deconstruct

Dozens of doctors and nurses silently lined the hospital hallway in tribute: For a history-making two months, a pig’s kidney worked normally inside the brain-dead man on the gurney rolling past them.

The dramatic experiment came to an end Wednesday as surgeons at NYU Langone Health removed the pig kidney and returned the donated body of Maurice “Mo” Miller to his family for cremation.

It marked the longest a genetically modified pig kidney has ever functioned inside a human, albeit a deceased one. And by pushing the boundaries of research with the dead, the scientists learned critical lessons they’re preparing to share with the Food and Drug Administration -– in hopes of eventually testing pig kidneys in the living.

“It’s a combination of excitement and relief,” Dr. Robert Montgomery, the transplant surgeon who led the experiment, told The Associated Press. “Two months is a lot to have a pig kidney in this good a condition. That gives you a lot of confidence” for next attempts.

Malka Leifer, 56, must serve at least 11 years and six months of the sentence before she can be considered for early release. As soon as she is released from a Victoria state prison, she will likely be deported to her native Israel.

Leifer was principal of Melbourne’s ultra-Orthodox Adass Israel School when she abused two teenage sisters between 2004 and 2007.

Alternate: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/sisters-not-powerless-anymore-as-malka-leifer-jailed-for-sexual-abuse/mzdj034zh

As a United States Navy plane circled overhead, two Philippine boats breached a Chinese coast guard blockade in a dangerous confrontation Tuesday in the disputed South China Sea to deliver food and other supplies to Filipino forces guarding a contested shoal.

Two Philippine coast guard vessels escorting the supply boats, however, were blocked by at least four Chinese coast guard ships for about five hours in the tense standoff near Second Thomas Shoal.

Nearly two dozen cattle died in Nebraska, more than 100 Missouri nursing home residents were evacuated and an ice cream shop in Iowa was forced to close as record-shattering heat engulfs more than 20 states.

Warning: This lengthy article contains disturbing language and details of graphic evidence.

Surovikin, former commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, has not been seen in public since the mutiny by Wagner mercenaries in June.

All eight people who were stuck in a cable car dangling hundreds of metres above a ravine in Pakistan's north-west for many hours have now been rescued.

In a slow and dangerous operation, a military helicopter rescued one child, while teams on the ground recovered the rest of the group after dark.

They were helped to safety along a zip line, with a huge crowd on top of the hillside celebrating their rescue.

It’s one thing for Finland or Belgium (the Flemish separatist Vlaams Belang party heads the polls) to veer onto a far-right rail. When it begins to happen in Germany, however, it’s time to start plotting an escape route.

Over the past year, support for the anti-immigrant, pro-Russian Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has nearly doubled to more than 20 percent in POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, a record.

The party is now in second place, just five percentage points behind the center-right Christian Democrats. Over the summer, the AfD has also succeeded in widening its lead over the Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.

Rightwing PM Giorgia Meloni has demanded councils register only biological parents on birth certificates, leaving partners in legal limbo

Expectant parents could soon have another new option this fall to protect their newborns from RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, the most common cause of hospitalization in American infants, after the Food and Drug Administration announced Monday that it has widened its approval for Pfizer's Abrysvo vaccine to include expectant mothers.

Pregnant women would receive immunity from the shot during pregnancy then pass that along to their baby before birth, offering protection in the infant's earliest months of life.

The Nice Matin newspaper quoted unnamed insiders as saying that some restaurants in St-Tropez, a favoured summer haunt of celebrities and the international jet set for more than half a century, had taken to checking customers’ names against their database and refusing reservations if a previous visit was not felt to have resulted in a big enough bill – or tip.

An increasingly common technique was to say there was availability, but at a price. “They’ll say: ‘Sure, we have a table at €5,000. Is that OK?’” a customer said. Another cited a minimum spend of €1,500 a head.

The summertime gas price spike has been driven by a combination of easing recession fears, production cuts by Russia and Saudi Arabia and extreme heat that has knocked offline some refinery activity.

The historic heatwaves could cause even more trouble by potentially setting the stage for powerful hurricanes.