The Justice Department announced today the filing of a lawsuit with the Executive Office for Immigration Review against Louisiana Crane Company LLC (Louisiana Crane), which is headquartered in Eunice, Louisiana.

The Justice Department announced today that it reached an agreement with Culinaire International, a catering and restaurant management company headquartered in Houston, Texas, resolving a claim that Culinaire engaged in citizenship discrimination during the employment eligibility reverification process in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Costco Wholesale Corporation, one of the nation’s largest retailers, has agreed to cut its emissions of ozone-depleting and greenhouse gases from leaking refrigeration equipment at more than half of its stores nationwide.

A Colombian man extradited to the Eastern District of Virginia pleaded guilty today for his involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent James Terry Watson in Bogotá, Colombia, on June 20, 2013.

A Canton, Massachusetts, man was arrested today at Boston's Logan International Airport in connection with the ongoing criminal investigation of New England Compounding Center by the Justice Department’s Civil Division and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Child Cyber Safety Night at the Ballpark is the latest effort by the Justice Department and its law enforcement and community partners to encourage parents to speak with their children about online and cell phone safety and provide prevention materials.

The Justice Department today filed a lawsuit against the Kent State University, the Kent State University Board of Trustees and university officials for violating the Fair Housing Act by discriminating against students with disabilities in student housing.

The Department of Justice announced today that it has entered into a settlement agreement with the School District of Philadelphia that resolves a religious accommodations lawsuit filed in March 2014. In its lawsuit, the United States alleged that the school district violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) by failing to accommodate the religious beliefs, observances and/or practices of Siddiq Abu-Bakr, a school police officer who is Muslim, and similarly-situated employees who maintain a beard longer than one-quarter inch for religious purposes.

On January 15, 2009, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISC-R) published an unclassified version of its opinion in In Re: Directives Pursuant to Section 105B of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 551 F.3d 1004 (Foreign Intel. Surv. Ct. Rev. 2008). The classified version of the opinion was issued on August 22, 2008, following a challenge by Yahoo! Inc. (Yahoo!) to directives issued under the Protect America Act of 2007 (PAA). Today, following a renewed declassification review, the Executive Branch is publicly releasing various documents from this litigation, including legal briefs and additional sections of the 2008 FISC-R opinion, with appropriate redactions to protect national security information. These documents are available at the website of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), www.dni.gov; and ODNI’s public website dedicated to fostering greater public visibility into the intelligence activities of the U.S. Government, IContheRecord.tumblr.com. A summary of the underlying litigation follows.

Buenas tardes. Muchas gracias por sus emotivas palabras y su calurosa bienvenida. It’s a privilege to help welcome the Hispanic National Bar Association to our nation’s capital for your 39th Annual Convention. And it’s a great pleasure, as always, to be in such distinguished company.

Benjamin Pierce Bishop, 60, a former Honolulu, Hawaii, civilian defense contractor and retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi to serve 87 months imprisonment and three years’ supervised release for willfully communicating classified national defense information to a person not authorized to receive it and unlawfully retaining classified national defense information at his home.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today the launch of the Justice Department’s National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice.

A Las Vegas man pleaded guilty today to conspiracy for his role in an investment fraud scheme that promoted fraudulent investment opportunities and caused more than $5 million in losses to investors

A federal jury in Las Vegas convicted two men of conspiracy, wire fraud and securities fraud yesterday for their roles in an approximately $10 million international investment fraud scheme involving numerous victims

The Justice Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, along with 49 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia’s attorney general, have reached a $470 million agreement with HSBC Bank USA NA and its affiliates (collectively, HSBC) to address mortgage origination, servicing and foreclosure abuses

A Las Vegas man was sentenced today to 60 months in prison for his role in an investment fraud scheme that promoted fraudulent investment opportunities and caused more than $5 million in losses to investors

Care coordination is considered a hallmark of patient-centered treatment and has been shown to improve health outcomes and patient satisfaction as well as reduce costs. Defined as organizing patient care activities and sharing information among all participants concerned with an individual’s treatment plan in order to achieve safer and more effective results, care coordination is increasingly...

ChromaDex Corp. announced NIAGEN® nicotinamide riboside prevented neurological damage and improved cognitive and physical function in a new mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease.

