Teams in the Tour de France are expressing concern as the world’s most famous cycling competition moves into France, where five days of rioting has left a path of destruction.
The 110th running of the race launched in Bilbao, Spain this weekend, and is due to pedal into France on Monday, where they will face uncertainty as the nation continues to be wracked by violence over the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk outside Paris last week.
“The context is different than usual,” said Adrien Petit, a rider for French team Intermarche-Wanty Gobert. “Every morning I check the news to see what happened overnight.”
Organizers have kept riders in a bubble about the unrest in the Republic.
But French athletes have been particularly keen on keeping up with the events.
“Obviously we’re concerned,” said Philippe Mauduit, sports director for French team Groupama FDJ. “We can’t be insensitive to what’s been happening but there’s not much we can do.
France has been wracked by violent protests since Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old Muslim delivery driver, was shot and killed by police outside of Paris. On Monday, the Tour de France heads into the country, raising concerns.AFP via Getty ImagesNahel Merzouk, 17, was shot dead by police in a Paris suburb last week, sparking five days of violent protests throughout France that has seen more than 3,000 arrests — just as the Tour de France is to enter the Republic on Monday.
“We wait for information from organizers, from law enforcement and we will do what they tell us to do,” he said. “The organizers did not even mention it at the team meeting. It’s radio silence from them.
“Maybe they don’t have a solution themselves or any information,” Mauduit added. “We’ll adapt.”
The protests were sparked by Nahel’s police shooting death Tuesday, a Muslim delivery driver who was killed during a traffic stop in the Parish suburb of Nanterre.
French officials said some 45,000 cops have been deployed to try to quell the nationwide unrest, which has seen at least 3,000 protesters arrested during violent clashes with police and gendarmes.
The Tour de France, which launched in Spain over the weekend, is scheduled to pedal into France on Monday. Ongoing nationwide riots over the police shooting death of a teenager has some riders and team members concerned.APOfficials said more than 3,000 people have been arrested during five nights of violent riots in France following the police shooting death of Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old Muslim delivery driver outside of Paris on Tuesday.AFP via Getty ImagesA French firefighter works to extinguish a burning car during the fifth day of protests following the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old teenager killed by a French police officer in Nanterre during a traffic stop, in Tourcoing, France, July 2, 2023.REUTERS
“I’m telling them to stop,” she said. “We want things calm.”
Police said more than 700 rioters were arrested overnight Saturday into Sunday alone, with 45 cops injured in the confrontations — down from over 1,300 the prior night.
But despite signs that the violence may be slowly subsiding, some Tour de France riders said they remain cautious as they pedal into uncertainty.
“I hope that when we arrive in the big cities nothing serious will happen,” said AG2R Citroen team rider Aurelien Paret Peintre. “Let’s see how it evolves.”
TheCity Council is preparing to pass a sweeping package of bills that would force the NYPD to file millions of reports on even the most minor encounters with New Yorkers, The Post has learned.
The measures also would mandate cops speedily turn over officers’ body-worn camera recordings to state investigators, and that the department disclose more information about traffic stops and internal operations.
Members of the Council’s Democratic Majority Conference discussed the list of seven proposals impacting the NYPD on June 28, and the bills could be approved at the next public safety committee meeting, and then by the full body.
“New York City’s current policies on access to body worn camera footage have unfortunately fallen short of prioritizing public transparency,” Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said at a public hearing about the bills earlier this year.
Law enforcement advocates, however, warned the rules could overburden officers and impact public safety.
“The City Council needs to stop. Stop burying cops under paperwork and the NYPD under useless reporting requirements. Stop empowering the overlapping oversight regimes to crush cops’ careers just to fuel their anti-police narrative,” Police Benevolent Association PresidentPatrick Hendrytold The Post.
The City Council is preparing to pass bills that would force the NYPD to file millions of reports on even the most minor encounters with New Yorkers.Getty Images/Andrew BurtonPatrick Hendry serves as the President of the Police Benevolent Association.50-a.org
“If that doesn’t happen, NYPD leaders need to stop pushing police officers to engage in the kind of effective, proactive policing that the City Council clearly does not want,” Hendry fumed.
One bill pushed by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — Intro. 586-A — would require officers to file a report on all low-level “police-civilian investigative encounters.” These are instances where the person the police officer is engaging is not considered a suspect or being stopped, questioned and frisked.
Currently, the NYPD is only required to issue reports on “Level III” or “reasonable suspicion” stops where an officer has the legal authority to detain someone and prevent them from leaving.
The legislation would expand that to require reporting on all levels of police stops and encounters, organized by police precinct.
Law enforcement advocates warned the rules could overburden officers and impact public safety.TNS/Mark Bonifacio
Cops would have to include racial or demographic information, factors leading to the investigative encounter and whether the encounter resulted in any enforcement action or use-of-force incident.
