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<title>19 March, 2023</title>
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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>Remote work as a new dimension of polarisation: Individual and contextual determinants of the relationship between working from home and job quality</strong> -
<div>
This chapter provides an empirical overview of the extent and distribution of working from home across EU member states and the changes due to its sharp rise following the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapter describes working from a home as an increasingly important dimension in the way new digital technologies reinforce inequalities among already existing lines. Neither the possibility to move tasks remotely nor the probability of being offered the option by your employer are equally distributed. Unfortunately, they tend to be higher for those already doing better on the labour market: those in digitally advanced sectors and larger firms, those with higher skills and doing more abstract and complex tasks, and those on standard employment contracts. On top of this unevenness in access, working from home itself also carries benefits that may increase productivity and wages. Both through access and benefits a rise in working from home then risks widening the polarisation on the labour market. This chapter shows that indeed, remote work growth mainly benefited those more advantaged on the labour market, and is itself associated with better working conditions and higher wages, although also with higher working hours. Importantly, there is substantial variation in how unequally telework grows between sectors and countries. Digital intensity increases this polarisation by working from home further, while stronger worker representation through greater union density can curtail some of this inequality.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/xdzhf/" target="_blank">Remote work as a new dimension of polarisation: Individual and contextual determinants of the relationship between working from home and job quality</a>
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<li><strong>Effect of Andrographis paniculata treatment for patients with early-stage COVID-19 on the prevention of pneumonia: A retrospective cohort study</strong> -
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There is a need for safe and cost-effective treatments for COVID-19. Andrographis paniculata (AP) is an herbal plant that has been used for centuries to treat upper respiratory tract infections. Andrographolide is the major active component of AP that inhibits intracellular SARS-CoV-2 replication and has anti-inflammatory action. We performed a retrospective cohort study to evaluate the therapeutic and adverse effects of oral AP-products on COVID-19 by using the risk of pneumonia diagnosed by chest radiography as an indicator. This study included patients 15 to 60 years of age with laboratory-confirmed early-stage (asymptomatic or mild) COVID-19 without comorbidities at seven hospitals in three adjacent provinces in Thailand, between December 2020 and March 2021. Patients were treated for five days with either AP-extract (60 mg andrographolide, 3 times daily) or crude-AP (48 mg andrographolide, 3 times daily), when available. Patient information was prospectively recorded in the structured medical records and retrospectively reviewed. All eligible patients who received AP-treatment were included and control patients who did not receive AP-treatment were randomly selected using a ratio of approximately 1:1. Pneumonia occurred in 1/243 AP-treatment patients and 69/285 control patients. The risks of pneumonia after adjusting for confounding effects were 0.3% (95%CI, 0%-0.9%) and 24.3% (95%CI, 19.0%-29.7%) in the AP-treatment and control groups, respectively. The number needed to treat to avoid pneumonia development in one patient was four (95% CI, 3-5). Eight patients developed mild adverse events. AP-treatment regimens are acceptably safe and associated with highly reduced rates of pneumonia for patients with early-stage COVID-19.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.15.23287287v1" target="_blank">Effect of Andrographis paniculata treatment for patients with early-stage COVID-19 on the prevention of pneumonia: A retrospective cohort study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Protection against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 BA.5 infection conferred by the Pfizer-BioNTech Original/BA.4-5 bivalent vaccine compared to the mRNA Original (ancestral) monovalent vaccines - a matched cohort study in France</strong> -
<div>
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This cohort study aimed to evaluate the protection against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection conferred by the Pfizer-BioNTech Original/BA.4-5 bivalent vaccine compared to mRNA Original (ancestral) monovalent vaccines. Individuals of ≥60 years old who received a booster dose between 03/10/2022 and 06/11/2022, when both the bivalent and monovalent vaccines were used in France, were included. Individuals who received a booster dose with (1) a monovalent Original mRNA vaccine (Pfizer- BioNTech or Moderna) or (2) the bivalent Pfizer-BioNTech Original/BA.4-5 vaccine were  matched. The outcome of interest was a positive SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR or antigenic test associated to self-reported symptoms, at least seven days after receiving the booster dose. Data were analysed with a Cox Proportional-Hazards model adjusted for the presence of previous infection, age, sex, and the presence of medium risk comorbidities. A total of 136 852 individuals were included and followed for a median period of 77 days. The bivalent vaccine conferred an additional protection of 8% [95% CI: 0% - 16%, p=0.045] against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to the monovalent vaccines.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.17.23287411v1" target="_blank">Protection against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 BA.5 infection conferred by the Pfizer-BioNTech Original/BA.4-5 bivalent vaccine compared to the mRNA Original (ancestral) monovalent vaccines - a matched cohort study in France</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Demographic and co-morbidity characteristics of patients tested for SARS-CoV-2 from March 2020 to January 2022 in a national clinical research network: results from PCORnet®</strong> -
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Background Prior studies have documented differences in the age, racial, and ethnic characteristics among patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, little is known about how these characteristics changed over time during the pandemic and whether racial, ethnic, and age disparities evident early in the pandemic were persistent over time. This study reports on trends in SARS-CoV-2 infections among U.S. adults from March 1, 2020 to January, 31 2022, using data from electronic health records. Methods and Findings We captured repeated cross-sectional information from 43 large healthcare systems in 52 U.S. States and territories, participating in PCORnet®, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network. Using distributed queries executed at each participating institution, we acquired information for all patients ≥ 20 years of age who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 (both positive and negative results), including care setting, age, sex, race, and ethnicity by month as well as comorbidities (assessed with diagnostic codes). During this time period, 1,325,563 patients had positive (13% inpatient) and 6,705,868 patients had negative (25% inpatient) viral tests for SARS-CoV-2. Disparities in testing positive were present across racial and ethnic groups, especially in the inpatient setting. Compared to White patients, Black or African American and other race patients had relative risks for testing positive of 1.5 or greater in the inpatient setting for 12 of the 23-month study period. Compared to nonHispanic patients, Hispanic patients had relative risks for testing positive in the inpatient setting of 1.5 or greater for 16 of 23. Ethnic and racial differences were present in emergency department and ambulatory settings but were less common across time than in inpatient settings. Trends in infections by age group demonstrated higher test positivity for older patients in the inpatient setting only for most months, except for June and July of 2020, April to August 2021, and January 2022. Comorbidities were common, with much higher rates among those hospitalized; hypertension (38% of patients SARS-CoV-2 positive vs. 29% for those negative) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (22% vs. 13%) were the most common. Conclusion and Relevance Racial and ethnic disparities changed over time among persons infected with SARS-CoV-2. These trends highlight potential underlying mechanisms, such as poor access to care and differential vaccination rates, that may have contributed to greater disparities, especially early in the pandemic. Monitoring data on characteristics of patients testing positive in real time could allow public health officials and policymakers to tailor interventions to ensure that patients and communities most in need are receiving adequate testing, mitigation strategies, and treatment.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.17.23287396v1" target="_blank">Demographic and co-morbidity characteristics of patients tested for SARS-CoV-2 from March 2020 to January 2022 in a national clinical research network: results from PCORnet®</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Chest CT findings and outcomes of COVID-19 in second wave: A cross-sectional study in a tertiary care centre in Northern India</strong> -
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Introduction: The COVID19 pandemic has posed a serious threat to global health, with developing nations like India being amongst the worst affected. Chest CT scans play a pivotal role in the diagnosis and evaluation of COVID19, and certain CT features may aid in predicting the prognosis of COVID19 illness. Methods: This was a single center, hospital based, cross sectional study conducted at a tertiary care center in Northern India during the second wave of the COVID19 pandemic from May June 2021. The study included 473 patients who tested positive for COVID-19. A high resolution chest CT scan was performed within five days of hospitalization, and patientrelated information was extracted retrospectively from medical records. Univariable and Multivariable analysis was done to study the predictors of poor outcome. Results: A total of 473 patients were included in the study, with 75.5% being males. The mean total CT score was 29.89 ± 9.06. Fibrosis was present in 17.1% of patients, crazy paving in 3.6%, pneumomediastinum in 8.9%, and pneumothorax in 3.6%. Males had a significantly higher total score, while the patients who survived (30.00 ± 9.55 vs 35.00 v 6.21, p value &lt;.001), received Steroids at day 2 (28.04 ± 9.71 vs 31.66 ± 7.12, p value 0.002) or Remdesivir had lower total scores (28.04 ± 9.71 vs 31.66 ± 7.12, p value 0.002). Total CT score (aHR 1.05, 95% CI 1.02 1.08, p 0.001), pneumothorax (aHR 1.38, 95 % CI 0.67 2.87, p 0.385), pneumomediastinum (aHR 1.20, 95% CI 0.71 2.03, p 0.298) and cardiovascular accident (CVA, aHR 4.75, 95% CI 0.84 26.72, p 0.077) were associated with increased mortality, but the results were not significant after adjusting with other variables on multiple regression analysis. Conclusion: This study identifies several radiological parameters, including fibrosis, crazy paving, pneumomediastinum, and pneumothorax, that are associated with poor prognosis in COVID19. These findings highlight the role of CT thorax in COVID19 illness and the importance of timely identification and interventions in severe and critical cases of COVID19 to reduce mortality and morbidity.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.17.23287423v1" target="_blank">Chest CT findings and outcomes of COVID-19 in second wave: A cross-sectional study in a tertiary care centre in Northern India</a>
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<li><strong>A general computational design strategy for stabilizing viral class I fusion proteins</strong> -
<div>
