Federal court filings allege official committed perjury in lawsuit tied to Louisiana grain terminalThe heartbroken families of have launched an awareness campaign to protect future travellers from the same fate. or signup to continue reading Best friends were in the popular Laos tourist town Vang Vieng when they consumed drinks suspected of containing dangerous levels of methanol, a potentially deadly substance often found in bootleg alcohol, in mid-November. Ms Jones died in a Thai hospital on November 21 and Ms Bowles died the following day. They are among six tourists killed in the suspected mass poisoning after two Danish women, one British woman and an American man died. Bianca's father Mark Jones has thanked the Australian public for the "overwhelming" support and vowed to campaign for answers after his daughter's death. "We can't have the passing of our daughter not lead to change to protect others," he said. "I would like to take this opportunity to urge the Laos government to investigate this to the fullest extent, to make sure this incident doesn't happen again." The Laos Government said it has been "conducting investigations to find causes of the incident and to bring the perpetrators to justice in accordance with the law", in a statement. "The government of the Lao PDR is profoundly saddened over the loss of lives of foreign tourists in Vangvieng District, Vientiane Province and expresses its sincere sympathy and deepest condolences to the families of the deceased," the statement said. The Jones and Bowles families have launched a fundraiser to campaign for awareness among tourists, business owners and communities over the danger of methanol. Almost $115,000 had been within the first 14 hours of the fundraiser with donations from more than 1400 people. "We are incredibly grateful for the outpouring of love and support during this devastating time. Every donation, no matter the size, will not only help us honour Bianca and Holly's memory but also work to prevent other families from experiencing the same heartbreak," the families said on the fundraising page. "This campaign is being run by the families of Bianca and Holly, and we are committed to ensuring that every dollar raised is used transparently and meaningfully." The families said the money would be used to repatriate the young women to Australia and to launch education initiatives about the dangers of methanol poisoning and how it can be avoided. The money will also be used to support existing organisations tackling methanol poisoning through education and prevention efforts. "We want to honour the memory of Bianca, Holly and others impacted by methanol poisoning by turning this tragedy into a mission for change," the families said. Anna Houlahan reports on crime and social issues affecting regional and remote Australia in her role as national crime reporter at Australian Community Media (ACM). She was ACM’s Trainee of the Year in 2023 and, aside from reporting on crime, has travelled the country as a journalist for Explore Travel Magazine. Reach out with news or updates to anna.houlahan@austcommunitymedia.com.au Anna Houlahan reports on crime and social issues affecting regional and remote Australia in her role as national crime reporter at Australian Community Media (ACM). She was ACM’s Trainee of the Year in 2023 and, aside from reporting on crime, has travelled the country as a journalist for Explore Travel Magazine. Reach out with news or updates to anna.houlahan@austcommunitymedia.com.au Advertisement Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date. We care about the protection of your data. Read our . Advertisement
TV hosts Emma and Matt Willis have been left "worried and scared" and want to see more safeguards in place for children around smartphones - after taking part in a pioneering social experiment. In their new Channel 4 documentary Swiped they tackle the timely issue of the impact of smartphones on children’s behaviour. Matt and Emma join forces with The Stanway School in Colchester and challenge a group of Year 8 pupils – and themselves – to give up their smartphones completely for 21 days. The children, some of whom spent five hours a day on their mobiles, initially struggle without their devices that they are addicted to. But they sleep better and are seen on screen more alert in class with some also having less anxiety. Emma and Matt also investigate just what young children have access to on their phones including scenes of violence and hardcore pornography which shocks them. They speak to Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology , about trying to bring about change, including a possible ban on smart phones for under 14s and now want the series to spark a nationwide conversation. Emma told the Mirror : "You only go into something like this if it speaks to you and you want to help shift the needle. All you ever really want is to keep kids safe and I hope this can make a little change in some way, a small part in a bigger thing that keeps them safe online." Posing as 13 year olds on TikTok with new phones they got sent suicide content and violence against women within 4 hours of starting scrolling on a new account. Shocked Emma says: "It’s just not what I thought it would was. I know you hear stories about what can be found on there but finding and searching for something is very different from it being served to you the first time you go on there as a 13 year old." Matt later says some of the things kids have access to on their phones is "terrifying". Matt added ahead of the experiment: "it’s how much time our kids spend on their smart phones that got us worried. I think we’ve signed up to this experiment because we’re living it. We’re going through it with our kids and we have no idea how to navigate this. We’re worried, we’re scared, everything we’re seeing is negative, but we don’t know how to stop it. "Our daughter was 11 when she got a smart phone, it’s been the biggest