Cancer Detection and Positive Predictive Value Substantially Higher Than the Previously Published PATHFINDER Study
GRAIL, Inc. (Nasdaq: GRAL), a healthcare company whose mission is to detect cancer early when it can be cured, today announced positive top-line performance and safety results from the pre-specified analysis of the first 25,578 participants in GRAIL's registrational PATHFINDER 2 study. PATHFINDER 2 was initiated in 2021 to evaluate the safety and performance of the Galleri® multi-cancer early detection (MCED) test when added to standard of care single cancer screening in 35,878 adults over 50 years of age with no clinical suspicion of cancer.
In the previously published PATHFINDER study, adding Galleri to standard of care cancer screening more than doubled the overall number of cancers detected by screening. In PATHFINDER 2, adding Galleri to standard of care screening demonstrated substantially greater additional cancer detection than in PATHFINDER.
In PATHFINDER, Galleri demonstrated a positive predictive value (PPV), or likelihood that a positive Galleri test was confirmed to be cancer, of 43%; specificity of 99.5%; and 88% cancer signal origin (CSO) accuracy. Data from evaluable PATHFINDER 2 participants with 12 months of follow-up showed a substantially higher PPV than that observed in the PATHFINDER study. CSO accuracy and specificity were consistent with that observed in the PATHFINDER study.
There were no serious safety concerns reported in PATHFINDER 2.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was hospitalized “out of an abundance of caution” due to an allergic reaction Tuesday, a DHS spokesperson said.
Noem, 53, was brought to a hospital in Washington, DC, and is “alert and recovering,” the Department of Homeland Security official said.
Noem was back in Washington after a trip to LA amid the riots.REUTERS
Sources familiar with the matter told The Post that Noem specifically requested an ambulance to take her to the hospital.
It is unclear what sparked the allergic reaction.
Multiple Secret Service agents were stationed outside of the emergency room where Noem was admitted, CNN reported.
Noem was tapped by President Trump to lead the DHS mere days after he clinched his second term victory in November and she was confirmed by the Senate in January.
As DHS chief, Noem has been at the forefront of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s unrelenting crackdown on illegal immigrants that sparked nationwide protests, including over a week of chaos in Los Angeles.
Noem has even joined federal agents on some raids across the US, including the first of the New Year in New York City just days after being confirmed as the Secretary of Homeland Security.
On Wednesday morning, Noem was expected to appear in New York City for a press conference about the implementation of REAL ID at airports nationwide alongside members of the Transportation Security Administration.
But in the wake of her hospitalization, the press conference was postponed.
Oracle has released its new cloud-based offering, Oracle Health Community Care, for caregivers to access patient charts.
The new technology is a mobile extension of the Oracle Health Foundation electronic health record (EHR) and also enables caregivers to securely update the comprehensive charts irrespective of network connectivity and location.
Therapists, nurses, social workers, dieticians and physicians have the necessary information for conducting in-home patient visits, carrying out emergency interventions and delivering care in mobile clinics.
Oracle's health and life sciences executive vice-president and general manager Seema Verma said: “With Oracle Health Community Care, we are delivering comprehensive patient health records to caregivers in the field, so they have the information they need to provide quality care anytime, anywhere.”
Oracle Health Community Care empowers clinicians to access up-to-date patient chart details and document encounters offline, ensuring a comprehensive approach to care.
This feature synchronises information added to the patient record while offline with the EHR once network connection is restored.
When patients transition from hospital to home-based care, for instance, Oracle Health Community Care allows clinicians to download the latest patient information securely from the Oracle Health Foundation EHR through a mobile device. This ensures continued access to records.
Clinicians can then update the patient record during home visits and sync the data with the EHR, allowing the entire care team to access near-real-time updates on patient care activities.
The solution also allows for the documentation of patient assessments, orders, and changes in condition in the mobile app directly.
This immediate access to critical information facilitates the delivery of tailored care that meets the specific requirements of each patient.
Oracle Health Community Care collaborates with mapping applications on mobile devices, enabling practitioners to access information about neighbourhoods and patients' residences to facilitate in-home visits.
It also provides communication features, enabling practitioners to call or message the primary care provider of the patient.
Last September, Oracle expanded its healthcare offerings with the introduction of an RFID [radio-frequency identification] for Replenishment solution within its Oracle Fusion Cloud supply chain and manufacturing (SCM) suite.
"Oracle releases cloud-based technology for caregivers" was originally created and published by Hospital Management, a GlobalData owned brand.
A California appeals court upheld a verdict ordering a Los Angeles County school district to pay$1 million to a former student who was the target of a relentless, months-long bullying campaign that included death threats.
On Friday, the El Segundo Unified School District in Los Angeles County lost its appeal of a 2022 court decision that found the district negligent in protecting Eleri Irons from “bullying, tormenting, and aggression.”
Irons, now 21, was a 13-year-old student at El Segundo Middle School when other teens began bullying her between November 2017 and June 2018.
