This Week's Must Reads - 4-10 December 2023

A summary of this week's most interesting news, studies, reports and articles

I spend a lot of time each day gathering new information and interesting articles. I then pick the most interesting topic and write about it but that leaves a lot of information that I’m not sharing.

Below is a summary of all the best articles and information from this week. This weekly summary is a slimmed down version for all subscribers but more comprehensive daily summaries WITH LINKS to each article will be for paid subscribers only.

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Climate Change

• Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels. UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber said a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves”. Al Jaber said: “I accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation. I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist. There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C.”

• Biden admin commits to shutting down coal plants in push for green agenda. U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry announced at the annual United Nations climate change summit in Dubai, called COP28, that America is joining 56 other nations that comprise the Power Past Coal Alliance. “We will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world, building stronger economies and more resilient communities,” Kerry said in a statement. “The first step is to stop making the problem worse: stop building new unabated coal power plants.”

• Hillary Clinton Claims “Extreme Heat” Has Killed Half a Billion People. Hillary Clinton told the Cop28 conference that “extreme heat” has killed half a billion people, most of them women and girls, but failed to cite any actual source. “We’re seeing and beginning to pay attention and to count and record the deaths that are related to climate and by far the biggest killer is “extreme heat.” The two time failed presidential candidate went on to claim that “extreme heat” had killed 61,000 people in Europe last summer.

• More than 90,000 flocked to Dubai to preach about climate change... But the truth is the race to Net Zero is slowing to a crawl. That's well over twice as many as gathered in Glasgow only two years ago for Cop26 — a remarkable increase. I'm sure it's nothing to do with the fact that Dubai is somewhat sunnier and warmer in December than Scotland's largest city, with beaches and swimming pools Glasgow can only dream of; or that it has massively more five-star hotels, glitzy restaurants and well-stocked bars — plus extensive flight schedules with the rest of the world for those unable to cadge a lift on one of the hundreds of private jets that headed for Dubai and reduced to the indignity of flying commercial.

Covid

• Dr. Kadlec Admits to the Covid-19 Origin Cover-Up. Dr. Robert Kadlec served as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services (Preparedness and Response) from August 2017 until January 2021. He is responsible for the creation of the COVID-19 vaccine development program Operation Warp Speed. Prior to that, Kadlec was Deputy Staff Director for the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Prior to this position, he has been working in the bioterror industry and by all accounts, made a fortune for his involvement in Emergent biosolutions – which he failed to disclose in his Senate hearings. So, in an interview with Sky News AU this week, Dr. Kadlec admits that he directly helped (or directed) the Fauci and Collins coverup on the origin of COVID to protect their gain-of-function program and their own asses.

• Visual timeline: ‘Proximal Origin’. The controversy over “Proximal Origin” represents years of unanswered questions about how a scientific hypothesis that some scientists and intelligence agencies now consider likely was cast as a conspiracy theory — culminating in a committee hearing this summer. The timeline shows that, even as the virologists incorporated core concepts into their paper that were in favor of a natural origin, they simultaneously bemoaned to their coauthors that they were incomplete — even “crap.”

Covid Mandates & Lockdowns

• British Medical Journal: Child mask mandates for COVID-19: a systematic review. Real-world effectiveness of child mask mandates against SARS-CoV-2 transmission or infection has not been demonstrated with high-quality evidence. The current body of scientific data does not support masking children for protection against COVID-19.

• [2015] A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers. This study is the first RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection. Further research is needed to inform the widespread use of cloth masks globally. However, as a precautionary measure, cloth masks should not be recommended for HCWs, particularly in high-risk situations, and guidelines need to be updated.

• Association between face mask use and risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection: Cross-sectional study. We found that the incidence of self-reported COVID-19 was 33% higher in those wearing face masks often or sometimes, and 40% higher in those wearing face masks almost always or always, compared to participants who reported wearing face masks never or almost never.

