News – Page 2293 – 105.7 WDNY

Republicans dig in on debt-limit standoff despite Democratic effort to mount pressure

September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Senate Republicans are holding firm against a hike to the federal debt limit, even as Democratic leaders announced Monday that they would link the raise in the borrowing limit to a must-pass government funding measure.

Government funding is set to expire at the end of September and administration officials are projecting that the United States could default on its credit in the coming weeks. The White House has warned an unprecedented default could send shockwaves through the economy and trigger a recession.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for weeks has dug in against support of a hike to the debt limit, arguing that Democrats, who control both chambers of Congress, should be held responsible for the move. But Senate Democrats worked with Republicans under the Trump administration to raise the debt limit on multiple occasions, and they said it’s a bipartisan responsibility.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer Monday looked to ratchet up the pressure on Republicans by linking the increase in the federal spending limit to a resolution aimed at keeping the government open past a fast-approaching end of the fiscal year. That resolution includes aid for Afghan refugees and emergency funding for natural disaster relief.

“The American people expect our Republican colleagues to live up to their responsibilities and make good on the debts they proudly helped incur,” the leaders wrote in a statement, pointing to $908 billion COVID relief legislation passed under former President Donald Trump.

Within moments of the Democratic announcement that the two measures would be tied, McConnell threw cold water on the plan. In floor remarks Monday afternoon, he doubled down on his long-held opposition to raising the debt limit.

Republicans would support an extension to government funding, McConnell said, but not if it includes a lift to the debt ceiling.

“Since Democrats decided to go it alone they will not get Senate Republican’s help with raising the debt limit,” McConnell said Monday.

Almost all Senate Republicans are in line behind McConnell, vowing to vote against a raise to the limit because they oppose additional massive spending measures that Democrats are currently working to craft.

Their biggest opposition is to a $3.5 trillion spending measure that encompasses many of President Joe Biden’s agenda items and which is exempt from the normal 60-vote threshold in the Senate. Democrats can pass it without any GOP support, and a raise in the limit should be tied to that bill, Republicans argue.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Monday his vote on raising the debt limit would be “absolutely no.”

“The Democrats say they don’t need our votes to spend money they want to spend, but they do need our votes to pay for it,” Romney said. “That dog won’t hunt.”

“I will not be consenting to anything that makes it easier for Chuck Schumer and the Democrats to bankrupt our kids,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said, joining a chorus of other Republicans who also said Monday they won’t support a government funding stop-gap that includes a raise to the debt limit.

Democratic Whip Dick Durbin accused Republicans of being politically motivated in their opposition and said they are failing to take responsibility for their actions.

“I certainly hope Sen. McConnell is not going to do damage to America and its economy out of an act of political spite,” Durbin said. “If he won’t stand up and take responsibility for things which he and his members supported in the Trump administration it shows this is a totally political effort.”

But pressed on what Democrats would do if Republican opposition held, Durbin was frank: “I don’t know.”

The House is expected to vote to raise the debt limit and fund government on Tuesday, after the Rules Committee takes up the matter. Schumer said Democrats in the Senate will hold a vote to raise the limit in the coming weeks, but without at least 10 Republicans to support the measure, there’s little that can be done aside from inclusion in the $3.5 trillion package. If the United States defaults on its debt in the coming weeks, it will be the first time in history this occurs. U.S. creditworthiness would take a hit, and markets could be severely impacted.

At least one Republican, Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, said he would vote with Democrats on the measure because it would include hurricane relief for his home state. However he predicted that the bill would still fall short of 60 votes.

As they grapple with a looming government funding deadline and potential credit default, Democratic lawmakers are also at odds over how to advance their $3.5 trillion social policy package and the Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure deal.

Progressives have vowed to withhold votes in the House for the Senate infrastructure agreement until their policy demands are met for the larger package. But moderates in the House and Senate have threatened to sink Biden’s major policy package over its scale and individual provisions.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said of the to-do list before Congress. “I don’t know how’s it going to end.”

Second dose of J&J COVID-19 vaccine results in stronger protection, company says

September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A second dose of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine given two months after the first leads to stronger protection, according to the company.

The new data, announced in a press release, adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that booster shots could enhance vaccine protection against breakthrough infections — though experts agree all three vaccines are still doing their job to protect against more serious illness.

