Scientists Fear ‘Catastrophic’ COVID Combination With Another Virus

David Axe
Sun, April 2, 2023 

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is highly contagious but the current dominant strains are not very lethal. Its much rarer cousin in the betacoronavirus family of pathogens, MERS-CoV, is highly lethal but not very contagious. Now imagine a blend of the two—a respiratory virus with the most dangerous qualities of both. Contagious and lethal.

It’s a real risk, according to a new study from China. And it’s a strong argument for a new, more widely effective vaccine.

Different viruses from the closely related families can combine through a process called “recombination” and produce hybrids called “recombinants.” This recombination requires the viruses to share an infection mechanism. For the first time, a team of scientists in China has identified the mechanism by which SARS and MERS could combine—by entering human cells via colocated receptors. Basically, the cells’ entry points for external molecules.

If a single person ever catches SARS and MERS at the same time through neighboring receptors and the two viruses combine, we could have a whole new pandemic on our hands—one that could be far worse than the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The recombination risk is one driver of a global effort to develop new vaccines that could prevent, or reduce the severity of, infection by a variety of SARS viruses, MERS, and any hybrid of them. A universal vaccine for a whole family of viruses.

Good news: Universal vaccines are in development. Bad news: They’re still a long way from large-scale human trials—and an even longer way from regulatory approval and widespread availability. Years, perhaps.

A team led by Qiao Wang, a virologist at the Shanghai Institute of Infectious Disease and Biosecurity, part of Fudan University in Shanghai, highlighted the SARS-MERS recombination risk in a peer-reviewed study that first appeared in the journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy on March 15.

SARS-CoV-2 tends to favor a receptor called ACE2, while MERS-CoV tends to favor the DPP4 receptor, Wang and their coauthors explained. Our cells tend to have one or the other, not both. In the very unlikely chance someone catches both SARS and MERS at the same time, the viruses should stay safely in their separate cells.

But Wang and company identified a few cell types, in the lungs and intestines, that have both ACE2 and DPP4 receptors, thus “providing an opportunity for coinfection by both SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV.” Wang and a teammate did not respond to a request for comment.

This hypothetical coinfection—SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV mixing and mutating in the same cells—“may result in the emergence of recombined [betacoronavirus],” Wang and their coauthors wrote. Call it “SARS-CoV-3” or “MERS-CoV-2.”

Either way, this new virus “may bear high SARS-CoV-2-like transmissibility along with a high MERS-CoV-like case-fatality rate, which would have catastrophic repercussions,” Wang and their teammates wrote.

Did AI Just Help Us Discover a Universal COVID Vaccine?

How bad could it be? The most contagious forms of SARS-CoV-2, the XBB subvariants—a.k.a., “Kraken”—is by far the most transmissible respiratory virus anyone has ever observed. It’s not for no reason that XBB subvariants quickly outcompeted rival subvariants in order to become globally dominant in just a few weeks early this year.

But Kraken is less severe—that is, less likely to kill—than earlier forms of SARS-CoV-2. Vaccines and natural immunity help a lot, but there are also signs that the novel-coronavirus is slowly evolving toward higher transmissibility but lower severity. At its worst in 2021, COVID killed nearly 5 percent of infected persons in the worst-hit countries such as Peru and Mexico. Today, the global fatality rate is around 0.9 percent.

MERS, by contrast, spreads much more slowly. It mostly affects camels. When it infects people, it’s usually when those people are in close contact with the animals. Human-to-human transmission is extremely rare. “Only a few such transmissions have been found among family members living in the same household,” the World Health Organization noted.

In 27 small outbreaks since 2012, fewer than 900 people have died of MERS. Compare that to the 6.9 million people who have died of SARS-CoV-2 since late 2019. The problem, with MERS, is that those 900 or so deaths represent a third of infections. That is to say, MERS is at least six times more lethal, on a case-by-case basis, than SARS was at its worst.

So if a SARS-MERS recombinant inherited the former’s transmissibility and the latter’s lethality, it could quickly kill millions. That’s why Wang and their coauthors are, in their own words, “calling for the development of pan-CoV vaccine.”

Don’t panic. Epidemiologists who weren’t involved in Wang and company’s study didn’t necessarily agree with the Chinese authors’ sense of possible imminent doom. “The lifecycle of a virus is delicate and recombination between different viruses is typically uncommon,” Lihong Liu, a Columbia University COVID researcher, told The Daily Beast. “We have not seen any recombination between SARS-CoV-2 and MERS during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the millions of SARS-CoV-2 infections worldwide. Therefore, it is expected that such an event is unlikely to occur in the future.”

Michael Letko, a Washington State University virologist, told The Daily Beast that Wang’s team is actually half-right. Yes, there’s huge risk from a possible recombinant. But not necessarily a SARS-MERS recombinant. It’s more likely the novel-coronavirus will recombine with a Russian bat virus called Khosta-2, Letko said.

