Today’s blog will consist of both news and a free chat of sorts. As usual, post the headlines we may have missed and feel free to chit and chat and enjoy one another’s company!
Health and Science:
A Vaccine For Pancreatic Cancer Continues To Show Promise
Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to treat, and about 90% of diagnosed patients die from the disease. A team at Memorial Sloan Kettering has been working to improve those outcomes by developing a new mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer.
A few years ago, the team embarked on a small trial to test the vaccine’s safety. Sixteen patients with pancreatic cancer received it, and even though it was a small study, the results were promising: Half the participants had an immune response, and in those patients the cancer hadn’t relapsed after 18 months.
This week, the team released a new study in Nature following those same patients, and found six out of eight who responded to the vaccine in the first study did not have their cancer return more than three years later.
The Fascist Felon, DOGEbags, and their Brownshirts:
Poll: Trump faces early challenges on the economy as a united GOP backs big change
A new NBC News poll shows Trump with a job approval rating as high as he’s ever had. But doubts loom in voters’ minds, especially over the economy and government cuts.
Voters are starting 2025 sour on the state of the economy and President Donald Trump’s handling of it so far, even as his election to a second term sparked an upswing in positive feelings about the direction of the nation, according to a new national NBC News poll.
Buoyed by jubilant and unified Republicans, who are standing in lockstep with Trump and the expansive agenda he and congressional leaders are pushing in Washington, more registered voters see the U.S. as heading in the right direction than at any point since early 2004, though a majority still say the country is on the wrong track. Trump’s approval rating also equals his best-ever mark as president (47%), though again, a majority (51%) disapproves of his performance.
‘He’s underwater on everything:’ Fox News host breaks down latest Trump approval polling
The president’s approval rating has been struggling for at least a month
President Donald Trump is “underwater on everything” when it comes to his approval ratings, a Fox News host declared Thursday.
Green card holder from New Hampshire ‘interrogated’ at Logan Airport, detained
A New Hampshire man with a green card was detained by immigration officers at Logan Airport and is being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Donald W. Wyatt detention facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island.
Fabian Schmidt’s family said they are unsure of why he is being held. They said he has a recently renewed green card, and no active issues in court.
Schmidt had been visiting Luxembourg and flew back to the U.S. on Friday. His partner had gone to pick him up at Logan Airport, and waited four hours before calling authorities.
“It was just said that his green card was flagged,” said Astrid Senior, his mother. She said she didn’t hear from her son directly until Tuesday, when she learned he’d been hospitalized.
Here’s a ‘dead’ person on Social Security in Seattle, with plenty to say
“DOGE Has 10 Staffers at Social Security in Hunt for Dead People,” the headlines read this past week.
I found a dead person on Social Security. Right here in Seattle, on Capitol Hill.
Of course the circumstances of Ned Johnson’s death were completely the opposite of what Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency had claimed was rampant.
“You wake up one day and discover you’re dead,” Johnson told me. “It’s been truly surreal.”
Baghdad Blondie:
“No New Wars!”
USDA cancels $11 million in federal funding for North Carolina food banks
The State Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services received a letter from the United States Department of Agriculture earlier this month stating it will no longer receive funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. The nonprofit Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina is one of seven food banks that receives funding through federal programs like this one.
“Our portion of that would have been $2 million,” said Amy Beros, the nonprofit’s CEO. “But statewide, it’s an $11 million impact for the food banks across North Carolina.
She said the $2 million in federal funds the nonprofit would have received would go directly to farmers for the purchase of fresh food that’s then distributed across the 34 counties they serve.