Compared to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine always had slightly lower efficacy. Peak efficacy from the two-shot Pfizer and Moderna vaccines was 95% and 94%, respectively, against symptomatic illness.

But two Johnson & Johnson shots, given two months apart, resulted in a similarly high effectiveness level: 94% protection against any symptomatic infection in the U.S., and 100% against severe disease.

With Pfizer’s booster shots now up for formal review from the Food and Drug Administration, and Moderna’s shortly to follow, the new data will likely factor into regulators’ decision about if and when additional shots are appropriate for the nearly 14.9 million people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

All three currently authorized vaccines are still working well to dramatically reduce the risk of being hospitalized, but as months pass and with the emergence of new COVID-19 variants, the vaccines are losing their power to prevent more mild breakthrough infections.

The new Johnson & Johnson data also raises questions about when to give an additional shot for the country’s only single shot vaccine. New data describing a booster two-months later found a marked increase in antibody levels. But prior data, already published, found that a booster shot given six months after the first dose results in even higher antibody levels.

“With the two-month boost interval, there was a four-fold increase in antibody titters. But when a booster was given after six months, it led to a 12-fold increase in antibody titers,” Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, whose lab helped develop the J&J vaccine, told ABC News.

“This suggests that the efficacy might be even greater when the booster is given at this later point in time,” Barouch said.

Regulatory authorities will need to weigh the available evidence and determine the appropriate timing for booster shots for all three vaccines.

In prepared remarks, J&J Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Paul Stoffels said the single-shot vaccine still provides “strong and long-lasting protection” while also being “easy to use, distribute and administer.””At the same time,” Stoffels said, “we now have generated evidence that a booster shot further increases protection against COVID-19 and is expected to extend the duration of protection significantly.”

According to Barouch, “the data supports the single-shot vaccine as the bedrock for providing robust and durable protection. But giving a boost two to six months later increases immune responses and augments protection to very high levels.”

America Strong: Teachers across the country go above and beyond as in-person classes return

September 20, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As millions of kids head back to school this fall, “World News Tonight” has followed three incredible teachers caring for students in and outside the classroom.

In Washington D.C., Imani Baucom teaches at the Bilingual Public Charter School. She said her students’ safety comes first.

“The kids are really happy to be back… Walking to class. Masks on,” said Baucom. “We just remember to put the kids first, to put our health first, and to just take it one day at a time.”

With some students and teachers returning to in-person learning amid the pandemic, some adjustments are having to be made.

World News Tonight previously reported that Jennifer Martin, who lives outside of Austin, Texas, turned her garage into a library. With the help of “World News Tonight” viewers, she has now collected more than 4,000 books and 350 students have visited her library.

“Thanks to supporters from all over the country,” Martin said. “It’s important to continue this effort because once you grow a reader. A reader needs books to read.”

Across the country, in Livermore, California, Heidi Robinson has been going the extra mile — quite literally.

Robinson, who teaches at Marylin Avenue Elementary School, had delivered lesson plans door-to-door during the pandemic and sent her students many virtual hugs along the way.

Nearly a year and a half later, Robinson reports that the class is back together again.

“We are back in school full time! Wearing masks so we’re all very safe,” said Robinson.

Robinson said virtual hugs have been replaced with elbow bumps and she hopes that progress will only continue.

“We are so incredibly happy to be back in school,” she said. “With challenges behind us and lots of hope ahead of us.”

COVID-19 live updates: Average daily death count rises 20%, officials say

September 20, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.

More than 672,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.6 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Just 63.6% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Sep 20, 5:39 pm

US records 1.1 million pediatric COVID-19 cases over past 5 weeks

The U.S. reported more than 225,000 child COVID-19 cases, marking the fourth consecutive week with over 200,000 new pediatric cases reported, according to a newly released weekly report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

In the last five weeks alone, the country has reported more than 1.1 million pediatric cases, according to the organizations.

“The weekly figure is now about 26 times higher than it was in June, when just 8,400 pediatric cases were reported over the span of a week,” the organizations wrote in their report.

The South accounted for about half –110,000– of last week’s pediatric cases, according to the report.

The organizations added that more than 2,200 children are hospitalized with a confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infection.

Sep 20, 3:27 pm

NYC updates school testing, quarantine guidelines

One week after public schools opened for the new school year, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced new changes to student testing.

