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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Tick tick boom: The rise of child marriage in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
Introduction: Child marriage is a global phenomenon where one in six girls aged under 19 are married as child brides that are exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, in which girls are disproportionately affected by this practice. Therefore, this study aimed to provide reliable numbers of child marriages in Indonesia during the pandemic. Methods: Records from all 412 [Islamic] Religious Courts at the city/district level provided by the Supreme Court of The Republic of Indonesia were analysed, particularly the numbers of child marriage dispensation applications (bride and/or groom is below 19 years old) from 2019 to 2021. Results: New child marriage dispensation application numbers in 2019, 2020, and 2021 were 24,865, 64,225, and 62,890 cases, respectively, of which 2-4% of new applications were withdrawn every year. Up to 65% of new applications from 2019 to 2021 were consistently registered in six provinces in Java. However, the top-rank provinces with the rise of new applications in 2020 and 2021 when compared to records in 2019 were from outside Java, including Papua Barat, DI Aceh, Jambi, Maluku, Sulawesi Utara, Sumatera Barat, and Bengkulu. Conclusions: The child marriages in Indonesia skyrocketed by 2.5 times during the pandemic, represented by the rise of new child marriage dispensation applications to the Religious Courts between 2020 and 2021. Policy implications: Stakeholders should consider socio-economic and psycho-cultural factors in planning child marriage intervention programs during the pandemic, including involving local/religious leaders, tightening the marriage dispensation process, and prioritising areas with high percentages of poverty and the girl population.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/m6der/" target="_blank">Tick tick boom: The rise of child marriage in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Characterising patterns of COVID-19 and long COVID symptoms: Evidence from nine UK longitudinal studies</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Multiple studies across global populations have established the primary symptoms characterising COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) and long COVID. However, as symptoms may also occur in the absence of COVID-19, a lack of appropriate controls has often meant that specificity of symptoms to acute COVID-19 or long COVID, and the extent and length of time for which they are elevated after COVID-19, could not be examined. We analysed individual symptom prevalences and characterised patterns of COVID-19 and long COVID symptoms across nine UK longitudinal studies, totalling over 42,000 participants. Conducting latent class analyses separately in three groups (9no COVID-199, 9COVID-19 in last 12 weeks9, 9COVID-19 &gt; 12 weeks ago9), the data did not support the presence of more than two distinct symptom patterns, representing high and low symptom burden, in each group. Comparing the high symptom burden classes between the 9COVID-19 in last 12 week,9 and 9no COVID-199 groups we identified symptoms characteristic of acute COVID-19, including loss of taste and smell, fatigue, cough, shortness of breath and muscle pains or aches. Comparing the high symptom burden classes between the 9COVID-19 &gt; 12 weeks ago9 and 9no COVID-199 groups we identified symptoms characteristic of long COVID, including fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle pain or aches, difficulty concentrating and chest tightness. The identified symptom patterns among individuals with COVID-19 &gt; 12 weeks ago were strongly associated with self-reported length of time unable to function as normal due to COVID-19 symptoms, suggesting that the symptom pattern identified corresponds to long COVID. Building the evidence base regarding typical long COVID symptoms will improve diagnosis of this condition and the ability to elicit underlying biological mechanisms, leading to better patient access to treatment and services.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.20.22275994v1" target="_blank">Characterising patterns of COVID-19 and long COVID symptoms: Evidence from nine UK longitudinal studies</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Cohort Profile: Longitudinal population-based study of COVID-19 in UK adults (COVIDENCE UK)</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is estimated to have caused more than 18 million deaths worldwide as of end-May 2022. Methods: COVIDENCE UK is a longitudinal population-based study that investigates risk factors for, and impacts of, COVID-19 in UK residents aged ≥16 years. A unique feature is the capacity to support trial-within-cohort studies to evaluate interventions for prevention of COVID-19 and other acute respiratory illnesses. Participants complete a detailed online baseline questionnaire capturing self-reported information relating to their socio-demographic characteristics, occupation, lifestyle, quality of life, weight, height, longstanding medical conditions, medication use, vaccination status, diet and supplemental micronutrient intake. Follow-up on-line questionnaires capturing incident symptoms of COVID-19 and other acute respiratory infections, incident swab test-confirmed COVID-19, doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine received, and quality of life are completed at monthly intervals. Results: The study was launched on 1st May 2020 and closed to recruitment on 6th October 2021. A total of 19,981 participants enrolled and consented to 5-year follow-up with medical record linkage. Their mean age was 59.1 years (range 16.0 to 94.4 years), 70.2% were female, and 93.7% identified their ethnic origin as White. Analyses conducted to date have provided key insights into risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 disease, determinants of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine immunogenicity and efficacy, and impacts of COVID-19 on health economic outcomes. The cohort has also supported conduct of a Phase 3 randomised trial-within-cohort study (CORONAVIT) evaluating implementation of a test-and-treat approach to correcting sub-optimal vitamin D status on incidence and severity of acute respiratory infections, including COVID-19. Conclusions: The COVIDENCE UK dataset represents a valuable resource containing granular information on factors influencing susceptibility to, and impacts of, COVID-19 in UK adults. Researchers wishing to access anonymised participant-level data should contacting the corresponding author for further information.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.20.22276205v1" target="_blank">Cohort Profile: Longitudinal population-based study of COVID-19 in UK adults (COVIDENCE UK)</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Temporal trends in COVID-19 outcomes among patients with systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases: From the first wave to Omicron</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Objectives: To investigate temporal trends in incidence and severity of COVID-19 among patients with systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs) from the first wave through the Omicron wave. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study investigating COVID-19 outcomes among SARD patients systematically identified to have confirmed COVID-19 from March 1, 2020 to January 31, 2022 at a large healthcare system in Massachusetts. We tabulated COVID-19 counts of total and severe cases (hospitalizations or deaths) and compared the proportion with severe COVID-19 by calendar period and by vaccination status. We used logistic regression to estimate the ORs for severe COVID-19 for each period compared to the early COVID-19 period (reference group). Results: We identified 1449 SARD patients with COVID-19 (mean age 58.4 years, 75.2% female, 33.9% rheumatoid arthritis). There were 399 (27.5%) cases of severe COVID-19. The proportion of severe COVID-19 outcomes declined over calendar time (p for trend &lt;0.001); 45.6% of cases were severe in the early COVID-19 period (March 1-June 30, 2020) vs. 14.7% in the Omicron wave (December 17, 2021-January 31, 2022; adjusted odds ratio 0.29, 95%CI 0.19-0.43). A higher proportion of those unvaccinated were severe compared to not severe cases (78.4% vs. 59.5%). Conclusions: The proportion of SARD patients with severe COVID-19 has diminished since early in the pandemic, particularly during the most recent time periods, including the Omicron wave. Advances in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of COVID-19 may have improved outcomes among SARD patients.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.19.22276599v1" target="_blank">Temporal trends in COVID-19 outcomes among patients with systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases: From the first wave to Omicron</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>How skeptics could be convinced (not persuaded) to get vaccinated against COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
Central to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic strategy, COVID-19 vaccination depends on the population’s uptake decisions. Because at least 60% of the population needs to be vaccinated, but fewer, for example, in Germany are expected to do so, it is important to know how to convince those who are undecided or skeptical. According to the health care standard of enabling citizens to make informed decisions based on balanced information (boosting) – instead of persuasion or seduction (nudging) – a comparison of benefits and harms of having or not having the vaccination would be required to inform these groups. With the help of a representative survey, we investigated the contribution of fact boxes, an established intervention format for informed intentions. Study 1 shows the development of knowledge and evaluation of COVID-19 vaccinations by German citizens between Nov 2020 and Feb 2021. Study 2 reveals objective information needs and subjective information requirements of those laypeople at the end of Nov. Study 3 shows that the fact box format is effective for risk communication about COVID-19. Based on these insights, a fact box on the efficacy and safety of mRNA-vaccines was implemented with the help of a national health authority. Study 4 shows that fact boxes increase vaccination knowledge and positive evaluations of the benefit-harm ratio of vaccination in skeptics and undecideds. Our results demonstrate that simple fact boxes can be an effective boost of informed decision making among undecided and skeptical people, and that informed decisions can lead to more positive vaccination evaluations of the public.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/f4nqt/" target="_blank">How skeptics could be convinced (not persuaded) to get vaccinated against COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Unpacking the black box: Empirical evidence to understand the human factor for effective rapid testing against SARS-CoV2</strong> -
<div>
SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen point-of-care (PoC) and home tests are available to laypeople. This raises questions regarding the drivers and barriers of people’s willingness to use tests, their understanding of test results and the psychological and behavioural consequences of positive and negative test results. Four cross-sectional data collections, including survey items, open text answers and three experiments, were therefore conducted between December 2020 and March 2021, involving 4,026 German participants. The majority was willing to use PoC or home tests. People will be more likely to use tests when they are inexpensive and easy to use or when they are a necessary (given low infection rates) for obtaining access to public and social life. However, people urgently need information about what a test result means and how they should behave. Recommendations based on the present findings could make rapid testing a successful pillar of pandemic management.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/c9h5k/" target="_blank">Unpacking the black box: Empirical evidence to understand the human factor for effective rapid testing against SARS-CoV2</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Relationship Between Foreign Direct Investment Growth and Economic Growth in 2009-2020</strong> -
<div>
Research on the relationship between investment growth and economic growth aims to determine the effect of Foreign Direct Investment in Indonesia on economic growth in 2009-2020. This research method uses quantitative methods with secondary data collected from various digital sources. The growth of foreign investment in Indonesia in 2009-2020 tends to be volatile and unstable. On the other hand, economic growth experienced stable growth throughout 2009-2020, although there was a decline in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on the results of this study, it shows that the growth of Foreign Direct Investment in 2009-2020 does not significantly affect economic growth in Indonesia.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/bfpqk/" target="_blank">Relationship Between Foreign Direct Investment Growth and Economic Growth in 2009-2020</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The Emotional Anatomy of Lockdown</strong> -
<div>