Eleri Irons with her attorneys after the appeals court’s decision on June 13, 2025.ACTS LAW
The school district’s appeal focused on several issues, claiming Irons failed to prove any of her injuries and that it wasn’t responsible for how employees handled the issue.
The school’s lawyers also cited a state government code that removes public employees from all liability, according to Patch.
Irons “suffered PTSD, cut herself and sought refuge in the school nurse’s office nearly every lunch break” over the intense bullying, the 2019 lawsuit stated.
The harassment began after Irons’ friendship with two classmates ended because of a love triangle.
The two girls allegedly brought in a third teen as the bullying and torment spiraled.
Irons was called “a liar, whore, cheater and boyfriend-stealer, flipped her off and made fun of her in the hallways, and even slapped her in the face. They screamed at her in person and harassed her online,” Today reported.
Irons “suffered PTSD, cut herself and sought refuge in the school nurse’s office nearly every lunch break” over the intense bullying, the 2019 lawsuit stated.Christa Haggai Ramey
The teen was the target of a months-long campaign of verbal harassment and cruel rumors leading up to a petition spreading around the school titled “End the Life of Eleri Irons,” her attorneys from ACTS Law said.
“This ruling confirms what the jury already knew: Eleri was failed at every level by the very people who were supposed to protect her,” attorney Christa Ramey said after the ruling.
“Instead of taking accountability and supporting this young woman’s recovery, the district chose to spend taxpayer money fighting her in court for years. That’s not leadership. That’s cowardice.”
Ramey denounced the school district’s appeal as it prolonged the case, forcing the young woman to continue reliving “one of the most traumatic periods of her life.”
School officials were first made aware of the cruel attacks when teachers learned about the petition, but didn’t stop it.
Irons’ parents approached the school’s principal, who allegedly lied about calling police as soon as she learned of the death threat in June 2018.
School officials were notified of the bullying Irons faced by her and her family, but failed to respond to the claims.
“Despite being aware of the threats, school officials failed to take meaningful action, failed to notify her parents, and failed to follow their own anti-bullying policies,” Irons’ lawyers said.
Melissa Gooden served as the El Segundo Middle School principal.El Segundo Unified School District
Irons’ parents confronted the alleged bullying, but school officials dismissed the concerns “as drama over a teen love triangle,” Ramey told the LA Times in 2022.
A Los Angeles jury found that the school district failed to safeguard Irons from three bullies who were the leaders of the campaign.
The three bullies were suspended for their bullying.
The school district said it would “do the right thing” after the 2022 verdict was reached. It has not publicly addressed the appeals court ruling.
Irons forgave her bullies during an interview in 2018.
“I forgive them,” Irons told Today. “I always wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt because I (once) valued their friendship. They didn’t get the intervention they needed either. The school failed me and them.”
AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV), a prominent player in the biotechnology industry with a market capitalization of $327.63 billion and annual revenue of $57.37 billion, announced Wednesday that its migraine prevention drug atogepant demonstrated superior tolerability and efficacy compared to topiramate in a Phase 3 head-to-head clinical trial.
The TEMPLE study, which evaluated 545 adults with four or more migraine days per month, met its primary endpoint with significantly fewer patients discontinuing atogepant due to adverse events (12.1%) compared to topiramate (29.6%) over the 24-week treatment period.
The trial also showed superior efficacy for atogepant, with 64.1% of patients achieving at least a 50% reduction in monthly migraine days versus 39.3% for topiramate. All six secondary endpoints demonstrated statistical significance favoring atogepant.
Scholar Rock (NASDAQ: SRRK) saw a substantial premarket stock increase of nearly 14% following the announcement of successful trial results. The company's experimental drug, apitegromab, when combined with Eli Lilly's tirzepatide, showed enhanced weight loss effects while maintaining significant lean body mass compared to tirzepatide usage alone. This promising development has captured the attention of investors and analysts alike.
Ekso Bionics (NASDAQ: EKSO) has demonstrated initial proof-of-concept for integrating AI capabilities into their medical and industrial exoskeleton devices, following their recent acceptance into the NVIDIA Connect Program. The company has developed an AI voice agent for their EksoNR device, implemented using NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano hardware, NVIDIA JetPack SDK, and OpenAI tools. The Edge AI system can operate with or without cloud connectivity. Ekso Bionics leverages a substantial database of approximately 350,000 patient sessions and over 15 million step-by-step data points, growing by about 60,000 patient steps daily, positioning them uniquely to advance exoskeleton technology through AI integration.
A new analysis projects the Social SecurityAdministration's (SSA) cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for next year will be higher than previously projected.
The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) released its estimate for the 2026 COLA based on May inflation data and projected that it will be 2.5%, up from the prior month's estimate of 2.4% and the March estimate of 2.3%. That marks the fourth consecutive month the TSCL model showed a higher COLA for next year.
The SSA adjusts the benefits paid to beneficiaries every year to account for the effect of inflation on consumer prices. The higher inflation, the larger the benefit increase.
