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Breast cancer survivor creates breast self-exam app

October 1, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A breast cancer survivor has created a mobile app, called Feel For Your Life, to help women conduct breast self-exams.

“I found out there were three reasons women weren’t doing self exams,” Jessica Baladad, 36, told Good Morning America. “They were afraid of finding something and not knowing what to do, they weren’t comfortable with their bodies, and they didn’t know how because no one’s ever showed them or talked to them about the importance of a exam, so I thought, ‘I need to advocate for this.'”

According to the National Cancer Institute, breast cancer is one of the three most common cancers in women. The NCI estimates there will be more new cases of female breast cancer than any other cancer in 2021, with a projection of 281,550 new cases.

Breast cancer is primarily detected through a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI or biopsy, and usually involves a combination of testing to ensure an accurate diagnosis. Mammograms can often detect tumors before a lump appears, so screenings are crucial for early detection.

“As a supplementary tool for women of all ages, self-breast exams can increase women’s awareness of their body and what their breasts normally feel like,” Dr. Elizabeth Comen, breast medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering, told GMA. “As a screening strategy, it helps women identify any concerning findings such as new changes in the shape, skin, or nipple as well as any concerning lumps which may require further imaging and work-up.”

Most guidelines recommend women begin routine annual screenings once they’re 45 years old; a recommendation that can leave younger women vulnerable to missing early detection of the disease.

For those under the recommended age for screening, Comen said that self-exams can have an important role in picking up breast abnormalities and prompt patients to seek out further care from their doctor.

“This is particularly true for women under the age of 40, for whom there’s no routine breast cancer imaging screening recommendations,” she said. “Since most of these women aren’t indicated to have mammograms, many of these cancers are actually detected by women themselves, through self-breast exams.”

Baladad has done regular self-exams ever since she had surgery to remove a benign fibroadenoma tumor in her breast when she was 18 years old, she said.

“I had a pain in my breast and I ran to the bathroom real quick, right before class, and I noticed there was a lump and it scared me,” she recalled, adding that she immediately went to health services after class and it was from there that doctors discovered the tumor. “It was that experience that got me into the habit of doing self-breast exams throughout the rest of adulthood.”

A personal connection to breast cancer

Breast cancer runs in Baladad’s family on her father’s side, with her great-grandmother, grandmother, five grand-aunts, and two aunts all having lived with the disease, she said. Fifteen years later after that initial scare, Baladad was diagnosed with breast cancer herself.

In March 2018, Baladad said she didn’t do her routine self-exam that month because she was scheduled to see her nurse practitioner around then.

“I thought, ‘Who better than my practitioner to do a clinical breast exam?’ and when I saw her, she didn’t say anything about a lump to me so I thought I was good to go,” she said.

When Baladad did a self-exam in the shower just two weeks after her appointment, however, she found a lump in her left breast.

“I just started freaking out like ‘This is it, it’s cancer,'” Baladad said. “But then I thought, ‘Wait. I’m working out in the gym almost every day. I take care of myself. I eat well. I just saw my doctor, surely she would’ve said something about this.'”

After calming herself down, Baladad went on with her life. But when an acquaintance posted about shaving their head due to having breast cancer, Baladad said she decided to get her own lump checked out in August 2018.

“She was a year older than me,” she said. “If she’s young enough to get breast cancer then I’m young enough to get breast cancer.”

This time, Baladad went to a different doctor and had a mammogram, ultrasound and a biopsy. The lump was confirmed as breast cancer, making her one of the millions of women in the United States living with the disease at the time.

“I found out later that my original practitioner didn’t tell me about the lump in my breast because she thought I was too young to have breast cancer and she thought I’d be fine,” Baladad, who was 33 when diagnosed, said. “A self-exam saved my life.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most breast cancers are found in women 50 and older, though age is not the ultimate determining factor. In 2018, CDC data found that there were 184 new cases of breast cancer in women ages 20-24; 1,173 in ages 25-29; and 3,300 in ages 30-34, with the number of cases continuing to increase thereafter.

“Most breast cancers are identified in women over age 50. That being said, younger women can get breast cancer too,” Comen said. “Any woman, or any patient for that matter, who has an inkling that they need a second opinion, should get a second opinion. Intuition and trusting your doctor are critical for a therapeutic doctor-patient relationship.”

Fortunately, Baladad’s cancer has been in remission since May 2019 — but the road there wasn’t easy.

“I did 16 rounds of chemo, a double mastectomy, 24 rounds of radiation, a hysterectomy, and back in February I had a 10-hour flap reconstruction procedure done where they took fat, tissue, and blood vessels from my abdomen and placed them in my chest,” she said. “I have phase two of that surgery in October.”

From a social media project to app launch

Baladad originally created Feel For Your Life as a social media project during her cancer journey, where she would share her story, as well as cancer statistics, and encourage women to perform self-exams and get checked out by a doctor.