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers have tried to balance the effectiveness of lockdowns (or stay-at-home orders) with their potential mental health costs. Yet, two years into the pandemic, we are still lacking solid evidence about the emotional toll of lockdowns. Across two intensive longitudinal datasets with 14,511 observations collected in Australia in 2021 (total N = 441), we compare the degree, persistence, and regulation of people’s emotions on days in and out of lockdown. We find that lockdowns take an emotional toll, but that this toll is relatively mild. In lockdown, people experienced slightly more negative and slightly less positive emotion; returned to a mildly negative emotional state more quickly; and used low-effort emotion regulation strategies. We conclude that people are resilient to the challenges lockdowns pose to personal and social well-being.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/hxatc/" target="_blank">The Emotional Anatomy of Lockdown</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Relationship Between Foreign Direct Investment Growth and Economic Growth in 2009-2020</strong> -
<div>
Research on the relationship between investment growth and economic growth aims to determine the effect of Foreign Direct Investment in Indonesia on economic growth in 2009-2020. This research method uses quantitative methods with secondary data collected from various digital sources. The growth of foreign investment in Indonesia in 2009-2020 tends to be volatile and unstable. On the other hand, economic growth experienced stable growth throughout 2009-2020, although there was a decline in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on the results of this study, it shows that the growth of Foreign Direct Investment in 2009-2020 does not significantly affect economic growth in Indonesia.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/ptsae/" target="_blank">Relationship Between Foreign Direct Investment Growth and Economic Growth in 2009-2020</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT GROWTH AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN 2009-2020</strong> -
<div>
Research on the relationship between investment growth and economic growth aims to determine the effect of Foreign Direct Investment in Indonesia on economic growth in 2009-2020. This research method uses quantitative methods with secondary data collected from various digital sources. The growth of foreign investment in Indonesia in 2009-2020 tends to be volatile and unstable. On the other hand, economic growth experienced stable growth throughout 2009-2020, although there was a decline in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on the results of this study, it shows that the growth of Foreign Direct Investment in 2009-2020 does not significantly affect economic growth in Indonesia.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/afphw/" target="_blank">RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT GROWTH AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN 2009-2020</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Relationship Between Foreign Direct Investment Growth and Economic Growth in 2009-2020</strong> -
<div>
Research on the relationship between investment growth and economic growth aims to determine the effect of Foreign Direct Investment in Indonesia on economic growth in 2009-2020. This research method uses quantitative methods with secondary data collected from various digital sources. The growth of foreign investment in Indonesia in 2009-2020 tends to be volatile and unstable. On the other hand, economic growth experienced stable growth throughout 2009-2020, although there was a decline in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on the results of this study, it shows that the growth of Foreign Direct Investment in 2009-2020 does not significantly affect economic growth in Indonesia.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/ajsxz/" target="_blank">Relationship Between Foreign Direct Investment Growth and Economic Growth in 2009-2020</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Efficient direct and limited environmental transmission of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.22 in domestic cats</strong> -
<div>
Susceptibility of domestic cats for infection with SARS-CoV-2 has been demonstrated by several experimental studies and field observations. We performed an extensive study to further characterize transmission of SARS-CoV-2 between cats, both by direct contact as well as by indirect contact. To that end, we estimated the transmission rate parameter and the decay parameter for infectivity in the environment. Using four groups of pair-transmission experiment, all donor (inoculated) cats became infected, shed virus and seroconverted, while three out of four direct contact cats got infected, shed virus and two of those seroconverted. One out of eight cats exposed to a SARS-CoV-2-contaminated environment became infected but did not seroconvert. Statistical analysis of the transmission data gives a reproduction number R0 of 2.18 (95% CI: (0.92-4.08), a transmission rate parameter {beta} of 0.23 day-1 (95% CI: 0.06-0.54), and a virus decay rate parameter of 2.73 day-1 (95% CI: 0.77-15.82). These data indicate that transmission between cats can be sustained (R0&gt;1), however, infectiousness of a contaminated environment decays rapidly (mean duration of infectiousness 1/2.73 days). Infections of cats via exposure to a SARS-CoV-2-contaminated environment cannot be excluded if cats are exposed shortly after contamination.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.17.496600v1" target="_blank">Efficient direct and limited environmental transmission of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.22 in domestic cats</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Compensatory epistasis maintains ACE2 affinity in SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1</strong> -
<div>
The Omicron BA.1 variant emerged in late 2021 and quickly spread across the world. Compared to the ancestral Wuhan Hu-1 strain and other pre-Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants, BA.1 has many mutations, a number of which are known to enable antibody escape. Many of these antibody-escape mutations individually decrease the spike receptor-binding domain (RBD) affinity for ACE2 in the background of early SARS-CoV-2 variants, but BA.1 still binds ACE2 with high affinity. The fitness and evolution of the BA.1 lineage is therefore driven by the combined effects of numerous mutations. Here, we systematically map the epistatic interactions between the 15 mutations in the RBD of BA.1 relative to the Wuhan Hu-1 strain. Specifically, we measure the ACE2 affinity of all possible combinations of these 15 mutations (215 = 32,768 genotypes), spanning all possible evolutionary intermediates from the ancestral Wuhan Hu-1 strain to BA.1. We find that immune escape mutations in BA.1 individually reduce ACE2 affinity but are compensated by epistatic interactions with other affinity-enhancing mutations, including Q498R and N501Y. Thus, the ability of BA.1 to evade immunity while maintaining ACE2 affinity is contingent on acquiring multiple interacting mutations. Our results implicate compensatory epistasis as a key factor driving substantial evolutionary change for SARS-CoV-2 and are consistent with Omicron BA.1 arising from a chronic infection.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.17.496635v1" target="_blank">Compensatory epistasis maintains ACE2 affinity in SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A patient-centric characterization of systemic recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The biology driving individual patient responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection remains ill understood. Here, we developed a patient-centric framework leveraging detailed longitudinal phenotyping data, covering a year post disease onset, from 215 SARS-CoV-2 infected subjects with differing disease severities. Our analyses revealed distinct “systemic recovery” profiles with specific progression and resolution of the inflammatory, immune, metabolic and clinical responses, over weeks to several months after infection. In particular, we found a strong intra-patient temporal covariation of innate immune cell numbers, kynurenine- and host lipid-metabolites, which suggested candidate immunometabolic pathways putatively influencing restoration of homeostasis, the risk of death and of long COVID. Based on these data, we identified a composite signature predictive of systemic recovery on the patient level, using a joint model on cellular and molecular parameters measured soon after disease onset. New predictions can be generated using the online tool http://shiny.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/apps/covid-systemic-recovery-prediction-app, designed to test our findings prospectively.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.18.22276437v1" target="_blank">A patient-centric characterization of systemic recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>An update on oral clinical courses among patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection: A clinical follow-up (a prospective prevalent cohort) study</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Abstract Introduction Contemporary literature has revealed that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes acute sialadenitis and related symptoms, such as discomfort, pain, swelling, and secretory dysfunction in salivary glands. The secretory dysfunction is due to SARS-CoV-2 infection-induced xerostomia and other associated clinical courses such as sore tongue, mucosal ulcer, and gingivitis in the oral cavity. Furthermore, it has been reported that COVID-19 causes the development of other oral manifestations. Materials and Methods A prospective clinical follow-up (a prevalent cohort) study was conducted to identify the possible oral manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 infection among patients admitted at the Eka General Hospital COVID-19 treatment center. Furthermore, the study aimed to calculate the prevalence rate of oral clinical courses in the cohorts. The study had two follow-up phases: Hospital and patient-home-based.   Results A total of 55 patients (36 males and 19 females) met the inclusion criteria and were followed for 7.5 weeks. The 3.5 weeks’ hospital-based prospective follow-up study documented an 18% (n=10) prevalence rate of oral clinical courses among the cohorts. Twelve oral symptoms appeared in these ten patients. The manifested oral symptoms were oral mucosal lesions (n=6), xerostomia (n=5), and thickening of saliva (n=1). The oral mucosal lesions per se consisted of aphthous lesions (n=3), candidiasis (n=1), geographic tongue (n=1), and localized gingivitis (n=1). On the other hand, the four weeks’ home-based follow-up study disclosed four newly manifested oral symptoms: hemorrhagic crust, bulla, buccal mucositis, and petechiae. These manifestations appeared among six patients (four males and two females) who had not manifested any oral symptoms during the hospital-based follow-up. Accordingly, the overall prevalence of oral clinical courses among patients presented with SARS-CoV-2 is raised from 18% (n=10) to 29% (n=16). Similarly, the number of clinical courses increased from 12 to 16 after four additional weeks of follow-up. Discussion The study9s findings suggest the importance of initiating oral health care for patients with COVID-19. Therefore, multidisciplinary healthcare approaches should be delivered to assure optimal health outcomes. Accordingly, oral health professionals must be a substantial part of the interdisciplinary approach in caring for patients with COVID-19.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.16.22276533v1" target="_blank">An update on oral clinical courses among patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection: A clinical follow-up (a prospective prevalent cohort) study</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Phase I Clinical Trial of GEN2-Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine (CHO Cells) in Healthy People Aged 18 and Above</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pneumonia<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Experimental Vaccine 1;   Biological: Experimental Vaccine 2;   Biological: Experimental Vaccine 3;   Biological: placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   National Vaccine and Serum Institute, China;   Lanzhou Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd;   Beijing Institute of Biological Products Co Ltd.