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Jury seated for E. Jean Carroll battery, defamation case against Trump

April 25, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A nine-member jury was seated in Manhattan federal court Tuesday for former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll’s defamation and battery case against former President Donald Trump.

Carroll, who brought the lawsuit in November, alleges that Trump defamed her in a 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations “a Hoax and a lie” and saying “This woman is not my type!” when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the 1990s.

She added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.

Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll’s allegations. The trial is expected to last around five days.

Two women are expected to testify during the trial that Carroll told them about the alleged attack shortly after it occurred. Two other women are expected to testify that Trump sexually assaulted them, claims that he denies, as Carroll’s attorneys try to show a pattern of conduct.

The judge has also agreed to allow excerpts of the so-called Access Hollywood tape on which Trump is overheard in 2005 bragging to then-host Billy Bush about groping women.

The judge told prospective jurors Tuesday that he was looking to select jurors who are “willing and able to decide this case in a manner that is fair and impartial,” no matter what they may know about those involved.

“The name of the game here is utter fairness and impartiality,” Kaplan said. “The job of the jury will be to decide what did or didn’t happen at the department store, whether Ms. Carroll was or wasn’t raped” — and whether she should be compensated and whether defamation occurred, the judge said.

The judge began questioning prospective jurors with this question: “Is there anything about the nature of this case or the parties that would make it difficult for you to be entirely fair to both parties and to come to a just or impartial verdict?”

He asked prospective jurors about everything from their vaccine status to whether they watched The Apprentice, the reality game show that Trump hosted from 2004-2015.

The judge also asked whether they would find Carroll’s battery claim “less reliable” because she brought it 30 years after it allegedly happened.

Prospective jurors were asked whether they maintain a Twitter account, whether they’ve ever been wrongfully accused of misconduct, and whether they feel Trump has been unfairly treated by the press.

The former president was not present in court Tuesday.

Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, told the judge Thursday that Trump will decide whether or not to attend as the trial proceeds.

The civil trial is being heard a block from the criminal courthouse where Trump pleaded not guilty earlier this month to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with an alleged hush money payment to an adult film actress.

Kaplan last week denied Trump’s attempt to delay the start of this week’s trial for a month after Trump’s attorneys sought a four-week delay on the grounds that a “cooling off” period was necessary following intense media coverage of Trump’s criminal indictment.

“There is no justification for an adjournment,” Kaplan ruled. “This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution.”

This week’s trial is taking place as Trump seeks the White House for a third time, while facing numerous legal challenges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, his handling of classified material after leaving the White House, and possible attempts to interfere in the Georgia’s 2020 vote. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Monday she would decide whether to file criminal charges against Trump or his allies this summer.

Carroll’s lawsuit is her second against Trump related to her rape allegation.

Carroll previously sued Trump in 2019 after the then-president denied her rape claim by telling The Hill that Carroll was “totally lying,” saying, “I’ll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” That defamation suit has been caught in a procedural back-and-forth over the question of whether Trump, as president, was acting in his official capacity as an employee of the federal government when he made those remarks.

If Trump is determined to have been acting as a government employee, the U.S. government would substitute as the defendant in that suit — which means that case would go away, since the government cannot be sued for defamation.

First Republic Stock plummets 25% as banking trouble deepens

April 25, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Shares of First Republic Bank plummeted more than 25% in early trading on Tuesday as the banking crisis continued to ripple through the financial system.

The regional lender, left in dire condition after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank last month, suffered a major loss of $102 billion in deposits over the first three months of 2023, an earnings report showed on Monday.

The lost deposits made up more than half of the $176 billion retained by the bank at the end of last year.

In all, shares of First Republic Bank have fallen nearly 90% since the outset of the year.

The bank’s profit fell 33% to $269 million over the three months ending in March when compared with the same period last year, the earnings report showed.

Meanwhile, revenue dropped 13% to $1.2 billion over the first three months of 2023, the report said.

On an earnings call with analysts, First Republic Bank CEO Michael Roffler acknowledged “unprecedented deposit outflows” in the middle of March, saying the bank faces “challenges and uncertainties.”

“Over the past seven weeks as we were impacted by industry events, our commitment to delivering exceptional client service has not wavered,” he added.

