(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Friday announced the next list of recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, gun control advocate Gabrielle Giffords and actor Denzel Washington are among the 17 individuals chosen to receive the nation’s highest civilian honor. The ceremony will take place at the White House on Thursday, July 7.
Late Sen. John McCain, a Purple Heart recipient who represented the state of Arizona in Congress for decades before succumbing to glioblastoma in 2018, will be awarded the honor posthumously.
Biden and McCain’s friendship dated back to the 1970s, and the two worked together on a number of issues during their time in the Senate. In 2018, Biden delivered a moving eulogy at McCain’s memorial service, stating “we will not see his like again.”
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and former AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka also will receive posthumous awards.
President Joe Biden will be the first president to award the medals after already receiving one himself. Former President Barack Obama presented the medal to Biden in 2017, who was then serving as vice president.
“This honor is not only well beyond what I deserve, but it’s a reflection of the generosity of your spirit,” an emotional Biden told Obama during the ceremony. “I don’t deserve this. But I know it came from the president’s heart.”
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is awarded to people who have “made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
“These seventeen Americans demonstrate the power of possibilities and embody the soul of the nation – hard work, perseverance, and faith,” the White House said. “They have overcome significant obstacles to achieve impressive accomplishments in the arts and sciences, dedicated their lives to advocating for the most vulnerable among us, and acted with bravery to drive change in their communities – and across the world – while blazing trails for generations to come.”
Here’s a list of the other 11 Medal of Freedom recipients:
Sister Simone Campbell – Campbell is a member of Sisters of Social Service, and a prominent advocate for economic justice, immigration reform, and healthcare policy.
Dr. Julieta García – García was the first Hispanic woman to serve as a college president, having served in the top position at The University of Texas at Brownsville.
Fred Gray – Gray was one of the first Black members of the Alabama State legislature since Reconstruction, and a distinguished civil rights attorney whose clients included Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Father Alexander Karloutsos – Karloutsos is a former Vicar General of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, and as a priest provided counsel to several U.S. presidents
Khizr Khan – a Pakistani immigrant whose son was killed while serving in the U.S. Army, Khan served on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom under Biden.
Sandra Lindsay – Lindsay, a New York critical care nurse, was the first American to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Diane Nash – a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Nash worked closely with King and other civil rights leaders.
Megan Rapinoe – a World Champion and Olympic soccer star, Rapinoe is also an advocate for gender pay equality, racial justice, and LGBTQI+ rights.
Alan Simpson – Simpson has served in the U.S. Senate for nearly two decades, leading on issues such as campaign finance reform and marriage equality.
Wilma Vaught – Vaught is one of the most decorated women in U.S. military history.
Raúl Yzaguirre – Yzaguirre is a civil rights advocate who served as CEO and president of National Council of La Raza for 30 years, and was once the U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic.
As the takes about the second volume of Stranger Things season 4 are pouring in, we finally have the most important review: the one from Kate Bush.
The English artist, whose 1985 song “Running Up That Hill” has been a huge, resurgent hit over the past month due to its placement in the first volume of season 4, has now revealed her thoughts on the final two episodes, which premiered Friday on Netflix.
“They’re just through the roof,” Bush writes in a spoiler-free post on her website. “I’d only seen the scenes that directly involved the use of [‘Running Up That Hill’] and so I didn’t know how the story would evolve or build.”
Bush adds that she was “so delighted” when Stranger Things creators, the DufferBrothers, reached out about using “Running Up That Hill” as a “totem” for the character Max. But now that she’s finished the season, she feels “deeply honored that the song was chosen to become a part of their roller coaster journey.”
“I can’t imagine the amount of hard work that’s gone into making something on this scale,” she writes. “I am in awe. They’ve made something really spectacular.”
Since “Running Up That Hill” was first used in the Stranger Things episodes that premiered in May, the song has run up many, many charts, reaching the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 — a career first for Bush — and #1 on the U.K.’s Official Singles chart, where it’s stayed for three straight weeks.
