(MCALLEN, Texas) — When 21-year-old, first-time mother Samantha Reyna arrived in labor at DHR Health Women’s Hospital in McAllen, Texas, she was stunned to learn that she was positive for COVID-19.
“I was actually completely shocked,” Reyna, who gave birth Sunday, told ABC News. “I didn’t think I was going to be positive while going into labor.”
Although Reyna has had minor symptoms, out of precaution, she and her husband made the difficult decision to keep her 1-day-old son, Santos, in the nursery, in an effort to keep him from catching COVID-19.
“It’s been a little sad, because I don’t have him here with me. I’m not able to be there for him in case he cries or anything,” Reyna said.
Although there are encouraging declines in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations across much of the country, many U.S. hospitals, including DHR Health, continue to struggle with significant numbers of COVID-19 patients in need of care. Many of these patients suffer from obesity and other comorbidities, such as diabetes and hypertension, which put them at increased risk from severe disease due to COVID-19, according to health care workers.
“Our population is a sick population. We have one of the worst levels of diabetes and obesity in the nation,” Dr. Federico Vallejo, a pulmonary critical care physician at DHR Health, told ABC News. “And as you know this, this can be really difficult for any population. So that’s why we saw incredible cases of sick patients, because our population has increased risk because of these comorbidities.”
A number of pregnant people, who are at increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 because of their pregnancy, are also coming in positive, hospital officials said, with between 10% to 15% of patients who are delivering testing positive.
Over the last two years, nearly 167,000 pregnant people tested positive for COVID-19, and at least 267 pregnant people died, according to federal data.
Throughout the pandemic, the emotional toll of testing positive has had a significant impact on expectant mothers.
“You could see the fear in their eyes, thinking they and their baby were going to die. Initially there was a lot of misinformation and fear from moms about ‘What do I do now that I am positive? Is my baby going to get it now that I’m positive, because I’m pregnant?'” Dr. Flor A. Limas, an obstetrician and gynecologist at DHR Health, told ABC News.
Available intensive care units in Texas are still running low, with 8% of beds currently available across the state.
“Omicron is supposed to be mild, but it’s not mild for the health care system,” Dr. Juan Sarmiento, a critical care intensivist at DHR Health, said.
Dr. Juan Marcos Chavez Paz, a critical care physician at DHR Health, added that though virus-related hospitalization numbers are slowly beginning to abate, his team is still not out of the woods yet.
“I think that we passed the tsunami, but we’re still having waves, some big ones coming, and I’m sure there will be more coming in the future,” he told ABC News.
According to Vallejo, a small fraction of the population in need of care are immunocompromised patients who have fallen ill despite being previously vaccinated.
“We’re seeing the poor souls that are collateral damage, those that did everything right, they got their vaccinations, but unfortunately they’re immunosuppressed because of different circumstances — organ transplants, cancer with chemotherapy — and those sadly get sick, despite the vaccine, but this is more of a fraction of them,” Vallejo said.
The physicians stressed that the vaccines have been a “game-changer,” explaining that the majority of their patients who are becoming severely ill are unvaccinated.
Reyna, who is unvaccinated, has now been reunited with her baby, and said she wants to get vaccinated, and is now considering the shot for her son, too.
“Without vaccines right now, we’d be in hell,” Sarmiento said.
(WASHINGTON) — Three of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump have tapped out early to announce they are not seeking reelection in 2022 — but the remaining seven appear to be running strong races, judging by fundraising numbers disclosed in the latest campaign finance filings.
As 2022 candidates were gearing up for the upcoming midterm election none of the Trump-endorsed challengers vying to unseat those seven House Republicans managed to outraise the sitting lawmakers in the last quarter of 2021, filings released this week show.
It’s not uncommon for incumbents to have a big cash advantage over their challengers, but the large fundraising gaps hint at the long way Trump-backed challengers have to go to — despite the former president’s support.
Most notably, Rep. Liz Cheney — with backing from both establishment Republicans and moderate Democrats — has broken her own fundraising records, despite being the most high-profile Republican on Trump’s 2022 hit list.
The Wyoming Republican reported raising more than $2 million in just the final three months of last year, bringing her 2021 fundraising total to $7.2 million. Her Trump-endorsed primary challenger, Harriet Hageman, raised less than half of Cheney’s fourth-quarter haul during the same period, reporting just over $745,000.
