Study Shows New York City Rats Carry SARS-CoV-2
Washington, DC – A new study has demonstrated that rats are susceptible to infection with Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 and wild rats in the New York City municipal sewer systems and elsewhere in the city have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2. The study was published in mBio, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
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NEW YORK (AP) — A former high-ranking FBI counterintelligence official pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to violate sanctions on Russia by going to work, after he retired, for an oligarch he once investigated.
Appearing before a federal judge in New York City, Charles McGonigal, 55, said he was “deeply remorseful” for work he did in 2021 for the billionaire industrialist Oleg Deripaska.
McGonigal told the judge he accepted over $17,000 to help Deripaska collect derogatory information about another Russian oligarch who was a business competitor. Deripaska has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018 for reasons related to Russia’s occupation of Crimea.
McGonigal was also trying to help Deripaska get off the sanctions list, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Dell said, and was in negotiations along with co-conspirators to receive a fee of $650,000 to $3 million to hunt for electronic files revealing hidden assets of $500 million belonging to the oligarch’s business rival.
McGonigal pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiring to launder money and violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. He could face up to five years in prison. Judge Jennifer H. Rearden scheduled his sentencing for Dec. 14.
READ MORE: Major U.S. firms supplied equipment to keep Russian oil flowing after Ukraine invasion
McGonigal, who lives in New York, is separately charged in federal court in Washington, D.C. with concealing at least $225,000 in cash he allegedly received from a former Albanian intelligence official while working for the FBI.
McGonigal was special agent in charge of the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York from 2016 to 2018. He supervised investigations of Russian oligarchs, including Deripaska.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia later affirmed the sanctions against Deripaska, finding there was evidence he had acted as an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
McGonigal, who became choked up at one point as he described his crime, said Deripaska funneled the $17,500 payment he received through a bank in Cypress and a corporation in New Jersey before it was transferred into his bank account.
“This, as you can imagine, has been a painful process not only for me, but for my friends, family and loved ones,” McGonigal said. “I take full responsibility as my actions were never intended to hurt the United States, the FBI and my family and friends.”
In a release, Matthew G. Olsen, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said, “McGonigal, by his own admission, betrayed his oath and actively concealed his illicit work at the bidding of a sanctioned Russian oligarch.”
“Today’s plea shows the Department of Justice’s resolve to pursue and dismantle the illegal networks that Russian oligarchs use to try to escape the reach of our sanctions and evade our laws,” he added.
The post Former FBI official pleads guilty to conspiracy charge for helping Russian oligarch first appeared on The Audio Posts - The News And Times.
Washington, DC – A new study has demonstrated that rats are susceptible to infection with Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 and wild rats in the New York City municipal sewer systems and elsewhere in the city have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2. The study was published in mBio, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. “Our findings highlight the need for further monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in rat populations for potential secondary zoonotic transmission to humans,” said study principal investigator Henry Wan, Ph.D., Professor and Director of the Center for Influenza and Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Missouri. “Overall, our work in this space shows that animals can play a role in pandemics that impact humans, and it’s important that we continue to increase our understanding so we can protect both human and animal health.” Rats are widely distributed in urban communities in the United States. For example, New York City alone has approximately eight million wild rats. These wild rats have ample opportunities to interact with humans. Two previous studies suggested that rats in Asia (Hong Kong) and Europe (Belgium) were exposed to SARS-CoV-2; however, it is unknown which SARS-CoV-2 variant these rats were exposed to in both studies. In the new study, the researchers set out to determine whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus in humans has been transmitted to the rat population in urban areas of the United States, specifically New York City, and if so, which SARS-CoV-2 variant caused those infections. The researchers also set out to determine whether (and which) SARS-CoV-2 variants in NYC can cause infections in rats. “In Fall of 2021, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) sampled Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) in New York City to look for evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection,” said study coauthor Tom DeLiberto, D.V.M., Ph.D., SARS-CoV-2 Coordinator at USDA APHIS Wildlife Services. “Two trapping efforts were conducted during September and November with permission from the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation in and around locations surrounding wastewater systems. Most of the rats were trapped in city parks within Brooklyn, although some were captured near buildings outside of park boundaries.” Biologists collected and processed samples from 79 rats for virological studies and genomic sequencing. The researchers found that the rats were exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and showed a possible link to the viruses that were circulating in humans during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, 13 of 79 rats (16.5%) tested positive. “To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to show SARS-CoV-2 variants can cause infections in the wild rat populations in a major U.S. urban area,” Dr. Wan said. To further investigate rat susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 variants, the researchers conducted a virus challenge study and showed that Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants (variants found in humans) can cause infections in rats (wild-type Sprague Dawley rats), including high replication levels in the upper and lower respiratory tracts and induction of both innate and adaptive immune responses. Susceptibility to infection varied by type of variant. “Our findings highlight the need for further monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in rat populations to determine if the virus is circulating in the animals and evolving into new strains that could pose a risk to humans,” Dr. Wan said. “SARS-CoV-2 virus presents a typical one-health challenge which requires collaborative, multisectoral and transdisciplinary approaches to fully understand such challenges.”