Starting Sept. 27, students in all grade levels will be tested weekly instead of bi-weekly. In addition, any student who is in a classroom with a positive case won’t have to quarantine if they were masked and three feet distant, according to the mayor.

“We’ve been looking at these two issues over the last few weeks. We looked at it in light of the data from the first week of school, we decided to make both of these changes simultaneously, and they do complement each other,” de Blasio said during his daily news conference.

The United Federation of Teachers had pushed the mayor to switch to weekly testing. All teachers must have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by Sept. 27, as part of the city’s mandate for education employees.

Sep 20, 1:55 pm

CVS to hire 25,000 in preparation for flu season, booster shots

CVS Health is launching a major hiring spree to fill 25,000 clinical and retail jobs in preparation for an expected increase in vaccine and testing demand in the months ahead.

The move is in anticipation of the need for COVID-19 booster shots and flu vaccines.

The positions will largely be for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and nurses at their retail locations to be filled “as soon as possible,” the company announced Monday.

Pharmacy executives predict a far greater staffing need than usual this year, especially should flu season get severe and if COVID-19 boosters become authorized for more expanded groups. Pharmacies are also hoping to avoid a repeat of last year’s scenes of slammed testing sites and the chaotic start to the vaccine rollout.

“Every flu season we need additional team members,” said Neela Montgomery, the executive vice president of CVS health and the president of CVS Pharmacy. “But this year we’re looking for even more. With the continued presence of COVID-19 in our communities, we’re estimating a much greater need for pharmacists, trained pharmacy technicians, nurses, and retail store associates. These jobs offer a rewarding opportunity to really make an impact on public health in our country.”

A virtual hiring event Friday will spearhead the recruiting push.

Sep 20, 12:56 pm

Booster shot recommendations still unclear, says acting FDA commissioner

There is still uncertainty and questions to be answered regarding whether all Americans will be recommended to receive booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine, said acting U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock.

Woodcock spoke with former senior White House COVID-19 response adviser Andy Slavitt on his podcast program “The Bubble” on Monday, raising questions on what the booster shots may or may not do and discussing any uncertainties that could have factored into the FDA’s decision to recommend boosters only for high-risk Americans and those over the age of 65.

Right now, the FDA does not know enough about how an additional shot will impact transmissibility or about cellular immunity and whether T-cells are protected, among other factors, Woodcock said.

“Basically the FDA decision is, do the overall benefits outweigh the potential harms for any given vaccination and that’s how to proceed,” Woodcock said. “But obviously individuals benefit from not having a transmissible virus circulating around.”

Sep 20, 12:28 pm

Average daily death count rises by 20%

In the wake of weeks of increasing COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, the U.S. is once again experiencing a surge in virus-related deaths.

The average number of deaths in the U.S. has risen to more than 1,500 per day, an increase of about 20% in the last week and nearly eight times the death average from two months ago, when the national average dropped to a near-low of 191 deaths reported each day, according to data from the CDC and the Department of Health & Human Services.

Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C. are seeing increasing case averages, while seven states are experiencing increasing hospital admissions, according to the HHS.

However, overall hospitalizations in the U.S. are down, with about 10,000 fewer patients currently hospitalized compared to three weeks ago.

About 93,000 Americans are currently hospitalized. In recent weeks, there had been more than 103,000 patients receiving care across the country.

The drop is largely attributed to plummeting figures in Florida, where there are nearly 10,000 fewer patients hospitalized now, compared to a month ago.

The presence of the virus is shifting away from states in the deep South such as Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, and further into other regions of the country that were not as hard hit in the first delta surge.

Tennessee and West Virginia currently have the country’s highest case rate, followed by Alaska, South Carolina, Wyoming, Montana and Kentucky, which all have case rates above 500 per 100,000 people.

Sep 19, 2:40 pm
The FDA booster decision shows the process worked: Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci defended the White House’s plan to provide COVID-19 vaccine booster shots before the Food and Drug Administration voted to only provide those shots to Americans 65 and older and immunocompromised.

Fauci told ABC This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz that he was not disappointed by the panel’s decision and he thinks the process worked.

“The goal of this particular decision was to prevent people from getting serious disease who are at risk, such as the elderly and those that have underlying conditions,” he said.

When pressed whether the president’s premature announcement would confuse Americans, Fauci said that people need to understand that such decisions depend on science and approvals by the appropriate health agencies.

