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An ‘exciting’ glioblastoma study: Boston researchers create virus that can effectively target the aggressive brain cancer

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:20 GMT

Could a virus treatment designed by Boston researchers be the key to treating the aggressive brain cancer glioblastoma?Brigham and Women’s Hospital scientists report that they have created a cancer-attacking virus that can effectively target glioblastoma. The oncolytic virus treatment extended survival for patients with recurrent glioblastoma, especially among patients with pre-existing viral antibodies.The virus can infect cancer cells and stimulate an anti-tumor immune response, according to the researchers.“Almost no immunotherapies for GBM have been able to increase immune infiltration to these tumors, but the virus studied here provoked a very reactive immune response with infiltration of tumor-killing T-cells,” said corresponding author E. Antonio Chiocca, chair of the BWH Department of Neurosurgery.“That’s hard to do with GBM, so our findings are exciting and give us hope for our next steps,” Chiocca added.This Phase I, first-in-human trial...

Franklin teen missing from home for more than a week

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:20 GMT

It’s been more than a week since 15-year-old Franklin resident Jazlyn Rodrigues went missing.Rodrigues was last seen leaving her house at 200 Woodview Way on Oct. 10 around 7 p.m., according to the Franklin Police Department.Jazlyn “Jazzy” Mia Rodrigues “is a beautiful, loving, and very smart girl,” her mother, Jessica Negron, said in a statement released Tuesday. “She loves to draw and paint, but most importantly, she loves school. It is very unlike her to miss school, but she has for one week now. Something is very wrong.”“I am desperate to find my daughter and I am begging for your help,” she continued. “Please continue to share her picture, distribute flyers, and spread the word to everyone you come in contact with.”The Franklin PD said in two statements since she went missing that “the investigation suggests that Jazlyn left her home on her own free will and there is no evidence of any criminal activity or foul play.Rodrigues is Hispanic with dark curly hair with bl...

Pro-Palestine demonstrators arrested for trying to enter Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:20 GMT

Police arrested six Jewish protesters who tried to enter Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office in Boston, as they demand her to call for an “immediate ceasefire and de-escalation of the attacks in Gaza.”The group, protesting during a pro-Palestine rally Wednesday evening, sat on the ground, arms locked, and refused to leave the JFK Federal Building, where Warren’s local office is located, before officers from the Department of Homeland Security handcuffed them.As each one walked away handcuffed, a crowd of more than 250 chanted “Ceasefire now!” and sang “What side are you on?” Some attendees held signs bearing the message “Jews against genocide.”The six protesters were released from custody after receiving a citation or court summons, according to officials.Wednesday’s demonstration, held by a group of progressive Jewish organizations, came after a similar protest at Warren’s office in Springfield on Tuesday and another at the JFK Building, near Boston City Hall, last Friday.Mira Revesz, a...

Battenfeld: Mass and Cass crisis worsens while Boston City Council does nothing

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:20 GMT

The grim situation at Mass and Cass continues to deteriorate while the Boston City Council and Mayor Michelle Wu dither and delay about what to do.Wu’s proposed ordinance to clean up the tent encampments and get people into shelter has been put off for another week and has now gone two months without any action.Wu can and should stop deferring to the do-nothing council and send police and social services in now to restore order and safety to the blighted, drug-infested Mass and Cass neighborhood – before it gets any colder.Can anyone imagine the late Tom Menino or Ray Flynn waiting on the City Council to act on an important issue? They viewed the council largely as rubber stamps or inconsequential and ruled from a strong mayoral position.Wu, a former council president, does have to deal with the council now on budgetary matters but not when it comes to a crucial public safety emergency like Mass and Cass. She has the right to deploy police in a crisis.The latest disturbing news, tha...

San Diego woman who went missing during road trip appeared disoriented at hotel, witness claims

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:20 GMT

(NewsNation) — Police in several states are on the lookout for a California woman who went missing during a cross-country road trip weeks ago.Chelsea Grimm left her home in San Diego on Sept. 24, headed for a wedding in Connecticut. She was traveling with her pet bearded dragon. Three days into the trip, she met up with a friend in Phoenix, Arizona, and called her parents, Stephen and Janet, to say the drive was taking longer than she thought.Grimm said she planned to skip the wedding and head back home to San Diego. That was the last time her parents heard from her. "She was spontaneous. She changed plans a lot," said Stephen during Monday's edition of NewsNation's "Banfield." "This wasn't the first time she ever changed a plan, for sure." Body found during search for missing Indiana teacher in Puerto Rico "The magnitude of this adventure … of driving across the country, was a lot for Chelsea. We gave her a bunch of options," Stephen added. Grimm was reportedly spotted at a...

