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Amy Robach opens up about taboo side of breast cancer – how it changes your life forever

October 29, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — ABC News’ Amy Robach was diagnosed with breast cancer eight years ago, on Oct. 30, 2013.

Following a live mammogram on “Good Morning America” to kick of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Robach, then 40, received a phone call several weeks later, on Oct. 30, telling her she had stage 2 invasive breast cancer.

“It can make me emotional literally thinking about it right now,” Robach said of that phone call. “When I first got diagnosed, it’s just a whirlwind of so many decisions … and it all happens so quickly.”

Very soon after her diagnosis, Robach underwent a double mastectomy, followed by eight rounds of chemotherapy and then breast reconstruction surgery.

She also began to take a daily medication, tamoxifen, that she will continue to take for three more years. The drug, which helps lower the risk of cancer recurrence, can induce symptoms of menopause, like hot flashes, night sweats and menstrual changes, according to the American Cancer Society.

Robach described the treatments she underwent as grueling, and the process of fighting cancer as a long and dark tunnel, one that included mental and physical changes including short-term memory loss and the loss of her hair.

What surprised Robach even more in her cancer journey was what happened once she finished treatment and was declared a cancer survivor.

“You think you’re going to celebrate,” said Robach. “But you’re so sick still. You’re so weak still. All of those chemicals are still in your body.”

Robach said she struggled emotionally and physically as she adjusted from fighting breast cancer to surviving it, noting, “Cancer never leaves you.”

“Once you’re finished with the treatments and the surgeries, there’s a fear that steps in,” she said. “You don’t even have time to really think about it when you’re fighting. When you stop actually fighting with treatments, you then think, ‘Oh no, what’s next? What happens now?'”

Those are questions likely asked by millions of people who have battled breast cancer, the second-most common cancer among women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But while people and organizations rally around those undergoing breast cancer treatment, it can still be taboo to talk about breast cancer in general, and the struggles that survivors of breast cancer can face in the weeks, months and years after treatment.

“I’ve had so many conversations where if I mention cancer or talk about being a breast cancer survivor, or thriver, people immediately get uncomfortable,” said Robach. “It’s something that nobody necessarily wants to talk about it, and some people feel really uncomfortable knowing what to say next about it.”

Following treatment, Robach and other breast cancer survivors face bodies that can be dramatically different than pre-cancer.

“When you’re fighting for your life, it sounds silly to think about vanity, but it is a part of the cancer journey,” said Robach, who experienced hair loss, changes in her skin tone and scars and the loss of her breasts from her double mastectomy. “Looking at your body, and not recognizing it is a really frightening thing, actually, because it happens so suddenly, and even with reconstruction, things are not the same, they never will be.”

Physically, after finishing chemotherapy, Robach said it took at least one year for her to rebuild her strength, noting that in the aftermath of treatment, “You just feel weak, and you feel scared and you are dealing with all of the aftermath of chemo for months and months and months.”

Mentally, it would take another year for her to feel like she could regain control of her life.

“I would say it took me a full two years before I felt like, ‘OK, how am I going to live my life? What am I going to do with my life?'” she said. “The truth is, I was scared to even plan for a future, to even plan for the next year or five years or 10 years. I felt like it was maybe jinxing my health, jinxing my remission.”

Robach said what has helped her navigate the unknowns of her breast cancer journey has been finding someone she can talk about it with honestly, someone who has walked the same path before.

In Robach’s case, that person has been “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts, also a breast cancer survivor, whom Robach called a “beacon of light.”

“I remember when I finished treatment, she told me this, ‘Be careful. We all want to celebrate the end of chemo. We all want to celebrate the end of surgery, but you should prepare yourself for the next phase of cancer,'” Robach recalled. “When you’re in remission, sure you’re grateful, yes, you’re excited, but there’s a fear. … You always have the threat of recurrence.”

Like many breast cancer survivors, Robach gets blood work done twice each year to check if any cancer has returned in her body, a reminder, she says, that cancer is “something that you live with for the rest of your life.”

“I have a tough time, every time,” she said, noting the days leading up to the test can be filled with “depression” and “fear.”

But the biannual tests have also, in more recent years, become what Robach calls her “biannual reminder to live, and to live out loud.”

In Robach’s case, that has meant climbing mountains, traveling the globe, running marathons, feeling gratitude every day and fighting to become the healthiest version of herself in the years since her diagnosis.

“It makes me feel so joyful to know that I am challenging myself physically, and believing in my body again, trusting in my body, again, investing in my body again, and really doing everything in my power to make sure that if this thing comes back, or even if it’s living in me now, I am in fight mode,” said Robach. “At 48 years old, I’m significantly more healthy than I was in my 20s and 30s.”

“Cancer gave me a reason to be the best version of myself, and that’s what I’ve done,” she said. “You realize that fear can either cripple you or it can motivate you, and it had been crippling me. And I decided to change it, and let that fear be motivating.”

Robach said that after not wanting to do the mammogram on-air eight years ago because she did not want people talking about her breasts, she is now incredibly proud and grateful that she shared her breast cancer battle publicly.

“I would just encourage everyone to tell your story because it does save lives, it does impact lives and it frees you,” she said. “I find talking about it makes it a little bit less painful because you’re releasing it and you can have a shared experience with someone else because there are so many of us out there who’ve been through it. We’re all brothers and sisters in this fight.”

How Puerto Rico became the most vaccinated place in the US

October 29, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Puerto Rico is the most vaccinated place in America, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 73% of its 3.3 million citizens are fully vaccinated, beating several states like Vermont and Connecticut with high vaccination rates.

The island also has the highest rate of total vaccine doses administered: 154,563 doses per 100,000 people.

Puerto Rico has outpaced several states in the race to the top vaccinated spot in the U.S. despite the odds stacked against it. Not only is it home to a larger population than 21 U.S. states, but it’s also been battered by COVID-19, poverty, climate change and an ongoing financial crisis.

