How 'lab-grown' meat could help the planet and our health | CNN

CNN —

What if there was a way to eat meat without farming and killing billions of animals per year, contributing to the climate crisis and risking high cholesterol levels?

“Cultivated meat is real meat grown directly from animal cells,” Uma Valeti, founder and CEO of Upside Foods, said via email. “These products are not vegan, vegetarian or plant-based – they are real meat, made without the animal.”

“The process of making cultivated meat is similar to brewing beer, but instead of growing yeast or microbes, we grow animal cells,” Valeti added.

Scientists start by taking a small cell sample from livestock animals such as a cow or chicken, then identify cells that can multiply.

“From there, we put these cells in a clean and controlled environment and feed them with essential nutrients they need to replicate naturally,” Valeti said. “In essence, we can re-create the conditions that naturally exist inside an animal’s body.”

“It’s meat without slaughter,” Christiana Musk, founder of Flourish*ink, said at the Life Itself conference, a health and wellness event presented in partnership with CNN. Flourish*ink is a platform for curating and catalyzing conversations on the future of food.

Progressing from lab production to making products in commercial facilities, some companies are moving away from the term “lab-grown meat,” said a spokesperson for Mosa Meat, a Netherlands-based food technology company. Instead, these companies refer to it as cultivated meat, cultured meat, cell-based or cell-grown meat, or non-slaughter meat.

A cultivated beef burger comes from Mosa Meat, a food technology company based in the Netherlands. Redwan Farooq

In addition to mitigating animal slaughter, cultivated meat could also help slow climate change driven by greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane. The food system is responsible for about a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, most of which are from animal agriculture. The transport needed for agriculture emits both methane and carbon dioxide, and clearing land and forests – including for agriculture – emits carbon dioxide, according to the United Nations.

“The presumption is we’re going to do better because of the sustainability element here – to reduce the land footprint, reduce the water needs and reduce some of the waste streams that go out from feedlots,” said David Kaplan, a professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts University. Waste streams containing carbon dioxide and methane are responsible for large flows of emissions into the atmosphere.

The industry is about 10 years old, so cultivated meat is still a few years away from being commercially available to US consumers in grocery stores or restaurants – and maybe up to 20 years more for it to replace a substantial portion, or all, of the traditional meat industry, Kaplan said. At this time, Singapore is the only country to have approved cell-based meat for consumer consumption.

Until then, cultivated meat and its potential benefits for animal, human and environmental health are more hope than promise.

How it works

Making cultivated meat is based on the field of tissue engineering – growing human tissues in a lab for medical repairs and regeneration, Kaplan said.

Scientists get cell samples from animals by harvesting a tiny piece of tissue taken via biopsy, isolating cells from eggs or traditionally grown meat, or obtaining cells from cell banks. These banks already exist for purposes such as medication and vaccine development, said Josh Tetrick, CEO of Eat Just, Inc., a California-based company that makes plant-based alternatives to eggs. GOOD Meat is the cultivated meat division of the company.

This beef tartare is made with cultivated meat from Mosa Meat. Redwan Farooq

The biopsy method is “just like a human biopsy,” Kaplan said. “In principle, the animal’s fine afterwards.”

The second step is identifying nutrients – vitamins, minerals and amino acids – for the cells to consume. In the same way that a traditionally grown chicken has cells and gets nutrients from the soy and corn it’s fed, isolated cells can absorb the nutrients they’re fed in a lab or facility, Tetrick said.

Those cells go in their nutrient bath in a bioreactor, a large stainless steel vessel “that has an internal process by which it agitates cells under a particular pressure to create an environment that allows cells to grow efficiently and safely,” Tetrick said. “That can be used for vaccine production or drug production, therapeutics – or, in our case, can be used to feed people.”

This process is basically making raw meat, he added.

Upside Foods has an Engineering, Production and Innovation Center in Emeryville, California. UPSIDE Foods

The cell sample takes roughly two weeks to grow into the desired size, Tetrick said which is “about half the amount that a chicken would take.” Next is converting the meat into the finished product, whether that’s a chicken breast or nugget, or beef burger or steak.

“What’s cool about it is you can start to tweak the texture,” Kimbal Musk, a chef, philanthropist and cofounder and executive chairman of The Kitchen Restaurant Group, said at Life Itself. “Alternative meats can be too spongy or they can be too firm and, frankly, even bad chicken can be, too. With this technological approach to things, you have the ability to adjust that and really tweak it for a palette that matters to you.”

“The first time I cooked this was probably two years ago and I tried it again this morning,” he said during a June 2 session of Life Itself. “It is remarkably better, which means it’s technology that you’re constantly improving.”

I tried the Upside Foods cultivated chicken breast Kimbal cooked during that Life Itself session. The chicken’s texture and fibers were nearly identical to that of regular chicken, but the flavor profile seemed to be missing some element I couldn’t put my finger on.

Granted, making cultivated meat as similar to regular meat as possible is still a work in progress. However, this discrepancy could also be due to the fact that traditional meat’s flavor is influenced by myriad factors involved in the agricultural process, I learned from Valeti – including the conditions in which animals are raised and the feed they’re given.

A panacea for hearth and health?

“Whether it’s animal welfare, climate, biodiversity or food safety, (there are) a lot of really important reasons to change how we eat meat,” Tetrick said.

For one, few to no animals would have to be farmed and used for cultivated meat, and therefore hundreds of millions of acres of land wouldn’t be needed to grow feed for them.

“The holy grail, if we all do our job right, is that you only need one animal in the initial biopsy,” Kaplan said. “You can do what we call ‘immortalize’ those cells so they essentially propagate forever.”

A single cell could make hundreds of billions of pounds of meat, Tetrick said. “There’s no ceiling.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2022 assessment report said that cultivated meat is an emerging food technology that could help substantially reduce global emissions from food production, because of its “lower land, water, and nutrient footprints.”

Cultivated chicken made by Upside Foods, a cultivated meat company, rests atop a salad. UPSIDE Foods

Whether cultivated meat will require less water is debatable and remains to be seen, Kaplan said, “because you still need a lot of water for cellular agriculture.”

And cellular agriculture may or may not result in a substantial reduction in energy use, according to the IPCC.

Lessening human encroachment on land and oceans for agricultural use could also preserve biodiversity, Tetrick said.

Nutritional quality and impacts on human health are areas where “I think cultivated meat can shine, because the process is much more controlled than traditional agriculture,” Kaplan said. “You have more control of inputs and outputs to the system, meaning less chance for contamination and less chance for variability. … You can sort of make sure only the best parts of meats end up in the meats that you make or grow, as opposed to the animal where you kind of have what’s there.”

Those tailoring possibilities include adjusting nutrient profiles, “whether that’s less saturated fat and cholesterol, or more vitamins or healthy fats,” said Valeti of Upside Foods. “Imagine if we could produce a steak with the fatty acid profile of salmon.”

Eating too much saturated fat and cholesterol can increase risk for a heart attack or stroke.

Traditionally grown animals are given high doses of antibiotics to combat disease or contamination from bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli, Valeti and Tetrick said.

“You have lots of chickens in a facility and their throats have to be slit,” Tetrick said. “You have blood and you have feathers and live animals bumping up against each other. Or, (with cultivated meat), you have a stainless steel vessel that is entirely contained without all that.”

Cultivated meat from Upside Foods also can be used to make kebabs. UPSIDE Foods

Because cultivated meat producers don’t expect to use antibiotics – or at least large amounts – cultivated meat could also alleviate the antibiotic resistance problem among humans, Kaplan said. Cultivated meat also shouldn’t need synthetic growth hormones, the subject of debate over their potential impact on human health, puberty and cancer. The US Food and Drug Administration maintains that approved synthetic hormones are safe for humans eating meat from treated animals.

