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COVID-19 live updates: Updates main headline to Abbott issues executive order banning vaccine mandates in Texas

October 11, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.

More than 713,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.8 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 66% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.

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

Oct 11, 6:41 pm

Abbott issues executive order banning vaccine mandates in Texas

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday that he issued an executive order that bans vaccine mandates “by any entity” in Texas.

The executive order prohibits entities from issuing a mandate to anyone who “objects to such vaccination for any reason of personal conscience, based on a religious belief, or for medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19.”

“The COVID-19 vaccine is safe, effective, and our best defense against the virus, but should remain voluntary and never forced,” Abbott said in a statement.

The governor also announced that the issue over vaccine mandates will be addressed in a special session of the state legislature.

As of Monday evening, 72.4% of Texas residents over 12 have received one vaccine dose, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Texas’s seven-day average for new daily COVID-19 cases is 7,447 as of Oct. 8, according to the CDC.

Oct 11, 3:33 pm

WHO advisory group recommends boosters for immunocompromised people

The World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization is recommending boosters for moderately and severely immunocompromised people. The group is also recommending a third dose of China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines for people 60 and older.

The WHO’s Director-General had previously called for a moratorium on boosters, citing inequities in access to vaccines. High-income countries have administered 35 times more vaccine doses than low-income countries. Countries in the WHO Africa Region have only fully vaccinated 3% of their populations.

-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou

Oct 11, 3:09 pm

Philadelphia Marathon requiring in-person participants to be fully vaccinated

All in-person runners must be fully vaccinated two weeks ahead of next month’s Philadelphia Marathon, officials announced. Runners with only a negative test won’t qualify.

Oct 11, 12:41 pm

Daily death average nearly 8 times higher than in mid-July

Although daily deaths have declined by about 17% in the last four weeks, the U.S. is still reporting an average of 1,465 new deaths each day, according to federal data. Over the last four days alone, the U.S. reported another 7,500 confirmed COVID-19 deaths.

The death average is nearly eight times higher than in mid-July when the national average had dropped to a near pandemic low of 192 daily deaths, according to federal data.

But hospitalization admissions have dropped by about 11.4% in the last week, according to federal data.

There are currently about 65,000 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals, down from 104,000 patients in late August.

In the Mountain Region — Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming — hospital admissions are steadily trending up, federal data show. In the Northeast, hospital admissions are no longer trending down.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Oct 11, 12:13 pm
Boston Marathon returns with COVID protocols in place

The Boston Marathon returned with 18,000 runners on Monday following a two-year hiatus.

The field size was reduced by 36% this year while another 28,000 runners participated in the race virtually.

Runners were required to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test. Although masks were not mandated for the 26.2-mile course, face coverings were enforced on participant transportation, as well as for volunteers who interacted with participants.

According to the Boston Marathon Association, 95% of all Boston Marathon volunteers were vaccinated and 100% of Boston Marathon medical volunteers were vaccinated.

Eddie Van Halen’s California hometown unveils honorary plaque

October 11, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Eddie Van Halen‘s hometown of Pasadena, California, has unveiled an honorary plaque dedicated to the late Van Halen guitarist.

According to Pasadena Now, the plaque is displayed on the outside wall of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, which commemorates Eddie and Van Halen for “reinventing rock ‘n’ roll” and their “connection to Pasadena.”

Eddie and his brother Alex were born in The Netherlands before the Van Halen family moved to Pasadena in 1962. By the time they started their namesake band in the early ’70s, the brothers were local sensations — as the plaque notes, Van Halen performed at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium 14 times between 1975 and 1978.

Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, Pasadena council member Felicia Williams said, “This event brings together history and community to celebrate a world-renowned artist.”

“It’s not just the history of Eddie as a guitar legend, but also the challenges he faced growing up mixed race in Pasadena, which always spoke to me,” Williams added, referring to Eddie’s Dutch-Indonesian heritage.

The plaque arrives a week after the one-year anniversary of Eddie’s death. He died October 6, 2020, at age 65 following a battle with cancer.

