Moderna shares rose 8% to a three-month high on Tuesday after the company's individualized cancer vaccine developed with Merck showed positive response in an early-stage trial in patients with a type of head and neck cancer.
The vaccine, designed to train the immune system of patients to recognize and attack specific mutations in cancer cells, earlier showed promise in treating melanoma in a mid-stage study.
"The data continue to validate the individualized therapy platform and suggests it could potentially work in indications outside melanoma," Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said in a note.
Yee said the combination showed a strong benefit in extending survival, versus a previous trial testing Keytruda alone.
Data from 22 patients who received the vaccine, mRNA-4157, in combination with Keytruda was reported at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting at San Diego on Monday.
The vaccine combination showed evidence of activation of immune responses in patients, and was found to be safe and well tolerated in the study, Moderna said.
Moderna shares have risen nearly 14% so far this year, after a slump last year, as the company advances several vaccines such as its shots against respiratory syncytial virus and the cancer therapy to help offset a sharp decline in COVID product sales.
The U.S. has transferred to Ukraine thousands of infantry weapons and more than 500,000 rounds of ammunition that were seized more than a year ago as they were being shipped by Iran to Houthi forces in Yemen, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.
The hardware sent last week is the latest military assistance that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has provided to Kyiv for its fight to retake territory occupied by Russia.
Democrat Biden has been blocked from providing further U.S. weaponry to Kyiv by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson's refusal to call a vote on $60 billion in new security assistance.
With Ukrainian forces running low on weapons and munitions, especially heavy artillery rounds, the United States and its allies have been searching for new ways to arm Kyiv.
The weaponry transferred by the United States to Kyiv on April 4 "constituted enough materiel to equip" a Ukrainian brigade, U.S. Central Command said in a statement posted on social media platform X.
An infantry brigade typically comprises 3,500 to 4,000 troops, but the exact numbers were not known.
Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations said, “We cannot comment on weapons and armaments that have never belonged to us.”
CENTCOM said the hardware included more than 5,000 AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades and more than 500,000 rounds of ammunition.
The munitions were taken from four "stateless" vessels intercepted by U.S. naval ships and those of partner forces - which were not identified - between May 22, 2021 and Feb. 15, 2023, CENTCOM said.
The weapons were being sent by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the Houthis, CENTCOM said.
Chinese automakers and shippers are ordering a record number of car-carrying vessels to support a boom in EV exports, data showed, putting China on course to amass the world's fourth-largest fleet by 2028.
China currently has the world's eighth-largest fleet with 33 car-carrying ships, showed data from shipping consultancy Veson Nautical. Japan has the world's largest with 283 ships, followed by Norway's 102, South Korea's 72 and Isle of Man's 61.
But Chinese companies have 47 ships on order, accounting for a quarter of all orders globally. Buyers include SAIC Motor, Chery Automobile and EV giant BYD, as well as shippers such as COSCO and China Merchants on behalf of Chinese automakers.
"After this armada has been delivered to China, the Chinese controlled car carrier fleet will jump from current 2.4% to 8.7%," Veson analyst Andrea de Luca said. "We expect to see new trade routes established almost exclusively for Chinese OEMs (automakers)."
The jump in orders has mostly benefited Chinese shipyards, which received 82% of orders globally, the data showed.
With price-squeezing competition, cost-conscious consumers and a sluggish economy, automakers have ramped up expansion into markets where their vehicles command higher prices than at home. Last year, China overtook Japan as the biggest auto exporter.
BYD alone exported over 240,000 cars in 2023, about 8% of its global sales, and plans to export up to 400,000 this year.
Foreign peers such as Tesla and Volkswagen have also expanded production in China for export to take advantage of the country's cost-effective supply chain.
Rising shipping costs and local government support have persuaded automakers to buy ships themselves. By the end of 2023, the daily rate to charter a 6,500-vehicle carrier reached $115,000, more than seven times the 2019 average, showed data from shipping consultancy Clarkson.
Issuance is first major announcement since Abia became CEO
Shanghai Raas stake sale to Haier seen closing in 1st half
Grifols SA is seeking to issue a new bond, in what would be its first debt deal since coming under attack from a short seller in January.
The Barcelona-based maker of blood product derivatives is planning to sell senior secured notes with the funds earmarked for refinancing unsecured notes due 2025, itsaidin a statement Wednesday. A deal to sell a stake in Shanghai Raas to Haier Group is advancing and is expected to close by June 30 as planned, the company.