From : Communities>>Regulatory Open Forum
Hello,  I can see many unapproved combinations of Minoxidil as topical solution like minoxidil+ Azelaic Acid; Minoxidil + Finasteride; Minoxdil+ niacin+retinol+caffeine that are available online for sale in US but these drug products are not approved by FDA as visble from USFDA website.  Can anyone explain that is there any mechanism or guideline to allows to sell such unapproved drug products online in US and also in EU? Or is this totally illegal practice?  Thanks Ankur RAC

From : Communities>>Regulatory Open Forum
Hi, Ankur - Some may be "legal," others not. It's a big industry, and it is fair to be cynical. Combination products for sale that have not been approved-as the combination-by FDA are just that, unapproved drugs. I assume you checked for the approval status in FDA's "Orange Book" (https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/ob/index.cfm). Even if both active pharmaceutical ingredients in a 2-drug mixture were approved separately on their own, it does not mean the combined product is approved for [More]

From : Communities>>Regulatory Open Forum
These are all unapproved new drugs. Many people who have very limited knowledge of our OTC drug system, assume that if it is sold OTC, it is a monographed drug and they can change the formulation. They do not know that there are two types of OTC drugs allowed-compliance with a monograph or NDA. Minoxidil is one and chlorhexidine antiseptic wash is another. ------------------------------ David Steinberg,FRAPS President Steinberg & Associates, Inc. Pompton Plains NJ USA 609-902-8860 -------------- [More]

From : Communities>>Regulatory Open Forum
The only  possible way I can see any of these products being legally marketed in the US without going the OTC NDA route would be if the ingredients  other than Minoxidil are considered "inactive" and have some purpose (other than their active ingredient purposes) in the formulation.  That said, this might work for the last combination in your listing because all of these can and are often used in OTC products as inactive ingredients with understood and current reasons for existing in a formulation [More]

From : Communities>>Regulatory Open Forum
This message was posted by a user wishing to remain anonymous For device-lead drug combination products, is there any difference in the quality (grade) of API used compared to a pure drug product? The cGMP guidance for combination products does not seem to specify, and since drug claims cannot be made on device-lead drug combination products, it was not clear what quality of drug is required. Thank you!

From : Communities>>Regulatory Open Forum
​I doubt FDA would have any willingness to change the requirements or expectations for a drug product based on whether it is in a strictly drug product versus in a combination product.  The fact also that there is not a published allowance for this is further evidence that FDA expects that the drug will meet the requirements as expected for drug products without providing any allowed changes or classes of changes.  Remember, FDA expects that drug products meet specific requirements.  Things like [More]

From : Communities>>Regulatory Open Forum
These types of products and combinations you mention are all unapproved drugs and unapproved combinations.  Unless the specific combination is approved or listed in an OTC monograph, it is a new drug and requires a NDA to market it.  Minoxidil is a Rx to OTC switch product so it requires a NDA or ANDA to market this drug in the US, even as a OTC drug.  Thus any combination with minoxidil is a new drug. In the past the FDA has also specifically stated that combining different types of products (drug [More]

Latest innovation in quadrivalent meningococcal vaccination designed for use in persons 2 years of age and older in the U.S.

by ProPublica

The Pulitzer Board announced Monday that two series published by ProPublica were awarded Pulitzer Prizes. “Lawless,” a ProPublica Local Reporting Network project by the Anchorage Daily News that revealed how indigenous people in Alaska are denied public safety services, was awarded the prize for public service. “Disaster in the Pacific,” an investigation on the staggering leadership failures that led to deadly accidents in the Navy and Marines, won a national reporting prize. The two designations are ProPublica’s 6th Pulitzer win in 12 years and the first Pulitzer awarded to a Local Reporting Network partner.

Led by Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins, “Lawless” was the first comprehensive investigation to lay bare Alaska’s failing, two-tiered justice system in which Native villages are denied access to first responders. In much of rural Alaska, villages can only be reached by plane, and calling 911 to report an emergency often means waiting hours or days for help to arrive.

The series evolved from a string of stories that Hopkins reported in 2018 for the Daily News, recounting horrific incidents of sexual assault in Alaska — which has the nation’s highest rate of sexual violence — and policing failures that have allowed offenders to continue the abuse with impunity. To fully investigate issues of lawlessness and sexual assault in the most remote communities in the U.S., the Daily News applied to participate in ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. The program partners with newsrooms across the country, paying the salary and a stipend for benefits for local reporters who spend a year tackling big investigative stories that are crucial to their communities. Participating reporters work with a ProPublica senior editor and receive support, including from ProPublica’s data, research and engagement teams.

The collaboration’s first story, based on more than 750 public records requests and interviews, found that one in three rural Alaska communities has no local law enforcement of any kind. These indigenous communities are also among the country’s most vulnerable, with the highest rates of sexual assault, suicide and domestic violence. The series’ second major installment found that dozens of Alaska communities, desperate for police of any kind, hired officers convicted of felonies, domestic violence, assault and other offenses that would make them ineligible to work in law enforcement or even as security guards anywhere else in the country.

