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Trump Doc Inquiry Poses Unparalleled Take a look at for Justice Dept.

Trump Document Inquiry Poses Unparalleled Test for Justice Dept.

WASHINGTON — As Justice Department officials haggled for months this year with former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers and aides over the return of government documents at his Florida home, federal prosecutors became convinced that they were not being told the whole truth.

That conclusion helped set in motion a decision that would amount to an unparalleled test of the Justice Department’s credibility in a deeply polarized political environment: to seek a search warrant to enter Mar-a-Lago and retrieve what prosecutors suspected would be highly classified materials, beyond the hundreds of pages that Mr. Trump had already returned.

By the government’s account, that gamble paid off, with FBI agents carting off boxloads of sensitive material during the search three weeks ago, including some documents with top secret markings.

But the matter hardly ended there: What had started as an effort to retrieve national security documents has now been transformed into one of the most challenging, complicated and potentially explosive criminal investigations in recent memory, with tremendous implications for the Justice Department, Mr. Trump and public faith in government.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland now faces the prospect of having to decide whether to file criminal charges against a former president and likely 2024 Republican candidate, a step without any historical parallel.

Remarkably, he may have to make this choice twice, depending on what evidence his investigators find in their separate, broad inquiry into Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election and his involvement with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The department’s Jan. 6 investigation began as a manhunt for the rioters who attacked the Capitol. But last fall it expanded to include actions that occurred before the assault, such as the plan to submit slates of electors to Congress that falsely stated Mr. Trump had won in several key swing states.

This summer, prosecutors in the US attorney’s office in Washington began to ask witnesses directly about any involvement by Mr. Trump and members of his inner circle, including the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, had in efforts to reverse his election loss.

For all his efforts to distance the department from politics, Mr. Garland cannot escape the political repercussions of his decisions. How he handles Mr. Trump will surely define his tenure.

It is still unclear how either case will play out. Prosecutors working on the investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified information are nowhere near making a recommendation to Mr. Garland, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry. Court filings describe the work as continuing, with the possibility of more witness interviews and other investigative steps to come.

The Trump Investigations

Cards 1 of 6

The Trump Investigations

Numerous inquiries. Since former President Donald J. Trump left office, he has been facing several civil and criminal investigations into his business dealings and political activities. Here is a look at some notable cases:

The Trump Investigations

Jan 6 investigations. In a series of public hearings, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack laid out a comprehensive narrative of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. This evidence could allow federal prosecutors, who are conducting a parallel criminal investigation, to indict Mr. Trump.

The Trump Investigations

Georgia election interference case. Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney, has been leading a wide-ranging criminal investigation into the efforts of Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. This case could pose the most immediate legal peril for the former president and his associates.

The Trump Investigations

New York State civil inquiry. Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, has been conducting a civil investigation into Mr. Trump and his family business. The case is focused on whether Mr. Trump’s statements about the value of his assets were part of a pattern of fraud or were simply Trumpian showmanship.

So far, Mr. Garland has signaled that he is comfortable with owning all of the decisions related to Mr. Trump. He has resisted calls to appoint a special counsel to deal with investigations into the former president. In his first speech to the department’s 115,000 employees last year, he expressed faith that together they could handle any case. “All of us are united by our commitment to the rule of law and to seeking equal justice under law,” he said.

Over the course of this year, as prosecutors sought to understand how sensitive government documents ended up at Mr. Trump’s Florida resort, they began to examine whether three laws had been broken: the Espionage Act, which outlaws the unauthorized retention or disclosure of national security information; a law prohibiting the mishandling of sensitive government records; and a law against obstructing a federal investigation.

By summertime, the investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified information had started to yield compelling indications of possible intent to thwart the law, according to two people familiar with the work. While there was not necessarily ironclad evidence, witness interviews and other materials began to point to the possibility of deliberate attempts to mislead investigators. In addition to witness interviews, the Justice Department obtained security camera footage of various parts of Mar-a-Lago from the Trump Organization.

What we consider before using anonymous sources.
How do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even satisfied with these questions, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.

The heavily redacted affidavit explaining the government’s desire for a search warrant said that the Justice Department had “probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at” Mar-a-Lago, and that “the government has well-founded concerns that steps may be taken to frustrate or otherwise interfere with this investigation if facts in the affidavit were prematurely disclosed.”