Many pathogenic viruses, including influenza virus, Ebola virus, coronaviruses, and Pneumoviruses, rely on class I fusion proteins to fuse viral and cellular membranes. To drive the fusion process, class I fusion proteins undergo an irreversible conformational change from a metastable prefusion state to an energetically more favorable and stable postfusion state. An increasing amount of evidence exists highlighting that antibodies targeting the prefusion conformation are the most potent. However, many mutations have to be evaluated before identifying prefusion-stabilizing substitutions. We therefore established a computational design protocol that stabilizes the prefusion state while destabilizing the postfusion conformation. As a proof of concept, we applied this principle to the fusion protein of the RSV, hMPV, and SARS-CoV-2 viruses. For each protein, we tested less than a handful of designs to identify stable versions. Solved structures of designed proteins from the three different viruses evidenced the atomic accuracy of our approach. Furthermore, the immunological response of the RSV F design compared to a current clinical candidate in a mouse model. While the parallel design of two conformations allows identifying and selectively modifying energetically less optimized positions for one conformation, our protocol also reveals diverse molecular strategies for stabilization. We recaptured many approaches previously introduced manually for the stabilization of viral surface proteins, such as cavity-filling, optimization of polar interactions, as well as postfusion-disruptive strategies. Using our approach, it is possible to focus on the most impacting mutations and potentially preserve the immunogen as closely as possible to its native version. The latter is important as sequence re-design can cause perturbations to B and T cell epitopes. Given the clinical significance of viruses using class I fusion proteins, our algorithm can substantially contribute to vaccine development by reducing the time and resources needed to optimize these immunogens.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.16.532924v1" target="_blank">A general computational design strategy for stabilizing viral class I fusion proteins</a>
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<li><strong>Antibodies generated in vitro and in vivo elucidate design of a thermostable ADDomer COVID-19 nasal nanoparticle vaccine</strong> -
<div>
COVID-19 continues to damage populations, communities and economies worldwide. Vaccines have reduced COVID-19-related hospitalisations and deaths, primarily in developed countries. Persisting infection rates, and highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern (VOCs) causing repeat and breakthrough infections, underscore the ongoing need for new treatments to achieve a global solution. Based on ADDomer, a self-assembling protein nanoparticle scaffold, we created ADDoCoV, a thermostable COVID-19 candidate vaccine displaying multiple copies of a SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding motif (RBM)-derived epitope. In vitro generated neutralising nanobodies combined with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) established authenticity and accessibility of the epitopes displayed. A Gigabody comprising multimerized nanobodies prevented SARS-CoV-2 virion attachment with picomolar EC50. Antibodies generated by immunising mice cross-reacted with VOCs including Delta and Omicron. Our study elucidates nasal administration of ADDomer-based nanoparticles for active and passive immunisation against SARS-CoV-2 and provides a blueprint for designing nanoparticle reagents to combat respiratory viral infections.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.17.533092v1" target="_blank">Antibodies generated in vitro and in vivo elucidate design of a thermostable ADDomer COVID-19 nasal nanoparticle vaccine</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>How have mathematical models contributed to understanding the transmission and control of SARS-CoV-2 in healthcare settings? A systematic search and review</strong> -
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<b>Background:</b> Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, mathematical models have been widely used to inform public health recommendations regarding COVID-19 control in healthcare settings. <b>Objectives:</b> To systematically review SARS-CoV-2 transmission models in healthcare settings, and summarise their contributions to understanding nosocomial COVID-19. <b>Methods:</b> Systematic search and review. <b>Data sources:</b> Published articles indexed in PubMed. <b>Study eligibility criteria:</b> Modelling studies describing dynamic inter-individual transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in healthcare settings, published by mid-February 2022. <b>Participants and interventions:</b> Any population and intervention described by included models. <b>Assessment of risk of bias:</b> Not appropriate for modelling studies. <b>Methods of data synthesis:</b> Structured narrative review. <b>Results:</b> Models have mostly focused on acute care and long-term care facilities in high-income countries. Models have quantified outbreak risk across different types of individuals and facilities, showing great variation across settings and pandemic periods. Regarding surveillance, routine testing - rather than symptom-based testing - was highlighted as essential for COVID-19 prevention due to high rates of silent transmission. Surveillance impacts were found to depend critically on testing frequency, diagnostic sensitivity, and turn-around time. Healthcare re-organization was also found to have large epidemiological impacts: beyond obvious benefits of isolating cases and limiting inter-individual contact, more complex strategies such as staggered staff scheduling and immune-based cohorting reduced infection risk. Finally, vaccination impact, while highly effective for limiting COVID-19 burden, varied substantially depending on assumed mechanistic impacts on infection acquisition, symptom onset and transmission. Studies were inconsistent regarding which individuals to prioritize for interventions, probably due to the high diversity of settings and populations investigated. <b>Conclusions:</b> Modelling results form an extensive evidence base that may inform control strategies for future waves of SARS-CoV-2 and other viral respiratory pathogens. We propose new avenues for future models of healthcare-associated outbreaks, with the aim of enhancing their efficiency and contributions to decision-making.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.17.23287403v1" target="_blank">How have mathematical models contributed to understanding the transmission and control of SARS-CoV-2 in healthcare settings? A systematic search and review</a>
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<li><strong>Relative vaccine effectiveness (rVE) of mRNA COVID-19 boosters in the UK vaccination programme, during the Spring-Summer (monovalent vaccine) and Autumn-Winter 2022 (bivalent vaccine) booster campaigns: a prospective test negative case-control study</strong> -
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Background Understanding the relative vaccine effectiveness (rVE) of new COVID-19 vaccine formulations against SARS-CoV-2 infection is an urgent public health priority. A precise comparison of the rVE of monovalent and bivalent boosters given during the 2022 Spring-Summer and Autumn-Winter campaigns, respectively, in a defined population has not been reported. We therefore assessed rVE against hospitalisation for the Spring-Summer (fourth vs third monovalent mRNA vaccine doses) and Autumn-Winter (fifth BA.1/ancestral bivalent vs fourth monovalent mRNA vaccine dose) boosters. Methods A prospective single-centre test-negative design case-control study of ≥75 year-olds hospitalised with COVID-19 or other acute respiratory disease. We conducted regression analyses controlling for age, gender, socioeconomic status, patient comorbidities, community SARS-CoV-2 prevalence, vaccine brand and time between baseline dose and hospitalisation. Results 682 controls and 182 cases were included in the Spring-Summer booster analysis; 572 controls and 152 cases for the Autumn-Winter booster analysis. A monovalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccine as fourth dose showed rVE 46∙9% (95% confidence interval [CI] 14∙4-67∙3) versus those not boosted. A bivalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccine as fifth dose had rVE 46∙4% (95%CI 17∙5-65), compared to a fourth monovalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccine dose. Interpretation Both fourth monovalent and fifth BA.1/ancestral mRNA bivalent COVID-19 vaccine doses demonstrated benefit as a booster in older adults. Bivalent mRNA boosters offer equivalent protection against hospitalisation with Omicron infection to monovalent mRNA boosters given earlier in the year. These findings support the current UK immunisation programme that advises the use of bivalent booster doses.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.16.23287360v1" target="_blank">Relative vaccine effectiveness (rVE) of mRNA COVID-19 boosters in the UK vaccination programme, during the Spring-Summer (monovalent vaccine) and Autumn-Winter 2022 (bivalent vaccine) booster campaigns: a prospective test negative case-control study</a>
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<li><strong>Molecular Neuropathology and Cerebrospinal Fluid Diagnostic Biomarkers of SARS-Cov2 Infection in Central Nervous System: A Scoping Review Protocol</strong> -
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Introduction Despite the broad spectrum of neurological symptomatic manifestation in COVID19 patients, the brain tissue susceptibility and permissiveness to SARS-Cov2 infection is yet uncertain. This critical appraisal aims at bridging the gap by consolidating the body of evidence for meticulous evaluation of molecular neuropathological pathways and CSF diagnostic signatures of SARS-Cov2 infection in the central nervous system (CNS) that will underpin further strategic approach for neuroprotection and treatment of neurological COVID19 Methods and Analysis We have developed the protocol of this review according to the provisions of Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewer Manual for Evidence Synthesis ,2015 and Arksey and O Malley Methodological Framewotk ,2005.The articles for this review will be sourced from several electronic databases including EMBASE, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science (WOS), Cochrane, Crossref Metadata and Semantic scholar. Herein we generated the search strategy using the medical subject headings [ MeSH Terms] , term in all field bibliography at all permutations in conjunctions with boolean operators Ethical Clearance and Dissemination plan Herein the review will not involve the human participants henceforth the ethical clearance approval is not applicable .We will disseminate the final findings of this review to scientific conferences at local and international level. The manuscript for final findings will be published on reputable journal of neuroscience. Keywords: Molecular, Neuropathology, CSF biomarkers, SARS-Cov2
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.17.23287405v1" target="_blank">Molecular Neuropathology and Cerebrospinal Fluid Diagnostic Biomarkers of SARS-Cov2 Infection in Central Nervous System: A Scoping Review Protocol</a>
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<li><strong>Serial SARS-CoV-2 antibody titers in vaccinated dialysis patients: prevalence of unrecognized infection and duration of seroresponse</strong> -
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Rationale &amp; Objective: SARS-CoV-2 infections are likely underdiagnosed, but the degree of underdiagnosis among maintenance dialysis patients is unknown. Durability of the immune response after third vaccine doses in this population also remains uncertain. This study tracked antibody levels to 1) assess the rate of undiagnosed infections and 2) characterize seroresponse durability after third doses. Study Design: Retrospective observational study Setting &amp; Participants: SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated patients receiving maintenance dialysis through a national dialysis provider. Immunoglobulin G spike antibodies (anti-spike IgG) titers were assessed monthly following vaccination. Exposure(s): Two and three doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine Outcome(s): Undiagnosed and diagnosed SARS-CoV-2 infections; anti-spike IgG titers over time Analytical Approach: “Undiagnosed” SARS-CoV-2 infections were identified as an increase in anti-spike IgG titer of ≥100 BAU/mL, not associated with receipt of vaccine or “diagnosed” SARS-CoV-2 infection (by PCR or antigen test). In descriptive analyses, anti-spike IgG titers were followed over time. Results: Among 2660 patients without prior COVID-19 who received an initial two-dose vaccine series, 371 (76%) SARS-CoV-2 infections were diagnosed and 115 (24%) were undiagnosed. Among 1717 patients without prior COVID-19 who received a third vaccine dose, 155 (80%) SARS-CoV-2 infections were diagnosed and 39 (20%) were undiagnosed. In both cohorts, anti-spike IgG levels declined over time. Of the initial two-dose cohort, 66% had a titer ≥500 BAU/mL in the first month, with 23% maintaining a titer ≥500 BAU/mL at six months. Of the third dose cohort, 95% had a titer ≥500 BAU/mL in the first month after the third dose, with 76% maintaining a titer ≥500 BAU/mL at six months. Limitations: Assays used had upper limits. Conclusions: Among maintenance dialysis patients, 20-24% of SARS-CoV-2 infections were undiagnosed. Given this population9s vulnerability to COVID-19, ongoing infection control measures are needed. A three-dose primary mRNA vaccine series optimizes seroresponse rate and durability.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.16.23287322v1" target="_blank">Serial SARS-CoV-2 antibody titers in vaccinated dialysis patients: prevalence of unrecognized infection and duration of seroresponse</a>
