Vaccines don't cause autism. What does?Vance takes on a more visible transition role, working to boost Trump’s most contentious picks

President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers urge judge to toss his hush money convictionPITTSBURGH , Dec. 2, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of Wesco International (NYSE: WCC) today declared a quarterly cash dividend on all of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock, in an amount equal to $0.4125 per share. The dividend is payable on December 31, 2024 to the holders of record of the common stock at the close of business on December 13, 2024 . In addition, the Board of Directors declared cash dividends on the company's 10.625% Series A Fixed-Rate Reset Cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock for the period October 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024 . The dividend is $664.0625 per preferred share, or $0.6640625 per depository share, and is payable on December 31, 2024 to holders of record at the close of business on December 13, 2024 . About Wesco Wesco International (NYSE: WCC) builds, connects, powers and protects the world. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , Wesco is a FORTUNE 500 ® company with $22 billion in annual sales and a leading provider of business-to-business distribution, logistics services and supply chain solutions. Wesco offers a best-in-class product and services portfolio of Electrical and Electronic Solutions, Communications and Security Solutions, and Utility and Broadband Solutions. The Company employs approximately 20,000 people, partners with the industry's premier suppliers, and serves thousands of customers around the world. With millions of products, end-to-end supply chain services, and leading digital capabilities, Wesco provides innovative solutions to meet customer needs across commercial and industrial businesses, contractors, government agencies, educational institutions, telecommunications providers, and utilities. Wesco operates nearly 800 branches, warehouses and sales offices in more than 50 countries, providing a local presence for customers and a global network to serve multi-location businesses and global corporations. Contact Information Investor Relations Will Ruthrauff Director, Investor Relations 484-885-5648 Corporate Communications Jennifer Sniderman Vice President, Corporate Communications 717-579-6603 View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wesco-declares-quarterly-dividend-on-common-stock-and-preferred-stock-302319822.html SOURCE Wesco International

NHL fines Edmonton Oilers forward Jeff Skinner $2,000 for embellishmentNASHVILLE — The Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider for the first time whether states can ban certain gender transition medical treatments for young people – a closely watched case brought by three transgender teens, their parents and a doctor, all seeking to ensure health care access they say is critical. At issue is a Tennessee law barring transgender minors from using puberty blockers and hormones, treatments the state characterizes as risky and unproven. Lawmakers said the state should instead encourage adolescents to “appreciate their sex, particularly as they undergo puberty.” The court’s ruling might have implications for the more than 100,000 transgender adolescents living in Tennessee or one of the 23 other states that has banned using the drugs to treat minors with gender dysphoria. The question of whether and how to medically treat young people whose gender identity is different than their sex assigned at birth has become a polarizing issue, one President-elect Donald Trump seized on in advertisements targeting transgender people during his campaign. The Supreme Court in 2020 extended employment protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers, but it has yet to rule on the constitutionality of lower court decisions involving bathroom access, athletes and medical treatment for transgender minors like 16-year-old L.W., one of the Tennessee teens behind the case at the high court. Her parents, Brian and Samantha Williams, now drive her five hours to receive care in North Carolina. The teen started gender care treatments when she was 12 and said they have allowed her to “get to be myself a little bit more.” “It took a huge stressor off my back,” L.W. said in an interview. “I have more friends now because I’m more confident, and I’m more able to socialize.” The Biden administration and the American Civil Liberties Union are representing the parents and teens, who are referred to in court filings by their initials or a pseudonym to protect their identity. The families say the Tennessee law amounts to unconstitutional sex discrimination and a broad restriction on treatments that nearly every major medical association says are appropriate and effective for minors. ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, who is arguing on behalf of the families, will be the first openly transgender lawyer to present a case before the Supreme Court. Tennessee’s Republican attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti says in court filings that states have long had the power to regulate medicine and that there is nothing unconstitutional about restricting the use of a drug for certain purposes, even when it can be used for treating other conditions, or imposing age limits for health treatments when the risks and rewards are too uncertain. One potential wild card in the resolution of the case is the incoming Trump administration and the possibility that the next solicitor general will flip the federal government’s position to align with Tennessee’s view. If that were to happen, the court could allow the ACLU to continue challenging the law on its own, which would keep the justices on track to issue a ruling by the end of June. Trump transition officials did not immediately respond to questions about the case before the court, but his