Tornado damage to Pfizer plant unlikely to cause major drug supply shortages, FDA says
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Most of the destruction from a tornado that tore through eastern North Carolina Wednesday and struck a large Pfizer pharmaceutical plant affected its storage facility, rather than its medicine production areas, the company said Friday.
The drugmaker’s ability to salvage production equipment and other essential materials could mitigate what experts feared would be a major blow to an already strained system as the United States grapples with existing drug shortages.
“We do not expect there to be any immediate significant impacts on supply given the products are currently at hospitals and in the distribution system,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf said Friday.
An EF3 tornado touched down Wednesday near Rocky Mount, ripping the roof off a Pfizer factory responsible for producing nearly 25% of the American pharmaceutical giant's sterile injectable medicines used in U.S. hospitals, according to the drugmaker.
Pfizer said Friday that a warehouse for raw materials, packaging supplies and finished medicines awaiting release had endured most of the damage to its 1.4 million square foot plant. An initial inspection by the company found no major damage to its medicine manufacturing areas, and all 3,200 local employees are safe and accounted for.
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Body of girl found in river believed to be that of 2-year-old lost in Pennsylvania flash flood
WASHINGTON CROSSING, Pa. (AP) — The body of a young girl was recovered Friday in the Delaware River and was believed to be a 2-year-old who was one of two children swept away from their family's vehicle by a flash flood last weekend, authorities said.
The body was found in the early evening near a Philadelphia wastewater treatment plant about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from where Matilda Sheils was carried away, authorities said in a nighttime news conference.
By physical description, authorities believe the body to be Matilda’s. The Philadelphia coroner will conduct an autopsy Saturday.
The search continues for Matilda’s 9-month-old brother, Conrad.
The family from Charleston, South Carolina, was visiting relatives and friends when they got hit by a “wall of water,” according to Upper Makefield Fire Chief Tim Brewer.
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Alabama lawmakers refuse to create 2nd majority-Black congressional district
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama on Friday refused to create a second majority-Black congressional district, a move that could defy a recent order from the U.S. Supreme Court to give minority voters a greater voice and trigger a renewed battle over the state’s political map.
Lawmakers in the Republican-dominated House and Senate instead passed a plan that would increase the percentage of Black voters from about 31% to 40% in the state's 2nd District. The map was a compromise between plans that had percentages of 42% and 38% for the southeast Alabama district. GOP Gov. Kay Ivey quickly signed it.
State lawmakers faced a deadline to adopt new district lines after the Supreme Court in June upheld a three-judge panel’s finding that the current state map — with one majority-Black district out of seven in a state that is 27% Black — likely violates the federal Voting Rights Act.
Voting rights advocates and Black lawmakers said the plan invoked the state’s Jim Crow history of treating Black voters unfairly.
Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said the map, “and the Republican politicians who supported it, would make George Wallace proud,” referring to the segregationist former Alabama governor.
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Texas A&M University president resigns after Black journalist’s hiring at campus unravels
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M University on Friday announced the resignation of its president in the fallout over a Black journalist who said her celebrated hiring at one of the nation's largest campuses quickly unraveled due to pushback over her past work promoting diversity.
President Katherine Banks said in a resignation letter that she was retiring immediately because “negative press has become a distraction” at the nearly 70,000-student campus in College Station.
Her departure after two years as president followed weeks of turmoil at Texas A&M, which only last month had welcomed professor Kathleen McElroy with great fanfare to revive the school's journalism department. McElroy is a former New York Times editor and had overseen the journalism school at the more liberal University of Texas at Austin campus.
But McElroy said soon after her hiring — which included a June ceremony with balloons — she learned of emerging pushback because of her past work to improve diversity and inclusion in newsrooms.
Her exit comes as Republican lawmakers across the U.S. are targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses. That includes Texas, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill in June that dismantles program offices at public colleges.
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AI is the wild card in Hollywood's strikes. Here's an explanation of its unsettling role
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Artificial intelligence has surged to the forefront of Hollywood’s labor fights. Standing alongside more traditional disputes over pay models, benefits and job protections, AI technology is the wild card in the contract breakdowns that have led actors and writers unions to go on strike.
The technology has pushed negotiations into unknown territory, and the language used can sound utopian or dystopian depending on the side of the table. Here’s a look at what the unions and their employers each say they want.
As the technology to create without creators emerges, star actors fear they will lose control of their lucrative likenesses. Unknown actors fear they’ll be replaced altogether. Writers fear they’ll have to share credit or lose credit to machines.
The proposed contracts that led to both strikes last only three years. Even at the seeming breakneck pace at which AI is moving, it's very unlikely there would be any widespread displacement of writers or actors in that time. But unions and employers know that ground given on an issue in one contract can be hard to reclaim in the next.
Emerging versions of the tech have already filtered into nearly every part of filmmaking, used to de-age actors like Harrison Ford in the latest “Indiana Jones” film or Mark Hamill in “The Mandalorian," to generate the abstracted animated images of Samuel L. Jackson and a swirl of several aliens in the intro to “Secret Invasion” on Disney+, and to give recommendations on Netflix.
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Biden picks female admiral to lead Navy. She'd be first woman on Joint Chiefs of Staff
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has chosen Adm. Lisa Franchetti to lead the Navy, an unprecedented choice that, if she is confirmed, will make her the first woman to be a Pentagon service chief and the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Biden's decision goes against the recommendation of his Pentagon chief. But Franchetti, the current vice chief of operations for the Navy, has broad command and executive experience and was considered by insiders to be the top choice for the job.