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<li><strong>Pandemic telehealth flexibilities for buprenorphine treatment: A synthesis of evidence and policy implications for expanding opioid use disorder care in the U.S.</strong> -
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Buprenorphine is a highly effective treatment for opioid use disorder and a critical tool for addressing the worsening U.S. overdose crisis. However, multiple barriers to treatment, including stringent federal regulations, have historically made this medication hard to reach for many who need it. In 2020, under the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, federal regulators substantially changed access to buprenorphine by allowing prescribers to initiate patients on buprenorphine via telehealth without first evaluating them in person. As the Public Health Emergency is set to expire in May of 2023, Congress and federal agencies can leverage extensive evidence from studies conducted during the wake of the pandemic to make evidence-based decisions on the regulation of buprenorphine going forward. To aid policy makers, this review synthesizes and interprets peer-reviewed research on the effect of buprenorphine flexibilities on uptake and implementation of telehealth, and its impact on OUD patient and prescriber experiences, access to treatment and health outcomes. Overall, our review finds that many prescribers and patients took advantage of telehealth, including the audio-only option, with a wide range of benefits and few downsides. As a result, federal regulators, including agencies and Congress, should continue non-restricted use of telehealth for buprenorphine initiation.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.16.23287373v1" target="_blank">Pandemic telehealth flexibilities for buprenorphine treatment: A synthesis of evidence and policy implications for expanding opioid use disorder care in the U.S.</a>
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<li><strong>Importation of Alpha and Delta variants during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Switzerland: phylogenetic analysis and intervention scenarios</strong> -
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The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to the emergence of various variants of concern (VoCs) that are associated with increased transmissibility, immune evasion, or differences in disease severity. The emergence of VoCs fueled interest in understanding the potential impact of travel restrictions and surveillance strategies to prevent or delay the early spread of VoCs. We performed phylogenetic analyses and mathematical modeling to study the importation and spread of the VoCs Alpha and Delta in Switzerland in 2020 and 2021. Using a phylogenetic approach, we estimated 383-1,038 imports of Alpha and 455-1,347 imports of Delta into Switzerland. We then used the results from the phylogenetic analysis to parameterize a dynamic transmission that accurately described the subsequent spread of Alpha and Delta. We modeled different counterfactual intervention scenarios to quantify the potential impact of border closures and surveillance of travelers on the spread of Alpha and Delta. We found that implementing border closures after the announcement of VoCs would have been of limited impact to mitigate the spread of VoCs. In contrast, increased surveillance of travelers could prove to be an effective measure for delaying the spread of VoCs in situations where their severity remains unclear. Our study shows how phylogenetic analysis in combination with dynamic transmission models can be used to estimate the number of imported SARS-CoV-2 variants and the potential impact of different intervention scenarios to inform the public health response during the pandemic.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.13.23287198v1" target="_blank">Importation of Alpha and Delta variants during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Switzerland: phylogenetic analysis and intervention scenarios</a>
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<li><strong>Statistical Challenges when Analyzing SARS-CoV-2 RNA Measurements Below the Assay Limit of Quantification in COVID-19 Clinical Trials</strong> -
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Most clinical trials evaluating COVID-19 therapeutics include assessments of antiviral activity. In recently completed outpatient trials, changes in nasal SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels from baseline were commonly assessed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) or mixed models for repeated measures (MMRM) with single-imputation for results below assay lower limits of quantification (LLoQ). Analyzing changes in viral RNA levels with singly-imputed values can lead to biased estimates of treatment effects. In this paper, using an illustrative example from the ACTIV-2 trial, we highlight potential pitfalls of imputation when using ANCOVA or MMRM methods, and illustrate how these methods can be used when considering values &lt;LLoQ as censored measurements. Best practices when analyzing quantitative viral RNA data should include details about the assay and its LLoQ, completeness summaries of viral RNA data, and outcomes among participants with baseline viral RNA ≥LLoQ, as well as those with viral RNA &lt;LLoQ.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.13.23287208v1" target="_blank">Statistical Challenges when Analyzing SARS-CoV-2 RNA Measurements Below the Assay Limit of Quantification in COVID-19 Clinical Trials</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Modelling the impact of hybrid immunity on future COVID-19 epidemic waves</strong> -
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Since the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), there have been multiple waves of infection and multiple rounds of vaccination rollouts. Both prior infection and vaccination can prevent future infection and reduce severity of outcomes, combining to form hybrid immunity against COVID-19 at the individual and population level. Here, we explore how different combinations of hybrid immunity affect the size and severity of near-future Omicron waves. To investigate the role of hybrid immunity, we use an agent-based model of COVID-19 transmission with waning immunity to simulate outbreaks in populations with varied past attack rates and past vaccine coverages, basing the demographics and past histories on the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region (WPR). We find that if the past infection immunity is high but vaccination levels are low, then the secondary outbreak with the same variant can occur within a few months after the first outbreak; meanwhile, high vaccination levels can suppress near-term outbreaks and delay the second wave. Additionally, hybrid immunity has limited impact on future COVID-19 waves with immune-escape variants. Enhanced understanding of the interplay between infection and vaccine exposure can aid anticipation of future epidemic activity due to current and emergent variants, including the likely impact of responsive vaccine interventions.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.12.23287174v1" target="_blank">Modelling the impact of hybrid immunity on future COVID-19 epidemic waves</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>Clinical Performance Evaluation of the CareSuperb™ COVID-19 Antigen Home Test</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: CareSuperb COVID-19 Antigen Home Test Kit<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   AccessBio, Inc.<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>Use of E-health Based Exercise Intervention After COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: Exercise training using an e-health tool<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Norwegian University of Science and Technology;   University of Oslo<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>Phase I Clinical Trial of Recombinant Variant COVID-19 Vaccine (Sf9 Cell) (WSK-V102)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: Recombinant variant COVID-19 vaccine(Sf9 cell)<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   WestVac Biopharma 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>A Phase II Clinical Trial of Recombinant Variant COVID-19 Vaccine (Sf9 Cell) (WSK-V102)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Recombinant variant COVID-19 vaccine (Sf9 cell);   Biological: Recombinant COVID-19 vaccine (CHO cell);   Biological: Recombinant COVID-19 vaccine (Sf9 cell)<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   WestVac Biopharma 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>A Study to Compare QLS1128 With Placebo in Symptomatic Participants With Mild to Moderate COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: QLS1128;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Qilu Pharmaceutical 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>Short-term Effects of Transdermal Estradiol on Female COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Hormone Replacement Therapy<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Climara 0.1Mg/24Hr Transdermal System;   Other: Hydrogel patch<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Istanbul University - Cerrahpasa (IUC);   Turkish Menopause and Osteoporosis Society;   Karakoy Rotary Club;   Rebul Pharmacy<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>Effect of Kinesio Tape Versus Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercise In Post COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Post COVID-19 Condition<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Pursed lip breathing;   Other: Cognitive Behavior Therapy;   Other: Diaphragmatic breathing exercise;   Other: Kinesio tape<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Cairo University<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 Calcitriol On Neutrophil To Lymphocytes Ratio And High Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein Covid-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Calcitriol;   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Universitas Sebelas Maret<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>Clinical Study for the Efficacy and Safety of Ropeginterferon Alfa-2b in Moderate COVID19.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: P1101 (Ropeginterferon alfa-2b);   Procedure: SOC<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   National Taiwan University 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>Hydrogen-Oxygen Generator With Nebulizer for Adjuvant Treatment of Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Covid19;   Hydrogen-oxygen Gas;   AMS-H-03<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Device: Hydrogen-Oxygen Generator with Nebulizer, AMS-H-03;   Device: OLO-1 Medical Molecular Sieve Oxygen Generator<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Disease<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>Oxygen Atomizing Inhalation of EGCG in the Treatment COVID-19 Pneumonia in Cancer Patients</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19 Pneumonia;   Neoplasms Malignant<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: EGCG;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute<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>The Use of Photobiomodulation in the Treatment of Oral Complaints of Long COVID-19.A Randomized Controlled Trial.