Khosta-2 is even more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than MERS is, Letko pointed out. Not only is Khosta-2 fond of the same ACE2 receptor that the novel coronavirus prefers, the two viruses also replicate roughly the same way. “The machinery the viruses use to copy their genetic material can get confused, leading to mixing and matching of the genomes,” Letko said of SARS-CoV-2 and Khosta-2. That raises the recombination risk.
Prevention plan

JANUARY 2020 CHINA RELEASED THIS GENETIC CODE FOR COVID

But exactly which cousin virus might combine with SARS-CoV-2 is beside the point. Barton Haynes, an immunologist with Duke’s Human Vaccine Institute, told The Daily Beast. There are dozens of betacoronaviruses. We should develop a vaccine that works against all of them. “If a vaccine could do all this, then one would also likely be able to protect against any … recombinant virus, as well,” Haynes said. SARS-MERS. SARS-Khosta-2. MERS-Khosta-2. Whatever.

There are around two dozen pan-coronavirus vaccine projects underway all over the world. Haynes and his colleagues at Duke have been working on one since 2020—and it could be among the first to produce a deployable vaccine. Animal testing and small-scale human trials are already underway. But if history is any guide, it could be years before the Duke vaccine or any other pan-CoV jab is ready for widespread deployment.

The wait is worth it, Haynes said. “The current goal of pan-coronavirus vaccines that are currently being tested in monkeys and humans is to make vaccines that both prevent infection by any new COVID variant that might arise, to make vaccines that will prevent any new CoV-2-like CoV outbreak that may arise from bats or other animals as well to protect against any MERS-like virus that may arise.”

That should cover all the bases, at least when it comes to betacoronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV and Khosta-2. If our luck holds and we dodge a dangerous SARS recombinant for a few more years, we just might have a universal vaccine—Duke’s or another—that could prevent mass death in the event that hybrid finally appears.

Of course, that “universal” vaccine wouldn’t be truly universal. It wouldn’t save us from RSV, monkeypox, polio or—perhaps most worryingly—bird flu. For those viruses, we need totally different jabs.

CTHULHU KRAKEN STUDIES

Giant Squids Washed Ashore Give Scientists New Clues

Giant squids washed ashore on the Sea of Japan coast are providing researchers with new insights into how this mysterious marine animal mates and reproduces.

on October 6, 2022
By Saki Maehara

JAPAN FORWARD

Children observing giant squid specimen at San-in Kaigan Geopark Sea and Earth Nature Museum in Iwami Town, Tottori Prefecture, February 2, 2016.

The giant squid is one of the world's largest invertebrates that lives in the deep sea. It is believed to be the origin of the legend of "Kraken," a monster feared by sailors in the age of sea exploration.

Although the animal remains shrouded in mystery, recent research analyzing individuals that have drifted ashore on the Sea of Japan coast has revealed a unique reproductive method that differs from that of other squids.

There is still much to learn about this giant creature that lurks in the depths of the sea.
Giants Washing Ashore

In April of this year, a local fisherman discovered a large red squid drifting in the sea at Ugu Beach in Obama City of Fukui Prefecture.

A city official who rushed to the site upon hearing the news found a giant squid measuring 3.35 meters in length. It had washed ashore, but its arms were still flapping.

One resident among those gathered on the beach remarked in awe, "It was huge." Another noted, "It's rare to see one alive." Later, at the Echizen Matsushima Aquarium (Sakai City, Fukui Prefecture), children were able to see the squid on display.

Giant squid are often found washed ashore on the coasts of Japan. With their two long tentacles extended, they can reach up to 18 meters in length.

Another aspect of the mysterious giant squid is revealed.

The deep sea is broadly defined as depths over 200 meters. But according to Tsunemi Kubodera, 71, a marine biologist and honorary researcher at the National Museum of Nature and Science, giant squid mainly live in middle layers of the ocean between 600 to 1,000 meters.

Read the rest of this article here to find out more on the biology of the giant squid. And find more great articles on the environment and the challenges of achieving the SDGs, on our new website Japan 2 Earth, sparking a transition on the environment and SDGs.

Factbox-From BlockFi to Genesis, crypto firms reel from exposure to FTX


Thu, January 5, 2023 

(Reuters) - After the collapse of major cryptocurrency exchange FTX, the industry has felt a ripple effect due to the exposure of many companies to FTX and its affiliated trading firm Alameda Research. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on Jan. 3 pleaded not guilty to criminal charges that he cheated investors and caused billions of dollars in losses.

Here are some firms that have given information about their exposure to FTX.

BLOCKFI

BlockFi filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 28, weeks after the crypto lender said it was pausing client withdrawals. In July, FTX had signed a deal with an option to buy BlockFi for up to $240 million.

GENESIS

Genesis is working to preserve client assets and strengthen liquidity, it said in a letter to clients in December, adding that it would take "weeks rather than days" to form a plan.

The crypto lending arm of U.S. digital asset broker Genesis Trading suspended customer redemptions last month, citing the sudden failure of FTX.

Genesis said in a tweet on Nov. 10 that its derivatives business has approximately $175 million in locked funds on FTX.

However, Genesis had no material exposure to FTX's native token FTT, or any other tokens issued by centralized exchanges, the firm said in a tweet on Nov. 9.

BINANCE

Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao sparked concerns among investors on Nov. 6 when he said in a tweet that the crypto exchange would sell its holdings of FTT.

Zhao told a Twitter spaces event that Binance had previously held $580 million worth of FTT, of which "we only sold quite a small portion, we still hold a large bag."

Binance said on Nov. 13 that it had stopped accepting deposits of FTX's FTT token on its platform, urging other rival exchanges to do the same.

