(DANBURY, Conn.) — A Connecticut mother allegedly killed her three children before taking her own life, the Danbury Police Department said Thursday.
Police identified the mother as 36-year-old Sonia Loja and her three children as Junior Panjon, 12; Joselyn Panjon, 10; and Jonael Panjon, 5.
“A truly horrible event occurred in our city yesterday and we mourn the tragic loss of life. In the coming days, mental health and counseling services will be provided through collaboration with the Danbury Public Schools and the City of Danbury. Our community grieves for the innocent lives taken from us. We will get through this together,” Danbury Mayor Dean Esposito said in a statement.
Police found the four bodies Wednesday night after receiving a 911 call from someone distraught and crying, according to WTNH. Police said they believe the mother strangled her children before killing herself.
Autopsies are scheduled for Thursday at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Farmington, Connecticut, authorities said.
Police said the family lived in the home with two other adults. The adults were not present when police arrived on the scene, but they and other family members have been contacted and informed of the incident, police said.
“The kids were really good kids. They were really friendly kids,” neighbor Ralph Baugher told ABC News Connecticut affiliate WTNH. “When you drive by, they would wave and say, ‘How are you doing?’ Wave back to them, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’ They were always happy kids. Always playing in the yard, having fun, laughing all the time.”
The mayor’s office and other local government agencies said they are providing support for family and friends of the deceased and for first responders who responded to the scene, officials.
(WASHINGTON) — Secret Service Director Jim Murray is extending his time with the agency until a new director is selected, briefly extending his tenure as his agents finds themselves in the middle of renewed controversy over their actions related to last year’s Capitol riot.
Murray told his colleagues of his extension in an internal note reviewed by ABC News.
“As you are aware, our new director has not yet been named, however, I can tell you that the selection process is active and ongoing,” Murray wrote. “In light of these circumstances I’ve decided to briefly delay my retirement and transition to the private sector in order to help bridge the gap and foster a smooth and meaningful transition for our future Director.”
Murray wrote in his note that he spoke with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House leadership and they agreed to extend his July 30 retirement date.
The Secret Service has come under new scrutiny over its handing of text messages from the days before, during and after Jan. 6.
Those messages, which the agency maintains were deleted during a software update for its phones, were supposed to be preserved and turned over as part of investigations into the Capitol attack.
The Department of Homeland Security inspector general, an internal watchdog who had sought the records before they were deleted, recently launched a criminal probe into what happened, according to three sources familiar with the situation.
A secret service spokesperson told ABC News that the texts were not maliciously deleted, and Director Murray said in a statement last week that he was reaffirming his commitment to working with and helping the House Jan. 6 committee.
“As an American and Director of this incredible agency, I found the events at the Capitol on January 6th to be abhorrent. What happened on that day in January 2021 is anathema to democracy and the processes our constitution guarantees,” he said then. “Since day one, I have directed our personnel to cooperate fully and completely with the Committee and we are currently finalizing dates and times for our personnel to make themselves available to the Committee for follow up inquiries.”
“We have provided thousands of documents, operationally sensitive radio transmissions and access to Secret Service employees,” he said. “We will continue to cooperate fully with the Committee and any other investigative body and remain committed to helping ensure that another such lawless and violent assault on our Constitutional process never takes place again.”
Still, members of the House panel have been skeptical of the Secret Service’s explanations.
“I don’t really buy that for one minute,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, R-Md., said on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” this week. “For one thing, isn’t it a little odd that all of the texts would vanish for Jan. 6th and Jan. 5th? Of all the days, what an odd coincidence that is.”
(CHICAGO) — Ashbey Beasley said the horrors of the July Fourth mass shooting are still fresh in her mind.
The Highland Park, Illinois, native was at the Independence Day parade with her 6-year-old son when the gunman opened fire. The two ran for their lives.
“The look on his face was indescribable. It was such a sheer, primal sense of terror,” she told “NIGHTLINE.”
While she and her son were not hurt during the carnage, Beasley said the mental anguish remains and she is devoting her life to stopping gun violence.