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Xerostomia;   COVID-19;   Long COVID;   Persistent COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Combination Product: Institutional standard treatment for xerostomia and Long Covid;   Radiation: Photobiomodulation Therapy;   Radiation: Placebo Photobiomodulation Therapy<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Nove de Julho<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>Balneotherapy for Patients With Post-acute Coronavirus Disease (COVID) Syndrome</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Post-COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Balneotherapy and aquatic exercises<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Parc de Salut Mar;   Caldes de Montbui’s City Council;   Consorcio Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red (CIBER);   European Regional Development Fund<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>A Study to Assess the Efficacy of HH-120 Nasal Spray for Prevention of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Adult Close Contacts of Individuals Infected With SARS-CoV-2</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   SARS-CoV-2 Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: HH-120 nasal spray 1;   Drug: HH-120 nasal spray 2;   Drug: Placebo Comparator 1;   Drug: Placebo Comparator 2<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Beijing Ditan Hospital<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>Lactoferrin for COVID-19-Induced Taste or Smell Abnormality</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Covid19;   Taste Disorder, Secondary;   Taste Disorders;   Dysgeusia;   Smell Disorder;   Ageusia;   Anosmia<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Dietary Supplement: Lactoferrin<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Wake Forest University Health Sciences<br/><b>Withdrawn</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 relationship between serum cytokine profile and vitamin D in calves with neonatal diarrhea</strong> - It is important to know the characteristics of the immunological response in newborn calf diarrhea, which is often caused by bacterial, viral and protozoal pathogens. Cytokinesare proteins that serve as chemical messengers to regulate theinnate and adaptive arms of theimmune response. Changes in circulatory cytokine levels provide valuable information for understanding the pathophysiological process and monitoring disease progression and inflammation. Vitamin D has important immunomodulatory…</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>Xuanfei Baidu Decoction regulates NETs formation via CXCL2/CXCR2 signaling pathway that is involved in acute lung injury</strong> - Acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are life-threatening symptoms in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Xuanfei Baidu Decoction (XFBD) is a recommend first-line traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula therapeutic strategy for COVID-19 patients. Prior studies demonstrated the pharmacological roles and mechanisms of XFBD and its derived effective components against inflammation and infections through multiple model systems, which provided 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>Digoxin and Standard-of-Care Therapy for Heart Failure Patients with COVID-19: Analysis of Data from the US Military Health System (MHS) Data Repository</strong> - CONCLUSION: The hypothesis of equivalent protection by digoxin treatment of HF patients in terms of susceptibility to COVID-19 infection appears to be supported by the data.</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>Viral target- and metabolism-based rationale for combined use of recently authorized small molecule COVID-19 medicines: molnupiravir, nirmatrelvir and remdesivir</strong> - The COVID-19 pandemic remains a major health concern worldwide, and SARS-CoV-2 is continuously evolving. There is an urgent need to identify new antiviral drugs and develop novel therapeutic strategies. Combined use of newly authorized COVID-19 medicines including molnupiravir, nirmatrelvir and remdesivir, has been actively pursued. Mechanistically, nirmatrelvir inhibits SARS-CoV-2 replication by targeting the viral main protease (M^(pro) ), a critical enzyme in the processing of the immediately…</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>SARS-CoV-2 NSP8 suppresses type I and III IFN responses by modulating the RIG-I/MDA5, TRIF, and STING signaling pathways</strong> - SARS-CoV-2 has developed a variety of approaches to counteract host innate antiviral immunity to facilitate its infection, replication and pathogenesis, but the molecular mechanisms that it employs are still not been fully understood. Here, we found that SARS-CoV-2 NSP8 inhibited the production of type I and III IFNs by acting on RIG-I/MDA5 and the signaling molecules TRIF and STING. Overexpression of NSP8 downregulated the expression of type I and III IFNs stimulated by poly (I:C) transfection…</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>Acid sphingomyelinase (ASM) and COVID-19: A review of the potential use of ASM inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2</strong> - In the last 2 years, different pharmacological agents have been indicated as potential inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro. Specifically, drugs termed as functional inhibitors of acid sphingomyelinase (FIASMAs) have proved to inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 replication using different types of cells. Those therapeutic agents share several chemical structure characteristics and some well-known representatives are fluoxetine, escitalopram, fluvoxamine, and others. Most of the FIASMAs are primarily used as…</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>Artificial intelligence-based optimization for chitosan nanoparticles biosynthesis, characterization and in‑vitro assessment of its anti-biofilm potentiality</strong> - Chitosan nanoparticles (CNPs) are promising biopolymeric nanoparticles with excellent physicochemical, antimicrobial, and biological properties. CNPs have a wide range of applications due to their unique characteristics, including plant growth promotion and protection, drug delivery, antimicrobials, and encapsulation. The current study describes an alternative, biologically-based strategy for CNPs biosynthesis using Olea europaea leaves extract. Face centered central composite design (FCCCD),…</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>SARS-CoV-2 E protein-induced THP-1 pyroptosis is reversed by Ruscogenin</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), an emerging pathogenic coronavirus, has been reported to cause excessive inflammation and dysfunction in multiple cells and organs, but the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Here we showed exogenous addition of SARS-CoV-2 envelop protein (E protein) potently induced cell death in cultured cell lines, including THP-1 monocytic leukemia cells, endothelial cells and bronchial epithelial cells, in a time- 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>The enzymatic hydrolysate of fucoidan from Sargassum hemiphyllum triggers immunity in plants</strong> - Fucoidans are polysaccharides that consist predominantly of sulfated L-fucoses, from which, fucoidan oligosaccharides (FOSs) are prepared through different methods. Fucoidan has versatile physiological activities, like antiviral functions against SARS CoV-2 and bioactivitiy in enhancing immune responses. Although fucoidan or FOS has been widely used in mammals as functional foods and new drugs, its application in plants is still very limited. Moreover, whether fucoidan or its derived hydrolytic…</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>A confirmed COVID-19 in a patient with newly diagnosed hypertension and preexisting type 2 diabetes mellitus: a case report</strong> - CONCLUSION: Poor blood glucose management in the case of COVID-19 may increase the pathogen’s susceptibility, the likelihood that patients will be admitted to the hospital, and the likelihood that mortality will be enhanced.</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>Zilucoplan in immune-mediated necrotising myopathy: a phase 2, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial</strong> - BACKGROUND: Immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy (IMNM) is an autoimmune myopathy characterised by proximal muscle weakness, high creatine kinase (CK) values, and autoantibodies recognizing 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase (HMGCR) or the signal recognition particle (SRP). There are currently no approved therapies for IMNM and many patients experience active disease despite off-label treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin, glucocorticoids, and immunosuppressants. Detection 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>Delivery of anti-microRNA-21 by lung-targeted liposomes for pulmonary fibrosis treatment</strong> - Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic lung disorder with a low survival rate. Pulmonary fibrosis is one of the complications of COVID-19 and has a high prevalence in COVID-19 patients. Currently, no effective therapies other than lung transplantation are available to cure IPF and post-COVID-19 pulmonary fibrosis. MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that mediate the development and progression of pulmonary fibrosis, thus making them potent drug candidates for this serious disease….</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>Insights of different analytical approaches for estimation of budesonide as COVID-19 replication inhibitor in its novel combinations: green assessment with AGREE and GAPI approaches</strong> - Simple, direct, rapid, and sensitive HPLC and spectrophotometric methods were established for simultaneous estimation of a novel combination of budesonide and azelastine (BUD/AZL) in their laboratory-prepared mixture and dosage form according to the medicinally recommended ratio 1:4.28. Budesonide is an important inhalation corticosteroid that plays a vital role in the inhibition of COVID-19 replication and cytokine production. The first chromatographic method was created for the simultaneous…</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>A multi-organoid platform identifies CIART as a key factor for SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> - COVID-19 is a systemic disease involving multiple organs. We previously established a platform to derive organoids and cells from human pluripotent stem cells to model SARS-CoV-2 infection and perform drug screens^(1,2). This provided insight into cellular tropism and the host response, yet the molecular mechanisms regulating SARS-CoV-2 infection remain poorly defined. Here we systematically examined changes in transcript profiles caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection at different multiplicities 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>Colchicine reduces the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome in COVID-19 patients</strong> - CONCLUSION: Treatment with colchicine inhibited the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, an event triggering the ‘cytokine storm’ in COVID-19.</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>The G.O.P. and the Ghosts of Iraq</strong> - Ukraine shows that Republicans have moved a long way from the Party of George W. Bush. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/the-gop-and-the-ghosts-of-iraq">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hip-Hop at Fifty: An Elegy</strong> - A generation is still dying younger than it should—this time, of “natural causes.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/hip-hop-at-fifty-an-elegy">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Allure of Exotic Animals in Strange Places</strong> - Thefts from the Dallas Zoo made headlines. But Texas is a hotbed for ownership of all kinds of rare species. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/the-allure-of-exotic-animals-in-strange-places">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Curtain Rises on Trump’s Legal Dramas</strong> - Trump is shrewd enough to reap political gain if he is indicted this week. But his strategy of playing the martyr may have run its course. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-curtain-rises-on-trumps-legal-dramas">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s the Path Forward for Haiti?</strong> - As the international community contemplates another armed intervention, a reckoning with history is long overdue. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/whats-the-path-forward-for-haiti">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Stop requiring college degrees for jobs that don’t need them</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A woman folding pants in a retail store." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3yF3R7s_4rLpyDC_lQTprIkRfdw=/222x0:3778x2667/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72091296/1243932857.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