“It’s impossible to talk about the pandemic without the context in which Puerto Rico encountered and faced the pandemic,” Daniel Colón-Ramos, a Yale medical school professor and the president of Puerto Rico’s Scientific Coalition, told ABC News.

“Vaccinations are an individual decision, but it’s an individual decision that has an impact on the collective health and I think this is something that Puerto Rico understood well after Hurricane Maria — how we’re so codependent,” Colón-Ramos said.

Hurricane María uncovered Puerto Rico’s fragile infrastructure that has yet to recover. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the island has a poverty rate of 43.5%, with some municipalities struggling with little to no operational clinics or hospitals for long periods of time. Residents have also been struggling with ongoing power outages triggered by the unstable electric grid.

COVID-19 only exacerbated the weight of these pre-existing structural issues on the territory, Colón-Ramos said.

COVID-19’s toll on Puerto Rico

The island was hit hard by the pandemic. Puerto Rico reported at least 151,432 COVID-19 cases and over 3,200 deaths linked to the virus, according to Puerto Rico’s Health Department. Amid the threat of the coronavirus, the island was the first place in the U.S. to implement the strictest COVID-19 restrictions, including a curfew that lasted over a year.

“Together, we have achieved good results through vaccination efforts and measures that were implemented,” Governor of Puerto Rico Pedro Pierluisi said in a press release written in Spanish. “Although we are doing very well, we still cannot let our guard down and we have to continue to protect ourselves.”

Until recently, the local government prohibited certain businesses from operating between midnight and 5 a.m. and banned alcohol sales after midnight. Some requirements, like indoor mask and vaccine mandates, remain.

Now, Puerto Rico is on a steady decline in COVID-19 cases and deaths, with a positive test rate of 2.43%, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Marieli González-Cotto, a molecular biologist and educator, urges the community to remain cautious and vigilant about their health and safety, even as the virus slows its course.

“People should understand that we still need to take care of ourselves, take care of our communities and really take this one step at a time because [we could regress] and start all over again,” González-Cotto told ABC News.

The method behind Puerto Rico’s successful vaccine rollout

“It was an all-hands on deck type of plan,” Colón-Ramos told ABC News.

The effort to get Puerto Ricans vaccinated included local officials, community leaders, health care providers, Public Health Department officials and scientific experts, according to Colón-Ramos.

TV ads, social media posts and radio commercials were rolled out to educate residents across the island and combat misinformation before it had a chance to spread.

“The information channels were flooded with the right kind of information,” Colón-Ramos said. “The scientific and the health care community got very engaged and proactive in educating people in collaboration with journalists, civic leaders, and public leaders.

“Communities had conversations with the population about concepts from flattening the curve to herd immunity,” he added.

A study by Direct Relief, Facebook Data for Good and the vaccination advocacy organization “Voces Coalición de Inmunización y Promoción de la Salud en Puerto Rico” found that influencers and celebrities were also powerful voices in the effort to educate people on the importance of vaccines.

The research showed that thousands of consumers were more accepting or knowledgeable about vaccines after viewing digital ads and messaging.

“At the very beginning, it was very hard for the people to grasp because it was an ‘info-demic’ — there was too much information out there,” González-Cotto said. “What we focused on was not only putting out the information but also putting it in a way that would be easy for people to understand.”

All educational efforts from public and private sectors towards individuals had a significant impact on Puerto Ricans’ response to the vaccine rollout. Public health policies, like lockdowns, curfews and mandates, helped solidify messaging and protocol across the island, according to Colón-Ramos.

According to Discover Puerto Rico, the official tourism site of the island, private and public organized events or gatherings must require proof of vaccination to operate at 100% capacity. If businesses opt to allow a negative COVID-19 test instead of a vaccination check, they can only operate at 50% capacity.

“Unlike other places in the world where mask mandates were criticized on political, partisan line vaccinations were criticized along political partisan lines — here in Puerto Rico, there wasn’t a partisan political line that differentiated recommendations,” Colón-Ramos said.

González-Cotto agrees, adding: “for the most part, the response was nonpolitical. [Officials] were not fighting about ideologies … Every political party, every leader really was pro-vaccine, and was understanding of science since the beginning of the pandemic.”

Vaccination efforts

Vaccination sites organized by Puerto Rico’s health department under the name “VacuTour” have been available across the island in the last months. Events were held on multiple occasions with the purpose of increasing the vaccination rate, officials said.

Puerto Rico vaccinated about 10,000 residents eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on March 31, according to Puerto Rico’s government.

The tour across the island remains. As part of the efforts of getting more people vaccinated the health department has also been incentivizing people to take the COVID-19 vaccine through rewards. The government has conducted money raffles for those who receive the vaccine.

Despite the success of the vaccination efforts so far, Colón-Ramos said there are still a lot more people to be reached, and a lot more work to be done in order to even out the rates of vaccination on a city-to-city basis.

“The average in Puerto Rico is very high, but there are certain communities where the rates are lower,” he said. “The efforts right now have been to understand what are the disparities that are leading to those differences.”

Can background checks curb gun violence?

October 29, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Darien Richardson, a 25-year-old woman in Maine, was sleeping in her apartment when armed intruders burst in and shot her several times in January 2010.

Her boyfriend survived the incident, but after weeks in the hospital, she died the following month due to complications from her gunshot wounds, Portland police said.

Finding her assailant seemed possible when authorities discovered that the handgun used to shoot her was apparently recovered at the scene of another murder, according to her family and news reports. But they were not able to trace it to the person who shot Darien.

“A sad and unfortunate twist in this case is that a little more than a month after Darien and her boyfriend were shot, the same gun was used in a murder on Park Avenue here in Portland,” Portland Police Assistant Chief Vernon Malloch told the Bangor Daily News in 2012. “That case is solved. We recovered the firearm. We know that it’s the same gun that killed both people. Unfortunately, we don’t know where the gun came from.”

The person who pulled the trigger remains a mystery in part due to a major loophole in the nation’s gun background check system: a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) investigation traced the gun back to a private sale at a Maine gun show, where the first owner sold it to someone he didn’t know, without a background check and without any record of the sale, the Bangor Daily News reported authorities said.

