Several shot, one stabbed after Christmas family dispute takes violent turn
Police in Phoenix say they detained two individuals after three people were shot and one was stabbed following a “family dispute that escalated” at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Christmas.
Officers received an alert about the incident, which took place outside a restaurant in Terminal 4, around 9:45 p.m., a Phoenix Police Department sergeant said at the scene.
“Preliminary information suggests a group of known individuals engaged in a physical altercation that escalated to one subject retrieving a handgun from their person,” a police media advisory said.
Following the incident, three people had gunshot wounds, with one adult female listed as having “life-threatening” injuries, and two adult males in stable condition with injuries that were non-life-threatening.
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Two people involved were located and detained in the parking garage, police said, identifying them only as “an adult male and a juvenile female.” Police said the man had a stab wound and was brought to a hospital, where he was said to be in stable condition.
“There are no active threats at the airport, Detectives are on scene and completing an initial review to learn what led to this incident,” Phoenix Police posted to X at 11:58 p.m. Mountain Standard Time. “No flights are affected by this ongoing investigation.”
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A shelter-in-place for the airport was lifted around 10:30 p.m., local FOX 10 reported. Terminal operations and the Phoenix Sky Train were briefly paused as precautions, an airport statement obtained by the TV station said.
Thursday morning, a FOX 10 reporter said the entrance to B and C gates in Terminal 4 were still blocked off.
The sergeant at the scene Wednesday night said that in a separate incident, another man was falsely told of an active shooter situation at the airport and arrived armed. He got into an altercation with an officer and was detained prior to being booked into jail. No injuries were reported in the second incident.
Weapons were recovered from both incidents, police said.
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No identities have been released by police. Fox News Digital has reached out to police for the latest in the investigation.
The two major airlines that operate out of Sky Harbor’s Terminal 4 are American and Southwest, according to the airport’s website.
Ousted ‘Squad’ lawmaker has parting message for all her supporters — and her critics
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., a member of the progressive cadre of lawmakers known as the “Squad,” thinks she will eventually run for political office again.
The outgoing congresswoman took office in 2021 and won re-election in 2022 but lost the Democratic primary in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District this year.
“Running for office again is not off the table at all. I did not expect to only be in Congress for four years, and so I do believe at some point I will run again, whether it’s for Congress or something else, I don’t know. I don’t have any plans right now, but it’s not off the table,” she said, according to Politico.
“The Squad will keep fighting,” she declared. “The numbers will be lower for the 119th Congress, but they will keep fighting for people who have the greatest need. They’re not going to change their priorities and what they believe. The number of people in Congress on the team will just be smaller. But they’ve never been silent. Anyone who underestimates our power is severely mistaken, because we aren’t going anywhere, and I will always be Squad. I’m not going far.”
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Like Bush, outgoing Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., another Squad member who took office in 2021, is departing Congress after losing a Democratic primary this year.
Bowman has indicated that he may seek office again.
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“The liberating aspect of no longer being in Congress formally is now I have an opportunity to be helpful and support my community in a variety of ways. There’s many ways to teach and be an educator and lead as it relates to education. There’s many ways to impact electoral politics. I plan to be a part of that from a community organizing perspective and a fundraising perspective. And yes, there is a good chance I will run for office again, at some point, depending on the right situation and where that goes,” Bowman said, according to City & State.
“I’m going to be hyperlocal initially in my engagement,” he noted. “It’s time to build that power in places like Yonkers in the Bronx, across the city and state and across the country.”
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Fox News Digital reached out to the Bush and Bowman offices for comment, but they did not immediately respond.
Republicans demand Trump act against country cozying up to America’s enemies
JOHANNESBURG – Key Republicans are already pressing the incoming Trump administration to kick South Africa out of lucrative trade arrangements, should the South African government not change its position on Russia, China, Iran and Israel.
Most at risk is South Africa’s duty-free exports to the U.S. of items such as cars and citrus fruit under AGOA – the African Growth and Opportunity Act, and with it the potential loss of tens of thousands of African jobs. South Africa is likely to be under intense scrutiny from the incoming administration.
A publication from the Center for African Studies at Howard University, in 2023, warned that a country wanting AGOA’s preferential trade agreements “cannot act in a manner that undermines U.S. national security or foreign policy interests”.