team has said Trump intends to fulfill his campaign promises, which included a crackdown on gender transition care for minors. PATIENTS AND LAWMAKERS CLASH L.W. said she began to suspect she was trans in 2019, when she was 11. She’d long felt as if she were “drowning,” but she didn’t understand why. She wore baggy clothes to obscure her body, and she panicked the first time she saw a few facial hairs above her lip. She was so uncomfortable in boys bathrooms, she avoided ever using one at school. Eventually, she developed urinary tract infections. After a cousin came out as trans, L.W. began researching on YouTube and Google. But she was scared, so she didn’t tell her parents she thought she was trans until just after Thanksgiving in 2020, more than a year after she’d first put a name to her feelings. Brian and Samantha Williams both had gay friends, and they told L.W. they supported her, but neither felt comfortable immediately taking her to a doctor. L.W. was 12, and Brian worried the distress she felt might be normal puberty angst. “It’s not like we took this thing lightly and just did it,” Brian said. The family went to a progressive church, and the church had a therapist on staff who specialized in trans youth, so Samantha and Brian signed L.W. up for counseling. After roughly six months, the therapist diagnosed L.W. with gender dysphoria and recommended a team of doctors at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. At Vanderbilt, L.W. underwent tests, then, in the summer of 2021, her doctors prescribed the drug Lupron to stop her body from going through male puberty. The medication, which has been used for at least 30 years on patients who start puberty too early, is largely reversible, but it can affect a young person’s bone density if taken long term without hormone therapy. The teen said she felt instantly relieved. To her, the benefits “strongly outweighed” any side effects. At the time, no state had banned trans adolescents from receiving the kind of care Vanderbilt’s team offered. Doctors nationwide had been treating a few thousand young people a year with hormones and puberty blockers, according to data compiled for Reuters – a tiny fraction of America’s adolescent population. They faced little pushback. Multiple peer-reviewed studies have found that a majority of trans adolescents experience “satisfaction,” “confidence” and “improvements in psychosocial functioning” after such treatment. Almost as soon as L.W. left her first appointment, she asked to start estrogen, but her doctors and her parents decided to wait. L.W. went in for regular evaluations, and in September 2022, more than a year after she started Lupron, her doctors agreed to prescribe estrogen. Hormone therapy made life feel possible in ways it never had before, L.W. said. She started hugging her family. She recorded music and built Lego models. She and her younger brother staged Airsoft matches with other teenagers. Neighbors even told Samantha that L.W. talked to them for the first time. L.W.’s journey felt personal to her, a singular distress followed by her own unique wins. But her time at Vanderbilt coincided with a historic rise in gender dysphoria diagnoses. In 2021, about 42,000 young people nationwide received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, nearly triple the number in 2017, according to data the technology company Komodo Health Inc. compiled for Reuters. The vast majority were not prescribed hormones or puberty blockers, the data shows. Still, as the numbers rose, lawmakers and activists across the country began to raise questions about gender clinics and the treatments doctors were offering. The same month L.W. started estrogen, the conservative podcast host Matt Walsh accused Vanderbilt of castrating, sterilizing and mutilating children for profit. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) promised to investigate the hospital. That fall, Walsh and a group of Republican state legislators held a “Rally to End Child Mutilation” in downtown Nashville. Only Arkansas and Alabama had passed bans on transition-related care at that point. But lawmakers in other conservative states signaled that they intended to prioritize similar restrictions. In March 2023, Tennessee adopted the legislation now before the Supreme Court. The law, known as SB 1, prohibits health-care providers from prescribing any puberty blocker or hormone for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify or live as “a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex.” Providers who violate the law can be fined $25,000 for each prohibited treatment and are subject to disciplinary measures and potential civil liability in private lawsuits. Throughout the hearings on the legislation, Republican lawmakers treated gender dysphoria as if it were an illusion. A co-sponsor of the House bill described transitioning as a “fiction” and “fantasy.” Another representative said, “If you don’t know what you are, a boy or girl, male or female, just go in the bathroom and take your clothes off and look in the mirror and you’ll find out.” The Williams family watched the hearings, and Brian was infuriated. The lawmakers didn’t know his daughter. He and Samantha had taken L.W. to experts. They’d had what felt like a million hard conversations, and they’d followed the best evidence available. “All of a sudden to have a state come down and say that that’s not the right thing to do, that’s it’s abusive, that it’s wrongheaded, it’s just infuriating because I feel like I’m doing all the right stuff,” Brian said. EXPERIMENTATION OR DISCRIMINATION? After the bill became law, everyone in the Williams family agreed that discontinuing care wasn’t an option. L.W. was happy in ways she’d never been before she transitioned. If she stopped taking puberty blockers and estrogen, her body would begin to go through male puberty. She told her parents that was too painful to contemplate, let alone experience. Moving didn’t feel possible