Normal view
- NBC News Top Stories
- Trump's campaign demands that GOP Rep. Bob Good stop using his name and image in re-election bid
Trump's campaign demands that GOP Rep. Bob Good stop using his name and image in re-election bid
Scientists develop cheap and quick spit test for prostate cancer
DNA test, which takes seconds to collect, can detect men at high risk and spare others unnecessary treatment
Scientists have developed a spit test that could “turn the tide” on prostate cancer worldwide by spotting the disease earlier, detecting where men are at high risk and sparing others unnecessary treatment.
The number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer worldwide is projected to double to 2.9 million a year by 2040, with annual deaths predicted to rise by 85%. It is already the most common form of male cancer in more than 100 countries.
Continue reading...Neighbors say Alitos used security detail car to intimidate them after sign dispute
Emily Baden says after a disagreement over political lawn signs with the US supreme court justice’s wife, a black car began parking at her mother’s home
Neighbors of Samuel Alito and his wife described how a disagreement over political lawn signs put up in the wake of the 2020 presidential election quickly devolved into “unhinged behavior towards a complete stranger” by the supreme court justice’s wife.
Emily Baden says she never intended to get into a fight with Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, her powerful neighbors who live on the same suburban cul-de-sac as her mother outside Washington DC.
Continue reading...FDA Reviews MDMA Therapy for PTSD, Citing Health Risks and Study Flaws
Biden slams Trump and his allies for calling the hush money verdict 'rigged'
Biden announces Israel has offered a three-part plan to end the war in Gaza
LSO/Adès review – Adès’s violin concerto beguiles in Mutter’s silvery sound
Barbican, London
The UK premiere of the composer’s concerto written for Anne-Sophie Mutter was placed alongside two of Stravinsky’s ballet scores in this musically rich and vivid concert
The list of composers who have written concertos for violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter is a long and varied one, from André Previn and John Williams to Wolfgang Rihm and Unsuk Chin. The latest name to be added to that distinguished list is Thomas Adès; Mutter gave the premiere of his Air at last year’s Lucerne festival, and she was also the soloist in its UK premiere, with the composer himself conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.
Composed during lockdown in 2020 and 2021, Air carries the subtitle Homage to Sibelius, and certainly there is an echo of the modal opening of that composer’s Sixth Symphony in the way that it begins, not in obvious thematic terms, as much as in the sense of tranquil reflection that the works share, as Adès’s soloist weaves a gossamer thread of sound through the orchestra’s stepwise descending lines, which gradually build, layer on layer, colour on colour, until the full ensemble is involved.
Continue reading...Trial results for new lung cancer drug are ‘off the charts’, say doctors
More than half of patients with advanced forms of disease who took lorlatinib were still alive after five years with no progression
Doctors are hailing “off the chart” trial results that show a new drug stopped lung cancer advancing for longer than any other treatment in medical history.
Lung cancer is the world’s leading cause of cancer death, accounting for about 1.8m deaths every year. Survival rates in those with advanced forms of the disease, where tumours have spread, are particularly poor.
Continue reading...What’s next for bird flu vaccines
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.
Here in the US, bird flu has now infected cows in nine states, millions of chickens, and—as of last week—a second dairy worker. There’s no indication that the virus has acquired the mutations it would need to jump between humans, but the possibility of another pandemic has health officials on high alert. Last week, they said they are working to get 4.8 million doses of H5N1 bird flu vaccine packaged into vials as a precautionary measure.
The good news is that we’re far more prepared for a bird flu outbreak than we were for covid. We know so much more about influenza than we did about coronaviruses. And we already have hundreds of thousands of doses of a bird flu vaccine sitting in the nation’s stockpile.
The bad news is we would need more than 600 million doses to cover everyone in the US, at two shots per person. And the process we typically use to produce flu vaccines takes months and relies on massive quantities of chicken eggs. Yes, chickens. One of the birds that’s susceptible to avian flu. (Talk about putting all our eggs in one basket. #sorrynotsorry)
This week in The Checkup, let’s look at why we still use a cumbersome, 80-year-old vaccine production process to make flu vaccines—and how we can speed it up.
The idea to grow flu virus in fertilized chicken eggs originated with Frank Macfarlane Burnet, an Australian virologist. In 1936, he discovered that if he bored a tiny hole in the shell of a chicken egg and injected flu virus between the shell and the inner membrane, he could get the virus to replicate.
Even now, we still grow flu virus in much the same way. “I think a lot of it has to do with the infrastructure that’s already there,” says Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. It’s difficult for companies to pivot.
