Aurelia Butler

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    C.D.C. Will Investigate Debunked Link Between Vaccines and Autism

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to conduct a large-scale study to re-examine whether there is a connection between vaccines and autism, federal officials said Friday.Dozens of scientific studies have failed to find evidence of a link. But the C.D.C. now falls under the purview of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long expressed skepticism about the safety of vaccines and has vowed to revisit the data.“As President Trump said in his Joint Address to Congress, the rate of autism in American children has skyrocketed. C.D.C. will leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out what exactly is happening,” Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement Friday. Mr. Nixon did not offer details about the scope or methods of the project. News of the study was first reported Friday morning by Reuters.In pursuing the study, the C.D.C. is defying the wishes of the chairman of the Senate Health Committee, Senator Bill Cassidy, who said this week that further research into any supposed link between vaccines and autism would be a waste of money and a distraction from research that might shed light on the “true reason” for a rise in autism rates.“It’s been exhaustively studied,” Mr. Cassidy, a doctor, said during the confirmation hearing for Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health. “The more we pretend like this is an issue, the more we will have children dying from vaccine-preventable diseases.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Administration Sends Politically Charged Survey to Researchers

    Scientists on overseas projects must say whether they work with communist governments and help combat “Christian persecution.”The Trump administration has asked researchers and organizations whose work is conducted overseas to disclose ties to those regarded as hostile, including “entities associated with communist, socialist or totalitarian parties,” according to a questionnaire obtained by The New York Times.The online survey was sent this week to groups working abroad to research diseases like H.I.V., gather surveillance data and strengthen public health systems. Recipients received funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Agency for International Development and other federal sources.The questionnaire appears to be very similar to one sent earlier this week to partners of the United States Agency for International Development, which has been all but dismantled by the Trump administration. Both were titled “Foreign Assistance Review.”Recipients were instructed to respond within 48 hours. Some grantees interviewed by The Times feared that impolitic or unsatisfactory answers could lead to cancellation of funding.“Taxpayer dollars must not fund dependency, socialism, corrupt regimes that oppose free enterprise, or intervene in internal matters of another sovereign nation,” the questionnaire said.“A truly prosperous America prioritizes domestic growth, innovation, and economic strength over foreign handouts,” it added.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What Is Hantavirus, the Rare Disease That Killed Betsy Arakawa?

    Ms. Arakawa, the wife of the actor Gene Hackman, died from the effects of a disease often caused by contact with droppings from infected rodents.Betsy Arakawa, the wife of Gene Hackman, died from the effects of hantavirus, a rare disease often caused by contact with droppings from infected rodents.Hantavirus does not spread among people in the cases found in the United States. It can be transmitted through rodent saliva. But it is most commonly transmitted by breathing in particles of dried deer mouse droppings or urine.At first, hantavirus causes flulike symptoms, including fever, chills, body aches and headaches. But as the disease progresses, respiratory symptoms develop and patients can experience shortness of breath and then lung or heart failure.Here is what to know about hantavirus.What is hantavirus?Hantavirus refers to a family of viruses that are carried by rodents. It is often transmitted to humans by inhaling particles from dried mouse droppings. In North America, Sin Nombre virus is the most common form of this virus, said Sabra L. Klein, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.As of the end of 2022, 864 cases of hantavirus disease had been reported in the United States since surveys of such cases began in 1993, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The “classic” case of hantavirus is contracted by someone who has visited a rural cabin that has a rodent infestation, said Emily Abdoler, a doctor and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.Hantavirus has flulike symptoms at first.Hantavirus can cause flulike symptoms that appear one to eight weeks after exposure to droppings from an infected rodent, according to Dr. Heather Jarrell, New Mexico’s chief medical examiner. Later, patients often experience shortness of breath and then lung or heart failure.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    An Oregon Family Vanished in 1958. Their Car May Have Been Found in a River.

    The case of the Martin family’s disappearance has bewildered local residents and investigators for more than six decades — until Friday.On Dec. 7, 1958, Ken and Barbara Martin of Portland, Ore., took their three daughters on a family trip through the mountains en route to collect Christmas greenery. They stopped at a gas station near Cascade Locks, Ore., on the banks of the Columbia River, but were never heard from again.The case of the Martin family’s disappearance has bewildered local residents and investigators for more than 66 years — until Friday.Acting on a tip from a diver, the authorities spent two days dredging up parts of a car in Cascade Locks that they believe is the Martins’ 1954 red and off-white Ford station wagon — potentially bringing at least part of the mystery of their disappearance to a close.Shortly after the family’s disappearance, the authorities speculated that their car might have gone over a cliff near the city of Cascade Locks, plunging into the Columbia River in an isolated area, The Associated Press reported at the time.But there were no immediate answers, even in 1959, after the authorities recovered the bodies of two of the three Martin daughters in the river: Virginia, 13, and Sue, 11, who were found 25 miles apart. Barbara, 14, and her mother and father, ages 48 and 54, were nowhere to be found.Ken and Barbara Martin, center, with their children in 1952. Their children are, from left, Barbara, Sue, Donald and Virginia. Donald was not on the trip when the rest of the family disappeared.Uncredited/Ken Martin family, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    2 Newark Police Officers Shot, With One Critically Injured

    Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey asked people to “please pray” for the officers, who were shot around 6:30 p.m. Friday.Two police officers were shot in Newark on Friday night, and one was “critically injured,” according to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement posted online that the situation was “rapidly developing.”“Please pray for these officers, their families, and all our men and women in uniform who put their lives on the line to keep us safe,” he wrote.The shooting took place at around 6:30 p.m. near the intersection of Broadway and Carteret Street, where an elementary school and a Lutheran church face each other across a busy commercial street.The prosecutor’s office said the two police officers had been taken to University Hospital.This is a developing story and will be updated. More

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    Fraternity Member Charged With Manslaughter in Hazing Death of University Student

    Investigators say that Caleb Wilson, 20, a student at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., collapsed after being hit with boxing gloves as part of a pledging ritual for Omega Psi Phi.The police in Baton Rouge, La., on Friday announced the first of a series of expected arrests in the fraternity hazing death of Caleb Wilson, a 20-year-old Southern University student who they said was repeatedly punched with boxing gloves at a warehouse last week and was unresponsive when he was dropped off at an emergency room.Caleb McCray, 23, a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, was charged with manslaughter and felony criminal hazing, according to court records. The authorities said at a news conference on Friday that two other suspects could soon be arrested.Mr. McCray was identified by witnesses as the person who punched Mr. Wilson, the arrest warrant affidavit said. He turned himself in to the authorities on Thursday and was booked into East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, the police said.The people who brought Mr. Wilson to Baton Rouge General Medical Center told employees on the night of his death that he had collapsed after being struck in the chest while playing basketball before they fled the hospital, the authorities said.But investigators said that they had learned that was not true.As part of a hazing ritual for the Beta Sigma chapter of Omega Psi Phi, Mr. Wilson and several other pledges were lined up and hit four times each with boxing gloves in their chests, the authorities said.The repeated blows caused him to collapse to the floor and suffer what had appeared to be a seizure, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Offers to Reopen Nuclear Talks in a Letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader

    The letter appears to be President Trump’s opening bid to see if a newly vulnerable Iran is willing to negotiate.President Trump said on Friday that he had sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader offering to reopen negotiations over the country’s fast-advancing nuclear program, but warned that the country would have to choose between curbing its fast-expanding program or losing it in a military attack.Speaking on Friday in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump suggested that Iran’s nuclear capabilities — which now include enough near-bomb-grade fuel to produce about six weapons — were reaching a critical point. “We’re down to final strokes with Iran,” he told reporters. “We can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”Earlier on Friday on Fox Business, Mr. Trump said: “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal. I would prefer to make a deal, because I’m not looking to hurt Iran. They’re great people.”He said the letter was sent Wednesday and addressed to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. The White House did not provide the text or describe its contents with any specificity. It was unclear if it was sent through the Swiss — the traditional intermediary for communications between Washington and Tehran — or through Russia or another nation.Mr. Trump’s offer echoes a similar message to Iran during his first term, after he announced in 2018 that he was pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal that had been negotiated three years earlier by the Obama administration. But he never got talks started, and an effort by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. collapsed.Now, the strategic environment has changed radically. The Justice Department has accused Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of seeking to assassinate Mr. Trump last year; it issued indictments before Mr. Biden left office. Iran’s nuclear facilities are now exposed to attack, after Israel destroyed almost all of the air defenses protecting them in October. And Iran’s regional proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, are in no condition to threaten Israel with retaliation should the Iranian facilities come under attack.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.S. Judge Finds China Liable for Covid Missteps, Imposes $24 Billion Penalty

    The judgment was issued in a case brought by the Missouri attorney general. The Chinese government did not respond to the claims in court.A federal judge in Missouri found the Chinese government responsible for covering up the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and hoarding protective equipment in a ruling on Friday. He entered a judgment of more than $24 billion that Missouri officials vowed to enforce by seizing Chinese assets.The lawsuit, filed by the Missouri attorney general’s office in April 2020, during the early months of the pandemic, accused the Chinese government of withholding information about the existence and spread of the virus and then of cutting off the supply of personal protective equipment, or P.P.E., from the rest of the world. China did not respond to the allegations in court, and officials at the country’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.In his ruling, Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. wrote that “China was misleading the world about the dangers and scope of the Covid-19 pandemic” and had “engaged in monopolistic actions to hoard P.P.E.” Those actions, he said, hampered the early response to the pandemic in the United States and made it impossible to purchase enough equipment for medical providers responding to the virus.Judge Limbaugh, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, imposed the judgment against China, its governing Communist Party, local governments in China, as well as a health agency and a laboratory in the country.Missouri’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, said in a statement that the ruling held China accountable for its actions.“China refused to show up to court, but that doesn’t mean they get away with causing untold suffering and economic devastation,” said Mr. Bailey, a Republican. “We intend to collect every penny by seizing Chinese-owned assets, including Missouri farmland.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More