The sharp decline of First Republic Bank shares comes more than a month after the nation’s largest financial institutions injected $30 billion in the bank to stem losses and exhibit confidence in the lender.

Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs were among a slew of big banks that participated in the effort.

Over the week following Silicon Valley Bank’s failure, small banks lost $108 billion in deposits, Federal Reserve data showed.

Meanwhile, deposits to the nation’s 25 biggest banks increased by $120 billion over that week, the data said.

JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, received a huge wave of customers and deposits, amounting to hundreds of accounts and billions of dollars in the aftermath of the bank collapse, a source familiar with the matter previously told ABC News.

First Republic Bank came under stress in the days following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10, which marked the largest bank collapse since the 2008 financial crisis.

Two days after that came the fall of Signature Bank, the nation’s 29th-largest bank, suggesting that the banking crisis had spread.

The banking panic spooked many depositors, who rapidly withdrew their funds from smaller banks and placed them in larger ones.

In response, the U.S. government took rapid and extraordinary steps to protect the financial system.

Still, many bank stocks plummeted in March, including First Republic Bank. The company’s shares fell 88% over the course of that month.

Since then, the shares have stabilized, jumping 10% this month.

The weak earnings report on Monday and the stock decline on Tuesday, however, left in question the steadiness of the bank.

Bank executives declined to take questions on the earnings call on Monday.

Suspect in killing of Cash App founder Bob Lee to be arraigned

April 25, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(SAN FRANCISCO) — The suspect in the killing of 43-year-old Cash App founder Bob Lee is set to be arraigned in a San Francisco courtroom on Tuesday.

The suspect, Nima Momeni, is the owner of an Emeryville, California-based company called Expand IT. He was arrested earlier this month and charged with murder.

Momeni allegedly drove Lee to a dark, secluded area and stabbed him three times, according to a motion filed by prosecutors earlier this month.

Lee, an executive at cryptocurrency firm MobileCoin, was killed in the early morning hours on April 4 in the San Francisco neighborhood of Rincon Hill, the San Francisco Police Department said.

The doctor who conducted the autopsy found that Lee had been stabbed three times, including one strike that penetrated his heart, the motion said.

Police later found a roughly 4-inch blade at the scene that appeared to have blood on it, the document said.

During the previous afternoon, Lee spent time with Momeni’s sister and a witness, who identified him or herself as a close friend of Lee, prosecutors said.

Later in the day, at Lee’s hotel room, he had a conversation with Momeni in which he asked Lee about whether his sister was “doing … anything inappropriate,” the witness told the police, according to the document.

Lee reassured Momeni that nothing inappropriate had taken place, the witness said to police.

Early the following morning, at about 2 a.m., camera footage showed Lee and Momeni leaving Lee’s hotel and getting into Momeni’s car, a BMW Z4, prosecutors said.

Video shows the BMW drive to a secluded and dark area where the two men got out of the car. Momeni “moved toward” Lee and the BMW drove away from the scene at high speed, according to the court document.

In a separate incident, Momeni was accused of assaulting a woman in August, according to an Emeryville Police Department report obtained by ABC News.

On Aug. 1, officers responded to a caller who said she was inside a unit with Momeni when he grabbed her arm, pulled it and pushed her, the report said.

Momeni was cited in that case.

“Mr. Momeni was taken into custody without incident in Emeryville and transported to San Francisco County jail and booked on a charge of murder,” San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said earlier this month.

“Our investigators have been working tirelessly to make this arrest,” Scott added.

London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, said in a statement to ABC News earlier this month that Lee’s death marks a “horrible tragedy.”

“Bob’s dream was to make technology free and available,” Timothy Oliver Lee, Bob Lee’s brother, said in a statement after the incident.

“He positively affected millions of people throughout his life. He had an overarching need to make technology accessible, and to help out everyone.”

Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russia pushes passports on occupied Ukraine

April 25, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — More than a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, the countries are fighting for control of areas in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Ukrainian troops have liberated nearly 30,000 square miles of their territory from Russian forces since the invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, but Putin appeared to be preparing for a long and bloody war.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Apr 25, 1:03 PM EDT
At least 2 dead, 10 injured in strike that hit Ukrainian museum

At least two people were killed and 10 injured after a Russian missile hit a Ukrainian museum Tuesday, officials said.

The local history museum is located in the city center of Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region.

