A novel mRNA cancer vaccine helps reduce the chances of melanoma patients’ tumors returning
WASHINGTON (AP) — A first-of-its-kind cancer vaccine is significantly reducing the chances that melanoma patients’ tumors come back, according to results of a major study released Thursday by drugmakers Moderna and Merck.
The vaccine was custom-brewed for each patient to match their tumor. Adding it to a standard post-surgery treatment reduced by 42% the risk of melanoma returning two years after surgery, according to the most advanced study to date of this new strategy for fighting cancer.
“The field has been looking for a win and I think this one is a big one,” said Dr. Hussein Tawbi of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, one of the researchers in the international study.
The vaccine, called intismeran, is made with the same Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology that was behind COVID-19 vaccines. Experimental personalized cancer vaccines made with mRNA and some other approaches also are being tested against other types of cancer including lung, kidney and pancreatic.
Experts not involved with the new study say its success bolsters the field.
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Execution staff warned IV site might have ‘blown’ during Christa Pike’s execution attempt
Tennessee execution team members failed multiple times to establish working IV lines in Christa Pike’s arms before her attempted execution and warned that some of her veins may have ruptured, or “blown,” before she was injected with the lethal drug, her attorney wrote in a court document filed Thursday.
The IV team went through about 10 needles and tried several IV sites on both arms, attorney Randy Spivey wrote in the document, which provides the most detailed account of the execution attempt so far. They even struggled to push saline through the last IV site they established, Spivey wrote.
Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state tried to execute her on Sept. 30 for the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 when she tortured and killed Slemmer with her boyfriend, becoming one of the youngest women to be sentenced to death.
State protocol calls for a second dose of pentobarbital if the first doesn’t result in death, but it doesn’t spell out what to do if a person survives the second injection.
After being taken to a hospital, Pike was on a ventilator for several days. At one point, her attorneys did not expect her to survive. She ultimately regained consciousness and returned to prison after being discharged.
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Sister of American held in Russia says he didn’t know he was being released until he saw US flag
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The younger sister of Stephen Hubbard, the U.S. citizen freed Wednesday after spending more than four years in a Russian prison, said her brother didn’t realize he was being released until he was put aboard a plane and saw the American flag.
“He didn’t know why he was being taken from the prison to Moscow, and he may have thought he was going to his death,” Patricia Hubbard Fox said during an interview Thursday in San Antonio, where her brother was taken for evaluation.
“He’s been kind of laughing a lot,” she added. “Like relief laughing. ‘Oh my God, you know, I’m free. This is really happening.’”
President Donald Trump said he had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin during a phone call earlier this month to free Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired teacher from Michigan. Hubbard was accused of fighting alongside Kyiv’s forces after Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022. In 2024, he was sentenced in closed court proceedings to nearly seven years in prison.
The U.S. government under the Biden administration had designated Hubbard as wrongfully detained, and his legal team also disputed the Russian allegation, saying he was not involved in any military activity.
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Mississippi releases video showing fatal shooting of 1-year-old boy by police officer
Mississippi authorities released video Thursday showing the fatal shooting of a 1-year-old boy by a police officer who opened fire while dodging the car driven by a family friend. A state investigation found no criminal wrongdoing by the officer, but the family’s attorney says it was wanton use of force.
Kohen Wiley was killed in June when Senatobia police officer Sgt. Hunter Foster fired his gun into a moving vehicle while responding to a shoplifting call. Kohen’s family says footage of the fatal encounter shows the shooting was not justified.
The Mississippi Attorney General’s office said this week its monthslong probe found that Foster’s use of force was appropriate. Foster’s attorney, Martin Zummach, has said his client had “no choice” but to shoot at the vehicle because it was going to hit him.
Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney representing Kohen’s family, said Foster was not in danger when he fired the shot that killed the 1-year-old. Crump said the video shows Foster fired that shot from the passenger side of the car.
Kohen’s close relatives watched the footage shot during the June 14 encounter in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Memphis, Tennessee. The video included footage from the camera worn by the officer who shot and killed Kohen.
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Judge orders Trump to sit for a deposition in his defamation lawsuit against the BBC by Dec. 11
MIAMI (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to sit for a deposition in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC by Dec. 11.
The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett came as lawyers for the British broadcaster complained that Trump had delayed his appearance in his own lawsuit. Charles Tobin, attorney for the BBC, said that with two months left in the discovery period, “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff.”
Meanwhile, it remained uncertain whether former special counsel Jack Smith would be allowed to sit for a deposition. Federal rules require current and former employees to receive permission from agency heads before testifying in court cases. Smith has requested permission but has not received an answer, and the judge ruled that the department must respond to him by Nov. 2.
In arguments about Trump’s deposition, Tobin noted there had been an agreed-upon date of Oct. 16, but Trump had canceled it for a “matter of national importance.” He said the Republican president was in fact campaigning in Georgia that day. “He was participating in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition,” Tobin said.
Lett said Trump must sit for a deposition by Dec. 11, or face sanctions up to dismissal of his lawsuit — unless the discovery period is extended by the presiding judge.
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Trump backs Ramaswamy on ad featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The backlash over an Ohio campaign advertisement attacking Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee for governor, spread beyond the state’s borders Thursday, causing fresh headaches for Republicans with less than two weeks until the midterm elections.