The song’s resurgence led the normally press-shy Bush to issue several public statements and even give a rare interview.
Day two of the 2022 Essence Festival of Culture began at the Essence Eats booth with a cooking demo by New York’s chef JJ Johnson, who was joined by P-Valley actress Brandee Evans. Together they prepared a salmon dish using plant-based cheese — inspired by a favorite at Johnson’s rice bowl restaurant, Field Trip — and discussed the importance of healthy eating in the Black community.
Evans was motivated to convert to a plant-based diet after her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2018. Considering her role as a star exotic dancer on the hit Starz show P-Valley, Evans said healthy eating also helps to get and keep her in shape.
Johnson inquired about Evans’ full regime, asking, “Some people say if you go plant-based, you can’t work out, you need lots of protein.”
Evans said she doesn’t drink protein shakes at all. “I work out all the time, I’m a workout fanatic. I don’t need it, I feel like I get the energy that I need from eating better now.” She jokingly adding, “Y’all see what I gotta wear [on the show] – nothing, so that’s another reason we had to go plant-based.”
As for Johnson, a man of Black and Puerto Rican descent, he infuses plant-based ingredients into the variety of special rice dishes created at Field Trip.
“The goal is to bring rice culture back to America and also put respect back on the rice grain,” he said. But also, “A lot of Black people don’t eat dairy,” so fresh products like the plant-based cheese used during the cooking demo are important to the community.
“I call ourselves a community-based restaurant, especially in Harlem,” he said. Johnson says he’s proud to be a Black business owner with the ability “to open the doors and [create] a safe space for all.”
(NEW YORK) — In the early days of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, scientists were hopeful it might herald the long-awaited turning point of the pandemic, not only bringing the threat of severe disease, hospitalization and death to an end, but also completely halting the spread of the disease.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, said in December 2020 that if the nation’s COVID-19 vaccine campaign went well, the U.S. could approach herd immunity by summer’s end and “normality that is close to where we were before” by the end of 2021.
A series of events last summer, including a widespread COVID-19 outbreak that hit highly vaccinated Provincetown, Massachusetts, soon swayed those hopes, as evidence emerged that vaccinated people were contracting the virus more frequently than initially expected and transmitting it to others.
In the months that followed the Provincetown outbreak, breakthrough infections would shift from a statistical anomaly to a regular occurrence.
Experts say current vaccines are still doing their most important job – dramatically reducing people’s risk of severe illness and death. But they are no longer hopeful vaccines will stop the virus in its tracks, now that it’s clear vaccinated people can develop mild disease and transmit illness to others.
The astoundingly high levels of protection against infection that was initially observed, especially for the mRNA vaccines, created by Pfizer and Moderna, have largely dissipated, especially for those with one or two doses combined with extremely transmissible variants.
“When it comes to vaccines and COVID-19 infection, there’s good news and bad news,” said Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center. “The good news is the vaccines are still doing an amazing job at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death. The bad news is that effectiveness at preventing infection is a lot lower in the omicron era, and wanes quickly after vaccination.”
Despite the increase in the number of breakthrough infections, per capita data shows that unvaccinated Americans continue to have a greater risk of developing severe disease or death from COVID-19, than their vaccinated counterparts.
“Variant evolution and even subvariant evolution within omicron have shown that accumulation of mutations result in limited cross-protection when it comes to infection risk,” said John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “The main question continues to be does infection matter in a world where serious outcomes are averted.”
But health experts say that despite mild outcomes for many vaccinated and boosted people, waning immunity and easily transmissible variants, high caseloads have the potential to strain public health systems and put the vulnerable at risk. In addition, long COVID-19 remains a risk, although vaccinated people are less likely than unvaccinated to suffer from it.
How protected are we really?
Although the vaccine’s protection against hospitalization remains strong, data collected in the U.K. found that being vaccinated was no longer enough to protect against mild or asymptomatic infection by June 2022.
