Category: ESTA News

Urinary stones are a condition in which lumps (stones) like stones form in the kidneys, ureters, and bladder, which are the paths through which urine flows in our bodies, blocking the urinary tract or causing inflammation. The causes of stones are diverse, including age, gender, region, climate, diet, and heredity. When a certain substance in the urine becomes supersaturated and the crystals grow larger, they cause problems.

The most common symptom is severe flank pain that occurs when scraping the urinary tract when a piece of stone crystal comes out with the urine. The pain currently is sometimes compared to labor pains during childbirth. If the stone irritates the bladder, symptoms of frequent urination or hematuria may occur. If left untreated for a long time, it can cause pyelonephritis or sepsis, and can even lead to kidney damage and the need for dialysis. Pain due to urinary stones can occur intermittently, so if you have ever felt pain in your side, it is advisable to visit a urology department early.

Professor Choi Jeong-hyeok of the Department of Urology at Kangdong Kyung Hee University Hospital said, “It is difficult to suspect urinary stones based on urination symptoms alone, but if you have pain in your side and hematuria, urinary stones cannot be ruled out.” He added, “Middle-aged men who have problems with urination due to benign prostatic hyperplasia or other causes that make it difficult to urinate are more likely to develop bladder stones than other people.” Caution is required regarding urinary stones, as the number of patients is rapidly increasing during heat waves these days.

According to statistics from the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service, the number of male patients with urinary stones in 2022 was about twice as high as that of female patients, and middle-aged patients in their 40s to 60s accounted for 66% of the total number of patients. By month, the number of patients was highest in August. This is because when the temperature rises and the body’s water is excessively discharged as sweat, the amount of urine decreases relatively, and currently, calcium and uric acid that form urinary stones are concentrated in the urine.

Eating habits are also closely related to stones. If you eat too much meat, rice, flour, and salty foods, animal protein, carbohydrates, sodium, etc. are excessively accumulated in the urinary tract, increasing the risk of stones. The diagnosis rate for urinary stones is about 70-80% when examined with ultrasound during regular health checkups. However, if they are too small or deep, it may be difficult to find with ultrasound, so a CT scan may be necessary.

Generally, if the stone is small, less than 5mm, and is in the lower ureter, wait for natural discharge. Sufficient water intake and appropriate intensity exercise can help discharge the stone, drug therapy is administered, and progress is observed. The most performed treatment is ‘extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy’ (ESWL). This method crushes the stone using external shock waves and allows the crushed stone to be discharged naturally. Its advantage is that it can be performed without the need for anesthesia or hospitalization. However, depending on the size or hardness of the stone, it may not be a one-time procedure and may require repeated procedures. If the stone is large or difficult to treat with ESWL, a ‘ureteroscopy’ may be performed.

Ureteroscopy is a method in which an endoscope is inserted into the ureter, and the inside of the ureter and kidney is precisely observed with high-definition images, while a laser is used to directly crush and discharge the stone. It is highly effective because it can remove urinary stones with a single operation. In cases where the stones are very large, such as 20mm, a treatment method is used, in which a passage is created in the side and an endoscope is inserted into the kidney to remove the stones or crush them with a laser. It is known that urinary stones have a high recurrence rate. If you have suffered from urinary stones, you should be especially careful. The most basic thing is to drink enough water.

Professor Jeong Jae-yong of the Department of Urology at the National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital said, “Water dilutes the concentration of urine, preventing stones from forming or helping to excrete small stones,” and recommended, “In the summer when heat waves continue for a long time like these days, it is better to drink pure water rather than tea or other beverages.”

Last weekend, a shooting occurred at the Columbia Mall, killing a man.

The Howard County Sheriff’s Office announced that at around 6:10 p.m. on the 27th, a suspect opened fire during an argument in the food court on the first floor of the mall, killing one man at the scene. Shoppers who heard the gunshots reportedly panicked and ran out of the mall to hide, creating a huge commotion. The police did not reveal the identities of the suspect and the victim.

“Based on the current investigation, this incident is believed to have been an accidental accident resulting from an argument, not a shooting incident,” the police said. “The suspect has not been identified yet, and we are waiting for information from witnesses.” In January 2014, a shooting occurred at the Columbia Mall, killing three people, including the suspect. At the time, a man shot and killed a man and a woman in their 20s who were working at the Zumiez store, a sportswear brand located on the second floor of the mall.

It has been reported that the shooting incident occurred when a love triangle between two men and one woman reached an extreme.

For over a decade, the New York City Council has taken action to change the route of the Tennis Climb at LaGuardia Airport to address aircraft noise issues that have plagued residents of Flushing and Bayside, Queens, for more than a decade.

