TikTok, Gun Violence Combine In Looming Threat To U.S. Schools

ACROSS AMERICA — Good morning! It’s Friday, Dec. 17. It’s the final shopping weekend before the holiday. Need some gift ideas? Here are a few suggestions for that special man, woman, teenager or grandparent in your life. Before you hit the shopping list, here are the headlines we’re following today:

• Police are monitoring a new threat of violence — or threat of threats — toward schools.
• At least five people are dead after severe and unusual weather swept through the Midwest.
• The “other Rosa Parks” finally got her juvenile record expunged.
• A stunning “fallstreak” opened in the sky Wednesday over New York City's Upper West Side.

Multiple law enforcement agencies across the country say they are monitoring reports of a TikTok challenge that has encouraged students to threaten gun violence at their schools on Friday.

While it's unclear where the December rumor originated, one Utah school district says the original threat started as a way for students to skip school but "morphed into something much more disturbing."

Andover, Massachusetts, is among communities where police are planning extra patrols in light of the threats.

"While we do not anticipate anything in our schools or district, we would be remiss if we were not extra vigilant regarding safety and security at our schools tomorrow as a result of this TikTok challenge," Magda Parvey, superintendent of Andover Public Schools, wrote in a letter to parents. » TikTok December 17 Challenge Has Police, Schools On High Alert, via Across America Patch

Winds, Tornadoes Ravage Midwest

At least five people are dead after severe and unusual weather swept through the Midwest on Wednesday, bringing hurricane-force winds and spawning multiple tornadoes in Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. The destructive weather came amid unprecedented warmth for December in the Plains and northern states. » Midwest Storm Photos: Hurricane-Force Winds, Storms Ravage States, via Across America Patch

Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines Safest: CDC

A panel of advisers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted unanimously Thursday to recommend the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines over the one developed by Johnson & Johnson, according to multiple reports.

The decision follows the release of data indicating that a rare blood clotting complication is more commonly linked to people who received the J&J vaccine. » Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines Safer Than J&J: CDC Cites Blood Clots, via Across America Patch

Server Fired Over $4K Tip

A tip from the 100 Dollar Dinner Club, born of a movement to help restaurant workers through the pandemic, recently led to an Arkansas server losing her job. Ryan Brandt, a server at Oven & Tap in Bentonville, wept with joy when she received the $4,400 tip, but her joy was short-lived when her manager insisted she split the windfall with the bartenders, cooks and food runners — something she said she'd never had to do in 3½ years of working at the restaurant. » A Restaurant Server Was Tipped $4,400. And Then She Got Fired, via Across America Patch

'The Other Rosa Parks' Gets Record Expunged

At 82, civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin can proudly proclaim herself "no longer a juvenile delinquent." Last month, a judge in Montgomery, Alabama, signed an order expunging her record after she was charged and convicted in 1955 of disturbing the peace and violating the city’s segregation ordinance by refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white person. » Claudette Colvin, 'The Other Rosa Parks,' Gets Record Expunge, via Montgomery Patch

More national headlines on Patch, other news websites:

• U.S. Towns In Mourning While Digging Out From Deadly Tornadoes
• Captive Missionary Group From Ohio Released By Haitian Kidnappers
• Army: 98% Of Active Duty Force Got COVID-19 Vaccine By Deadline
• Young Americans Motivated To Make Change: AP-NORC, MTV Poll
• U.S. Jobless Claims Rise But Still Historically Low At 206,000
• Biden's Build Back Better Bill Suddenly In Serious Danger, via The Hill
• Life After Quitting: What Happened Next To Workers Who Left Their Jobs, via The Washington Post
• FDA Relaxes Restrictions On Access To Abortion Pill By Mail, via NPR

Around ‘The Patch’

Skip The Cheesecake: Kraft Heinz, the maker of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, said this week that it will pay thousands of people $20 each to not buy its cream cheese this holiday season, via Pittsburgh Patch

Not The Same Thing: A Florida man was kicked off a United Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning for wearing a women's thong as a face mask, via Miami Patch

More local news:

• Your Holiday Sweater Is Ugly, And That's A Good Thing In New Jersey, via Hoboken Patch
• Stunning 'Fallstreak' Hole Opens Up On The Upper West Side, via Upper West Side Patch
• Omicron Coronavirus Variant At 'Full Force' In NYC, Mayor Says, via New York City Patch
• MD Hospitals Are Filling As COVID Again Surges, Industry Officials Say, via Baltimore Patch
• $30 Drawing Bought At Massachusetts Estate Sale Worth Over $50 Million, via Concord Patch
• Former Bucs Player, Vincent Jackson, Cause Of Death Determined: Brain Trauma, via Brandon, Florida, Patch
• Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, Wife Exposed To COVID-19, via Cleveland Patch
• Seniors Put Smart Technology On The Top Of Their Holiday Wish List This Year, via Fairfax City, Virginia, Patch
• Texas Pipeline Company Charged In California Oil Spill, via Houston Patch
• Justices Asked To Let Arizona Enforce Ban On Some Abortions, via Phoenix Patch
• New California Rules End Distinction For Vaccinated Workers, via Los Angeles Patch

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This Day In History

On this day in 1903 near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful sustained flight in an airplane.

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