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One-year-old Layla Richards, from London, had incurable aggressive leukaemia only five months ago.

Doctors used “designer immune cells” to fight the cancer and say her improvement was “almost a miracle”.

It is too soon to know if she has been cured, but her progress already marks a huge moment for the field.

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Medical staff, in conjunction with the biotech company Cellectis, rapidly gained permission to try a highly experimental therapy that had been trialled only in mice.

The treatment – designer immune cells – were the product of cutting-edge advances in gene editing.

Previous therapies have tried to add new genes to correct a defect whereas this one edited those already there.
Molecular scissors

Microscopic scissors – technically known as Talens – were used to precisely engineer the DNA inside a donor’s immune cells.

The cells were designed to seek out and kill only leukaemia cells and to make them invisible to the strong drugs given to patients.

The designer cells were then injected into Layla and she also needed a second bone marrow transplant to restore her immune system.

For 127 years, the New York-based company has been churning out the lightweight metal used in everything from beverage cans to airplanes, once making it a symbol of U.S. industrial might. Now, with prices languishing near six-year lows, it’s wiping out almost a third of domestic operating capacity, Harbor Intelligence estimates. If prices don’t recover, the researcher predicts almost all U.S. smelting plants will close by next year.

The body of Mikhail Lesin was found in a room in the plush Dupont Circle hotel on Thursday morning, the Russian embassy in Washington said, confirming reports by Russian news agencies that Lesin, 57, had died. State-owned RIA Novosti reported that Lesin died of a heart attack, citing a spokesman for his family.

Washington police have opened a “death investigation”, lieutenant Sean Conboy told the Guardian. Conboy declined to identify the subject of the investigation but said detectives were looking into the circumstances of the man’s death. Police found a body at the hotel room at about 11.30am on Friday, he said.

The Russian agency Tass reported that early investigation did not find any signs of violent death, and quoted a police spokesman, Sean Hickman, as saying security had not seen anything suspicious. Hickman said the nature of the investigation could change, depending on what was found the scene and after an examination of the body.

Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT, the Kremlin-directed news agency tweeted: “Lesin is dead. It’s impossible to believe. Please, everyone who knew and didn’t know him, remember him well. He was an absolutely unique man.”

RT credited Lesin with “inspiring [its] creation”, and suggested without any citation that “Lesin had been suffering from a prolonged unidentified illness”.

After the fall of communism in the early 1990s, Lesin set up Video International, which became a multi-billion dollar advertising agency and remains one of Russia’s biggest.

He served as the country’s press minister from 1999 to 2004 and was Putin’s media adviser for the following five years, before becoming a senior executive at Gazprom-Media, Russia’s largest media group, in 2013. He resigned a year later.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a statement that the president “highly appreciates the enormous contribution Mikhail Lesin made to the formation of the modern Russian media”, according to Tass.

Instead of landing from the east over Inglewood, planes begin flying from the west and over the ocean to keep noise levels down, but due to secret military operations, the airspace over the Pacific is closed to incoming flights for the next week.

“We clearly understand that neighbors and communities east of the airport will experience noise and we apologize for that,” said Nancy Castles, LAX public relations director.

The military is not saying what exactly is causing the change, and LAX claims it’s also in the dark. Castles said all they know is planes can’t be flying at low altitudes to our west.

Six years ago, ABC7 cameras captured a military operation in downtown LA. Helicopters were seen swooping between high-rises, close enough that residents were able to see armed soldiers in camouflage outside their window.

The programme has been running for 10 years under a law described as “vague” by the government’s terror watchdog.

It emerged as Home Secretary Theresa May unveiled a draft bill governing spying on communications by the authorities.

If it becomes law, the internet activity of everyone in Britain will be held for a year by service providers.

Police and intelligence officers will then be able to see the names of sites suspected criminals have visited, without a warrant.

With a load capacity of up to 200kg, the 2×2 can transform and adapt as you need it. It’s prepared for any situation with attachment points for carrying the wide range of equipment you need.

With dual electric drives, the 2×2 is smooth, ultra-quiet and offers lower maintenance than other on and off road transport options.

The 40 Ah Lithium-Ion battery not only powers the front and rear hub drives but can also be used as a power source, allowing you to charge tools and electronic devices wherever you are.

Following months of layoffs and a bungled Canadian expansion—and two years after a massive customer credit card data breach—the company has decided to close 13 stores, including locations in Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Louisville, Kentucky; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This follows another 11 store closures earlier this year. The chain has approximately 1,800 stores in the U.S.

Police and intelligence officers will be able to see the names of sites people have visited without a warrant, Home Secretary Theresa May said.

But there would be new safeguards over MI5, MI6 and the police spying on the full content of people’s web use.