On Wednesday, Beasley took her case straight to lawmakers in Washington, D.C. She was on hand for a congressional hearing with gun manufacturers and gave video testimony about her experience during the mass shooting.
Beasley told “NIGHTLINE” that she has become more active in promoting gun control policy because she is tired of people living in fear of something unavoidable.
“The idea that we, as a country, cannot go to a mall without the idea creeping in the back of our heads that someone could shoot us is unacceptable,” she said. “That we are scared to send our children to school with fear that they won’t come home is unacceptable.”
Gun manufacturer executives were in the hot seat when congressional members grilled them about the roles their companies’ weapons played in recent mass shootings.
Many of the executives acknowledged the violence and those hurt by it, but contended that they didn’t want to deprive Americans of their Second Amendment rights.
“I believe our nation’s response needs to focus not on the type of gun, but on the type of persons who are likely to commit mass shootings,” Marty Daniel, the founder and CEO of Daniel Defense, testified.
Daniel Defense made the rifle used in the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School on May 24.
Gun control advocates, like Ryan Busse, a senior adviser with Giffords, testified that weapons makers are not doing enough to prevent their guns and rifles from proliferating among the populace.
Busse, a former gun manufacturer executive, told “NIGHTLINE” the industry has “established irresponsible marketing” which creates and propagates the violence.
“I’m a proud gun owner… I hunt and shoot with my boys every chance I get, but we have gone far off the rails with regard to balancing responsibility and decency,” Busse said. “And part of being a responsible citizen, especially a gun owner with a right that immense means that we have to balance that kind of right with responsibility and regulation. And we have an industry who is thwarting that at every chance we get and our society, our country is paying the price for it.
Beasley echoed this message when she spoke with several members of Congress, including Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La.
Higgins contended during the hearing that if there was a ban on assault rifles, federal agents will be shot when they go to confiscate the rifles.
“When those gunfights happen, that blood will be on your hands,” Higgins told the Democratic members of the committee.
Higgins repeated his claims during his exchange with Beasley in the halls of the Capitol.
“If you don’t think they will come door to door to seize your weapons, you’re wrong,” he told Beasley.
“Have you ever run from a mass shooter? Have you ever been shot at by a mass shooter?” she asked.
“I was a SWAT cop for 12 years,” the congressman responded.
“So, you know what these bullets are,” Beasley said.
Beasley said she does not feel intimidated standing up to elected officials and speaking out on gun control. She reiterated that she’ll continue to do so. And Beasley said she won’t be alone in her mission.
“There is a whole contingency of women and parents and moms and community members who have gone to D.C. who are going to continue to fight and are getting more involved every day,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Another major legislative win for Democrats came Thursday, when — over Republican objections of “corporate welfare” — a bipartisan group in the House passed a bill that funds the nation’s science and technology industries with billions to boost domestic production of crucial semiconductor chips and additional research and development.
The bill cleared the chamber in a 243-187 vote (with one “present” vote) despite late-hour pushes from GOP leadership against the legislation. Twenty-four Republicans joined Democrats in backing the measure, which now heads to the White House for President Joe Biden’s signature.
One lawmaker, Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., whose grandfather Irwin Jacobs founded semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm, voted “present.”
“If you want to know who hates this bill, who lobbies against it — the Chinese Communist Party. Why? Because they know it’ll help us compete against them,” Rep. Mike McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a major advocate of the package, told reporters while criticizing fellow Republicans for opposing the bill.
Rep. Frank Dean Lucas of Oklahoma, the ranking GOP member on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, took another view.
“Regrettably, and it’s more regrettably than you can possibly image, I will not be casting my vote for [the chips bill],” he said. “This is one of those occasions that as a statesman and responsible member of Congress, I have to put aside my own pride in science committee’s work and cast the vote that represents the best interest of Americans and, particularly, the good people of the third district of Oklahoma.”
Supporters of the $280 billion proposal highlight the roughly $52 billion it provides to incentivize the creation of semiconductor facilities and therefore increase the competitiveness of the industry in the U.S. at a time when countries like China dominate the sphere.
There’s a significant shortage of these chips, which serve as the “brain” of all kinds of technology in the U.S., from phones to appliances and cars and much more.