An amount of land equivalent to the Isle of Wight has been added to the shorelines of 13,000 islands around the world in just the last 20 years. This fascinating fact of a 369.67 square kilometre increase has recently been discovered by a group of Chinese scientists analysing both surface and satellite records. Overall, land was lost during the 1990s, but the scientists found that in the study period of three decades to 2020 there was a net increase of 157.21 km2. The study observed considerable natural variation in both erosion and accretion. Of course, the findings blow holes in the poster scare run by alarmists suggesting that rising sea levels caused by humans using hydrocarbons will condemn many islands to disappear shortly beneath rising sea levels. By means of such flimsy scare tactics, as we have seen in many other cases, desperate attempts are made to terrify global populations to accept the insanity of the Net Zero collectivisation.
The scientists said their data suggested that sea-level rise has not been a widespread cause of erosion for island shorelines in the studied regions.
“Presently, it is considered one of the contributing factors to shoreline erosion but not the predominant one,” they explained.
Needless to say, none of this will detain the attention of climate hysterics in both mainstream media and politics.
The Guardian was in fine form last June stating that rising oceans will extinguish more than land.
“It will kill entire languages,” it added, noting the effect on Pacific islands such as Tuvalu. Those areas of the Earth that were most hospitable to people and languages are now becoming the “least hospitable”.
Silly emotional Guardianista guff of course, but happily it does not seem to apply to Tuvalu.
A recent study found that the 101 islands of Tuvalu had grown in land mass by 2.9%.
The scientists observed that despite rising sea levels, many shorelines in Tuvalu and neighbouring Pacific atolls have maintained relative stability, “without significant alteration”. A comprehensive re-examination of data on 30 Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls with 709 islands found that none of them had lost any land. Furthermore, the scientists added, there are data that indicate 47 reef islands expanded in size or remained stable over the last 50 years, “despite experiencing a rate of sea-level rise that exceeds the global average”.
The Maldives is also a poster scare for rising sea levels, with the attention-seeking activist Mark Lynas – he of the nonsense claim that 99.9% of scientists agree humans cause all or most climate change – organising an underwater Cabinet meeting of the local Government in 2009. As it happens, the Maldives is one of a number of areas that have seen recent increases in land mass.
Other areas include the Indonesian Archipelago, islands along the Indochinese Peninsula coast, and islands in the Red and Mediterranean Seas. Notably, the coastal waters of the Indochinese Peninsula had the most substantial gain, with an increase of 106.28 km2 over the 30-year period. Of the 13,000 islands examined, the researchers found that only around 12% had experienced a significant shoreline shift, with almost equal numbers experiencing either landward (loss) or seaward (gain) movement.
The scientists identify many reasons why islands can grow in size despite the small annual rises in sea level seen in many parts of the world. It is noted that island shorelines are constantly changing due to factors such tides, winds, nearshore hydrodynamics and the transport of sediment. On inhabited islands, human action such as fish farming and land reclamation can be important.
Of course, humans action can have a number of unintended consequences, notably the mining of coral and the breakdown of natural water barriers. Island states such as the Maldives have not been slow in coming forward to claim ‘climate reparations’ from guilt-tripped citizens in the developed world. But tourism has dramatically boosted income in the Maldives to first world levels at a time when the locals have mined coral in industrial quantities to build ports, airports and resort developments. In the process, ocean life diversity has been lost and the islands are often less protected from storm waves that can flow direct to the shoreline. In a recent essay, a group of scientists and economists charged that coral mining “has resulted in massive degradation of shallow reef-flat areas, with important negative impacts on coastal protection”.
The Chinese findings are important in helping destroy the claim that many low-lying islands will simply disappear beneath the waves in the near future due to human-induced climate change. They show how shoreline changes are a persistent and ongoing process that is subject to many natural and human influences. Most of the poster islands used for climate scares such as Tuvalu and the Maldives have increased in size of late, and are hardly suitable to whip up fear of a claimed climate ‘emergency’. Sea level rise is not a “predominant” cause of the changing coasts, the scientists note.
As New York City grapples with a wave ofmigrant crime— punctuated by recent-high profile incidents that left cops injured — many have wondered why federal immigration authorities aren’t deporting suspected criminals at a more rapid rate.
But immigration experts told The Post on Tuesday that it can be hard — both legally and logistically — for the feds to remove migrants before they’re convicted of a crime.
They said some of the difficulty stems from the city’s sanctuary laws, which bar local police from contacting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement or honoring “detainers” the federal agency puts out.