The process works like this: Health officials provide vaccine manufacturers with a candidate vaccine virus that matches circulating flu strains. That virus is injected into fertilized chicken eggs, where it replicates for several days. The virus is then harvested, killed (for most use cases), purified, and packaged.
Making flu vaccine in eggs has a couple of major drawbacks. For a start, the virus doesn’t always grow well in eggs. So the first step in vaccine development is creating a virus that does. That happens through an adaptation process that can take weeks or even months. This process is particularly tricky for bird flu: Viruses like H5N1 are deadly to birds, so the virus might end up killing the embryo before the egg can produce much virus. To avoid this, scientists have to develop a weakened version of the virus by combining genes from the bird flu virus with genes typically used to produce seasonal flu virus vaccines.
And then there’s the problem of securing enough chickens and eggs. Right now, many egg-based production lines are focused on producing vaccines for seasonal flu. They could switch over to bird flu, but “we don’t have the capacity to do both,” Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University, told KFF Health News. The US government is so worried about its egg supply that it keeps secret, heavily guarded flocks of chickens peppered throughout the country.
Most of the flu virus used in vaccines is grown in eggs, but there are alternatives. The seasonal flu vaccine Flucelvax, produced by CSL Seqirus, is grown in a cell line derived in the 1950s from the kidney of a cocker spaniel. The virus used in the seasonal flu vaccine FluBlok, made by Protein Sciences, isn’t grown; it’s synthesized. Scientists engineer an insect virus to carry the gene for hemagglutinin, a key component of the flu virus that triggers the human immune system to create antibodies against it. That engineered virus turns insect cells into tiny hemagglutinin production plants.
And then we have mRNA vaccines, which wouldn’t require vaccine manufacturers to grow any virus at all. There aren’t yet any approved mRNA vaccines for influenza, but many companies are fervently working on them, including Pfizer, Moderna, Sanofi, and GSK. “With the covid vaccines and the infrastructure that’s been built for covid, we now have the capacity to ramp up production of mRNA vaccines very quickly,” says Hensley. This week, the Financial Times reported that the US government will soon close a deal with Moderna to provide tens of millions of dollars to fund a large clinical trial of a bird flu vaccine the company is developing.
There are hints that egg-free vaccines might work better than egg-based vaccines. A CDC study published in January showed that people who received Flucelvax or FluBlok had more robust antibody responses than those who received egg-based flu vaccines. That may be because viruses grown in eggs sometimes acquire mutations that help them grow better in eggs. Those mutations can change the virus so much that the immune response generated by the vaccine doesn’t work as well against the actual flu virus that’s circulating in the population.
Hensley and his colleagues are developing an mRNA vaccine against bird flu. So far they’ve only tested it in animals, but the shot performed well, he claims. “All of our preclinical studies in animals show that these vaccines elicit a much stronger antibody response compared with conventional flu vaccines.”
No one can predict when we might need a pandemic flu vaccine. But just because bird flu hasn’t made the jump to a pandemic doesn’t mean it won’t. “The cattle situation makes me worried,” Hensley says. Humans are in constant contact with cows, he explains. While there have only been a couple of human cases so far, “the fear is that some of those exposures will spark a fire.” Let’s make sure we can extinguish it quickly.
Now read the rest of The Checkup
Read more from MIT Technology Review’s archive
In a previous issue of The Checkup, Jessica Hamzelou explained what it would take for bird flu to jump to humans. And last month, after bird flu began circulating in cows, I posted an update that looked at strategies to protect people and animals.
I don’t have to tell you that mRNA vaccines are a big deal. In 2021, MIT Technology Review highlighted them as one of the year’s 10 breakthrough technologies. Antonio Regalado explored their massive potential to transform medicine. Jessica Hamzelou wrote about the other diseases researchers are hoping to tackle. I followed up with a story after two mRNA researchers won a Nobel Prize. And earlier this year I wrote about a new kind of mRNA vaccine that’s self-amplifying, meaning it not only works at lower doses, but also sticks around for longer in the body.
From around the web
Researchers installed a literal window into the brain, allowing for ultrasound imaging that they hope will be a step toward less invasive brain-computer interfaces. (Stat)
People who carry antibodies against the common viruses used to deliver gene therapies can mount a dangerous immune response if they’re re-exposed. That means many people are ineligible for these therapies and others can’t get a second dose. Now researchers are hunting for a solution. (Nature)
More good news about Ozempic. A new study shows that the drug can cut the risk of kidney complications, including death in people with diabetes and chronic kidney disease. (NYT)
Microplastics are everywhere. Including testicles. (Scientific American)
Must read: This story, the second in series on the denial of reproductive autonomy for people with sickle-cell disease, examines how the US medical system undermines a woman’s right to choose. (Stat)
What are cancer vaccines and have scientists finally found a cure?