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID-19 Algorithm Treatment at Home</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Recommended treatment schedule;   Drug: Usual care<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Immunosuppression and COVID-19 Boosters</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: diphtheria and tetanus toxoids (adsorbed) vaccine;   Biological: COVID-19 vaccine<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Kirby Institute;   Seqirus Pty Ltd, Australia;   Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF)<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Epidemiological Monitoring of COVID-19 Patients Hospitalized on Reunion Island</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: telephone interview 24 months after hospitalization for Covid-19<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de la Réunion<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Immunogenicity and Safety Study of Booster Vaccine With the COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero Cell), Inactivated, Omicron Strain</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero Cell), Inactivated, Omicron Strain<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sinovac Biotech (Hong Kong) Limited<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Plerixafor in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Related to COVID-19 (Phase IIb)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19 Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome;   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Plerixafor 20 MG/ML [Mozobil];   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   4Living Biotech<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effect of COVID-19 on Platelet Mitochondrial Bioenergetic, Antioxidants and Oxidative Stress in Infertile Men.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Men Infertility, Post-COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: diagnostic test and sperm analysis<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Comenius University;   GYN-FIV<br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Calcitriol Supplementation in COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Vitamin D Deficiency<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: Calcitriol<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   RenJi Hospital<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Olfactory Training in COVID-19 Associated Loss of Smell</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Hyposmia<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: Sniffin’ sticks Duftquartett<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Medical University Innsbruck<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Psychological Impact of Medical Evacuations on Families of Patients Admitted to Intensive Care Unit for Severe COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Revised Impact of Event Scale;   Other: Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale;   Other: 36-Item Short Form Survey;   Other: satisfaction survey;   Other: semi-directed interview with trusted person on the general experience of the patient’s medical evacuation;   Other: semi-directed interview with trusted person on the general experience of hospitalization in intensive care<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Centre Hospitalier Metropole Savoie<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effects of Telerehabilitative Aerobic and Relaxation Exercises Patients With Type 2 Diabetes With and Without COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Aerobic and Relaxation Exercises<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Bozyaka Training and Research Hospital<br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake Trial</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Vaccination Refusal;   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Short Message Service (SMS) + Website Link Strategy;   Other: Phone Call with Peer Strategy<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Washington University School of Medicine<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cardiovascular Autonomic and Immune Mechanism of Post COVID-19 Tachycardia Syndrome</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post-acute COVID-19 Syndrome;   Postural Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS);   Long COVID;   SARS CoV 2 Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Diagnostic Test: Determine the inflammatory and immune profile of post-COVID-19 POTS patients;   Diagnostic Test: Measurement of PNS activity by HRV (Heart rate Variation);   Diagnostic Test: Autonomic Symptoms assessment<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Vanderbilt University Medical Center;   American Heart Association<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of Bradykinin in COVID-19 Infection With Icatibant</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   SARS CoV 2 Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Icatibant;   Drug: 0.9% Sodium Chloride Injection<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Belfast Health and Social Care Trust;   Queen’s University, Belfast<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>STEP-COVID: A Program for Pregnant Women During the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Psychological;   Mental Health Issue;   Prenatal Stress;   Maternal Distress;   COVID-19 Pandemic<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: STEP-COVID<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières;   Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC);   Canada Research Chairs Endowment of the Federal Government of Canada<br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Bioactivities of Phycocyanobilin from Spirulina</strong> - Phycocyanobilin (PCB) is a linear open-chain tetrapyrrole chromophore that captures and senses light and a variety of biological activities, such as anti-oxidation, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory. In this paper, the biological activities of PCB are reviewed, and the related mechanism of PCB and its latest application in disease treatment are introduced. PCB can resist oxidation by scavenging free radicals, inhibiting the activity of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH)…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ivermectin for preventing and treating COVID-19</strong> - BACKGROUND: Ivermectin, an antiparasitic agent, inhibits the replication of viruses in vitro. The molecular hypothesis of ivermectin’s antiviral mode of action suggests an inhibitory effect on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) replication in early stages of infection. Currently, evidence on ivermectin for prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 treatment is conflicting.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Establishment of well-differentiated camelid airway cultures to study Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus</strong> - In 2012, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) emerged in Saudi Arabia and was mostly associated with severe respiratory illness in humans. Dromedary camels are the zoonotic reservoir for MERS-CoV. To investigate the biology of MERS-CoV in camelids, we developed a well-differentiated airway epithelial cell (AEC) culture model for Llama glama and Camelus bactrianus. Histological characterization revealed progressive epithelial cellular differentiation with well-resemblance to…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Severe case of refractory immune thrombocytopenic purpura requiring splenectomy after the COVID-19 vaccine</strong> - Immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) is an autoimmune disorder caused by autoantibodies against platelet antigens resulting in platelet destruction and inhibition of platelet production. Occasionally, an inciting event such as a virus or vaccination can precipitate ITP. Several cases of ITP have been reported after the BTN162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) and mRNA-1273 (Moderna) SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) vaccines. All reported cases of post-vaccination ITP have resolved with medical therapy until this case.A…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>ROS-responsive polymer nanoparticles with enhanced loading of dexamethasone effectively modulate the lung injury microenvironment</strong> - The acute lung injury (ALI) is an inflammatory disorder associated with cytokine storm, which activates various reactive oxygen species (ROS) signaling pathways and causes severe complications in patients as currently seen in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). There is an urgent need for medication of the inflammatory lung environment and effective delivery of drugs to lung to reduce the burden of high doses of medications and attenuate inflammatory cells and pathways. Herein, we prepared…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The pharmacokinetic property and pharmacological activity of acteoside: A review</strong> - Acteoside (AC), a phenylpropanoid glycoside isolated from many dicotyledonous plants, has been demonstrated various pharmacological activities, including anti-oxidation, anti-inflammation, anti-cancer, neuroprotection, cardiovascular protection, anti-diabetes, bone and cartilage protection, hepatoprotection, and anti-microorganism. However, AC has a poor bioavailability, which can be potentially improved by different strategies. The health-promoting characteristics of AC can be attributed to its…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Specificity and Confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 Serological Test Methods in Emergency Department Populations Across the United States in 2019 and Early 2020</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: The specificity of the serological assays evaluated in a large diverse emergency department population was &gt;99% and did not vary by geographical site. A confirmatory algorithm with an automated pseudo-neutralization assay allowed testing on the same specimen while reducing the false positivity rate and increasing the value of serology screening methods.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Host Kinase CSNK2 is a Target for Inhibition of Pathogenic SARS-like β-Coronaviruses</strong> - Inhibition of the protein kinase CSNK2 with any of 30 specific and selective inhibitors representing different chemotypes, blocked replication of pathogenic human, bat, and murine β-coronaviruses. The potency of in-cell CSNK2A target engagement across the set of inhibitors correlated with antiviral activity and genetic knockdown confirmed the essential role of the CSNK2 holoenzyme in β-coronavirus replication. Spike protein endocytosis was blocked by CSNK2A inhibition, indicating that antiviral…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Transcription of the Envelope Protein by 1-L Protein-RNA Recognition Code Leads to Genes/Proteins That Are Relevant to the SARS-CoV-2 Life Cycle and Pathogenesis</strong> - The theoretical protein-RNA recognition code was used in this study to research the compatibility of the SARS-CoV-2 envelope protein (E) with mRNAs in the human transcriptome. According to a review of the literature, the spectrum of identified genes showed that the virus post-transcriptionally promotes or represses the genes involved in the SARS-CoV-2 life cycle. The identified genes/proteins are also involved in adaptive immunity, in the function of the cilia and wound healing (EMT and MET) in…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Humoral and Cellular Responses to BNT162b2 as a Booster Following Two Doses of ChAdOx1 nCov-19 Determined Using Three SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Assays and an Interferon-Gamma Release Assay: A Prospective Longitudinal Study in Healthcare Workers</strong> - Data on humoral and cellular responses to BNT162b2 as a booster dose, following two doses of ChAdOx1 nCov-19 vaccine, have seldom been reported. The aim of this study was to assess the positivity rates of three representative antibody assays targeting total, IgG, and neutralizing antibodies, and an interferon-γ release assay (IGRA), and to determine the longitudinal changes in quantitative antibody titers after each vaccination. A total of 1027 samples were collected from healthcare workers. The…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Mechanism of CK2 Inhibition by a Ruthenium-Based Polyoxometalate</strong> - CK2 is a Ser/Thr protein kinase involved in many cellular processes such as gene expression, cell cycle progression, cell growth and differentiation, embryogenesis, and apoptosis. Aberrantly high CK2 activity is widely documented in cancer, but the enzyme is also involved in several other pathologies, such as diabetes, inflammation, neurodegeneration, and viral infections, including COVID-19. Over the last years, a large number of small-molecules able to inhibit the CK2 activity have been…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Calcium bicarbonate as an antimicrobial, antiviral, and prion-inhibiting agent (Review)</strong> - Calcium bicarbonate does not act as a disinfectant at neutral pH; however, it exerts strong antimicrobial activity after it is placed in a high-voltage electric field, whereby it assumes an alkaline pH (12.4). Moreover, the microbicidal activity of the resulting solution (named CAC-717) is not influenced by the presence of organic material or resistance of the agent to inactivation. When sprayed on the skin surface, the pH of CAC-717 decreases rapidly to 8.84. CAC-717 comprises fine particles of…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong><em>Streptomyces</em> BAC Cloning of a Large-Sized Biosynthetic Gene Cluster of NPP B1, a Potential SARS-CoV-2 RdRp Inhibitor</strong> - As valuable antibiotics, microbial natural products have been in use for decades in various fields. Among them are polyene compounds including nystatin, amphotericin, and nystatin-like Pseudonocardia polyenes (NPPs). Polyene macrolides are known to possess various biological effects, such as antifungal and antiviral activities. NPP A1, which is produced by Pseudonocardia autotrophica, contains a unique disaccharide moiety in the tetraene macrolide backbone. NPP B1, with a heptane structure and…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>In vitro study on efficacy of PHELA, an African traditional drug against SARS-CoV-2</strong> - In 2019, coronavirus has made the third apparition in the form of SARS-CoV-2, a novel strain of coronavirus that is extremely pathogenic and it uses the same receptor as SARS-CoV, the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). However, more than 182 vaccine candidates have been announced; and 12 vaccines have been approved for use, although, even vaccinated individuals are still vulnerable to infection. In this study, we investigated PHELA, recognized as an herbal combination of four exotic African…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Identification of potent inhibitors of arenavirus and SARS-CoV-2 exoribonucleases by fluorescence polarization assay</strong> - Viral exoribonucleases are uncommon in the world of RNA viruses. To date, they have only been identified in the Arenaviridae and the Coronaviridae families. The exoribonucleases of these viruses play a crucial role in the pathogenicity and interplay with host innate immune response. Moreover, coronaviruses exoribonuclease is also involved in a proofreading mechanism ensuring the genetic stability of the viral genome. Because of their key roles in virus life cycle, they constitute attractive…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What We Learned About Trump, Pence, and the January 6th Mob</strong> - The third hearing on the attack on the Capitol revealed that the Proud Boys would have killed the Vice-President “if given the chance.