disruptor between us and her, I feel like I lose her to it quite a bit. I miss her. I remember sitting on the couch once, the TV was playing and we were all on our phone. I was like, ‘This is not good’." The experiment has now brought about change in their own home where they are parents to three children; Isabelle, 15, Ace , 13, and Trixie, 8. Now, mobiles are charged downstairs, not in bedrooms, and their children hand them over so they spend some family time together from 8pm. The Voice host Emma, 48, has deleted instagram from her phone and only looks at it on an iPad. Their youngest child does not yet have a phone and is now unlikely to get a smart phone for a number of years. Emma said: "Our kids first had a phone when they were at secondary school, it feels like everyone has one and they want one. There are times when I definitely feel like I’ve lost them. Personally for me, I wished I’d never given them a smart phone. Our eldest, even now, and we’re a bit scared of her on this subject, which is terrible really because she’s a lovely kid. We never allow them to have social media. Then when she was 14 she had been begging for a long time and we were like, you can have Snapchat. And she’s literally on it all the time. "The one thing that we really want to get out of this experiment is that we really hope that it will get the ball rolling and change will begin. Because I think what we all want is that for our kids to be able to be in the tech world from the right age, but be absolutely safe within it. If we can all kind of put that pressure on, hopefully we can make positive change." Musician Matt, 41, is a recovering drug addict and so has fought addiction before. He said: "I used to belittle it in my head. But when I think about it, I am addicted to my phone. When I'm without it I crave it. I act the same way about this device as I have about substances in the past." He added: "When I think about the idea of a smartphone ban to the age of 14, I think that's a very wise decision. We are exposing them to so much stuff that they can't process or they shouldn't be seeing, and we are allowing that to happen. The Government can't turn a blind eye to this anymore. You've got to look at this and go, this is a massive problem." Further results from the landmark tests, conducted in conjunction with The University of York, will be released later this week. MP Kyle said changes were coming in regarding online safety next Summer but tells the programme a ban on smart phones for under 14s was not the "right way forward" at the moment. However, several doctors speaking on the programme say from what they have witnesses in clinics, giving young children phones has been a disaster in recent years. * Swiped: The School That Banned Smartphones starts on Channel 4 on Wednesday at 8pm and will be available to stream from Wednesday. Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .RA Capital Management Announces Close of $1.4 Billion Acquisition of Aliada Therapeutics by AbbVie
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Closing marks second significant acquisition from RA Capital's Raven incubator in 2024, and first acquisition of a company built by Raven from a technology platform in-licensed from a large pharmaceutical company BOSTON , Dec. 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- RA Capital Management, LP (RA Capital), a multi-stage investment manager dedicated to evidence-based investing in public and private healthcare, life sciences, and planetary health companies, today announced that AbbVie has closed its $1.4 billion acquisition of RA Capital's portfolio company Aliada Therapeutics. Aliada's lead investigational asset is ALIA-1758, an anti-pyroglutamate amyloid beta (3pE-Aβ) antibody, which is in development for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and is currently in a Phase 1 clinical trial. ALIA-1758 utilizes a novel blood-brain barrier-crossing technology that enhances delivery of targeted drugs into the central nervous system. Johnson & Johnson (through its venture capital arm, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc.), RA Capital, and Raven (RA Capital's healthcare incubator) co-founded Aliada and co-led the series seed financing in 2021 to advance the MODELTM platform created by Johnson & Johnson scientists that was licensed to Aliada at its inception. "Congratulations to the Aliada and AbbVie teams and our fellow investors on the close of this transaction," said Joshua Resnick , MD, Senior Managing Director at RA Capital Management and former board director at Aliada. "The acquisition of Aliada is the second significant acquisition of a Raven-grown company this year, joining Novartis' $1 billion upfront acquisition of radiopharmaceutical developer Mariana Oncology in May." "Delivering therapeutics across the blood-brain barrier with a low-volume, subcutaneous injection would be revolutionary for treating Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders, and has long been a dream in the field," said Laura Tadvalkar , PhD, Managing Director at RA Capital Management and former board chair at Aliada. "We look forward to following ALIA-1758's progress through the clinic, as AbbVie advances this important medicine for Alzheimer's disease patients." About Raven Raven is RA Capital Management's healthcare incubator. Raven's experienced team of scientists, operators, and innovators bring deep sector expertise, insight and executional capabilities across therapeutics, diagnostics, devices, and services. Raven builds companies: from originating and incubating new ideas to accelerating compelling innovations and rejuvenating promising assets. About RA Capital Founded in 2004, RA Capital Management is a multi-stage investment manager dedicated to evidence-based investing in public and private healthcare, life sciences, and planetary health companies. RA Capital creates and funds innovative companies, from private seed rounds to public