• Covid's collateral cancer timebomb: Shock NHS figures show up to 70,000 patients have been 'missed' since start of pandemic. It means patients are likely to have a more advanced form of the disease by the time it is confirmed, slashing their survival chances and making it more expensive to treat. 'We're now facing a double blow of not diagnosing cancer patients and then leaving those lucky enough to receive a diagnosis on record waiting lists for life-saving treatment.

• People in China Are Starting to Worry About COVID Testing and Controls Coming Back. A year after China abruptly scrapped its notoriously stringent zero-COVID controls and amid a recent surge in respiratory illness cases, some Chinese citizens are starting to worry about a potential reintroduction of the controversial regime of mass testing and restrictions that defined the pandemic years in the country and ultimately led to an unprecedented eruption of public unrest. Concerns coincide with new reports of COVID testing being brought back to airports and hospitals, as well as a notice issued by the education ministry on Monday urging schools around the country to step up prevention efforts for influenza viruses and COVID ahead of winter season. Rumors are also swirling on Chinese social media that the nationwide COVID-tracking app is being reactivated in some provinces, with some users claiming that the app had never been taken down, though censorship of a related hashtag has only fueled more speculation.

• The Covid Inquiry is insulting the victims of lockdown. It is an establishment sham that has already made up its mind that chaotic Boris is to blame for everything. We all know how this story ends: Lady Hallett, shaggy blonde bob shaking sorrowfully, will find that chaotic, “shopping-trolley” Boris locked down too late (even though notably un-chaotic Germany only locked down two days earlier than us). Bad Boris also raised commonsense objections to lockdown and refused to keep the population masked and social distancing in perpetuity, as recommended by Susan “Stalin’s Nanny” Michie of the Sage scientific advisory group. The pathologically incurious Covid Inquiry is not interested in tragedies caused by lockdown, although they may easily outnumber the victims of the virus. Lady Hallett and her lawyers are betraying the living and the dead.

• Jay Bhattacharya: Boris Johnson is still in denial about lockdowns. The UK Covid inquiry is shamefully avoiding the biggest lesson of 2020. As a vocal Covid dissident and lockdown opponent throughout the pandemic, watching the UK Covid inquiry these past few weeks has been a depressing experience. One gets the sense that both the people leading the inquiry and the vast majority of those questioned — the architects of the UK’s disastrously failed Covid policy — have learnt nothing. At one point on Wednesday, Boris Johnson had a golden opportunity to get to the heart of the problem. The lead inquiry lawyer, Hugo Keith KC, asked the former prime minister whether the late March 2020 order to lock down the country was “absolutely necessary”. This was Johnson’s golden opportunity to confess the cardinal error of the UK’s pandemic strategy: that it imposed lockdown in the first place. Instead, he averred that the UK had “no other tool” than lockdown available. Under questioning about his involvement in pandemic decision-making in January and February 2020, the ex-PM’s mea culpa centred on his regret that he had not “twigged” the seriousness of the Covid threat earlier.

Economy/Energy/Finance

• Millions of seniors struggle to afford housing — and it’s about to get a lot worse. A newly released report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies sounds a loud warning about what's ahead as the country ages rapidly, and how unprepared the U.S. is as boomers start to turn 80 within the next decade. Nearly a third of households headed by seniors are considered cost burdened, which means they pay more than 30% of their income for housing. Half of that group pays more than 50%. And as the boomers have aged, households in this group reached an all-time high of 11.2 million in 2021.

• Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China. The UK’s most hazardous nuclear site, Sellafield, has been hacked into by cyber groups closely linked to Russia and China. The astonishing disclosure and its potential effects have been consistently covered up by senior staff at the vast nuclear waste and decommissioning site, the investigation has found. Sources said breaches were first detected as far back as 2015, when experts realised sleeper malware – software that can lurk and be used to spy or attack systems – had been embedded in Sellafield’s computer networks.

