and are urging residents to notify them of any new sightings on right away. >> andrea fujii, abc news. >>> our thanks. and scientists in egypt have announced a discovery of a peculiar species. >> what is believed to be the partial skeleton of a four-legged ancestor to modern whales is unearthed in cairo. it's believed to have lived 43 million years ago when that area of the desert was covered by sea. what a time to be alive right now. right? >>> he paid his respects to his >>> time now for "the friday mix" and we start with a touching backstory. >> ben was not able to go to his aunt's funeral because of covid so ben jackson did the next best thing. he paid respects to his aunt deb by having dozens of sheep arrange themselves in the shape of a heart. >> that is so cute, the drone video shows the flock falling in step around carefully positioned grain fed, it took a few tries but they were able to get it right. and next, to a budding basketball star, in the beech state. -- peach state. >> he showed off his impressive trick shot in a video that was posted by his homicide. posted by his m

abc's andrea fujii has the latest. >> reporter: this morning, america's longest war is quickly coming to an end. the deadline to withdraw troops from afghanistan is less than 24 hours away and as of sunday, the state department says 250 u.s. citizens are still in the country. >> this is the most dangerous time in an already extraordinarily dangerous mission, these last couple of days, and so we will do everything possible to keep people safe, but the risk is very high. >> reporter: most of the military members remaining in afghanistan are racing to evacuate americans and afghan allies from the airport in kabul hoping to escape the taliban. their mission, turning deadly last thursday when 13 u.s. servicemen and women were killed in a suicide bombing along with dozens of afghans. in retaliation, the u.s. carried out a drone strike against an isis-k planner and facilitator and an unmanned u.s. drone targeted a vehicle less than five miles from the airport. the vehicle believed to be carrying a substantial amount of explosive material, which caused powerful subsequent explosions, an afgha

andrea fujii, abc news. >>> a wake-up call this morning about skyrocketing blood pressure numbers.esearchers say the number of people over 30 with high blood pressure doubled in the last three decades and despite easy and inexpensive treatments, more than half of those people are going untreated. 8.5 million deaths are blamed on hypertension every year. it found lower blood pressure among those who consume foods rich in flavonoids like red wine, berries and apples. >>> the big play at the little league world series. >>> but first a controversial crackdown on people who refuse to get vaccinated against covid. the higher insurance premiums they'll have to pay. not touching is still touching protection. adding lysol laundry sanitizer kills 99.9% of bacteria. detergent alone, can't. lysol. what it takes to protect. before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn... claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now, she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartbu

here's abc's andrea fujii. >> reporter: this morning, america's longest war ending with this haunting image. army major general chris donohue in a night vision photo boarding the final military flight out of kabul. donohue among the first to it deploy to afghanistan in 2001. now the last to leave 20 years later. >> every single u.s. service member is out of afghanistan. i can say that with 100% certainty. >> reporter: leaving afghan airspace one minute before the midnight deadline. hours later, taliban leaders walked across the runway and celebratory gunfire filled the air. forces evacuated more than 120,000 people from afghanistan, about 5500 of them american citizens. but the state department says about 100 to 200 americans who were trying to leave are still in the country, despite a pledge from president biden saying he would not leave any americans behind. >> americans should understand that we're going to try to get it done before august 31st. >> if we don't, the troops will stay? >> if we don't, we'll determine at the time who's left. >> and? >> and if there's american citizens

we're learning more about the recent cookout he attended with other senators, but first abc's andrea fujiiith the latest from hospitals across the country. >> reporter: this morning the country's top doctors are sounding the alarm about the current phase of the pandemic. >> covid-19 is clearly not done with us. >> reporter: according to the cdc, the average number of daily cases last week topped 72,000 surpassing the peak of last summer's covid surge when there was no vaccine. >> this is hard, this is heavy, but we are in this together. >> reporter: the highly contagious delta variant is driving the surge. a top doctor in louisiana says her hospitals are seeing a new covid patient every hour. >> there are no more beds left. these are the darkest days of this pandemic. we are no longer giving adequate care to patients. >> reporter: texas and florida account for one-third of the country's infections. >> the numbers are doubling every 10 or 11 days. geometric progression, this is horrifying. >> reporter: the cdc says less than 0.004% of vaccinated americans have been hospitalized with covid.

abc's andrea fujii has the latest. >> reporter: good morning, mona and andrew. the white house says the number of people getting vaccinated has been steadily increasing since july 5th, but officials worry that's not fast enough. an alarming rise in covid-19 infections across the country. for the first time since february, cases surpassed 100,000 in a single day over the weekend, and hospital admissions surging to more than 6,000 patients a day. with cases soaring steadily over the past six weeks mainly due to the more contagious delta variant, dr. anthony fauci with a stern warning. >> things are going to get worse. we have 100 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who are not getting vaccinated. >> reporter: though dr. fauci does not anticipate lockdowns, he says people in areas where vaccination rates are low are at the most risk. more than 76% of counties are now reporting high or substantial transmission rates and louisiana with the highest case rate in the country, hospital admissions have gone up 500% in the last month, and it's

abc's andrea fujii looks at the problem and what can be done about it. >> reporter: this morning yet another day of cancellations at spirit airlines. travelers at their breaking point. this man yelling to get on his flight in ft. lauderdale. >> one crew member put us on the plane. >> reporter: this is day 6 of the chaos. nearly 1900 flights canceled so far. and today up to 50% of the airline's flights aren't expected to take off. one passenger in orlando waiting nine hours just to speak to someone. >> nine hours. i'm about to cry. nine hours. i have never seen such customer service before in my life. >> reporter: spirit blames weather and staffing shortages. >> when we started canceling, our crews got dislocated through the system. they were in the wrong places at the wrong time. and we needed to start to build that puzzle back together again. >> it's almost like a 0 to 60 from a standing start. >> reporter: abc news contributor steve ganiard says many airlines have experienced vi similar problems. what can be done? he says congress can get involved. >> one thing is you go back and f