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Actor Johnny Depp has lost his libel case against The Sun over “wife beater claims,” Oregon voters to decide on decriminalizing heroin, cocaine, and LSD use, and a new study finds coronavirus mutation may be more contagious.
Actor Johnny Depp has lost a libel case he filed against The Sun’s publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN) that alleged he had beaten his ex-wife Amber Heard, Unilad reports.
Depp also sued executive editor Dan Wootton, over a 2018 Sun article that was titled, ‘Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?’
The headlining star of multiple blockbuster movies was seeking compensation for damages to his reputation from the publisher. However, the court ruled in favor of MGN, finding that the article was “substantially true,” as per the Evening Standard. The court refused to award Depp any compensation.
The judge said: “Although he has proved the necessary elements of his cause of action in libel, the defendants have shown that what they published in the meaning which I have held the words to bear was substantially true.”
On Tuesday, voters in Oregon will make the decision on potentially decriminalizing heroin, cocaine, and LSD. The measure, known as Measure 110, will remove criminal penalties for low-level possession of the substances and will either have the option of pain a $100 fine or intending the new, free addiction recovery centers, rather than being arrested and facing jail time, the Associated Press reported.
The new measure does not make heroin, cocaine, or LSD illegal, it simply removes criminal penalties for users, replacing them with treatment.
According to a website focused on informing the public about the measure: “No change is made in the criminal code for delivery, manufacture, and other commercial drug offenses. These offenses will remain a crime. No change is made for other crimes that may be associated with drug use, such as driving under the influence and theft.”
Researchers from the University of Texas, Austin, have found several genetic mutations in the coronavirus, one of which may have made the disease more contagious, Mirror UK reports. Scientists analyzed over 5,000 COVID-19 patients to understand the way in which the SARS-CoV-2 virus has mutated. The team found 285 mutations, although the majority of these don’t appear to have a significant effect on the severity of the disease.
However, in one instance, the result of this analysis led to the identification of a mutation called D614G, which appears to make the virus more contagious than other strains.
The researchers also identified the percentage of COVID-19 patients that had the D614G mutation during the initial wave of the pandemic, which was 71 percent.
But the alarming news comes in what researchers found during the second wave that occurred during the summer. Among these patients, the D614G mutation was present in 99.9%.