SZA denies rumors that she’s releasing her album the same day as Summer Walker

October 11, 2021 by WDNY Radio

SZA is setting the record straight. After a fan asked “The Weekend” singer if she was going to compete with fellow songstress Summer Walker by releasing her sophomore album Alt, on November 5, the same date as Walker’s Still Over It, SZA says that would never happen.

“I jus wanna know y y’all think i would drop same time as summer,” SZA tweets in response to the fan before adding, “I’m ON her album…like wut.”

Rumors of SZA’s expected album-release date comes after a SZA fan page announced that the singer had chosen the same November 5 date as Summer Walker.

While there’s no word yet on when SZA will release the follow-up to her 2017 project Ctrl, fans can be excited about the singers’ upcoming collaboration. As previously reported, the two joined forces when Walker was featured on SZA’s “Bloodstain,” released back in April. They later teased their reunion when they were seen in the studio together again in June.

Afghan interpreter who helped rescue Biden in 2008 evacuated from Afghanistan

October 11, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — An Afghan interpreter who helped rescue then Sen. Joe Biden during a congressional delegation visit to Afghanistan in 2008 has been evacuated from the country, the State Department and the nonprofit that coordinated his travel confirmed to ABC News on Monday.

The interpreter and his family were among more than 200 “at-risk” people in Pakistan who have now been moved “to safety,” the Human First Coalition said in a statement.

The organization, comprised of volunteers efforting evacuations, thanked Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department for their help facilitating their travel. It said Blinken held late-night phone calls and helped coordinate a “path” out of Pakistan for the group. It also thanked Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan for welcoming the evacuees after they first got out of Afghanistan.

During his 2008 visit to Afghanistan, a helicopter carrying Biden, along with then-Sens. John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, made an emergency landing because of a snowstorm. A group of U.S. service members and their Afghan partners helped rescue them over land, including a man identified as Aman Khalili by the Wall Street Journal, which first reported his story.

After Biden ended the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and withdrew all troops and personnel in August, Khalili pleaded for help getting out — sharing this message for Biden with ABC News: “Please do not forget me and my family. Please find a way to get me out.”

In a statement to ABC News on Monday, the State Department also confirmed Khalili and his family had successfully been evacuated from Afghanistan and had “initiated onward travel from Pakistan.”

“They did so with extensive and high-level engagement and support from the U.S. government, and we are grateful for the many others who also supported him along the way,” a spokesperson from the Department of State told ABC News.

Khalili was one of thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. military and diplomatic mission, but had not been able to get a Special Immigrant Visa for their service. It’s unclear whether he was granted a visa now and where he and his family are headed.

William Shatner channels Captain Kirk for historic Blue Origin space flight

October 11, 2021 by WDNY Radio

William Shatner will make history Wednesday as he boldly goes where few have gone before while aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch vehicle.

The Star Trek actor who played the iconic Captain Kirk joined Good Morning America on Monday along with his fellow flight crew members as they anxiously await their delayed departure.

“I’m deeply disappointed because I was building up the enthusiastic response, now we have to wait another day,” Shatner said. “[But] it’s really worth it. What’s a day with this extraordinary experience that we’re about to have?”

The 11-minute ride to the edge of space about 60 miles above the earth’s surface comes just two months after the first successful Jeff Bezos-owned space flight with Wally Funk, 82.

Shatner, 90, is set to become the oldest person ever to go to space, and will hit weightlessness in zero gravity for about four minutes.

His fellow passenger, Blue Origin crew member Audrey Powers, told GMA that this trip and opportunity was a long time coming.

“They offered me the opportunity to represent all those great people and sit in the seats, so I could not be more overwhelmed at the opportunity,” she said. “I feel an enormous sense of responsibility to represent this team.”

For his part, Shatner joked to GMA‘s T.J. Holmes that he’s not thinking of his trip as inspiring others. “No!” he said to laughs. “I’m taking it as an experience!”

Shatner said he expects plenty of Captain Kirk references as the world watches him and the crew in flight.

“Actually, I haven’t heard ‘Shatner’ in a long time,” he said with a laugh.

New Shepard’s 18th mission, NS-18, has targeted liftoff for October 13, at 8:30 a.m. CT from Launch Site One in West Texas.

