Bomber jets take off in Russia, threatening new attacks on Ukraine
Ukrainska Pravda – February 10, 2023
Kyiv City Military Administration has said that several Russian Tu-95 strategic bomber jets took off on the morning of 10 February and has urged Ukrainians to heed air-raid sirens amid fear of a new missile attack.
Source: Kyiv City Military Administration on Telegram; Operational Command Pivden (South) on Facebook
Quote from Serhii Popko, Head of Kyiv City Military Administration: “The enemy has deployed Tu-95 strategic bomber jets that can carry cruise missiles. There is a significant threat of a missile strike. I stress once again: do not ignore air-raid sirens. Find shelter as soon as they are sounded.”
Details: Operational Command Pivden (South) reported that Russia has deployed three missile carriers, including one submarine, with a total array of up to 20 missiles, in the Black Sea soon after the storm in the Black Sea quietened down on the morning of 10 February.
Air-raid sirens were sounded across all of Ukraine at 08:30 Kyiv time.
Background:
Russian forces deployed reconnaissance drones on 9 February; Ukraine’s air defence forces shot down one of them.
Russian forces also deployed Shahed-131/136 attack drones to carry out attacks on Ukraine on the night of 9–10 February.
Dozens of Russian missiles hit Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro soon after the drone attack.
Around 10 explosions rocked Kharkiv, and Russia struck Zaporizhzhia 17 times within an hour.
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‘They’re Hunting Me.’ Life as a Ukrainian Mayor on the Front Line
Jeffrey Gettleman – February 10, 2023
Smoke and dust waft in the air seconds after a Russian shell landed near the road in a suburb of Kherson, Ukraine, Feb. 4, 2023. (Ivor Prickett/The New York Times)
KHERSON, Ukraine — The little green van sped down the road, the Russian forces just across the river. Inside, Halyna Luhova, the mayor of Kherson, cradled a helmet in her lap and gazed out the bulletproof window.
When the first shell ripped open, directly in the path of the van, maybe 200 yards ahead, her driver locked his elbows and tightened his grip on the wheel and drove straight through the cloud of fresh black smoke.
“Oh my God,” Luhova said, as we raced with her through the city. “They’re hunting me.”
The second shell landed even closer.
She’s been almost killed six times. She sleeps on a cot in a hallway. She makes $375 a month, and her city in southern Ukraine has become one of the war’s most pummeled places, fired on by Russian artillery nearly every hour.
But Luhova, the only female mayor of a major city in Ukraine, remains determined to project a sense of normality even though Kherson is anything but normal. She holds regular meetings — in underground bunkers. She excoriates department heads — for taking too long to set up bomb shelters. She circulates in neighborhoods and chit-chats with residents — whose lives have been torn apart by explosions.
She chalks up any complaints about corruption or mismanagement — and there are plenty — to rumor-mongering by Russian-backed collaborators who are paid to frustrate her administration.
Kherson, a port city on the Dnieper River, was captured by Russian forces in March; liberated by Ukrainian forces in November; and now, three months later, lies nearly deserted. Packs of out-of-school children roam the empty boulevards lined with leafless trees and centuries-old buildings cracked in half.
Luhova sees her job defined by basic verbs: bury, clean, fix and feed. Of the 10% or so of Kherson’s original population of 330,000 who remain, many are too old, too poor, too stubborn or too strung out to flee.
She recently became so overwhelmed with their needs — for food, water, generators, internet access, buses, pensions, medicine, firewood — that she said she dropped to 40 minutes of sleep a night and became so exhausted, she had to be put on intravenous drugs. She feels better, she said, though not exactly calm.
“We need those bomb shelters, now,” she snapped at a meeting in early February, when it was several degrees below freezing outside.
In front of her, in an underground office, sat the heads of the city’s main departments, many in winter jackets and hats. The office had no heat.
She was pushing to acquire dozens of free-standing concrete bomb shelters. When an administrator responded that the contracting process needed to be followed or they could be accused of corruption, she exploded.
“You are doing nothing, and I’m getting really pissed off at your stupidity,” Luhova said. “I feel like I don’t have enough air when I’m standing next to you! You will answer in your own blood, your own blood!”
The administrator rolled his eyes and went outside to smoke a cigarette.
In a political culture dominated by macho guys — the mayor of the capital of Kyiv, for instance, is a towering former heavyweight boxing champion — Luhova, 46, in her gray suede boots and black puffy jacket with the fake fur collar, cuts a different figure. Raised by a single mom during the Soviet Union’s last gasps, she laughed thinking about the hardships back then.