An employee at an athletic apparel store in New York on October 11, 2022. A report found that, in the US, more than 650,000 retail jobs are at risk for “degree inflation” — requiring more education than workers really need to succeed on the job. | Lanna Apisukh/Bloomberg via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Employers are finally tearing down the “paper ceiling” in hiring.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NRZ1oY">
When President Joe Biden recently touted the hundreds of billions of dollars invested into American manufacturing in the last two years, he included a talking point that previous Democratic presidents might not have bragged about. New factories in Ohio, he said, could offer thousands of “jobs paying $130,000 a year, and many don’t require a college degree.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OgNSqr">
When Biden highlighted those non-college jobs at the State of the Union, it was just three weeks after Pennsylvania’s new Democratic governor Josh Shapiro <a href="https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom/governor-shapiro-leads-the-nation-on-eliminating-college-degree-requirements-expanding-job-opportunities/">eliminated the requirement</a> of a four-year college degree for the bulk of jobs in Pennsylvania state’s government, two months after Utah’s Republican <a href="https://www.thecentersquare.com/utah/utah-governor-wants-to-eliminate-the-paper-ceiling-of-degree-requirements/article_fe8c8698-7b0e-11ed-87ad-df6b945261e2.html">governor Spencer Cox did the same</a>, and nearly one year after Maryland’s Republican governor Larry Hogan <a href="https://www.npr.org/local/305/2022/03/16/1086860660/maryland-will-no-longer-require-four-year-degrees-for-thousands-of-state-jobs">set off the trend</a>. Since the president’s State of the Union, Alaska’s Republican governor Mike Dunleavy <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/infrastructure/3859640-alaska-governor-drops-college-degree-requirement-for-most-state-jobs-to-fight-worker-shortage/">has also followed suit</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AiGTuy">
Maryland’s newly elected Democratic governor, Wes Moore, plans to continue opening up state jobs to non-college-educated workers, confirmed his spokesperson.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4JUp04">
For liberal politicians like Moore, Shapiro, and Biden, promoting policies to help the more than 70 million American workers who never graduated from college is rooted partly in politics, as Democrats have struggled recently to earn support from non-college-educated voters, especially men. After decades of prioritizing college attendance, the Democratic Party has been scrambling to figure out how to change the widespread perception that its leaders are out of touch with the struggles of average people.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="T8EoHV">
But the announcements we’ve seen haven’t just come from Democrats looking to appeal to voters or just from elected officials. And they’re not even mere reactions to the heightened competition for workers, though that’s part of it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FwQ12R">
The moves are the result of a concerted effort, backed by staggering research and a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign, to educate employers on broken hiring practices that have needlessly locked two-thirds of the workforce out of higher-paying American jobs. For decades, more and more job postings have reflexively required college degrees. Now it’s finally being recognized this was a mistake.
</p>
<h3 id="H56KPG">
Why so many jobs started requiring college degrees that didn’t before
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mF7Drq">
The story of college degree requirement creep begins back in the 1980s, as employers started to hire globally for workers and tech automation started to change the nature of many domestic jobs in America. As routinized factory work began to be replaced by machines or outsourced to other countries, one consequence was a shift toward expecting workers to handle more social tasks, with so-called “soft skills” that facilitate collaboration like conscientiousness and the ability to make small talk.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v6RdFg">
Between 1980 and 2012, jobs requiring high levels of social interaction <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/ddeming/files/deming_socialskills_qje.pdf">grew by nearly 12 percentage points</a> as a share of the US labor force, according to Harvard education researcher David Deming. As a hiring proxy for this, companies started to turn to four-year college degrees.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7joL3Y">
These trends accelerated during the Great Recession, when employers had a labor surplus to choose from. Of the 11.6 million jobs created between 2010 and 2016, three out of four required at least a bachelor’s degree, and just one out of every 100 required a high school diploma or less.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZbIQRg">
These changes were documented in <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/dismissed-by-degrees_707b3f0e-a772-40b7-8f77-aed4a16016cc.pdf">a 2017 study</a> led by researchers at Harvard Business School. Their report, “Dismissed by Degrees,” found more than 60 percent of employers rejected otherwise qualified candidates in terms of skills or experience simply because they did not have a college diploma, and that the imperfect BA proxy had many negative consequences for workers and companies alike.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DVbo0p">
One of the researchers’ most revealing findings was that millions of job postings listed college degree requirements for positions that were currently held by workers without them. For example, in 2015, 67 percent of production supervisor job postings asked for a four-year college degree, even though just 16 percent of employed production supervisors had graduated from college. Many of these so-called “middle-skill” jobs, like sales representatives, inspectors, truckers, administrative assistants, and plumbers, were facing unprecedented “degree inflation.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jsZ1Np">
The report pointed to employer surveys that showed workers without college degrees were often considered just as productive on the job as their college-educated counterparts. They were also less likely to turnover and less expensive for companies to hire. Degree inflation was particularly harmful to Black and Hispanic job applicants, the researchers noted, since they’re less likely than white applicants to have college diplomas.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c976TU">
“That report was a wakeup call for companies but it definitely took some time to get out there,” said Elyse Rosenblum, the founder of<strong> </strong>Grads of Life, a nonprofit that backed the study and encourages businesses to adopt more diverse hiring practices.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OwKAaq">
Rosenblum’s group grew out of work that began during the Obama administration to help so-called “disconnected youth” — referring to the roughly 4 million young adults, ages 16-24, who were neither working nor in school. These efforts led to a <a href="https://gradsoflife.org/7-second-resumes-gallery/">national 2014 “Grads of Life” ad campaign</a>, followed soon after by a national organization with the same name.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g31wI8">
Another major player focused on degree inflation is Opportunity@Work, a group founded in 2015 originally to support an Obama White House initiative dedicated to expanding the tech hiring pipelines. In 2019, Opportunity@Work turned its full attention to helping all 70 million workers without four-year degrees. To refer to these workers, they coined the term “STARs”, an acronym for Skilled Through Alternative Routes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H1O3Dp">
“We felt it was important to name this talent category for what it is, a skilled talent group,” explained the group’s chief operating officer, Shad Ahmed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="13TlNa">
Opportunity@Work helped bring about more discourse-shifting research. Working with Peter Blair, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, in March 2020 they published their first study, <a href="https://opportunityatwork.org/our-solutions/stars-insights/reach-stars-report/#wpcf7-f1980-o1">“Reach for the STARs,”</a> which found that<strong> </strong>workers in low-wage jobs often have skills that are in high demand by higher-wage employers. Over 5 million workers without college degrees, they noted, were already in jobs paying at least $77,000 per year, proving “that a bachelor’s degree is not the only route to gain skills for higher wages.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SPiUFz">
Nine months later, Opportunity@Work published <a href="https://opportunityatwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Navigating-with-the-STARs.pdf">a second report</a>, looking at mobility barriers among high-skilled non-degree holders, and launched <a href="https://stellarworx.org/">a hiring database</a> to help connect STARs with local employers.
</p>
<h3 id="Malcog">
The tightening labor market, George Floyd’s murder, and the pandemic all sped up hiring reform
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ocBnsO">
Years before governors and the president started talking about degree inflation, some companies were already ahead of the curve. Perhaps the most widely recognized leader is the technology conglomerate IBM, which back in the Great Recession realized it needed to loosen its hiring requirements to stay competitive.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5Z2SVj">
“They say necessity is the mother of invention, and that’s essentially where we found ourselves about 10 years ago,” <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/344621/why-ibm-chooses-skills-degrees.aspx">explained</a> IBM’s chief human resources officer, Nickle LaMoreaux, pointing to the shortage of skilled tech workers, the “half-life” of tech skills, and the fact that two-thirds of US adults lacked bachelor’s degrees. By 2021, half of IBM’s US jobs no longer required a college degree.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bEYpo9">
Ahmed said in addition to a tightening labor market, George Floyd’s murder and the attention that brought to structural racism in America generated new focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in businesses.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gZ6kku">
“Nonessential degree requirements aren’t race-neutral,” Ahmed and Blair wrote <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-disparate-racial-impact-of-requiring-a-college-degree-11593375171">in the Wall Street Journal</a> in 2020. “They embed into the labor market the legacy of black exclusion from the U.S. education system—namely, the antiliteracy laws that made it illegal for blacks to learn to read, the separate and unequal schools that kept them from catching up, and the limited progress since then on policies designed to remedy racial discrimination.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="irhGYE">
In December 2020, in response to Floyd’s death, business leaders <a href="https://oneten.org/about/our-team/">launched the OneTen coalition</a> with the goal of placing 1 million Black Americans without college degrees in “family-sustaining jobs” over the next decade. The high-profile effort was led by IBM’s executive chairman and Merck’s chief executive, and included leaders from companies like Cisco, Nike, Target, and American Express. One year later, the coalition <a href="https://oneten.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/211206_OneTen_Annual-Report-1.pdf">announced</a> it had expanded to include 60 member companies. Part of their work involves identifying alternative ways to discern whether workers possess the skills they need.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Aiz3Uv">
This past September, a new chapter in this broader culture-shifting work began. Developed in partnership between Opportunity@Work and the Ad Council, a nonprofit that sponsors public service advertisements across the country, a campaign to “<a href="https://www.tearthepaperceiling.org/">tear the paper ceiling</a>” launched, focused on removing barriers to workers without college degrees. Nearly 50 national groups participated in the campaign’s launch at an event co-hosted with LinkedIn.