Although effectiveness against severe disease remains relatively strong across all vaccines, emerging evidence suggests that that protection also wanes over time, and in the face of newly evolved variants. A CDC analysis found three shots was roughly 90% effective against emergency room or hospital visits in the months after the third shot, but that declined to 66-78% by four to five months out.
Given mounting evidence of the benefits of three doses, the CDC recommends an additional booster dose for adults and children 5 and older.
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine also found that as the virus continues to evolve, each new omicron subvariant is increasingly likely to lead to reinfection or breakthrough infection.
Researchers found lower antibody responses against new omicron subvariants BA.5 and BA.5 – now dominant – compared to prior omicron subvariants.
Thus, as evolving variants continue to escape protection, Doron stressed that widespread protection against infection is likely unrealistic.
“I believe it is not reasonable to expect the current vaccines to prevent infection,” Doron said. “The effectiveness isn’t high, and it is short-lived. It is not feasible to revaccinate people as often as would be needed to maintain any kind of level of protection from infection.”
Amid concerns of a renewed COVID-19 resurgence, federal officials are now in the process of deciding what type of vaccines should be made available in the fall, in order to better address variants that are increasingly getting better at eluding the immune response triggered by the vaccines.
The Food and Drug Administration said this week that it is asking the vaccine companies to produce shots for this fall that will give Americans the broadest and strongest protection against COVID-19 for its upcoming booster campaign.
The manufacturers have been advised to create vaccines that include two strains of COVID-19, the original strain and the most recent omicron BA.4 and BA.5 strains that are currently dominant in the U.S.
Although the FDA’s group of advisers voted earlier in the week in support of moving forward with the new vaccine design, some reminded Americans that these new-and-improved shots will also not be able to offer total protection from mild infections.
Although scientists say they are not giving up on finding a vaccine that can prevent all infections, they creating such a vaccine is more difficult – a feat that very few other vaccines have accomplished.
Herd immunity no longer the goal
In the first months of the pandemic, reaching herd immunity was frequently discussed by public health experts as an important long-term goal in achieving national protection against COVID-19 and returning to normalcy in the face of a deadly and mysterious disease.
However, when the occurrence of breakthrough infections became more common, despite mass vaccination, the likelihood of herd immunity began to slip away.
“The more our understanding of COVID-19 has improved, the more we’ve realized that the theoretical end state of herd immunity is unachievable,” Brownstein said. “There will likely be a continuous race between the evolution of the virus and the background immunity achieved either through infection or vaccination. Unfortunately, evolution continues to outpace our ability to gain protection.”
Doron said that she believes that “eventually” the nation will have enough immunity to treat COVID-19 like other viruses that circulate regularly, when hospitalizations and deaths are not as widespread.
“I think we will have enough immunity as a population to treat COVID-19 like we do other respiratory viruses, where we stay home until we feel better and don’t structure our lives around the virus. Immunocompromised people will still need to be careful as they always are about catching infections,” Doron explained.
Providing clear goals and outlining the benefits of vaccination remains critical to encouraging uptake among the hesitant.
“Public health has to be more clear about the goals of vaccination programs,” Brownstein said.
Many health experts agree that the goal of the nation’s current vaccine drive cannot be to prevent every infection, as providing robust protection from hospitalization and deaths remains the most critical goal in the nation’s fight against COVID-19.
“If COVID-19 had always caused only the kind of infection that we currently see in boosted people, we wouldn’t have let it upend our lives the way we did. Ultimately, what’s most important is prevention of hospitalization and death,” Doron said.
However, Brownstein noted that it is important to consider the continued risks of long-COVID, which even with less severe forms of infection.
“While prevention of hospitalization and deaths remain the priority, post-acute conditions like long COVID-19 challenge this paradigm,” Brownstein added. “Muddied messaging has led to extreme divides between those who feel protected and those who still worry about long term impacts of infection especially with unknown variants around the corner.”