“One night I was in the shower literally watching my life go down the drain as I watched my hair come off my head and the idea just kind of came to me,” she said. “I felt like I was called to do it.”

The idea to build an app came last year after Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. Baladad said she “wanted to reach more women” and thought the way to do so was through an app.

Over the following months, she researched how to build an app, the features she wanted it to have, and consulted tech-savvy people who helped her with the process. It officially launched on Apple and Android app stores in September 2021.

“I just thought about [the app] from a woman’s experience, and I wanted it to be really intuitive for how a woman may want to use it,” she said. “I’m not a coder or developer, I’m an advocate. I look at the app as an advocacy tool that women can use to communicate with their physicians. I’m not a doctor and I’m not trying to be a doctor — my mission is to help women advocate for their breast health.”

The information on the app is sourced from the CDC, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, and Johns Hopkins Medicine. There are instructions on how and when to do a self-exam and information on genetic testing and counseling, types of breast screenings, risk-reducing surgical procedures, breast reconstruction options and more.

Other features of the app include the ability to set reminders for self-exams and a space to track any changes. There’s also a section where users can share their advocacy wins with Baladad, plus a community feature where users can talk to others about what they’re doing.

“I also have reminders throughout the app that if you find anything, please talk to your doctor,” Baladad said.

Baladad hopes to one day include a telehealth feature within the app, where users can connect with medical professionals in real time.

“If a woman is doing a self-exam and she finds a lump, she may get scared or have anxiety,” she said. “I want to be able to connect her with a physician and they can put her on the right track to help her [with] getting the answers that she needs.”

Court orders FEC to rule on complaints against NRA’s alleged campaign coordination scheme

October 1, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — A federal court on Thursday ordered the Federal Election Commission to rule on pending complaints that allege the National Rifle Association used shell entities to illegally coordinate campaign spending with federal candidates, including with the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

In 2019, the Washington-based nonpartisan watchdog group Campaign Legal Center Action sued the FEC on behalf of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun-control advocacy group led by former Democratic Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, after the federal agency failed to act on multiple complaints that accused the gun rights group of perpetrating what plaintiffs called “an elaborate scheme … to unlawfully coordinate with candidates it supports for federal office.”

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday ordered the FEC to take action on the complaints within 30 days.

In the 2019 suit, the plaintiffs alleged that the NRA used a “network of shell corporations” to circumvent contribution limits and coordinate approximately $35 million in ad spending with the campaigns of at least seven Republican candidates over the last three election cycles, “thereby making millions of dollars of illegal, unreported, and excessive in-kind contributions.”

The complaint alleged that while the NRA deliberately circumvented FEC rules that prohibit vendor coordination between campaigns and outside groups, the federal agency responsible for oversight of election spending — whose members frequently deadlock on matters along partisan lines — had not taken any enforcement action.

“The failure of the FEC to enforce our campaign finance laws has resulted in an explosion of shady campaign spending,” said Trevor Potter, the president of Campaign Legal Center Action CLC and a former FEC chairman. “The FEC had the chance to do the right thing by taking action against the NRA for this blatant spending coordination, but failed to do so.”

“This is a baseless effort engineered by anti-gun groups who want to silence the voices of our members,” NRA spokesperson Lars Dalseide told ABC News in a statement. “We welcome the FEC’s review so we can move on from this frivolous distraction.”

A spokesperson for the FEC declined to comment on the litigation.

FEC rules prohibit outside groups from making coordinated expenditures with campaigns, stipulating that candidate campaigns should not be “materially involved” in the production and placement of ads purchased by the super PAC arm or the politically active nonprofit arm of the NRA. Vendors that are shared by the NRA and federal campaigns are also prohibited from sharing information in support of each other.

“Over the last several years and across election cycles, the NRA has been brazenly flouting campaign finance law by illegally funneling money to candidates while claiming to remain independent,” said David Pucino, senior staff attorney at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

“It is clear that the NRA will continue to violate the law until someone stops them,” Pucino said. “Today’s decision ordering the FEC to take action is a resounding win to keep dark money out of our politics.”

New COVID-19 pills may keep recently diagnosed patients out of hospital, company says

October 1, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Taking a course of a particular antiviral pill over five days, shortly after COVID-19 diagnosis, may slash the risk of being hospitalized or dying of the virus by 50%, according to preliminary results announced by pharmaceutical companies Merck and Ridgeback.

If this pill — called molnupiravir — is ultimately authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, it would be the first antiviral pill people can take at home to reduce their risk of winding up in the hospital from the coronavirus. The medication would require a prescription and likely be for people with mild or moderate symptoms of COVID-19.

“It’s really exciting,” Dr. Carlos Del Rio, the executive associate dean and a global health expert at the Emory School of Medicine, said.

Right now, most COVID-19 patients are sent home and told to monitor their symptoms. Having an effective pill to offer them would “make a difference,” Del Rio added.

