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Gonorrhea shot gets FDA fast track as resistant cases multiply

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:56 GMT

Matthew Griffin | Bloomberg News (TNS)GSK Plc’s experimental gonorrhea vaccine got fast-track designation from U.S. regulators, putting the shot in position to become the first preventive for a common, often-undetected infection that’s gaining resistance to treatment.The Food and Drug Administration status makes the drug eligible for a sped-up approval process, if an ongoing midstage trial shows it’s effective, the company said Tuesday. GSK learned of its status in April and plans to move the vaccine to final-stage testing in 2026, said Giulia Giordano, vaccine development leader for the project.In 2020, some 82 million people worldwide caught gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted infection that can lead to complications including infertility. While some patients show early symptoms, such as pain or urethral discharge in men or vaginal discharge in women, many cases may be missed even as the disease does long-term damage.The situation has been exacerbated by gonorrhea’s growing resistan...

Court hearing for Lindsay Groves, former childcare worker charged with creating child pornography ends in explosive emotional outburst

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:56 GMT

The former Tyngsboro childcare worker accused of taking nude photographs of the children under her care and then sharing those images with others heard firsthand the pain she had allegedly caused when a parent lashed out at at her in court.“I want to (expletive) kill that (expletive),” a tearful woman, presumably a mother of one of the victims, cried at the close of the initial appearance in federal court in Boston. “You need to rot in jail!”Lindsay Groves, 38, of Hudson, N.H., was charged by criminal complaint filed in federal court in Boston last week and arrested that same day. She is charged with sexual exploitation of children and distribution of child pornography. According to an affidavit filed with the complaint, she took nude photos of children she worked with at the Creative Minds daycare in Tyngsboro, with at least several of the photos being made within the last couple of weeks.If convicted, Groves faces a maximum of 30 years for the exploitation ...

Is a Milan Lucic return to Bruins in the air?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:56 GMT

Milan Lucic could be coming back to his first NHL home.The 35-year-old Lucic is set to become a UFA on Saturday but the Calgary Flames had given him permission to speak with other teams. Though the Athletic’s Rick Dhaliwal, based in Lucic’s hometown of Vancouver, reported that there will indeed be a reunion, a source close to the situation told the Herald there are still some things to be worked out contractually. Nothing can be official until Saturday.If the deal does happen, one would presume that it would be a short-term deal for a fraction of his salary last season, which was the final year of a seven-year contract with an AAV of $6 million.Lucic is no longer the same player who scored 30 goals while riding shotgun with David Krejci earlier in his career. Last season with the Flames, he average just over 11 minutes of icetime and notched 7-12-19 totals and was minus-13. He’s six years removed from his last 20-goal season, when he scored 23 goals as a member of ...

Smoke from Canada wildfires increasing health risks in Black, poorer US communities

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:56 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — Smoky air from Canada’s wildfires shrouded broad swaths of the U.S. from Minnesota to Pennsylvania and Kentucky on Wednesday, prompting warnings to stay inside and exacerbating health risks for people already suffering from industrial pollution.The impacts are particularly hard on poor and minority communities that are more likely to live near polluting plants and have higher rates of asthma. Detroit, a mostly Black city with a poverty rate of about 30%, had the worst air quality in the U.S. on Wednesday, leading the Environmental Protection Agency to warn that “everyone should stay indoors.”“The more breaths you’re taking, you’re inhaling, literally, a fire, camp smoke, into your lungs,” said Darren Riley, who was diagnosed with asthma in 2018, a few years after arriving in Detroit.“Many communities face this way too often,” said Riley, who is Black. “And while this wildfire smoke allows, unfortunately, many people to feel this burden, this is a burden that far too l...

Amtrak train with 190 passengers derails after colliding with vehicle in Southern California

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:56 GMT

MOORPARK, Calif. (AP) — An Amtrak train carrying 190 passengers derailed Wednesday after striking a truck on tracks in Southern California, and only minor injuries were reported, authorities said. Three of the train’s seven cars went off the tracks following the collision in Moorpark, said Ventura County Fire Department Captain Brian McGrath. The number of people hurt wasn’t immediately known, but all the injuries were characterized as minor, McGrath said.Parts of the demolished truck were still on the tracks, while other sections lay near the derailed train cars. The truck’s driver had only minor injuries and it appears he got out before the collision, McGrath said. The derailed train cars remained upright on a section of track adjacent to an orchard and bare sections of land.Most of the passengers were able to exit the train on their own or with the help of first responders, who were called around 11:20 a.m., McGrath said. A few people were transported to hospita...