But a decision about whether to charge Mr. Trump over attempts to obstruct the investigation, or his handling of sensitive national security information, would involve a variety of considerations.

At the heart of the case would be evidence uncovered by the FBI, which is still trying to understand how and why government records made their way to Mar-a-Lago and why some stayed there despite repeated requests for their return by the National Archives and a later subpoena from the Justice Department.

But the highly classified nature of some of the documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago and the possible evidence of obstruction are only some elements that will go into any final decision about pursuing a prosecution.

Career national security prosecutors will conduct a robust analysis of whether that evidence persuasively shows that laws were broken. That process will include a look at how the facts have been applied in similar cases brought under those same laws, information that prosecutors examined when they investigated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the former CIA director David H. Petraeus.

Key developments in the inquiries into the former president and his allies.

In the case involving Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server, for instance, officials in the national security division asked prosecutors to dive deep into the history of the Espionage Act. At issue was whether her handling of classified information indicated she had engaged in gross negligence. One compelling case of gross negligence that they did find, involving a former FBI agent, included far more serious factors. After examining past examples, they found that her case did not meet that standard. In the end, the consensus was not to charge Mrs. Clinton.

But Mr. Trump’s case presents the additional question of obstruction of justice, and the possibility that evidence could show that he or his legal team defied the Justice Department to hold onto documents that belonged to the government.

That in some ways echoes a previous obstruction inquiry conducted by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel who examined whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election. His final report showed that Mr. Trump tried to curtail, or even end, the special counsel inquiry as he learned more about it. But Mr. Mueller declined to say whether Mr. Trump had broken the law, allowing the attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, to clear Mr. Trump of that crime.

There is no way to know whether the Justice Department has facts regarding obstruction that meet its standard of prosecution, which is evidence that would “probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.”

But the Justice Department’s own legal filings have thrust the question of obstruction into public view. Should Mr. Garland find that there is not enough evidence to indict Mr. Trump, the Justice Department under two successive administrations will have chosen not to recommend prosecuting Mr. Trump for that crime.

If Mr. Garland chooses to move forward with charges, it will be a historic moment for the presidency, a former leader of the United States accused of committing a crime and possibly forced to defend himself before a jury of his fellow citizens. It is a process that could potentially unfold even as he runs again for the White House against an incumbent whose administration is prosecuting him.

That, too, runs huge risks for the department’s credibility, particularly if the national security threat presented by Mr. Trump’s possession of the documents, inevitably disclosed at least in part during the course of any trial, do not seem substantial enough to warrant such a grave move.

Mr. Garland and his investigators are fully aware of the implications of their decisions, according to people familiar with their work. The knowledge that they will be scrutinized for impropriety and overreach, they say, has underscored the need to hew to the facts.

But a decision to prosecute — or to decline to prosecute — has political implications that Mr. Garland cannot escape. And no matter of judiciousness can change the fact that he is operating within an America as politically divided as it has been in decades.

Mr. Trump’s supporters have viewed any investigative steps around the former president as illegitimate attacks by a partisan Justice Department that is out to get him. And his detractors believe that any decision not to prosecute, no matter the evidence, would show that Mr. Trump is indeed above the law.

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Health

Rice College Says Virus Take a look at Glitch Prompted False Positives

Rice University Says Virus Test Glitch Caused False Positives

Rice University, where more than 95 percent of students are vaccinated, announced a move to remote classes last week after testing showed an alarmingly high number of community members with breakthrough coronavirus infections.

Those results, the university now says, were badly distorted by a testing glitch.

Of 4,500 tests administered on the Rice campus, 81 had returned positive results, mostly in vaccinated members of Rice’s community. Even in Houston, where the Delta variant was surging, the results were a surprise. Rice had taken tough efforts to control coronavirus in its community, practically demanding that students, faculty and staff be vaccinated, even as the state of Texas prohibited vaccination mandates. The university also required masks.

Further examination revealed that most of the people who appeared to have tested positive were actually negative for the virus, the university now says.

When Rice began to examine the cases, it found that the results didn’t make sense, according to a note to the university community on Sunday from Kevin E. Kirby, vice president for administration at Rice. Most of the people who tested positive did not have any symptoms. And the cases were scattered, with no clusters.