Not only did the loophole make the crime harder to solve, but it may also have made it easier for the crime to be committed in the first place.

Portland Police told ABC News they couldn’t presently comment on any evidentiary issues in the case and that the department has been in contact with the Richardson family in order to help solve Darien’s murder.

“We lost one of the most precious things we have in our lives. Darien is irreplaceable and it’s devastating, but on top of that, this crime has never been solved,” Darien’s mother, Judi Richardson, told ABC News. “Even though they have the murder weapon, they don’t have the piece that they need — where did that gun come from?”

“We have background checks, so why do we have a loophole that lets so many guns get through?” she added.

In order to sell a gun, all U.S. licensed gun dealers must run a potential purchaser through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a provision based in a federal law that was passed in 1993.

Those ineligible to purchase guns include people with criminal records, addicts of any controlled substance, certain people with a history of mental illness, those illegally in the U.S., those dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Armed Forces and subjects of domestic violence-related protective orders.

Even with the loopholes that exist, background checks keep guns from being legally sold to some of those most likely to commit crimes with them.

That is why for years, many lawmakers and advocates have rallied for passing universal background checks to expand federal law to include private purchases. Such a bill was introduced and passed in the House in March and awaits Senate action. Another bill, also passed in the House in March, seeks to extend the waiting period for background checks to 10 days.

But while universal background checks are often made out to be a panacea for curbing gun violence, there is mixed data about their efficacy.

Experts in the public health field say lawmakers have been too fixated on background checks as a one-way ticket to safer streets. In reality, gun violence requires a more complex, multi-faceted approach, they say.

Still, experts agree that if loopholes in the system were closed as a part of a more comprehensive strategy to reduce gun violence, background checks would be significantly more effective in curbing gun injuries, deaths and firearm trafficking.

Background check loopholes

An estimated 22% of gun owners acquired a firearm without a background check in the U.S. from 2013 to 2015, according to a 2017 Annals of Internal Medicine study.

Today’s gaping loopholes in federal law allow people to purchase or transfer guns without a background check at gun shows, private sales, or online.

Beyond private purchase sales, one of the major gaps in the system is the “boyfriend loophole,” which bars domestic violence abusers from obtaining guns but only applies to current or former marital spouses, current or former cohabitants or someone who shares a child with the victim.

Then there’s what has come to be known as the Charleston loophole, which allows gun sellers to proceed with a sale if the FBI investigation for a background check takes more than three days. This is how convicted shooter Dylan Roof, despite his criminal record, purchased the firearm he used in the 2015 Charleston, South Carolina massacre that killed nine worshippers at a historic African American church. Roof was convicted on 33 federal charges in 2016 and sentenced to nine life sentences.

This week, The Department of Justice announced a settlement with the victims’ families, who had sued the federal government in 2016 because Roof was allowed to purchase a gun despite his prior criminal history.

The 2020 Catch-22

Despite these loopholes, in 2020 the FBI background check system stopped a record number of more than 300,000 illegal gun sales — and about 42% of those denials were to people with felony convictions, according to FBI data.

Rob Wilcox, the federal legal director for Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun violence prevention organization, said that’s proof the background check system works.

“That shows clearly that the system can work in preventing individuals who shouldn’t have guns from getting them,” Wilcox told ABC News.

But while there were record firearm purchase stoppages in 2020, the year was one of the deadliest on record for gun violence with more than 40,000 lives lost from guns, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks shooting incidents through public data, news reports and other sources. Of those, over 19,000 were from homicides, murders and unintentional shootings, and over 24,000 were from suicide.

The grim numbers show that even though background checks can work to an extent, gun violence will ensue if other measures aren’t put in place.

Today, 22 states have their own universal background check laws that extend beyond federal law to include private sales and transfers. Some states require purchasers to receive a permit or a license, which includes a background check, to even purchase a gun.

However, even in places where loopholes are less prevalent, research on the impact of universal background check requirements has yielded mixed results as to whether they reduce gun violence.

Questionable Impact

A 2019 study by Boston University and Harvard University medical researchers found that U.S. states with universal background checks for all gun sales had homicide rates 15% lower than states without such laws over a 26-year period. An analysis of 18 gun control policies by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit global policy think tank, that evaluated existing research found background checks may decrease violent crime. The analysis also found “moderate evidence” that dealer background checks may reduce firearm homicide, but evidence of the impact of private-seller background checks on firearm homicides was inconclusive.

Other studies indicate universal background checks don’t make much of a difference at all.

A University of California, Davis study that observed the impact of California’s mandate for comprehensive background checks for nearly all firearms sales since 1991 found no change in the rates of firearm homicide or suicide through 2000. Those researchers conducted another study that found the repeal of comprehensive background check laws in Tennessee and Indiana had no effect on gun homicides or suicide rates in those states.

Still, Dr. Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said there’s “pretty robust research evidence” showing background checks make a great impact when coupled with licensing laws (which require people to have a license issued by local authorities to buy, own, possess a gun), and result in “significant reductions in homicides, suicides, shootings of law enforcement officers in the line of duty, mass shootings, [and] diversions of guns from legal to illegal use.”

Of course, statewide background checks may not measure up against what could be achieved with a national law requiring universal background checks. As it stands, even states with the strictest rules for who can purchase a gun can be impacted by cross-state-line firearm trafficking from states with looser rules.

“Guns that are trafficked between states nearly always originate from states without strong background check laws,” Wilcox, of Everytown, said. “In the case of Chicago, 60% of the crime guns that are recovered come from out of state, a significant number coming from neighboring Indiana, which does not have laws requiring background checks,” he said, citing data from Chicago’s 2017 Gun Trace Report.

While supporters of universal background checks say they reduce gun violence by keeping guns out of the wrong hands and would help to shrink the black market, others argue that most criminals get their guns illegally anyway and would continue to find a path to do so. The National Rifle Association is among those voices that argue universal background checks would have little impact on criminality.

