FDA plans to OK 2nd COVID-19 vaccine after panel endorsement

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Food and Drug Administration said late Thursday that his agency will move to quickly authorize the second COVID-19 vaccine to fight the pandemic, hours after the shot won the key endorsement of a government advisory panel.

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement that regulators have communicated their plans to drugmaker Moderna, which co-developed the vaccine with the National Institutes of Health. The announcement came after a panel of FDA advisers, in a 20-0 vote, ruled that the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks for those 18 years old and up.

Once FDA's emergency use authorization is granted, Moderna will begin shipping millions of doses, earmarked for health workers and nursing home residents, to boost the largest vaccination effort in U.S. history.

The campaign kicked off earlier this week with the first vaccine OK'd in the U.S., developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. Moderna’s shot showed similarly strong effectiveness, providing 94% protection against COVID-19 in the company’s ongoing study of 30,000 people.

After eight hours of discussion over technical details of the company’s study and follow-up plans, nearly all panelists backed making the vaccine available to help fight the pandemic. One panel member abstained.

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Hack against US is 'grave threat,' cybersecurity agency says

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal authorities expressed increased alarm Thursday about a long-undetected intrusion into U.S. and other computer systems around the globe that officials suspect was carried out by Russian hackers. The nation's cybersecurity agency warned of a “grave” risk to government and private networks.

The hack compromised federal agencies and “critical infrastructure” in a sophisticated attack that was hard to detect and will be difficult to undo, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in an unusual warning message. The Department of Energy acknowledged it was among those that had been hacked.

The attack, if authorities can prove it was carried out by Russia as experts believe, creates a fresh foreign policy problem for President Donald Trump in his final days in office.

Trump, whose administration has been criticized for eliminating a White House cybersecurity adviser and downplaying Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, has made no public statements about the breach.

President-elect Joe Biden, who will inherit the potentially difficult U.S.-Russia relationship, spoke up forcefully about the hack, declaring that he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris “will make dealing with this breach a top priority from the moment we take office.”

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In historic pick, Biden taps Haaland as interior secretary

President-elect Joe Biden selected New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland as his nominee for interior secretary on Thursday, a historic pick that would make her the first Native American to lead the powerful federal agency that has wielded influence over the nation's tribes for generations.

Tribal leaders and activists around the country, along with many Democratic figures, cheered Haaland's selection after urging Biden for weeks to choose her to lead the Department of Interior. They stood behind her candidacy even when concerns that Democrats might risk their majority in the House if Haaland yielded her seat in Congress appeared to threaten her nomination.

With Haaland's nomination, Indigenous people will for the first time in their lifetimes see a Native American at the table where the highest decisions are made — and so will everyone else, said OJ Semans, a Rosebud Sioux vote activist who was in Georgia on Thursday helping get out the Native vote for two Senate runoffs. “It’s made people aware that Indians still exist,” he said.

Haaland, 60, is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and, as she likes to say, a 35th-generation resident of New Mexico. The role of interior secretary would put her in charge of an agency that has tremendous sway not only over the nearly 600 federally recognized tribes, but also over much of the nation’s vast public lands, waterways, wildlife, national parks and mineral wealth.

Haaland tweeted after the news was made public that “growing up in my mother's Pueblo household made me fierce.

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Nigerian official says over 300 abducted schoolboys freed

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — More than 300 schoolboys abducted last week by armed men in northwest Nigeria have been released, the Katsina State governor said Thursday.

In an announcement on Nigerian state TV, NTA, Gov. Aminu Bello Masari said the 344 boarding school students were turned over to security officials and were being brought to the capital of Katsina, where they will get physical examinations before being reunited with their families.

"I think we can say ... we have recovered most of the boys, if not all of them,” Masari said. He did not disclose if the government paid any ransom.

President Muhammadu Buhari welcomed their release, calling it “a big relief to their families, the entire country and to the international community,” according to a statement from his office. Amid an outcry against the West African country's government over insecurity in the north, Buhari noted his administration's successful efforts to secure the release of previously abducted students and added that the leadership "is acutely aware of its responsibility to protect the life and property of the Nigerians.”

“We have a lot of work to do, especially now that we have reopened the borders," Buhari said, noting that the Northwest region "presents a problem” that the administration "is determined to deal with.”

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Some states say Pfizer vaccine allotments cut for next week

O'FALLON, Mo. (AP) — Several states say they have been told to expect far fewer doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in its second week of distribution, prompting worries about potential delays in shots for health care workers and long-term care residents.

But senior Trump administration officials on Thursday downplayed the risk of delays, citing a confusion over semantics, while Pfizer said its production levels have not changed.

The first U.S. doses were administered Monday, and already this week, hundreds of thousands of people, mostly health care workers, have been vaccinated. The pace is expected to increase next week, assuming Moderna gets federal authorization for its vaccine.

Efforts to help ward off the coronavirus come amid a staggering death toll that surpassed 300,000 on Monday. Johns Hopkins University says about 2,400 people are dying daily in the U.S., which is averaging more than 210,000 cases per day.

In recent days, governors and health leaders in at least a dozen states have said the federal government has told them that next week’s shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be less than originally projected.

