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Double lung transplants successfully treat late-stage lung cancer, in a first with new technique

March 16, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A new double lung transplant technique was successful for two patients with lung cancer, Northwestern Medicine announced. The hospital said it’s leveraging that success into a new clinical program that will offer transplants to patients with end-stage lung cancer.

“Every morning when I open my eyes, like, I just can’t believe it, and life has different meaning now,” said Tannaz Ameli, the second person with lung cancer to receive the transplant, during a press briefing.

Lung cancer is currently the third most common type of cancer in the United States after skin cancer first, and breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men second, according to the CDC. Yet more people die from lung cancer than any other type of cancer.

Treatment for lung cancer mostly depends on how much that cancer has spread. Patients may be treated with targeted medications, chemotherapy, radiation or surgery to remove the tumor. But those treatments don’t always work, and for some people, a lung transplant is their only option.

Single lung transplants have been successfully performed since the 1980s, and now, more than 1500 single lung transplants happen each year, according to the CDC. But lung transplants for lung cancer aren’t common.

That’s because there’s a high risk that cancer cells will spread from the lung into the rest of the body during the procedure — making it more likely the cancer will come back, said Dr. Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery and director of Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute, in a press release.

When a patient needs both lungs replaced, the lungs are usually removed one after the other, Bharat said. If the first lung is transplanted while the other cancerous lung is still in the body, there’s a risk of the cancer spreading from that lung to the rest of the body, he said.

But Northwestern Medicine’s surgery team found a way to minimize that risk. Their approach allows surgeons to remove the cancerous lung from the body while the patient is hooked up to a bypass machine, which diverts their blood away from the heart and lungs. If blood doesn’t flow through the cancer during the surgery, the risk of the cancer spreading is less.

“We feel quite confident that we’ll be able to help some patients with no other options,” said Bharat. He said that the surgery involves “delicately taking both cancer-ridden lungs out at the same time along with the lymph nodes, washing the airways and the chest cavity to clear the cancer, and then putting new lungs in.”

He added, “These patients can have billions of cancer cells in the lungs, so we must be extremely meticulous to not let a single cell spill into the patient’s chest cavity or blood stream.”

The team at Northwestern Medicine first used the technique on Albert Khoury, a man from Chicago who came to them in 2021 after chemotherapy failed to treat his stage 4 lung cancer. His condition continued to worsen, and he ended up in the intensive care unit, according to a press release.

His doctor at Northwestern Medicine, oncologist Dr. Young Chae, said that a double lung transplant may be his only hope. Without one, Chae said Khoury wasn’t expected to live more than a year.

So, on Sept. 25, 2021, after 2 weeks on the transplant list, Khoury became the first person with lung cancer to have a successful double lung transplant.

One year later, Ameli, who lived in Minnesota, was also diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. She said that she tried chemotherapy, but just like for Albert Khoury, it wasn’t enough. Her husband had seen a video about Khoury’s procedure, she said, and he scheduled an appointment with a surgeon at Northwestern Medicine. She was a candidate — and received the second successful double lung transplant in July 2022.

“We’re so happy,” Ameli said at the press briefing. “I’m back. I did it. I made it.”

Because of those successes, Northwestern Medicine is launching a first-of-its-kind clinical program for people with end-stage lung disease.

The program plans to follow the outcomes of its first 75 patients who receive double lung transplants for lung cancer in a new research registry called DREAM (Double Lung Transplant Registry Aimed for Lung-limited Malignancies). While patients can receive a double lung transplant as a part of the clinical program without enrolling in the voluntary DREAM research registry, researchers hope to use the data to follow overall survival, disease-free survival and transplant rejection rates.

“I hope that all cancer patients can be as lucky as me and Albert were,” Ameli said. “Every day we wake up and we’re thankful for it.”

Aerial Petty, DO, is a family medicine resident at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center and a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.

