USA - Scientists have known for a while that SARS-CoV-2’s distinctive “spike” proteins help the virus infect its host by latching on to healthy cells. Now, a major new study shows that they also play a key role in the disease itself. The paper, published on April 30, 2021, in Circulation Research, also shows conclusively that COVID-19 is a vascular disease, demonstrating exactly how the SARS-CoV-2 virus damages and attacks the vascular system on a cellular level. The findings help explain COVID-19’s wide variety of seemingly unconnected complications, and could open the door for new research into more effective therapies. “A lot of people think of it as a respiratory disease, but it’s really a vascular disease,” says Assistant Research Professor Uri Manor, who is co-senior author of the study. “That could explain why some people have strokes, and why some people have issues in other parts of the body. The commonality between them is that they all have vascular underpinnings.”

USA - As yet another season of drought returns to California, the mood has grown increasingly grim across the vast and fertile San Joaquin Valley. Renowned for its bounty of dairies, row crops, grapes, almonds, pistachios and fruit trees, this agricultural heartland is still reeling from the effects of the last punishing drought, which left the region geologically depressed and mentally traumatized.

CHINA - Joe Biden’s prediction of a technological war with Beijing will be played out in outer space. And as the creation of a new space station and other successful missions demonstrate, China is intent on winning the strategic battle. On Thursday, China sent the core module of its first-ever space station, the Tianhe – or ‘Harmony of the Heavens’ – up into orbit. It’s long been under development, and marks a huge breakthrough in the country’s space program. A series of follow-up missions will seek to assemble the new station, which may become Earth’s only one, as the International Space Station is likely to be retired in the next few years. The mission is yet another sign that, despite being a late starter, China is rapidly catching up with the US on outer space, with its Chang’e-5 program having successfully brought back rock samples from the moon at the end of 2020. China’s space ambitions are only just getting started.

USA - It’s one thing to have policies against violence, abuse, and harassment. But in “protecting” users, Twitter is hell-bent on censoring voices that rock the boat, even when all they have tweeted is a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Last week, Simon Goddek, who has a PhD in biotechnology and researches system dynamics, tweeted a link to a scientific study titled, “Is a Mask That Covers the Mouth and Nose Free from Undesirable Side Effects in Everyday Use and Free of Potential Hazards?” Some time later, his account was frozen and he received a notice from Twitter that it would remain frozen until he deleted the offending tweet, and for the 12 hours following that. In his Telegram group, he wrote: “I was put into Twitter jail for citing a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Cancel science is real. I searched for more examples of extreme Twitter censorship and found further censorship of vaccine related information, and one person’s hypothesis on why vaccine talk is so particularly taboo: “$157 billion buys a lot of Facebook and Twitter bans.”

USA - There once was a time when capitalists were only interested in making money. Now major corporations have no qualms in moralising to the public. Curbing their power should be a priority… When a commentator writing for the American business magazine Forbes informs readers that woke capitalism is good for the profit margins, it becomes evident that capitalism has undergone a massive rebranding exercise. In his article ‘A Free-Market Defense of Coca-Cola, Delta, And ‘Woke’ Capitalism’, columnist John Tamny counsels conservatives who are fed-up with being dumped on by Big Business to relax, since there’s a “good, capitalistic reason for corporations to play the political game.” Advocacy of woke capitalism is the new normal in the world of finance and business. It is claimed that “wokeness is useful in motivating change.”

UK - The term ‘woke’ is at the centre of many of the fiercest political and cultural debates at the moment. Some people say being woke is a sign of awareness to social issues, others whip out the term as an insult. But what does the term really mean, and why do many people get fired up about its use? The dictionary defines it as “originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice”. In other words, it means to be awake to sensitive social issues, such as racism.

GERMANY - At least 93 police officers were injured and 354 protesters were detained after traditional May Day rallies in Berlin turned violent, the city’s top security official said Sunday. More than 20 different rallies took place in the German capital on Saturday and the vast majority of them were peaceful. However, a leftist march of 8,000 people through the city’s Neukoelln and Kreuzberg neighborhood, which has seen clashes in past decades, turned violent. Protesters threw bottles and rocks at officers, and burned garbage cans and wooden pallets in the streets. “Violence against police officers and a blind, destructive rage has nothing to do with political protest,” Berlin state interior minister Andreas Geisel said. Geisel condemned the throwing of bottles and rocks, the burning barricades on the streets and especially the violence toward police. “The high number of injured officer leaves me stunned. I wish all of those who were injured in the line of duty a quick recovery,” he said.

