Gospel singer, songwriter and producer Fred Hammond has landed his fourth number one spot on the Billboard Gospel Airplay chart, this time with his 2021 single, “Hallelujah.”
Billboard reports that, according to Luminate data, the song ascended to the top spot with an increase of 11% in plays for the week ending July 3.
“After many years and many, many songs that have made the charts and even No. 1s, It’s still a tremendous blessing to make it here once again,” Hammond tells Billboard. “It never gets old.”
Co-written by Hammond and Asaph Ward, “Hallelujah” serves as his first number-one single since August 2020 when “Alright” led for two weeks. “I Feel Good” also led for two weeks in April and May of 2012 and was preceded by “They That Wait” featuring John P. Kee in 2009.
Taking to Instagram to celebrate the achievement, Hammond thanked his fans and those who contributed to the hit song.
“This #Blessing never gets old. Thank you Lord always love and appreciate you and your grace,” he said in the caption. “Thank you to my family #Rayhammond @asaphawardand the entire Face To Face warehouse worship family. Also my main man #KortezHarris #lewiskortezgroup and especially gospel radio, all program directors , thank you we’ve been rocking a long time. All satellite radio especially #kirkfranklinpraisexm and to all of you that strained and downloaded this praise offering.”
(WASHINGTON) — In his first network interview, the director of the United States Marshals Service told ABC News the U.S. Marshals Service is focusing on “trigger pullers” — repeat offenders who shoot and kill.
Director Ronald Davis told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas that he is using his nearly 30 years in law enforcement to help push the effort.
The U.S. Marshals’ most recent operation, which spanned the entire month of June, dubbed “Operation North Star,” made more than 1,500 arrests in cities such as Washington, D.C., Memphis, New York and Philadelphia among others, and took hundreds of guns as well as narcotics off the street.
“I believe that if you are focusing on those who create the most violence that are responsible for the most violence, two things end up happening. One, you do remove trigger pullers off the street, those who are shooters, and it impacts crime and violence. You also bring justice to the families that have been terrorized by them,” he said in the interview, set to air Thursday evening on ABC News Live “Prime.”
Last year, the Marshals Service arrested nearly 6,000 murder suspects, Davis said.
Speaking in the wake of the July 4 mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, he said violent crime is an “us problem,” meaning that it touches everyone, regardless of race, creed or background.
“It’s such a ‘we’ problem that you don’t have to be the victim of a violent crime to be impacted by violent crime,” Davis said. “If it is causing you not to go shopping, you’re a victim of violent crime. If it’s caused, you know, not to go to a parade, you’ve been influenced by violent crime.”
It spans political ideology, he continued.
“It’s not left or right,” he said. “There’s no leaning to this. We’re just trying to save lives. And I think that’s the key for the Marshals Service, we look at it as when we’re arresting a fugitives, that we’re bringing justice. But ultimately, we’re hoping that we’re saving lives.”
When there is not a crisis, Davis said that is when community engagement is best.
“It’s when there’s not a surge in violence that you have to engage the community so that when there is a crisis that you come together, you already have a relationship to respond,” he explained.
Davis said that it is now more important than ever for the police to have a relationship with the community, and that for him, policing and community relations is personal.
“It goes with trust and building trust one interaction at a time, one city at a time,” Davis said. “But it is really making sure that our strategies to reduce crime and violence don’t call the kind of collateral damage that we talked about that we are enforcing and protecting the Constitution of the United States, but being very effective and bringing justice to communities.
“As an African-American male, it’s not just communicating to my community, but quite frankly, communicating to my deputies. And with inside the agency, the experience of growing up as a black man in America is unique. And I would hope that that experience that I bring to the job helps me, helps guide me in the decisions that need to make in understanding and having empathy, why people may be hesitant, why there may be apprehension, why there could be a lack of trust,” he said.
Davis said he hopes his experience in law enforcement and as an African American man can help build trust amongst law enforcement, but that even in his own personal life, and as a high-ranking law enforcement official, he still has to sit his son down and have a conversation about how to interact with the police as an African American male.
“The fact that I have to have that conversation, the fact that it’s a mandatory course for families of color means we have a lot of work to do,” he said. “And so there’s this I’ve struggled with over the years, but I’ve come to a reconciliation that both of these truths can coexist. I can accept that the vast majority of men and women in law enforcement are outstanding, but also can accept that we have historical context and practices that still have disparate impacts. And so we need to address both use the outstanding men and women to do so.”