“All those terrible lines for beet root — imagine, beet root!” she said.
By the time she was 21, Ukraine was newly independent and she was teaching English at a neighborhood school, married and a mother. She climbed the ranks to school director, which she used as a springboard to be elected to Kherson’s city council eight years ago. Before the Russian invasion last February, she was the council’s secretary, considered the No. 2 official.
Russian forces burned down her house in March, and she left the city shortly after. The Russians tried to make Kherson part of Russia, forcing children to learn Russian in schools and people to use Russian rubles in the markets. In June, they kidnapped her boss, Kherson’s prior mayor, and he hasn’t been seen since. Luhova took his place and became head of Kherson’s military administration.
When she returned in November, she found a city ecstatic that the Russians had been driven out but in terrible shape. The Russians had looted everything from water treatment equipment and centuries-old fine art to Kherson’s fleet of firetrucks and buses. But the Russians didn’t go far.
Ukraine didn’t have the momentum or spare troops to pursue them across the river. So now the Russians sit on the opposite bank across from Kherson and fire at will.
No city in Ukraine, outside the Donbas region in the east where the Russians are advancing, is getting shelled as badly as Kherson. In the past 2 1/2 months, Ukrainian officials said, it has been hit more than 1,800 times.
The shells come with no warning. There are no air raid sirens. These are projectiles fired from tanks, artillery guns, mortars and rocket launchers that blow up a few seconds later — the Russians are that close, less than half a mile in some places. Residents have almost no time to take cover.
The other afternoon, a rocket attack killed two men walking down a sidewalk. There was no military installation nearby.
“Russia’s precise rationale for expending its strained ammunition stocks here is unclear,” said a recent British Defense Intelligence update on Kherson.
Since mid-November, Ukrainian officials say the Russians have wounded hundreds of residents and killed more than 75.
“It’s just revenge,” Luhova said. “There’s an old saying: “If I can’t have it, nobody can,’’’ she said, trying to explain why the Russians would shell the city after retreating. “It’s that stupid but it’s true.”
Kherson may be a war-torn city on the front line of Europe’s deadliest conflict in generations, and Luhova may represent Ukraine’s never-give-up spirit that keeps a Russian flag from flying over this country.
But as in any other city, residents love complaining about their mayor.
“I’ve called more than a hundred times to have my electricity fixed and nobody comes,” said Olena Yermolenko, a retiree who helped run a cell of citizen spies during the Russian occupation. She also repeated accusations on social media that the mayor was stealing humanitarian aid, which Luhova strongly denied.
Oleksandr Slobozhan, executive director of the Association of Ukrainian Cities, said that from everything he knew, the accusations were a smear campaign by pro-Russian agents.
Despite the challenges, Luhova is determined to keep the city running, in the most basic ways. She recently traveled to Kyiv to ask Slobozhan for 20 buses.
“We are paralyzed,” she said. “Our trolleys don’t work and we can’t fix them because when our workers go up to repair the lines, the snipers are killing them.”
She left with a promise of 20 buses.
“I like the way she works,” Slobozhan later said. “She goes forward no matter what.”
Luhova is planning to attend a donor’s conference in Poland later this month; she has been out of the country only a few times in her life. Where she really wants to go is Bali.
“I heard you go there and you come back looking younger,” she joked.
Her husband is a taxi driver in another city, and her two adult sons live far away so she is on her own in Kherson. Most days, she can be found moving around in her little green van.
When we rode along with her, and the shell exploded on the road, her driver turned around as fast as he could.
But the Russians were tracking her. From across the river, they fired a second round. It slammed into a house along the road, and the blast wave shook the van. The van kept going but the munition felt lethally intimate.
That evening, at a house where she stays with friends, on a small pullout bed in a hallway off the kitchen, Luhova shrugged off the close call.
Over a spread of deliciously crunchy homemade pickles and little squares of Brie, she held a glass of cognac between her fingers and made a toast to victory.
“If I could disappear into the air and end this war, I would,” she said. “I’d easily sacrifice myself for ending this hell.”
Russian missiles pound Ukraine’s energy system, force power outages
Olena Harmash – February 10, 2023
Smog is seen during a shelling in the front line city of BakhmutUkrainian service members attend military exercises in Zaporizhzhia region
KYIV (Reuters) – Russia unleashed a new wave of missile strikes on energy infrastructure across Ukraine on Friday, causing emergency power outages for millions of people and prompting new calls by Kyiv for Western arms.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had fired 71 cruise missiles, of which 61 were shot down, and explosions were reported by local officials around the country including in the capital Kyiv.
