Hundreds of African migrants reach Canary Islands

Yahoo News

Dr. Patel: Why lead COVID vaccines – even with lower efficacy – are a success across the board

On Thursday, Johnson & Johnson submitted it’s COVID-19 vaccine for Emergency Use Authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. If greenlit by the Food and Drug Administration, it could be the nation’s third COVID vaccine producer, joining Pfizer and Moderna. Johnson & Johnson said last week that its one-dose vaccine has an overall 66% efficacy rate, not as high as Pfizer or Moderna’s two-dose vaccines with nearly 95% efficacy. Yahoo News Medical Contributor Dr. Kavita Patel explains why all of the top coronavirus vaccine manufacturers with clinical trials are considered a success across the board.

The Telegraph

New Israeli Covid drug which cured 30 cases of disease hailed by scientists as ‘huge breakthrough’

A new coronavirus drug which successfully cured 30 cases of the disease in Israeli hospital patients has been hailed by scientists as a ‘huge breakthrough’. The EXO-CD24 substance was developed at the Ichilov Medical Centre in Tel Aviv and successfully completed its first phase of clinical trials on Friday. The treatment was given to 30 patients with coronavirus, whose conditions ranged from moderate to severe. Twenty-nine of the patients were then discharged from the hospital in the following three to five days, while one patient took slightly longer to recover. A protein known as CD24 is delivered to the lungs by exosomes in the drug, which helps to rebalance the immune system and prevent it from overreacting to the virus. Professor Nadir Arber originally designed EXO-CD24, which is breathed in as a gas and taken once every five days, in order to treat patients who had ovarian cancer. “Even if the vaccines do their job, and even if there aren’t any new mutations, one way or another, the coronavirus will be staying with us,” Prof Arber told the news site Arutz Sheva. “That’s why we developed this special medication. It’s been about half a year from the time the idea was hatched to the first human trials [being] conducted.” Roni Gamzu, the director of the Ichilov Medical Centre, said that the research during phase one of the trial was “advanced and sophisticated and may save coronavirus patients”. Speaking to the Times of Israel, he said: “The results of the phase one trials are excellent, and all give us confidence in the method Arber has been researching in his lab for many years.” No placebo was used in the first stage of the trial, and the next phase of the clinical trials will continue to examine the effects and efficacy of the treatment. The drug Allocetra, which has been developed at the Hadassah Medical Centre, has also reported promising results in the second stage of its clinical trial. Israel announced yesterday that it will ease lockdown restrictions but keep its borders closed after a drop in its number of coronavirus cases.

Associated Press

Kyle Rittenhouse fires attorney who helped raise his bail

An 18-year-old from Illinois who’s accused of killing two people and wounding a third during a police brutality protest in Wisconsin last summer fired a California attorney who had been soliciting money for his case. John Pierce, a Los Angeles lawyer, had been at the forefront of Kyle Rittenhouse’s defense, helping raise money from conservatives to post Rittenhouse’s $2 million bail in November. He also hired attorney Mark Richards to handle proceedings in Wisconsin.

The Week

Biden administration reviewing whether it could forgive student debt by executive action

For the first time, the White House on Thursday indicated the Biden administration is looking into using executive action to cancel at least some student debt. “The president continues to support the canceling of student debt to bring relief to students and families,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted. “Our team is reviewing whether there are any steps he can take through executive action, and he would welcome the opportunity to sign a bill sent to him by Congress.” About 43 million Americans owe $1.6 trillion in federal loans, and after he was elected, President Biden said his economic recovery plan would include canceling at least $10,000 in student loan debt. His $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief proposal does not cancel education debt, and Biden has pushed Congress to pass legislation on the matter. While Biden has used executive action to extend the pause on federal student loan interest, he has also questioned if he has the authority to write off loans all together. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) all believe he does, and on Thursday they reintroduced a resolution from December asking Biden to cancel up to $50,000 in debt for all federal student loan borrowers. “There is very little that the president could do with a flick of a pen that would boost our economy more than canceling $50,000 in student debt,” Schumer told reporters. “This is one of those things the president can do on his own.” More stories from theweek.comMitt Romney’s child benefit is a challenge to both parties5 scathing cartoons about the GOP’s Marjorie Taylor Greene problemWhat would actually happen if the feds fought QAnon like terrorists?