In a statement Friday, Biden noted the historical significance of her selection and said “throughout her career, Admiral Franchetti has demonstrated extensive expertise in both the operational and policy arenas.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recommended that Biden select Adm. Samuel Paparo, the current commander of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, several U.S. officials said last month. But instead, Biden is nominating Paparo to lead U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
A senior administration official said Biden chose Franchetti based on the broad scope of her experience at sea and ashore, including a number of high-level policy and administrative jobs that give her deep knowledge in budgeting and running the department.
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He came face to face with an alleged serial killer. 12 years later, his tip helped crack the case
NEW YORK (AP) — In the winter of 2010, shortly after police discovered the remains of his roommate and three other women buried on a remote stretch of Long Island shoreline, Dave Schaller provided detectives with a description of the person he believed to be the killer.
More crucially, Schaller told them about his truck.
The man they were looking for was a towering, Frankenstein-like figure with an “empty gaze” who drove a first-generation Chrysler Avalanche, Schaller recalled telling investigators. The man’s size stuck out, as did his unusual pick-up truck, which he’d used to flee the house Schaller shared with Amber Costello.
On that night, Schaller said he came home to find the stranger threatening Costello, an occasional sex worker, who had locked herself in the bathroom. The two men came to blows, with the hulking intruder eventually leaving in the truck.
Prosecutors say Costello was last seen alive on Sept. 2, 2010, as she left her home to meet that same client. A witness saw a dark-colored truck drive by the house again shortly after she left.
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Tony Bennett, masterful stylist of American musical standards, dies at 96
NEW YORK (AP) — Tony Bennett, the eminent and timeless stylist whose devotion to classic American songs and knack for creating new standards such as "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" graced a decadeslong career that brought him admirers from Frank Sinatra to Lady Gaga, died Friday. He was 96, just two weeks short of his birthday.
Publicist Sylvia Weiner confirmed Bennett's death to The Associated Press, saying he died in his hometown of New York. There was no specific cause, but Bennett had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2016.
The last of the great saloon singers of the mid-20th century, Bennett often said his lifelong ambition was to create "a hit catalog rather than hit records." He released more than 70 albums, bringing him 19 competitive Grammys — all but two after he reached his 60s — and enjoyed deep and lasting affection from fans and fellow artists.
Bennett didn’t tell his own story when performing; he let the music speak instead — the Gershwins and Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. Unlike his friend and mentor Sinatra, he would interpret a song rather than embody it. If his singing and public life lacked the high drama of Sinatra’s, Bennett appealed with an easy, courtly manner and an uncommonly rich and durable voice — “A tenor who sings like a baritone,” he called himself — that made him a master of caressing a ballad or brightening an up-tempo number.
“I enjoy entertaining the audience, making them forget their problems,” he told The Associated Press in 2006. “I think people ... are touched if they hear something that’s sincere and honest and maybe has a little sense of humor. ... I just like to make people feel good when I perform.”
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Some critics see Trump's behavior as un-Christian. His conservative Christian backers see a hero
For eight years, Donald Trump has managed to secure the support of many evangelical and conservative Christians despite behavior that often seemed at odds with teachings espoused by Christ in the Gospels.
If some observers initially viewed this as an unsustainable alliance, it’s different now.
Certain achievements during Trump’s presidency – notably appointments that shifted the Supreme Court to the right – have solidified that support. He’s now the clear front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, even after he recently was found liable for sexually abusing a New York woman in 1996 and was indicted in a criminal case related to hush money payments to a porn actress.
Robert Jeffress, pastor of an evangelical megachurch in Dallas, has been a staunch supporter of Trump since his first campaign for president and is sticking by him even as rivals like South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former Vice President Mike Pence tout their Christian faith.
“Conservative Christians continue to overwhelmingly support Donald Trump because of his biblical policies, not his personal piety,” Jeffress told The Associated Press via email. “They are smart enough to know the difference between choosing a president and choosing a pastor.”
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Man who ambushed Fargo officers likely had bigger and bloodier attack in mind, attorney general says
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — The heavily armed man who ambushed Fargo police officers investigating a fender bender last week likely had a bigger and bloodier attack in mind, with at least two fairs taking place at the time in and around North Dakota's largest city, authorities said Friday.
Mohamad Barakat killed one officer and wounded two others and a bystander before a fourth officer shot and killed him, ending the July 14 attack.
Over the past five years, Barakat, 37, searched the internet for terms including “kill fast,” “explosive ammo,” “incendiary rounds,” and “mass shooting events,” state Attorney General Drew Wrigley said Friday during a news conference in Fargo, a city of about 125,000 people. But perhaps the most chilling search was for “area events where there are crowds,” which on July 13 brought up a news article with the headline, ”Thousands enjoy first day of Downtown Fargo Street Fair."
Had Officer Zach Robinson not killed Barakat, authorities said they shudder to think how much worse the attack might have been. All evidence suggests that Barakat came upon the traffic crash by “happenstance” and that his ensuing ambush was a diversion from his much bigger intended target, Wrigley said.
“The horrible winds of fate sometimes,” he said. “Those events fell into place and fell into his path.”
The Associated Press
