International
The last soldier left Afghanistan
Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue departed Afghanistan on Aug. 30. His departure marks the end of a 20-year war period. Donahue was the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan.
Donahue’s picture shows him in a helmet carrying a rifle. He was nicknamed “Flatliner” early in his military career.
Along with 3,500 other paratroopers from the division deployed from their base in North Carolina, Donahue departed to Afghanistan in August 2021. After the Taliban took over and people evacuated the country, Donahue went to provide security at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
At the height of the turmoil in Kabul, 13 U.S. military personnel and more than 110 Afghans were killed in a suicide bombing outside the airport last week leading up to the Aug. 31 deadline to get American troops out of Afghanistan.
“Without a doubt, the paratroopers of this division are absolutely a national treasure,” Donahue said in May. “No other organization has the size, the capacity and capability to very rapidly go anywhere in the world than this division.”
Donahue said his time in this division had a personal impact on his life.
“It is an incredible honor to be in this division,” Donahue said. “For the rest of my life, when people say ‘What’d you do with your life?’ I’m going to be able to say, ‘I was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division.'”
Health officials plead for vaccine donations to Latin America and the Caribbean.
On Sept. 1, the World Health Organization requested countries with extra COVID-19 vaccines to donate their doses to Latin American and Caribbean countries with slower immunization processes.
While Chile and Uruguay vaccinated more than 60% of their populations, more than a third of countries in the area have not yet reached 20%.
Latin America and the Caribbean had received donations of around 43.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines by mid-August through bilateral agreements and the United Nations-backed COVAX program, according to agency estimates.
Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization, said in a news conference that only one in four people in Latin America and the Caribbean has been fully vaccinated.
“While every country in our region has begun administering COVID-19 vaccines, immunizations are following the fault lines of inequality that have long divided our region,” Etienne said.
In South America, the infection rate is decreasing, but the scenario is the opposite for the Caribbean and several Central American countries.
“Vaccination rates remain in the teens in several Caribbean and South American countries and coverage is still in the single digits in Central American nations like Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua,” Etienne said.
The numbers are especially low in countries with particularly fragile health systems, such as Haiti and Venezuela.
The Pan American Health Organization is starting a program to boost regional production of so-called messenger RNA vaccines — the same type as the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna shots — but that effort will not provide doses in the short term.
An additional 540 million doses are needed to make sure every country in the Americas can fully inoculate 60% of the population.
National
Texas abortion law
On Aug. 30, abortion providers in Texas asked the Supreme Court to block a state law banning abortions after six weeks into pregnancy. However, the Supreme Court refused to block the law, which went into effect on Wednesday, Sept. 1.
The regulation, known as Senate Bill 8, is one of the most restrictive abortion measures in the United States. Its approval represents almost a complete ban on abortion in Texas since more than 85% of procedures in the state happen after the sixth week of pregnancy.
In the emergency application urging the justices to intervene, abortion providers in the state said the new law “would immediately and catastrophically reduce abortion access in Texas,” and most likely force “many abortion clinics ultimately to close.”
Supreme Court precedents prohibit states from banning abortion before fetal viability, the point at which fetuses can sustain life outside the womb, or about 22 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. The law in Texas says doctors cannot perform abortions if a heartbeat is detected, an activity that starts at around six weeks, before many women are even aware they are pregnant.
The vote was 5-4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the court’s three liberal members in dissent.
President Biden announced a state of emergency for the state of California due to wildfires in the region.
On Sept. 2, President Joe Biden declared an emergency for the state of California and federal assistance to help firefighters combat the Caldor fire. Only 23% of the fire has been contained since it started on Aug. 14.
Since July, the fire has scorched approximately 200,000 acres of land. It now poses a threat to tens of thousands of structures across Lake Tahoe, forcing evacuation in the area. At least 700 homes and buildings have been destroyed since the start of the fire.
The mandatory evacuation zone is from Tahoma, California, to the Nevada border. On Sept. 1, firefighters reported progress to contain the flames.
“It was a tense few moments, I think, for our citizens in South Lake Tahoe,” the city’s police chief, David Stevenson, said during a news conference on Aug. 30.
Tim Ernst, operations section chief, said the firefighters were concerned with the possibility of strong winds in the California-Nevada alpine region.
“We lucked out a little bit yesterday with some of the winds that didn’t come up quite as hard as we expected them to,” Ernst said. “We were fortunate the fire did not make as strong a push into Tahoe as it did the previous day.”
Jason Hunter, the spokesman for the Caldor command, said crews had steered the fire away from South Lake Tahoe.
The Caldor fire is still a threat for the region, and firefighters are working on dozens of other California blazes, due to remaining critical weather conditions
Local
Restaurant in Oklahoma City requires proof of vaccination
Beginning on Sept. 1, Ludivine, a Midtown Oklahoma City restaurant, now requires proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test for dine-in customers.
The restaurant posted the announcement on their Facebook page on Aug. 31.
“Requirements for indoor seating as of September 1st, 2021: Proof of Vaccination or Negative test result in the last 72 hours. Patio seating is open to guests that do not meet this criterion.
Masks required for all!” the statement said.
Russ Johnson, Ludivine’s owner, said they do not want to do this and it is logistically challenging. However, he said, they want to keep people safe.
“We don’t want to be doing this any more than people want us to be doing it,” Johnson. “It’s not fun. It’s not easy.”
Oklahoma Restaurant Association President, Jim Hopper, said other restaurants might follow this action.
“Restaurants are struggling right now with staff. So, they want to keep their staff as safe as they can keep them, and, obviously, they want to treat their guests well and keep their guests healthy,” Hopper said. “I could see this happening in other places.”
Hopper said the pandemic greatly affected the restaurant industry.
“The average restaurant has lost about 50% of their revenue since April of 2020 through the year to date,” Hopper said. “So, everything may look good from the outside, from the dining public. ‘Oh, they’re busy’ and all those kinds of things. But they are really struggling to keep their heads above water and meet their obligations and pay their bills.”
Norman records 500 plus new COVID-19 cases in the highest report since January
On Sept. 1, Norman reported its highest rise in new COVID-19 cases since January, recording 530 new cases last week.
Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, Norman’s COVID-19 case count is up to 16,629.
The new case count comes just after Norman Public Schools announced Tuesday, Aug. 31 that the district is “experiencing a rate of COVID-19 growth we did not see last year,” and that starting next week, NPS will expect everyone in its buildings to be masked.
“School has only been in session a short time and already it is clear that if we’re going to make it through this school year with in-person learning, more has to be done to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” NPS Superintendent Nick Migliorino wrote in an email to parents Tuesday night.
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