FAA to consider requiring airplane black boxes to record 25 hours of data

March 16, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — After six recent close calls between commercial airliners, the Federal Aviation Administration says it will work to require all cockpit voice recorders (CVRs), often called black boxes, to capture 25 hours of information.

If ultimately finalized, that would be an increase from current regulations, which only require CVRs to record for two hours, and mark a major win for the National Transportation Safety Board, which has been pushing for the requirement since 2018.

The FAA said Thursday it would also establish an Aviation Rulemaking Committee to explore how to make greater use of data gathered by airplanes and their systems, including expanded flight data monitoring.

“We welcome any tools or resources Congress wants to provide to help us do this expeditiously,” the agency said in a statement.

In at least six of the most recent close calls involving commercial planes in the U.S. being investigated by the FAA and NTSB, CVR data is not available.

Under the current requirements, CVRs tape for at least two hours at a time and then new data begins to overwrite the previous recording. Aviation officials rely on CVRs in their investigations.

“When we use the cockpit voice recorder, we download it, we transcribe it and so we use that information to help supplement other data that we have, like from a flight data recorder,” Lorenda Ward, chief of the NTSB’s Air Carrier and Space Investigations Division, said in an interview with ABC News last month.

Ward cited one such close call in New York City in January.

On Jan. 13, an American Airlines flight crossed a runway at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport without clearance from air traffic control, causing a Delta Air Lines plane to abort its takeoff from that runway, according to the NTSB. The closest point between the two aircraft was about 1,400 feet, a preliminary report from the agency stated.

“The reason it’s important, I use the American Airlines recent one at JFK, is that we have a crew who cross over an active runway not aware, they take off and they continue on to London … and the CVR gets overwritten,” Ward said. “So now we have to rely on crew statements to find out what was going on in the cockpit — whereas if we have a cockpit voice recorder, we can kind of hear that occurring in real time, like if there’s any kind of discussion, if there’s any distraction noises, communications with [air traffic control], anything that might be occurring there in the cockpit.”

The NTSB recently subpoenaed the crew of that American Airlines flight after they “refused” three requests for interviews. The NTSB said the crew “refused to be interviewed on the basis that their statements would be audio recorded for transcription.”

“The transcripts of each flight crew member’s account of the activities and conversation leading up to the runway incursion is particularly important in the absence of a cockpit voice recording,” the NTSB said in a statement.

The crew subsequently agreed to be interviewed in compliance with the subpoena.

“Twenty-five-hour CVRs don’t just help all of us learn from accidents and incidents, it helps operators improve safety,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said during a safety summit convened by the FAA on Wednesday. “The fact is, Europe has mandated 25 hours … for over a year. We should do the same.”

ABC News’ Clara McMichael and Sam Sweeney contributed to this report.

He was freed from a Nicaraguan prison and now urges Biden admin to protect migrants like him

March 16, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Last month, the door to Yubrank Suazo’s cell in a Nicaraguan prison flung open in the middle of the night as officers told him to put on his clothes and gather his personal items. Recalling that moment in a recent interview, Suazo said the officers did not tell him or the other 221 prisoners they gathered in similar fashion where they were going, even as they put them on busses with covered windows.

“I thought I was going to be transferred to another cell or another prison,” Suazo told ABC News this week. “I never imagined I was going to be liberated.”

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government released those 222 people and sent them to the U.S. on Feb. 9.

The group included political prisoners like Suazo, an opposition leader who was detained after organizing protests. A senior Biden administration official said at the time that the Nicaraguan government had “decided unilaterally” to end their detention and the U.S. “facilitated transportation of those individuals once released.”

The release of the prisoners has reignited calls from advocates for President Joe Biden’s administration to redesignate and extend Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for thousands of Nicaraguans who may be at risk of being deported back to their country at a time of political turbulence there.

Suazo was jailed in Nicaragua in 2018 after participating in and organizing anti-government protests. He was released nine months later but was arrested again in 2022 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for undermining national integrity and spreading misinformation.

