Research suggests that an immune signalling protein called interleukin (IL)-26 is increased among chronic smokers with lung disease and this involvement reveals disease mechanisms of interest for developing more effective therapy for these hard-to-treat patients.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a disease of accelerated lung aging, but the mechanism remains unclear. Researchers studied the aging-like phenotype and its underlying mechanisms in a COPD mouse model. Double deletion of tetraspanins CD9 and CD81 in epithelial cells downregulated expression of the protein SIRT. As SIRT1 is a key molecule that protects against various lifestyle-related diseases and aging, these tetraspanins may serve as novel therapeutic targets for COPD and aging.

Three-quarters of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) cases have their origins in poor lung function pathways beginning in childhood. These pathways are associated with exposures in childhood, and amplified by factors in adulthood, according to a cohort study. While smoking remains the biggest risk factor for COPD, the study demonstrates that childhood illnesses (such as asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, allergic rhinitis, eczema) and exposures to parental smoking are also linked to the disease.

New research suggests that rheumatoid arthritis may increase the risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Dominic Cummings, special advisor to British prime minister Boris Johnson and a zealous advocate of Brexit, benefitted from EU agriculture subsidies via a farm that he co-owned with his relatives, British newspaper The Observer reported on Sunday. The farm in Durham, northern England, received about €250,000 of EU funds over 20 years, records showed. The news exposed Cummings' "sheer hypocrisy", a spokeswoman for the British opposition Liberal Party said.

About 800,000 British people have spent €4.3bn stockpiling food, drinks, and medicine in case a no-deal Brexit on 31 October causes supply problems, according to data from British financial firm Premium Credit. "The British would be the big losers," in a hard Brexit, outgoing European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker also said in Tiroler Tageszeitung, an Austrian newspaper, on Saturday. "We [the EU] are well prepared [for no-deal Brexit]," he added.

The EU border deal will not be up for discussion when Irish leader Leo Varadkar meets British prime minister Boris Johnson in Dublin in early September, the Irish government has said. "The withdrawal agreement and the backstop are not up for negotiation," it said on Sunday, referring to "backstop" plans, hated by Johnson, to keep Britain in the EU customs union in order to maintain an open border with Ireland.

The EU needs to properly classify which economic activities help the environment to help direct public funding and private investment toward climate-friendly sectors, EU financial services commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis has told the Financial Times newspaper. "In this way you avoid greenwashing, you provide clarity," he said. The European Commission proposed a new classification scheme last year, but capitals are wary of giving Brussels more power on dividing up joint funds.

The Finnish EU presidency has defended its deal with German car maker BMW to provide 100 vehicles free of charge to ferry VIPs back and forth from events in Helsinki. BMW got the job after "an EU-wide call for tenders" and BMW executives did "not have opportunities to meet" with politicians, Anja Laisi, a presidency spokeswoman, told the Yle news agency. BMW provided no fuel or drivers, she added.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Monday announced a new leadership team at the federal Bureau of Prisons in a shakeup of the agency in the wake of financier Jeffrey Epstein's suicide inside a federal jail in Manhattan.