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Tag: brand safety-nsf health issues

  • Despite toxic disaster, railroads still want single-person crews | CNN Business

    Despite toxic disaster, railroads still want single-person crews | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The nation’s major freight railroads have long desired to have only one crew member, a lone engineer, in the cab of their locomotives. And that desire hasn’t changed despite the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train on February 3 that released toxic chemicals into the air, water and soil of East Palestine, Ohio, that is still being cleaned up.

    But that accident very well may have ended the railroad’s chances of getting that one-person crew goal.

    The rail safety legislation, introduced in Congress Wednesday with bipartisan support, would include a prohibition on single-person crews. There is no such existing law or federal regulation requiring both an engineer and a conductor to be on a train. Instead, it is only labor deals with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the transportation division of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, Transportation union (SMART-TD), which represents the conductors, that require at least one member of each union in the locomotive’s cab.

    The Association of American Railroads confirmed that its position in favor of one-person crews has not changed. It believes it will be more efficient, and just as safe, to have engineers responding to problems with trains by driving along tracks in trucks rather than riding in the cab of the locomotive.

    “The position on crew size has not changed. Railroads have been clear that they support fact-driven policies that address the cause of this accident and enhance safety,” said an AAR statement. “As we continue to review this bill, it is clear it includes many of the same wish list items AAR and others have clearly said would not prevent a similar accident in the future, such as the… arbitrary crew size rule. Railroads look forward to working with all stakeholders to meaningfully advance real solutions.”

    Union Pacific said the opposition to a two-person crew mandate does not mean the railroads don’t care about safety.

    “No data shows a two-person crew confined to a cab is safer, and train crew size should continue to be determined through collective bargaining,” a statement from UP. “Proposed legislation limits our ability to compete in a business landscape where technology is rapidly changing the transportation industry.”

    CSX also said it believes the decision on crew size should be decided in collective bargaining, not through legislation, but said it is not currently pursuing a change in crew size. Negotiations between the railroads and unions is not due to start again until 2024, and the railroads historically have negotiated deals that apply across the industry. The other two major freight railroads – Norfolk Southern and Burlington Northern Santa Fe – did not responded to questions about the legislation. But the AAR is the trade group that lobbies on their behalf.

    The AAR’s statement did not address the question as to whether that rule is now more likely to pass. But Jeremy Ferguson, president of SMART-TD, said this accident has completely changed the chances of getting the two-person crew requirement written into US law.

    “Absolutely,” he said when asked in an interview with CNN Business if he thinks the provision will now pass. “When an incident like this happens, it brings all the issues to light, how unsafe the rail industry truly is. I didn’t think we had any chance before this. The railroads and AAR do a very good job of lobbying in DC. So generally it’s difficult to get people to vote for something like this rule. But sometimes it takes a disaster to drive home the point. Any time you turn the TV on, there’s still an issue. It’s not going away.”

    The senators, both Democrat and Republican, sponsoring the rail safety bill say they’re hopeful there is now bipartisan support to change the law.

    “Rail lobbyists have fought for years to protect their profits at the expense of communities like East Palestine,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat. “These commonsense bipartisan safety measures will finally hold big railroad companies accountable, make our railroads and the towns along them safer, and prevent future tragedies, so no community has to suffer like East Palestine again.”

    “Through this legislation, Congress has a real opportunity to ensure that what happened in East Palestine will never happen again,” said Sen. J.D. Vance, the Ohio Republican who is a co-sponsor. “We owe every American the peace of mind that their community is protected from a catastrophe of this kind.”

    If the law is changed due to the East Palestine derailment, it won’t be the first disaster that changed rules and laws governing trains. In 2013, a runaway Canadian freight train carrying tanker cars of oil crashed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, causing a massive fire that killed 47 people and destroyed 40 buildings in the town. Canada responded by changing its law to require two person crews on trains carrying hazardous materials.

    But calls to change the law in the United States because of that accident fell on deaf ears.

    The fact that there were three employees on the train that derailed in East Palestine — an engineer, a conductor and a trainee — did not prevent this accident from happening.

    The National Transportation Safety Board’s initial finding on the disaster was that a fire originally started when a rail car carrying plastic pellets was heated by a hot axle.

    After the fire started, the train passed three trackside detectors meant to determine if there is a problem causing overheating. But the first two did not signal a problem, even as the fire raised the temperature more than 100 degrees. The detectors are designed not to alert the crew until there is a 200-degree rise in the temperature detected. Finally the third detector registered a rise in temperature of more than 250 degrees, triggering an alarm in the locomotive’s cab.

    The NTSB said the engineer responded immediately to the alarm by applying the brakes in an attempt to stop the train, but the wheel bearing on the car that was on fire failed before he could bring the train to a halt, causing the derailment.

    Ferguson said that while the crew could not prevent this derailment from happening, there are an uncounted number of times that they detect a problem and prevent a derailment. He said not having the conductor on the train would miss many of those problems and cause many more derailments.

    “When a detector goes off, you stop the train and the conductor can walk back and check if there is an overheating axle and make an immediate decision,” Ferguson said. An engineer is not allowed to get out of the locomotive, even if it’s stopped. Only the conductor can check to see if what the problems is that triggered an alarm.

    But if the conductor is driving around in a truck, rather than riding in the cab of the locomotive, it could be an hour or more before the conductor gets there, and the axle might have cooled down. At that point, the conductor might have to send the train back on its way, according to Ferguson, even though the original problem tripping the heat detector — a faulty axle or bearing — is still a problem that could quickly cause a derailment.

    “So having a guy wandering around in the truck may cause a derailment,” said Ferguson.

    Beyond the problems of this kind, having a second person in the cab can just offer greater attention to detail during long train rides.

    “You’ve got two sets of ears and two set of eyes. It always helps,” Ferguson said.

    And it also helps in case of a medical emergency. In January, a CSX engineer suffered a heart attack while bringing a freight train into Savannah, Georgia, according to the engineers’ union. The conductor was able to recognize he was in distress, give him an aspirin and to call ahead to have an ambulance waiting for him in the rail yard.

    The engineer needed emergency bypass surgery, but survived the heart attack.

    “This happens more often than people realize,” Ferguson said. “It’s not necessarily always a heart attack. But having two people up there always pays dividend for the crew members themselves.”

    CSX confirmed the incident with one of its engineer having a heart attack occurred in January.

    “We commend the heroic actions of all CSX employees who render aid during any medical emergency,” said CSX’s statement.

    The fact that the current labor contracts require two crew members is little comfort to the engineers and conductors unions.

    They point out that under the Railway Labor Act, they can have a contract that is opposed by some or all of the rail unions imposed upon them by Congress, as happened this past December. While this current contract did keep the provision for two-person crews in place, that’s not necessarily going to be the case in all future contracts, even if the unions continue to make the issue a priority.

    Congress generally enacts what is recommended by a panel appointed by the president to propose a deal that hopefully both labor and management can accept. But it might have one or two provisions which are deal breakers for the unions, such as allowing single-person crews.

    “Given the wrong president, we could lose this in a hurry,” said Ferguson.

    The Federal Railroad Administration is also considering a rule that would require two-person crews. But Ferguson said getting the requirement written into law would be better than a simple regulation. An FRA regulation could be easier to change in a new administration than it would be to get a change in the law.

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  • Bempedoic acid improved heart health in patients who can’t tolerate statins, study finds | CNN

    Bempedoic acid improved heart health in patients who can’t tolerate statins, study finds | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Bempedoic acid may be an alternative for people who need to lower their cholesterol but can’t or won’t take statins, according to a large study published Saturday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

    Statins are the most commonly prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs that help lower what’s known as the “bad” cholesterol, or low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in the blood; more than 90% of adults who take a cholesterol-lowering medicine use a statin, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Statins are considered safe and effective, but there are millions of people who cannot or will not take them. For some people it causes intense muscle pain. Past research has shown anywhere between 7% and 29% of patients who need to lower cholesterol do not tolerate statins, according Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist and researcher at the Cleveland Clinic and co-author of the new study.

    “I see heart patients that come in with terrible histories, multiple myocardial infarction, sometimes bypass surgery, many stents and they say, ‘Doctor, I’ve tried multiple statins, but whenever I take a statin, my muscles hurt, or they’re weak. I can’t walk upstairs. I just can’t tolerate these drugs,’ ” Nissen said. “We do need alternatives for these patients.”

    Doctors have a few options, including ezetimibe and a monoclonal antibody called a proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9, or PCSK9 inhibitors for short.

    Bempedoic acid, sold under the name Nexletol, was designed specifically to treat statin-intolerant patients. The FDA approved it for this purpose in 2020, but the effects of the drug on heart health had not been fully assessed until this large trial. The new study was funded in part by Esperion Therapeutics, the maker of Nexletol.

    For the study, which was presented Saturday at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session with the World Congress of Cardiology, Nissen and his colleagues enrolled 13,970 patients from 32 countries.

    All of the patients were statin intolerant, typically due to musculoskeletal adverse effects. Patients had to sign an agreement that they couldn’t tolerate statins “even though I know they would reduce my risk of a heart attack or stroke or death,” and providers signed a similar statement.

    The patients were then randomized into two groups. One was treated with bempedoic acid, the other was given a placebo, which does nothing. Researchers then followed up with those patients for up to nearly five years. The number of men and women in the trial were mostly evenly divided, and most participants, some 91%, were White, and 17% were Hispanic or Latino.

    The drug works in a similar way that statins do, by drawing cholesterol out of a waxy substance called plaque that can build up in the walls of the arteries and interfere with the blood flow to the heart. If there is too much plaque buildup, it can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

    But bempedoic acid is only activated in the liver, unlike a statin, so it is unlikely to cause muscle aches, Nissen said.

    In the trial, investigators found that bempedoic acid was well-tolerated and the percent reduction in the “bad” cholesterol was greater with bempedoic acid than placebo by 21.7%.

