Georgia announced full readiness to join NATO – 112 International

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Georgia stated that it is fully prepared for joining NATO and will bring the accession process to the end. Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia stated this, as Interfax reports.

Gakharia argues that strategic areas of partnership with NATO, the United States and the European Union remain for Georgia. He believes that Euro-Atlantic integration and peaceful development of Georgia are a prerequisite for the restoration of the country's territorial integrity.

In turn, the United States expressed support for Georgia and called it a NATO partner.

"Today Georgia is completely ready to join NATO. Our partners see and appreciate this. This is a process and we will definitely bring it to the end," Giorgi Gakharia said.

As you know, the Georgian parliament voted for integration into NATO back in 2006, but the NATO-Georgia commission was created only two years later.

As we reported before, the North Atlantic Alliance might place its middle-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine. Aleksandr Lukashenko, the Belarusian president said so in an interview with reporter Dmytro Gordon.

According to Lukashenko, it was Russian aggression that pushed Ukraine to seek integration with the NATO.

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How to Stop China From Imposing Its Values – The Atlantic

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Lindsay Gorman: 5G is where China and the West finally diverge

In the United States, suspicion of the Chinese government is a bipartisan matter, but no consensus exists about just what to do. The Trump administration has implemented a variety of hawkish policies, including restricting semiconductor sales in China and stopping a U.S. government retirement fund from investing in stocks there, and the president himself vowed Friday to ban TikTok, a popular app owned by a Chinese company. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called in a recent speech for a new alliance of democracies to counter the emerging superpower, although few details were offered. The draft of the 2020 Democratic Party platform broadly vows to rally friends and allies across the world to push back against China or any other countrys attempts to undermine international norms.

The problem is that the United States and its allies currently lack the ability to respond to the type of geo-economic threats that China is making. Specifically, they need a means of taking collective action when Beijing attempts to use economic power as a tool of political coercion. No country should face such threats alone.

Peter Beinart: Democrats are letting Trump frame the debate about China

Many of Americas most important Cold Warera institutions, especially NATO, were designed to deter a primarily military threat from the Soviet Union. But back then, Moscowunlike Beijing nowhad limited economic leverage against the West. Global economic institutions such as the World Trade Organization were narrowly focused on trade agreements and rule-making to ensure fair economic competition, but did not consider the possibility of economic warfare or the danger of economic threats to force political concessions. Indeed, none of these alliances or institutions has been any help in addressing the Chinese economic threats against Australia, Germany, Sweden, or other nations.

Those threats also harm the United States. If China forces U.S. allies to use Huaweis technology in their information networks, American communications that go through those networks could be exposed to the Chinese Communist Partys infiltration. And Chinas rulers have sought to enforce the party line on Americans. Last year, Beijing punished the NBAs Houston Rockets when the teams general manager offered support for Hong Kongs prodemocracy protesters on Twitter, a platform blocked in China. The regime will likely grow bolder as Chinas economic might grows.

Jemele Hill: Et tu, LeBron?

New threats demand new responses. During the Cold War, the U.S. created not just NATO but also the CIA and the Air Force to respond to Soviet threats. The period brought about a wholly new form of intelligence competition between the West and the Soviet Union. This led the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to enter into the alliance commonly known as Five Eyes, which allowed unprecedented intelligence sharing among nations in peacetime. This approach would have been unimaginable before the Soviet geopolitical threat.

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How to Stop China From Imposing Its Values - The Atlantic

Ascension Parish Sheriff’s deputy dies after weeks-long battle with coronavirus – The Advocate

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An Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office deputy died Saturday morning after a weeks-long battle with with the coronavirus.

Kyle Melancon served for more than seven years as a correctional officer and transportation officer at APSO.

"We send our condolences to his wife Rebecca, his children, his coworkers and all of those that loved him," said Sheriff Bobby Webre. "Please remember his family in your prayers."

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Melancon's career in law enforcement is part of a family legacy; his grandfather was the Chief of Police of Sorrento and his father was a retired dispatcher with APSO. His brother currently serves in the office's accreditation unit.

"We are in some very challenging times in our profession," Webre said. "The health and safety of our work-family and our community is paramount. I continue to ask all of our deputies to please take all necessary precautions and use all available resources to protect themselves at work and when out in the community."

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Ascension Parish Sheriff's deputy dies after weeks-long battle with coronavirus - The Advocate

The Ascension Recall The Pitch And Reaction To Their Egyptian Gimmick, Nevilles Mighty Mouse Costume – Wrestlezone

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The Ascension looks back at the time WWE revealed plans to rebrand them as Egyptians.

Big Kon and Vik, now going by The Awakening, recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard and discussed the character change they underwent in between their respective runs on NXT and WWE roster.

The Ascension ruled NXTs Tag Team division and had a clear fan-favorite gimmick, and they are still the longest reigning NXT Tag Team Champions to this day. For whatever reason, WWE went through a period where they would adjust NXT gimmicks before they would call up talent to the then-main roster, and most of the time it was met with immediate criticism. The Ascension was no different, as they ended up coming to RAW and cut promos about how they were better than other teams of the past. Big Kon and Vik explained how they first found out about the gimmick change, which included a confusing complaint from Dusty Rhodes and the pitch from WWE.

Big Kon: Ill just give you the quick story and Vik can attest to all of this. The day that wefirst off, prior to getting the call, Dream had been working with us and it was really awesome. He had a lot to do with anything that was done, Hunter as well, and I just remember one day Dream was vaguely complaining and being upset about some stuff that we really didnt understand. He said, You guys are going to be Egyptians! We didnt understand what he was talking about.

Vik: [Impersonating Dusty Rhodes] You boys are going to be Egyptians! You see all this stuff going on in People magazine with Egypt? You got to go be Egyptians, goddammit!

Big Kon: Were thinking that we dont understand, weve been around Dream for years at this point, Im sure he just wants to get rid of us. Thats just what we were thinking, but needless to say we had our big sitdown, our big meeting on a call, and Dream was legitimately sitting to the left of me. Weve got Stamford, Connecticut on a big TV and were sitting in this room, its all dark and quiet and they want to congratulate us on the big promotion, stuff like that. It was really cool and then they say creative has an idea for you two and were like OK cool. They go out and then bring in the pieces of paper that they faxed over, and they [placed it] face-down. They basically said if you flip it over, this is what creative is looking for. We flip it over and then bamthats what you saw when they basically debuted it on Monday Night RAW.

Now, the biggest thing Ive ever said in any other interview Ive done is the one thing you never do in this business is you never, ever insult the fans intelligence. The second you do that, theyre going to be pissed off and I think that was where there was no connection because they knew what they were getting but then when they saw [the final version] they were like I dont get it. I also think sometimesand this is just me, Im very grateful for everythingsometimes its just creative.

Related:The Ascension Call Their Run On The Fashion Files A Career Highlight

Vik went on to note that they didnt even really understand the reason for the change but felt that there was a definite disconnect somewhere. He pointed out that The Ascension definitely had a fan base but it seemed like there wasnt enough focus on how much people actually liked them and thats what caused the changes, and ultimately, the confusion.

Vik: I dont really know how it was from the office or somebody, but it was like they didnt understand. Even at first, I dont think we understood. I remember the first time we went to New York for a live event and it was after one of the TakeOvers we had done. It seemed like they didnt think that the fans would know who we were, more or less. I remember when we walked up at MSG and theres all of those fans out there. They were all going crazy as we walked up, we looked at each other like holy shit, this is nuts! It seemed like there was just a point where they didnt realize how much our fans were already connected through and through. It seemed like they felt like they had to change everybody at that time when they were coming up. Everything would get lost in the shuffle because the fans would be like what? We dont get this, why are you changing what we already know? You know what I mean? It wasnt a natural evolution for a lot of people.

One other prominent gimmick change that almost took place was Neville (aka PAC) was asked to portray a character that was allegedly inspired by Mighty Mouse. Neville denied that it was as literal as the rumor suggested, but was still pitched to him as playing a superhero-like character for his main roster call-up. He ultimately played a toned-down version, but Big Kon and Vik recalled seeing him try on the costume and his dejected reaction to it.

Vik: The time that we were there, were not the only ones that were victims. Nevilles always the first one in my mind.

Big Kon: They wanted to make him a superhero with a cape and all that stuff.

Vik: He had this awful mask. I remember when he walked in, he was just like, just the look on his face. We asked hey, whats wrong? and he didnt even want to show anybody.

Big Kon: Neville loves wrestling, loves it, so when you see somebody get defeated like that, its tough.

Vik:Theyre so far behind and it took them a long time to catch up.

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The Ascension Recall The Pitch And Reaction To Their Egyptian Gimmick, Nevilles Mighty Mouse Costume - Wrestlezone

Gene therapy – Wikipedia

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Medical field

Gene therapy (also called human gene transfer) is a medical field which focuses on the utilization of the therapeutic delivery of nucleic acids into a patient's cells as a drug to treat disease.[1][2] The first attempt at modifying human DNA was performed in 1980 by Martin Cline, but the first successful nuclear gene transfer in humans, approved by the National Institutes of Health, was performed in May 1989.[3] The first therapeutic use of gene transfer as well as the first direct insertion of human DNA into the nuclear genome was performed by French Anderson in a trial starting in September 1990. It is thought to be able to cure many genetic disorders or treat them over time.

Between 1989 and December 2018, over 2,900 clinical trials were conducted, with more than half of them in phase I.[4] As of 2017, Spark Therapeutics' Luxturna (RPE65 mutation-induced blindness) and Novartis' Kymriah (Chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy) are the FDA's first approved gene therapies to enter the market. Since that time, drugs such as Novartis' Zolgensma and Alnylam's Patisiran have also received FDA approval, in addition to other companies' gene therapy drugs. Most of these approaches utilize adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) and lentiviruses for performing gene insertions, in vivo and ex vivo, respectively. ASO / siRNA approaches such as those conducted by Alnylam and Ionis Pharmaceuticals require non-viral delivery systems, and utilize alternative mechanisms for trafficking to liver cells by way of GalNAc transporters.

The concept of gene therapy is to fix a genetic problem at its source. If, for instance, in an (usually recessively) inherited disease a mutation in a certain gene results in the production of a dysfunctional protein, gene therapy could be used to deliver a copy of this gene that does not contain the deleterious mutation, and thereby produces a functional protein. This strategy is referred to as gene replacement therapy and is employed to treat inherited retinal diseases. [5][6]

While the concept of gene replacement therapy is mostly suitable for recessive diseases, novel strategies have been suggested that are capable of also treating conditions with a dominant pattern of inheritance.

Not all medical procedures that introduce alterations to a patient's genetic makeup can be considered gene therapy. Bone marrow transplantation and organ transplants in general have been found to introduce foreign DNA into patients.[14] Gene therapy is defined by the precision of the procedure and the intention of direct therapeutic effect.

Gene therapy was conceptualized in 1972, by authors who urged caution before commencing human gene therapy studies.

The first attempt, an unsuccessful one, at gene therapy (as well as the first case of medical transfer of foreign genes into humans not counting organ transplantation) was performed by Martin Cline on 10 July 1980.[15][16] Cline claimed that one of the genes in his patients was active six months later, though he never published this data or had it verified[17] and even if he is correct, it's unlikely it produced any significant beneficial effects treating beta-thalassemia.[medical citation needed]

After extensive research on animals throughout the 1980s and a 1989 bacterial gene tagging trial on humans, the first gene therapy widely accepted as a success was demonstrated in a trial that started on 14 September 1990, when Ashi DeSilva was treated for ADA-SCID.[18]

The first somatic treatment that produced a permanent genetic change was initiated in 1993. The goal was to cure malignant brain tumors by using recombinant DNA to transfer a gene making the tumor cells sensitive to a drug that in turn would cause the tumor cells to die.[19]

The polymers are either translated into proteins, interfere with target gene expression, or possibly correct genetic mutations. The most common form uses DNA that encodes a functional, therapeutic gene to replace a mutated gene. The polymer molecule is packaged within a "vector", which carries the molecule inside cells.[medical citation needed]

Early clinical failures led to dismissals of gene therapy. Clinical successes since 2006 regained researchers' attention, although as of 2014[update], it was still largely an experimental technique.[20] These include treatment of retinal diseases Leber's congenital amaurosis[5][21][22][23] and choroideremia,[24] X-linked SCID,[25] ADA-SCID,[26][27] adrenoleukodystrophy,[28] chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL),[29] acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL),[30] multiple myeloma,[31] haemophilia,[27] and Parkinson's disease.[32] Between 2013 and April 2014, US companies invested over $600 million in the field.[33]

The first commercial gene therapy, Gendicine, was approved in China in 2003 for the treatment of certain cancers.[34] In 2011 Neovasculgen was registered in Russia as the first-in-class gene-therapy drug for treatment of peripheral artery disease, including critical limb ischemia.[35]In 2012 Glybera, a treatment for a rare inherited disorder, lipoprotein lipase deficiency became the first treatment to be approved for clinical use in either Europe or the United States after its endorsement by the European Commission.[20][36]