And since cultivated meat would require less contact with animals and use of their habitats, it could also lower the risk of more virus spillover from animals to humans, according to the IPCC.

The top two human drivers of zoonotic disease – which Covid-19 is – are the increasing demand for animal protein and unsustainable agricultural intensification, according to the UN.

“This field is not intended to initially displace traditional animal agriculture. There (are) too many needs right now,” Kaplan said. “But it’s going to start slowly and build.”

As promising as it may seem, it’s unclear whether certain aspects of cultivated meat will be problematic.

Affordability for consumers remains to be seen.

While people in Singapore are able to enjoy cultivated meat, Americans await approval by the FDA and the Department of Agriculture. These agencies announced in 2019 they would jointly oversee the production of cultivated animal foods to ensure marketed products are “safe, unadulterated and truthfully labeled.” They began seeking insights on labeling in September.

“The nomenclature is one of the things to be working on with the regulators, because it is real meat,” Valeti said at Life Itself. “If someone’s got, let’s say, an allergy to meat or fish, they should know this is real meat. So, it’s going to be called meat but the prefix is what we’re working on.”

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics emphasized “the need for a better understanding of the long-term health effects of cultured meat and poultry products,” according to a comment letter it sent to the USDA. “There is also little available information about the bioavailability of nutrients in, or the nutrient density of, cultured meat and poultry products.”

The topic of meat is “a very difficult one because it’s very culturally charged,” Christiana said at Life Itself. “It has all of these tradeoffs between access, health, sustainability, animal welfare and, of course, as my husband cares about as a chef, taste is a really important thing to keep in common. It’s an issue of major debate.”

But if cultivated meat ends up checking all the important boxes, “it will be a great achievement when people can eat the meat they love without slaughter,” Valeti told CNN in an interview.


Quiz of The Week: 7 January - 13 January | The Week UK

We will use the details you have shared to manage your registration. You agree to the processing, storage, sharing and use of this information for the purpose of managing your registration as described in our Privacy Policy.

Would you like to receive The WeekDay newsletter ?

The WeekDay newsletter provides you with a daily digest of news and analysis.

We will use the details you have shared to manage your newsletter subscription. You agree to the processing, storage, sharing and use of this information for the purpose of managing your subscription as described in our Privacy Policy.

We will use the information you have shared for carefully considered and specific purposes, where we believe we have a legitimate case to do so, for example to send you communications about similar products and services we offer. You can find out more about our legitimate interest activity in our Privacy Policy.

If you wish to object to the use of your data in this way, please tick here.

'We' includes The Week and other Future Publishing Limited brands as detailed here.

Quiz of The Week: 31 December – 6 January | The Week UK

Britain's new prime minister: Liz Truss wins Conservative Party ...

London CNN —

Liz Truss will be the next prime minister of the United Kingdom after winning most votes in the Conservative Party leadership contest, succeeding Boris Johnson who resigned in July after a series of scandals.

Truss defeated rival Rishi Sunak with 81,326 votes to 60,399 among party members and will take over as leader on Tuesday, as Britons face mounting economic and social crisis.

She pledged action to tackle the crisis in a short victory speech at a conference center in London on Monday. Without offering details, Truss promised a “bold plan” to cut taxes and build economic growth, and “deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply.”

Monday’s announcement ends weeks of bitter campaigning during which Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister), accused the Foreign Secretary of risking a prolonged recession if she goes ahead with her promised tax cuts.

Once Johnson formally resigns his post to the Queen on Tuesday, Truss will also visit the monarch at her Scottish residence Balmoral, where, as leader of the largest party in parliament, she will be invited to form a government.

Truss had been the frontrunner for weeks, and the 47-year-old will now follow Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May to become Britain’s third female premier. Despite voting to remain in the European Union back in 2016, she has found herself to be the preferred candidate of the vast majority of Brexiteers in her party.

Her victory was smaller than expected, Conservatives who supported both candidates are privately admitting. It had been predicted by many that her margin of victory would be larger than the 18 percentage points announced on Monday afternoon.

In terms of her premiership, this could mean that she cannot run roughshod over her MPs, who voted in greater numbers for Sunak than Truss in the parliamentary part of this leadership contest.

And Truss could find that she has to accommodate a wider range of views from her party, which could mean embracing Sunak’s ideas for helping Britons with the cost-of-living crisis and a less aggressive approach to tax cuts – especially corporation tax.

Many Conservative MPs are privately worried that Truss’s modern-day Thatcherism could cost them the next election and will be leaping on the surprisingly low margin of victory to encourage the next PM to soften her economic stance.

The opposition Labour Party immediately dismissed her arguments, saying in a statement, “after years serving in Tory cabinets, nodding through the decisions that got us into this mess, Liz Truss simply doesn’t have the answers to this crisis.”

Long political journey

In the leadership campaign, Truss’s platform had featured plenty of red meat for the Conservative membership, from a hard line against the EU on Brexit to tax cuts as her main solution to the cost-of-living crisis. This tactic clearly proved decisive in winning over ordinary members, who had the final say in electing the leader of the ruling party, who consequently becomes prime minister.

But critics have accused her new-found hardline Brexit stance of being a cynical ploy. They have pointed to the fact that throughout her adult life Truss has evolved, from being an anti-monarchist Liberal Democrat in favor of legalizing drugs in her youth to the embodiment of the Conservative right today.

Throughout her political career, especially during the leadership contest, Truss has been compared to Thatcher, who, for many on the right, remains the benchmark for Conservative leaders. She was a tax-cutting, hard-nosed leader who took on the unions and played a large role in ending the Cold War. Like Thatcher, Truss has come from relatively humble beginnings to dominate a world inhabited largely by men.

Since becoming an MP, Truss has gone from being the darling of the liberal Conservative leader David Cameron, who took a personal interest in her career, to the Euroskeptic right’s figurehead.

Before the Brexit referendum, Truss said that she was “backing remain as I believe it is in Britain’s economic interest and means we can focus on vital economic and social reform at home.”

Cabinet colleagues at the time say that she never voiced any issue about supporting staying in the EU, despite having ample opportunities to express her own Euroskepticism.

These days, Truss is more than happy to pick fights with Brussels and to claim that it was the EU all along that held the British economy back.

A country in turmoil

Truss will take over a Conservative government that is facing multiple crises in the country. With steep rises in energy and food prices, long waiting lists for hospital treatment, and public sector workers, dock workers and even lawyers going on strike, making the case that the party deserves to win a historic fifth term at the next general election – due to be called by December 2024 at the latest – will be an uphill battle.

Inflation rose above 10% in July for the first time in 40 years, driven largely by the rising cost of energy, food and fuel. According to a forecast by the Bank of England, inflation will soar to 13% by the end of the year. The central bank also predicted that the UK would enter into recession before the end of the year. And on Monday, in a signal of these serious challenges ahead, the British pound dropped 0.3% to its lowest level against the US dollar since 1985.

Analysts are skeptical that Truss’s tax-cutting policies will do much help citizens, especially after a decade of austerity policies. The Institute for Fiscal studies, an independent research group focusing on public finances, said last month that the leadership contestants, who were both promising tax cuts and smaller government spending, “need to recognise this even greater-than-usual uncertainty in the public finances.”

The specter of Johnson

Looming over Truss’s new government will be the long shadow of Johnson, whose time in office saw approval ratings and voter intentions plummet for the Conservative Party. He leaves office a deeply unpopular prime minister less than three years after romping home to an enormous landslide election victory in 2019.

Johnson was forced to resign from office on July 7 after a string of scandals made his position untenable. His downfall followed months of revelations over parties held in 10 Downing Street while the country was under Covid lockdown restrictions. Johnson himself was fined by the police, making him the first prime minister in history found to have broken the law in office.

