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ICE eyes new AI translation technology

admin - Latest News - November 14, 2025
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After eliminating its required 5-week Spanish course for recruits, ICE is eyeing a new #AI translation device that’s already being used by some local police departments in Illinois. NBC News’ Julia Ainsley reports.



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Nov. 13, 2025, 5:36 PM ESTBy Courtney Kube and Laura StricklerFORT HOOD, Texas — The commander of the Army medical center where a gynecologist who saw hundreds of service members and their spouses is accused of sexual misconduct said investigators continue to receive new allegations from patients.Col. Mark Jacques, the commander of Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood military base, said in an interview with NBC News that he sent a letter to more than 1,400 of the gynecologist’s patients to inform them of the probe and created a hotline for them to call to report complaints. As many as 85 patients have reached out to the Army Criminal Investigation Division, or CID, he said, although it’s not clear if all of them were victims of misconduct.Col. Mark Jacques, commander of Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, speaks with Courtney Kube.Mosheh Gains / NBC NewsAt least 30 women have been identified by Army investigators as having been photographed or videotaped by the gynecologist, according to a patient who was told of that number by investigators and two Army officials.“I’m devastated that these patients and their families have to endure this and have to go through this,” Jacques said.The gynecologist, Dr. Blaine McGraw, is named in a lawsuit filed on Monday by one of his former patients under the name Jane Doe to protect her identity, NBC News reported. The lawsuit accuses McGraw of recording intimate videos of a patient without her knowledge and alleges there are scores of other women who are victims of his misconduct. It also says Army leadership received complaints about sexual misconduct by McGraw dating back years and allowed him to continue practicing.Jacques said he was not aware of any such complaints or concerns since he took command of the medical center in June.Daniel Conway, an attorney for McGraw, said in a statement, “Dr. McGraw is fully cooperative with the investigation. We have reason to believe, however, that Army special agents are providing members of the public with inaccurate and exaggerated information. We can think of no other reason for inaccurate leaks than to influence the outcome of the case. We, nonetheless, remain cooperative.”Two women, whose names NBC News is withholding at their request, said they were both patients of McGraw’s and had not been interviewed by Army CID. One of them, who said she did not receive the letter from Jacques, said she fears her privacy may have been violated. “He might have pictures of me, and I don’t even know,” she said. The other woman said she received Jacques’ letter.NBC News has verified that McGraw was their doctor.Another one of McGraw’s patients, whom NBC News is calling “Erin” because she asked for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case, said she received a call from Army criminal investigators on Oct. 28. Erin said she started seeing McGraw earlier this year for a high-risk pregnancy. She said Army investigators sent her a still image they had found on McGraw’s phone that they thought might be of her.Courtney Kube interviewing the Jane Doe who filed a lawsuit against the Army doctor.Mosheh Gains / NBC NewsShe said when she looked at the image, she recognized herself instantly. It was a snapshot of her during one of the most trying times of her life — she was in the intensive care unit at the Army hospital dealing with complications from her delivery, she said.“I was in the room by myself for that treatment, and he came in around 11 at night and was basically conversational — and he said, ‘I’ve got great news. We are sending you home early,’” the woman recounted. She said she was groggy from the medication she’d needed for the procedure when he asked how things were going. She told him breastfeeding was not going very well for her, at which point he asked to take a look, she said.What she didn’t know at the time, but realized as soon as she saw the image from Army investigators, was that McGraw had recorded his examination of her breasts, she said.During her interview with Army investigators, she said they told her that the images of patients on McGraw’s phone went back to February 2025.Jacques said he learned on Oct. 17 that a patient had made allegations. The gynecologist was immediately suspended and stripped of his access to any patient treatment areas and electronic medical records, and the Army opened a criminal investigation that same day, he said.“Everything we do in this organization, the reason people come to work every day, is to take care of patients, to take care of Army soldiers, their families and the community,” Jacques said. “Those allegations were not in line with that. They were opposed to the safe treatment of patients, how we take care of patients with respect. And as a result, the investigation is ongoing.”The letter Jacques sent to 1,400 patients, which was obtained by NBC News, includes a QR code to access a questionnaire from Army CID.“We are writing to inform you of an investigation involving a healthcare provider who has previously provided Gynecological and Obstetric care at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center,” the letter states. “While your name appears on the list of patients seen by this provider, there are currently no indications you were affected by the alleged misconduct currently under review.”The lawsuit filed on Monday said the plaintiff learned from Army investigators that McGraw had secretly recorded her during breast and pelvic examinations.The lawsuit also accuses McGraw of inappropriate touching, crude remarks and performing unnecessary medical procedures on multiple patients. It also alleges he would call his patients at home to discuss matters unrelated to medical care and dismiss female chaperones in examination rooms, raising questions about whether he had informed his patients they have a right to have a chaperone present during an appointment.“These allegations that were raised are not in line with me as a physician or with me as a soldier who lives by the Army values,” Jacques said. “This is not acceptable, and that’s why, as the commander, I take responsibility to ensure that, moving forward, we cover every area and every basis to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.”Courtney KubeCourtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.Laura StricklerLaura Strickler is the senior investigative producer on the national security team where she produces television stories and writes for NBCNews.com.Mosheh Gains contributed.