As the 2022 election year ramps up, Hageman’s cash on hand is just $381,000 compared to Cheney’s $4.7 million war chest, according to filings.
Cheney, one of two Republicans on the nine-member House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, has also received support from some major liberal donors who typically give only to Democrats, including investor and billionaire John Pritzker of the Pritzker family, who maxed out on his contribution to Cheney by giving $10,800 to her joint fundraising committee earlier last year.
Also among those rallying behind Cheney are Trump critics within the Republican Party, including former Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., who is among several Republican lawmakers who announced their retirement after clashing with pro-Trump GOP forces.
“My wife and I maxed out for Liz and then we held a fundraiser for her because we wanted to speak up,” Rooney, who gave Cheney’s joint fundraising committee $10,800 back in May, told ABC News.
Rooney, who had previously given upwards of $1 million to various GOP candidates groups over the years, told ABC News that he’s no longer giving to the RNC and Republicans except for Cheney and a handful of others, because he’s tired of Trump-dominated narratives within the Republican Party.
Among Cheney’s other donors in the final months of last year was former President George W. Bush, who maxed out on his donation to her campaign by giving $5,800 in October.
Bush also gave $2,800 to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who has been targeted by Trump for being one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict him in his impeachment trial last year, and the only one of them up for reelection this year. Similar to Cheney, Murkowski outraised her Trump-endorsed challenger, Kelly Tshibaka, by more than double in the final three months of 2021, and entered the 2022 election year with $4.3 million on hand.
Reps. Fred Upton and Peter Meijer, both representing Michigan, also boasted major fundraising advantages over their respective Trump-endorsed challengers, Steve Carra and John Gibbs, both bringing in five times the amount their challengers took in last quarter.
In Washington’s 3rd District, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler held a narrower fundraising gap over Trump-backed challenger Joe Kent, but still entered 2022 with a much larger war chest than his rival.
South Carolina Republican Russell Fry, who Trump endorsed just this week, managed to raise close to the amount raised by incumbent Rep. Tom Rice, but still faces Rice’s big war chest of nearly $2 million.
Former Trump aide Max Miller, who’s running to fill retiring GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez’s seat in Ohio, continued to report the strongest fundraising figures among contenders vying for Gonzalez’s open seat. Although his fundraising showed signs of slowing down in the final quarter of 2021, with contributions of $181,000 compared to the nearly $700,000 he raised in the previous quarter, he nonetheless entered 2022 with nearly $1 million in cash on hand.
Miller was one of several big-name Trump-aligned GOP candidates who failed to maintain their massive fundraising momentum from the earlier part of 2021.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had boasted $3.5 million in donations in the first quarter of 2021, reported a relatively small $1.2 million haul in the final quarter, while Reps. Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert’s fundraising both gradually slowed down throughout the year.
In Senate races, Sen. Tim Scott, who is endorsed by Trump and is also considered a possible 2024 presidential election contender, continued to bring in large sums, raising $7 million in the fourth quarter.
Rep. Mo Brooks, who is running for a Senate seat, was significantly outraised in the fourth quarter by his GOP primary challenger Katie Britt, who raised $1.2 million compared to Brooks’ $385,000 — a huge drop from what he raised in the previous quarter.
In North Carolina, no GOP Senate candidate raised more than a million dollars in the final quarter amid a competitive primary. Trump-endorsed Senate candidate Ted Budd brought in $968,360 while former North Carolina Republican Gov. Patrick McCory raised $748,072 and Rep. Mark Walker brought in only $146,053. The split among Republican donors could make Trump’s endorsement all the more important for Budd, the current leading fundraiser.
In Pennsylvania, the Senate primary field was upended when the Trump-endorsed candidate dropped out in November, leading two relative newcomers to emerge on the campaign trail. TV doctor Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick are reportedly dropping millions in advertising, but it remains to be seen whether they’re getting any return on their investment. Trump has yet to make an endorsement in the race.
The candidate who appears to have raised the most money of any GOP challenger is Georgia Senate candidate and former football star Herschel Walker, who raised $5.4 million in the fourth quarter to lift his fundraising total to $10 million since the start of his campaign — signaling what could be an expensive general election race between him and Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock, who has nearly $23 million in cash on hand.
