Updated 4:07 AM ET, Sun June 20, 2021
(CNN)They never ran out of things to talk about. It was obvious from the start.
“I like the Equality Act how it’s written — I think it is appropriate and fair,” said Mara Keisling, founder and executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. But, she said, “no bill is perfect, and if there’s some particular thing that anybody wants to talk about, I say we talk about it.”
Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-lgbtq-equality-act/2021/06/19/887a4134-d038-11eb-a7f1-52b8870bef7c_story.html
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/20/us/houston-deputy-shooting/index.html
A police officer in Kansas is in critical condition after being shot multiple times while attempting to provide a welfare check.
The incident occurred at approximately 10:15 p.m. on Saturday night in Wichita, Kansas, when two officers were attempting to do a welfare check on a woman inside a home, according to Wichita Police Captain Wendell Nicholson who gave a brief statement to the press.
“When two Wichita police officers arrived on scene, they began to take fire from a suspect that was inside the residence,” said Nicholson. “One officer was shot multiple times. He’s been taken to an area hospital. He is in critical condition.”
As other officers arrived, they continued to take fire from the suspect inside the home until they were able to neutralize the threat by shooting the suspect, according to Nicholson. No other officers were shot in the incident.
Even though the unidentified suspect was treated for his wounds at the crime scene, he ultimately died from his injuries he suffered in the shootout with police.
Nicholson said there are multiple people who witnessed the incident and they are all being interviewed about what happened.
“The KBI (Kansas Bureau of Investigation) and FBI have been notified so they can assist us in this officer involved shooting,” said Nicholson.
The circumstances around the incident and what led up to it is currently under investigation and anybody with information pertaining to this crime is urged to contact the Wichita Police Department.
Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/US/cop-critical-condition-shot-multiple-times-conducting-welfare/story?id=78384810
Fox News Flash top headlines for June 19
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A pickup truck driver slammed into a crowd at a Florida Pride parade on Saturday evening – narrowly missing U.S. Rep. Deborah Wasserman Schultz and leaving at least one person dead, according to reports.
At least one other person was seriously injured, reports said.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis quickly denounced the crash at the Wilton Manors Stonewall Pride Parade as a “terrorist” attack on the LGBTQ community but police have said they haven’t determined if the crash was intentional.
The Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus later issued a statement: “Our fellow Chorus members were those injured and the driver was also a part of the Chorus family. To my knowledge, this was not an attack on the LGBTQ community.”
The driver was reportedly waiting to join the parade as a representative of the chorus when he accelerated into fellow members waiting to march.
Police and firefighters respond after a truck drove into a crowd of people injuring them during The Stonewall Pride Parade and Street Festival in Wilton Manors, Fla., on Saturday, June 19, 2021. (Associated Press)
Trantalis said the truck missed the congresswoman “by inches” before it crashed into a plant nursery, WPLG-TV in Fort Lauderdale reported. Wasserman Schultz had been riding in a convertible in the parade.
Investigators were speaking with the driver, who was in custody but authorities wouldn’t say if he had been arrested, Fort Lauderdale Police Det. Ali Adamson told reporters.
ARIZONA BIKE RACE: 10 INJURED AFTER PICKUP TRUCK SLAMS GROUP OF BICYCLISTS; SUSPECT SHOT, POLICE SAY
Witnesses said the driver told police the crash was an accident, according to WPLG-TV in Fort Lauderdale. He said he lost control of the truck after his foot became stuck between the gas and brake, according to WFOR-TV in Miami.
He had reportedly been wearing a gay men’s chorus t-shirt and had a Pride flag waving from the back of his truck.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., is comforted after a truck drove into a crowd of people during The Stonewall Pride Parade and Street Festival in Wilton Manors, Fla., Saturday, June 19, 2021. Wilton Manors police tweeted Saturday night that the parade was canceled due to a “tragic event.” (Chris Day/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat who has been serving in Congress since 2005, later issued a series of statements on Twitter.
“I am deeply shaken and devastated that a life was lost and others seriously injured at tonight’s @WiltonManorsCty Stonewall #Pride Parade,” the congresswoman wrote in one message. “My staff, volunteers and I are thankfully safe.”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., makes a call after a truck drove into a crowd of people during The Stonewall Pride Parade and Street Festival in Wilton Manors, Fla., Saturday, June 19, 2021. (Chris Day/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
She was seen by witnesses in tears after the crash, according to WPLG.
