EU regulator ‘convinced’ AstraZeneca benefit outweighs risk
BRUSSELS — The European Union’s drug regulator insisted Tuesday that there is “no indication” the AstraZeneca vaccine causes blood clots as governments around the world faced the grimmest of dilemmas: push on with a vaccine known to save lives or suspend its use over reports of clotting in some recipients.
The European Medicines Agency urged governments not to halt use of the vaccine at a time when the pandemic is still taking thousands of lives each day. And already there are concerns that even brief suspensions could have disastrous effects on confidence in inoculation campaigns the world over, many of which are already struggling to overcome logistical hurdles and widespread hesitancy about vaccines.
“We are still firmly convinced that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing COVID-19 with its associated risk of hospitalization and death outweigh the risk of the side effects,” said Emer Cooke, the head of the agency.
Many scientists have argued that even the loss of a few days in vaccinating vulnerable people could be far costlier than the impact of any rare phenomenon.
But a cascading number of countries have taken a different view and locked away shots from the Anglo-Swedish company, awaiting the results of an EMA review, promised Thursday.
Child border crossings surge as DHS chief defends policies
WASHINGTON — U.S. authorities encountered nearly double the number of children traveling alone across the Mexican border on Monday than on an average day last month, an official said Tuesday, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas conceded the surge was a challenge.
The Border Patrol came across 561 unaccompanied children at the border on Monday, including 280 in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, the official said, offering a snapshot of how quickly events at the border have changed during the first two months of Joe Biden’s presidency. By comparison, it encountered a daily average of 332 unaccompanied children in February, which itself was a 60% jump from January. The peak was 370 during a Trump-era surge in May 2019.
The U.S. official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss matters that were not intended for public disclosure, said the Health and Human Services Department was moving to open two additional facilities to process children traveling alone — one for 800 children at Moffett Federal Airfield near San Francisco and another in Pecos, Texas. It is also looking to expand a facility in Donna, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, to hold 2,000 people.
The Dallas Convention Center is scheduled to begin holding children as early as Wednesday with plans to accommodate up to 3,000. Another makeshift holding center in Midland, Texas, that opened last weekend for 700 children had 485 on Monday.
Faced with criticism from all sides. Mayorkas said the situation was under control as he defended the administration’s policy of allowing children crossing by themselves to remain in the country
Battle over Floyd’s 2019 arrest highlights key trial issue
MINNEAPOLIS — A lawyer for the former Minneapolis police officer who pressed his knee against George Floyd’s neck wants to bring up Floyd’s history of drug use and a previous arrest in an effort to show jurors that Floyd was partly to blame for his own death.
A prosecutor says it’s irrelevant and that Derek Chauvin’s lawyer is trying to smear Floyd to excuse his client’s actions. Chauvin is charged with murder and manslaughter.
Now it’s up to Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill to decide the critical question of how much the high-profile trial will revolve around Floyd’s own actions on May 25, when the Black man died after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against his neck for about nine minutes. Floyd’s death, captured on a widely seen bystander video, set off weeks of sometimes-violent protests across the country and led to a national reckoning on racial justice.
The judge previously rejected Chauvin’s attempt to tell the jury about Floyd’s May 2019 arrest — a year before his fatal encounter with Chauvin — but heard fresh arguments Tuesday from both sides. He said he would rule on the request Wednesday morning at the earliest.
Defense attorney Eric Nelson argued that new evidence makes the earlier arrest admissible: Drugs were found last December during a second search of the car Floyd was in, and were found in a January search of the squad car into which the four officers attempted to put Floyd.
Gunmen kill at least 58 in attack on Niger market sellers
NIAMEY, Niger — Gunmen on motorcycles attacked a group of civilians returning from market day in a volatile corner of Niger, leaving at least 58 people dead and then burning granaries to the ground, the government said Tuesday.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday’s massacres, though extremists belonging to the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara group are known to be active in the Tillaberi region where the villages were attacked.
The victims were returning home from a large livestock market in Banibangou, near Niger’s troubled border with Mali. The suspected extremists also destroyed nearby granaries that held valuable food stores.
The announcement was read on Niger state television Tuesday evening by government spokesman Abdourahmane Zakaria , who declared three days of national mourning for the victims.
Monday’s attacks underscore the enormous security challenges facing Niger’s new president, Mohamed Bazoum, who won the election in late February to succeed outgoing leader Mahamadou Issoufou.
Advocates, some AGs wary of Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan
Some state attorneys general and opioid addiction activists pushed back Tuesday against a settlement offer from OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, saying it didn’t include enough money and goes too far in protecting the company and family members who own it from future liability.
A group of nearly half the state attorneys general said it was disappointed in the plan Purdue filed late Monday night in federal bankruptcy court and some said they would seek changes. The lukewarm reaction from them and others raised doubts about how soon the company could emerge from bankruptcy and begin to compensate victims.
“We think it’s a step in the right direction, but we’ve got a long way to go,” said Joe Rice, one of the lead lawyers representing local governments that have sued Purdue and other companies over the toll of opioids.
The $10 billion plan calls for turning the Connecticut-based pharmaceutical giant into a new company, with its profits going toward efforts to combat the opioid crisis. Members of the Sackler family who own Purdue would contribute about $4.3 billion.
A new public health-oriented arm of the transformed company would produce addiction treatment and overdose antidote drugs, and a trove of company documents would be made public.