The NHS in England is recruiting for the first large-scale trial of its kind, with hopes high that the personalised jabs could be a gamechanger
Cancer vaccines are a form of immunotherapy. Unlike vaccines that protect from an infection, such as the Covid-19 jab, cancer vaccines treat people who already have the disease. They are designed to help the patient’s immune system recognise and then kill cancer cells – and prevent them from coming back.
Continue reading...Bids for bathing water status in England paused in blow for river cleanups
Campaigners suspect block on new applications for at least two years was imposed to limit burden on water firms
The government has suspended all applications for bathing water status in waterways, delaying the cleanup of rivers and coastal waters for at least two years.
River campaigners fear the block on new applications to create bathing water areas, which are regularly tested for water quality, has been introduced to stop water companies facing huge resource implications to tackle poor water quality in new bathing areas.
Continue reading...- The Guardian
- ‘I’ll stay an MP for as long as I can’: Diane Abbott’s tumultuous political journey – podcast
‘I’ll stay an MP for as long as I can’: Diane Abbott’s tumultuous political journey – podcast
Britain’s first black female MP faced hostility from the media and political establishment from the start. Nearly 40 years on, she is still not giving up. By Andy Beckett
Continue reading...NHS patients in England to be offered trials for world-first cancer vaccine
Jab personalised for individual’s tumours hailed as ‘gamechanger’ amid high hopes of stopping disease returning
Thousands of patients in England are to be fast-tracked into groundbreaking trials of personalised cancer vaccines in a revolutionary world-first NHS “matchmaking” scheme to save lives.
The gamechanging jabs, which aim to provide a permanent cure, are custom-built for each patient in just a few weeks. They are tailored to the individual’s tumours and work by telling their body to hunt and kill any cancer cells and prevent the disease from coming back.
Continue reading...Biden changes stance to allow Ukraine to fire US-supplied weapons into Russia
US official says policy change relates to ‘counter-fire purposes’ and prohibits long-range attacks inside of Russia
Joe Biden has allowed Ukraine to use some US-made weapons over one part of the Russian border, to allow Kyiv’s forces to defend against an offensive aimed at the city of Kharkiv, relaxing an important constraint on Ukraine’s able to defend itself.
“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use US-supplied weapons for counter-fire purposes in the Kharkiv region so Ukraine can hit back against Russian forces that are attacking them or preparing to attack them,” a US official said.
Continue reading...Can Trump still run for president after his hush money conviction?
He frolicked in forests as a kid. Now he's saving them from a coal mine plan
Alok Shukla is one of the winners of the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize. He's cited for a campaign to keep a company from felling a forest in India to excavate the coal that lies beneath.
(Image credit: Idrees Mohammed)
- American Civil Liberties Union
- Anti-Abortion Extremists Want to Use the 150-Year-Old Comstock Act to Ban Abortion Nationwide
Anti-Abortion Extremists Want to Use the 150-Year-Old Comstock Act to Ban Abortion Nationwide
Framework boosts its 13-inch laptop with new CPUs, lower prices, and better screens
Framework will release a fourth round of iterative updates and upgrade options for its Framework Laptop 13, the company announced via a blog post yesterday. The upgrades include both motherboards and pre-built laptops that feature new Intel Meteor Lake Core Ultra processors with Intel Arc dedicated GPUs; lower prices for the AMD Ryzen 7000 and 13th-gen Intel editions of the laptop; and a new display with a slightly higher 2880x1920 resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate.
The Core Ultra boards can come with one of three CPU options: an Ultra 5 125H with four P-cores, eight E-cores, and seven graphics cores; an Ultra 7 155H with six P-cores, eight E-cores, and eight graphics cores; or an Ultra 7 165H with the same number of cores but marginally higher clock speeds. Prices start at $899 for a pre-built or DIY model (before you add RAM, storage, an OS, or a USB-C charger), or $449 for a motherboard that can be used to upgrade an existing system.
All of the Core Ultra systems and boards ship in August as of this writing. Once this first batch sells out, a second batch will ship in Q3.