Many House Republicans supported the bill as recently as Wednesday, before the surprise news of a deal struck between Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on an expansive spending bill focused on Democratic priorities like climate, health care and corporate taxes.
Manchin had previously said he would not support climate and tax policies in the pending spending package, citing inflation. But Wednesday’s agreement, he said, would actually reduce the government deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Republicans were not pleased. Some had backed the microchip bill once they believed Manchin’s objections had killed Democrats’ spending plans. On Wednesday, shortly before Manchin publicly changed course, the Senate passed the chip bill 64-33 after more than a year of gridlock.
Club for Growth, a Washington-based economic organization, has maintained opposition to the bill — and called on House Republicans to vote no in light of the spending agreement between Manchin and Schumer, which Senate Democrats hope to approve before the August recess.
“The House GOP should kill CHIPS now that 17 Senate GOPers got played by Schumer & Manchin on reconciliation,” Club for Growth Vice President Scott T. Parkinson wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
“I was a no last week, I was a no last night, and I’ll be the first no on the board today,” House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said on the floor Thursday, calling the measure “corporate welfare.”
The bill is also a top national security policy for the White House, with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, while briefing lawmakers earlier this month, calling its passage a “matter of urgency” and saying the country was “out of time” to act.
Biden issued a statement on the legislation shortly after it cleared the House, saying he “looks forward to signing this bill into law.”
“The CHIPS and Science Act is exactly what we need to be doing to grow our economy right now. By making more semiconductors in the United States, this bill will increase domestic manufacturing and lower costs for families. And, it will strengthen our national security by making us less dependent on foreign sources of semiconductors,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — For only the third time in the 20-year history of Mega Millions, the jackpot has surpassed the massive $1 billion mark.
The estimated jackpot for the Mega Millions drawing on Friday is now $1.1 billion, the second-largest in the game’s history.
“Friday night’s drawing will be the thirtieth in this jackpot run, which began April 19 after the jackpot was won in Tennessee on April 15,” Mega Millions said in a statement issued early Wednesday.
The lump sum payment is worth $648.2 million, pre-tax.
Even though Friday’s prize is now estimated to be valued at over $1 billion, it still falls short of the Mega Millions’ record jackpot, which was won in South Carolina on Oct. 23, 2018. The winner took home $1.537 billion — the world’s largest lottery prize ever won on a single ticket. The largest lotto prize ever came when three people split a $1.586 billion Powerball drawing in 2016.
Only four Mega Millions jackpots have been won this year: in California, Minnesota, New York and Tennessee.
“We look with anticipation on the growing jackpot,” Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, current lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a press release. “Seeing the jackpot build over a period of months and reaching the billion-dollar mark is truly breathtaking. We encourage customers to keep play in balance and enjoy the ride. Someone is going to win.”
There were 6,775,330 winning tickets at all prize levels from Tuesday night’s drawing. A total of nine tickets matched the five white balls to win the Mega Millions second prize. One of those sold in Ohio was worth $3 million because it included the optional Megaplier. The other eight Match 5 tickets were all worth $1 million, with two each being sold in New Jersey and New York, plus one each in California, Florida, Illinois and Ohio.
“In the 29 drawings since the jackpot was last won in Tennessee on April 15, there have been more than 28.1 million winning tickets at all prize levels, including 42 worth $1 million or more,” the company said. “Those big prizes have been won in 17 states across the country: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.”
Lottery winners have two options: Take the money as a lump sum payment or annuity payments over 29 years.
Most winners take the lump sum payment, but record inflation has complicated matters, experts said.
“If we believe that inflation will be here for a while, then you may want to consider taking the annuity versus taking the lump sum,” tax and estate planning attorney Kurt Panouses told ABC News’ Deirdre Bolton.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 303 million, according to the lottery.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate confirmed Steven Dettelbach as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives earlier this month, making him only the second ATF director to win Senate approval since confirmation was required in 2006.
Dettelbach, who is a former federal prosecutor and U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, was sworn in July 19 to run ATF, the law enforcement agency in charge of enforcing the nation’s gun and explosives laws.