“This massive fundraising haul, likely the largest in the country for a non-incumbent, shows that Georgia Republicans are clearly united behind Herschel Walker and are ready to take on Senator Warnock,” Scott Paradise, campaign manager for Team Herschel, said in a press release last week.
On the Democratic side, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly joins Warnock as the party’s top two fundraisers, with Kelly holding $19 million in cash on hand as both men seek reelection.
In what could be a tight Senate primary race in Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman held a strong lead in fundraising over the course of last year, but fellow Western Pennsylvanian Rep. Conor Lamb appears to be gaining traction, bringing in $1.35 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.
In North Carolina, leading Senate candidate Cheri Beasley took in $2.1 million in the final quarter of 2021, with 90% of her donations being $100 or less, according to her campaign. Beasley’s campaign manager, Travis Brimm, said in a press release that they are “committed to building a strong, grassroots campaign that touches every corner of the state and helps lead to victory in November.”
And nationally, the Democratic Party and Republican Party fared about even with their national party committees’ fundraising in 2021.
In total, the RNC outraised the DNC by $8 million, but the DNC entered the election year with a bigger war chest, reporting $67 million in cash on hand compared to $56 million for the RNC.
The Senate and House arms of the Republican Party also slightly outraised their Democratic counterparts, and entered the year with a slightly bigger war chest of $111 million compared to the Democratic committees’ $106 million.
(WASHINGTON) — A bill introduced in Congress Wednesday by Democratic lawmakers seeks to end legacy admissions at many U.S. colleges and universities.
The so-called Fair College Admissions for Students Act would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to bar institutions of higher education that participate in federal student aid programs from giving admissions preference to applicants with legacy or donor status, a common practice at elite institutions.
The bill was introduced by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) in an attempt to address what they said is an unfair and inequitable admissions process that disproportionately benefits wealthy, white and connected students.
“All students deserve an equitable opportunity to gain admission to institutions of higher education, but students whose parents didn’t attend or donate to a university are often overlooked in the admissions process due to the historically classist and racist legacy and donor admissions practices at many schools across the country,” Bowman said in a statement.
Merkley said the bill would seek to level the playing field for minority and first-generation students especially.
“Children of donors and alumni may be excellent students and well-qualified, but the last people who need extra help in the complicated and competitive college admissions process are those who start with the advantages of family education and money,” he said in a statement.
The bill would allow the education secretary to waive the legacy preference ban for institutions like historically Black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and minority-serving institutions, which admit high levels of underrepresented students already.
Legacy preferences are common among selective colleges; according to the progressive think tank The Century Foundation, three-quarters of the nation’s top 100 national universities in U.S. News & World Report employ them, and nearly all the 100 liberal arts colleges do.
The legacy preference is worth an extra 160 points for children of alumni, researchers from Princeton University found.
Supporters of legacy preferences argue that legacies can help boost an institution’s ability to award financial assistance to low-income students.
Several institutions, including Johns Hopkins University and Amherst College, have ended their practice of legacy admissions in recent years.
Last year, Colorado became the first state to enact a law banning legacy admissions at public colleges and universities. In the wake of the “Varsity Blues” scandal, California didn’t ban legacy admissions but did require institutions whose students receive state financial aid to disclose how many applicants are accepted through the practice.
The Fair College Admissions for Students Act is introduced as the Supreme Court is poised to hear challenges to affirmative action, which also could have implications for many colleges and universities’ admissions policies.
Jack White has achieved a career first with his new single, “Taking Me Back.”
The track has hit number one on Billboard‘s Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, which measures “radio airplay audience impressions” across rock-, alternative- and adult alternative-formatted stations. That gives the White Stripes/Raconteurs/Dead Weather rocker his first-ever number-one hit on a Billboard radio chart as a solo artist.
“Taking Me Back” had already set a personal chart record for White when it became his highest-charting solo single on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Airplay and Alternative Airplay charts.
In addition to hearing “Taking Me Back” all over your radio, you can find it on White’s upcoming album Fear of the Dawn, dropping April 8. It’s the first of two solo records White is releasing this year, alongside Entering Heaven Alive, which is due out July 22.
The 23-city road trip gets underway on May 20 in Portland, Oregon and is mapped out through a July 3 show in Bethel, New York.
