(KYIV, Ukraine) — Jalal Noory, an Afghan refugee in Ukraine who serves in the Ukrainian armed forces, defended the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv from being captured by Russian troops at the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. Noory and his fellow soldiers succeeded, repelling all Russian attacks on the capital.
A Ukrainian citizen since 2005, Noory first went to the frontline in 2014 as a volunteer following Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the Donbas region. Noory said he was called to the front by a sense of patriotism.
“I simply could not stay away,” he added.
“I wanted to share my combat experience with my Ukrainian comrades,” Noory said, adding that “war is part of every Afghan’s nature.”
Noory was born in Afghanistan in the mid 1970s. He still recalls the Soviet invasion of his native country in 1979.
“I remember the Soviet army crossing through my city when I was a child. We bought cigarettes and gave them to the Soviet soldiers. They gave us bullets in return to play with,” Noory said.
The conflict morphed into a full-scale war that lasted 10 years and cost the Soviets around 15,000 troops, according to official estimates. More than 3,000 men lost in the war were from Ukraine.
Up to two million Afghan civilians died in the fighting — or about 10% of Afghanistan’s population in 1979. Millions of others became refugees, including Noory.
Russian military tactics witnessed today in Ukraine are identical to those used in Afghanistan, Noory said.
“At the time, the Russians claimed their Afghan friends were calling for help. Just like now in Ukraine,” he said.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February this year under the pretext of protecting the Russian speaking population in the country, among other justifications proclaimed by Russian officials as the invasion unfolded.
“But it’s a lie. I’ve lived in Ukraine for 23 years and I’ve only spoken Russian. I never had a problem with the language,” Noory said.
Frightening and terrorizing the civilian population is another staple of Russian warfare that stood the test of time, according to Noory.
“Absolutely nothing has changed. They are hiding behind women, children, houses, and villages. They destroy them by rockets, bombs and tanks,” he said.
Noory, having grown up in the middle of a war, absorbed military knowledge from his early childhood. But after fleeing to Ukraine in 1999, he led a peaceful life.
Noory became a successful athlete, winning several titles in martial arts competitions. He also got married and had children.
Yet he did not hesitate for a second when Russia invaded Ukraine both in 2014 and this year.
“Someone must stop the Russians. Now it is the Ukrainians, but Poland or Lithuania could be next,” Noory said.
Noory said he did not only fight for his life, family, friends, or Ukraine. He’s protecting something much bigger, he added.
“I fight for every human. Not just an Afghan, Ukrainian or American, but for every human,” he said.
The most important thing in life is freedom, Noory said.
“If you don’t have freedom, you have nothing. So I must be free and my children have to be free,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — The future of COVID-19 vaccines might not be shots in the arm or leg. Instead, picture a nasal spray or a patch stuck onto the skin for a few minutes.
A group of scientists, doctors and administration health officials gathered at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the next generation of inoculation against COVID and its viral cousins; they were in agreement that there is room for improvement.
The future could include vaccines that protect equally against all variants — or even vaccines that stop infections from happening in the first place.
“Innovative approaches are clearly needed to induce broad and durable protection against coronaviruses known and unknown,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser, told the audience.
There’s broad consensus that despite the benefit of the currently available vaccines, the “job is not done,” Fauci said.
“We’ve already averted well over 2 million deaths, approximately $1 trillion in health care costs and tens and tens of millions of infections, as well as close to 20 million hospitalizations. That’s the good news,” Fauci said. “What’s the sobering news? Sobering news is why we’re here today — because our job is not done.”
There are a few options on the table.
One is a pan-coronavirus vaccine, which could cover a broad array of future COVID variants and perhaps other coronaviruses, giving people protection for longer periods of time.
Another is a vaccine that people would spray into their noses, called a mucosal vaccine, or even a small patch that would be applied to the skin and carry the vaccine in microneedles.
All are promising innovations, with the potential to be combined with one another — but all are in very early stages of development.
The “holy grail,” Fauci said, is “not only to protect against disease, but to protect against acquisition, and by acquisition, transmission.”
Sprays and patches
Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, an expert on nasal vaccines from Yale University who spoke at the summit, said the only way to fully achieve that goal — Fauci’s “holy grail” — would be nasal vaccines.