- The Guardian
- Schubert: String Quartets in G, D887 and B Flat, D112 album review – Takács take their time, this time
Schubert: String Quartets in G, D887 and B Flat, D112 album review – Takács take their time, this time
Takács Quartet
(Hyperion)
The group’s new recording of G major quartet is strikingly different from their intense 1997 recording, while the Haydnesque B flat is a model of good manners
The Takács have recorded the G major quartet, the last and most ambitious of Schubert’s string quartets, before, on a disc released by Decca in 1997. Both the first violin Edward Dusinberre and the cellist András Fejér on that disc are still members of the group today, and play on the new version, which was recorded in the UK a year ago, but in some respects the two performances feel strikingly different.
Where the earlier reading seemed to be driven by nervous energy, every rhythm taut, every accent sharply etched, the new one seems much more relaxed, and distinctly less intense. The tempos for the first and last movements in particular feel markedly slower this time around, and the great first movement, one of Schubert’s most sublime tragic statements despite its major key, takes almost two minutes longer than before. Of course, it almost goes without saying that technically the performance is as precise as ever, and the account of the rather Haydnesque B flat quartet D112 that’s also on the disc is a model of good manners, but the G major quartet just doesn’t quite compel attention in the way the Takács’s playing so regularly has in the past.
Continue reading...Schoenberg: Expressionist Music album review – thoughtful and illuminating collection
Booth/Glynn
(Orchid)
Soprano Claire Booth and pianist Christopher Glynn turn to Schoenberg’s early and little known songs in this immaculate recording
Soprano Claire Booth and pianist Christopher Glynn follow their earlier discs of songs by Mussorgsky, Grieg and Grainger with this thoughtfully assembled Schoenberg collection. As they point out in a sleeve note, Schoenberg’s songs are very much a neglected part of his output, but in the first third of his career, at least, it was poetry that fired his creativity and through setting it he found his voice.
The 24 songs that Booth and Glynn include are taken from six different sets, grouped thematically, so that there are three songs under the heading of “Expectation”, three under “Flesh”, three “Nocturne” and so on. Most were composed in the first few years of the 20th century, though they also include one of the two songs of Schoenberg’s Op 14 from 1908, when his music was just beginning to move into atonality, and another from Op 48, written 25 years later, in a fully fledged 12-tone style; Booth also sings one of Tove’s arias from the lushly romantic oratorio Gurrelieder, while Glynn punctuates the sequence with two of the little piano pieces from Schoenberg’s Op 19.
Continue reading...Junior doctors’ strike could delay care for 100,000 NHS patients in England
Rishi Sunak says timing of action days before general election appears to be ‘politically motivated’ to help Labour
Up to 100,000 patients in England face having their NHS care cancelled days before the general election after junior doctors announced a fresh wave of strike action, with Rishi Sunak saying it appeared to be politically motivated.
Health leaders expressed alarm, warning the five-day strike would jeopardise efforts to tackle the record waiting list and “hit patients hard”.
Continue reading...Ofwat considers cutting sewage fines for financially struggling water firms
Regulator understood to be looking at ‘recovery regime’ for Thames Water and others in sector
Ofwat, the water regulator for England and Wales, is understood to be considering cutting fines for sewage-dumping water companies if they are facing financial pressures.
According to the Financial Times, which first reported the plan, the regulator intends to draw up a “recovery regime” for Thames Water, which is facing collapse or restructuring owing to its high debts, and others that find themselves in similar positions.
Continue reading...Labour pledges to clear NHS waiting list backlog in England in five years
Wes Streeting says another Conservative term could result in waiting list swelling to 10m cases
Labour has promised to clear the NHS waiting list backlog in England within five years, with Wes Streeting warning that the health service risks becoming “a poor service for poor people” while the wealthy shift to using private care.
In an interview with the Guardian, the shadow health secretary said that in another Conservative term the total waiting list in England could grow to 10m cases, with healthcare becoming as degraded as NHS dental services.
Continue reading...MAGA firebrand tries to boot moderate GOP congressman in Texas primary runoff
- The Guardian
- Tories’ ‘triple lock plus’ planned tax cut for pensioners a ‘desperate move’ says Labour – UK politics live
Tories’ ‘triple lock plus’ planned tax cut for pensioners a ‘desperate move’ says Labour – UK politics live
Labour reiterates claims that pensions will have to be cut to fund Tory idea to scrap national insurance
Labour has opened applications for a string of new safe seats after half a dozen MPs announced last-minute retirements, with key allies of Keir Starmer expected to be lined up to take their place.
Those standing down include the former shadow minister Barbara Keeley, the chair of the parliamentary Labour party Jon Cryer, as well as John Spellar, Virendra Sharma and Kevin Brennan.
Pensioners used to have a bigger personal allowance than people of working age – it was the Conservatives who got rid of it.
