FDA approves sickle cell treatments, including one that uses CRISPR
On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first gene-editing therapy ever to be used in humans, for sickle cell disease, a debilitating blood disorder caused by a single mutated gene. The agency also approved a second treatment using conventional gene therapy for sickle cell that does not use gene editing. For the 100,000 Americans with the disease, the approvals offer hope for finally living without an affliction that causes excruciating pain, organ damage and strokes. While patients, their families and their doctors welcome the FDA’s approvals, getting either therapy will be difficult and expensive.
Michigan teenager who killed four students is sentenced to life
The teenager who committed the deadliest high school shooting in Michigan history, killing four students and injuring seven other people, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday. Ethan Crumbley was a 15-year-old sophomore at Oxford High School in Detroit on Nov. 30, 2021, when he used a 9-mm Sig Sauer handgun in the shooting. Michigan does not have the death penalty, so the sentence imposed by Judge Kwamé Rowe was the harshest available. In September, he ruled that despite being a minor, and despite his difficult life, Crumbley was eligible for a sentence of life without parole.
Harvard president apologizes for congressional testimony on antisemitism
Harvard’s president apologized for her testimony before Congress about how she responded to antisemitism on campus — another sign that the controversy over her remarks and similar comments by the presidents of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania was not going away. “I am sorry,” Claudine Gay, Harvard’s president, said in an interview in the campus newspaper on Friday, as Gay and the other two presidents faced calls from dozens of members of Congress that they resign. Their testimony “showed a complete absence of moral clarity,” lawmakers said, adding that the testimony “illuminated the problematic double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities” fostered by the presidents.
Appeals court upholds, but narrows, gag order on Trump in election case
A federal appeals court Friday upheld the gag order imposed two months ago on former President Donald Trump in the criminal case accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, but narrowed its terms to allow him to keep attacking one of his main targets: special counsel Jack Smith. In its ruling, a three-judge panel sought to strike a cautious balance between what it called “two foundational constitutional values”: the integrity of the judicial system and Trump’s right to speak his mind. To that end, the panel kept in place the gag order’s original measures restricting Trump from attacking any members of Smith’s staff or the court staff involved in the case.
Texas Attorney General tries to block a court-approved abortion
Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas asked the Texas Supreme Court to reverse a lower court order allowing an abortion to proceed in spite of the state’s strict bans, in the case of a pregnant woman whose fetus has a fatal condition. In overnight filings on Thursday, Paxton argued that the court must act quickly to overturn the order and stop the woman, Kate Cox, from obtaining an abortion. While the Texas abortion bans allow for exceptions to protect the health and life of a pregnant woman, doctors have said that vague legal language created fear of prosecution and an unwillingness to perform abortions.
U.S. job growth
holds up as economy gradually cools
The U.S. economy continued to pump out jobs in November, suggesting there is still juice left in a labor market that has been slowing almost imperceptibly since last year’s pandemic rebound. Employers added 199,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday, while the unemployment rate dropped to 3.7%, from 3.9%. The increase in employment includes tens of thousands of autoworkers and actors who returned to their jobs after strikes, and others in related businesses stalled by the walkouts, meaning underlying job growth is slightly weaker. Even so, the report signals that the economy remains far from recession territory despite a year and a half of interest rate increases.
Retail group retracts startling claim about ‘organized’ shoplifting
A national lobbying group has retracted its startling estimate that “organized retail crime” was responsible for nearly half the $94.5 billion in store merchandise that disappeared in 2021, a figure that helped amplify claims that the United States was experiencing a nationwide wave of shoplifting. The National Retail Federation edited that claim last week from a widely cited report issued in April, after the trade publication Retail Dive revealed that faulty data had been used to arrive at the inaccurate figure. The retraction comes as retail chains like Target continue to claim that they are the victims of large shoplifting operations.
OPEC leader tells members to block any climate summit deal to curb fossil fuels
OPEC’s secretary-general, alarmed that nations gathered at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, are considering an agreement to phase out fossil fuels, has directed the group’s members to scuttle any deal that would affect the continued production and sales of oil, gas and coal. In a letter dated Dec. 6, Haitham Al-Ghais warned all members that there was rising pressure at the summit to target fossil fuels. He called those plans “politically motivated campaigns” against oil-rich nations that put “our people’s prosperity and future at risk.” The burning of fossil fuels is dangerously heating the planet.
Six teenagers convicted in France for role in teacher’s killing
Six teenagers were convicted by a court in Paris on Friday connection with the attack on Samuel Paty, a history teacher whose killing by an Islamic extremist in 2020 shook France to its core. Five of the defendants, former middle-school students at the school where Paty taught, were found guilty of helping the killer identify and track the teacher. They were convicted on charges of being involved in a criminal conspiracy to prepare a violent assault. Four received suspended prison sentences of 14 to 20 months. The fifth received a two-year prison sentence, with 18 months of it suspended and six months to be served under house arrest.
After toppling in the 2019 fire, Notre-Dame’s spire rises again
French President Emmanuel Macron was in the heart of Paris on Friday to check on the progress of the restoration of an 860-year-old limestone landmark: Notre-Dame Cathedral, whose familiar silhouette is rising once again on the skyline of the French capital. On a chilly, humid morning, Macron donned a hard hat and took a three-minute elevator ride to visit a new spire that is nearing completion atop the famed Gothic edifice that was ravaged by a devastating fire in April 2019. His visit came one year to the day before Notre-Dame is scheduled to reopen: Dec. 8, 2024.
Athletes from Russia and Belarus are cleared to compete at Paris Olympics
Individual athletes from Russia and Belarus who qualify for next summer’s Paris Olympics will be allowed to compete in the Games, the International Olympic Committee announced Friday, ending talk of a blanket ban on competitors from the two nations over the war in Ukraine. The athletes will be allowed to take part only as “individual neutral athletes” and under other strict conditions, Olympic officials said. Disqualifying actions include active support for the war in Ukraine or personal contracts with Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies. The new rules, announced by the Olympic committee’s executive board, apply only to athletes from Russia and Belarus.
By wire sources