She compared them to “stopping the virus from spreading right at the border,” because the virus enters through the nose.
“This is akin to putting a guard outside of the house in order to patrol for invaders, compared to putting the guards in the hallway of a building in the hope they would capture the invader,” Iwasaki said, contrasting the nasal vaccines to the current shots, which are injected and produce an antibody response throughout the body.
Mark Prausnitz, the chief scientific officer of Micron Biomedical, which is developing a vaccine administered through a skin patch, also pitched it as a better option to the current generation of vaccines.
“Leave it in place for a few minutes, peel it off and discard it. We think this can not only make vaccines more readily accessible, but improve immunogenicity,” Prausnitz said.
He said the microneedles in the patch are as long as a piece of paper is thick, and people barely feel them. The patches could be administered by people at home, he said, and wouldn’t require inaccessible cold storage.
A summit for ideas, but also a pitch to Congress
For both the new types of vaccines on the horizon, there are still huge scientific hurdles to developing such new innovations. And without significant resources, that could take upwards of three to five years, experts estimate.
So while Tuesday’s summit was a display of potential new advancements and an acknowledgement of where the current vaccines are falling behind, it was also in a pitch to lawmakers for substantial focus and investment.
“It’s very important to note that we need to move quickly to start testing these nasal vaccines in humans, and that requires a significant U.S. government input, both resources and help with manufacturing and delivery as well as acceptance across society,” Iwasaki told the audience.
Marty Moore, founder and chief scientific officer of another nasal vaccine company, Meissa Vaccines, said the benefits would significantly outweigh the risks.
“I think developing transmission-blocking vaccines, of course, will come with great challenges and some cost,” he said. “But I think the probability of success warrants this investment based on what we know about vaccines. And the potential benefits are just enormous, direct and indirect.”
White House COVID coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha has said he’s hopeful the timeline for these new vaccines could be drastically reduced — if investments are made.
But the Biden administration has faced reluctance from congressional Republicans to approve even more funding, with conservatives citing questions and objections over how past monies were spent.
(NEW YORK) — A tampon shortage in the U.S. this summer has put a spotlight on menstrual product alternatives.
Over the past several weeks, major retail chains across the country have reported a shortage of tampon products. Across social media, users have posted about their struggles finding products on store shelves.
The shortage reportedly stems from a combination of factors, including staffing problems at factories, transportation delays and the rising cost of materials like plastics that are used to make the products.
Amid the ongoing shortage, the average price for tampons and other menstrual products has also risen.
The price of tampons rose by nearly 10% and the price of menstrual pads by more than 8% through May, according to a June Bloomberg report, which cited data from measurement and analytics company NielsenIQ.
The good news for people who menstruate and prefer to use tampons is that there are still alternatives to be found.
Dr. Jessica Shepherd, a board-certified OB-GYN, spoke with ABC News’ Good Morning America about the pros and cons of those common tampon alternatives.
Alternative #1: Menstrual pads
Pads are the most well-known alternative to tampons and the most easily accessible, according to Shepherd.
“Pads really are the forefront of menstrual hygiene products,” she said. “They were the first that were developed.”
Menstrual pads include both one-time-use disposable pads as well as cloth pads, which Shepherd described as a more eco-friendly alternative.
“As far as waste is concerned, reusable cloth pads are a great alternative,” she said. “You’re going to able to wash them and they give you about four to eight hours of protection.”
Shepherd noted that reusable cloth pads can range in price from $10 to $40, but because they are washable and reusable, they can last longer than other options.
Both reusable and disposable pads, while uncomfortable to wear for some people, are also available for the different levels of bleeding a person may experience throughout their menstrual cycle.
“Pads really kind of create an atmosphere and an environment for people to have easy access to something that really has [been] designed to cater to the duration and flow of every individual,” said Shepherd.
Alternative #2: Menstrual cups and discs
Menstrual cups and menstrual discs are both objects that are inserted into the vagina to absorb period blood, according to Shepherd.
Menstrual cups, which are cup-shaped and reusable, are folded and inserted into the vagina, where they sit below the cervix. The cups have a suction seal to prevent leakage, according to Shepherd.
Menstrual discs are disc-shaped and are also folded and inserted in the vagina, sitting below the cervix. They do not suction though, according to Shepherd.