At least 17 missiles hit the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia in an hour in the heaviest attack since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, local officials said.
Energy Minister German Galushchenko said thermal and hydro power generation facilities and high-voltage infrastructure had been hit in six regions, forcing emergency electricity shutdowns across most of the country.
“The most difficult situation is in Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Khmelnytskyi regions,” he said, referring to regions in the southeast, northeast and west of Ukraine.
“Thanks to the successful work of the air defense forces and early technical measures, it was possible to preserve the integrity of the energy system of Ukraine. Energy workers are working non-stop to restore energy supply.”
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said four of its thermal power stations had been damaged and two energy workers injured. Water supplies were also hit in some areas, local officials said.
There was no immediate word of any deaths but Oleh Synehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, said eight people had been wounded.
KYIV WANTS QUICK DECISIONS
The new Russian attacks followed a rare trip abroad this week by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that included talks with European Union leaders in Brussels aimed at securing more weapons for Ukraine including fighter jets.
“Russia has been striking at Ukrainian cities all night & morning,” presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter. “Enough talk & political hesitation. Only fast key decisions: long-range missiles, fighter jets, operational supplies logistics for Ukraine.”
Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said two Russian Kalibr missiles launched from the Black Sea had flown through the airspace of Moldova and NATO member Romania before entering Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said these missiles were a challenge to the military alliance and to collective security.
“These missiles are a challenge to NATO and collective security. This is terror that can and must be stopped,” he said in a video on Telegram messaging app.
Russia did not immediately comment. Moldova confirmed its airspace had been violated by a Russian missile and summoned the Russian ambassador to protest. Romania said a Russian missile launched off a ship near Crimea crossed into Moldovan airspace before hitting Ukraine but did not enter Romanian airspace.
Ukraine could have shot down the missiles but did not do so because it did not want to endanger civilians in foreign countries, the Ukrainian air force spokesperson said.
Russia has carried out repeated waves of attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities in recent months, at times leaving millions of people without light, heating or water supplies during the cold winter.
(Additional reporting by Dan Peleschuk, Max Hunder and Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Fungal infections are becoming more common. Why isn’t there a vaccine?
Berkeley Lovelace Jr. – February 10, 2023
Fungal infections are becoming more common in the United States, but unlike illnesses caused by bacteria or viruses, there’s no vaccine to protect against a fungal threat.
While scientists aren’t worried that a fungal infection like the one seen in HBO’s “The Last of Us” will wipe out humanity, the infections are certainly a cause for concern.
Fungi cause a wide range of illnesses in people, from irritating athlete’s foot to life-threatening bloodstream infections.
In the U.S., fungal infections are responsible for more than 75,000 hospitalizations and nearly 9 million outpatient visits each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2021, around 7,200 people died from fungal diseases. These numbers, the CDC said, are likely an underestimate.
One type of fungus, Candida auris, can be resistant to all of the drugs used to treat it, and is particularly dangerous for hospitalized and nursing home patients. The fungus was first identified in Japan in 2009 and has since been found in over 30 countries, including the U.S., the CDC said.
Climate change also threatens to make several infection-causing fungi more widespread: The fungus that causes Valley fever thrives in hot, dry soil, and the fungus that causes an illness called histoplasmosis prefers high humidity.
Despite the growing threat, there are currently no licensed vaccines — in the U.S. or abroad — to prevent fungal infections.
“These are the most important infectious diseases that you have not heard of,” said Karen Norris, an immunologist and vaccine expert at the University of Georgia. “A vaccine has the potential to move forward and protect a large swath of individuals.”
Fatal fungal infections
Norris said that the ultimate goal would be to develop a single vaccine that protects against all fungal infections.
But a “pan-fungal” vaccine is incredibly challenging to make.
That’s because, she said, unlike the Covid vaccines, which target a single pathogen — the SARS-CoV-2 virus — a fungal vaccine would ideally protect against the wide spectrum of fungi in existence, each biologically different from the next.
For now, Norris and her team have decided to focus on the three fungi responsible for the vast majority of fatal fungal infections in the U.S.:
Candida, particularly Candida auris, a type of yeast that can cause serious blood infections, particularly in people in health care settings.
Pneumocystis, which can cause pneumonia.