Following early advances in genetic engineering of bacteria, cells, and small animals, scientists started considering how to apply it to medicine. Two main approaches were considered replacing or disrupting defective genes.[37] Scientists focused on diseases caused by single-gene defects, such as cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, muscular dystrophy, thalassemia, and sickle cell anemia. Glybera treats one such disease, caused by a defect in lipoprotein lipase.[36]

DNA must be administered, reach the damaged cells, enter the cell and either express or disrupt a protein.[38] Multiple delivery techniques have been explored. The initial approach incorporated DNA into an engineered virus to deliver the DNA into a chromosome.[39][40] Naked DNA approaches have also been explored, especially in the context of vaccine development.[41]

Generally, efforts focused on administering a gene that causes a needed protein to be expressed. More recently, increased understanding of nuclease function has led to more direct DNA editing, using techniques such as zinc finger nucleases and CRISPR. The vector incorporates genes into chromosomes. The expressed nucleases then knock out and replace genes in the chromosome. As of 2014[update] these approaches involve removing cells from patients, editing a chromosome and returning the transformed cells to patients.[42]

Gene editing is a potential approach to alter the human genome to treat genetic diseases,[7] viral diseases,[43] and cancer.[citation needed] As of 2016[update] these approaches were still years from being medicine.[44][45]

Gene therapy may be classified into two types:

In somatic cell gene therapy (SCGT), the therapeutic genes are transferred into any cell other than a gamete, germ cell, gametocyte, or undifferentiated stem cell. Any such modifications affect the individual patient only, and are not inherited by offspring. Somatic gene therapy represents mainstream basic and clinical research, in which therapeutic DNA (either integrated in the genome or as an external episome or plasmid) is used to treat disease.[medical citation needed]

Over 600 clinical trials utilizing SCGT are underway[when?] in the US. Most focus on severe genetic disorders, including immunodeficiencies, haemophilia, thalassaemia, and cystic fibrosis. Such single gene disorders are good candidates for somatic cell therapy. The complete correction of a genetic disorder or the replacement of multiple genes is not yet possible. Only a few of the trials are in the advanced stages.[46] [needs update]

In germline gene therapy (GGT), germ cells (sperm or egg cells) are modified by the introduction of functional genes into their genomes. Modifying a germ cell causes all the organism's cells to contain the modified gene. The change is therefore heritable and passed on to later generations. Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Switzerland, and the Netherlands[47] prohibit GGT for application in human beings, for technical and ethical reasons, including insufficient knowledge about possible risks to future generations[47] and higher risks versus SCGT.[48] The US has no federal controls specifically addressing human genetic modification (beyond FDA regulations for therapies in general).[47][49][50][51]

The delivery of DNA into cells can be accomplished by multiple methods. The two major classes are recombinant viruses (sometimes called biological nanoparticles or viral vectors) and naked DNA or DNA complexes (non-viral methods).[medical citation needed]

In order to replicate, viruses introduce their genetic material into the host cell, tricking the host's cellular machinery into using it as blueprints for viral proteins. Retroviruses go a stage further by having their genetic material copied into the genome of the host cell. Scientists exploit this by substituting a virus's genetic material with therapeutic DNA. (The term 'DNA' may be an oversimplification, as some viruses contain RNA, and gene therapy could take this form as well.) A number of viruses have been used for human gene therapy, including retroviruses, adenoviruses, herpes simplex, vaccinia, and adeno-associated virus.[4] Like the genetic material (DNA or RNA) in viruses, therapeutic DNA can be designed to simply serve as a temporary blueprint that is degraded naturally or (at least theoretically) to enter the host's genome, becoming a permanent part of the host's DNA in infected cells.

Non-viral methods present certain advantages over viral methods, such as large scale production and low host immunogenicity. However, non-viral methods initially produced lower levels of transfection and gene expression, and thus lower therapeutic efficacy. Newer technologies offer promise of solving these problems, with the advent of increased cell-specific targeting and subcellular trafficking control.

Methods for non-viral gene therapy include the injection of naked DNA, electroporation, the gene gun, sonoporation, magnetofection, the use of oligonucleotides, lipoplexes, dendrimers, and inorganic nanoparticles.

More recent approaches, such as those performed by companies such as Ligandal, offer the possibility of creating cell-specific targeting technologies for a variety of gene therapy modalities, including RNA, DNA and gene editing tools such as CRISPR. Other companies, such as Arbutus Biopharma and Arcturus Therapeutics, offer non-viral, non-cell-targeted approaches that mainly exhibit liver trophism. In more recent years, startups such as Sixfold Bio, GenEdit, and Spotlight Therapeutics have begun to solve the non-viral gene delivery problem. Non-viral techniques offer the possibility of repeat dosing and greater tailorability of genetic payloads, which in the future will be more likely to take over viral-based delivery systems.

Companies such as Editas Medicine, Intellia Therapeutics, CRISPR Therapeutics, Casebia, Cellectis, Precision Biosciences, bluebird bio, and Sangamo have developed non-viral gene editing techniques, however frequently still use viruses for delivering gene insertion material following genomic cleavage by guided nucleases. These companies focus on gene editing, and still face major delivery hurdles.

BioNTech, Moderna Therapeutics and CureVac focus on delivery of mRNA payloads, which are necessarily non-viral delivery problems.

Alnylam, Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, and Ionis Pharmaceuticals focus on delivery of siRNA (antisense oligonucleotides) for gene suppression, which also necessitate non-viral delivery systems.

In academic contexts, a number of laboratories are working on delivery of PEGylated particles, which form serum protein coronas and chiefly exhibit LDL receptor mediated uptake in cells in vivo.[52]

Some of the unsolved problems include:

Three patients' deaths have been reported in gene therapy trials, putting the field under close scrutiny. The first was that of Jesse Gelsinger, who died in 1999 because of immune rejection response.[60][61] One X-SCID patient died of leukemia in 2003.[18] In 2007, a rheumatoid arthritis patient died from an infection; the subsequent investigation concluded that the death was not related to gene therapy.[62]

In 1972 Friedmann and Roblin authored a paper in Science titled "Gene therapy for human genetic disease?"[63] Rogers (1970) was cited for proposing that exogenous good DNA be used to replace the defective DNA in those who suffer from genetic defects.[64]

In 1984 a retrovirus vector system was designed that could efficiently insert foreign genes into mammalian chromosomes.[65]

The first approved gene therapy clinical research in the US took place on 14 September 1990, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under the direction of William French Anderson.[66] Four-year-old Ashanti DeSilva received treatment for a genetic defect that left her with ADA-SCID, a severe immune system deficiency. The defective gene of the patient's blood cells was replaced by the functional variant. Ashanti's immune system was partially restored by the therapy. Production of the missing enzyme was temporarily stimulated, but the new cells with functional genes were not generated. She led a normal life only with the regular injections performed every two months. The effects were successful, but temporary.[67]

Cancer gene therapy was introduced in 1992/93 (Trojan et al. 1993).[68] The treatment of glioblastoma multiforme, the malignant brain tumor whose outcome is always fatal, was done using a vector expressing antisense IGF-I RNA (clinical trial approved by NIH protocol no.1602 24 November 1993,[69] and by the FDA in 1994). This therapy also represents the beginning of cancer immunogene therapy, a treatment which proves to be effective due to the anti-tumor mechanism of IGF-I antisense, which is related to strong immune and apoptotic phenomena.

In 1992 Claudio Bordignon, working at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, performed the first gene therapy procedure using hematopoietic stem cells as vectors to deliver genes intended to correct hereditary diseases.[70] In 2002 this work led to the publication of the first successful gene therapy treatment for adenosine deaminase deficiency (ADA-SCID). The success of a multi-center trial for treating children with SCID (severe combined immune deficiency or "bubble boy" disease) from 2000 and 2002, was questioned when two of the ten children treated at the trial's Paris center developed a leukemia-like condition. Clinical trials were halted temporarily in 2002, but resumed after regulatory review of the protocol in the US, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany.[71]

In 1993 Andrew Gobea was born with SCID following prenatal genetic screening. Blood was removed from his mother's placenta and umbilical cord immediately after birth, to acquire stem cells. The allele that codes for adenosine deaminase (ADA) was obtained and inserted into a retrovirus. Retroviruses and stem cells were mixed, after which the viruses inserted the gene into the stem cell chromosomes. Stem cells containing the working ADA gene were injected into Andrew's blood. Injections of the ADA enzyme were also given weekly. For four years T cells (white blood cells), produced by stem cells, made ADA enzymes using the ADA gene. After four years more treatment was needed.[72]

Jesse Gelsinger's death in 1999 impeded gene therapy research in the US.[73][74] As a result, the FDA suspended several clinical trials pending the reevaluation of ethical and procedural practices.[75]

The modified cancer gene therapy strategy of antisense IGF-I RNA (NIH n 1602)[69] using antisense / triple helix anti-IGF-I approach was registered in 2002 by Wiley gene therapy clinical trial - n 635 and 636. The approach has shown promising results in the treatment of six different malignant tumors: glioblastoma, cancers of liver, colon, prostate, uterus, and ovary (Collaborative NATO Science Programme on Gene Therapy USA, France, Poland n LST 980517 conducted by J. Trojan) (Trojan et al., 2012). This anti-gene antisense/triple helix therapy has proven to be efficient, due to the mechanism stopping simultaneously IGF-I expression on translation and transcription levels, strengthening anti-tumor immune and apoptotic phenomena.

Sickle-cell disease can be treated in mice.[76] The mice which have essentially the same defect that causes human cases used a viral vector to induce production of fetal hemoglobin (HbF), which normally ceases to be produced shortly after birth. In humans, the use of hydroxyurea to stimulate the production of HbF temporarily alleviates sickle cell symptoms. The researchers demonstrated this treatment to be a more permanent means to increase therapeutic HbF production.[77]

A new gene therapy approach repaired errors in messenger RNA derived from defective genes. This technique has the potential to treat thalassaemia, cystic fibrosis and some cancers.[78]

Researchers created liposomes 25 nanometers across that can carry therapeutic DNA through pores in the nuclear membrane.[79]

In 2003 a research team inserted genes into the brain for the first time. They used liposomes coated in a polymer called polyethylene glycol, which unlike viral vectors, are small enough to cross the bloodbrain barrier.[80]

Short pieces of double-stranded RNA (short, interfering RNAs or siRNAs) are used by cells to degrade RNA of a particular sequence. If a siRNA is designed to match the RNA copied from a faulty gene, then the abnormal protein product of that gene will not be produced.[81]

Gendicine is a cancer gene therapy that delivers the tumor suppressor gene p53 using an engineered adenovirus. In 2003, it was approved in China for the treatment of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.[34]

In March researchers announced the successful use of gene therapy to treat two adult patients for X-linked chronic granulomatous disease, a disease which affects myeloid cells and damages the immune system. The study is the first to show that gene therapy can treat the myeloid system.[82]

In May a team reported a way to prevent the immune system from rejecting a newly delivered gene.[83] Similar to organ transplantation, gene therapy has been plagued by this problem. The immune system normally recognizes the new gene as foreign and rejects the cells carrying it. The research utilized a newly uncovered network of genes regulated by molecules known as microRNAs. This natural function selectively obscured their therapeutic gene in immune system cells and protected it from discovery. Mice infected with the gene containing an immune-cell microRNA target sequence did not reject the gene.

In August scientists successfully treated metastatic melanoma in two patients using killer T cells genetically retargeted to attack the cancer cells.[84]

In November researchers reported on the use of VRX496, a gene-based immunotherapy for the treatment of HIV that uses a lentiviral vector to deliver an antisense gene against the HIV envelope. In a phase I clinical trial, five subjects with chronic HIV infection who had failed to respond to at least two antiretroviral regimens were treated. A single intravenous infusion of autologous CD4 T cells genetically modified with VRX496 was well tolerated. All patients had stable or decreased viral load; four of the five patients had stable or increased CD4 T cell counts. All five patients had stable or increased immune response to HIV antigens and other pathogens. This was the first evaluation of a lentiviral vector administered in a US human clinical trial.[85][86]

In May researchers announced the first gene therapy trial for inherited retinal disease. The first operation was carried out on a 23-year-old British male, Robert Johnson, in early 2007.[87]

Leber's congenital amaurosis is an inherited blinding disease caused by mutations in the RPE65 gene. The results of a small clinical trial in children were published in April.[5] Delivery of recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) carrying RPE65 yielded positive results. In May two more groups reported positive results in independent clinical trials using gene therapy to treat the condition. In all three clinical trials, patients recovered functional vision without apparent side-effects.[5][21][22][23]

In September researchers were able to give trichromatic vision to squirrel monkeys.[88] In November 2009, researchers halted a fatal genetic disorder called adrenoleukodystrophy in two children using a lentivirus vector to deliver a functioning version of ABCD1, the gene that is mutated in the disorder.[89]

An April paper reported that gene therapy addressed achromatopsia (color blindness) in dogs by targeting cone photoreceptors. Cone function and day vision were restored for at least 33 months in two young specimens. The therapy was less efficient for older dogs.[90]

In September it was announced that an 18-year-old male patient in France with beta-thalassemia major had been successfully treated.[91] Beta-thalassemia major is an inherited blood disease in which beta haemoglobin is missing and patients are dependent on regular lifelong blood transfusions.[92] The technique used a lentiviral vector to transduce the human -globin gene into purified blood and marrow cells obtained from the patient in June 2007.[93] The patient's haemoglobin levels were stable at 9 to 10 g/dL. About a third of the hemoglobin contained the form introduced by the viral vector and blood transfusions were not needed.[93][94] Further clinical trials were planned.[95] Bone marrow transplants are the only cure for thalassemia, but 75% of patients do not find a matching donor.[94]

Cancer immunogene therapy using modified antigene, antisense/triple helix approach was introduced in South America in 2010/11 in La Sabana University, Bogota (Ethical Committee 14 December 2010, no P-004-10). Considering the ethical aspect of gene diagnostic and gene therapy targeting IGF-I, the IGF-I expressing tumors i.e. lung and epidermis cancers were treated (Trojan et al. 2016).[96][97]

In 2007 and 2008, a man (Timothy Ray Brown) was cured of HIV by repeated hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (see also allogeneic stem cell transplantation, allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, allotransplantation) with double-delta-32 mutation which disables the CCR5 receptor. This cure was accepted by the medical community in 2011.[98] It required complete ablation of existing bone marrow, which is very debilitating.