However, Johnson rode out the “Partygate” scandal. It was only when Chris Pincher, his deputy chief whip responsible for party discipline, was accused of sexually assaulting two men at a party, and Johnson delayed in acting over the matter, that his own party finally turned on him.

It is not yet known whether Johnson will remain in politics. He may still be forced to resign as a Member of Parliament after a House of Commons committee gives its verdict on whether or not Johnson knowingly misled Parliament when he claimed no rules were broken in Downing Street.

Regardless, Johnson is likely to remain a high-profile figure. There is a good chance he will return to his former media career as a columnist and broadcaster, though the damage to his reputation in office might mean his appeal is limited compared to where it stood before he entered Downing Street.

Throughout the campaign, Truss has been seen by most as the Johnson continuity candidate and enjoyed the backing of many of his loyalists.

While this support has helped Truss during the leadership contest with Conservative members who saw her rival Sunak as a traitor, and who value tribal loyalty, it means she will be forever tied to the Johnson legacy.

That could ultimately become a weight around her neck, as the specter of Johnson risks overshadowing anything Truss might do to tackle the misery that many Britons are set to face this winter.

Luke Mcgee Peter Wilkinson
Luke Mcgee
Peter Wilkinson

Monkeypox vaccine: FDA authorizes change in how vaccine is given ...

CNN —

The US Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization Tuesday that allows health-care providers to change how the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine is administered, stretching out the supply amid high demand.

The vaccine can now be given to high-risk adults intradermally, meaning between the layers of the skin, rather than subcutaneously, or under the skin, as it has been given up till now. This will allow providers to get five doses out of a standard one-dose vial.

The new EUA also allows subcutaneous vaccination in people under 18 who are at high risk of infection.

The move could increase the number of vaccine doses in the national stockpile from 441,000 to over 2.2 million, officials said Tuesday.

But the EUA isn’t going to be a panacea as the outbreak continues to grow and vaccine demand remains high. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that at least 1.5 million people in the US are eligible for the two-dose vaccine.

“I think we’re going to see that we will likely still run out of vaccines before we run out of arms,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the White House’s assistant national response coordinator, said Tuesday.

The CDC reports 9,492 probable or confirmed monkeypox cases in 49 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia as of Tuesday evening.

Moving “as quickly as possible”

“In recent weeks the monkeypox virus has continued to spread at a rate that has made it clear our current vaccine supply will not meet the current demand,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said in a statement. “The FDA quickly explored other scientifically appropriate options to facilitate access to the vaccine for all impacted individuals. By increasing the number of available doses, more individuals who want to be vaccinated against monkeypox will now have the opportunity to do so.”

He added at a briefing Tuesday, “we encourage jurisdictions to utilize alternative dosing method as quickly as possible, and we’ll be your partner in this step every step of the way.”

The move comes less than a week after the Biden administration declared monkeypox a public health emergency, which gives the FDA and other government health agencies more flexibility to fight the spread of the virus.

Earlier Tuesday, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra issued a determination to pave the way for the FDA’s move.

“Last week, I declared monkeypox to be a public health emergency to unlock additional tools that will help us contain and end this outbreak and to signal to the American people that we are taking our response to the next level,” Becerra said in a statement. “Today’s action will allow FDA to exercise additional authorities that may increase availability of vaccines to prevent monkeypox while continuing to ensure the vaccine meets high standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality.”

Prevention remains important

The CDC is launching an outreach program to ease the transition to the new strategy, expanding its education and information efforts for public health officials and health care providers. Vaccine equity will be a key part of this message, as will training and outreach on how to use the special needle for intradermal vaccination.

Officials also emphasized that people should continue to take steps to protect themselves from the monkeypox virus even after they’re vaccinated, especially those in the hard-hit population of gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men. This includes avoiding skin-to-skin contact with someone who may be infected and limiting the number of sex partners.

“Really, prevention for monkey pox is multidomain,” Daskalakis said. “And so as people are working to get vaccinated … we really want to give people options and clear guidance of what to do between the first and second dose and also to be aware that it does take time after the second dose to also achieve adequate protection.”

Jynneos is given as two doses at least four weeks apart. Officials said Tuesday that people who have gotten a first dose subcutaneously can get the second intradermally.

Research will continue

Using a smaller dose with intradermal injection has been done with vaccines for flu and rabies, epidemiologist Dr. Jay Varma told CNN in an email. Intradermal shots are also used for the tuberculosis skin test.

“The skin has special cells that are very good at helping a vaccine stimulate the body’s immune system,” he wrote.

These cells, called dendritic cells, are better able to produce an immune response, said Dr. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University.

“They live in the skin, and they’re better at teaching the immune system what they need to respond to,” he said.

A 2015 study found a similar immune response when the vaccine was given intradermally in doses one-fifth the size of those given subcutaneously. Side effects like redness, itchiness and swelling were more common with the intradermal method, but there was less pain.

Jynneos has also been found to be safe and effective in people with conditions that weakened their immune system, Califf said Tuesday.

However, the existing research on the vaccine focuses on recipients’ immune response, not on whether it actually prevents cases of monkeypox.

“There is no traditional assessment of this vaccine … because there weren’t smallpox cases, and the monkeypox outbreaks before this were not large enough to really do a clinical trial,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said Tuesday. “We want to collect outcome data, as we do with all vaccines. And I’d also point out that the NIH will be mounting a clinical trial and is working through the logistics of that now.”

Get CNN Health's weekly newsletter Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.

The move to allow vaccination in children is based on findings around its use in adults, as well as data on pediatric smallpox vaccination, the FDA says.

The agency isn’t authorizing intradermal vaccination in kids for two reasons: “First of all, we want to make sure we get it right, and we don’t have the data in children that we have in adults,” Marks said. “Second of all, as a practicing physician – I know I’m not a pediatrician; I’ve treated pediatric patients at times – we have had to give this vaccine to the youngest of children, and … giving an intradermal injection to a baby is actually just a little more challenging at times.”

How the time you go to sleep affects your heart | The Week UK

The time you drift off to sleep for the night could have significant implications for the health of your heart, new research has found.

A study that examined if there is “an optimal time to nod off… when it comes to heart health” has discovered that there could be a link between the two, said The Guardian.

Data from 88,026 participants was collected using wrist-worn devices for the study published in European Heart Journal – Digital Health. Accelerometers measured when participants drifted off and woke up over the course of seven days, and researchers then followed up 5.7 years later, on average, to learn whether the participants had received a new diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. They found that 3.6% of the participants had done, a total of 3,172 people.

It appears that the trick to better heart health is a bedtime that’s “not too early and not too late”, said The Guardian. The analysis found the “sweet spot” to be between 10pm and 10.59pm, with people falling asleep during that time the least at risk of a future heart condition. People whose sleep onset time (SOT) fell on or after midnight were comparatively 25% more likely to develop a cardiovascular disease.

Falling alseep before 10pm was also found to put participants at risk. Though only 132 people who later developed heart conditions were found to fall into this category, participants nodding off before 10pm were found to be at a 24% increased risk of heart disease.

The relationship between bedtimes and heart health appears to be related to our body clocks. A human’s mental and physical functioning is regulated by its circadian rhythm, its own “24-hour internal clock”, study author Dr David Plans, from Exeter University, explained.

“While we cannot conclude causation from our study, the results suggest that early or late bedtimes may be more likely to disrupt the body clock, with adverse consequences for cardiovascular health,” he said in the Daily Mirror.

Participants also filled out “questionnaires about their demographic, health and lifestyle choices” before taking part in the study. The researchers found that people with an SOT after midnight were more likely to be smokers and have a history of diabetes or high blood pressure.

And sleeping for a shorter period of time can increase the likelihood of future conditions. Women, who made up 58% of the participants, were also found to be at greater risk. Plans explained this may be down to a “sex difference in how the endocrine system repsonds to a disruption in circadian rhythm”, said Metro.