Nikki Fried, Florida agriculture commissioner and a gubernatorial candidate, was also at the parade. “Our hearts are breaking and we continue to pray no more innocent lives are lost,” she tweeted.
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Wilton Manors Mayor Scott Newton said in a statement posted to Twitter, “A tragic incident occurred at today’s Stonewall event. Out of respect for everyone involved, the parade has been canceled and a thorough investigation is being conducted.”
The FBI is assisting with the investigation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-rep-wasserman-schultz-nearly-struck-in-pride-parade-crash-that-kills-at-least-1-reports
The hardliner favored by Iran’s religious establishment — and under US sanctions for human rights violations — won a decisive victory Saturday to become the nation’s next president.
Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s chief jurist and a protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, received 62 percent of the vote in an unusually low-turnout election.
More than half of the nation’s eligible voters stayed home, in stark contrast to the 70 percent who voted in 2017’s presidential contest. The 49 percent turnout was seen as a protest against the regime’s tightly restricted slate of candidates and its dismal handling of the economy.
In addition, officials said, 3.7 million of the 29 million votes cast were voided, triple the number of spoiled ballots seen in past elections — another indicator of public dissatisfaction with the candidates on offer.
Raisi’s 17.9 million votes swamped the totals of his closest rivals. Former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaei, another conservative, came in second with 3.4 million votes, and moderate Abdolnasser Hemmati, an ally of outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, was third with 2.4 million supporters.
The failure of the moderates to gain traction pointed to widespread discontent with Rouhani’s pragmatism in the wake of the US abandonment of its nuclear deal with Iran under President Trump.
Raisi, one of several officials named as a human rights violator by Trump, will be the first Iranian president to enter office under American sanctions. The jurist was punished for his participation in the mass execution of thousands of dissidents in 1988 and the brutal suppression of the Green Revolution protests in 2009 and 2010.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to publicly congratulate Raisi, according to reports.
Source Article from https://nypost.com/2021/06/19/hardline-judge-wins-irans-presidency-amid-widespread-voter-apathy/
Demonstrators hold signs that read in Portuguese: “Impeachment now! Bolsonaro in prison” during a protest against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Saturday.
Marcelo Chello/AP
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Marcelo Chello/AP
Demonstrators hold signs that read in Portuguese: “Impeachment now! Bolsonaro in prison” during a protest against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Saturday.
Marcelo Chello/AP
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Anti-government protesters took to the streets in more than a score of cities across Brazil on Saturday as the nation’s confirmed death toll from COVID-19 soared past half a million — a tragedy many critics blame on President Jair Bolsonaro’s attempt to minimize the disease.
Thousands gathered in downtown Rio de Janeiro waving flags with slogans such as “Get out Bolsonaro. Government of hunger and unemployment.”
“Brazil is experiencing a great setback. The country was an exemplary country for vaccination in the world. We have widely recognized institutions, but today we are in a sad situation,” said Isabela Gouljor, a 20-year-old student who joined the protest in Rio.
Other marchers hoisted posters reading: “500 thousand deaths. It’s his fault,” alluding to Bolsonaro.
Similar marches took place in at least 22 or Brazil’s 26 states, as well as in the Federal District, Brasilia. They were promoted by left-wing opposition parties who have been heartened by Bolsonaro’s declining poll ratings with next year’s presidential race looming.
“Get out Bolsonaro, genocidal,” yelled Rio demonstrators, some of them wearing t-shirts or masks with the image of former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — who leads Bolsonaro in some polls.
In São Paulo, protesters dropped red balloons as a tribute to the victims of the virus.
Bolsonaro’s supporters have taken more often to the streets over the past month, in large part because many agree with his dismissal of restrictions meant to stifle the coronavirus and anger that lockdown measures have hurt businesses.
Critics say such messages, as well as Bolsonaro’s promotion of disproven treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, have contributed to the soaring death toll and a sluggish vaccine campaign that has fully inoculated less than 12% of the population. The country of some 213 million people is registering nearly 100,000 new infections and 2,000 deaths a day.
“For the leftists, putting their followers in the streets is a way of wearing Bolsonaro down for the election,” said Leandro Consentino, a political science professor at Insper, a university in Sao Paulo. “But at the same, time they are contradicting themselves and losing the discourse of maintaining health care, because they are causing the same agglomerations as Bolsonaro.”
Saturday’s marches came a week after Bolsonaro led a massive motorcycle parade of supporters in Sao Paulo, though his allies and foes differ dramatically on the size of that event.
