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Study links even mild Covid-19 to changes in the brain

“We have been fairly shocked to see clear variations within the mind even with delicate an infection,” lead creator Gwenaëlle Douaud, an affiliate professor of neurosciences on the College of Oxford, informed CNN in an e-mail.
Douaud and her colleagues evaluated mind imaging from 401 individuals who had Covid-19 between March 2020 and April 2021, each earlier than an infection and a mean of 4½ months after an infection. They in contrast the outcomes with mind imaging of 384 uninfected folks related in age, socioeconomics and threat components equivalent to blood strain and weight problems. Of the 401 contaminated folks, 15 had been hospitalized.
The 785 individuals have been between the ages of 51 and 81 and have been all a part of the UK Biobank, an ongoing authorities well being database of 500,000 folks begun in 2012.
Douaud defined that it’s regular for folks to lose 0.2% to 0.3% of grey matter yearly within the memory-related areas of the mind as they age, however within the research analysis, individuals who had been contaminated with the coronavirus misplaced a further 0.2% to 2% of tissue in contrast with those that hadn’t been contaminated.
Along with imaging, the individuals have been examined for his or her government and cognitive perform utilizing the Path Making Take a look at, a instrument used to assist detect cognitive impairments related to dementia and take a look at an individual’s mind processing pace and performance. The researchers discovered that those that had the best mind tissue loss additionally carried out the worst on this examination.
Though the areas of the mind most affected look like associated to the olfactory system, Douaud stated it wasn’t clear why that was the case.
“For the reason that irregular modifications we see within the contaminated individuals’ brains is likely to be partly associated to their lack of scent, it’s potential that recovering it’d result in these mind abnormalities changing into much less marked over time. Equally, it’s possible that the dangerous results of the virus (whether or not direct, or oblique through inflammatory or immune reactions) lower over time after an infection. One of the best ways to seek out out can be to scan these individuals once more in a single or two years’ time,” she stated.
Douaud added that the researchers anticipate reimaging and testing the individuals in a single or two years.
And whereas the research finds some affiliation between an infection and mind perform, it is nonetheless not clear why. Earlier research have proven folks with vital and repeated lack of scent even have an related lack of grey matter. Nevertheless, this research didn’t consider whether or not folks truly had a lack of scent.
The authors cautioned that the findings have been solely of a second in time however famous that they “elevate the likelihood that longer-term penalties of SARS-CoV-2 an infection may in time contribute to Alzheimer’s illness or different types of dementia.”
The findings have been noticeable, however they weren’t sufficient to trigger alarm, stated Dr. Richard Isaacson, a neurologist and director of the Florida Atlantic College Heart for Mind Well being. Isaacson was not concerned within the research.
Isaacson stated the findings have been noticeable for clinicians, however he added that the general impression on people was troublesome to find out and might be small. “It is actually exhausting to know the long-term medical impression and high quality of life impression in a state of affairs like this,” he stated.
“The mind could also be affected by different mechanisms equivalent to immune, inflammatory, vascular or psychological/behavioral change however not direct an infection,” stated Dr. Alan Carson, a professor of neuropsychiatry on the Heart for Medical Mind Sciences on the College of Edinburgh, who was not concerned within the research.
“What this research virtually definitely exhibits is the impression, when it comes to neural modifications,” he stated. “However I do not assume it helps us perceive the mechanisms underpinning cognitive change after Covid an infection.”

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Video: Clashes After Immigration Raid at California Cannabis Farm

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Clashes After Immigration Raid at California Cannabis Farm
Federal agents fired crowd control munitions at protesters who blocked a road outside of the farm. Some demonstrators threw objects at the agents’ vehicles.
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Please make a path for emergency vehicles or chemical munitions will be deployed.
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Trump heads to Texas as recovery efforts from deadly flood continue

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump will travel to Texas on Friday to meet with first responders and grieving families in the aftermath of last week’s catastrophic flooding that has left more than 100 people dead.
During his visit, Trump is expected to receive a briefing from local elected officials and meet with victims’ relatives. He will be joined by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn told reporters this week that they planned to travel with Trump to tour the flood damage. It is unclear whether state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a staunch ally of the administration who is challenging Cornyn in next year’s GOP primary, will join them.
Authorities continue to search miles of the Guadalupe River for more than 150 people who remain missing as hopes of finding more survivors dwindle. Among those confirmed or feared dead are 27 children and counselors at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp in Hunt.
Trump on Sunday signed a major disaster declaration for Texas to make federal funding available for hard-hit Kerr County, where nearly 77% of voters backed him in the 2024 election.
The trip to Texas will be Trump’s second to the site of a natural disaster since he was inaugurated for his second term; he visited Los Angeles in January after a wildfire devastated large swaths of Southern California. During his first term, he made multiple trips to Texas in 2017 in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and its deadly floods. The same year, he traveled to Puerto Rico to survey damage caused by Hurricane Maria.
The Trump administration has faced criticism from officials and lawmakers at various levels of government who have argued that recent job cuts at the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, alongside plans to shutter the Federal Emergency Management Agency, prevented accurate forecasting and worsened the effects of the floods. Administration officials have repeatedly rejected those assertions.
Trump has pledged to “get rid” of FEMA, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, and his administration has overseen a largely voluntary exodus of experienced personnel at the agency, fueling concerns about its ability to promptly respond to disasters. The concerns were heightened by a new policy from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem mandating her approval for any agency spending in excess of $100,000.
Asked by NBC News on Thursday whether the new policy delayed FEMA’s response to the tragedy in Texas, Trump defended Noem.
“We were right on time. We were there — in fact, she was the first one I saw on television,” Trump told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in a phone call. “She was there right from the beginning.”
Criticism of the disaster response has also focused on Kerr County’s emergency management system after reports indicated local officials did not use warnings from FEMA to send text alerts when the severity and speed of the flooding heightened, catching hundreds of people in a region known as “flash flood alley” by surprise. In addition, Kerr County, which has a population of more than 50,000 people, had no siren system to alert residents, in part because some local officials felt it was too expensive to install.
Trump called for additional flood alarms in Texas on Thursday, though he argued that the storm was unprecedented and that “nobody ever saw a thing like this coming.”
“After having seen this horrible event, I would imagine you’d put alarms up in some form, where alarms would go up if they see any large amounts of water or whatever it is,” he told NBC News.
Joe Herring, the mayor of Kerrville, told MSNBC’s Katy Tur this week that the state rejected an effort to install a siren system nearly a decade ago.
“The county government looked into that in 2017, and from what I heard, their grant application was denied,” Herring said. “I wasn’t in government at that time, but it sounds like we talked about it, we asked for help, and we were denied before.”
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Video: Trump Compliments President of Liberia on His ‘Beautiful English’

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Trump Compliments President of Liberia on His ‘Beautiful English’
During a lunch at the State Dining Room with five leaders of African nations, President Trump complimented the president of Liberia, where English is the official language, for his command of the language.
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— involvement in the investment in Liberia. “Yeah“. I would like to see that happen. We want to work with the United States in peace and security within the region, because we are committed to that. And we just want to thank you so much for this opportunity. “Well, thank you. It’s such good English, such beautiful — Where did you, where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where — were you educated? Where?” Yes, sir. “In Liberia?” Yes, sir. “Well, that’s very interesting. That’s beautiful English. I have people at this table can’t speak nearly as well. They come from —”
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