The tour originally was to have featured Steve Winwood as the opening act, but according to a message on SteelyDan.com, the former Traffic frontman “is no longer able to appear due to unforeseen circumstances.” Instead, contemporary jazz-rock ensemble Snarky Puppy will open most of the concerts from May 20 through June 19, while singer/songwriter Aimee Mann will serve as the support act from June 21 until the end of the trek.
Following the Earth After Hours Tour, Steely Dan will play a series of rescheduled U.S. dates from their postponed 2021 Absolutely Normal trek. Those shows run from a July 15 performance in Richmond, Virginia, through an August 4 concert in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Tickets for all dates are on sale now. Visit SteelyDan.com for the band’s full itinerary.
After over 40 years in music, Bobby Brown is grateful to continue his career as he prepares for the New Edition Culture tour later this month.
The self-proclaimed “King of Stage” has endured many family tragedies, including the loss of his son, Bobby Brown Jr., in 2021, the death of his daughter, Bobbi Christina, in 2015, and the passing of his ex-wife, Whitney Houston, in 2012.
“I’ve been through a lot in the past and, you know, just getting through it and being able to love what I love, which is entertainment again, is just something special, and makes us all proud,” Bobby tells Entertainment Tonight.
The tour, which also features Charlie Wilson and Jodeci, begins February 16, in Columbus, Georgia, and runs through an April 10 concert in Miami. Johnny Gill, who joined New Edition in 1987 when Brown left for a solo career, says he admires the “My Prerogative” singer.
“Just seeing in the rehearsal watching him. How much he’s grown,” Gill says. Johnny adds that the tour will be magical.
“It’s going to be a moving experience,” he comments. “I think the fans are really going to enjoy it.”
Brown will also be featured in two A&E projects: the two-night Biography: Bobby Brown special airing May 30 and 31, and the docuseries Bobby Brown: Every Little Step, which premieres May 31.
April Simpkins, the mother Former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst, who died from suicide, has released a statement about her daughter’s death at age 30.
Kryst leapt to her death from a New York City high rise Sunday. The next day, the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed the pageant winner-turned lawyer and Extra correspondent’s death as a suicide.
“Today, what our family and friends privately knew was the cause of death of my sweet baby girl, Cheslie, was officially confirmed,” Simpkins’ message began.
She called her daughter, “a ball of sunshine wrapped in smiles,” adding, “We talked, FaceTimed or texted one another all day, every day.”
Addressing Cheslie directly, her “devastated” mother said, “You were more than a daughter — you were my very best friend. Talking with you was one of the best parts of my day. Your smile and laugh were infectious.”
Simpkins said of her daughter, “While her life on this earth was short, it was filled with many beautiful memories. We miss her laugh, her words of wisdom, her sense of humor and mostly her hugs. We miss all of it – we miss all of her. She was a vital part of our family which makes this loss even more devastating.”
In lieu of flowers, Simpkins asked for people to make a donation to Dress for Success, “an organization that was dear to [Chelsie’s] heart.” The non-profit provides professional clothing to people in need.
Kryst spoke out about mental health during her reign as Miss USA, saying on the pageant’s Facebook page in 2019, “I do a lot to maintain my mental health, and the most important thing that I did is talk to a counselor.”
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, or worried about a friend or loved one, help is available. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even if it feels like it, you are not alone.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York announced on Wednesday that four men have bee arrested on federal charges in connection with the overdose death of actor Michael K. Williams on September 6, 2021.
Irvin Cartagena, 39, is accused of selling heroin laced with fentanyl to the Boardwalk Empire and The Wire star on September 5, the day before Williams was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment. Hector Robles, 57, Luis Cruz, 56, and Carlos Macci, 70, were also arrested on a charges of conspiracy to distribute heroin and fentanyl.
Williams, a five-time Emmy nominee, died from a lethal combination of several drugs, including heroin and cocaine. He was 54.
In other news, two of the stars of the 2017 film Girls Trip are reuniting on television. Jada Pinkett Smith will be featured on an upcoming episode of The Equalizer starring Queen Latifah, according to Deadline.
Smith will guest star as Jessie Cook, an expert thief with a photographic memory. Cook and Robyn McCall, portrayed by Latifah, previously worked together on a mission for the CIA. Jada, who recently reprised her role as Niobe in The Matrix Resurrections, also appeared with the rapper/actress in the 1996 movie Set It Off, co-starring Vivica A. Fox and Kimberly Elise.