</p>
<div id="CHkC7x">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<h3 id="bp1fH2">
There’s evidence of an “emerging degree reset”
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tz9XGL">
The hard work is starting to pay off. Earlier this year, the New York Times editorial board <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/28/opinion/jobs-college-degree-requirement.html">published a piece that</a><strong> </strong>praised the work of companies like IBM and governors like Josh Shapiro for expanding their hiring practices to include individuals without college diplomas. “Making college more affordable is important, but there are other keys to the doors of opportunity as well,” they wrote.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vMz8qQ">
Last year, researchers from Harvard Business School and the Burning Glass Institute <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Documents/research/emerging_degree_reset_020922.pdf">found evidence</a> of what they called “an emerging degree reset” in hiring. By analyzing over 51 million job postings dating back to 2014, the researchers found that between 2017 and 2019 roughly 46 percent of “middle-skill” and 37 percent of “high-skill” occupations no longer asked for a bachelor’s degree, and instead had job postings listing technical and social skills instead. The report concluded that based on the trends they were observing, an additional 1.4 million jobs could open to workers without college degrees in the next five years.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qcpu7M">
“Jobs do not require four-year college degrees,” the report’s authors wrote. “Employers do.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="70oYII">
Getting more employers to rethink their degree requirements will take hard work. Rosenblum, of Grads of Life, said one of the biggest barriers is just changing mindsets. “Employers have grown up in a system where the four-year degree is the proxy and there’s a perception that it’s risky to do something different,” she said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dvAZMl">
So far, there is no perfect, universal alternative assessment to identify the professional skills employers have previously relied on a Bachelor’s degree to signal. But Rosenblum and Ahmed from Opportunity@Work say there’s a lot of work happening right now to develop those tools, such as creating micro-credentials for individual industries. Software developers reflect a good example of an industry that has embraced new hiring practices, partly because employers have found other ways to verify the quality of someone’s coding skills, making college degrees less relevant. The challenge is finding out how to create comparable assessments for other fields.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X48H0R">
Ahmed said there’s still a lot of work to do to get managers to realize that STARs are half of the talent pool. “Many just do not know, we’re all in our own cocoons,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kCYO3o">
New data released this month suggests employers <a href="https://twitter.com/EconBerger/status/1632811196889075712">are hiring at a slower rate</a>, and economists still warn of a possible recession this year as inflation persists. Advocates for hiring workers without college degrees say it’s critical that employers don’t revert to the same flawed hiring proxies they adopted following the last big economic downturn.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vuAOn6">
“I do have frankly a lot of concern,” said Rosenblum. “We’re having a lot of change in our labor market, things are weakening, and we’re seeing companies doing hiring freezes and layoffs. We’re spending a lot of time talking with business leaders about the need to make sure we don’t go back to what happened in the 2008 recession.”
</p></li>
<li><strong>The fringe group that broke the GOP’s brain — and helped the party win elections</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Denver Post Archives" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/y-kC76nvdIi0Ob0I7Z7KyBXFM4s=/47x0:2783x2052/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72091225/837614822.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A John Birch Society billboard in Stratton, Colorado, calls for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren, December 1962. | Denver Post via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The John Birch Society pushed a darker, more conspiratorial politics in the ’50s and ’60s — and looms large over today’s GOP, argues historian Matthew Dallek.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wOknI7">
On December 8, 1958, a group of 12 well-to-do businessmen gathered in the living room of an upscale, Tudor-style home in Indianapolis, Indiana, to save the United States from an imminent communist takeover.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1dqXlo">
Or at least that’s what the group’s host — a former candy manufacturing executive turned anti-communist agitator named Robert W. Welch Jr. — told them they were there to do.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FWQjAd">
Welch had summoned the group to recruit them for a new organization dedicated to exposing what he believed to be a far-reaching communist plot to overthrow the US government. According to Welch, communist agents had infiltrated every level of the government and had seized control of both the Democratic and Republican parties. Even Dwight Eisenhower, the former five-star general who had cruised to a second term in the White House as a moderate Republican in 1956, was suspected of being a communist agent.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dEjLRJ">
What was needed to combat this massive plot, Welch told the group, was a new “national education program,” via pamphlets, speeches, and the like, that could teach average Americans about the communist threat. The men enthusiastically agreed, and they resolved to serve as the vanguard of that movement.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rGSZ4j">
They called themselves the John Birch Society, taking their name from a <a href="https://time.com/3990549/john-birch-history/">Baptist missionary </a>who had been killed in China by communist forces in 1945 — the first recognized casualty of the nascent Cold War.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UWM28S">
As the historian Matthew Dallek documents in his new book, <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/matthew-dallek/birchers/9781541673571/"><em>Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the Far Right</em></a>, the group would go on to grow from a small club of far-right businessmen into a sprawling, nationwide organization that claimed up to 100,000 members across hundreds of state and local chapters. Over time, the John Birch Society would leave its imprint on the Republican Party, pushing it to embrace more hardline positions on anti-communism, white supremacy, isolationism, and nativism.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4lZX7Q">
Six decades after that initial gathering in Indianapolis, it’s tempting to conclude that the Birchers accomplished that mission. Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, many historians and pundits have <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/161603/john-birch-society-qanon-trump">pointed to the history of the John Birch Society</a> as the throughline that connects Trumpism to the birth of the conservative movement, casting Trump as the logical culmination of the movement rather than as its gravedigger.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Qzyswg">
But according to Dallek, who studies the history of American conservatism at George Washington University, the story of the Birchers’ role in the radicalization of the GOP is a bit more complicated.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kOVWSV">
“What I’ve tried to do is to draw not too straight a line from the 1950s to today, and to show — as historians try to do — that the radicalization of the GOP was contingent,” Dallek told me when I spoke with him recently. The Birchers’ ideas “were not really ripe in 1970 or [the] ’80s or ’90s, but they became ripe in the past 15 years. They were there for the taking, and as we know, people took them up and ran with them in very powerful ways.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FQsgbz">
<em>This interview has been edited for length and clarity.</em>
</p>
<h4 id="hgjCRH">
Ian Ward
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="90bX7Y">
Historians sometimes cite the John Birch Society as an early instance of far-right populism, but the men who formed the society in 1958 were hardly marginal figures within American society. Who were the group’s founders?
</p>
<h4 id="1sFFO1">
Matthew Dallek
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hOevcm">
The founders were a group of 12 men — all men — and almost all of them were very wealthy industrialists. Many of them knew each other from their time together in the National Association of Manufacturers, and they admired Robert Welch as a truth-teller who was speaking out about the communist threat inside the United States. They had one foot very much planted in the mainstream, and they had benefited enormously from the rules and arrangements of the mid-20th-century capitalist system.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5Rp1tf">
The great irony, of course, is that they viewed themselves as outsiders. They were colossi bestriding the world, but they also saw themselves as dissidents who were being hounded on the margins of the dominant ideas in America.
</p>
<h4 id="nLiLuZ">
Ian Ward
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pLXAhS">
Who did the founders see as their target audience, especially in the organization’s early days?
</p>
<h4 id="I8Smvl">
Matthew Dallek
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0iJAbb">
Initially, their vision was to recruit “A1 men” — other men like them. Welch at one point said, “I do not want to recruit people who think differently from us. I don’t want it to be a debating society.” So the initial recruits tended to be wealthy, white, and mostly men, although Welch realized the value of women members early on.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PdUnoz">
Within the first couple of years, though, they slowly widened their recruitment, and they began to recruit more professionals: upwardly mobile, middle-class doctors, lawyers, dentists, engineers, and the like.
</p>
<h4 id="YebH3H">
Ian Ward
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JwkaMy">
How did the founders relate to the Republican Party?
</p>
<h4 id="xlEgdX">
Matthew Dallek
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rMg4jM">
It was a very complicated relationship. Some of them viewed the Eisenhower Republican Party as one of the greatest threats to the country. Welch wrote in a letter to his friends that Dwight Eisenhower was a dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy. Looking back to what happened to <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/age-of-eisenhower/mcarthyism-red-scare">Joe McCarthy</a> and to <a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/9398515">Robert Taft</a> — two of their heroes — they saw the modern Republican Party as un-American.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y5zD8L">
But they had a relationship with the GOP. Welch ran for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts as a Republican in 1950. Bill Grede, who was an industrialist from Wisconsin and a founding member of the society, had fundraised for Eisenhower’s campaign in 1956 and served on a labor management committee that was appointed by Eisenhower.