“FBI data makes clear the majority of criminals get their guns from the black market, straw purchase (where a person who is unable to pass a background check uses a proxy buyer to purchase the firearm for them), theft, or other sources that don’t involve a background check. Therefore, any claim that background checks will decrease crime rates lacks merit,” a spokesperson for the NRA told ABC News.

Background checks are not the ‘end-all, be-all solution’

While background checks aren’t perfect, supporters believe they’re a start. On a large scale, applicants with criminal histories being denied gun purchases lowers the risk for future violent offenses, Webster said, citing a 2019 study.

But background checks are far from “the end-all and be-all to the problem” of gun violence, Howard Spivak, the former director of the Division of Violence Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told ABC News.

He said the gun violence epidemic needs to be looked at from a public health perspective, which combines laws like background checks and waiting periods, as well as “underlying mental health issues that may contribute to risk of firearm violence.”

That includes training gun dealers to recognize signs of depression, educating gun sellers to look for warning signs of instability or violence, and increasing awareness of the risks of having guns in one’s home, Spivak said.

“Some of it has to do with changing behavior and attitudes and values around conflict, some of it has to do with better screening for risk — it’s a combination of all of those things that can reduce gun violence,” he said.

Linda Degutis, the former director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the CDC, said the nation should respond to gun violence in a “comprehensive” way, similar to how the country responded to drunk driving and the opioid crisis.

“There were a number of laws that were put in place, it wasn’t just one, and it automatically made a difference,” she said of the drunk driving issue. “So we saw a decline in crash deaths and injuries because of the multiple strategies that we used … We didn’t eliminate cars, we did things to make things safer. We changed the design, we added airbags, we implemented safety strategies. There’s safety strategies that could be implemented with guns as well,” she said.

She compared focusing on background checks alone to approaching the opioid epidemic without dealing with addiction.

“Some of the early efforts around opioid addiction was at reducing access to opioids through prescriptions. It didn’t reduce addiction, it drove people who were addicted into the black market of drugs,” Degutis said. “It was too narrow of a focus, it wasn’t dealing with addiction, it was just dealing with one avenue of access to drugs, ignoring the fact that there were other access points. And the more you drive people away from the legal access points, the less control you have.”

She and Spivak told ABC News there needs to be different public messaging on the safety of guns, the threat they pose in households, safe storage and assuring the mental health of gun owners, especially as 60% of gun deaths are suicides, according to CDC data from 2019.

“We have to stop thinking that we have quick fixes, because we could pass a national background check law tomorrow and the impact will be minimal,” Spivak said. “It’s only one piece of a much bigger set of things we have to be doing.”

Still a main focus

Despite calls for a more comprehensive approach to ending gun violence, background checks continue to be a main focus. Part of that may be because they are overwhelmingly supported, with 81% of Americans across all political stripes in favor of expanding checks to include private and gun show sales, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey.

In contrast, other divisive gun policies — such as concealed carry permits, allowing teachers to be armed and banning assault-style weapons and high capacity magazines — see much more of a dramatic split among lawmakers, according to Pew.

Some of the nation’s top police leaders have also voiced support for universal background checks. In March, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, a network of police executives representing the 79 largest cities in the U.S. and Canada, addressed the spike in crime across the U.S. over the past years and called for “establishing a strong system for universal background checks to cover all firearm purchases” and close the internet sale and gun show loopholes.

“It will be challenging to truly address the gun violence threat without closing these loopholes since guns will continue to be sold to those who are not permitted under the law to possess one,” the group said in a statement.

Nearly 10 years on, Darien Richardson’s family continues to fight for universal background checks.

In her case, while a background check may not have prevented the shooter from getting their hands on a gun and killing her in the first place, it would have at least put the sale on record and made it easier to trace it back to the shooter. For that, her family feels like it’s an appropriate place to start.

“It’s gotten worse, even since we got involved and that was 10 years ago,” Judi said. “What’s it going to take?”

Mother speaks out after urgent calls to 911 about child’s medical emergency go unanswered

October 29, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Some 911 call centers across the country say they are experiencing staffing shortages.

Some centers are struggling with as much as 30% to 50% vacancies, according to reports from the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch.

“We have actually been experiencing much higher staffing shortages throughout the pandemic,” April Heinze, operations director at the National Emergency Number Association, told “Good Morning America.” “It’s actually really starting to kind of take a head.”

For Ashley Bagwell, the mom of 6-year-old Hadlee, experienced the effects of those staffing shortages when she couldn’t get through to 911 earlier this month when Hadlee was having a seizure.

“I was terrified,” said Bagwell, whose oldest daughter also ran to the neighbors to try 911 but they also couldn’t get through. “I remember just screaming, I just said, ‘What do I do? I need them to talk me through what to do.’ It was the scariest moment of my entire life.”

In Lexington County, South Carolina, where Bagwell lives, officials say they are facing challenges when it comes to staffing shortages. Calls like Bagwell’s were not answered “due to a large volume of 911 calls received within a 15-minute period, which overload call takers,” according to officials.

But county officials say dispatchers called back the initial caller within three minutes and there was no answer. And “several other calls were made finally connecting with a caller” 10 minutes after the first call.

Other parts of the country that are seeing staffing shortages include Alabama, where there are 88 dispatcher jobs open across 10 agencies, and Chesapeake, Virginia, where a 911 call center is struggling to hire dispatchers.

“We’re about 30% short of overall staffing,” said 911 coordinator Lt. James Garrett of Chesapeake, who told “GMA” that there are delays in getting to 911 callers. “We’ve seen a drop in our ability to answer 911 calls and within 10 seconds and within 30 seconds, which is some of our standard, we’re not able to be as fast as we were because I don’t have enough and available people to answer those phones.”

Officials say COVID is playing a role in the staffing shortage, but so is burnout and low salaries.

To attract more people to apply for these open dispatcher roles, some states are working on or have passed legislation reclassifying 911 dispatchers as first responders so they can get better benefits. A similar bill is currently in Congress.

