Friday, Dec. 31, 2021
Good Friday morning. Here’s what is happening:
The Boulder Daily Camera: A large wind-driven fire in Colorado damaged or destroyed at least 580 homes as tens of thousands near Denver and Boulder are under evacuation orders.
(Editors note: this information is as of 23:30pm ET/21:30pm MT. Thursday night. Denver Fox affiliate KDVR-TV has been constantly adding updates to this page.)
The Marshall Fire, fueled by high winds and dry conditions, continued to burn Thursday night and will likely be the state’s most destructive in terms of property damage by the time all is said and done.
The fire started near Marshall Road and Cherryvale Road at around 11 a.m. and began burning east through open space. By the time he spoke at a press conference at 5 p.m. Thursday, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said the fire had grown to 1,600 acres in size and had forced the evacuation of both Superior and Louisville.
Mandatory evacuation orders have just been issued for Broomfield structures south of U.S. 36 to 112th and west of Wadsworth, including the Interlocken area. The order was then expanded to include the area west of Simms Street to Indiana Street and south of Colo. 128.
From our photog @dave_wille near the Flatirons. These fires continue to take out entire neighborhoods. @CBSDenver #MarshallFireThere's really no other way to describe some of the images coming out of the #MarshallFire other than "apocalyptic." Via @photojmatthew
Reuters: President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanged warnings over Ukraine but conveyed optimism that diplomatic talks could ease spiraling tensions.
In a 50-minute call, their second conversation this month, Biden said he needed to see Russia decrease its military build-up near Ukraine, while Putin said sanctions threatened by Washington and allies could lead to a rupture in ties. The call was requested by Putin.
"President Biden reiterated that substantive progress in these dialogues can occur only in an environment of de-escalation rather than escalation," said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the call created a "good backdrop" for future talks.
The leaders' exchange set the stage for lower-level engagement between the countries, including a Jan. 9-10 U.S.-Russia security meeting, followed by a Russia-NATO session on Jan. 12, and a broader conference including Moscow, Washington and other European countries slated for Jan. 13.
The New York Times: The U.S. has broken its single-day COVID-19 case record for a second day.
With more than 580,000 cases, the United States shattered its own record for new daily coronavirus cases — beating a milestone it already broke just the day before.
Thursday’s count, according to The New York Times’s database, toppled the 488,000 new cases on Wednesday, which was nearly double the highest numbers from last winter. The back-to-back record-breaking days are a growing sign of the virus’s fast spread and come as the world enters its third year of the pandemic.
WNBC-TV: The state of New York has also shattered their daily record with 74,000 cases.
New York smashed its single-day COVID case record for the second straight day Thursday, reporting at least 74,207 new positives as the omicron surge stretches hospitals further, according to the latest update from the governor's update.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations continue to climb. As recently as the second week of December, Gov. Kathy Hochul assured New Yorkers "this isn't March 2020 or even January 2021," citing admissions totals well below January's peaks near 9,300.
Statewide COVID hospitalizations have well more than doubled since then and now total 7,373, with Hochul adding another 606 to the mounting count on Thursday. That's the highest hospitalization total since Feb. 9 and fewer than 600 admissions shy of where the total stood exactly a year ago. It has risen 138% since Dec. 1.
A total of 1,020 COVID patients are in state ICUs, an increase of 58 over Wednesday's report. It's the first time since early March the number cracked 1,000.
BBC News: South Africa lifted its overnight curfew rules as officials said the country may have passed the peak of its fourth wave of COVID-19 infections.
A government statement said the Omicron variant, while highly transmissible, had seen lower hospitalisation rates than previous waves.
There had been a marginal increase in the number of deaths, it added.
The variant - first reported by South Africa last month - is spreading fast elsewhere leading to widespread curbs.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a "tsunami" of infections from Delta and Omicron variants that could overwhelm health systems.
But in South Africa, a statement released after a special cabinet meeting said cases and hospital admission rates had dropped in almost all provinces across the country.
For the week ending 25 December 2021, the number of confirmed infections stood at 89,781 - down from 127,753 the week before.
NBC News: The FDA is expected to authorize Pfizer booster shot for children 12 to 15.
