Indy Digest: Aug. 19, 2024
There’s been a lot of news involving viruses in recent days, so we’ll start off today with a little visus-news roundup.
First, some good news: Updated COVID-19 vaccines could be available in a matter of a couple of weeks. CNN reports:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is poised to sign off as soon as this week on updated COVID-19 vaccines targeting more recently circulating strains of the virus, according to two sources familiar with the matter, as the country experiences its largest summer wave in two years.
The agency is expected to greenlight updated mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech that target a strain of the virus called KP.2, said the sources, who declined to be named because the timing information isn’t public. It was unclear whether the agency simultaneously would authorize Novavax’s updated shot, which targets the JN.1 strain.
The move would be several weeks ahead of last year’s version of the vaccine, which got FDA signoff on September 11. …
Representatives for Pfizer and Moderna told CNN that the companies had ample supply of their updated COVID vaccines and would be ready to ship doses upon approval. Moderna’s spokesman said it expects the vaccine to be available in stores within days of FDA signoff.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning clinicians to be on the lookout for a viral disease that is spread by small flies and some types of mosquitoes and that causes sudden fever, severe headaches and chills.
Cases of Oropouche virus disease have been climbing in South America and the Caribbean in the past two years, and turned deadly for the first time this year.
The CDC advisory issued Friday recommends that pregnant people reconsider nonessential travel to Cuba, which reported its first confirmed case in June. …
No locally acquired Oropouche cases have been reported in the United States.
No vaccines to prevent Oropouche or medicines to treat it exist. The best form of protection is avoiding bites from midges and mosquitoes, the CDC said.
The virus is endemic to the Amazon basin region and has been reported in many countries, including Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Panama and Peru. In late 2023, the virus caused large outbreaks in new areas in South America.
As concerns mount about a type of mpox spreading across Africa that’s believed to cause more serious illness, infectious disease experts expressed cautious optimism that this branch of the virus would not spread as broadly in the U.S. or cause health impacts as severe.
The risk of this subtype of mpox to the U.S. could be mitigated by a number of factors, including immunity from vaccination and previous infection from the outbreak of a different variant that began in 2022; the lack of viral circulation in wild animals; and better health care access, living standards and public health.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization reinstated the status of mpox (formerly monkeypox) as a public health emergency of international concern. This was in response to a large ongoing outbreak of clade I of mpox—a clade is an evolutionary branch—in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC, that has spread to other African nations.
Sweden announced the first clade I case outside of Africa on Thursday. …
Dr. Dan Barouch, a Harvard Medical School virologist, said it was likely the U.S. would see clade I cases. “The absolute risk in the U.S. is currently low,” he said. “Although we need to remain vigilant.”
—Jimmy Boegle
From the Independent
Legal but Unethical: Rep. Ken Calvert Has a History of Sending Taxpayer-Funded Campaign Pieces in the Days Leading up to Elections, Using a Congressional-Rules Loophole
By Jimmy Boegle
August 18th, 2024
It’s against House of Representatives rules to send unsolicited mass communications in the 60 days before elections, but the rules define mass communications as 500 or more—so Ken Calvert sent about 120 mailings in batches of 499 or less.
Changing (Golf) Course? Time May Be Running Out for the Proposed Prescott Preserve, as Neighbors Continue to be Concerned About the Oswit Land Trust’s Restoration Plans
By Kevin Fitzgerald
August 19th, 2024
More than two years after it was announced, the Prescott Preserve that Oswit Land Trust members anticipated has not come to be. Instead, the OLT had become the target of a lawsuit by the neighboring HOA..
Sustained Tension: ‘Alien: Romulus’ Lacks Originality, but It’s Enjoyable Nonetheless
By Bob Grimm
August 19th, 2024
Set between the events of the Ridley Scott-directed Alien (1979) and James Cameron’s Aliens (1986), in the year 2142, Alien: Romulus owes a lot to the original look of Alien.
More News
• Today’s recall news involves … chicken nuggets! The Associated Press reports: “Check your freezer. Perdue Foods is recalling more than 167,000 pounds of frozen chicken nuggets and tenders after some customers reported finding metal wire embedded in the products. According to Perdue and the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, the recall covers select lots of three products: Perdue Breaded Chicken Tenders, Butcher Box Organic Chicken Breast Nuggets and Perdue Simply Smart Organics Breaded Chicken Breast Nuggets. FSIS and Perdue determined that some 167,171 pounds (75,827 kilograms) of these products may be contaminated with a foreign material after receiving an unspecified number of customer complaints. In a Friday announcement, Maryland-based Perdue said that the material was ‘identified in a limited number of consumer packages.’”
