Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Dolly Parton, 75, wants the COVID-19 vaccine, but here's why she's waiting to receive it Yahoo Celebrity RAECHAL SHEWFELT February 2, 2021, 6:58 PM

Dolly Parton, 75, wants the COVID-19 vaccine, but here's why she's waiting to receive it

Dolly Parton donated $1 million for a COVID-19 vaccine. (Photo: Rich Fury/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

Dolly Parton was so concerned with the coronavirus pandemic last year that she famously donated $1 million to the development of the Moderna vaccine, one of the two therapies that have been approved by the federal government and are being administered to the public. She’s also been eligible for a shot since she turned 75 on Jan. 19, and yet she’s still waiting.

“I’m not going to get mine until some more people get theirs. I don’t want it to look like I’m jumping the line just because I donated money,” Parton explained to the Associated Press in an interview published Tuesday. “I’m very funny about that. I’m going to get mine, though, but I’m going to wait.”

The country music legend’s hefty financial contribution was revealed Nov. 16 when Moderna credited supporters, including the Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund, via Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Parton said she considered obtaining the vaccine on her birthday.

“And I thought, ‘Nah, don’t do that.’ You’ll look like you’re just doing a show. None of my work is really like that,” Parton said. “I wasn’t doing it for a show. I’m going to get mine. I want it. I’m going to get it.”

The “Jolene” singer plans eventually to use her platform to talk about her vaccine experience.

“When I get it, I’ll probably do it on camera so people will know and I’ll tell them the truth, if I have symptoms and all that,” she said. “Hopefully it’ll encourage people. I’m not going to jump the line just because I could.”

Parton has said that doing good was her only intention in making the donation.

“Well, I follow my heart,” she answered when the AP asked about her motivation. “I’m a person of faith and I pray all the time that God will lead me into the right direction and let me know what to do. When the pandemic first hit, that was my first thought, ‘I need to do something to try to help find a vaccination.’ I just did some research with the people at Vanderbilt [University] — they’re wonderful people, they’ve been so good through the years to my people in times of illness and all that. I just asked if I could donate a million dollars to the research for a vaccine. I get a lot more credit than I deserve I think, but I was just happy to be a part of any and all of that.”

Another thing she’ll be part of is this year’s Super Bowl ad blitz, with a new version of her 1980 hit “9 to 5.”

Dolly Parton shares exclusive look at her first-ever Super Bowl ad

As our preview of this year’s Super Bowl ads continues, Dolly Parton talks to Hoda Kotb about her first-ever commercial during the big game, which turns re-creates her hit “9 to 5” to promote Squarespace. She also reveals her favorite Super Bowl snack: pigs in a blanket.

For the latest coronavirus news and updates, follow along at https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please reference the CDC’s and WHO’s resource guides.

Here are the potential terrorist threats to the Super Bowl, according to the FBI and DHS Yahoo News JANA WINTER February 3, 2021, 5:00 AM

Here are the potential terrorist threats to the Super Bowl, according to the FBI and DHS

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Iran, Black separatists and the Islamic State group: These are just a few of the myriad potential threats to the Super Bowl this year, according to a government threat assessment obtained by Yahoo News.

The Jan. 27 document, a product of federal agencies, including the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, and local law enforcement, notes that there is no information on a specific credible threat planned against the Super Bowl but outlines a variety of potential threats, from terrorists poisoning the food or water supply to an attack using commercial drones. It also states “the FBI and DHS remain concerned about potential retaliatory attacks” by Iran in response to the U.S. assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani last year.

“Although security measures will be in place around Super Bowl LV and adjacent areas on the day of the game, Super Bowl LV and associated events are likely an attractive target due to the relatively high concentration of attendees, symbolism of the event, and the significant national media attention the event will receive,” the assessment says.

The report, called a Joint Special Event Threat Assessment, is produced for a variety of high-profile gatherings and distributed to local, state and federal agencies.

Tom Warrick, a former senior Department of Homeland Security official, says the idea of a threat against the Super Bowl is not surprising given events in recent years. “Decades ago, NFL security’s worry was someone running onto the field,” he said. “Today they’re already thinking about militia groups and lone wolves — whether they’re listed in a DHS threat assessment or not.”

An aerial view of Raymond James Stadium ahead of Super Bowl LV on January 31, 2021 in Tampa, Florida. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) — An aerial view of Raymond James Stadium on Sunday ahead of Super Bowl LV in Tampa. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

The Kansas City Chiefs will play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa on Feb. 7. In 2020, more than 60,000 people attended the Super Bowl, but due to current COVID-19 restrictions, only about 25,000 are expected this year.

While the report references the threat from domestic violent extremists, in addition to more traditional foreign terrorist organizations, it makes no specific mention of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Former FBI Agent Mike German, who reviewed a copy of the assessment provided by Yahoo News, noted that the document references the potential threat from “black separatism” among domestic extremists but does not mention white supremacists. He said the document’s citation of extremists motivated by “racism or injustice in American society” appeared to be a “clearly inappropriate reference to Black Lives Matter activists peacefully protesting police violence.”

“The report basically says, ‘We don’t have any specific information about a particularized threat, but here are a hundred things that could go wrong.’ How could that be useful to anyone but an agency that wants to be able to say ‘We told you so’ if any one of the hundred possible threats is realized?” said German, who is now a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice.

A member of the Iraqi forces walks past a mural bearing the logo of the Islamic State group in 2017 near Mosul. (Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images)

German said the report’s grab bag list of threats was not helpful for law enforcement, whose job it is to help secure the event. “It would be silly if it wasn’t so dangerous,” he said. “What is the point of including the detailed warning about the radio broadcasted threat that Iranians would fly a plane into the U.S. Capitol to avenge Soleimani’s death, only to say the government does not regard the threat as credible? Why recirculate and amplify it through the intelligence network if it isn’t credible? Especially because the report doesn’t even mention the actual attack on the U.S. Capitol by white supremacists and far-right militants that killed five people on that same date, which seems an odd omission.”

It’s unclear why authorities singled out Black separatists as a potential threat, but not white supremacists or right-wing extremists, who conducted the majority of domestic attacks last year. The FBI’s official categorization for such threats is “racially motivated violent extremists,” which it has used as an umbrella term for both white supremacists and a variety of groups associated with Black Americans.

Neither the FBI nor the Department of Homeland Security replied to a request for comment. The FBI’s conflation of these groups has drawn criticism from civil rights organizations, lawmakers and others, and a former Obama counterterrorism official, who asked not to be named, said the threat assessment follows this same faulty logic.

“The product conflates two distinct threats: domestic white supremacist terrorism and a non-threat of social justice, police brutality protester,” said the former Obama administration counterterrorism official, who reviewed the document for Yahoo News. “Domestic white supremacist terrorism has been the most lethal threat for the past 10 years compared to any other group,” including al-Qaida and the Islamic State.

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Wednesday, February 3, 2021