However, he also noted that age could be a factor, as women’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease increases post-menopause, “meaning there may be no difference in the strength of association between women and men”.

The findings are cause for further research into sleep timings as a heart health risk factor, particularly for women, the authors concluded.

While Montgomery Public Schools' proposed budget meets state ...

Chief School Financial Officer Arthur Watts did not attempt to hide his frustration during the first of two Montgomery County Board of Education hearings to present the proposed 2020 budget.

Despite achieving the state requirement of having a balanced budget without a deficit, Watts repeatedly pointed to the painful challenges that were forced to be made because of low local support.

“We are way too dependent on state funds,” Watts told the board and packed audience, pointing to the fact that nearly 74% of the district’s budget is funded by the state. Just under 25% comes from local funding — property taxes and sales taxes — equating to $56.6 million.

In contrast, Watts repeatedly pointed to other Alabama districts whose budgets look very different from Montgomery's. Birmingham City Schools’ local funds make up 42% of the district’s budget, bringing in about $99 million for 6,000 fewer students than MPS. For Baldwin County Schools, local support equates to 46% of its budget — with $138 million.

“That is not the way to truly fund education,” Watts said.

“Anytime there’s some kind of hiccup in state funding, that is when proration is declared. … These schools have, in case something happens, the local resources to sustain themselves until the economy recovers,” he added.

Another issue with this is that in order to receive portions of the state funding, districts are required to put up local funds to support the effort. For example, MPS was awarded about $7 million to put toward capital improvement projects from the last Education Trust Fund budget, but in order to receive it, the district had to agree to set aside an additional $1.2 million of local money to go toward the projects.

Overall, Watts said MPS had to agree to spend about $30 million of the $56 million received in local dollars in order to participate in the state’s foundation program. The other districts, such as Birmingham and Baldwin, had to as well, but they were left with much more in local dollars to be spent at their discretion.

“We’re asked to do so much with so little,” Watts said. “It’s almost like saying ‘we want you to go out and raise your family on the same amount of monies that you earned 25 years ago.’ That’s almost impossible.”

The total amount of funding set for 2020 is $228.7 million. Because of changes in state funding, teachers will see a 4% salary increase, each will receive $600 for student materials and supplies and the district will be funded $75 per student for textbooks, versus the $70 this year.

There was also an increase to the transportation budget, which Watts said only pays for the transport of students to and from school. The district has to use local dollars to pay for transportation to field trips and athletic events.

More:Montgomery Public Schools owns more property than it uses. Selling it could bring needed cash

Additionally, the state supported an increase in the school nurse program.

“Their (state legislators) intent is to have a nurse in every school, but they can’t afford that right now,” Watts said. While other districts are able to pull on local funds to ensure that still happens, within MPS, “right now our schools are having to share nurses. That’s why local support is so important.”

This past year, Watts and his department called on all district department heads to cut the portion of their budgets supported by local dollars by at least 10%. Additionally, he went to the board and stressed the need to decrease the number of teachers and staff within the system, which had not decreased as rapid a rate as student enrollment. It was for these reasons, he was able to present a balanced budget.

The state requires the district end its fiscal year with a one-month reserve of its operating budget. With the cuts, Watts said that required number decreased from $19.7 million to $18.8 million.

Based on the projection, the district will end 2020 with $19.8 million, succeeding in having the state-mandated reserve.

This is quite an achievement for a district that prior to intervention — or more specifically prior to Watts' hiring — had not passed a balanced budget on time in nearly a decade.

However, because the district has seen a decline in enrollment since 2015, state enrollment dollars have also declined. This year threatens to bring another shortfall as well. Although the official number the state recognizes is based on the average attendance for the first 20 days after Labor Day, Watts shared that as of Aug. 28 — three weeks after the start of the year — enrollment was 27,720. That is a decrease of more than 1,100 students.

In 2015, more than 31,000 students were enrolled in the system. As the state experiences a decreasing population — the threat of losing a congressional seat as a result looming — many districts have experienced declining enrollment.

More:Pike Road boards votes unanimously to allow Maxwell students to enter district

More:Study finds carving up school districts like Montgomery's worsens segregation

For MPS specifically, some student loss can be attributed to growing districts in the surrounding area, Pike Road as one example. This year also marks the opening of LEAD Academy, Montgomery’s first charter school, which currently has 350 students.

Another major issue the district faces is a deferred maintenance bill tagged at $200 million, which district officials say is likely a low estimate. Watts asked those in the community to compare what would happen to a home if the homeowner continued to ignore maintenance needs. The needs, and the price, will increase, he said.

The figure does not include the cost of building a new high school for Booker T. Washington.

More:One year later, the limitations for BTW students at Hayneville are steep

An in-depth look — drawing some moans from audience members about the length Watts spent presenting — the overall reaction to his explanation of how the system is funded was received in a thankful manner by those in attendance.

“I don’t know where you got him, but we are proud of him,” K.T. Brown, an avid board meeting attendee said. In response, several people began clapping.

Hired in July 2018, Watts completed the 2018 budget, which was due in September 2017, one month into the job. He then turned around the 2019 budget the following month.

A second budget hearing will be held Thursday, Sept. 12 at MPS Central Office, 307 S. Decatur St. The board will hold a vote to approve or deny the budget following the hearing. A budget must be approved no later than Monday, Sept. 16.

Fact check: Strong majority of Canadians oppose convoy protests ...

Washington CNN —

On Fox shows, people who are opposed to the ongoing Canadian protests against vaccination mandates, Covid-19 restrictions and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have been portrayed as elites out of touch with the views of everyday workers.

Batya Ungar-Sargon, deputy opinion editor of Newsweek, tweeted on Monday: “Don’t let the fact that the mainstream media is hiding this fool you: Canadians support the Freedom Convoy.”

In fact, poll after poll – including the very poll Ungar-Sargon was referencing – has shown that most Canadians oppose the protests and support both vaccination mandates and various restrictions intended to limit the spread of the virus. The polling figures suggest it is Fox’s cheerleading for the protests that is out of touch with the views of a significant majority of the Canadian public.

In addition, one of the recent Canadian polls has been falsely described this week in some pockets of conservative media. While that poll did show that there is considerable Canadian discontent with Trudeau’s handling of the protests, it’s not true that only 16% of Canadians said they want Trudeau back as prime minister, as a Fox contributor claimed, or that only 16% would vote for Trudeau again, as the right-wing Washington Examiner reported.

Here’s an explanation of how the “16 percent” figure is being misused – followed by a look at some of the actual findings of four February polls of Canadian adults.

Poll question about Trudeau has been falsely described

The Washington Examiner reported Sunday that a new poll “showed that only 16% of Canadians would vote again for Trudeau as prime minister.” Fox contributor Tammy Bruce made a similar claim on television on Monday: “Sixteen percent would want him back as the prime minister. So that tells you about where people are and how they’re viewing this.”

But both the Examiner and Bruce were wrong.

The poll they were citing, conducted by Maru Public Opinion, did not even ask people if they would support Trudeau in another election or wanted him back as prime minister.

Rather, the poll tried to gauge how people’s support for Trudeau was being affected by his handling of the protests. It asked respondents this rather confusing question: “Do you think Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made you want to vote for him because of how he has dealt with the situation?”

Sixteen percent of poll respondents answered yes, as Ungar-Sargon of Newsweek – the formerly prominent newsmagazine that now, under different ownership, bears little resemblance to its 20th century incarnation – correctly noted in her Monday tweet. But that 16% clearly does not represent the entirety of the support for Trudeau.

A voter who definitely intends to vote for Trudeau’s Liberal Party in the next election could have answered no to this question if they were unhappy that Trudeau hadn’t taken a harder line in trying to end the protests. And a voter who is considering voting Liberal for some other reason, say tax policy or housing policy, could have answered no to the question on the grounds that they don’t plan to cast their vote “because of” anything related to the protests.