    The risk of cardiovascular events – including death, stroke, heart attack and coronary revascularization, a procedure or surgery to improve blood flow to the heart – was 13% lower with bempedoic acid than with placebo over a median of 3.4 years.

    “The drug worked in primary and secondary prevention patients – that is, patients that had had event and patients who were very high risk for a first event. There were a lot of diabetics. These were very high risk people,” Nissen said. “So the drug met its expectations and probably did a lot better than a lot of people thought it would do.”

    In the group that took bempedoic acid, there were a few more cases of gout and gallstones, compared with people who took a placebo.

    “The number is small, and weighing that against a heart attack, I think most people would say, ‘OK I’d rather have a little gout attack,’ ” Nissen said.

    Bempedoic acid had no observed effect on mortality, but that may be because the observation period was too short to tell if it had that kind of impact. Earlier trials on statins showed the same; it was only after there were multiple studies on statins that scientists were able to show an impact on mortality.

    Dr. Howard Weintraub, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Health who did not work on this study, said that while he knows some people will not consider a medication successful unless it reduces mortality, he thinks that is short-sighted.

    “I think there’s more to doing medicine then counting body bags,” Weintraub said.”Preventing things that can be life changing, crippling, and certainly change your quality of life forever going forward, and your cost of doing things going forward, I think is a good thing.”

    He was pleased to see the results of this trial, especially since the people in this study are often what he called “forgotten individuals” – the millions who could benefit from lowering their cholesterol, but can’t take statins.

    “It’s not like their LDL was 180 or 190 or 230, their LDL was 139. This is about average in our country,” Weintraub said. He said often doctors will just tell those patients to watch their diet, but he thinks this suggests they would benefit from medication.

    “Both groups primary and secondary prevention got benefit, which I think is impressive with the modest amount of LDL reduction,” Weintraub said.

    There are some limitations to this trial. It was narrowly focused on patients with a known statin intolerance. Nissen said the trial was not designed to determine whether bempedoic acid could be an alternative to statins.

    “Statins are the gold standard. They are the cornerstone. The purpose of this study was not to replace statins, but to allow an alternative therapy for people who simply cannot take them,” Nissen said.

    Bempedoic acid is a much more expensive drug than a statin. There are generic versions of statins and some cost only a few dollars. Bempedoic acid, on the other hand, has no generic alternative and a 30-day supply can cost more than $400, according to GoodRx.

    “I think what insurance companies need to recognize that even though this drug is going to cost more than statins, having a heart attack or a stroke or needing a stent is expensive. A 23% reduction in (myocardial infarctions) is a considerable reduction,” Weintraub said.

    In an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine that accompanied the study, Dr. John H. Alexander, who works in the division of cardiology at Duke Clinical Research Institute, Duke Health, Durham said that doctors should take these results into consideration when treating patients with high cholesterol who can’t take statins.

    “The benefits of bempedoic acid are now clearer, and it is now our responsibility to translate this information into better primary and secondary prevention for more at-risk patients, who will, as a result, benefit from fewer cardiovascular events,” Alexander wrote.

    Dr. Manesh Patel, a cardiologist and volunteer with the American Heart Association who was not a part of the study, said that providers are already prescribing bempedoic acid for some patients, but with this new research, he thinks they will quickly be used with more statin-intolerant patients.

    “We continue to see that if we can lower your LDL significantly, we improve people’s cardiovascular health. And so we need as many different arrows in our quiver to try to get that done,” Patel said.

    Heart disease is the No. 1 killer for men and women in the world. One person dies every 34 seconds in the US from cardiovascular disease, according to the CDC. About 697,000 people in the US died from heart disease in 2020 alone – about the same number as the population of Oklahoma City.

    “Given the number of people that are eligible for statins, which are tens of millions of patients already, the number of people who cannot tolerate statins is in the millions,” Nissen said. “This is a big public health problem and I think we’ve come up with something that directly addresses this.”

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  • How Paul Murdaugh helped solve his own murder | CNN

    How Paul Murdaugh helped solve his own murder | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    For a year and a half, Alex Murdaugh denied he was anywhere near where his wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, were brutally killed.

    But it was one of his victims – his son – who would provide key proof after his death that legal experts say exposed his father’s web of lies and ultimately led to his conviction in the double homicide.

    “It is ironic, in the end, that it was the victim, Paul Murdaugh, who solved his own murder,” Dave Aronberg, state attorney for Florida’s Palm Beach County, told CNN Thursday night.

    Murdaugh, a now disgraced former South Carolina attorney, was found guilty Thursday of fatally shooting his wife and son and, a day later, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He has maintained his innocence.

    The key proof came from a video, which Paul recorded on Snapchat and sent to several of his friends moments before he was gunned down and killed. It appeared to show one of the family’s dogs at the kennels on their property. It also captured Alex Murdaugh’s voice in the background – and placed him at the scene of the crime.

    The video, which Murdaugh didn’t know existed before the trial, marked the crumbling of his alibi and left him no choice but to take the stand and explain why he lied multiple times to authorities about his whereabouts, legal experts told CNN.

    Murdaugh, while denying he killed his wife and son, testified he lied about where he was because of paranoid thoughts stemming from his yearslong drug addiction to opioid painkillers, as well as his distrust of investigators. While on the stand, he also confessed to more lies, admitting in court he had stolen millions from his law firm and clients over roughly two decades.

    He told the jury that despite his repeated past deceptions, he was honest about one thing: he did not kill his family.

    But jurors did not believe him.

    And in a case with little to no direct evidence linking Murdaugh to the scene, South Carolina’s top prosecutor credited the video clip for the quick conviction by the jury.

    “This was a circumstantial evidence case but what people have to understand is that circumstantial evidence is just as powerful as direct evidence,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, who was part of the prosecuting team, said Friday. “I think the kennel video hung him.”

    “The jury saw how he was trying to manipulate them, saw how he was lying and they read through it, and they heard the kennel video and they made the right decision.”

    Craig Moyer, one of the jurors who helped convict Murdaugh, told ABC News in his first public interview that it took less than an hour for the group to reach a unanimous decision.

    The video is what convinced him.

    “I could hear his voice clearly,” Moyer told ABC. “And everybody else could too.”

    Moyer said he was surprised Murdaugh admitted he lied about the video, but, he added, he still did not believe the defendant was being truthful about what happened on the night of June 7, 2021.

    Murdaugh was “a good liar,” Moyer said, “but not good enough.”

    “When he took the stand – that is, Alex Murdaugh – that was his opportunity to state his claim. It was a very hard sell, however,” said criminal defense attorney and CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson. “As much as you deny, deny, deny being at the kennels, you took the stand because it came out that you were there. Cell phone data put you there, car data put you there, in addition to the fact that your own voice put you there, by virtue of what your son recorded.”

    “I think by virtue of what that juror said, clearly he was of the view that … (Alex Murdaugh) was continuing to lie, the evidence was clear and that he was guilty,” Jackson added.

    murdaugh juror

    ‘All he did was blow snot’: Juror on whether Murdaugh was crying on the stand

    The video was recorded by Paul at 8:44 p.m. on the night of the killings, according to testimony during the trial.

    Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey testified he estimated Maggie and Paul’s time of death to be around 9 p.m. – though he said it’s possible the pair could have been shot any time between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

    After admitting he lied to authorities about where he was that night, Murdaugh said he did briefly go to the kennels and left roughly around 8:47 p.m.

    He later visited his mother and found Maggie and Paul’s bodies when he returned home, Murdaugh testified.

    Murdaugh told the court that as his longtime addiction evolved, it often caused him to go into “paranoid thinking.” Those paranoid thoughts were triggered on the night of the homicides, he said, when investigators tested his hands for gunshot residue and asked him about his relationship with his wife and son. Murdaugh claimed that was why he lied.

    “All those things, coupled together after finding them, coupled with my distrust for (the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) caused me to have paranoid thoughts,” he testified. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I don’t think I was capable of reason. And I lied about being there, and I’m so sorry that I did.”

    “Once I told the lie, I told my family, I had to keep lying,” he told the court.

    Former prosecutor Sarah Ford told CNN that Murdaugh “really had no choice other than to take the stand and clarify” the video at the kennel.

    “And the jury did not buy that clarification. He was lying long before he walked into that courtroom, long before he took the stand and that jury believed that he was lying to them on that stand,” Ford said.

    After his sentence, Murdaugh was released to the South Carolina Department of Corrections.

    He was processed Friday evening at a reception and evaluation center in Columbia, the department said in a news release. As part of that process, he had his head shaved, a standard procedure for inmates processed into the system, department spokesperson Chrysti Shain said.

    Murdaugh will next undergo medical tests and a mental health and education assessment, the release added.

    Over the next month and a half, department officials will take into account the results of his tests and assessments as well as his crime and sentence in deciding which maximum-security prison he will be sent to, the department said.

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  • Tennessee governor signs ban on gender-affirming care for minors | CNN Politics

    Tennessee governor signs ban on gender-affirming care for minors | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday signed a law that prohibits gender-affirming care for minors, the latest state to do so as part of a wider Republican-pushed effort nationwide.

    Senate Bill 0001 prohibits health care providers “from performing on a minor or administering to a minor a medical procedure if the performance or administration of the procedure is for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”

    It specifies that minors who receive care cannot be held liable but lawsuits could be brought up against a minor’s parents “if the parent of the minor consented to the conduct that constituted the violation on behalf of the minor.”

    The newly signed law also grants the attorney general the authority to fine health care professionals who provide the care with a civil penalty of $25,000 per violation.

    The law – enacted on the same day that Lee signed a bill restricting drag show performances in the state – will go into effect on July 1. Gender-affirming care that began prior to July 1 is not considered a violation “provided that the treating physician must make a written certification that ending the medical procedure would be harmful to the minor,” though access to such care must conclude by March 31, 2024.