Merck Thursday morning announced the results of an ongoing Phase 3 study are so compelling that an independent monitoring board recommended, in consultation with the FDA, ending the trial early so the companies can swiftly seek authorization. The full set of data would become available to the public at that time.

Other companies, including Pfizer and Roche, are also working on antiviral pills that could become available soon. Merck plans to seek emergency authorization in the U.S. “as soon as possible” so that it can start mass distributing its antiviral pill.

The company has started producing the pills with the goal of having 10 million courses of the medication by the end of the year. The U.S. has already asked for 1.7 million doses, at a cost of over $1 billion.

Currently, doctors have some treatments to help those who are already sick with the virus, but those treatments are cumbersome, as they’re typically administered via intravenous infusion and usually reserved for patients who are hospitalized or have a high risk of becoming so.

“What we really need is the Tamiflu, if you will, for COVID-19,” Dr. Todd Ellerin, the director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health and an ABC News Med Unit contributor, said. “It’s possible that molnupiravir could be the agent.”

Molnupiravir is an antiviral drug, meaning it works by slowing the replication of the virus that causes COVID-19.

In an early analysis of 775 volunteers in a late-stage clinical trial, people who tested positive for COVID-19 within the last five days were split into two groups. The first group got the drug and the second got a placebo pill.

About 14% of people who got the placebo were hospitalized or died, compared to just over 7% of those who got the real drug.

“More tools and treatments are urgently needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, which has become a leading cause of death and continues to profoundly affect patients, families, and societies and strain health care systems all around the world,” Robert M. Davis, the chief executive officer and president of Merck, said.

“I think this is exciting,” Ellerin said, “because we need an oral antiviral. We desperately need an oral antiviral that can be given early in the course.”

Infrastructure vote postponed despite Pelosi’s efforts to push forward: ‘We are not there yet’

October 1, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — House Democrats scrapped plans on Thursday to vote on the Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure agreement after leadership and the White House failed to bring progressives and moderates together behind a path forward for President Joe Biden’s broader agenda.

“The President is grateful to Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer for their extraordinary leadership, and to Members from across the Democratic Caucus who have worked so hard the past few days to try to reach an agreement on how to proceed on the Infrastructure Bill and the Build Back Better plan,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Thursday night. “A great deal of progress has been made this week, and we are closer to an agreement than ever. But we are not there yet, and so, we will need some additional time to finish the work, starting tomorrow morning first thing.”

“While Democrats do have some differences, we share common goals of creating good union jobs, building a clean energy future, cutting taxes for working families and small businesses, helping to give those families breathing room on basic expenses — and doing it without adding to the deficit, by making those at the top pay their fair share,” Psaki added.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., left the Capitol just after midnight, and told Rachel Scott that progressives and moderates are closer to reaching an agreement on the size of their social policy package than it appeared earlier in the week.

“We’re not trillions of dollars apart,” Pelosi said.

Asked about the vote on the Senate-approved infrastructure bill that didn’t take place Thursday, Pelosi said, “There will be a vote today,” in what appeared to be a reference to the legislative calendar.

The decision to delay the vote came after Pelosi insisted Thursday morning that she planned to go ahead with a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill — despite progressive Democrats vowing to defeat it.

“We’re on a path to win. I don’t want to even consider any options other than that,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference. “We go in it to win it.”

Earlier, as she arrived on Capitol Hill, pressed by a reporter that the bill is facing “insurmountable opposition at the moment,” Pelosi responded that it’s “our plan” to bring the bill to vote Thursday, her self-imposed deadline.

“Hour by hour,” she responded. “You’re moment by moment. I’m hour-by-hour.”

“You cannot tire. You cannot concede. This is the fun part,” Pelosi said later at her news conference. “Our best interest is served by passing this bill today.”

Yet her comments suggested the House was in a holding pattern, with no firm decision on whether to hold or cancel the vote.

“We are proceeding in a very positive direction,” Pelosi said brightly, even though the bill has not been scheduled for the House floor and her top lieutenants have said publicly that it lacks the votes to pass.

Meanwhile, the White House wasn’t ruling out Biden heading to Capitol Hill Thursday to make a last-minute push to House Democrats just before the big vote.

While lawmakers were expected to agree separately on a government funding resolution with hours to spare Thursday, the outcome of the House vote on the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill — central to Biden’s agenda — was still in serious doubt.

Pelosi spent the afternoon meeting with various factions of her caucus. Even as progressives left the meeting vowing to withhold support for the infrastructure bill absent progress on Democrats’ larger agenda, two groups of moderates left meetings with Pelosi predicting a vote later Thursday evening.

Progressive Democrats have all but guaranteed that they will defeat the bipartisan bill on the floor — to the embarrassment of Pelosi who vowed to pass the bill this week — absent any breakthroughs on the larger policy spending package. Those breakthroughs seem unlikely as negotiations between the White House and Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, who oppose the package’s $3.5 trillion price tag, have fallen flat.