South Africa joins Russia’s military aircraft and naval vessels on exercises, allowing Pretoria’s naval bases to be used by the Kremlin and Russia’s sanctioned warships. Senior South African military officials have received training in Moscow. At the U.N., South Africa has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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South Africa’s majority ANC party has met with terror group Hamas, and recently one branch of the ANC supported a local Muslim leader who reportedly shouted to a cheering crowd, “I am Hamas, Cape Town is Hamas, Viva Hamas!” The government also issued a statement condemning the killing this year of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. The country’s foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, spoke out against the “assassination” of this designated terrorist leader, saying “such acts of extrajudicial killings violate international law.”
South Africa has accused Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
South Africa’s biggest trading partner is China, with the two countries being founder members of the BRICS trade organization. South Africa has welcomed the inclusion now of Iran in BRICS. There have been accusations of deep links between Tehran and Pretoria.
“Given the South African positions on the Russia-Ukraine and Mideast conflicts, South Africa is leaning away from American positions in a number of ways, most especially in its vigorous pursuit of Israel and its leaders in the international courts,” J. Brooks Spector told Fox News Digital.
Spector, a former U.S. diplomat now based in Johannesburg, and deputy editor of the respected Daily Maverick, added that “continuing action and rhetoric by South Africa in its pursuit of Israel in international court efforts will, however, encourage Republicans in Congress (and probably in the administration as well) to strip South Africa of benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, assuming the act is renewed next year.”
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“Such pursuits by the South African government may also lead to efforts to cut back on assistance to important efforts such as PEPFAR – the aid program that, together with the Global Fund and local organizations, has been crucial in the country’s successful efforts combatting HIV and AIDS.”
One such leading Republican, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Fox News Digital, “I remain concerned about South Africa’s efforts to cozy up to Russia, China and Iran, including Iran’s terror proxies, and the impact this has on U.S. national security – a vital element in AGOA eligibility. The country’s foreign policy actions will remain a focus of my oversight efforts.”
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and member of the Senate Finance Committee, slammed South Africa in 2023, “South Africa has harbored sanctioned Russian ships, expanded relations with Iran and issued statements against Israel’s right to defend itself following Hamas’ recent terror attacks”
Both of these influential Republican leaders are expected to become more powerful when President-elect Trump takes office in January, with Scott’s office staff telling Fox News Digital, “Sen. Scott looks forward to working with the Trump administration to ensure that AGOA participants are not undermining our national security interests.”
South Africa’s moves are very definitely in an extremely bright spotlight in Washington. From inside the beltway, Richard Goldberg told Fox News Digital he’s worried particularly over potential links between South Africa and Iran. Goldberg is a former member of the National Security Council, and a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He told Fox News Digital, “The first step is to build the case publicly, and give South Africa one last moment of choosing. We should declassify intelligence about South Africa’s deep relationship with Iran, and any other support or partnership with terrorist groups.”
Goldberg continued, “And then we need to use our full diplomatic and economic weight to force Pretoria to choose between the United States and our terrorist adversaries. AGOA should be one of several items on the policy menu.”
South Africa’s Department of International Relations didn’t respond to several requests for comment. But COSATU’s Parliamentary Co-ordinator, Matthew Parks did. COSATU is the Confederation of South African Trade Unions, historically aligned with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC party. Parks is highly respected for his meaningful and dignified pursuance of workers’ rights. His members have much to lose, including potentially their jobs, if South Africa is pushed out of AGOA. But he appeared to be cautiously optimistic when talking to Fox News Digital, “We are confident that our relations with the U.S. will continue to grow, including through AGOA, simply because it is to the benefit of both our peoples.”
“We’ve been extensively involved in engagements between South Africa and the U.S., on how to deepen our relations and toward the renewal of AGOA,” Parks continued. “We’ve engaged extensively with our colleagues in the U.S. labor movement, business community, Congress (both Republicans and Democrats), the State Department, Department of Labor, NSC and the White House.”
As Trump moves into the White House, nearby Ebrahim Rassool will be starting his second term as South African ambassador to the U.S. This month he talked to the Daily Maverick on South Africa’s challenges with the new administration, referring to South Africa’s attack on Israel at the ICJ. “We will stick by the case, but let us now trust our legal team,” he said, “trust the evidence that we have placed in front of the judges of the ICJ, trust the judges of the ICJ to come to a sustainable, just solution – but that we need to put away the megaphone now.”