    LGBTQ advocates and many physicians regard the treatment as medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender – the one the person was designated at birth – to their affirmed gender, the gender by which one wants to be known.

    But Tennessee’s legislation – similar in its aim to more than 80 such bills nationwide seeking to restrict access to the treatment, according to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union and shared with CNN – expresses concern over long-term outcomes and questions whether minors are capable of making such consequential decisions.

    Major medical associations agree that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria, which, according to the American Psychiatric Association, is psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align.

    Though the care is highly individualized, some children may decide to use reversible puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. Surgical interventions, however, are not typically done on children and many health care providers do not offer them to minors.

    In pushing the health care bans, Republicans have argued that decisions around such care should be made after an individual becomes an adult, though lawmakers in some states have sought to push bans as far back as the age of 26.

    “The state has a compelling interest to protect children from experimental and unproven medical procedures,” Tennessee state Sen. Jack Johnson, a Republican, told CNN. “We want children suffering from gender dysphoria to get the important mental health treatment they need, but it’s not appropriate to subject children to irreversible procedures with lifelong health complications.”

    Tennessee’s law comes in the wake of similar restrictions in other Republican-controlled states.

    Earlier this week, Mississippi enacted a similar ban, joining Utah and South Dakota, which passed their own bans earlier this year. Arkansas enacted a ban in 2021, and Alabama put one on its books last year. Arizona also enacted restrictions on gender-affirming care in 2022, though its ban was less sweeping than the others.

    Blasting Lee’s signing, the ACLU on Thursday said Tennessee’s law takes a critical and sensitive decision away from families of transgender youth and promised to mount a legal challenge in court.

    “We will not allow this dangerous law to stand,” the ACLU, its Tennessee chapter and Lambda Legal said in a statement. “Certain politicians and Gov. Lee have made no secret of their intent to discriminate against youth who are transgender or their willful ignorance about the life-saving health care they seek to ban. Instead, they’ve chosen fearmongering, misrepresentations, intimidation, and extremist politics over the rights of families and the lives of transgender youth in Tennessee.

    The statement continued, “We are dedicated to overturning this unconstitutional law and are confident the state will find itself completely incapable of defending it in court. We want transgender youth to know they are not alone and this fight is not over.”

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  • ‘We will not stop fighting’: Daughter of imprisoned Putin critic Alexey Navalny speaks out | CNN

    ‘We will not stop fighting’: Daughter of imprisoned Putin critic Alexey Navalny speaks out | CNN

    Editor’s Note: The CNN film “Navalny” premiered in April 2022 and won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary Feature. It is streaming on HBO Max, which is owned by CNN’s parent company.



    CNN
     — 

    Dasha Navalnaya, the daughter of jailed Russian dissident Alexey Navalny, has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine and to release her father and political prisoners in the country, in an extensive interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday.

    “We will not stop fighting” until both of those goals are achieved, Navalnaya said.

    Her father Navalny – an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and its war in Ukraine – is currently serving a nine-year jail term at a maximum-security prison east of Moscow after being convicted of large-scale fraud by a Russian court last year.

    He was poisoned with nerve agent Novichok in 2020, an attack several Western officials and Navalny himself openly blamed on the Kremlin. Russia has denied any involvement.

    After several months in Germany recovering from the poisoning, Navalny returned to Moscow, where he was immediately arrested for violating probation terms imposed from a 2014 embezzlement case that he said was politically motivated.

    He was initially sentenced to two-and-a-half years, and then later given nine years over separate allegations that he stole from his anti-corruption foundation.

    Navalny, who previously ran for political office in Russia, has long been a thorn in the side of the Kremlin.

    Dasha said the “main goal” of her father’s work and anti-corruption foundation “is for Russia to become a free state, to have open elections, to have freedom of press, freedom of speech, and just you know, to have the opportunity to become a part of the normal Western democratized community.”

    She described the experience of growing up in a family watched closely by the government, telling Burnett that she and her brother made a game out of trying to evade spies on public transport in Russia.

    “We would look around the train and then start chatting with the guy who had the worst camouflage outfit and the black cap and the weird strappy bag on the side, and we would jump out – not out of the train but out of the the subway car,” she said.

    But Navalnaya also voiced escalating concern about her father’s prison conditions now, saying that her family has had limited access to Navalny and that his attorneys are able to see him only “through a guarded veil.”

    “So we can’t really know for sure his health circumstance and he hasn’t seen his family in over half a year,” she said. “I haven’t seen him in person in over a year and it’s quite concerning considering his health is getting worse and worse.”

    Concerns about Navalny’s health have persisted for months. Footage during his sentencing last year showed Navalny as a gaunt figure standing beside his lawyers in a room filled with security officials.

    Navalny himself has tweeted about difficult conditions in confinement, saying in November that he had been isolated from other prisoners in what he described as a move designed to “shut me up.” Inmates in Russian penal colonies are typically housed in barracks rather than cells, according to a report by Poland-based think tank the Center for Eastern Studies (OSW).

    The “real indescribable bestiality” of his incarceration, however, was limitations on visits with family, he said at the time.

    Navalny’s poisoning and subsequent legal problems drew intense interest from the Russian public and abroad. Russia witnessed large-scale anti-government protests in towns and cities across the country after his arrest, with authorities detaining around 11,000 demonstrators within a few weeks.

    In June last year, Navalny was transferred from a penal colony in Pokrov to a maximum-security prison in Melekhovo in Russia’s Vladimir region.

    Throughout his incarceration, Navalny has nevertheless vociferously denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine via social media, advocating anti-war protests across the country as “the backbone of the movement against war and death.”

    In a tweet thread about his prison conditions last year, he vowed to continue speaking out.

    “So what’s my first duty? That’s right, to not be afraid and not shut up,” he wrote, urging others to do the same. “At every opportunity, campaign against the war, Putin and United Russia. Hugs to you all.”

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  • 2 more Michigan State shooting victims sent home from hospital while 2 remain hospitalized | CNN

    2 more Michigan State shooting victims sent home from hospital while 2 remain hospitalized | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Two Michigan State students wounded in the mass shooting on campus in February have been discharged from hospital, according to the university’s police department.

    The tweet did not identify the students who were released but said they were previously listed in serious condition.

    One student remains hospitalized in critical condition and one is in fair condition, the MSU Police and Public Safety Department said.

    One other student was discharged last week. Troy Forbush wrote in a Facebook post on February 26 he had a “brush with death” after being shot in the chest.

    He credited the “incredible doctors” who saved his life with emergency surgery. He said he spent a week in the ICU and three more days being cared for by the “superhero staff.”

    “My world has been turned upside down so suddenly but I refuse to be a number, a statistic. Alongside my family, friends, community, university, & state government officials, we will enact change,” he wrote.

    Three students – Arielle Anderson, Brian Fraser and Alexandria Verner – were killed in February 13 when a man opened fire in a classroom and then in another building.

    It’s still unclear why the gunman – a man with no known ties to MSU – targeted the university. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound the night of the killings, authorities said, and had a note threatening other shootings hundreds of miles away in New Jersey.

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  • Chinese city claims to have destroyed 1 billion pieces of personal data collected for Covid control | CNN

    Chinese city claims to have destroyed 1 billion pieces of personal data collected for Covid control | CNN


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    A Chinese city says it has destroyed a billion pieces of personal data collected during the pandemic, as local governments gradually dismantle their coronavirus surveillance and tracking systems after abandoning the country’s controversial zero-Covid policy.

    Wuxi, a manufacturing hub on China’s eastern coast and home to 7.5 million people, held a ceremony Thursday to dispose of Covid-related personal data, the city’s public security bureau said in a statement on social media.

    The one billion pieces of data were collected for purposes including Covid tests, contact tracing and the prevention of imported cases – and they were only the first batch of such data to be disposed, the statement said.

    China collects vast amounts of data on its citizens – from gathering their DNA and other biological samples to tracking their movements on a sprawling network of surveillance cameras and monitoring their digital footprints.

    But since the pandemic, state surveillance has pushed deeper into the private lives of Chinese citizens, resulting in unprecedented levels of data collection. Following the dismantling of zero-Covid restrictions, residents have grown concerned over the security of the huge amount of personal data stored by local governments, fearing potential data leaks or theft.

    Last July, it was revealed that a massive online database apparently containing the personal information of up to one billion Chinese citizens was left unsecured and publicly accessible for more than a year – until an anonymous user in a hack forum offered to sell the data and brought it to wider attention.

    In the statement, Wuxi officials said “third-party audit and notary officers” would be invited to take part in the deletion process, to ensure it cannot be restored. CNN cannot independently verify the destruction of the data.

    Wuxi also scrapped more than 40 local apps used for “digital epidemic prevention,” according to the statement.

    During the pandemic, Covid apps like these dictated social and economic life across China, controlling whether people could leave their homes, where they could travel, when businesses could open and where goods could be transported.

    But following the country’s abrupt exit from zero-Covid in December, most of these apps faded from daily life.

    On December 12, China scrapped a nationwide mobile tracking app that collected data on users’ travel movements. But many local pandemic apps run by the municipal or provincial governments, such as the ubiquitous Covid health code apps, have remained in place – although they are no longer in use.

    Wuxi claims to be the first municipality in China to have destroyed Covid-related personal data from citizens. On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, users called for other local governments to follow suit.

    Yan Chunshui, deputy head of Wuxi’s big data management bureau, said the disposal was meant to better protect citizens’ privacy, prevent data leaks and free up data storage space.

    Kendra Schaefer, the head of tech policy research at the Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, said the data collection related to local-level Covid apps was often messy, and those apps were difficult and expensive to manage for local governments.

