Moderna’s Flu Vaccine Candidate, mRNA-1010, Is More Effective Than GSK’s Long-Approved Jab…

I suppose the central question now is whether Moderna can be ready at scale here in the US for this Fall’s flu season. This is very good news for the company whose stock (I believe) is worth more than double its current exchange-traded pricing.

Moderna is up almost 3% — in the first hour of trading, this morning — on this news:

…Moderna’s vaccine, mRNA-1010, was 26.6 per cent more effective than GSK’s approved shot in the overall study population, which included 40,805 adults aged 50 years and older, Moderna said.

The shot was shown to be 27.4 per cent more effective than GSK’s shot in adults 65 years and older – a group that is usually at highest risk to flu.

“The severity of this past flu season underscores the need for more effective vaccines,” CEO Stéphane Bancel said.

Moderna said its mRNA-based shot has the potential advantage to more precisely match circulating strains and support rapid response in a future influenza pandemic.

The shot had previously generated a stronger immune response against all four A and B strains of the influenza virus compared to traditional flu shots in a late-stage trial in 2023….

Yep — we are leading with a “power alley” item, to start the short holiday week — here in the US. Onward, smiling….

नमस्ते

Update, On The “Rolling Compliance”, With FOIA Requests, Regarding DOGE Actions This Spring, At Health And Human Services Dept…

This morning, HHS folks / DOGE folks(?) provided an update on the processing of FOIA orders, from the DC District — all as previously ordered (the case is numbered 25-cv-463, in the USDC for the District of Columbia).

You’ll recall that Musk said DOGE did not have to comply with FOIA requests, since it was no part of the government. “Poppycock!” said the Court. These status report orders resulted — next one due within 60 more days:

…Pursuant to the Court’s May 7, 2025, Minute Order, Plaintiff, Public Health Reform Alliance, and Defendant, the Department of Health and Human Services (“the Department” or “HHS”), respectfully submit the following joint status report.

This is an action under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) pertaining to four FOIA requests:

➣ One FOIA request submitted to HHS on August 12, 2024 (FOIA Request No. 2024-01863-FOIA-OS). Compl. (ECF No. 1) ¶ 6;

➣ Two FOIA requests submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) on August 12, 2024 (FOIA Request Nos. 081220247007 and 081220247005). Id. ¶¶ 10, 12; and

➣ One FOIA request submitted to CMS on September 4, 2024 (FOIA Request No. 090420247068). Id. ¶ 16….

As discussed previously, HHS is running a supplemental search with respect to FOIA Request No. 2024-01863-FOIA-OS. The parties conferred regarding the scope of this FOIA request and agreed on terms to be used in the supplemental search. The Department is not yet able to provide estimates as to the number of potentially responsive pages, because its searches remain ongoing; however, the Department will begin to process pages it has identified thus far and anticipates issuing its first production of any responsive, non-exempt records by August 31, 2025….

The level of taxpayer funded WASTE engendered — waste, of time, materials, personnel — and thus, talent — driven by Musk’s purported “efficiency” blitz… is simply staggering. And now it will all lead to staggering national debt levels (through all-new tax cuts for billionaires). Damnation.

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Serious Q.: How Is A Disbarred, Bankrupted (But Dismissed, For Debtor’s Own Fraud) Former Lawyer — Who Lied About The 2020 Outcome — A Suitable DHS Security Advisor?!

I’ve mulled not mentioning it at all — so as not to give the creep any more oxygen.

But even though the story is a week old now, I must note it — for a complete record of this cabal of reprobates. Trump has named the man who endangered the lives of two Georgia poll workers with his knowing lies… to serve as one of his official advisors on homeland security. [This also happened whilst I was in Nashville, last week.] It could seem to be an Orwellian fiction — but it is… fact, in 2025 America:

…[Tangerine 2.0] announced his appointments to an advisory council inside the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday, with a list that includes a right-wing news commentator, former lawmakers, Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani and a top former campaign adviser.

The announcement by Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says the council, established first in 2002, will provide “real-time, real-world and independent advice on homeland security operations….”

Giuliani joins crazed talk show host Levin and the intimate partner/woman assaulting and battering Corey Lewandowski on this “all-star” line up of miscreants. Just the kind of people Kristi Noem wants… in her corner, it seems. Ugh.

नमस्ते

Come Tuesday — July 1, The European Space Agency Will Launch Sentinel 2, To Work In Tandem With Sentinel 1…


nright size-medium wp-image-11026″ /> We will be off grid that evening, at a social function — at about 6:15 pm Central US time, but do look in here — on Tuesday US evening time, as live coverage of this launch will be shown on ESA WebTV, on this coming Tuesday.