CELSIUS NETWORK

New York's attorney general filed a civil lawsuit accusing Celsius Network founder Alex Mashinsky of scheming to defraud hundreds of thousands of investors by inducing them to deposit billions of dollars in digital assets with his cryptocurrency company.

Between 2020 and 2022, under Mashinsky’s watch, Celsius made loans totaling roughly a billion dollars to Alameda Research, according to a filing.

COINBASE

Coinbase Global Inc said in a blog post on Nov. 8 that it had $15 million worth of deposits on FTX. It said it had no exposure to FTT or Alameda Research and no loans to FTX.

COINSHARES

Crypto asset manager CoinShares has $30.3 million worth of exposure to crypto exchange FTX, it said in a statement on Nov. 10.

CoinShares CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti said the group's financial health remains "strong."

CRYPTO.COM

Singapore-based crypto exchange Crypto.com said on Nov. 14 it had moved about $1 billion to FTX over the course of a year, but most of it was recovered and exposure at the time of FTX's collapse was less than $10 million.

CEO Kris Marszalek said the firm would prove wrong all naysayers who thought the platform was in trouble, adding it had a robust balance sheet and took no risks.

GALAXY DIGITAL

Crypto financial services company Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd said in its third-quarter earnings statement on Nov. 9 - the day after FTX froze withdrawals - that it had $76.8 million worth of exposure to FTX, of which $47.5 million was "in the withdrawal process."

GALOIS CAPITAL

Hedge fund Galois Capital had half its assets trapped on FTX, co-founder Kevin Zhou told investors in a recent letter, the Financial Times reported on Nov. 11, estimating the amount to be around $100 million.

The firm on Nov. 13 confirmed that it had up to $45 million in exposure to the now collapsed FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Bloomberg News reported.

KRAKEN

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken said on Nov. 10 that it held about 9,000 FTT tokens on the FTX exchange and was not affected "in any material way".

SILVERGATE CAPITAL CORP

Silvergate Capital Corp reported a sharp drop in fourth-quarter crypto-related deposits as investors spooked by FTX's collapse pulled out more than $8 billion in deposits.

The company said on Nov. 11 FTX represented less than 10% of $11.9 billion in deposits from all digital asset customers as of Sept. 30.

The financial solutions provider to digital assets also said Silvergate has no outstanding loans or investments in FTX.

VOYAGER DIGITAL

Bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, which was set to sell its assets to FTX after a $1.42 billion deal bid by the exchange in September, had a balance of approximately $3 million at FTX.

GRAYSCALE

Crypto asset manager Grayscale, whose flagship Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is the world's largest bitcoin fund, told investors that the recent market events have had no impact on its product operations or the security of the holdings in its funds.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in London, Mehnaz Yasmin, Medha Singh Niket Nishant, and Manya Saini in Bengaluru and Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Jan Harvey and Matthew Lewis)

U.S. prosecutors launch website for Bankman-Fried alleged fraud victims

Fri, January 6, 2023 
By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government plans to launch a website for victims of FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried's alleged fraud to communicate with law enforcement.

In court papers filed on Friday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan for permission to use the website to notify victims, rather than contacting each individually.

FTX could owe money to more than 1 million people, making it "impracticable" to contact each, the papers said.

Federal law requires prosecutors to contact possible crime victims to inform them of their rights, including the rights to obtain restitution, be heard in court and be protected from defendants.

Kaplan has yet to rule on the request, but the website had gone live by Friday afternoon.

"If you believe that you may have been a victim of fraud by Samuel Bankman-Fried, A/K/A/ 'SBF,' please contact the victim/witness coordinator at the United States Attorney's office," the website read.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bankman-Fried, 30, has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of wire fraud and conspiracy over November's collapse of FTX.

Prosecutors have said he stole billions in FTX customer deposits to pay debts for his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and lied to investors about FTX's financial condition.

The onetime billionaire has acknowledged risk management shortcomings, but said he did not consider himself criminally liable.

Bankman-Fried's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York Editing by Leslie Adler)

Extremists have their fingerprints all over the GOP

Opinion by Julian Zelizer, CNN Political Analyst
 Fri March 25, 2022

Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and author of the forthcoming book "The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment." Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

(CNN)It was quite a week for the Republican Party. If anyone was still holding out hope that the GOP would shift away from its Trumpian pull, the last few days should serve as a powerful wake-up call.

Julian Zelizer

During the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, a number of conservative Republican senators who appear to have an eye on 2024 raised the specter of conspiracy theories in an attempt to sidetrack a well-qualified and highly respected nominee.

Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, for example, went after Jackson by trying to paint a misleading picture that she had been particularly lenient toward sex offenders.

While the "soft on crime" line of attack might seem like a predictable extension of a decades-long Republican "law and order" strategy, commentators have pointed out that the senators may have been trying to appeal to those who follow QAnon and believe the conspiracy theory that President Donald Trump is locked in a battle against a group of elites who run a child sex ring.

Others fell back on another Republican bogeyman: critical race theory. Sen. Ted Cruz's version of "gotcha" was to hold up books that had been assigned or recommended at a private school in Washington where Jackson is a board member, trying to make the case that they covered radical concepts unfit for children.

