'FLiRT COVID variants: What are they and are they more contagious? '

 The so-called FLiRT variants of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that cause COVID-19 have been the dominant forms of the virus circulating this year globally, according to the World Health Organization

The moniker FLiRT is an acronym for the locations of the mutations the variants share on the virus' spike protein. One of them, called KP.2, has become the most commonly circulating variant in the United States over the past month, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here is what you need to know about FLiRT.

HOW ARE THE FLIRT VARIANTS DIFFERENT FROM PREVIOUS VARIANTS?

The FLiRT variants, which also include KP.2's "parental" lineage JN.1, have three key mutations on their spike protein that could help them evade antibodies, according to Johns Hopkins University.

ARE THE FLIRT VARIANTS MORE CONTAGIOUS OR LIKELY TO CAUSE MORE SEVERE ILLNESS?

Dr. Aaron Glatt, chief of infectious diseases at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, New York, and a spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America said he has not seen evidence of an uptick in disease or hospitalizations, based on the data he tracks and experience with his own patients.

"There have been some significant changes in the variants, but I think in recent times it's not been as important, probably because of the immunity many, many people already have" from prior illness and vaccination.

CDC data suggests that COVID-related hospitalizations have trended downwards in recent weeks and the number of patients in emergency departments who have tested positive for COVID has been about flat for the past month.

Data suggests that COVID rates are also down year-over-year. The rate of COVID hospitalizations is less than half than a year earlier, and the amount of the antiviral Paxlovid currently being prescribed for COVID-19 is down around 60% from last year, according to analyst notes.

DO CURRENT VACCINES WORK AGAINST THE FLIRT VARIANTS?

The current vaccines should still have some benefit against the new variants, Glatt said.

Since 2022, health regulators have asked vaccine makers to design new versions of the COVID-19 vaccines to better target circulating variants. Last month, Europe's regulator said vaccine makers should target the JN.1 variant. U.S. experts and regulators will meet to discuss vaccine design on June 5 after having postponed the meeting from May 16 in order to have more time to "obtain surveillance data and other information."

Makers of vaccines based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology - Pfizer with partner BioNTech, and Moderna - say they are waiting for the June 5 meeting before settling on the design of their next vaccines.

Novavax, which makes a more traditional protein-based vaccine that takes longer to manufacture, has begun producing a shot targeting JN.1 consistent with recommendations from European regulators.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/explainer-flirt-covid-variants-more-100132489.html

Novo Nordisk's Ozempic slows diabetic kidney disease progression in trial

 Novo Nordisk's Ozempic slowed the worsening of kidney dysfunction in patients with type 2 diabetes and lowered the risk of kidney failure, heart problems, stroke and death, according to detailed results from a late-stage trial presented on Friday.

The company in March reported that the diabetes drug known chemically as semaglutide cut the combined risk of kidney complications and cardiovascular events by 24% over the next 3.4 years in patients who received weekly 1-milligram injections compared with those who got a placebo.

The benefits observed in the trial "reflect important clinical effects on kidney, cardiovascular, and survival outcomes among high-risk patients ... and support a therapeutic role for semaglutide in this population," study leader Dr. Vlado Perkovic of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia said in a statement.

The more detailed data on the trial of 3,533 patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease was presented at the European Renal Association meeting in Stockholm and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Kidney health declined significantly faster in patients who received a placebo than in those who received Ozempic, as shown by a measure known as the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), researchers found.

The trial was stopped early when an independent monitoring committee reviewed the data and determined the benefits of Ozempic were clear, the researchers said.

Ozempic belongs to a class of drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists and has the same active ingredient as Novo Nordisk's wildly popular obesity drug Wegovy.

Obesity was not a requirement for participation in the current trial. But Novo and rival Eli Lilly are hoping to gain wider insurance coverage for their weight-loss drugs by demonstrating their other medical benefits.

Reductions in risk were similar when looking only at kidney-related events, such as starting dialysis, undergoing kidney transplantation or experiencing a precipitous decline in kidney function, researchers said.