“The plan was that we have to be ready to do this as soon as the decision is made and when you have a plan, you put a date on it and you say we want to be able to get ready to roll out on the week of September the 20th,” he said. “So giving that date, I don’t think was confusing.”

Sep 17, 11:22 pm
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s children test positive, he tests negative

Two of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s four children have tested positive for COVID-19, according to a spokesperson.

“Yesterday, two of the Governor’s children tested positive for COVID-19,” Erin Mellon, spokesperson in the governor’s office, said in a statement. “The Governor, the First Partner and their two other children have since tested negative. The family is following all COVID protocols.”

“The Newsoms continue to support masking for unvaccinated individuals indoors to stop the spread and advocate for vaccinations as the most effective way to end this pandemic,” she added.

The governor’s office did not specify which of his children tested positive but he has two sons, Hunter and Dutch, and two daughters, Montana and Brooklynn. Children under 12 are not yet eligible for the vaccine. All of his children are under 12, though Montana turns 12 on Saturday.

The week has been an eventful one for the governor. On Tuesday, Newsom survived a recall attempt with 64% of voters choosing “no.” Removing him from office would’ve taken more than 50% voting in favor of the recall. Radio host Larry Elder was the leading candidate to replace Newsom had the effort succeeded.

Sep 17, 5:32 pm
White House to hold virtual COVID-19 summit next week

The White House is planning to hold a virtual COVID-19 summit with world leaders next week, officials announced Friday.

President Joe Biden will convene the summit Wednesday amid the U.N. General Assembly, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.

The meeting will focus on “expanding and enhancing our shared efforts to defeat COVID-19,” according to Psaki, including equitable vaccine access and making therapeutics and tests more available.

More information will be available in the coming days, she said.

FBI ends day-long search of Brian Laundrie’s family home: Live updates

September 20, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A massive search is continuing in southern Florida for Brian Laundrie, the boyfriend of Gabby Petito, the 22-year-old woman who went missing on a cross-country trip and who authorities say is “consistent with the description” of a body discovered on Sunday in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming.

The search for the 23-year-old Laundrie is centered around North Port, Florida, where investigators said Laundrie returned to his home on Sept. 1 without Petito but driving her 2012 Ford Transit.

Laundrie has been named by police as a “person of interest” in Petito’s disappearance. Laundrie has refused to speak to the police and has not been seen since Tuesday, Sept. 14, according to law enforcement officials.

The search for Laundrie is the latest twist in the case that has grabbed national attention as he and Petito had been traveling across the country since June, documenting the trip on social media.

Petito’s parents, who live in Long Island, New York, reported her missing on Sept. 11 after not hearing from her for two weeks.

Latest headlines:
– Car Brian Laundrie last used was parked in parents’ driveway: Authorities
– FBI descends on Florida home of Brian Laundrie’s parents
– Search of vast Florida swamp preserve ‘exhausted’: Police

Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern.

Sep 20, 6:34 pm
FBI ends search at Laundrie residence

The FBI Tampa office tweeted Monday evening that they ended their search of the Laundrie residence North Port, Florida.

“No further details since this is an ongoing investigation,” the office tweeted.

Sep 20, 5:29 pm
Search warrant last week uncovered hard drive, revealed Petito’s last text

Details of a search warrant executed last week by Florida investigators looking into Gabby Petito’s disappearance were revealed Monday.

This warrant, filed by the North Port Police Department this past Wednesday, wasn’t associated with the FBI activity at the Laundrie family’s North Port home Monday.

Police say that after they searched the 2012 Ford Transit van, crime scene technicians found an external hard drive that they believed “may contain viable digital forensic data that could assist in the location” of Petito, court documents said.

A detective said Petito’s mother received an “odd text” from the 22-year-old, on Aug. 27, — making it likely the last communication from Petito, according to court documents.

The text asked Petito’s mom, “Can you help Stan, I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls,” referring to Petito’s grandfather, who she “never” refers to as Stan, according to her mother.

Sep 20, 4:14 pm
911 caller claimed he saw Brian Laundrie ‘slapping’ Gabby Petito

The Grand County, Utah, Sheriff’s Office released on Monday a 911 recording from August in which a caller claimed he witnessed Brian Laundrie allegedly “slapping” Gabby Petito and chasing her up and down a sidewalk hitting her.