In August two of three subjects of a pilot study were confirmed to have been cured from chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The therapy used genetically modified T cells to attack cells that expressed the CD19 protein to fight the disease.[29] In 2013, the researchers announced that 26 of 59 patients had achieved complete remission and the original patient had remained tumor-free.[99]

Human HGF plasmid DNA therapy of cardiomyocytes is being examined as a potential treatment for coronary artery disease as well as treatment for the damage that occurs to the heart after myocardial infarction.[100][101]

In 2011 Neovasculgen was registered in Russia as the first-in-class gene-therapy drug for treatment of peripheral artery disease, including critical limb ischemia; it delivers the gene encoding for VEGF.[102][35] Neovasculogen is a plasmid encoding the CMV promoter and the 165 amino acid form of VEGF.[103][104]

The FDA approved Phase 1 clinical trials on thalassemia major patients in the US for 10 participants in July.[105] The study was expected to continue until 2015.[95]

In July 2012, the European Medicines Agency recommended approval of a gene therapy treatment for the first time in either Europe or the United States. The treatment used Alipogene tiparvovec (Glybera) to compensate for lipoprotein lipase deficiency, which can cause severe pancreatitis.[106] The recommendation was endorsed by the European Commission in November 2012[20][36][107][108] and commercial rollout began in late 2014.[109] Alipogene tiparvovec was expected to cost around $1.6 million per treatment in 2012,[110] revised to $1 million in 2015,[111] making it the most expensive medicine in the world at the time.[112] As of 2016[update], only the patients treated in clinical trials and a patient who paid the full price for treatment have received the drug.[113]

In December 2012, it was reported that 10 of 13 patients with multiple myeloma were in remission "or very close to it" three months after being injected with a treatment involving genetically engineered T cells to target proteins NY-ESO-1 and LAGE-1, which exist only on cancerous myeloma cells.[31]

In March researchers reported that three of five adult subjects who had acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) had been in remission for five months to two years after being treated with genetically modified T cells which attacked cells with CD19 genes on their surface, i.e. all B-cells, cancerous or not. The researchers believed that the patients' immune systems would make normal T-cells and B-cells after a couple of months. They were also given bone marrow. One patient relapsed and died and one died of a blood clot unrelated to the disease.[30]

Following encouraging Phase 1 trials, in April, researchers announced they were starting Phase 2 clinical trials (called CUPID2 and SERCA-LVAD) on 250 patients[114] at several hospitals to combat heart disease. The therapy was designed to increase the levels of SERCA2, a protein in heart muscles, improving muscle function.[115] The FDA granted this a Breakthrough Therapy Designation to accelerate the trial and approval process.[116] In 2016 it was reported that no improvement was found from the CUPID 2 trial.[117]

In July researchers reported promising results for six children with two severe hereditary diseases had been treated with a partially deactivated lentivirus to replace a faulty gene and after 732 months. Three of the children had metachromatic leukodystrophy, which causes children to lose cognitive and motor skills.[118] The other children had WiskottAldrich syndrome, which leaves them to open to infection, autoimmune diseases, and cancer.[119] Follow up trials with gene therapy on another six children with WiskottAldrich syndrome were also reported as promising.[120][121]

In October researchers reported that two children born with adenosine deaminase severe combined immunodeficiency disease (ADA-SCID) had been treated with genetically engineered stem cells 18 months previously and that their immune systems were showing signs of full recovery. Another three children were making progress.[27] In 2014 a further 18 children with ADA-SCID were cured by gene therapy.[122] ADA-SCID children have no functioning immune system and are sometimes known as "bubble children."[27]

Also in October researchers reported that they had treated six hemophilia sufferers in early 2011 using an adeno-associated virus. Over two years later all six were producing clotting factor.[27][123]

In January researchers reported that six choroideremia patients had been treated with adeno-associated virus with a copy of REP1. Over a six-month to two-year period all had improved their sight.[6][124] By 2016, 32 patients had been treated with positive results and researchers were hopeful the treatment would be long-lasting.[24] Choroideremia is an inherited genetic eye disease with no approved treatment, leading to loss of sight.

In March researchers reported that 12 HIV patients had been treated since 2009 in a trial with a genetically engineered virus with a rare mutation (CCR5 deficiency) known to protect against HIV with promising results.[125][126]

Clinical trials of gene therapy for sickle cell disease were started in 2014.[127][128]

In February LentiGlobin BB305, a gene therapy treatment undergoing clinical trials for treatment of beta thalassemia gained FDA "breakthrough" status after several patients were able to forgo the frequent blood transfusions usually required to treat the disease.[129]

In March researchers delivered a recombinant gene encoding a broadly neutralizing antibody into monkeys infected with simian HIV; the monkeys' cells produced the antibody, which cleared them of HIV. The technique is named immunoprophylaxis by gene transfer (IGT). Animal tests for antibodies to ebola, malaria, influenza, and hepatitis were underway.[130][131]

In March, scientists, including an inventor of CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna, urged a worldwide moratorium on germline gene therapy, writing "scientists should avoid even attempting, in lax jurisdictions, germline genome modification for clinical application in humans" until the full implications "are discussed among scientific and governmental organizations".[132][133][134][135]

In October, researchers announced that they had treated a baby girl, Layla Richards, with an experimental treatment using donor T-cells genetically engineered using TALEN to attack cancer cells. One year after the treatment she was still free of her cancer (a highly aggressive form of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia [ALL]).[136] Children with highly aggressive ALL normally have a very poor prognosis and Layla's disease had been regarded as terminal before the treatment.[137]

In December, scientists of major world academies called for a moratorium on inheritable human genome edits, including those related to CRISPR-Cas9 technologies[138] but that basic research including embryo gene editing should continue.[139]

In April the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency endorsed a gene therapy treatment called Strimvelis[140][141] and the European Commission approved it in June.[142] This treats children born with adenosine deaminase deficiency and who have no functioning immune system. This was the second gene therapy treatment to be approved in Europe.[143]

In October, Chinese scientists reported they had started a trial to genetically modify T-cells from 10 adult patients with lung cancer and reinject the modified T-cells back into their bodies to attack the cancer cells. The T-cells had the PD-1 protein (which stops or slows the immune response) removed using CRISPR-Cas9.[144][145]

A 2016 Cochrane systematic review looking at data from four trials on topical cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene therapy does not support its clinical use as a mist inhaled into the lungs to treat cystic fibrosis patients with lung infections. One of the four trials did find weak evidence that liposome-based CFTR gene transfer therapy may lead to a small respiratory improvement for people with CF. This weak evidence is not enough to make a clinical recommendation for routine CFTR gene therapy.[146]

In February Kite Pharma announced results from a clinical trial of CAR-T cells in around a hundred people with advanced Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.[147]

In March, French scientists reported on clinical research of gene therapy to treat sickle-cell disease.[148]

In August, the FDA approved tisagenlecleucel for acute lymphoblastic leukemia.[149] Tisagenlecleucel is an adoptive cell transfer therapy for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia; T cells from a person with cancer are removed, genetically engineered to make a specific T-cell receptor (a chimeric T cell receptor, or "CAR-T") that reacts to the cancer, and are administered back to the person. The T cells are engineered to target a protein called CD19 that is common on B cells. This is the first form of gene therapy to be approved in the United States. In October, a similar therapy called axicabtagene ciloleucel was approved for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.[150]

In December the results of using an adeno-associated virus with blood clotting factor VIII to treat nine haemophilia A patients were published. Six of the seven patients on the high dose regime increased the level of the blood clotting VIII to normal levels. The low and medium dose regimes had no effect on the patient's blood clotting levels.[151][152]

In December, the FDA approved Luxturna, the first in vivo gene therapy, for the treatment of blindness due to Leber's congenital amaurosis.[153] The price of this treatment was 850,000 US dollars for both eyes.[154][155]

A need was identified for high quality randomised controlled trials assessing the risks and benefits involved with gene therapy for people with sickle cell disease.[156]

In February, medical scientists working with Sangamo Therapeutics, headquartered in Richmond, California, announced the first ever "in body" human gene editing therapy to permanently alter DNA - in a patient with Hunter syndrome.[157] Clinical trials by Sangamo involving gene editing using Zinc Finger Nuclease (ZFN) are ongoing.[158]

In May, the FDA approved onasemnogene abeparvovec (Zolgensma) for treating spinal muscular atrophy in children under two years of age. The list price of Zolgensma was set at US$2.125 million per dose, making it the most expensive drug ever.[159]

In May, the EMA approved betibeglogene autotemcel (Zynteglo) for treating beta thalassemia for people twelve years of age and older.[160][161]

In July, Allergan and Editas Medicine announced phase 1/2 clinical trial of AGN-151587 for the treatment of Leber congenital amaurosis 10.[162] It will be the world's first in vivo study of a CRISPR-based human gene editing therapy, where the editing takes place inside the human body.[163] The first injection of the CRISPR-Cas System was confirmed in March of 2020.[164] This marks the first instance of genome editing within an adult human in the context of a scientific study. The very first in-vivo human genome editing however likely took place outside of academia in the context of a self-administered therapy by Biophysicist Josiah Zayner, PhD.[165][166]

Speculated uses for gene therapy include:

Athletes might adopt gene therapy technologies to improve their performance.[167] Gene doping is not known to occur, but multiple gene therapies may have such effects. Kayser et al. argue that gene doping could level the playing field if all athletes receive equal access. Critics claim that any therapeutic intervention for non-therapeutic/enhancement purposes compromises the ethical foundations of medicine and sports.[168]

Genetic engineering could be used to cure diseases, but also to change physical appearance, metabolism, and even improve physical capabilities and mental faculties such as memory and intelligence. Ethical claims about germline engineering include beliefs that every fetus has a right to remain genetically unmodified, that parents hold the right to genetically modify their offspring, and that every child has the right to be born free of preventable diseases.[169][170][171] For parents, genetic engineering could be seen as another child enhancement technique to add to diet, exercise, education, training, cosmetics, and plastic surgery.[172][173] Another theorist claims that moral concerns limit but do not prohibit germline engineering.[174]

A recent issue of the journal Bioethics was devoted to moral issues surrounding germline genetic engineering in people.[175]

Possible regulatory schemes include a complete ban, provision to everyone, or professional self-regulation. The American Medical Associations Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs stated that "genetic interventions to enhance traits should be considered permissible only in severely restricted situations: (1) clear and meaningful benefits to the fetus or child; (2) no trade-off with other characteristics or traits; and (3) equal access to the genetic technology, irrespective of income or other socioeconomic characteristics."[176]

As early in the history of biotechnology as 1990, there have been scientists opposed to attempts to modify the human germline using these new tools,[177] and such concerns have continued as technology progressed.[178][179] With the advent of new techniques like CRISPR, in March 2015 a group of scientists urged a worldwide moratorium on clinical use of gene editing technologies to edit the human genome in a way that can be inherited.[132][133][134][135] In April 2015, researchers sparked controversy when they reported results of basic research to edit the DNA of non-viable human embryos using CRISPR.[180][181] A committee of the American National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine gave qualified support to human genome editing in 2017[182][183] once answers have been found to safety and efficiency problems "but only for serious conditions under stringent oversight."[184]

Regulations covering genetic modification are part of general guidelines about human-involved biomedical research. There are no international treaties which are legally binding in this area, but there are recommendations for national laws from various bodies.

The Helsinki Declaration (Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects) was amended by the World Medical Association's General Assembly in 2008. This document provides principles physicians and researchers must consider when involving humans as research subjects. The Statement on Gene Therapy Research initiated by the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) in 2001 provides a legal baseline for all countries. HUGO's document emphasizes human freedom and adherence to human rights, and offers recommendations for somatic gene therapy, including the importance of recognizing public concerns about such research.[185]

No federal legislation lays out protocols or restrictions about human genetic engineering. This subject is governed by overlapping regulations from local and federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA and NIH's Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee. Researchers seeking federal funds for an investigational new drug application, (commonly the case for somatic human genetic engineering,) must obey international and federal guidelines for the protection of human subjects.[186]

NIH serves as the main gene therapy regulator for federally funded research. Privately funded research is advised to follow these regulations. NIH provides funding for research that develops or enhances genetic engineering techniques and to evaluate the ethics and quality in current research. The NIH maintains a mandatory registry of human genetic engineering research protocols that includes all federally funded projects.