“The terrorist country is doing everything to destroy us completely. Our history, our culture, our people,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media while sharing a video that showed the damaged building. “Killing Ukrainians with absolutely barbaric methods.”

Apr 24, 5:48 AM EDT
Russian passports pushed on occupied Ukraine

Russian officials have warned Ukrainians in occupied Kherson that they may be “deported” if they don’t accept Russian passports, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said Monday.

“Russia is using passports as a tool in the ‘Russification’ of the occupied areas, as it did in Donetsk and Luhansk before the February 2022 invasion,” the ministry on Twitter.

Residents of Kherson have been warned of penalties for those who don’t accept Russian passports by June 1. Some may be removed from the territory or may have their property seized, according to the U.K.

Apr 23, 11:42 PM EDT
Russia says US has denied journalist visas, vows it ‘will not forgive’

Russia said Sunday that the U.S. has denied visas to Russian journalists who wanted to cover Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s trip to New York.

Lavrov promised that the decision will not be forgotten by their side.

“The country that calls itself the strongest, smartest, most free, fairest has chickened out, has done a silly thing and shown what its sworn assurances on protecting freedom of speech, access to information and so on are worth,” he told reporters at the airport before his flight to New York.

“Most importantly, you can be sure: we will not forget, we will not forgive this,” the minister told the pool of journalists who have not been granted U.S. visas.

The journalists had planned to cover Lavrov’s appearance at the United Nations to mark Russia’s chairmanship of the Security Council.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called the U.S.’s decision “outrageous” on Sunday, Interfax, a Russian news agency, reported.

-ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva, Edward Szekeres, Natalia Shumskaia

Apr 21, 3:35 PM EDT
Over 16,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in the EU so far

Over 16,000 Ukrainian soldiers trained in the European Union, Josep Borrell, an EU representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said Friday.

The EU has delivered over $600 million of ammunition and missiles to Ukraine, according to Borrell.

-ABC News’ Oleksiy Pshemyskiy

Apr 20, 7:08 PM EDT
Russian warplane accidentally fires weapon into Russian city of Belgorod: Defense ministry

The Russian Defense Ministry reported that ammunition from a Russian Su-34 military aircraft fell in Belgorod, a city in the southern region of Russia.

“On the evening of April 20, during the flight of the Su-34 aircraft over the city of Belgorod, an abnormal descent of an aviation munition occurred,” the agency said.

The ministry claimed buildings were damaged but there were no immediate reports of victims. An investigation is underway, according to the agency.

-ABC News’ Will Gretsky

Apr 20, 5:18 PM EDT
Ukraine’s ‘rightful place’ is in NATO: Secretary-General

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg held a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, to highlight the more than €150 billion of support to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion.

“Allies are now delivering more jets, tanks, and armored vehicles, and NATO’s Ukraine fund is providing urgent support,” he said in a statement. “All of this is making a real difference on the battlefield today.”

While in Ukraine, the secretary-general visited Bucha and paid his respects to the victims of Russian atrocities.

He also laid a wreath at the Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine, paying tribute to all those who have lost lives or suffered wounds in defense of their homeland.

“Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family. Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO. And over time, our support will help to make this possible,” Stoltenberg said.

-ABC News’ Will Gretsky

Apr 20, 4:13 PM EDT
Russian athletes will not be accepted in 2024 Olympics if war goes on: Paris mayor

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, which is hosting the 2024 summer Olympics, told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Russian athletes “cannot be accepted in Paris,” if the war with Ukraine is still ongoing when the games begin.

“Paris is the capital of human rights,” Hidalgo said in a statement. “We are trying to convince athletes, international federations and countries. We stand with you.”

Hidalgo and Vasco Cordeiro, the president of the European Committee of the Regions, met with Zelenskyy as part of the International Summit of Cities and Regions Thursday.

Zelenskyy thanked Hidalgo for her support and presented her with Ukraine’s “Rescuer City” honorary award.

-ABC News’ Max Uzol and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.

Nonprofit hits Coachella with lifesaving fentanyl test strips, Narcan

April 25, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(INDIO, Calif.) — At Coachella, a group of independent volunteers handed out fentanyl test strips and carried the overdose treatment Narcan in an effort to curb overdoses related to the deadly synthetic opioid that is 50 times more powerful than heroin.