either. L.W.’s brother sobbed every time he thought about leaving his friends, and Brian’s elderly parents live in Nashville and rely on his help. That spring, Samantha saw an ACLU form that invited families to describe how they’d been affected by the legislation. She didn’t imagine, as she filled out the form, that she was signing up for a lawsuit that would eventually make its way to the Supreme Court. She only knew that she wanted to protect her daughter and she didn’t want to feel helpless anymore. Tennessee gave families four months to wean kids like L.W. off the medications, but in June, before the ban even took effect, Vanderbilt shut down its clinic. In June 2023, a District Court judge temporarily blocked the law, saying it discriminates based on sex and treats some teens differently because they are transgender. The judge said the benefits of the treatments are well-established and noted that Tennessee’s law bans the medications for a small subset of minors while making them available for adolescents who use them for other health issues. “If Tennessee wishes to regulate access to certain medical procedures,” wrote U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson, a Trump nominee, “it must do so in a manner that does not infringe on the rights conferred by the United States Constitution, which is of course supreme to all other laws of the land.” A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit soon reversed Richardson’s decision, rejecting the families’ claims of discrimination and allowing the state to enforce the law while litigation continues. Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton said the law regulates gender transition treatments for all minors, regardless of sex, and concluded that Tennessee lawmakers could have rationally determined that the law was an appropriate response to perceived risks associated with the treatments. Sutton, a nominee of George W. Bush, also said courts should be wary of intervening in a highly contested political dispute. Judge Helene N. White, another Bush nominee, agreed with the majority that the Constitution envisions states acting as laboratories for democracies to resolve political debates, but dissented from the majority ruling. “When a fundamental right or freedom from discrimination is involved, experimentation has no place,” she wrote. At the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar is asking the justices to return the case to the 6th Circuit to apply a more stringent level of review, which she says should be triggered by a law that discriminates based on sex. The state, she wrote, ignores the benefits of gender-transition care and overstates the health risks. She also said the law’s stated goal of having teens “appreciate their sex” is based on stereotypical understandings of gender and cannot be used to justify the ban. Skrmetti, the Tennessee attorney general, said the state has the authority to protect minors from the risks of gender-transition treatment, and the federal government should not discount lawmakers’ concerns. He also objected to Prelogar’s characterization of the law as driven by stereotypes. It is not unconstitutional discrimination, Skrmetti argued, to say that drugs can be prescribed for one reason, but not another. L.W. will be in the courtroom on Wednesday, but she said she can’t comprehend the gravity of the case she’s a part of. Mostly, she has tried to continue to live the life gender care has made possible. The day the ACLU filed its petition, she went to high school, and she only told a few people in the Gender-Sexualities Alliance, or GSA, about the case. That night, she worried, briefly, that her name would be on a case that might be remembered along the same lines as Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 Supreme Court case that ruled it was constitutional for states to enact segregation laws. Eventually, L.W. decided it was out of her control, and plus, she had the drivers’ test for her learner’s permit to worry about, so she set aside her fears and let her lawyers handle the hard parts. She is a junior in high school now. She DJed a party this Halloween. She has broadened her social life, and she adopted a kitten the family named Mushroom. She wants to spend her free time traveling to look at colleges with aviation programs, but for now, she and her mother still make regular trips to get treatment in North Carolina. Traveling out of state for health-care she’d rather get at home is arduous. Until recently, her mother had to take unpaid time off work, and L.W. has to call in sick to the magnet high school where she takes three Advanced Placement classes. “I hate taking days off school, it’s, like, the worst thing ever,” she said. “I have very, very difficult classes. So I’ve got a lot to catch up on if I miss a single day.” The drive used to take five hours each way, but Hurricane Helene washed out one of the roads they take, and now, the journey will be much longer. Comments are not available on this story. Send questions/comments to the editors. « Previous Next »

Alabama A&M fires football coach Connell Maynor after 7 seasons

NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers formally asked a judge Monday to throw out his hush money criminal conviction , arguing that continuing the case would present unconstitutional “disruptions to the institution of the Presidency.“ In a filing made public Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers told Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan that anything short of immediate dismissal would undermine the transition of power, as well as the “overwhelming national mandate" granted to Trump by voters last month. They also cited President Joe Biden’s recent pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, who had been convicted of tax and gun charges . “President Biden asserted that his son was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,’ and ‘treated differently,’" Trump’s legal team wrote. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, they claimed, had engaged in the type of political theater "that President Biden condemned.” Prosecutors will have until Dec. 9 to respond. They have said they will fight any efforts to dismiss the case but have indicated a willingness to delay the sentencing until after Trump’s second term ends in 2029. In their filing Monday, Trump's attorneys dismissed the idea of holding off sentencing until Trump is out of office as a “ridiculous suggestion.” Following Trump’s election victory last month, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed his sentencing, previously scheduled for late November, to allow the defense and prosecution to weigh in on the future of the case. He also delayed a decision on Trump’s prior bid to dismiss the case on immunity grounds. Trump has been fighting for months to reverse his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier. He says they did not and denies any wrongdoing. The defense filing was signed by Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who represented Trump during the trial and have since been selected by the president-elect to fill senior roles at the Justice Department. Taking a swipe at Bragg and New York City, as Trump often did throughout the trial, the filing argues that dismissal would also benefit the public by giving him and “the numerous prosecutors assigned to this case a renewed opportunity to put an end to deteriorating conditions in the City and to protect its residents from violent crime.” Clearing Trump, the lawyers added, would also allow him to “to devote all of his energy to protecting the Nation.” Merchan hasn’t yet set a timetable for a decision. He could decide to uphold the verdict and proceed to sentencing, delay the case until Trump leaves office, wait until a federal appeals court rules on Trump’s parallel effort to get the case moved out of state court or choose some other option. An outright dismissal of the New York case would further lift a legal cloud that at one point carried the prospect of derailing Trump’s political future. Last week, special counsel Jack Smith told courts that he was withdrawing both federal cases against Trump — one charging him with hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate, the other with scheming to overturn the 2020 presidential election he lost — citing longstanding Justice Department policy that shields a president from indictment while in office. The hush money case was the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial, resulting in a historic verdict that made him the first former president to be convicted of a crime. Prosecutors had cast the payout as part of a Trump-driven effort to keep voters from hearing salacious stories about him. Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels. Trump later reimbursed him, and Trump’s company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses — concealing what they really were, prosecutors alleged. Trump has said the payments to Cohen were properly categorized as legal expenses for legal work. A month after the verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for official acts — things they did in the course of running the country — and that prosecutors can’t cite those actions to bolster a case centered on purely personal, unofficial conduct. Trump’s lawyers cited the ruling to argue that the hush money jury got some improper evidence, such as Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form, testimony from some White House aides and social media posts made during his first term. Prosecutors disagreed and said the evidence in question was only “a sliver” of their case. If the verdict stands and the case proceeds to sentencing, Trump’s punishments would range from a fine to probation to up to four years in prison — but it’s unlikely he’d spend any time behind bars for a first-time conviction involving charges in the lowest tier of felonies. Because it is a state case, Trump would not be able to pardon himself once he returns to office. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Get local news delivered to your inbox!

AP News Summary at 6:32 p.m. ESTNebraska canvassing board certifies 2024 election results — with one exceptionBiomanufacturing might appear to be centered around the cell line, which does enjoy a certain pride of place, ensconced as it is in the bioreactor, where conditions are carefully monitored and exquisitely controlled. Yet the cell line exists to generate a product. So, one might argue that biomanufacturing is in fact centered around the product, whether it is an antibody, a recombinant protein, or a vaccine. Admittedly, the product suffers various indignities during downstream processing, such as being transferred from one unit operation to the next, enduring capture, intermediate purification, and polishing. But in its own way, the product is quite as pampered as the cell line. The product must not be unduly diminished in quantity—and certainly not in quality, not at all. The product’s integrity must be preserved. To accommodate the product, biomanufacturers can take advantage of tools, such as chromatography columns and membrane filters, that can smooth the product’s downstream processing journey. Choosing the appropriate columns and filters can expedite purification, improve recovery, and increase productivity. Other tools include design of experiment (DOE) studies, which can improve the management of processing parameters, either through a traditional trial-and-error approach or through machine learning, which can predict how specific parameters may affect the entire process at different times under various conditions. Finally, the product may follow the usual downstream itinerary, a series of synchronized steps, or it may have the luxury of a single, integrated, end-to-end process—or something in between. So, let the cell line have its bioreactor throne. The product may soon travel