The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened almost 2.24 million passengers, on Friday. This is the highest number since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, in March 2020. The TSA said that it was expecting to see a rise in screening as the Thanksgiving weekend was approaching. According to its estimate, approximately 20 million passengers are expected to travel by air during the Thanksgiving holiday period, from November 19 to November 28.

TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein posted on Twitter announcing that the number of screenings were “the highest checkpoint value” since the pandemic halted or decreased travel in the nation.

The AAA had predicted that the Thanksgiving travel will reach close to pre-pandemic levels. About 53.4 million Americans are expected to travel in the holiday period. This is a 13 percent increase when compared with the previous year. Mask wearing and social distancing are common in airports and all airlines require passengers to keep their masks on during flights. Many passengers are vaccinated and this also gives them an impetus to fly across the nation to meet family.

Major airlines in the country have said that they are expecting to fly a larger number of passengers in the holiday weekend.

Delta Air Lines

The airlines has said that it was planning to fly 5.6 million passengers from Friday to November 30. This is almost 300 percent higher than its passengers in 2020 but is also less than the 6.3 million passengers who flew Delta in 2019.

United Airlines

The airlines said that 4.5 million passengers would use its services as they fly across the nation. They say that they will reach 88 percent of the number of passengers who flew United in 2019.

The airlines are confident of flying millions of passengers but there are two factors that can put a damper on the flights: vaccine mandate and the weather.

A vaccine mandate for federal workers is set to begin on Monday. The TSA said that it doesn’t expect the mandate to have an impact as preparations to deal with the matter have been put into operation.

The weather is beyond control but the airlines say that they are prepared for all calamities. Every holiday season there is some chaos at the airports. Everyone is hoping that things would be busy but that there would be no chaos.

Sotheby’s, a famous auction house sold a rare first printing of the U.S. Constitution for $43.2 million. The auction house in New York said that it was a record price for a book or document that has been sold in an auction. The previous auction record was set almost three decades ago. In 1994, Bill Gates had bought the Codex Leicester by Leonardo da Vinci for $30.8 million at Christie’s.

According to the auction listing, the 1787 printing run had approximately 500 copies, out of which only 13 are said to have survived. Two copies are in private hands and 11 form part of institutional collections. One of the prints of the Constitution in private hands was bought by S. Howard Goldman for $165,000 in 1988.

The recent print that was sold belonged to his estate and was sold by his widow Dorothy Goldman. The funds will be used by the Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation to “furthering the understanding of our democracy and how the acts of all citizens can make a difference,” according to Sotheby’s.

On Friday, Sotheby’s also announced that the buyer, hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin would loan the rare printing to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The rare printing will be exhibited in the museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. Founder Alice Walton, daughter of Sam Walton, the founder of America’s largest retail chain Walmart, opened the museum in 2011. Chairperson Olivia Walton said that they were honored to exhibit one of the most important documents in the history of the nation at their location in America’s heartland.

Griffen, who is the founder and CEO of Citadel, a multinational hedge fund, said in a statement that the U.S. Constitution was a sacred document that enshrined “the rights of every American and those who aspire to be.” He also said that he intended to ensure that the copy of the Constitution would be available for all Americans and visitors to “view and appreciate” in the nations’ “museums and other public spaces.”

Ken Griffith outbid a group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts called ConstitutionDAO. A DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that uses blockchain-based contracts to facilitate a project that can own or manage assets. A group of 17,437 people across the web came together to make a bid for this rare print of the Constitution, by contributing a median donation of $206.26.

On Thursday night, the group tweeted that they showed the world what crypto and web3 was by onboarding thousands of people in the process. The group included museum curators and art directors who had become “excited to keep learning.” The group also said that they were the first DAO that Sotheby’s had worked with but they were sure that they wouldn’t “be the last one.”

 

On Saturday night, a huge group pf people amounting to 80 in number, looted a Nordstrom store in Walnut Creek, California. According to police, the incident was reported when the store was open; at 8:46 p.m. They raided the store in a minute and ran out with the merchandise. The store is located at 1200 Broadway Plaza and is an iconic outdoor shopping center in Walnut Creek.

According to abc7, Brett Barrett, a manager at a nearby PF Chang’s restaurant reported that he and his customers saw about 50 to 80 people who were wearing ski masks and were carrying crowbars and weapons. They entered the Nordstrom store nearby. He said that he locked the front and back door of the restaurant as he was worried that they might start beating cars. He said that it looked like a movie scene and it was insane.

#Breaking About 25 cars just blocked the street and rushed into the Walnut Creek Nordstrom making off with goods before getting in cars snd speeding away. At least two people arrested at gunpoint. pic.twitter.com/AG3R94M9L3

– Jodi Hernandez (@JodiHernandezTV) November 21, 2021

A spokesperson for the Police Department in Walnut Creek told NBC that about eighty people rushed into the store at Broadway Plaza and were out within a minute. One employee had been pepper sprayed. Two employees had been punched and kicked by the looters who raided the store. All three employees had sustained minor injuries. They were treated and released at the scene of the incident. An undetermined quantity of merchant has been taken.

An NBC Bay Area reporter Jodi Hernandez was near the store when it was overrun by the group of looters. She posted on Twitter that about 25 cars blocked the street and people rushed into the Nordstrom at Walnut Creek. They took away goods from the store, got into the cars and sped away.

While most of the looters got away, @walnutcreekpd did arrest a few following the flash mob robbery of the Walnut Creek Nordstrom store. #nordstrom #flashmobrobbery pic.twitter.com/LPlrNeiyhg

– Jodi Hernandez (@JodiHernandezTV) November 21, 2021

Jodi also said that most of the looters got away. However, she also posted a video of a few of the looters being arrested by the Walnut Creek Police Department.

Walnut Creek police said that three people who were involved in the incident, were arrested. They recovered a firearm, from one of these people.