Throughout the confirmation hearings, Republicans tried to score cheap political points by delving into bizarre lines of argument -- all of which revealed how fringe talking points had become mainstream. Top elected officials were espousing claims that in earlier eras would have been considered too far off base to focus on during a televised proceeding.

And then news broke that the January 6 committee had text messages sent by Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff at the end of his presidency.

Since New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer first broke the story about the ethical clash between Virginia Thomas' high-level participation in right-wing organizations and the cases her husband participates in, more troubling details have emerged.

Thomas, who has ties to right-wing activists who have brought forth issues before the very court on which her husband sits, texted Meadows 29 times between the 2020 election and January 2021, urging him to continue the fight to overturn the election results.

The racist, sexist mudslinging at Ketanji Brown Jackson is disgraceful

"Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down," she wrote on November 19, 2020. In other texts, she made references to Trump's often-repeated lie that the election was stolen and called Biden's victory "the greatest Heist of our History."

"Release the Kraken," a catchphrase from the 1981 movie "Clash of the Titans," had been repurposed by conservatives to refer to sprawling claims of voter fraud. Virginia Thomas' use of this kind of rhetoric is one thing -- even more troubling is her involvement in an anti-democratic campaign by the incumbent President and his allies to stifle the decision of the electorate.

The way in which the far right has influenced the mainstream Republican Party has been one of the pivotal stories in American politics in recent years. This radicalization has created a situation in Washington where one party has shifted further from center than the other. Norms of restraint, civility and governance have taken a back seat to raw partisanship. Lawmakers are increasingly performative and eager to throw red meat to their followers without any concern for the consequences. Indeed, January 6 was a product of this mentality, as Republicans repeated Trump's dangerous lies and those of his allies about a "stolen election."

The hearings this week were another case in point, showing how even familiar arguments like the appeal to law and order (itself a tool of partisanship from past eras that now seem quaint by comparison) have morphed into a world of extremism once reserved for the far reaches of the internet. Now, the logic seems to be that if you want to run for the Republican presidential nomination, you don't play to the center but court the conspiracists.

Unless Republican leaders pull back, they will never be able to move in the direction that some more moderate GOP members, such as former Texas Congressman Will Hurd, have championed. In his new book, "American Reboot: An Idealists Guide to Getting Big Things Done," Hurd urges his fellow party members to shed the conspiracy thinking and attempt to broaden their electoral coalition. The GOP, he writes, "must stop peddling conspiracy theories like those that led to the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021."
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While Hurd's vision would offer the best bet for the Republican Party to strengthen its future and safeguard our democracy, party members continue to move the GOP in a very different direction, as we saw this week. And the closer we get to the 2022 midterms, the more likely it is for prominent Republicans to double down on extremist ideas rather than internal reform. It could be that Hurd is the voice of the future, but right now, that future is far off.

FROM THE USA

New 'ultra-transmissible' Covid 'Kraken' variant sparks warning from WHO

Kieran Doody
Thu, 5 January 2023 

 (Image: PA)

Health experts have issued a warning over a new “ultra-transmissible” Covid strain spreading across the UK.

The new Covid XBB.1.5 variant dubbed “The Kraken” currently surging across the US has already been spotted in parts of the UK.

The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) technical lead for Covid Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove expressed her concern about the growth of the new variant.

Speaking at a press conference, she said: "We are concerned about its growth advantage in particular in some countries in Europe and in the US... particularly the Northeast part of the United States, where XBB.1.5 has rapidly replaced other circulating variants.

"Our concern is how transmissible it is… and the more this virus circulates, the more opportunities it will have to change.”

Covid XBB.1.5 should be 'wake-up call' to UK

Professor Lawrence Young from Warwick University told the Mail Online that the new variant should be a “wake-up call” to the UK.

He said: “The XBB.1.5 variant is highly infectious and is driving increased hospital admissions in New York, particularly among the elderly. Waning immunity, more indoor mixing because of the cold weather and lack of other mitigations, such as wearing facemasks, are also contributing to this surge of infection in the US.

“This is a wake-up call - a sharp reminder that we can't be complacent about Covid. The threat of XBB.1.5 and other Covid variants further exacerbates the current NHS crisis and stresses the need for us to remain vigilant.”

He added: “We need to continue to monitor levels of infection with different variants in the UK, encourage those who are eligible to get their boosters shots - why not extend this to the under 50s - and promote the value of other mitigation measures.”

XBB.1.5: ‘Most Transmissible’ Strain Could Drive New COVID-19 Surge In US

Jan 4, 2023 By Luigi Caler 

There are concerns that a new COVID-19 surge in the United States could unfold in the wake of the new omicron subvariant’s emergence. 

XBB.1.5 is the new member of the omicron sublineage that sparked concerns among health experts this week after data showed how quickly it spread.

Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, noted on Twitter Wednesday that there’s been a “stunning increase” in the cases caused by XBB.1.5 in the country over December. 

“Over the holidays, you may have heard about omicron XBB.1.5. It went from 4% of sequences to 40% in just a few weeks. That’s a stunning increase,” he tweeted. 

Epidemiologist and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) technical lead on COVID-19 Maria Van Kerkhove echoed the same sentiments, saying they are “concerned about its growth advantage.”

Van Kerkove pointed out via CNN that the new strain, first detected in the U.S., is the “most transmissible form of omicron to date.” It has already spread to at least 29 countries thus far. 