Davis said he is seeing an increase in law enforcement assaults, but does not know the root cause of the increase in violence.
“We’re definitely seeing an increase in assaults against law enforcement, against our deputies, within the Marshal Service, our task force officers that the agencies we’re working with,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday will award 17 individuals with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
The medal is given to those who made “especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, soccer star Megan Rapinoe and actor Denzel Washington are among this year’s recipients.
The ceremony will be held at the White House.
Rapinoe, an advocate for gender equality and LGBTQ rights, said she received a call in between practices from the White House informing her she had received the honor.
“In that moment I spoke to the President, I was, and still am, totally overwhelmed,” Rapinoe said in a statement shared by U.S. Soccer. She also said that she is thinking of “all the people who I feel deserve a part of this medal.”
Late Sen. John McCain will be awarded the honor posthumously, as will Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and former AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka.
McCain, a Purple Heart recipient and prisoner of war in Vietnam, has been lauded as a war hero and spent decades serving the people of Arizona in the Senate. The Republican died in 2018 after succumbing to glioblastoma in 2018.
“My family and I are extremely honored that my dad will posthumously be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As a man who dedicated his life in service of his country, I know my dad would be humbled to receive the nation’s highest civilian honor,” Jack McCain, McCain’s son, said in a statement.
Other former lawmakers to receive the honor are Gabby Giffords, who became a leading voice for gun control after surviving a 2011 mass shooting, and Alan Simpson, who served in the Senate for nearly two decades.
The list of awardees also includes several social justice advocates, including: Sister Simone Campbell, a member of Sisters of Social Service; Fred Gray, a distinguished civil rights attorney whose clients included Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Diane Nash, a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and Raúl Yzaguirre, who served as CEO and president of National Council of La Raza for 30 years.
Other recipients include Wilma Vaught, one of the most decorated women in U.S. military history; Sandra Lindsay, a nurse who was the first American to receive the COVID-19 vaccine; Khizr Khan, the father of U.S. Army captain who was killed in Iraq; Father Alexander Karloutsos, a priest who advised several U.S. presidents; and Dr. Julieta García, who was the first Hispanic woman to serve as a college president.
Biden will be the first president to give out these medals after receiving one himself in 2017. Former President Barack Obama awarded Biden for his “lifetime of service that will endure through the generations.”
Earlier this week, Biden presented four U.S. Army veterans with the Medal of Honor for their “acts of gallantry and intrepidity” during the Vietnam War.
Specialist 5 Dwight W. Birdwell, Major John J. Duffy and Specialist 5 Dennis M. Fujii were awarded the honor at a White House ceremony on Tuesday. John Kaneshiro, the son of Staff Sergeant Edward N. Kaneshiro, accepted the award on his late father’s behalf.
“They went far above and beyond the call of duty. It’s a phrase always used but it just — it takes on life when you see these men,” Biden said during the event.
(WASHINGTON) — Following months of hardships and devastating losses in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse in New York, became a symbol of hope for people across the globe when she became the first person in the United States to receive a COVID-19 vaccine following emergency authorization from federal officials.
Seemingly overnight, Lindsay, who got the shot in December of 2020, became a prominent vaccine advocate, urging others to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and help curb the virus’s spread.
In light of her advocacy, Lindsay will be one of seventeen recipients to be honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden.
“I’m honored to hold this place in history,” Lindsay told ABC News prior to the ceremony.
In the hours following her vaccination, the image of Lindsay receiving her shot circulated rapidly across the country, as millions celebrated it as a symbolic light at the end of the tunnel after the pandemic had forced families apart.
The Americans honored with the medal “demonstrate the power of possibilities and embody the soul of the nation – hard work, perseverance, and faith,” according to a press release from the White House “[and] have overcome significant obstacles to achieve impressive accomplishments in the arts and sciences, dedicated their lives to advocating for the most vulnerable among us, and acted with bravery to drive change in their communities – and across the world – while blazing trails for generations to come.”
Lindsay will be honored alongside other Presidential Medal of Honor recipients, including former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, Khizr Khan, a Gold Star father and founder of the Constitution Literacy and National Unity Center, and actor Denzel Washington.