In other words, these results are difficult to conclusively interpret. But it’s plain inaccurate to claim the poll showed that only 16% of Canadians want Trudeau back or would vote for Trudeau. (Side note: Canadians vote for a local Member of Parliament, not directly for prime minister, though the party leaders are the central figures in each national campaign.)

With that said, Trudeau critics can fairly cite other recent poll findings that have been poor for the prime minister. For example, 48% of respondents in the same Maru poll said Trudeau has demonstrated he is not up to the job of prime minister, while an Angus Reid Institute poll found that about 65% said Trudeau had made the protest situation worse.

But that doesn’t mean Trudeau is toast in Canada’s multi-party parliamentary system, especially because there is no election imminent. In the federal election in September, Trudeau’s Liberals won the most parliamentary seats, though not a majority, with the support of 32.6% of voters.

Also, February polling clearly shows that discontent with Trudeau’s approach to the protests does not equate to support for the protests.

A look at four Canadian polls

Angus Reid Institute poll: More than two-thirds strongly oppose the protesters’ approach and behavior

In the Angus Reid Institute survey, conducted from February 11 to 13, 69% of respondents said they opposed the protesters themselves – their approach and behavior – versus just 27% who said they were supportive of the protesters.

Sixty-four percent of respondents said they opposed the protesters’ demand to end all pandemic restrictions, versus 33% who said they were supportive.

In addition, 72% said the protesters have made their point and should “go home now,” while 22% said the protesters should “stay in Ottawa and other protest sites until their demands are met.” And while 24% of respondents said the protests have made them less supportive vaccine requirements for international travel and crossing the US border – the protests were sparked in part by a new vaccine requirement for truckers who cross from the US – 44% said the protests had actually made them more supportive of these vaccination requirements, while 32% the protests had no real effect.

The survey was conducted online “among a representative randomized sample of 1,622 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum.”

Leger poll: Nearly two-thirds think the protesters are a selfish minority

In a Leger survey conducted from February 4 to 6 in collaboration with The Canadian Press news agency, 62% of respondents said they opposed the protests’ message of no vaccine mandates and fewer public health measures versus 32% who supported that message.

Sixty-five percent of respondents agreed with the following statement: “The convoy is a small minority of Canadians who are selfishly thinking only about themselves and not the thousands of Canadians who are suffering through delayed surgeries and postponed treatments because of the ongoing pandemic.”

The online survey of 1,546 Canadian adults used a representative sample “selected from LEO’s (Leger Opinion) representative panel.”

Ipsos poll: Strong majority disagrees with the goals of the protests

In a survey conducted by Ipsos from February 8 to 9 on behalf of Global News, 59% of respondents agreed with this statement: “The truck protest is mostly a group of anti-vaxxers and bigots intent on causing mayhem and they should not be allowed to protest.” Forty-one percent disagreed.

When respondents were asked if they agreed that “while I might not say it publicly, I agree with a lot of what the truck protestors are fighting for,” 63% disagreed and 37% agreed.

The poll did find that 46% of respondents agreed that while they may not agree with everything the protesters in the capital of Ottawa have said, “their frustration is legitimate and worthy of our sympathy.” Still, even on this question, 54% said that what these protesters have said and done “is wrong and does not deserve any of our sympathy.”

The online survey was conducted among a sample of 1,000 Canadian adults. The poll used quotas and weighting to ensure that the sample reflected the Canadian population.

Maru Public Opinion poll: Nearly two-thirds favor military support role in ending the protests

In the survey conducted by Maru Public Opinion from February 9 to 10, 56% of respondents said they don’t agree with the protesting truckers in “any way, shape or form” and that everything possible should be done to end the protests. Just 20% of respondents said they “fully” support the protesting truckers, while another 24% said they support the reasons for the protest but “not the way they are going about it.”

Sixty-four percent agreed with the statement that “Canada’s democracy is being threatened by a group of protesters and they must be stopped immediately.” Sixty-four percent also supported using the Canadian military in a support role to tow protesters’ trucks. And as Ungar-Sargon acknowledged in a subsequent tweet on Monday, in which she conceded at least that there isn’t “blanket support” for the protests, 58% said drivers who refuse to follow law enforcement directives to move should “face fines and potential jail terms of up to two years.”

The online survey was conducted among a random selection of 1,523 Canadian adults who are “Maru Voice Canada panelists” and weighted by education, age, gender, and region to match the Canadian population.

Republicans have spent the year attacking Democrats on inflation ...

CNN —

Frustrated by Republicans’ intense focus on inflation and President Joe Biden in the party’s closing pitch to voters, some conservatives want to see the GOP talk more about hot-button cultural issues in the final sprint to Election Day.

The thinking among critics of the current approach is that Democrats’ most controversial positions are being ignored by Republicans at the expense of a messaging strategy that disproportionately focuses on pocketbook issues, like the economy, gas prices and taxes. And that as Republican candidates and the party’s election apparatus shy away from more divisive issues – including abortion rights, a topic that was injected into the midterm landscape after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June – they are creating an automatic opening for Democrats.

“Abortion is proving to be a much more galvanizing issue for Democratic voters than inflation is for Republican voters,” said Ryan Girdusky, a conservative commentator and campaign consultant. “The old Republican idea is that we’ll win suburbanites because they care about pocketbook issues. But to try and galvanize them on the fact they’re going to pay an extra quarter for bacon? They don’t care.”

One prominent Republican operative said that while economic issues can be motivating, they “ebb and flow and are less likely to galvanize people as consistently and intensely as those that have to do with safety and common sense.” Republicans spent much of the summer talking about soaring gas prices, for example, hoping that pain at the pump would send voters their way this November – but the national per-gallon average has consistently dropped since June.

A new Marist poll released Thursday found a 7-point drop since July in the proportion of Americans who cited inflation as their top voting issue this cycle (30%), though the issue remains the leading overall concern in the same survey.

Others pointed to abortion access becoming a motivating issue for Democratic and independent voters, claiming that Republicans – many of whom have struggled to message around the issue since the Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights with its June decision – shouldn’t shy away from the issue while also trying try to capitalize on other cultural flashpoints. Last month, Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would have allowed state lawmakers to further restrict abortion access. The development energized many Democrats who have since turned abortion into a top campaign issue.

Among the issues that conservatives want to see GOP candidates weave into ads and stump speeches are gender identity, critical race theory, and criminal justice reform, all of which they consider liabilities for most Democrats.

“It is too narrowly focused and it’s thoughtless if you think that the mom who is filling up her gas tank isn’t the same mom who is caring about her kids’ school and making sure that CRT (critical race theory) isn’t part of her kids’ curriculum. That mom is faced with both sets of issues, cultural and economic, and so elected officials need to meet voters where they’re at,” said Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action for America. Anderson said two “seasoned” Republicans fighting for reelection this cycle – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson – should be a model for other GOP candidates on confronting a wide array of economic and social issues.

The tension between conservatives who want a deeper focus on cultural issues and Republicans who think economic woes are the dominant theme this cycle comes as the GOP grapples with infighting in other areas, too: the caliber of candidates in important Senate and gubernatorial contests, the way party bigwigs are choosing to spend money, and how closely campaigns should align themselves with former President Donald Trump – particularly as he faces intense legal scrutiny over his keeping of classified records after leaving office.

“Go ahead and add this to the pile,” said a GOP strategist who requested anonymity due to their involvement in several races this cycle. “Republicans can’t agree on a message, we can’t agree on where to invest [campaign cash], and instead of hashing these things out behind closed doors, we’re bickering about it in public.”

But some conservatives say the party’s message is the most pressing problem because Republican candidates and outside groups are on the brink of starting to spend aggressively on advertising, and the content of those ads will need to send a jolt of energy through the party’s base if the GOP wants to remain well-positioned to retake the House of Representatives and, potentially the Senate, this fall.