He told ABC News he was subjected to physical and psychological torture in detention.

In recent weeks, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, at least 272 organizations and Suazo have urged the administration to protect Nicaraguans through TPS.

“I’m going to continue to raise my voice for the Nicaraguan community that has had to leave home because of oppression and persecution,” Suazo said. “I’ve lived through that pain, and that’s why I’m calling on the Biden administration to approve TPS for Nicaraguans who have no guarantee of returning to our county safely.”

TPS is issued by the secretary of Homeland Security when countries are deemed too unsafe for their citizens to return — like in Afghanistan, after the Taliban took control of the national government there in 2021.

The protections, which prevent deportation but don’t lead to citizenship, were first granted to Nicaraguans after Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America in 1998. In 2017, the Trump administration moved to end TPS for Nicaragua and several other countries, saying it wasn’t necessary any longer because those countries were recovering.

That prompted a series of legal challenges on behalf of current TPS holders and the designation for Nicaragua, Sudan, Haiti, and El Salvador has been extended while a preliminary injunction in the case remains in place pending further judicial review.

Only those Nicaraguan immigrants who physically resided in the U.S. before Jan. 5, 1999, are shielded under the program from the threat of deportation. There were 4,250 Nicaraguan TPS beneficiaries in the U.S. as of 2021, according to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services congressional report.

Suazo and others who support extending the protections are calling on the Biden administration to redesignate the program with a later eligibility cutoff date, which they say would extend it to thousands of more Nicaraguans.

In a February letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, 16 Republican and Democratic lawmakers from multiple states noted that more than 500 Nicaraguans have been killed in Nicaragua since 2018 and tens of thousands have fled the country, which the lawmakers linked to the opposition to Ortega and resulting crackdown.

The lawmakers warned that failure to protect Nicaraguans through TPS would mean some would have to leave the U.S. for life under “President Ortega’s authoritarian regime,” which they called an “unconscionable reality.”

Both the White House and Department of Homeland Security declined to comment when asked if they’re considering redesignating TPS for Nicaragua.

Biden’s immigration policies have been a point of contention, among Republicans and some advocates, as the administration has sought to mitigate a record number of migrants arriving in the country at the southern border.

While the White House says it wants to roll back the hardline stances of predecessor Donald Trump, conservatives have assailed some of its policies as “reckless” and immigration supporters have criticized other decisions, such as restrictions to asylum claims.

In fiscal year 2022, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered migrants over 2.7 million times. At the southern border, CBP had 163,876 encounters with Nicaraguan migrants, more than triple the year before.

The Biden administration recently announced a new parole program to accept up to 30,000 total asylum-seekers each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. However, the program was coupled with an agreement from Mexico to accept migrants who are expelled by the U.S. when they fail to meet the strict parole requirements, such as having a sponsor in the U.S. who can be financially responsible for them.

Some Republican-led states are challenging the parole program, saying it incentivizes more migrants to come to the U.S.

Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney representing TPS holders under the preliminary injunction, said that if the Biden administration thinks immigrants fleeing a specific country warrant parole, they should also warrant protection through TPS.

“The administration obviously recognizes that Nicaragua is not safe for, at least, many people,” Arulanantham said.

Advocates argue that with ex-President Trump running for reelection, Biden is running out of time to act on an issue that has for decades stymied Congress.

“In the absence of congressional action, this is one of the most valuable tools that they can use at this moment to offer protections to people who really call America their home at this point and can’t return to some to these countries which are in deteriorating conditions,” said Beatriz Lopez, chief political and communications officer at Immigration Hub.

Now in the U.S., Suazo has humanitarian parole for about two years but may be at risk of removal if the administration does not redesignate TPS for Nicaragua.

The fear of not being able to safely return to his homeland to see his elderly parents is what worries him the most, he said.

“I pray each day that I’ll return one day and find them alive waiting to give me a hug,” he said. “All of us who have left our country due to a cowardly dictatorship share that feeling.”