    “Considering the cost and difficulty managing such apps, coupled with concerns expressed by the public over data security and privacy – not to mention the political win local governments get by symbolically putting zero-Covid to bed – dismantling those systems is par for the course,” Schaefer said.

    In many cases, she added, the big data departments at local governments were overwhelmed dealing with Covid data, so scaling back simply makes sense economically.

    “Many cities have not yet deleted their Covid data – or have not done so publicly – not because I believe they intend to keep it, but because it simply hasn’t been that long since zero-Covid was halted,” Schaefer said.

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  • US agency assessment backing Covid lab leak theory raises more questions than answers — and backlash from China | CNN

    US agency assessment backing Covid lab leak theory raises more questions than answers — and backlash from China | CNN

    Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    The US Department of Energy’s assessment that Covid-19 most likely emerged due to a laboratory accident in China has reignited fierce debate and attention on the question of how the pandemic began.

    But the “low confidence” determination, made in a newly updated classified report, has raised more questions than answers, as the department has publicly provided no new evidence to back the claim. It’s also generated fierce pushback from China.

    “We urge the US to respect science and facts, stop politicizing this issue, stop its intelligence-led, politics-driven origins-tracing,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.

    The Department of Energy assessment is part of a broader US effort in which intelligence agencies were asked by President Joe Biden in 2021 to examine the origins of the coronavirus, which was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

    That overall assessment from the intelligence community was inconclusive, and then, as now, there has yet to be a decisive link established between the virus and a specific animal or other route – as China continues to stonewall international investigations into the origins of the virus.

    Four agencies and the National Intelligence Council assessed with low confidence that the virus likely jumped from animals to humans through natural exposure, while one assessed with moderate confidence that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory-related accident. Three other intelligence community elements were unable to coalesce around either explanation without additional information, according to a declassified version of the 2021 report.

    The majority of agencies remain undecided or lean toward the virus having a natural origin – a hypothesis also widely favored by scientists with expertize in the field. But the change from the US Department of Energy has now deepened the split in the intelligence community, especially as the director of the FBI this week commented publicly for the first time on his agency’s similar determination made with “medium confidence.”

    Intelligence agencies can make assessments with either low, medium or high confidence. A low confidence assessment generally means the information obtained is not reliable enough, or is too fragmented to make a more definitive judgment.

    And while the assessment and new commentary has pulled the theory back into the spotlight, neither agency has released evidence or information backing their determinations. That raises crucial questions about their basis – and shines the spotlight back on gaping, outstanding unknowns and need for further research.

    Hear FBI director remark on Covid lab leak theory

    Scientists largely believe the virus most likely emerged from a natural spillover from an infected animal to people, as many viruses before it, though they widely acknowledge the need for more research of all options. Many have also questioned the lack of data released to substantiate the latest claim.

    Virologist Thea Fischer, who in 2021 traveled to Wuhan as part of a World Health Organization (WHO) origins probe and remains a part of ongoing WHO tracing efforts, said it was “very important” that any new assessments related to the origin of the virus are documented by evidence.

    “(These are) strong accusations against a public research laboratory in China and can’t stand alone without substantial evidence,” said Fischer, a professor at the University of Copenhagen.

    “Hopefully they will share with the WHO soon so the evidence can be known and assessed by international health experts just as all other evidence concerning the pandemic origin.”

    A senior US intelligence official told the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the new Department of Energy assessment, that the update to the assessment was conducted in light of new intelligence, further study of academic literature and in consultation with experts outside government.

    The idea that the virus could have emerged from a lab accident became more prominent as a spotlight was turned on coronavirus research being done at local facilities, such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It was further enhanced amid a failure to find a “smoking gun” showing which animal could have passed the virus to people at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market – the location linked to a number of early known cases – amid limitations to follow-up research.

    Some experts who have been closely involved in examining existing information, however, are skeptical of the new assessment giving the theory more weight.

    “Given that so much of the data we have points to a spillover event occurring at the Huanan market in late 2019 I doubt there’s anything very significant in it or new information that would change our current understanding,” said David Robertson, a professor in the University of Glasgow’s School of Infection and Immunity, who was involved in recent research with findings that supported the natural origin theory.

    He noted that locations of early human cases centered on the market, positive environmental samples, and confirmation that live animals susceptible to the virus were for sale there are among evidence supporting the natural origins theory – while there’s no data supporting a lab leak.

    “The extent of this evidence continually gets lost (in media discussion) … when in fact we know a lot about what happened, and arguably more than other outbreaks,” he said.

    Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan as members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus make a visit on February 3, 2021.

    Efforts to understand how the pandemic started have been further complicated by China’s lack of transparency – especially as the origin question spiraled into another point of bitter contention within rising US-China tensions of recent years.

    Beijing has blocked robust, long-term international field investigations and refused to allow a laboratory audit, which could bring clarity, and been reticent to share details and data around domestic research to uncover the cause. However, it repeatedly maintains that it has been transparent and cooperative with the WHO.

    Chinese officials carefully controlled the single WHO-backed investigation it did allow on the ground in 2021, citing disease control measures to restrict visiting experts to their hotel rooms for half their trip and to prevent them from sharing meals with their Chinese counterparts – cutting off an opportunity for more informal information sharing.

    Citing data protection, Beijing has also declined to allow its own investigatory measures, like testing stored blood samples from Wuhan or combing through hospital data for potential “patient zeros,” to be verified by researchers outside the country.

    China has fiercely denied that the virus emerged from a lab accident, and has repeatedly tried to assert it could have arrived in the country for the initial outbreak from elsewhere – including a US laboratory, without offering any evidence supporting the claim.

    But a top WHO official as recently as last month publicly called for “more cooperation and collaboration with our colleagues in China to advance studies that need to take place in China”– including studies of markets and farms that could have been involved.

    “These studies need to be conducted in China and we need cooperation from our colleagues there to advance our understandings,” WHO technical lead for Covid-19 Maria Van Kerkhove said at a media briefing.

    When asked about the Department of Energy assessment by CNN, a WHO representative said the organization and its origins tracing advisory body “will keep examining all available scientific evidence that would help us advance the knowledge on the origin of SARS CoV 2 and we call on China and the scientific community to undertake necessary studies in that direction.”

    “Until we have more evidence all hypotheses are still on the table,” the representative said.

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  • Person in Florida dies after brain-eating amoeba infection, possibly due to sinus rinse with tap water, health officials warn | CNN

    Person in Florida dies after brain-eating amoeba infection, possibly due to sinus rinse with tap water, health officials warn | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A person in Charlotte County, Florida, has died after being infected with the rare brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri.

    The infection possibly resulted from “sinus rinse practices utilizing tap water,” according to a news release from the Florida Department of Health in Charlotte County. The release was issued in February to alert the public about the infection.

    On Thursday, the department confirmed that the infected person has died and officials are continuing to investigate the case.

    “An Epidemiological investigation is being conducted to understand the unique circumstances of this infection. I can confirm the infection unfortunately resulted in a death, and any additional information on this case is confidential to protect patient privacy,” Jae Williams, press secretary for the Florida Department of Health, said in an emailed statement.

    Infection with Naegleria fowleri “can only happen when water contaminated with amoebae enters the body through the nose,” according to the department’s news release.

    The Florida Department of Health in Charlotte County warned residents to only use distilled or sterile water when making sinus rinse solutions. Tap water should be boiled for at least a minute and cooled before using it for sinus rinsing, which typically involves a neti pot.

    Tap water that has not been sterilized isn’t safe to use as a nasal rinse since it’s not adequately filtered or treated, and so it may contain low levels of microorganisms, such as bacteria and protozoa, including amoebas, according to the US Food and Drug Administration’s website. Yet people cannot be infected by drinking tap water, as stomach acid typically kills those organisms.

    Naegleria fowleri is an amoeba, a single-celled living organism, that can be found in soil and warm freshwater, such as lakes, rivers, and hot springs throughout the United States. Commonly called the “brain-eating amoeba,” it can cause brain infections, which typically happens when amoeba-containing water travels up through the nose, such as while swimming.

    According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about three people in the United States get infected each year, and these infections are usually deadly.

    From 1962 to 2021, only four out of 154 people in the United States survived a brain-eating amoeba infection, according to the CDC. Just last year, a boy died who was infected after swimming at Lake Mead, another child in Nebraska died who was infected after swimming, and a Missouri resident died with the infection after visiting a beach in Iowa.

    Signs and symptoms of infection are initially severe headaches, fever, nausea and vomiting and they can progress to a stiff neck, seizures, hallucinations, and coma. The infection is treated with a combination of drugs, including the antibiotic azithromycin, the antifungal fluconazole, the antimicrobial drug miltefosine and the corticosteroid dexamethasone.

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  • Lufthansa flight diverts to Virginia after ‘significant turbulence,’ and 7 people are transported to hospitals | CNN

    Lufthansa flight diverts to Virginia after ‘significant turbulence,’ and 7 people are transported to hospitals | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A Lufthansa flight traveling from Texas to Germany was diverted to Virginia’s Washington Dulles International Airport on Wednesday evening because of turbulence that left some passengers injured, an airport spokesperson said.

    Lufthansa Flight 469, which took off from Austin, experienced “significant turbulence” and landed safely at Dulles, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority spokesperson Michael Cabbage said.

    Seven people were transported to hospitals, Cabbage said.

    Brief but severe turbulence happened about 90 minutes after takeoff and resulted in minor injuries to some passengers, a statement given to CNN by a Lufthansa spokesperson reads.

    “This was so-called clear air turbulence, which can occur without visible weather phenomena or advance warning,” the statement reads.

    “The affected passengers were given initial care on board by the flight attendants trained for such cases. As the safety and well-being of passengers and crew members is the top priority at all times, the cockpit crew decided to make an alternate landing to (Dulles airport) after flying through the turbulence.”