An NIH advisory committee published a set of guidelines on gene manipulation.[187] The guidelines discuss lab safety as well as human test subjects and various experimental types that involve genetic changes. Several sections specifically pertain to human genetic engineering, including Section III-C-1. This section describes required review processes and other aspects when seeking approval to begin clinical research involving genetic transfer into a human patient.[188] The protocol for a gene therapy clinical trial must be approved by the NIH's Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee prior to any clinical trial beginning; this is different from any other kind of clinical trial.[187]

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Gene therapy - Wikipedia

What Is Gene Therapy? How Does It Work? | FDA

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The genes in your bodys cells play an important role in your health indeed, a defective gene or genes can make you sick.

Recognizing this, scientists have been working for decades on ways to modify genes or replace faulty genes with healthy ones to treat, cure or prevent a disease or medical condition.

Now this research on gene therapy is finally paying off. Since August 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved three gene therapy products, the first of their kind.

Two of them reprogram a patients own cells to attack a deadly cancer, and the most recent approved product targets a disease caused by mutations in a specific gene.

What is the relationship between cells and genes?f

Cells are the basic building blocks of all living things; the human body is composed of trillions of them. Within our cells there are thousands of genes that provide the information for the production of specific proteins and enzymes that make muscles, bones, and blood, which in turn support most of our bodys functions, such as digestion, making energy, and growing.

Sometimes the whole or part of a gene is defective or missing from birth, or a gene can change or mutate during adult life. Any of these variations can disrupt how proteins are made, which can contribute to health problems or diseases.

In gene therapy, scientists can do one of several things depending on the problem that is present. They can replace a gene that causes a medical problem with one that doesnt, add genes to help the body to fight or treat disease, or turn off genes that are causing problems.

In order to insert new genes directly into cells, scientists use a vehicle called a vector which is genetically engineered to deliver the gene.

Viruses, for example, have a natural ability to deliver genetic material into cells, and therefore, can be used as vectors. Before a virus can be used to carry therapeutic genes into human cells, however, it is modified to remove its ability to cause an infectious disease.

Gene therapy can be used to modify cells inside or outside the body. When its done inside the body, a doctor will inject the vector carrying the gene directly into the part of the body that has defective cells.

In gene therapy that is used to modify cells outside of the body, blood, bone marrow, or another tissue can be taken from a patient, and specific types of cells can be separated out in the lab. The vector containing the desired gene is introduced into these cells. The cells are left, to multiply in the laboratory, and are then injected back into the patient, where they continue to multiply and eventually produce the desired effect.

Before a company can market a gene therapy product for use in humans, the gene therapy product has to be tested for safety and effectiveness so that FDA scientists can consider whether the risks of the therapy are acceptable in light of the benefits.

Gene therapy holds the promise to transform medicine and create options for patients who are living with difficult, and even incurable, diseases. As scientists continue to make great strides in this therapy, FDA is committed to helping speed up development by prompt review of groundbreaking treatments that have the potential to save lives.

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gene therapy | Description, Uses, Examples, & Safety …

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Discover how gene therapy can treat diseases caused by genetic mutations such as cystic fibrosisGene therapy seeks to repair genetic mutations through the introduction of healthy, working genes.Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc.See all videos for this article

Gene therapy, also called gene transfer therapy, introduction of a normal gene into an individuals genome in order to repair a mutation that causes a genetic disease. When a normal gene is inserted into the nucleus of a mutant cell, the gene most likely will integrate into a chromosomal site different from the defective allele; although that may repair the mutation, a new mutation may result if the normal gene integrates into another functional gene. If the normal gene replaces the mutant allele, there is a chance that the transformed cells will proliferate and produce enough normal gene product for the entire body to be restored to the undiseased phenotype.

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cancer: Gene therapy

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Human gene therapy has been attempted on somatic (body) cells for diseases such as cystic fibrosis, adenosine deaminase deficiency, familial hypercholesterolemia, cancer, and severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) syndrome. Somatic cells cured by gene therapy may reverse the symptoms of disease in the treated individual, but the modification is not passed on to the next generation. Germline gene therapy aims to place corrected cells inside the germ line (e.g., cells of the ovary or testis). If that is achieved, those cells will undergo meiosis and provide a normal gametic contribution to the next generation. Germline gene therapy has been achieved experimentally in animals but not in humans.

Scientists have also explored the possibility of combining gene therapy with stem cell therapy. In a preliminary test of that approach, scientists collected skin cells from a patient with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (an inherited disorder associated with certain types of lung and liver disease), reprogrammed the cells into stem cells, corrected the causative gene mutation, and then stimulated the cells to mature into liver cells. The reprogrammed, genetically corrected cells functioned normally.

Prerequisites for gene therapy include finding the best delivery system (often a virus, typically referred to as a viral vector) for the gene, demonstrating that the transferred gene can express itself in the host cell, and establishing that the procedure is safe. Few clinical trials of gene therapy in humans have satisfied all those conditions, often because the delivery system fails to reach cells or the genes are not expressed by cells. Improved gene therapy systems are being developed by using nanotechnology. A promising application of that research involves packaging genes into nanoparticles that are targeted to cancer cells, thereby killing cancer cells specifically and leaving healthy cells unharmed.

Some aspects of gene therapy, including genetic manipulation and selection, research on embryonic tissue, and experimentation on human subjects, have aroused ethical controversy and safety concerns. Some objections to gene therapy are based on the view that humans should not play God and interfere in the natural order. On the other hand, others have argued that genetic engineering may be justified where it is consistent with the purposes of God as creator. Some critics are particularly concerned about the safety of germline gene therapy, because any harm caused by such treatment could be passed to successive generations. Benefits, however, would also be passed on indefinitely. There also has been concern that the use of somatic gene therapy may affect germ cells.

Although the successful use of somatic gene therapy has been reported, clinical trials have revealed risks. In 1999 American teenager Jesse Gelsinger died after having taken part in a gene therapy trial. In 2000 researchers in France announced that they had successfully used gene therapy to treat infants who suffered from X-linked SCID (XSCID; an inherited disorder that affects males). The researchers treated 11 patients, two of whom later developed a leukemia-like illness. Those outcomes highlight the difficulties foreseen in the use of viral vectors in somatic gene therapy. Although the viruses that are used as vectors are disabled so that they cannot replicate, patients may suffer an immune response.

Another concern associated with gene therapy is that it represents a form of eugenics, which aims to improve future generations through the selection of desired traits. While some have argued that gene therapy is eugenic, others claim that it is a treatment that can be adopted to avoid disability. To others, such a view of gene therapy legitimates the so-called medical model of disability (in which disability is seen as an individual problem to be fixed with medicine) and raises peoples hopes for new treatments that may never materialize.

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112M Fund Launched to Commercialize UCLs Gene Therapy… – Labiotech.eu

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The leading UK institution University College London and the firm AlbionVC have made the first closing of a 112M (100M) fund with the aim of investing in UCL research and spinouts with a focus on gene and cell therapy.

This is the second so-called UCL Technology Fund and could double the size of the first, which raised around 56M (50M) in 2016. The fund is managed by AlbionVC in collaboration with UCLs commercialization company UCL Business (UCLB). Investors in the second fund include the firm British Patient Capital and UCL itself.

While the value of the first closing was not disclosed, Anne Lane, CEO of UCLB, told me that investments from this fund have already begun, and the second close is expected within the next 12 months. The larger size of the fund than the first could also give the team more flexibility on how many investments it makes and how big they are.

We have a focus in terms of UCLs cell & gene therapy research and that is reflected in the portfolio of the fund, but no specific disease areas as such, Lane said.

Examples of investments in the pipeline for this fund include a gene therapy for an undisclosed neurometabolic disorder, a gene therapy for epilepsy, and a cell therapy for glaucoma.

One of the biggest success stories from the first fund is the gene therapy company Orchard Therapeutics, whose Nasdaq IPO raised around 290M in 2018. Another UCL gene therapy spinout, Freeline Therapeutics, is also geared to launch a Nasdaq IPO in the coming weeks.

UCL has a strong entrepreneurial scene comparable to the biotech hubs in Oxford and Cambridge. For example, UCL spinouts reportedly raised 644M (579M) in external investment between 2018 and 2019, the largest amount of any university in the country.

The European startup scene has been shaken by the Covid-19 pandemic this year, with the eurozone economy going into a deep recession. Furthermore, gene therapy developers have experienced disruption with their programs due to clinical trial delays and changes in strategy.

Regarding the effect of Covid-19 on their fundraising, Lane said that the pandemic definitely made it more challenging and took more time than expected. But UCLs research continues and we look to its research base in overcoming the challenges posed by the global pandemic.

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Sheriff declares he will not enforce laws that infringe on Second Amendment – Daily Journal

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The county commissioners and Sheriff Duane Burgess stopped short of declaring Johnson County a Second Amendment sanctuary, but declared that county resources would not be used to enforce laws that infringe on gun rights.

Burgess was asked by residents to clarify his stance on the issue, so he put his thoughts to paper in a legal document as a promise to county residents, he said.

The people have rights and must be protected, and people must know where their elected sheriff and officials stand," Burgess said. "People have the right to protect themselves and their property. They have the right to keep and bear arms.

Locally, the ordinance declares, Johnson County shall be a county in which the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms is deeply honored and protected against unlawful infringement; and that the Johnson County Commissioners and Johnson County Sheriff hereby declare their opposition to any law or regulation that unlawfully infringes upon the right to keep and bear arms, and it shall, therefore, be the policy of the Johnson County commissioners and the Johnson County sheriff not to utilize county resources in a manner that unlawfully infringes upon the right to keep and bear arms.

The 2013 ordinance did not include a pledge from the sheriff to not enforce laws that infringe on gun rights such as a mass gun seizure, instead saying the commissioners would oppose rights infringements they believe are contrary to the constitution. The new resolution cements the countys commitment further, with Burgesss declaration that any such laws would not be enforced.

Burgess and Johnson County commissioner Brian Baird said county officials are of the opinion that additional gun rights should not be taken away, but existing gun laws will continue to be enforced. For example, Baird said the sheriffs office would respond to and take action against individuals who possess illegal guns such as automatic weapons or those who carry a gun in public without a license.

The most likely way this resolution could be put into action is some type of mass guns seizure, Burgess said. He and Baird said the county feels strongly that any weapon seizure should not be undertaken without modifying the constitution.

As sheriff, Burgess knows that many gun laws are necessary, for example, the Jake Laird Law, also known as the Red Flag Law, which allows law enforcement to take guns from someone who is mentally unstable or poses a potential threat to society. For him, the distinction between laws such as this and a mass seizure is that the latter would impact law-abiding citizens. Rather than any specific potential legislation, the resolution is meant to protect law-abiding citizens from having guns taken from them unconstitutionally, Burgess said.

Legal experts doubt the validity of local resolutions promising to not enforce gun laws, given that municipalities are superseded by state and federal laws. Under the state constitution, counties operate exclusively on the powers that are endowed to the units of government by the General Assembly, according to a guide on county government from the Indiana Association of Counties. Experts say, because laws would either come via the executive or legislative branch, county government would be beholden to uphold the law.

However, is not clear what consequences there would be if a state or federal law passed and Burgess refused to enforce it, Baird said.

Until something would come up, you dont know what is going to happen; everybody knows that. I hope this is never tested, Baird said. I swore an oath to protect the constitution and I will do that until my last breath.

In 2013, Johnson County became one of the first in the state to pass a Second Amendment protection ordinance. Since the first of this year, Burgess, Baird and Greg Ileko, a Bargersville man involved with the countys Second Amendment protection group, have been working with legal counsel to update the ordinance and clarify the countys stance.

Baird and Burgess have been discussing this new resolution, which the Johnson County Board of Commissioners passed unanimously, since Burgess took office last year, Baird said.

Passing the resolution moved up the priority list when the Second Amendment sanctuary movement ignited across the country after controversial gun laws were passed in Virginia, said Ilko.

Indianas Second Amendment sanctuary movement is led by a group called Indiana 2a United. The groups members have convinced 25 counties to pass some type of 2a protection measure, according to pro-2a sanctuary website, sanctuarycounties.com. As many as 959 counties across the country have passed similar measures with encouragement from local gun rights activists, the website says.

Not all counties that have had Second Amendment protection measures proposed have passed legislation. For example, Bartholomew County commissioners and the Columbus mayor declined to pass proposed sanctuary legislation in January.

Bartholomew County officials saw sanctuary legislation as an attempt to bypass the court system, according to a statement they provided to the Columbus Republic.

The question of whether the Constitution has been followed is within the sole province of the Courts to determine. It appears that the intent and purpose of this proposed Ordinance is to attempt to usurp or supersede the authority of the Courts, the statement read.

For activists like Ilko, a commitment from the county government to protect gun rights means a lot at a time when many fear further infringement, he said. Though a resolution has a less powerful statement than an ordinance, Ilko said the gesture is important to local gun owners. An ordinance is a piece of legislation that carries more weight, whereas a resolution is a formally expressed opinion that is agreed upon with a vote.

