A little more than a week before a new, Steven Spielberg-directed version of West Side Story — one of his most famous works — is set to hit the big screen, composer Stephen Sondheim has died. The giant of musical theater died Friday at his home in Roxbury, CT. He was 91.
Marianne Elliott, the director of the current Broadway revival of Company, Sondheim’s 1970 musical, tweeted, “We have lost the Shakespeare of musical theater. He was the most generous collaborator with the greatest spirit. The joy of working with him was that he knew theater could and should evolve with time. He was always open to the new.”
Considered one of the most influential composers and lyricists of the 20th century, Sondheim’s works included A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, West Side Story, Gypsy, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sunday In the Park with George, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd and many more.
Five of his shows won the Tony for best musical, while six won the Tony for best original score. Sunday In the Park with George won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Sondheim’s accolades also included eight Grammys, plus an Oscar for writing “Sooner or Later,” which Madonna recorded for the soundtrack of the movie Dick Tracy.
In 1993, Sondheim won the Kennedy Center Honors, and in 2015, President Obama gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2010, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.
Among the stars paying tribute to Sondheim on social media: Barbra Streisand, Hugh Jackman, Josh Gad, Idina Menzel, Elaine Paige, Lea Salonga and Josh Groban.
A statement from the Broadway League reads, “It is nearly impossible to measure Stephen Sondheim’s impact on the world of musical theater. During a career that spanned nearly 65 years he created music and lyrics that have become synonymous with Broadway…It is hard to imagine Broadway without him, but we know his legacy will live on for many years to come.”
According to the New York Times, Sondheim is survived by his husband, Jeffrey Romley, whom he married in 2017, and a half-brother, Walter Sondheim.
(NORTH CAROLINA) — A North Carolina mall was evacuated Friday afternoon after a shooting on the premises, police said.
Three people were shot at Southpoint Mall in Durham, police said. Their conditions are unknown.
Additionally, three people were injured while evacuating the mall, police said.
DPD is investigating a shooting incident at The Streets at Southpoint. The mall is being evacuated and will be closed while DPD investigates the incident. Motorists are advised to avoid the area. There is no further threat at the mall.
One person is in custody, while others involved in the shooting fled the scene, according to the Durham Police Department. Those involved in the incident knew each other, police said.
The shooting occurred on one of the busiest shopping days of the year: Black Friday.
The mall is now closed for the day. There is no active threat at this time, the police department said Friday evening, though authorities urged the public to avoid the area.
(NEW YORK) — A man was fatally stabbed near New York’s Penn Station on Thanksgiving, said police, who are now seeking two people in connection with the attack.
The incident occurred around 6 p.m. Thursday near the busy rail hub, hours after people packed the area for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Officers responding to a call of an assault found a 36-year-old man who had been stabbed in the chest, the New York Police Department said in a statement.
The victim, who appears to have been homeless, was transported to Bellevue Hospital where he was pronounced dead. He’s not yet been identified, pending family notification.
No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing, police said.
On Thursday, the NYPD released surveillance photos of two men wanted in connection with the homicide. Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying them.
This is the second fatal stabbing in a week near Penn Station. Early Sunday, a 32-year-old man died after he was stabbed in the neck while aboard a 2 train near the station, police said. A suspect is still being sought in that homicide.
(COLORADO) — Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) issued an apology on Friday for remarks she made that used anti-Muslim tropes to refer to Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democratic representative from Minnesota and one of only three Muslim members of Congress.
Later on Friday, Omar sent a tweet calling for House leadership to take “appropriate action.”
Omar added that “normalizing this bigotry not only endangers my life but the lives of all Muslims.”
In an undated video that went viral on Thursday, Boebert said that she was getting into an elevator with one of her staffers when a Capitol police officer rushed over to the elevator with “fret [sic] all over his face,” trying to open the door as it was closing.
She then claimed that, upon seeing Omar to her left, she said: “Well, she doesn’t have a backpack. We should be fine,” implying that Omar could have been carrying explosives in a backpack — an anti-Muslim trope.
Boebert also called Omar a part of a so-called “jihad squad” twice in the video.