“It just sits in the vaginal canal rather than having a suction portion, allowing it to be to the actual cervix,” she said.
Both options are inserted at home, not at a doctor’s office, and offer up to 12 hours of protection, according to Shepherd.
While menstrual cups and discs are more expensive than disposable tampons, for example, they are longer lasting, Shepherd noted.
“There is cost involved but you have to remember that cost, when you look over the long range of time, usually ends up being a little bit cheaper or less expensive than using things that are disposable such as your tampons and your pads,” she said.
Alternative #3: Period panties
The most recent addition to the menstrual hygiene product options is period panties, which are underwear that have built-in absorption to prevent leakage.
Shepherd said she recommends period panties for people who have lighter periods, or for someone who is at the beginning of their menstrual cycle, when bleeding is lighter.
She said she also recommends them for adolescents who typically have lighter periods in general, for athletes who need the ability to move and for people who do not like the feel of other options like pads or tampons.
“Those are great for your light days or if you want to kind of double up,” she said, adding, “For someone who does have a heavier cycle, wearing a period panty or period underwear usually needs to be done in conjunction with something else, which is a pad or menstrual disc.”
Period panties can be worn for up to 12 hours and are reusable, according to Shepherd.
While period panties can be more expensive, costing as much as $50 for some brands, Shepherd noted the price may be worth it in order to have something accessible.
“They may be pricey, you may have to buy more than one, however, the great feature of period panties is that you always have it available,” she said. “So even if you have a product that you run out of or is not the correct product that you need, you always have something that’s able to be absorbent to some capacity.”
(ST. PAUL, Minn.) — It’s sentencing day for two former police officers convicted on federal charges stemming from George Floyd’s death.
Former Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao are scheduled to learn their fates in separate hearings on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Both Kueng, 28, and Thao, 35, were convicted by a federal jury in February along with their former police colleague Thomas Lane, 39, who received a sentence last week of 2 1/2 years in prison for violating Floyd’s civil rights.
Federal prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 6 1/2 years for Lane, which according to federal sentencing guidelines, was the maximum.
All three men were convicted of using the “color of the law,” or their positions as police officers, to deprive Floyd of his civil rights by willfully being indifferent to his serious medical needs.
Prosecutors said the three officers failed to intervene as the handcuffed, unarmed 46-year-old Black man was pinned under the knee of their senior officer, Derek Chauvin, for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020, outside a Minneapolis convenience store where Floyd was accused of using a phony $20 bill to buy cigarettes.
Thao and Kueng were also convicted of violating Floyd’s right to be free of an unreasonable seizure by willfully failing to intervene to prevent Chauvin from applying bodily injury to Floyd.
Prosecutors have requested a “substantially higher” federal sentence than Lane’s, but far less than what Chauvin received.
Chauvin was sentenced on Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson to serve 21 years in prison after pleading guilty in December to violating Floyd’s civil rights and admitting he kept his knee on Floyd’s neck even after he became unresponsive. Chauvin also pleaded guilty to depriving a then-14-year-old boy of his constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by an officer, which resulted in bodily injury to the teen, according to the Justice Department.
Magnuson also sentenced Lane and will sentence Kueng and Thao.
The federal sentencing guidelines call for 4 1/4 years to 5 1/4 years in the cases of Kueng and Thao.
“The facts of this case do not amount to second-degree murder under federal law,” Magnuson wrote in a ruling last week. “Defendants Kueng and Thao each made a tragic misdiagnosis in their assessment of Mr. Floyd.”
Magnuson noted that Kueng and Thao believed Floyd was suffering from a drug overdose and “excited delirium” — a syndrome in which a subject displays wild agitation and violent behavior that can sometimes lead to death.
Chauvin, 46, was also convicted in state court in April 2021 on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced in June 2021 by Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill to 22 1/2 years in state prison.
Chauvin will serve his sentence in federal prison concurrently with his state sentence.
Lane also pleaded guilty to state charges of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the top charge against him of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder. Lane is awaiting his sentence in state court.
Kueng and Thao are scheduled to be put on trial in state court on Oct. 24 on charges of aiding and abetting in murder and aiding and abetting in manslaughter. They have both pleaded not guilty.