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Man says ‘divine’ intervention led him to lost boy in the woods

October 11, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(PLANTERSVILLE, Texas) — When Tim Halfin learned during Bible study about a toddler missing in the thick woods of southeast Texas, he said God told him to go search for the child.

In an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Monday, Halfin said he can only credit “divine” intervention for leading him on Saturday to find 3-year-old Christopher Ramirez, who survived nearly four days alone in the woods of Grimes County, about 50 miles northwest of Houston.

“It’s a miracle,” Christopher’s mother, Araceli Nunez, said during a news conference Monday after bringing her son home from the hospital.

Nunez later met with Halfin and thanked him for finding her son.

“Words cannot describe how I felt when I held him for the first time,” Nunez said of being reunited with her boy, who she held in her arms as he played with a toy car. “It was incredible.”

After hearing of the child’s disappearance, Halfin said he went to the woods around 11:45 a.m. Saturday near his home in Plantersville. About 10 yards in he heard what sounded like a child’s whimper.

“I said, ‘Christopher is that you?'” Halfin said. “Then he speaks again and I’m like, ‘Whoa, praise God.'”

Halfin said Christopher was calm and healthy.

“I don’t know what to make of it. All I know is he was found safe,” Halfin said. “When I picked him up, he was still talking. He wasn’t shaking, he wasn’t nervous. The things I would expect. Maybe he just sensed, ‘I’ve been found.'”

Halfin said he picked up the boy, who had shed his clothes and was completely naked, and called 911. Sheriff’s deputies took Nunez to him.

Speaking in Spanish as a sheriff’s sergeant interpreted, Nunez said she held her child and told him that she loves him.

Before meeting with Nunez, Halfin was shown a photo of the smiling little boy after he was reunited with his mother. “That’s what it’s all about right there.”

“That’s what it’s all about right there,” Halfin said. “That’s why everybody was praying. That’s why God laid it on my heart to go look, to reunite that boy with his mom.”

Grimes County Sheriff Don Sowell said Halfin found Christopher about five miles from the child’s home, where he vanished after purportedly following a neighbor’s dog into the woods.

The boy was treated for dehydration and minor scratches on his face at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston before being sent home Monday afternoon.

“He ought to be the ultimate Army Ranger, Navy SEAL, Air Force when he wants to grow up. He’s already passed the first test,” said Sowell, who during the news conference presented Christopher with an honorary junior deputy badge.

Christopher vanished around 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday in the two minutes Nunez said she was carrying groceries into her house from her car.

The Sheriff’s Office immediately organized a search party after a neighbor told them she saw the little boy follow a dog into the woods.

Using drones, aircraft, K-9 units and numerous volunteer searchers on foot, the rescue party combed the woods night and day, but turned up no sign of the child.

“They told me, ‘We didn’t feel like we could sleep because we knew he wasn’t sleeping and he wasn’t found,'” Halfin said of search-and-rescue volunteers and law enforcement officers.

“I think the story is do not give up hope,” Halfin said. “Even though things look bleak, there’s always tomorrow.”

“Forever grateful”: Lee Brice takes “Memory I Don’t Mess With” to #1

October 11, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Lee Brice is “forever grateful” for his new #1 song.

The singer’s back at the top of the charts with “Memory I Don’t Mess With,” marking his eighth #1 single. The track is featured on his 2020 album, Hey World.

“Y’all… We have the #1 song on country radio!! A huge THANK YOU to country radio, my team, and every single one of you who called your local radio station to request #MemoryIDontMessWith,” Lee writes in a celebratory Twitter post. “I cannot thank y’all enough for showing this song so much love! I’m forever grateful.”

“Memory” is the latest in a string of four consecutive #1 hits for Lee, following “Rumor,” “I Hope You’re Happy Now” — Lee’s CMA and ACM Award winning duet with Carly Pearce — and “One of Them Girls.”

Songs by The Police, Queen and Rolling Stones honored with BMI London Awards

October 11, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Members of The Police, Queen and The Rolling Stones were among the honorees today at the 2021 BMI London Awards, given out annually by the music-rights management and licensing company BMI.

Part of the ceremony was dedicated to the presentation of the Million-Air Awards, which recognize the songwriters of iconic songs that have been broadcast on TV and radio more than a million times in the U.S.