Roughly half of the nearly 100-member progressive caucus — at least 50 members, urged on by Sen. Bernie Sanders — have vowed to vote no on the bipartisan bill, effectively holding it hostage until a larger infrastructure bill passes via the reconciliation process.

While progressives bashed Manchin and Sinema over their objections to the larger package, Pelosi praised Manchin at her news conference, calling the West Virginia Democrat “a good member of Congress” and said negotiations are focused on “substance” rather than “rhetoric” or “dollars.”

At midday, Manchin told reporters his topline number for the larger bill — that he’s conveyed to Biden — is $1.5 trillion, something bound to harden progressive opposition and put the House vote in even more jeopardy.

Attempting to also sway progressives, Pelosi said Thursday members should “remove all doubt” that there will not be a reconciliation bill following a bipartisan vote on Thursday.

“We will have a reconciliation bill. That is for sure. today the question is about. We are proceeding in a very positive way to bring up the bill, to bring up the “BIF” (the bipartisan infrastructure bill), and to do so in a way that can win. And so far so good for today, it’s going in a positive direction,” she said.

Pelosi, who met with her leadership team ahead of news conference, hinted that getting a larger human infrastructure and climate policy bill is vital to her and her legacy.

“I just told members of my leadership that the reconciliation bill was a culmination of my service in Congress ’cause it was about the children,” she said.

But progressives appear to be holding firm in opposition.

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., reiterated on Thursday that progressives are in the “same place” and will not vote to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill unless there is agreement with the moderate Democratic senators on a larger social spending package.

“We will not be able to vote for the infrastructure bill until the reconciliation bill has passed,” Jayapal told reporters after a meeting with Pelosi.

“It’s not about trusting the speaker, it’s not about trusting the president, it’s really about the vote as an ironclad assurance from the Senate,” she added, referring to Manchin and Sinema.

At her midafternoon White House briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters, “We’re working towards winning a vote tonight. We have several hours left in the day.”

She added, “We know that compromise is inevitable. We’ve also seen that play out over the last couple of days. And right now, we’re clearly in the thick of it.

Pelosi told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” that she’s “never bringing a bill to the floor that doesn’t have the votes” — raising questions of whether she’ll stop the vote in the 11th hour.

Asked on Sunday by Stephanopoulos if she was confident that progressive members would vote yes, Pelosi answered, “Well, let me just say we’re going to pass the bill this week.”

Biden stepped out of the White House Wednesday night, rubbing elbows at the congressional game with his former colleagues, appearing to be in good spirits, amid the tense legislative negotiations, while Pelosi appeared to do some last-minute lobbying on her cell phone, in a show of the stakes of the infrastructure bill passing this week — as opposed to later.

The $3.5 trillion bill progressives insist the House passes before or at the same time as the $1.2 trillion package includes significant new investments in health care, child care, higher education, workforce training, and paid family and medical leave which would include 12 weeks paid family and medical leave for most working Americans.

Bodycam video shows moments before Chicago police officer attempted to tackle Black woman

September 30, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Newly released police body cam footage shows the moments before a white police officer attempted to tackle a Black woman walking her dog in a closed park, allegedly unprovoked.

Nikkita Brown said that on Aug. 28 the officer drove up to her as she was walking her dog in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago and told her to leave the area immediately. She said that she was walking out of the park, adhering to his instructions, when the incident occurred.

The video shows that the officer identified himself and showed his badge at Brown’s request. It also shows that Brown repeatedly asked the maskless officer to remain within six feet of her, citing concerns over potential exposure to COVID-19.

“Please don’t. Please respect my space. It’s COVID. Six feet,” Brown said.

“Respect your space? I’m about to put handcuffs on you,” the officer replied.

Brown said she consistently told him, “I am leaving” and “I am walking away,” as she actively walked toward the exit, but he got out of his car and continued to follow her.

The officer got out of his car and told her, “You can go to jail,” according to a video taken by Brown who recorded part of the encounter.

Brown’s attorney identified the officer as Bruce Dyker through his badge.

A Chicago Police Department spokesperson told ABC News earlier this month, “The officer in question has been placed on desk duty as the COPA investigates the video.”

At one point during the argument with Brown — while she had her phone out to record — Dyker ran toward her and attempted to tackle her.

The physical struggle between the two lasted for more than a minute and Dyker repeatedly threatened to arrest Brown. In the end, no arrest was made.

Brown told Good Morning America earlier this month that she believes she was targeted because she’s Black and said she hopes that her speaking out will stop others from being targeted.

“I walked past four kids that were behind me … white males. As soon as I saw the car pull up, I looked behind me to see if he said anything to the kids. He didn’t,” Brown said.

The bodycam video was released last Thursday by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), the group investigating the incident.

A COPA spokesperson told ABC News that the investigation is ongoing and once it concludes, COPA will send recommendations to the Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown to review.

“Ultimately. we want him fired, given this incident and his horrible disciplinary record,” Brown’s attorney, Keenan Saulter, told ABC News.

