Flu Vaccine

The US Food and Drug Administration is set to approve the first vaccine for use in an avian flu pandemic. An advisory committee said the regulator should approve the vaccine, made by Sanofi-Pasteur, the vaccine arm of Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis. The vaccine against the H5N1 strain of bird flu is only mildly effective, however, and will not be sold commercially. It is being bought by the US government for limited use in the early stages of a pandemic, before a vaccine better matched to the actual pandemic strain becomes available (see Nature 437, 619; doi:10.1038/437619a 2005).

Green buyout

Plans for eight coal-fired power plants in Texas look likely to be scrapped as part of a proposed buyout of Dallas-based electricity generator TXU Energy. The US$45-billion deal between TXU and investors led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group was endorsed by major environmental groups when it was announced on 26 February. The buyers say that as well as revising the plans for new power stations, they will commit to cut carbon dioxide emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, and adopt strict environmental rules.

Abandoned space

A six-year effort to launch a commercial space facility in Texas has been abandoned. Brazoria County, outside Houston, created the Gulf Coast Regional Spaceport Development Corporation in 2000, hoping that it could find a private company to develop leased land into the world's first base dedicated to commercial space travel. But the county government said on 27 February that it was giving up on the idea.