[The below right is a computer model / animated simulation — of the soon to be world’s largest floating iceberg. It is certain / due to break off of the Antarctic shelf… in the next few years. The data for the model came from the first ESA Sentinel 1 mission.] Climate monitoring and modeling is now a space based effort — as well it should be… unencumbered by geo-political boundaries on some map somewhere — drawn by some oligarch or general. Here’s the latest on this fine effort:

…The MTG mission already has one satellite in orbit – the MTG-Imager (MTG-I) – so MTG-S will be the second MTG satellite to launch. Its Infrared Sounder uses interferometric techniques to capture data on temperature, humidity, wind and trace gases that are used to generate 3D maps of the atmosphere, improving the accuracy of MTG’s weather prediction.

The Infrared Sounder will be the first hyperspectral sounding instrument placed in geostationary orbit by a European-led mission. It will be positioned about 36 000 km above the equator and will maintain its position relative to Earth, following the same area on the planet’s surface as we rotate.

Thanks to its fixed position in geostationary orbit on board MTG-S, Sentinel-4 will be able to deliver data every 60 minutes during daylight to support the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service for rapid forecasting. The mission will complement the Sentinel-5 and Sentinel-5P missions, which provide daily observations of the Earth from their polar orbits.

Sentinel-4 is the European contribution to the global constellation of geostationary air quality sensors. It will work alongside the Korean sensor Gems, observing air pollution over Asia, and NASA sensor Tempo, measuring air pollution over North America.

Thales Alenia Space was the prime contractor for the overall MTG mission, with OHB Systems responsible for the MTG-Sounder. The prime contractor for Sentinel-4 is Airbus Defence and Space. Mission control and data distribution for both MTG-S and Sentinel-4 will be managed by Eumetsat….

It will provide coverage of Europe and part of northern Africa on a repeat cycle of 15 minutes, providing meteorologists with a complete weather picture of the region, complementing data on cloud formation and lightning from MTG-I….

Now you know — do go, and be excellent to one another. We are all… we’ve got. True dat.

नमस्ते

[U: Hinderaker Quiet As A Church-Mouse?!] If Passed, This Monstrous Budget Bill Will Increase The National Debt By Around 10%: Non-Partisan Analysis — Damn

The Senate version is far more expensive, and far more underfunded, than the US House version. If this version becomes law, Trump with have — in both of his terms — provided over the largest increases in the US deficit in history. Both times.

So much for… government “efficiency”, right?

[Updated — and here late on Sunday night (no surprise!) Hinderaker and the boys WILL NOT complain about the plainly profligate spending in the bill, as it favors “the industries of the past” to which each is beholden (oil & gas, shale, dirty coal, mining) — as well as tax breaks for billionaires.
And higher taxes on wind and solar — and removes about 12 million people of limited means from eligibility for health insurance of any kind. So much for responsible, responsive small government, as well. This idiotic, evil measure seeks to dictate which views may be expressed about religion, race and identities — via punishing taxes. What a hypocrite old John is. But he knows who is buttering his bread. End, updated portion.]

The unfunded national debt will be over $40 trillion by the time he leaves office. And over $3.3 trillion of that total will be what he chose to do. FUGLY. Here’s the latest:

…The sprawling tax and health care bill that Senate Republicans are trying to pass would add at least $3.3 trillion to the already-bulging national debt over a decade, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Sunday, putting a far higher price tag on the measure than some of the party’s fiscal hawks had indicated they could stomach.

The cost of the Senate bill, which Republicans rolled out overnight on Friday and were still shaping on Sunday, far exceeds the $2.4 trillion cost of the version passed in the House, where lawmakers had insisted that the overall price of the bill not substantially change. But Senate Republicans still moved forward with a number of costly changes to the bill, including making prized tax breaks for business a permanent feature of the tax code….

Damnation. These MAGA / GOP idiots are becoming even wilder spenders that the “social welfare” Democrats they so derided from the 1960s onward — for nearly 65 years! And it will be worse than it was, proportionately, at the end of World War II.

From 2025 to 2035, US debt will now swell as increases in mandatory spending and interest costs outpace growth in revenues. Federal debt held by the public will rise from 100 percent of GDP this year 2025, to 118 percent in 2035 — surpassing its previous high of 106 percent of GDP in 1946. What a completely feckless, moronic lot this MAGA GOP is. Damn. Out.

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On That Texas/MAGA Gov. Abbott Floating Razor Wire Barrier, On The Rio Grande…

The deeply malignant government parties are still unable to say that slicing up people — for simply wading into the waters, from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande… is something to be frowned upon.

But it is the brownshirt Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, after all (and Kristi Noem, on the federal side, we are talking about, I guess). So, the depraved cruelty remains the main objective — for both:

Since the parties’ last status report, the parties have been in discussions regarding how to resolve this matter without further discovery or trial. Those discussions are ongoing. The United States thus asserts this matter should remain in abeyance. Texas does not oppose the continued abeyance of this matter….

