Hurricane Larry, Big 12 Conference, breast milk antibodies: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of 5 Things: Hurricane Larry is supposed to hit the eastern United States coastline after the holiday weekend. Plus, vaccinated moms have antibodies in their breast milk, accusers say R. Kelly knowingly gave them STDs, college football is back in full swing and Friday was a memorable day of upsets at the U.S. Open.
Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and this is five things you need to know Saturday, the 4th of September 2021. Today, hurricane season isn't done yet, plus vaccinated moms might be able to pass along protection against COVID-19 to their nursing babies, and more.
Taylor Wilson:
Here are some of the top headlines. A small group of Afghan women protested near the presidential palace in Kabul on Friday, demanding equal rights from the Taliban. Afghanistan's new rulers are working to form a government, and held meetings this week with a number of foreign countries in Qatar, where they've long held a political office.
Taylor Wilson:
New Zealand saw its first coronavirus death in more than six months on Saturday. Health officials said the woman was in her 90s and had underlying health problems.
Taylor Wilson:
And the Big 12 Conference will likely add four new schools soon, BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati, and Houston. The conference will lose two of its marquis colleges, Texas and Oklahoma, in 2025.
Taylor Wilson:
Before we keep going, I wanted to give a shoutout to those of you listening on your daily drive on Spotify. We appreciate you're here, and if you want to keep listening to new episodes every day, be sure to subscribe and follow. Now onto the show.
Taylor Wilson:
Hurricane season isn't done yet. Hurricane Larry is predicted to reach Category 4 status in the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean this weekend. The storm is said to remain in the Atlantic for the next few days, but could eventually approach Bermuda or even the mainland United States. Meanwhile, the aftermath from Ida continues across the country. At least 60 people are dead across eight states. The storm first made landfall in Louisiana almost a week ago as a Category 4 hurricane, and the fifth strongest to ever hit the mainland US. It then tore through the northeast, slamming New Jersey especially hard, killing 25 people there. Many of the victims died trapped in flooding in their cars or at home, and many others barely survived. Jennifer Vilchez lives in Elizabeth New Jersey, a town across the Hudson River from New York City. She told the AP about the flooding that swamped her neighborhood.
Jennifer Vilchez:
It was devastating. Around 9:00, it started getting flooded. Went to my basement, there was a little bit of water, saw the cars getting a little bit more flooded. And by the hour, it was completely... about 11:00, you couldn't see my fence. People were crying for help across the street. A person got stuck in front of this dumpster. The firemen were walking hand in hand to try to rescue people in the boats.
Speaker 3:
That bad?
Jennifer Vilchez:
I really thought it was a couple of hours, maybe hard rain. Nothing to this magnitude. Nothing. Like I said, I've been here 40 years and I've never seen anything... there's been flooding, but maybe two inches, three inches in the basement. Maybe a foot all the way in the front of the house, but never... not even Sandy. This had no comparison to Sandy.
Speaker 3:
Geez.
Jennifer Vilchez:
At all. The water was up to here. I'm glad I have... I'm alive, my family, I have my home. But everyone across the street, they're evacuated. There's deaths. Some of them probably lost everything. I'm just thankful that I have my home. I really am in pain for everyone across the street that had to leave, and watching them leave, it was really hard. It was really hard to see that.
Taylor Wilson:
The Gulf Coast is also still recovering from Ida. Over a dozen people died in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, and President Joe Biden visited New Orleans on Friday promising federal help.
President Joe Biden:
We're in this together, and so we're not going to leave any community behind. Rural, city, coastal, inland. And I promise we're going to have your backs until this gets done.
Taylor Wilson:
Power should be restored to almost all of New Orleans by Wednesday, 10 days after the storm hit. Nearly a million homes and businesses in Louisiana were still without power as of Friday afternoon.
Taylor Wilson:
Moms vaccinated against COVID-19 may be able to pass protection along to their nursing babies. That's according to a new study from the University of Florida. That happens when antibodies pass through breast milk. A co-author of study, Dr. Josef Neu said, "A lot of moms, pregnant women, are afraid to get vaccinated. They want to do what's best for their babies. This is something that we wanted to know whether it may actually provide some benefit." That could be particularly helpful since babies can't yet get vaccinated, and are also born with their immune systems not fully developed.
Taylor Wilson:
That news comes up as kids are making up a growing proportion of COVID-19 cases in the country while older age groups keep getting vaccinated. Children made up 22.4% of cases last week, much higher than the total average during the pandemic at 15%. There was also a 9% increase in the number of cumulative children's cases from August 12th to August 26th. Children have been returning to school, and in some cases are beginning their first in person instruction since the pandemic surged in March of 2020. Children under 12 are currently ineligible for vaccines. Serious illness from the virus is still rare in young kids, but maybe more likely when they have more unvaccinated adults spreading viral load around them. The CDC said Friday that new studies show hospitalizations in kids were four times higher in states with low vaccination rates during the month of August. 52.9% of Americans are fully vaccinated, but there are many states where that number is below 45%, and some are still below 40%.