Patients in the Ozempic group had an 18% lower risk of major adverse heart events and a 20% lower risk of death from any cause, the researchers said.

Withdrawal from the study mostly due to gastrointestinal issues were 13.2% in the Ozempic group versus 11.9% for placebo.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/novo-nordisks-ozempic-slows-diabetic-103314909.html

UK Labour leader Starmer wants to recognise Palestinian state as part of peace process

 Britain's opposition leader Keir Starmer said on Friday he wanted to recognise a Palestinian state if he won power in an upcoming general election, but said that such a move would need to come at the right time in a peace process.

Ireland, Spain and Norway announced this week that they would recognise a Palestinian state on May 28, prompting an angry response from Israel which said this amounted to a "reward for terrorism" and recalled its ambassadors from the three capitals.

The Labour Party has been engulfed by an internal battle over its policy to the war in Gaza since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that led to Israel's invasion.

Starmer has faced criticism for some traditional Labour voters for only gradually shifting the party's position towards supporting a ceasefire in Gaza.

The party's stance led to 10 senior party lawmakers quitting their policy roles and was blamed for a handful of disappointing results in this month's local elections in some areas with large Muslim populations.

Asked if he thought Palestine should be a state, Starmer told the BBC: "Yes, I do, and I think recognition of Palestine is extremely important. We need a viable Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure Israel, and recognition has to be part of that."

Starmer said recognition of a Palestinian state would need to come at the right time in a peace process, but "I absolutely believe in it", arguing a two-state solution was essential for lasting peace in the region.

The two-state solution has long been the framework of British foreign policy and international efforts to resolve the conflict but the peace process has been moribund for years.

The current Conservative government, and other big European states such as France and Germany, have also voiced support in principle for a Palestinian state, but with the timing of recognition forming part of a broader peace process.

This week, Labour backed the independence of the International Criminal Court after it sought arrest warrants for both Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes, opening up a divide with the governing Conservative Party.

The Conservative government said the ICC did not have the jurisdiction to request the arrest warrants and it would not help get Israeli hostages out of Gaza, get humanitarian aid in, or deliver a sustainable ceasefire.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-labour-leader-starmer-says-103201688.html

Food bound for Gaza rots in the sun as Egypt's Rafah crossing stays shut

 Some of the food supplies waiting to enter the Gaza Strip from Egypt have begun to rot as the Rafah border crossing remains shut to aid deliveries for a third week and people inside the Palestinian enclave face worsening hunger.

Rafah was a main entry point for humanitarian relief as well as some commercial supplies before Israel stepped up its military offensive on the Gazan side of the border on May 6 and took control of the crossing from the Palestinian side.

Egyptian officials and sources say humanitarian operations are at risk from military activity and that Israel needs to hand the crossing back to Palestinians before it starts operating again.

Israel and the United States have called on Egypt, which is also worried about the risk of Palestinians being displaced from Gaza, to allow the border to reopen.

Meanwhile the backlog of aid on the road between the Egyptian side of the crossing and the town of al-Arish, about 45 km (28 miles) west of Rafah and an arrival point for international aid donations, has been building up.

One truck driver, Mahmoud Hussein, said his goods had been loaded on his vehicle for a month, gradually spoiling in the sun. Some of the foodstuffs are being discarded, others sold of cheap.

"Apples, bananas, chicken and cheese, a lot of things have gone rotten, some stuff has been returned and is being sold for a quarter of its price," he said, crouching under his truck for shade.

"I'm sorry to say that the onions we're carrying will at best be eaten by animals because of the worms in them."

Aid deliveries for Gaza through Rafah began in late October, two weeks after the start of the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The flow of relief has often been slowed by Israeli inspections and military activity inside Gaza and the amount reaching the enclave's 2.3 million residents has been far below needs, aid officials say.

A global hunger monitor has warned of imminent famine in parts of Gaza.