It is the opportunity for the silent majority to not be silent anymore. There is a big push and an anti-2a facet out there, Ilko said. Having our sheriff and public officials stand up takes some moxy and I appreciate it.

On gun rights or any issue, Burgess said his door is always open when residents have concerns about law enforcement issues.

As the sheriff of Johnson County, I feel that it is important to be proactive and look at all sides when making a decision, Burgess said. We all may not agree on certain things or issues, but at the end of the day, you have to be willing to accept that persons view and continue to work toward a solution.

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A Family Cries Justice for Hannah. Will Its Rural Town Listen? – The New York Times

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SEDALIA, Mo. Seven weeks had passed, and still there were no answers. So once again, a small cluster of friends and family gathered in the leafy courthouse square and marched for Hannah Fizer, an unarmed woman shot and killed by a rural Missouri sheriffs deputy during a traffic stop.

Say her name! Hannah!

Prosecute the police!

Their chants echoed protests over police killings in Minneapolis, Louisville, Atlanta and beyond. But this was no George Floyd moment for rural America.

Though people in rural areas are killed in police shootings at about the same rate as in cities, victims families and activists say they have struggled to get justice or even make themselves heard. They say extracting changes can be especially tough in small, conservative towns where residents and officials have abiding support for law enforcement and are leery of new calls to defund the police.

Its like pulling teeth, Ms. Fizers mother, Amy, said.

The deputy who shot Ms. Fizer has not been charged or disciplined, and Ms. Fizers parents say they have not received any updates about the investigation into her June 13 death. They said that investigators never interviewed them, and that the sheriff declined to tell them the name of the deputy who shot her.

Over the weeks, the rallies for Ms. Fizer tapered from a hundred protesters to a couple dozen. Every Saturday morning, they wave signs and ask passing cars to honk in support of the 25-year-old woman with a big grin and flower tattoo, who loved swimming and Chinese takeout and dreamed of having children, and of a larger life beyond her night-shift job at a gas station. Her family and friends have become her movement.

Were just doing it all on our own, Amy Fizer said.

There are hundreds of stories of law enforcement killings in small towns and rural areas, but scant research into how and why they happen. One analysis by FiveThirtyEight found that between 2013 and 2019 there was a slight rise in shootings by officers in rural and suburban areas and a decline in big cities. Experts say rural shootings may be tied to higher rates of gun ownership, a lack of mental health services, or insufficient training for officers responding to people in crisis.

Ms. Fizers parents said they know only the barest facts about what happened the night she died.

She spent the last day of her life splashing around in a kiddie pool with her best friend, Taylor Browder, and Ms. Browders young children, talking about life and her future in Sedalia, an old railroad town of 21,000 people that is home to the Missouri State Fair. Ms. Fizer had attended the Sedalia Police Departments citizens academy in 2016 but quickly decided she did not want to become a cop. She sometimes talked about working as a parole officer.

Ms. Browder said that Ms. Fizer headed home to the apartment she shared with her boyfriend to take a nap and shower before her overnight shift at the Eagle Stop gas station on the western edge of town.

At about 10 that night, a Pettis County sheriffs deputy pulled her over for speeding. In an interview, Sheriff Kevin Bond said that the deputy met with verbal resistance when he walked up to Ms. Fizers car and that he told investigators she claimed she had a gun and threatened to kill him.

Ms. Fizers friends and family have a hard time believing that. Ms. Fizers boyfriend owned a gun, they said, but in a conservative county where the Second Amendment is sacrosanct, Ms. Fizer did not like guns or carry one.

Investigators later found five shell casings by the drivers side door of her Hyundai, but no gun in her car.

David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, said the prevalence of guns may explain why cities and rural areas have nearly equal rates of law enforcement killings even though murders and violent crime rates tend to be higher in cities.

More than half of the people fatally shot by rural officers were reported to have a gun, according to a seven-year tally by Mapping Police Violence. Ms. Fizer was among the roughly 10 percent who were unarmed.

Ms. Fizer and the deputy who shot her were both white, a common dynamic in shootings that occur in overwhelmingly white, rural parts of the country. Black and Hispanic people are killed at higher rates than white people in rural areas, but the demographics of rural America mean that about 60 to 70 percent of people killed by law enforcement there are white, according to an analysis by Harvard researchers.

Unlike in other cases that have galvanized efforts to change policing, there is no body camera footage of the shooting. The sheriffs office stopped using body cameras after software problems and a crash on the hard drive that recorded the data. Fixing it was just cost prohibitive for a rural sheriffs office where money is tight and starting pay for deputies is $26,000, Sheriff Bond said.

Sheriff Bond said there had been no prior use-of-force complaints against the deputy who shot Ms. Fizer. The deputy, who has not been named, was put on paid leave, and the sheriff said he immediately called in the Missouri State Highway Patrol to handle the scene and investigate the shooting.

The Highway Patrol finished its investigation last week and handed over a report to the Pettis County prosecuting attorney, who had a special prosecutor appointed. Ms. Fizers family said they have not been told about the results of the report, and have been following developments through the news.

If this wouldve happened in the city, something would have been done by now, said Haley Richardson, a friend who said Ms. Fizer was kindhearted and stood up for vulnerable people. Were going to stay out here. We just want answers.

Ms. Fizers relatives said that a divide in money and class between them and authorities in Pettis County had made them feel like second-rung citizens. Ms. Fizer was not rich, and members of her family had been in and out of prison and struggled with drug addictions.

If youre on the outer fringes of society youd know, Amy Fizer said. They pull you over. They do what they want, when they want.

Some of Ms. Fizers friends and relatives said they had already been outraged by Mr. Floyds killing in Minneapolis police custody, which happened about three weeks before Ms. Fizer was shot. They joined Black Lives Matter rallies as the movement spread throughout small towns across America.

But they also emphasized that they did not want to abolish the police. They supported law enforcement. Just not this deputy, or this sheriff. The aftermath of the shooting led to calls for Sheriff Bond to resign and prompted a police sergeant in suburban Kansas City to challenge the sheriff in Novembers election.

You have law enforcement running around without any body cameras, dash cameras, the minimal equipment, said the challenger, Brad Anders, who lives in Sedalia. The investigation, whatever it may reveal, is never going to be enough. There are questions that will never be answered.

The anger over Ms. Fizers death exploded on local Facebook groups. Sheriff Bond said people had threatened to publish his home address and harassed and threatened a deputy and his family, and he warned that instigators were using Ms. Fizers death to sow social chaos.

When a statue of a World War I doughboy infantryman honoring veterans was vandalized in July in the town square an incident unrelated to the protests for Ms. Fizer his officers opened an investigation and arrested an 18-year-old on vandalism charges.

Do you want this to continue and cause irrevocable harm to our community? the sheriff wrote. Are you willing to allow Pettis County to become the test project for some social justice experiment for rural America?

Ms. Fizers father, John, had complicated feelings about the upwelling of nationwide anger at the police. He was angry. He wanted justice for his daughter. But he counted himself as a conservative Republican and worried that the protests in Sedalia could be co-opted by left-wing outsiders a pervasive, but largely unfounded fear in small towns after Mr. Floyds killing.

In a Facebook post, Mr. Fizer wrote that he did not want Antifa-type outrage here in our quiet hometown.

I love my law enforcement, he said. Id hate to think where wed be without them.

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A Family Cries Justice for Hannah. Will Its Rural Town Listen? - The New York Times

Nintendo profit jumps more than 400% thanks to the Switch and ‘Animal Crossing’ – KTVZ

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Nintendo sales are still soaring.

The Japanese company posted another round of blockbuster earnings Thursday, proving that its hot streak from the pandemic is far from over.

The company said it made 145 billion yen ($1.37 billion) in operating profit for the quarter ended June, marking a 428% surge compared to the same time a year ago. That blew away expectations from analysts, who had estimated about 62 billion yen of profit, according to data provided by Refinitiv.

Nintendo also doubled sales from a year ago, taking in about 358 billion yen ($3.4 billion).

The results show that months into the pandemic, people are still turning to the Nintendo Switch game console in droves. Nintendo sold about 5.7 million of the devices from April through June, marking a 167% increase year-over-year.

The runaway success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons continued to be a boon for the company. The game, which is set on a relaxing virtual island utopia and allows users to fish, catch bugs and play with friends on the beach, runs on the Switch and has been in high demand since people worldwide started staying home because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Nintendo sold 10.6 million copies of the game in the most recent quarter.

Sales of this title continue to be strong, with no loss of momentum, the company said in a statement. It added that the game was its bestseller this quarter, contributing greatly to the overall growth in software sales.

Nintendo has sold 22.4 million copies of Animal Crossing overall, putting it just under Nintendos best-selling game of all time, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. That title has racked up 26.7 million sales.

The Switch, which was first released in 2017, sold out on various websites earlier this year as customers scrambled to find new forms of home entertainment.

This spring, the Kyoto-based company ran into supply issues with the Switch as factories were shut down in China. Those closures triggered some component shortages and slowed output at factories in Vietnam.

Now, the overall production situation has almost recovered, the company said.

Nintendo also took the opportunity to tease its pipeline of games. This fall, it plans to release a new title, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, as well as offer some new content for Pokmon players. The company released another new Switch game, Paper Mario: The Origami King, last month.

We will work to keep the platform active with new titles and by reinforcing sales of popular titles that have already been released, the company said.

Kaori Enjoji contributed to this report.

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Nintendo profit jumps more than 400% thanks to the Switch and 'Animal Crossing' - KTVZ

Terminal Nation discuss every track on their killer new album (which is streaming) – Brooklyn Vegan

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intro by Andrew Sacher and Erin Christie

With protests against racism, police brutality and other injustices happening all across the country this year, protest music has been hitting even harder than usual, and Little Rock, Arkansas band Terminal Nation's new album Holocene Extinction is 35 minutes of in-your-face, abrasive, cathartic, really fucking good protest music. They pull from early death and black metal as much as they pull from hardcore punk, and their songs exist within a thrilling middle ground that never fits neatly into any of those genres.

Lyrically, the album takes on the failings of the prison industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry, and the war machine. It turns the mirror back around on those in power, and those who claim "patriotism." It's a record that asks not for reform, but an entire dismantling of the system. It resonates especially strongly right now, and it will continue to until there's some real change.

Holocene Extinction officially comes out Friday (8/7) via 20 Buck Spin (pre-order), but you can stream the whole thing right now. Vocalist Stan Liszewski also gave us a breakdown of each song on the album, so click play right here and then scroll down to see what Stan had to say...

1. "Cognitive Dissonance"Admitting you are wrong is an incredibly difficult thing to do. It's a humbling experience, to say that you once had an awful mindset, but you've changed and now think differently. That shows growth. There are some hard-headed, obtuse types who use all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify their wrong and antiquated views, rather than just take their L and move on. I think, deep down, they know that they're wrong, but they're stuck on a sinking ship and committing to their bit until the end."The line in the sand's been drawn. Which side will you be on?"

2. "Arsenic Earth"The planet is dying. This track is a frustrated and rage-filled perspective from the sidelines while we watch our home being destroyed. This is me screaming into the void, "How did we let this happen?," and because we let this happen, maybe we deserve what's coming."After 200 years humanity has stolen two million years off of the life of the Earth. Mother nature, I beg that you show us no mercy, just as we have to you."3. "Holocene Extinction"If "Arsenic Earth" is me being frustrated with humanity, "Holocene Extinction" is the rebuttal to that, and my frustrated self-reflection at that mindset. It's not humanity as a whole that's at fault for this current climate crisis, but rather, capitalism. Those in power have too much money at stake for things to ever be allowed to change. The almighty dollar is at the bottom of this all and, as it stands now, we have crossed the point of no return."You cannot save a world that refuses to be saved. Holocene Extinction."

4. "Master Plan"This track is about various American institutions like the prison industrial complex, the police, the use of immigration camps, etc., and how people often refer to them as 'broken systems.' Many think that these programs have potential to be reformed. I'd disagree with that; to advocate for reform of these institutions implies that they have failed, but they have not failed. These are not 'broken systems;' they are functioning exactly how they were intended to. They were made to inflict harm, gain control over, and profit off society's most vulnerable and marginalized people. This was always their Master Plan."To advocate for reform of these violent institutions implies that they have failed, but they have not failed. This is exactly what they were always meant to be. The system is not broken, this is their master plan."

5. "Revenge"This is a fun throwback. The frame of this track was used in our first EP, Waste. It was the heaviest track on that record and it was deserving of a redo. We beefed it up production-wise and added a few new interesting parts. Simply put, this track is about the desire to exact revenge on those that have harmed you and harmed those that you love."Fuck around and find out."

6. "Thirst To Burn"To piggyback on "Revenge," sometimes taking the high road means whoopin' some ass. Sometimes people absolutely need to be taken down by force. There is often privilege in saying 'violence isn't the answer.' Those saying that 'violence doesn't solve anything' usually don't have to live in fear of being on the receiving end of violence. There can be a great deal of risk involved in standing your ground, but sometimes, there is no other option."I would risk it all, just to see them fall."