“I apologize to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Rep. Omar. I have reached out to her office to speak with her directly. There are plenty of policy differences to focus on without this unnecessary distraction,” Boebert tweeted on Friday.
I apologize to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Rep. Omar. I have reached out to her office to speak with her directly. There are plenty of policy differences to focus on without this unnecessary distraction.
Omar said on Thursday that Boebert made up the story, and said that anti-Muslim racism should not be allowed in Congress.
“Fact, this buffoon looks down when she sees me at the Capitol, this whole story is made up,” Omar tweeted on Thursday night. “Anti-Muslim bigotry isn’t funny & shouldn’t be normalized. Congress can’t be a place where hateful and dangerous Muslims tropes get no condemnation.”
Omar received support from some fellow representatives, including Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who called Boebert’s remarks “shameful, deeply offensive and dangerous.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan), another Muslim member of Congress, wrote on Thursday night, “These pathetic racist lies will not only endanger the life of @IlhanMN, but will increase hate crimes towards Muslims. The continued silence & inaction towards this hate-filled colleague and others is enabling violence. It must stop.”
One representative across the aisle, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), retweeted the video with the comment, “Boebert is TRASH.” Republican congressional leaders have not commented yet on Boebert’s remarks.
Edward Mitchell, deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told CNN on Friday morning that Boebert’s comments were “beyond the pale.”
“You’ve gotta remember, Lauren Boebert is not some comedian at a club. She is a sitting member of Congress speaking to her constituents… I will say the more disturbing thing is that the audience applauded, and laughed, and that Republican leaders did not condemn this yet,” Mitchell said.
(MICHIGAN) — The death of a 21-year-old Michigan State University student has prompted the school to suspend a fraternity he recently joined as police investigate whether alcohol played a role in the tragedy that unfolded at an off-campus frat house, officials said.
The student, identified as Phat Nguyen by the Ingram County Medical Examiner’s Office, was found unresponsive around 2 a.m. on Saturday at a residence several blocks from the East Lansing school, according to police.
When police officers responded to a medical emergency call at the residence, they found four individuals passed out inside, including Nguyen, who was unresponsive and not breathing, according to a statement from the East Lansing Police Department.
Police officers and East Lansing firefighters performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Nguyen, but he never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at the scene.
“The preliminary investigation indicates that the deceased is an MSU student and that alcohol consumption could play a factor in this case,” the police statement reads.
The three other individuals found passed out in the residence, listed as the Pi Alpha Phi fraternity house, were taken to Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, where they were treated and released.
The cause of Nguyen’s death is pending the results of toxicology tests taken as part of an autopsy, police said.
“We are heartbroken by this loss to our Spartan community and our thoughts and prayers are with the student’s family and friends,” Dan Olsen, a spokesperson for the university, told the Lansing State Journal.
Olsen told the newspaper that university officials suspended the Pi Alpha Phi chapter pending further investigation, meaning the Greek organization must cease from recruiting new members and is barred from hosting campus-related events.
Pi Alpha Phi’s national board confirmed to the State Journal in an email that its “Michigan State University chapter has been placed under interim suspension pending investigation upon the death of a student member last weekend.”
Nguyen’s death appears to have come a day after the MSU Pi Alpha Phi chapter listed him on its Facebook page as one of four students who had just joined the fraternity.
(NEW YORK) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank more than 900 points on Friday over concerns about the spread of the new COVID-19 variant detected in South Africa.
Anxiety among investors grew as countries ramped up responses to the variant, called B.1.1.529, first detected in Botswana. The United Kingdom and European Union quickly moved to propose travel restrictions to southern Africa, while new cases of the variant were found as far away as Hong Kong, Belgium and Israel.
The Dow fell 2.53%, to 34,899, while the Nasdaq fell 2.23%, to 15,492, and the S&P tumbled 2.27% to 4,595.
Trading ends early on Black Friday, often the slowest day of the year. Fewer trades can mean increased volatility, and at one point the Dow had fallen more than 1,000 points.
