Month: November 2021

Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old Illinois man who was a minor when he traveled to Wisconsin and shot two people dead last year during civil rights protests, took the witness stand at his homicide trial on Wednesday in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse made the trip from his home state of Illinois on Aug. 25, 2020, to Kenosha, Wis., claiming he was protecting other people’s properties from protesters during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in the city over the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse, then 17 years old, showed up with an assault-style rifle that he ultimately used to kill activists Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, wounding a third man.

Under cross-examination, Rittenhouse said he did not intend to kill anyone but admitted using deadly force in self-defense that night. In answering questions from his attorneys, Rittenhouse said he killed the men in self-defense after he encountered Joseph Rosenbaum “walking with a steel chain” and a “blue mask around his face.” Breaking into tears on the stand, Rittenhouse explained the moments leading to the first fatal shooting. After a short break, he defended his actions. “I didn’t do anything wrong, I was defending myself,” he said. adding, “I intended to stop the people who were attacking me. I did what I had to do to stop them from attacking me.” However in cross-examination, Rittenhouse said that he knew Rosenbaum was unarmed when he was chasing after the teenager. Rittenhouse said he pointed his rifle at the man in an attempt to deter him, testifying: “I pointed it at him because he kept running at me and I didn’t want him to chase me.” He added that Rosenbaum did not touch him at all that night, but he feared Rosenbaum would take his gun and kill people: “If I would have let Mr. Rosenbaum take my firearm from me, he would have used it and killed me with it and probably killed more people if I would have let him get my gun.”

Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty to six charges, including first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and first-degree attempted intentional homicide. Prosecutors have argued that Rittenhouse was completely unjustified in using deadly force and should be held responsible for the men’s deaths.

The White House confirmed that President Biden will sign the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill into law during a ceremony at the White House on Monday. Biden will be joined by members of Congress and “a diverse group of leaders who fought for its passage across the country,” including governors and mayors from across America, as well as labor union and business leaders. According to a news release from the White House,”At the signing ceremony, the President will highlight how he is following through on his commitment to rebuild the middle class and the historic benefits the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will deliver for American families.”

The news comes after the House of Representatives voted 228-206 on Friday to pass the legislation, which would not have been successful without the support of 13 Republicans who pushed it through. The bill, officially known as the the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, provides hundreds of billions of dollars to improve the nation’s highways, bridges and roads; passenger rail; public transit; broadband access; and the power grid, among other investments in physical infrastructure. It has already passed through the Senate in a vote of 69-30.

Biden spoke about the infrastructure bill on Wednesday in Baltimore, saying Congress took a “monumental step” in passing the measure. In the coming weeks, the president, vice president, and Cabinet will continue to travel the country to communicate how the law will help communities and grow the economy.

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On Tuesday, Pfizer announced it has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) to authorize booster doses of its COVID-19 vaccine for all adults, ages 18 and older. The request comes a month and a half after the FDA authorized boosters for seniors and other higher-risk adults.

The request is similar to one made by Pfizer in August, when it asked federal regulators to amend its full license to allow a booster dose for individuals 16 and older. However many raised concerns that there was insufficient evidence to suggest that vaccine-induced immunity was waning in younger populations, particularly against severe disease. However, the company now says that new data from a large clinical trial of more than 10,000 fully vaccinated people found that a booster dose was over 95% effective against COVID-19 compared to individuals who were fully vaccinated but had not received a booster dose. A press release issued by Pfizer said that during the study period, “there were 5 cases of COVID-19 in the booster group, and 109 cases in the non-boosted group.” The company also says the efficacy of the booster dose was consistent across different ages and racial and ethnic groups.

Up until recently there was not enough known about the risk of a rare potential side effect, myocarditis or pericarditis — inflammation of different parts of the heart — after a third dose, particularly among young men. Safety data has shown that men under the age of 30 are at higher risk of the condition, specifically after the second dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. The FDA has also allowed people to mix-and-match any of the three authorized or approved vaccines in the U.S. as a booster shot..

So far, nearly 25 million booster doses have been administered nationwide, representing more than 12% of individuals who are fully vaccinated. Nearly a third of individuals who are 65 or older and are fully vaccinated have received a booster.

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On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court overturned a ruling which ordered drugmaker Johnson & Johnson to pay $465 million for its role in the state’s opioid crisis. The court ruled 5-1 that District Judge Thad Balkman ruled improperly when he rendered the judgment against J&J in August 2019.

Judge Balkman said at the time that J&J and its subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, created a public nuisance by compromising the health and safety of thousands of Oklahomans by marketing opioids. However, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the company’s actions didn’t violate the public nuisance law, stating: “The court has allowed public nuisance claims to address discrete, localized problems, not policy problems. J&J had no control of its products through the multiple levels of distribution, including after it sold the opioids to distributors and wholesalers, which were then disbursed to pharmacies, hospitals and physicians’ offices, and then prescribed by doctors to patients.”

Johnson & Johnson has faced thousands of lawsuits for its role in the opioid crisis, which the U.S. government blames for nearly 70,000 deaths in 2020. The company agreed to pay up to $5 billion over the next nine years as part of a wide-ranging settlement with 14 states involving up to 4,000 opioid-related claims.

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