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October 29, 2025
Oct. 29, 2025, 5:10 PM EDTBy Janis Mackey Frayer and Alexander SmithYICHANG, China — Behind a large glass wall, a worker in full protective gear watches as hundreds of tiny glass bottles whizz by every minute, sterilized, filled and packaged by a ballet of robotic arms.Inside each ampule is the substance at the heart of the geopolitical strife between the United States and China: fentanyl, the deadly opioid set to be top of the agenda when Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet Thursday.NBC News got exclusive access to the headquarters of Yichang Humanwell Pharmaceutical, the largest producer of the drug in China, and indeed Asia, at its sprawling complex in the central city of Yichang. Humanwell says that it only supplies fentanyl for use in hospitals and that it does not export any medication to the United States, Mexico or Canada. In 51 years of operating, “we have never had a single incident of a drug going missing — not a single dose has ever been lost,” its president, Du Wentao, said in an interview inside his factory, which is surrounded by high fences wrapped in concertina wire and electric sensors.Read more on this story at NBCNews.com and watch “NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas” tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT.Humanwell Healthcare is one of only five companies in China licensed to produce fentanyl for use in hospitals, and it makes around 100 million doses of fentanyl variants each year.After a strict registration process to get past the main gate, all visitors and staff alike — including the CEO — are required to wear blue hospital caps, shoe covers and lab coats to ensure they do not contaminate the workspace.Most of the production line is automated to limit human contact, with the vials being washed and sterilized and then filled with fentanyl using long rubber tubes.Two staffers in protective gear supervised the process, with an alarm pinging every 10 minutes to remind them to spray their gloved hands with disinfectant. The vials are then inspected using flashes of light, stamped, boxed up and shipped out via a warehouse.All visitors and workers at Humanwell are required to wear full protective gear so as to not contaminate the workspace.Janis Frayer / NBC NewsTrump says fentanyl will be the subject of the “first question” he asks when he meets with Xi in South Korea, the last stop of his three-country Asian tour.American officials say the Chinese government hasn’t done enough to stem the illicit international flow of precursor chemicals for fentanyl, which are then processed into the highly addictive opioid in Mexican labs and smuggled across the border to the United States. Though deaths appear to be declining in the U.S., fentanyl and other synthetic opioids have killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in recent years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Trump, who cited fentanyl as the reason for imposing the first 20% in tariffs on China since retaking office in January, said Wednesday that he believed China is “going to help us with the fentanyl situation” and that tariffs would be lowered accordingly.China has defended its anti-fentanyl efforts and says unrelenting American demand for the drug is to blame for the crisis.But a State Department report to Congress last month accused the ruling Chinese Communist Party of continuing to “subsidize and otherwise incentivize China-based companies to export synthetic drug precursors, including through tax rebates, monetary grants and awards, and official site visits.” It accused companies controlled by the Communist Party of being “complicit in this illicit trade.”Under pressure from Trump, China made fentanyl a controlled substance in 2019, banning its use outside of medical prescriptions. That slowed the influx of Chinese fentanyl into the U.S., but the “prolific export of chemical precursors and other illicit narcotics remains,” the State Department report said.Chinese officials reject that narrative.“China expresses sympathy for the American people suffering from the fentanyl crisis,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday. But he added that “China is the country most resolute in drug control, with the most comprehensive policies and the best track record. It is also one of the countries with the largest number of controlled substances and the strictest regulations in the world.”Du, the president of Humanwell Healthcare, which produces 100 million doses annually of fentanyl-based products, says that the meticulously clean, automated and controlled operation observed by NBC News was no facade.