In the meantime, as call centers try to keep up with the large volume of 911 calls, dispatchers are urging the public to be patient. They’re also advising folks not to hang up if they don’t get to a dispatcher on the phone right away, otherwise, it will move them back to the end of the queue.

“I just hope no one ever has to experience the terror of this,” Bagwell said. “I just don’t want anyone to have to go through the stress of 911 not answering when your child is unresponsive.”

Remains found in California desert identified as missing 30-year-old Lauren Cho

October 29, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Remains found in a Southern California desert have been identified as 30-year-old Lauren “El” Cho, a New Jersey woman who was missing for months, authorities said.

Her cause and manner of death are pending toxicology results, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said Thursday.

The remains were recovered on Oct. 9 during a search for Cho “in the rugged terrain of the open desert of Yucca Valley,” the sheriff’s department said. Cho was reported missing on June 28 “when she reportedly walked away” from the Yucca Valley home where she was staying, the sheriff’s department said.

The search for Cho was launched this summer and included planes searching the remote mountain terrain and canines scouring the area for evidence, the sheriff’s office said.

COVID-19 live updates: Global cases, deaths on the rise for first time in two months

October 29, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 4.9 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 743,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Just 67.4% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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

Oct 29, 10:18 am
Montana, Idaho leading nation in death rates

In recent weeks, cases have been creeping up in Alaska, Alabama, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont and Washington, according to federal data.

The nation’s daily death average has dropped by about 36.3% in the last month, but it remains persistently high, around 1,150 new deaths reported each day.

Montana currently has the country’s highest death rate, followed by Idaho and West Virginia, according to federal data.

Oct 28, 12:44 pm
Florida files lawsuit against Biden administration over vaccine mandate for federal contractors

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, arguing that the vaccine mandate for federal contractors is “unconstitutional.”

“Florida companies, public and private, receive millions of dollars in federal contracts annually and will be negatively impacted by the unlawful requirements,” a statement from Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said.

DeSantis said in a statement, “The federal government is exceeding their power and it is important for us to take a stand because in Florida we believe these are choices based on individual circumstances.”

Oct 28, 11:37 am
Global cases, deaths on the rise for 1st time in 2 months

The global number of COVID-19 cases and deaths are now increasing for the first time in two months, largely driven by an ongoing rise in Europe that outweighs declines in other regions, W.H.O. Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday.

The highest case increases in the last two weeks were in the Czech Republic (up by 234%), Hungary (up by 200%) and Poland (up by 183%), according to the W.H.O.

The director-general attributed ongoing infections “in large part” to inequitable access to tests and vaccines.

“Eighty-times more tests, and 30 times more vaccines, have been administered in high-income countries than low-income countries,” Tedros said. “If the 6.8 billion vaccine doses administered globally so far had been distributed equitably, we would have reached our 40% target in every country by now.”

Joe Biden, second Catholic president, meets with Pope Francis amid US bishops’ criticism

October 29, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(VATICAN CITY) — As President Joe Biden embarked on only his second overseas trip, he started with a personally poignant audience with Pope Francis on Friday, the first time in more than half a century that a Roman Catholic U.S. leader has met at the Vatican with the head of the Catholic Church.

The White House said the private meeting lasted about 90 minutes, unusually long.

Biden, only the second Catholic elected president after John Fitzgerald Kennedy, spoke of the moment’s significance last month.

“I happen to be a practicing Catholic and one of the things I like about my pope today is he’s all about renewal and forgiveness, that’s what that’s what he’s about. And I look forward to — I hope I get to see him in the not-too-distant future,” Biden said in September.

In a statement after Friday’s meeting, the White House said “President Biden thanked His Holiness for his advocacy for the world’s poor and those suffering from hunger, conflict, and persecution. He lauded Pope Francis’ leadership in fighting the climate crisis, as well as his advocacy to ensure the pandemic ends for everyone through vaccine sharing and an equitable global economic recovery.”

At one point, the two men exchanged gifts.

“I’m not sure this is appropriate, but, there is a tradition in America that the president has what is called a command coin that he gives to warriors and leaders, and you are the most significant warrior for peace I’ve ever met,” Biden can be heard explaining to Francis in edited footage released by the Vatican, as an interpreter shares the message with the pope. The Vatican did not allow U.S. news photographers inside.

Biden described the symbols on the coin, and the personal connection it has to his late son, Beau, telling Francis he knew Beau would want him to have it.

“It has the U.S. seal in the front. … I know my son would want me to give this to you because on the back of it, I have the state of Delaware in the 261st Unit my son served with,” Biden said.

Later, at a photo op with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, ABC’s Ben Gittleson asked Biden how the meeting went.

“Wonderful,” Biden replied. When asked what they discussed, he answered, “A lot of personal things.”

Overshadowing the meeting, though, was criticism from conservative U.S. bishops over Biden’s political position on abortion.

This is not the first time the two have met. In fact, the pair have spent more time together than perhaps any previous U.S. president and pope — a distinction not lost on Shaun Casey, a senior fellow at Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University.

“They’ve known each other for the entire papacy. And this will not be their first meeting, which I think makes it fairly unique in American presidential history, it may be even in papal history that these two guys know each other to a degree that no other analogous pair do.” said Casey, who served as a special representative for religion, and global affairs to Secretary of State John Kerry during the Obama administration.

“These guys know each other, and I think they’re comfortable with each other and they have a relationship that seems to be very warm and very genuine.”

Biden and the pope

As vice president, Biden attended Francis’ inauguration in 2013, and helped shepherd him during his visit in Washington in 2015, before once again meeting Francis at the Vatican in 2016 for a conference on regenerative medicine.

Francis’ visit to the United States was particularly touching for Biden, coming just a few months after the passing of his son, Beau, from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, that May.

“He asked to meet with the family in the hangar in the airport as he was leaving in Philly,” Biden recalled of Francis in an interview with CBS “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert last year.

“He came in. We had 16 family members there, and he didn’t just speak about Beau, he spoke in detail about Beau, about who he was and about family values and about forgiveness and about decency. I mean, he is — I am a great admirer of His Holiness, I really am,” Biden continued.