Despite the threat of XBB.1.5 starting new waves of infections in different parts of the world, Van Kerkhove was optimistic that there wouldn’t be serious effects when proper countermeasures remained in place. 

“We do expect further waves of infection around the world, but that doesn’t have to translate into further waves of death because our countermeasures continue to work,” she explained. 

Jha said in a separate tweet that XBB.1.5 “binds more tightly to the human ACE receptor,” so it could be more contagious than the other omicron subvariants. 

He added that the best protection tool against XBB.1.5 is the new bivalent COVID-19 vaccine. The bivalent shots from Moderna and Pfizer can help protect against infection and serious illness caused by the new strain, according to the expert. 

“We can work together to manage the virus. And if we all do our part, we can reduce the impact it will have on our lives,” he concluded his Twitter thread. 

Meanwhile, Van Kerkhove said the WHO is working on a risk assessment for the new strain by looking at real-world data on hospitalizations and their severity. The report will be released in the next few days.

New COVID-19 Variant Mutation Has

'Alarming' Immunity Evasion; Could 

Cause US Surge

Jan 4, 2023By Danielle Ong 

A new offshoot strain, XBB.1.5, of the COVID-19 Omicron variant has been found to have "alarming" immunity evasion, which could cause another surge of cases in the United States, according to experts.

Dr. David Ho, professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, said the XBB.1 offshoot variant is 63 times less likely to be neutralized by the antibodies in people who have either been infected by COVID-19 or have been vaccinated against the virus when compared to the BA.2 variant. The same is the case with the XBB.1.5 strain.

"It is alarming that these newly emerged subvariants could further compromise the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines and result in a surge of breakthrough infections as well as re-infections," Dr. Ho wrote in his findings, which were recently published in the journal Cell.

In addition to its high immune evasion, the XBB.1.5. also has a key mutation at site 486, allowing it to bind better to ACE2, which is the door the virus uses to enter human cells. This mutation means the offshoot variant is more infectious.

"The mutation is clearly letting XBB.1.5 spread better," Jesse Bloom, a computational virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, wrote in an email to CNN.

Experts are now warning that the strain's features could give it the ability to cause another surge of COVID-19 cases in the U.S.

As of Friday last week, the U.S. Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that the XBB.1.5 variant accounted for 41% of new COVID-19 infections throughout December.

In northeastern states, the CDC said the offshoot variant is causing about 75.3% of all new cases. Those states include Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

In New York and New Jersey, the XBB.1.5 strain caused 72.2% of cases during the last week of December.

As of Tuesday, the U.S. reported a total of 100,845,043 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in 2020. Among those, 1,093,971 have died of the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The Glorious Rise And Fall Of Sidney Powell’s Trump Campaign Gig

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 19: Attorney Sidney Powell speaks to the press about various lawsuits related to the 2020 election, inside the Republican National Committee headquarters on November 19, 2020 in Washington

By Matt Shuham TPM
November 23, 2020 

Sidney Powell lasted barely one Scaramucci as a member of President Donald Trump’s legal team, but boy was it a wild ride.

The right-wing lawyer best known for defending former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn went out in a blaze of glory, asserting in a monologue at the Republican Party’s headquarters Thursday that a global cabal of communists had conspired with Democrats to steal President Donald Trump’s second term from him.

"We will not be intimidated…We are going to clean this mess up now. President Trump won by a landslide. We are going to prove it. And we are going to reclaim the United States of America for the people who vote for freedom."—Sidney Powell pic.twitter.com/8KCEOGuL7w
— GOP (@GOP) November 19, 2020

Within three days, she was tossed overboard by the two attorneys who’d taken the stage with her.

“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own,” the Trump campaign said in a statement Sunday. It was signed by Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, the two Trump lawyers who had yelled, harangued and astral-projected alongside Powell in that crowded RNC conference room.

Powell has put on a brave face, saying in a statement later Sunday that she never billed the campaign for her services, and that she was still planning on filing an “epic” lawsuit to prevent a Joe Biden presidency.

She signed the statement with a hashtag, “#KrakenOnSteroids,” that beckoned to happier times: On Thursday, after she had finished the legal equivalent of a flat-Earther convention alongside Powell and Giuliani, Ellis wrote that her fellow campaign lawyers had, in fact, “RELEASED THE KRAKEN.”
.@RudyGiuliani and @SidneyPowell1 RELEASED THE KRAKEN!
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) November 19, 2020

From The Fever Swamps To Primetime

Powell represented the clearest, most direct connection between the Trump campaign and the vast network of conspiracy theorists whose claims about voter fraud and rigged elections have fueled Trump’s grievances for months.

For example, over the weekend she boosted a Twitter thread from Dave Hayes, a QAnon conspiracy theorist who goes by “The Praying Medic” because he claims to communicate with God.

According to the Praying Medic thread she retweeted, Powell has received “an avalanche of first-hand, eyewitness testimony from hundreds of patriots” which, eventually, will be used make the indisputable case that Donald Trump really won the election. (“Somehow, patriots neutralized election rigging” in 2016, The Praying Medic clarified.)

On-stage with Giuliani and Ellis, Powell walked through another QAnon community favorite — the assertion that voting machine vendor Dominion Voting Systems rigged the election for Biden. Powell asserted the company’s software was “created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez to make sure he never lost an election.”