In preclinical trials, the experimental vaccine developed by Norris and her team was shown to generate antifungal antibodies in animals, including rhesus macaques. With funding support, the researchers could start and finish the human vaccine trials within the next five years, she said.
In Arizona, researchers are focused on a vaccine to prevent Valley fever, a lung infection caused by the fungus Coccidioides. The fungus, typically found in the hot, dry soils of the Southwest, is an “emerging threat,” Norris said, because climate change is expanding its range.
So far, the vaccine has been shown to be effective in dogs, said John Galgiani, the director of the Valley Fever Center for Excellence at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.
Little urgency, lack of funding
While experts know which fungi are best to target, vaccine development has been slow, mostly due to a lack of funding, said Galgiani, who is working to start a trial in humans for the Valley fever vaccine.
Many in public and private spaces don’t see fungal vaccines as a “critical unmet need,” he said. Respiratory viruses, such as the ones that cause Covid, the flu or measles, infect millions of people and lead to thousands of hospitalizations worldwide each year, he said. The viruses can be deadly for anyone, in any part of the world, he said, illustrating the need for vaccines to prevent those diseases.
By comparison, hundreds of species of fungi can cause illness in people, but the most common ones — such as those that infect the skin and nails, or cause vaginal yeast infections or athlete’s foot — are non-life-threatening, according to Galgiani.
Additionally, severe cases are sporadic across the U.S., he said.
Valley fever, for example, is usually limited to the Southern and Western regions of the U.S. and are usually serious for people with weakened immune systems. Most people breathe in Aspergillus every day without getting sick, but it can be life-threatening for people with cystic fibrosis or asthma. Candida auris infections have been mostly limited to health care settings, and pose the biggest threat to very sick patients.
“As a risk-benefit investment proposal, it fails,” Galgiani said of developing a vaccine. “You would not put your retirement investment into this.” He said it could take eight years before a fungal vaccine is made available in the U.S.
But as awareness of climate change’s impact on fungal infections grows, funding support could grow and there could be a fungal vaccine developed sooner, Norris said.
In response to growing public health concerns about severe and life-threatening fungal diseases, the National Institutes of Health in September released a framework for how the U.S. could create a vaccine for Valley fever in the next 10 years.
Last October, the World Health Organization released its first-ever list of fungi that pose the greatest threat to public health, calling for more research into 19 fungal diseases.
Dr. Andrew Limper, a pulmonologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said that there are a handful of oral treatments for most mild to moderate fungal infections. Depending on the fungus, he said, people may need to take the medications for three to six months to clear the infection from their system. The drugs can come with side effects, including headache, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea.
People with strong immune systems oftentimes will recover with medication, but fungal infections, particularly those that affect lungs, can leave scarring, he said.
In severe cases, some people may need to take intravenous medications, such as Amphotericin B, he said.
Ukraine says it shot down 61 of 71 missiles Russia fired in latest attacks
February 10, 2023
Post-war Ukraine reconstruction conference, in Berlin
KYIV (Reuters) – Russia launched 71 cruise missiles at Ukraine on Friday and 61 of them were shot down, Ukraine’s air force said.
“As of 11:30 a.m., the enemy had launched 71 X-101, X-555 and Kalibr missiles. The air defence forces, Air Force and other components of the Ukrainian Defence Forces destroyed 61 enemy cruise missiles,” it said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said earlier on Friday that Russia had fired more than 50 missiles at Ukraine and most of them were shot down.
“Russia cannot accept failures and therefore continues to terrorize the (Ukrainian) population. Another attempt (on Friday) to destroy the Ukrainian energy system and deprive Ukrainians of light, heat, and water,” Shmyhal wrote on Telegram.
The Air Force said Russia had used eight Tu-95MS strategic bombers, and that they had fired X-101 and X-555 missiles from the Caspian Sea and the city of Volgodonsk in Russia.
Russian forces also launched Kalibr sea-launched cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea, it said.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
A Message to the World From Inside a Russian Prison
Ilya Yashin – February 10, 2023
People attend an anti-war protest in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on Feb. 24, 2022 after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized a military operation in Ukraine. Credit – Anton Vaganov—Reuters
Soon it’ll be a year since the start of the war that the Kremlin unleashed against Ukraine. It has taken thousands of human lives, destroyed entire cities, and turned millions of families into refugees. Vladimir Putin, as the one responsible for this tragedy, has become a true symbol of evil, cursed around the world. But it also seems that, more and more often, the Russian people are treated as enemies. The main claim against the Russians: You did not resist the aggressive policies of your government, and that makes you accomplices to crimes of war.