In the recording of the 911 call from Aug. 12, the caller, whose name was not released, claimed he saw an apparent domestic dispute unfold on Main Street in Moab between a young couple driving a white van with Florida license plates.

“We drove by, and the gentleman was slapping the girl,” the caller told a 911 dispatcher. “And then we stopped. They ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car and drove off.”

Moab Police Department Chief Bret Edge said last week that his officers responded to the incident, located the van and pulled the couple over. Moab police released body camera footage of the traffic stop and wrote in a report that the couple, identified as Laundrie and Petito, admitted to arguing and that Petito had slapped Laundrie.

The couple also stated to police that Laundrie did not hit Petito, according to the report.

After speaking to Petito and Laundrie separately, the police allowed the couple to go on their way. Edge said “insufficient evidence existed to justify criminal charges.”

Sep 20, 1:44 pm
Car Brian Laundrie last used was parked in parents’ driveway: Authorities

A Ford Mustang convertible authorities believe Brian Laundrie used to purportedly drive himself to the Carlton Reserve near North Port, Florida, was parked in the driveway of his family’s home when FBI agents served a search warrant there on Monday.

Laundrie’s parents told authorities he went to the nearly 25,000-acre preserve on Tuesday, which is the last time they claim they saw him, according to the family’s attorney.

Steven Bertolino, the Laundrie family attorney, told ABC News that the family picked up the car on Thursday morning from the reserve after going out on Wednesday to look for Laundrie.

Laundrie left his family’s home on Tuesday morning with a backpack, Bertolino said. He said that when family members went to the reserve to look for him, they spotted a note left on the car from the North Port Police Department saying it needed to be removed.

Bertolino said the family left the car overnight “so he [Laundrie] could drive back.” When Laundrie didn’t come home Thursday morning, the family went back to retrieve the car, the attorney said.

The family called the police on Friday to file a missing person report, authorities said.

Trans rights challenged in Texas’ third special legislative session

September 20, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(TEXAS) — Texas legislators are heading into their third special session Monday with several controversial topics on the agenda, including transgender student participation in sports and gender-affirming health care for trans youth.

Lawmakers will consider banning transgender students from playing on interscholastic teams that align with their gender identity. Children in grades K through 12 would only be allowed to play sports that correspond with their sex assigned at birth or sex designated on their original birth certificate.

Texas lawmakers alone have introduced more than 40 anti-trans bills this year.

At least 30 states across the country have introduced similar bills on trans student-athletes. So far, eight states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Dakota and West Virginia — have passed the bills into laws or signed them as executive orders.

The laws are being challenged in Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Some groups in support of the bills, like the conservative Christian group Concerned Women for America, claim that trans girls have an unfair advantage.

“The issue is about the basic fairness and opportunities that women have fought for centuries to obtain,” the group said in a statement to ABC News. “The disparity comes when forcing women to compete against a biological male that has innate biological differences, giving them physical advantages that simply cannot be erased.”

There is no evidence that trans athletes disproportionately dominate sports when playing on teams that correspond with their gender identity. There is also no evidence that they have an advantage.

Other anti-trans bills on the special session docket include bans on gender-affirming therapy, counseling, surgery or health care. In some cases, allowing a child or teen under the age of 18 gender-affirming health care may be considered child abuse, if HB22 is signed into law.

LGBTQ+ advocates say these bills only serve to tarnish the mental health and safety of trans students.

“Like any other student, trans young people just want to stay healthy, go to school and spend time with their friends and loved ones,” Andy Marra, the executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, told ABC News. “For transgender students living in states where their very lives are under attack, it can be near impossible to focus on much else but surviving.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that discrimination can lead to poor mental health, suicide, substance abuse, violence and other health risks for trans youth.

Young transgender students are also three times more likely to attempt suicide than their cisgender peers, the CDC reported.

Pro-Putin party takes majority in Russian parliamentary election sullied by fraud

September 20, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(MOSCOW) — Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, which backs President Vladimir Putin, has kept its supermajority in the country’s parliament, sweeping elections that were marred with allegations of widespread ballot rigging and saw many of the Kremlin’s top opponents barred from running.

With virtually all ballots counted, Russia’s election’s commission said United Russia had taken nearly 50% of the vote and won nearly 90% of first-past-the-post districts, meaning the party will retain its two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament, which allows it to change Russia’s constitution.