Next, Hopkins revealed how the state’s 40-year-old Village Public Safety Officer Program, designed to recruit villagers to work as life-saving first responders, has failed by every measure. Alaska had quietly denied funding for basic recruitment and equipment costs for these unarmed village officers while publicly claiming to prioritize public safety spending. “Lawless” also exposed how the Alaska State Troopers agency, created to protect Alaska Native villages, instead patrols mostly white suburbs surrounding cities on the road system like Wasilla. The series ended with a list of six practical solutions to Alaska’s law enforcement crisis, based on interviews with experts, village leaders, the Alaska congressional delegation and sexual assault survivors.

The Daily News and ProPublica faced a number of challenges in reporting the series. The first: No one knew which remote Alaska villages had police officers of any kind. So they built the first-ever statewide policing database by drawing on payroll, arrest and hiring records from communities spread across the state. They also contacted every village city government, sovereign tribal administrator and Alaska Native corporation in the state — more than 600 organizations.

The vastness of the state and the fact that 80% of communities aren’t on the road system posed another challenge. Journalists flew hundreds of miles, sleeping on the floors of schoolhouse libraries and riding in sleds and on snowmobiles. To aid the reporting, they also held a community meeting in Kotzebue, Alaska, where a 10-year-old girl had been raped and murdered in 2018, providing residents, advocates, tribal leaders and law enforcement their first chance for a public discussion on sexual violence. Throughout the year the reporters spoke to more than 300 people across the state.

Following publication of the first major story, U.S. Attorney General William Barr visited the state and declared the lack of law enforcement in rural Alaska to be a federal emergency. The declaration led the Department of Justice to promise more than $52 million in federal funding for public safety in Alaska villages. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Anchorage announced the hiring of additional rural prosecutors, while Gov. Mike Dunleavy said the state will post 15 additional state troopers in rural Alaska. In addition, the Alaska Police Standards Council has proposed changing state regulations that govern the hiring and screening of village police officers, and Alaska legislators proposed legislation that would increase pay for VPSOs and overhaul funding of the program.

The Daily News’ Loren Holmes, Bill Roth, Marc Lester, David Hulen, Anne Raup, Vicky Ho, Alex Demarban, Jeff Parrott, Michelle Theriault Boots, Tess Williams, Tegan Hanlon, Zaz Hollander, Annie Zak, Shady Grove Oliver and Kevin Powell, as well as ProPublica’s Charles Ornstein, Adriana Gallardo, Alex Mierjeski, Beena Raghavendran, Nadia Sussman, Lylla Younes, Agnel Philip, Setareh Baig and David Sleight also contributed to the series.

“The ProPublica Local Reporting Network was started to give local newsrooms across America the resources and support they need to execute investigative journalism that digs deep and holds power to account,” Ornstein, a ProPublica deputy managing editor, said. “This powerful collaboration with the Anchorage Daily News investigation does exactly that, going far beyond reporting on isolated incidents to provide meticulous research and context on how the justice system has failed Alaska’s most remote and vulnerable communities. Most importantly, it has been a force for real change.”

In their “Disaster in the Pacific” series, ProPublica reporters T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi centered on three deadly accidents in the Navy and Marines in 2017 and 2018. They exposed America’s vaunted 7th Fleet as being in crisis with broken ships and planes, poor training for and multiple warnings ignored by its commanders. The costs: 17 dead sailors in crashes involving Navy warships, and six Marines killed in a training accident.

The back-to-back accidents in 2017 and 2018 gained initial attention from Congress and the national media, but they had been told an incomplete, misleading and dangerous story of half-truths and cover-ups. ProPublica’s series provided the first full accounting of culpability, tracing responsibility to the highest uniformed and civilian ranks of the Navy. The reporting team spent 18 months on the investigation, obtaining more than 13,000 pages of confidential Navy records and interviewing hundreds of officials up and down the chain-of-command.

The first article in the series, “Fight the Ship,” reconstructed a 2017 crash involving the USS Fitzgerald, one of the deadliest accidents in the history of the Navy. The story showed that the accident was entirely preventable, and that the Navy’s senior leadership had endangered the warship by sending a shorthanded and undertrained crew to sea with outdated and poorly maintained equipment. To show readers what happened, ProPublica hired designer Xaquín G.V. Working with investigations producer Lucas Waldron, Xaquín used geodata on the ships’ locations, mapped the path of each vessel and created a graphic that simulated the crash, down to the moment the Fitzgerald was sent spinning out of control, rotating 360 degrees. The team also collected radar images, ship blueprints, hand-drawn images made by surviving sailors and video taken inside the ship, which allowed them to portray the disaster from the perspective of the sailors onboard.

