Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Protein found on infected cells protects virus from immune system; remdesivir helps prevent hospitalization

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.

Virus-infected cells protected from immune system by protein

A protein called CD47 that helps damaged cells avoid destruction by the immune system may be contributing to severe cases of COVID-19, researchers believe. Drugs in development targeting CD47 may result in improved COVID-19 therapies, they suggested in a report published in Current Issues in Molecular Biology. “We may have identified a major factor associated with severe COVID-19,” coauthor Martin Michaelis of the University of Kent said in a statement. “We can now look forward to further progress in the design of therapeutics.” In lab experiments, the researchers found that CD47 – which in effect tells the immune system, “Do not eat me!” – is present in increased amounts on the surfaces of cells infected with the coronavirus. SARS-CoV-2 infection also increases levels of another protein, SIRPalpha, that partners with CD47 to trick the immune system into ignoring the sick cells. Previous studies have shown that CD47 levels are also elevated in conditions that put people at higher risk for critical illness from COVID-19, such as old age, diabetes, high blood pressure, and clogged blood vessels. In these groups, “high CD47 levels may predispose… to severe COVID-19,” the researchers said. “Further research will be needed to define the roles of CD47 and/or SIRPalpha in COVID-19 in more detail,” they added.

Remdesivir keeps high-risk patients out of the hospital

Gilead Sciences Inc’s intravenous antiviral drug remdesivir helped keep high-risk COVID-19 patients out of the hospital in a randomized trial, the company announced. The 562 patients in the study all had conditions that increased their risk for becoming critically ill. Half received three days of treatment with remdesivir – sold under the brand name Veklury – while the rest received a placebo. Four weeks later, 5.3% of patients in the placebo group had been hospitalized or died, compared to 0.7% of those who received remdesivir. That translated into an 87% lower risk of hospitalization or death. Remdesivir-treated patients also had significantly fewer medical visits, the company said. The drug is currently authorized for emergency use in hospitalized patients. “These latest data show remdesivir’s potential to help high-risk patients recover before they get sicker and stay out of the hospital altogether,” study leader Dr. Robert Gottlieb of Baylor University Medical Center said in a statement. His team plans to formally report the data at an upcoming medical conference.

Pandemic cuts life expectancy by most since WWII

The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced life expectancy in 2020 by the largest amount since World War II, with the life expectancy of American men dropping by more than two years, according to new data. In the 29 countries studied – the United States, Chile, and 27 in Europe – all but two showed reductions in life expectancy. There were greater drops in life expectancy for men than women in most countries. “The large declines in life expectancy observed in the United States can partly be explained by the notable increase in mortality at working ages observed in 2020,” study co-leader Ridhi Kashyap of the University of Oxford said in a statement. “In the United States, increases in mortality in the under 60 age group contributed most significantly to life expectancy declines, whereas across most of Europe increases in mortality above age 60 contributed more significantly.” The largest declines were found in U.S. men, who saw life expectancy drop by 2.2 years relative to 2019, followed by a 1.7-year decline for Lithuanian men. Women in the United States and Spain had drops in life expectancy of 1.5 years or more. Overall, men had more than a year shaved off in 15 countries, compared to women in 11 countries. Females from 15 countries and males from 10 ended up with lower life expectancy at birth in 2020 than in 2015, the research team reported on Sunday in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Victor Jack; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. successfully flight tests Raytheon hypersonic weapon – Pentagon

By Mike Stone

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has tested an air-breathing hypersonic weapon capable of speeds faster than five times the speed of sound, marking the first successful test of the class of weapon since 2013, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The test took place as the United States and its global rivals quicken their pace to build hypersonic weapons – the next generation of arms that rob adversaries of reaction time and traditional defeat mechanisms.

In July, Russia said it had successfully tested a Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missile, a weapon President Vladimir Putin has touted as part of a new generation of missile systems without equal in the world.

The free flight test of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) occurred last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, said in a statement.

