Here are some of the top stories from the past week you may have missed from NBC 6 News:
FIU Epidemiology Expert Urges Caution As Virus Infection Rates Improve
Pressure is growing to loosen economic restrictions in place in South Florida. The governor wants it, business owners say they need it, but the chair of epidemiology at Florida International University says: not so fast.
"Well, things have definitely gotten better, but we’re no where near where we were at the time we reopened at the beginning of the summer," said Dr. Mary Jo Trepka.
"We opened very rapidly and we saw a dramatic increase in the number of cases," she said. "So I think we need to be very, very careful or we're going to have the same situation again and we’ll have even more deaths."
On May 18, when Miami-Dade first moved to lift restrictions after largely shutting down during the first round of coronavirus, the positivity rate in the county was 5% and 37 people were dying each day statewide.
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‘Learning Pods' Attempt to Give Kids Structure During Distance Learning
Whether you call them learning pods or microschools, they are a national phenomenon and a direct response to dissatisfaction with distance learning.
Typically, parents get together to provide a group environment for their kids to work together, sometimes hiring a teacher to provide face-to-face instruction.
We visited an example of a learning pod in Hallandale Beach.
“We realized that if we all came together we could turn this space into a beautiful learning pod as we call it and it would be a really good environment for the kids,” said Anthony Adelson, one of the parents involved.
Driver Turns Himself in Months After Boy Killed in Valentine's Day Crash
Months after a crash that killed a young boy on Valentine's Day in Homestead, the driver turned himself in Thursday afternoon.
Hanskabell Amargos, 42, was charged with vehicular homicide in the death of 2-year-old Anthony de Leon Rojo, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Amargos told NBC 6 back in February that he was test driving cars for his job at a dealership when he was cut off on US-1 and accidentally stepped on his accelerator and not the brakes.
Man Gets Fired After Private Chat About Race Goes Public
Jonan Diaz says he didn’t agree with a friend’s Instagram story on racial inequality, so he replied to her via the social media site’s private messenger and it got heated.
“She took a screenshot of that conversation, went onto Twitter, she tagged AT&T and said I’m a racist person,” Jonan told NBC 6 Responds.
In that tweet, his friend Darsell Obrego wrote: “AT&T Do you condone #racist employees like Jonan Diaz who works for your company in Miami, FL? I have more screen shots of his harassment.”
A few weeks later, Jonan was fired.
Rebound: Behind the Scenes as Businesses Try to Bounce Back from the Pandemic
Forced to shutter their doors when COVID-19 hit, small businesses across America were faced with a tough question: "How do we survive?"
As shutdowns and restrictions continue to create hurdles for small business owners all over the country, there’s been no shortage of creativity. From a small local theater in New Hampshire streaming burlesque shows online, to a Brooklyn restaurant bringing back automat dining, to a bookstore in Philadelphia finding a voice through activism, we show you how six small businesses are bouncing back amid the growing coronavirus pandemic.