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/what-we-learned-about-trump-pence-and-the-january-6th-mob">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Looking for Reasons to Be Hopeful About Gun Legislation</strong> - Canada initiates more real progress and, in this country, something would be better than nothing. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/looking-for-reasons-to-be-hopeful-about-gun-legislation">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jerome Powell Races to Catch Up with Inflation</strong> - In announcing a big rate rise, the Fed chief conceded that the challenge of arresting rising prices without causing a recession is getting harder. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/jerome-powell-races-to-catch-up-with-inflation">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Virginia Primary Map: Live Election Results</strong> - The latest results from the Virginia primary ahead of the 2022 midterms. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/election-2022/live-midterm-results-virginia">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Etgar Keret Reads “Mitzvah”</strong> - The author reads his story from the June 27, 2022, issue of the magazine. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-writers-voice/etgar-keret-reads-mitzvah">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>What the case of Happy the elephant tells us about ourselves</strong> -
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rkU-BVy5WooJ3fOuqC2mS4GZvvI=/640x0:5760x3840/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70998522/AP22165523103420.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Happy the elephant at the Bronx zoo in 2018. After a three-and-a-half year legal battle to move Happy from the zoo to an elephant sanctuary, last week a judge denied the request. | AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
When is an animal — or even an AI — a person?
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="obvoKT">
Last week, New York state’s highest court ruled that an elephant isn’t a legal person.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nUga5M">
The elephant in question is Happy, who’s been kept at the Bronx Zoo for the last 45 years and in isolation for the last 15. The Nonhuman Rights Project, the animal rights nonprofit that brought the case on behalf of Happy, sought to transfer her from the zoo to a roomier elephant sanctuary by invoking <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/habeas_corpus">habeas corpus</a> — a constitutional right to stop illegal detainment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zQHm3f">
To win Happy’s release, Nonhuman Rights Project had to persuade a seven-judge panel in New York that she’s a “legal person,” a term for an entity with rights. No animal in the US has ever been granted legal personhood, so Happy’s case was always a long shot, but other countries have granted aspects of legal personhood to <a href="https://theworld.org/stories/2018-05-06/colombian-high-court-grants-personhood-amazon-rainforest-case-against-country-s">forests</a> and <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rivers-get-human-rights-they-can-sue-to-protect-themselves/">bodies of water</a>, as well as an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/07/sandra-orangutan-florida-argentina-buenos-aires">orangutan</a>. And as Mitt Romney famously told a heckler at the Iowa State Fair in 2011, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2h8ujX6T0A">“corporations are people, my friend.”</a> (Corporations indeed <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/7/1/5860742/5-mistakes-liberals-make-about-corporate-personhood-and-hobby-lobby">benefit from legal personhood</a> in the US).
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z0s4Yo">
Nonhuman Rights Project argued that because elephants suffer in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/11/opinion/zoos-animal-cruelty.html">confinement of zoos</a> and there’s significant evidence that elephants like Happy are autonomous and self-aware, they too should be eligible for release under the “great writ” of habeas corpus. (In 2006, Happy became the first elephant to ever pass the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0608062103">self-recognition mirror test,</a> demonstrating the capacity to distinguish herself from other elephants.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SwEbOu">
But writing the court’s majority <a href="https://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2022/Jun22/52opn22-Decision.pdf">5-2 decision</a>, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore argued that granting habeas corpus to a nonhuman animal has never been done in the US and that doing so “would have an enormous destabilizing impact on modern society.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9WBPXf">
“The other side has always tried to frighten the courts and make them think that if we won a habeas corpus case on behalf of an elephant, that meant that we would end agriculture … and then we’d start taking your dogs away,” Steven Wise, Nonhuman Rights Project’s founder and president, told me. But Wise says “Habeas corpus focuses on one thing: the single entity who is being imprisoned. In our case that was Happy.”
</p>
<h3 id="LW439r">
New rights for new times
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rdlCqf">
To be fair, it’s not hard to imagine that if a judge one day deems an animal a legal person, it’ll open the floodgates with petitions to free other animals. But our lack of legal protections for animals has already had a destabilizing impact on modern society, given that our factory farming of them is a leading cause of <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22905381/meat-dairy-eggs-climate-change-emissions-rewilding">climate change</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/05/10/farm-pollution-deaths/">air</a> and <a href="https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/report-agriculture-runoff-is-leading-cause-of-water-pollution-in-the-us">water pollution</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22287498/meat-wildlife-biodiversity-species-plantbased">biodiversity loss</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/22/21228158/coronavirus-pandemic-risk-factory-farming-meat">pandemic risk</a>. We should worry more about the harms of hoarding rights, not expanding them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WKpdob">
However, I do worry a little about what effect granting legal personhood for individual animals would have on society’s views about animal protection. If it happens, it would be a watershed moment for animal law. But only invoking constitutional rights for species “for whom there is robust, abundant scientific evidence of self-awareness and autonomy” like elephants and chimpanzees, as Nonhuman Rights Project’s <a href="https://www.nonhumanrights.org/frequently-asked-questions/">website states</a>, could also further entrench the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22373580/animals-intelligent-smart-orcas-chickens">commonly-held belief</a> that the more intelligent an animal is, the more worthy they are of protection (a belief that leads to rather dark places when applied to humans).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="63QMzC">
When I asked Wise about that worry, he said “We’re not arguing for any more [than Happy’s release], we’re not arguing for any less.”
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_C9g_Q5p40fjzg97BVt8BPMbYVU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23636167/GettyImages_460776070.jpg"/> <cite>Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Sandra, an orangutan who was kept at the Buenos Aires Zoo for 25 years, was released and moved to a sanctuary in 2019 after a judge in Argentina granted her legal personhood.
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</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yQ5AqA">
The Wildlife Conservation Society, which manages the Bronx Zoo, declined to be interviewed for this story, but pointed me to its <a href="https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/17549/NRP-Continues-to-Misuse-the-Writ-of-Habeas-Corpus-Potentially-Risking-the-Health-and-Welfare-of-Happy-An-Elephant-at-the-Bronx-Zoo.aspx">May 2022 statement</a> issued on the day of oral arguments in the Happy case, which read in part: “[The Nonhuman Rights Project] are not ‘freeing’ Happy as they purport, but arbitrarily demanding that she be uprooted from her home and transferred to another facility where they would prefer to see her live. This demand is based on a philosophy and does not consider her behavior, history, personality, age and special needs.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r9b1g3">
Given that animals are primarily <a href="https://aldf.org/article/how-animals-are-treated-differently-from-other-types-of-property-under-the-law/">property under the law</a> and the kinds of systemic <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/11/opinion/zoos-animal-cruelty.html">mistreatment</a> that classification <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/3/9/22967328/animal-cruelty-laws-state-federal-exemptions-pennsylvania-martin-farms-dairy-calves-dehorning">permits</a>, Nonhuman Rights Project wasn’t surprised by the outcome of Happy’s case. One line in the decision, one that much of the argument hinged on and has been repeated by<strong> </strong>other judges<s></s>, helps explain why: “… the great writ [habeas corpus] protects the right to liberty of humans <em>because</em> they are humans with certain fundamental liberty rights recognized by law.” In other words, Happy can’t be freed from confinement for the basic fact that she is not human.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VVYgT4">
The idea that a right can only apply to a human simply because they are a human goes by many names: human exceptionalism, anthropocentrism, speciesism. It’s the subtext to our relationship with all other animals: We humans (however unevenly) enjoy certain rights merely because we’re human, while the millions of other species with whom we share the Earth are subject to our whims.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QizlFp">
In his <a href="https://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2022/Jun22/52opn22-Decision.pdf">dissent</a>, Judge Rowan Wilson called on his colleagues to challenge that exceptionalism: “The majority’s argument— ‘this has never been done before’— is an argument against all progress, one that flies in the face of legal history. Inherently, then, to whom to grant what rights is a normative determination, one that changes (and has changed) over time.” Wilson added, “The correct approach is not to say, ‘this has never been done’ and then quit, but to ask, ‘should this now be done even though it hasn’t before, and why?’”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1cqUZT">
Five of the seven judges did quit at “this has never been done before,” though two didn’t, and Wise says that’s a major sign of progress unto itself. Nonhuman Rights Project filed its first habeas corpus litigation in 2013, and back then, “I don’t think there was any [judge] who had any agreement with us at all for the first four years,” Wise told me. “And now we’ve had six judges in New York [who’ve] agreed with us.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HYalIl">
They may pick up more support in the coming years: Last month, Nonhuman Rights Project filed a lawsuit on behalf of three elephants in California and has plans to file similar litigation for elephants in a couple of other states, as well as India and Israel.