Russia’s elections are closely managed, and the pro-Kremlin party’s victory was seen as a foregone conclusion, but on Monday, opposition parties accused the Kremlin of using blatant fabrication to inflate the result and produce an overwhelming win even in Moscow, usually a center of dissent.

After polls closed Sunday night after three days of voting, early partial results showed several opposition parties and politicians making strong showings in the capital, with some seemingly in reach of victory with most votes counted.

But those results were all wiped out when, after many hours, authorities published results from online voting, which handed victories to pro-Kremlin candidates. Opposition parties, even those from the so-called “loyal opposition,” cried foul, accusing the Kremlin of using the online votes to conceal vote manipulation and steal victory for its candidates.

The Communist Party, which largely acts as a tame opposition in the parliament, said it would not recognize the results in Moscow, where six of its candidates lost out once the online votes were added.

Critics started raising suspicions about Moscow’s online count after it took far longer for it to be completed than the paper ballot count for most of the rest of the country — a sign, critics said, that officials were waiting to see how much they needed to alter the vote. The online voting was in effect a black box, with independent monitors unable to observe it or properly check how the results were signed off on by officials, independent monitors said. Workers at state companies and organizations have also reported being pressed by their managers to vote online en masse.

Several candidates called a protest at Moscow’s Pushkin Square on Monday. A few hundred people gathered under heavy rain to demonstrate, watched by a cordon of riot police.

“Such a giant difference between the results at the ‘live’ polling stations and the online vote can’t be true,” Mikhail Lobanov, a Communist candidate with wide support among liberal voters, told the crowd, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Lobanov said he had been on track to beat Yevgeny Popov, a pro-Kremlin TV personality, by a margin of 10,500 votes before the online votes suddenly gave Popov a lead of 20,000 votes at the last moment.

There were also allegations of widespread analogue ballot rigging around Russia. Throughout the weekend, there was a stream of videos seeming to show elections officials stuffing wads of ballots into voting urns or trying to block monitoring cameras while others did so.

Independent researchers also spotted that Russia’s central elections committee now encrypts the results data published on its website, a step reportedly intended to prevent researchers from crunching the data themselves, which in the past has allowed them to identify signs of rigging.

“Online voting represents right now represents an absolute evil — a black box that no one checks,” Sergey Shpilkin, a data scientist who in the past has used statistical analysis to demonstrate likely falsification in Russian elections, told Russian news website Meduza.

The head of Russia’s elections commission Ella Pamfilova in a video meeting with Putin said the elections had seen far fewer violations than usual and claimed Russia’s system was “one of the most transparent” in the world.

The United States and some European countries criticized the elections as unfair amid the Kremlin’s use of repressive laws to prevent opponents from participating. Ned Price, the U.S. State Department’s spokesperson, in a statement said the Russian government had conducted “widespread efforts to marginalize independent political figures” and had “severely restricted political pluralism and prevented the Russian people from exercising their civil and political rights.”

United Russia took nearly 50% of the vote despite polls suggesting its support was around 30%, as high food prices and unpopular pension reforms have eaten into its popularity. Ahead of the elections, the Kremlin launched a campaign of repression on a scale unprecedented under Putin’s 20 year-rule, barring dozens of opposition candidates from running, with many arrested and some forced abroad.

It dismantled the movement of its fiercest critic Alexey Navalny, who was jailed in January after surviving a nerve agent poisoning last year.

Navalny, from jail, had sought to exploit the Kremlin party’s unpopularity at the elections with a tactical voting campaign called “Smart Voting,” advising people to vote for any candidate with the best chance of beating United Russia.

On Monday, he claimed the campaign had worked, arguing the campaign’s recommended candidates had won 12 out of Moscow’s 15 districts before the online votes were added.

Coronavirus death toll in US eclipses 1918 influenza pandemic estimates

September 20, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — More than a century ago, the globe was left devastated by a pandemic that has been described by experts as “the deadliest in human history.”

The 1918 influenza pandemic killed at least 50 million people worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, equivalent in proportion to 200 million in today’s global population. An estimated 675,000 of those deaths occurred in the United States.

Now, 18 months into the coronavirus pandemic, the virus has claimed more American lives than its counterpart a hundred years ago.

At this point, at least 675,446 Americans have been confirmed to have died since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University, with thousands of Americans lives still being lost each day.