He keeps a photo of himself and Francis in the Oval Office.

Yet, Biden’s political views have sometimes put him at odds with the church on issues like gay marriage and abortion, issues that still divide him and Francis. Despite that, the two men share similar views when it comes to helping the poor, the need to address climate change and combatting the pandemic.

According to Casey, Francis places the church’s “pastoral” role above its “theological” one — an outlook that bonds him with the American president.

“Biden draws meaning and sustenance and healing from how the church has been with him during his grief over his long public career. And so in essence, there’s a pastoral bond there, in addition to the sort of social teachings bond that they share.

Francis is not the only pope Biden has met in his nearly 50 years in Washington. Biden also met with Pope Benedict XVI in 2011, and in 1980, the then-senator met for 45 minutes with Pope John Paul II.

“He kept kidding me about how young I am,” Biden told The Dialogue, the newspaper of the Wilmington, Delaware, diocese following the meeting.

Biden also recalled “discussions with the pope were relatively uninterrupted, even though several times during their conversation aides knocked on the library door, only to be waved away by John Paul.”

‘My religion defines who I am’

Biden is perhaps the most publicly religiously observant president the country has seen since Jimmy Carter. He attends Mass almost every weekend and on holy days of obligation, very often accompanied by family members, and wears Beau’s rosary beads on his wrist.

“My religion defines who I am,” Biden said during the 2012 vice presidential debate. “I’ve been a practicing Catholic my whole life. And it has particularly informed my social doctrine. Catholic social doctrine talks about taking care of those who — who can’t take care of themselves, people who need help.”

Biden attended Catholic school growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, and has cited his faith as helping him to weather some major traumas in his life, including the death of his young wife and daughter in a 1972 traffic accident, and his son in 2015.

“I never miss Mass,” Biden said last August. “It is part of who I am. It’s what gets me through the very difficult times in my life, and I believe it very strongly.”

But even as he acknowledges the profound impact his religious devotion has had on his life, Biden largely deems his faith to be a “private matter” and not open for public discussion.

“I don’t proselytize. This is just a private thing with me and I feel very — my faith … means a great deal to me. And it’s been sort of my salvation,” Biden said in 2019.

But Biden’s private faith has become the subject of a major public debate during his presidency. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has criticized him for his stance on abortion, and voted to draft guidance on who should be able to receive the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist — the consecrated host Catholics believe is the Body of Christ.

Biden, who campaigned on codifying Roe v. Wade, and announced his opposition to the Hyde Amendment, which prevents the use of public funds for abortions, during the 2020 campaign, has drawn a line between his public and private views of the issue.

“My position is that I am personally opposed to abortion, but I don’t think I have a right to impose my view on the rest of society,” Biden wrote in his 2007 memoir.

That position has caused problems for Biden in the past. In 2019, Biden was denied Communion at a South Carolina Catholic church while campaigning for president.

“Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching. As a priest, it is my responsibility to minister to those souls entrusted to my care, and I must do so even in the most difficult situations. I will keep Mr. Biden in my prayers,” Rev. Robert Morey of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Florence, South Carolina, said in a statement.

For his part, Biden brushed off the incident as a one-off event, saying, “it’s not a position I’ve found anywhere else, including from the Holy Father who gives me Communion.”

A vote on the new guidance for Eucharistic eligibility, pushed by conservative bishops, is set to take place in mid-November, and would require support from two-thirds of the conference to be implemented, but the effort has not been received warmly by the Vatican.

Francis has made clear that Holy Communion is “not a prize for the perfect,” and does not believe in denying Communion.

“What must the pastor do?” Francis asked aboard the papal plane in September. “Be a pastor, don’t go condemning. Be a pastor, because he is a pastor also for the excommunicated.”

“The bishops here in the U.S. cannot miss the symbolism of the warm embrace of Joe Biden by Pope Francis,” Casey said of the visit.

Even if approved, implementation would be up to local bishops. The Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, has also said he does not support denying Communion, as has Holy Trinity Catholic Church, which Biden attends in Washington.

“As a parish which has a long history of welcoming all, we concur with and support the pastoral approach of our Archbishop. Holy Trinity Catholic Church will not deny the Eucharist to persons presenting themselves to receive it,” the parish said in a statement.

When Biden was asked about the effort earlier this year, he simply replied, “That’s a private matter, and I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

What to watch for as Biden attends the G-20 summit in Rome

October 29, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(ROME) — After meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Friday, President Joe Biden will participate in a G-20 weekend summit in Rome, the first time leaders of many of the world’s largest economies have met in person since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic, increasingly urgent concerns about climate change, disruptions to the economic supply chain and uncertainty over the future of Afghanistan are some of the major topics on the summit agenda and likely to come up in Biden’s other meetings with world leaders.

The G-20 summit in Rome comes just before many of the leaders will participate in the COP26 climate conference starting Monday in Glasgow, Scotland.

Here’s are some key things to watch for:

‘America back’ or ‘America first’?

Biden declared “America is back” when he took office — a pledge to affirm, with tested and steady leadership, the alliances strained by four years of President Donald Trump.

But the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the swift collapse of the country to the Taliban frustrated and stunned some European leaders, who were forced to deal with policy fallout as well as resettling refugees from the war-torn country.

That, together with the Biden administration’s reluctance to ease travel restrictions for foreigners until the fall — much later than Europe — has led some allies to wonder whether “America First” didn’t leave the White House with Trump – and whether America can be counted on to keep its military and foreign policy commitments.

“The real question looming large over the summit is, how reliable will the United States be in the coming years? Not just because of the prospect that Trump could return, but where does Biden see America’s responsibilities shifting?” Brett Bruen, a former U.S. diplomat, told ABC News.

“There certainly are a lot of people after the withdrawal from Afghanistan that are wondering about their own security,” he said.