    The crew of the Airbus A330 reported reported encountering the turbulence at an altitude of 37,000 feet over Tennessee, the Federal Aviation Administration told CNN.

    The flight landed at Dulles airport around 9:10 p.m., FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor said.

    The FAA will investigate the incident, Gregor said.

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  • Alarm grows in Iran over reports that hundreds of schoolgirls were poisoned | CNN

    Alarm grows in Iran over reports that hundreds of schoolgirls were poisoned | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Concern is growing in Iran after reports emerged that hundreds of schoolgirls had been poisoned across the country in recent months.

    On Wednesday, Iran’s semi-official Mehr News reported that Shahriar Heydari, a member of Parliament, cited an unnamed “reliable source” in saying that “nearly 900 students” from across the country had been poisoned so far.

    The first reported poisonings happened in the city of Qom on November 30, when 18 schoolgirls from one high school were hospitalized, according to Iranian state media. In another incident in Qom on February 14, more than 100 students from 13 schools were taken to hospitals after what the state-affiliated Tasnim news agency described as “serial poisonings.”

    There have also been reports of schoolgirls being poisoned in the capital Tehran – where 35 were hospitalized on Tuesday, according to Fars News. They were in “good” condition, and many of them were later released, Fars reported. State media have also reported student poisonings in recent months in the cities of Chaharmahal, Bakhtiari and Borujerd.

    Many of the reports involve students at girls’ schools, but state media have also reported at least one incident of poisoning at a boys’ school, on February 4 in Qom.

    CNN has reached out to one of the schools named by state media as having had an incident of poisoning, Noor Yazdanshahr Conservatory in Qom, as well as to individual teachers, but has not heard back.

    Iranian Health Minister Bahram Einollahi, who visited affected students in Qom, said on February 15 that the symptoms included muscle weakness, nausea, and tiredness, but that the “poisoning” was mild, according to a report in state media outlet Iranian Students News Agency.

    Einollahi said his team had taken many samples from patients admitted to one Qom hospital for further testing at Iran’s renowned Pasteur Institute, which reported that no microbes or viruses had been identified in the samples, according to ISNA.

    It’s unclear if the incidents are linked and if the students were targeted. But Iran’s Deputy Health Minister in charge of Research and Technology Younes Panahi said on February 26 that the poisonings were “chemical” in nature, but not compound chemicals used in warfare and the symptoms were not contagious, according to IRNA.

    Panahi added that it appears that the poisonings were deliberate attempts at targeting and shutting down girls’ schools, according to IRNA.

    “After the poisoning of several students in Qom … it became clear that people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed,” Younes Panahi told a news conference Sunday, according to Iranian state media outlet IRNA. He later retracted the comment, saying he was misquoted, Fars news said.

    But a mother of two girls in Qom told CNN that both of her daughters had been poisoned, at two different schools, and one of them had experienced significant health issues after being poisoned last week. She spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the reports, and fears for her family’s safety.

    “One of my daughters was poisoned in school last week,” the mother told CNN on Tuesday. She said they spent two days at Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Qom along with several other schoolchildren and staff. Her daughter experienced nausea, shortness of breath and numbness in her left leg and right hand, she said.

    “Now she has trouble with her right foot and has difficulty walking,” the mother said.

    Local activists and national political figures have called for the government to do more in investigating the poisonings.

    “The poisoning of students at girls’ schools, which have been confirmed as deliberate acts, was neither arbitrary nor accidental,” tweeted Mohammad Habibi, spokesman for the Iranian Teachers Trade Association on February 26.

    Habibi is among a growing number of people who believe that the poisonings may be linked to the recent protests under the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement. The movement has been characterized by women’s and young girls’ outpouring of anger over issues ranging from freedoms in the Islamic Republic to the crippling state of the economy.

    “To erase the gains on freedom of clothing, (the authorities) need to increase public fear,” he tweeted.

    United States Department of State Spokesperson Ned Price called the reports of poisoning schoolgirls “very disturbing,” during a briefing Wednesday.

    “We’ve seen these reports, these are very disturbing, these are very concerning reports,” Price said.”To poison girls who are simply trying to learn is simply an abhorrent act.”

    Price urged “Iranian authorities to thoroughly investigate these reported poisonings and do everything they can to stop them and to hold accountable the perpetrators.”

    In mid-February Tasnim reported that Iran’s Minister of Education, Yousef Noori, said “most” of the students’ conditions were caused by “rumors that have scared people,” and that “there is no problem.” He said that some students had been hospitalized due to “underlying conditions,” according to Tasnim.

    Dan Kaszeta, a London based defense specialist and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, spoke to CNN about the difficulties authorities may face in confirming reports like these.

    “Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to investigate such incidents. Often, the only way to discover the causative agent is to collect samples at the time of dissemination, and this is usually difficult or impossible,” he said.

    “These current incidents in Iran are remarkably similar to dozens of incidents at schools in Afghanistan since approximately 2009. In a few of these incidents, pesticides were strongly suspected, but most of the illnesses remain unexplained,” he added.

    Kaszeta went on to explain that smells are difficult to use as an indicator. “Some things have smell added to them as the underlying dangerous chemical may be odorless.”

    Jamileh Kadivar, a prominent Iranian politician and former member of parliament, also believes that there is malicious intent behind the poisonings. “The continuity and frequency of poisonings in schools during the past three months proves that these incidents cannot be accidental and are most likely the result of organized group actions directed by think tanks and aimed at specific goals,” she wrote in an Op-Ed in Iran’s state-run newspaper Etelaat.

    Iranian Education Minister Yousef Nouri visited some of the students who were hospitalized in Qom after the string of school poisonings in mid-February, and said that a special team had been formed in Tehran to follow up on the issue, according to a report in Tasnim, a state-affiliated media outlet.

    Iran’s national police chief, Ahmadreza Radan, said on February 28 they are investigating the cause behind the “poisonings” and that no one has been arrested with the authorities still trying to determine whether the alleged poisonings are intentional or not, according to IRNA.

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  • US intelligence community cannot link ‘Havana Syndrome’ cases to a foreign adversary | CNN Politics

    US intelligence community cannot link ‘Havana Syndrome’ cases to a foreign adversary | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    The US intelligence community cannot link any cases of the mysterious ailment known as “Havana Syndrome” to a foreign adversary, ruling it unlikely that the unexplained illness was the result of a targeted campaign by an enemy of the US, according to a US intelligence assessment published on Wednesday.

    The latest conclusion comes years after the so-called syndrome first emerged and defies a theory that it could have been the result of a targeted campaign by an enemy of the US.

    The new assessment echoes an interim report from the CIA last year that found it unlikely that the “anomalous health incidents,” as they are formally known, were the caused by “a sustained worldwide campaign” by Russia or any other foreign actor.

    Wednesday’s assessment also goes further in finding that there is no credible evidence that a foreign adversary has a weapon or collection device that is capable of causing the mysterious incidents, US intelligence officials said.

    Officials also explained that the medical analysis has also evolved in a way that points away from adversarial involvement.

    “I can share with you that most IC agencies have now concluded that it is ‘very unlikely’ a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs. IC agencies have varying confidence levels because we still have gaps given the challenges collecting on foreign adversaries – as we do on many issues involving them,” said Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.

    The mysterious illness first emerged in late 2016, when a cluster of diplomats stationed in the Cuban capital of Havana began reporting symptoms consistent with head trauma, including dizziness and extreme headaches. In subsequent years, there have been cases reported around the world, including clusters of at least 60 incidents in Bogota, Colombia and Vienna, Austria. There have been about 1,500 reported cases across the US government in 96 different counties including some cases reported this year, officials said Wednesday, but the number of reported incidents has dropped significantly in the last year.

    The assessment, the result of the work of seven intelligence agencies, draws on the immense resources of the US intelligence community, including a review of hundreds of incidents and a wide range of factors surrounding them, officials explained.

    Wednesday’s assessment, however, does not provide definitive answers on or what caused the ailment that has sickened hundreds of US government personnel and family members worldwide.

    There is no one explanation for these incidents. Instead, there are many different possible causes including environmental as well as social factors and preexisting medical conditions, officials said.

    The assessment is likely to lead to further frustration among those impacted who have chastised the US government for not taking the condition seriously enough or slow-rolling the investigation.

    “There is something counterintuitive to all of this. If doctors are diagnosing some of us with a qualified injury to the brain in the line of duty and we are not saying it was a foreign adversary, what was it from?” said one former CIA agency officer who experienced symptoms.

    The intelligence community workforce was notified of the assessment on Wednesday, officials said. Sufferers were notified in recent days that the assessment was coming and some received a call from CIA Director Bill Burns, one source said.

    In a statement, Burns said the assessment is “one of the largest and most intensive investigations in the Agency’s history,” stating that it “reflects more than two years of rigorous, painstaking collection, investigative work, and analysis by IC agencies, including CIA.”

    “I want to be absolutely clear: these findings do not call into question the experiences and real health issues that US Government personnel and their family members – including CIA’s own officers – have reported while serving our country,” he said.

    The investigative efforts were “extremely aggressive” and involved “a high degree of risk,” one official explained. Intelligence officers vigorously studied what happened in the hours, days and weeks surrounding the incidents, the official explained.

    In some instances they found malfunctioning HVAC systems, which can cause discomfort to humans, and in other cases there were computer mice that created surprising disruptions.

    “We weren’t finding what we expected to find,” said one of the US officials. “There is no one explanation for any of this.”

    There was also criminal activity that occurred around some of the incidents – such as the presence of weapons dealers. But when intelligence officials chased those leads – by looking into the criminals’ past, their family and their travels – they found no connection to the mysterious health incidents.

    Officials even considered extraterrestrials as a cause, but found no linkage, they said.

    Officials said that evidence pointed against foreign involvement, including citing “confusion” on the topic among key adversaries.