Hypersonic weapons travel in the upper atmosphere at speeds of more than five times the speed of sound, or about 6,200 kilometers (3,853 miles) per hour.

“The missile, built by Raytheon Technologies, was released from an aircraft seconds before its Northrop Grumman scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) engine kicked on,” DARPA said.

“The DoD (Department of Defense) has identified hypersonic weapons and counter-hypersonic capabilities as the highest technical priorities for our nation’s security,” said Wes Kremer, president of Raytheon’s Missiles & Defense business unit.

“The United States, and our allies, must have the ability to deter the use of these weapons and the capabilities to defeat them,” he said.

In 2019, Raytheon teamed up with Northrop Grumman to develop and produce engines for hypersonic weapons. Northrop’s scramjet engine technology uses the vehicle’s high speed to forcibly compress incoming air before combustion to enable sustained flight at hypersonic speeds.

“The HAWC vehicle operates best in oxygen-rich atmosphere, where speed and maneuverability make it difficult to detect in a timely way. It could strike targets much more quickly than subsonic missiles and has significant kinetic energy even without high explosives,” DARPA said in the release.

(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler and Mark Potter)

Some New York hospitals curtail service as vaccine mandate triggers staff crunch

By Maria Caspani and Nathan Layne

NEW YORK (Reuters) -New York hospitals were preparing to fire thousands of healthcare workers for not complying with a COVID-19 vaccine mandate taking effect on Monday, with some in the upstate region curtailing services to cope with staffing shortfalls.

The Erie County Medical Center (ECMC) in Buffalo has suspended elective inpatient surgeries and will not accept intensive-care patients from other hospitals as it prepares to fire about 300 unvaccinated employees, a spokesperson said.

Catholic Health, one of the largest healthcare providers in Western New York, had said it would postpone some elective surgeries on Monday as it works to boost its vaccination rate, which reached 90% of workers as of Sunday afternoon.

Peter Cutler, a spokesman for ECMC, said the decision to curtail some operations would put a big dent in the hospital’s revenue, as elective inpatient surgeries bring in about $1 million per week, in addition to inconveniencing patients.

“Financially, it’s a big deal,” Cutler said.

New York’s state health department issued an order last month mandating that all healthcare workers receive at least their first COVID-19 shot by Sept. 27, triggering a rush by hospitals to inoculate as many employees as possible.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on Saturday she was considering bringing in National Guard and out-of-state medical workers to fill likely staffing shortages, with 16% of the state’s 450,000 hospital staff, or roughly 72,000 workers, not fully vaccinated.

The inoculation push comes amid a broader battle between state and federal government leaders seeking to use vaccine mandates to help counter the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus and workers who are against such requirements, many claiming religious grounds for their objections.

The Delta variant drove a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the United States that peaked in early September and has since fallen, according to a Reuters tally. Deaths, a lagging indicator, continue to rise with about 2,000 lives lost on average a day for the past week.

NYC HOSPITALS ‘FULLY FUNCTIONAL’

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference on Monday that hospitals in the city were not seeing major impacts from the mandate, but that he was worried about other areas of the state, where vaccination rates are lower.

Of the 43,000 employees at the city’s 11 public hospitals, about 5,000 were not vaccinated, Dr. Mitchell Katz, head of NYC Health + Hospitals, said at the news conference. Katz said 95% of nurses were vaccinated and all of the group’s facilities were “open and fully functional.”

It was not immediately clear how pending legal cases concerning religious exemptions would apply to the state’s plans and what recourse might be available to fired employees. A federal judge in Albany temporarily ordered New York state officials to allow religious exemptions for the state-imposed vaccine mandate on healthcare workers.

At St. Peter’s Health Partners in the Albany region, about 400 employees are at risk of losing their job for failing to show proof of vaccination or intent to be inoculated, said Dr. Thea Dalfino, chief medical officer for SPHP Acute Care.

She warned that some services including elective surgeries may need to be halted due to staffing issues at their hospitals. The unvaccinated workers will be suspended without pay and given until Oct. 8 to comply or be fired, a spokesperson said.