So this is one of many examples actually of tax policy that has been reversed by the same Government. George Osborne got rid of it in the 2010s when the personal allowance of people under pension age continued to rise.
Continue reading...Rivers of Lava on Venus Reveal a More Volcanically Active Planet
- The Guardian
- Keir Starmer says Sunak’s claim UK has ‘turned the corner’ is ‘form of disrespect’ – UK politics live
Keir Starmer says Sunak’s claim UK has ‘turned the corner’ is ‘form of disrespect’ – UK politics live
Labour leader says prime minister’s claims about UK are ‘form of disrespect’ due to high taxes and commitment to abolishing national insurance
Starmer is now running through his six first step promises.
Starmer says he is fed up with hearing Rishi Sunak says the UK has “turned the corner”.
Continue reading...Martha’s rule to be rolled out in 143 NHS hospitals in England
Initiative will enable urgent second opinion and review of care of patients whose condition is deteriorating
Martha’s rule, the patient safety initiative enabling those whose health is failing to obtain an urgent second opinion about their care, is to be rolled out in 143 hospitals in England, the NHS has said.
The move, described by NHS officials as one of the most important changes to patient care in years, will allow patients, relatives and staff to get a review of their condition and treatment directly from doctors and nurses not involved in the medical team treating them.
Continue reading...Alien? Mission: Impossible? Toy Story? What is the greatest movie franchise ever?
With new chapters in the worlds of Mad Max and Planet of the Apes out now, Guardian writers have picked their favourite big screen franchises to date
When a blockbuster franchise is seven movies in (and counting), and the consensus choice for worst entry was directed by John Woo, arguably the most influential action film-maker of his time, you’re looking at an uncommonly consistent series. Though the Mission: Impossible movies have cycled through many directors – one apiece for Brian De Palma, Woo, JJ Abrams and Brad Bird, before settling on Christopher McQuarrie – the first film, particularly the astounding Langley break-in sequence, established the franchise as a showcase for impeccable crafted set pieces. The plots may be an enjoyably hokey tangle of global threats and clever unmaskings, but the series’ determination to keep topping itself, leaning on the physicality of stunt work and practical effects, has provided reliable thrills for approaching three decades. With each film, Tom Cruise continues to outrun his own mortality and another classic sequence or two is added to the inventory, from Cruise dangling from the Burj Khalifa high-rise during a sandstorm in Ghost Protocol to him zipping off a cliff on a motorcycle in Dead Reckoning Part One. It’s a high-wire act that has yet to tumble off the line. Scott Tobias
Continue reading...The US attempt to ban TikTok is an attack on ideas and hope | Dominic Andre
A TikTok ban threatens to destroy millions of jobs and silence diverse voices. It would change the world for the worse
I’m a TikTok creator. I’ve used TikTok to build a multimillion dollar business, focused on sharing interesting things I’ve learned in life and throughout my years in college. TikTok allowed me to create a community and help further my goal of educating the public. I always feared that one day, it would be threatened. And now, it’s happening.
Why does the US government want to ban TikTok? The reasons given include TikTok’s foreign ownership and its “addictive” nature, but I suspect that part of the reason is that the app primarily appeals to younger generations who often hold political and moral views that differ significantly from those of older generations, including many of today’s politicians.
Dominic Andre is a content creator and the CEO of The Lab
Continue reading...‘Like a moving stage’: Brisbane commuters surprised by impromptu ‘train rave’
DJ Kyel 925 says the rave set on a train on Brisbane’s Shorncliffe line resulted in passengers dancing in the aisles
Commuters on a Sunday evening train were surprised when the Brisbane suburban service was transformed into an ad hoc rave by a local DJ.
Kyel 925, from NO. ONE NETWORK and Liquid Steele Sessions, said the group had been heading from a gig with a media trolley on the Shorncliffe line from Fortitude Valley at about 6.30pm when they had the idea.
Continue reading...‘Putin’s patience snapped’: Insiders marvel at Russia’s military purge
Under new defence minister Andrei Belousov, FSB is tackling corruption aggressively with serious implications for Ukraine
In the weeks since Vladimir Putin sacked his longtime defence minister Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s FSB security service has pursued a series of high-level corruption cases against a deputy minister and department heads in what many insiders are now calling a purge in the defence ministry.
Andrei Belousov, the technocrat economist appointed to replace Shoigu, has a mandate to reduce corruption in the defence ministry and streamline military production for a long war against Ukraine that could largely be decided by industrial output.