    On the whole, officials did not find evidence to validate one of their incoming assumptions that one or more state actor was causing the incidents, they explained.

    There is nothing to indicate that these incidents were the result of an insider attack, the officials said. The officials would not discuss if the US has a weapon that could have caused these incidents.

    The findings also follow a report from a panel of experts last year – including scientists inside and outside of government – that found that “pulsed electromagnetic energy” emitted by an external source could have “plausibly” caused the mysterious incidents. While the latest intelligence assessment doesn’t count out that possibility completely, it appears to cast doubt on it by concluding that no US adversary has the plausible weapon or mechanism that would be needed for that to happen.

    US officials said that one of the lessons learned from the investigation was that the US government needs to do a better job looking after the health and safety of the workforce.

    Over the last year, the CIA and the State Department began providing compensation to victims whose symptoms required at least a year of medical assistance. Compensation efforts are “separate and distinct” from the intelligence assessment and will continue to be implemented, officials said.

    Following the release of the assessment, administration officials were clear that support would continue.

    “We are going to continue to see to it that our colleagues who report these incidents are treated with respect and compassion, receive timely access to medical care and we’ll continue to process Havana Act payments based on the eligibility criteria that’s been spelled out in the law,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.

    However, the future of the US government’s probe into these incidents is a bit murky.

    Officials would not definitively say if the intelligence community’s task force devoted to this effort would stay up and running, but Haines said that the work “will and must endure.” The Pentagon also has a team of experts that continues to investigate the matter.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • ‘A form of resistance’: More Black families are choosing to homeschool their children | CNN

    ‘A form of resistance’: More Black families are choosing to homeschool their children | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Tracie Yorke grew concerned about the quality of education her son was receiving after his school moved to remote learning during the pandemic in 2020.

    Yorke, of Hyattsville, Maryland, described her fourth grader’s Zoom classes as chaotic – it looked as if teachers had not been trained in virtual instruction, she said.

    That summer, the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a national racial reckoning. With only one Black teacher at the school and none past the fourth grade, Yorke said her son Tyce, who is now 13 years old, had no one he could relate to.

    “There was a lot of mayhem,” said Yorke. “I really realized, ‘I don’t think this environment is healthy for my child.’”

    Yorke decided to homeschool Tyce, and has done so for the last three years. She has put together a curriculum that meets his specific needs and can teach him about race and African American history without the risk of politicians intervening.

    While homeschooling isn’t new, advocates say a growing number of Black parents are educating their children at home so they can exercise more control over what they are taught and how they are treated. Many made the switch to homeschooling during the pandemic, but interest is growing as national debates over teaching systemic racism and Black history in the classroom continue, advocates say.

    Sherri Mehta and her older son Caleb work on an assignment at their home in Laurel, Mayland. She first turned to homeschooling in 2020.

    In the last few years, lawmakers, mostly Republicans, have called on schools to remove critical race theory – a concept that legal scholars say acknowledges that racism is both systemic and institutional in American society – from their curriculums. (Educators argue that critical race theory itself is generally not included in the grade school curriculum.) There have also been widespread efforts by lawmakers, parents and school boards to ban books about race, gender and sexuality. And most recently, Florida’s Department of Education rejected an Advanced Placement African American studies course.

    According to census data, the number of Black households homeschooling their children jumped from 3.3.% at the start of the pandemic in 2020 to 16.1% by the fall of that year. That jump was the largest of any racial group. Meanwhile, the proportion of homeschooled children in the US overall nearly doubled from 2.8% before the pandemic to 5.4% in the 2020-21 school year, according to the US Department of Education. The data may not present a complete count of families because every state regulates and tracks homeschooling differently.

    Cheryl Fields-Smith, a professor in elementary education at the University of Georgia, cited several reasons why more Black families are choosing to homeschool, including the disproportionate rates of discipline against Black students, the resegregation of schools, the denied access to gifted education in Black and brown communities, and bullying compounded by school safety concerns.

    Fields-Smith said while these issues are often researched in isolation, many Black families are having to face them all at the same time. So they are developing learning routines that fit their children’s needs and forming homeschooling co-op groups with other families to teach their children together and socialize them, Fields-Smith said.

    “I conceptualize it as a form of resistance,” Fields-Smith told CNN. “Instead of accepting the status quo, families are resisting what’s happening in their schools.”

    Some families say they chose to homeschool because they were living in majority White school districts and wanted to teach their children to have confidence in their Black identity. Others expressed a desire to shield their children from the nation’s polarizing racial climate.

    Sherri Mehta, of Laurel, Maryland, said she first turned to homeschooling in 2020 to help her young son who wasn’t doing well with remote learning as a kindergartner.

    Sherri Mehta watches Caleb practice the piano.

    Gabriel Mehta stands on the stairs while his brother Caleb lounges on a bean bag chair during a break between lessons.

    Mehta said she was also becoming concerned about her two children facing a “cultural gap” or racism because they were not around teachers who looked like them in their school district. And she saw few Black children included in the school’s gifted program.

    With homeschooling, Mehta said she and her husband can split the responsibilities of teaching different subjects, teaching the truth about Black history and slavery, and can rely on co-op groups for hands-on learning, such as woodworking.

    Mehta said she doesn’t want her children to experience the same racial trauma she experienced in public school. She recalled growing up in Richmond, Virginia, and competing against sports teams with names such as the Rebels and the Confederates.

    “There is a sort of innocence lost and I just think my kids are deserving of something different,” Mehta said. “They’ll face racism. It’s not going away. But having the experience they have now of being surrounded by this nurturing of their entire being, I think what they have now will help them face challenges as they get older.”

    The Mehta family poses for a portrait in front of their Maryland home.

    Carlos Birdsong, of Charlotte, North Carolina, said he wanted his two daughters to have “a greater sense of cultural identity” amid the political divisiveness in the country.

    “We moved here from South Carolina to this area because these public schools were supposedly good,” Birdsong said. “The charter schools in our area are mostly White. The private schools are White. They are very good schools, but they may not be the best fit because they’re majority White,” he said.

    Some families who homeschool are driven by their own experiences with traditional schooling or because they want to emphasize religious training in their instruction.

    Aurora Bean, a mother of three from Matawan, New Jersey, began homeschooling her children four years ago because she was uncomfortable with schools discussing gender identity issues at a young age and wanted to be able to teach her children about their faith. She was also opposed to the Covid-19 vaccine requirements many schools introduced during the pandemic.

    She supplements her children’s learning with coursework provided through Acellus Academy, an online K-12 private school that offers classes in Spanish, history and other subjects. Bean said she has embraced the freedom homeschooling provides, including the ability for her family to spend several months traveling the world as part of a Christian discipleship training program later this year.

    “It’s so important for my kids to see beyond our nice neighborhood,” Bean said. “It’s important for them to see the other side of things, more of the world, less of the privilege.”

    Khari, 5, practices reading with his mother, Aurora Bean.

    Bean begins each day by teaching her family about devotion and their faith. Most mornings she wakes up before the kids to have time to herself and to read the Bible.

    Many families have leaned on support groups and virtual education providers such as Outschool – which Yorke uses – to help them navigate teaching their children at home.

    Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman and Fields-Smith created the group Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars in 2020 to help families who want to homeschool but don’t know where to start. Ali-Coleman, now the organization’s sole owner and managing director, said she had homeschooled her daughter, Khari, off and on for years. And Khari was later able to attend the University of San Francisco on a full scholarship, she said.

    Families who homeschool come from all socioeconomic backgrounds, Ali-Coleman and Fields-Smith say.

    “When I homeschooled, I was not upper-middle-class, married – although I live with my partner who is my daughter’s father – Christian or politically conservative,” Ali-Coleman told CNN.

    She advises parents who want to homeschool to start with a mission statement spelling out their goals, and she holds virtual teach-ins to help families navigate challenges. Ali-Coleman said some families turn to homeschooling because institutional schoolwork isn’t challenging enough.
    “We’re now seeing the way people are speaking out loud about how they have a problem with the way we’re teaching history,” Ali-Coleman said.

    Ali-Coleman also said homeschooling requires parents to adjust their thinking and potentially change what they do to earn money. While homeschooling, she worked jobs that offered her flexibility, she said.

    “This gig economy that is now more formalized is something homeschooling parents have been doing for ages,” she said. “You have to think ‘what are the unique needs of your family and what are the support systems you need to create?’ I never want to give the impression that it’s easy. It’s always based on what the unique needs of the family are. Adjustments are definitely required and that’s something that you need to go in knowing.”

    Bean holds her son, Khari, in her arms while they look at a map of the world. The book they were reading mentioned Paris so she asked him if he could point to it on a map.

    Back in Maryland, the Yorkes explore Black history all year as part of Tyce’s curriculum. Last year, he studied Amharic, an Ethiopian language not offered in most schools and took a course on “Blacks in Comics” through a local Black homeschool co-op. This year, he took a class on astronomy that highlighted African and Black contributions to the field.

    “I’ve always had concerns about educating a young Black boy, with the perceptions and stereotypes and coming off of George Floyd,” Yorke said. “I want to be able to discuss race in the classroom.”

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  • At least 29 dead, 85 injured as trains collide in Greece | CNN

    At least 29 dead, 85 injured as trains collide in Greece | CNN

    Rescue workers are in a desperate search for survivors after a head-on collision between two trains in central Greece killed dozens of people and injured scores.

    At least 29 people were killed and more than 85 injured when a passenger train carrying more than 350 people collided with a freight train on Tuesday evening, shortly before midnight, in Tempi, central Greece, near the city of Larissa, the Greek Fire Service said.

    “We just heard a bang… the (train) car started spinning, before ending up sideways when we managed to exit,” one male passenger told Greek public broadcaster ERT.

    “It was 10 nightmarish seconds with fire, you couldn’t see much from the smoke,” said a second passenger.