Finally, Jennifer Lopez, H.E.R., Kerry Washington, Janelle Monáe, Shonda Rhimes, Lin-Manuel Miranda and basketball stars Steph Curry and Chris Paul have joined Michelle Obama‘s When We All Vote campaign to change the culture around voting and increase participation in every election.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday relaunched the federal government’s cancer “moonshot” initiative, with the goal of cutting the death rate from cancer in half over the next quarter-century.
“We can end cancer as we know it,” Biden said during an event at the White House.
The initiative is personal for Biden, who lost his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015 and who first launched the initiative as vice president.
“I committed to this fight when I was vice president,” Biden said Wednesday. “It’s one of the reasons why quite frankly why I ran for president. Let there be no doubt, now that I am president, this is a presidential, White House priority. Period.”
After the Obama presidency, Biden and wife — and now first lady — Jill Biden founded a nonprofit foundation dedicated to finding a cure for cancer.
In 2016, Congress authorized $1.8 billion in funding for the government’s moonshot initiative over seven years. There’s $410 million left for the next two fiscal years.
In addition to cutting today’s age-adjusted death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years — after it has fallen by about 25% over the past 20 years — the initiative will aim to “improve the experience of people and their families living with and surviving cancer,” the White House said.
“It’s bold,” Biden said. “It’s ambitious. But it’s completely doable. Just as we harnessed the size to develop cutting edge COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, we’ll bring a fierce sense of urgency to the fight against cancer.”
On Wednesday, Biden said he was “announcing a call to action for cancer screening and early detection.”
More than 9.5 million cancer screenings were missed in the U.S. because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House said.
“We have to get cancer screenings back on track,” Biden said. “And make sure they’re accessible to all Americans.”
But the pandemic has also led Biden to set “very ambitious goals,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters Tuesday.
“The scientific advances that we saw from the COVID-19 pandemic, from the response to it, also points to things that are possible today,” the official said.
One example, according to the White House, is that the relaunched initiative will aim to “study and evaluate multi-cancer detection tests, like we did for COVID-19.”
The cancer “moonshot” initiative will have a coordinator in the White House, and the White House will form a “cancer cabinet” of officials from across the federal government. The initiative will involve the private sector, foundations, academic institutions and others, too.
Other goals, according to the White House, include increasing equitable access to screening and prevention — with at-home screening, mobile screening, and community health networks, as well as “accelerating efforts to nearly eliminate cervical cancer through screening and HPV vaccination, with a particular focus on reaching people who are most at risk.”
There will be a White House cancer “moonshot” summit, as well as a White House roundtable conversation series, they said.
The president also called on Congress to approve funding for a research project he has proposed to be housed at the National Institutes of Health, called “Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H),” which would try to develop breakthroughs for several diseases.
Biden was joined Wednesday in the White House’s East Room by about 100 members of the cancer community, including patients, survivors, researchers, advocates, caregivers, members of Congress and others, according to senior Biden administration officials.
During his remarks, the president drew on his own family’s experience navigating a cancer diagnosis, articulating many of the challenges people around the country face after hearing they have cancer.
“Despite all the progress,” Biden said, “there’s still a sense of powerlessness, guilt that maybe you’re not doing enough because you don’t know enough.”
The first lady and Vice President Kamala Harris. whose mother was a breast cancer researcher, also spoke.
If you’re a male of a certain age, it’s likely you had that iconic poster of Farrah Fawcett on your wall — it sold 12 million of copies, after all. Now you can relive those days in digital form.
The Farrah Fawcett Foundation announced Wednesday it would be releasing a limited edition of the famous snap, which captured the Charlie’s Angels bombshell in a red bathing suit, smiling and crowned with her famously feathered locks.
“Proceeds will be used to further the Foundation’s mission to support HPV-related cancer research, prevention and awareness,” noted the non-profit in the announcement, which dropped on what would have been Farrah’s 75th birthday.
Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in September 2006. The disease spread to her liver, eventually ending her life at age 62 in 2009.
“Farrah and this image are globally recognized icons in the world of celebrity,” noted Peter Klamka, CEO of MORE Management, LLC, which is producing the NFTs. “We are beyond grateful to be part of preserving this image forever on a blockchain and bringing an entirely new audience to the NFT community,” he continued.
If you no longer have the poster but still have your paper route money saved from back in the day, the auction begins in April.