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Hot spot: California hospitals buckle as virus cases surge

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hospitals across California have all but run out of intensive care beds for COVID-19 patients, ambulances are backing up outside emergency rooms, and tents for triaging the sick are going up as the nation’s most populous state emerges as the latest epicenter of the U.S. outbreak.

On Thursday, California reported a staggering 52,000 new cases in a single day — equal to what the entire U.S. was averaging in mid-October — and a one-day record of 379 deaths. More than 16,000 people are in the hospital with the coronavirus across the state, more than triple the number a month ago.

“I’ve seen more deaths in the last nine months in my ICU than I have in my entire 20-year career,” said Amy Arlund, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center.

While the surging virus has pushed hospitals elsewhere around the country to the breaking point in recent weeks, the crisis is deepening with alarming speed in California, even as the nationwide rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations this week and the impending release of a second vaccine have boosted hopes of eventually defeating the scourge.

Intensive care unit capacity is at less than 1% in many California counties, and morgue space is also running out, in what is increasingly resembling the disaster last spring in New York City.

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'Unbelievable' snowfall blankets parts of the Northeast

GLENVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — The Northeast’s first whopper snowstorm of the season buried parts of upstate New York under more than 3 feet (1 meter) of snow, broke records in cities and towns across the region, and left plow drivers struggling to clear the roads as snow piled up at more than 4 inches (10 centimeters) per hour.

“It was a very difficult, fast storm and it dropped an unbelievable amount of snow,” Tom Coppola, highway superintendent in charge of maintaining 100 miles (160 kilometers) of roads in the Albany suburb of Glenville, said Thursday. “It's to the point where we're having trouble pushing it with our plows.”

The storm dropped 30 inches (76 centimeters) on Glenville between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. Thursday, leaving a silent scene of snow-clad trees, buried cars and laden roofs when the sun finally peeked through at noon.

“If you do not have to be on the roads, please don't travel,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who declared a state of emergency for 18 counties. He said there were more than 9,000 power outages, 600 accidents and two fatalities by midmorning Thursday.

In New Rochelle in Westchester County, where a foot of snow was recorded, the roof of a Mavis Discount Tire store partially caved in but no injuries were reported, according to CBSN New York.

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Family behind OxyContin attests to its role in opioid crisis

Two owners of the company that makes OxyContin acknowledged to Congress on Thursday that the powerful prescription painkiller played a role in the opioid epidemic but they stopped short of apologizing or admitting wrongdoing.

“I want to express my family’s deep sadness about the opioid crisis,” David Sackler, whose family owns Purdue Pharma, said at a rare appearance in a public forum. “OxyContin is a medicine that Purdue intended to help people, and it has helped, and continues to help, millions of Americans.”

The company’s marketing efforts have been blamed for contributing to an addiction and overdose crisis that has been linked to 470,000 deaths in the United States over the past two decades.

Kathe Sackler, David Sackler’s cousin, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee that she knows “the loss of any family member or loved one is terribly painful and nothing is more tragic than the loss of a child.”

“As a mother,” she said, “my heart breaks for the parents who have lost their children. I am so terribly sorry for your pain.”

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Jeremy Bulloch, Boba Fett in first 'Star Wars' trilogy, dies

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jeremy Bulloch, the English actor who first donned a helmet, cape and jetpack to play Boba Fett in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, died Thursday.

Bulloch died at a London hospital from health complications after years of living with Parkinson’s disease, his agents at Brown, Simcocks & Andrews said in a statement. He was 75.

As the Mandalorian bounty hunter Boba Fett, Bulloch made off with a froze-in-carbonite Han Solo in 1980′s “The Empire Strikes Back,” then zoomed around the desert of Tatooine in a jet pack in 1983′s “Return of the Jedi.”

“Today we lost the best bounty hunter in the galaxy,” Billy Dee Williams, whose Lando Calrissian appeared in key scenes with Bulloch in the films, said on Twitter.

Mark Hamill tweeted that Bulloch was “the quintessential English gentleman.”

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Trump's move to his Florida estate challenged by neighbor

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump's expected move to his Mar-a-Lago club after he leaves office next month is being challenged by a lawyer who says a 1990s agreement allowing Trump to convert the Florida property into a business prohibits anyone from living there, including him.

Attorney Reginald Stambaugh sent a letter this week to the Town of Palm Beach saying he represents a neighbor who doesn't want the president to take up residence at the 17-acre property because it would decrease the area's property values. He also asserts that a microwave security barrier operated by the Secret Service is harming his client, who he says is exhibiting symptoms of microwave exposure. He did not give the client's name.

The president and first lady Melania Trump changed their legal residence from New York City to Palm Beach last year. Stambaugh says that violates the 1993 agreement between Trump and the town that allowed him to turn Mar-a-Lago from a private home into a club that has 10 guest rooms for rent.

The agreement says only members can stay overnight and for no more than 21 days per year, divided into three one-week stays that cannot run consecutively. The question is whether Trump is a club member and covered by those rules. Stambaugh believes he is — and comments Trump's lawyer made in 1993 back that up.

“In order to avoid an embarrassing situation for everyone and to give the President time to make other living arrangements in the area, we trust you will work with his team to remind them” of the agreement, Stambaugh wrote. “Palm Beach has many lovely estates for sale and surely he can find one which meets his needs.” He did not immediately respond to a call and email Thursday seeking further comment.