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Rassool pointed out that the South African oranges exported to the U.S. under AGOA enabled Americans to drink orange juice all year round, when Florida and California oranges were out of season.
And Rassool added, “Why would you want to punish America with expensive cars when the BMWs coming from South Africa are going to be much cheaper than getting them from Germany or manufacturing your own?
“Likewise, to point out that American cancer patients are receiving medical nuclear isotopes that come from South Africa.”
The expulsion of South Africa from AGOA would be “disastrous,” Renai Moothilal wrote in the Business Day newspaper last year. Moothilal is CEO of the National Association of Automotive Component & Allied Manufacturers, and wrote, “It will be no surprise if some component manufacturers close their doors. U.S.-headquartered multinational manufacturers with plants here may exit the South African country if there are volume losses linked to our exclusion from AGOA, or other forms of political pressure are brought to bear.”
Observers note there are loud threats coming from President-elect Trump himself, including a claim that he will slap a 100% import tariff on countries like South Africa if, as members of BRICS, they adopt a new currency to rival the dollar. In the other corner of the ring, South African politicians are taking a more placatory and reserved tone. The Democratic Alliance or DA is South Africa’s main opposition party. But since May, they have also been members of the government of national unity, working in a sometimes noisy coalition with President Ramaphosa’s ANC.
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Emma Powell, the DA’s national spokesperson for foreign affairs, told Fox News Digital that it’s likely the relationship between Pretoria and Washington “will become increasingly transactional, with greater emphasis placed on equitable reciprocity. This would contrast the Biden administration’s approach to beneficiation-based investment and development. There is also likely to be less tolerance for any action on the part of the South African government that may be perceived as undermining the national security interests of the United States.”
Powell added “the Trump administration is also likely to take a more cautious approach on AGOA eligibility.”
J. Brooks Spector told Fox News Digital he could take home one strong positive: “The incoming U.S. president’s often-expressed support for transactional foreign economic policies may possibly be an incentive for Africa’s nations – urged on by South Africa – to come together with initiatives offering trade and market concessions in Africa to America.”
‘90s star hits back at fans who criticize her looks as she ages in Hollywood
Jennifer Love Hewitt is fighting back against ageism in Hollywood.
While Hewitt has been in the spotlight for decades, she pushed back at critics who scrutinized her looks as she grew up in the industry.
“Age is age,” she told Fox News Digital. “I think women really come into this… acceptance of themselves and comfortability in their 40s that is beautiful.”
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Although “The Holiday Junkie” star said she loves her current age, she confessed that the most challenging aspect has been public reaction to her getting older.
“The times that it’s hard for me though… I feel like fans pick… this age that they love that they think represents you, and you’re never supposed to grow beyond that,” she explained as she referenced a quote from Taylor Swift.
For Hewitt, she found that fans mostly idolized the way she was in her 20s. Hewitt is known for her role in the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” franchise, in which she starred alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr., as well as “Heartbreakers” alongside Sigourney Weaver and the cult classic “Can’t Hardly Wait.”
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“For me… it was like me and my 20s … people seem to have a really hard time accepting that … I don’t look that way anymore,” the 45-year-old admitted.
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“It’s hard because I think as humans, we want to evolve … we want to have lines on our faces, and you know our boobs be lower from breast-feeding our children, or you know our butt’s bigger,” she said with a laugh.
“Whatever it is, you just want to have the freedom to be whoever you are at that age. And it’s hurtful sometimes when people reject you as you are verbally on Instagram or the internet because they’re having a hard time adjusting to it.”
Last year, the “Party of Five” actress responded to claims that she was “unrecognizable” after sharing a photo on social media.
“It’s hurtful sometimes when people reject you as you are.”
Hewitt opted to put a filter on the photo she posted since she wasn’t wearing any makeup and was met with some nasty comments and headlines suggesting she looked starkly different.
“The picture ended up somewhere. And a bunch of people were like, ‘Jennifer Love Hewitt is unrecognizable,'” she said on Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast.