Taylor Wilson:
R. Kelly's disturbing sex trafficking trial continued this week. On Friday the latest revelation, as a witness told the court the R&B singer paid $200,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by her, after accusing him of giving her herpes two decades ago without telling her he had it. Two other witnesses also took the stand earlier in the trial to testify Kelly gave them herpes. He's not charged with a crime in relation to those accusations, but prosecutors called them to the stand during the third week of a trial alleging Kelly ran a criminal enterprise to sexually abuse women and underage girls. He faces federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges in New York, along with state sex crime charges in Illinois and Minnesota. He's been behind bars awaiting trials since 2019. If you're a survivor of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673, or visit hotline.rainn.org/online for confidential support.
Taylor Wilson:
College football is back in full swing. Almost all teams will be in action this long weekend, including five top 25 matchups. They include number two Clemson against number five Georgia in Charlotte, and number one Alabama versus number 16 Miami in Atlanta. Saturday's action is the start for almost the whole sport, but some teams did get a jump last week in college football's so called week zero. As for the season on the whole, USA Today Sports Dan Wolken offers up some dark horses.
Dan Wolken:
Well I'll start with number five, TCU. The Big 12 seems pretty wide open to me after Oklahoma. I think Gary Patterson knows that they weren't very good on defense last year, they've changed some personnel, brought in some transfers. Maybe they can get back into that upper echelon of the Big 12. Number four, Louisiana Lafayette. Maybe not a true dark horse in terms of national profile, because they are going to start the year ranked. But Levi Lewis, their quarterback, 24 and 4 as a starter. He's coming back for his fifth year. If they can win that opener at Texas, I think they're set up to maybe go undefeated.
Dan Wolken:
Number three, Washington. I don't really know exactly what this team is going to be. They only played four games last year under Jimmy Lake. A little bit of a mystery team, but they do have five returning stars on their offensive line, and they have a quarterback who's a freshman by the name of Huard who should ring a bell for college football fans. Interesting five star type prospect, so very interested to see Washington. Number two, Penn State. Not a lot of people talking about Penn State this year. They had an awful COVID year last year. Started oh and five. They kind of abandoned what they were doing offensively. They brought in Mike Yurcich. Last year they turned it over a lot offensively. I'm counting on Sean Clifford to have kind of a bounce back year.
Dan Wolken:
And the number one in my dark horses is Ole Miss. The SEC does not have a lot of marquis quarterbacks this year, but Ole Miss does in Matt Corral, who's kind of a gunslinger-style quarterback. If they get any production at all from their defense, they're going to be a handful in the SEC.
Taylor Wilson:
You can stay up to date all season long with the college football section over at USA Today Sports. There, you can read columns from Dan and others, and keep up with the USA Today Sports AFCA Coaches Poll every week. To start the season, it's Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Georgia in the top five.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, it was a memorable day of upsets at the US Open on Friday. Raining women's singles champion, Japanese American Naomi Osaka, had her latest blow in a tough year when she lost to 18 year old Canadian Leylah Fernandez in the third round. Osaka was frustrated throughout the match, repeatedly slamming her racket in frustration, before Fernandez took her down in three sets. Osaka, who's won four Grand Slam tournaments before turning 24, was in tears during her post-match press conference. She also said, "When I win, I don't feel happy. I feel more like a relief. And then when I lose, I feel very sad." She added that she does not know when she'll play her next tennis match. The match caps off a difficult year for Osaka. She pulled out of both Wimbledon and the French Open earlier this summer, and was upset earlier during the Tokyo Olympics in her birth country of Japan.
Taylor Wilson:
Upsets continued in New York on the men's singles side, including a five-set classic that saw American Francis Tiafoe take down number five Russian Andrey Rublev in front of a raucous home crowd. The match didn't finish until 2:14 AM local time, just minutes from the latest finish in US Open history at 2:26. And the tournament's number three seed also went down, when Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz Garfia beat Stefanos Tsitsipas in five sets. On Saturday, number one seed Novak Djokovic is in action versus Kei Nishikori, who will try to keep the upset magic going. And number one seed women's singles player Ashleigh Barty takes on Shelby Rogers.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us wherever you're listening right now, and we ask for a rating and review if you have a chance. A reminder, Claire is back with the Sunday edition of 5 Things. On the show, Claire is talking with our Pentagon reporter, foreign relations reporter, and White House reporter, recapping the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and discussing what's next.
Taylor Wilson:
5 Things is part of the USA Today network.