Tornadoes kill at least 5 in Texas and Arkansas
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Emergency responders searched through splintered wreckage Monday after a line of tornadoes battered several small communities in Texas and Arkansas, killing at least five people, including a young couple who died trying to shield their 18-month-old daughter from the storm.
Three people were still missing in a rural East Texas town. Scores of others were hurt, some critically.
The couple, in their late 20s or early 30s, died when a twister hit their mobile home late Sunday in the Arkansas town of Nashville.
Michael and Melissa Mooneyhan were trying to protect their daughter when the parents’ trailer flipped over and “exploded,” Howard County Coroner John Gray said.
Kerry heads to Russia in first visit since Ukraine crisis
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry departed Monday for Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin, on his first visit to the country since relations between Washington and Moscow plummeted to post-Cold War lows amid disagreements over Ukraine and Syria.
The State Department said Kerry would meet Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday at the Black Sea resort of Sochi. But in a sign of the considerable strains, the Kremlin said Putin’s attendance had yet to be confirmed and the Russian Foreign Ministry previewed the talks by blaming Washington for the breakdown in relations.
New blood tests may transform cancer care; more people get liquid biopsies to guide treatment
A new type of blood test is starting to transform cancer treatment, sparing some patients the surgical and needle biopsies long needed to guide their care.
The tests, called liquid biopsies, capture cancer cells or DNA that tumors shed into the blood, instead of taking tissue from the tumor itself. A lot is still unknown about the value of these tests, but many doctors think they are a big advance that could make personalized medicine possible for far more people.
They give the first noninvasive way to repeatedly sample a cancer so doctors can profile its genes, target drugs to mutations, tell quickly whether treatment is working, and adjust it as the cancer evolves.
Two years ago, these tests were rarely used except in research. Now, several are sold, more than a dozen are in development, and some doctors are using them in routine care.
About 10 percent of patients with metastatic colon cancer at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center now get liquid biopsies.
By wire sources.