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 inherits a thorny U.S.-Russia relationship, spoke 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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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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Asia Today: Beds in short supply as SKorea sees another jump

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea has reported 1,062 new cases of the coronavirus, its third straight day of over 1,000, as authorities in Seoul warn that hospital beds are in short supply.

Seoul City said a COVID-19 patient in his 60s died at his home on Tuesday after officials failed to find him a hospital bed for days. The city said an “explosive growth” in patients this month has resulted in an “overload in administrative and medical systems.”

The figures released by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on Friday brought the national caseload to 47,515.

The death toll rose to 645 after 11 more patients died overnight. Among 12,888 active patients, at least 246 were in serious or critical condition, the largest number since the emergence of the pandemic.

Son Young-rae, a senior Health Ministry official, said there were only 49 intensive care beds left for COVID-19 patients nationwide, with just four of them in the capital area. He said health authorities are planning to secure around 170 more ICU beds by early January by designating more hospitals for COVID-19 treatment.

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Snags on COVID-19 relief may force weekend sessions

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's a hurry up and wait moment on Capitol Hill as congressional negotiators on a must-pass, almost $1 trillion COVID-19 economic relief package struggled through a handful of remaining snags Thursday. The holdups mean a weekend session now appears virtually certain, and a top lawmaker warned that a government shutdown this weekend can't be ruled out.

All sides appeared hopeful that the wrangling wouldn't derail the legislation, even as the chances for announcing a deal Thursday slipped away. After being bogged down for much of the day, negotiators reported behind-the-scenes progress Thursday night.

The central elements of a hard-fought compromise appeared in place: more than $300 billion in aid to businesses; a $300-per-week bonus federal jobless benefit and renewal of soon-to-expire state benefits; $600 direct payments to individuals; vaccine distribution funds and money for renters, schools, the Postal Service and people needing food aid.

But a temporary funding bill runs out Friday at midnight and the Senate's No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Thune, said if there isn't a deal by then, some Republicans might block a temporary funding bill — causing a low-impact partial weekend shutdown — as a means to keep the pressure on.

Lawmakers were told to expect to be in session and voting this weekend.

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Nigerian official: More than 300 abducted schoolboys freed

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — More than 300 schoolboys abducted last week by armed men in northwest Nigeria have been released, a government official said Thursday.

In an announcement on Nigerian state TV, NTA, Katsina State Gov. Aminu Bello Masari said the 344 boarding school students were turned over to security officials and were being brought to the state capital, 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 in the West African nation over insecurity in the north, Buhari noted his administration's successful efforts to secure the release of previously abducted students. He added that the government "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, acknowledging that the Northwest region "presents a problem” 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 more than 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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8 nuns die of COVID-19 in last week at Wisconsin convent

ELM GROVE, Wis. (AP) — Eight nuns living at a retirement home for sisters in suburban Milwaukee died of COVID-19 complications in the last week — including four who passed away on the same day — a grim reminder of how quickly the virus can spread in congregate living situations, even when precautions are taken.

Notre Dame of Elm Grove had been free of the virus for the last nine months, but the congregation that runs the home found out on Thanksgiving Day that one of the roughly 100 sisters who live there had tested positive. Despite social distancing and other mitigation efforts that were already in place, several more positive tests followed, said Sister Debra Marie Sciano, the provincial leader for School Sisters of Notre Dame Central Pacific Province.

The first death happened last week, and the death announcements kept coming. Four of the eight nuns died on Monday alone, a difficult situation for other sisters in the home and members of the broader congregation, who consider each other family.

“Even though they’re older and most of the sisters that did go to God are in their late 80s, 90s ... we didn’t expect them to go so, so quickly,” Sciano said. “So it was just very difficult for us.”

Sciano said the congregation isolated sisters who tested positive into the same area so they would have no contact with others. They are advised to stay in their rooms, where meals are brought to them. Funerals and memorial services are being broadcast on closed-circuit TV. Sciano declined to say how many other sisters have tested positive, citing the residents' privacy.

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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.