The Food and Drug Administration plans to broaden eligibility for Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 booster shots to children ages 12 to 15 in the coming days, a person with knowledge of the plan said.
The omicron variant of the coronavirus continues to spread rapidly in the U.S., accounting for about 58 percent of all new Covid cases for the week that ended Saturday, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases among children are increasing, with nearly 199,000 reported for the week that ended Dec. 23, a 50 percent increase over the weekly reported cases at the beginning of December, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
After the FDA's authorization, the CDC and its advisory committee would be expected to hold discussions before they sign off.
The New York Daily News: A Long Island jury has held drugmaker Teva liable for New York’s opioid epidemic.
A drug manufacturer that distributed addictive pills throughout New York is liable for contributing to the opioid epidemic, a Long Island jury ruled Thursday, issuing a landmark verdict with implications for thousands of lawsuits across the country.
Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals and a handful of its subsidiary companies were found liable for perpetuating a “public nuisance” — a legal term that belies the deadly consequences of the opioid crisis detailed during a a a six-month trial in Suffolk County.
Another trial will be held to determine how much Teva and others will be required to pay.
“This is a significant day for New York state,” state Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “This is a significant day for this nation. But, more importantly, this is a significant day for every family and community torn apart by opioids. A jury has found an opioid manufacturer responsible for the death and destruction they inflicted on the American people.”
CNBC: The CDC says people should avoid cruises, regardless of vaccination status.
The CDC increased its travel warning for cruises to the highest level as the agency is investigating or observing dozens of ships that have had Covid outbreaks.
Cruise ships operating in U.S. waters reported about 5,000 Covid cases to the CDC between Dec. 15 - 29, a major spike compared with the first two weeks of the month when 162 cases were reported.
“It is especially important that travelers who are at an increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19 avoid travel on cruise ships, including river cruises, worldwide, regardless of vaccination status,” the agency said.
The CDC guidance is a new blow for an industry that was devastated during the first year of the pandemic. The stocks of Royal Caribbean Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, and Carnival fell on the news.
Yahoo News: Johnson & Johnson's booster offers strong protection against hospitalization, a study has found.
Preliminary results from the Sisonke study, which have not been peer-reviewed, found that for people who had received one vaccine dose, the booster improved protection against hospitalization to 85 percent from 63 percent.
The study, carried out by the South African Medical Research Council compared 69,000 healthcare workers in South Africa to a group of unvaccinated South Africans.
The trial took place in November and December but participants were enrolled before the current wave now sweeping across the country, allowing researchers to "evaluate the effectiveness of the Company’s Covid-19 vaccine specifically as omicron became the dominant variant in the country," Johnson & Johnson said in a statement.
The study’s authors said it provided “the first evidence of the effectiveness” of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, known as Ad26.COV.2, when delivered six to nine months after first dose.
Fox News: More than 200 Marines have been discharged from military for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.
Fox News confirmed Thursday that 206 U.S. Marines have been kicked out of the military since late November for refusing to take the vaccine.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Aug. 25 directed all military branches to ensure service members receive the vaccine as the number of cases surged over the summer. The deadlines for each branch of the military passed as of Dec. 15, and disciplinary action appeared to immediately follow.
Several Marines who refused to get the shot were granted anonymity by Fox News Digital, so they could speak freely. They said they are witnessing a "political purge" by the Biden administration that is forcing out the military’s "best and brightest" over deeply held beliefs they say are protected by the First Amendment.
"There’s something fundamentally wrong at this point with our nation’s leadership," said a major with more than 17 years of active service. "We are facing an unconstitutional edict that I think is very targeted as a political purge, taking out some of the best and brightest soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardians from the Space Force."
WNBC-TV: A Michigan woman who tested positive for COVID-19 in the middle of a flight says she ended up voluntarily isolated in the plane's cramped bathroom for the last five hours of the flight.
"It was a crazy experience," Marisa Fotieo told NBC News' Steve Patterson in an interview that aired on TODAY Wednesday.
The Colorado Sun: Colorado Governor Polis has commuted the sentence of Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, a truck driver who killed four people during a crash in 2019.
The governor said Thursday he would reduce the sentence for Rogel Aguilera-Mederos to 10 years, from the 110 years handed down by a judge earlier this month that caused a national outcry.