Quinta Brunson schools woman who claimed she isn’t qualified to speak on public education

March 16, 2023 by WDNY Radio

Quinta Brunson, the Emmy-winning creator of ABC’s hit sitcom Abbot Elementary, has schooled an online sniper who implied Quinta isn’t qualified to speak about public education.

“I’ll share it again. The creator, lead writer and co-producer of [Abbott Elementary] @quintabrunson is from West Philly and attended charter schools her entire education,” tweeted Jeanne Allen, the CEO of an organization called Center for Education Reform.

“She reportedly loved it at the time, heaped praise on it. Once upon a time. Guess money talks,” she noted.

Brunson, who plays a public school teacher in the show, which deals with funding and other issues affecting young Americans’ education, clapped back, “You’re wrong and bad at research. I only attended a charter for high school. My public elementary school was transitioned to charter over a decade after I left.”

She added, “I did love my high school. That school is now defunct- which happens to charters often.”

Cheekily, Brunson also added, “Loving something doesn’t mean it can’t be critiqued. Thanks for watching the show :).”

Quinta’s lesson got more than 32,000 likes and counting, but that didn’t stop Allen, who didn’t admit she was incorrect, saying instead the show creator “quibbled with the facts.”

Brunson’s fans had a field day, with one opining, “Corrected your inaccurate and misleading statements = ‘Quibbled with the facts’? You’re kind of embarrassing yourself here. You should stop.”

Another offered, “Please stop using this woman for clout. You’ve been proven wrong. Go ask for a manager or call the cops or whatever else you do for fun.”

I Prevail levitates in new “Deep End” video

March 16, 2023 by WDNY Radio

I Prevail has premiered the video for “Deep End,” a track off the band’s new album, True Power.

The clip finds the Michigan rockers performing inside a house when everything starts floating in the air. You can watch it now streaming on YouTube.

“‘Deep End’ felt special from the day we wrote it,” I Prevail says. “Being one of the most introspective tracks on the record, it became a reflection on an attempt to stop battling certain things about yourself and instead learning to accept them as a part of who you are. There’s a peace to be found in that.”

The group adds, “Overall, this track allowed us to evolve the softer side of our band and we’re incredibly proud of it.”

True Power was released last August. It also includes the single “Bad Things.”

(Video contains uncensored profanity.)

Ben Affleck on that Grammy meme, nailing Batman in ‘The Flash’ and why he’s done with superhero movies

March 16, 2023 by WDNY Radio

In a wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Ben Affleck finally unpacked that Grammys moment between him and wife Jennifer Lopez.

Contrary to the memes, Ben insists, “I had a good time at the Grammys.”

He explained, “My wife was going, and I thought, ‘Well, there’ll be good music. It might be fun.'”

However, with Grammy show host Trevor Noah approaching them, Affleck recalls, “I was like, ‘Oh, God.’ … I leaned into her and I was like, ‘As soon they start rolling, I’m going to slide away from you and leave you sitting next to Trevor.’ She goes, ‘You better f****** not leave.'”

In the piece, Affleck also said of his apparently final turn as Bruce Wayne/Batman, “I nailed it in The Flash. For the five minutes I’m there, it’s really great.”

On the other hand, “You could teach a seminar” on what went wrong with 2017’s Justice League, which left him “with the most monstrous taste in my mouth.”

Director Zack Snyder was forced to leave the film after his daughter Autumn‘s death by suicide, and Joss Whedon entered with much-lambasted reshoots and re-edits.

Affleck called it “the worst experience I’ve ever seen in a business which is full of some s***** experiences. … And I started to drink too much. I was back at the hotel in London, it was either that or jump out the window. And I just thought, ‘This isn’t the life I want. My kids aren’t here. I’m miserable.'”

While he was going to direct what became The Batman at one point, the Oscar winner says he’s done with the genre and will “absolutely not” direct for DC Studios CEO James Gunn.

