US may allow vaccine for monkeypox to be given to men with HIV
NEW YORK — U.S. officials may broaden recommendations for who gets vaccinated against monkeypox, possibly to include many men with HIV or those recently diagnosed with other sexually transmitted diseases.
Driving the discussion is a study released Thursday showing that a higher-than-expected share of monkeypox infections are in people with other sexually transmitted infections.
Dr. John Brooks, chief medical officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s monkeypox outbreak response, said the report represents a “call to action.” Brooks said that he expected vaccine recommendations to expand and that “the White House, together with CDC, are working on a plan for what that will look like.”
Currently, the CDC recommends the vaccine to people who are a close contact of someone who has monkeypox; people who know a sexual partner was diagnosed in the past two weeks; and gay or bisexual men who had multiple sexual partners in the last two weeks in an area with known virus spread. Shots are also recommended for health care workers at high risk of exposure.
The vast majority of monkeypox cases are in men who have sex with men who reported close contact with an infected person during sex. But the new CDC report suggested infections in people with HIV and other STDs may be a bigger issue then previously realized.
The report looked at about 2,000 monkeypox cases from four states and four cities from mid-May to late July. It found 38% of those with monkeypox infections had been diagnosed with HIV, far higher than their share of the population among men who have sex with men.
The study also found that 41% of monkeypox patients had been diagnosed with an STD in the preceding year. And about 10% of those patients had been diagnosed with three or more STDs in the prior year.
Unification Church: Japan’s governing party said Thursday that an internal survey found nearly half of its national lawmakers had ties to the Unification Church, in a widening controversy that emerged after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Abe was killed July 8 during a campaign speech. Suspect Tetsuya Yamagami reportedly told police he killed Abe because of his apparent link to the Unification Church. A letter and social media postings attributed to him said large donations by his mother to the church bankrupted his family and ruined his life.
That led to revelations of widespread ties between the governing Liberal Democratic Party and the South Korea-based church, which experts say urges Japanese followers to make large donations to make amends for their ancestral sins, including Japan’s past colonization of the Korean Peninsula.
LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi said in the survey, 179 of the 379 party parliamentarians reported links to the church and related organizations. The relationships ranged from attending church events to accepting donations and receiving election support.
The Unification Church
has been accused of inappropriate recruitment and business tactics and of pressuring adherents to make large donations, which the church denies.
Vietnam karaoke fire: The death toll from a fire at a karaoke parlor in southern Vietnam has climbed to 33, officials said Thursday.
The death in a hospital of a person injured in Tuesday night’s fire added to the victims found earlier in a search of the four-story building in Thuan An city.
An online news site, VnExpress, quoted a police official as saying the high number of deaths was due to some customers ignoring employees who went to the rooms where groups were singing to tell them to escape.
Nev. journalist killed: The DNA of a now-arrested public official was found at the site of a Las Vegas investigative reporter’s fatal stabbing and the man was “very upset” about upcoming stories the reporter was pursuing,
police said Thursday.
County Public Administrator Robert Telles, a Democrat, was arrested late Wednesday after a brief police standoff at his home and hospitalized for what Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo described as self-inflicted wounds hours after investigators served a search warrant and confiscated vehicles in the criminal probe of the killing of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German.
Telles, 45, had been a focus of German’s reporting about turmoil, including complaints of administrative bullying, favoritism and Telles’ relationship with a subordinate staffer in the county office that handles property of people who die without a will or family contacts. Telles lost his bid for reelection in the June primary.
Las Vegas Police Capt. Dori Koren said Telles was identified early in the investigation as a person “upset about articles that were being written by German, as an investigative journalist,
that exposed potential wrongdoing.”
A special prosecutor in Michigan has been appointed to investigate whether the Republican candidate for attorney general and others should be criminally charged for their attempts to gain access to voting machines after the 2020 election.
The office of Democratic attorney general Dana Nessel last month asked the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, a state agency, to consider charges against nine people, including Republican Matthew DePerno, her opponent in the November election.
A phone call to DePerno’s campaign manager seeking comment was not immediately returned. He has previously said the claims were “purely based on political prosecution.”
DePerno and the others named in the Michigan documents are among the people nationwide who are facing legal implications for embracing former President
Mich. candidate probe:
Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
Europe’s record summer:
Europe smashed previous temperature records this summer, with long periods of sunshine causing sweltering conditions and droughts across much of the continent but also helping boost much-needed solar power, according to data published Thursday.
The European Commission said average temperatures from June to August were 0.7 degrees higher on the continent this year than the previous record set in 2021. In August alone, the previous monthly record from 2018 was exceeded by 1.4 degrees this year, it said.
Separately, energy think tank Ember said the European Union set a new record for solar power this summer, reducing the need for natural gas imports.
The group said the 27-nation bloc generated 12% of its electricity from solar power from May to August, up from 9% during the same period last year.