The nonprofit Team Awareness Combatting Overdose, or TACO, was behind the giveaway at the festival, which included performances by Bad Bunny, Blondie, Gorillaz and blink-182, among other acts.

“I will usually just ask them like, ‘Hey, are you interested in potentially having a test strip for testing for fentanyl?’ And people usually know what fentanyl is,” said Hanna Raskin, one of dozens of TACO volunteers.

TACO was founded by several students at the University of Southern California in the wake of several overdose deaths that occurred there in 2019.

Federal data from the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics shows that over half of people over the age of 12 have used illicit drugs at least once. TACO and similar groups advocate for harm reduction, an approach that seeks to lower the risks associated with drug use rather than advocating for total abstinence.

Ahead of the annual music festival, Raskin and TACO founder Madeline Hilliard hosted a virtual training session for their ambassadors, teaching them how to detect if common drugs are laced with fentanyl using the test strips.

“Couple grains of salt or sand-worth of fentanyl — it’s a white powder, it’s totally odorless, flavorless, so you can imagine how easily that could get mixed into something like a pill or MDMA or a bag of cocaine that’s also a white powder,” Hilliard said. MDMA is commonly known as ecstasy or molly.

And when people take contaminated drugs, the consequences are often devastating.

In 2022, synthetic opioids like fentanyl were the leading cause for the record number of drug poisonings and overdose deaths in the U.S, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Drug Enforcement Administration issued a public safety alert after lab testing found that 6 out of 10 fentanyl-laced pills contain a potential lethal dose. In 2021, the United States suffered more deaths related to fentanyl than gun- and auto-related deaths combined, according to the CDC. In the 12-month period ending in October 2021, the agency reported that more than 105,000 Americans died of drug overdoses; 66% of those deaths were related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

Riverside County, where Coachella took place over two weekends, saw the growing crisis kill nearly 500 residents last year, when a staggering 6.2 million fentanyl pills were seized there by the sheriff’s narcotics division, according to a press release from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office.

“[Test strips are] not 100% effective, but they are highly effective from what we’ve seen. When people use fentanyl test strips immediately, they’re now aware that fentanyl is a risk,” Hilliard said at the training.

Hilliard and Raskin also taught volunteers how to spot the telltale signs of an opioid overdose, such as slow breathing, unconsciousness and pinpoint pupils that don’t respond to light.

The nonprofit’s efforts have already saved lives like that of Charlie, a college student who survived an overdose after taking a drug he didn’t know contained fentanyl at a party last year. [Charlie is a pseudonym. The student asked not to be identified with his real name because of privacy concerns.]

“Everyone thinks that, ‘Oh it’s not going to happen to me. How could it be me?’ But it’s when you start becoming careless like that, that it can be you,” Charlie said.

Charlie says he was near death when a quick-thinking friend who had been trained by TACO swiftly administered Narcan.

“He’s alive today because we were able to educate his friends around him, so that when he did overdose, they were prepared to respond,” Hilliard said.

Hilliard said that a TACO volunteer administered Narcan to an unresponsive Coachella attendee exhibiting signs of an overdose who then regained consciousness after the treatment was used.

Raskin believes that everyone who chooses to use recreational drugs should be testing them for fentanyl.

“I want people to know that using drugs does not determine whether or not someone deserves to wake up the next morning. I also think it’s important to understand that if you are using drugs and you want to prevent experiencing an overdose, it’s essential that you test your drugs and also that you carry Narcan,” Raskin said.

Trump not in attendance as jury selection begins in E. Jean Carroll battery, defamation case

April 25, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll hugged her attorneys on her way into Manhattan federal court Tuesday at the start of her defamation and battery case against former President Donald Trump.

She added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.

Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll’s allegations.

The judge has also agreed to allow excerpts of the so-called Access Hollywood tape on which Trump is overheard bragging to then-host Billy Bush about groping women.

The former president was not present Tuesday as preparations as jury selection got underway.

Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, told the judge Thursday that Trump will decide whether or not to attend as the trial proceeds.

“There is no justification for an adjournment,” Kaplan ruled. “This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution.”

The lawsuit is Carroll’s second against Trump and the trial is expected to last five days or so.

Don Lemon says he was fired by CNN

April 25, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — CNN anchor Don Lemon tweeted Monday that he’s been terminated from the network.

