FDA licenses smallpox vaccine
The approval of a new vaccine against smallpox was announced Saturday by the Food and Drug Administration, which says the shots could be made quickly if the virtually extinct virus reappears.
The vaccine, ACAM2000, is intended to innoculate people at high risk of exposure to smallpox, a highly contagious disease. The FDA said the vaccine also could be used to protect individuals and populations during a bioterrorist attack.
The U.S. ended routine vaccination against smallpox in 1971, and world health authorities declared the disease eradicated from the wild in 1980. The last known case was reported in Somalia in 1977.
But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, concern arose that smallpox and other infections could be engineered as weapons. That led to the stockpiling of certain vaccines in case they ever are needed – and to vaccinate some military personnel and health care workers.
New York
Drifter charged in strangling
A fugitive sex offender wanted in two states was charged Saturday with strangling a woman and leaving her body beneath a bed at a Times Square hotel.
Police detained the 35-year-old suspect, Clarence Dean, on Friday night after announcing he was wanted for questioning.
The unemployed drifter abruptly checked out of his room at the Hotel Carter on Wednesday after a stay of nearly two weeks. A chambermaid cleaning the room the next morning found the rigid corpse, wrapped in plastic and shoved beneath a bed.
Investigators were still trying to determine the woman’s identity Saturday, but some details emerged about the man now charged with second-degree murder.
Dean has been in and out of trouble with the law for years and was required to register as a sex offender because of a lewd act involving a child in the mid-1990s in Palm Beach, Fla.
Nottingham, Md.
Four will split $330 million pot
Four winning tickets were sold for the estimated $330 million Mega Millions jackpot, one each in Maryland, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia, lottery officials said Saturday.
No one had come forward Saturday to claim a share of the top prize. In Virginia, at least, that can’t happen until Tuesday because the Virginia Lottery offices are closed for the long holiday weekend, spokesman John Hagerty said.
The odds that any ticket would match all five numbers – 8, 18, 22, 40 and 44 – and the Mega Ball number – 11 – drawn Friday night were one in 176 million.
If estimates of the jackpot hold true, it would be the fourth largest in the lottery’s history. It was known as The Big Game when it awarded jackpots of $363 million in 2000 and $331 million in 2002.