“Our closing pitch must be compelling enough to make Republicans want to vote. ‘It’s the economy stupid,’ no longer fits into that category,” said a Senate campaign aide, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

Spending on a counter-message

For that reason, one conservative group has begun taking matters into its own hands.

The dark-money Citizens for Sanity has committed to spending millions of its own this cycle to deliver a counter-message, targeting voters on the internet and airwaves with warnings about so-called wokeness in education, business, and politics. The group has launched a series of provocative radio, television, billboard and newspaper ads that stand in stark contrast to Republicans’ broader economy-themed message. A person familiar with the matter said the group has already spent seven figures this cycle between its advocacy efforts and advertising.

One of the group’s recent ads, which has accumulated more than 2 million views on Twitter in less than one week, is a 90-second montage of gruesome local news reports and surveillance footage depicting incidents of violent crime across the country. The ad accuses “woke far-left politicians” of enabling an “assault on public safety,” among other claims.

A separate ad launched Tuesday by the Senate Leadership Fund, a PAC affiliated with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, tackles the same issue with a more traditional approach, by using Pennsylvania Democratic Senate hopeful John Fetterman’s own words to portray him as soft on crime. The 30-second spot featured two-year-old video footage of Fetterman discussing his efforts as chair of Pennsylvania’s Board of Pardons to end automatic life-without-parole sentences for individuals convicted of second-degree murder.

“Our advertising on crime, in particular, is being done in races where it makes the most sense,” said an SLF official, adding that, “generally speaking, economic concerns tend to be the top-rated issues.”

Ian Prior, a strategic adviser for Citizens of Sanity, said the group wants to capitalize on what he described as a “major realignment” in the current political landscape. The group, which has already spent about $670k on advertising since August, according to AdImpact data, will launch a new $600k ad buy across Washington, Texas and Arizona this week focused on crime, “woke craziness,” and gender ideology, Prior confirmed to CNN. The group is also “messaging aggressively” in Latino-dominated markets as Republicans try to maintain recent gains in Hispanic support, Prior added, and has previously launched ads in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado around the participation of transgender athletes in male and female sports leagues.

“Latinos are fleeing the political left over its embrace of ‘woke’ policies – an agenda created by and for wealthy white privileged coastal liberals,” Prior claimed in a statement. (An earlier CNN analysis found a 5-point shift toward Republicans in generic ballot preference among Hispanics, though a recent Pew Research Center study found that 56 percent of Hispanics oppose the ending of federal abortion rights, which could negatively impact Hispanic support for the GOP come November).

Striking a balance

So far, efforts to nudge Republican candidates and campaigns away from economic issues and toward cultural topics have occurred outside the party consensus.

By the end of July, Republicans had spent more than $40.6 million since the beginning of the year on TV ads that referred to inflation, according to the data firm AdImpact. Both privately and publicly, many GOP figures have also acknowledged that they consider inflation and kitchen table issues to be the most important to voters this cycle.

“Inflation is all that matters to the public… at the end of the day, people vote with their pocketbooks,” said conservative radio host Erick Erickson on his podcast in mid-August.

The SLF official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the party’s internal polling has repeatedly shown that inflation ranks the highest among voters’ concerns, though there are instances where Republicans may need to offer a blended message that goes beyond inflation to focus on crime or immigration, too. The official said they had not seen evidence that wedge issues like gender ideology resonated deeply with broad swaths of voters.

“Inflation is cutting across most demographic and income groups. Everybody fills up their gas tank, everybody goes to the grocery store, and they are seeing these price increases affect their budgets in real time,” said the official, adding that Republicans have “a buffet of messages” that could work to the party’s advantage this cycle.

“There may be races where we talk almost exclusively about one or the other (inflation or crime and immigration) or we talk about both,” the official said.

Even conservatives who have been nudging candidates to talk more about cultural issues said they should balance those messages with proposals to combat economic problems.

“My advice to candidates is to do both at the same time; draw the contrast with the left and run on a winning platform that actually shows voters what you care about,” said Anderson. “Republicans, I think, have been doing this but they need to do it a lot more in the next 60 days.”

A prebuttal to Biden’s primetime speech by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy last Thursday, where the president slammed “extremist” MAGA Republicans and accused his predecessor of being a threat to democracy, could provide one roadmap to candidates, campaigns, and conservative outside groups as they look to reach both middle-of-the-road and grassroots Republicans in the closing weeks of the midterm race. While the California Republican, who is angling to become Speaker if the GOP wins control of the lower chamber, repeatedly criticized the current administration over gas and energy costs and littered his remarks with mentions of the economy, he accused Biden and Democrats of “dismantling American democracy” with their policies.

“Is it morally right that our children were forced to stay home from school while politicians dined out? When biological boys are allowed to compete in girls sports, does President Biden think that is fair?” McCarthy said while bemoaning “historic inflation” and “daily violence against innocent Americans” in the same breath.

Britain's new prime minister: Rishi Sunak, rich ex-banker who will be ...

London CNN —

Just seven short weeks ago, it looked as if it might be all over for Rishi Sunak.

The former chancellor of the exchequer – the UK’s title for its chief finance minister – made a high-stakes gamble. He launched an attack that helped to end Boris Johnson’s premiership, put himself forward as his replacement, but ultimately lost to Liz Truss. Admitting defeat, he retreated to the parliamentary back benches.

But in a sign of just how unpredictable British politics has become, Sunak has returned triumphant from the political wilderness to replace Truss, whose premiership imploded last week.

Sunak was the only leadership hopeful to secure the support of 100 Conservative members of parliament, the necessary threshold set by party officials for potential candidates. He will become the first person of color to be British prime minister – and at the age of 42, he is also the youngest person to take the office in more than 200 years.

He was the last person standing after his rivals – Johnson and the Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt – fell by the wayside.

Speaking after being declared the new Conservative leader, Sunak said he was “honored and humbled” to become the next prime minister.

“It is the greatest privilege of my life to be able to serve the party I love, and to be able to give back to the country i owe so much to,” Sunak said.

“The United Kingdom is a great country, but there is no doubt we face a profound economic challenge,” he added. “We need stability and unity, and I will make it my utmost priority to bring our party and our country together.”

Sunak first publicly declared on Sunday morning that he would be standing in the contest. Other than that brief statement, he made no big pitch for the leadership this time round.

In the last contest, over the summer, he was widely seen as the more moderate of the two candidates. Compared to Truss, he took a less ideological line on matters like Brexit and the economy. (Unlike Truss, a remainer-turned hardline Brexiteer, Sunak voted for the UK to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum.)

Like Truss, Sunak promised a tough approach to illegal immigration and vowed to expand the government’s controversial Rwanda immigration policy.

Sunak, whose parents came to the UK from East Africa in the 1960s, is of Indian descent. His father was a local doctor while his mother ran a pharmacy in southern England, something Sunak says gave him his desire to serve the public.

“British Indian is what I tick on the census, we have a category for it. I am thoroughly British, this is my home and my country, but my religious and cultural heritage is Indian, my wife is Indian. I am open about being a Hindu,” Sunak said in an interview with Business Standard in 2015.

He will be the first Hindu to become British prime minister, securing the position on Diwali, the festival of lights that marks one of the most important days of the Hindu calendar. Sunak himself made history in 2020 when he lit Diwali candles outside 11 Downing Street, the official residence of the UK chancellor.