CNN said that the network and Lemon “have parted ways.”

“Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years,” CNN said in a statement. “We wish him well and will be cheering him on in his future endeavors.”

Lemon said that he’s “stunned” and learned the news from his agent.

“After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly,” Lemon wrote on Twitter. “At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at play.”

CNN, however, said that “Lemon’s statement about this morning’s events is inaccurate,” adding that the journalist “was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter.”

The news came hours after Lemon co-hosted CNN This Morning alongside Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins.

CNN CEO Chris Licht told employees the network is “committed” to the “success” of CNN This Morning.

At the top of Tuesday’s show, Harlow and Collins addressed Lemon’s departure.

“Don was a big part of this show over the last six months,” Collins said.

“He was one of the first anchors on CNN to have me on his show,” she added. “That’s something I’ll obviously never forget. … We wish him the best.”

“Don was one of my first friends here at CNN,” Harlow said. “I’m so thankful to have worked alongside him and for his support for nearly 15 years here, and I wish him all good things ahead.”

First photos of evacuation of US embassy in Sudan released by US military

April 25, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — U.S. military officials released two handout photos of the evacuation of the U.S. embassy staff from Sudan, marking the first official view of evacuees landing at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.

The photos, taken by Navy and Air Force photographers, show staffers arriving at an airfield in Djibouti, the first stop as embassy workers fled the war-torn country.

One photo shows John T. Godfrey, the U.S. ambassador, being greeted by Maj. Gen. Jami Shawley, the general in charge of U.S. forces in Djibouti. In the other, two people hug on the tarmac with a plane wing visible behind them.

U.S. Africa Command released the images, which were dated April 23, 2023.

High-yield savings accounts surge amid shaky stock market, experts say

April 25, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Tech giant Apple last week announced a buzzy product release — but it wasn’t a new version of its iPhone or virtual reality headset. Rather, the company offered its first ever high-yield savings account.

The move reflects growing demand for returns on savings as a topsy-turvy stock market, looming recession fears and aggressive interest rate hikes transform the old-fashioned savings account into a newly attractive financial option, personal finance experts told ABC News.

However, the yields on savings accounts could shift downward if the Federal Reserve reverses its policy of rate hikes, and prospective consumers should make sure that an account offering retains government insurance protection, they added.

Here’s what to know about the rise of high-yield savings accounts, and how to decide whether to open one:

What is a high yield savings account?

Financial institutions have not settled on what exactly constitutes a high-yield savings account, experts said. But the name indicates the key characteristics of this financial product: a savings account that delivers high returns.

While no specific threshold earns an account the moniker of “high-yield,” the enhanced savings from such accounts can prove substantial, experts said.

The average yield for a savings account is 0.24% annual percentage yield, meaning that a typical customer earns a fraction of a percentage point of interest each year for his or her savings deposit, according to Bankrate.com data from last week.

High-yield savings accounts, however, offer customers as much as 5% annual percentage yield, Mark Hamrick, Washington bureau chief and senior economic analyst for Bankrate.com, told ABC News.

“Over a prolonged period of time, it can make a huge difference,” Hamrick said.

For instance, a high-yield saving account that holds $10,000 could return as much as $500 per year. However, if a customer deposits the same amount in a bank account yielding 0.25% each, he or she stands to see just $25 in annual return, Hamrick said.

Instead of seeking out high-yield savings accounts at brick-and-mortar banks with household names or local branches, customers will more often find them at online banks, Christine Benz, the director of personal finance at Morningstar, told ABC News.

Online banks face lower expenses, since they aren’t paying for a commercial space or local bank employees, Benz said.

“Online banks are able to offer more competitive, better yields,” Benz said.

Why are high-yield savings accounts on the rise?

High-yield savings accounts have grown in popularity amid a string of rate hikes from the Fed that have allowed some banks to offer attractive returns and damaged the performance of alternative financial vehicles like the stock market, experts said.

“We’ve seen a huge rise,” Hamrick said.

Over the last year, the Fed has raised interest rates at a breakneck pace not seen since the 1980s.

The interest rate hikes make it more lucrative for banks to hold money, which in turn puts pressure on financial institutions to pass along some of those earnings to depositors through higher yields.

As a result, some banks have bid up each other’s yield offerings to attract customers, Hamrick said.