Continue reading...‘He likes scaring people’: how Modi’s right-hand man, Amit Shah, runs India – podcast
For 40 years, Amit Shah has been at Narendra Modi’s side – his confidant, consigliere and enforcer. Today he is India’s second-most powerful man, and he is reshaping the country in radical ways. By Atul Dev
Continue reading...- The Guardian
- Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century by Simon Kuper review – chronicle of a French revelation
Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century by Simon Kuper review – chronicle of a French revelation
This revealing memoir about the author’s 20 years in the City of Light identifies the complex codes of behaviour that newcomers are obliged to master
In 1990 the Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo published a short essay called Paris, Capital of the 21st Century. By the end of the 20th century, he had decided that Paris was exhausted. The city of avant gardes, ideas, revolutions and class struggle, which had defined so much of European and world history, was now no more than a museum. As almost a lifelong Parisian and a lover of the place, Goytisolo desperately wanted Paris in the 21st century to retake its place as a great metropolis. But this could only happen, he argued, if Paris reinvented itself by “de-Europeanising” itself. By this, he meant it had to look towards the world beyond Europe, welcoming its sometimes dissident non-French, non-European voices to make itself a truly global city. Only in this way could Paris be brought back to life.
More than 30 years on from that essay, Simon Kuper has written a book about what it has actually been like to live in Paris during the past two decades. I have lived in the city for exactly the same period, in the working-class district of Pernety, and seen all the changes that Kuper has. The view from Pernety and the view from his hipster right bank world have not always been the same. He often underestimates, for example, the severity of racial and class tensions in Paris. To his credit, however, he is always aware of his limitations as a foreigner and as an apprentice Parisian.
Continue reading...- NBC News Top Stories
- Election officials in key battleground states say they're prepared for threats to poll workers ahead of 2024 elections
Election officials in key battleground states say they're prepared for threats to poll workers ahead of 2024 elections
- The Guardian
- ‘I wouldn’t put it past him’: questions over whether Murdoch’s UK titles will back Starmer
‘I wouldn’t put it past him’: questions over whether Murdoch’s UK titles will back Starmer
Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail have endorsed Sunak but messaging is more nuanced in Murdoch’s Sun and Times
In the build up to the 1992 election the Sun’s attacks on the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, who had been expected to win, were relentless. On polling day, its front page featured a mock up of Kinnock as a lightbulb with the headline: “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.”
When he lost, its front-page headline declared: “It’s the Sun wot won it.” Later, the Sun’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, told the Leveson inquiry the headline was “tasteless and wrong”, and that he had given the editor at the time, Kelvin Mackenzie, “a hell of a bollocking”. He added: “We don’t have that sort of power.”
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak’s summer election gamble is already backfiring on the Tory leader
Labour soon got over its surprise, leaving the Conservatives reeling in shocked disarray
The defining image of the last general election was Boris Johnson driving a digger emblazoned with “Get Brexit Done” through a fake wall made of polystyrene bricks. This proved to be a presentiment that he was about to demolish a load of Labour seats before going on to do the same to standards in public life.
Rishi Sunak made an early bid to provide the enduring visual metaphor of campaign 2024 when he presented his hunched and drenched back to the cameras after making his announcement on Downing Street. I have never seen, and I’ve witnessed quite a lot of them, a prime minister launch their appeal for re-election in such a dismal fashion. Even incumbents who know in their bones that they are fated to lose usually manage to invest the moment with some authority and dignity. Mr Sunak resembled a drowned ferret during a speech that was rendered near inaudible because he proved unequal to the fight with pelting rain and a protester’s boom box blasting out New Labour’s 1997 victory anthem. Every wag at Westminster chortled: “Things can only get wetter”. If your central electoral pitch is that you are the man with a plan, best to have someone on your staff who knows how to erect a covering or hold an umbrella.
Continue reading...What the last veterans can teach us all as D-Day fades from memory
Nearly 80 years since the Allied invasion, the testimony of Charles Shay, a 99-year-old former US army medic, reminds us of the significance of that day
Next month will see the 80th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France, when about 156,000 troops crossed the Channel to fight their way on to five Normandy beaches.
No one who took part in that day, 6 June 1944, the largest seaborne assault in history, would ever forget the experience. Indeed, many were haunted by memories of it for the rest of their lives. Yet no matter how momentous an event might be – in this case it amounted to nothing less than the securing of western Europe’s liberty – a kind of societal amnesia inevitably deepens with each new generation.