Plans for the pandemic, supply chain challenges

The G-20 leaders will meet in person for the first time since 2019 as the world is on track to miss the World Health Organization and United Nations’ goal to vaccinate at least 40% of the population in every country by the end of 2021.

The U.S. frustrated world health officials by moving forward with COVID-19 vaccine boosters — even as experts pushed to first use supplies to vaccinate more people across the developing world. Biden has promised to ship more than 1 billion vaccine doses abroad by next fall — but a key question is whether leaders will reach any agreement to speed up the production or delivery of vaccines to poorer nations.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday also told reporters that Biden hopes to improve “transparency” and communication between countries around supply chain bottlenecks. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Thursday night, Sullivan said Biden would convene a supply chain meeting with other world leaders in Rome.

On the economic front more broadly, the U.S. also wants the G-20 countries to promote new forms of debt relief for emerging economies that have struggled during the pandemic.

The U.S. will also tout the new international agreement on a global corporate minimum tax of 15%, which, if approved by Congress in the United States and lawmakers in the countries party to the deal, would make it more difficult for multinational corporations to avoid paying taxes, potentially raising billions of dollars in revenue.

US and France: Repairing the oldest alliance

The last time they met in Europe, Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden laughed and clasped hands at the beach in England, huddling for longer than scheduled; the French president declared that America was “definitely” back.

Their upcoming meeting on Friday ahead of the G-20 in Rome could have a different tone, after the U.S. infuriated its oldest ally by announcing a new security agreement with the United Kingdom and Australia that scuttled a lucrative French military contract to provide a new submarine fleet to Australia.

The White House has run a full-court press to smooth things over with Paris after Macron briefly withdrew his ambassador to Washington.

Several senior Biden administration officials have met with him in Paris, and Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Paris next month.

Separately, Biden could meet with other world leaders on the sidelines of both conferences. Sullivan on Thursday night confirmed that Biden is expected to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Scotland and will hold a meeting with the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany in Rome on the status of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

‘Build Back Better’ or ‘blah, blah, blah’?

The White House had hoped to broker a major social policy deal with congressional Democrats before Biden left for Europe Thursday — and with it, new U.S. commitments to fight climate change. But having failed to do so, how will Biden sell any potential progress abroad when his party failed this week to pass a package that included $550 billion in clean energy and climate investments? A figure that experts say is insufficient to meet the Paris climate agreement commitment to reduce 2005 emissions levels by 50% by 2030.

Or, as activist Greta Thunberg — who will be in Scotland — put in remarks in September, will experts and activists see Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan as more “blah blah blah”?

John Larson, a director of power and energy research at the Rhodium Group, told ABC News that the still-developing Democratic climate plan “could be the single largest action by Congress, if not the federal government, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ever.”

If an agreement is eventually cemented in Washington, its terms could eventually give Biden more credibility to extract greater climate commitments from like-minded G-20 leaders, Matthew Goodman, a senior vice president for economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said on a call with reporters ahead of the president’s trip.

Chinese, Russian leaders to skip attending in person

China’s President Xi Jinping will be participating in the G-20 summit virtually and will not attend the COP26 climate conference in Scotland. It’s a blow to the ambitions of the U.S. and other nations seeking to curb emissions given that China is the largest carbon emitter and home to half of the coal-fired power plants in the world.

At a time when some experts worry that Chinese military tests could prompt a new Cold War-style arms race, could the in-person meetings Biden has in Europe on the sidelines of the summits help align the U.S. and its allies against what the Biden administration has called “the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century?”

Bruen, the former diplomat and Obama administration official, called Xi Jinping’s absence a “strategic mistake” that would work in Biden’s favor.

“The one thing that Joe Biden can do better than almost any other modern American president is to charm the socks off of even his deepest skeptics,” he said. “I would see this this as a moment for Biden to really try and use the powers of personal charm to advance what he wants when it comes to getting our fellow allies, and those that care about these issues, to do more than just say in private that they’re concerned.”

Another notable in-person absence: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

How an epidemiologist plans to celebrate Halloween with his kids amid COVID-19

October 29, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — With Halloween just days away, kids across the country are gearing up for candy and fun, while many parents are wondering how to keep their kids safe amid the coronavirus pandemic, especially while kids younger than 12 wait to be eligible for a vaccine.

The good news for families is this Halloween can be celebrated with more ease than last year, according to the nation’s top infectious disease expert.

White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a CNN interview earlier this month that kids can “go out there and enjoy Halloween,” an approach he attributed to the fact that more and more people are now vaccinated against COVID-19 and that most Halloween activities, including trick-or-treating, are held outdoors.

“It’s a good time to reflect on why it’s important to get vaccinated,” he said, urging unvaccinated adults and teens to get shots before Halloween. “But go out there and enjoy Halloween.”

“This is a time that children love,” Fauci added. “It’s a very important part of the year for children.”

Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, is the father of two young children. He said he also plans to have a more “normal” Halloween with his kids this year, complete with outdoor trick-or-treating.

“It’s safe to say that trick-or-treating is an activity that all kids can partake in,” said Brownstein, who is also an ABC News contributor. “Kids can feel quite excited by the fact that I think they will have a generally normal Halloween compared to last year.”

Here are four questions answered by Brownstein about how to have a safe Halloween this year.

1. Does my child need to wear a mask while trick-or-treating this year?

In most cases, no, according to Brownstein.

“Every parent has to make their own sort of risk calculation, but given where we are in this pandemic, I think, generally, mask wearing outside is probably unnecessary,” he said, noting that data from nearly two years of the pandemic show that outdoor activities are “generally safe,” even for children who are not yet vaccinated.

“Of course, every family should make decisions that are right for them and the underlying risks of their kids and household members,” Brownstein added. “And luckily, Halloween costumes can make mask-wearing less stigmatizing.”

2. Are indoor Halloween events safe for my kids to attend?

While Brownstein is planning to trick-or-treat outdoors with his kids, he said they are planning to wait another year before attending big, indoor Halloween events.

“The bigger questions that come into play around indoor activities may involve unvaccinated people,” he said. “That’s where masking and good ventilation may be more appropriate.”