Michael Clarke, the NYPD’s director of legislative affairs said it was counterintuitive and counterproductive to have officers file reports on the millions of basic “interactions that are not police stops” — such as speaking to witnesses to a crime, attending to a sick passenger or seeking information from residents about a missing child or a fight in a park in response to a 911 call.
“What possible value would taking this information have toward the goal of providing police accountability?” Clarke testified during a March 27 Council Public Safety Committee hearing on the bills.
“In fact the bill is detrimental to building community and police relations, as it disincentivizes officers from approaching people who might need their help,” he said.
Michael Clarke is the Director of Legislative Affairs for the NYPD.Gregory P. MangoThe NYPD is only required to issue reports on “Level III” or “reasonable suspicion” stops where an officer has the legal authority to detain someone and prevent them from leaving.TNS/Luiz C. Ribeiro
Clarke said even the federal monitor overseeing the NYPD’s overhaul of stop-and-frisk practices objected to mandated reporting requirements for such minor interaction between cops and the public.
He said there were more than 3.2 million recorded “Level 1” encounters last year, and that’s an undercount because some interactions involving one case would be lumped together.
Another one of the measures, Bill Intro. No. 585-A, also proposed by the public advocate, would require the department to turn over body-cam footage to the Inspector General for the NYPD within 10 days of receiving a request, unless disclosure is prohibited by law.
If footage is withheld the department must provide a written explanation to the Department of Investigation, citing specific laws, such as confidentiality, that would violate disclosure.
Clarke questioned the necessity of the bill, saying the NYPD has a close working relationship with DOI investigators and turns over footage on request, as long as it complies with the law.
“The intent of this bill is to presumably make videos available for public inspection. Allowing members of the public to inspect videos of individuals, possibly having one of the worst moments of their lives, is highly problematic and should be discouraged,” he said.
“New York City’s current policies on access to body worn camera footage have unfortunately fallen short of prioritizing public transparency,” said Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.William Farrington
During the March 27 public hearing on the proposals, Speaker Adams (D-Queens) complained that the NYPD was dragging its feet on releasing bodycam footage.
She said many other cities and states were “significantly better” at disclosing footage to investigators and the public.
“Clearly there is a transparency gap regarding body worn camera footage that requires examination and solutions,” Adams said.
In general, she said, pushing for more transparency and accountability from the NYPD goes hand in hand with public safety and claimed it was “misguided and clearly short-sighted” to suggest they’re incompatible goals.
One proposal from Adams, which would have required the NYPD to provide the Civilian Complaint Review Board direct access to video recordings taken by officers, did not end up on the Democratic Majority Conference agenda, though it was discussed at the March 27 meeting.
If footage is withheld the department must provide a written explanation to the Department of Investigation, citing specific laws, such as confidentiality, that would violate disclosure.Getty Images/Bill Tompkins
Of the measures on the table, Bill No. 781-B would require the police report more extensively on the justifications for stops and searches of motorists.
It would mandate quarterly reporting on the total number of vehicle stops conducted by officers, including whether the offense observed was an infraction, violation, misdemeanor, or felony.
The report would also need to include the total number of searches of vehicles, total number of summonses or arrests and the total number of use-of-force incidents that occurred in connection with vehicle stops.
Other measures the Council is readying for action include:
Intro 538-A: Would order the NYPD expand its reporting on consent searches. Sponsored by Brooklyn Councilwoman Crystal Hudson, the bill requires officers to document the time, location and date of any attempt to obtain consent to search a person, vehicle, home, property or to collect a forensic sample. It also mandates quarterly reporting on such requests, whether the search was conducted or denied, disaggregated by race, precinct, type of search and whether interpretation services were utilized.
Intro. 948-A: Would require the NYPD publicly disclose more information on its operations — including its use of stop-question-and-frisk searches, overtime spending and more data on criminal complaints, arrests, and summons issued — and to post the information on its website.
Intro. 944-A: Would revise current reporting requirements on civil lawsuits filed against the NYPD by removing a limitation on cases reported more than five years before the civil action.
Intro. 638-A: Would require an annual report on donors who contribute more than $1 million to the NYPD within a year. It would also order the release of information on programs or projects to which the NYPD applied those donations, including capital projects or pilot programs.
NYC Councilman Robert Holden representing western Queens in the City Council chambers.William Farrington Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) warned that, “With crime running rampant and our police force stretched thin and unable to act effectively, the last thing we need is more ridiculous laws that make their jobs even harder.”
“The Council’s Public Safety Committee should stop passing legislation that undermines public safety,” Holden said. “Our cops and New Yorkers deserve a break.”
Florida International University scientists discovered the first and only known natural arsenic-containing antibiotic to fight antibiotic resistance. Now, research reveals it can stop transmission of a deadly disease spreading in the U.S. for the first time in 20 years: malaria.
A team from FIU's Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine developed arsinothricin (AST) to combat the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Lab tests proved AST effectively defeated the most notorious, including E. coli and Mycobacteria, which cause tuberculosis.