Rice discovered that the testing provider that reported so many positive results had just switched to using a new test. When 50 of the people who tested positive were retested using different types of tests, all but one of the results came back negative.

All the same, Rice says that it plans to stick with its decision to move to remote learning until Sept. 3. According to a university Covid dashboard, Rice now considers only 27 of the 4,500 tests administered on campus since Aug. 13 to have yielded true positive results, not 81.

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Health

The right way to get residence if I check optimistic for Covid whereas touring?

How to get home if I test positive for Covid while traveling?

When Ken McElroy decided to go to Belize last June after a business trip to Miami, he said he was not worried about contracting Covid-19.

The CEO of the real estate investment company flew to both places privately – he is also vaccinated.

“I thought there was no way I was going to get it,” he told CNBC.

His fiancée, Danille Underwood, wasn’t that confident, McElroy said.

After 10 days in Belize, the couple took Covid tests the day before their flight back to Arizona. Although he felt tired and she coughed, they were both surprised when their tests were positive.

“We were out of our room within an hour,” said McElroy. “At that point, it got pretty real.”

With the help of people in protective suits, the couple were quarantined in a different part of the hotel, he said.

“We weren’t sure what was going to happen … whether they’d split us up or take us to a hospital,” McElroy said. “I didn’t know if I would need a ventilator.”

None of that happened. Within 72 hours, the couple were back in Arizona on a Learjet.

“Then Delta appeared”

Before leaving, Underwood bought memberships from Covac Global, a medical evacuation company founded by the crisis response firm HRI in early 2020. This meant the couple didn’t pay a dime for their repatriation, McElroy said.

Commercial airlines and private jets cannot fly travelers home with Covid-19, but certified ambulances with medical teams can.

Covid started to be more in the rearview mirror, but then Delta showed up.

Ross Thompson

CEO, Covac Global

While some companies are evacuating travelers in need of hospitalization, Covac Global is bringing back travelers who have tested positive for Covid-19 and have a self-reported symptom. About 85% of the evacuees will be returned home while the rest will need hospital treatment, said CEO Ross Thompson.

When CNBC first spoke to the company in March, it carried out about two to three medical evacuations every month. Now that number has risen to around 12 to 20.

“Unfortunately, business is booming,” said Thompson. “Covid was more and more in the rearview mirror, but then Delta showed up – and it threw everyone on one lap.”

Covac Global memberships have increased 500% this year, up 250% in the last month alone, he said.

So-called “breakthrough infections” caused by the highly contagious Delta variant lead to people who have been vaccinated being sick or stuck far away from home. About 60% of the current evacuees are vaccinated, Thompson said, because “they are now most comfortable traveling”.

Ken McElroy and Danille Underwood board a helicopter to fly to Belize City.

Courtesy Ken McElroy

Many countries require negative tests to return home, which shows mild cases of Covid-19 in travelers who did not know they were infected.

“We find that between 30 and 40% of members test positive by the end of their trip,” said Thompson. “We see it also in the unvaccinated younger children of vaccinated travelers.”

Another medical evacuation company, Medjet, reports a record summer, announcing that sales of MedjetHorizon memberships – its highest level of coverage – hit an all-time high in July. The company was just seeing its highest net monthly gain in more than a decade, it said.

The calls for help are above pre-pandemic levels, said Medjet CEO John Gobbels, although not all of them are related to the pandemic.

“Some are for Covid, but the majority are still the same old things that never went away,” he said.

“Literally from door to door”

After flying to mainland Belize by helicopter and boarding a Learjet (“we didn’t have to go to the terminal”), McElroy and Underwood flew to Phoenix, where a limo bus was waiting on the tarmac.

The service “was literally door-to-door,” said McElroy.

It’s not about five-star service, though, Thompson said. Certified ambulances are required to take Covid-positive patients either to hospitals or, in the case of Covac Global, to their homes, he said.

Medical evacuation flights, like the one McElroy and Underwood flew home on, are like a private jet and a hospital emergency room rolled into one, Ross Thompson said.