(WASHINGTON) — Economists expect a major rate hike from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, the latest in a series of borrowing cost increases as the central bank tries to slash near-historic inflation while avoiding a recession.
The Fed will likely raise the benchmark interest rate 0.75%, which would repeat an identical hike instituted by the central bank last month, according to a survey of economists by Bloomberg.
The significant rate hike, which until last month had not been matched since 1994, follows data released earlier this month showing that prices jumped a staggering 9.1% in June. That inflation rate, last seen more than four decades ago, put additional pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise rates.
An increase to the benchmark interest rate raises borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, which in theory should slash inflation by slowing the economy and eating away at demand. That means borrowers will face higher costs for everything from car loans to credit card debt to mortgages. But the approach risks pushing the economy into a recession.
The latest rate hike is set to arrive as mixed economic data shows a country buoyed by robust hiring and retail sales, despite several rate hikes so far this year meant to slow economic activity. The U.S. saw stronger than expected job growth in June, as the economy added 372,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remained at 3.6%.
Other indicators, however, such as flagging consumer confidence and slowing home sales, suggest the economy has begun to weaken.
U.S. consumer confidence fell this month to a level not seen for one-and-a-half years, according to a closely followed Conference Board survey released on Tuesday. Meanwhile, in June, existing home sales plummeted 5.4% compared with the month prior — the fifth straight month of decline, according to data released last week by the National Association of Realtors.
If the Fed raises interest rates too quickly, an abrupt economic slowdown could send the economy into a downturn, Andrew Levin, a former Fed economist and a professor at Dartmouth College, told ABC News.
“There are definitely some indicators now that the economy is slowing,” he said.
“The question for the Fed is: Are we really heading into a recession?” he added. “If so, is that going to slow the Fed’s efforts to fight inflation?”
The anticipated 0.75% rate hike would raise the Fed’s benchmark interest rate to a range of 2.25% to 2.5%.
On Thursday, a day after the Federal Reserve announcement, a federal agency will release gross domestic product data that shows whether the U.S. economy grew or contracted over the three-month period ending in June.
Because the economy shrank at an annual rate of 1.4% over the first three months of the year, a contraction in the second three-month period would establish two consecutive quarters of falling GDP, which many consider a shorthand benchmark for a recession.
The National Bureau of Economic Research, or NBER, a research organization seen as an authority on measuring economic performance, uses a more complicated definition that takes into account several indicators. This definition determines whether a downturn is formally designated as a recession, since the NBER is the official arbiter on the subject.
(NEW YORK) — For only the third time in the 20-year history of Mega Millions, the jackpot has surpassed the massive $1 billion mark after the winning numbers were drawn on Tuesday night and no winner was declared.
The estimated jackpot Mega Millions drawing on Friday, July 29, is now an estimated $1.025 billion.
The winning numbers on Tuesday were 7-29-60-63-66. The Mega Ball was 15 and the Megaplier was 3.
The jackpot had reached an estimated $830 million ahead of Tuesday night’s drawing, making it the third-largest jackpot 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.
Even though Friday’s prize is now estimated to be valued at over $1 billion, it still falls short of the record jackpot which was won in South Carolina on Oct. 23, 2018. The winner won $1.537 billion and it holds the world record for the largest lottery prize ever won on a single ticket.
Only four Mega Millions jackpots have been won this year; in California, Minnesota, New York and Tennessee.
Tuesday’s Mega Millions drawing had a cash value of $487.9 million, the company said in a press release. The next drawing on Friday has an estimated cash value of $602.5 million.
“We look with anticipation on the growing jackpot,” says Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, current Lead Director of the Mega Millions Consortium. “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.”
As the numbers were being drawn at 11 p.m. ET, those who were trying to check the Mega Millions website were given an error — the site had crashed.
“With unprecedented traffic after the drawing — more than any in the history of megamillions.com — the Mega Millions website was down for more than two hours Tuesday night,” the company said in a statement.
There were a total of 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 with one of those being sold in Ohio being 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 usually take the lump sum payments, 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.
(NEW YORK) — The United States now leads the globe in confirmed monkeypox cases, new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revealed.
The U.S. has reported a total of 3,846 known monkeypox cases as of Monday, July 25, federal and global data shows, surpassing Spain, which has reported 3,100 cases, and Germany, which has 2,352 cases.