</p>
<h4 id="dr8fBD">
Ian Ward
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WrMjjs">
What sort of tactics did the Birchers use in their early days to mobilize the conservative grassroots outside of the party apparatus of the GOP?
</p>
<h4 id="EAYkeO">
Matthew Dallek
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2aBSUf">
Their mission throughout the 1960s was to try to educate the American people about the communist conspiracy, and many of the Birchers — not all, but many — were suspicious of the two-party system.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IaiDok">
They didn’t like democracy, and they believed the only way to save the country was through a kind of shock education — through controlling the kinds of texts that kids and college students and other Americans were exposed to — and through direct action: setting up front groups and committees that could attack what they saw as the weak points in the communist line.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ouc3LB">
For example, they set up the Committee Against Summit Entanglements, which was a direct action protest against the <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2007/09/on-sept-25-1959-khrushchev-capped-a-visit-to-the-us-005980">Khrushchev-Eisenhower summit in 1959</a>, and they set up the campaign to impeach Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, because they saw Warren as a communist.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iSc1yb">
So it was a combination of trying to create a space where they could spread an alternative message about this alleged conspiracy, but also to shock their enemies and mobilize the public to attack what they saw as their communist foes.
</p>
<h4 id="saEXr2">
Ian Ward
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iGFpEV">
The Birchers gradually became more willing to work within Republican Party politics in the early 1960s. They were involved, for instance, in the 1962 midterm campaigns, and many of them supported Barry Goldwater’s campaign for president in 1964. What convinced them that they could work within Republican politics?
</p>
<h4 id="HVNri6">
Matthew Dallek
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PDN5m8">
I think a lot of them did see being active in Republican politics as a viable path because they had longstanding Republican ties, and some of them saw the Republican Party as an anti-big government vehicle. But they also flirted with third parties as well. That third-party option rarely went off the table, even if they never fully pursued it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n6FbPe">
Also, because of their orientation, the Birchers were very careful to say, “Wait a second, we are not officially endorsing anybody, even though we know —<em> wink, wink</em> — that everyone’s going for Goldwater.” But Goldwater did inspire a lot of them. Arizona had a lot of Birchers, and Goldwater said some nice things about the Birchers being decent people, even as he was criticizing Welch. They saw a lot to like in his policies, but it was never a very comfortable fit.
</p>
<h4 id="N3Z2uj">
Ian Ward
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Op9jNr">
There’s a famous episode in conservative history where William F. Buckley Jr. — the editor of National Review<em> </em>and the intellectual godfather of modern conservatism — “excommunicated” the Birchers through a series of critical editorials in National Review. That episode has become a sort of symbol of so-called “responsible Republicans” policing their right flank from incursions by more fringe movements — but you argue that that story leaves something important out.
</p>
<h4 id="eZxAe4">
Matthew Dallek
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7puU1u">
Several very good historians have started to argue over the past 10 years that the idea that Buckley excommunicated the Birchers and police the boundaries of the conservative movement is a myth — and I basically agree with that take.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="33nkNb">
Buckley was in a real bind. On the one hand, he had relationships and rapport with a number of fringe figures, including some Birchers. Buckley realized that a lot of Birch members were real conservatives. They were subscribers to National Review. Buckley’s mother supported the Birch Society.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jV0ZLb">
At the same time, though, Buckley did think that Welch and his cockamamie conspiracy theories about Eisenhower and <a href="https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/pipe-dreams-americas-fluoride-controversy">fluoridation in the water supply</a> were not helpful to the conservative cause. Much of his fire was concentrated on Welch in particular.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1sfrd1">
But Buckley and his colleagues at National Review did struggle with what to say and how to react to the Birchers. Some of them said, “We do need to push back harder,” but others said — and Buckley himself said — “When did I call them kooks? I never said that.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cbbtzU">
In the process, Buckley alienated a lot of Bircher leaders, even as he was saying, “I didn’t criticize all Birchers.” A lot of them said that Buckley was doing damage to the conservative cause and to the unity of conservatism.
</p>
<h4 id="YVeLAE">
Ian Ward
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2y7rUH">
Even as their influence faded in the 1970s, the Birchers’ ideological legacy was clear, both in the groups that took up its ideological mantle, like the Moral Majority and George Wallace’s <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/american-independent-party-platform-1968">American Independent Party</a>, and in the Republican Party’s gradual drift toward a more conspiratorial style of politics.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2iFeG1">
But what has been the Birchers’ primary legacy at the level of political tactics and strategy?
</p>
<h4 id="ub9O20">
Matthew Dallek
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cDwOy9">
One of their big tactical legacies is rhetorical. It’s what I described as an apocalyptic mindset — the sense that liberals and establishment Republicans are not just those with a difference of opinion about policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8A0S3L">
The Birchers helped to entrench this idea that the establishment was the enemy, that the institutional arrangements in American politics and American society were stacked against true Americans. That was a rhetorical strategy that you see some hardline Republicans pick up on intermittently.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xXo6iz">
On top of that, I do think that the Birchers helped show the power of shocking grassroots direct action taken up against a single cause —like Obamacare or gun rights or gay marriage or abortion. The Birchers showed that this could be quite effective at mobilizing people, and that a relatively small number of people who are 110 percent devoted to a cause can have an outsize impact — and maybe even a much greater impact than even hundreds of thousands of voters.
</p>
<h4 id="Jjbgnb">
Ian Ward
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uFphGR">
Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/magazine/i-thought-i-understood-the-american-right-trump-proved-me-wrong.html">some</a> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/republican-party-extremist-history-hemmer-continetti-milbank-books/671248/">historians</a> have looked back at groups like the Birchers and said, “We ignored these groups for too long, but they’ve always been at the core of the conservative movement.” You push back against that reading a bit in the book. Why?
</p>
<h4 id="0NC6jn">
Matthew Dallek
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ags0kT">
There is a risk of flattening out the history. What I’ve tried to do is to draw not too straight a line from the 1950s to today, and to show — as historians try to do — that the radicalization of the GOP was contingent.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VOCWQU">
I also think that by giving the fringe too much credit in the last third of the 20th century, we risk distorting the tensions within the Republican Party, as well as twisting what the Republican Party and mainstream conservatives stood for.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QesOhD">
On some issues, the fringe and the Republican establishment aligned, especially on culture war issues. But most of the time, the Birchers and their successors were very frustrated. They loathed Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and some Birchers even said that Ronald Reagan was never to be trusted. On immigration reform, on internationalism, on military interventions, on free trade agreements, on conspiracy theories, and on the degree of explicit racism versus more coded or implicit racism, there were significant fissures.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J8neVO">
So even though the fringe was part of the Republican coalition — especially during campaigns — we don’t want to oversell their power historically. The MAGA phenomenon is a more recent development, and I try to explain how our contemporary far right essentially adopted the Birchers’ ideological legacy as an alternative political tradition and eventually took over the Republican Party.
</p>
<h4 id="uDVwZH">
Ian Ward
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="e5W73c">
In the book, you cite a statement from <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/2/17/hall-expert-on-extremism-claims-birchers/">Gordon Hall</a>, an expert on extremist groups and a critic of the Birchers, who said, “No one loves America more than the John Birch Society and no one understands it less.” From our vantage point today, I’m inclined to flip that expression around and say that no one respected American democracy less than the Birchers but understood its weaknesses better.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bx4L5R">
Do you think that’s a fair analysis?
</p>
<h4 id="BGkwNj">
Matthew Dallek<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Kxypbh">
I think that’s an interesting way to put it. The Birchers had a slogan that said, “We’re a republic, not a democracy. Let’s keep it that way.” That meant different things to different people, but they were quite opposed to the idea of multiracial democracy. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent comments and <a href="https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status/1627665203398688768">tweets</a> about getting a “national divorce” and eviscerating the federal government — that does hark back to this Bircher idea that, “Hey, we’re a republic.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cLdRzi">
I think that what Gordon Hall and a lot of liberal observers got wrong, especially over time, are the ways in which the Birch ideas were still very much alive in the country. They were not really ripe in 1970 or [the] ’80s or ’90s, but they became ripe in the past 15 years. They were there for the taking, and as we know, people took them up and ran with them in very powerful ways.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qF82NP">
So I think that liberals forgot about the far-right opponents of democracy and of civil rights and voting rights. They were a more powerful presence than a lot of people acknowledged for many, many years — but now they’re easier to see.