Courtesy Ken McElroy

Otherwise, situations arise where non-members ask to be evacuated to the closest city in their country so they can drive to their homes to save money, he said. Instead of driving, they can get on a commercial flight, which Thompson calls “a big no-no”.

McElroy called his fiancée “the hero of history” because she pushed for her evacuation policy and eventually bought her.

“Astronomically expensive”

Other travelers are less fortunate.

CNBC spoke to a 43-year-old Singapore man who tried to move back to Singapore from India last April to start a new job. The trip – which can only be a six-hour flight – turned into a six-week saga. The man asked for anonymity for this report.

Singapore restricted travelers from India, so the man and his family planned a two-week trip to Nepal from which they could fly direct to Singapore. There the Delta variant exploded in the region and all flights from Nepal to Singapore were canceled.

Within a few days, the man, his wife, three children and his 85-year-old mother all tested positive for Covid, he said. At the time, Nepal had imposed a strict lockdown – gas stations and public transport were closed and the family struggled to find food and medicine.

For reasons of space, Covid-19 patients flock to the hallways of a hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal on May 11, 2021.

Prabin Ranabhat | SOPA pictures | LightRakete | Getty Images

“We didn’t know anyone,” he said. “We didn’t know about the medical system, and people die, left, right, and in the middle with no beds and no oxygen.”

The family was evicted from their sheltered home when management learned of their health, he said. Weeks passed and the family made a full recovery, but they were prevented from taking the weekly flight back to Delhi because they continued to test positive for Covid-19.

“The RT-PCR [test] basically looking for the virus’ DNA, it doesn’t differentiate between dead and living cells, “he said.

He was investigating medical evacuations, but a friend who was also stuck in the Philippines told him that such flights were “astronomically expensive”.

Eventually the family tested negative and returned to Delhi. In the 20 days after his recovery, the man told CNBC that he slept in 12 different locations. He is now in Singapore, but some of his family members remain in India.

Members vs. non-members

Medical evacuations are expensive. Thompson said evacuations from Singapore to New York could cost up to $ 300,000. Still, 70% of Covac Global evacuations are non-members who pay out of pocket to be flown home from places like the Bahamas, Mexico, South Africa and Dubai.

Since membership opened to all nationalities on July 15, the company has been evacuating more people across Europe, particularly from Spain to the UK.

Comparison of Covid evacuation memberships

Medjet assistant Global salvation Covac Global
deduction Hospitalized 150+ miles from home Hospital more than 100 miles from home Positive PCR test + 1 symptom
Returned Hospital of choice Hospital of choice Home or hospital
Covers other medical problems Yes sir Yes sir Optional add-on
Availability Residents of the United States, Mexico, and Canada All nationalities All nationalities
Cruise coverage Yes sir Yes sir no
Starting prices $ 99 $ 119 $ 675
Source: Medjet, Global Rescue and Covac Global

So far, Thompson said, no foreign government has refused his company’s request to evacuate a Covid-positive traveler from its territory. Usually they like to let her go, he said.

“They don’t want news of a foreigner dying in their Delta hospitals,” he said, nor do they “want to lose one of their beds to a foreigner.”

The only timing problems can occur when a hospital has already started treatment. “From that point on, governments get really a little weird,” he said.

The cruise riddle

Memberships with companies like Medjet and Global Rescue cover cruise passengers, but Covac Global does not.

“Cruises are doing really well with their protocols and policies,” Thompson said. “But the problem is … every time it is reported or not, there are people who are sick.”

Covac Global has evacuated Covid-positive travelers who are not members of cruises, although these cases are not making headlines, he said.

Thompson said service is not expensive for budget cruisers.

“The shipping companies,” he said, “are only tacitly paying for it out of their own pocket.”

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Politics

Senators Wicker, King and Hickenlooper Take a look at Constructive

Senators Wicker, King and Hickenlooper Test Positive

Senators Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, Angus King, independent of Maine, and John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, said on Thursday that they had tested positive for the coronavirus, adding to the number of breakthrough cases among lawmakers.

“Senator Wicker is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, is in good health and is being treated by his Tupelo-based physician,” his spokesman, Phillip Waller, said in a statement released by his office, adding that the senator was experiencing only mild symptoms.

