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Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to Kagan and Soai for untangling mirror images in molecules

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scientists Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for untangling mysterious mirror images in molecules, a discovery that has been used to develop countless drugs and transformed modern medicine. Many molecules come in versions that look alike but are not exactly identical, like right and left hands. One mirror image of the chemical carvone smells like mint, for example, while the other has a whiff of caraway, a spice often used in rye bread. Even life itself prefers one mirror image over the other. DNA twists to the right, and the ...

FBI says it stopped a Mall of America terror attack by a teen after agents sold him an assault rifle

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — FBI agents thwarted a terror attack by a teenager on the Mall of America after supplying him with an assault rifle following months of text messages, authorities said Wednesday. The 18-year-old had been under investigation for nearly two years, trading messages with a confidential informant, before agents sold him the rifle and ammunition and arrested him on the spot, they said. “This was a radicalized young man who needed to be watched,” U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said as he praised the FBI investigation. Agents “were able to detect a threat, and disrupt ...

Lawyers seek to block Texas man’s execution, citing failed execution of Christa Pike

DALLAS (AP) — Lawyers for a Texas man who fatally shot a convenience store clerk are asking a judge to stay his execution by lethal injection set for Wednesday, citing the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee last week. This would be the first execution scheduled in the U.S. since Pike. Because the same drug used in her attempted execution — pentobarbital — would be used in Texas for Jamaal Howard, his attorneys argued that the drug poses the same risks, and said they believe the state’s supply had become degraded. Pike’s lawyers are seeking more information ...

Italy WWII, 1944

AP Photo An Anti Tank ditch cuts into the lovely countryside South of Futa Pass in the Gothic Line, in the Apennine mountains, Italy, Oct. 8, 1944.

Today in History

On Oct. 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire began; more than 300 people died and more than 17,000 structures were destroyed during the three-day blaze. Also on this date: In 1862, Union forces beat back a Confederate offensive in the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky’s biggest and bloodiest engagement of the Civil War, leading to hundreds of casualties but ensuring the state would remain under Northern control. In 1956, Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0. In 1967, Bolivian forces wounded and ...

UN health agency wants more details from Russia on suspected pneumonic plague case

GENEVA (AP) — A top official with the World Health Organization said Wednesday it doesn’t know how a lab worker in Siberia died, and she urged Russia to provide more information about a case that prompted global concerns about suspected pneumonic plague. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO director of Epidemic and Pandemic Management, said the U.N. health agency doesn’t know what the “causative agent” was behind the woman’s Oct. 2 death, which unconfirmed reports in Russia blamed on pneumonic plague — a less common but severe form of plague that can spread from person to person. In ...