originally authorized or in a manner inconsistent with the appropriations already made.

“There is no emergency requiring the use of the armed forces along the U.S.-Mexico border, and construction of a border wall is not necessary to support such use of the armed forces,” according to the suit.

2020 hurricane season breaks records with naming of Tropical Storm Epsilon

The National Hurricane Center named Tropical Storm Epsilon, which is building over the Atlantic, after growing in strength early Monday morning, according to CNN.

Tropical Storm Epsilon became the earliest 26th named storm on record, beating the previous record set Nov. 22, 2005.

The 2020 season is now one named storm away from tying the 2005 season that made it all the way to Zeta in the Greek Alphabet naming system. The Atlantic hurricane season has never gone so deep into the alphabet and could bring the National Hurricane Center into uncharted waters if more tropical storms appear in the southern Atlantic.

Tropical Storm Epsilon is currently located 735 miles southeast of Bermuda and has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph. The tropical storm is forecasted to strengthen into a hurricane and could make landfall over Bermuda by the end of this week.

The current hurricane season is supposed to be coming to a close, but for now, it continues to break records.