The announcement from Mr. Wicker came as his home state has shattered previous records for new cases this week, and is now reporting more new cases relative to its population than any other state in the country. Mississippi is averaging 118 new cases a day for every 100,000 people, according to data compiled by The New York Times.

Mr. King’s statement said he was symptomatic but taking recommended precautions.

“While I am not feeling great, I’m definitely feeling much better than I would have without the vaccine,” he said. “I am taking this diagnosis very seriously, quarantining myself at home and telling the few people I’ve been in contact with to get tested in order to limit any further spread.”

Mr. Hickenlooper said on Twitter that he was experiencing limited symptoms and expressed gratitude to scientists who had developed the vaccine. He also encouraged vaccinated people to get booster shots in accordance with a plan that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced this week.

The Senate is in recess this week after adjourning early last Wednesday, leaving it unclear whether any of the men had been in recent contact with other lawmakers, as well as when or where they were first exposed. Their diagnoses brings to 11 the number of senators who have tested positive so far, according to news reports compiled by Ballotpedia, a political data website; more than 50 members of the House have tested positive.

Several other vaccinated politicians have recently announced breakthrough cases of their own, including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who said he tested positive for the virus after attending a gathering hosted by Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.

On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas tested positive and began receiving an antibody treatment, highlighting both the growing concerns over breakthrough cases in the United States and the political tensions over public health measures that Mr. Abbott has consistently opposed in his home state.

While Mr. Wicker has encouraged his constituents to get vaccinated and has applauded the national vaccination effort in official statements, he has also resisted elements of the Biden administration’s coronavirus response. In June, he introduced a resolution calling on the C.D.C. to end a mask mandate for vaccinated people on public transportation.

As the Delta variant spreads aggressively, infections in vaccinated people have been seen more frequently, though they are still rare. The surge and the rising frequency of breakthrough infections have prompted agencies to extend public health measures. The Transportation Security Administration said on Tuesday that the mask mandate would remain in effect on public transportation through Jan. 18.

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Health

Sens. Wicker, King check optimistic for Covid after being totally vaccinated

Sens. Wicker, King test positive for Covid after being fully vaccinated

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, left, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images; Tom Williams-Pool | Getty Images

Sens. Roger Wicker and Angus King, who are both vaccinated for the coronavirus, tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday after experiencing symptoms.

Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi, and King, an independent from Maine, are the latest in a string of prominent politicians to announce positive coronavirus tests in recent weeks despite being fully vaccinated. Others include Republicans Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.

“Senator Wicker is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, is in good health, and is being treated by his Tupelo-based physician,” Phillip Waller, Wicker’s communications director, said in a statement. The 70-year-old Wicker “is isolating, and everyone with whom Senator Wicker has come in close contact recently has been notified.”

The Senate is in recess this week, and many of the chamber’s members are in home states either preparing for 2022 elections or checking in with district offices.

“Despite all my efforts, when I began feeling mildly feverish yesterday, I took a test this morning at my doctor’s suggestion, and it came back positive,” King, 77, said in a statement. “While I am not feeling great, I’m definitely feeling much better than I would have without the vaccine.”

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) holds a chart as bipartisan members of the Senate and House gather to announce a framework for fresh coronavirus relief legislation at a news conference on Capitol Hill on Dec. 1, 2020.

Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

Wicker’s and King’s positive tests came as the Biden administration ramps up efforts to encourage Americans to seek booster shots starting next month amid a growing pool of data that shows vaccine protections fade over time.

Three of Washington’s top health experts on Wednesday provided further details on how the immune system’s protections wane over time.

It’s now “very clear” that immunity starts to fall after the initial two doses, and with the dominance of the delta variant, “we are starting to see evidence of reduced protection against mild and moderate disease,” according to a statement signed by CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and other U.S. health leaders.

New Covid-19 cases are emerging at their highest rates since winter as the delta variant of the coronavirus sweeps across the U.S. Health experts blame its rapid spread for the uptick in case counts and deaths as a growing number of so-called “breakthrough” cases show fully vaccinated people are still at risk.

More than 140,000 new cases and 822 deaths were reported in the U.S. on Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of new daily deaths has more than doubled since the start of August.

The situation in Florida and Texas is especially grim, with case counts in both states blowing past records and overwhelming hospital systems.