My name is Ilya Yashin, a Russian opposition politician, whom the Kremlin has kept in prison since the middle of last summer. I’ve been sentenced to 8.5 years of incarceration, because I publicly spoke out against the war in Ukraine. But today I want to say a few words in defense of my nation.
First: We did resist. Since the start of the war and throughout 2022, the police in Russia arrested almost 20,000 opponents of the war. According to human rights groups, protests have taken place almost every day in different cities since February 24, 2022, and only 18 of those days have passed without arrests and detentions. Against this background, we have seen astonishing examples of civil courage. For instance, Vladimir Rumyantsev, a provincial fireman, got three years in prison for building a ham radio to broadcast reports against the war, while Alexei Gorinov, a member of the Moscow city council, got seven years after he called for a minute of silence during a meeting of that chamber to honor the Ukrainian children who had been killed.
Second: People are fleeing from Putin. In the past year, around 700,000 citizens have left Russia. The majority of them have emigrated, not wanting to be involved in military aggression. I want to draw attention to the fact that this is twice as many people left the country than were drafted into the army. Sure, you could probably blame those who chose to escape instead of choosing the path of resistance, prison, and torture. But the fact is that hundreds of thousands of my countrymen left their homes behind, having refused to become killers on the orders of the government.
Third: Those who remain in Russia are living with the rights of hostages. Many of them don’t support the war, but they remain silent, afraid of repressions. But the silence of a hostage who has a terrorist’s gun to his head does not make him an accomplice to the terrorist.
I want to appeal to the wisdom of the international community. Do not demean the Russians, as that kind of rhetoric will only strengthen Putin’s power. By shifting the blame for war crimes from the Kremlin junta onto my fellow citizens, you are easing the Putin regime’s moral and political burden. You are giving him a chance to hide from the just accusations of people who have in essence become a human shield in this situation. I see that as a serious mistake.
Putin has brought enormous suffering to the Ukrainian people. But with this barbaric war he is also killing my country—Russia. I believe that Russians can become allies of the free world in resisting this tyrant. Just extend a hand to my fellow citizens.
Jonathan Amos – BBC Science Correspondent – February 10, 2023
Satellite map
It seems almost insensitive to start to have a deep dive into the science behind Monday’s earthquake events in Turkey.
More than 22,000 people are already confirmed dead and an unknown number still lie trapped, with the window for their rescue closing rapidly.
And yet the science will go on. The insights gleaned from this event will save lives in the future.
Take a look at the map on this page. It is the most precise yet produced of how the ground lurched in response to the enormous energies that were unleashed.
The data behind it was acquired in the early hours of Friday by the European Union’s Sentinel-1A satellite as it traversed north to south over Turkey at an altitude of 700km (435 miles).
The Sentinel carries a radar instrument that is able to sense the ground in all weathers, day and night.
It is routinely scanning this earthquake-prone region of the world, tracing the often very subtle changes in elevation at the Earth’s surface.
Except, of course, the changes on Monday were not subtle at all; they were dramatic. The ground bent, buckled and in places ripped apart.
Researchers use the technique of interferometry to compare “before” and “after” views. But you do not really need to be an expert to see the consequences for Turkey in the latest Sentinel map.
The red colours here describe movement towards the satellite since it last flew over the country; the blue colours record the movement away from the spacecraft.
It is abundantly clear how the ground has been deformed along and near the East Anatolian Fault line.
For both the Magnitude 7.8 quake that struck first on Monday at 01:17 GMT and the Magnitude 7.5 event at 10:24, the motion is “left-lateral”. That is to say: whichever side of the fault you are on, the other side has moved to the left. And by several metres in places.
The shocking thing is that the lines of rupture have gone right through settlements; in lots of places they will have gone right through buildings.
Artist’s impression: The Sentinel routinely maps earthquake-prone Turkey
The Sentinel map will help scientists understand exactly what happened on Monday, and this knowledge will feed into their models for how earthquakes work in the region, and then ultimately into the risk assessments that the Turkish authorities will use as they plan the recovery.
There is sure to be a lot of discussion about how the two major tremors were related and what that could mean for further instability.
The map was processed by the UK Centre for Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics (Comet). Its director, Prof Tim Wright, said the Sentinel observations vividly brought home the scale of the forces involved.
“News outlets always show earthquakes as ‘the epicentre’, as if it is a single point source (like a bomb). Actually, all earthquakes are caused by slip on extended faults, and the bigger the quake the bigger the fault that ruptured,” he told BBC News.