• As the academic year approaches, the University of California is taking a no-tolerance approach to certain protest-related actions. The Los Angeles Times says: “University of California President Michael V. Drake on Monday directed chancellors of all 10 campuses to strictly enforce rules against encampments, protests that block pathways and masking that shields identities amid sharp calls to stop policy violations during demonstrations such as those over the Israel-Hamas war that roiled universities in the spring. As students begin returning to school this week, Drake also sent a letter to the UC community affirming that the right to protest, exercise free speech and voice diverse viewpoints was fundamental to the mission of the university—the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, he noted. He said the ‘vast majority’ of campus protests are peaceful and nonviolent, but ‘some of the activities we saw over the past year were not’ and needed to be addressed. ‘Clear communication and consistent application of policies and laws are key to achieving the delicate but essential balance between free speech rights and the need to protect the safety of our community and maintain critical University operations,’ he wrote.”
• Some political scientists, writing for The Conversation, examine, via polling, a handicap Kamala Harris is facing in her presidential campaign through no fault of her own—sexism: “Even in our January poll when Biden was the Democratic nominee, sexism was strongly correlated with support for Trump. When we examined a head-to-head matchup between Biden and Trump, the more individuals agreed with the statements measuring hostile sexism, the more likely they were to prefer Trump over Biden. Of those who most strongly disagreed with the statements measuring hostile sexism, 73% supported Biden, while approximately two-thirds of those scoring highest on the sexism scale supported Trump. … If sexism depressed individuals’ support for Biden’s candidacy, does that mean Harris faces no additional penalty in terms of lost support for her candidacy? Hardly. Hostile sexism, as we measured it, costs Harris votes. While sexism mattered in January, it mattered more in August once Harris had taken over the Democratic ticket.”
• Our partners at CalMatters report on new bills Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed to combat retail theft—and a harsher ballot measure that’ll be decided on by voters in November: “Gov. Gavin Newsom, still stinging from a public defeat last month, signed a package of bills today that he and lawmakers pledged will combat rising retail theft. … Voters in November will see a separate ballot measure, Proposition 36, that would go further by increasing sentences for property crimes and offenses related to fentanyl. Newsom and other Democrats oppose the ballot measure, which they say would restore policies that they contend failed to improve public safety even as they packed prisons with nonviolent offenders. The bills Newsom signed would make repeated theft convictions a felony, collect crimes across multiple counties into one court so they can be charged as a felony and allow police to arrest someone on suspicion of retail theft even if the officer does not witness the crime. … Newsom’s signature comes 45 days after the collapse of a crime bill that he had hoped would fend off Republicans and some conservative Democrats who demanded major changes to a decade-long project aimed at reducing California’s prison population. The bill would have placed an additional measure on the November ballot to compete with Prop. 36.”
• New rules for real-estate agent commissions went into effect on Saturday. NBC News explains: “Until now, home sellers traditionally had to pay commissions, commonly in the range of 5% to 6%, to their agents, who then split that fee with the buyer’s agent upon making a sale. The new rules, which follow a historic $418 million settlement with the National Association of Realtors in March, leave more room for sellers to negotiate those fees down and make it more appealing for buyers to forgo agents entirely. ‘It’s the biggest change probably in the history of real estate,’ said Mike McCann, a realtor in Philadelphia. ‘It has created a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety’ within the industry, he said. With the MLS no longer serving as a forum for negotiation, it remains to be seen how agents, buyers and sellers will choose to cover commission costs. While sellers could pass on any savings on the commission to the buyer in the form of a lower home price, it’s also possible that sellers could increasingly choose to ask the buyer to cover some or even all of the costs. To ensure buyers know the compensation that they may be on the hook for, the NAR is implementing a change, also effective Saturday, requiring agents to enter into written agreements with buyers before showing a home.”
• And finally … this story has no real importance whatsoever, but it’s just so weird I had to share it. The Associated Press reports: “The mayor of a small Georgia town has been indicted on charges that he illegally left a bottle of gin in a ditch for a state prison work crew. Thomson Mayor Benjamin ‘Benji’ Cary Cranford was indicted on Wednesday and arrested by Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents. He faces felony charges of furnishing prohibited items to inmates and attempt to commit a felony. The indictment issued Wednesday in McDuffie County Superior Court says that the 52-year-old Cranford drove to a store on June 3, bought a bottle of Seagram’s Extra Dry Gin and left it in a ditch along Georgia 150 in Thomson in the path of a work crew of state prisoners from the Jefferson County Correctional Institution. … Agents arrested Cranford at Thomson City Hall after a city council meeting and led him away in handcuffs, WRDW-TV reported. Cranford didn’t answer questions from reporters after he was released from the McDuffie County Jail Wednesday on $5,000 bail.” Huh?!
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