Global health authorities have now confirmed 87 cases — 77 in South Africa, six in Botswana, two in Hong Kong and one each in Israel and Belgium — and said they’re expecting hundreds more diagnoses.
Over the summer, markets tumbled as the delta variant spread throughout the U.S.
“Investors are likely to shoot first and ask questions later until more is known,” Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst for Asia Pacific at Oanda, a foreign trading company, wrote in a report, according to The Associated Press.
Investors are worried that supply chains already stretched thin may suffer further as the new variant spreads, potentially threatening more labor shortages, according to the AP. The variant also is putting pressure on central banks, which are contemplating whether to raise interest rates to stave off rising inflation.
(NEW YORK) — Global health authorities said they’re monitoring a new COVID-19 variant first identified in Botswana, with the World Health Organization saying Friday the new strain, dubbed omicron, is a variant of concern.
Previously referred to as B.1.1.529, the WHO urged countries to step up monitoring and surveillance, citing the high number of mutations and early indications that the virus was spreading in South Africa. The global health agency said it’s still not clear whether the variant is more transmissible or causes more serious illness, or if it affects vaccines. And that such studies will take time.
Scientists have now confirmed 87 cases of the new variant — 77 in South Africa, six in Botswana, two in Hong Kong, and one each in Israel and Belgium, though hundreds more diagnoses are expected.
“We don’t know very much about this yet,” said WHO COVID-19 Technical Lead Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, speaking at an “Ask WHO” briefing Thursday. But concern about this variant stems from its “large number of mutations,” Kerkhove said, which could “have an impact on how the virus behaves.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Friday that scientists from the United States and South Africa will discuss the new variant on Friday, as early indications suggest it could be spreading in South Africa.
“Literally,” Fauci added, “it’s something that, in real time, we’re learning more and more about.”
Concerns about this variant already have prompted the U.K., EU and India to propose travel restrictions from South Africa. The World Health Organization, meanwhile, is urging calm, saying it’s premature to close borders.
There are thousands of COVID-19 variants, with new ones emerging all the time. Usually new variants disappear quickly because they’re overrun by a more dominant strain.
The now-dominant delta variant is so highly transmissible that most of the new variants that have cropped up in recent months have been unable to gain a foothold. In the United States, the delta variant comprises an estimated 99.9% of all cases.
“There’s obviously this tension between crying wolf and exacerbating concerns about the variants, but also being caught flat-footed and not responding swiftly enough,” said Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation office at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News Contributor. “This is where we have to cautiously respond without inciting panic, because this could easily turn out to be a variant similar to others that have never really panned out to be global concerns.”
Scientists across the globe constantly monitor all newly emerged variants to see if they’re spreading in a meaningful way, and global health authorities have said they’re monitoring this new variant closely.
Pfizer and partner BioNTech said they will conduct experiments to see if the new variant can chip away at vaccine efficacy. Vaccine experts said current COVID-19 vaccines, which rely on genetic technology, could be easily updated to better combat emerging variants — though so far, that hasn’t been necessary.
Eight variants are currently being monitored by the WHO, which designates particularly worrisome strains as variants of “interest” or “concern.” When they no longer pose a significant public health threat, the variants are reclassified — so far during the pandemic, 13 have been removed from the WHO’s list.
But public health experts said the emergence of variants underscores the urgent need to vaccinate everyone on the planet.
“It gives us a lens into why as epidemiologists we’ve been so concerned about global vaccine equity,” Brownstein added. “It’s a recognition that with not enough people around the globe immunized, it creates more opportunities for variants to emerge, and this is a very good example of that.”
(CALIFORNIA) — Yosemite National Park officials warned visitors not to feed or approach wildlife after a girl was attacked by a buck.
The girl, whose identity has not been made public, was approaching a deer being fed by other visitors when the animal became spooked and charged her with his antlers, the park service said on Wednesday.
She was taken to Yosemite Medical Clinic to be treated for deep wounds on her arm and chest lacerations, officials said.
“It is illegal to feed or approach wildlife in Yosemite! While some animals, including deer, might get used to people approaching them, they spook easily and will defend themselves if people get too close or startle them,” officials posted on Wednesday.