California tech CEO convicted in COVID-19 and allergy test fraud case sentenced to 8 years in prison

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:20 GMT

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A Silicon Valley executive who lied to investors about inventing technology that tested for allergies and COVID-19 using only a few drops of blood was sentenced Wednesday to eight years in prison and ordered to pay $24 million in restitution, federal prosecutors said. Mark Schena, 60, was convicted last year of paying bribes to doctors and defrauding the government after his company billed Medicare $77 million for fraudulent COVID-19 and allergy tests, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.Schena claimed his Sunnyvale, California-based company, Arrayit Corporation, had the only laboratory in the world that offered “revolutionary microarray technology” that allowed it to test for allergies and COVID-19 with the same finger-stick test kit, prosecutors said.In meetings with investors, Schena claimed he was on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize and falsely represented that Arrayit could be valued at $4.5 billion, prosecutors said.Before the COVID-19 p...

Construction ongoing along stretch of Bloor Street West. Here’s when it’s expected to ease up

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:20 GMT

The latest construction phase is underway along a stretch of Bloor Street West.Construction is ongoing along Bloor Street West between Avenue Road and Spadina Avenue, and right now, crews are working on the south side of Bloor, reconstructing the road after previously reconstructing the sidewalk. Related: Work to transform section of Bloor Street West now underway Currently, traffic is shifted to the north side of the road, which is shared between cyclists and drivers. This ongoing construction will last until the end of the year.Once it’s completed, all lanes will reopen for a few months until early spring. The final phase, which will run from spring to summer, will be the most disruptive as the westbound portion of Bloor Street West will be shut down between Avenue Road and Spadina Avenue until all work is done.On Wednesday, the agency that oversees transportation services across Toronto said its congestion management plan needs to be updated given what it c...

Execution of Idaho’s longest-serving death row inmate delayed for sentence review hearing

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:20 GMT

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The November execution of a man on Idaho’s death row was delayed on Wednesday because the state’s parole board has granted a hearing to consider changing his sentence to life in prison. An Idaho judge last week issued a death warrant for Thomas Creech, the state’s longest-serving death row inmate. Creech was convicted of killing two people in Valley County in 1974 and sentenced to death. After an appeal, however, that sentence was reduced to life in prison. Less than 10 years later, he was convicted of beating another man in custody, David Jensen, to death with a sock full of batteries. Creech was sentenced to death for that crime in 1983.After the death warrant was issued last week, the Idaho Department of Correction had said Creech would be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 8 and said they already had the necessary chemicals. Creech’s attorneys with the nonprofit Federal Defender Services of Idaho petitioned the parole board to schedule the sentence review h...

Workers noticed beam hanging off railcar days before fatal accident but didn’t tell the railroad

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:20 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Several days before a Norfolk Southern conductor trainee was killed by a metal beam protruding from a parked railcar on the next track, workers at a U.S. Pipe facility noticed the beam was hanging off the top of the car but never told the railroad about it, federal investigators say.The National Transportation Safety Board released those details this week in a report on the interviews it conducted after Walter James Griffin was killed near Bessemer, Alabama, on Dec. 13. Investigators won’t release their final report on the death until later. The accident happened as Griffin’s train was passing another train that was in the process of picking up several cars that had been parked on a siding, including ones loaded with scrap metal from U.S. Pipe’s nearby facility. The beam struck Griffin in the head as it smashed into the locomotive he was riding in and injured the conductor sitting behind him with broken glass.The death was one of the incidents th...

Escalating theft and violence aside, London Drugs not considering closures: president

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:20 GMT

VANCOUVER — London Drugs president Clint Mahlman says the company has no plans to close stores due to escalating violence and theft, though the issue has reached a “crisis point” for Canadian retailers. Mahlman says the company was disappointed to learn that a Vancouver city councillor said on social media that London Drugs was considering closing one of its main stores in the city, at the intersection of Granville and Georgia streets, due to crime. He says there’s no truth to the statement and it needlessly worried staff and customers at the store, which he says remains a safe place to both shop and work. Mahlman says the company has invested “significant resources” in safety measures and closing any locations would be a last resort, and a matter between London Drugs and its landlords and employees. He says retail theft and escalating violence has been an issue for many years, and working with police and government to combat the rise in organized theft...