Bazzi is back with the appropriately timed song “Miss America.” He said in a statement, “It’s the first piece of music I’m putting out in years that really represents where I am in this moment… There’s an optimism in this song that encourages us to take the broken pieces of the things we once stood on and put them back together in a way that makes sense to us.”
Smash Mouth also released a timely new song, “4th Of July,” their first track to feature new lead singer Zach Goode. The song embodies how Americans enjoy celebrating the holiday.
J-Hope launched his solo career with “More,” which’ll feature on his new album, Jack in the Box. His label says “More” represents his “aspirations to break the mold and grow further.” The single blends grunge and hip hop elements.
Calvin Harris teamed with 21 Savage for the song “New Money” to further hype his forthcoming album, Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2, which arrives August 5.
Somebody call 9-1-1, Sean Kingston is back with “Rihanna (Umbrella),” which sees him blending Afrobeats with Reggae pop. He crafted the track to honor the “many people from the islands or Africa” who “have not gotten their shot.” The single is the prelude of his forthcoming album, Road to Deliverance, due out later this year.
Sabrina Carpenter says of her new song “Vicious,” “This song is really narrative and personal. It’s as if I’m having a conversation. We’ve all had experiences with people we love so deeply who turn out to be different than we thought they were.”
Halsey dropped “So Good (Stripped),” an acoustic version of her all new single that lets fans fully appreciate her powerful vocals.
The complete soundtrack album for the hit Netflix series Stranger Things‘ fourth season was released today via digital formats.
The expanded collection combines the 16 songs from the previously issued first volume of the soundtrack with six additional tracks that appear in the show’s two-part season finale, which premiered today.
In addition to Kate Bush‘s 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God),” which went viral thanks to this new season, there is also an extended remix of Journey‘s “Separate Ways” that was created by former Journey frontman Steve Perry. This “Separate Ways” remix is different from the one heard in the soundtrack’s first installment. Perry said he became inspired to collaborate on a new remix when he heard the original in the first trailer for Stranger Things‘ fourth season.
“I was stunned at how cool it was,” Perry notes. “One week later, I had an idea for an extended version, so I called Bryce [Miller] and we assembled our Extended Remix. Being a huge fan of the show, having my music on the soundtrack made me very happy! I truly love both these remixed versions.”
The updated soundtrack also features James Taylor‘s “Fire and Rain,” The Beach Boys‘ “California Dreamin’,” Extreme‘s “Play With Me,” The Surfaris‘ “Wipeout,” Musical Youth‘s “Pass The Dutchie” and “When It’s Cold I’d Like To Die” by Moby.
Physical versions of the complete Stranger Things: Soundtrack from the Netflix Series, Season 4 album will be released later this year, with CD and cassette editions due out on September 9 and a two-LP vinyl version arriving on November 4.
Here’s the album’s full track list:
“Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” (Bryce Miller/Alloy Tracks Remix) — Journey with Steve Perry
“California Dreamin'” — The Beach Boys
“Psycho Killer” — Talking Heads
“Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” — Kate Bush
“You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” — Dead or Alive
“Chica Mejicanita” — Mae Arnette
“Play with Me” — Extreme
“Detroit Rock City” (Single Version) — KISS
“I Was a Teenage Werewolf” — The Cramps
“Pass the Dutchie” — Musical Youth
“Wipe Out” — The Surfaris
“Object of My Desire” (Single Version) — Starpoint
“Rock Me Amadeus (The Gold Mix)” — Falco
“Travelin’ Man” — Ricky Nelson
“Tarzan Boy” — Baltimora
“Dream a Little Dream of Me” — Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
“Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” (Single Version) — Rick Derringer
“Fire and Rain” — James Taylor
“Spellbound” — Siouxsie and the Banshees
“Master of Puppets — Metallica
“When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die” — Moby (featuring Mimi Goese)
“Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” (Steve Perry & Bryce Miller Extended Remix) — Journey with Steve Perry
(WASHINGTON) — Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema remains committed to upholding the Senate filibuster, a spokesperson said Friday, a day after President Joe Biden said he would support making an exception to codify abortion rights in federal law.