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“‘She’s unrecognizable and so she’s gone to filters because she doesn’t want us to know how bad she actually looks now in her 40s.’ And I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ Right?”
Hewitt previously noted the irony that at a young age she didn’t fully understand what it meant to be sexy, as she graced the cover of Maxim at just 17 years old.
Now, the Hollywood actress’ perspective of how fans view her has changed since she became a mother of three.
“I have a daughter, I’m sensitive to it because I don’t want my kids to read those things and feel that way… or worry about me being hurt by it… it’s hard to do that sometimes.”
Hewitt’s daughters seem to be following in their parents’ acting footsteps. They were involved in the Christmas movie, “The Holiday Junkie.“
The Lifetime movie, which was directed by Hewitt and is her first-ever Christmas film, focuses on her character, Andie, navigating the holidays during a difficult time after losing her mother.
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Although her character faces a trying time, her spirit is lifted when she finds an unexpected Christmas romance.
Her on-screen love interest is played by her real-life husband, Brian Hallisay. The couple first met on the set of Lifetime’s movie “Love Bites” and tied the knot in November 2013. They share three kids together: Autumn, 11, Atticus, 9, and Aidan, 3.
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Hewitt has been acting since she was a young child and told Fox News Digital the advice she would give to her younger self.
“I was always a worrywart,” she remarked. “I was just always worried… I had so much fun on the job, and [thought] it was going to be my last or that… people were going to kick me out of Hollywood and not let me act anymore.”
“Or that I was going to be dorky… whatever it was. I was just always worried… I definitely enjoyed it and was present… had a good time and all those things. But I wasted a lot of time worrying. And I think I would just say to her like, ‘Look, it’s going to work out. You’re going to start getting old, and they’re still going to let you do things… it’s OK. You’re fine.’”
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NHL legend pitched by Trump for Canadian prime minister — then his wife chimes in
President-elect Trump floated NHL legend Wayne Gretzky as a potential candidate to replace Justin Trudeau as Canada’s prime minister in a social media post on Wednesday.
And it appeared Janet Gretzky – Wayne’s wife – got the message.
Janet Gretzky shared Trump’s Truth Social post on her Instagram Stories and posted the link.
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“I just left Wayne Gretzky, ‘The Great One as he is known in Ice Hockey circles. I said, ‘Wayne, why don’t you run for Prime Minister of Canada, soon to be known as the Governor of Canada – You would win easily, you wouldn’t even have to campaign,’” Trump wrote.
“He had no interest, but I think the people of Canada should start a DRAFT WAYNE GRETZKY Movement. It would be so much fun to watch!”
Trump’s post came as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has faced pressure to step down. Earlier this month, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigned from Trudeau’s cabinet. At the same time, opposition leader Jagmeet Singh called on Trudeau to resign.
The main opposition Conservatives have demanded an election.
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Trump also weighed in after Freeland resigned.
“The Great State of Canada is stunned as the Finance Minister resigns, or was fired, from her position by Governor Justin Trudeau,” Trump posted to his Truth Social, trolling Trudeau, after previously suggesting Canada should become the 51st state in the USA.
“Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. She will not be missed!!!”
Trump has also teased Canadians about adding the country as the 51st U.S. state.
“The Great One” appeared to support Trump amid his election win over Vice President Kamala Harris.
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He was seen last month at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, after Trump’s presidential election win, wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap.
LeBron James fires warning shot to NFL over Christmas Day games
Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James had a message for the NFL following the team’s close win over the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night.
James scored 31 points and dished out 10 assists as Austin Reaves’ go-ahead bucket gave the Lakers a 115-113 win. But with the NFL creeping up on what was the NBA’s most exciting day of the regular season, James sent a warning shot to the league.
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“I love the NFL. I love the NFL. But Christmas is our day,” he declared.
Last year, the NFL scheduled three games on Christmas Day as it fell on a Monday. This year, two games were scheduled on Christmas. In 2022, regular season games fell on Christmas Day.
NFL officials said last year the league wouldn’t schedule any games on Christmas if it fell outside of a normally scheduled day.
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“We’ve seen the opportunity with Thanksgiving and some of the audience that we’ve continued to build there,” NFL executive vice president of media distribution Hans Schroeder told The Wall Street Journal at the time. “We think there’s an opportunity when the calendar allows it on Christmas now, too, when we know our fans are going to be together.”