Continue reading...- NBC News Top Stories
- Key Senate Democrats seek meeting with Chief Justice Roberts over ‘Supreme Court’s ethics crisis’
Key Senate Democrats seek meeting with Chief Justice Roberts over ‘Supreme Court’s ethics crisis’
- The Guardian
- ‘Defeat would be a big blow’: Labour faces double trouble of Corbyn and Abbott in Islington and Hackney
‘Defeat would be a big blow’: Labour faces double trouble of Corbyn and Abbott in Islington and Hackney
Jeremy Corbyn’s old constituency reacts to his decision to stand as independent, while decision looms on allowing Diane Abbott to rejoin the party
Ever since the Labour party withdrew the whip from Jeremy Corbyn in 2020 after he claimed that antisemitism in the party had been overstated, there has been much speculation about whether the former Labour leader would run as an independent.
Last week that question was finally answered when Corbyn announced that he would stand independently in Islington North, the constituency he has represented for 41 years, on a platform of “social justice, human rights and peace”.
Continue reading...Is Snoop Dogg’s memorabilia auction a model for cash-hungry music stars?
The Dogfather has monetized his celebrity with an auction at a time when artists struggle to make the money they once did
After spending the past three decades making the word “shiznit” synonymous with hot property, Snoop Dogg is giving away some of his own.
This week the rap icon announced a partnership with an auction house called The Realest. Snoop’s collection – called, The Shiznit, of course – runs the gamut from bargain bin finds (concert photos, autographed riders) to precious relics (Snoop’s Death Row Records chain, the master reel for Beautiful). “This is the shit we have, but didn’t know it was worth something,” Snoop told Variety. His peers could soon be coming to the same realization.
Continue reading...Hundreds of children under 10 subject to stop and search in England and Wales
Observer investigation reveals use of ‘intimidating’ police tactic on at least 432 minors in 2023 under age of criminal responsibility
Hundreds of children under 10 faced stop and search by police last year, including some who were strip-searched, the Observer can reveal.
At least 432 children under the age of criminal responsibility were searched by the police forces in England and Wales in 2023, according to data.police.uk, an official site for open data on crime and policing.
Continue reading...- The Guardian
- Stephen Merchant on his ‘preposterous’ trajectory; the trouble with the Zoe nutrition app; and when does drinking become a problem? – podcast
Stephen Merchant on his ‘preposterous’ trajectory; the trouble with the Zoe nutrition app; and when does drinking become a problem? – podcast
Comedian, writer and actor Stephen Merchant on standup, fame and the pressures of cancel culture; testing the ‘world-leading science’ claims behind the Zoe nutrition app; and the point when writer Harriet Tyce realised she didn’t want to be remembered only as a drinker
Continue reading...Suspects in grocery store theft sought by police
‘I paid for it’: tennis bad boy Ilie Năstase revisits confrontational career
Fifty years on, a documentary revisits the Romanian player’s stroppy ascent to international stardom
“We’d never seen a player like this,” says one contributor. “When Ilie was on the court, something was always happening,” says another. They are talking in a new documentary about Ilie Năstase, the original bad boy of tennis in the early 70s, which is screening at the Cannes film festival on Friday.
The film’s title is Nasty, the nickname that quickly attached itself to Năstase, whose on-court antics, petulant complaints and confrontations with umpires were barely thinkable in what had previously been a staid and well-behaved sport dominated by amateurism. The “open” era, in which grand slam tournaments started to offer prize money and allow professional players to compete alongside amateurs, had only started a few years earlier in 1968, and Năstase became one of the first high-profile beneficiaries.
Continue reading...Bereaved father wins change to parental leave law in three UK nations
After his wife died in childbirth, Aaron Horsey found he did not have automatic right to paternity leave
A father who was left without the right to parental leave after his wife died in childbirth has won a change to the law in England, Wales and Scotland on the last day of this parliament.
Aaron Horsey found himself battling bureaucracy as well as grief after his wife, Bernadette, 31, died while giving birth to their son, Tim, at Royal Derby hospital in 2022.
Continue reading...Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock dies aged 53
Spurlock won acclaim for a series of issue-based documentaries and TV shows, and made a 3D film about boyband One Direction
• Super Size Me was a terrific cheeky stunt – small wonder Morgan Spurlock never matched it
Documentary-maker Morgan Spurlock, the director of films including Super Size Me and Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? died on Thursday aged 53.
His family announced in a statement that he “passed away peacefully surrounded by family and friends in New York from complications of cancer.”
Continue reading...- MIT Technology Review
- Splashy breakthroughs are exciting, but people with spinal cord injuries need more
Splashy breakthroughs are exciting, but people with spinal cord injuries need more
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.