    Recovery efforts are underway and the death toll is expected to rise, the Greek Fire Service said.

    The passenger train had been traveling from the capital Athens to Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, which is renowned for its festivals and vibrant cultural life. The collision follows a nationwide carnival at the weekend which ended with a public holiday on Monday.

    Images on Greece’s state-owned public broadcaster ERT showed plumes of thick smoke pouring out of toppled carriages and long lines of rescue vehicles next to them.

    Meanwhile, rescue workers with torches searched carriages for survivors as paramedics led shell-shocked passengers from the scene.

    Rescue operations are underway and the death toll is expected to rise.

    Passengers who survived the train crash near the city of Larissa arrive in Thessaloniki, Greece, on March 1, 2023.

    The images also showed some surviving passengers arriving in Thessaloniki.

    Greek Fire Service spokesman Vassilis Varthakogiannis said that 194 passengers had been taken safely to Thessaloniki.

    At least 150 firefighters with 17 vehicles and 40 ambulances are involved in the rescue operation, he added.

    A passenger is seen walking on a road after the collision in Larissa city.

    The Greek railway company, Hellenic Train, said in a press release that there was “a head-on collision between two trains: a freight train and train IC 62 which had departed from Athens to Thessaloniki.”

    Authorities said it is still not clear what led to the collision.

    Hellenic Train, the main Greek railway company, was acquired by Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane in 2017 and is now fully controlled by Trenitalia. The company operates both passenger and freight transport. The main line on which daily connections are offered is Athens-Thessaloniki.

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  • FDA advisers narrowly vote in favor of Pfizer’s RSV vaccine for older adults, despite possible safety concerns | CNN

    FDA advisers narrowly vote in favor of Pfizer’s RSV vaccine for older adults, despite possible safety concerns | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Vaccine advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration narrowly voted Tuesday in favor of Pfizer’s RSV vaccine for adults over the age of 60, paving the way for approval of the first nation’s RSV vaccine, despite some safety concerns.

    The committee members voted 7-4, with one abstention, that there is adequate data to support the safety and effectiveness of Pfizer’s vaccine for the prevention of lower respiratory tract disease caused by respiratory syncytial virus among older adults.

    The FDA, which typically follows the independent committee’s recommendations, is scheduled to decide on approval of the vaccines by May, ahead of RSV’s typical winter surge. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must then recommend the shot before it becomes available to the public.

    Pending those steps, Pfizer’s vaccine – along with GSK’s candidate shot, which will be voted on by the FDA advisory committee on Wednesday – would be the first approved RSV vaccines for adults 60 or older.

    RSV is a highly contagious virus that causes flu-like illness in people of all ages that increases in severity with age. It’s is responsible for an estimated 177,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths per year among adults 65 or older, according to the CDC.

    The Pfizer vaccine was 66.7% effective at preventing moderated lower respiratory tract illness with two or more symptoms and 85.7% effective at preventing illness with three or more symptoms, according to an FDA briefing document.

    Although a majority of the committee voted in favor of the vaccine, some members expressed concerns about the vaccine’s “important potential risk: of Guillain-Barre syndrome. Two adults among the 20,000 vaccine recipients in Pfizer’s Phase 3 clinical trial developed symptoms consistent with the rare neurological disorder within nine days of receiving the shot.

    “It seems to me that one case is a red flag. Two cases is very concerning, and it’s concerning to me that Pfizer doesn’t think that there are any safety concerns,” said Dr. Marie Griffin, professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who voted that the data demonstrated the vaccine was effective but not safe.

    The FDA has recommended that Pfizer conduct a safety study for further evaluation of Guillain-Barre and other immune-mediated demyelinating conditions after potential vaccine approval, and the company has agreed.

    Dr. Daniel Feikin, respiratory disease consultant, who voted that the vaccine was both safe and effective, said that post-marketing safety surveillance will be “critical.”

    Some of the vaccine advisers wanted to see more data on effectiveness against hospitalization or death, especially among high-risk people such as older adults or those with other health conditions.

    “I think the data does support the effectiveness of this vaccine. It’s just the population was underrepresented by people who could most benefit from the vaccine,” Griffin said.

    The available safety and efficacy data from Pfizer’s clinical trial is from the first of two RSV seasons. Some of the experts said that the vote is premature and that they would like to see more data.

    “I’m desperately eager to have a vaccine that works for RSV. This has been a terrible disease my whole career. I would love to see it. No doubt about it,” said Dr. Jay Portnoy, professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, who voted that the data demonstrated that the vaccine was safe but not effective.

    Portnoy says that waiting for a second season of data would provide more robust numbers and complete analysis.

    “It’s not an emergency use authorization. We can take the time to finish the studies and get the information we need before licensing this product going forward. So I remain a little bit skeptical, given the data that we have.”

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  • Ohio toxic train disaster leads to more concerns in other states while scientists say chemical tests in East Palestine are unusually high | CNN

    Ohio toxic train disaster leads to more concerns in other states while scientists say chemical tests in East Palestine are unusually high | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The aftermath of the toxic train wreck in Ohio keeps spreading to more states as scientists say tests in East Palestine unusually high levels of some chemicals.

    Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb is the latest out-of-state official to say he was stunned to learn hazardous waste from the Norfolk Southern train derailment and subsequent release of toxic chemicals was headed to his state.

    “After learning third-hand that materials may be transported to our state yesterday, I directed my environmental director to reach out” to the US Environmental Protection Agency, Holcomb said in a written statement Tuesday.

    “The materials should go to the nearest facilities, not moved from the far eastern side of Ohio to the far western side of Indiana,” Holcomb said. “I want to know exactly what precautions will be taken in the transport and disposition of the materials.”

    After surprise shipments of hazardous waste to Texas and Michigan, the EPA approved two sites in Ohio to handle safe disposal of the waste.

    Another two sites – Heritage Environmental Services’ hazardous waste landfill in Roachdale, Indiana, and Ross Incineration Services in Grafton, Ohio – will receive contaminated waste starting Tuesday, EPA Region 5 Administrator Debra Shore said Monday. She said Indiana officials and state partners were notified before the EPA approved “the shipment of any waste from the derailment to their state or district.”

    But US EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the agency is developing measures to give authorities a “heads up” about incoming waste shipments and to keep Norfolk Southern accountable for the material it is moving.

    On the other side of Ohio, the Pennsylvania Department of Health is opening a health resource center in Beaver County so residents “can talk to public health experts, sign up to have their well water tested, and learn about available resources from professionals there to help,” Gov. Josh Shapiro tweeted Tuesday.

    Beaver County is just across the state border from East Palestine, Ohio – a village of 5,000 struggling to understand the full breadth of consequences from the February 3 toxic train wreck that burned for days and led to the release of the dangerous chemical vinyl chloride.

    A new data analysis suggests nine out of the dozens of chemicals that the EPA has been monitoring are higher than what normally would be found in East Palestine, according to scientists from Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon universities.

    If the levels of some chemicals remain high, it could pose a problem for residents’ health over time, the scientists said. Temperature changes or high winds might stir up the chemicals and release them into the atmosphere.

    The chemical with the highest concentration found in East Palestine was a substance called acrolein, the data analysis said.

    Acrolein is used to control plants, algae, rodents and microorganisms. It is a clear liquid at room temperature and is toxic. It can cause inflammation and irritation of the skin, respiratory tract and mucous membranes, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    “It’s not elevated to the point where it’s necessarily like an immediate ‘evacuate the building’ health concern,” said Albert Presto, an associate research professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon’s Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, who is working on the university’s chemical monitoring effort in East Palestine.

    “But, you know, we don’t know necessarily what the long-term risk is or how long that concentration that causes that risk will persist.”

    Some East Palestine residents have reported rashes, headaches, nausea and bloody noses since the derailment and the February 6 controlled release and burning of vinyl chloride.

    During his third visit to the town Tuesday, the EPA chief said ongoing tests of the air and municipal water show both are safe – but urged anyone who is feeling “any kind of adverse health impacts” to seek medical attention.

    Regan returned to East Palestine to mark the opening of the “EPA’s community welcome center,” which will be open daily so “residents and business owners can stop in to get their questions answered, sign up for home air monitoring, and learn more about cleaning services.”

    “We’ve been testing the air from the very beginning, and the state has been testing the water,” Regan said.

    “Every chemical that was on that train and every byproduct from those chemicals have been tested or are part of our testing regimen,” he said. “So we believe firmly that our testing regimen is protective.”

    Still, the EPA is offering cleaning services – which will be reimbursed by Norfolk Southern – to any concerned resident in East Palestine.

    “There have been many residents here who have indicated that they worry about some residual, or some dust or some particles,” Regan said. “While we don’t believe that there are any adverse health impacts in homes or businesses as it relates to the derailment, this is an additional step we’re taking to alleviate concern and lower the angst.”

    Ohio officials have said East Palestine’s municipal water supply is safe to drink, citing multiple tests and the fact that the municipal water comes from five wells encased in steel deep underground.

    But health officials warn those using private well water should get it tested before using it. The Columbiana County Health District is posting test results online.

    Across the border in Pennsylvania, the state Department of Environmental Protection has collected samples from “nearly every private well” in the state within one mile of the derailment site, the governor said.

    The goal is to independently verify the safety of the water in Pennsylvania, Shapiro said.

    He reiterated that “Norfolk Southern will pay for the entire cost of the clean up,” including reimbursing Pennsylvania county fire departments for “equipment that was damaged or contaminated while responding to the derailment.”

    US Transporation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has called for Norfolk Southern and the rest of the freight rail industry to take a number of immediate actions, including committing to phase in safer tank cars by 2025.

    The Department of Transportation also wants Congress to take up legislation that would increase the maximum fines the DOT can issue to rail companies for violating safety regulations, Buttigieg said.