Councilmember Vicky Palladino recently introduced a resolution urging the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to change the Tennis Climb route back to its existing route, citing residents of Flushing and Bayside, Queens, who have complained of serious health problems caused by aircraft noise. According to the resolution, the Tennis Climb route at LaGuardia Airport was first established in 1993. It was created as a temporary route to prevent aircraft from making noise over the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow Park, Queens, where the US Open tennis tournament is held every year from the end of August, but it was changed to a permanent route in 2012.cz_law Rep.

Paladino pointed out that “although the US Open noise problem may have been solved with the change in route, health problems due to aircraft noise have begun to appear for residents as aircraft fly over residential areas such as Flushing and Bayside.” He emphasized that “there are research reports that the noise made by aircraft passing overhead can cause serious health problems such as high blood pressure, neuroendocrine disorders, psychological and cognitive dysfunction, learned helplessness, long-term memory decline, and reading and comprehension decline in addition to direct noise damage.”

In fact, residents of the Flushing and Bayside areas are also strongly demanding that the LaGuardia Airport Tennis Climb route be changed. “Aircraft noise has turned our lives into hell,” one Bayside resident complained. “Aircraft noise is so loud that I have to wear headphones to sleep, as it is close to the decibel level of a motorcycle engine.”

Another resident of Flushing also said, “I have been living with my windows and doors closed for a year because of the noise from the aircraft,” and “I can’t even talk to someone 3 feet away when the aircraft is flying by. This is because the aircraft noise is close to 90 decibels.”

Meanwhile, after complaints from residents for years, the Federal Aviation Administration took soundproofing measures for about 20 schools in the area. However, it did not accept the most fundamental request to change the ‘Tennis Climb’ route.

President Joe Biden is drawing attention by ordering an independent investigation into the security process related to the assassination of former President Donald Trump on the 14th.

In his speech at the White House that day, President Biden stated regarding the security of former President Trump before and after the assassination, “I have ordered an independent investigation into exactly what happened yesterday, and I will share the results with the American people.”

He also emphasized that former President Trump had received the highest level of security as a Republican presidential candidate and former president. He also urged people to refrain from making hasty assumptions about the motive for the crime or security issues, as the case is still under investigation.

It is interpreted that he is actively defending himself against the trend of the Republican Party and former President Trump supporters trying to shift responsibility for this incident to him and the administration by raising the cause of the shooting and security issues. Just by looking at President Biden’s speech to the nation again this afternoon and evening following his press conference the day before, we can guess how seriously he is taking this incident.

Some Republican lawmakers have already claimed that the request for increased security for former President Trump was raised several times, but that Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, which includes the Secret Service (SS), refused. Some are also pointing out that the very fact that a suspect pulled out a rifle and fired up to eight shots at a presidential candidate who was giving a speech from about 120 meters away in broad daylight, in front of many people, is proof that there are serious security loopholes.

Some even reported in the media that a witness saw the suspect climb up to the roof of a nearby building with a rifle and reported it to the police, but the suspect threatened them, and the police hesitated, leading to the shooting. Regarding this, SS spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told Fox News that the Secret Service sniper was already on the roof firing when he found the suspect, and that “the sniper subdued him.” The Republican Party is also showing its readiness to raise the issue of security in Congress.

The House Oversight Committee had already decided to summon SS Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify on the 22nd regarding the shooting incident the day before. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, also said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that “the House will conduct a full investigation into this tragic incident,” adding that “the American people deserve to know the truth.”

The Senate Homeland Security Committee is also expected to launch an investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Trump and the failure of his security. Given this situation, it is interpreted that President Biden has shown his will to block the Republican offensive and avoid being caught up in unjustified claims of responsibility by conducting an independent investigation into the SS’s security process related to the shooting incident to uncover the truth.

The Washington Post (WP) reported that former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign sent a message to supporters on the 14th, the day after the shooting, asking for campaign funds.

The message sent by the Trump campaign at 2:20 p.m. (Eastern time) included the words, “I always love those who support me,” along with a link to the Trump campaign’s donation page. The campaign did not respond to an email requesting further explanation regarding the distribution of this message, the WP reported. The media is reporting that support for former President Trump will further consolidate following the shooting incident at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania the previous day.

The Trump camp appears to have taken advantage of this atmosphere to quickly raise campaign funds. Previously, former President Trump had been raising campaign funds while overcoming legal risks. In February, political media outlet Politico analyzed data from the Republican Party’s online political fund platform ‘WinRed’ and reported that donations to former President Trump had increased significantly at key judicial risks over the previous year.