The COLA for 2025 was 2.5%, which was the lowest annual increase since 2021, when an inflationary cycle began that peaked at a 40-year high in June 2022 before easing in the years that followed. That 2.5% increase boosted the average monthly Social Security benefit by $48, TSCL found at the time
TSCL's analysis also cited a recent report by The Wall Street Journal that found the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which collects monthly inflation data for its consumer price index (CPI), informed outside economists that a hiring freeze at the agency prompted the BLS to reduce the number of businesses where it checks consumer prices for its CPI report.
As a result, the agency has used a less proven method for guessing price changes more extensively than in the past, which prompted economists to raise concerns about the quality of the data in recent and forthcoming inflation reports. Less accurate data could have broader implications for the economy.
TSCL wrote that "any erosion in the CPI's reliability presents big risks to seniors' livelihoods" and affects future COLA and inflation predictions.
"While streamlining the federal government is a good thing, that shouldn't involve cutting back on our ability to measure how our economy is changing," said TSCL Executive Director Shannon Benton. "Inaccurate or unreliable data in the CPI dramatically increases the likelihood that seniors receive a COLA that's lower than actual inflation, which can cost seniors thousands of dollars over the course of their retirement.
"Seniors should be concerned as inflation continues to tick upward," Benton added, noting that TSCL's research shows a disconnect between official inflation data and the inflation seniors experience on a daily basis as they participate in the economy.
"If the government tells us that prices are rising faster, it's likely that seniors are already feeling the crunch."
The BLS CPI data for May showed inflation ticked slightly higher on an annual basis last month, rising 2.4% compared with a year ago. That figure was cooler than the 2.5% estimated by economists polled by LSEG, though it was still higher than the 2.3% figure in April.
Israel needs a 15-ton ‘bunker buster’ bomb to destroy the last untouched nuclear facility in Iran, but only the US has one.
Such a powerful weapon – the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal – is needed because the target, Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, is built some 300 feet inside a mountain near the city of Qom, two hours south of Tehran.
The heavyweight explosive is known as a GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator and was designed by Boeing for the United States Air Force.
Its huge weight means it can only be delivered with a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber – a jet Israel’s air force does not possess.
John Spencer was in proximity to a bunker buster much smaller than than the one that may be used in Iran. He described the experience as “teeth rattling.”Courtesy of John Spencer “The United States controls the bomber and the bomb,” John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point military academy, told The Post. “It would be an American plane and an American munition.”
The missile cost over $500 million for the US Army to develop, and was built to specifications which would allow it to penetrate deep enough into the Fordow plant to destroy the nuclear centrifuges in the complex, according to a 2013 article in the Wall Street Journal, which said at that time 20 of the bombs had been manufactured for the US military.
If the US does opt to help Israel with this extraordinarily powerful weapon, it will almost certainly turn the nuclear facility, protected by layers of granite and steel, to rubble.
A different type of “Bunker Buster” bomb, the 5000-pound GBU-37 being inspected by a soldier at a US air force base.REUTERS
“By weight and kinetic force, the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator is designed to penetrate a certain amount of distance into the ground before it blows,” said Spencer.
“That’s why these bunker busters are called Penetrators. They penetrate the ground before they explode. The explosion is strategically delayed.”
Although the US has sold less powerful bunker buster weapons to Israel, they have declined to share the Massive Ordnance Penetrator with any of its allies, partly to ensure it retains an upper hand, according to various reports.
As to what an explosion from a Massive Ordnance Penetrator would feel like, Spencer can only guess. “I’ve seen 500 pounders, and they’ll shake your teeth when they go off. It’s like an earthquake. This will be much more than that.”
However, minimizing the likelihood of a nuclear explosion or leak, said Spencer, “this [explosion] is pretty contained,” He explained that since the bunker buster explodes so far underground, under such strong armor, it is unlikely to cause a nuclear reaction. Instead of breaking through the surface, rubble would cave in. “The risk is for leakage, not an explosion.”
A B-2 Spirit, the stealth jet that carries state-of-the-art bunker busters.REUTERS
US intelligence has long agreed Fordow is strategic to disabling the Iranian nuclear program.
“If you don’t get Fordow, you haven’t eliminated their ability to produce weapons-grade material,” Brett McGurk, who served as Middle East coordinator for several American presidents of both parties, recently told the New York Times.
In a less than ideal scenario, a state-of-the-art bunker buster is not the only solution.
It’s also possible, said Spencer, that, without help from the US, Israel could do a jerry rigged attack on Fordow.
“Israel has cornered the market on what they call drilling,” said Spencer. “They drop one bomb that reaches a certain depth, then another and another, at different angles, within seconds, to get to where they want to go. But you put multiple people and multiple aircraft at risk. The GBU is one and done.”
Considering that option, Spencer concluded, “There are many ways to destroy the nuclear program in Iran. But this is the effective and efficient one. It gets to the objective quicker and is the perfect solution.”