Last month, Lindsay initially missed the call from the White House informing her of the award, initially believing it was a prank call. When she learned that the honor was real, Lindsay said she was “overwhelmed” with emotions.
“I was just overwhelmed with pride, joy, gratitude and just immediately thought about what that meant for others, for people who look like me — for young ladies, for black women, for immigrants, for Jamaicans, for Americans, nurses, health care workers, minorities,” Lindsay said.
Lindsay, who works as the director of patient care services in critical care at Northwell Health, said was met with an incredibly positive public reaction following her vaccine, with some people telling her they were inspired to get the shot because of her.
For Lindsay, who was raised in Jamaica by her grandparents and moved to the United States in 1986, the honor is beyond anything she could have imagined.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would be in this position. But I said yes. I said yes not knowing what I was getting into, but knowing that it was the right thing to do, and here I am today, so anything is possible,” Lindsay said.
With 70 million eligible Americans still unvaccinated, Lindsay stressed that her advocacy work is not done.
“We have made significant strides, but [COVID-19] is still here, and it still poses a threat to you, if you are not protected. I encourage everyone to go get themselves vaccinated,” Lindsay said. “If you’re not vaccinated, you’re still not protected.”
Do you struggle to remember people? You might have something in common with Brad Pitt.
The Oscar winner recently opened up about his struggle with prosopagnosia, commonly referred to as “face blindness.”
Though the actor has never officially been diagnosed with the disorder characterized by the inability to recognize faces, he recently told GQthat some think he’s remote, aloof, inaccessible or self-absorbed because he can’t remember them.
At the time, Pitt told the magazine he preferred to stay at home instead of going out, saying, “You meet so many damned people. And then you meet ’em again.”
He admitted he had difficulty remembering people even if he had “a real conversation with them.”
“So many people hate me because they think I’m disrespecting them,” he said.
Pitt revealed that he tried being honest with people and asking them where they had met before, but that backfired. “…It just got worse,” he said of that experiment. “People were more offended.”
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, prosopagnosia is thought to be the result of “abnormalities, damage, or impairment” in the part of the brain that “appears to coordinate the neural systems that control facial perception and memory.”
It may also result from stroke, traumatic brain injury or “certain neurodegenerative diseases.”
“There’s a wide spectrum of symptoms people can have and of the severity in which they are affected by this,” Dr. Leah Croll, an assistant professor of neurology at the Temple University Hospital, recently told “Good Morning America.
“For some people, it may be just some minor difficulties in remembering people’s names and keeping strangers straight,” she said. “And for other people, it may be more severe…they have issues with recognizing their own friends and family or even…recognizing their own reflection.”
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jul 07, 9:26 am
Moscow views nuclear weapons only as a deterrent, Russian official says
Russia considers nuclear weapons only as a deterrent, according to Valentina Matviyenko, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council.
“Russia views nuclear weapons only as a deterrent,” Matviyenko said Thursday at a press conference.
The official noted that Russia has “clearly and strictly prescribed those exceptional cases when [nuclear weapons] can only be used in response to — God forbid that this never happens — a nuclear attack.”
“We behave like a civilized country, and we do it openly,” Matviyenko added.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, Max Uzol, and Fidel Pavlenko
Jul 07, 8:16 am
Russia claims no new ground for first time since invasion’s start
Russia claimed no territorial gains in Ukraine on Wednesday for the first time since the beginning of its invasion in late February, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in its latest report.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed territorial gains every day from the start of the war but has not done so since completing the encirclement of the eastern town Lysychansk on July 3, the ISW said.
The Washington-based think tank said the lull in Russian ground force movements supports its assessment that Russian forces “have largely initiated an operational pause.”
The break in operations is not equal to a complete ceasefire, however, as Russian troops still conducted a number of unsuccessful attacks on all frontlines, the experts added.
Russian troops are instead trying to set up conditions for a bigger offensive as they rebuild their combat power, the ISW report said.
Russia has already increased its fleet in the Black Sea on the shores of Ukraine, local media reported on Wednesday. The Russian naval presence grew by several missile carriers, as well as submarines and an amphibious assault ship.
Ukrainian officials refuted Russian claims on Wednesday according to which Russian troops destroyed two HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems supplied by the U.S.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy added that the Western supplied artillery “started working very powerfully” and at full capacity.
“Finally, it is felt that the Western artillery, the weapons we received from our partners, started working very powerfully,” Zelenskyy said in his Wednesday evening address. “Its accuracy is exactly as needed,” the president added.