As evidence, she cited to a single affidavit from someone who claimed they observed votes being manipulated in Venezuela using a software called Smartmatic. The affiant wrote that Dominion relies upon software “that is a descendant of the Smartmatic Electoral Management System,” and that the 2020 U.S. elections were “eerily reminiscent” of Venezuela’s 2013 presidential election.

A spokesperson for Dominion characterized Powell’s claims as “not physically possible.” And while the affiant Powell cited is still anonymous, the case in which they were involved — an effort to prevent Georgia from certifying the election results — was rejected by a federal judge a few hours after the RNC press conference.

“We see on social media people talking about ‘blockbusters’ and ‘krakens,'” Gabriel Sterling, Voting Systems Manager for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, told reporters Monday. “I want to remind everybody that krakens are myths.”

‘Hopefully This Week…’

By the time Powell took the stage Thursday, she’d already cycled through one round of internet conspiracy theories.

In a Nov. 6 interview with Lou Dobbs — two days before the network’s first reference to Powell as a Trump campaign lawyer — she referred to a theory about “Hammer & Scorecard,” a purported supercomputer scheme that would have been able to flip massive amounts of ballots.

“That would’ve amounted to a massive change in the vote that would’ve gone across the country and explains a lot of what we’re seeing,” she said.

The theory fell out of fashion a few days later, when The Daily Beast noted that the man pushing it, Dennis Montgomery, had a decades-long history of securing huge paydays based on nonsense theories — such as when Montgomery convinced the U.S. government that he was able to decode messages to Al Qaeda hidden in al Jazeera broadcasts.

And Powell’s more recent assertions of widespread fraud — for example, that there are “thousands” of co-conspirators across several states, as she claimed on Saturday — go well beyond what’s been claimed in various courts.

So far, neither the Trump campaign nor Powell have tried to convince a judge under penalty of perjury that seedy voting software, communists, bribery or widespread, systematic fraud are to blame for Trump’s loss. And neither responded to TPM’s questions Monday.

But victory is just around the corner!

On Saturday, Powell told Newsmax that “hopefully this week, we will get it ready to file.”

That sounds suspiciously like what she’s already been saying for weeks.

On Nov. 10, an archived version of her website shows, Powell asked patriots for donations for urgent election litigation: “Over $500,000 must be raised in the next twenty-four hours for these suits to be filed. Millions more will need to be raised to ensure victory.”

Two weeks later, though her name still isn’t attached to any litigation, Powell kept asking for money. “The future of our Republic,” she assures donors, “is at stake.”

Tierney Sneed contributed reporting.

 Crypto Heavyweights Coinbase, Fidelity and Robinhood Back US Anti-Money Laundering Group

Ian Allison

Wed, February 16, 2022

A group of well-established firms active in cryptocurrencies in the U.S., including Coinbase, Fidelity and Robinhood, have joined together to bring digital assets in step with global anti-money laundering (AML) rules.

In total, there are some 18 virtual asset service providers (VASPs) participating in the launch of the Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology (TRUST). Announced Wednesday, the TRUST platform was created in response to AML data sharing requirements recommended by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and prescribed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

The current U.S. TRUST membership includes: Anchorage, Avanti, Bitgo, bitFlyer, Bittrex, BlockFi, Circle, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, Gemini, Kraken, Paxos, Robinhood, Standard Custody & Trust, Symbridge, Tradestation, Zero Hash and Zodia Custody.

There have been a number of proposed ways to accommodate "travel rule" requirements within the pseudonymous-by-design cryptocurrency space. Prior to its official launch, TRUST was known among crypto AML specialists as the U.S. Travel Rule Working Group, where the lead engineering firepower was provided by Coinbase, alongside a founding member group that included Gemini, BitGo, Kraken, Circle and Fidelity.

How it works

“There are two components to this solution,” said Gemini’s Chief Compliance Officer Elena Hughes in an interview. “There’s the ability to identify who’s on the other side of the transfer prior to initiating it. Secondly, there’s no centralized storage of personal data. So we don’t send it via a centralized repository; instead the information is exchanged on a bilateral basis.”

The plan, said Hughes, is to expand to other global jurisdictions, with building currently taking place in Canada, Singapore and Germany. The group’s goal is also to become an industry standard for complying with the travel rule. (Until now there has been only one standard agreed upon by the crypto industry, the Inter-VASP Messaging Standard, known as IVMS 101.)

Some jurisdictions, including Singapore, have chosen to go a step beyond the FATF travel rule recommendations for identifying beneficial owners of transactions between VASPs to include those with private or unhosted wallets – a point of contention among many in crypto.

With regard to the inclusion of unhosted wallets within the TRUST architecture, Hughes said: “We are working toward ensuring that we have a compliance solution in those other jurisdictions. What it will ultimately look like is going to be a bit of a ‘time will tell.’”

‘A tool in the compliance arsenal’

The TRUST solution’s compliance capabilities will be reinforced by a partnership with Exiger, a technology platform focused on regulation and financial crime, according to a press release. The TRUST protocol could also bolster the world of blockchain analytics, those firms that follow the money in the case of nefarious actors transacting in crypto, according to Paxos Director of Compliance Christel Chan.

