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We cannot furlough young people’s learning or their wider development

At least 140 Republican members of the House and more than a dozen Republican Senators have announced they will object to the Electoral Vote Count on January 6th, 2020. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 allows challenges to the Electoral Count if one member of the House and one member of the Senate submit written objecti

Last month, my 8-year-old sister came home from school deflated and torn. She told me that a young boy in her class was making fun of her because of her skin color, comparing her brown skin to feca…

By Nic Lewis Key points A new variant, B.1.1.7, of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has recently spread rapidly in England The public health agency’s best estimate of B.1.1.7’s weekly growth rate a…

Former Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen, Joe Biden's pick to lead the Treasury Department, made more than $7 ...

Democrats are already spinning a narrative about the upcoming pro-Trump rally.

Speaking by telephone Saturday afternoon, Sen. James Lankford said his objective is to clear up as many questions about the election as possible.

Over 400 former and current intelligence and law enforcement officers have formed a loose network to investigate the election irregularities in 2020.

Does New Year's Day violence foreshadow another violent year for America?

Dr. Anthony Fauci said it’s possible that COVID-19 vaccines will become mandatory in order to travel to other countries or attend school. “Everything will be on the table for discussion…

Hours after 23-year-old Dolal Idd was laid to rest in a Burnsville cemetery, his mother and older sister gathered with female family members and friends at an Eden Prairie mosque to grieve.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler admitted his policies in dealing with Antifa anarchists failed.

A group of GOP senators led by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, will object to the Jan. 6 certification of the presidential election results next week unless there is an emergency 10-day audit of the results by an electoral commission.

Kazakhstan abolishes death penalty

Scotland hopes to 'join' EU as an independent nation

Authored by a Democratic member of the New York State Assembly N. Nick Perry, Bill A416 calls for the “removal and/or detention” of individuals who are identified as a “case, contact or carrier” of a contagious disease.

Powell joined the host and panel members Lance Wallnau, John Graves and Mario Murillo. What a powerhouse team! From the video description: Welcome to FlashPoint!…

Satire For The Right. And The Wrong.

The Texas senator says Congress should immediately appoint a commission ‘to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns.’

Sen. Graham appeared to break with Sen. McConnell after the majority leader dismissed $2,000 checks as "socialism for rich people."