Ben adds, “I have nothing against James Gunn. Nice guy, sure he’s going to do a great job.”

Billie Eilish featured in new Amazon Prime Video series ‘Swarm’

March 16, 2023 by WDNY Radio

Billie Eilish already has an Oscar, but she is now making her acting debut in the new Donald Glover series Swarm.

An episode clip was teased Thursday, which shows a blond Eilish creepily asking Dominique Fishback‘s character, Dre, if she hurt someone and praising her when the answer is yes.

Swarm premieres Friday, March 17, on Amazon Prime Video. It stars Fishback as a “young woman whose obsession with a pop star takes a dark turn.”

As for Eilish’s Oscar, she won Best Original Song at the 2022 ceremony for her James Bond song, “No Time to Die.”

U2’s Bono and The Edge recall once viewing ABBA as “the National Anthem for young mothers”

March 16, 2023 by WDNY Radio

U2‘s Bono and The Edge are out and proud fans of ABBA — but they once viewed their music as “the National Anthem for young mothers.”

Speaking to BBC’s The Radio 2 Piano Room, the rockers chatted about their love of the band and explained why they tried to hide it when they were younger.

Bono recalled feeling a certain pressure to appear macho, and to do that, it meant consuming punk music over pop songs.

Edge explained that, although they didn’t “want to own up to ABBA,” his perspective on their music has now shifted. “I’ll tell you what, they’re just better songs. You can’t be empirical about everything in art,” the guitarist said.

Bono added, “I didn’t have the courage to own up to this next band when I was 16 in the middle of punk rock.” He also recalled being confused about why ABBA was such a phenomenon when he was younger, saying, “At closing time at our local pub, often young women would sing ‘Thank You for the Music’, and I would sing it — and I was very thankful for the music.”

They now understand why ABBA was and continues to be a phenomenon. “We’re big fans of this Scandinavian band, appreciators of their work in a way that grew over years,” said Edge.

He continued, “We’re fans of lots of great songwriters who aren’t necessarily seen as very hip, and I guess we’re just appreciators of their work.”

Bono also reflected on the time U2 “murdered ‘Dancing Queen'” at a concert in 1992 alongside ABBA singers Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson.

The two then dove into a Johnny Cash-twist on the classic ABBA song “S.O.S.”

Ford recalling over 1 million cars over brake hose issue

March 16, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Ford announced this week that it is recalling more than 1.2 million of its vehicles over a serious issue with its brake fluid hoses.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Ford Fusions and Lincoln MKXs sold between 2013 and 2018 have an issue where the front brake hoses may rupture and leak brake fluid.

“A brake fluid leak will increase brake pedal travel and extend the distance needed to stop the vehicle, increasing the risk of [a] crash,” the NHTSA said.

Owners will be notified about the recall in letters, the agency said. Dealers will replace the front brake hoses, free of charge, according to the NHTSA.

Owners can contact Ford at 1-866-436-7332, and ask about recall 23S12, or contact the NHTSA at 1-888-327-4236.

Convicted North Dakota woman speaks publicly for 1st time about husband’s death

March 16, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — During a thorough investigation into her husband’s murder, police repeatedly heard Nikki Entzel’s ever-changing story about what happened to her husband, often contradicting the evidence they had collected.

“20/20” was granted exclusive access to a one-on-one conversation with the woman recently convicted of conspiring to kill her husband, Chad Entzel, to ask her about details from the case. During the interview, Entzel maintained her innocence.

A new 20/20 episode titled, “The Last Strike,” set to premiere Friday, March 17, at 9 p.m. ET and streaming on Hulu the next day, will explore the case.

“Do I eventually want to figure out what happened? Yes. I wish I had every resource in the world to figure out what really happened? Yes, I do,” Nikki Entzel told ABC News’ John Quiñones. “Do I have every resource in the world to figure out what happened? No. Nobody does.”

On the evening of January 2, 2020, authorities were alerted to a report of a fire at the home of Chad and Nikki Sue Entzel.

