DEVELOPING Person on fire outside Trump's hush money trial rushed away on a stretcher
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
As the rate of Black Americans vaccinated against COVID-19 lags behind those of other groups, officials in the U.S. are turning to barber shops and hair salons to combat vaccine misinformation.
“We talk about their darkest secrets, so I know that they trust me because they share a lot with me,” Katrina Randolph, owner of Tres Shadez Hair Salon in Capitol Heights, Md., told CTV National News.
“So why not get vaccinated? Why not allow me to help you make a decision to save your life.”
In early June, the Biden administration announced it had teamed up with several organizations, including the Black Coalition Against COVID, to launch an initiative called "Shots at the Shop," encouraging Black-owned barber shops and beauty salons to promote vaccine education and outreach on a local level.
Shops like Randolph’s help to share accurate information about vaccines with their customers, even hosting on-site vaccination events in partnership with local health care providers.
“It’s familiar… not an office… I feel comfortable getting the shot here,” said Tres Shadez client Skylar Moses.
U.S. federal data shows that less than a third of Black Americans have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine – the lowest of any racial or ethnic group in the country.
Historic discrimination and damning reports involving racialized patients have deepened mistrust in Black, Indigenous and communities of colour, leading to vaccine hesitancy -- defined by the World Health Organization as people purposely delaying receiving available vaccines.
For Black Americans, some of those reservations stem back to the unethical Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments, which lasted from 1932 to 1972, where researchers from the U.S. Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) purposefully didn’t treat Black patients infected with Syphilis to observe the “natural history” of the untreated disease.
And despite the fact that racialized communities face a greater risk of contracting COVID-19, a U.S. survey conducted in late 2020 found higher levels of vaccine hesitancy and distrust in Black and Latinx populations compared to their white counterparts due, in part, to a lack of confidence in the government.
“In the early days of the pandemic, the most common source of disinformation about COVID was coming out of the White House,” Dr. Stephen Thomas, professor at the University of Maryland Centre for Health Equity, told CTV National News.
“So, ‘It’s all a hoax,’ ‘It’s just like the flu…’ that was marinating in our communities.”
But several studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA Internal Medicine, have found that partnerships with local barber shops are helpful in promoting public health initiatives in Black communities, such as screening for diabetes and monitoring high blood pressure.
Randolph says about 75 per cent of the clients she’s spoken to in her salon have opted to get the vaccine after speaking to her, building confidence in the community one shot at a time.
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
Police in Sault Ste. Marie charged a 22-year-old man with animal cruelty following an attack on a dog Thursday morning.
The Body Shop Canada is exploring a sale as it struggles to get its hands on enough inventory to keep up with "robust" sales after announcing it would file for creditor protection and close 33 stores.
Ontario Provincial Police have landed a suspect following a fishy theft in Beachburg, Ont.
The U.S.’s Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a video that appears to show unauthorized personnel in the cockpit of a charted Colorado Rockies flight to Toronto.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.