“Bolsonaro needs to show that he maintains significant support to give a message of strength to those who are investigating the actions of his government in Congress,” Consentino said.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2021/06/19/1008434799/as-brazil-tops-500-000-covid-19-deaths-protesters-blame-president
“Even as Champ’s strength waned in his last months, when we came into a room, he would immediately pull himself up, his tail always wagging, and nuzzle us for an ear scratch or a belly rub. Wherever we were, he wanted to be, an everything was instantly better when he was next to us,” they said.
Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57541044
The weather system that was once Tropical Storm Claudette is bringing steady, sometimes heavy rain to parts of Georgia and the Carolinas Sunday.
The center of Claudette, which is now as tropical depression, is still circulating over Alabama, but the outer bands stretching into the Carolinas this morning, producing widespread rain across our area. Ponding and flooding is a concern.
RELATED: Current interactive radar
RELATED: Claudette weakens to tropical depression after bringing rain, floods to Gulf Coast
A Flash Flood Watch was issued for parts of the Upstate, along and north of I-85, and the southern mountains of WNC through 8 p.m. Sunday.
Most areas will pick up one-to-3 inches of rain, with areas in the Flash Flood Watch picking up an average of two-to-five inches of rain. This amount of rainfall in such a short period of time could lead to pockets of flash flooding in low-lying areas.
If you see water covering a road, turn around.
The severe threat for the Upstate is low, but still certainly possible, especially to the south of our area later Sunday morning.
As the day progresses, rain will taper off but a chance of scattered showers and storms will remain.
Once the actual center of the storm works through is when the possibility of severe weather increases. By the end of the day, it appears likely we could salvage some of Father’s Day, as conditions begin to settle down.
The next chance for a few pop up showers and storms will be Monday, with more widespread rain expected Tuesday, followed by a couple of drier and somewhat cooler-than-average days this week.
More rain chances may return by next weekend.
Source Article from https://www.wyff4.com/article/tropical-system-brings-soggy-rain-conditions-flood-threat-across-upstate-for-fathers-day/36776077
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Source Article from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-19/israel-says-it-sent-completely-normal-vaccines-to-palestinians
Updated 8:12 PM ET, Sat June 19, 2021
(CNN)Captain Angelo Capurro started showing symptoms of Covid-19 on his second day at sea. Within five days, the 61-year-old skipper was confined to his cabin, unable to get out of bed.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/19/europe/italy-captain-capurro-intl-hnk-dst/index.html
“We were at the start of the parade, right in front of Fort Lauderdale High School,” said spectator Christina Currie, who was there with her husband, their 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. “All of a sudden there was a loud revving of a truck and a crash through a fence. It was definitely an intentional act right across the lanes of traffic.”
Source Article from https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-ne-wilton-manors-parade-hit-run-20210620-v7wacvhojzekxip34ks62nk7my-story.html
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) was met with boos while attending a Juneteenth celebration on Saturday in Milwaukee, Wisc., WDJT reported.
According to WDJT, the Republican senator was heckled by crowd members while speaking to reporters.
Other reporters and I were interviewing @RonJohnsonWI at Milwaukee’s #Juneteenth celebration when a crowd booed Johnson. As the media availability ended, people continued expressing disapproval when he left. This continued as he made his way through the event. pic.twitter.com/NNhs3BJ33s
— Victor Jacobo (@victorjacobo_) June 19, 2021
At one point during the video, a bystander can be heard saying “We don’t need you out here.”
The resistance to Johnson comes after the lawmaker issued a statement objecting to making Juneteenth a nationally recognized holiday earlier this week.
“Last year, a bill was introduced to celebrate Juneteenth by providing an additional paid holiday for 2 million federal employees at a cost of $600 million per year. They attempted to pass the bill without debate or amendment process,” Johnson said.
“Although I strongly support celebrating Emancipation, I objected to the cost and lack of debate. While it still seems strange that having taxpayers provide federal employees paid time off is now required to celebrate the end of slavery, it is clear that there is no appetite in Congress to further discuss the matter. Therefore, I do not intend to object,” he added.
However, the senator later dropped his objection.
Juneteenth, celebrated every year on June 19, recognizes the day in 1865 when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, emancipating the remaining enslaved people in the state. For enslaved people in Texas at the time, freedom came more than two years after former President Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a bill to recognize Juneteenth in their respective chambers last June, but it didn’t gain momentum.
The bill was later reintroduced in February, and it was taken up by Congress this week. The Senate on Tuesday passed the legislation by unanimous consent, and later, the House passed the bill Wednesday.