“Senator Sinema’s position on the filibuster has not changed,” the spokesperson told ABC News.
While West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin hasn’t weighed in specifically after Biden’s call, all signs are that he, too, remains opposed to such a carveout. Without the support of both Democrats, a change to the Senate rules is likely not possible.
Biden is under pressure to act on reproductive rights after the Supreme Court last Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision legalizing abortion access nationwide for the past five decades.
Biden on Thursday called the high court’s behavior “outrageous,” stating he supported an exception to the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to protect abortion rights.
“We have to codify Roe v. Wade in the law,” he said. “And the way to do that is to make sure Congress votes to do that. And if the filibuster gets in the way it’s like voting rights, it should be we provide an exception for this, except the required exception to the filibuster for this action to deal with the Supreme Court decision.”
Biden earlier this year voiced support for a filibuster carveout to pass voting rights legislation, but that too faced opposition from Manchin and Sinema.
The administration has announced several steps aimed at safeguarding existing protections for women, such as protecting access for medication abortion and ensuring that pregnant patients can get emergency medical care. Earlier this week, Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said every option is being explored with top legal advisers.
But Biden’s acknowledged that such executive action can only go so far, stating it is ultimately up to Congress to enshrine abortion rights at the federal level.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Friday said “Democrats are fighting ferociously to enshrine Roe v Wade into law.”
But the party’s options remain extremely limited, so long as the Senate filibuster is intact.
When asked about Biden’s call for filibuster carveout, Sinema’s office referred ABC News to the op-ed the senator wrote last summer and her statement following the leaked Dobbs decision earlier this year. In both statements, Sinema affirmed her belief that the filibuster has been used to protect women’s rights.
“Protections in the Senate safeguarding against the erosion of women’s access to health care have been used half-a-dozen times in the past ten years, and are more important now than ever,” she said in the previous statement.
Manchin said last week, following the Supreme Court decision, that he was hopeful for a bipartisan solution.
When the draft abortion decision leaked in May, Manchin told reporters “the filibuster is the only protection of democracy.”
ABC News’ Allison Pecorin and Libby Cathey contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A suspect has been identified in the 1990 cold case murder of a Seattle teenager through the investigative tool of genetic genealogy, Washington state officials announced.
But the suspect, Robert Brooks, won’t stand trial, because he died in 2016 from natural causes, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.
Brooks has now been linked to the sexual assault and murder of 17-year-old Michelle Koski, who was found dead on Aug. 25, 1990 in Snohomish, the sheriff’s office said.
Brooks, then 22, had been released from prison four months before the killing, the sheriff’s office said. He was staying with family just a few blocks from where Koski lived, the sheriff’s office said.
Koski’s case had already been unsolved for 15 years when it was picked up by the cold case team in 2005, the sheriff’s office said. There wasn’t a DNA match from the crime scene to anyone in the CODIS law enforcement database, officials said, and over the next 10 years, several suspects were ruled by testing their DNA.
The case finally identified Brooks as a suspect by using genetic genealogy, which takes an unknown suspect’s DNA left at a crime scene and identifies it using his or her family members who voluntarily submit their DNA samples to a DNA database. This allows police to create a much larger family tree compared with using only databases like CODIS.
A forensic genealogist spent about one year building family trees using the unknown suspect’s DNA, which she eventually narrowed down to two brothers, officials said. Brooks’ DNA was then matched to DNA at the crime scene, officials said.
“After more than 30 years of searching for answers following this terrible murder, we can finally provide Michelle’s family with some answers,” Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney said in a statement.
“I have been praying for this day for a very long time,” Koski’s friend, Melissa Johnson, said at a news conference Thursday, as she thanked the officers and genealogists who worked on the case.
“Michelle and I met when we were just 10 years old,” Johnson said.
“I often wonder what she would’ve been like had she still been alive, and how different my life would be, as well. … I now pray that Michelle can finally rest in peace,” Johnson said.