Others have made greater progress with their vaccination drives.

New York-Presbyterian, the largest private network of hospitals in New York City, gave its employees until Sept. 22 to get a shot. Only 250 out of 48,000 total employees chose not to be vaccinated and were terminated, a spokesperson said.

Rochester Regional Health, which oversees a network of nine hospitals in upstate New York, said on Monday that nearly 99% of its employees had either received one dose or had been granted an exemption.

The mandate has also thrown up new staffing challenges for nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, many of which had struggled to retain workers even prior to the pandemic.

Stephen Hanse, who heads a statewide long-term care association, said he supports the vaccine mandate but worries it could exacerbate such staffing problems, hindering the capacity for nursing homes to accept hospital patients upon discharge.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Maria Caspani in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Biden administration moves to protect ‘Dreamers’ from deportation

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – The Biden administration proposed a rule on Monday that would move an estimated 700,000 immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children to the back of the line to be deported, in a bid to preserve an Obama-era program recently struck down by a judge.

The proposal from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would “preserve and fortify” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program first launched in 2012, the agency said, and ensure that productive young people with few ties to their home countries are not deported.

DACA beneficiaries, known as “Dreamers,” receive work authorization, access to driver’s licenses and better access, for some, to financial aid for education, but not a path to citizenship.

To be eligible for DACA, individuals must have been younger than 16 when they arrived in the United States and continuously resided in the country for five years. They also must have a high-school diploma or the equivalent and have not been convicted of any felonies or other serious crimes.

In a July ruling, a Texas federal judge said DACA was illegally created by former President Barack Obama and blocked DHS from accepting new applications to the program. The Biden administration is appealing that decision.

DHS on Monday said in the meantime, it made sense to focus its limited resources on deporting individuals who knowingly entered the U.S. illegally.

The proposal will be formally published on Tuesday, kicking off a 60-day public comment period.

The proposed rule is particularly important after a bid by U.S. Senate Democrats to insert a path to citizenship for Dreamers in a budget bill hit a roadblock last week, according to Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law at Cornell Law School.

“While Democrats will try to find other ways to provide a path to a green card for Dreamers, the proposed rule could be a temporary safety net for Dreamers if legislation fails,” Yale-Loehr said.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in New York; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Biden, Democrats may limit free college, childcare to shrink reconciliation bill -sources

By Jarrett Renshaw

(Reuters) -The White House and U.S. Democrats are weighing attaching or strengthening income caps to a number of key agenda items, including electric vehicle rebates and free community college, to shrink the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill and pacify spending hawks, according to two officials familiar with the discussions.

Discussions about these income limits, known as means tests in Washington lingo, come as Democrats struggle to agree on the size of the sprawling social safety net and climate change package, a signature piece of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to comment on whether the administration would agree to income caps on things like free community college, but did note that means tests are common and that the president has supported placing income restrictions on government programs.

“Every family is not eligible for the child tax credit in this country. Every person is not eligible for the earned income tax credit,” Psaki noted.

The $3.5 trillion Biden proposal outlined earlier this year included free community college, expanded child tax credits and universal preschool for any U.S. citizen. But Democrats are now considering whether to cap eligibility based on income, the two sources told Reuters.

They’re also discussing limiting who can receive tax credits for electric cars.

The White House, for example, want to create a $7,500 tax credit for any taxpayers who purchase electric cars.

A House Democratic version of the bill said individual taxpayers must have an adjusted gross income of no more than $400,000 to get the credit, but Senate Democrats are considering a lower threshold that could go as low as $100,000, sources said.

Democrats are also considering whether to lower the income threshold for eligibility of the expanded child tax credit, which is set to expire at the end of the year unless Democrats make good on their promise to extend the added benefit by four years.

Currently, the tax credit phases out for married couples making over $400,000, but Democrats are considering lowering the cap, sources say.