7. "Orange Bottle Prison"The pharmaceutical industry in the United States is a scam. I think we all know someone, or perhaps at one time or another, have personally avoided taking a particular drug that was deemed necessary by a physician because we couldn't afford it. I know I have. It's unfortunate, but making life-saving medicine affordable isn't something that fits within the scope of their current business model."If the drugs don't kill me then the price of them will, price-gouging the sick, pay or be fucking killed."8. "Leather Envy" Some people love the taste of that leather boot a little too much. Death to all bootlicking."Those who bow to their own oppressor are the weakest link in the chain of being."

9. "Expired Utopia"This is the first time Terminal Nation has experimented with an instrumental track. It starts off with one riff, and if you listen closely, every 2 measures or so, you'll hear another riff layered on top of the previous one and it stacks up well. Even without lyrics, this song tells a story. Similar to "Holocene Extinction," this is a somber melody about the helpless feeling of knowing things are probably too far gone to be fixed. You often hear that once things get better, future generations will look back on this time and view it as a dark period, but what if there are no future generations? What if things won't get better? What if they only get worse? Any redeeming possibility for a peaceful utopian future has all but expired.

10. "Death For Profit"War is extremely profitable and no one partakes in the business of war quite like the United States of America. American imperialism has run amuck for generations now, and the indoctrination of blind patriotism is what fuels that imperialism."The smell of money is used to hide the stench of death. Death toll rising or strategic ratings boost? Blinded by the concept of patriotism this is the empowerment of imperialism. Death for profit to the highest bidder, when will we ever learn?"11. "Caskets of the Poor"Military recruiters view poor, marginalized, and underprivileged youth as fodder. They prey on young, poor folks with pipedreams of a better life and send them to die to benefit the old, powerful, and rich. It's a tale as old as time."I pledge allegiance to perpetual war and the flag that blankets the caskets of the poor."

12. "Disciple of Deceit""Disciple of Deceit" is about these right-wing politicians and political types who use their cherry-picked version of Christianity as a means to infringe upon the existence of others. They'll go after things like marriage equality, other religious beliefs, trans rights, abortion rights, and more, taking stabs at some of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in the US, yet, upon meeting any resistance to their regressive way of thinking, they develop a persecution complex and act as if they are the ones that are the oppressed."You wouldn't know oppression if it nailed you to the fucking cross."

13. "Age of Turmoil" The closing track on the LP is a culmination of all of the topics that are previously touched on, but from a perspective that's a bit more hopeful. Who knows exactly what the future holds for us, but in the interim, we've got to look out for one another and weather through this age of turmoil."No pasarn!"

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These are the latest Apple Arcade games for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and Apple TV – 9to5Mac

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Apple Arcadelaunched with close to 100 titles and the service is seeing new games added regularly. Follow along with our guide on the latest from Apples gaming service.

You can learn more about and downloadall the new games by heading to the Arcade tab in the App Store, then swipe down to the very bottom and tap See All Games. The newest games are listed at the top.

If you havent signed up yet, Apple Arcade is available free for the first month, then $5/month for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and Apple TV. PS4 and Xbox wireless controllers are also now compatible with Apple devices and select titles.

8/7: Apple Arcade gainsGame of Thrones: Tale of Crowsas the newest title taking players back 8,000 before Jon Snow.

In the shadow of the Wall, your watch begins. Eight thousand years before Jon Snow took the Black, the Nights Watch was formed to secure the Wall and defend the border of Westeros against the perils of the North, and all that lies beyond. Into these untamed wilds, sworn brothers and their allies set out on rangings to face the dangers that would threaten the realm. But the Wall is a blade that cuts both ways.

Guide the decisions of Lord Commanders through the seasons and mount expeditions beyond the Wall. As ravens travel to and from your expeditions in real time, their messages are delivered to you throughout your day. Respond with your command right away, or whenever you see fit.

Long is the history of the Nights Watch, and many are its stories forgotten. Its time the realm remembers them.

7/24:Landing on Apple Arcade today isThe Lullaby of Life, an adventure game with a focus on music, relaxation, and agility.

In The Lullaby of Life you are the catalyst for change in a universe currently inert but filled with potential.

Explore this amazing world that combines relaxation, dexterity and agility, and help it reach its maximum splendor using the power of music to make life bloom.

This adventure has no textual elements, and wearing headphones is highly recommended. Lets write together a new story about the origin of life!

7/17:Necrobaristais the newest addition to Apple Arcade. Heres the description of the new dark adventure title:

In a back-alley Melbourne cafe, the dead are granted one last night to mingle with the living.For Maddy Xiaobarista, amateur necromancer, and new owner of the Terminalthings couldnt be better, as long as youre not reminding her of the fact that shes got an enforcer from the notoriously uncompromising Council of Death breathing down her neck.

7/10:New to Apple Arcade today is a dark and eerie adventure puzzler called Creaks.

The ground starts shaking, light bulbs are breaking and something rather unusual is happening right behind the walls of your very room. Equipped with nothing but wit and courage, you slowly descend into a world inhabited by avian folk and seemingly deadly furniture monsters.

From the creators of indie classics Machinarium and Samorost comes Creaks, a new puzzle adventure game that delights the senses with its hand-painted visuals, precise animation, eerie sounds, and an eclectic original score from Hidden Orchestra. Proceed at your own pace at figuring out the solutions to dozens of carefully designed puzzles, explore the mansion for hidden paintings, and uncover the great secret.

6/25: A big release today on Apple Arcade is the futuristic adventure thriller and sequel to the popularBeneath a Steel Sky,Beyond a Steel Sky.

From Charles Cecil, creator of the Broken Sword series, with art direction by Dave Gibbons, legendary comic book artist behind Watchmen, comes Beyond a Steel Sky, the long awaited sequel to the cult classic Beneath a Steel Sky.

You are Robert Foster. A child has been abducted in a brutal attack. You have vowed to bring him home. But the trail has led you from your community of desert wasteland dwellers, to Union City, one of the last remaining mega-cities in a world ravaged by shattering wars, and political meltdown.

Fortified and impenetrable, it is a utopia in which people live happily under the surveillance and control of a benign AI. But all is far from what it seems

Beyond a Steel Sky is a dramatic, humorous, cyberpunk thriller in which engaging puzzles drive a fast-paced narrative set in a dynamic gameworld that responds to and is subverted by the players actions.

An adventure set within a dynamic world, populated by willful characters driven by motivations that the player can subvert. In combination with a unique hacking tool, multiple solutions to puzzles emerge from player choices. Unravel dark conspiracies, defeat a terrifying antagonist in this dramatic, humorous, cyberpunk thriller, which explores contemporary themes: social control, AI, and total surveillance. Intelligent puzzles are interwoven with an intriguing dramatic narrative to deliver a compelling gameplay experience. A beautifully detailed, comic-book styled world, from the mind of legendary comic artist Dave Gibbons.

Thanks, Sigmund!

6/12:A new side-scrolling adventure game has arrived today on Apple Arcade calledLittle Orpheus.

The year is 1962 and NASA are trying to put a man on the moon. In a remote corner of Siberia, a Soviet cosmonaut is heading in the other direction. Comrade Ivan Ivanovich is dropped into an extinct volcano in his exploration capsule, Little Orpheus, to explore the center of the earth. He promptly vanishes.

Three years later he emerges claiming to have saved the world. He has also lost the atomic bomb powering the Little Orpheus. He is taken to a top secret bunker deep below the Ural mountains to be debriefed by the fearsome General Yurkovoi, a man so frightening even Stalin wont buy him a drink. The General rolls up his sleeves, fixes Ivan with a steely glare and say So where have you been comrade? And where is my bomb?And Ivan looks him right back in the eye and says Well General, you might not believe what happened to me, but Ill do my best. Because it happened like this

Join our bold yet hapless hero as he explores lost civilizations, undersea kingdoms, prehistoric jungles and lands beyond imagination. Gasp as he battles the subhuman tribe of the Menkv and escapes the clutches of dreadful monsters! Cheer as he triumphs over impossible odds and brings socialism to the subterranean worlds!

Little Orpheus is a technicolor side-scrolling adventure game inspired by classic movies like Flash Gordon, Sinbad and The Land that Time Forgot. Delivered in eight bite-size, commute-friendly episodes, Little Orpheus is simple enough for casual players but rich enough for seasoned adventure fans.

If youre a fan of old school family blockbusters, want a rollercoaster story thatll take you to the Earths core and beyond, or are just in some need of ideologically correct entertainment, join the most unlikely hero to hit Apple Arcade on an adventure beyond belief. With stunning visuals, brilliant acting and a world-class score, Little Orpheus is a pocket-epic youll never forget.

Comrades, to the center!

6/4:It doesnt look like were getting a new Apple Arcade title this week but there is a major update for the popular RPGOceanhorn 2 with the Golden Edition today (via CNET). The expansion marks a great time to replay the game or jump in for the first time.

Introducing the Golden Edition!

Theres never been a better time to start your RPG adventure or to jump back in! The Golden Edition update is packed with new, exciting content, and its the best version of the game to date!

5/28: Apple Arcade has added a new game from Nickelodeon called SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit. Heres how its described:

Trouble has come to Bikini Bottom! The evil mastermind Sheldon J. Plankton has once again hatched a plan to steal the secret Krabby Patty formula. This time he has enlisted his army of cousins to capture all of SpongeBobs friends! Play as SpongeBob on his epic, most side-scrolly quest through Bikini Bottom ever! Explore, collect coins and spatulas, and crush obstacles as SpongeBob races to rescue his friends, defeat Planktons minions and take back the formula. Keep an eye out for your favorite Bikini Bottom residentsyou never know who you might run into!

5/22:Apple Arcade sees the arrival of a new dungeon crawler RPG,Towers of Everland.

Lets go on a dungeon crawl as Towers of Everland seamlessly brings together exploration, combat and RPG elements to take the player on an amazing adventure within the world of Everland. On your epic journey, test your skills in battle against the hordes of fiendish monsters you encounter, conquer all the towers you can and amass weapons and armor from hundreds of unique pieces.

5/14:Launched today on Apple Arcade is a fun new puzzle journey calledWinding Worlds.

Youre far from home. Youre not sure how you got here. But you do know one thing: its your calling to help your new friends, however you can. But not all of them are being cooperative

From the award-winning studio that brought you GNOG comes Winding Worlds, a finger-wiggling puzzle-adventure about a girl, a Wurm, and how to say goodbye.

Willow just wants to mind her own business. But after she finds a broken magical necklace, she is transported on a spellbinding journey to a network of strange planets, each with a different inhabitant. Hired and guided by a mysterious cosmic Wurm, Willows task is to find out how to help her new friends heal and move on. In Winding Worlds, join a cast of characters, big and small, in a heartwarming tale of grief, love, truth, and acceptance.

5/8:Apple Arcade has gainedThe_Otherside, a new turn-based RPG.

Otherside is a turn based RPG and strategy board game where you will control four survivors who hope to push back the shadowy threat. Make your way through each level solving puzzles, fighting monsters, and destroying the spirit anchors that threaten our dimension.

Do you have what it takes to restore the town back to normal and save the day?

5/1:The latest addition to Apple Arcade is the adventure titleNeversong.

Upon waking from a coma, Peets girlfriend is nowhere to be found. Investigate the screams coming from the heart of Neverwood, the increasingly bizarre behavior of the zombie grownups, and the strange truth about Peets past in this hauntingly dreamlike fable.

From Red Wind Field to the haunting halls of Blackfork Asylum, explore six moody, illustrative levels.

Take on bosses, monsters, and zombie grownups with your trusty baseball bat.

Immerse yourself in a breathtaking piano-centric soundtrack.

Join your quirky childhood pals and trusty pet bird on an adventure to discover the truth about your recent coma.

4/17:Apple Arcade has gained two new titles today with Beyond Blue and A Fold Apart. The former is a deep-sea diving adventure game and the latter is a love story in a paper world puzzler.

Beyond Blue takes you into the near future, where youll have the opportunity to explore the mysteries of our ocean through the eyes of Mirai, a deep sea explorer and scientist. You and your newly-formed research team will use groundbreaking technologies to see, hear, and interact with the ocean in a more meaningful way than has ever been attempted. The game features an evocative narrative, exploration of an untouched world, and adventure that challenges the player to make high-stakes decisions during the crews expedition.

And heres the description ofA Fold Apart.

After career choices force them along separate paths, a Teacher and Architect vow to make their long-distance relationship work at any cost. Experience both sides of their story as the couple navigates the complexities of (mis)communication and the emotional ups and downs that separation brings. By flipping, folding, and unfolding the paper puzzles in their handcrafted worlds, you can help the couple overcome the emotional barriers of their relationship but will love endure?

4/10:The new side-scrollerScrappers is now available on Apple Arcade.

In Scrappers, up to 4 players can team up to clean up the streets of a futuristic city teeming with garbage and trash anyone who gets in their way!

You take on the role of the Scrappers, a squad of robot garbage collectors working to clean up a grimy city of the not-so-distant future. Time is money in Junktown, and team tactics like stacking trash and passing it to teammates much like in basketball can boost your efficiency for bigger rewards!

But garbage collection is only part of the job. Rival teams will attack and interfere, and its up to you to dispose of them while staying on schedule!

Teamwork is key to maximizing efficiency and achieving high scores, which in turn unlocks new characters and customization options!