“We can map those ruptures with satellites because the ground around them is displaced, in this case by up to 5m or 6m. The rupture of the first event was 300km or so long and the second big event ruptured another 140km or so of a different fault. To put those distances in context, London to Paris is roughly 345km.
“Damage will be highest near the fault but of course spreads over a wide region either side of the fault, too. It’s absolutely horrific.”
The insights will assist Turkish authorities as they plan the recovery
In the era before satellites, geologists would map earthquake faults by walking the lines of rupture. It was a laborious process that naturally also missed a lot of detail. Radar interferometry from space was developed in the 1990s, and in recent years it has become a particularly compelling tool.
In part that is down to the quality of the sensors now in orbit, but it is also the result of more powerful computers and smarter algorithms.
It is possible today to get a data product on to the computers of experts, ready for analysis, within hours of a satellite making an overhead pass. Comet, unfortunately, had to wait several days for Sentinel-1A to be in the right part of the sky to get an optimal view of Turkey. But this will improve as more and more radar satellites are launched.
“By the end of the decade, we should be able to do this kind of analysis within a day of most damaging earthquakes, and then we would be more useful for the relief effort. As things stand, we are of course outside the 72-hour window for search and rescue,” Prof Wright said.
The Republican Distraction Farm Is Failing Because They’re Employing Less Talented Grievance-Farmers
Jack Holmes – February 10, 2023
Republican Grievance-Farmers Lose Green ThumbsPool – Getty Images
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Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now the governor of Arkansas, gave a rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address this week that suggested Republicans have learned precious few lessons from their dramatic underperformance in the midterms. Biden’s speech was a full-throated appeal to everyday Americans on populist economic grounds—one that actually echoed some of Donald Trump’s rhetoric in the 2016 campaign. Sanders brought the now-standard routine about The Woke Mob “that can’t even tell you what a woman is,” and that is ushering in a world where “children are taught to hate one another on account of their race.” She referred to “C.R.T.” as if everyone listening would know that stands for Critical Race Theory (and that it is inherently evil). Sanders did outline a plan to raise starting salaries for Arkansas teachers, which is welcome in an era in which the American right increasingly seeks to paint educators as rogue agents of Woke determined to brainwash your kids.
The latter is the kind of stuff that cost them seats in the midterms. It hits squarely with people who are up-to-date on their Fox News folklore, fluent in the language of culture-war apocalypto. But for most people, it’s probably pretty weird. They mostly like their kids’ teachers, who are usually trying to do the best job they can in sometimes challenging circumstances. For years, the Democratic Party was the one considered out of touch, if only because of the alienating way that some liberals talked about the issues. But that’s now the Republican Party’s stock-in-trade. The right’s rising star—at least in the view of media-politico types—is the governor of Florida, Ronald DeSantis, who has replaced his pandemic anti-interventionist crusade (which at least dealt with a major issue of public concern) with campaigns against Woke Corporations and in favor of the government’s prerogative to police what teachers teach in schools. It’s gotten fewer national headlines that he, too, has sought to raise salaries, but that nugget is competing with news that teachers have been told to remove or cover up books out of fear they could face criminal charges for their content.
Maybe DeSantis is reluctant to talk about other parts of his record because, as the political press finally turns to it, we’re fully realizing how committed he once was to changing Social Security and Medicare. (We’ve also seen how touchy Republicans get when you talk about this since Biden brought it up at the State of the Union. Even a talk-radio host interviewing Ron Johnson was explicitly trying to brand this stuff as “reforms” not “cuts.”) The president pointed out that some Republicans—including chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Lizard-American Rick Scott—have called for sunsetting all federal legislation after five years. This would by definition include Medicare and Social Security.
Time will tell if Ronald DeSantis is the kind of right-winger who can still thread the needle.SOPA Images – Getty Images
Maybe they would be renewed as-is, but that’s quite a bet to make, particularly when you examine the record of the hospital chain Scott once ran. DeSantis, though, used to be even more forthright. He supported privatizing aspects of both programs in his 2012 congressional campaign, CNN found, and once in Congress he supported Paul Ryan’s agenda on “entitlements.” (They are earned benefits.) All this is based on the combined notions that these programs are fiscally unsustainable and raising taxes is a kind of supreme evil. None of this is new: George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security. Ronald Reagan launched his political career with this stuff. Maybe DeSantis is an example of how how you can get away with this kind of policy record, considering he’s extremely popular in the old folks’ Mecca of Florida. Or maybe we in the press have just done a godawful job.