A current ICE official told The Post that the sanctuary city laws are helping propel the recent crime wave — which includes the April 2 incident in which two Venezuelan migrants accused of shoplifting in Manhattan fought back during arrest.
The NYPD, the official said, “will not contact immigration at all.”
“ICE has no idea,” the official said, adding that the city also bars the agency’s officers from entering its shelters to make arrests.
If ICE does take someone into custody, the agency can start the removal process fairly quickly, and it will do that in certain cases, such as after a conviction.
But experts said the agency is often picky about whom it pursues. For instance, ICE can arrest people simply for being in the country illegally — and it did so thousands of times in the Big Apple last year, according to The City.
But if a migrant is arrested for a more substantive crime, the agency will typically wait for the legal system to do its job, according to Robert Osuna, a criminal defense attorney in Manhattan who often works immigration cases.
“If they’re not convicted, [ICE] generally doesn’t take them because then it becomes a big logistical headache,” Osuna said.
“If ICE was to take everybody who was in Rikers Island who was subject to removal proceedings, and they put them in immigration holds, the local prosecutors would have a nightmare of trying to get them each time you have to produce them [for court].”
As New York grapples with a wave of migrant crime, many have wondered why federal immigration authorities aren’t deporting suspected criminals at a more rapid rate.Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The agency also isn’t really targeting low-level criminals who commit relatively minor crimes like shoplifting, he said.
“They’re allowed to have their priorities,” Osuna said.
“And ICE has deprioritized these small offenders. For what? I don’t know. But it’s ramping up, because the election’s coming near.”
Two specific sanctuary laws have proven particularly contentious.
One stops the city from honoring ICE’s requests to hold someone for possible deportation — unless they’ve been convicted of specific violent offenses and a judge has signed a warrant for their removal.
But immigration experts told The Post on Tuesday that it can be hard — both legally and logistically — for the feds to remove migrants before they’re convicted of a crime.Getty Images
The other bars the use of city resources to help immigration enforcement.
But even if ICE made the collars, it’s still hard to send them back to countries like Venezuela, which continues to refuse deportation flights that return its own citizens, former ICE field office director John Fabbricatore told The Post.
“Because Venezuela is a recalcitrant country that refuses to accept back its citizens, we have a situation where there is no deterrent for the criminals that have entered the country illegally,” said Fabbricatore, who is now running for Congress in Colorado’s 6th District.
Whenever ICE agents make the arrest, cases are reviewed to figure out whether they’re a “priority” for enforcement, the official said.
The arrests and custody determinations are made case-by-case, and are often influenced by the severity of the crime and the suspect’s standing.
They said some of the difficulty stems from the city’s sanctuary laws, which bar local police from contacting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement or honoring “detainers” the federal agency puts out.The Washington Post via Getty Images
Further complicating matters, ICE is limited on bed space, the official said. And in some cases, the agency releases lower-level criminals to free up room for those considered a higher priority.
“Cases like this highlight the issue and show that illegal aliens no longer fear deportation,” Fabbricatore said.
The Post has reached out to ICE for comment.
Michael Wildes, a New York City immigration lawyer, said migrants accused of crimes should be able to get their day in court before the feds move to deport them.
“You don’t deport somebody without first giving them a day in criminal court,” Wildes told The Post on Tuesday.
A current ICE official told The Post that the sanctuary city laws are helping propel the recent crime wave — which includes the April 2 incident in which two Venezuelan migrants accused of shoplifting in Manhattan fought back during arrest.Getty Images
“Once they’ve had their day in court, if they’re guilty, they serve their time and then they go, courtesy of ICE, directly onto an airplane.”
“But that’s the politics of the day, unfortunately,” he continued.
“It seems that we’ve gone too easy on people who commit crimes.”
Many have echoed concern over the sanctuary laws, which have been around for decades but expanded greatly over the last 15 years.
In 2011, the city moved to restrict the local government’s ability to cooperate with federal immigration officials, according to The City.
Then in 2014, former Mayor Bill de Blasio expanded the protections further by effectively barring the NYPD or Department of Correction from honoring ICE’s detainer requests.
But ICE continues to operate in the Big Apple — mostly on its own — and arrested 9,229 people in the city last year, the outlet added. Most of them had broken no laws aside from being here illegally.
Wildes, the immigration attorney, lamented that authorities need to start enforcing the laws on the books.
“They should be enforcing the laws on the books, and making sure that people are prosecuted and examples are made of them as a deterrent,” he said.
“People are then emboldened to take on greater risks.”