“I do see the TRUST travel solution as a tool in the compliance arsenal with regard to being able to give signals to VASPs as to, is this a wallet of concern?” said Chan in an interview. “And also as a complementary tool when it comes to blockchain monitoring firms’ capabilities.”

Interoperability between the range of solutions on offer (Fidelity Digital Assets is a member of both TRUST and the institution-focused Travel Rule Protocol, for example), as well as across different regions, is another hot topic in the crypto travel rule space.

“I think a year or two down the line, interoperability will be a core requirement,” Chan said. “I know the different solutions are thinking about this with regard to the various partnerships they’re discussing today.”

The concerted effort behind TRUST is an achievement in itself, given how directly competitive these firms are with one another. Robinhood Chief Operating Officer Christine Brown via an emailed statement called it “an innovative compliance solution, while also persevering the integrity of private customer data.”

“Just as it takes a community of crypto investors and enthusiasts to democratize finance, we believe it takes a community of crypto businesses and platforms to work together to find a solution to preserve customer privacy while meeting the legal requirements of the Travel Rule,” she said.

 A Buoy in the Pacific Detected the Most Extreme Rogue Wave Ever Measured

Cassidy Ward
Wed, December 13, 2023

Water covers roughly two thirds of our planet in a cold, dark blanket thousands of meters thick. Those vast global waters hold never-before-seen creatures, undiscovered ecosystems, and untold secrets. In the case of one well-meaning teenager, the ocean hides monsters and the truth of her identity as Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken (streaming now on Peacock).

Throughout history, sailors have told tales of krakens, great serpents, mermaids, and all manner of sea monsters. For better or for worse, we haven’t managed to find any reliable evidence that any of them actually exist (although the giant squid is a pretty good stand in), but some old sailing tales turned out to be true.

RELATED: What is a Kraken? Ruby Gillman’s Sea Monster History Explained

For hundreds of years, oceanic explorers have reported encountering rogue waves which appear out of nowhere to destroy ships and claim lives. Those stories were largely discounted until scientists confirmed the existence of a rogue wave in the ‘90s. Now, a fortunate buoy measurement reveals the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded.
The Most Extreme Rogue Wave Ever Recorded

In November of 2020, scientists received an alert from a single buoy floating off the coast of British Columbia. According to the measurements, the buoy had suddenly lifted more than 17 meters (58 feet) above its previous position before crashing back down again. It took more than a year for scientists to figure out what had happened, and we know now that the buoy was picked up by a fleeting but impressive rogue wave.

Otherwise known as “extreme storm waves,” a rogue wave is defined as any wave which is at least twice the size of its next-door neighbors. They can be unpredictable and can even come from unexpected directions, moving at odds to prevailing winds and nearby waves. The few folks who have been unfortunate enough to see a rogue wave up close have described them as a wall of water with nearly sheer walls.

Aerial view of waves splashing in sea.

Aerial view of waves splashing in sea. Photo: Nazar Abbas Photography/Getty Images

Rogue waves are powerful enough to threaten sailing vessels, oceanic equipment like oil rigs and scientific stations, and coastal areas. We may have spent centuries believing they were just a legend told by bored sailors, but we now believe that at least some shipwrecks can be laid at the watery feet of rogue waves. Moreover, climate change is predicted to make rogue waves even more impressive. If our environmental relationships continue as they have been, we can expect the rogue wave record to be broken again relatively soon.

RELATED: Just Like Scientists Predicted, There Is a Massive Blob Stretching Across the Atlantic Ocean

It isn’t totally clear how and why rogue waves form, but researchers have a couple of ideas. Data from these sorts of sensing buoys is just what we need to get a better handle on things. One idea is that several smaller waves moving in the same direction but at different speeds all line up and reinforce one another, creating a mega wave. An alternate explanation involves a stormfront forming waves which move against the normal wave direction. If waves crash into one another just right, their wavelengths can shorten, collapse together, and create a short-lived monster wave.

While 58 feet is far from the tallest wave we’ve ever seen, the ratio between the November 2020 wave and its neighbors was the most extreme we’ve ever seen. Most rogue waves are about twice the size of nearby waves, but this one was almost three times the size of its neighbors.

An Autopsy of Sidney Powell's 'Kraken' Reveals Suspiciously Similar Affidavits

Federal judges have been underwhelmed by the former Trump campaign lawyer's evidence of massive election fraud.

JACOB SULLUM | 12.25.2020 3:05 PM REASON MAGAZINE

EVEN AYN RAND OBJECTIVIST LIBERTARIANS AREN'T HAVING IT

(YouTube)

As part of her attempt to show that the presidential election was stolen through an elaborate international conspiracy, former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell has submitted two affidavits from Venezuelans who purport to expose the roots of fraud-facilitating software that Powell claims switched Trump votes to Biden votes. Those affidavits include strikingly similar language that suggests they were written or edited by Powell or her colleagues rather than the affiants.

"I want to alert the public and let the world know the truth about the corruption, manipulation, and lies being committed by a conspiracy of people and companies intent upon betraying the honest people of the United States and their legally constituted institutions and fundamental rights as citizens," says a redacted affidavit from an unnamed individual who claims to have served on "the national security guard detail" for Venezuela's president. "This conspiracy began more than a decade ago in Venezuela and has spread to countries all over the world. It is a conspiracy to wrongfully gain and keep power and wealth. It involves political leaders, powerful companies, and other persons whose purpose is to gain and keep power by changing the free will of the people and subverting the proper course of governing."