Republicans lose votes when people get a good look at their proposals on these issues, so maybe it’s no wonder they’re now permanently engaged in culture-war food fights. Except that also seems to have lost its luster outside The Base. Trump at least had a canny ear for the more transcendent gripes, particularly in 2016. His would-be successors are less talented grievance farmers, and some absolute loony toons have joined their ranks in Congress. It’s not a change so much as it’s become more obvious than it was that Republicans have no plans to address problems in normal people’s lives. They’re getting so high on their own supply that they can no longer even explain some of these bedrocks of their politics. The Louisville Courier-Journal‘s Joe Sonka asked Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers for his definition of “woke” on Friday and he replied, “Woke? That is the definition to me that is a describing of a mentality or a culture that certain individuals have about how things are progressing through society.” Hey man, maybe carve out some time to think about this or just admit that it’s become a hollow vehicle for reactionary rage.
Two cardiovascular medicines were well-tolerated for small vessel stroke
February 9, 2023
Research Highlights:
No standard medical therapy exists for a stroke occurring in a small vessel in the deep areas of the brain called a lacunar stroke.
A preliminary study of two common cardiovascular medications, cilostazol and isosorbide mononitrate, suggests these two medications were safe and well-tolerated by adults who have experienced small vessel stroke, when taken alone or together.
A larger, more extensive study is planned to examine the effectiveness of the medications in treating the complications of small vessel stroke.
(NewMediaWire) – February 09, 2023 – DALLAS A study of two widely used cardiovascular medications cilostazol and isosorbide mononitrate in more than 350 patients confirmed the two medications were well-tolerated and safe for people who have experienced a stroke in a small blood vessel deep in the brain. The results suggest the medications may help improve patient outcomes, according to preliminary late-breaking science presented today at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2023. The meeting, held in person in Dallas and virtually Feb. 8-10, 2023, is a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science of stroke and brain health.
Small vessel disease of the brain accounts for about 20% -25% of all ischemic strokes, according to previous research. A lacunar stroke, or small vessel stroke, occurs when the inner lining of the tiny blood vessels inside the brain are damaged, leading to a stroke or dementia.
“Currently, there is no proven treatment to prevent poor outcomes after lacunar stroke, so the ultimate goal with this research is to evaluate if medications with potential modes of action on the inner lining of blood vessels might help improve small vessel function and prevent or slow long-term brain damage after lacunar stroke,” said lead study investigator Joanna M. Wardlaw, M.D., FAHA, professor of applied neuroimaging, honorary consultant neuroradiologist, head of neuroimaging sciences and the director of Edinburgh Imaging at Edinburgh University in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is also the foundation chair of the U.K. Dementia Research Institute.
The medications in the study are commonly prescribed for other cardiac conditions. Isosorbide mononitrate is used to treat chest pain by relaxing blood vessels and decreasing blood pressure. Cilostazol improves the flow of blood by relaxing the blood vessels and reducing blood clotting. It is often prescribed for people with peripheral artery disease a narrowing of the peripheral arteries that carry blood away from the heart to other parts of the body.
This study, called LACunar Intervention Trial 2 (LACI-2), is the second largest ever trial in lacunar stroke. It examined whether such a trial was feasible among people with lacunar strokes and if the medications would be well-tolerated for one year after lacunar stroke. Researchers also analyzed safety and other outcomes, including recurrent stroke, cognitive impairment, dependency, mood and quality of life. This detailed information is needed for the next stage of research a phase 3 trial, which would include more study participants. Results of the analysis on cognitive status at one year will be presented separately in the same Main Event session on Feb. 9.
From Feb. 2018 to May 2022, researchers enrolled 363 adults who had experienced lacunar stroke from 26 stroke centers throughout the United Kingdom. The participants were average age 64 years, and 31% were women. All study participants continued to take their usual prescribed medications as per stroke guidelines, including those that reduce blood clotting, lower blood pressure and/or lower cholesterol all of which may lower the risk of a second or recurrent stroke.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups: 40-60 mg/day of oral isosorbide mononitrate alone; 200 mg/day of oral cilostazol alone; both medications; or neither medication for one year. The participants completed phone surveys at 6 and 12 months to assess health status, including recurrent stroke and heart problems, cognitive tests, symptoms, quality-of-life surveys, and had brain imaging at 12 months.