Earlier this year, another National Park visitor was sentenced to four days in jail for willfully remaining, approaching and photographing wildlife within 100 yards, according to an October press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Samantha R. Dehring was at Roaring Mountain in Yellowstone National Park on May 10, 2021, when visitors noticed a grizzly bear and her three cubs. While other visitors backed away, Dehring remained and continued to take pictures until the adult bear charged her.
“Wildlife in Yellowstone National Park are, indeed, wild. The park is not a zoo where animals can be viewed within the safety of a fenced enclosure. They roam freely in their natural habitat and when threatened will react accordingly,” said U.S. Attorney Bob Murray in the press release. “Approaching a sow grizzly with cubs is absolutely foolish. Here, pure luck is why Dehring is a criminal defendant and not a mauled tourist.”
Dehring pled guilty and was sentenced to four days in custody with a year of unsupervised probation and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine.
In addition, she was ordered to make a $1,000 community service payment to Yellowstone Forever Wildlife Protection Fundt, according to the press release.
Dehring was banned from Yellowstone National Park for a year.
Yosemite officials on Wednesday urged visitors to stay away from wild animals.
“Please, for the protection of these wild animals and for the safety of all visitors, always keep your distance!” they said. “This is not how we want anyone’s visit to Yosemite to end.”
(NEW YORK) — Waning immunity has become a focal point in the pandemic.
COVID-19 cases among those fully vaccinated against the virus have been cited by several state public health officials as partly responsible for recent surges in cases. They were also behind the push for boosters for all adults ahead of federal authorization — and the reason for boosting in the first place.
“There’s no doubt that immunity wanes. It wanes in everyone. It’s more dangerous in the elderly, but it’s across all age groups,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, said earlier this month, citing data from Israel and the U.K., where more people were vaccinated sooner and both began to first document waning immunity.
Experts stress that the vaccines remain highly effective against severe COVID-19 illness, and vaccinated people continue to share a lower burden of hospitalizations and deaths among COVID-19 patients as cases and hospitalizations are on the rise again in the U.S.
The data is limited and hard to track, though knowing more about breakthrough infections is an important tool in responding to the pandemic, experts say.
Vaccinated COVID-19 cases always expected
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracking COVID-19 case rates by vaccination status since April shows a relatively flat line for vaccinated people that started to slope up in July — though not nearly as steeply as case rates among unvaccinated people.
Breakthrough cases were always expected — and expected to go up over time, Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News.
“The reason is, first of all, more people are vaccinated,” he said. “The more people who are vaccinated relative to being unvaccinated, the more likely it is that a person who gets sick is going to be vaccinated, just by pure numbers.”
As the number of unvaccinated people who get COVID-19 also continues to increase, it may look like more cases are breakthrough when comparing cases by vaccination status, he said.
COVID-19 Case Rates by Vaccination Status
Another reason for increasing cases is due to waning immunity, Dowdy said.
“There is this waning immunity to getting sick — not getting really sick, but getting infected, getting that initial illness,” he said. “And so over time, people have a little bit less protection against that.”
No vaccine provides 100% protection, though they are intended to help prevent you from getting very sick if infected. The initial immune system response is ramped up for several months after vaccination, though those antibodies “die out over time,” leaving behind a “memory response” to help protect against severe infection, Dowdy said.
When that happens varies from person to person depending on factors like age and health. In general, Pfizer’s data on its COVID-19 vaccine shows a decrease from an initial 96% efficacy to 83.7% efficacy after four months. A study by Kaiser Permanente Southern California found that efficacy against infections declined from 88% during the first month after full vaccination to 47% after five months.
A booster dose brings the immune response back up to a “robust” level seen one month after two doses, Pfizer found.
Booster doses are now eligible for all adults as COVID-19 transmission remains high in many parts of the country, “creating additional challenges and exposures for those who are vaccinated,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
“Just based on probability, with enough exposures to the virus, you will have breakthrough infections,” he said. “But those breakthrough infections doesn’t mean the vaccines aren’t working — it just means over time, the probability of getting infected through an exposure to the virus, that probability increases.”