He sat down with “GMA3” to discuss his plans for the agency, the powers the agency has at its disposal and his thoughts on the country’s gun violence epidemic.
GMA3: Sir, thank you for being here. First time in seven years. They’ve had acting directors, but not a permanent director. Has that impacted the agency and its work in some way by not having a permanent person in place?
DETTELBACH: Well, first of all, thanks for having me. And look, there are incredible people out there all across the country, ATF folks who have been working really hard to try and combat violent crime, gun crime for all these years. And I think from my standpoint, as you say that the first Senate-confirmed director in seven years, I feel a lot of obligation. To do it is to stand up and fight for those folks.
They’re doing a great job and I am there to support and try and make sure that our state and local partners have what they need. Because you said it right, there is a big problem out there. Mass shootings are a big problem. But in addition, there’s that constant drumbeat of tragedy that goes on because of violent crime and gun violence.
GMA3: And you mentioned it because, again, the very high profile awful tragedies in these mass shootings we’ve been seeing, oftentimes we hear the ATF has helped track down the weapons or doing something with shell casings, you know, that type of forensic work. But what are you doing? Help people understand what the ATF does to prevent gun violence in this country. Maybe there’s not mass shootings, but the everyday gun violence.
DETTELBACH: Yeah, absolutely. So you’re right, there’s different parts of this and there’s some things that are newer that the public doesn’t know about; then there’s the tried-and-true things that are really important, start with that.
So I’m in New York today to sit down and meet with New York law enforcement because they are some of the leaders in the country in terms of being smart about combating gun violence and having task forces to make sure that we’re working together. The days of “this is my turf, that’s your turf” are over in law enforcement. We work together.
So that task force, that’s the new thing that you talked about, is what we call crime gun intelligence. And that can be used both to try and catch shooters and take them off the street and also to catch them before they kill again. So, as you said, to prevent.
So one of the things that we do is do what’s called a trace and that’s available free to every law enforcement. That’s like getting the birth certificate of a firearm where it started. Then I think you pointed out this thing is called NIBIN but it really is the part that comes out the back of the firearm, the injected cartridge casing. There’s now science that allows us to find out because bad guys don’t usually pick that up, right?
What we find, we can now connect that shooting to maybe some shooting that happened last week or the week before. And that really is a hot lead for law enforcement to go out and get that person before they act again.
GMA3: How do we– because so much of the gun violence we see and again, the high-profile cases are one thing, but then we see what happens in places like Chicago, here in New York [there] was a violent weekend and so many people got shot– how do you prevent that gun violence? How do you get those guns off the streets? Because that’s the violence that doesn’t always make the headlines.
DETTELBACH: Yeah, my background before I did this job, for 20 years I was a federal prosecutor and then I was a U.S. attorney. And so I will tell you that law enforcement alone cannot do this. It has to be a wholesome approach. I always compare it to a three-legged stool. You have to have great enforcement, right? Because people need to know there are dangerous people in this community that need to be caught and they need to be, we need to be protected from.
You also have to work with the entire community to do prevention work. That means giving families and kids options before they get inculcated into this violent culture that we have out there. And then the third part is reentry. So it’s the No. 1 predictor in many cases of whether you’re going to do something violent and be a criminal is whether you have done it before. We need to do a better job of making sure people aren’t recidivists. Those three things, it’s a three-legged stool because if you don’t do any one right, the stool falls.
GMA3: Director, how are you doing? Because all that sounds really hefty, it sounds like a big project. How do you do that with such– you’re the smallest division of the Justice Department, 2,500 agents. I believe D.C. has more police officers, I think by a thousand, than you do agents. You’re supposed to be doing this all over the country. Why do you have so few?
DETTELBACH: Well, look, if you ask any police chief or executive in the country, they could use [more]. And the president, by the way, has proposed a significant increase to ATF’s budget for this year. But as you said, my job, I’m in law enforcement, is to do the best with what we have now. And the way we do that is partnership, it’s with working with state and local law enforcement to be a force multiplier.
Back when I started this business as a prosecutor, you know, 30 years ago, there were eight different agencies doing the same thing in their own little task forces, in their own little units. We cannot do that anymore. We have to share intelligence and share bodies in real-time ways.