Dyker has 24 allegations of misconduct filed against him, three of which resulted in discipline.

More than half of US killings by police go unreported: Study

September 30, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A new study on fatal police violence shows more than half of killings by police were left unreported in the last 40 years, and that Black Americans were estimated to be 3.5 times more likely to die from police violence than white Americans.

Researchers compared data from the National Vital Statistics System — a federal tracker of deaths in the United States — with three independent, non-government, open-source databases: Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence and The Counted.

From 1980 to 2019, there were 30,800 deaths from police violence, which is 17,100 more deaths than the NVSS reported, according to the study by researchers from the University of Washington and published in the Lancet.

The study found that the NVSS underreported 55.5% of these deaths overall, but that percentage rose to 59.1% when reporting deaths among Black Americans.

“Police violence and racism is really a public health problem,” senior author Mohsen Naghavi told ABC News.

The NVSS did not respond to ABC news’ request for comment.

The rate of police killings for non-Hispanic Black victims was about 3.5 times higher than that of non-Hispanic white people, and Hispanics were 1.8 times more likely to be killed by police violence than non-Hispanic white people.

The study confirms a pattern of systemic racism in policing, predominantly burdening communities of color, the study’s co-author Eve Wool says.

“Even when unarmed, Black Americans experienced disproportionately high levels of police contact, even for crimes that Black and white folks committed at the same rates,” Wool told ABC News.

Open-source data, which is compiled from open access sources, like news articles and public records, are typically more comprehensive when it comes to tracking these kinds of incidences, according to Neghavi and Wool.

Even with more comprehensive data, they say, there is a lot more research to be done on police violence.

The study didn’t take into account the non-fatal victims or incidences of police brutality, and the binary gender identifiers in the data didn’t allow for analysis of gender-based discrimination against people of transgender or nonbinary identities.

FBI assisting in 3-county search for missing Florida college student Miya Marcano: Sheriff

September 30, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(ORLANDO) — The FBI has joined the search for 19-year-old Florida college student Miya Marcano as her desperate family said they suspect she was kidnapped from her apartment a week ago.

Marcano, a student at Valencia College in Orlando, was last seen at her apartment complex on Sept. 18 and a man Orange County Sheriff John Mina named Thursday as a “prime suspect” in her disappearance was found dead from an apparent suicide after investigators searched his home and car.

“We’re just ready to bring her home, but we need everyone’s help. We need every resource at this point,” Marcano’s aunt, Semone Westmaas, told ABC affiliate station WFTV in Orlando.

Mina said at a news conference Thursday afternoon that 60 detectives from his agency’s Criminal Investigations Division are working exclusively on this case.

“I know that Miya’s family and her loved ones are going through unimaginable anguish as they try and find out what happened to Miya,” Mina said. “Hundreds of sworn and civilian personnel here at the sheriff’s office and beyond have been working around the clock to employ all the resources at our disposal to find Miya.”

Sheriff investigators initially named Armando Manuel Caballero, a maintenance employee at the Arden Villas apartments where Marcano lives as a person of interest in her disappearance. Authorities said Caballero had expressed a romantic interest in Marcano but she rebuffed his advances.

Investigators said the 27-year-old Caballero possessed a key fob to access apartments and his was used at Marcano’s unit just before her disappearance.

Caballero was found dead on Monday in his apartment from an apparent suicide.

“We believe that the suspect that we had named, Armando Caballero, is responsible. We don’t know all the circumstances involved in what happened there, but he was obviously the prime suspect,” Mina said.

He said that at this time investigators do not believe another person was involved in the disappearance of Marcano, but have not entirely ruled out that possibility.

Mina said the sheriff’s office Emergency Response Team and personnel from other law enforcement agencies have conducted nearly 30 searches since Marcano went missing across three different counties. He said at least 175 people have been involved in the searches.

The sheriff said his agency reached out to the FBI for assistance and that the federal agency has provided resources.

“We are working with the FBI and they are assisting in this case. I’ll just say in a manner of technology at this point,” Mina said.

He announced the FBI’s involvement after Marcano’s loved ones called on the bureau to help in the case.

Mina said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has also loaned investigators a K-9 unit that is trained to search for electronics, specifically cellphones.

Deputies were seen on Wednesday combing through storage facilities at the Arden Villas apartments in Orlando, where Marcano also works, and searching a nearby wooded area.

Marcano was last seen at around 5 p.m. on Friday at her apartment complex, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

Westmaas said relatives reported her missing after asking the sheriff’s department to conduct a welfare check on Marcano. She said that when she and other relatives entered Marcano’s normally tidy apartment, they found it “a mess” and discovered signs of an apparent struggle.

WFTV obtained a video of Caballero walking through the parking lot of the Arden Villas apartments after Marcano went missing, carrying what her family said resembled items belonging to her.

“We were given that video right away,” Mina said. “That video led us to be able to do a search warrant on Caballero’s apartment and vehicle.”

Mina did not disclose what evidence investigators found.