At the top of this list is Sting for writing The Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” which was honored for amassing 16 million performances.

The honorees in the eight-million-plays category were the writers of Queen‘s “Another Bites the Dust” and “We Will Rock You,” composed, respectively, by John Deacon and Brian May; The Rolling Stones‘ “Honky Tonk Women,” penned by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards; and Steve Winwoood‘s “Higher Love,” which Winwood co-wrote with Will Jennings.

The songwriters recognized for tunes with seven million performances were Elton John for “Bennie and the Jets” and his Kiki Dee duet “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”; Gerry Rafferty for “Baker Street; Sting for The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and his contribution to Dire Straits‘ “Money for Nothing”; Paul McCartney for “Live and Let Die”; Freddie Mercury for Queen’s “We Are the Champions”; and ex-Whitesnake guitarist Bernie Marsden for co-writing his old band’s hit “Here I Go Again.”

As for the six-million-play honorees, they included Elton for “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues,” former Yes members Trevor Rabin and Jon Anderson for “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” Cutting Crew‘s Nick van Eede for “(I Just) Died in Your Arms” and Roxette‘s Per Gessle for “It Must Have Been Love.”

To check out a full list of BMI London Awards winner, visit BMI.com.

Human-inducted climate change may affect 85% of the global population, researchers say

October 11, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Scientists are beginning to paint a clearer picture on just how many people will be affected by climate change if current warming trends continue.

About 85% of the world’s population already lives in areas experiencing the affects of human-induced climate change, according to a study published in Nature on Tuesday.

Researchers in Berlin compiled data from more than 100,000 impact studies analyzing detectable environmental signals of human-inducted climate change, finding that the evidence for how climate change is impacting communities is continuing to grow.

“In almost every study where we have enough data, we can see, [the world] is getting hotter, and it’s getting hotter in a way that is consistent,” Max Callaghan, a researcher at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin and one of the authors of the study, told ABC News.

The research also looked at how rising temperatures change precipitation patterns and affect crop yields and local ecosystems, and it found that human-attributable changes in temperature and precipitation are now occurring in 80% of the world’s land area, where about 85% of the global population resides, Callaghan said.

The impacts will be felt the strongest in the least developed countries, but little is known about exactly what those effects will look like, he added, describing the lack of data as an “attribution gap” that needs to be filled.

“In high income countries, almost all of those people live in an area where there is also lots of evidence about how that warming trend affects other systems,” he said. “But in low income countries… there is little evidence about how that warming trend is affecting other things.”

The new research is allowing scientists to attribute with near-certainty that global temperatures are increasing because of human influence on the planet, Callaghan said. While previous studies often focus on possible scenarios by 2050 or 2100, it is clear that climate change is “already happening.”

Countries will need to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the near future to mitigate the extremity of pending disasters, the researchers said.

“As long as we continue burning fossil fuels, things will get worse,” Callaghan said. “Until we reach net-zero, things will continue to get worse.”

for KING & COUNTRY set new album release, tour for 2022

October 11, 2021 by WDNY Radio

for KING & COUNTRY is on tour now and they’ll be on the road right up to Christmas — but they’ve already mapped out their next tour.

The award-winning Australian duo have announced that they’ll be releasing a new album called What Are We Waiting For? on March 11. It’s their first collection of new non-holiday music in three years, and is the follow up to 2020’s A Drummer Boy Christmas.

To go with the album, Joel and Luke will kick off What Are We Waiting For? — The Tour on March 31, 2022; it’s currently scheduled through May 22 in Franklin, TN. Tickets go on sale to the general public this Friday at 10 a.m. via the duo’s website.

“So many of you have encouraged us and spurred us on in this journey since we began the writing process at the top of the year,” the “Amen” duo say in a statement. “We’ve made records before in buses and in dressing rooms, but what’s been particularly beautiful about this one is that we were able to be home with our families.”

Ahead of the tour, an event called the for KING & COUNTRY New Album Weekend Experience will take place March 4-6 in the duo’s home base of Nashville, TN. Fans will get to spend the weekend with the duo, enjoy a concert, hear the entire album, attend a meet & greet and more. You can get tickets now through Eventbrite.

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