4/3:Legend of the Sky Fish 2, a new RPG has landed on Apple Arcade.

A hundred years have passed since the hero known as Little Red Hook ended the reign of terror of Skyfish, the Lord of the Deep Seas and now the peace that civilization struggled so much to build is in danger again.

As the last Red Hook guardians, you and your master must use the atypical tool of your clan the Combat Fishing Pole as both a weapon and a grappling hook to face the rising threat.

Unveil an exciting story as you journey in a world full of intriguing characters and devious traps. Explore gorgeous landscapes and mysterious dungeons while defeating mutant abyssal creatures.

3/20: Spyder is out as the latest Apple Arcade title:

Save the world with Agent 8 in this Spy-on-The-Wall adventure.

Set in a retro universe, British Spy Agency EP-8 has created Agent 8, the most sophisticated miniature robot spider on earth! Built using experimental technology, this itsy-bitsy superspy is equipped with all the gadgets and gizmos youll need; cut through panels, overload terminals, flip switches, and open valves as you scurry about sabotaging the heinous plans of evil doers.

3/13: New today is the bouncy dungeon crawlerRoundguard.

Roundguard is a bouncy dungeon crawler with pinball physics, lots of loot, and a randomized castle full of oddballs. Press your luck against hordes of dangerously cute monsters and challenging roguelike elements in this all-round bouncy adventure!

If you love roguelikes & Peggle, then Roundguard is for you.

2/27:The makers of the highly popular Crossy Road are back with Crossy Road Castleas an Apple Arcade exclusive.

Bring your friends and see how far you can get in this endless spinning tower of arcade fun!

Keep climbing as high as you can. Every run is different.

2/14:Apple Arcade gets a new strategy game this week, Loud House: Outta Control from Nickelodeon.

2/7: This weeks new title isCharrua Soccer. It features retro 3D gameplay and features three modes: Friendly Match, Competitions, and Penalty Match.

You can choose player vs computer or player vs player.Charrua Soccerfeatures simple controls with fun and challenging gameplay.

1/31: Secret Oops!has arrived, a multiplayer AR party game.

Secret Oops! is an innovative cooperative local multiplayer Augmented Reality game where players try to make sure that the worlds dumbest spy isnt detected.

1/24: The newest title for Apple Arcade is Butter Royale, a Buttery food fight, battle royale style!

Have the food fight of your life in Butter Royale, a multiplayer battle royale game, and be the last one standing on Butter Island. Play against 31 other players in fastpaced food battles (under 5 minutes) with the help of sauce-shooting, baguette-blasting kichen tools!

1/17:Kings of the Castlehas launched today on Apple Arcade.

Speed to the rescue in this fun, multiplayer fairy tale. Save the prince before anyone else using your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV. But watch out for their spells.

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These are the latest Apple Arcade games for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and Apple TV - 9to5Mac

VIDEO: New Trailer Released for Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe; Premiering This Month on Disney+ – wdwnt.com

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Today, Disney+ shared a newtrailerfor its upcoming out-of-this-world original movie, Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe, which premieres on Friday, August 28.

Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe is an adventure story that tracksstepbrothers Phineas and Ferb as they set out across the galaxy to rescue theirolder sister Candace, who after being abducted by aliens, finds utopia in a far-off planet, free of pesky littlebrothers.

Voice talent reprising their roles from the original series and movieinclude: Ashley Tisdale as Candace Flynn; Vincent Martella as Phineas Flynn; Caroline Rhea as their mom, Linda; Dee Bradley Baker as Perry the Platypus; Alyson Stoner as Isabella; Maulik Pancholy as Baljeet; Bobby Gaylor as Buford; Olivia Olson as Vanessa Doofenshmirtz; Tyler Mann as Carl; and Povenmire and Marsh as Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz and Major Monogram, respectively. David Errigo Jr. joins the cast as Ferb Fletcher

Disney+ is the dedicated streaming home for movies and shows from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and more. As part of Disneys Direct-to-Consumer and International (DTCI) segment, Disney+ is available on most internet-connected devices and offers commercial-free programming with a variety of original feature-length films, documentaries, live-action and animated series, and short-form content. Alongside unprecedented access to Disneys incredible library of film and television entertainment, the service is also the exclusive streaming home for the latest releases from The Walt Disney Studios. Disney+ is available as part of a bundle offer that gives subscribers access to Disney+, Hulu (ad-supported), and ESPN+. Visit DisneyPlus.com to subscribe and/or learn more about the service.

If you cant wait, you can check out the single, Such a Beautiful Day, from the movie. Let us know in the comments if youre excited to see this new movie coming soon to Disney+.

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VIDEO: New Trailer Released for Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe; Premiering This Month on Disney+ - wdwnt.com

Return of an extremely elongated cloud on Mars – EarthSky

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View larger. | The Mars Express orbiter, which has been studying Mars for the past 16 years, captured these images of a strange, very elongated cloud on Mars on July 17 and 19, 2020. The cloud can reach up to 1,100 miles (1,800 km) in length. Image via ESA.

EarthSkys yearly crowd-funding campaign is in progress. In 2020, we are donating 8.5% of all incoming revenues to No Kids Hungry. Click to learn more and donate.

For the past couple of years, the Mars Express orbiter of the European Space Agency (ESA) has been keeping an eye on a mysteriously long, thin cloud that periodically shows up over Arsia Mons, the 12-mile-high (20-km-high) volcano on Mars.

In a July 29 statement, ESA said the cloud has appeared again, illustrated by the images above, acquired by the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on Mars Express on July 17 and 19, 2020.

Mars Express first noticed and photographed the cloud in September 2018. A recurrent feature, the cloud is made up of water and ice and can stretch for over 1,100 miles (1,800 km). Despite its location and appearance, scientists say its not a plume linked to volcanic activity. Instead, the curious stream forms as airflow, influenced by the volcanos leeward slope (the side that does not face the wind).

Jorge Hernndez-Bernal, at the University of the Basque Country (Spain), is leader of a team studying the cloud. He said in a statement:

We have been investigating this intriguing phenomenon and were expecting to see such a cloud form around now. This elongated cloud forms every Martian year during this season around the southern solstice, and repeats for 80 days or even more, following a rapid daily cycle. However, we dont know yet if the clouds are always quite this impressive.

A Martian day, or sol, is slightly longer than an Earth day at 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds long. A Martian year consists of 668 sols approximately 687 days so the seasons last for twice as long. The southern solstice is the period of the year when the sun is in the southernmost position in the Martian skies, just like the December 21-22 solstice here on Earth. In the early mornings during this period, this fleeting cloud grows for about three hours, quickly disappearing again just a few hours later.

Most spacecraft in orbit around Mars tend to observe in the Martian afternoon. However, Mars Express is in a position to gather and provide crucial information on this unique effect. Mars Express mission team member Eleni Ravanis works specifically for the VMC instrument. She said:

The extent of this huge cloud cant be seen if your camera only has a narrow field of view, or if youre only observing in the afternoon. Luckily for Mars Express, the highly elliptical orbit of the spacecraft, coupled with the wide field of view of the VMC instrument, lets us take pictures covering a wide area of the planet in the early morning. That means we can catch it!

The Mars Express science team has named the cloud the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud, AMEC. So, how long has it been disappearing and reappearing? Why does it only form in the early morning? Scientists continue to investigate.

Bottom line: Images from the Mars Express spacecraft show that a mysteriously long, thin cloud has again appeared over the Arsia Mons volcano on Mars.

Via ESA

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Return of an extremely elongated cloud on Mars - EarthSky

Americans are moving around too much and taking coronavirus with them, expert says – CNN

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In list ranking countries response to the pandemic assessed by Foreign Policy Magazine, the United States ranks near the bottom.

"If you look at the mobility data collected from cell phones in many parts of the country, we're almost back to pre-Covid levels of mobility, so we're just not being as cautious as other people are in other countries," Murray told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Friday.

"Number one, wash your hands. Number two, watch your distance -- meaning stay at least six feet from others and avoid crowded places. And number three, wear a face mask," Adams said.

Rethinking testing

One important factor to reopening the US while maintaining safety is rethinking the national strategy on testing for the virus, said Dr. Rajiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and former USAID administrator.

Currently, only symptomatic people are frequently tested, meaning 40% to 50% of all spreaders, those who don't show symptoms, aren't being tested and told they may be contagious, he said.

"You have to know that as soon as possible, and then limit transmission from that node of contagion," he said during an Aspen Ideas webinar on Friday. "That's the whole ball game."

But even testing primarily symptomatic people been impacted by backlog, many states report.

The Virginia Department of Health reported a sharp increase of cases on Friday, but that increase came from a technical issue and a backlog from the two days prior, according to a statement.

And Miami-Dade County, the hotspot for cases in Florida, continues to struggle with a lag in testing results, according to state data obtained by CNN.

One day in the past week, testing labs reported that 19.2% of test results took more than seven days to deliver. On a different day, 45% of test results took between four and seven days.

Precautions matter for children, too

As schools reopen for the new school year, researchers are learning more about how the virus spreads among children.

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supports the early belief that most coronavirus cases in children appear to be either asymptomatic or mild. But, the report said, when children are hospitalized, they need the intensive care unit as often as adults do.

To slow the pandemic, the CDC said children should be encouraged to wash their hands often, keep a good physical distance away from others, and if they are 2 years of age or older, they should wear a mask when they are around people outside of their family members.

One rare but serious complication children can develop from a coronavirus infection is known as multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C, and at least 570 cases have been reported, the CDC said.

As the pandemic continues, health care providers should be on the lookout for the syndrome that most commonly causes abdominal pain, vomiting and a skin rash.

More than 74% of the cases were among Hispanic and Black children, the CDC said.

Pandemic highlights racial disparities

For communities of color, Covid-19 has been a "double whammy" that shows the work the US needs to do to correct disparities in health and health care, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Friday.

For example, Black Americans are more likely to have jobs that are considered essential, Fauci said, which leads to a much greater risk of being infected.

"Then there's the other thing that is really the chronic and decades-old dilemma of the social determinants of health, which is why African Americans have a higher degree of diabetes, of hypertension, of obesity, of heart disease, of chronic lung disease, of kidney disease," Fauci said. "That does not need to be. But to get corrected, you have to make a decades-long commitment to change that."

Part of that commitment has to include making resources like immediate testing and results as well as access to health care concentrated in demographics at higher risk of infection.

Trials for vaccines for Operation Warp Speed will be inclusive and diverse, chief adviser Moncef Slaoui said Friday. And once it is complete, he said they will be distributed widely.

"We are extremely cognizant of the importance of making sure that the vaccines, if and when they become available, are appropriately allocated in the population, on the basis of data ... and on the basis of need," he said.

CNN's Lauren Mascarenhas, Rebekah Riess, Gisela Crespo, Naomi Thomas, Jen Christensen and Rosa Flores contributed to this report.

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Americans are moving around too much and taking coronavirus with them, expert says - CNN

Coronavirus Live Updates: Latest News and Analysis – The New York Times

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A C.D.C. report on children shows hundreds were sent to intensive care for a syndrome connected to Covid-19.

Hundreds of children in America, most of them previously healthy, have experienced an inflammatory syndrome associated with Covid-19, and most became so ill that they needed intensive care, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The syndrome, which can be deadly, has rattled parents and education officials as schools across the United States struggle with the prospect of reopening in the fall and the coronavirus continues its spread.

The researchers said that from early March to late July, the C.D.C. received reports of 570 young people ranging from infants to age 20 who met the definition of the new condition, called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C. The reports came from health departments in 40 states, as well as New York City and Washington, D.C.

The patients were disproportionately people of color, echoing a pattern in adults who have been struck by the respiratory disease caused by the virus. About 40 percent were Hispanic or Latino, 33 percent were Black, and 13 percent were white, the report said. The median age was 8. About 25 percent of the patients had obesity before becoming sick.

MIS-C was first recognized in May as a condition linked to Covid-19 that appears to occur in children and young people who often had not developed any of the respiratory symptoms that are the primary way the virus attacks adults.

The syndrome, which can include a fever, rash, pinkeye, stomach distress, confusion, bluish lips, muscle weakness, racing heart rate and cardiac shock, appears to emerge days or weeks after the initial viral infection, and experts believe it may be the result of a revved-up immune system response to defeating the viruss first assault.

The C.D.C. reported that about two-thirds of the patients had no previous underlying medical conditions, and most experienced complications that involved four or more organ systems, especially the heart. Ten died. Nearly two-thirds were admitted to intensive care units for a median of five days.

Crisis negotiations between the White House and top Democrats teetered on the brink of collapse on Friday, as both sides said they remained deeply divided on an economic recovery package and President Trump indicated that he was prepared to act on his own to provide relief, although it was unclear whether he has the authority to do so.

At a news conference on Friday evening at his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., Mr. Trump said that if an aid agreement with congressional Democrats could not be reached, he would sign executive orders reinstating a national moratorium on evictions, deferring student loan interest and payments until further notice, and enhancing unemployment benefits through the end of the year.

He also said he would defer payroll taxes, retroactive from July 1 through the end of the year.

The president did not specify how the deferral would work, and it was unclear whether he had the authority to take such an action without approval from Congress. The move, which would not help unemployed workers, faces opposition from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

The news conference came after a meeting between administration officials and Democratic leaders that ended with no agreement and no additional talks scheduled.