And that stuff is happening in New York. That’s why I mean, what’s happening right here in New York is actually in many ways a national model. And not everybody can do what they do in New York because crime looks different in different places. But they are doing stuff with task forces, they are doing stuff with crime gun intelligence, and we are their full partners in doing that and we have to support that.
GMA3: Let’s get your take on one last thing here, because we see the mass shootings and we often see that the shooter did buy a firearm legally, but for the most part, the violence we’re seeing day in, day out, on streets, is the problem illegally possessed guns more so than legally bought guns? How big is that issue?
DETTELBACH: It’s a huge issue. There are people that have firearms that the law clearly says, and I think almost everybody agrees, should not have firearms. So those are people who are, let’s say, convicted murderers, rapists, you know, felons, other groups of people who are laid out in law. And they are able to get firearms far too easily, and they’re using them to hurt people. A lot of people.
Not in cases that make the national news, just like you said, T.J., but in everyday tragedies that are playing out in this country and God bless the police and and federal agents who are working together to work on this because it is a 24-hour a day, seven-day a week problem, and it can get very, very hard on them and dangerous for them. So one thing I want to say is, you know, we owe them a lot.
GMA3: And we get it. From your perspective, you’re not the policy guy, you’re the enforcement guy. But our problem is not legal gun owners in this country. Would you say it’s not legally purchased guns?
DETTELBACH: Look, I am not the policy guy. I am the enforcement guy. Congress just came together in a bipartisan way to give us more tools to try and deal with this problem. I’ll use whatever– that debate is important, but my job is to take what comes out of Congress, the laws on the books, and make sure we’re doing everything we can to protect people.
(WASHINGTON) — With new cases of monkeypox emerging rapidly across the country, the Biden administration is weighing whether to declare the growing outbreak a public health emergency, federal health officials said on Thursday.
“We continue to monitor the response throughout the country on monkeypox,” Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra said at a briefing Thursday. “We will weigh any decision on declaring a public health emergency based on the response we’re seeing throughout the country. The bottom line is: we need to stay ahead of this and be able to end this outbreak.”
Across the country, more than 4,600 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed across 48 jurisdictions, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Globally, more than 20,000 cases have been reported — a total that health experts say is likely significantly undercounted.
“Every American should pay attention to monkeypox. Monkeypox is not COVID, but it is contagious. It is painful and can be dangerous,” Becerra said.
Ninety-nine percent of the cases reported domestically have been reported among people who were assigned male at birth, officials said, and the “vast majority” have been related to male-to-male sexual contact.
“We need everyone — whether it’s state and local health officials — who oversee health care and are responsible in their jurisdictions for health care, we need people who are at risk and we need all Americans to do their part and take responsibility to help us tackle monkeypox,” Becerra said.
However, federal officials had previously confirmed that other populations have been affected.
Last week, federal officials reported that two children in the U.S. had tested positive for monkeypox. In addition, a pregnant woman, who just recently delivered, has also contracted the virus, the CDC confirmed to ABC News on Thursday.
Although infections can occur through placental transfer to the baby, that does not appear to have happened in this case, the CDC’s Dr. John Brooks said during a webinar with the Infectious Disease Society of America.
The infant received immunoglobulin prophylactically, in an effort to boost the baby’s immune response, and “both mom and baby are doing well,” he said.
Officials from the Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that it had inspected and approved the manufacturing of the 786,000 more doses of JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine for distribution in the U.S. Thus far, the U.S. has distributed at least 338,000 doses of the JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine. Overall, in the coming weeks, a total of 1.1 million doses will have been made available.
“More than 1.1 million vaccines that we can say with confidence will be in the hands of people who need them over the course of the next several weeks,” officials said, adding that including doses already distributed, the federal government will have secured more than 6.9 million monkeypox vaccine doses by May 2023.
Pending additional funding from Congress, 11.1 million additional doses could also be made available.
“We don’t know what comes next and we need to be prepared for the spread into the larger population and have additional doses that we can turn to so that’s the reason why we would like to go ahead and get that additional 11.1 finished, have it available,” officials said.