ROTTEN EGGS

Since May 5, no trucks have crossed through Rafah and very few through the nearby Israeli crossing of Kerem Shalom, according to U.N. data.

The amount of aid waiting in Egypt's northern Sinai was now very large, and some had been stuck for more than two months, said Khaled Zayed, head of the Egyptian Red Crescent in the area.

"Some aid packages require a certain temperature ... We coordinate on this with specialists who are highly trained in the storage of food and medical supplies," he said.

"We hope the border will reopen as soon as possible."

KSrelief, a Saudi-funded charity, has more than 350 trucks carrying items including food and medical supplies waiting to pass through Rafah, but has had to offload flour because of the risk of it rotting, the group's supervisor general Abdullah Al Rabeeah said.

"We pack and send but also we have to recheck. It is a big burden," he told Reuters.

Some food has been sold at cut price on the local market in northern Sinai, leading to the confiscation of stocks of rotten eggs, said local officials from Egypt's ministry of supply.

Inside Gaza, there have also been scares about the quality of delayed food deliveries that made it in before Rafah closed, or through other crossings.

Palestinian medical and police officials that used to check goods coming into Gaza had been unable to do so during Israel's offensive, said Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office.

"There is a big problem as many of the goods that enter the Gaza Strip are unfit for human use and are unhealthy," he said.

"Therefore, the health ministry issued the warning statement to raise public awareness that people should examine the goods before eating them or sharing them with their families."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/food-bound-gaza-rots-sun-113937365.html

Watch: US Deploys Anti-Air Defense System On Gaza Aid Pier

Israeli media has reported that two American soldiers were injured Thursday in an accident which occurred while working on the Gaza humanitarian pier. 

"Two U.S. soldiers sustained light injuries on Thursday during a work accident near the temporary floating pier in Gaza," i24 News said.

IDF/Reuters

"The soldiers were promptly evacuated through Ashdod Port to an Israeli hospital for treatment," the report indicated. Israeli Army Radio described that the US soldiers were "injured in the floating dock area off Gaza."

The pier has seen the first aid trucks roll off in the last several days, but the whole operation has been off to a chaotic start. As of Tuesday there had not been any deliveries confirmed even though several trucks had departed with aid.

"Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Tuesday that the issues have arisen once the aid was loaded onto nongovernmental organization trucks, departed the marshaling area and headed toward distribution warehouses in Gaza," Navy Times reported.

Some of the trucks had reportedly been taken over by desperate Palestinians before making it to their destination.

"Only five of the 16 aid trucks that left the secured area on Saturday arrived at the intended warehouse with their cargo intact, U.N. World Food Program spokesperson Steve Taravella told The Associated Press," Navy Times continued. "He said the other 11 trucks were waylaid by what became a crowd of people and arrived without their cargo."

Site security has remained a serious concern, despite Israel's military (IDF) being in charge of protecting the land portion of the pier, with US warships off the coast.

ArmyRecognition.com: U.S. Centurion C-RAM anti-aircraft artillery system is deployed near a US-built floating pier in the Gaza Strip.

Widely circulating social media images appear to confirm that the US military has deployed a C-RAM system (Counter-Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar) to safeguard the pier from aerial attacks such as drones or rockets.

Videos suggest it has already seen some action, possibly having taken out a drone flying nearby. Or else, it may have been a planned live-fire test to ensure its positioning and capabilities once installed. The C-RAM is relied upon to protect US forward operating bases elsewhere in the Middle East, as well as places like the US Embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone.

Below: Watch the newly installed C-RAM in action on Gaza's coast...

The Pentagon previously made it clear that if US troops come under fire, they are authorized to defend themselves and fire back. However, the IDF has also said it is providing security on land, and there are at least two Israeli bases established nearby.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-precision-us-anti-air-system-active-gaza-aid-pier

CVS seeks private equity funding for Oak Street Health

 CVS Health Corp has been seeking a private equity partner to fund growth at Oak Street Health, a primary care provider it bought a year ago, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

The company has been working with financial advisers to help find capital to back new clinics that will be opened by Oak Street, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The deliberations are in a preliminary stage and the structure could change, while there is no guarantee a deal will be reached, according to the report.