the royal road of purification on the way to fill and finish. To see how the product’s path is becoming smoother and more continuous, read about the advances discussed in this article, which conveys the insights of a retinue of downstream processing experts. Large biotherapeutic molecules originate from a variety of sources—plasma, supernatant, or cell lysate, for example—with differing requirements for chromatographic separation. Size matters. But so do factors such as hydrodynamic radius, sensitivity to shear stress, propensity to aggregate or fragment, and the presence of closely related impurities, to name but a few. However, all of them, “suffer from slow diffusion and mass transfer kinetics and, as a result, low binding capacity,” Artur Stanczak, application specialist, process chromatography, Bio-Rad Laboratories, said in a recent webinar. This need not always be the case. Dealing with large molecules requires modern resins that are fit for purpose. Stanczak discussed aspects of Bio-Rad’s Nuvia resin family members, such as a narrow distribution range, optimized ligand density, and rigid hydrophilic phase matrix. For example, he said that with Nuvia resins, even high flow rates “won’t impact DBC [dynamic binding capacity] dramatically because of the rigid polymer structure.” The idea is to reduce nonspecific binding and free up some binding sites. Some of the resins, such as Nuvia HP-Q, offer properties such optimized pore structure and surface extenders. These allow for high DBC at high flow rates, and thus an improved recovery of the target product and an increase in productivity. DOE studies should be conducted to determine ideal conditions, including testing factors such as pH and conductivity. Understanding critical process parameters is also important for optimizing the filtration process. For example, parameters such as concentration, crossflow, and transmembrane pressure (TMP) determine transmembrane flux, which directly impacts filter performance. Ordinarily, these parameters are assessed via TMP excursions, which involve measuring volume flow through a membrane at specific time points. “This approach, however, only provides snapshots; it’s not predictive,” explains Mark Duerkop, PhD, CEO of Novasign. “The current setup relies heavily on trial and error, lacking a straightforward, systematic method.” Novasign’s intuitive software studio leverages machine learning to derive insights from an automated TMP excursion. From that training run, it automatically builds a model to simulate various scenarios in silico, guiding operators on optimizing their chosen parameters—whether the operators are interested in minimizing production time or managing diafiltration volume, pH, and excipient concentration. “Our digital twin tells you how to set up your process at laboratory scale and how to transition smoothly to pilot or manufacturing scale,” Duerkop asserts. The smart machine learning tool removes the need for repeated validation runs for each parameter change by simulating different scenarios digitally. It assists in decisions about membrane selection and optimal operation, indicating the ideal switching points between ultrafiltration, diafiltration, and a second ultrafiltration stage. It also provides insights into performance within continuous single-pass tangential flow filtration. According to Duerkop, the studio delivers significant savings in time, labor, and product compared with traditional trial-and-error or DOE approaches. Chromatography and filtration steps in a downstream process are employed to separate the desired product from host cell proteins and other process-related impurities. During process development, each step is optimized for removal of impurities, typically by quantifying them via affordable and easy-to-use commercial kits. The end goal is the serial diminution of impurities through the purification process until they are undetectable, or at least within acceptable limits. One exception has been the presence of viruses, which should not be detectable in the first place except as a contaminant. Instead, during scaled-down process validation, viruses are spiked in at each stage of the process and their removal tracked. This is typically carried out by a contract research organization using live virus under BSL2/3 conditions, which is expensive and can have long turnaround times. Regulatory agencies require data demonstrating the efficacy of the process to remove viruses before the product can be introduced into humans during clinical trials and commercial release. There is an option to disrupt that paradigm, says David Cetlin, senior director, R&D, MockV products, Cygnus Technologies. “The MockV approach replaces live viruses with noninfectious particles that mimic the same properties of that original virus,” he says. “They’re physiochemically similar, meaning that analyses can be straightforward. For example, the data you generate from a MockV MVM [minute virus of mice] kit should align pretty well with the data that you would generate from a live MVM study.” “Historically our customers were applying the kits predominantly for process development, resin screening, process optimization, and things like that,” Cetlin points out. But he adds that newly revised regulatory guidelines “enable customers to use our RVLP [retrovirus-like particle] kit product to actually validate their process and put that data into a regulatory submission.” At most biomanufacturers, downstream processing is performed one step at a time, with deliberate transfers of the product from one intermediate stage, accomplishing tasks such as protein A affinity purification and viral inactivation. But at some biomanufacturers, downstream processing is semicontinuous or even continuous. “Typically, end users connect different chromatography and filtration systems to get all steps of the process running at the same time,” says Joanna Pezzini, CEO, PAK BioSolutions. “And to do that, you need to build