Suspect wanted after trying to light victim on fire in Oshawa

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:56 GMT

Police in Durham are searching for a suspect wanted in an assault after he tried to light the victim on fire in Oshawa.Investigators said the man was hiding outside of a local business in the Simcoe Street South and John Street West area around 10 a.m. on June 7.When the victim arrived, police said the man sprayed them with an unknown substance and attempted to light them on fire. The suspect fled the area westbound on John Street West on a bicycle.Police said the victim was treated for injuries by paramedics at the scene. It’s unclear how serious this injuries were.The suspect is described as a white male with a medium build and approximately 25 to 30 years old.He was last seen wearing a blue hoodie, black pants, a blue baseball cap and red and white running shoes.

The number of Kansas residents changing their gender jumped 300% before a new law began

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:56 GMT

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The number of people officially changing their gender in Kansas jumped more than 300% this year ahead of a new state law that legally erases their ability to identify with a gender other than the sex assigned to them at birth.The legislation is part of a raft of measures lawmakers across the U.S. have passed to roll back transgender rights. It has provisions meant to restrict transgender people’s use of restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities and applies to a person’s identity listed on state documents such as birth certificates and driver’s licenses.The Kansas law takes effect Saturday, but it’s not yet clear how it will play out in the daily lives of transgender people. The new legislation conflicts with a 2019 federal court order directing the state to allow transgender people to change their birth certificates.Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who vetoed the law but was overridden by the Republican-controlled Legislature, hasn’t said whether she w...

Warming causes more extreme rain, not snow, over mountains. Scientists say that’s a problem

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:56 GMT

A warming world is transforming some major snowfalls into extreme rain over mountains instead, somehow worsening both dangerous flooding like the type that devastated Pakistan last year as well as long-term water shortages, a new study found.Using rain and snow measurements since 1950 and computer simulations for future climate, scientists calculated that for every degree Fahrenheit the world warms, extreme rainfall at higher elevation increases by 8.3% (15% for every degree Celsius), according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature. Heavy rain in mountains causes a lot more problems than big snow, including flooding, landslides and erosion, scientists said. And the rain isn’t conveniently stored away like snowpack that can recharge reservoirs in spring and summer.“It is not just a far-off problem that is projected to occur in the future, but the data is actually telling us that it’s already happening and we see that in the data over the past few decades,” said lead author M...

Indiana man confessed to murders of teenage girls in phone call with his wife, documents say

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:56 GMT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana man charged with killing two teenage girls confessed multiple times to the murders in a phone call to his wife while in prison, according to court documents released Wednesday.Richard Matthew Allen allegedly told his wife, Kathy Allen, in an April 3 phone call that he killed Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14. The two teenagers’ bodies were found Feb. 14, 2017, just outside of their hometown of Delphi, Indiana — about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northwest of Indianapolis, in Carroll County.Allen County Judge Fran Gull, assigned to the case after the original judge recused himself, unsealed the motion describing the confessions alongside more than 100 filings in the case on Wednesday. “Investigators had the phone call transcribed and the transcription confirms that Richard Allen admits that he committed the murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German,” reads the document filed by Carroll County prosecutor Nicholas McLeland. “He admits se...

Trudeau announces child-care infrastructure funding to create more spaces

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:56 GMT

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced plans Wednesday to spend $625 million to help provinces and territories build child-care infrastructure. Trudeau said the money will be rolled out over four years to help providers renovate, retrofit and build new not-for-profit and public child-care facilities. “We need more child-care spaces so more families can benefit from affordable, high-quality child care,” Trudeau said at a press conference in Mississauga, Ont. The announcement follows through on the early learning and child-care infrastructure fund promised by the Liberal government in the 2022 budget.It’s meant to complement the national child-care program, which aims to deliver child care for $10 a day, on average, by 2026. Parents have already seen fees reduced by an average of at least 50 per cent across the country.Advocates and experts have raised concerns however, about a lack of spaces to accommodate the growing demand for subsidized child...