A second story, “Years of Warnings, Then Death and Disaster,” detailed how the fatal crash of the USS Fitzgerald, and of the USS McCain weeks later, were the result of a congressional gutting of the Navy and the Navy’s prioritization of building new ships. Top Navy officials gave urgent, repeated warnings to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus about the deadly risks facing its fleet, including being short of sailors, sailors poorly trained and worked to exhaustion, warships physically coming apart, and ships routinely failing tests to see if they were prepared to handle warfighting duties. They were ignored, told to be quiet or even ordered to resign.

Another story captured the Marine Corps multiple failures that were responsible for the deaths of six men in a nighttime training exercise 15,000 feet above the Pacific — an accident that senior leaders had been warned was possible, even likely. ProPublica created an animated short documentary, using a combination of an on-camera interview, 3D animation, 2D illustration and atmospheric footage to bring the excruciating hours of a needless tragedy to light. Through extensive interviews with eyewitnesses, the team reconstructed the moments leading up to the crash, the crash itself and the botched search and rescue effort.

The series also illuminated how the Navy’s reckless management of the 7th Fleet was measured not only in fatalities, but also in the hurt and shame of the rank-and-file sailors whom the Navy blamed and prosecuted for the accidents. The Navy’s prosecution of Navy Cmdr. Bryce Benson for what were clearly systemic shortcomings, traceable all the way to the Pentagon, left many of its own furious and demoralized.

Weeks after the first story’s publication, the House Armed Services Committee convened a panel to challenge senior Navy leaders over their claims that they had been fully truthful about its failings and its efforts at reform. The reporting forced the Navy to admit to Congress that its claims about its rate of progress on reform were misleading. In light of ProPublica’s reporting on the improper role that the Navy’s top commander played in the prosecution of Benson, one of captains on the USS Fitzgerald, the Navy dropped all criminal charges. U.S. and NATO Navy commands throughout the world have ordered sailors and officers to read the ProPublica accounts as part of training and education.

Joseph Sexton, Tracy Weber, Agnes Chang, Katie Campbell, Joe Singer, Kengo Tsutsumi, Ruth Baron, David Sleight, Sisi Wei, Claire Perlman, Joshua Hunt and Nate Schweber also contributed to this series.

“The Navy actively blocked reporting at every step, with communications officers attempting to dissuade officials from conducting interviews with ProPublica and leaking positive stories to competing media outlets in an attempt to front-run our stories,” ProPublica Managing Editor Robin Fields said. “The military even threatened that we could be criminally prosecuted for publishing the material we obtained. This tour de force of investigative journalism is a testament to the unflinching tenacity of the reporters and the innovation of ProPublica’s data, graphics, research and design teams. Their essential work laid bare the avoidance of responsibility by the military’s most senior leaders.”

Just over 550 community pharmacy staff members were referred for COVID-19 tests through a national booking system run by the Care Quality Commission, over ten days in mid-April 2020, the NHS watchdog has told The Pharmaceutical Journal.

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A novel combination of two Lactobacillus paracasei strains may increase absorption of key amino acids in plant proteins, according to a new placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind, multicenter, crossover study.

Among those rallying against state shutdown orders are anti-vaccination activists. They see these protests as a way to form political alliances that promote their movement.

The NHL announces it is postponing the Global Series games that were scheduled to be held in the Czech Republic and Finland in the 2020-21 season.

U.S. leadership, or the lack thereof, in the time of coronavirus

Yokogawa Electric Corporation (TOKYO: 6841) announced today that its subsidiary, Yokogawa Engineering Asia, has been awarded a contract from PUB, Singapore's National Water Agency, to develop a plant simulation system for the Lower Seletar Waterworks, a 60 million gallons per day (mgd) water treatment facility in Singapore. This is part of PUB's continual investments in innovation and R&D to ensure a safe and sustainable water supply for Singapore.

The international Joint Center for Biomedical Innovation (JCBI) is comprised of two partner research nodes using nanoparticle technologies to develop solutions for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases diagnostics. Henan University has established a new research laboratory in nano-bio system innovation and theranostics, with start-up funding and new academic positions. Macquarie’s node is built upon its established excellence in neuroscience and cancer research programs. The collaborative succes…

About Peking University International Cancer Institute (PKUICI)
Peking University International Cancer Institute(PKUICI) was formally established in 2019. With the support of School of Basic Medical Sciences, Cancer Hospital, People's Hospital, Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center (BIOPIC), School of Life Sciences, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Public Health, College of Engineering and other affiliated hospitals of Peking University, PKUICI is aimed to attract and create wor…

npj Microgravity, Published online: 25 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41526-020-0100-5