If you’re wondering what not to do when your dogs get sprayed by a skunk, Chris Lane’s got some pointers.
The singer shared hilarious security cam footage of a skunk attack — and the chaos that ensued — that took place while he and his wife, Lauren,were hanging out at home. The clip shows Chris frantically running out the door after one of his dogs, screaming at the top of his lungs, as Lauren hangs back and unsuccessfully attempts to keep another dog inside.
To make things even more chaotic, the camera also catches Lauren in a compromising position: It shows her picking a wedgie as she looks out the back door. In the comments section, the singer’s wife says Chris promised her he’d edit out that part of the video before posting it.
“I also asked u to cut that part out and u didn’t and this will be remembered,” Lauren threatens.
But in the name of comedy, the wedgie just adds to the chaotic fun: “Needless to say I’ve lost my voice and [Lauren] is Wedgie Free…” Chris jokes in the caption.
Another Lauren — Lauren Alaina — also chimes in the comments to reveal that she lives nearby and knows firsthand how ruthless the skunks can be.
“A skunk just sprayed my dog three weeks ago. My house just stopped smelling like it,” she reveals. “Worst experience ever. I relate to the yelling. The wedgie picking. The hysteria is real.”
The complete soundtrack album for the hit Netflix series Stranger Things‘ fourth season was released today via digital formats.
The expanded collection combines the 16 songs from the previously issued first volume of the soundtrack with six additional tracks that appear in the show’s two-part season final, which premiered Friday.
Among the newly added tunes is an extended remix of Journey‘s “Separate Ways” created by former Journey frontman Steve Perry and composer Bryce Miller. This “Separate Ways” remix is different from the one Miller created with Alloy Tracksfor the soundtrack’s first installment.
Perry says he was inspired to collaborate on the new remix after hearing the original, which debuted in the first trailer for Stranger Things‘ fourth season.
“I was stunned at how cool it was,” Perry notes. “One week later, I had an idea for an extended version, so I called Bryce and we assembled our Extended Remix. Being a huge fan of the show, having my music on the soundtrack made me very happy! I truly love both these remixed versions.”
The updated soundtrack also features James Taylor‘s “Fire and Rain,” Rick Derringer‘s “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo,” Siouxsie and the Banshees‘ “Spellbound” and Metallica‘s “Master of Puppets.”
Meanwhile, the tracks from the first volume include The Beach Boys‘ “California Dreamin’,” Talking Heads‘ “Psycho Killer,” Dead or Alive‘s “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record),” KISS‘ “Detroit Rock City” and Kate Bush‘s “Running Up the Hill,” which has enjoyed a huge chart resurgence thanks to Stranger Things.
Physical versions of the complete Stranger Things: Soundtrack from the Netflix Series, Season 4 album will be released later this year, with CD and cassette editions due out on September 9 and a two-LP vinyl version arriving on November 4.
Here’s the album’s full track list:
“Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” (Bryce Miller/Alloy Tracks Remix) — Journey with Steve Perry
“California Dreamin'” — The Beach Boys
“Psycho Killer” — Talking Heads
“Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” — Kate Bush
“You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” — Dead or Alive
“Chica Mejicanita” — Mae Arnette
“Play with Me” — Extreme
“Detroit Rock City” (Single Version) — KISS
“I Was a Teenage Werewolf” — The Cramps
“Pass the Dutchie” — Musical Youth
“Wipe Out” — The Surfaris
“Object of My Desire” (Single Version) — Starpoint
“Rock Me Amadeus (The Gold Mix)” — Falco
“Travelin’ Man” — Ricky Nelson
“Tarzan Boy” — Baltimora
“Dream a Little Dream of Me” — Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
“Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” (Single Version) — Rick Derringer
“Fire and Rain” — James Taylor
“Spellbound” — Siouxsie and the Banshees
“Master of Puppets — Metallica
“When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die” — Moby (featuring Mimi Goese)
“Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” (Steve Perry & Bryce Miller Extended Remix) — Journey with Steve Perry