The latest episode began when Gov. Mike DeWine criticized Vivek Ramaswamy, a fellow Republican that he endorsed as his successor, for running an ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother criticizing her. Acton’s mother lost custody of her children decades ago after her husband was indicted for raping Acton as a child.
But President Donald Trump took the opposite approach hours later, posting on social media that Ramaswamy’s ad was “hitting pay dirt” and questioning DeWine’s loyalty to the party.
Trump’s stance only hardened throughout the day. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said, “Amy Acton’s mother said horrible things about Amy Acton” and “she’s fair game.”
And at a campaign rally in Iowa, Trump regaled the crowd with a story about how Ramaswamy called him to ask for advice.
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Powerful Democratic Virginia state Sen. Lucas is accused of leading a marijuana criminal conspiracy
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, was charged Thursday with leading what authorities alleged was a wide-ranging criminal enterprise that acquired and distributed large quantities of marijuana and laundered the proceeds.
Lucas, who has been in elected office for decades, used her political power to insulate the operation from scrutiny, according to an indictment charging her and six other defendants, including several of her relatives. She “put her own financial interests before the people she was elected to serve,” said U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, who spoke at a news conference with FBI Director Kash Patel.
Lucas surrendered, the Justice Department said. She made a brief appearance in federal court in Norfolk on Thursday afternoon, where she was released on her own recognizance, according to court records. She left the court without addressing journalists who shouted questions her way and went straight into a waiting vehicle.
The charges, including drug trafficking and money laundering, came after the FBI searched Lucas’ hometown office and a cannabis shop in which she has a stake in May. At the time of the search, Lucas — who has been a vocal critic of Republican President Donald Trump’s administration — characterized it as an attempt to intimidate her.
A statement attributed to Lucas posted on her social media account did not directly address the substance of the charges but said Thursday’s actions amounted to the federal government wielding its “full weight” against a great-grandmother.
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Trump administration offers mixed messages on limits to Ukraine’s Starshield access
Recent efforts to throttle Ukraine’s access to satellite systems have created a blame game of sorts among Trump administration officials and their allies, who have offered mixed messages about what led to the sudden restrictions on Kyiv’s ability to intercept Russian strikes.
The limitations placed on Starshield — SpaceX’s military-grade version of the Starlink satellite internet service and the backbone of Ukraine’s drone operations and communication — last week alarmed the country’s military and government officials, with commanders reporting lost drones and disrupted missions. After days of handwringing, President Donald Trump asserted Thursday that the service is running again at full speed.
However, a senior European official familiar with the situation on the ground in Ukraine said Thursday that nothing has changed in the operation of Starshield, with its speed cap still set at about 100 mph (160 kph). Ukraine has not received a clear official explanation of who ordered the restrictions or why, according to the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The episode and subsequent lack of accountability have sent shock waves through Russia hawks and Ukraine’s allies on Capitol Hill. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal announced a new inquiry into how the technologies were slowed down for Ukraine’s defense systems.
Questions have percolated since last week about who ordered the interruptions to the Elon Musk-made satellite internet system that Ukraine has relied on for years to counter Moscow’s attacks.
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What to know about the AI-detected security bug impacting wide swaths of the internet
The language that’s known as the backbone of the internet is now subject to what experts describe as one of the most notable vulnerabilities in recent memory.
PHP is a widely used general-purpose scripting language that is geared toward web development, and thus, it powers the majority of websites around the world. When the organization behind the language and the FBI’s cyber division warned Wednesday of significant vulnerabilities in the language, government agencies, corporations and other organizations were sent into a flurry.
The episode also highlights how artificial intelligence is changing the game when it comes to web security.
Here’s what to make of the discovery of the vulnerabilities and the fallout.
The official website for PHP and several other organizations and agencies released security advisories Wednesday urging PHP users to patch two critical vulnerabilities or shut down their sites if they couldn’t update them immediately.
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Tom Skerritt, Emmy-winning actor with roles in ‘Picket Fences,’ ‘Alien’ and ‘Top Gun,’ dies at 93
NEW YORK (AP) — Tom Skerritt, the Emmy-winning actor who embodied a solid, wry authority figure, whether as a flight instructor in “Top Gun,” a tough-but-fair sheriff on TV’s “Picket Fences” or the doomed captain of “Alien,” has died. He was 93.
Skerritt died Wednesday of natural causes, his family said in a statement. “While the world knew Tom through his remarkable acting career, we knew him for his humor, curiosity, wisdom, generosity and the love he brought into our lives. He cared deeply about imagination, creativity, storytelling, service, veterans, the natural world and helping others find and share their own voices,” the statement said.
Skerritt was twice nominated for an Emmy — both for “Picket Fences,” winning outstanding lead actor in a drama series in 1993. Other career highlights include playing the patient husband of Shirley MacLaine in “Turning Point,” Sally Field’s husband in “Steel Magnolias” and a scheming opportunist who stands in the way of Jodie Foster’s attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life in “Contact.”
“A writer once described me as a character actor locked in a leading man’s body, and I’ve always loved that. It’s a nice compliment. I’ve been able to walk the line between television and features,” he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1997.
Onstage, he was the narrator in “Our Town” at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre in 2004 and made his Broadway debut in 2013 in an adaptation of John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill,” in which The Associated Press wrote he “nicely pulls off a charming disgraced and drunken lawyer.”