“The management of fentanyl drugs in China is among the strictest in the world,” he said. “There is absolutely no possibility that any dose from our company has flowed to the United States. I can state this with full confidence and certainty — there is no issue whatsoever.”He derided the “many statements in the U.S. claiming that the fentanyl crisis originates from China,” saying that is impossible “given how strict our controls are.”As well as the visit to Humanwell, NBC News gained exclusive access to the National Narcotics Intelligence Center in Beijing, which had been sanctioned by Washington in 2020 but saw those measures lifted three years later during the Biden administration as the two countries agreed to resume cooperation on fentanyl.There, Chinese security officials said the two sides are again exchanging information on how smugglers alter their tactics.Fentanyl precursors are “indeed one of our main concerns because drug synthesis techniques and methods are constantly evolving,” lab director Hua Zhendong told NBC News. “We have not found such processing plants domestically,” he said, so “most of the relevant information comes from technical exchanges with U.S. counterparts.” Hua said the latest precursor chemicals identified by the U.S. “are added to our monitoring list so we can strengthen our attention to these substances.”He said that banning all fentanyl products outside medical use in 2019 had “effectively curbed illegal production and trafficking.”U.S. officials say that’s not the case. The extent to which Washington and Beijing can find common ground on the issue is likely to influence the result of Trump and Xi’s meeting this week, though experts say halting the illicit flow of fentanyl components is easier said than done“I think there is an assumption here that if the Chinese really wanted to shut off these precursors, they could do it,” said Michael Swaine, a senior research fellow in the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington-based think tank.The problem, he said, is that there is no “set number” of precursors to fentanyl.“You don’t have a clear list of specific items that you would be able to easily interdict,” Swaine said. “And a lot of them, of course, are very dual-use items.”So while there might be a “symbolic effort” to deal with the fentanyl issue at the Trump-Xi meeting, he said, “I don’t think that this is going to go completely away.”Janis Mackey FrayerJanis Mackey Frayer is a Beijing-based correspondent for NBC News.Alexander SmithAlexander Smith is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital based in London.Dawn Liu and Peter Guo contributed.
October 15, 2025
Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 15, 2025, 5:08 PM EDTBy Kaitlin SullivanTwo months after she was born, Eliana Nachem got a cough that wouldn’t go away. Three weeks later, she also started having runny stool, prompting a visit to her pediatrician. Eliana didn’t have allergies or a gastrointestinal condition; instead, tests pointed to a problem with her immune system. At 4 months old, Eliana received her diagnosis: severe combined immunodeficiency, or SCID. Babies born with the extremely rare disease do not develop the cells required for a functioning immune system. Every germ becomes a potentially fatal threat and to stay healthy, children with the condition must live in a completely sterile environment. Without treatment, kids usually do not live past their second birthday.“I expected the worst, then I immediately went into research mode,” Eliana’s father, Jeff Nachem, said. The Nachems also got to work turning their home into a germ-free fortress, rehoming their pets, never opening the windows and opening the doors to outside as sparingly as possible. Eliana was kept inside, and on the rare instance when visitors came by, the family had disposable gowns, gloves and masks for them to wear. (SCID is sometimes referred to as “bubble boy disease.”) Eliana also started on a temporary therapy that replaced a missing enzyme in her body, called adenosine deaminase (ADA).In the midst of the strict protocol, they learned about a clinical trial in Los Angeles — 2,600 miles from their home in Fredericksburg, Virginia — that could help their daughter live a normal life.Jeff, Caroline and Eliana Nachem with Dr. Donald Kohn before Eliana’s gene therapy for ADA-SCID.Courtesy Caroline NachemScientists have identified about 20 gene variants that cause SCID. Eliana’s form of the disease, ADA-SCID, is diagnosed in fewer than 10 children born in the U.S. each year. (Under 100 babies are diagnosed with any form of SCID in a given year.)In 2014, when she was just 10 months old, Eliana was one of 62 children enrolled in a clinical trial for a gene therapy for ADA-SCID. In a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers followed up on the results of that Phase 2 clinical trial. The update reported that all 62 kids, who received the treatment from 2012 to 2019, are alive today. In 59 of them, including Eliana, the gene therapy completely restored immune function, without requiring any additional treatment — a success rate of 95%.