An affidavit from Ana Mercedes Díaz Cardozo, a naturalized U.S. citizen who says she was "a career official for 25 years at the Supreme Electoral Council of Venezuela," includes a nearly identical passage. Díaz also describes herself as "an adult of the sound mine," while the anonymous Venezuelan affiant uses a similarly mistaken phrase, saying, "I am an adult of sound mine."

Dominion Voting Systems, one of the companies that Powell has implicated in the purported plot to steal the election, notes the similarities between the two Venezuelan affiants' descriptions of their motivations in a December 16 letter demanding that Powell retract her accusations and threatening a defamation lawsuit if she doesn't. Dominion says the fact that the two affiants used almost exactly the same language proves that "those witnesses did not each write their declarations independently" and strongly suggests that the "allegations of a decade-old international conspiracy were written or edited by you or your team—not by the witnesses themselves." The repetition of the "sound mine" error likewise suggests collaboration.

The Dominion letter also notes that another anonymous witness Powell has used in court, codenamed "Spyder" (sometimes "Spider") and identified by The Washington Post as Army veteran Joshua Merritt, has admitted he never worked in military intelligence, although Powell called him a "Military Intelligence expert" and his declaration described him as a former "electronic intelligence analyst under 305th Military Intelligence."

In an interview with the Post, Merritt blamed the erroneous information on Powell's "clerks," who he said wrote the relevant sentence. "That was one thing I was trying to backtrack on," he said. "My original paperwork that I sent in didn't say that."

Dominion notes several other striking errors in witness statements used by Powell. Navid Keshavarz-Nia, presented as a cybersecurity expert, famously placed "Edison County" in Michigan, where no such jurisdiction exists. Russell Ramsland, a cybersecurity analyst and former Republican congressional candidate, discussed locations in Minnesota while alleging fraud in Michigan. Ramsland also claimed that voter turnout in Detroit was an impossible 139 percent and that turnout in North Muskegon was an even more improbable 782 percent, which he presented as clear evidence of fraud. "In reality," Dominion says, "the turnout in those places was 50.88% and 78.11%, respectively."

Powell has submitted these statements, along with many others, as evidence in lawsuits challenging the election results in several states. Although Powell has likened her evidence to a "fire hose" and a Kraken, judges in those cases have been decidedly underwhelmed.

"Plaintiffs append over three hundred pages of attachments, which are only impressive for their volume," wrote Diane Humetewa, a federal judge in Arizona. "The various affidavits and expert reports are largely based on anonymous witnesses, hearsay, and irrelevant analysis of unrelated elections. Because the Complaint is grounded in these fraud allegations, the Complaint shall be dismissed."

In Michigan, U.S. District Judge Linda Parker said Powell offered "nothing but speculation and conjecture that votes for President Trump were destroyed, discarded or switched to votes for Vice President Biden." Parker observed that Powell's lawsuit "seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiffs seek—as much of that relief is beyond the power of this Court—and more about the impact of their allegations on People's faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government."

Powell filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin on behalf of William Feehan, a voter and potential presidential elector, and Derrick Van Orden, an unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate. But Van Orden said he never agreed to participate in the case, leaving only Feehan. While dismissing the lawsuit for lack of standing, U.S. District Court Judge Pamela Pepper marveled at the remedy sought by Powell, who argued that state officials should be ordered to decertify Wisconsin's election results. "Federal judges do not appoint the president in this country," Pepper wrote. "One wonders why the plaintiffs came to federal court and asked a federal judge to do so."

Timothy Batten, a federal judge in Georgia, was similarly perplexed. "In their complaint, the plaintiffs essentially ask the court for perhaps the most extraordinary relief ever sought in any federal court in connection with an election," he said. "They want this court to substitute its judgment for that of 2.5 million Georgia voters who voted for Joe Biden, and this I am unwilling to do."

There Be Monsters

The Kraken the supposedly mythical sea monster that preyed on ships in the Atlantic since the 12th Century was not the only monster in the North Seas off Norway.

Of course these monsters pre-date humans.

And we have global warming to thank for this find. As the Arctic melts to reveal more of its ancient past. Soon we too will go the way of the dinosaurs if this continues.

Monster' fossil find in Arctic

By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News

One find has been nicknamed "The Monster" Enlarge Image

Norwegian scientists have discovered a "treasure trove" of fossils belonging to giant sea reptiles that roamed the seas at the time of the dinosaurs.

The 150 million-year-old fossils were uncovered on the Arctic island chain of Svalbard - about halfway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole.

The finds belong to two groups of extinct marine reptiles - the plesiosaurs and the ichthyosaurs.

One skeleton has been nicknamed The Monster because of its enormous size.

The discovery of a gigantic pliosaur, nicknamed The Monster, was one of the most remarkable discoveries of the expedition.

Its skeleton has dinner-plate-sized neck vertebrae, and the lower jaw has teeth as big as bananas.

The skeleton is not yet fully excavated, but its skull is about 3m long, suggesting the body could be more than 8m from the tip of its nose to its tail.

"What's amazing here is that it looks like we have a complete skeleton. No other complete pliosaur skeletons are known anywhere in the world," said Dr Hurum.

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