automation to have the different steps talk to each other, to make sure that they’re running at the same rate.” PAK BioSolutions offers a continuous end-to-end solution at three different scales from process development to commercial scale, allowing for purification of 2 to as many as 20,000 L per day. The company can connect multiple different steps of a biopharmaceutical purification process in a single system. “We can do diafiltration, chromatography, virus inactivation, inline concentration and filtration,” Pezzini remarks. “You can perform up to four unit operations simultaneously on a single system, and inline process analytical control technology assures that they run at the same rate.” “If you can do four different purification steps at the same time, you can produce four times more product or run four times faster,” she adds. The other benefit she touts is resin savings: “We run a lot of chromatography cycles on very small columns instead of a few chromatography cycles on very big columns, so you’re purchasing smaller volumes of resin for products that only require a few batches each year.” According to Pezzini, some companies that offer continuous manufacturing provide individual systems that perform one step in the process and leave it to the end user to build the automation that connects these different systems together. She says that unlike those companies, PAK BioSolutions is “creating a turnkey solution.” Upstream and downstream processes can be connected to form an end-to-end continuous platform as well, helping to bring down manufacturing costs along the way. Such platforms have been constructed by Enzene Biosciences, a contract development and manufacturing organization focused on biologics production. Enzene Biosciences has set out to reduce the cost of goods for innovative biologics manufacturing, aiming to reach $40 per gram by 2025. Until recently, the predominant technology for developing biologics has been—and largely remains—a fed-batch process. “With fed-batch, the only way to lower costs is by achieving a higher-titer clone or using an exceptionally large bioreactor,” explains Russell Miller, vice president of sales and marketing, Enzene Biosciences. “But even that may not be enough. We knew we needed to explore a different, more innovative technological basis.” “The EnzeneX platform is a fully connected, continuous manufacturing platform from start to finish,” Miller asserts. Specifically, the “start” is a bioreactor step that incorporates perfusion technology, and the “finish” is the step just before nanofiltration. The company’s website indicates that the Enzene platform “harnesses the power of intensified perfusion using alternate tangential flow and automated multicolumn chromatography to achieve continuous production of biologics.” Miller elaborates, “When you take the perfusion technology and you’re able to couple it with the elimination of hold tanks and run the process continuously [for 30 days], you enhance the opportunity to maximize productivity, which gives a commensurate reduction in cost of goods.” The company has facilities in Pune, India, and in Hopewell, NJ, and it has started a phased rollout of its EnzeneX 2.0 technology. Among the innovations is an enhanced cell line capable of producing a titer of 8–10 g/L—double the previous cell line’s titer. According to Miller, the new technology will enable Enzene to scale up the bioreactor to 1,000 L. The next phase will bring online artificial intelligence–powered process analytical technology, with the final phase centered around optimization of culture media to further boost productivity and efficiency.

PITTSBURGH , Dec. 2, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of Wesco International (NYSE: WCC) today declared a quarterly cash dividend on all of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock, in an amount equal to $0.4125 per share. The dividend is payable on December 31, 2024 to the holders of record of the common stock at the close of business on December 13, 2024 . In addition, the Board of Directors declared cash dividends on the company's 10.625% Series A Fixed-Rate Reset Cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock for the period October 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024 . The dividend is $664.0625 per preferred share, or $0.6640625 per depository share, and is payable on December 31, 2024 to holders of record at the close of business on December 13, 2024 . About Wesco Wesco International (NYSE: WCC) builds, connects, powers and protects the world. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , Wesco is a FORTUNE 500 ® company with $22 billion in annual sales and a leading provider of business-to-business distribution, logistics services and supply chain solutions. Wesco offers a best-in-class product and services portfolio of Electrical and Electronic Solutions, Communications and Security Solutions, and Utility and Broadband Solutions. The Company employs approximately 20,000 people, partners with the industry's premier suppliers, and serves thousands of customers around the world. With millions of products, end-to-end supply chain services, and leading digital capabilities, Wesco provides innovative solutions to meet customer needs across commercial and industrial businesses, contractors, government agencies, educational institutions, telecommunications providers, and utilities. Wesco operates nearly 800 branches, warehouses and sales offices in more than 50 countries, providing a local presence for customers and a global network to serve multi-location businesses and global corporations. Contact Information Investor Relations Will Ruthrauff Director, Investor Relations 484-885-5648 Corporate Communications Jennifer Sniderman Vice President, Corporate Communications 717-579-6603 View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wesco-declares-quarterly-dividend-on-common-stock-and-preferred-stock-302319822.html SOURCE Wesco International

