NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
_1 Report card: The latest Nation’s Report Card shows eighthgraders’ scores in U.S. history and geography declining since 2014, results Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Thursday called “stark and inexcusable.” Civics scores on the 2018 assessments were the same as in the past round of tests four years earlier, the results show. The assessments, given for the first time digitally on tablets instead of paper, were administered to 42,700 eighthgrade students in 780 public and private schools. The score gaps between white students and their black and Latino peers did not significantly change from 2014 to 2018.
_2 Teen killed: A teenager was fatally shot by his stepfather during a fight that may have been related to the coronavirus pandemic, Atlanta police said. Bernie Hargrove, 42, was charged Thursday with felony murder in the death of De’onte Roberts, 16, the Atlanta JournalConstitution reported. Roberts’s mother told police the teen defied his mother and stepfather’s orders to stay inside because of the virus outbreak and left the house. “Later, the victim returned to the home and kicked in the door to the house where a physical fight began between the suspect and the victim,” police said.
_3 Cancer treatment: As of Wednesday, there’s an FDAapproved treatment option besides chemotherapy for people with triplenegative breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. The Morris Plains, N.J., company Immunomedics got accelerated approval for Trodelvy, as a drug that fills a serious need and is adjudged “reasonably likely” to be beneficial. Though it passed a clinical trial with 108 patients with metastatic breast cancer, Trodelvy still needs to undergo more clinical trials to fully verify that it works. Trodelvy does come with the FDA’s most serious alert. The warning is for abnormally low levels of white blood cells, which fight infection.
_4 Vaccine rates: As parents around the country cancel wellchild checkups to avoid coronavirus exposure, public health experts fear they are inadvertently sowing the seeds of another health crisis. Immunizations are dropping at a dangerous rate, putting millions of children at risk for measles, whooping cough and other lifethreatening illnesses. PCC, a Winooski, Vt., pediatric electronic health records company, gathered vaccine information from 1,000 independent pediatricians nationwide. Using the week of Feb. 16 as a precoronavirus baseline, PCC found that during the week of April 5, the administration of measles, mumps and rubella shots dropped by 50%; diphtheria and whooping cough shots by 42%; and HPV vaccines by 73%. _5 Background checks: A federal judge on Thursday blocked a California law requiring background checks for people buying ammunition, issuing a sharply worded rebuke of “onerous and convoluted” regulations that violate the constitutional right to bear arms. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez in San Diego ruled in favor of the California Rifle & Pistol Association, which asked him to stop the checks and related restrictions on ammo sales. Voters approved toughening California’s already strict firearms laws in 2016, and the restrictions took effect last July.