He has faced challenges over his elite background, having studied at the exclusive Winchester College, Oxford and Stanford universities. He is known for his expensive taste in fashion and has worked for banks and hedge funds, including Goldman Sachs.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak makes a statement outside No. 10 Downing Street after taking office on Tuesday, October 25. Leon Neal/Getty Images Sunak and Boris Johnson watch as a sheep is sheared during a visit to a farm in North Yorkshire, England, in July 2019. At the time Johnson was running to lead Britain's Conservative Party and Sunak was a member of Parliament. Oli Scarff/Pool/Reuters Johnson, as Prime Minister, holds his first Cabinet meeting in London in July 2019. Johnson appointed Sunak, seen on the right, as chief secretary to the Treasury. Aaron Chown/Pool/AFP/Getty Images Sunak speaks in front of the words "Get Brexit Done" at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, England, in September 2019. He voted for the UK to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum. Danny Lawson/PA Images/Getty Images Sunak speaks during a general election debate in Cardiff, Wales, in November 2019. Hannah McKay/Pool/Getty Images Sunak poses for a picture at the Treasury Office in London in March 2020. Johnson promoted Sunak to chancellor in 2020. Paul Grover/Shutterstock Sunak is seen outside 11 Downing Street in London before heading to the House of Commons to deliver his budget in March 2020. Victoria Jones/PA ImagesGetty Images From left, Sunak, Johnson and Dr. Jenny Harries speak about the coronavirus pandemic at a media briefing in London in March 2020. Sunak won popularity during the early weeks of the pandemic when he unveiled an extensive support plan for those unable to work during lockdown. Julian Simmonds/Daily Telegraph/PA/AP Johnson and Sunak visit a London pizza restaurant as it prepared to reopen in July 2020 when lockdown rules were eased. Heathcliff O'Malley/Pool/AFP/Getty Images Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, meets with Sunak at Wemyss Bay on the west coast of Scotland in August 2020. Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images Sunak meets with local businesses during a visit to the Isle of Bute in Scotland in August 2020. Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images Sunak learns the art of handling clay to make plates during a visit to a pottery business in Stoke-on-Trent, England, in September 2020. Employees were returning to work after being furloughed. Andrew Fox/Pool/Getty Images Sunak is seen on Downing Street ahead of a Cabinet meeting in September 2020. Stefan Rousseau/PA Images/Getty Images In October 2020, customers at the Tib Street Tavern in Manchester watch Sunak announce that the government will pay two-thirds of staff wages in pubs, restaurants and other businesses if they are forced to close under new coronavirus restrictions. Danny Lawson/PA/Getty Images Sunak delivers a speech during the annual Conservative Party Conference in Manchester in October 2021. Toby Melville/Reuters Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, speak to Prince Charles during a reception at the British Museum in London in February 2022. Murty is the daughter of an Indian billionaire. Earlier this year, Sunak and Murty appeared on the Sunday Times Rich List of the UK's 250 wealthiest people . The newspaper estimated their joint net worth at £730 million ($826 million). Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Sunak launches his bid to become leader of the Conservative Party in July 2022. Hollie Adams/Bloomberg/Getty Images Sunak and Murty are seen with their daughters, Krishna and Anoushka, while campaigning in Grantham, England, in July 2022. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images In August 2022, Sunak visits his family's old business, Bassett Pharmacy, in Southampton, England. His parents came to the UK from East Africa in the 1960s. His father was a local doctor while his mother ran a pharmacy in southern England, something Sunak says gave him his desire to serve the public. Stefan Rousseau/Pool/Reuters Sunak and Liz Truss stand together on stage during the final Conservative Party Hustings event in London in August 2022. At the time, they were the final two contenders to become the country's next Prime Minister. Truss defeated Sunak with 81,326 votes to 60,399 among party members. When she announced her resignation weeks later, he became the frontrunner to replace her. Susannah Ireland/AFP/Getty Images Graham Brady — chairman of the 1922 Committee — announces October 24 that Sunak will become the new leader of the Conservative Party. Stefan Rousseau/PA/Getty Images Sunak waves in London after winning the Conservative Party leadership contest on October 24. David Cliff/AP King Charles III welcomes Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become prime minister on October 25. Aaron Chown/AP In pictures: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Prev Next

Sunak has also been scrutinized over the tax arrangements of his wife Akshata Murty, the daughter of an Indian billionaire.

Earlier this year, Sunak and Murty appeared on the Sunday Times Rich List of the UK’s 250 wealthiest people – the newspaper estimated their joint net worth at £730 million ($826 million).

Sunak’s election on Monday marks the pinnacle of what has been a speedy rise to power. He was first elected as an MP in 2015 and spent two years on the back benches before becoming a junior minister in Theresa May’s government. Johnson gave Sunak his first major government role, appointing him as chief secretary to the Treasury in 2019 and promoting him to chancellor in 2020.

Sunak has experience of economic crisis-fighting, having guided the UK through the Covid-19 pandemic, and positioned himself as the “sound finance” candidate.

During the pandemic, Sunak put in place measures worth £400 billion ($452 billion) aimed at boosting the economy, including a generous furlough scheme, business loans and discounts on eating in restaurants. But that stimulus came at a huge cost and left the government scrambling to find savings.

Sunak was an early critic of Truss’ economic plan, which was panned by investors, the International Monetary Fund and credit ratings agencies. While he also advocated for lower taxes, he said tax could only be cut once inflation is brought under control, which could take several years.

His warning over the summer that Truss’ unfunded tax cuts could spark panic in the financial markets turned out to be true. The British pound crashed to a record low against the US dollar when Truss and her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled their plan. Prices of UK government bonds rose at the fastest pace ever, sending borrowing costs skyrocketing.

He also secured the most votes from MPs in the last leadership election – comfortably clearing the new threshold with 137 endorsements. Although Truss eventually won the decisive vote among grassroots members, Sunak was not far behind, gaining 43% of the vote.

Second chance

Johnson has made no secret of the fact that he believes Sunak betrayed him by resigning from his government, triggering his resignation on July 7 after a string of scandals made his position untenable.

Johnson’s downfall followed months of revelations of parties held in 10 Downing Street while the rest of the country was under Covid lockdown restrictions. Johnson himself was fined by the police, making him the first prime minister in history found to have broken the law in office.

For a long time, Sunak stood by Johnson – especially since he too was fined in the so-called Partygate scandal.

But he turned against him after Johnson was slow to act when his deputy chief whip responsible for party discipline, Chris Pincher, was accused of sexually assaulting two men at a party in early July. (Pincher later said he had “drunk far too much,” although has not directly addressed the allegations.)

Sunak’s shock resignation from Johnson’s cabinet over the Pincher scandal set into motion a series of high-profile resignations that led to Johnson’s demise – and ultimately, to his own rise to the Downing Street.

Sunak faces an enormous task. The UK is in the midst of a deep cost-of-living crisis and soaring inequality. Financial markets are still spooked after Truss’ disastrous economic policy missteps.

The Conservative party, already unpopular after 12 years in power, has plunged itself into a state of utter chaos over the past four months and is now well behind the opposition Labour party in opinion polls. The only comfort for Sunak is that he doesn’t have to call an election until January 2025.

Ivana Kottasová Luke Mcgee
Ivana Kottasová
Luke Mcgee

Monkeypox: US is offering vaccines to certain people exposed to the ...

CNN —

As global health leaders investigate an unusual outbreak of monkeypox across more than a dozen countries, discussions in the United States have turned to vaccination against the disease – and certain people exposed to the virus could be offered a vaccine.

The US has mobilized vaccine for monkeypox to states that have reported cases, and officials plan to move the vaccine where it may be needed, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday.

“The US has the resources we need to help us respond to monkeypox in this country right now. We’ve been preparing for this type of outbreak for decades,” she said.

The US has two preventive vaccines and two antiviral treatments that can be used for orthopox, the family of viruses that includes monkeypox.

“One of these vaccines, with the trade name of Jynneos, is approved for the prevention of monkeypox disease in adults 18 years of age and older,” Walensky said. “CDC has mechanisms in place to move these products around the country so that they can be used for prevention or treatment for people who may benefit, wherever they may be.”