Scientists have raised concerns about hospitality staff coming into contact with second-hand smoke at work after the Government rowed back on plans to make it illegal to smoke in pub beer gardens. Concerns have also been raised about the “renormalisation” of smoking. Dr Rachel O’Donnell, senior research fellow at the University of Stirling’s Institute for Social Marketing and Health, said restrictions on smoking in outdoor places can “reinforce” a message that smoking “isn’t a socially acceptable thing to do” and could also help smokers to kick the habit. In November, it emerged that the UK Government is to scrap plans to ban smoking in the gardens of pubs and restaurants in England. Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the hospitality industry has “taken a real battering in recent years” and it is not “the right time” to ban smoking outside pubs. But smoking and vaping could be banned in other public places in England – such as in playgrounds or outside of schools – under the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. According to the World Health Organisation, there is no safe level of second-hand smoke exposure. In a briefing for journalists, Dr O’Donnell said decision-making “should be on the basis of all the evidence that’s available”. She added: “Any debate about legislation on smoking in outdoor settings shouldn’t only focus on air quality and second-hand smoke exposure levels, because the impacts of restrictions in outdoor settings are also evident on our social norms.” Smoke-free outdoor environments “reinforce smoke-free as the acceptable norm”, she said. “This, I think, is a critically important point at a time where in the media, over the last year, we’ve seen various reports and questions as to whether we might be on the cusp of renormalisation of smoking for various reasons, and so smoke-free public environments still have a critically important role to play. “If you reduce opportunities to smoke, it can also help individuals who smoke themselves to reduce the amount they smoke or to make a quit attempt.” Dr O’Donnell said visibility of tobacco products and smoking is a “form of marketing for tobacco companies” as she pointed to studies highlighting the increasing number of tobacco depictions on screen. She went on: “The more often young adults observe smoking around them, the more likely they are to believe that smoking is socially acceptable, which feeds back into this idea of renormalisation of smoking. “So, restrictions on smoking in outdoor public places have other positive knock-on effects, potentially for young people as well, just sending out that clear message that this isn’t a socially acceptable thing to do and see, and this could help to discourage smoking initiation among young people at quite a critical time.” On being exposed to second-hand smoke at work, she added: “I think sometimes when we think about exposure to second-hand smoke in outdoor settings, in pubs, in restaurants, we think about that sort of occasional customer exposure, the nuisance element of it when people are out enjoying a meal with friends, but we also need to be reminded that this is a repeated occupational exposure for those who are working in hospitality and serving drinks and food. “Now, as we’ve already seen, concentrations of second-hand smoke in these settings are generally low, and they’re likely to present a low risk to health for most healthy people. “But ... there’s no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke, and so any individual with pre-existing heart, lung or respiratory conditions may be particularly vulnerable even to low levels of exposure. “We know that second-hand smoke is its known carcinogen, and on that basis those exposed in the hospitality sector have a right to be protected. “On that basis, there’s a need to protect them, as there is anybody in any workplace setting from second-hand smoke exposure in all areas of workplaces and spaces.” Sean Semple, professor of exposure science at the University of Stirling’s Institute for Social Marketing and Health, said: “I think that if I were a policy-maker, which I am not, then I would be looking at those occupational exposures as well. “I have asthma, if I was being occupationally exposed to SHS (second-hand smoke), and knowing that I was one of a very small number of workers now being legally exposed to SHS in the workplace, then I might not be very happy about that.” A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “As part of our 10 Year Health Plan we are shifting focus from sickness to prevention, including tackling the harms of smoking and passive smoking. “The landmark Tobacco and Vapes Bill is the biggest public health intervention in a generation and will put us on track towards a smoke-free UK.”If you’re one of the lucky few to have gained access to Path of Exile 2 , chances are that you’ve been hit with a strong bit of stuttering and lag. The first day of early access hasn’t been free of issues thus far, with the launch getting delayed by a certain amount of time already. Players have been able to join the party now, but there are several issues. One of those becomes evident in the first area that serves as part of the tutorial. Both my colleague and I encountered lag in the same area, and here are a few tips and tricks you can try if you find this same issue. Best tips and tricks to fix lag in Path of Exile 2 Both my colleague and I have PC hardware that is capable enough to run Path of Exile 2 without any stutters and lags. However, both of us encountered the same problem at the tutorial town, which means that there might be slight optimization issues. If that’s indeed the case, the best and only solution will be to wait. If I have to guess, a fresh patch will be released shortly by GGG, which could fix issues like this. Again, let’s not forget that it’s just the first day of early access , and such problems are expected to some extent. In the meanwhile, here are a few steps