Brownstein added that people who do choose to attend indoor Halloween events this year should make sure people at the event are vaccinated if they are eligible. He also suggests relying on additional layers of protection like social distancing and COVID-19 testing, in addition to masking and good ventilation.

3. Should my family use rapid tests? Are they reliable?

Brownstein said that in addition to vaccination, another major difference between this Halloween and last is that rapid tests are now widely available for use and are particularly smart for indoor events.

“Because rapid tests are becoming more and more pervasive, we should all be using them as a tool to limit the risk to unvaccinated people or the risk of breakthrough infections,” said Brownstein. “Within a short time frame of an event, taking a rapid test, while not 100% foolproof, will give some good reassurance that you’re not putting other people at risk by joining an indoor event.”

“I have a bunch on hand at home, ready to use as needed, so I think those are incredibly effective,” he said.

4. Does a ‘normal’ Halloween mean we’ll also have a ‘normal’ Thanksgiving and Christmas?

Brownstein said he is hopeful that more and more families and friends will be able to spend the holidays safely together this year, but stressed the importance of maintaining good public health practices to keep everyone safe, especially since the upcoming holidays typically involve more travel and time spent indoors.

“While this holiday means that we can gather more seamlessly and in a slightly more normal way, there are small things that we can all do to try to limit transmission,” he said, citing masking as a critical tool. “Transmission takes place through droplets and aerosols so whatever we can do to limit transmission will ultimately have a direct impact on whether we see a surge post-holiday.”

He added, “As we know, those surges can lead to even more significant public health measures that we’re all trying to avoid, so the small things we do during the holiday can mean even a more enjoyable life post-holiday.”

Facebook employees questioned apparent restrictions on Palestinian activist’s account: Documents

October 29, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Earlier this year, multiple Facebook employees questioned the apparent restrictions on well-known Palestinian activist Mohammed El-Kurd’s Instagram account, according to internal Facebook documents shared with ABC News and a group of other news organizations.

The document, titled “Concerns with added restrictions/demotions on content pertaining to Palestine,” shows concern among some employees over content moderation decisions during the May escalation of violence in Gaza and the West Bank.

The documents were disclosed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former employee, and provided to Congress in redacted form by Haugen’s legal counsel. They were provided to ABC News by a congressional staffer.

Facebook’s independent Oversight Board called for an investigation into whether moderation disproportionately targeted Palestinians last month.

The document also points to frustration by employees who were, in the moment, unable to pin down exactly why an activist’s online reach was being limited.

In the post, the Facebook employee, whose name was redacted, warned the Instagram Stories of El-Kurd, a prominent activist in the East Jerusalem area of Sheikh Jarrah, were apparently being “demoted” in error. Demotion refers to the practice of limiting the reach of a post judged to violate Facebook’s rules.

And El-Kurd’s account wasn’t the only one facing apparent restrictions, according to the document’s author.

“Can we investigate the reasons why posts and stories pertaining to Palestine lately have had limited reach and engagement, especially when more people than ever from around the world are watching the situation unfold?” the author wrote.

While the employee’s post is not dated, it includes an unredacted link to a May 12 tweet by El-Kurd, which includes a photo of an Instagram error message.

“I keep getting messages like this one. My Instagram story views went down from 150k to like 50k. So much of what I post is disappearing. Why are you silencing Palestinians?” his tweet read.

At the time of El-Kurd’s May 12 tweet, violence had already broken out over the forced evictions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. In the resulting crisis, according to the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, around 245 Palestinians, including 63 children, were “seemingly killed by Israeli Defense Forces.” Rocket attacks by Palestinian armed groups resulted in 13 deaths in Israel, including two children, according to Human Rights Watch.

A Facebook spokesperson noted that in May, Instagram experienced a technical glitch affecting the Stories of millions of users, including many Palestinians. The issue was quickly fixed, the company said. Facebook also acknowledged reports that users felt Stories about the conflict were having an unexpectedly limited reach, which the company said was due to a change to the way stories are prioritized that privileged original posts over re-shares. That change was later reversed, the company said Thursday.

According to the internal document about El-Kurd, the activist had previously been the subject of “false positives,” the mistaken removal or limiting of a piece of content.

This ran counter to a new effort within Facebook, according to the document.

“There have been false positive[s] reported against his account in the past and now that we (FB) have taken a stance to minimize our over-enforcing on content from Palestine — due to the necessity of allowing folks on the ground to share what’s going on — there should be no reason his content is getting removed or restricted,” the document read.

A follow-up comment added to the undated post points to confusion and delays in resolving the problem.

“I’d really like to understand what exactly is breaking down here and why. What is being done to fix it given that this is an issue that was brought up a week ago?” the unidentified commenter wrote.

Another commenter chimed in, reporting that they had investigated the issue and not found any restrictions put in place by the “Inauthentic Behavior” team. Inauthentic Behavior is a term used within Facebook for a range of violations, including the use of false identities and the artificial boosting of a post’s popularity.

As employees continued to look for a cause of the possible crackdown on El-Kurd’s account, other comments expressed frustration.

“Also getting reports about this from friends and the conversations are harder and harder as days pass without a root cause being found and tackled internally,” another comment read.

It’s not clear, according to the document, whether a cause was ever found.

“We’re sorry to anyone who felt they couldn’t bring attention to important events,” Facebook spokesperson Drew Pusateri said in a statement to ABC News Thursday.

El-Kurd has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.

In the wake of that crisis, nearly 200 Facebook employees signed an open letter calling on Facebook to address claims of censorship against pro-Palestinian voices on the platform, according to a report by the Financial Times.

Facebook’s Oversight Board called for an independent review into “allegations that Facebook has disproportionately removed or demoted content from Palestinian users and content in Arabic,” in a Sept. 14 statement. The board also called for a probe into whether Facebook was “not doing enough to remove content that incites violence against Israeli civilians.”

The Oversight Board said Facebook had wrongfully taken down a post, which mentioned a Palestinian militant group but which did not contain any incitement to violence.

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