“This is one of the most successful gene therapy trials for an ultra-rare genetic disease that we have,” said Dr. Talal Mousallem, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Duke University School of Medicine. He was not involved with the trial. Correcting stem cellsThe treatment begins with doctors harvesting stem cells from the patient’s own bone marrow. These stem cells are purified in a lab, and then modified using an inactivated form of the virus that causes HIV. Instead of carrying the human immunodeficiency virus, this version carries the ADA gene that people with ADA-SCID are missing, reinserting the gene into the stem cell DNA. Before the customized treatment is reinfused back into the patient, they must undergo chemotherapy to get rid of the body’s existing stem cells and make room for the new ones. Once back in the body, the cells — which no longer carry the virus, just the gene it left behind — get to work building an immune system over the next year.“It’s a one-time delivery vehicle that takes the gene into the DNA of the stem cell, so every time it divides to make other cells, those cells carry that ADA gene,” said Dr. Donald Kohn, a pediatric bone marrow transplant physician at UCLA’s Broad Stem Cell Research Center, who led the trial. A less risky optionGene therapy clinical trials are underway for four subtypes of SCID, but the standard of care is still a bone marrow transplant, which builds an immune system using stem cells from a donor. The treatment can be risky and side effects further down the line.It’s ideal for bone marrow transplants to occur between siblings — who share about half of the same DNA — but two siblings only have about a 25% chance of being a match. In most cases, the donor is not a sibling, which introduces the risk that the donor’s immune cells will attack the recipient’s body, a phenomenon called graft-versus-host disease.The risk of graft-versus-host means kids who receive functioning stem cells from another person have to be on immunosuppressant drugs following the transplant, which keep the foreign cells from attacking their immune system.“Which slows down the progress, because you are suppressing the immune system while also trying to build an immune system,” Kohn said. People also have to undergo much higher doses of chemotherapy before receiving a donor bone marrow transplant than they do before undergoing gene therapy. “There can be effects [later in life] from being treated with chemotherapy, including growth, endocrine or fertility effects,” said Dr. Whitney Reid, an attending physician in the division of allergy and immunology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who was not involved in the trial. With gene therapy, “you can give those patients much lower doses of chemotherapy and there is a much lower chance of rejection,” she said. Eliana “was able to go from living in isolation to being able to go to preschool and go swimming in a public pool and play on a playground, and do all the things that every other kid gets to do,” her father said. Courtesy Caroline Nachem Having another therapy for ADA-SCID is particularly important, Reid added. Changes in the ADA gene cause toxins to build up in clumps of white blood cells called lymphocytes. This can cause hearing loss and learning difficulties as kids get older. Unlike other types of SCID, “it doesn’t only affect the immune system,” Reid said. Mousallem, of Duke University, said he hopes the success of this trial will open the door to gene therapies for other rare diseases that often go untreated, as well as SCID caused by other gene variants. “The data is great for ADA-SCID, and it is our hope that one day this becomes the standard of care,” he said. Eliana turns 12 years old next week and loves going to dance classes.“It’s amazing that she was able to go from living in isolation to being able to go to preschool and go swimming in a public pool and play on a playground, and do all the things that every other kid gets to do,” her father said. Eliana still undergoes testing twice a year to make sure her immune system hasn’t weakened. So far, so good.“We think it’s a lifelong therapy,” Kohn said. “Some of these kids are now 15 years old and are living normal lives. We treated them when they were little babies and now they’re going to prom.”Kaitlin SullivanKaitlin Sullivan is a contributor for NBCNews.com who has worked with NBC News Investigations. She reports on health, science and the environment and is a graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York.
October 7, 2025
Oct. 7, 2025, 12:09 PM EDTBy Freddie Clayton and Max ButterworthNew satellite imagery lays bare the sheer scale of the destruction in the Gaza Strip with two years of Israeli bombardment having turned much of the landscape into a wasteland.The images, sourced from the San Francisco-based imaging company Planet Labs PBC, show the Palestinian enclave from when the Israel-Hamas war began after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel and from last month.An estimated 80% of Gaza’s structures have been damaged or destroyed in that time, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
October 18, 2025
Bill Nye slams Trump as ‘petulant’ during ‘No Kings’ protest
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