</p></li>
<li><strong>How Trump’s using a possible arrest to rile his base</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A handful of Trump supporters stand behind crowd barricades at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on 5th Ave. in Manhattan." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/63XIbUqoPnJobw6Go8CvgfTogr8=/608x0:5472x3648/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72089552/1474200901.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Trump supporters gather in front of Trump Tower during the St. Patrick’s Day Parade up 5th Ave. on March 17, 2023 in New York City. | John Lamparski/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The former president told his followers to “protest” ahead of a likely indictment, summoning the specter of January 6.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z1ipBg">
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday alleged via his Truth Media platform that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-expects-be-arrested-tuesday-manhattan-da-case-truth-social-2023-03-18/">he will be arrested on Tuesday</a>, calling for his followers to “PROTEST” and “TAKE OUR NATION BACK” in an echo of the capitol riots of January 6, 2021.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vUPAZH">
Trump’s all-caps post at 7:26 Saturday morning puzzled some close to his campaign, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/trump-indictment-arrest-protests.html">according to the New York Times</a>. Though prosecutors in the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have indicated that an indictment is forthcoming, Trump allies aren’t clear where the Tuesday deadline came from. But the call to arms does come ahead of a <a href="https://wacotrib.com/news/local/waco-to-host-trumps-1st-2024-campaign-rally/article_1b2617ca-422f-5a7d-8f00-36c058329b48.html">Saturday, March 25 rally in Waco, Texas </a>— the first in Trump’s 2024 campaign — and contrasts with his posting on mainstream social media sites YouTube and Facebook.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bVbSgw">
Trump is likely facing indictment by a Manhattan grand jury for <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/15/stormy-daniels-speaks-to-new-york-prosecutors-as-possible-trump-indictment-looms-00087307">allegedly paying hush money in 2016 to porn actress Stormy Daniels</a> to cover up an affair. According to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, Cohen paid Daniels $130,000, for which Trump’s business, the Trump Organization, later reimbursed him; an indictment from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office would focus on the attempt to cover up the payment by falsifying records.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OD849m">
Trump’s social media presence was significantly curtailed after the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/specials/politics/january-6-insurrection">January 6, 2021</a> riots; Trump and far-right mouthpieces called at the time for the former president’s followers to take action as Congress certified President Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 elections. Trump’s social media presence in particular was seen as a catalyst for the violence on that day, and Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube suspended Trump’s account in the following days and weeks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q2m6TW">
Twitter head Elon Musk reinstated Trump’s account shortly after October 27 of last year, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/twitter-elon-musk-timeline-c6b09620ee0905e59df9325ed042a609">when he assumed control</a> of the social media company, though Trump has yet to post there. YouTube and Meta, Facebook’s parent company, have both readmitted Trump to their sites; on Friday, his team cross-posted a video to YouTube and Facebook — a clip from CNN, early in the morning of his 2016 victory — announcing, “I’M BACK.”
</p>
<div id="ecfbGs">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XPxYNs">
YouTube’s Twitter account explained the company’s rationale for reinstating Trump’s account, <a href="https://twitter.com/youtubeinsider/status/1636731005263544320?s=46&amp;t=qHBLBRx6YryrKBOifOFbtA">saying that YouTube</a> had “carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence, while balancing the chance for voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run up to an election.” YouTube ended Trump’s suspension from the platform on Friday. <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2023/01/trump-facebook-instagram-account-suspension/">Meta released a statement January 25</a> saying that the company would reinstate Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, with enhanced “guardrails” on Trump’s content, including limiting posts that reference election denial or QAnon claims.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1u8fQV">
Trump, his companies, and his associates have faced many legal problems over the years; Cohen went to prison for his role in the hush money scandal, and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in prison for benefiting from tax evasion efforts by the Trump Organization. <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23306941/donald-trump-crimes-criminal-investigation-mar-a-lago-fbi-january-6-election-georgia-new-york">Other investigations</a>, both at the federal and state level are ongoing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yVngiM">
Bragg’s attempt at an indictment now, resting on the hush money, is somewhat peculiar, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/31/23579526/donald-trump-stormy-daniels-investigation">Vox’s Andrew Prokop</a> explained in January. Bragg took office after Cyrus Vance, Jr., who picked up the charges against Trump based on the hush money violating campaign finance law after the Southern District of New York dropped the charges. Bragg was initially skeptical about moving forward with the case when he took office in 2022, leading to the departure of two prosecutors in his office and a wave of criticism about being too lenient on Trump.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YddwI3">
Bragg’s case has picked up steam in the past two months, although it’s still not clear how it will be argued or, as Prokop notes, how strong that case actually is:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9Uxfsq">
This seems to pose the possibility that the hush money case is a bit of a reach, a “zombie” legal theory being resurrected now that Bragg has seemingly realized he’ll benefit more politically from being seen as trying to take Trump down — though we can’t say for sure without understanding more about his evidence and legal reasoning.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WwfClK">
That, of course, didn’t stop Trump from using the possibility of an indictment in his favor. As <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23306941/donald-trump-crimes-criminal-investigation-mar-a-lago-fbi-january-6-election-georgia-new-york">Vox’s Ian Millhiser</a> pointed out in a piece dissecting the various legal cases against Trump and related entities, “while the Justice Department will ordinarily be very tight-lipped about an ongoing investigation (and responsible state-level prosecutors will also not be especially forthcoming), Trump will not. And he is likely to tell lies and half-truths to mislead the public and rile up his supporters.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kbyBXb">
On Truth Social, Trump followed his complaint about the alleged arrest and demand for his followers to protest <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110045020046373515">with a simple request</a>: “If you are doing poorly, as so many of you are, do not send anything. If you are doing well, which was made possible through the great policies of the Trump Administration, send your contribution to donaldjtrump.com/.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iTwjaV">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5VqD9S">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tzsi52">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SFbt5C">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xisPSq">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6gdLgJ">
</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>King’s Ransom and Northern Lights catch the eye</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>Uttar Pradesh set to get its third international cricket stadium in Varanasi</strong> - BCCI’s honorary secretary Jay Shah and BCCI vice president Rajeev Shukla had visited Varanasi earlier this week in this regard.</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>Ind vs Aus second ODI | Mitchel Starc and Mitchell Marsh help Australia hammer India</strong> - Rohit Sharma comes back in the team along with Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur and Ishan Kishan miss out</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>NZ vs SL, 2nd Test | New Zealand close in on victory as Sri Lanka trails by 303 after following on</strong> - Sri Lanka were bowled out for 164 in their first innings and were 113-2 at stumps on Day three in their second innings</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>Saudi Arabian GP 2023 | Perez on pole for Red Bull for second year</strong> - Sergio Perez stepped up for Red Bull to ensure the team started from the pole at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after a mechanical issue sidelined two-time defending world champion Max Verstappen</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>Thrust on conservation and awareness offers hope for return of the sparrows</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>Meghalaya govt. firm on relocating Shillong Sikhs</strong> - The shifting from Harijan Colony is in keeping with the Meghalaya High Court’s directive, Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said</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>Rahul Gandhi on three-day visit to Karnataka to kickstart poll campaign</strong> - Assembly elections are due in May.</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>Fake notification from Teachers Recruitment Board in Tamil Nadu circulated on social media</strong> - Higher Education Secretary says no such notification had been issued by the department</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>NGT seeks factual report over plea alleging Varanasi Tent City Project violating green norms</strong> - The petition alleged that the project was against the order prohibiting construction in the riverbed of the Ganga.</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>Credit Suisse bank: UBS is in talks to take over its troubled rival</strong> - Emergency talks are underway in Zurich as regulators seek a deal for Credit Suisse before Monday.</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>Russia and Ukraine extend grain deal despite disagreement</strong> - The renewed accord means exports can continue via Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, but it is unclear how long for.</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>French pension reforms: Is Macron’s government doomed by crisis?</strong> - No-confidence motions face the Macron government as it tries to force its unpopular changes into law.</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>Banking crisis? How worried should I be?</strong> - Two US banks have collapsed and shares have tumbled prompting concerns on both sides of the Atlantic.</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>Putin arrest warrant: Biden welcomes ICC’s war crimes charges</strong> - The International Criminal Court accuses the Russian leader of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.</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>Google won’t honor medical leave during its layoffs, outraging employees</strong> - Ex-Googler says she was laid off from her hospital bed shortly after giving birth. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1924998">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Anthropic introduces Claude, a “more steerable” AI competitor to ChatGPT</strong> - Anthropic aims for “safer” and “less harmful” AI, but at a higher price. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1924161">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Bent nails at Roman burial site form “magical barrier” to keep dead from rising</strong> - Cremated remains were also covered in brick tiles and a thick layer of lime. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1924926">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Google tells users of some Android phones: Nuke voice calling to avoid infection</strong> - If your device runs Exynos chips, be very, very concerned. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1925040">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Microsoft is testing a built-in cryptocurrency wallet for the Edge browser</strong> - Crypto wallet would join coupons, cash back, and “buy now, pay later” add-ons. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1924980">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I think my girlfriend’s a secret drug dealer</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I just answered her phone, and this man said “is that dope still there?”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/justlikeyouonlyworse"> /u/justlikeyouonlyworse </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/11urgij/i_think_my_girlfriends_a_secret_drug_dealer/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/11urgij/i_think_my_girlfriends_a_secret_drug_dealer/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s the difference between an Indian and an African Elephant?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
One of them is an elephant.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/OMP159"> /u/OMP159 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/11v1vlc/whats_the_difference_between_an_indian_and_an/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/11v1vlc/whats_the_difference_between_an_indian_and_an/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The waiter came to my table and asked “Do you wanna box for your leftovers?”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
So I knocked his ass out with a left hook.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Response-Cheap"> /u/Response-Cheap </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/11v9264/the_waiter_came_to_my_table_and_asked_do_you/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/11v9264/the_waiter_came_to_my_table_and_asked_do_you/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why are the pyramids in Egypt?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Because they are too big to transport to British museums
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/WorriedLeading2081"> /u/WorriedLeading2081 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/11vhyyy/why_are_the_pyramids_in_egypt/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/11vhyyy/why_are_the_pyramids_in_egypt/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>“A man walks into a library and asks the librarian for a book on Pavlov’s dog and Schrödinger’s cat.”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“The librarian says, ‘It rings a bell but I’m not sure if it’s here or not!’”
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/ManInTheDarkSuit"> /u/ManInTheDarkSuit </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/11v45za/a_man_walks_into_a_library_and_asks_the_librarian/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/11v45za/a_man_walks_into_a_library_and_asks_the_librarian/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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