Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

Breast cancer vaccine now in early clinical trials

Summary: An as-of-yet unnamed vaccine for triple-negative breast cancer—the deadliest form of breast cancer—showed impressive results following its first clinical trial, during which it demonstrated no significant side effects and achieved an immune response in 75% of patients.

Context: The vaccine was developed by Anixa Biosciences, the trial was conducted at the Cleveland Clinic, a grant for the trial was provided by the US Department of Defense, and the vaccine is currently meant to help the patient’s immune system target relevant cancer cells in folks who have already been treated for triple-negative breast cancer, reducing the chance of recurrence—though the next phase of clinical trials is focusing on utilizing the same vaccine to prevent the onset of triple-negative breast cancer to begin with, and there’s a chance that if things continue to look good during these trials, the vaccine could be available in about five years.

—ABC News

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Cardinal at center of Vatican corruption trial is sentenced to five and a half years

Summary: A criminal court at the Vatican has sentence Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu to five and a half years in prison for fraud, embezzlement, abuse of office, money laundering, and extortion.

Context: This marks the end of a high-flying Vatican career for Becciu, who was until a few years ago (when the trial began) the chief of staff for Pope Francis, and the response to the Pope’s decision to allow Becciu to stand trial in a criminal court rather than a court of cardinals—the first time that’s ever happened—has raised eyebrows, leading some to question the Pope’s leadership and legitimacy, while others suggest that it’s a good thing that even those close to the Pope can and will be held accountable, and that justice will be divvied-out in a manner that diminishes the influence the person on trial might have with his fellow cardinals.

—The New York Times

Giuliani ordered to pay $148 million for defaming Georgia election workers

Summary: Last Friday, a jury ordered former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani to pay $148 million in damages for defaming two election workers in Georgia, which led to a barrage of death threats for those election workers, alongside other life-altering consequences.

Context: This is one more example of a big legal fee being leveraged against someone who played a fundamental role in spreading 2020 election denial messaging, and Giuliani is apparently in a pretty bad financial situation already, in part because of other, similar lawsuits resulting from lies he told and the consequences of those lies, so that large damages payout might end up being more theoretical than practical in terms of those election workers actually receiving the tens of millions of dollars they’re meant to receive; among the other cases Giuliani is still embroiled in is the election interference criminal case in Georgia (alongside his former employer, former-president Trump) and a lawsuit brought by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems, which has sued him for $1.3 billion in damages.

—Axios

A recalibration of scientific partnerships—shaped in large part by the increasing divisions between China and Western nations, which were previously close-knit collaborators in this space—is sparking a rethinking of how international research is funded and performed, especially considering China’s differing incentive structures (which purportedly leads to more falsified data) and its scientific establishment’s enmeshment with its military.

—Axios

51%

Portion of global oil production the OPEC+ oil cartel controls, according to the International Energy Agency.

That’s a significant drop from their earlier highs, and the lowest level recorded since the cartel was established in 2016 (when OPEC added other nations, like Russia, to the mix).

Their reduced control is primarily the result of more production coming online elsewhere, including in the US, but also in smaller oil producing nations Guyana and Brazil—the latter two of which have even more production spinning-up in 2024.

—Financial Times

Trust Click

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