Reuters

China’s latest weapon against Taiwan: the sand dredger

ON BOARD THE TAIWAN COAST GUARD SHIP PP-10062, East China Sea (Reuters) – Taiwanese coast guard commander Lin Chie-ming is on the frontline of a new type of warfare that China is waging against Taiwan. On a chilly morning in late January, Lin, clad in an orange uniform, stood on the rolling deck of his boat as it patrolled in choppy waters off the Taiwan-run Matsu Islands. The Chinese goal, Taiwanese officials say: pressure Taiwan by tying down the island democracy’s naval defenses and undermining the livelihoods of Matsu residents.

NextShark

Man Who Pushed 91-Year-Old in Oakland Chinatown Assaults 2 Others Right After

An unidentified assailant was caught on surveillance camera pushing a 91-year-old man to the ground in a recent unprovoked attack in Oakland Chinatown. The incident happened outside the Asian Resource Center at the corner of Harrison and 8th streets on Jan. 31, according to ABC7. The suspect reportedly approached two other victims shortly after the first attack, resulting in one of them losing consciousness, according to the Oakland Police Department’s statement.

National Review

Cotton Tries to Force Dems to Vote on Court-Packing

Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) on early Friday morning attempted to get Democrats to go on the record over the issue of court-packing during the Senate’s 15-hour budget reconciliation vote. Cotton’s proposal came roughly eleven hours into the Senate’s vote-a-rama, in which any senator had the ability to file an amendment to the budget resolution, as Democrats look to move forward with passing President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan without Republican support. Democrats avoided a vote on Cotton’s amendment, citing the Byrd rule, which says anything passed during budget reconciliation must have to do with the federal budget. “Come to think of it, should we be changing the Senate rules in the budget resolution?” asked Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), chair of the Judiciary Committee. Cotton fell short of the 60 votes needed to waive the law. If the Arkansas Republican had been successful, the Amendment could have given the GOP a foothold in the Senate rules to challenge legislation that would grow the high court beyond nine judges going forward. It would have added to the Senate rules that it was out of order to consider such legislation, making it so three-fifths of the Senate would be required to vote to overturn that rule if a senator wanted to debate such a bill. “Many Democratic politicians, to include Joe Biden, to include a few senators in this chamber tonight, contorted themselves, twisting themselves into pretzels on the campaign trail to simply say we ought not pack the Supreme Court because we don’t like their rulings,” Cotton said in proposing the amendment. Cotton called the Democrats’ move to sidestep a direct vote on his amendment more “contortions to avoid taking a simple stance on this issue.” “So I would invite my Democratic colleagues who have said they don’t want to pack the court, simply waive this point of order and let’s have an up-or-down vote on one of the most fundamental tenets of the rule of law,” Cotton said. Court packing became a hot button topic on the campaign trail as progressives called to expand the court after Republicans moved to confirm judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court just weeks before Election Day. Barrett’s confirmation gave the Court a conservative majority. Barrett’s confirmation, which Democrats saw as hypocritical in light of Republicans’ refusal to allow former President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland to receive a confirmation hearing in 2016, sparked calls to pack the court. Biden and Senate Democrats have remained elusive on the issue, sidestepping questions on whether they would support expanding the court. Biden never gave a definitive answer on the issue, instead vowing to create a commission to study potential court reforms. Durbin hit back against Cotton’s proposal, saying: “The Constitution does not stipulate the number of Supreme Court justices. That’s up to Congress.” “Congress has a long history of altering the makeup of the court,” he added. “For the record, there is exactly one living senator who has effectively changed the size of the Supreme Court: That’s Senator McConnell, who shrank the court to eight seats for nearly a year in the last year of the Obama presidency.”

The Week