• Foreign direct investment is exiting China, new data show. New Chinese data imply that foreign firms operating in China are not only declining to reinvest their earnings but—for the first time ever—they are large net sellers of their existing investments to Chinese companies and repatriating the funds. These outflows exceeded $100 billion in the first three quarters of 2023 and are likely to grow further based on trends to date. The investment selloffs are contributing to downward pressure on the value of the Chinese currency and, if sustained, will modestly reduce China’s potential growth.

• Moody’s Cuts China Credit Outlook to Negative on Rising Debt. Moody’s lowered its outlook to negative from stable while retaining a long-term rating of A1 on the nation’s sovereign bonds, according to a statement. China’s usage of fiscal stimulus to support local governments and state-owned companies is posing downside risks to the nation’s economy, the grader said. The change in thinking comes as China’s deepening property rout triggers a shift toward fiscal stimulus, with the country ramping up its borrowing as a main measure to bolster its economy. That has raised concerns about the nation’s debt levels with Beijing on track for record bond issuance this year.

• A socialist dictatorship on America's doorstep is sitting on the world's biggest oil reserves - and it's about to invade its neighbour to grab MORE. Why is the White House asleep while Venezuela prepares for war? Reports of growing military activity on Guyana's border have heightened concerns that Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro is planning to grab by force a huge chunk of his neighbour. He claims a sham referendum at the weekend has given him an overwhelming mandate to do so. The saber-rattling rhetoric from Caracas is intensifying.

• The $20 Trillion Carry Trade That Will Destroy Japan. It's only appropriate that on the day we are witnessing another earthquake in the Japanese yen, as momentum-chasers who were convinced USDJPY 160 was imminent are carted out head first after today's 400pips drop (on what is nothing but another round of fake news speculation that the BOJ will hike rates in its December meeting, spoiler alert: it won't), that we look at the bigger picture at how, while entertaining, these daily swings in the USDJPY are very much irrelevant because, well, Japan is doomed to either hyperinflation and currency collapse, or alternatively, market collapse and loss of social cohesion. Why? Well, as DB's chief FX strategist George Saravelos explains, when one strips away all the political BS, the government of Japan is engaged in one massive $20 trillion carry trade.

• Nearly 5m households to face even higher mortgage costs, says Bank of England. Almost five million UK homeowners are still set to see their mortgage repayments jump by hundreds of pounds over the next three years, as rising interest rates have heightened risks in the global financial markets, the Bank of England has said. About half of mortgage holders have moved to a new fixed-rate deal since interest rates started rising in late 2021, amounting to more than five million households. But a further five million homeowners are still due to face higher borrowing costs by the end of 2026, the FPC said in its latest Financial Stability Report. The latest analysis also showed that the proportion of households’ incomes spent on mortgage payments is set to rise to 9% by the end of 2026, from 6.8% earlier this year.

• The US has some of the lowest levels of social mobility of any developed country. Both upward mobility and the idea that hard work translates into success are less true in the US than almost anywhere else.

  

• Rep. Smith, Sen. Merkley sponsor legislation to ban hedge funds from buying homes. The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act of 2023 would ban hedge funds from buying up single-family homes and require them to sell at least 10 percent of the total number of single-family homes they currently own to families per year over a 10-year period. After a 10-year full phase-out, all hedge funds will be completely banned from owning any single-family homes. The purchasing of single-family homes by hedge funds, especially in the current housing market, has made it more difficult for middle-class Americans to become homeowners. The lawmakers said it is contributing to the twin crises of housing unaffordability and wealth inequality.

Health

• The relationship between greenspace exposure and telomere length in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The exposome, reflecting the range of environmental exposures individuals encounter throughout their life, can influence a variety of health outcomes and can play a role in how the environment impacts our genes. Telomeres, genetic structures regulating cell growth and senescence, are one pathway through which the exposome may impact health. Greenspace exposure, representing the amount of green areas in one's neighborhood, is one component of the exposome and has been associated with multiple health benefits.