At this time, approximately 1.5 million Americans are currently considered eligible for vaccination, the CDC told ABC News, last week.
Capt. Jennifer McQuiston, the CDC’s Deputy Director of Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, said officials have updated the federal plan for allocating doses to include two key factors: the total population of people at risk in a jurisdiction, and the number of new cases in each jurisdiction, since the last allocation.
“This update gives greater weight to prioritizing vaccine to areas with the greatest number of people at risk, which includes men who have sex with men who have HIV, or who are eligible for HIV prep, while still considering where we are seeing cases increased,” McQuiston said.
In addition to vaccinations in high-risk populations, testing, prevention, and treatment, as well as education and outreach, will all be critical tools to ensuring the outbreak is kept under control.
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — At least eight people have been killed in Kentucky amid “one of the worst, most devastating” floods in the state’s history, Gov. Andy Beshear said.
Among those killed was an 81-year-old woman, Beshear said.
The governor told reporters Thursday afternoon that he expects “double-digit” deaths and anticipates this will be one of the deadliest floods in Kentucky in “a very long time.”
A flash flood emergency was issued overnight as 2 to 5 inches of rain pounded the state. The governor warned there’s a chance for another 2 to 3 inches of rain Thursday night or over the weekend.
In most areas, the water hasn’t crested yet, Beshear said at a morning news conference, warning, “We probably haven’t seen the worst of it.”
The state’s combating washed out roads, destroyed homes and flooded schools, the governor said.
Hundreds of residents are expected to lose their homes and it’ll likely take families years to recover and rebuild, Beshear said.
Some people are waiting on roofs to be rescued, the governor said.
Crews from Kentucky’s Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources are out on boats making rescues, Beshear said.
The governor said he’s activated the National Guard whose members are also preparing helicopters and trucks to evacuate stranded residents.
“This is all hands on deck,” he said.
Three state parks are being opened to people who have lost their homes, Beshear said.
ABC News’ Alexandra Faul and Kenton Gewecke contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday pointed to robust job growth and low unemployment that should, he argued, quell growing concerns of a financial downturn after it was announced that the economy contracted for a second consecutive quarter — meeting a common but unofficial definition for a recession.
Biden opened a meeting of business leaders in Washington by insisting the economy was still strong despite the back-to-back quarters of negative growth and that some contraction was expected after strong growth last year as the country emerged from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our job market remains historically strong. Our economy created more than 9 million jobs since I came to office, in no small part because of the people on this stage. Our economy created more than 1 million jobs in the second quarter, the same period as today’s GDP report covers, and our unemployment rate is 3.6% — near a record, historic low. Secondly, households and businesses, the engines of our economy, continue to move forward,” Biden said.
“Now, there’s no doubt we expect growth to be slower than last year and the rapid clip we had. But that’s consistent with the transition to a steady, stable growth and lower inflation,” he said, acknowledging that “there’s going to be a lot of chatter today on Wall Street and among pundits about whether we are in a recession.” Republicans, too, were quick to seize on the continued declines.
“But if you look at our job market, consumer spending, business investment, we see signs of economic progress in the second quarter as well,” Biden said.
His defensive campaign comes as Republicans continue to hammer him on historically high inflation, which they linked to the slowdown.
“This is Joe Biden’s recession. Biden can lie and deflect blame all he wants, but that will not alleviate the pain Americans feel every time they fill up their gas tanks, go grocery shopping, check their retirement savings, or balance their budgets. Biden and Democrats are responsible for our shrinking economy, and they’re only trying to make it worse,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement.
The administration has ramped up a messaging effort to convince the public that the country has not entered a recession, noting that the U.S. has added 2.7 million jobs this year and consumer spending has continued to rise despite biting inflation, which the Federal Reserve aims to cool through interest rate hikes without setting off broader economic shockwaves.
Biden on Thursday also touted two pieces of legislation making their way through Congress that he says will relieve inflationary pressures.
During his meeting, the House passed the CHIPS and Science Act, which will provide an infusion of funds for the domestic chip manufacturing industry. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., also announced a deal on Wednesday on legislation that would lower prescription drug costs, fight climate change and implement a 15% minimum tax on corporations.