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World News

Boeing additional delays Starliner OFT-2 crew spacecraft take a look at flight

Boeing further delays Starliner OFT-2 crew spacecraft test flight

Boeing’s Starliner capsule sits on the launch pad prior to the launch of the OFT-2 mission on an Atlas V rocket.

United Launch Alliance

Boeing’s second unmanned flight test of its Starliner spacecraft has been delayed by at least two months due to problems with the capsule’s drive valves, the company said on Friday.

The latest mission – called Orbital Flight Test 2 or OFT-2 – was previously targeted for December 2020, but Boeing delayed the launch several times, with August 3 being the most recent target. During preparations on launch day, Boeing discovered that 13 valves on the spacecraft’s propulsion system were not opening, causing the company to delay launch.

While the company’s engineers restored functionality to nine of the 13 valves over the past week and a half, Boeing Vice President John Vollmer said the team had “exhausted all possible options” to fix Starliner while the capsule was on the rocket – which required a return to the company’s processing facility for further investigation.

According to Vollmer, Boeing is working with Aerojet Rocketdyne, the manufacturer of the valves, to identify the exact cause of the problems and analyze possible preventive measures or new designs.

The extra work means Boeing won’t have an opportunity to launch OFT-2 this month, NASA Commercial Crew program manager Steve Stich told reporters, and is “definitely on the other hand” delaying an agency mission scheduled for mid-October.

The OFT-2 delay announcement comes about 19 months after Boeing’s first flight test went wrong.

OFT-2 represents a repetition of Boeing’s first unmanned flight test in December 2019. This first Starliner mission was canceled when, after a successful launch, the spacecraft’s flight control system misfired and the capsule did not reach the International Space Station as planned. While Boeing was able to test many parts of the Starliner during the shortened flight, NASA declared the flight test a “tight call” and said the spacecraft could have been lost twice during the mission.

The company made dozens of changes, along with NASA, according to an investigation. In addition, Boeing is assuming the cost of OFT-2 after allocating $ 410 million shortly after the initial flight test. Vollmer said Friday he wasn’t sure how much the delay and extra work will cost Boeing.

Competing with SpaceX

Boeing developed Starliner as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, which the space agency began in 2010 when the space shuttle retired. The aim of the program was to encourage private sector companies to develop the most cost-effective, innovative and safest way to get astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The program was structured as a multi-stage competition in which companies competed for NASA contracts to build space transportation systems under certain parameters set by the agency. NASA eventually awarded the contracts to SpaceX and Boeing, with the latter aerospace entrepreneur receiving nearly $ 5 billion to develop the Starliner.

Built to carry up to five people to the International Space Station, Starliner launches on an Atlas V rocket – built and operated by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

SpaceX and Boeing have been building and testing their crew transport systems for almost a decade. However, SpaceX’s successful launch of astronauts in May 2020 was an important milestone for the company as Boeing had to catch up. SpaceX’s launch marked the first time NASA astronauts took off from US soil since 2011 and the first time a commercially built spacecraft carried NASA astronauts.

Since then, SpaceX has flown two astronaut missions for NASA with its Crew Dragon capsules and safely transported a total of 10 people into space. Elon Musk’s company has two more crew launches planned for this fall, with the private Inspiration4 mission and the Crew 3 mission for NASA.

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Health

Lengthy Covid check may quickly be accessible, researchers hope

Long Covid test could soon be available, researchers hope

Shalonda Williams-Hampton, 32, has her blood drawn by Northwell Health medical staff for the antibody tests that determine if a person has immunity to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the First Baptist Cathedral of Westbury in Westbury, New York, has developed. 05/13/2020.

Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

“Long Covid” – the name for persistent symptoms that millions have reported after being infected with Covid-19 – is here to “haunt us for a while,” according to a scientist studying the effects of the disease. But there is hope that a diagnostic test may be developed soon.

Symptoms of long-term Covid vary, but may include persistent tiredness, shortness of breath, memory loss or difficulty concentrating (referred to as “brain fog”), insomnia, chest pain, or dizziness. However, it remains a poorly understood condition and scientists do not yet know why some people continue to have some symptoms after Covid and others do not.