We will keep you posted — but because there are individual injured humans who’ve joined this suit, Texas and ICE/DHS cannot just agree to dismiss it..

Onward, resolutely.

Team DOGE / Musk / Tangerine 2.0 Tried (And Failed) To Offer An Inapplicable Case, In The New Mexico, Et Al., v. Musk Case In DC This Past Week…

It has been a minute since we caught the readership up on the federal suit by state governments, against the privatized DOGE army that attacked already awarded fundings, to state level agencies. [It was a busy week, in the federal trial courts, whilst I was largely off-grid, down in Music City — on my pro bono field trip.]

Here’s the latest: Team Musk moved to dismiss. That will shortly be denied, much along the lines set forth below, in the able USDC Judge Cutkan’s USDC courtroom, down in DC:

…Nuclear Regulatory Commission and “the Court’s leading case on post-APA ultra vires review,” Leedom v. Kyne, 358 U.S. 184 (1958), only address review of “ultra vires agency action” and have no bearing on ultra vires claims against governmental action by non-agency actors, including JACL Plaintiffs’ ultra vires claim in this case. 2025 WL 1698781 at *8; see also Boire v. Greyhound Corp., 376 U.S. 473, 481 (1964) (Kyne’s exception applies to agency action); Bhd. of Ry. & S.S. Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express & Station Emp. v. Ass’n for Benefit of Non-Cont. Emp., 380 U.S. 650, 660 (1965) (same); Bd. of Governors of Fed. Rsrv. Sys. v. MCorp Fin., Inc., 502 U.S. 32, 43 (1991) (same).

Kyne’s exception, which allows ultra vires review of agency action when an agency acts “in excess of its delegated powers and contrary to a specific prohibition in a statute[,]” makes sense because agencies are creatures of statute and Congress has delineated judicial review procedures for agency action. Nuclear Regul. Comm’n, 2025 WL 1698781, at *9 (citation modified).

But different considerations govern where there is no relevant statutory authority. See, e.g., Marin Audubon Soc’y v. Fed. Aviation Admin., 121 F.4th 902 (D.C. Cir. 2024). Here, Mr. Musk, Ms. Gleason, and DOGE are government actors neither created by nor acting in accordance with any authority granted by statute or the U.S. Constitution. Plaintiffs’ claim these Defendants are acting without any basis in law, and as such, are acting ultra vires.

Therefore, Defendants’reliance on cases regarding agency action, including Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is misplaced and their motion to dismiss should be denied….

What a pack of dunces these DOGE boys are… onward.

नमस्ते

Noem / McMahon / Rubio / Tangerine 2.0 Have Appealed Their Complete Loss, In The Harvard Intl. Student Visas Case… Y A W N.

It won’t change the outcome — and it is… utterly unsurprising. [Here, as a refresher, is the very well-reasoned 44 page opinion, from the able USDC Judge Burroughs, in Boston, on the earlier complete loss, while I was down in Nashville last week.]

But here it that Friday night entry, in the federal district courthouse in Boston:

…NOTICE OF APPEAL as to 75 Memorandum & ORDER, by Pamela Bondi, John Doe, James Hicks, Todd Lyons, Kristi Noem, Marco Rubio, Student and Exchange Visitor Program, United States Department of Homeland Security, United States Department of Justice, United States Department of State, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Fee Status: US Government….

Onward — but it is ironic — and, astonishing actually — look at the vast millions these idiots are wasting in taxpayer funds, to try to subvert freedom of expression, at private universities.

One would think real conservatives would complain to them about how all this Kabuki theater is just ballooning the nation’s deficits. But one would be mistaken: the cruelty… is the whole point. Out.

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CIDRAP Details Latest Studies — In Mpox Abatement — For Pregnant Women, Infants and Toddlers. Good News!

The vaccine has long shown efficacy in other -pox viral vectors, and it has worked well, in adult Mpox Clade 1b outbreaks. So, there is reason to believe it should work here, in the most vulnerable population/cohorts — infants, toddlers and pregnant women.

We will keep you posted, but here’s the latest, via the estimable CIDRAP — on global public health/viral disease matters:

…Bavarian Nordic President and CEO Paul Chaplin, PhD, said, “These new studies will fill the gap by providing important data about the use of MVA-BN in infants and pregnant women, and we applaud the study partners as well as the funding partners, EDCTP3 and CEPI [Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations] for supporting this important work, which could help support a label expansion for MVA-BN to include the most vulnerable populations.”

Both studies are part of the PregInPoxVac research project, led by the University of Antwerp and the University of Kinshasa.

In addition, Bavarian Nordic is sponsoring a trial of Jynneos in children aged 2 to 11 years old, which has received funding support from CEPI. It expects results from this trial later this year….

Now you know. Onward, resolutely — eleven on. Grin.

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