It was only four months later when the league did an about-face.
“The fans clearly spoke,” Schroeder told The Wall Street Journal in March. “There’s a big demand.”
The report noted that the NFL would usually give the day away to the NBA and other programming and even moved the old NFL championship off of Christmas if it fell on that day.
This year, the NFL’s games were seen on Netflix. When the ratings come out, everyone will get to see whether James is right.
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The NFL dispatched the first round of the College Football Playoff last week in their rare head-to-head matchup.
JonBenet Ramsey’s father to meet with police to help break unsolved 1996 murder case
FIRST ON FOX: JonBenet Ramsey’s father, John Ramsey, says he plans to meet with the Boulder Police Department chief in Colorado next month, alongside a representative from an independent genetic genealogy research lab, as he pushes local authorities to allow an outside lab to test crime-scene evidence from his daughter’s unsolved 1996 murder case.
Thursday marks 28 years since 6-year-old JonBenet was found strangled and bludgeoned to death in the basement of her family’s Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996, and her killer remains unknown.
“We have requested a meeting with [Boulder Police Department] Chief [Stephen] Redfearn in January. He said yup, absolutely, let’s get together,” John Ramsey, 80, told Fox News Digital. “We haven’t scheduled the day yet, but we’ll get that figured out. That’s an important meeting. We’re going to have a representative with us for one of these cutting-edge labs to explain what they can and can’t do. Hopefully, he will accept their help.”
Ramsey added that if the BPD chief agrees to allow an independent lab to conduct testing on the nearly three-decades-old crime scene items — something he’s been pushing to do for years — he will feel “comfortable we’ve got things moving.”
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“The reason I’ve done these media interviews — Netflix, that documentary — is to keep pressure on the police. We’re not going to go away, folks,” Ramsey said.
“Colorado has over a thousand unsolved homicides, and we’re not going to be one of them.”
Ramsey wants police to retest certain evidence for traces of DNA, including external male DNA that federal officials disclosed in 1997, and test other items for the first time.
Private genetic genealogy databases have grown significantly over the last decade, and the technology used to identify and link DNA to specific individuals is more advanced than it has ever been, making the possibility of identifying a suspect in JonBenet’s murder using genetic evidence more promising than ever before.
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There are more than 20 items in the case that have never been tested, including, but not limited to, a garrote found around JonBenet’s neck, a ransom note found in the Ramsey house on the morning of the murder, a suitcase found in the basement that authorities believe the killer used to escape out a window, an unknown flashlight found on the Ramsey family’s kitchen counter the morning of the murder and unknown rope found in brother Burke Ramsey’s room that day, according to public records initially obtained by journalist Paula Woodward, who has published two books about the Ramsey case.
While it is unclear if officials will be able to find or identify any suspects in the case by partnering with an independent lab with access to private databases, Ramsey is hopeful that it is the next step for him in his pursuit for justice for his daughter, whether it yields results or not.
“DNA is pretty complicated stuff. I have learned that,” Ramsey said, “but that’s the reason that needs to be retested. That’s the one step that we’re asking the police to do is engage one of these one or two cutting-edge labs in the world and see what we come up with … and we come up empty-handed, then I’ll say, ‘Thank you. You tried. That’s the best we can do right now with today’s technology. Thank you.’ But until we do that, we haven’t done everything that could be done.”
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Ramsey said he finally feels hopeful that he and BPD are making “progress” in the case 28 years after his daughter’s murder.
BPD told Fox News Digital that the department has “regularly met with the family and plans to do so in 2025.”
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Chief Redfearn is the fifth police chief to take on the case since 1996, and he was officially appointed in September after serving as the interim chief for the Boulder Police Department starting in January. BPD detectives have followed up on more than 21,000 tips, emails and letters and traveled to 19 states to interview or speak with more than a thousand people in connection with the case.
“The killing of JonBenet was an unspeakable crime and this tragedy has never left our hearts,” Redfearn said in a November statement reflecting on 28 years since JonBenet’s murder. “We are committed to following up on every lead and we are continuing to work with DNA experts and our law enforcement partners around the country until this tragic case is solved. This investigation will always be a priority for the Boulder Police Department.”