Data recently collected in a UK study suggested that millions of people could be affected by long-term Covid following coronavirus infection. To date, more than 187 million cases of Covid have been registered worldwide. Given this number, the potential number of people who could be affected by long-term Covid is significant.

Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told CNBC on Tuesday that “the data (on long Covid) is coming through thick and fast and what they say of the 170 million people on the planet who are infected with this virus that 10-20% of them will have long-term persistent symptoms. “

“What you see are people with wheezing or shortness of breath, fatigue and brain fog and this long list of about 50 symptoms. So it’s really a thing and a thing that will haunt us for a while. It’s a price we’re paying we have to and we have to look at people’s lives and jobs and health care for them, “he told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe.

Altmann found that data on long Covid “were very reproducible all over the world, regardless of whether you are looking in China or Bangladesh or France or the USA”.

Scientists consider organ damage due to a Covid infection, problems with the immune system after an infection or reactivation of the virus as possible causes of long Covid; or maybe a combination of factors.

A UK study published last October identified the main factors that increase the likelihood of patients suffering from the coronavirus over the long term, including age, weight and gender. But further research gives hope that there may soon be a test to diagnose the poorly understood, but often life-changing condition.

Tests for long Covid?

Altmann from Imperial College is part of a team that has been researching Covid and analyzing blood samples from those who have it to find the cause.

In a preview of their early results on Monday evening on the BBC’s Panorama program, the team said it found that irregular antibodies were common in blood samples from people with long-term Covid.

Usually the immune system creates a protective response by making antibodies to fight a virus, but sometimes it goes wrong and “autoantibodies” – sometimes called “rogue antibodies” – are produced that attack healthy cells.

Altmann’s researchers found that such autoantibodies were widespread in people with long Covid, although only a few blood samples were analyzed in the pilot study. However, autoantibodies were found in comparative blood samples from people who recovered quickly from the virus or who never tested positive for Covid-19.

Still, the detection of such irregular antibodies in people with long Covid could pave the way for a simple diagnostic test that analyzes a person’s blood. If autoantibodies are found, long Covid could potentially be diagnosed; and this, in turn, could help create treatment and recovery plans for patients.

Speaking to the BBC, Altmann said the results could not yet be called a breakthrough, but they were “very exciting progress”.

“One of the things that we know with absolute certainty is that Covid can result from any type of infection for a long time: asymptomatic, light or severe,” he told Panorama.

“The pilot data we have says that you can really see different patterns of autoimmunity in people with long Covid,” he said. Although more research needs to be done, Altmann said he was optimistic that there could be a simple blood test that can diagnose long Covid within six months.

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Health

A Covid Take a look at as Simple as Respiration

A Covid Test as Easy as Breathing

People with diabetes, for instance, may have breath that smells fruity or sweet. The odor is caused by ketones, chemicals produced when the body begins to burn fat instead of glucose for energy, a metabolic state known as ketosis.

“The idea that exhaled breath could hold diagnostic potential has been around for some time,” Dr. Davis said. “There are reports in ancient Greek and also ancient Chinese medical training texts that reference a physician’s use of smell as a way to help guide their clinical practice.”

Modern technologies can detect more subtle chemical changes, and machine learning algorithms can identify patterns in breath samples from people with certain diseases. In recent years, scientists have used these methods to identify unique “breathprints” for lung cancer, liver disease, tuberculosis, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease and other conditions. (Dr. Davis and her colleagues have even used V.O.C. profiles to distinguish among cells that had been infected with different strains of flu.)

Before Covid hit, Breathomix had been developing an electronic nose to detect several other respiratory diseases. “We train our system, ‘OK, this is how asthma smells, this how lung cancer smells,” said Rianne de Vries, the company’s chief technology and scientific officer. “So it’s building a big database and finding patterns in big data.”

Last year, the company — and many other researchers in the field — pivoted and began trying to identify a breathprint for Covid-19. During the virus’s initial surge in the spring of 2020, for instance, researchers in Britain and Germany collected breath samples from 98 people who showed up at hospitals with respiratory symptoms. (Participants were asked to exhale into a disposable tube; the researchers then used a syringe to extract a sample of their breath.)