</p>
<h3 id="xAaK4F">
Sentience beyond the animal kingdom
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jeysGS">
A few days before Happy lost in court, the status of another nonhuman entity was also called into question. A Google engineer named Blake Lemoine was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/11/google-ai-lamda-blake-lemoine/">put on leave</a> for raising alarm bells about his belief that an artificial intelligence (AI) language model that he worked on, called LaMDA, had become sentient.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SFsQeN">
As my colleague Dylan Matthews <a href="https://www.vox.com/23167703/google-artificial-intelligence-lamda-blake-lemoine-language-model-sentient">wrote</a>, in its exchanges with Lemoine, “LaMDA expresses a deep fear of being turned off by engineers, develops a theory of the difference between ‘emotions’ and ‘feelings’ … and expresses surprisingly eloquently the way it experiences ‘time.’”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z6YbsQ">
The expert consensus is that no, LaMDA is not sentient, even if it’s really good at acting as if it is, though that doesn’t mean we should totally rule out the possibility of AI eventually becoming sentient.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TEatR8">
But making that determination would require us to have a deeper understanding of what consciousness really is, notes Jeff Sebo, a philosopher at New York University who studies animals and artificial intelligence.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QB7S62">
“The only mind that any of us can directly access is our own and so we have to make inferences about who else can have conscious experiences like ours and what kinds of conscious experiences they might be having,” Sebo told me. “I think the only epistemically responsible attitude is a state of uncertainty about what sorts of systems can realize consciousness and sentience, including certain types of biological and artificial systems.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fbiueS">
While there was an outpouring of sympathy for Happy on <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1536708816741482498">social media</a>, there was also plenty of derision — and in the court’s decision — directed toward the idea that an elephant should be deemed a legal person. Lemoine endured even more scorn for claiming that an AI is conscious.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9YISGB">
I felt a little of that scorn myself — call it biological exceptionalism. We have such little concern for many of our fellow humans, let alone animals, that fretting over an AI’s feelings seems a bit rich. But while reading the dissenting opinions in the Happy case, I was reminded that I probably shouldn’t hold that view too tightly. The circle of who and what is deserving of moral consideration has <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/4/18285986/robot-animal-nature-expanding-moral-circle-peter-singer">continually expanded</a>, and a widely held view today could be a foolish view, or even monstrous one, decades from now.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UtkU5K">
The day that an elephant is freed from a zoo using a centuries-old human rights law will only help one elephant, but it’ll be a milestone in the fight for expanding humanity’s moral and legal circle, and it might happen much sooner than you think. It might also make concerns for the wellbeing of less cognitively-complex animals, even artificial intelligence, just a little less foreign — and perhaps prepare us for a future where sentience is far more widely recognized than it is today.
</p></li>
<li><strong>Biden distanced himself from Saudi Arabia — until gas prices got bad</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustration showing Biden and Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, a street sign showing&amp;nbsp;Jamal&amp;nbsp;Khashoggi&amp;nbsp;Way, and gas price signs in the background." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/n8UN6i90gD1Rwa9NXJVEfGGFEhE=/249x0:2916x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70998379/foreignpolicy_final.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
There seems to be conflicted goals among Biden’s slogans and his top hires, and perhaps for Biden himself.  | Amanda Northrop/Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A “foreign policy for the middle class” and centering human rights collide in the Middle East.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="scQkYN">
As the average national gas price topped $5 a gallon, the White House formally announced that President Joe Biden, in a significant policy turnaround, would be traveling to Saudi Arabia.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zdz5Zb">
On the campaign trail, Biden had called the oil-rich kingdom a “pariah” in response to US intelligence groups’ conclusion that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/2/26/22296188/khashoggi-intelligence-saudi-arabia-mohammed-bin-salman">ordered</a> the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Though the <a href="https://www.vox.com/22881937/biden-saudi-arabia-mbs-khashoggi-yemen-human-rights">US relationship with Saudi Arabia</a> <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-u-s-saudi-relations-reached-the-breaking-point-11650383578">teetered</a> along <a href="https://twitter.com/mideastXmidwest/status/1501254514812276745?s=20&amp;t=h5IIFM5Z_1uZa0nnrSJ7tQ">in the background</a>,<strong> </strong>Biden had resisted directly meeting MBS. But July 13-16, he’ll travel to the Middle East. He’ll visit the Saudi city of Jeddah and meet about 10 Arab heads of state and travel to Israel and<strong> </strong>the occupied Palestinian territory.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p90kiT">
Biden’s decision to go to Saudi Arabia in July as part of his first Middle East trip as president reveals the tensions at the heart of his foreign policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0DtsyG">
So far, there have been two foreign policy bumper stickers of his administration. The first: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/biden-put-rights-heart-us-foreign-policy-then-he-pulled-punches-2021-09-13/">putting human rights at the center of foreign policy</a>. As the US has put its diplomatic power into supporting Ukraine, Biden and his team lately have framed the issue more as supporting democracies versus autocracies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5rTXwC">
The second bumper sticker is a<strong> </strong><a href="https://joebiden.com/americanleadership/">foreign policy for the middle class</a>, which feels like the international counterpart to <a href="https://prospect.org/infrastructure/building-back-america/democrats-last-chance-to-make-build-back-better-better/">Build Back Better</a>. The idea, which Biden had put forth when campaigning, is that foreign policy is too often divorced from the daily lives of Americans in the heartland, and that what the US does abroad should work for them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J0Caz4">
But making the case of a foreign policy for the middle class is tough when Biden’s signature foreign policy initiative — supporting Ukraine in Russia’s war of aggression, partly by <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/08/fact-sheet-united-states-bans-imports-of-russian-oil-liquefied-natural-gas-and-coal/">levying sanctions</a> on Russia’s energy exports and more — has exacerbated a volatile economic situation for middle- and working-class Americans.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="M7D37t">
It’s in this Middle East trip that these two taglines<strong> </strong>collide, as Biden will advocate for the US middle class in Saudi Arabia by focusing on energy policy (and regional security), thereby not centering human rights or democracy. “Look, human rights is always a part of the conversation in our foreign engagements,” a senior administration official said at a recent briefing. That’s a much softer message than putting human rights at the center.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y3Zsdq">
Biden is not the first American president who has struggled to balance competing interests and values in the Middle East, but his two slogans uniquely capture this tension.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="agpZbA">
The problem is: If Biden’s Saudi Arabia visit might only incrementally lower gas prices, will it benefit the middle class?
</p>
<h3 id="KTdrMJ">
The central tension of Biden’s foreign policy
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UNPl5s">
The rollout of the trip has hardly shown any excitement on the president’s part to make amends with MBS. It was reported on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/us/politics/biden-saudi-arabia.html">June 2</a>, and then the visit was <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/3516482-biden-trip-to-middle-east-expected-in-july/">pushed off</a> a month, and only confirmed last week, with officials reluctant to say whether Biden would sit down with MBS (though the Saudi embassy did <a href="https://www.saudiembassy.net/news/saudi-arabia-looks-forward-welcoming-president-biden">confirm</a> it). On Friday, Biden <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1537820438319009792?s=20&amp;t=6_MG9rAqVMJlyx1PocVgzg">said</a>, “I’m not going to meet with MBS. I’m going to an international meeting, and he’s going to be part of it.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZToLJe">
The president’s team has conveyed that human rights remains on the agenda. As White House spokesperson John Kirby <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2022/06/15/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-and-nsc-coordinator-for-strategic-communications-john-kirby/">said</a>, “I can just tell you that — that his foreign policy is really rooted in values — values like freedom of the press; values like human rights, civil rights.”