(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Heather Timmons and Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. President Reagan’s shooter John Hinckley wins unconditional release

By Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Monday said he would grant “unconditional release” to John Hinckley, who wounded former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and three other people in a 1981 assassination attempt.

“I am going to, after all these years, grant unconditional release to Mr. Hinckley,” U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said during a court hearing in the District of Columbia.

In 2016, Friedman allowed Hinckley to move out of a Washington psychiatric hospital, where he had lived for three decades, but imposed restrictions on his travel and internet usage.

Friedman said during Monday’s hearing that he planned to lift those remaining restrictions. Hinckley’s mental health problems are “in remission” and he no longer poses a danger, Friedman said.

Friedman said he would issue a written order later this week memorializing his decision.

A federal prosecutor, Kacie Weston, said during the court hearing that the U.S. Justice Department agreed Hinckley should be given unconditional release. But Weston argued the restrictions should not be formally lifted until June 2022 so that prosecutors can continue to monitor Hinckley as he transitions to living on his own following the death of his mother.

Reagan suffered a punctured lung in the assassination attempt but recovered quickly.

Others wounded included White House press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty.

Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity at a 1982 jury trial. That verdict prompted Congress and some U.S. states to adopt laws limiting use of the insanity defense.

The shooting helped launch the modern gun control movement as Brady, who was left permanently disabled, and his wife, Sarah, founded what is now known as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

About 100 U.S. citizens, permanent residents still waiting to leave Afghanistan -official

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States is aware of about 100 American citizens and legal permanent residents (LPRs) who remain in Afghanistan and are ready to leave the country, a senior State Department official said on Monday.

The State Department was working to get those people on flights out of Afghanistan, said the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

“Our highest priority in Afghanistan, of course, remains helping those American citizens who wish to leave the country now to do so,” the official said.

About 124,000 people were airlifted out of Kabul after the U.S.-backed government there collapsed last month and the Taliban took control.

Since U.S. forces departed and handed over the airport on Aug. 31, 85 American citizens and 79 LPRs have left Afghanistan on sporadic flights, according to the official.

However, some American citizens did not want to leave Afghanistan without family members who did not have the required travel documents to enter the United States, the official said.

The United States would soon intensify efforts to help the immediate family members of American citizens who did not have the needed documentation, the official said, but would not do so for their “extended” families, which could include a large number of people.

“I entirely understand how painful that choice may be for them, but for matters of law and policy, up to this point, we have not extended support for expedited departure and resettlement in the U.S. for extended family members of U.S. citizens,” the official said.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis, Humeyra Pamuk and Jonathan Landay; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

At U.N., Israeli PM Bennett says Iran has crossed all nuclear “red lines”

By Michelle Nichols, Matt Spetalnick and Stephen Farrell

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Monday that Iran had crossed “all red lines” in its nuclear program and vowed that Israel would not allow Tehran to acquire a nuclear weapon.

In his first speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Bennett said Iran sought to dominate the Middle East under a “nuclear umbrella” and urged a more concerted international effort to halt Iran’s nuclear activities.

But he also hinted at the potential for Israel to act on its own against Iran, something it has repeatedly threatened in the past.

“Iran’s nuclear program has hit a watershed moment, and so has our tolerance,” Bennett said. “Words do not stop centrifuges from spinning.”

Bennett, a far-right politician who ended Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year run as prime minister in June, wants U.S. President Joe Biden to harden his stance against Iran, Israel’s regional arch-foe. He opposes the new U.S. administration’s efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Biden’s White House predecessor, Donald Trump, abandoned in 2018.

Indirect U.S.-Iran talks in Vienna have stalled as Washington awaits the next move by Iran’s new hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi.

Bennett struck a less combative tone before the United Nations than Netanyahu, who often relied on props and visual aids to dramatize his accusations against Iran, an approach that critics derided as political stunts.

But Bennett has been just as adamant as Netanyahu was in pledging to do whatever is necessary to prevent Iran, which Israel views as an existential threat, from building a nuclear weapon. Iran consistently denies it is seeking a bomb.