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The post Study Shows New York City Rats Carry SARS-CoV-2 first appeared on The Audio Posts - The News And Times.
Leaders of the BRICS bloc of leading developing countries have agreed mechanisms for considering new members, South Africa said on Wednesday, paving the way for dozens of interested nations to join the group which has pledged to champion the "Global South".
Agreement on expansion could help lend global clout to BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - at a time when geopolitical polarisation is spurring efforts by Beijing and Moscow to forge it into a viable counterweight to the West.
"We have agreed on the matter of expansion," South Africa's foreign minister Naledi Pandor said on Ubuntu Radio, a station run by her ministry, following a meeting by BRICS leaders at a three-day summit in South Africa.
"We have a document that we've adopted which sets out guidelines and principles, processes for considering countries that wish to become members of BRICS...That's very positive."
Enlarging BRICS has topped the agenda at the summit taking place in Johannesburg. While all BRICS members had publicly expressed support for growing the bloc, there had been divisions among the leaders over how much and how quickly.
Its member countries also have economies that are vastly different in scale and governments that often seem to have few foreign policy goals in common, complicating its consensus-driven decision-making.
China's economy for example, is more than 40 times larger than South Africa's, Africa's most developed country.
Pandor did not give details of the framework of criteria for considering candidates, simply saying that the bloc's leaders would make an announcement on expansion before the summit concludes on Thursday.
More than 40 countries have expressed interest in joining BRICS, say South African officials, and 22 have formally asked to be admitted.
They represent a disparate pool of potential candidates - from Iran to Argentina - motivated largely by a desire to level a global playing field many consider rigged against them and attracted by BRICS' promise to rebalance the global order.
"The world is undergoing major shifts, division and regrouping ... it has entered a new period of turbulence and transformation," said China's President Xi Jinping, who has long pushed for the expansion of the BRICS group.
"Development is an inalienable right of all countries. It is not a privilege reserved for a few," he told the summit earlier on Wednesday.
Though home to about 40% of the world's population and a quarter of global GDP, the bloc's ambitions of becoming a global political and economic player have long been thwarted by internal divisions and a lack of coherent vision.
Russia, isolated by the United States and Europe over its invasion of Ukraine, is keen to show Western powers it still has friends.
Brazil and India, in contrast, have both forged closer ties with the West.
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday rejected the idea the bloc should seek to rival the United States and Group of Seven wealthy economies.
Moves to expand the bloc and push its New Development Bank as an alternative to established multilateral lenders are, however, raising some concern in the West.
Werner Hoyer, the head of European Investment Bank, warned the West on Wednesday it was in danger of losing confidence of the "Global South", unless it urgently intensified its own support efforts for poorer countries.
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(Reuters) -The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday the new BA.2.86 lineage of coronavirus may be more capable than older variants in causing infection in people who have previously had COVID-19 or who have received vaccines.
CDC said it was too soon to know whether this might cause more severe illness compared with previous variants.
But due to the high number of mutations detected in this lineage, there were concerns about its impact on immunity from vaccines and previous infections, the agency said.
Scientists are keeping an eye on the BA.2.86 lineage because it has 36 mutations that distinguish it from the currently-dominant XBB.1.5 variant.
CDC, however, said virus samples are not yet broadly available for more reliable laboratory testing of antibodies.
The agency had earlier this month said it was tracking the highly mutated BA.2.86 lineage, which has been detected in the United States, Denmark and Israel.
CDC said on Wednesday the current increase in hospitalizations in the United States is not likely driven by the BA.2.86 lineage.
image/jpeg Rudy Giuliani is heading to Georgia to surrender where he faces 13 counts related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Speaking to reporters, Giuliani maintains his innocence, stating, "I will plead not guilty," while also humorously acknowledging the irony of having his mugshot taken, given his past roles in apprehending significant 20th-century criminals. Other co-defendants, like Kenneth Chesebro and Ray Smith, reportedly surrendered to authorities early Wednesday morning, with the former president expected to turn himself in on Thursday. NBC News' Garrett Haake, The Dispatch's David Drucker and MSNBC political analyst Brendan Buck join the conversation.
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Giuliani's 13-count case: Georgia surrender looms
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Study Shows New York City Rats Carry SARS-CoV-2
SARS‐CoV‐2 surveillance in Norway rats (Rattus ...
SARS-CoV-2 Exposure in Norway Rats (Rattus norvegicus ...
<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov" rel="nofollow">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov</a> › ...by Y Wang · 2023 · Cited by 7 — Millions of Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) inhabit New York City (NYC), presenting the potential for transmission of severe acute respiratory ...
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