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hXsnYkKOO0aNPNogNzGxXVRez4M=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23636332/GettyImages_1241331215.jpg"/> <cite>Nathan Howard/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A security officer watches people attending an event celebrating the renaming of the street outside the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Jamal Khashoggi Way in Washington, DC, on June 15.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rXSNjq">
There seem to be conflicting goals among Biden’s slogans and his top hires, and perhaps for Biden himself. The president may be the most resistant to meeting MBS. He said that his presidency “should stand for something,” when privately renouncing a prospective meeting with MBS in recent weeks, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/05/biden-wants-to-get-out-more-seething-that-his-standing-is-now-worse-than-trumps-00037278">Politico</a>, in what seemed like an Aaron Sorkin scene.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vIAXbm">
Biden’s unscripted comments in the past have also<strong> </strong>given a window into his thinking. At a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcKVCtg5dxM">Harvard</a> Q&amp;A in 2014, he chastised Arab and Muslim countries the US partners with for compounding the civil war in Syria; he blamed Saudi Arabia, among others, for contributing to violent extremism there. “Our biggest problem was our allies,” Biden <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29528482">said</a>. When asked about how human rights considerations affect the US approach to Saudi Arabia, he said, “I could go on and on and on.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X5qwFP">
His “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/11/21/democratic-debate-joe-biden-saudi-arabia/">pariah</a>” comment and condemnation of Saudi Arabia at Democratic presidential debates also reflected more off-the-cuff remarks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KTtZIn">
In short, “centering human rights” seemed to be not just a reaction to President Donald Trump’s coziness with dictators, but also a reflection of Biden’s gut feeling about democracies delivering better for people.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kX6avA">
But Biden, on the campaign trail and in office, also talked adamantly about creating a foreign policy for the middle class. To add substance to the slogan, his advisers in 2020 released a <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/09/23/making-u.s.-foreign-policy-work-better-for-middle-class-pub-82728">think tank report</a> that outlined the economic and trade implications of foreign policy that would “work” for the middle class. Its key recommendations are widely supported, albeit vague, like pursuing trade policies that create jobs, rebuilding relationships with allies, and protecting supply chains and people alike from inevitable economic shifts. There was little discussion of fossil fuel policy, though, except for a call to transition to renewable and green energy sources.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U5oWhX">
Now, with gas prices as high as they are, contributing to worsening inflation, that blueprint is being put to the test.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DfTivv">
Domestically, “Biden’s drilling policies have nothing to do with gas prices,” <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/6/17/23169695/record-high-gas-prices-economy-impact">as Vox’s Rebecca Leber explained</a>. Internationally, the sanctions on Russia, along with surging post-pandemic demand, have contributed to the high price of global crude oil. Since imposing the sanctions,<strong> </strong>the White House has accelerated its energy diplomacy with countries like <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/17/venezuela-oil-sanctions-chevron/">Venezuela</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/11/politics/oil-diplomacy-saudi-uae-tensions-russia-ukraine/index.html">others</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LFV0am">
The Biden White House is emphasizing the president’s commitment to human rights, while planning a trip to Jeddah with Arab leaders that looks like the opposite of the <a href="https://www.state.gov/summit-for-democracy/">Summit for Democracy</a> Biden hosted in December.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Yoenj7">
Some observers, like Khalid Aljabri, a Saudi entrepreneur and physician, think the administration can do both. “Despite being a victim of MBS and my family suffering on a daily basis from his ruthless campaign of intimidation” — Aljabri’s father is a former Saudi intelligence leader whom <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mohammed-bin-salman-alleged-plot-saad-aljabri-60-minutes-2021-10-24/">MBS has targeted</a>, and Aljabri’s siblings <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-calls-saudi-arabia-free-relatives-former-spy-chief-2022-06-10/">are jailed</a> in Saudi Arabia on spurious charges — “I still want to help the US relationship,” he told me. “I don’t think this is a fight of interest versus human rights. I think they’re intertwined.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xgoj3c">
This tension is also reflected in the personnel Biden has hired. “Candidate Biden said stuff that he did not even implement in his choice of the people who are going to manage this relationship,” Yasmine Farouk, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, told me. Most Biden appointees agree that, on Saudi Arabia, “we should preserve this partnership and make it better, instead of having them as enemies or, you know, keeping in distance with them.”
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SM7GiCVEmUHJFEsHMLpBGm76-Ec=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23636288/GettyImages_673190748.jpg"/> <cite>Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Kingdom Council/ Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
US special envoy Brett McGurk meeting with MBS, then Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, in 2017.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Yms9ue">
The White House’s Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk, who has described himself as “a friend of Saudi Arabia,” epitomizes that worldview. “Look, I’ve worked with MBS, and he actually is someone who you can reason with,” McGurk <a href="https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debate/unresolved-shifting-power-middle-east/">said</a> in 2019, when he was in the private sector. It was almost a year after MBS, the CIA had determined, had ordered the assassination and dismemberment of Khashoggi. In recent months, McGurk and energy envoy Amos Hochstein have been shuttling to Saudi Arabia.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3DHVZ5">
It’s a contrast to other administration officials’ views. USAID Administrator Samantha Power <a href="https://www.cfr.org/event/2022-international-affairs-fellowship-iaf-conference-keynote-session-samantha-power">delivered</a> a talk billed as focused on “strengthening democracy and reversing the rise of authoritarianism across the world,” this week. “Look, on the Saudi trip, you know … we have significant concerns about human rights. I think President Biden has been clear about that, will be clear about that,” she said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="e11xrJ">
Though Biden in his first month did release the US intelligence report showing MBS’s responsibility for the <a href="https://dawnmena.org/three-years-on-efforts-in-truth-and-accountability-for-the-murder-of-jamal-khashoggi-persist/">Khashoggi<strong> </strong>murder</a> and other authoritarian acts, human rights watchdogs say that not enough has been done to hold MBS accountable, like directly sanctioning him. A group of NGOs called on Biden to establish <a href="https://pomed.org/joint-letter-president-biden-must-set-preconditions-for-meeting-with-saudi-crown-prince/">preconditions for the trip</a>, including releasing political prisoners documented by the State Department, ending travel bans and other surveillance tactics, a moratorium on executions, and improving women’s rights.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qNqAyK">
A former State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that human rights is just one item on a long list of issues. “I don’t see it being the make or break issue that, frankly, it has never been,” the official said.
</p>
<h3 id="i0qcqI">
Saudi oil isn’t going to make a huge difference for Americans
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7OB3Go">
When the decision to travel to Saudi Arabia was first reported earlier in June, the trip was framed as about finding any way possible to lower oil prices while the US leads a charge against Russia, a major oil producer. But energy experts say that even with Saudi Arabia’s spare capacity and influence among other oil-producing countries in the region, there is no tap that can be quickly turned on.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="njenjj">
“If any Americans are paying close attention to this, they couldn’t be faulted for thinking that President Biden is going to go to Saudi Arabia and then the next day, gas prices are going to come down,” Amy Hawthorne, of the Project on Middle East Democracy, said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WtWQxA">
But, she and others said, that’s not how oil prices work.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D7CS2p">
Gas prices are high for two main reasons: issues with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/white-house-tries-blame-us-refiners-its-own-overheating-error-2022-06-17/">refineries’ capacity</a> (which is low) and the price of crude oil (which is high due to demand surging during the relative Covid-19 recovery and supply dropping as less Russian oil enters the market). “The root cause is not about Saudi Arabia,” said Karen Young, an energy expert at the Middle East Institute. “But I think the administration is sort of focused on Saudi Arabia as a lever.”
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2cq10ArbBPv05jmejj2E4ysplMU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23636307/GettyImages_1237153265.jpg"/> <cite>Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A flaring tower and storage tanks at a refinery in El Paso, Texas, in December 2021.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="www0LD">
Saudi Arabia could make a gradual adjustment to the global supply. As a leader within the oil-producing group OPEC+ (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, plus Russia), Saudi Arabia could push to ramp up oil production, but the group’s spare capacity is limited. Young says that Saudi Arabia probably could boost it an additional 2 million barrels a day. “It doesn’t necessarily do much to change where prices are,” she said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="23TVm4">
Still, Biden seeks to do everything to lower prices. “It’s clear that this president — like just about every other president out there — wants to be understood by the American public as doing as much as he can to put pump prices in a downward motion,” said Jonathan Elkind, a former senior Obama Energy Department official who’s now at Columbia University.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VWX5iV">
Oil prices relate to factors that neither the US nor Saudi Arabia has individual control over, Elkind reiterated. But he added that Saudi producing more could make an incremental difference, and “you put enough increments together, and all of a sudden, you’ve got a sizable impact.”