“The international community must work together to protect individuals that have been impacted by monkeypox, and those most at risk of contracting the virus,” White House COVID-19 Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
“We want to make sure that we all Americans understand that we have taken we are continue to take this virus seriously,” he added.
Last week, the World Health Organization declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
Across the globe, nearly 18,100 cases have been confirmed in 75 countries, including more than 17,800 cases confirmed in countries that have not historically reported monkeypox.
Health experts have said that the number of monkeypox cases is likely much higher than the total that is officially reported, and U.S. health officials have been warning for weeks that the number of monkeypox cases would likely increase across the country, as the government increases testing capacity and surveillance.
“I would like you all to understand that we anticipate an increase in cases in the coming weeks,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a press briefing earlier this month.
With increased testing, an improved reporting system for states, and the continued spread of disease, more cases will be identified, she said.
“We know monkeypox symptoms usually start within three weeks of exposure to the virus, so we anticipate we may see an increase in cases throughout the month of July and into August,” Walensky added.
Monkeypox transmission typically occurs through close contact for an extended period of time, or contact with articles of clothing, bedding, or towels that have been in contact with an infectious patient, Dr. Amy Arrington, Medical Director, Special Isolation Unit at Texas Children’s Hospital, told ABC News.
“You cannot get this virus from touching an elevator button, from walking past someone in the mall casually. It is spread by close contact – contact with lesions so touching infectious lesions or infectious scabs,” Arrington said.
Although the vast majority — 99% — of the cases reported domestically have been related to male-to-male sexual contact, according to the WHO, last week, federal officials confirmed that two children in the U.S. had tested positive for monkeypox.
One case has occurred in a toddler, who is a resident of California, and the other has been reported in an infant, who is a non-U.S. resident.
The two cases are unrelated, located in different jurisdictions, and were likely the result of household transmission, officials said.
Officials have repeatedly stressed that although monkeypox is affecting the “gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men,” community most prominently, at this time, the virus can affect anyone who has close contact with people who have monkeypox, including children.
ABC News’ Dr. Rachel Boren contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A report released Tuesday by Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee says that China targeted the Federal Reserve for nearly 10 years, working to recruit and influence employees in an effort to obtain information and monetary benefit and to influence U.S. monetary policy.
The report zeroes in on what it describes as Chinese efforts to recruit American talent using programs that targeted individuals at the Fed — offering job prospects, academic positions and economic and research opportunities in an effort to gain access to sensitive data and information.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell refuted many aspects of the report. In a letter on Monday to Sen. Rob Portman, the committee’s ranking Republican, Powell wrote that he had “strong concerns” about the findings, including allegations that the Fed had failed to work with law enforcement to ward off outside influence.
The report’s conclusions are based off of counterintelligence data from the Fed and detail a variety of actions by the central banking system’s employees that the report describes as putting the institution at risk. It identifies 13 persons of interest, representing eight regional Fed banks, who have connections to known Chinese talent recruiters or “similar patterns of activity.”
The report details the interactions that some of these individuals had with China’s government — some of which were aggressive on the part of the Chinese.
In one series of events, the report says, a Fed employee was detained on four separate occasions during a trip to Shanghai in 2019. Chinese officials threatened the employee’s family, tapped their electronics and tried to force them to sign a letter stating they would not discuss the interactions, according to the report.
Another employee provided modeling code to a Chinese university with ties to a Chinese talent recruitment agency.
Still another individual, with “continuous contacts with Chinese nationals and universities,” tried twice to transfer Fed data to an external site.
One of the reasons Fed employees were vulnerable, the report asserts, is due to China “taking advantage” of America’s openness to participating in academic and research-based work.
Republicans on the Senate committee said the Fed remains poorly positioned to counter such overtures from China, citing a “lack of internal counterintelligence competency” at the bank and failure to sufficiently cooperate with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The result, the report says, is an institution unable to identify threats quickly or to investigate potential efforts by China to recruit U.S. talent.
Powell, the Fed chairman, pushed back in his letter.
“We value our interactions with the law enforcement community and would not hesitate to refer a matter to them or otherwise seek their counsel where appropriate. We would be concerned about any supportable allegation of wrongdoing, whatever the source,” he wrote to Portman. “In contrast, we are deeply troubled by what we believe to be the report’s unfair, unsubstantiated and unverified insinuations about particular individual staff members.”
