Talk of the Town
In December, Vice Mayor Kathy Lawson said she had been accused of criminal activity and requested Interim City Manager Rob Fincher to investigate. At a regular meeting on Tuesday, Fincher not only cleared Lawson of any wrongdoing but also squashed a rumor that there were missing documents at City Hall. Councilman Aaron Rawls challenged Fincher’s characterization of the missing documents.
Police responded to reports of gunfire around 11:36 p.m. April 18 in the 700 block of Arlington Road in Danville.…
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. is close to reaching at least 1,000 measles cases for the third time in eight years.
At least 72 new measles cases have been confirmed in the last week, according to updated data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
So far this year, there have been total of 982 cases in 26 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
Just six measles cases were reported among international travelers so far this year, according to CDC data.
About 94% of cases are among people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown, the CDC said.
Meanwhile, 3% of cases are among those who have received just one dose of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine and 4% of cases are among those who received the recommended two doses, according to the CDC.
The current measles situation in the U.S. is partly being driven by a large outbreak in South Carolina that began last year, with 962 cases recorded as of Friday, according to state health officials.
Last year, the U.S. recorded 2,281 measles cases, which is the highest number of national cases in 33 years, according to the CDC.
It also marked the first U.S. deaths recorded from measles in a decade, two among school-aged unvaccinated children in Texas and a third among an unvaccinated adult in New Mexico.
The CDC currently recommends people receive two doses of the MMR vaccine, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old. One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective against measles, the CDC said.
However, federal data shows vaccination rates have been lagging in recent years. During the 2024-2025 school year, 92.5% of kindergartners received the MMR vaccine, according to data. This is lower than the 92.7% seen in the previous school year and the 95.2% seen in the 2019-2020 school year, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last month marked one year since a measles outbreak began in West Texas, with infections soon spreading to neighboring counties and other states.
Public health experts previously told ABC News that if cases in other states are found to be linked to the cases in Texas, it would mean the virus has been spreading for a year, which could lead to a loss of elimination status.
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(NEW YORK) — The Artemis II mission launched on Wednesday, taking four astronauts on a historic, 10-day mission around the moon and giving them views of a lifetime along the way.
A day after lift-off, ABC News’ Gio Benitez spoke with astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen from their Orion spacecraft about the journey so far, and what they are anticipating for the days ahead.
“I don’t know what we all expected to see … but you could see the entire globe, from pole to pole,” Commander Wiseman said of the crew’s view of Earth from space Thursday.
“You could see Africa, Europe, and if you looked really close, you could see the northern lights. It was the most spectacular moment, and it paused all four of us in our tracks,” he added.
This mission marks the first time humans have flown beyond low-Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission that landed on the moon in 1972.
The crew is going on a 685,000-mile journey around the moon, also known as a lunar fly-by.
The launch on Wednesday was seen around the world, as the crew successfully lifted off at 6:35 p.m. ET from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Hansen, mission specialist and part of the Canadian Space Agency, said that even though they were all expecting it, when the rocket boosters actually lit up and they left the launch pad, “there’s just a moment of disbelief.”
“The fact that we launched — it just totally takes you by surprise, even though you’re expecting it, at least for me anyway, and just had a huge smile across my face,” he said.
Koch, a mission specialist who holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman at 328 days, addressed the toilet issue onboard the spacecraft, which was reported after launch.
‘”I’m proud to call myself the space plumber,” Koch said. “I like to say that it is probably the most important piece of equipment on board.”
Crew members said at the time that the Orion capsule’s toilet, dubbed the Universal Waste Management System, had a blinking fault light while they tested it, but it had been resolved since.
“So we were all breathing a sigh of relief when it turned out to be just fine,” Koch said.
Glover, the mission pilot who will make history as the first person of color to go to the moon, said from high Earth orbit, the divisions of Earth are far out of view.
“Trust us, you look amazing, you look beautiful,” he said of Earth. “You also look like one thing. Homo sapiens is all of us, no matter where you’re from or what you look like. We’re all one people.”
“We call amazing things that humans do ‘moonshots’ for a reason, because this brought us together and showed us what we can do when we not just put our differences aside, when we bring our differences together and use all the strengths to accomplish something great,” Glover said.
Before speaking with ABC News on Thursday, the Artemis II crew successfully completed a critical milestone in the mission, the translunar injection burn that boosted the Orion spacecraft out of Earth’s orbit onto a trajectory toward the moon.
During a press conference after the maneuver, Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator at NASA, said that the critical translunar injection burn was “flawless.”
“From this point forward, the laws of orbital mechanics are going to carry our crew to the moon, around the far side and back to Earth,” Glaze said.
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