“Both of these bills are going to help the economy continue to grow, bring down inflation and make sure we aren’t giving up on all the significant progress we made in the last year,” Biden said.
(NEW YORK) — A 66-year-old man who was diagnosed with HIV in 1988 is said to be free of both the HIV virus and cancer, following a stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor for leukemia, according to a breakthrough announcement at the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada.
The patient was treated at City of Hope, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the U.S. and one of the leading research centers for diabetes and other life-threatening illnesses, the organization said.
The City of Hope patient is reportedly the fourth patient in the world and the oldest to go into long-term remission of HIV without antiretroviral therapy (ART) for over a year after receiving stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation.
“We were thrilled to let him know that his HIV is in remission and he no longer needs to take antiretroviral therapy that he had been on for over 30 years,” Jana K. Dickter, an associate clinical professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at City of Hope who presented the data, said in a press release.
According to City of Hope, the patient received a chemotherapy-based, reduced-intensity transplant regimen prior to his stem cell transplant. “Reduced-intensity chemotherapy makes the transplant more tolerable for older patients and reduces the potential for transplant-related complications from the procedure,” the organization said in the release.
The patient received a blood stem cell transplant at City of Hope in early 2019 for acute myelogenous leukemia from an unrelated donor who has a rare genetic mutation, homozygous CCR5 Delta 32, City of Hope said. That mutation makes people who have it resistant to acquiring certain strains of HIV.
CCR5 is a receptor on CD4+ immune cells, and HIV uses that receptor to enter and attack the immune system. But the CCR5 mutation blocks that pathway, which stops HIV from entering the cells and therefore replicating.
The City of Hope patient has not shown any evidence of having replicating HIV virus since the transplant, the organization said.
“We are proud to have played a part in helping the City of Hope patient reach remission for both HIV and leukemia. It is humbling to know that our pioneering science in bone marrow and stem cell transplants, along with our pursuit of the best precision medicine in cancer, has helped transform this patient’s life,” said Robert Stone, the president and CEO of City of Hope, in a statement.
While the announcement provides hope for millions living with HIV, medical experts have cautioned that a procedure like this is not a viable cure for the virus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged caution in February after researchers announced that an American woman had been cured of HIV after undergoing a new transplant procedure using donated umbilical cord blood.
“It is not practical to think that this is something that’s going to be widely available,” Fauci said. “It’s more of a proof of concept.”
Because bone marrow transplantation is a dangerous and risky procedure, it is considered unethical to perform it on people with HIV, unless the person also has cancer and needs a transplant as part of their cancer treatment.
Despite the fact that this is not a practical and applicable cure for HIV on a large scale, there have been incredible strides in HIV treatment and innovation over the years that allow individuals living with HIV to live a normal and healthy life.
Known as U=U, or Undetectable=Untransmittable, if an HIV-positive person begins appropriate HIV treatment, takes it daily and brings the virus in their body to an undetectable level, the individual cannot transmit the virus to someone as long as their virus levels remain undetectable on said treatment or medication.
In December 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first long-acting injectable drug for HIV prevention.
A less reliable, though still highly effective, way of preventing HIV infection is post-exposure prophylaxis or PEP. These pills are meant to be taken right away or within 72 hours if someone has been exposed or potentially exposed to HIV to try and prevent the virus from entering immune cells causing infection. It’s like an emergency pill for HIV prevention and must be taken daily for 28 days.
When taken as prescribed, PrEP services reduce the risk of getting HIV from sex by about 99%, according to new data from the CDC. Now, individuals who feel at-risk of HIV infection have the option of taking the daily pill, or the new shot every two months, after two initiation injections administered one month apart.
On the vaccine front, Moderna recently announced that it’s launched early stage clinical trials of an HIV mRNA vaccine. ABC News previously reported that the biotechnology company teamed up with the nonprofit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative to develop the shot, which uses the same technology as Moderna’s successful COVID-19 vaccine.
ABC News’ Eric Strauss, Sony Salzman and Jennifer Watts contributed to this report.