The sentence reduction for Aguilera-Mederos comes after Jefferson County District Attorney Alexis King asked for a resentencing hearing last week. The hearing was set after protests over the severity of the original sentence. The long sentence was the result of charges brought by the district attorney’s office that carried mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, with the long prison terms to be served back-to-back, not concurrently.
The 10-year sentence is less than the 20 to 30 years King had said she’d seek.
A relative of Aguilera-Mederos’ lawyer works in the governor’s office, a news release announcing the clemency decisions said.
“This individual had absolutely no involvement in the commutation process and works in an unrelated capacity to this matter, and was not aware of the governor’s decision in advance,” the news release said.
Business Insider: Federal prosecutors quietly dropped their case against Jeffrey Epstein's jail guards in the middle of Ghislaine Maxwell's trial.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan signed a nolle prosequi, a document announcing to the judge that they wished to drop the case, on December 13. The document didn't appear on the court's public docket until Thursday, one day after Maxwell was convicted on charges that she trafficked girls to Epstein for sex and participated in sexual abuse herself.
Prosecutors first filed charges against the guards, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, in November 2019. Prosecutors said the guards napped, caught up on the news, and shopped for motorcycles and furniture instead of doing their rounds at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. Epstein was held at the federal jail while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking and sexual-abuse charges.
Epstein was found dead in his cell on the morning of August 10, 2019, and New York City's head coroner ruled it a suicide. Epstein's brother, Mark Epstein, hired his own coroner who said the financier's broken neck bones were more consistent with a homicide.
The Hill: An armed man with a 'hit list' including President Joe Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci was arrested last week while on his way to White House.
Authorities in Iowa have arrested a man who was found during a traffic stop to be carrying a rifle and a "hit list" that included President Biden and Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Kuachua Brillion Xiong, from Merced, Calif., was taken into custody last week after allegedly telling police who pulled him over for driving aggressively that he was on his way to the White House "to kill persons in power," according to federal court records that were unsealed Tuesday.
Authorities said they found an AR-15-type rifle, ammunition, body armor, medical kits and a grappling hook in Xiong's vehicle, per court records.
The New York Post: A second ex-CNN staffer is under investigation for alleged crimes involving minors.
Police in Fairfax County, Virginia, have launched a criminal probe into Rick Saleeby, a former senior producer on Jake Tapper’s “The Lead,” authorities confirmed to Fox News.
The investigation involves “serious allegations involving potential juvenile victims,” and “detectives assigned to the Child Exploitation Squad of the Major Crimes Bureau are leading this investigation,” the Fairfax County Police Department told the outlet.
The probe appears to be tied to a report by Project Veritas, a conservative guerrilla journalism outlet, that alleges Saleeby solicited nude photos of a 15-year-old girl, with cops telling Fox News they had been in communication with Project Veritas.
Saleeby resigned from his role on “The Lead” after the report detailing the disturbing allegations, according to the Washington Examiner.
UPI: An Australian family's winning lottery ticket worth nearly $20,000 was nearly given away as Christmas gift.
The Elenora Heights, New South Wales, family told The Lott officials they bought a stack of scratch-off tickets from the Elanora Heights Newsagency to distribute to friends and family members for Christmas.
"We actually bought a bunch of instant scratch-its tickets to give to others for Christmas -- it's a bit of a tradition we have," the family's mother said. "This one was left over, so we scratched it on Christmas Day!"
The leftover ticket turned out to be a $17,402.40 top-prize winner.
"The gods were smiling on us. We were very fortunate," the mother said. "We had to read the instructions a few times to check and double-check that we'd won it. We didn't want to get too excited until we could confirm everything."
This day in history via History Channel: In 1999, the Panama Canal was officially turned over to Panama.
On December 31, 1999, the United States, in accordance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, officially hands over control of the Panama Canal, putting the strategic waterway into Panamanian hands for the first time. Crowds of Panamanians celebrated the transfer of the 50-mile canal, which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and officially opened when the SS Arcon sailed through on August 15, 1914. Since then, over one million ships have used the canal.
Birthdays: South Korean pop singer Psy is 43 (remember Gangnam Style?) and Donald Trump Jr. is also 43. Enjoy Psy on this last day of 2021:
One more thing: Axios reports on Google’s search trends for 2021.