Zelenskyy said the Western weapons have carried out strikes on depots and areas of logistical importance to Russian troops. “And this significantly reduces the offensive potential of the Russian army,” Zelenskyy noted, adding that Russian losses “will only increase every week, as will the difficulty of supplying [Russian troops].”
Ukrainian forces celebrated another symbolic victory on Thursday when they raised their national flag on Snake Island, a recaptured Black Sea isle located 90 miles south of the Ukrainian port of Odesa that became a symbol of defiance against Moscow, according to local reports.
Images released by Ukraine’s interior ministry on Thursday showed three Ukrainian soldiers raising the blue and yellow national flag on a patch of ground on Snake Island next to the remains of a flattened building.
But Russia responded to the flag-raising ceremony fast. It said one of its warplanes had struck Snake Island shortly afterwards and destroyed part of the Ukrainian detachment there.
Russia abandoned Snake Island at the end of June in what it said was a gesture of goodwill, raising Ukrainian hopes of unblocking local ports shut off by Russia.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, Max Uzol, and Fidel Pavlenko
Jul 06, 10:02 am
Blinken to urge G20 to press Russia on grain deliveries
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to appeal to G20 countries to put pressure on Russia to make it support the U.N. initiative on unblocking the sea lanes for Ukraine and allow grain exports, according to local media reports.
“G20 countries should hold Russia accountable and insist that it supports ongoing U.N. efforts to reopen the sea lanes for grain delivery,” said Ramin Toloui, assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs.
Toloui referred to a U.N. campaign aiming to expedite Ukrainian and Russian exports of harvest and fertilizer to global markets.
Around 22 million tons of grain remain blocked in Ukrainian ports due to the threat of Russian attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.
Ukraine is in active negotiations with Turkey and the U.N. to solve the grain export stalemate, Zelenskyy added.
Blinken is also expected to once again warn China against backing Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.
“[The upcoming G20 summit] will be another opportunity … to convey our expectations about what we would expect China to do and not to do in the context of Ukraine,” the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Kritenbrink, said.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Max Uzol and Nataliia Kushnir
Jul 06, 8:42 am
Russia aims to seize territory far beyond the Donbas, Putin’s ally suggests
Russia’s main objective in its invasion of Ukraine is still regime change in Kyiv and the dismantling of Ukrainian sovereignty, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev suggested in a speech on Tuesday.
Patrushev said the Russian “military operation” in Ukraine will continue until Russia achieves its goals of protecting civilians from “genocide,” “denazifying” and demilitarizing Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The Russian official added that Ukraine must remain permanently neutral between Russia and NATO. Petrushev’s remarks nearly mirrored the goals Russian President Vladimir Putin announced at the onset of the war to justify the military invasion.
Patrushev, a close Putin ally, repeated the Russian President’s stated ambitions despite Russia’s military setbacks in Ukraine and previous hints at a reduction in war aims following those defeats, the ISW pointed out.
Patrushev’s explicit restatement of Putin’s initial objectives “strongly indicates” that Russia does not consider its recent territorial gains in the Luhansk region to be sufficient, the ISW experts said.
Russia “has significant territorial aspirations beyond the Donbas” and “is preparing for a protracted war with the intention of taking much larger portions of Ukraine,” the observers added.
Patrushev’s comments dampened hopes for a “compromise ceasefire or even peace based on limited additional Russian territorial gains,” the experts concluded.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Max Uzol and Nataliia Kushnir
(CHICAGO) — The father of the alleged Highland Park parade shooter, Bobby Crimo Jr., has told ABC News that he is not culpable in the Independence Day attack, in spite of having signed a consent form for his son to apply for gun ownership.
“I had no — not an inkling, warning — that this was going to happen,” Crimo told ABC News about the Fourth of July attack his son, Robert “Bobby” Crimo III, carried out in Highland Park, Ill. “I am just shocked.”
Crimo claims both he and his wife asked their son just days before if he had any plans for the holiday. “He said ‘no.’ That was it,” Crimo recalled.
Crimo says he spent nearly an hour with his son in his yard the night before the attack talking about the planet. “Great mood,” he remembered. “I’m just shocked.”