Portman, who previously led investigations of China’s recruiting efforts in the tech and science fields, urged the Fed to “do more” to protect itself.
“I am concerned by the threat to the Fed and hope our investigation, which is based on the Fed’s own documents and corresponds with assessments and recommendations made by the FBI, wakes the Fed up to the broad threat from China to our monetary policy,” he said in a statement. “The risk is clear, I urge the Fed to do more, working with the FBI, to counter this threat from one of our foremost foreign adversaries.”
Powell insisted the Fed was already being proactive.
“Because we understand that some actors aim to exploit any vulnerabilities, our processes, controls and technology are robust and updated regularly,” he wrote. “We respectfully reject any suggestions to the contrary.”
But the report recommends that Congress act to institute safeguards for federally funded research at the Fed and other academic institutions. Portman is leading an effort to include these protections in a soon-to-pass bill on science and microchips.
(SAN FRANCISCO) — A couple received a ticket last week for parking in a red zone after the curb was repainted while their car was parked there, according to ABC San Francisco station KGO .
Jeff and Desiree Jolly have lived in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood for years, telling KGO that they’ve parked in the spot whenever it’s available for 25 years.
The couple said they noticed a $180 parking ticket on the windshield of their Honda sedan for parking in a red zone about a week ago.
The Jollys said the parking space was not a red zone when they had parked their vehicle days earlier, adding that the city missed a small patch when it avoided painting over their tire.
“If it was warranted, I don’t have a problem with it, but this seems unfair to me,” Desiree Jolly told KGO.
A spokesperson for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency told KGO the ticket wasn’t for the newly painted red zone, but rather, a faded one.
The decision on whether to enforce the ticket or dismiss it is now in the hands of the citation clerk, as the Jollys contested the ticket, the agency told KGO.
Earlier this month, a San Francisco couple was fined more than $1,500 for parking in their own driveway. The city eventually agreed to waive the fine and the threat of a $250-per-day fee if the couple could prove that the lot had historically been used for parking, or if they build a cover for the carpad or a garage.
As for Desiree and Jeff Jolly, they told KGO they plan to move out of the country to France in the future. “We do want to leave because of all of this stuff that goes on in the city,” Jeff said.
“I’m going through chemotherapy right now, so it’s like I’m worried about other things, and now I have to worry about this,” Desiree Jolly told KGO.
(NEW YORK) — There are now at least 3,846 monkeypox cases confirmed in the U.S., according to updated numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The virus is firmly on the radar of American health officials after the World Health Organization declared it a global health emergency over the weekend.
Most positive cases have been among men having sex with men, but there are women among the infected, and a few children, as well.
Andy Slavitt, the former senior adviser of the Biden administration’s coronavirus response team, told ABC News’ “START HERE” that he is concerned the outbreak is being dismissed as a “gay disease.”
Slavitt reiterated that monkeypox is spread by skin-to-skin contact and limiting one’s conception of who can get the disease leads to unfair discrimination.
“It would be wrong to assume that we’re going to contain this by telling people to have less sex. I don’t think that’s going to work,” he told “START HERE.”
Jonathan Araujo, of Miami, contracted the virus this month and spoke with “START HERE” Tuesday. Araujo spoke about his symptoms and the stigma he faced when he told his friends and family about his diagnosis.
START HERE: Jonathan, first of all, how are you feeling?
JONATHAN ARAUJO: Right now, I’m way better. I did like a full 360. I was really having a really tough time battling monkeypox in the beginning. It was really like mentally taxing just as much as physically.
There were kind of all just like open wounds at one point. And I had so many of them, you know, I had at least I want to say, at least 30 of them on me at one time. So, it was painful.
START HERE: Can you walk me through what it was like? Like do you know when you got it?
ARAUJO: On July 4, I was working normal. Everything was fine. And I was going out clubbing with my friends, you know, celebrating July Fourth weekend. And I went out to this club, which is where I believe I got it. [There were] the little hairs in the back of my neck just telling me that night something was not right.