The study met its initial goals to determine if a larger trial was feasible and if the medications were safe and tolerable. After one year, 358 of the adults were still participating in the study, with 95% of participants taking at least half of medication doses prescribed for the trial. Safety criteria were also met: four participants died; there were four episodes of bleeding outside of the brain; no excessive falls or dizziness. Some participants experienced mild symptoms (such as headaches), which were expected.
Researchers also saw some potential benefits from the medication groups, including data that indicated the group who took the combined isosorbide mononitrate and cilostazol had a reduction in the amount of assistance they needed with everyday living tasks, a reduction in cognitive impairment and positive impacts on mood and quality of life. Isosorbide mononitrate alone reduced recurrent stroke, cognitive impairment and improved quality of life; cilostazol alone reduced the need for daily assistance.
“There appeared to be some potential benefits that will need to be confirmed in a larger phase 3 trial,” Wardlaw said. “We saw good hints of efficacy, particularly for isosorbide mononitrate on reducing recurrent stroke and cognitive impairment, and we also found that both medications together seemed to work synergistically, rather than counteracting any benefit. This is very encouraging since no study has previously found any medications that positively affect cognitive impairment in small vessel disease strokes. So, we cautiously hope that these medications may have wider implications for other types of small vessel disease.”
The study has some limitations, including that it was relatively small at 363 patients and not designed to measure efficacy, thus the results showing effectiveness should be interpreted cautiously. The trial was open label, meaning participants and clinicians were aware of which medication/s and doses they were taking; however, the follow-up staff for the study were unaware of which treatment the patients were assigned. Additionally, the investigators did not collect data on race or ethnicity, and many ethnic groups were suspected to be underrepresented.
Study co-lead author is Philip M. Bath, D.Sc., FAHA, UK Stroke Association Professor of Medicine at the University of Nottingham. The list of authors’ disclosures is available in the abstract.
The study was funded primarily by the British Heart Foundation, with support from the UK Alzheimer’s Society, the U.K. Dementia Research Institute, the Stroke Association, the Fondation Leducq, NHS Research Scotland and the U.K. National Institutes of Health Research Clinical Research Networks. The work was conducted by the University of Edinburgh and the University of Nottingham.
Statements and conclusions of studies that are presented at the American Heart Association’s scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the Association’s policy or position. The Association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. Abstracts presented at the Association’s scientific meetings are not peer-reviewed, rather, they are curated by independent review panels and are considered based on the potential to add to the diversity of scientific issues and views discussed at the meeting. The findings are considered preliminary until published as a full manuscript in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
The Association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific Association programs and events. The Association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and biotech companies, device manufacturers and health insurance providers and the Association’s overall financial information are available here.
Zelensky visits London in rare trip outside Ukraine, pushes for allies to send fighter jets
Brad Dress – February 8, 2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise visit to London on Wednesday to address the United Kingdom’s Parliament, telling British lawmakers and allies that his country will need more advanced weapons, including modern fighter jets, to fend off Russian forces.
Zelensky made a plea to the crowded British group packed inside the 900-year-old Westminster Hall, asking for not just weapons but also more sanctions against supporters of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“I’m not just speaking about weapons. We’ve proved together that the world truly helps those who are brave in defending freedom,” the Ukrainian leader said, but “evil is still around today and the battle continues.”
Zelensky noted King Charles III once trained as a jet pilot, using it to segue into an ask for modern fighter jets.
“Provide us with modern planes to empower and protect pilots who will be protecting us,” Zelensky said.
Kyiv has been pushing since the war began to secure modern fighter jets from the U.S. and NATO allies to replace its aging fleet.
Ukrainians have also just completed a similar program to train on Britain’s Challenger 2 main battle tanks, which the country announced last month for Ukraine.
England is one of the largest backers of Kyiv and has provided about $2.5 billion for the country since the war began last February.
The U.K. on Wednesday also slapped a round of new sanctions against six entities with ties to Russia’s military.
The government is also extending an offer to provide longer-range weapons equipment for Kyiv, which Ukraine has also asked for to strike at Russian forces in occupied territory.
During his visit, Zelensky will meet with King Charles III, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the nation’s military chiefs.
Sunak on Wednesday said “President Zelenskyy’s visit to the UK is a testament to his country’s courage, determination and fight, and a testament to the unbreakable friendship between our two countries.”
“It also underlines our commitment to not just provide military equipment for the short term, but a long-term pledge to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine for years to come,” Sunak said in a statement.
