Rain, landslide close California highway
BIG SUR, Calif. -- A new storm swept into California Thursday and again forced closure of scenic California 1 in Big Sur where one of its two lanes collapsed into the ocean after heavy weekend rains.
The Monterey County sheriff's office had warned residents of the region to consider leaving before the highway was shut down Wednesday afternoon, especially if they have medical issues. The route was not expected to reopen until Saturday.
The California Department of Transportation had been cautiously running convoys of residents and essential workers past the slide area in both directions twice daily on the remaining undamaged lane.
Leaving the area requires heading north toward Monterey Bay because a 12-mile stretch of California 1 to the south has been blocked for some time by three previous slides requiring massive repair projects.
The highway slide site got rain early in the day but there was little precipitation through the middle of the day. A second weather disturbance was expected today.
The latest collapse occurred Saturday near Rocky Creek Bridge, temporarily stranding as many as 1,600 people in Big Sur. Most were able to leave when the single lane was reopened Sunday, transportation department spokesperson Kevin Drabinski said earlier this week.
Five state parks were closed indefinitely after the slide and local media reported that the evacuation warning led to the closure of an elementary school and preschool Thursday and today.
Engineers were to remain on site through the storms to watch for any changes, officials said in a statement.
Oklahoma executes convict in '02 deaths
McALESTER, Okla. -- A man convicted of shooting and killing two people in Oklahoma City more than two decades ago was executed Thursday morning.
Michael Smith, 41, received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was pronounced dead at 10:20 a.m., Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesperson Lance West said.
Smith was sentenced to die in the separate shooting deaths of Janet Moore, 41, and Sharath Pulluru, 22, in February 2002. During a clemency hearing last month, Smith denied he was responsible.
He is the first person executed in Oklahoma this year.
Drugmaker to pull treatment after trials
The maker of the newest treatment approved for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis said Thursday it would withdraw the drug from the market because a large clinical trial did not produce evidence that the treatment worked.
Amylyx Pharmaceuticals said in a statement it started the process of withdrawing the drug in the United States, where it is called Relyvrio, and in Canada, where it is called Albrioza. As of Thursday, no new patients will be able to start the drug, while current patients who wish to continue taking the medication can be transitioned to a free drug program, the company said.
When the Food and Drug Administration approved Relyvrio in September 2022, the agency concluded there was not yet sufficient evidence that the medication could help patients live longer or slow the progression of the disease.
It decided to greenlight the medication anyway, instead of waiting two years for results of a large clinical trial, citing data showing the treatment to be safe and the desperation of patients.
Since then, about 4,000 patients in the United States have received the treatment.
Last month, Amylyx announced that the results of a 48-week trial of 664 patients showed that the treatment did not work better than a placebo.
Judge denies bid to move officers' trial
MEMPHIS -- The federal trial of four former Memphis police officers charged with civil-rights violations in the beating death of Tyre Nichols will be held in the city, a judge ruled Thursday.
During a hearing in federal court, U.S. District Judge Mark Norris denied motions filed by defense attorneys to move the trial out of the city or bring in a jury from elsewhere in Tennessee.
The attorneys argued that news media coverage and the public release of video related to the beating would make it impossible to seat a fair and impartial jury in Memphis, where Nichols died in January 2023.
Norris disagreed, saying media coverage and the video release won't bias a Memphis jury against the officers. The judge did say that defense attorneys can file another change of venue motion after potential jurors are questioned about their knowledge of the case.
Emmitt Martin, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith were fired after Nichols' death. They were indicted in September on federal charges that they deprived Nichols of his rights through excessive force and failure to intervene, and obstructed justice through witness tampering. They also have been charged in state court with second-degree murder.
The state trial has been delayed until the federal trial is complete. The federal trial is scheduled to start Sept. 9.
Emmitt Martin III, a former Memphis Police Department officer accused of killing Tyre Nichols last year, walks into federal court in Memphis, on Thursday. (AP/Daily Memphian/Patrick Lantrip)