The very next day, I got a fever, and then I had the fever for two days. Then I got chills, and then the chills and the third day went away. By the fourth day, I was breaking out on my forehead and on my back really bad. I had all these little pimples. That’s what they looked like to me. They were like very small little pimples at first. The fifth day, which was now July 7 or July 8, I had one on my lip.
START HERE: Like it’s spreading.
ARAUJO: Yeah. I’m not just breaking out. I’m not just sick with a random fever for two days, and now I have chills and I have headaches and body pains. It just didn’t make sense, and I knew something was wrong.
So I went to the clinic and I thought, OK, maybe I have an STD or something’s wrong. And so I went to the clinic, and when I went to go get tested and treated, the doctor immediately looked at me and he was like, “I don’t think you have an STD, I’m not saying you don’t have any, but by looking at you, I think you have monkeypox.” And I was just like, “What? I think monkeypox. I was like, ‘Are you sure?'”
START HERE: Had you heard of it before that? Like, do you know what that was at that point?
ARAUJO: I was very ignorant to the situation. I’m going to be honest with you, I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t think that I would get it, and I didn’t really pay too much [attention] to it .
I knew what it was and [that] it was going around, but I was just like, it will not happen to me. And yeah, boom, it sure did happen to me.
The lesions and the sores, they weren’t huge. They got really big and they progressed rapidly. They turned into these big zits, but you couldn’t pop them, they wouldn’t burst, even if I tried to squeeze them.
They would sting randomly, like they would feel like jolts of pain. They would be dull for the most part, but then out of nowhere I would get a strike in one of them or in some of them, and then they would burn or itch. If I mess with them, or if I touch them, or if I laid the wrong way, it really felt like someone took a match and was setting fire to my skin at some point.
I had some on my elbows, so every time I move my arm it would burn or I would itch. The one I have on my hand currently itches a lot.
START HERE: You have one right now that’s still itching?
ARAUJO: Yeah. It’s on the palm of my hand. So it flexes and it’s constantly like being touched by something.
START HERE: Does the pain continue on for like days, for weeks? Do you feel like you’re sort of past the worst of the symptoms?
ARAUJO: Yeah, I’m definitely past the worst of the symptoms. In the beginning, the pain was, on a one to 10 [scale], it was like at to eight or nine half the time.
After I left the clinic, I went to the emergency room because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have a PCP. So I went to emergency room and then I told them, “I think I have monkeypox.” And when they looked at me, they were like in shock that I had monkeypox. Like, they didn’t even know.
START HERE: You’re like the first guy they’ve been dealing with to say this?
ARAUJO: Yeah, they were like, “You think you have monkeypox?” And she pulled out this paper and she was looking at the paper and looking at me. When I looked over like desk to see what she was looking at she was looking at pictures of what monkeypox looked like to see if it matched because she didn’t know. And so they put me into an emergency room I think within maybe 10 minutes. That is the fastest I’ve ever been put into an emergency room ever.
START HERE: And if that’s the reaction from doctors, what’s it like from other people around you?
ARAUJO: A lot of people were very like surprised. They were like, this is real. It was a shock. It was it was like a reality check to a lot of people. Even a lot of people in my family, they were like, “You have what?”
I even had some people would be like, “What is that?” They were like, “I didn’t even know this was a thing.”
I don’t want to segregate groups, but it was predominantly straight people, heterosexuals, that didn’t know what monkeypox was. I hate that it was that way because it was like, you can, anyone can get this.
START HERE: Which is concerning, right, if you’ve got people treating this like an STD passed between people in sexual situations, and it’s not necessarily that.
ARAUJO: No, absolutely not. I didn’t get it from having sex. I got it from going out, and partying and doing normal day-to-day things. I didn’t get it from having sex. I got all my test results back with all my other studies, and I came back negative for everything.
I didn’t have sex for maybe a month or three weeks, almost a month before I got sick. So, I definitely didn’t get it from having sex.
I’m sure it’s possible that you can get it from having sex, but that is not the only way to get it, and that’s where the stigma lies, is that people think it’s just an STD. No, you can get it if you touch one of my sores and then touch your face, it passes just like that because of the infection.
START HERE: Yeah really alarming when you see, not just how quickly it’s spreading, but that it’s spreading kind of faster than people are being educated about it, which is why you’re now shouting from the rooftops. We should note though that [there are] no American deaths from monkeypox yet. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience Jonathan.