• Heart Failure Among Pilots Up 1000% in 2022. New data from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) indicates a significant increase in heart issues among pilots, with heart failure spiking nearly 1,000% in 2022. In addition to serious cardiovascular issues, the Pentagon saw significant spikes in numerous ailments well beyond their five-year averages including hypertension (2,181%), neurological disorders (1,048%), multiple sclerosis (680%), Guillain-Barre syndrome (551%), breast cancer, (487%), female infertility (472%), pulmonary embolism (468%), migraines (452%), ovarian dysfunction (437%), testicular cancer (369%), and tachycardia (302%). Heart-related ailments have soared over the past 5 years as well including hypertension (36%), ischemic heart disease (69%), pulmonary heart disease (62%), heart failure (973%), cardiomyopathy (152%), and other non-specified heart diseases (63%).

• Switzerland’s birth rates are now a record low.

  

• The associations of long-term physical activity in adulthood with later biological ageing and all-cause mortality – a prospective twin study. The findings support the suggestion that, rather than Leisure-time physical activity per se reducing the risk of mortality, being active may be an indicator of a healthy phenotype and an overall healthy lifestyle, which co-occur with a lower mortality risk.

Middle East

• USS Carney, several commercial ships attacked in the Red Sea: Pentagon. A US warship and three commercial vessels were attacked in the Red Sea off Yemen on Sunday — an intense development that American officials said appeared to be “fully enabled by Iran. The USS Carney — which previously shot down missiles and drones aiming for it as it escorted a commercial vessel through the war-torn region — was targeted along with at least three commercial ships starting around 10 a.m. local time in an assault that lasted about five hours, the Pentagon and an unnamed US official said, according to The Associated Press. The three commercial vessles were struck by the missiles, but it did not appear that the American warship was hit.

• Who will win Israel’s oil and gas war? When we talk of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we tend to focus on the latter’s political, social and humanitarian dimensions. But often this comes at the expense of considering an important economic dimension — one which recent events in Gaza have brought into stark relief. Perhaps the most financially destructive aspect of any military occupation is the appropriation of natural resources. And Israel’s is no exception. Yet the site of the most controversial “energy war” between Israel and Palestine is not in the West Bank — but Gaza. In 1999, British Gas Group (BGG) discovered a large gas field (Gaza Marine) at a distance of 17 to 21 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza. This placed it within the bounds of the Oslo II Accord, signed in 1995, which gave the Palestinian Authority (PA) maritime jurisdiction over its waters up to 20 nautical miles from the coast.

• Did Hamas Make Millions Betting Against Israeli Shares Before October 7 Massacre? Giant gambles against Israel on the markets in Tel Aviv and Wall Street days before Hamas’ attack made billions. Somebody seems to have known about the plan in advance. Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 caught the Israeli army unprepared. But somebody seemingly knew in advance and made billions betting against Israeli shares traded locally and on Wall Street five days before the attack. Short-selling Israeli shares – betting that they will fall – spiked in the days before October 7, far exceeding the short selling during “numerous other periods of crisis,” Robert J. Jackson, Jr., Joshua Mitts and colleagues wrote in a paper titled “Trading on Terror?” published Sunday on SSRN.

Politics

• Trump terror is back. America's liberal media is in a frenzy about the dictator's return. David Frum heralds the “the danger ahead”; Caitlin Dickerson cautions against Trump’s “anything-goes approach to immigration enforcement”; Anne Applebaum predicts “the end of American influence”. Editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s prefatory note is titled, “A Warning”, and accuses the former president of “rotten, depraved” behaviour, adding that “both Trump and Trumpism pose an existential threat to America.” The themed edition follows an article from the same outlet last month which claims that the former president has “fully embraced the language of fascism”. As America’s press once again prepares to circle the wagons against Trump’s impending return, discussion of the former president’s “violent and authoritarian rhetoric” will dominate print and cable news. He is a “dictator”, a “threat to democracy”, and the harbinger of American fascism on the world stage. Trump’s liberal critics used similar language during his 2016 campaign; they would do well to remember the effect that had.