follow-on financings, allowing management teams to drive value creation from inception through commercialization and beyond. RA Capital's knowledge engine is guided by our TechAtlas internal research division, and Raven, RA Capital's company creation team, offers entrepreneurs and innovators a collaborative and comprehensive platform to explore the novel and the re-imagined. RA Capital has more than 175 employees and over $10 billion in assets under management. The companies presented herein were selected to demonstrate a potential successful outcome of a company being incubated within our Raven incubator. They are not intended to represent a complete picture of RA Capital's portfolio, its exposures, risks or potential for positive or negative returns. Past performance is not indicative of future results. View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ra-capital-management-announces-close-of-1-4-billion-acquisition-of-aliada-therapeutics-by-abbvie-302329567.html SOURCE RA Capital Management, LP
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BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's de facto leader said Sunday it could take up to four years to hold elections in Syria, and that he plans to dissolve his Islamist group that led the country's insurgency at an anticipated national dialogue summit for the country. Ahmad al-Sharaa, who leads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group leading the new authority in Syria, made the remarks in an interview with Saudi television network Al-Arabiyya. It comes almost a month after a lightning insurgency led by HTS overthrew President Bashar Assad's decades-long rule, ending the country's uprising-turned civil war that started back in 2011. Al-Sharaa said it would take time to hold elections because of the need for Syria's different forces to hold political dialogue and rewrite the country's constitution following five decades of the Assad dynasty's dictatorial rule. Also, the war-torn country's battered infrastructure needs to be reconstructed, he said. “The chance we have today doesn’t come every 5 or 10 years,” said al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani. “We want the constitution to last for the longest time possible.” Al-Sharaa is Syria's de facto leader until March 1, when Syria's different factions are set to hold a political dialogue to determine the country's political future and establish a transitional government that brings the divided country together. There, he said, HTS will dissolve after years of being the country's most dominant rebel group that held a strategic enclave in the country's northwest. Earlier, an Israeli airstrike in the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday killed 11 people, according to a war monitor, as Israel continues to target Syrian weapons and military infrastructure even after the ouster of Assad. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrike targeted a weapons depot that belonged to Assad’s forces near the industrial town of Adra, northeast of the capital. The observatory said at least 11 people, mostly civilians, were killed. The Israeli military did not comment on the airstrike Sunday. Israel, which has launched hundreds of airstrikes over Syria since the country's uprising turned-civil war broke out in 2011, rarely acknowledges them. It says its targets are Iran-backed groups that backed Assad. Unlike his criticism of key Assad ally Iran, al-Sharaa hoped to maintain “strategic relations” with Russia, whose air force played a critical role in keeping Assad in power for over a decade during the conflict. Moscow has a strategic airbase in Syria. The HTS leader also said negotiations are ongoing with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeastern Syria, and hopes that their armed forces will integrate with the Syrian security agencies. The Kurdish-led group is Washington’s key ally in Syria, where it is heavily involved in targeting sleeper cells belonging to the extremist Islamic State group. Turkish-backed Syrian rebels have been clashing with the SDF even after the insurgency, taking the key city of Manbij, as Ankara hopes to create a buffer zone near its border in northern Syria. The rebels attacked near the strategic northern border town of Kobani, while the SDF shared a video of a rocket attack that destroyed what it said was a radar system south of the city of Manbij. In other developments: — Syrian state-run media said a mass grave was found near the third largest city of Homs. SANA said civil defense workers were sent to to the site in al-Kabo, one of many suspected mass graves where tens of thousands of Syrians are believed to have been buried during a brutal crackdown under Assad and his network of security agencies. — An Egyptian activist wanted by Cairo on charges of incitement to violence and terrorism, Abdulrahman al-Qardawi, was detained by Lebanese security forces after crossing the porous border from Syria, according to two judicial and one security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to to talk to the press. Al-Qardawi is an Egyptian activist residing in Turkey and an outspoken critic of Egypt's government. He had reportedly visited Syria to join celebrations after Assad's downfall. His late father, Youssef al-Qaradawi, was a top and controversial Egyptian cleric revered by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. He had lived in exile in Qatar for decades. — Lebanese security forces apprehended an armed group in the northern city of Tripoli that kidnapped a group of 26 Syrians who were recently smuggled into Lebanon, two Lebanese security officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the information with the media. The Syrians included five women and seven children, and security officials are working to return them to Syria. Kareem Chehayeb, The Associated PressNo. 12 West Virginia women beat Boise State 82-47 to reach title game of Gulf Coast Showcase