Crimo says he never saw his son as a danger to anyone, but authorities recently disclosed past instances of violence. In 2019, police in Highland Park confiscated 16 knives, a dagger and a sword from the suspect’s home after a family member called claiming he “was going to kill everyone.”
“Making threats to the family … I think [that was] taken out of context,” Crimo said about authorities’ description of the 2019 incident. “It’s like just a child’s outburst, whatever he was upset about, and I think his sister called the police — I wasn’t living there.” Crimo said police removed his son’s knife collection from the home, after he was asked if there were any weapons in the house.
Authorities did not open a criminal investigation.
Later that same year, Crimo signed an affidavit allowing Crimo III to apply to obtain a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) Card — needed in the state of Illinois to purchase firearms or ammunition.
“I filled out the consent form to allow my son to go through the process that the Illinois State Police have in place for an individual to obtain a FOID card,” Crimo said. “They do background checks. Whatever that entails, I’m not exactly sure. And either you’re approved or denied, and he was approved.”
On Wednesday, Illinois State Police announced there will be a criminal investigation into Crimo’s culpability because he sponsored his son’s application for a firearm owner identification card in 2019.
“Do I regret that? No, not three years ago — signing a consent form to go through the process … that’s all it was,” said Crimo, adding that he is not worried about potential legal consequences. “Had I purchased guns throughout the years and given them to him in my name, that’s a different story. But he went through that whole process himself.” Crimo said his son purchased the weapons with his own money and registered them in his own name.
Crimo claims he had no involvement with him purchasing weapons and learned of his son’s firearm collection when he displayed a “Glock handgun” he purchased on his 21st birthday. “Oh, looks nice,” he says he told Crimo III.
Crimo III’s FOID card was renewed in 2021 without the involvement of his father, according to authorities.
Crimo says he does not know the motive behind his son’s actions. “That’s what I’d like to ask him when I see him,” said Crimo. “Whatever was going on in his head at the time … to go kill and hurt innocent people is just senseless.” Crimo says his “heart goes out to all of the families that were affected.”
Crimo III killed seven people and injured dozens of others in the attack.
“I think about them all the time,” his father told ABC News. “I even had some people that were injured that I personally know.”
Prior to the shooting, Crimo’s son left a trail of disturbing images online — including depictions of shootings. He was also an amateur rapper with a little over 16,000 monthly listeners on Spotify; his last music release featured an album cover of a cartoon character aiming a gun.
“The online content I’m not aware of till recently,” said Crimo, adding that he saw his son as an “artist,” but did not always understand his work. “Maybe I’ve seen a couple of them in the past, and I’d look at them and go ‘that’s not you,’ because I know it’s like an act.”
Crimo denied rumors of his son suffering abuse at home. “Never, never,” he said, and he added that he and his wife are “very much against it.”
“I kept hearing all this stuff about … horrible parenting,” Crimo said. “He wasn’t raised that way. He has good morals,” he added.
“This isn’t Bobby,” Crimo said of his son’s actions. “I guess that’s why it’s so hard to wrap yourself around it. It doesn’t add up.”
Crimo III is charged with seven counts of first-degree murder and more charges are expected, Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said. Prosecutors said that Crimo III confessed to Monday morning’s parade massacre. He did not enter a plea during a bond hearing on Wednesday. He is being held without bond and is set to return to court for a preliminary hearing on July 28.
Crimo said the whole system needs to be overhauled, to prevent tragedies like this from happening again. “We need to come together as a community here in the country to come up with something, whether it’s new laws, guidelines … this country is our problem right here.”
WNBA star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty on Thursday morning to drug charges in a Russian court, saying that the vape cartridges containing hashish oil were in her luggage unintentionally.
ABC News was present inside the courtroom when Griner was asked if she would like to give testimony.
“I would like to plead myself guilty,” she said. “I did not have any intention on breaking Russian law,” she continued, adding that she was is in a rush and did not mean to leave the cartridges in her bag.
Griner’s trial, which is taking place in Khimki — a suburb of Moscow — began last Friday, more than four and a half months after Griner was detained. She is expected to appear in court on July 14 for the third day of her trial.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist was visiting Russia to play basketball in the off-season when she was detained at Sheremetyevo International Airport on Feb. 17 for having vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in the country.
Her detention was repeatedly extended, most recently through Dec. 20, which is the expected length of her trial. If convicted, Griner, 31, faces up to 10 years in prison.
