Three things for February 23
1. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fundraises for Central Texas
As of Sunday night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has amassed $4.7 million in her fundraising efforts to help Texans hit by last week’s winter storms. Texas has been dealing with mass power outages, severe weather and, in some areas, residents are without food and water.
Ocasio-Cortez started the fundraiser Thursday and hit $1 million by the end of the day. The next day, Ocasio-Cortez said donation figures rose to $2 million and announced she would visit the state of Texas.
While in Texas, she visited food distribution centers, volunteered at the Houston Food Band, visited water delivery sites and toured the damage left behind from the storm.
“I think this is just something that we should be able to do whenever there is an area in our country that’s in need,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN.
2. Russia reports first cases of humans catching bird flu H5N8
Russia has reported a limited number of cases of virus H5N8 passing from poultry to humans.
Seven workers at a poultry plant became infected with the virus in December 2020. Scientists at the state-run Vector Institute isolated the virus strains from infected workers, said Anna Popova, head of Russia’s Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing. Currently, cases are not spreading from human-to-human contact.
Russia reported the seven cases to the World Health Organization, noting the influenza virus jumped from infected birds into people, but it did not continue to spread from human-to-human.
“If confirmed, this would be the first time H5N8 has infected people,” a WHO spokesperson said in a statement. Several bird flu strains have been known to infect people, but these are the first cases of H5N8 to do so.
Outbreaks of the H5N8 strain have been reported in Russia, Europe, China, the Middle East and North Africa in recent months but so far only in poultry.
3. Childhood cancer survivor joins all-civilian mission to space
Hayley Arceneaux, 29, has been living with bone cancer since she was 10 years old. Years later, her dream to go to space is about to come true.
On Monday, Arceneaux revealed on TODAY that she will be part of the first all-civilian mission to space aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft launching before the end of this year. It will be a multi-day journey orbiting Earth and conducting experiments.
This will make Arceneaux the youngest person to go to space.
According to TODAY, the Inspiration4 mission is doubling a $200 million fundraising effort for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where Arceneaux was treated for cancer as a child.