Science 's COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation. Severe allergy-like reactions in at least 12 people who received the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech may be due to a compound in the packaging of the messenger RNA (mRNA) that forms the vaccine's main ingredient, scientists say. A similar mRNA vaccine developed by Moderna also contains the compound, polyethylene glycol (PEG). PEG has never been used before in vaccines but it is part of many drugs, some of which have occasionally triggered anaphylaxis—a potentially life-threatening reaction that can cause rashes, a plummeting blood pressure, shortness of breath, and a fast heartbeat. Some allergists and immunologists believe a small number of people previously exposed to PEG may have high levels of antibodies against it, putting them at risk of an anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine. Others are skeptical of the link. Still, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was concerned enough to convene several meetings last month to discuss the reactions with independent scientists, physicians, representatives of Pfizer and Moderna, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). NIAID is also setting up a study in collaboration with FDA to analyze the response to the vaccine in people who have high levels of anti-PEG antibodies or have experienced severe allergic responses to drugs or vaccines before. “Until we know there is truly a PEG story, we need to be very careful in talking about that as a done deal,” says Alkis Togias, branch chief of allergy, asthma, and airway biology at NIAID. Pfizer, too, says it is “actively seeking follow-up.” A statement emailed to Science noted it already recommends that “appropriate medical treatment and supervision should always be readily available” in case a vaccinee develops anaphylaxis. Reports about the allergic reactions have created anxiety among potential vaccine recipients. “Allergies in general are so common in the population that this could create a resistance against the vaccines in the population,” says Janos Szebeni, an immunologist at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, who has long studied hypersensitivity reactions to PEG. Anaphylactic reactions can occur with any vaccine but are extremely rare—about one per 1 million doses. As of 23 December 2020, the United States had seen 10 cases of anaphylaxis among 614,117 people who received the COVID-19 vaccine; the United Kingdom had recorded two. Because the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines use a new platform, the reactions call for careful scrutiny, says Elizabeth Phillips, a drug hypersensitivity researcher at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who attended an NIAID meeting on 16 December. “This is new.” Clinical trials of the vaccines, which involved tens of thousands of people, did not find serious adverse events caused by the vaccine. But both studies excluded people with a history of allergies to components of the COVID-19 vaccines; Pfizer also excluded those who previously had a severe adverse reaction from any vaccine. The two COVID-19 vaccines both contain mRNA wrapped in lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that help carry it to human cells but also act as an adjuvant, a vaccine ingredient that bolsters the immune response. The LNPs are “PEGylated”—chemically attached to PEG molecules that cover the outside of the particles and increase their life span. PEGs are also used in everyday products such as toothpaste and shampoo as thickeners, solvents, and softeners, and they've been used in laxatives for decades. An increasing number of biopharmaceuticals include PEGylated compounds as well. The compounds were long thought to be biologically inert, but evidence is growing that they are not. As much as 72% of people have at least some antibodies against PEGs, according to a 2016 study led by Samuel Lai, a pharmaco-engineer at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, presumably as a result of exposure to cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. About 7% have a level that may be high enough to predispose them to anaphylactic reactions, he found. “Some companies have dropped PEGylated products from their pipeline as a result,” Lai says. But he notes that the safety record of many PEGylated drugs has persuaded others that “concerns about anti-PEG antibodies are overstated.” Szebeni says the mechanism behind PEG-conjugated anaphylaxis is relatively unknown because it does not involve immunoglobulin E (IgE), the antibody type that causes classical allergic reactions. Instead, PEG triggers two other classes of antibodies, IgM and IgG, involved in a branch of the body's innate immunity called the complement system, which Szebeni has spent decades studying. In 1999, while working at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Szebeni described a new type of drug-induced reaction he dubbed complement activation-related pseudoallergy (CARPA), a nonspecific immune response to nanoparticle-based medicines, often PEGylated, that are mistakenly recognized by the immune system as viruses. He believes CARPA explains the severe anaphylactoid reactions occasionally caused by some PEGylated drugs, including cancer blockbuster Doxil and pegnivacogin, an experimental coagulant whose phase III trial was halted in 2014 after some participants developed severe allergic responses and one died. Some scientists believe PEGylated nanoparticles may cause problems through a mechanism other than CARPA. In November, Phillips and colleagues published a paper showing people who suffered an anaphylactic reaction to PEGylated drugs did have IgE antibodies to PEG after all, suggesting those may be involved, rather than IgG and IgM. Other scientists are not convinced PEG is involved at all. “There is a lot of exaggeration when it comes to the risk of PEGs and CARPA,” says Moein Moghimi, a nanomedicine researcher at Newcastle University who suspects a more conventional mechanism is causing the reactions. “You are delivering an adjuvant at the injection site to excite the local immune system. It happens that some people get too much excitement, because they have a relatively high number of local immune cells.” Others note the amount of PEG in the mRNA vaccines is orders of magnitude lower than in most PEGylated drugs. And whereas those drugs are often given intravenously, the two COVID-19 vaccines are injected into a muscle, which leads to a delayed exposure and a much lower level of PEG in the blood, where most anti-PEG antibodies are. Nevertheless, the vaccine companies were aware of the risk. In a 2018 stock market prospectus, Moderna acknowledged the possibility of “reactions to the PEG from some lipids or PEG otherwise associated with the LNP.” And in a September paper, BioNTech researchers proposed an alternative to PEG for therapeutic mRNA delivery, noting: “The PEGylation of nanoparticles can also have substantial disadvantages concerning activity and safety.’” Katalin Karikó, an mRNA vaccine pioneer and senior vice president at BioNTech, says she discussed with Szebeni whether PEG in the vaccine could be an issue. They agreed that given the low amount of lipid and the intramuscular administration, the risk was negligible. Karikó emphasizes that based on what we know so far, the risk is still low. “All vaccines carry some risk. But the benefit of the vaccine outweighs the risk,” she says. Scientists who believe PEG may be the culprit agree, and stress that vaccination should continue. “We need to get vaccinated,” Phillips says. “We need to try and curtail this pandemic.” But more data on side effects are needed, she adds: “These next couple of weeks in the U.S. are going to be extremely important for defining what to do next.”

One real economics lesson of The Simpsons is that unions protect incompetent employees, such as Homer Simpson.

Retiring Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., on Newsmax TV the Senate will be the last line of defense, not only for capitalist-loving Democrats, but also Joe Biden, who will be fighting the progressives in his party.

Satire For The Right. And The Wrong.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) San Francisco home was vandalized Friday morning with messages of decent about her Wuhan coronavirus relief efforts.The spray-painted message included "$2K" that was crossed out,