• David Cameron defends ECHR and insists UK will remain under European court's laws. Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has said an immigration policy that "works for our country" is "consistent with remaining in the European Court of Human Rights”. When asked about the UK’s membership, he said: “I can go back as far as 2005 and point to speeches that I made that said we always have to put our national interest first, whether that is the need to deport dangerous terrorists, whether it is the need to have an immigration policy that works for our country. “I believe that is consistent with remaining in the ECHR.

• China’s Xi goes full Stalin with purge. In a sign of instability in Beijing’s top ranks, foreign policy and defense officials are vanishing as Xi roots out perceived enemies. Something is rotten in the imperial court of Chairman Xi Jinping. While the world is distracted by war in the Middle East and Ukraine, a Stalin-like purge is sweeping through China’s ultra-secretive political system, with profound implications for the global economy and even the prospects for peace in the region. The signals emanating from Beijing are unmistakable, even as China’s security services have ramped up repression to totalitarian levels, making it almost impossible to know what is really happening inside the country.

• House Passes Bill That States ‘Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism’. The House on Tuesday passed a resolution that says “anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” the chamber’s latest piece of legislation conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism. The resolution, which is presented as a resolution condemning antisemitism, passed in a vote of 314-14-92. Only thirteen Democrats and one Republican voted against the legislation, while 92 Democrats voted “present” in protest of a line buried in the bill that explicitly claims anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

• Bill Gates Makes $10.95 Million Per Day — More Than 4 Times What The Average Person Earns In A Lifetime. Here's How He's Spending It. The average person earns about $2.7 million in their lifetime, according to career information site Zippia. Gates earns approximately three to four times that amount in one day, highlighting the extent of his financial resources. Gates’s collection of luxury vehicles, private jets and art reflects his eclectic interests. Gates has also invested in farmland, owning about 242,000 acres or roughly 0.03% of all U.S. farmland.

• Italy formally pulls out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Rome dismayed its western allies in 2019 when it signed up to ambitious investment scheme. Italy has officially informed Beijing of its decision to withdraw from President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative, ending months of speculation over a relationship that had irritated Rome’s western allies. Stefano Stefanini, Italy’s former ambassador to Nato, said that the Italian government at the time — an unlikely coalition of the populist Five Star Movement and Matteo Salvini’s right-wing League — had “underestimated the geopolitical relevance of the initiative”.

• Migrant encounters hit daily record at southern border, as Washington struggles to agree on solutions. Democrats and Republicans are trying to agree on border provisions in a supplemental spending bill. Multiple Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources told Fox News that there were over 12,000 migrant encounters on Tuesday. Over 10,200 of those were Border Patrol encounters of illegal immigrants coming between ports of entry. That Border Patrol number is among the highest number of encounters ever recorded for the agency by itself but breaks a record when combined with the encounters by CBP’s Office of Field Operations at ports of entry.

• Sen. Mike Lee calls on the US to withdraw from the United Nations. The bill, titled Disengaging Entirely from the United Nations Debacle (DEFUND) Act, would see the U.S. stop participating in U.N. peacekeeping operations including providing funding, personnel and equipment. it would also see diplomatic immunity in the U.S. revoked for U.N. employees and officers. The bill further prohibits the U.S. from re-entering an agreement with the U.N. without the consent and ratification of the Senate after it withdraws. In addition to a complete withdrawal from the United Nations, Lee’s DEFUND Act would also see the United States withdraw from the World Health Organization.

Science

• Shocking study discovers bottlenose dolphins possess electric sixth sense. Scientists at the Nuremberg Zoo in Germany have discovered a previously unknown sensory ability in bottlenose dolphins: electroreception. The truly shocking finding bridges the gap between dolphins and other known electroreceptive animals and adds a new understanding of how these charismatic creatures interact with their underwater world.