On Thursday, President BidenJoe BidenObama: Ensuring democracy ‘continues to work effectively’ keeps me ‘up at night’ New Jersey landlords prohibited from asking potential tenants about criminal records Overnight Defense: Pentagon pulling some air defense assets from Middle East | Dems introduce resolution apologizing to LGBT community for discrimination | White House denies pausing military aid package to Ukraine MORE signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law. However, Biden noted that “it’s not – it’s simply not enough just to commemorate Juneteenth.”
“After all, the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans didn’t mark the end of America’s work to deliver on the promise of equality, it only marked the beginning. To honor the true meaning of Juneteenth, we have to continue towards that promise because we’ve not gotten there yet,” Biden said.
WDJT reported that Johnson also attended a similar celebration in Kenosha on Saturday.
On Twitter, Johnson said that he was dedicating the first Juneteenth holiday to Pastor Jerome Smith.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Smith worked with Johnson to create the a faith-based program that connects people with job opportunities. He died from coronavirus complications in April.
Source Article from https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/559279-ron-johnson-booed-at-juneteenth-celebration-in-wisconsin
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – Katie Towns, the Assistant Director of Health for the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, offered new insight on the community’s COVID-19 situation and response with a series of tweets Saturday.
The new comments come as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations surge in Springfield and southwest Missouri. Health leaders estimate around 90% of new cases Greene County in recent weeks are due to the Delta variant.
Towns addressed the rising cases by noting “it’s hard to understand how else to ask, encourage and motivate, but I’m watching this delta variant break us.”
“It’s making people so sick. And killing our loved ones. And our healthcare workers keep showing up and taking care of those who aren’t vaccinated anyway. Even though they’re exhausted, overwhelmed and grieving too,” said Towns via Twitter.
Unlike previous months, the two main health systems in Springfield (Mercy Hospital and Cox South), do not have as many traveling nurses and respiratory therapists available to care for COVID-19 patients. If hospitalizations increase, it could become more difficult for both sites to offer concentrated attention on patients.
On Friday, CoxHealth officials warned that COVID-19 patients could be diverted to other facilities throughout Missouri if hospitals continue to fill up. Mercy intends to stay open despite a spike in COVID-19 admissions, and did not announce a possible scenario Friday in which patients might be diverted.
Towns encouraged community members to get vaccinated. She says the Springfield-Greene County Health Department is working on billboards and door-to-door campaigns among other ideas to improve vaccination numbers in southwest Missouri. The health department reports around 37% of Greene County residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
To find a vaccination opportunity in Springfield, CLICK HERE.
To report a correction or typo, please email digitalnews@ky3.com
Copyright 2021 KY3. All rights reserved.
Source Article from https://www.ky3.com/2021/06/19/springfield-greene-co-health-dept-assistant-director-sheds-light-new-covid-19-cases-urges-vaccinations/
The hardliner favored by Iran’s religious establishment — and under US sanctions for human rights violations — won a decisive victory Saturday to become the nation’s next president.
Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s chief jurist and a protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, received 62 percent of the vote in an unusually low-turnout election.
More than half of the nation’s eligible voters stayed home, in stark contrast to the 70 percent who voted in 2017’s presidential contest. The 49 percent turnout was seen as a protest against the regime’s tightly restricted slate of candidates and its dismal handling of the economy.
In addition, officials said, 3.7 million of the 29 million votes cast were voided, triple the number of spoiled ballots seen in past elections — another indicator of public dissatisfaction with the candidates on offer.
Raisi’s 17.9 million votes swamped the totals of his closest rivals. Former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaei, another conservative, came in second with 3.4 million votes, and moderate Abdolnasser Hemmati, an ally of outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, was third with 2.4 million supporters.
The failure of the moderates to gain traction pointed to widespread discontent with Rouhani’s pragmatism in the wake of the US abandonment of its nuclear deal with Iran under President Trump.
Raisi, one of several officials named as a human rights violator by Trump, will be the first Iranian president to enter office under American sanctions. The jurist was punished for his participation in the mass execution of thousands of dissidents in 1988 and the brutal suppression of the Green Revolution protests in 2009 and 2010.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to publicly congratulate Raisi, according to reports.
Source Article from https://nypost.com/2021/06/19/hardline-judge-wins-irans-presidency-amid-widespread-voter-apathy/
“Even as Champ’s strength waned in his last months, when we came into a room, he would immediately pull himself up, his tail always wagging, and nuzzle us for an ear scratch or a belly rub. Wherever we were, he wanted to be, an everything was instantly better when he was next to us,” they said.
Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57541044
Updated 8:12 PM ET, Sat June 19, 2021
(CNN)Captain Angelo Capurro started showing symptoms of Covid-19 on his second day at sea. Within five days, the 61-year-old skipper was confined to his cabin, unable to get out of bed.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/19/europe/italy-captain-capurro-intl-hnk-dst/index.html
President Joe Biden and the first lady announced on Saturday the passing of the family dog Champ, a 13-year-old German Shepherd who died peacefully at the Biden’s family home in Delaware. Meanwhile, some QAnon supporters appear to have taken the announcement as a secret code.
Forbes reporter Andrew Solender tweeted the announcement of Champ’s passing, and a cryptic reply caught his attention.
An account known as EyesOpen tweeted: “Dog comms? Seem a few around at the mo!!!”
“Comms” are formally known as secret messages that can be decoded by QAnon supporters.
Writer and popular debunker Mike Rothschild followed up to inform that dog comms have been around for quite some time.
“When James Comey‘s dog died, QAnon believers claimed the announcement was code that George HW Bush had secretly been executed,” Rothschild tweeted. “Get ready for them to relentlessly bake Champ’s death.”
QAnon believers think this happens so often they have a name for the tactic: “dog comms.”
I don’t make this stuff up. Nobody possibly could. pic.twitter.com/ax6HJJW4h9
— Mike Rothschild (@rothschildmd) June 19, 2021
James Comey, the former FBI director, lost his rescue dog in 2018 and tweeted at the time: “Because he was a rescue, we didn’t know his age today, except ‘very old.’ He was a friend to an entire big family as only a dog can be. Goodbye old soul.”
The description of “an entire big family” caught QAnon believers’ attention. In a video posted on BitChute by a channel called “InPursuitofTruth,” the creator said he found the “big family” very cryptic.
Because of the relation to George H.W. Bush‘s code name, which had been Timberwolf, some QAnoners connected Bush’s death to Comey’s announcement, believing the former FBI director to be aware of Bush’s death before the public and releasing the information secretly.
Rothschild tweeted: “#QAnon is already claiming that George HW Bush was taken out by the deep state as a distraction. The proof being a tweet about James Comey’s dog.”
And now, it seems, the death of Champ may be code for something else. Some commenters on messaging platform Telegram had posted the announcement of Champ and wrote, “interdasting,” with a few quizzical emoticons.
Another commented afterward and said: “State Funeral Coming?”
Newsweek reached out to Rothschild but has yet to receive a response.
Other incidents have invoked the idea that government officials are using “comms” to communicate cryptically, as many QAnon believers latched onto an incident that took place last week.
A cicada landed on Biden’s neck as he prepared for his visit to Cornwall, England, for the G7 summit, and a video was circulated on social media of him swatting the insect away.
“Watch out for the cicadas,” Biden told reporters shortly afterward. “I just got one. It got me.”
Newsweek reported earlier that We The Media, a group of QAnon advocates with more than 225,000 subscribers on its Telegram account, believes that Biden swatting at the cicadas is actually “comms.”
“JOE BIDEN BITTEN BY A CICADA – COMMS? Just so happens that Cicada nymphs emerge after a 17-year childhood underground!!!” We The Media wrote.
The “underground” comment is a reference to the baseless QAnon belief that a network of secret underground tunnels exists and children are being trafficked and abused by satanic pedophiles.
MANDEL NGAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Source Article from https://www.newsweek.com/qanon-believers-suggest-secret-message-behind-announcement-biden-dogs-death-1602280
The variant, first detected in India in October, was upgraded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week from a “variant of interest” to a “variant of concern.” The CDC estimates the delta variant accounts for about 10% of new cases in the U.S.
Missouri had the highest percentage of the delta variant at 6.8% of reported cases as of May 22, the latest CDC data.
Data from the CDC shows high community transmission in rural parts of Missouri and Kansas — regions already struggling with slow vaccination rates.
In southwest Missouri there’s been a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
Kendra Findley, the administrator of community health and epidemiology with Green County, said that random testing of virus samples shows increasing cases of the delta strain.
“It shows us that what we’ve got in the community is a much more infectious variant that we are having to deal with, which shows why we have such an explosion of cases not just in Greene County, but in southwest Missouri,” she told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services issued a news release Wednesday saying that the state “is experiencing a rise in individuals contracting the Delta variant,” while urging locals to get vaccinated.