“Despite that, we know that the vast majority of those breakthrough infections are mild, especially much milder than they would be if someone wasn’t previously vaccinated, and they don’t lead to anywhere near the same levels of severe illness and death,” he said.
In September, unvaccinated individuals had a 5.8 times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19, and a 14 times greater risk of dying from it, as compared to vaccinated individuals, according to CDC data.
COVID-19 Death Rates by Vaccination Status
Waning immunity a ‘real phenomenon’
Although the vast majority of COVID-19 infections and severe hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated, cases in vaccinated people do appear to be on the rise due to waning immunity, according to health officials.
In New Mexico, health officials have cited waning immunity as one of the reasons behind a recent surge in COVID-19 cases. The most recent state data shows that nearly 29% of cases and 21% of hospitalizations from Oct. 18 to Nov. 15 were among vaccinated people.
Similarly, health officials in Vermont, the most vaccinated state by population, have pointed to waning immunity as partly behind its worst COVID-19 surge yet.
“Waning of vaccine immunity is a real phenomenon,” Dr. Mark Levine, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health, said during a press briefing in mid-November.
Vermont also leads the nation in administering booster doses to people ages 65 and up. This week, Levine told reporters that the health department’s data reaffirms that “booster shots are working.” Case rates among those ages 65 and up in the state make up only 10-12% of COVID-19 cases, he said. The most recent state data also shows case rates among that population have decreased 14% week-over-week while increasing for every other age group.
“The need for a booster does not mean the COVID-19 vaccines have failed to do their job,” he said. “They are highly protective against the worst effects of COVID. But the protection we get from a vaccine can start to wear off over time.”
“For COVID-19, booster shots are especially important for those at higher risk who got vaccinated early on, like the majority of Vermonters who fall into this category and were vaccinated very early in this year. And at a time when COVID-19 transmission is high, when we’re indoors more and getting together over the holidays, boosters really do benefit us all,” he added.
Challenges in tracking breakthrough infections
Tracking breakthrough cases can be challenging, and most efforts likely represent an undercount due to a lack of testing of asymptomatic cases and reporting of at-home test results, according to The Pandemic Tracking Collective, a group of former members of The Covid Tracking Project that offers data solutions for tracking the pandemic. Breakthrough data is also not standardized across states, and not all report breakthrough cases, hospitalizations and deaths, the group said in a recent report.
In this patchwork of breakthrough infection-related collection, 36 U.S. jurisdictions report cases, 34 report hospitalizations and 37 report deaths, according to The Pandemic Tracking Collective report. At the time of its report, the CDC tracked cases for 16 jurisdictions and deaths for 15 jurisdictions by vaccination status, updated monthly. That has since increased to 24 and 20 jurisdictions, respectively, in the tracker’s latest update this week. The CDC also reports on hospitalizations by vaccination status in 14 states.
“Now we have data on COVID-19 case counts and hospitalizations at our fingertips. What we lack is nuanced and detailed information on vaccine breakthroughs, which will be key to ending this pandemic,” Jessica Malaty Rivera, science communication lead at The Pandemic Tracking Collective, said in a statement.
Breakthrough infections can help scientists better understand declining vaccine efficacy and detect new variants, the group said. Having better data can also help enact effective policies, Brownstein said.
“It’s very hard to make policy decisions with imperfect data,” he said. “Being able to understand the extent to which we’re seeing breakthrough infections and their severity is important to make decisions around things like boosters, decisions around requirements for those who’ve been exposed or infected.”
“When you have that kind of data, it can tell you very clearly what the burden of disease is in vaccinated people,” he continued. “But without that, we have very limited information. So I think that is one of the real deficiencies in public health surveillance, is a lack of clarity on the impact of this virus among vaccinated and unvaccinated.”
For Dowdy, data on breakthrough cases can provide “valuable information as we think about how we can best fight this pandemic,” including the duration and level of protection that the vaccines are providing. Though he warned against reading the data as “trying to split the population in two.”
“At the end of the day, we’re all in this together, vaccinated or unvaccinated,” he said.