CVS declined a request for comment from Reuters.

A potential CVS-private equity partnership would help lessen the capital investment burden associated with the build out of the Oak Street Health clinic base, Leerink Partners analyst Michael Cherny said in a note.

"Overall, we see this move as prudent on the surface, but need more details on the potential joint venture," he added.

The U.S. healthcare conglomerate bought Oak Street Health for about $9.5 billion in February last year.

CVS had said in February it planned to nearly double the business to 300 clinics by 2026 and aimed to grow the number of Oak Street patients over time.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cvs-seeks-investor-fund-growth-193835821.html

Judge Blocks Florida Law Criminalizing Transport Of Illegal Immigrants Into State

 by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge has temporarily blocked part of a Florida law that criminalizes transporting illegal immigrants into the state.

The challenged law was signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a year ago, when southern border states were bracing for a flood of illegal immigrants following the scheduled expiration of Title 42, a public health order that allowed border enforcement agents to quickly expel those deemed at risk of bringing in COVID-19.

Touted by Mr. DeSantis and his supporters as the “strongest anti-illegal immigration legislation in the country,” the law contains a provision that makes it a third-degree felony for anyone to “knowingly and willfully” transport into Florida someone whom “the person knows or reasonably knew ... has not been inspected by the Federal Government since his or her unlawful entry.”

In a preliminary injunction issued on May 22, [Venezuelan born] Judge Roy Altman of the Southern District of Florida said the provision in question “extends beyond the state’s authority to make arrests for violations of federal immigration law, and in doing so, intrudes into territory that’s preempted.”

“In this case, any harm the state may suffer from an injunction is overweighed by the harm [the provision] poses both to the Plaintiffs and to the United States, which has the ultimate interest in protecting federal supremacy in the realm of immigration,” the Trump-appointed judge wrote.

The lawsuit was filed in July by The Farmworker Association of Florida, which describes itself as a “grassroots and community-based farmworker membership organization” serving seasonal workers as well as migrant workers who travel with the seasons to harvest crops.

According to its complaint, the association members have to travel back and forth between Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, crossing back into Florida multiple times per year. With the transportation law in place, some of its members became “too afraid to travel in and out of Florida with their undocumented friends or family members,” over the fear of being arrested or prosecuted, according to the association.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a defendant in the suit, has argued that the association has no legal standing to sue in the first place. She also clarified that visa holders, DACA recipients—those who were illegally brought to the United States as young children—asylum seekers, and people with pending removal proceedings are not subject to punishment under the transportation law, since they are considered “inspected” by the federal government.

Judge Altman disagreed with her argument. In the May 22 opinion, he said the way the law is worded gives the association’s members a good reason to fear a potential arrest and that they have “suffered an injury in fact,” even though they haven’t put themselves at risk of an actual arrest.

The judge also found that the Association has standing to sue.

“An organizational plaintiff suffers cognizable injury when it is forced to divert resources from its regular activities to educate and assist affected individuals in complying with the challenged statute,” he wrote.

The association was backed by a score of high-profile progressive advocacy groups: the national and Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Americans for Immigrant Justice, the American Immigration Council, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. They celebrated the court order as a “much-needed win for Floridians.”

“The court was right to block this callous and patently unconstitutional law, which had threatened Floridians with jail time for doing the most ordinary things, like going to work, visiting family, and driving kids to soccer games. This ruling is an important victory for Florida communities,” Spencer Amdur, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.

The Florida attorney general’s office did not respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

The ruling is the latest in the legal blowback against states that seek to handle illegal immigration on their own in the wake of the growing crisis at the nation’s southern border. The Biden administration has sued three states—Texas, Iowa, and most recently Oklahoma—for making illegal immigration a state crime enforceable by state and local law enforcement.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/judge-blocks-florida-law-criminalizing-transport-illegal-immigrants-state