you can take from your side to ease the issue. Do note that we will have a detailed guide on the best graphics settings on PC to ensure there’s minimal lag and stutter. For the time being, here are some tricks to try. Update your graphics driver – Perhaps the most common suggestion, an outdated driver can often become the cause of a graphical issue when a new game is launched. Make sure to update to the latest version for your available GPU. Lock FPS – While your hardware might have the capacity to create more FPS than 60, it’s best to lock the value for the time being. Run at Medium – Same as the previous point; your system might be capable enough, but it’s best to put a check till GGG releases a few patches. For the time being, these might be the only steps you can take on your own. If your system meets the requirements and you’re still getting a lag while Path of Exile 2, the only help will be a new patch.Elway: Remorse over passing on Allen mitigated by play of Nix

PONTE VEDRA, Fla., Dec. 02, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Treace Medical Concepts, Inc. (“Treace” or the “Company”) (NasdaqGS: TMCI), a medical technology company driving a fundamental shift in the surgical treatment of bunions and related midfoot deformities through its flagship Lapiplasty® and Adductoplasty® Procedures, today announced that Guy Guglielmino joined the Company as Chief Commercial Officer. In this new position, Mr. Guglielmino will lead Treace’s commercial efforts and play a pivotal role in driving the Company’s next phase of rapid innovation, strategic product commercialization, and growth. “I am thrilled to welcome Guy to the Treace team,” said John T. Treace, CEO, Founder and Board Member of Treace. “With a wealth of diverse medical technology industry experience, a demonstrated track record of strong customer engagement, leadership in innovation and product development, and a proven ability to deliver exceptional market growth, Guy is ideally suited to lead our commercial efforts.” “I’ve always admired and respected Treace, having watched the team create and lead in entirely new market segments,” said Mr. Guglielmino. “Treace has established a new standard with an approach that deeply understands their customers’ unmet needs, resulting in groundbreaking innovations that democratize the practice of the surgical treatment of bunions and midfoot deformities. I look forward to working with John and the Treace leadership team to deliver class-leading innovation, product commercialization, and sustained market performance.” Mr. Guglielmino joins Treace with deep medical technology industry expertise, having served in diverse senior leadership roles. Most recently, Mr. Guglielmino was President, Recovery Sciences at Enovis. Prior to that, he held senior Marketing roles at Enovis, Wright Medical, and at Bausch + Lomb. Mr. Guglielmino received his Bachelor of Science in Business & Entrepreneurship and his MBA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the Company’s expectations of innovation, product commercialization, market performance, and growth. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s current assumptions and expectations of future events and trends, which affect or may affect the Company’s business, strategy, operations or financial performance, and actual results and other events may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements due to numerous risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified. Factors that could cause actual results or other events to differ materially from those contemplated in this press release can be found in the Risk Factors section of Treace’s public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, which was filed with the SEC on February 27, 2024, and its subsequent SEC filings. Because forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. These forward-looking statements speak only as of their date and, except to the extent required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements, whether as a result of any new information, future developments or otherwise. Internet Posting of Information Treace routinely posts information that may be important to investors in the “Investor Relations” section of its website at www.treace.com . The Company encourages investors and potential investors to consult the Treace website regularly for important information about Treace. About Treace Medical Concepts Treace Medical Concepts, Inc. is a medical technology company with the goal of advancing the standard of care for the surgical management of bunion and related midfoot deformities. Bunions are complex 3-dimensional deformities that originate from an unstable joint in the middle of the foot and affect approximately 67 million Americans, of which Treace estimates 1.1 million are annual surgical candidates. Treace has pioneered and patented the Lapiplasty® 3D Bunion Correction® System – a combination of instruments, implants, and surgical methods designed to surgically correct all three planes of the bunion deformity and secure the unstable joint, addressing the root cause of the bunion and helping patients get back to their active lifestyles. To further support the needs of bunion patients, Treace has introduced its Adductoplasty® Midfoot Correction System, designed for reproducible surgical correction of midfoot deformities. The Company continues to expand its footprint in the foot and ankle market with the introduction of its SpeedPlateTM Rapid Compression Implants, an innovative fixation platform with broad versatility across Lapiplasty® and Adductoplasty® procedures, as well as other common bone fusion procedures of the foot. For more information, please visit www.treace.com . To learn more about Treace, connect with us on LinkedIn , X , Facebook and Instagram . Contacts: Treace Medical Concepts Mark L. Hair Chief Financial Officer mhair@treace.net (904) 373-5940 Investors: Gilmartin Group Vivian Cervantes IR@treace.net