News Wrap: Ahmaud Arbery’s killers sentenced to life in prison, plan to appeal

Judy Woodruff:

In the day's other news: The number of children under five who are hospitalized in the U.S. and test positive for COVID is still rising sharply.

The CDC reports the figure has hit pandemic highs, as overall infections top 600,000 a day. President Biden offered an optimistic assessment today after former advisers urged him new strategies for — quote — "the new normal."

Joe Biden, President of the United States: Having COVID in the environment, here and in the world, is probably here to stay. But COVID, as we're dealing with it now, is not here to stay.

The new normal doesn't have to be. We have so many more tools we're developing and continue to develop that can contain COVID and other strains of COVID.

Judy Woodruff:

Also today, the FDA cut the wait time for getting Moderna's booster shot after the initial two doses to five months, instead of six.

U.S. unemployment rate is now at its lowest since the pandemic began. The Labor Department today reported the rate dipped to 3.9 percent in December. That was down from 4.2 percent in November and far below the pandemic peak of nearly 15 percent.

At the same time, employers reported a net gain of 199,000 jobs. That's well short of expectations.

Three white men convicted of chasing and murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia were sentenced today to life in prison. Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael, who initiated the chase, got life without parole. William "Roddie" Bryan took video of the confrontation. He will have a chance at parole.

In court, Arbery's mother said they killed her son for being Black and jogging in their neighborhood.

Wanda Cooper-Jones, Mother of Ahmaud Arbery: They chose to target my son because they didn't want him in their community. They chose to treat him differently than other people who frequently visited their community.

And when they couldn't sufficiently scare him or intimidate him, they killed him.

Judy Woodruff:

Defense attorneys have said they plan to appeal the convictions.

In Michigan, a judge refused today to lower the bond penalty for the parents of a teenager who allegedly killed four students at his high school. James and Jennifer Crumbley are charged with involuntary manslaughter for giving their son a gun, and failing to intervene after seeing his violent drawings. They're now each being held on a $500,000 bond.

A winter storm has dropped more than a foot of snow across the Northeast. Plows in Boston labored to keep up today, and New Jersey declared an emergency. Skiers slided — or glided, rather, through New York's Central Park, but public schools stayed open. Hundreds of other school districts did close. The storm broke snowfall records in the South on Thursday.

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, heavy rain caused severe flooding today near Chehalis, Washington. The water closed a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 5.

And President Biden got a firsthand look today at wildfire damage near Denver and Boulder, Colorado. He met with people affected by last week's fire that destroyed nearly 1,100 buildings, most of them homes. Some 35,000 people were forced to flee.

On Wall Street today, stocks drifted lower again. The Dow Jones industrial average lost four points to close at 36231. The Nasdaq fell 145 points and was down 4.5 percent for the week, the most since February. The S&P 500 slipped 19 points today.

And two passings of note tonight.

Groundbreaking actor Sidney Poitier has died in Los Angeles at the age of 94. We will look at his life and work later in the program.

And Harvard law professor Lani Guinier passed away in Boston. In 1993, President Clinton chose her to lead civil rights enforcement at the Justice Department. He withdrew the nomination after Republicans attacked her views. Lani Guinier was 71 years old.