“Iran’s nuclear weapons program is at a critical point. All red lines have been crossed, inspections ignored,” Bennett said. “They’re getting away with it.”

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols at the UN, Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Stephen Farrell in London, additional reporting by Zainah El-Haroun and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; Editing by Alex Richardson)

La Palma volcano spews lava again after brief pause

By Jon Nazca and Nacho Doce

LA PALMA, Spain (Reuters) -The volcano on Spain’s La Palma has begun spewing lava and smoke again, researchers said on Monday after activity had earlier slowed to a near halt, while some coastal villages locked down in anticipation of the lava reaching the sea.

The Canary Islands’ Involcan volcanology institute confirmed the renewed eruption via Twitter while Reuters witnesses saw a column of white smoke rising from the cone after several hours of calm.

Involcan and the National Geographic Institute had said earlier on Monday the explosions and tremors around the Cumbre Vieja volcano had slowed down but the calm was short-lived and the eruption resumed shortly before 11 a.m. local time (1000 GMT).

Authorities locked down the coastal areas of San Borondon, Marina Alta and Baja and La Condesa where the superheated lava flow is expected to hit the Atlantic Ocean, likely triggering clouds of toxic gas and explosions.

“People must follow the authorities guidance and remain in their home with doors and windows closed,” the Canary Islands emergency services said on their Twitter account.

Local airline Binter said it would resume flights to and from the islands on Monday afternoon if conditions remained favorable. The airport reopened on Sunday after a brief closure due to volcanic ash but all flights were cancelled.

After a new vent opened on Sunday, Reuters drone footage showed a river of red hot lava flowing down the slopes of the crater, passing over homes, and swathes of land and buildings engulfed by a black mass of slower-moving, older lava.

Since the volcano started erupting on Sept. 19, the flow of black lava has engulfed more than 230 hectares, the European Union satellite monitoring service Copernicus said, swallowing hundreds of houses as well as roads, schools, churches and banana plantations and forcing thousands to evacuate.

No fatalities or serious injuries have been reported, but about 15% of the island’s banana crop could be at risk, jeopardizing thousands of jobs.

La Palma, with a population of over 83,000, is one of an archipelago making up the Canary Islands.

(Reporting by Guillermo Martinez, Jon Nazca, Nacho Doce and Marco Trujillo in La Palma and Inti Landauro in Madrid; Writing by Inti Landauro and Nathan Allen Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Quake wrecks old buildings in Crete, killing one person

By Angeliki Koutantou and George Georgiopoulos

ATHENS (Reuters) -An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8 shook Greece’s largest island, Crete, on Monday morning, killing one person and injuring several, authorities said.

The tremor sent people fleeing out of homes, schools and public buildings across the island. Damage was reported to many old buildings close to the epicenter, in the east of the island.

The Greek infrastructure ministry said it had sent a group of civil engineers to assess the structural damage and assist in relief efforts.

A man died when the dome of a small chapel in the town of Arkalochori, some 30 km (20 miles) outside Crete’s main city Heraklion, caved in during renovation works, a police official said. The church was largely reduced to rubble.

Civil protection authorities said nine people were injured in the quake, which damaged mainly old, unοccupied buildings in the wider Arkalochori region.

Nevertheless many people in Heraklion rushed outdoors. Schoolchildren were told to leave their classrooms, gathering in schoolyards and town squares.

Supermarket shelves were toppled or emptied by the tremor. Schools in the Heraklion region were closed for the day.

A civil protection official said hotel rooms would be made available for people needing to stay outside their homes overnight, and 2,500 tents would also be put up.

The Athens Geodynamic Institute put the quake’s magnitude at 5.8 and said it was centered at a depth of 10 km, with an epicenter 23 km (14 miles) northwest of Arvi in southeastern Crete.

Earlier, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) had measured the earthquake at a magnitude of 6.5, while the United States Geological Survey (USGS) put it at 6.0.

(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou, George Georgiopoulos; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Kevin Liffey)