COVID-19 live updates: 37% of people may have at least 1 symptom months later

September 30, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.

More than 696,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.7 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Just 65% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.

Latest headlines:
-Daily hospital admissions down 32% in last month
-NYC teachers ask Supreme Court to block school vaccine mandate
-37% of people may have at least 1 symptom months after having COVID: Study

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

Sep 30, 4:33 pm
Daily hospital admissions down 32% in last month

Since the beginning of September, the U.S. has seen a drop of more than 27,000 patients in hospitals across the country, according to federal data. A little less than half of those patients come from Florida.

Daily hospital admissions are down by nearly 15% in the last week and by 32% in the last month, according to federal data.

The country’s daily case average has fallen to 107,000 — a 33% drop in the last month. However, about 97% of counties are still reporting “high” or “substantial” community transmission.

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Sep 30, 4:02 pm
Aladdin on Broadway to resume after COVID cancellation

Aladdin will return to Broadway Thursday night after Wednesday’s show was canceled due to several people in the production testing positive for COVID-19.

All members of Disney Theatrical’s companies must be vaccinated.

“Our extensive protocol system to test our employees and identify positive cases worked, and allowed us to act immediately to contain those cases,” production said. “Given the thoroughness of our Covid protocols and a vaccinated workforce, we remain confident that the environment is safe for our guests, cast, crew and musicians.”

Disney Theatrical Productions is a part of the Walt Disney Company, the parent company of ABC News.

Sep 30, 3:39 pm
NYC teachers ask Supreme Court to block school vaccine mandate

A group of New York City public school teachers asked the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday to block the city’s vaccine mandate for school employees, claiming it violates their due process and equal protection rights.

The unvaccinated teachers said they should be given an option to regularly test rather than forced to get the shot and they accused the city of failing to explain why that alternative was not made available.

“If permitted to take effect, the August 23 Order will force thousands of unvaccinated public-school employees to lose their jobs — while other municipal employees, including those who have significant contact with children, are allowed to opt-out of the vaccine mandate through weekly COVID-19 testing,” the petition said.

“While a temporary interruption of work is not actionable, the mandate here would have a permanent effect: it is open-ended, where if a teacher never gets vaccinated, he or she will never be able to return to work,” the petition said.

A federal appeals court earlier this week dissolved a temporary injunction and allowed the mandate to stand. The city has given school employees until Friday afternoon to comply before enforcement begins Monday.

ABC News’ Aaron Katersky

Sep 30, 3:22 pm
Africa making modest vaccination gains: WHO

Out of the African continent’s 1.3 billion population, 60 million people have now been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

Fifteen African countries met the WHO’s goal to fully vaccinate at least 10% of residents by Sept. 30. (Nearly 90% of high-income countries have met this target.)

Twenty-three million vaccines arrived in Africa in September, 10 times the number delivered in June. COVAX is working to identify countries that can absorb large volumes of vaccines.

COVID-19 cases in Africa are on the decline. There were 74,000 new cases reported the week of Sept. 16, a 35% drop from the previous week.

ABC News’ Christine Theodorou

Senate reaches last-minute deal to avert government shutdown

September 30, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Senate was set to vote Thursday on a deal party leaders reached late Wednesday to avert a government shutdown that would have affected hundreds of thousands of federal workers and slammed an economy still struggling to recover from the pandemic, all this with just hours left to stave off a crisis.

Under the deal, announced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, senators are expected to dispense with a handful of Republican amendments and then approve a temporary funding bill that not only averts a shutdown until Dec. 3, but also disaster aid for states ravaged by extreme weather and money to further assist Afghan refugees.

“The last thing the apparent American people need is for the government to grind to a halt,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday morning.

The stopgap measure does not include any provision to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, though, after Republicans steadfastly rejected any attempt to include it.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has continued to insist that his conference will not help raise the borrowing limit — or even expedite Democrats’ ability to do so alone – citing concerns about the majority party’s intention to pass trillions in new spending for social and climate policy. This, despite a debt ceiling increase paying for past, bipartisan debt.

“What Republicans laid out all along was a clean continuing resolution without the poison pill of a debt limit increase,” McConnell said. “That’s exactly what we’ll pass today.”

He said Democrats “accepted reality,” putting forward a “clean” continuing resolution to fund the government, and that “the same thing will need to happen on the debt limit.”

Schumer said Republicans realized a shutdown would be “catastrophic” and “they should realize that a default on the national debt would be even worse.”

He said the GOP have spent the week “solidifying themselves as the party of default.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noted the irony of Republicans refusing to raise the borrowing limit but then voting to approve billions in new spending.

“If there’s no money in the Treasury to pay for these items — what’s the point?” Leahy asked.

McConnell, for his part, condemned Democrats for not including $1 billion in funding for Israel’s anti-missile Iron Dome system. Democrats in the House balked at funding, and the measure was stripped out in that chamber. But a majority of Democrats in both chambers have said they intend to pass the funding for a key U.S. ally at a later date.

