Breakthrough gene therapy cleared for childhood leukemia

Breakthrough gene therapy cleared for childhood leukemia

WASHINGTON

Opening a new era in cancer care, U.S. health officials on Wednesday approved a breakthrough treatment that genetically engineers patients’ own blood cells into an army of assassins to seek and destroy childhood leukemia.

The Food and Drug Administration called the approval historic, the first gene therapy to hit the U.S. market. Made from scratch for every patient, it’s one of a wave of “living drugs” under development to fight additional blood cancers and other tumors, too.

Novartis Pharmaceuticals set the price for its one-time infusion of so-called “CAR-T cells” at $475,000, but said there would be no charge for patients who didn’t show a response within a month.

Fiancee: Slain driver saved for wedding

CLEVELAND

A Lyft driver fatally shot in Cleveland was trying to earn extra money to pay for a dream wedding, his fiancee said.

Tyra Ford said she and 32-year-old Mourice Foster became engaged in March and planned an outdoor wedding next July, Cleveland.com reported.

Foster was fatally shot, and a 31-year-old female passenger was wounded early Monday on Cleveland’s east side when someone fired 10 rounds at his car as he dropped off the woman. Foster was shot four times and was pronounced dead at the scene. The woman was shot once in the arm and is recovering.

Judge blocks Texas’ ‘sanctuary cities’ law

austin, texas

A federal judge late Wednesday temporarily blocked most of Texas’ tough new “sanctuary cities” law that would have allowed police to inquire about people’s immigration status during routine interactions such as traffic stops.

The law, Senate Bill 4, had been cheered by President Donald Trump’s administration but decried by immigrants’ rights groups who say it could force anyone who looks like they might be in the country illegally to “show papers.”

The measure sailed through the Republican-controlled Legislature despite months of protests and opposition from business groups who worried that it could cause a labor-force shortage in industries such as construction. Opponents sued, arguing it violated the U.S. Constitution.

Triceratops fossil found in Colorado

THORNTON, Colo.

A dinosaur fossil has been discovered in Colorado by construction workers.

The bones and skull of a triceratops were found last Friday in Thornton at the construction site of a new public safety building.

Denver Museum of Nature and Science curator of dinosaurs Joe Sertich says the find is one of three triceratops skulls found along the Colorado Front Range and has likely been there for at least 66 million years.

A horn and shoulder blade has been unearthed so far by crews working to uncover the fossil. Triceratops had two big horns over its eyes and a smaller nose horn.

US airstrikes block evacuation of IS

BEIRUT

U.S. airstrikes blocked the advance of an Islamic State convoy carrying militants toward Iraq on Wednesday, derailing a Hezbollah-negotiated deal that removed the extremists from the Lebanon-Syria border, where they have been for years.

The airstrikes came amid U.S. criticism of the deal, reflecting a growing outrage within the Trump administration over the decision to give the militants safe passage from the battlefield instead of killing them, and Iran-backed Hezbollah’s leading role in it.

Associated Press