CDC officials are recommending vaccination for people at highest risk of infection due to direct contact with someone who has monkeypox.

“Right now, while we are in the early phase of investigating this, we know that those at highest risk for infection are those who had contact with a known monkeypox patient, with the kind of contact that would facilitate spread. So those are the individuals we’re really focusing on recommending vaccination for right now: post-exposure vaccination,” said Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, a veterinarian and deputy director of the CDC’s Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology.

“We continue to watch what is happening and think about whether wider vaccination recommendations would make sense, but at this time, we only have nine known cases, and we have contacts that we’ve identified associated with those cases that would likely most benefit from vaccines,” McQuiston said. “And so that’s where we’re focusing our energies right now.”

Vaccines for monkeypox have been made available to some health care workers treating infected people.

“I’m happy to report, even with the first case in Boston at Massachusetts General Hospital, our colleagues across the government have been able to get vaccines to that hospital. And just yesterday they’ve already started offering the vaccines to health care workers who have been exposed,” Dr. Raj Panjabi, who leads the White House’s monkeypox response, told CNN’s Laura Coates on Monday night.

“The first part is to identify those who are infected and to isolate them and make sure that they get the care they need,” Panjabi said. “The second part is to ensure we vaccinate those who’ve been exposed to the infected individuals. If we do that again and again – and that’s our approach at the White House and across the government – then we have a better chance of ending this outbreak.”

Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, says not to expect a large-scale rollout of vaccines.

“I think that we will need to use vaccinations in contacts of cases. This isn’t something where everybody lines up and gets vaccinated,” he said of the current outbreak. “That’s going to be critical to stopping cases.”

What vaccines could work against monkeypox?

A senior Biden administration official said Tuesday that there’s sufficient vaccine to cover the United States’ current level of cases.

“Right now, we have over 1,000 doses of [Jynneos] available, and we expect that level to ramp up very quickly in the coming weeks as the company provides more doses to us,” McQuiston said Monday.

The CDC estimates that the vaccine is at least 85% effective in preventing monkeypox, based on data from Africa.

Another vaccine, called ACAM2000, is licensed in the United States to prevent smallpox. Although the vaccine could be used to prevent monkeypox, it is not licensed for that.

The United States has more than 100 million doses of ACAM2000, McQuiston said.

“ACAM2000 is an older-generation smallpox vaccine that has some potential significant side effects with it,” she said. “So a decision to use that widely would have to have some serious discussion behind it.”

ACAM2000 is a live virus vaccine – and once the shot is given, a lesion will develop at that site. Because the virus grows at the site of the lesion, it can spread to other parts of the body or even to other people, according to the CDC, which is why people who get ACAM2000 “must take precautions” to prevent the spread.

In comparison, the Jynneos vaccine is given as a live virus that is non-replicating. That means there is no visible “take” and, as a result, no risk of viral spread, according to the CDC. Some common vaccine side effects include pain at the injection site, muscle pain, headache or fatigue.

Who should get vaccinated against monkeypox?

Most people won’t be vaccinated against monkeypox.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee and Immunization Practices voted last year to recommend vaccination for select groups at risk for monkeypox and other related viruses due to their occupations, like research lab personnel and health care workers.

Amid the global outbreak, World Health Organization officials plan to make recommendations on who should be prioritized to receive a smallpox vaccination to lower their risk of monkeypox.

“We will be making recommendations on who should be prioritized for this,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonoses lead and technical lead on Covid-19, said during a social media Q&A Monday.

“This is not something that everybody needs. It is a virus that is spreading between people who are coming in close contact with those who are cases,” Van Kerkhove said. “We really need to discuss evidence-based use of these measures, access and equity.”

Andy Seale, strategies adviser for the WHO Department of Global HIV, Hepatitis and STI Programmes, added that vaccinations should be considered for countries where monkeypox is endemic, which are in West and Central Africa.

“Communities are already saying to us, ‘if we get this right, if we contain this, if we get the access right for the outbreak, we have to do this for the endemic countries as well,’ ” Seale said.

Can someone get vaccinated after being exposed to monkeypox?

Vaccination after exposure to monkeypox virus can still offer some protection, according to the CDC.

“That’s the norm. We usually don’t do vaccination of everybody beforehand. We use vaccination as post-exposure prophylaxis,” Adalja said.

“Because monkeypox has a long incubation period, just like smallpox – it’s 12 days or so, on average, for monkeypox – you can intervene with a vaccine in an exposed person, and it will abort the infection,” he said. “Or if you do get an infection, maybe it gets to them really late or late in the incubation period, it makes the infection less severe.”

But the sooner an exposed person gets the vaccine, the better. The CDC recommends giving the vaccine within four days of exposure in order to prevent illness. If it’s given between four and 14 days of exposure, vaccination may reduce the symptoms but may not prevent the disease itself.

Overall, people who have been exposed to the monkeypox virus and have not gotten the vaccine within the past three years should consider getting vaccinated, according to the CDC.

Will a smallpox vaccination protect against monkeypox?

“Because monkeypox virus is closely related to the virus that causes smallpox, the smallpox vaccine can protect people from getting monkeypox,” the CDC website says. “Smallpox and monkeypox vaccines are effective at protecting people against monkeypox when given before exposure to monkeypox. Experts also believe that vaccination after a monkeypox exposure may help prevent the disease or make it less severe.”

Scientists have known for years that smallpox vaccines can be effective in preventing monkeypox, too. The variola virus that causes smallpox and the monkeypox virus belong to the same family.

“The viruses come from the same family of viruses, and what we’ve seen in prior monkeypox outbreaks is that vaccinating contacts does abort infection or attenuate infection in those individuals with monkeypox,” Adalja said.

There probably is some “remnant” of protection against monkeypox for adults who were vaccinated against smallpox as children, he said, but it may not be full protection.

“The smallpox vaccination program ended in the 1970s in the United States. Obviously, if someone is in the US military and they got vaccinated last year, I’m sure they’re completely protected,” Adalja said. “But people who got vaccinated as children in the era when smallpox was a routine childhood vaccination, they may have some residual immunity.”

The senior administration official said Tuesday that, theoretically, there is some protection offered from a previous smallpox vaccination, but there is not good evidence on how much protection – and that protection could wane over time.

Has the monkeypox virus changed with this outbreak?

The official said that it doesn’t seem like anything has changed about the biology of the monkeypox virus and that the chances of contracting it are still very low for the general public.

WHO officials have not found evidence of the monkeypox virus changing or mutating in this outbreak. Therefore, there is no evidence to suggest that the licensed vaccines won’t work against the currently circulating virus.

“It’s a very stable virus. So we don’t yet have evidence that there’s mutation in the virus itself,” Rosamund Lewis, head of smallpox secretariat at WHO Emergencies Programme, said during the Q&A on Monday.

“We are beginning to collect that information,” Lewis added. “We will be convening our groups of virologists and other experts who will discuss this very question based on the sequence of the genome of some of the cases that are being detected.”

Get CNN Health's weekly newsletter Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.

That is a “key question” that is important to answer, said Dr. Daniel Rhoads, co-chair of the College of American Pathologists Microbiology Committee.

“Did something change with the biology, or is this just an unusual situation that hasn’t happened before or we haven’t recognized it before? I think anytime there’s a change in geography for these endemic diseases, that’s a key question,” said Rhoads, a pathologist at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

“Whenever we see a new infection or an infection transmitted in what seems to be a new way, I always wonder, is this just something we haven’t recognized before that’s always been around? Or is this an actual biological change, which would be due to a mutation in the virus? I don’t know,” Rhoads said.

“My guess is, once they sequence the virus causing the current outbreak, they’ll be able to compare it to known sequences, and then hopefully we’ll have some insight as to whether or not this is kind of the same old monkeypox or if there’s something that appears to be different.”