Collaborating with malaria researchers in the College of Arts, Sciences & Education, they've recently also found AST prevents Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria, from infecting mosquitoes—unlike other current antimalarial drugs. The discovery, recently published in Microorganisms, paves the way for AST to one day be developed into a more effective antimalarial drug for humans.
"Current antimalarials don't completely stop transmission, meaning patients can continue to infect mosquitoes before they recover," said lead author of the study Masafumi Yoshinaga, associate professor of Cellular Biology & Pharmacology. "Developing new potent multi-stage drugs is imperative to ensure malaria elimination and eradication. We found AST is a promising lead compound for developing a new class of potent multi-stage antimalarials."
While AST contains arsenic—an incredibly toxic, deadly poison—it is not pure arsenic. In fact, since the early 1900s, arsenic-based medications have been used to safely treat and prevent many diseases. When FIU researchers tested AST on liver, kidney and intestinal cells, AST targeted the malaria parasite lurking in human cells but didn't damage the cells themselves.
An estimated 240 million malaria cases are reported worldwide every year. While the majority occur in Africa, malaria can still happen in the U.S. Recently, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health alert about several locally acquired malaria infections in Florida and Texas, marking the first time it has spread in the United States since 2003.
Only mosquitoes transmit malaria. According to Jun Li, associate professor of biological sciences, Biomolecular Sciences Institute researcher and one of the study's authors, malaria spreads when a mosquito bites someone with malaria, and the parasites in the blood infect the mosquitoes. Ten days later, infected mosquitoes can bite another person and transmit the disease to them. Using AST to prevent parasites from spreading to mosquitoes breaks the malaria life cycle.
The team has received a U.S. patent for the chemical synthesis of, and methods of using AST. But before AST can become a drug—a sometimes lengthy, expensive process—the team will continue their research investigating how it enters human red blood cells, where it can be even more effective against the parasite.
"What's exciting about our research is it demonstrates how chemically different AST is from other drugs and that gets us even closer to drugs that are more effective," said Barry P. Rosen, distinguished university professor and a member of the research team. "We have a long way to go before we have a drug that goes to market, but this foundational work paves the way toward that goal."
More information: Masafumi Yoshinaga et al, Arsinothricin Inhibits Plasmodium falciparum Proliferation in Blood and Blocks Parasite Transmission to Mosquitoes, Microorganisms (2023). DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms11051195
The Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has made some minor changes to its plan to allow Medicare to negotiate some drug prices after a series of lawsuits from disgruntled drugmakers – but has insisted that it remains committed to the programme.
The negotiation powers were part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) enacted last year, and for the first time means that Medicare will be able to use its leverage as a provider of care to almost 66 million Americans to reduce the prices of a selected group of medicines that have a “high budget impact.”
The CMS published guidance in March indicating how the negotiation process would work in practice, but that triggered a swift response from pharma companies Merck & Co and Bristol-Myers Squibb – as well as industry organisation PhRMA and the Chamber of Commerce – who have filed lawsuits arguing that the programme is unconstitutional.
The changes to the guidance include a reining back of the confidentiality policy for the negotiations, which was one element cited in the lawsuits. Now, CMS will release information about the negotiation when the explanation of the maximum fair price (MFP) of a drug is published, and drug companies may choose to publicly discuss the negotiation at their discretion.
It will allow “additional opportunities for drug companies and members of the public to engage with CMS during the negotiation process.”
Any possibility that the government may be softening its stance on the issue evaporated with a combative statement by Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that oversees the CMS.
“Pharmaceutical companies have made record profits for decades. Now they’re lining up to block this Administration’s work to negotiate for better drug prices for our families,” said Becerra.
“We won’t be deterred. President Biden made it possible for Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. Today’s action is a critical step in reaching that goal.”
Other changes include clarifications to the protocol CMS will use to come up with its list of high-impact medicines, including considerations around orphan drug status, the presence of “bona fide” generics or biosimilars on the market, and exceptions for small biotech drugs.
By 1st September, Medicare is scheduled to finalise the first 10 drugs that will be subject to negotiated prices. The MFPs that are negotiated for these drugs will be published within a year, and come into effect on 1st January, 2026.
The pharma industry has argued that the measures will end up hitting its R&D capacity and reducing the number of new medicines coming to the US market.
So far, lawsuits have claimed that the Medicare price negotiation process falls foul of the Fifth Amendment by forcing companies to sell goods at below market value for public use by mandatory price-setting rather than negotiation, and of the First Amendment right to free speech by making them sign agreements that state the prices being set are fair.
In its complaint, the PhRMA has also cited violation of the Eight Amendment as drugmakers face punitive fines if they refuse to negotiate and continue selling their products to Medicare.
The US government’s own calculations estimate that the measure could trim spending on medicines by $150 billion over a decade.