As previously reported, Griner sent President Joe Biden a handwritten letter seeking assistance with her detainment in Russia and asking him not to forget about her.
“I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner said in the note obtained by ABC News. “I am grateful for whatever you can do at this moment to get me home.”
According to the White House, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harriscalled Brittney Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, to discuss release efforts.
Celebrities and fellow athletes have shown support to the Phoenix Mercury star with the “Free Brittney Griner” movement.
(BALTIMORE) — As federal officials move to address growing concerns over an outbreak of monkeypox in the U.S., an increasing number of positive cases are emerging across the country.
Last week, Brian Thomas, 32, of Baltimore became the latest American to test positive for monkeypox — a diagnosis he has been sharing openly on social media, in the hope of curbing the spread by raising awareness about the disease.
“I probably first started hearing about monkeypox a month or two ago and I really kind of wrote it off,” Thomas told ABC News. “You’re always watching it happen to other people and you’re like, ‘oh, but probably not going to happen to me, probably not going to happen a lot in the States.'”
Thomas, who had just recently traveled to Florida on a trip, said he initially thought he had contracted COVID-19, after he began to experience similar respiratory symptoms, often associated with the virus, such as fatigue and body aches. However, both of the COVID-19 tests he took came back negative.
After two suspicious lesions emerged on Thomas’ body, he realized that his symptoms were potentially connected to monkeypox. He “immediately” contacted his health care provider, he said.
After getting tested for monkeypox, Thomas’ test came back positive. Although Thomas, a travel nurse, said he was expecting to have monkeypox, his diagnosis was still “shocking.”
“I know that I’m going to be fine. But what do I do now? And who have I put it at risk? I live with two other people. And that really was what was going through my mind,” Thomas said. “I felt like I’m a danger to the public and that’s never a great feeling to have.”
Now, more than a week since his diagnosis, Thomas said he is feeling better, though he is still waiting for his lesions to fully scab over and heal, which he describes as a bit itchy and painful. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that isolation precautions be continued until “all lesions have resolved, the scabs have fallen off, and a fresh layer of intact skin has formed.”
Thomas told ABC News that he feels it his duty to educate his followers on social media about monkeypox, particularly given the suggestion by some, that the virus only targets people of certain sexual orientations. Health experts stress that although a large proportion of those who are currently testing positive for monkeypox are gay and bisexual men, ultimately, anyone can contract the monkeypox, regardless of sexual orientation.
“There is a lot of stigma about monkey pox right now. The fact of the matter is, is that it is most prevalent in the gay community right now, and that has led people to believe and lead people to remark that this is a gay disease. And when something is marked as a gay disease that automatically puts stigma on it,” Thomas said. “Even though this community is the one that’s most effected now, it’s not going to stay like that forever, if the numbers increase.”
Prior to his monkeypox diagnosis, Thomas has used his social media platform to share his story as an openly HIV positive healthcare worker. Thus, Thomas said the transition to also discuss his monkeypox diagnosis online felt natural.
Although monkeypox vaccines were provided to both his roommates, Thomas stressed that he strongly believes that in order to control the outbreak, vaccines need to be made available to all high-risk people.
“If we could get the population that’s most affected right now vaccinated, we could really stop this in the track in its tracks,” Thomas said. ” I think that’s the only way that we’re going to get ahead of this before it becomes a real problem in the States.”
The federal government is currently working to ramp up its production of monkeypox vaccines, in order to make them available to different states and jurisdictions. The Department of Health and Human Services said last week that the agency will send out nearly 300,000 doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine for prevention of the disease for people who have been exposed.
As of July 1, HHS has shipped nearly 20,000 doses of JYNNEOS to 15 U.S. jurisdictions.
Since the start of the outbreak, there have been 559 confirmed monkeypox cases in the U.S. according to Global.health.
Sevendust is bringing the 21st anniversary celebration of Animosity to a close with one last U.S. tour leg.
The headlining outing, which will also feature Nonpoint on the bill, begins September 10 in Cherokee, North Carolina and will wrap up October 1 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Tickets go on sale this Friday, July 8 at 10 a.m. local time. For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit Sevendust.com.
Animosity, Sevendust’s third album, was released in 2001 and includes the singles “Praise” and “Live Again.” Sevendust first launched the anniversary tour earlier this year in March.
Sevendust’s most recent album is 2020’s Blood & Stone.