    He also called on the CEOs of major freight rail companies to “join a close-call reporting system that protects whistleblowers who spot issues that could lead to accidents,” Buttigieg told CNN on Tuesday.

    “We’re focusing on lessons learned when it comes to rail safety.”

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  • Hong Kong scraps mask mandate after nearly three years | CNN

    Hong Kong scraps mask mandate after nearly three years | CNN


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Hong Kong, one of the last major international cities requiring face masks, on Tuesday announced it will end its controversial mandate nearly three years after it was enacted to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

    The mandate, enforced through fines that could reach more than $1,000, had required facial coverings in all public spaces including outdoors, indoors and public transport. At one point, it had even been mandatory while exercising outside.

    The rule came into effect on July 15, 2020, though the vast majority of people in the city had begun wearing masks months earlier as reports of coronavirus infections spread, leading to panic buying and shortages as early as January that year.

    The mandate will be fully lifted on Wednesday, the city’s leader John Lee said at a news briefing Tuesday.

    “We are now returning to normalcy,” Lee said, as the Asian financial hub launches a major push to welcome back business travelers and tourists.

    Hong Kong has rolled back several other major controls in recent months, most notably mandatory quarantine for all international arrivals, in a move anticipated to boost tourism.

    Speaking at the same news briefing, Health Secretary Lo Mau-chung said that with the lifting of the mask mandate, “We have now removed all epidemic restrictions.”

    “I’m looking forward to seeing a smile on everyone’s face now,” he said. However, he added, there are still some recommendations in place to wear masks at “high risk” areas such as elderly care homes and hospitals.

    Most other places in Asia have either fully or partially eased their mask mandates in recent months, including South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

    The World Health Organization still recommends health workers wear masks, with Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of WHO’s Covid response, warning that the virus was “circulating pretty much unchecked around the world at the moment.”

    This is a developing story.

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  • More than 4.5 million fentanyl pills, 3,000 pounds of methamphetamine seized in Arizona investigation, DEA says | CNN

    More than 4.5 million fentanyl pills, 3,000 pounds of methamphetamine seized in Arizona investigation, DEA says | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Arizona authorities targeting the Sinaloa drug cartel have seized narcotics estimated to be worth more than $13 million, including more than 4.5 million fentanyl pills, 3,100 pounds of methamphetamine and large quantities of heroin, cocaine and fentanyl powder, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

    In a news release, the agency said the seizure was the culmination of a three-year-long investigation during which 150 people had so far been charged.

    “The fentanyl seized represents more than 30 million potentially lethal doses,” the DEA said, announcing the seizure in partnership with the Tempe Police Department and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.

    Authorities displayed some of the recovered narcotics at a joint news conference Thursday, attended by CNN affiliate KNXV.

    “The sample you see here today is staggering. There are over 4.5 million fentanyl pills, over 140 pounds of fentanyl powder, over 135 kilos of cocaine, over 3,000 pounds of methamphetamine, 35 kilos of heroin, 49 firearms and over $2 million in cash,” Interim Tempe Police Chief Josie Montenegro told reporters.

    Montenegro said the substances recovered “would be poisoning members of our community, including our youth and vulnerable population,” had the seizures not been made.

    “In addition, the dangers and crimes associated with illegal drugs would be plaguing our community,” Montenegro added.

    According to authorities, “numerous” people were taken into custody in the bust. At this time, authorities do not plan on releasing the names of those involved because it is a continuing investigation, according to Montenegro.

    Phoenix DEA Special Agent in Charge Cheri Oz said investigators are “laser-focused” on the Sinaloa cartel.

    “I want to be crystal clear, the drugs in this room and the drugs that are flooding Arizona every single day are sourced primarily by one evil as the Sinaloa drug cartel,” she said at the news conference. “We are laser-focused on the Sinaloa drug cartel and we will defeat them. We will not stop.”

    Oz also praised the efforts of DEA agents and other officers over the last three years. “Their hard work and tenacity is responsible for removing these deadly drugs before they poisoned our family, our friends and our neighborhoods,” she said.

    The country is struggling with a decades-long opioid epidemic in which fentanyl has become the most commonly used drug involved in overdoses.

    Pharmaceutical fentanyl is a synthetic opioid intended to help patients manage severe pain. It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, and typically prescribed in the form of skin patches or lozenges. But most recent cases of fentanyl-related harm, overdose, and death in the United States are linked to illegally made fentanyl, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Deaths involving synthetic opioids increased by 22% in 2021, according to CDC data, and in 2022, there were about 181,806 nonfatal opioid overdoses recorded in the United States.

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  • US Energy Department assesses Covid-19 likely resulted from lab leak, furthering US intel divide over virus origin | CNN Politics

    US Energy Department assesses Covid-19 likely resulted from lab leak, furthering US intel divide over virus origin | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    The US Department of Energy has assessed that the Covid-19 pandemic most likely came from a laboratory leak in China, according to a newly updated classified intelligence report.

    Two sources said that the Department of Energy assessed in the intelligence report that it had “low confidence” the Covid-19 virus accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan.

    Intelligence agencies can make assessments with either low, medium or high confidence. A low confidence assessment generally means that the information obtained is not reliable enough or too fragmented to make a more definitive analytic judgment or that there is not enough information available to draw a more robust conclusion.

    The latest assessment further adds to the divide in the US government over whether the Covid-19 pandemic began in China in 2019 as the result of a lab leak or whether it emerged naturally. The various intelligence agencies have been split on the matter for years. In 2021, the intelligence community declassified a report that showed four agencies in the intelligence community had assessed with low confidence that the virus likely jumped from animals to humans naturally in the wild, while one assessed with moderate confidence that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident.

    Three other intelligence community elements were unable to coalesce around either explanation without additional information, the report said.

    The Wall Street Journal first reported on the new assessment from the Department of Energy. A senior US intelligence official told the Journal that the update to the intelligence assessment was conducted in light of new intelligence, further study of academic literature and in consultation with experts outside government.

    A Department of Energy spokesperson told CNN in a statement: “The Department of Energy continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed.”

    The Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence is one of 18 government agencies that make up the intelligence community, which are under the umbrella of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

    The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

    The latest intelligence assessment was provided to Congress as Republicans on Capitol Hill have been pushing for further investigation into the lab leak theory, while accusing the Biden administration of playing down its possibility.

    A spokesperson for House Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said in a statement that the committee was “reviewing the classified information provided” by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to a letter requesting information earlier this month.

    One of the sources said that the new assessment from the Department of Energy is similar to information from a House Republican Intelligence Committee report released last year on the origins of the virus.

    National security adviser Jake Sullivan said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the intelligence community remains divided on the matter, while noting that President Joe Biden has put resources into getting to the bottom of the origin question.

    “Right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question,” Sullivan told CNN’s Dana Bash. “Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other. A number of them have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure.”

    Sullivan said Biden had directed the national laboratories, which are part of the Department of Energy, to be brought into the assessment.

    In May 2020, researchers at the government-backed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory issued a classified report that found it was possible that the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, which came at a time when that line of inquiry was considered taboo.

    The US began exploring the possibility that Covid-19 spread in a laboratory as early as April 2020, though the intelligence community has noted repeatedly that a lack of cooperation from Beijing has made it difficult to get to the bottom of the question.

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  • 12 blue states sue FDA, saying it’s too strict in limiting abortion drugs as legal battle over mifepristone heats up | CNN Politics

    12 blue states sue FDA, saying it’s too strict in limiting abortion drugs as legal battle over mifepristone heats up | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Twelve states led by liberal attorneys general announced Friday that they had sued the Food and Drug Administration, saying its limits on mifepristone, one of the two drugs used for medication abortion, are too strict.

    The suit is a possible hedge by states waiting to see how a federal judge in Texas rules in a lawsuit brought by anti-abortion groups seeking to block the FDA’s approval of mifepristone altogether. Conflicting rulings could mean the Supreme Court is asked to sort out the issue.

    RELATED: How a medication abortion, also known as an ‘abortion pill,’ works

    “The federal government has known for years that mifepristone is safe and effective,” Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement. “In the wake of the Supreme Court’s radical decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the FDA is now exposing doctors, pharmacists and patients to unnecessary risk. The FDA’s excessive restrictions on this important drug have no basis in medical science.”

    Mifepristone was first approved in 2000 and medication abortion accounts for more than half of the abortions in the US. It is the first drug, followed by misoprostol, in the medication abortion regimen. Patients and providers must sign agreements stating the drug will be used to end a pregnancy, and pharmacies must have special certification.

    The lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Washington state. The states in the lawsuit are: Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Vermont.

    A lawsuit seeking to block the use of medication abortion nationwide could receive an initial decision at any moment, after the plaintiffs in the case submitted to the court on Friday their final brief on the challenge.

    The lawsuit, filed in November by anti-abortion advocates against FDA, challenges the two-decade-old approval of mifepristone, the first drug in the medication abortion process.

    A decision by US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, in favor of the plaintiffs could have far-reaching consequences since medication abortion now makes up a majority of abortions obtained in the US.

    In the filing submitted Friday, the anti-abortion advocates rehashed many of the arguments they made in earlier briefs. Its submission means that Kacsmaryk could soon rule on a motion by the plaintiffs to temporarily block use of the medication. The judge had previously said that once the February 24 filing deadline ended, “briefing will then be closed on the matter, absent any ‘exceptional or extraordinary circumstances.’”

    Kacsmaryk, however, could also call for a hearing, or ask for additional responses.

    The defendants in the case – the FDA and Danco, which makes mifepristone – argued in separate briefs to the court that a decision against the drug’s approval would be unprecedented and would shutter the drugmaker’s business.

    Reproductive rights advocates have stressed that a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would be devastating, with NARAL Pro-Choice America saying in a statement that if the drug is yanked from the market, “64.5 million women of reproductive age in the US would lose access to medication abortion care, an exponential increase in harm overnight.”

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