• Vowels and Diphthongs in Sperm Whales. Sperm whale vocalizations are among the most intriguing communication systems in the animal kingdom. Traditionally, sperm whale codas, or groups of clicks, have been primarily analyzed in terms of the number of clicks and their inter-click timing. This paper argues that acoustic properties of clicks in codas are likely meaningful and actively controlled by whales. They present a visualization technique that allows us to describe several previously unobserved patterns. They argue that sperm whale codas are on many levels analogous to human vowels and diphthongs: vowel duration and pitch correspond to the number of clicks and their timing (traditional coda types), while spectral properties of clicks correspond to formants in human vowels.

• Huge “coronal hole” in the Sun prompts aurora alert for southern states. Ahigh-speed stream from a coronal hole is expected to lead to G2 (Moderate) geomagnetic storming on December 4 (UTC Day) and G1 (Minor) storming on December 5, 2023, according to an alert this morning from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). Coronal holes are striking features of the Sun, often appearing as dark regions in the solar corona when observed in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray solar images. These areas are notable for being cooler and less dense compared to the surrounding plasma. The darkness of coronal holes is attributed to their nature as regions of open, unipolar magnetic fields.

  

• Indra Killed Vritra in 9703 BCE: The Rigvedic description of the Comet Impact that ended the last Ice Age. The Rigvedic legend of Indra killing the dragon Vritra, which has been repeated in many hymns of the Rig Veda, appears to be describing a blistering volley of impacts from a comet swarm as being the causative agent for the end of the Ice Age. The echoes of the same story can be found in the Mesopotamian legend of Marduk slaying the water dragon Tiamat, the Cherokee folktale of the God of Thunder killing the monstrous water serpent Uktena, and the Greek legend of Zeus killing the serpent-headed monster called Typhon.

• Humanity’s oldest art is flaking away. Can scientists save it? Ancient humans painted scenes in Indonesian caves more than 45,000 years ago, but their art is disappearing rapidly. Researchers are trying to discover what’s causing the damage and how to stop it — before the murals are gone forever. Standing in the cave next to the peeling paintings, it’s hard to grasp their vast age. It’s equally hard to fathom how many more hand stencils, warty pigs and hunting scenes might be tucked away in as-yet-undiscovered caves in Maros–Pangkep — and that they might disappear soon, never revealing their magnificence to modern eyes.

  

• 70-year-old quantum prediction comes true, as something is created from nothing. In our common experience, you can't get something for nothing. In the quantum realm, something really can emerge from nothing. There are all sorts of conservation laws in the Universe: for energy, momentum, charge, and more. Many properties of all physical systems are conserved: where things cannot be created or destroyed. We've learned how to create matter under specific, explicit conditions: by colliding two quanta together at high enough energies so that equal amounts of matter and antimatter can emerge, so long as E = mc² allows it to happen. For the first time, we've managed to create particles without any collisions or precursor particles at all: through strong electromagnetic fields and the Schwinger effect. Here's how.

Technology

• 23andMe Hack Breaches 6.9 Million Users’ Info, Including Some’s Health Data. Some 6.9 million 23andMe customers had their data compromised after an anonymous hacker accessed user profiles and posted them for sale on the internet earlier this year, the company said on Monday. The compromised data included users’ ancestry information as well as, for some users, health-related information based on their genetic profiles, the company said in an email. Privacy advocates have long warned that sharing DNA with testing companies like 23andMe and Ancestry makes consumers vulnerable to the exposure of sensitive genetic information that can reveal health risks of individuals and those who are related to them.

