Wednesday morning news - December 1, 2021

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

Authorities: Student kills 3, wounds 6 at Michigan school » At least three students are dead after a 15-year-old sophomore opened fire at a Michigan high school Tuesday.

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said authorities received more than hundred 911 calls around 1 p.m. Undersheriff Mike McCabe said deputies took a suspect into custody within 5 minutes of the first call.

MCCABE: Deputies confronted him. He had the weapon on him. They took him into custody.

They recovered a handgun at the scene inside Oxford High School in Oxford Township.

The suspect wounded at least six other people, including a teacher.

Rochester Hills Fire Department spokesman John Lyman told reporters …

LYMAN: We had about 25 agencies that responded, close to 60 ambulances. We had a couple of helicopters land also. We did transport those six patients. The number I’m not totally for sure on, but we did transport multiple patients to area hospitals.

Authorities do not yet have a motive for the attack. McCabe said the suspect invoked his right to remain silent.

Officials did not immediately release the names of the suspect or victims.

FDA panel backs first-of-a-kind COVID-19 pill from Merck » The FDA could be close to approving the first pill that Americans could take home to treat COVID-19. A group of health advisers narrowly voted on Tuesday to recommend that the FDA approve a pill from Merck. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: The drug is called molnupiravir. It works by inserting tiny errors into the coronavirus’ genetic code to stop it from reproducing.

And on a vote of 13-10, the advisory panel said the drug’s benefits outweigh its risks but only for adults who test positive and are at high risk of severe illness.

Most advisers said only unvaccinated people should use the pill and that women who may be pregnant should not take it.

Last week, Merck said final study results showed molnupiravir cut hospitalizations and deaths by 30 percent.

But Merck has not specifically tested it against the new omicron variant. And that uncertainty gave some experts pause.

The FDA isn’t bound by the panel’s recommendation and will likely make a final decision later this month. Officials in the U.K. have already authorized the pill.

Rival drugmaker Pfizer also has a COVID-19 pill under review.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

White House: Current tests will likely detect omicron variant » Experts are still studying the omicron variant and trying to figure out just how well current vaccines defend against it. But White House virus response coordinator Jeff Zients said Tuesday that officials are confident that the variant does not evade current testing.

ZIENTS: Based on their preliminary review, the FDA believes the high-volume PCR and rapid antigen tests widely used in the U.S. will be effective in detecting the variant.

And while experts agree that it’s only a matter of time until omicron is detected in America, there’s no sign of it yet. That according to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.

WALENSKY: Right now, there’s no sign evidence of omicron in the United States. The delta variant remains the predominant circulating strain, representing 99.9 percent of all sequences sampled.

Meantime, more countries are putting more travel restrictions in place, trying to delay what they fear may be an inevitable omicron wave.

Canada on Tuesday banned all foreigners who have traveled through Nigeria, Malawi and Egypt. Canada already has a small number of omicron cases, and officials say they’ve traced all of them back to travelers from Nigeria.

Brazil and Japan reported their first detected cases of the variant on Tuesday.

New York City opens drug use safe havens » New York City has announced the formation of new drug use safe zones, which will allow people to use illegal drugs under medical supervision. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has that story.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi announced that the city has authorized so-called overdose prevention centers—OPCs for short. The locations allow people to use heroin and other narcotics under medical supervision.

De Blasio called the centers a “smarter approach” to fighting a national epidemic of overdose deaths. Two city-funded nonprofits will run the injection sites, hosted at current syringe exchange programs. Some were operational as of Tuesday.

The centers provide clean needles along with optional information on addiction treatment.

Critics say OPCs give the false impression that drug use is safe and called the program irresponsible. Federal law prohibits places from hosting illegal drug use, and de Blasio admitted that legal challenges are likely.

More than 2,000 people died of overdoses in New York City in 2020.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Space junk forces spacewalk delay, too risky for astronauts » NASA called off a spacewalk Tuesday because of menacing space junk that could rip a hole in an astronaut’s suit or damage the International Space Station.

Two U.S. astronauts were set to replace a bad antenna outside of the space station.

But late Monday night, Mission Control learned that a piece of orbiting debris might come dangerously close.

It’s the first time a spacewalk has been canceled because of threat from space junk.

The space station and its crew have been at increased risk from space junk since Russia destroyed a satellite in a missile test two weeks ago. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the object of concern was part of that satellite wreckage.

I’m Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org. 

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.