Thirty-one of the patients turned out to have Covid, while the remainder had a variety of diagnoses, including asthma, bacterial pneumonia or heart failure, the researchers reported. The breath samples from people with Covid-19 had higher levels of aldehydes, compounds produced when cells or tissues are damaged by inflammation, and ketones, which fits with research suggesting that the virus may damage the pancreas and cause ketosis.

The Covid patients also had lower levels of methanol, which could be a sign that the virus had inflamed the gastrointestinal system or killed the methanol-producing bacteria that live there. Those breath changes combined “give us a Covid-19 signal,” said Dr. Thomas, a co-author of the study.

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Quidel recollects Lyra Covid take a look at attributable to excessive threat of false detrimental outcomes

Quidel recalls Lyra Covid test due to high risk of false negative results

A man inquires in a mobile test car in Brooklyn, New York, the United States, Jan.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Quidel is recalling its Lyra Covid-19 assay test due to a high risk of false negative results in patients who actually have high levels of the virus.

Quidel is a company that makes diagnostic health products worldwide. The Covid test received emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration in March. It uses a swab sample from the nasal area to detect RNA that is specific for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

“False-negative results can lead to delayed diagnosis or inadequate treatment of SARS-CoV-2, which can harm the patient, cause serious illness and death,” the FDA wrote on its website announcing the recall.

False negative results could also spread the virus further into a community, putting others at high risk of injury or death.

Quidel has received five complaints about the product, but there are currently no reports of injury or death from its use. The company’s stock plunged around 5% in after-hours trading.

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Why You Nonetheless May Need to Have a House Covid Check on Hand

Why You Still Might Want to Have a Home Covid Test on Hand

Rapid antigen tests are the cheapest (approximately $ 12 per test) and are available in retail stores and online. (They are usually not covered by insurance.) Abbott’s BinaxNOW test includes two rapid antigen tests per pack and costs about $ 24. To take the test, simply wave the swab in both nostrils and place it in a special card. After 15 minutes, the result reads similar to a pregnancy test: Two pink lines indicate that you are positive for Covid-19. The QuickVue At-Home test from Quidel is similarly expensive. After wiping your nose, soak the swab in a solution in a test tube and then in a test strip. You will get results in about 10 minutes.

Updated

June 29, 2021, 5:55 a.m. ET

The rapid antigen tests are less reliable for finding Covid-19 in people with low viral loads than the “gold standard” PCR tests you can get from a healthcare provider. One study found that a rapid home antigen test had a 64 percent chance of correctly detecting the virus in people with symptoms who tested positive on a PCR test. (The test only caught about 36 percent of those who had the virus but had no symptoms.)

But don’t let these numbers put you off. The inexpensive rapid antigen tests provide a reliable rapid test to identify people with infectious virus levels. Suppose you want to invite unvaccinated friends or children to your home. Before hosting an indoor event, you can reduce the risk of asymptomatic spread and infection by 90 percent or more if all guests have a rapid antigen test within an hour of the event, said Dr. Mina.

Rapid tests can also be used as extra protection before spending time with people who are at high risk of complications from Covid-19, such as immune problems or cancer treatments. Neeraj Sood, professor and vice dean of research at the University of Southern California and director of the COVID initiative at the USC Schaeffer Center, said that despite being vaccinated, he would do rapid tests to take extra precautions around such people.

“If I was hanging out in a closed room with a friend who was on chemotherapy and didn’t get the vaccine, I would do two tests,” said Dr. Sood. He did a rapid antigen test three or four days before visiting his friend and another test on the same day of the visit. “If both are negative I am very confident that I don’t have any Covid and I will not pass it on to my friend,” he said.

Rapid tests could also be used to make a small family reunion at home or a children’s birthday party with a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated people safer. “When you put that extra layer of home testing in place, you are all more confident,” said Irene Peterson, professor of epidemiology and health informatics at University College London. “Or you could choose not to have the party.”

If you want more certainty than a rapid antigen test can provide, consider a more expensive, rapid molecular test to use at home. These tests work by detecting the actual genetic material (RNA) of the virus and amplifying it to see if you are infected. A home-use rapid molecular test works almost as well as the PCR tests done in test centers that are processed by a laboratory, but they are also more expensive than the home antigen tests. Lucira does a high-accuracy molecular test for $ 55 that uses nasal swabs and a battery-powered processing unit that gives results in 30 minutes.