Missouri is now leading the nation with the most new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over the last seven days, according to The New York Times tracker.
Mercy Hospital Springfield issued a plea on social media for Missourians to get vaccinated, painting a somber picture of the crisis unfolding at hospitals in the area.
“Bed capacity is strained. ED waits are long. COVID patients are younger, sicker and unvaccinated. Vaccines are free, available and effective. What are you waiting for? 82? 102? 152? What about 1? 1 person you care about? You?” wrote Erik Frederick, Mercy’s chief administrative officer chief administrative officer.
In Missouri, 43.4% of the population has initiated vaccination and 37.7% have completed vaccination, according to state data.
The delta variant is becoming a source of growing concern in the neighboring state of Kansas as well.
“The CDC estimates delta accounts for about 10% of new cases [in Kansas],” Amanda Cackler, director of quality and safety at the University of Kansas Health System told Kansas City, Missouri, ABC affiliate KMBC. “We have had and continue to have deaths of patients who have had COVID-19. Our most recent one was on the 12th of June.”
In Kansas, 43.6% of the state is vaccinated with one dose and 37.6% are fully vaccinated, according to the state’s health department tracker.
Officials, including CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said the COVID-19 vaccines protect against all variants and the best way to protect yourself from the delta variant is to get vaccinated.
The pressure is higher than ever to get more of these rural populations inoculated.
“Our biggest concern really is that we’re running out of arms, and so it’s really trying to get folks in situations where they can get their vaccine because we have plenty of inventory,” Cackler told KMBC.
The CDC has identified two regions — the Midwest and Mountain West states — as having the estimated largest percentages of new delta variant cases. In the Midwest, which includes Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, the delta strain accounts for 23.5% of all cases, the CDC reported.
Overall, the delta variant has been reported in more than 80 countries, according to the World Health Organization.
Walensky warned Friday that the variant could soon become the dominant strain in the United States.
“I think that that’s probably going to be the case,” Walensky told “Good Morning America.”
Nationally, 53.1% of the U.S. population has received at least one vaccine dose and 44.7% is fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.
Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/US/delta-variant-infecting-mounting-number-people-rural-kansas/story?id=78375257
“We were at the start of the parade, right in front of Fort Lauderdale High School,” said spectator Christina Currie, who was there with her husband, their 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. “All of a sudden there was a loud revving of a truck and a crash through a fence. It was definitely an intentional act right across the lanes of traffic.”
Source Article from https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-ne-wilton-manors-parade-hit-run-20210620-v7wacvhojzekxip34ks62nk7my-story.html
These issues, fundamental to the survival of the Afghan national security forces once the U.S. military withdraws, are still being hashed out. That they are still being addressed even as the last U.S. troops are preparing to leave speaks to the years of disconnect between the Pentagon and a succession of presidents, all of whom, at one point or another, sought a more reduced American presence in the country than officials in the military and the Defense Department.
How to deal with the contractors is just one of a number of pressing problems created by the rapid withdrawal of American troops. The C.I.A. is struggling to ensure that it can gather intelligence about potential threats from Afghanistan once the U.S. military presence ends.
The Pentagon is still weighing how it will strike terrorist groups like Al Qaeda from afar once it no longer has troops or warplanes in Afghanistan. And the administration has yet to strike deals to position troops in any nearby nations for counterterrorism operations.
The Afghan government has always relied heavily on foreign contractors and trainers. As of this spring, there were over 18,000 Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan, including 6,000 Americans, 5,000 Afghans and 7,000 from other countries, 40 percent of whom are responsible for logistics, maintenance or training tasks, according to John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.
The Afghan security forces rely on these contractors to maintain their equipment, manage supply chains and train their military and police to operate the advanced equipment that the United States has bought for them.
For instance, Mr. Sopko spoke of the challenges the Afghans were facing with maintenance work during a virtual forum this year. As of December, he said, the Afghan National Army was completing just under 20 percent of its own maintenance work orders, well below the goal of 80 percent that had been set, and the 51 percent that they completed in 2018. The Afghan National Police carried out only 12 percent of its own maintenance work against a target of 35 percent.
Since 2010, the Defense Department has appropriated over $8.5 billion to develop a capable and sustainable Afghan Air Force and its special mission wing, but American policymakers and commanders have always known that both would need continued, expensive logistics support from contractors for aircraft maintenance and maintainer training, the inspector general’s office concluded in a report in February.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/19/world/asia/Afghanistan-withdrawal-contractors.html