The stopgap funding measure, once passed in the Senate, heads back to the House where it is expected to be swiftly approved. Then it hits President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature, just hours before the government technically runs out of money at the end of the day Thursday.

These things always take much longer than is expected, and with just hours before the midnight deadline, it does remain possible that lawmakers will miss that time limit but not by any great length of time.

CDC issues ‘urgent’ warning for pregnant people not yet vaccinated against COVID-19

September 30, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(ATLANTA) — Pregnant people and people who were recently pregnant or are trying to get pregnant need to prioritize getting vaccinated against COVID-19, according to an “urgent health advisory” released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Currently, only 31% of pregnant people in the U.S. have been vaccinated against the virus, and that number drops down to 15% for Black pregnant people, according to the CDC.

At the same time, more and more pregnant people are being hospitalized due to COVID-19, which causes a two-fold risk of admission into intensive care and a 70% increased risk of death for pregnant people, the agency said.

Amid a COVID-19 surge in the U.S. brought on by the more contagious delta variant, nearly two dozen pregnant people died due to the virus in August alone, according to the CDC.

Since the start of the pandemic, the CDC reports there have been more than 125,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in pregnant people, including more than 22,000 hospitalizations and 161 deaths.

“Pregnancy can be both a special time and also a stressful time – and pregnancy during a pandemic is an added concern for families,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. “I strongly encourage those who are pregnant or considering pregnancy to talk with their healthcare provider about the protective benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine to keep their babies and themselves safe.”

In August, the CDC strengthened its recommendation for COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy, citing new evidence of safety with the vaccines.

The nation’s two leading health organizations focused on the care of pregnant people — American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) — also issued new guidelines calling on all pregnant people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Here is what pregnant and breastfeeding people may want to know about the COVID-19 vaccines to help them make informed decisions.

1. When can pregnant people get a COVID-19 vaccine?

Everyone 12 years of age and older, including pregnant people, is now eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccination, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Pregnant people can get the COVID-19 vaccine at any point in their pregnancy, and the vaccine does not need to be spaced from other vaccines, like the flu shot or Tdap booster.

2. What is the science behind the COVID-19 vaccine?

Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use mRNA technology, which does not enter the nucleus of the cells and doesn’t alter the human DNA. Instead, it sends a genetic instruction manual that prompts cells to create proteins that look like the virus a way for the body to learn and develop defenses against future infection.

They are the first mRNA vaccines, which are theoretically safe during pregnancy, because they do not contain a live virus.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses an inactivated adenovirus vector, Ad26, that cannot replicate. The Ad26 vector carries a piece of DNA with instructions to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that triggers an immune response.

This same type of vaccine has been authorized for Ebola, and has been studied extensively for other illnesses — and for how it affects women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.

The CDC has concluded that pregnant people can receive the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine after reviewing more than 200 pages of data provided by the company and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Vaccine experts interviewed by ABC News said although pregnant women are advised against getting live-attenuated virus vaccines, such as the one for measles, mumps and rubella, because they can pose a theoretical risk of infection to the fetus, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine doesn’t contain live virus and should be safe.

3. Are there studies on pregnant women and the COVID-19 vaccine?

In its new recommendation that all pregnant people get vaccinated, the CDC said in a statement, “A new analysis of current data from the v-safe pregnancy registry assessed vaccination early in pregnancy and did not find an increased risk for miscarriage among people who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine before 20 weeks of pregnancy.”

“Miscarriage rates after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine were similar to the expected rate of miscarriage,” the statement continued. “Additionally, previous findings from three safety monitoring systems did not find any safety concerns for pregnant people who were vaccinated late in pregnancy or for their babies.”

In addition, two recent studies found Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines appear to be “completely safe” and effective for pregnant people, according to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Collins wrote in a blog post that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which both use mRNA technology, were found to provide in pregnant people the levels of antibodies and immune cells needed to protect them against COVID-19.

The vaccines were also found to likely offer protection as well to infants born to a vaccinated person, according to Collins.

“Overall, both studies show that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are safe and effective in pregnancy, with the potential to benefit both mother and baby,” he wrote, later adding, “While pregnant women are urged to consult with their obstetrician about vaccination, growing evidence suggests that the best way for women during pregnancy or while breastfeeding to protect themselves and their families against COVID-19 is to roll up their sleeves and get either one of the mRNA vaccines now authorized for emergency use.”

One study cited by Collins in his blog post was led by researchers at Northwestern University studying people who had been fully vaccinated during pregnancy.

The study, published May 11 in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, is believed to be the first to examine the impact of the COVID-19 vaccines on the placenta, according to the university. Researchers found the vaccine had no impact on pregnancy and no impact on fertility, menstruation and puberty.

The second study cited by Collins, led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, looked at more than 100 women who chose to get either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Researchers found that the women’s antibodies against COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated were also present in infant cord blood and breast milk, “suggesting that they were passed on to afford some protection to infants early in life,” according to Collins.

