Monday morning news - March 29, 2021

Heavy rain, flooding pound Tennessee » AUDIO: [SOUND OF STORM]

Residents in Tennessee are surveying the damage today after heavy rains and flood waters battered parts of the state over the weekend. 

AUDIO: [SOUND OF STORM]

Authorities said the bodies of four people swept away in flood waters were found yesterday. And Nashville Fire Chief William Swann said his department rescued hundreds of people from cars and homes. 

SWANN: We have about 251 incidents. It took 600 of our fire personnel to respond to these events.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper told reporters on Sunday:

COOPER: First responders are walking creek beds and working with the Red Cross to canvass affected neighborhoods.

The city recorded nearly 6 inches of rain Saturday, setting Nashville’s new single-day rainfall record for the month of March. Almost another inch of rain fell after midnight.

COVID / Post-vaccination study » Hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 are no longer falling in the United States. 

As of last week, CDC data showed that while nationwide progress against new cases had ground to a halt, the rate of serious illness continued to fall.

But the latest data show that the rate of hospitalizations and deaths have also plateaued.

New daily hospital admissions tied to the coronavirus are stuck at close to 5,000. 

And officials say about a thousand Americans still die of COVID-19 each day. That number has barely moved over the past week after nearly two months of dramatic progress. 

President Biden’s chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday…

FAUCI: The variants are playing a part, but it’s not completely the variants. What we’re likely seeing is because of things like Spring Break and pulling back on the mitigation efforts that we’ve seen now. Several states have done that. 

Every state has to some degree loosened restrictions. But at least for now in many of the states with the most relaxed rules, hospitalizations are still falling, including Texas and Florida. 

Four states are now once again seeing an uptick in new hospital admissions. They are New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan, and Minnesota. All four states still have mask mandates and some capacity limits on businesses and gatherings. 

Scores of protesters killed in continuing crackdown in Myanmar » AUDIO: [SOUND OF PROTESTS] 

Protesters in Myanmar wielded homemade guns and molotov cocktails in clashes with police over the weekend in the city of Mandalay. 

That as the ruling military conducted its most brutal crackdown of anti-coup demonstrators yet, killing more than 100 people on Saturday.

And on Sunday, security forces reportedly opened fire on a crowd attending the funeral of a student protester killed the day before. 

According to an outside watchdog group, nearly 500 pro-democracy protesters have been killed since the February 1st coup.

At a beauty pageant over the weekend in Thailand, one contestant from Myanmar used her moment in the spotlight to plead for help. Han Lay fought back tears as she called on the international community…

LAY: Please help Myanmar. We need your urgent international help right now. 

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken issued a statement saying the United States is “horrified by the bloodshed perpetrated by [Myanmar] security forces.” He said it shows that the ruling military “junta will sacrifice the lives of the people to serve the few.” 

Suicide bomb hits Palm Sunday Mass in Indonesia, 20 wounded » Two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a packed Catholic cathedral yesterday, wounding at least 20 people. 

The bombers behind the Palm Sunday attack are believed to have been members of a terrorist group loyal to ISIS. 

The blast went off at about 10:30 a.m. as a first batch of churchgoers was walking out of the church and another group was filing in.

Security guards at the church were suspicious of two people on a motorcycle who wanted to enter the building. When the guards confronted them, one of the bombers detonated their explosives.

Police later said both attackers died instantly and evidence indicated one of the two was a woman. The wounded included four guards and several churchgoers.

(Andrew Nelles/The Tennessean via AP) Emergency personnel stage for a call of people stranded in the water on Antioch Pike in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, March 28, 2021. 

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