What happened
The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Corey Lewandowski, a longtime political adviser to President Donald Trump, over allegations he illegally enriched himself as top adviser to Kristi Noem during her tenure as Homeland Security secretary, The Wall Street Journal and other news organizations reported yesterday. The inquiry stems from a referral by the DHS inspector general’s office.

Who said what
Noem brought Lewandowski (pictured above) on last year in “what was supposed to be a limited, part-time role,” The New York Times said. But he “wielded power far beyond the scope of his role as an unpaid adviser,” building an “expansive portfolio in which he had wide influence over personnel, contracts and department operations.” Before he and Noem were “ousted” in March “following increasingly embarrassing revelations” about “their spending decisions,” the Journal said, Lewandowski “appeared to try to use his vast influence for personal financial gain.” Lewandowski, through a lawyer, denied any wrongdoing.

What next?
Lewandowski has “told people close to him he expects the president would pardon him in the event of a criminal case,” the Journal said. But Trump “notably didn’t defend Lewandowski” when asked about the investigation yesterday, The Associated Press said. “All I know is, I want my people to be honest,” he told reporters. And if they’re “not honest, they’re stealing from me” and “I’ll have my DOJ go and do whatever they have ​to do.” 

What happened
In a late-stage clinical trial, a first-of-its-kind mRNA cancer vaccine cut the risk of melanoma returning by 42% after two years, drugmakers Moderna and Merck said last night. The experimental vaccine, intismeran autogene, combined with Merck’s immunotherapy drug Keytruda also reduced the chance of the melanoma spreading by 38%. Moderna and Merck had planned to unveil the results of the trial tomorrow at a European Society of Medical Oncology conference in Madrid but released them early after some of the data was leaked online. Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer and one of the most common cancers in the U.S.

Who said what
Cancer research “has been looking for a win and I think this one is a big one,” study researcher Dr. Hussein Tawbi of Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center told The Associated Press. Intismeran doses are custom-brewed for each patient based on their specific cancer cells. That tailored mRNA “teaches the patient’s immune system to watch out for and attack” the cancerous proteins created by their tumor, the AP said. 

What next?
Merck said the drugmakers will seek regulatory approval as soon as possible. Their “trial will continue so other measures can be assessed,” including the “most important metric: overall survival, whether the treatment helps patients live longer,” CNN said. That’s the “gold standard” for determining a cancer treatment’s efficacy, The New York Times said, and “can sometimes be a requirement for regulatory approval.”

As a super El Niño intensifies in the Pacific Ocean, coastal beach erosion is devastating Southern California and beyond. But concrete reef structures designed and situated using artificial intelligence could help to combat the environmental crisis. They can help beaches recover and even predict future erosion patterns.

Coastal Assembly, a company born from a lab at MIT, uses AI along with satellite and ocean data to “predict coastal erosion patterns and create submerged structures that harness currents to coax the beach back,” said The New York Times. In the Maldives, 54 marine-concrete artificial reef structures installed near a JW Marriott hotel helped the ocean “build about 90 feet of new beach in six months,” said AccuWeather. After two years, the beach has “doubled in size,” and the artificial reef is “filled with new coral and marine life, from fish to sea anemones,” said Fast Company. 

Coastal Assembly’s method has the “potential to aid communities in adapting to climate change by reducing the time and cost of complex coastline modeling and predicting the areas most vulnerable to erosion,” said the Times. The artificial reefs are custom-made, though, which complicates the would-be solution. “It’s not one-size-fits-all because every beach has a different bathymetry [underwater landscape],” said Coastal Assembly co-founder Skylar Tibbits to Fast Company. 

Time will tell if artificial reefs can be a long-term solution. Beaches are “our primary natural defense to backshore erosion and coastal flooding,” said coastal geomorphologist Adam Young to AccuWeather. "Without that sand buffer, waves have less distance to lose energy before reaching roads, homes and bluffs.”