An earlier study, a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology in March found the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are safe and effective in pregnant and lactating people and those people are able to pass protective antibodies to their newborns.

Researchers studied a group of 131 reproductive-age women who received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, including 84 pregnant, 31 lactating and 16 non-pregnant women and found antibody levels were similar in all three groups. No significant difference in vaccine side effects were found between pregnant and non-pregnant study participants.

The study had some limitations. It was small and participants were primarily white health care workers from a single city. On the other hand, it’s the largest study of a group that was left out of initial vaccine trials.

4. What are health groups saying about the COVID-19 vaccine?

In their joint recommendation issued in July, ACOG and SMFM said pregnant people should “feel confident” in getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

“ACOG is recommending vaccination of pregnant individuals because we have evidence of the safe and effective use of the vaccine during pregnancy from many tens of thousands of reporting individuals, because we know that COVID-19 infection puts pregnant people at increased risk of severe complications, and because it is clear from the current vaccination rates that people need to feel confident in the safety and protective value of the COVID-19 vaccines,” ACOG president Dr. J. Martin Tucker said in a statement. “Pregnant individuals should feel confident that choosing COVID-19 vaccination not only protects them but also protects their families and communities.”

“COVID-19 vaccination is the best method to reduce maternal and fetal complications of COVID-19 infection among pregnant people,” Dr. William Grobman, president of SMFM, said in a statement announcing the new recommendation, also noting the vaccines are safe before, during and after pregnancy.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also says pregnant people can be vaccinated against COVID-19, adding, “in consultation with their healthcare provider.”

“Limited data are currently available to assess the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy. However, based on what we know about the kinds of vaccines being used, there is no specific reason for concern,” WHO says on its website. “None of the COVID-19 vaccines authorized to date use live viruses, which are more likely to pose risks during pregnancy.”

5. What will clinical trials be like for pregnant people?

Pfizer’s phase 2/3 trial will enroll approximately 4,000 women within weeks 24-34 of their pregnancy, the company announced in a press release.

Half will get the vaccine, and half will get a placebo.

The study will include healthy, pregnant woman age 18 and older in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mozambique, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Spain.

Participants in the vaccine group will receive two doses at 21 days apart — and each woman will be followed for at least 7-10 months in order to continuously assess for safety in both participants and their infants.

Infants will also be assessed, up until 6 months of age, for transfer of protective antibodies from their vaccinated mother.

Women enrolled in the trial will be made aware of their vaccine status shortly after giving birth to allow those women who originally received placebo to be vaccinated while staying in the study.

6. Why weren’t pregnant people included in early clinical trials?

Not recruiting parents-to-be in clinical trials and medical research is nothing new, according to Dr. Ruth Faden, the founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and a bioethicist who studies the ethics of pregnancy and vaccines.

“For a very long time, pregnant women were not included in biomedical research evaluation efforts or clinical trials, both for concerns about fetal development and what would be the implications of giving a pregnant women an experimental drug or vaccine and also for legal liability worries from manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies,” Faden told “GMA” last month. “There’s a huge gap between what we know about the safety and effectiveness of a new drug or a new vaccine for the rest of the population and what we know about it specific to pregnancy.”

In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, health experts have only one of the three sources of evidence that are used to evaluate safety and efficacy during pregnancy: the data on non-pregnant people who were enrolled in the clinical trials, according to Faden.

From that, Faden said, health experts can try to glean what side effects may happen to people who are pregnant, but it is not an exact science.

However, it’s considered typical — and many argue ethically appropriate — to study an unknown substance first in healthy adults and then progressively in broader and broader populations. Pregnant people and children are often tested later down the line because of concerns about potential long-term harm.

Some of the volunteers in prior COVID-19 vaccine trials that didn’t include pregnant women directly may still become pregnant during the trial. This will also give researchers some insights about the vaccine’s safety among this group.

7. What risk factors should pregnant people consider?

A pregnant or breastfeeding person may consider a number of factors, including everything from the trimester, risk factors for COVID-19, ability to remain socially distanced in their lifestyle and occupation, guidance from federal and state officials and recommendations from a person’s own physicians, experts say.

Similar to the flu vaccine, which was not tested on pregnant people in clinical trials, health experts are relying on continuously incoming data to make decisions around how safe the COVID-19 vaccines are during pregnancy.

Officials are doing the same for the general population, considering the speed at which the COVID-19 vaccines were developed, according to Faden.

The COVID-19 vaccines can be taken during any trimester.

8. Is COVID-19 more dangerous for pregnant people?

The CDC has shared data showing that pregnant people infected with COVID-19 are at an increased risk for “intensive care unit admission, invasive ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and death,” compared to nonpregnant people.

Health experts say that with or without the vaccine, pregnant people need to continue to remain on high alert when it comes to COVID-19 by following safety protocols, including face mask wearing, social distancing and hand washing.

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