</p>
<h3 id="4dNTWj">
If not oil, what is the purpose of the Mideast trip?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0KRm4A">
This week, Biden’s team has presented the trip as something different — perhaps more ambitious on Middle East policy and less ambitious on energy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="79NKRJ">
As the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2022/06/14/background-press-call-by-a-senior-administration-official-on-the-presidents-trip-to-the-middle-east/">senior official</a> briefed the press on the trip, the list of what would be accomplished got long: “expanding regional, economic, and security cooperation, including new and promising infrastructure and climate initiatives, as well as deterring threats from Iran, advancing human rights, and ensuring global energy and food security.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NAhCGJ">
The best prospect for success on the trip is in consolidating the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/world/middleeast/yemen-cease-fire.html">Yemen ceasefire</a> that has held for almost three months. US diplomat Tim Lenderking quietly negotiated the deal, after seven years of the Saudi-led coalition bombing the country. The US is in some ways a party to the conflict. The Department of Defense has “administered at least $54.6 billion of military support to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from fiscal years 2015 through 2021,” according to a newly released <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105988">Government Accountability Office </a>report. Biden last year said the US would stop supporting “offensive operations” in Yemen, though <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/saudi-war-crimes-yemen/">the suffering from US weapons continues</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0VSQq0">
Peace in Yemen is critical, but it doesn’t require a presidential visit.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WcIDo9">
There are a number of other goals the administration might pursue. Going to Saudi Arabia to assuage the concerns of the kingdom and other Arab states about a <a href="https://www.vox.com/23002229/return-iran-nuclear-deal-vienna-explained">nuclear agreement with Iran</a> may be a worthwhile endeavor — except that Iran and the countries negotiating with it, including the US, appear far from reviving the deal.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="38F1by">
Biden may try to<strong> </strong>get Arab states more committed to sanctioning Russia; Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and others have been <a href="https://www.vox.com/23156512/russia-ukraine-war-global-south-nonaligned-movement">reluctant to pick a side</a> in the conflict. And<strong> </strong>Israeli security will, at least implicitly, be baked into Biden’s meeting with Arab leaders as his team seeks to build on the Trump administration’s normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states. (The Israel and Palestine stops will have their own<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/06/15/israel-palestinians-biden-visit-abbas">issues and pitfalls</a>.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bzJ2GJ">
One possible outcome of the trip would be a move toward rebuilding an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/26/saudi-arabia-united-states-relations-biden-repression-conditions/">institutional relationship</a> with Saudi Arabia.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SWD0wa">
While the kingdom was conservative in all senses of the word before MBS, it did have a more consultative governing process and less restrictive political environment, and the US maintained normal relations with the royal family’s government. The Biden administration has resisted deepening relations with MBS so far. Biden also didn’t quickly dispatch a US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The nomination hearing for his choice, Michael Ratney, was held last week, and Biden announced his nomination <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-nominate-michael-ratney-envoy-saudi-arabia-white-house-says-2022-04-22/">more than a year</a> after taking office.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EGduB4">
Aljabri thinks the White House and National Security Council are playing too big of a role in engaging Saudi Arabia’s leadership and the US government should work more closely with Riyadh through established forums. That would look less like National Security Adviser <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-u-s-saudi-relations-reached-the-breaking-point-11650383578?AID=11557093&amp;PID=6415797&amp;SID=bi%7C625f13c81da02b6b3e69c2bb%7C1655504348516aoqe25ak&amp;subid=Business+Insider&amp;cjevent=86f87aa1ee8b11ec834e03910a82b839&amp;tier_1=affiliate&amp;tier_2=moa&amp;tier_3=Business+Insider&amp;tier_4=3861930&amp;tier_5=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fhow-u-s-saudi-relations-reached-the-breaking-point-11650383578">Jake Sullivan meeting with MBS</a>, or McGurk managing high-level relationships, and more like engagement up and down the Saudi system.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kZbUEO">
“Trying to rekindle the institution-to-institution partnerships between high-level officials, and taking MBS out of the equation is the way forward,” Aljabri said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JJgglu">
Still, more engagement risks empowering MBS. He is more of a Saddam Hussein-like leader than a benign dictator, critics warn, and he may not be a trustworthy partner.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MJ7xVV">
Bruce Riedel, a former intelligence official who has worked extensively in the Middle East, described MBS as a rogue leader who, in an unprecedented fashion, has jailed <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/02/12/the-case-of-saudi-arabias-mohammed-bin-nayef/">members</a> of the royal family to consolidate his power. “The result of this is a recklessness that has been truly astounding,” he told me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uLQ2mR">
“To me, it’s an unnecessary visit that is not likely to enhance the president’s poll numbers,” said Riedel, who is now a Brookings Institution fellow. “In fact, it’s likely to diminish them, because when you get to the first of August, and the price at the gas station is still $5 a gallon, people are going to be pretty disappointed: ‘So we went to Saudi Arabia, what is the payoff for me?’”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZxN3Fb">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AZUHBR">
</p></li>
<li><strong>The SEC did a sensible thing on climate change. A right-wing campaign is trying to kill it.</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A Wall Street sign with the New York Stock Exchange building behind it displaying American flags." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/puq5M-uDP7ibg4TpXZFe7E9fa5o=/622x0:5661x3779/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70998180/GettyImages_1210464346.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is pictured on April 20, 2020, at Wall Street in New York City. | Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Even a Wall Street-endorsed climate rule is facing serious headwinds.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OazPzk">
As drought spreads and sea levels rise, the economic impacts of climate change will run in the trillions of dollars. The insurance firm Swiss Re projects climate disasters would cost the world as much as $23 trillion by 2050, bigger than the impact from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-swiss-re-idUKKBN27R1EU">the pandemic</a> and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/a-guide-to-the-financial-crisis--10-years-later/2018/09/10/114b76ba-af10-11e8-a20b-5f4f84429666_story.html">Great Recession of 2009</a> combined.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ENSxbJ">
It’s reasonable business planning to account for all this foreseeable risk<strong> </strong>—<strong> </strong>just like planning for cyberattacks or business disruptions from a pandemic. Last year, for instance, the US had to spend <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/esg/podcasts/us-climate-related-disasters-cost-145-billion-in-2021-and-more-ahead-scientists-say#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20National%20Oceanic%20and,disasters%20reached%20%24145%20billion%20in">$145 billion</a> dealing with floods, fires, and other climate-related disasters.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ogPm5x">
Yet somehow, climate change has fallen through the cracks of US financial regulation. Publicly traded companies are required to disclose information about “material” risks that affect their company regardless of their cause, from sanctions to supply chain chaos. But there are no uniform standards for disclosing how much fossil fuel pollution they generate or the impact that climate change could have on their future growth. Instead, companies have been left free to <a href="https://observer.com/2022/05/tesla-removed-from-sp500-esg-index/">inflate their environmental progress</a>, all with little scrutiny from the public.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gVktIc">
This kind of information is, in theory, essential to a functioning free market, so investors can make decisions based on complete information. But fossil fuel interests, conservative ideologues, and corporate trade groups are striving to keep shareholders in the dark on climate risks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jkry0q">
The Biden administration is trying to make companies more publicly accountable for the <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0426">risk</a> of the climate crisis. A linchpin of Biden’s plan is a draft rule the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed in March. Over 500 pages, the SEC <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/04/11/2022-06342/the-enhancement-and-standardization-of-climate-related-disclosures-for-investors#citation-57-p21340">rule</a> proposes that publicly traded companies disclose how climate change affects their business outlook and identify a board member or board committee to focus on climate-related risks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ptlN3c">
Once the rule is finalized, companies will have to disclose how their operations are affected by extreme weather events and the impact of climate change on the short- and medium-term business outlook. They’ll also have to report the emissions both from their company’s operations and from how their products are used. This is particularly bad news for fossil fuel companies with business models predicated on selling pollution. Until this rule, they haven’t had to fully account for the environmental impact from things like selling gas that’s burned by consumers’ cars.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l1Rp1S">
“This is a rule, in other words, that helps the free market act like the free market, giving investors exactly the information they need to make the decisions,” Emory University business law expert George Georgiev said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WoLutN">
As the draft rule’s comment period came to a close, it’s clear any regulation on climate change faces serious headwinds. The loudest protests have come from right-wing groups and corporate-aligned nonprofits that have flooded the public comments with previews of the argument they’ll take to courts.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hSGN3o">
Plenty of businesses in the financial sector stand to benefit from this rule, like the investing giant BlackRock, which has pledged to align its assets with climate goals. But some could be hurt. The companies that benefit from greenwashing their climate commitments are doing everything they can to protect the chaotic status quo.
</p>
<h3 id="246Yyx">
Financial transparency on climate change is hardly a radical idea
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gMfjvS">
The SEC has required and standardized public company disclosures since 1933. In recent decades, the SEC has issued nonbinding guidance on how publicly traded companies should consider <a href="https://www.sec.gov/corpfin/covid-19-disclosure-considerations">Covid-19 disruptions</a>, <a href="https://www.sec.gov/corpfin/sample-letter-companies-pertaining-to-ukraine">Russia’s invasion of Ukraine</a>, and even a feared <a href="https://www.sec.gov/rules/interp/33-7609.htm">“Y2K” meltdown</a> at the turn of the 21st century, so the companies would meet their fiduciary duty.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EAYqJ4">
But the SEC has been painfully slow on climate change. Right now, businesses disclose the risks and costs of their business on the climate on a voluntary, patchy basis with no clear standardization.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oN1btP">
A 2020 Government Accountability Office surveyed 32 midsize and large publicly traded companies and found little <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-530.pdf">consistency</a>. Airlines, for example, used years anywhere between 1990 and 2017 as the baseline for calculating their climate footprint. Water companies have used completely different measurements for reporting water extraction. Some companies would just report carbon emissions, while others would report total greenhouse gas emissions (including sources like methane).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GAnER6">
The proposed SEC rule cites other evidence of companies not paying attention to this risk, like an internal survey of climate-related keywords in companies’ 10-Ks between June 2019 and December 2020. They found only 31 percent mentioned climate change at all.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dBevol">
This information is not just to benefit climate change efforts; it is also useful to investors. It makes clearer, for instance, that a retail company’s warehouses might be threatened by increased flooding, that an airline company might have to ground more flights because of rising heat waves, or that a bank’s backing of major fossil fuel expansion has the strong chance of backfiring in a world that transitions to renewables. Without any regulation and standardization, companies will just continue to try to outshine one another on their environmental and social commitments without hard data to back it. This mismatch will become an existential risk to financial instability if, for example, extreme weather pummels a business that did not prepare accordingly.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4ZMm89">
Environmental activists have pushed for more from companies by proposing shareholder resolutions at annual meetings that ask for more transparency, but have <a href="https://www.vox.com/23046282/banks-climate-shareholder-votes-fossil-fuels">met with mixed success</a> in shareholder votes that don’t bind the company to taking action.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f7lW5r">
In this regulatory vacuum, voluntary global affiliations have cropped up, including the Net Zero Assets Managers Initiative, representing some $43 trillion in assets, and Climate Action 100+, representing more than $60 trillion. Another of these groups is run out of the Financial Stability Board as a Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), a voluntary system that has grown to more than 3,000 companies. The task force’s recommendations tell companies to consider the short-, medium-, and long-term climate impacts, emissions that result from investment decisions, and their operations’ pollution, and account for the changing climate’s consequences for the business. The <a href="https://www.fsb-tcfd.org/supporters/">hundreds of companies</a> that voluntarily comply with these standards aren’t necessarily green or good for the environment, but it’s an extra gold star for their sustainability transparency.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="12RkJe">
Eight countries, including the UK, have passed laws that will mirror the TFCD’s recommendations, but the US would remain an outlier without the SEC rule. “Investors put their money where they think there’s a good opportunity and good information,” said Seth Rothstein, managing director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets. “If we don’t have good information, we run the risk of falling behind internationally.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="naChdI">
The SEC’s rule is basically the US playing catch-up, based on standards the mainstream corporate community aligned with TFCD have already backed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8m6kTo">
Initially, companies will have to spend extra to comply with the rule — up to $530,000 a year for larger companies by the SEC’s <a href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-government-and-politics-environment-07b736081cf7cd8e46bb40e9834e717e">estimate</a>, but it will vary depending on how much companies are doing already on climate disclosure. Typically, the costs of rules shrink over time. Otherwise, the rule itself is quite modest. The SEC is “not saying you should or shouldn’t invest in climate products,” said Rothstein. “They’re just saying, tell investors what you’re doing and do it in a consistent way.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fRXPnH">
Environmentalists and some Democratic lawmakers argue the SEC could be doing even more. The SEC does not change how companies disclose climate-related activities like PR campaigns and political influence, the kind of activities that tend to be outsourced to nonprofits that shield their activities from the public. In March, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) <a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-long-awaited-draft-sec-climate-rule-does-not-go-far-enough-in-requiring-disclosure-of-material-information">called</a> it a “failure of nerve that shies away from a perfectly legal, necessary response to the climate danger we face” because political efforts remain “the single most material disclosures a company could make to achieve climate safety.”