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Local authorities have partnered with federal officials — including the FBI — and DNA experts from across the country, according to BPD.
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“The murder of JonBenet Ramsey is a terrible tragedy and sparked years of unanswered questions and theories. Our office has successfully prosecuted other cold case homicides and many murder cases,” District Attorney Michael Dougherty said. “In every one of those cases, it was the evidence that proved the defendant(s) guilty. Whether it is DNA or other evidence, more is needed to solve this murder. I appreciate the collaboration with CBI, the FBI, and the Boulder Police Department.”
Officials have sorted through 2,500 pieces of evidence and approximately 40,000 reports with more than a million pages documenting the investigation. The Colorado Cold Case Review team has also provided BPD with a list of tips for the department to pursue, according to Redfearn.
Potential life-saving ‘miracle therapy’ that could ‘transform’ medical care for sick kids
Renowned visionary English physician William Harvey wrote in 1651 about how our blood contains all the secrets of life.
“And so I conclude that blood lives and is nourished of itself and in no way depends on any other part of the body as being prior to it or more excellent,” he wrote. “So that from this we may perceive the causes not only of life in general … but also of longer or shorter life, of sleeping and waking, of skill, of strength and so forth.”
Dr. Kevin Watt, team leader of the Heart Regeneration and Disease Laboratory at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne, Australia, understands this concept deeply.
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He lives it every day, as he and his fellow researchers study and reprogram the potential of the blood to treat disease, specifically heart failure in children.
Building on the work of Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Japan, who discovered that specialized cells could be reprogrammed back to immature stem cells, Watt and his collaborators have taken this work several steps further.
They have used small molecules to turn these new stem cells from the blood into heart cells.
Small heart organoids are developed in the lab — which can then be injected into the failing hearts of children.
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Relying on the philanthropic support of the Murdoch Institute, the work is progressing rapidly and has been shown to be effective already in mice, pigs and sheep.
“The vision of our research is to develop new therapies that can transform the lives of children with heart failure.”
Clinical trials in humans will be starting soon, and as Dr. Watt told me in an interview from Australia, “Large sheets of heart tissue will be stitched into the failing heart.”
Congenital heart failure as well as side effects of chemotherapy in children will be targets for this miracle therapy. Millions of children around the world suffer daily from these conditions.
Watt said that certain chemotherapy (anthracyclines) have a higher risk of heart failure – up to 15% of the time – and this treatment may be useful to protect the heart.
Watt said, “Heart failure remains an urgent, unmet clinical challenge across the world. While we have made significant advances over several decades in managing the disease, we lack targeted therapies to treat these devastating conditions.”
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He added, “More than 500,000 children around the world live with advanced heart failure that requires transplantation. The vision of our research is to develop new therapies that can transform the lives of children with heart failure.”
To achieve this, he said, “we use a technology called induced pluripotent stem cells, where we can convert blood or skin cells of patients with heart failure into stem cells that we then turn into heart cells … or even make engineered heart tissues that can be stitched onto the patient’s heart to help it pump.”
The cells that are targeted in the blood are known as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs).
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They are “pushed back in time to an earlier time before they became differentiated into heart or kidney cells,” he said.
Then they can be pushed forward to become healthy heart cells or mutations — or other abnormalities can be corrected.
While the team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute is making heart cells from stem cells in the blood for clinical use, it’s also using these stem cells to figure out new drugs to treat heart failure directly.
Said Watt, “Using stem cells from patients with heart failure caused by chemo, we are actively developing new drugs and cell-based treatments that we believe will transform the lives of patients with these conditions … Our research group has pioneered methods to turn these stem cells into miniature heart tissues that can be used to model disease-in-a-dish, to identify new drug targets for the development of new therapies.”
These treatments are personalized and highly expensive, but they’re also highly effective.
Correcting heart failure in young children is only a few years away from becoming a reality.
It’s a Christmas miracle that relies on the kind of philanthropic support that MCRI is famous for arranging.
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“Philanthropic support plays a critical role in accelerating the development of these new, transformative treatments,” said Watt, “and this support will be essential as we work toward bringing stem cell-based precision therapies for heart failure to every child who needs it.”
Visit go.fox/MCRI to donate or to learn more about MCRI’s important research.