Police say a spooky audio recording boomed from an RV parked in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning, just before the vehicle blew up and turned a historic stretch of the bar-lined tourist district into a glass-strewn shambles.
Officers, responding to a 5:30 a.m. CT call for shots fired, encountered the RV as the recording played, Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at a televised briefing.
Authorities in Nashville said they believe an explosion in the city's downtown on Friday morning was an "intentional act" that originated from a vehicle, the Tennesseean reports.
What's new: At a press briefing Friday afternoon, Nashville police said they responded to a shots fired call near the explosion area. When authorities arrived, they found an RV with a "recording" saying a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes. They then began evacuating people.
The Transportation Security Administration screened 1,191,123 people at airport checkpoints around the United States on Wednesday, according to Lisa Farbstein, a TSA spokesperson.
Why it matters: It's the largest recorded number since before the COVID-19 pandemic and signals that more people are traveling for the holidays despite CDC warnings to stay home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is bringing Congress back to the Capitol on Monday to vote on a proposal to hike coronavirus relief payments to $2,000, after Republicans rejected a move to approve the measure by unanimous consent.
Why it matters: The long-shot attempt came after President Trump suggested he wouldn't sign the coronavirus relief bill — which includes a trillion-dollar government funding measure to avoid a government shutdown on Monday — unless Congress increased the direct payments from $600 to $2,000.