Ukraine

• NATO should be ready for ‘bad news’ from Ukraine, Stoltenberg warns. "Wars develop in phases," Stoltenberg said in an interview Saturday with German broadcaster ARD. "We have to support Ukraine in both good and bad times," he said. His comments come as Western allies debate over ammunition and financial aid for Ukraine, and as Moscow boosts its troop levels. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Friday to increase the number of soldiers by some 170,000 to a total of 1.3 million.

• Poland warns Nato has three years to prepare for attack by Russia. As the White House runs out of money to support Ukraine, Poland warns Russia could attack the West in less than 36 months. In a statement the German Council on Foreign Relations wrote: “With its imperial ambitions, Russia represents the greatest and most ­urgent threat to Nato countries. It comes as the White House warned that the US was running out of money to support Ukraine’s defence and could be out of resources “by the end of the year” after supporting the nation’s defensive military action following a full-scale invasion by Russia for almost two years.

• US Will Stop Giving Money To Ukraine... In 3 Weeks. The headlines keep getting worse in terms of Ukraine's future prospects, with the latest featuring urgent White House warnings communicated to Congress over stalled Ukraine aid. "We are out of money — and nearly out of time," wrote the Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young to Congressional leaders in a letter made public Monday. There are a mere few weeks left before the US must stop giving money to Ukraine. Young warned that the sudden end to aid will "kneecap" Ukraine on the battlefield.

Vaccines

• US Military Changes Number of Postvaccination Myocarditis Cases. Military officials have lowered the number of myocarditis and pericarditis cases they say they've recorded among members after COVID-19 vaccination. Ashish Vazirani, the acting under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said in a newly disclosed document that just 80 to 90 cases of myocarditis and/or pericarditis were identified following COVID-19 vaccination in members. But in a report released in the fall, the military said that there had been 120 cases of myocarditis and/or pericarditis within 21 days of vaccination, as well as additional cases beyond 21 days after vaccination.

• Ribosomal frameshifting and misreading of mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines produces "off-target" proteins and immune responses eliciting safety concerns: Comment on UK study by Mulroney et al. The authors state that the “error prone” code is a safety concern with a “huge potential to be harmful” and that “it is essential that these therapeutics are designed to be free from unintended side-effects.” The findings reveal a developmental and regulatory failure to ask fundamental questions that could affect the safety and effectiveness of these products.

• Hematologic abnormalities after COVID-19 vaccination: A large Korean population based cohort study. Hematologic abnormalities after COVID-19 vaccination were identified as nutritional anemia, hemolytic anemia, aplastic anemia, coagulation defects, and neutropenia using International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision codes after index date. Incidence rates of hematologic abnormalities in the vaccination group 3 months after vaccination were significantly higher than those in the nonvaccinated group. COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was associated with higher development of nutritional anemia and aplastic anemia than the viral vector vaccine. The risk of coagulation defects was increased after vaccination, and there was no risk difference between mRNA vaccine and viral vector vaccine. In conclusions, COVID-19 vaccination increased the risk of hematologic abnormalities.

• AstraZeneca vaccine linked with ‘spike’ in cases of rare disease that can paralyse victims. As studies report rise ‘attributable to’ Covid jab, The Telegraph speaks to people who developed Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) after vaccination. GBS is a potentially deadly condition in which a person’s immune system attacks their nerves and gradually paralyses victims from the feet upwards. While most patients recover, it can be life-threatening or permanently debilitating. Two of the studies looked at rates of GBS in England and said there was an increase in cases “attributable to” the AstraZeneca vaccine, or that there was a probable “causal link”.

• Overall Health Effects of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. The risk of SAEs was similar for vaccine and placebo recipients. Both mRNA vaccines were associated with increased risk of severe AEs in older children. In a combined analysis, the RR was 3.77 in above 5 year-olds, and 0.82 in younger children. In the younger children, mRNA vaccines were associated with higher risk of Lower Respiratory Tract Infections. Conclusions and Relevance: mRNA vaccines did not increase the risk of SAEs but were associated with an increased risk of severe AEs in older children, and an increased risk of LRTI in the young.