VATICAN - The traditional obligation for Catholics to attend Mass every Sunday was lifted in Britain and virtually everywhere else in the world more than a year ago. So the familiar distinction between practising and non-practising Catholics was suspended. This week, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have issued “The Day of the Lord”, a reflection on the way back to normality.

EUROPE - Thomas Gottstein has been CEO of Credit Suisse for 63 weeks. There is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of them, and indeed all of the last eight or so, have been waking nightmares. Surely, however, there have been some consecutive five-day calendrical periods that he has enjoyed the job he has presumably been pining and preparing for most if not all of his professional career... This was not that week.

INDIA/BRAZIL - Fresh coronavirus waves showed no sign of abating Saturday as devastating surges in India and Brazil pushed daily infections and deaths to record levels.

GERMANY - Dozens of separate protests took place in Berlin, drawing demonstrators from across the political spectrum. Police had their hands full, as some of these groups started fires and smashed cars. May Day is an international day of leftist protest, but demonstrations in Berlin on Saturday drew participants of all stripes. Pro- and anti-vaxxers, trade unionists, anti-capitalist radicals, Palestinian activists and techno music fans all took to the streets in around 20 separate protests across the city. Notably absent were the extreme right, although small right-wing protests were held in other German cities. A heavy contingent of police kept order throughout the day, periodically arresting protesters for violating face masking rules. By late afternoon, police said that 60 demonstrators were arrested at a protest against the virus restrictions in the Lichtenberg neighborhood. Demonstrators in several European countries marked May Day with protests, with intense clashes breaking out in France and a heavy police crackdown seen in Belgium.

FRANCE - May Day protests in the French city of Lyon got out of hand, with black-clad anarchists clashing with armored riot police. Tear gas was fired and squads of cops charged at demonstrators. In Paris, Yellow Vests came out in force. Trade unions and workers’ groups took to the streets of Lyon on Saturday to mark International Workers’ Day. Waving red banners, an estimated 3,000 workers were soon joined by black-clad anarchist protesters, who reportedly clashed with the larger groups of demonstrators. Rather than focusing on one specific issue, May Day is usually a clearinghouse for leftist dissent of all kinds, and across the country, protesters came together to air a spectrum of grievances. Some protested their wages and working conditions, others marched against new security bills that would dramatically extend the police’s surveillance powers and criminalize the sharing of pictures of officers. Still more protested the government’s perceived inaction against climate change and response to Covid-19.

AFGHANISTAN - This weekend marks the 10th anniversary since Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, was killed by US special-operations forces, Seal Team 6, inside his high-walled compound in the Pakistani military college city of Abbottabad. His name and that of his terrorist network, al Qaeda, came to define an era of US reaction and retribution dwarfing any previous counter-terrorism policy. America's "war on terror" is about to enter a new phase as President Joe Biden prepares to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of 9/11, but now al Qaeda claims its war with America is far from over. In an exclusive interview with CNN conducted through intermediaries, two al Qaeda operatives tell CNN that "war against the US will be continuing on all other fronts unless they are expelled from the rest of the Islamic world."

USA - California is said to be setting the stage for the early release of as many as 76,000 prison inmates, including 63,000 who were convicted of violent crimes, as Governor Gavin Newsom furthers his efforts to reduce incarceration. The sudden rules change went into effect on Saturday after being approved by California's Office of Administrative Law on Thursday, giving prisoners increased early-release credits for good behavior. Among those affected are 20,000 inmates whose crimes were so severe that they were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Inmate populations are falling so fast, in fact, that the state has announced plans for two prison closures in recent months. California's prisons were previously plagued by overcrowding. "This latest effort to reduce the California prison population further tips the scales of justice against the rule of law and safety of the general public," Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said.

JAPAN - A large quake of magnitude 6.8 struck northeast Japan this morning, but seems to have caused no significant damage or injuries, thanks to the country's excellent building standards and preparedness for large quakes. No tsunami alert was issued - fortunately, the quake was too deep and the mechanism of the faulting that occurred did not trigger any significant waves. Especially to central eastern Honshu, large earthquakes are no strangers: Today's quake occurred only 40 km SE of the magnitude 7 earthquake on 20 March this year, a similar one in February, and 70 km west of the catastrophic Tohoku quake on 11 March 2011, infamous for the large tsunami and following nuclear disaster at Fukushima.