Surpassing the 1918 death toll is a dismal milestone, but experts suggest there are key differences between both pandemics that must be taken into account, given modern day access to better medical treatments and vaccinations.

“These are two different viruses, two different times in history, at two different times of medical history, with what you have available to combat or treat it,” Howard Markel, professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan, told ABC News.

The influenza outbreak of 1918 began in the spring, with the novel H1N1 virus passing from birds to humans, and lasted for approximately two years. Approximately one-third of the world’s population at that time, or 500 million people, was ultimately estimated to have been infected, according to the CDC.

According to experts, it is important to recall, when comparing data from the two pandemics, that the numbers of deaths stemming from the 1918 pandemic are just estimates. In fact, according to Dr. Graham Mooney, assistant professor of the history of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, it is likely that these figures were significantly underestimated, because of non-registration, missing records, misdiagnosis or underreporting.

Likewise, experts believe that the current COVID-19 death count could already be greatly undercounted, due to inconsistent reporting by states and localities, and the exclusion of excess deaths.

In comparing the pandemics, Markel said, it is important to remember that we now have many more people living in the U.S. than in 1918, when the population stood at approximately 105 million, according to census data, compared to 328 million people in 2019.

The U.S. currently has a coronavirus case fatality rate of 1.6%, compared to the 2.5% fatality rate for influenza in 1918, noted Mooney. Normally, the flu’s fatality rate is less than 0.1%. And thus, the rate of death in the United States, due to COVID-19, remains significantly below the one attributed to the 1918 pandemic.

Ultimately, when compared on a per-capita basis, the pandemic of 1918 was far deadlier than this one, according to Christopher McKnight Nichols, associate professor of history at Oregon State University.

“The difference is that 1 in 500 Americans have died now, and about 1 in 152 died in 1918, although our number keeps going up,” Nichols told ABC News.

Vaccinations and traditional intervention methods key to protection

Although the two pandemics were at first comparable, the introduction of the coronavirus vaccine made the differences between the two “stark,” said Nichols.

“People were desperate for treatment measures in 1918. People were desperate for a vaccine,” Nichols said. “We have effective vaccines now, and so what strikes me in the comparison, if you think about this milestone, this tragedy of deaths, is that same number but we have a really effective treatment, the thing that they most wanted in 1918 and ’19, we’ve got. And for a lot of different reasons, we botched the response.”

Similar to the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, no vaccines or treatments were available to protect people against the 1918 influenza. Thus, protection through non-pharmaceutical interventions was critical, Mooney said.

“The same kinds of measures — the so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions that were put on in 1918 — were the same that we saw last year: lockdowns, social distancing, hygiene masks, limits on gathering places,” Nichols said.

In fact, social distancing was also one of the great historical lessons learned from 1918, according to Markel, demonstrating that if done early, and for a long time, such measures can work.

Millions of different communities and demographics affected

One fundamental contrast between the two pandemics, according to Markel, is that different age groups were most significantly impacted. A disproportionate number of those who succumbed to the disease in 1918 were in the 18- to 45-year-old age group. Young children and the elderly were also significantly impacted.

However, in the coronavirus pandemic, the age group that has been the most affected is over the age of 65, who make up 78.7% of virus-related deaths.

Historical evidence suggests that racial and ethnic disparities, which have affected communities of color throughout the coronavirus pandemic, were also present during the 1918 pandemic.

Black Americans had higher case fatality rates from influenza in 1918-19 than whites, according to a 2019 study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Similarly, Black Americans account for nearly 14% of COVID-19 related deaths, despite the fact that Black Americans only account for 12.5% of the population.

Becoming endemic

Domestically and globally, experts said, it will be crucial for vaccine uptake to increase, in order to blunt the impact of the coronavirus death toll.

“I’m a little pessimistic going into winter, given the fact that there’s such a large unvaccinated population that it is a lot like 1918,” Nichols said, adding that it will ultimately be “some combination of getting more of the population immune, with vaccines and with infections.”

Ultimately, although “it’s not the worst of all time, it’s pretty darn close,” Markel said of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s the worst of our lifetimes, and it’s changed our lives in so many ways.”

500 US women athletes ask Supreme Court to uphold abortion rights

September 20, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — A decorated group of more than 500 current and former American women Olympians and professional and collegiate athletes is warning the U.S. Supreme Court in a new legal filing that eroding access to abortion care in America will be “devastating” to women’s athletics at all levels.