When the fire department reached the Entzel household that fateful day, they were met by more than just a smoky home – they found Chad Entzel himself, dead in the bedroom.

Friends and family remembered Chad Entzel as an avid bowler, darts player, and stock car racer, and they said Nikki Entzel enjoyed owning a baking business. They lived with Nikki Entzel’s two sons from previous relationships on the quiet outskirts of Bismarck, North Dakota.

For a time, authorities couldn’t quite put their finger on how Chad Entzel had died. After finding two gunshot wounds and traces of fire accelerant, they concluded foul play was involved.

An in-depth investigation led to the trial and conviction of his wife – and another person, Earl Howard, a married man from Canada with whom she had recently started an affair, police said. Authorities theorized they hoped to abscond with the insurance money and move to Texas together.

Howard ended up pleading guilty to various charges, including conspiracy to commit murder and arson. In making the plea deal, prosecutors agreed to drop a murder charge. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in February 2022.

Nikki Entzel, however, faced a trial. She was convicted in October 2022 of conspiracy to commit arson, conspiracy to commit murder, and conspiracy to tamper with physical evidence, and in February 2023, she was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Authorities were unable to determine which of the two defendants shot Chad Entzel.

When asked if Howard pulled the trigger, Nikki Entzel told Quiñones she “wasn’t there” and “can’t say that for one hundred percent.” Howard denied to authorities that he pulled the trigger.

Nikki Entzel claimed to Quiñones that she was out on a walk when the trigger was pulled – in the middle of the night – at a hotel across town, in freezing temperatures. Nikki Entzel said she left for a walk from the hotel room around 1 a.m., and “did not stop continuously stepping until 2:42 AM.”

However, when police questioned Nikki Entzel in the days after Chad Entzel’s murder, she offered an entirely different scenario. Nikki Entzel told police in early 2020 that she was at the house and heard gunshots on the night of the murder.

Nikki Entzel acknowledged in her interview with ABC News that her various alibis over the last two years don’t always align.

“My story changes so many different times,” she said, “that none of them are really consistent.”

Julie Lawyer, the Burleigh County State’s Attorney who prosecuted the Entzel case, described to ABC News Nikki Entzel’s various stories throughout the investigation.

“There was no telling [the investigators] what they wanted to hear,” Lawyer said. “It was telling them what she thought she could get away with.”

Aaron Silbernagel, former Sergeant with the Burleigh County Sheriff’s Department, described his method of breaking down Nikki Entzel’s many stories.

“I didn’t correct her on them always,” Silbernagel told ABC News. “I would just keep pointing out that I know more, and then have her explain it.”

Among her denials was Nikki Entzel’s characterization of her relationship with Howard. Authorities said they had clear evidence that Entzel lied in her interrogations about their relationship. Investigators discovered surveillance video that showed Nikki Entzel and Howard kissing publicly before leaving a local Walmart, days before the murder was committed.

When ABC News asked about this romantic entanglement, Entzel denied it and claimed Howard was “not my type.”

“I didn’t see no kiss given at all,” she initially told ABC News, though she later seemed to concede in the same interview that a kiss could have happened. “I don’t know, he leaned down, I leaned up,” Nikki Entzel said. “Have I kissed many friends on the cheek? Have I kissed my kids on the cheek? Have I kissed exes on the cheek? Yeah.”

“20/20” also acquired never-before-seen footage of Howard speaking with investigators, where he told authorities his version of events.

Howard is seen in the video claiming that he did have a romantic relationship with Nikki Entzel.

“I took a trip to Minnesota,” Howard said, “and she met me in Minneapolis. We went to the Mall of America. And that’s where the affair started.”

Howard claimed to authorities that Nikki Entzel went into the house and shot her husband, but that he later offered to “take care of it” for her by burning evidence.

Nikki Entzel’s attorney, Thomas Glass, has filed the initial paperwork to start the appeals process.

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