Today's Must-Reads - 30 April 2023

A selection of the latest news, studies, reports and articles

I spend a lot of time each day gathering together new information and interesting articles. I then pick one or two of the most interesting topics and write about them. However, that leaves a lot of missed out information that I’m not sharing.

Below is a summary of all the latest articles and information that I’ve found. Today, this is a slimmed down version for all subscribers but will be for paid subscribers only a lot of the time in the future.

Please consider taking out a paid subscription because it enables me to spend longer reporting on the news that isn’t, but should be reported.

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Climate Change

• New York moves to become the first state banning natural gas hookups. New York state leaders led by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul reached an agreement late Thursday on the state's 2024 budget which includes a future ban on natural gas hookups in new building construction. Under the budget deal, natural gas hookups will be banned in small buildings beginning in 2025 and large buildings beginning in 2028, according to Hochul. The governor said in remarks that the budget insulates households from "exorbitant energy bills" while helping the state build a "more sustainable future."

• California Approves Rule Banning Diesel Trucks by 2036. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved new regulations and voted to ban the sale of diesel big rig trucks by 2036 and require all trucks to be zero-emissions by 2042, the company announced Friday.

Covid

• The Toronto Star says Michael Worobey nearly died pursuing HIV’s origins. Then this Canadian scientist set his sights on the COVID lab leak theory. Here’s what he found. His work takes him into dangerous jungles and raging scientific controversies. For COVID he took on what many saw as a conspiracy theory.

• John Ioannidis has a new preprint out which looks at the variability in excess deaths across countries with different vulnerability during 2020-2023. His results show a strong correlation with pre-existing conditions, such as poverty, and excess deaths. Half of the analyzed countries witnessed no substantial excess deaths versus pre-pandemic levels, while the other half suffered major death tolls.

Covid Mandates & Lockdowns

• WHO Insider Gives Analysis of Its $31 Billion Pandemic Plan. Around $26 billion a year will be set aside to make states align their national programs with global programs. In addition, $4.7 billion is required at the global level for surveillance, coordination, and other mechanisms.

• Covid-sniffing dogs can help detect infections in K-12 schools, new study suggests. Now that Glaser and her colleagues have published research about their Covid-19 dog screening pilot program, she is eager to implement the approach in nursing home settings.

• Fauci Wants All The Credit, None Of The Blame. If you ask Dr. Anthony Fauci, he was a humble public servant who did the best he could to navigate the country through a once-in-a-generation pandemic, and he — as the personification of science itself — saved lives during COVID. When you ask if he deserves any culpability for any negative consequences as a result of pandemic policies, well, that’s a different story.

• Masks Had No Effect on COVID Cases Among Children: Study. “According to our analysis, no additional effect was gained from mandating masks, based on comparisons between the cities and between the age groups of the unvaccinated children (10–12 years versus 7–9 years),” the study said. “Face mask recommendations in schools did not reduce COVID-19 incidence among 10–12-year-olds in Finland. This may indicate that COVID-19 cases in schools merely reflect community infections than school outbreaks.”

Energy/Economy/Finance

• UK sees record sickness and zero productivity growth in 2022. Britain saw a record number of working days lost due to short-term sickness last year and zero annual growth in economic output per hour worked in the final quarter of 2022, according to official data released on Wednesday.

• The American economy is slowing rapidly whilst inflation is still high. Welcome to stagflation.

• Gross Private Domestic Investment in the US is not looking good either.

  

Health

• Disease detectives with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating a cluster of rare and serious brain abscesses in kids in and around Las Vegas, Nevada, and doctors from other parts of the country say they may be seeing a rise in cases, too. “In my 20 years’ experience, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Dr. Taryn Bragg, an associate professor at the University of Utah who treated the cases.

• Meat is crucial for human health, scientists have warned. Close to a thousand experts unite behind statement that rejects ‘zealotry’ of plant-based diets and promotes livestock farming. They warned that it is difficult to replace the nutritional content of meat, arguing that poorer communities with low meat intake often suffer from stunting, wasting and anaemia driven by a lack of vital nutrients and protein.

• Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids. The expression of genes involved in cell survival, epithelial barrier, cytokine signaling, and metabolism was altered by rinse aid in concentrations used in professional dishwashers. The alcohol ethoxylates present in the rinse aid were identified as the culprit component causing the epithelial inflammation and barrier damage.

Politics

• As we regress back to the Middle Ages, the Archbishop will ask millions to pledge allegiance to their King. A Lambeth Palace spokesman said: “For the first time in history, a chorus of millions in this country and around the world will be invited to participate in this solemn and joyful moment [in a] great cry of support for the King.” The people’s homage will follow the moment Prince William kneels before his father to pledge: “I, William, Prince of Wales, pledge my loyalty to you, and faith and truth I will bear unto you as your liegeman of life and limb. So help me God.”

• Brendan O’Neill looks at why they hate Tucker Carlson. The liberal elite’s fear of Fox News is really a fear of the white working class. We need to talk about Tucker Derangement Syndrome. You don’t have to be a Carlson fanboy to recognise that the molten contempt for him in liberal circles is odd and disproportionate and possibly tells us more about the frothing liberals themselves than it does about any evil on the part of Mr Carlson. It strikes me that liberal Tuckerphobia is part fear, part envy. These people fret over Carlson’s influence on the white working class, worrying their little patrician heads that he’s exciting dangerous passions among the low-information throng. But they’re jealous of that influence, too.

• Wikipedia warns of UK blackout due to Online Safety Bill. Content moderation requirements in the legislation may undermine the site's volunteer editors. But this isn’t just about Wikipedia. Anything that is considered harmful will be removed, which in reality means anything the government doesn’t want you reading about.