“If the state compelled women athletes to carry pregnancies to term and give birth, it could derail women’s athletic careers, academic futures, and economic livelihoods at a large scale,” the women write. “Such a fundamental restriction on bodily integrity and human autonomy would never be imposed on a male athlete, though he would be equally responsible for a pregnancy.”

Among the named signatories are U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe; Olympic water polo player Ashleigh Johnson; WNBA star Diana Taurasi; U.S. women’s soccer national team captain Becky Sauerbrunn; and, Layshia Clarendon, a former WNBA all-star and current vice president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association.

The filing — known as an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief — was made in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a blockbuster abortion rights showdown scheduled or oral argument at the Supreme Court on Dec. 1.

The state of Mississippi has explicitly asked the court to overturn nearly 50 years of abortion rights precedent since the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, allowing states to set stringent new restrictions on early-term abortions, if not outlaw them entirely.

“As women athletes and people in sports, we must have the power to make important decisions about our own bodies and exert control over our reproductive lives,” Rapinoe said in a statement. “I am honored to stand with the hundreds of athletes who have signed onto this Supreme Court brief to help champion not only our constitutional rights, but also those of future generations of athletes.”

The signatories are all women who “have exercised, relied on the availability of, or support the constitutional right to abortion care in order to meet the demands of their sports,” according to the brief.

Women’s rights advocates said it was the first time a large group of female American athletes publicly took a stand in support of abortion access.

Crissy Perham, a double gold medalist and captain of the 1992 U.S. Olympic swim team, offered one of several personal testimonies in the brief attesting to her experience obtaining an abortion.

“When I was in college, I was on birth control, but I accidentally became pregnant,” she wrote. “I decided to have an abortion. I wasn’t ready to be a mom, and having an abortion felt like I was given a second chance at life.”

“That choice ultimately led me to being an Olympian, a college graduate and a proud mother today,” Perham wrote.

Several athletes described the importance of the Supreme Court precedent in laying the groundwork for more women to participate in athletics and as a “safeguard” in case birth control failed.

“As a victim of rape during my junior year of college, I was comforted in the fact that if I were to fall pregnant and need an abortion, I would have access to that service,” a Division I field hockey player, who was not identified by name, wrote in the brief.

Ashleigh Johnson, the first Black woman on the U.S. Olympic water polo team and member of the gold-medal 2016 and 2021 Olympic teams, said she wants the justices to see abortion access a matter of racial justice.

“It is well-established that women of color experience real disparities in accessing health care services, including contraceptive, abortion and other reproductive care,” Johnson said in a statement. “I hope we can have a real conversation as a country about valuing Black women’s autonomy.”

The case will be argued in December and is expected to be decided by the end of June 2022.

Search continues for missing 6-year-old Isabella Kalua

September 20, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(HAWAII) — It’s been more than a week since the disappearance of 6-year-old Isabella Kalua in Waimanalo, Hawaii. The search for Isabella continues, as Honolulu police and volunteers spread across the city to find the missing child.

Isabella was last seen asleep in her room at her Puha Street address on Sunday, Sept. 12 around 9 p.m., local time, according to the Honolulu Police Department.

Her adoptive family has not participated in search crews, but their attorney told KITV that they have spoken and are cooperating with police. Since they have received death threats regarding the child’s disappearance they have not gone out to search, the attorney said.

KITV reports that HPD has acquired several items that may be linked to Isabella, including a photo album and toys found in a garbage bag, but they have yet to confirm its connection to the case.

Police are also working with the FBI to investigate her disappearance.

“We have conducted numerous interviews; however, there are still individuals, to include acquaintances and family members, who have yet to come forward to be interviewed,” HPD said in a statement to KITV.

Honolulu Police say it won’t rule out foul play.

“I don’t want to think the worst-case scenario,” Alena Kaeo, Kalua’s biological aunt told ABC-affiliate KITV. “But it is always is a possibility. Again, I’m trying to keep my faith as strong as possible and I pray — I pray hard that she is safe. I don’t want to think the worst but it is a possibility.”

Isabella is described by authorities as being a brown-eyed, brown-haired, white, and mixed-race girl. Police said Isabella was likely wearing a black hoodie, black leggings, colorful socks, and Nike slides when she went missing.

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