“They’ve got to be competitive with their rivals,” Hamrick said.

Meanwhile, high interest rates have pummeled some alternative investment options, like stocks. The S&P 500 has dropped about 3% over the past year, though it has surged in recent months.

“A savings account is pretty safe money right now,” Hamrick said.

What are the downsides of a high-yield savings account?

A major drawback of a high-yield savings account stems from the unpredictability of its yield, which shifts in rough correlation with the interest rate environment, Benz said.

If the Fed decides to reverse its rate policy and start bringing down borrowing costs, the high-yield accounts would likely suffer.

“With any type of savings account, the interest rate will vary significantly on an ongoing basis,” Benz said.

Moreover, personal finance experts cautioned that customers should make sure that a given high-yield account falls under government insurance protection, especially in light of recent tumult in the financial system.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, which safeguards the stability of the financial system, protects depositors at all FDIC-insured banks for up to $250,000 in funds for each different type of account held.

Nearly every bank is FDIC insured, and the vast majority of accounts fall below the $250,000 threshold.

Insurance also covers balances held with the high-yield savings account offered by Apple through its partnership with Goldman Sachs, Apple said.

Meanwhile, high-yield savings accounts often require a minimum deposit size for customers to qualify for the strong returns, Benz said.

“Relate that to your own expectations of how you’ll use the funds or the account,” she said.

“If you’re thinking of it as a checking alternative and don’t think you’ll be able to maintain the minimum balance, you won’t be able to maintain that full yield,” she added.

Higher breast cancer risk among Black women shows need for earlier screening: Study

April 25, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A study released in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week has shed some new light on how breast cancer rates have been disproportionately affecting Black female patients and pressed for earlier screenings.

The study found that Black women had the same risk of dying from breast cancer if they were screened starting at age 42 as the general population had with screenings starting at the recommended age of 50.

Researchers, who examined data from 415, 277 breast cancer deaths between 2011 and 2020, found that breast cancer death rates for women between 40 and 49 were highest among Black female patients, with a rate of 27 deaths per 100,000.

“These findings suggest that health policy makers and clinicians could consider an alternative, race and ethnicity-adapted approach in which Black female patients start screening earlier,” the authors wrote.

Although the researchers noted that there is “currently insufficient data to make specific recommendations for different racial and ethnic populations,” they said that race and ethnicity need to be factored in to “optimize the benefit of screening.”

The study didn’t prospectively test what would happen if screening started earlier, but instead used the data to calculate a risk threshold for breast cancer based on the screening age.

For screenings that started at 50, Black female patients reached that threshold for breast cancer at 42, while non-Hispanic white females did so at 51, American Indian and Alaska Native and Hispanic females at 57 years, and Asian and Pacific Islander females at 61, according to the study.

For screenings that started at 40, Black females would reach the risk threshold level at 34, white females at 41, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native and Asian or Pacific Islander females at age 43 years, researchers said.

Researchers acknowledged their study didn’t look at the possible risks of earlier breast cancer screening for various races and ethnicities, such as false positives and the mental and emotional toll of waiting for test results.

“Although Black women may experience disproportionate rates of false positives because of breast density, the added risk of false positives from earlier screenings may be balanced by the benefits associated with earlier [breast cancer] detection in this group,” researchers said.

The report concluded that to decrease breast cancer mortality, “the starting age for the general population could be decreased from 50 to 45 or 40 years like what is done for colorectal cancer screening in the U.S,” and “health policy makers may consider the alternative, risk-adapted approach in which individuals, such as Black females, who are at high risk are screened earlier.”

Several organizations have different recommendations for breast cancer screenings.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force says women ages 50 to 74 should get a mammogram every two years, and women 40 to 49 should talk to their doctors about mammograms.

The American Cancer Society, which found that Black women have the lowest five-year relative breast cancer survival rate compared to all other racial/ethnic groups, recommends that women at mean risk levels should start annual mammography screening from age 45 years but have the opportunity to start from age 40 years.

Dr. Arif Kamal, the chief patient officer of the American Cancer Society, told ABC News that more research is showing a trend of younger women being diagnosed with breast cancer, and earlier screenings that are tailor-made based on a patient’s race, may be needed.

“I think it highlights beyond race, people should evaluate their own risk of breast cancer, such as family history and the age at which they were diagnosed,” he told ABC News.

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