</p>
<h3 id="AFncqR">
Right-wing groups claim financial transparency is an attack on free speech
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dhnVkR">
Unsurprisingly, the SEC is facing immense pressure to withdraw this rule because of the same shadowy political spending that companies don’t have to disclose in the first place. Groups like the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, Americans for Prosperity, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute have flooded the SEC with comments that argue company free speech would be violated.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CBAgmD">
Trade groups and right-wing think tanks have argued that requiring companies to report these emissions is akin to violating their First Amendment rights of free speech, pointing to a court case that ruled a regulation requiring the disclosure of conflict-zone minerals would amount to <a href="https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/national-assn-of-manufacturers-v-securities-and-exchange-commission/">“compelled speech”</a> and violated the companies’ rights.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mNPfGr">
The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry lobby, has <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20892344-comments-to-sec-on-esg-rule#document/p33/a2075289">argued</a> the rule “could raise serious First Amendment issues under recent applying strict scrutiny to content-based laws compelling speech.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3xpZkg">
The argument has found purchase with conservative lawmakers, like West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who picked up the argument in his 2021 <a href="https://www.investmentnews.com/w-va-attorney-general-threatens-to-sue-sec-over-enhanced-esg-disclosures-204490">letter</a> to Treasury last year. In Congress, 19 Republican senators argued in their <a href="https://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-10-22/s71022-20122544-278541.pdf">submitted comments</a> that the rule is “not within the SEC’s mission to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.” Another <a href="https://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-10-22/s71022-20123081-279409.pdf">40 Republican</a> representatives wrote that the rule will act to “undermine and shame public companies,” while Republican attorneys general describes the rule as a “total reordering of [the SEC’s] present disclosure regime.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lDiyDi">
The attack on regulation under the guise of First Amendment rights has become more familiar in recent years. “Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has been steadily giving corporations more and more leeway, more and more rights,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a corporate law expert who has published several books on corporate speech.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bGz38x">
The court also opened the door to more of these lawsuits, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/us/supreme-court-donor-privacy.html">striking down</a> a California law that required nonprofits to disclose their donors, siding with the Americans for Prosperity Foundation’s argument against disclosing their donors and providing IRS 990 forms to the state. Other legal challenges to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/07/charles-koch-elections-billions-money-cash">campaign finance laws</a> and <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/koch-anti-union-janus-supreme-court">unions</a> have used the First Amendment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8ByI9f">
Legal experts supportive of the SEC rule consider the argument a long shot in courts. “I think that argument is really far-fetched,” Emory’s Georgiev said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CZ0PZQ">
But it’s still worrisome. If it succeeds, whether in courts or as a scare tactic to get the SEC to backtrack, it sets a dangerous precedent for the financial system at large. “If this climate rule is violating the First Amendment, it’s been all nine decades [the SEC has been] violating the First Amendment,” Georgiev said. “They will definitely try it out in courts. At the end of the day, a lot of far-fetched arguments succeed in courts.”
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Chennaiyin signs Sangwan and Bag</strong> - Sports Reporter</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Indian football | CoA forms advisory committee to assist it in running AIFF</strong> - The 12-member advisory committee was appointed by the CoA to oversee the day-to-day matters of various departments of the AIFF</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Last Wish, Queenstown, Johnny Bravo, Ashwa Yudvir, Ascoval and Stormy Ocean excel</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>ICC women's ODI rankings | Smriti Mandhana holds on to eighth position, Jhulan Goswami slips to sixth</strong> - In the all-rounder's list, another Indian Deepti Sharma remained static in the seventh position</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tokyo Olympics cost ¥1.42 trillion, say organisers as they close books</strong> - Accurately tracking costs of the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics is a moving maze because of recent fluctuations in the exchange rate between the dollar and the Japanese yen</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Webinar on career opportunities in the digital age</strong> - It will be presented by Digital University Kerala and The Hindu Education Plus</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Uncertainty prevails over Rythu Bandhu date</strong> - Centre yet to give nod for raising resources through OMBs</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>TNEA tweaks counselling to cut vacancies in top rung colleges</strong> - Last year 20,288 seats remained vacant after allotment</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Andhra Pradesh: Take a cue from Kerala and oppose Agnipath, Left parties urge Jagan</strong> - They also asked the government to withdraw the cases filed against youth</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>KCR failed Telangana, tweets Revanth</strong> -</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>France elections: Macron rejects prime minister’s offer to resign</strong> - Elisabeth Borne was criticised by some commentators after Mr Macron’s coalition lost its majority on Sunday.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov auctions Nobel medal for $103m</strong> - Dmitry Muratov says all the money from the auction will go to help refugees from the war in Ukraine.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Africa is a hostage of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Zelensky says</strong> - Russia is stopping grain leaving Ukrainian ports, sparking warnings tens of millions risk famine.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ben Stiller meets Zelensky in Kyiv as ambassador for UN refugee agency</strong> - The actor has been a Goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) since 2016.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Patrice Lumumba: Why Belgium is returning a Congolese hero’s golden tooth</strong> - All that remains of Congo’s murdered leader Patrice Lumumba is handed to his family in Brussels.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Unexpected polar bear population may offer some hope for the species</strong> - The remote place these bears call home could offer refuge as sea ice dwindles. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1861675">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Picasso‘s favorite pigment may one day recycle metals from your cell phone</strong> - Prussian blue binds with gold- and platinum-group metals thanks to jungle-gym structure. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1861831">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>High fossil fuel prices are good for the planet—here’s how to keep it that way</strong> - Switching to renewables will only happen if gas prices remain expensive. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1861479">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>We got a leaked look at NASA’s future Moon missions—and likely delays</strong> - “Has nobody at NASA read the space policy?” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1861201">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The race to produce green steel</strong> - The steel industry is testing new technologies that don’t rely on fossil fuels. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1861360">link</a></p></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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<li><strong>A 60 years old billionaire marries a hot 25 year old girl…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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After honeymoon they throw a party celebrating their marriage…
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After a few drinks, billionaire’s friends want to know the secret of how he landed 25 yo hottie..
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“It’s simple” billionaire boasts… “I faked my age”
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“Yes, but even for a 40/45 years old guy…she is sensational, what age btw did you tell you are?” A friend asks.
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With a smile on his lips billionaire responds “85 years old”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/PickUpTruckWAP"> /u/PickUpTruckWAP </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vgzc76/a_60_years_old_billionaire_marries_a_hot_25_year/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vgzc76/a_60_years_old_billionaire_marries_a_hot_25_year/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>If a woman sleeps with 10 men she’s a slut</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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If a man does it, he is gay Definitely gay
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/BadManBryan"> /u/BadManBryan </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vh7epk/if_a_woman_sleeps_with_10_men_shes_a_slut/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vh7epk/if_a_woman_sleeps_with_10_men_shes_a_slut/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>I buy all my guns from a guy called T-Rex</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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He is a small arms dealer
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Chilipepah"> /u/Chilipepah </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vgxl5x/i_buy_all_my_guns_from_a_guy_called_trex/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vgxl5x/i_buy_all_my_guns_from_a_guy_called_trex/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>I almost lost my job as a DJ at a country music station</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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I accidentally played the same three songs for five hours. Fortunately, our listeners didn’t seem to notice.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Animeking1108"> /u/Animeking1108 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vgwt11/i_almost_lost_my_job_as_a_dj_at_a_country_music/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vgwt11/i_almost_lost_my_job_as_a_dj_at_a_country_music/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>My dad told me people shouldn’t get ribbons just for participating because it rewards them for losing.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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So I took down his confederate flag.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/rappidkill"> /u/rappidkill </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vhao0e/my_dad_told_me_people_shouldnt_get_ribbons_just/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vhao0e/my_dad_told_me_people_shouldnt_get_ribbons_just/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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