It was analyzed that the highest amount of donations was raised on August 24th of last year, right after he was indicted for the fourth time in Georgia and had his ‘mugshot’ (photograph of a criminal) taken in connection with attempts to overturn the presidential election results. Meanwhile, supporters held rallies to support former President Trump in Bedminster, New Jersey, and other places on that day.

Some drivers passing by the protesters also continued to honk their horns to express their support.

The government will announce the final disposition plan for residents who have been away from hospitals for five months on the 8th (Korean time). According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCHQ) will hold a meeting at the Seoul Government Complex that afternoon and announce the results through a briefing.

It has been about a month since Minister Cho personally appeared at the briefing, after announcing on the 4th of last month that he would withdraw various orders targeting residents and training hospitals. The government is expected to reveal its final disposition policy for residents who submitted their resignations between February 19th and 20th.

At a hearing of the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee on the 26th of last month, Minister Cho said, “We will look at opinions from the field and the level of (residents’) return by the end of June and announce measures to respond to residents who have not returned in early July.”

On the 4th of last month, the government withdrew various orders issued to residents and affiliated training hospitals, such as the order to maintain treatment, the order to resume work, and the order to prohibit the acceptance of resignations, and decided to suspend the administrative disposition procedure for license suspension, thereby opening an ‘exit route’ for residents to return. However, as of the 4th, only 8.0% (1,104 people) of the total (13,756 people) of residents went to work at 211 training hospitals.

The number has only increased by 91 since the 3rd of last month (1,113 people), the day before the government announced the suspension of administrative disposition procedures for residents.

Accordingly, the government is planning to finalize the disposition plan for residents who have not returned on this day so that the training hospitals that are about to recruit residents in the second half of the year, with September 1 as the expected hiring date, can finally figure out the number of people they are short on and post recruitment notices.

The government is also considering easing restrictions on the return of resigned residents so that they can apply for the residency program in the second half of this year. According to the current ‘Resident Appointment Exam Guidelines,’ residents who resign during their training period cannot return to the same subject and the same year of service within one year, but the government is planning to ease the restrictions to encourage residents to return.

Some training hospital directors have requested the Ministry of Health and Welfare to revise the guidelines that restrict resigned residents from taking the same subject and year of service within one year of resignation so that they can return through the second half of September recruitment.

The leading candidate to be the Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump’s running mate has argued that it would be reasonable for Trump to investigate President Joe Biden if he were to be re-elected.

In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” aired on the 7th, Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) was asked to comment on former President Trump’s past remarks that he would appoint a special counsel to investigate President Biden and his family, saying, “Trump is saying he will appoint a special counsel to investigate Biden’s wrongdoings.” Vance added, “Trump is just saying we need to investigate the previous administration (if he is re-elected),” and “It’s perfectly reasonable for Trump to say let’s do the basic job of investigating wrongdoings.”

He also asked, “Frankly, the Biden administration has done such a bad thing,” and “If you think Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, isn’t what Biden has done a huge threat to our laws and our system of government?”

Former President Trump, who was indicted on charges of attempting to overturn the presidential election by a special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland after the Biden administration took office, has strongly opposed the indictment, saying it is a “weaponization of the judicial system” led by President Biden.

While former President Trump recently drew a line on the possibility of “judicial retaliation if he is re-elected,” he left a subtle impression by saying in an interview on the 6th, “Sometimes revenge can be justified.”

Representative Vance, a key pro-Trump figure in the US Congress, is included in the list of strong candidates to be former President Trump’s running mate, along with North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Senator Marco Rubio (Florida), and Representative Elise Stefanik (New York).

Former White House chief strategist and adviser to former President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, claimed that if Trump’s second term begins, former high-ranking officials who turned their backs on him will be investigated one after another.

In an interview with ABC News reported on the 30th, when asked about the possibility of retaliation if Trump is successfully re-elected, Bannon said, “His retaliation is a very successful second term,” and “What we’re saying is, we want justice.” Bannon said, “If we do a full investigation, criminal charges will follow,” and named former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, and former Attorney General William Barr as people who could be investigated.

These are people who worked as high-ranking officials during former President Trump’s first term in office (2017-2021). They directly or indirectly criticized Trump during or after he left office or did not cooperate with Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. These are people outside the eyes of the president and his supporters.

Former Director Comey revealed in his autobiography that former President Trump had asked him to pledge loyalty and has been the most vocal critic of Trump among high-ranking officials during Trump’s first term in office, arguing that his re-election should be blocked.

Bannon also said about the prospects for the November presidential and congressional elections, “We are 100% confident that we will beat Biden (President), take the majority in the Senate, and increase the number of seats in the House (where Republicans already have a majority).”

Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison in the first trial for contempt of Congress for failing to respond to Congress’s summons for the January 6 incident, the 2021 invasion of Congress by die-hard Trump supporters, and will begin serving his sentence on July 1.

A 13-year-old Myanmar refugee boy with a model gun was fatally shot by police in the United States after they tried to subdue him, the Associated Press reported on the 29th. Police in Utica, a city in upstate New York, said that around 10 p.m. the previous day, one of the 13-year-old boys was shot and killed by police officers while they were stopping two juveniles in connection with an armed robbery investigation.

According to police, two 13-year-old boys who resembled the suspect description were stopped to check if they had a weapon, but one of them ran away. As the boy ran away, he pointed what appeared to be a handgun at the officers, and the officers responded by shooting. He was shot in the chest area and was given first aid at the scene before being taken to hospital, where he died. However, during later verification, it was confirmed that the pistol the boy was aiming at was not an actual weapon, but a replica of the Glock 17 5th generation pistol.

“One of the officers who was struggling with the teenager shot him in the chest,” Utica Police Chief Mark Williams said at a press conference on the 29th. Lt. Michael Curley, a Utica police spokesman, said in an email that the model pistol in question “looked authentic in every way, including the Glock markings and features, the detachable magazine and serial number,” but ultimately did not fire pellets or pellets. “It could only fire BB bullets,” he explained.

The police released body camera footage. In the video, the boy aims a model pistol as he runs away, and the police officers shout “It’s a gun” as they run. The Associated Press reported that one of the police officers then knocked the boy down and punched him, and during a struggle, another police officer fired his gun. The police officer who fired the gun was identified as Patrick Husnai, a 6-year commissioned officer. He, along with two other police officers who responded with him, was placed on paid administrative leave.

The boy who died was Niya Mway, an 8th grade student at a nearby middle school (equivalent to a 2nd grade middle school in Korea) and was known to be a Karen refugee born in Myanmar. The Karen people are an ethnic minority group who have formed anti-government armed forces and are resisting the military. When the military, which took power in a coup in 2021, oppressed ethnic minorities, many ethnic minorities, including the Karen people, became refugees.

The police are conducting an internal investigation to determine whether the officers who killed the boy followed regulations. The state attorney general plans to conduct his own investigation to determine whether the police shooting was justified.

“This is a tragic and shocking incident for everyone involved,” Chief Williams said. “We offer our sincere condolences to the deceased’s family at this difficult time.”

A man in his 30s who went missing after going out naked to do a light hike has become a hot topic after being rescued from the mountains after 10 days.

According to the California State Fire Department on the 23rd, its rescue team found and rescued Lucas McLeish (34), a man who had been reported missing deep in the mountains of Big Basin Redwoods State Park, south of San Francisco, on the evening of the 20th.

In the past few days, there have been several reports of someone in the area calling for help, but no one could be found. A drone flown by the local sheriff’s office helped locate McLeish, the fire department said. In an interview with local broadcaster KSBW and the New York Times (NYT), MacLeish said that he stopped by a friend’s house near Big Basin Redwoods State Park on the morning of the 11th and went hiking alone after hearing that there was a wonderful granite wall on this mountain. He thought he could make the trip in about three hours and took nothing with him except a flashlight and folding scissors. However, after entering the mountain, he encountered a large area devastated by a forest fire and got lost there.

He said, “It looked completely different from other mountainous terrain,” and “I didn’t expect that if it was completely burned down by a fire, it would turn into a desert, and I wouldn’t be able to find my way around it.” Deep in the mountains of the United States, there are many cases where cell phone signals are not available at all. He said that while wandering in the mountains for several days, he survived by drinking waterfall and valley water and eating wild berries.

His family recognized that there was a problem when he was not seen and could not be contacted at a gathering on the 16th, Father’s Day, and reported him missing. As a mountaineering enthusiast, he said he did not feel much fear until five days after the shipwreck but began to feel serious as the difficulty of survival increased, such as hypothermia worsening and injuries from slipping from rocks.

In North America, there was an encounter with a puma, also known as a ‘mountain lion’, and a narrow escape. On the eighth day after the shipwreck, he began screaming for help, hoping that someone would hear his voice, and finally, on the tenth day, he was able to find a drone floating in the sky.

“I hoped this wasn’t a mirage,” he recalled of that moment. He said, “I went on a water diet for 10 days in the mountains,” and “I lost 30 pounds (13.6 kg) in 10 days.” He then explained, “If you drink 1.5 gallons (5.7 liters) of water every day, you won’t need food until all the carbohydrates (in your body) are used up.”