Democrats, who had earlier said they would be willing to lower their spending demands to $2 trillion from $3.4 trillion, said the White House needed to return with a higher overall price tag after Mr. Trumps negotiators declined to accept that offer. Republicans have proposed a $1 trillion plan.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, called for Democrats to lower the amount of aid for state and local governments and to provide more specifics on how they proposed to revive lapsed unemployment benefits.

While the executive orders have not been finalized, Mr. Meadows said it was likely that action would come over the weekend.

The blockaded Gaza Strip might be one of the only places in the world where no cases of community transmission of the coronavirus have been recorded a phenomenon attributed to the coastal enclaves isolation as well as to swift measures taken by its militant Hamas rulers.

But the pandemic has not left Gaza untouched.

Citing a need to combat the virus, the authorities that control Gazas borders have imposed new restrictions on movement outside the territory. That has exacerbated an already challenging situation for Palestinians who say they urgently need to travel to Israel and the West Bank.

In March, fearing an outbreak in Gaza, the Hamas authorities ordered all travelers returning to the territory by way of Israel and Egypt to enter quarantine facilities for three weeks. They could not leave quarantine until they had passed two virus tests.

The system seems to have succeeded. All 78 known infections in the territory were detected at quarantine facilities.

Still, experts did not rule out the possibility of the pandemic penetrating into the areas densely populated cities and towns.

All it takes is one small mistake, said Gerald Rockenschaub, the head of the World Health Organizations mission to the Palestinians. Theres no guarantee the virus wont get inside.

Mr. Rockenschaub warned that Gaza lacked the resources to deal with a widespread outbreak, noting that medical institutions had only about 100 adult ventilators, most of which were already in use.

Before the coronavirus hobbled the U.S. economy, many low-wage workers were already struggling to make ends meet.

After mass layoffs and a deep recession followed in the early months of the pandemic, millions of workers found themselves faced with evictions, late car payments, and crushing medical bills. For many, the main solace through the worst months of the crisis was a broad range of stimulus measures, including $600 per week in extra unemployment benefits.

But with those measures expiring, and no clear indication of whether new ones will replace them, many unemployed workers now find themselves in limbo, struggling to find work in an economy that remains significantly weakened.

Eviction moratoriums are expiring or have expired in much of the country, and a report released Friday warned that 30 million to 40 million tenants risk losing their homes in the coming months. The Paycheck Protection Program, which helped thousands of small businesses to retain workers, also ends this week.

Research from the last recession found that when unemployment benefits ran out, people cut their spending on food, medicine and other necessities, suggesting they were able to do little to prepare for the drop in income.

While wealthier families may be able to draw on savings to get by until Congress strikes a deal to prolong the stimulus, lower-income households face serious long-term consequences from even a temporary lapse in income. An eviction can make it hard to rent in the future. Having a car repossessed can make it hard to find another job. And for children, periods of hunger, homelessness and stress can have long-term effects on development and learning.

While the U.S. economy has slowly added back some jobs that vanished at the beginning of the pandemic, the unemployment rate still stands at over 10 percent. For those who may not return to work for some time, the loss of protections has only added to uncertainty about the future.

New Yorkers, by and large, have adhered to rules mandating social distancing and mask wearing. The diligence has helped keep the coronavirus under control in the city even as outbreaks have raged across the United States, primarily in the South and the West.

As the summer wears on, however, mounting reports of parties, concerts and other social events, like a recent rave under the Kosciuszko Bridge, are raising fears that New Yorks hard-earned stability may be tenuous.

Over the last few weeks, videos and photos posted on social media have shown densely packed, mask-free crowds.

Its illegal, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said at a recent news conference, referring to the partying. It not only violates public health, but it violates human decency.

The images contrast sharply with the memories of a brutal spring in New York that left tens of thousands dead, disproportionately ravaging low-income communities and neighborhoods with high numbers of Black and Latino people.

Illegal raves are growing in popularity in Europe, including in Berlin, in London and near Paris, as coronavirus lockdowns are eased across the continent but most nightclubs remain closed.

Outdoor events for hundreds in some cases, thousands organized via social media and messaging apps, are in full swing each weekend, causing headaches for police forces and lawmakers, and stirring public debate and news media panic.

Worries that nightlife activity would fuel the spread of the virus have in the meantime led Curaao, the Caribbean island, to close its bars and clubs for at least two weeks since Friday, according to the Dutch newswire ANP. The nearby island Aruba was reported to have almost 300 confirmed cases over the last five days.

When a coronavirus lockdown sealed Myanmars borders in March, the tourism industry was devastated, even if the country was spared from disease.

Now, in the hill town of Pyin Oo Lwin, owners of horse carts that used to clip-clop through streets laden with visitors are sending their animals to slaughterhouses because they can no longer afford to keep them alive.

I feel sad about selling the horse, because he is like a family member, said U Maung Win, a horse cart owner. He worked so hard to save our lives, and I could not save his life.

For months now, no tourists have come to ride through the town, with its cool breezes and pretty gardens, Mr. Maung Win said, but the horses still needed to be fed, at a cost of a couple dollars a day. The slaughterhouses paid about $500 per animal.

Mr. Maung Win, who supports a family of six, now works as a mason and is paid less than $10 a week.

Its better than nothing, he said.

With his horse and a cart painted like a fairy-tale stagecoach, Mr. Maung Win could pull in $10 in a single day, delivering tourists to the botanical gardens or cafes offering fresh strawberries. Couples posed for wedding pictures in the carriages, holding the bell-adorned reins in their intertwined hands.

Two-thirds of the 100 or so horse carts in town are now gone, Mr. Maung Win said.

I tried not to sell the horse to the slaughterhouse, but I had no choice, he said. I still feel sad talking about this.

Lucky friends, he said, had two horses. But he owned only one.

Of all the missteps by governments during the pandemic, few have had such an immediate and devastating impact as the failure to protect nursing homes. Tens of thousands of older people have died casualties not only of the virus, but of more than a decade of ignored warnings that nursing homes were vulnerable.

Public health officials around the world excluded nursing homes from their pandemic preparedness plans and omitted residents from the mathematical models used to guide their responses.

In recent months, as the United States has blundered its way into the worlds largest death toll, about 40 percent of those fatalities have been linked to long-term care centers. Yet European countries still lead the world in deaths per capita, in part because of what happened inside their nursing homes.

Spanish prosecutors are investigating cases in which residents were abandoned to die. In Sweden, overwhelmed emergency doctors have acknowledged turning away elderly patients. In Britain, the government ordered thousands of older hospital patients including some with Covid-19 back to nursing homes to make room for an expected crush of virus cases. (Similar policies were in effect in some U.S. states.)

The response in Belgium has offered a gruesome twist: Paramedics and hospitals sometimes flatly denied care to elderly people, even as hospital beds sat unused.

Paramedics had been instructed by their referral hospital not to take patients over a certain age, often 75 but sometimes as low as 65, the charity Doctors Without Borders said in a July report.

More than 5,700 residents of nursing homes in the country have died, according to newly published data. During the peak of the crisis, from March through mid-May, residents accounted for two out of every three coronavirus deaths.

The riskiest window for such transmission may be extremely brief a one- to two-day period in the week or so after a person is infected, when coronavirus levels are at their highest, according to Dr. Joshua Schiffer, a physician and mathematical modeling expert who studies infectious diseases at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He is one of the authors of the paper.

The virus can still spread outside this window, and people outside it should not let up on measures like mask-wearing and physical distancing, Dr. Schiffer said. But the longer an infection lasts, the less likely a person is to be contagious a finding that might help experts advise when to end self-isolation.

It really is about opportunity, said Shweta Bansal, an infectious disease ecologist at Georgetown University who was not involved in the study. These processes really come together when you are not only infected, but you also dont know youre infected because you dont feel crummy.

Reporting was contributed by Iyad Abuheweila, Matt Apuzzo, Hannah Beech, Pam Belluck, Conor Dougherty, Alex Marshall, Constant Mheut, Claire Moses, Monika Pronczuk, Adam Rasgon, Thomas Rogers, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Katherine J. Wu and Mihir Zaveri.

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One man with coronavirus attending Ohio church service led to infection of 91 others – NBC News

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A 56-year-old man with the coronavirus attending a single church service in Ohio led to the infection's spread to at least 91 other people across five counties.

Gov. Mike DeWine posted a graphic to his Facebook page Wednesday detailing how the virus spread over a three-week period from the date of the church service on June 14 to July 4.

"It spread like wildfire," the governor said at a news conference Tuesday where the graphic was displayed. "Very, very scary."

"We have been very careful throughout this pandemic to exempt religious services from any regulations," the governor said. "The only exception to that is that we are now asking people who attend church to wear a mask."

He noted on his Facebook page that while this case of community transmission stems from a church, it can happen anywhere

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"All it takes is one person to cause tremendous #COVID19 spread," he wrote.

After the man with the coronavirus went to the church service in Ohio County in June, 53 others who had been at the same service became infected, according to the graphic shared by DeWine.

Eighteen of the these 53 spread the virus to at least one other person, the graphic shows. The man's wife, a son and a daughter also got sick.

All 91 others infected after the service showed symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, the governor said.

DeWine in a series of tweets on Tuesday also provided other examples of the virus' spread within family and friend groups.

In one case, a son living with his father who was in hospice care developed a cough and believed he had bronchitis. Family members came to visit to pay respects to his father. Five family members later tested positive for the virus, including a great-nephew, the governor said.

Separately, a man who had COVID-19 symptoms attended his brother's wedding and reception. Now, 15 people are sick, including the bride, groom and one of their grandfathers.

And in another outbreak, a person who tested positive for the virus attended a bridal shower, leading to others becoming infected. "There are now six confirmed cases and six households impacted by this outbreak," DeWine said.

"None of us want to stay away from our families and of course, it's natural to want to show affection when you see them," he tweeted Tuesday. But this virus is "lurking," he wrote. "Please try to remember that you are showing love by protecting them."

Rachel Feeley, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Health, declined on Thursday to release the name of the church where the virus spread or any details on the other cases. "We are not releasing additional information about these examples to the general public, in order to protect private health information," she said.

Feeley said that anyone who may have come into contact with people who had tested positive in these examples were notified through normal contact-tracing protocol.

On Thursday, DeWine's office said in a statement that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, but later said a second test, a PCR test, came back negative. The governor will be tested again Saturday.

Janelle Griffith is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.

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One man with coronavirus attending Ohio church service led to infection of 91 others - NBC News

With Old Allies Turning Against Her, Birx Presses On Against the Coronavirus – The New York Times

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From her office in the West Wing, Dr. Birx serves as a link between federal agencies the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and others engaged in the response.

She is also the point of contact for state and local officials, and oversees the drafting of detailed reports offering guidance to the states. She briefs Mr. Pence weekly and the president at least once a week, and must contend with competing forces on the task force, which includes Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the governments top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the C.D.C. director. She is often the only woman in the room.

In interviews with AIDS activists and public health experts, Dr. Birx drew unfavorable comparisons with the outspoken Dr. Fauci, in whose lab she trained. Mr. Gonsalves, who has long known both of them, said he wrote in March to Drs. Birx, Fauci and Redfield, as well as Adm. Brett P. Giroir, who oversees coronavirus testing, complaining that they were parroting the president. Only Dr. Fauci replied.

Debbie is now in the position where shes saying to the emperor that those new clothes look fantastic, Mr. Gonsalves said.

But inside the White House, aides refer to Dr. Birx as Dr. Doom for her efforts to temper the presidents positive spin. And she and Dr. Fauci are not in the same situation. Dr. Fauci, 79, is nearing the end of his career and is a civil servant, which frees him to speak his mind. Dr. Birx, 64, is a political appointee who serves at the pleasure of the president.

Shes one of the hardest workers, and shes devoted to trying to get this pandemic under control, Dr. Fauci said in an interview Tuesday night.

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St. Louis Cardinals have another series postponed because of positive coronavirus tests – CNN

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Major League Baseball had announced the postponement of Friday's contest to allow for additional testing and to complete the "contact tracing process" after one player tested positive.

In a second statement, MLB said the other two games of the series at St. Louis were postponed "out of an abundance of caution." MLB said two players and a staffer had samples that yielded positive results for the virus.

The Cardinals were cleared by MLB to travel home from Milwaukee earlier this week following a team outbreak that saw seven players and six staff members test positive for the virus.

The team has not played since July 29. Series against the Milwaukee Brewers and Detroit Tigers were postponed.

It appears the Cardinals may have been the only one of 30 teams that had positive tests during the seven-day period that ended Thursday,

Earlier Friday MLB announced it has received 13 positive tests in that time. Seven of the positive results came from players, and six came from team staffers, it said.

So far, MLB has done more than 57,000 tests, of which 141 resulted in new positives. All but two organizations have had a person test positive since testing began.

Several other teams have had games postponed. The Miami Marlins went a week without games after more than 20 people on the team tested positive in July. They have called up 11 players in the past week from their training center and they have signed several free agents.

CNN's Jill Martin and Jabari Jackson contributed to this report.

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St. Louis Cardinals have another series postponed because of positive coronavirus tests - CNN