The United States has ordered nonessential diplomats and their family members at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut to leave Lebanon, a State Department official said Monday, as tensions over Iran rise with the threat of a potentially imminent military strike.
The official said a continuous assessment of the regional security environment determined it was “prudent” to draw down the U.S. Embassy’s footprint so that only essential personnel remain at their posts.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the move had not yet been formally announced, said that it is a temporary measure and that the embassy will remain operational.
Rondale Moore, an NFL receiver who had season-ending training camp knee injuries in each of the last two years after a standout college career at Purdue and a promising start with the Arizona Cardinals, was found dead Saturday, authorities said. He was 25.
Police said Moore died of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound. Moore was found dead in the garage of a property in his hometown of New Albany, police chief Todd Bailey said. The death remains under investigation.
Floyd County Coroner Matthew Tomlin also confirmed Moore’s death. He said an autopsy would be conducted on Sunday.
Federal health officials on Monday laid out a proposal to spur development of customized treatments for patients with hard-to-treat diseases, including for rare genetic conditions that the pharmaceutical industry has long considered unprofitable.
The preliminary Food and Drug Administration guidelines, if implemented, would create a new pathway for bespoke therapies that have only been tested in a handful of patients due to the challenges of conducting larger studies. The FDA announcement specifically mentions gene editing, although agency officials said the new approach could also be used by other drugs and therapies.
It’s a shift long sought by patients, advocates and researchers focused on rare diseases, which often do not fit within the pharmaceutical industry’s business model or the FDA’s traditional drug-approval system.
Milla Mirkovic can be reached at mirk1654@stthomas.edu.