This week, I wrote about an external stimulator that delivers electrical pulses to the spine to help improve hand and arm function in people who are paralyzed. This isn’t a cure. In many cases the gains were relatively modest. One participant said it increased his typing speed from 23 words a minute to 35. Another participant was newly able to use scissors with his right hand. A third used her left hand to release a seatbelt.
The study didn’t garner as much media attention as previous, much smaller studies that focused on helping people with paralysis walk. Tech that allows people to type slightly faster or put their hair in a ponytail unaided just doesn’t have the same allure. “The image of a paralyzed person getting up and walking is almost biblical,” Charles Liu, director of the Neurorestoration Center at the University of Southern California, once told a reporter.
For the people who have spinal cord injuries, however, incremental gains can have a huge impact on quality of life.
So today in The Checkup, let’s talk about this tech and who it serves.
In 2004, Kim Anderson-Erisman, a researcher at Case Western Reserve University, who also happens to be paralyzed, surveyed more than 600 people with spinal cord injuries. Wanting to better understand their priorities, she asked them to consider seven different functions—everything from hand and arm mobility to bowel and bladder function to sexual function. She asked respondents to rank these functions according to how big an impact recovery would have on their quality of life.
Walking was one of the functions, but it wasn’t the top priority for most people. Most quadriplegics put hand and arm function at the top of the list. For paraplegics, meanwhile, the top priority was sexual function. I interviewed Anderson-Erisman for a story I wrote in 2019 about research on implantable stimulators as a way to help people with spinal cord injuries walk. For many people, “not being able to walk is the easy part of spinal cord injury,” she told me. “[If] you don’t have enough upper-extremity strength or ability to take care of yourself independently, that’s a bigger problem than not being able to walk.”
One of the research groups I focused on was at the University of Louisville. When I visited in 2019, the team had recently made the news because two people with spinal cord injuries in one of their studies had regained the ability to walk, thanks to an implanted stimulator. “Experimental device helps paralyzed man walk the length of four football fields,” one headline had trumpeted.
But when I visited one of those participants, Jeff Marquis, in his condo in Louisville, I learned that walking was something he could only do in the lab. To walk he needed to hold onto parallel bars supported by other people and wear a harness to catch him if he fell. Even if he had extra help at home, there wasn’t enough room for the apparatus. Instead, he gets around his condo the same way he gets around outside his condo: in a wheelchair. Marquis does stand at home, but even that requires a bulky frame. And the standing he does is only for therapy. “I mostly just watch TV while I’m doing that,” he said.
That’s not to say the tech has been useless. The implant helped Marquis gain some balance, stamina, and trunk stability. “Trunk stability is kind of underrated in how much easier that makes every other activity I do,” he told me. “That’s the biggest thing that stays with me when I have [the stimulator] turned off.”
What’s exciting to me about this latest study is that the tech gave the participants skills they could use beyond the lab. And because the stimulator is external, it is likely to be more accessible and vastly cheaper. Yes, the newly enabled movements are small, but if you listen to the palpable excitement of one study participant as he demonstrates how he can move a small ball into a cup, you’ll appreciate that incremental gains are far from insignificant. That’s according to Melanie Reid, one of the participants in the latest trial, who spoke at a press conference last week. “There [are] no miracles in spinal injury, but tiny gains can be life-changing.”
Now read the rest of The Checkup
Read more from MIT Technology Review’s archive
In 2017, we hailed as a breakthrough technology electronic interfaces designed to reverse paralysis by reconnecting the brain and body. Antonio Regalado has the story.
An implanted stimulator changed John Mumford’s life, allowing him to once again grasp objects after a spinal cord injury left him paralyzed. But when the company that made the device folded, Mumford was left with few options for keeping the device running. “Limp limbs can be reanimated by technology, but they can be quieted again by basic market economics,” wrote Brian Bergstein in 2015.
In 2014, Courtney Humphries covered some of the rat research that laid the foundation for the technological developments that have allowed paralyzed people to walk.
From around the web
Lots of bird flu news this week. A second person in the US has tested positive for the illness after working with infected livestock. (NBC)
The livestock industry, which depends on shipping tens of millions of live animals, provides some ideal conditions for the spread of pathogens, including bird flu. (NYT)
Long read: How the death of a nine-year-old boy in Cambodia triggered a global H5N1 alert. (NYT)
You’ve heard about tracking viruses via wastewater. H5N1 is the first one we’re tracking via store-bought milk. (STAT)
The first organ transplants from pigs to humans have not ended well, but scientists are learning valuable lessons about what they need to do better. (Nature)
Another long read that’s worth your time: an inside look at just how long 3M knew about the pervasiveness of “forever chemicals.” (New Yorker)