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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>Outcomes of COVID-19 in Children After Wide Distribution of COVID Vaccine, Albaha, Saudi Arabia</strong> -
<div>
Background: The WHO announced COVID-19 as a pandemic on 12 March 2020, and has become a major public health around the world. Objectives: The study aimed to evaluate clinical presentation and outcomes of COVID-19 cases after wide distribution of COVID vaccine. Methods: Cross sectional study, retrospective file review of the children aged less than 14 years, and confirmed by positive swab test to have COVID 19, from May 2021 to May 2022. Results: A total of 125 patients with positive tests were included in this study. Males made up 52.8% (66/125) of the population, while females made up 47.2% (59/125). The age group of 5–10 years was the most affected, with 46.2%. The common symptoms noted were fever 90.4%, followed by abdominal pain 45.6%, vomiting 44%, diarrhea 41.6%, running nose 39.2%, cough 36%, and headache 25%. Conjunctivitis (4%) and skin rash (1.6%) were the least common symptoms. Only four patients needed PICU admission. No mortality was reported in this study. Conclusions: The study concluded that the COVID severity became less with a short hospital course after wide distribution of the COVID vaccine. Male patients were more affected than female patients in the age group 5-10 years. Severe cases were associated with comorbidities.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/b7ca9/" target="_blank">Outcomes of COVID-19 in Children After Wide Distribution of COVID Vaccine, Albaha, Saudi Arabia</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Validation of saline, PBS and a locally produced VTM at varying storage conditions to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus by qRT-PCR</strong> -
<div>
Coronavirus Disease-2019 tests require a Nasopharyngeal (NP) and/or Oropharyngeal (OP) specimen from the upper airway, from which virus RNA is extracted and detected through quantitative reverse transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR). The viability of the virus is maintained after collection by storing the NP/OP swabs in Viral Transport Media (VTM). We evaluated the performance of four transport media: locally manufactured (REVITAL) Viral Transport Media (RVTM), Standard Universal Transport Media (SUTM), PBS and 0.9% (w/v) NaCl (normal saline). We used laboratory cultured virus to evaluate: i) viral recovery and maintaining integrity at different time periods and temperatures; ii) stability in yielding detectable RNA consistently for all time points and conditions; and iii) their overall accuracy. Four vials of SARS-CoV-2 cultured virus (2 high and 2 low concentration samples) and 1 negative control sample were prepared for each media type (SUTM, RVTM, PBS and normal saline) and stored at the following temperatures, -80{degrees}C, 4{degrees}C, room temperature (25{degrees}C) and 37{degrees}C for 7 days. Viral Ribonucleic acid (RNA) extractions and qRT-PCR were done on the following days after inoculation with the cultured virus, days 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 to assess virus stability and viral recovery. CT values fell over time at room temperature, but normal saline, PBS, RVTM and SUTM all showed comparable performance in maintaining virus integrity and stability allowing for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA. Overall, this study demonstrated that normal saline, PBS and the locally manufactured VTM can be used for COVID-19 sample collection and testing, thus expanding the range of SARS-CoV-2 viral collection media.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.29.505649v1" target="_blank">Validation of saline, PBS and a locally produced VTM at varying storage conditions to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus by qRT-PCR</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Timeline of changes in spike conformational dynamics in emergent SARS-CoV-2 variants reveal progressive stabilization of trimer stalk and enhanced NTD dynamics</strong> -
<div>
SARS-CoV-2 emergent variants are characterized by increased transmissibility and each show multiple mutations predominantly localized to the spike (S) protein. Here, amide hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry has been applied to track correlative changes in S dynamics from multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants. Our results highlight large differences across variants at two loci with impacts on S dynamics and stability. A significant enhancement in stabilization first occurred with the emergence of D614G S followed by smaller, progressive stabilization in Omicron BA.1 S traced through Alpha S and Delta S variants. Stabilization preceded progressive enhancement in dynamics in the N-terminal domain, wherein Omicron BA.1 S showed the largest magnitude increases relative to other preceding variants. Changes in stabilization and dynamics resulting from specific S mutations detail the evolutionary trajectory of S protein in emerging variants. These carry major implications for SARS- CoV-2 viral fitness and offer new insights into variant-specific therapeutic development.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.26.505369v1" target="_blank">Timeline of changes in spike conformational dynamics in emergent SARS-CoV-2 variants reveal progressive stabilization of trimer stalk and enhanced NTD dynamics</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Humoral and cellular response induced by a second booster of an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in adults</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant has challenged the control of the COVID-19 49 pandemic even in highly vaccinated countries. While a second booster of mRNA 50 vaccines improved the immunity against SARS-CoV-2, the humoral and cellular 51 responses induced by a second booster of an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine have 52 not been studied. In the context of a phase 3 clinical study, we report that a second booster of CoronaVac 53 increased the neutralizing response against the ancestral 54 virus yet showed poor neutralization against the Omicron variant. Additionally, isolated PBMCs displayed equivalent activation of specific CD4+ 55 T cells and IFN-γ 56 production when stimulated with a mega-pool of peptides derived from the spike 57 protein of the ancestral virus or the Omicron variant. In conclusion, a second booster dose of CoronaVac 58 does not improve the neutralizing response against the 59 Omicron variant compared with the first booster dose, yet it helps maintaining a robust spike-specific CD4+ 60 T cell response.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.22.22279080v2" target="_blank">Humoral and cellular response induced by a second booster of an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in adults</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Proteomic Characterization of Acute Kidney Injury in Patients Hospitalized with SARS-CoV2 Infection</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a known complication of COVID-19 and is associated with an increased risk of in-hospital mortality. Unbiased proteomics using biological specimens can lead to improved risk stratification and discover pathophysiological mechanisms. Using measurements of ~4000 plasma proteins in two cohorts of patients hospitalized with COVID-19, we discovered and validated markers of COVID-associated AKI (stage 2 or 3) and long-term kidney dysfunction. In the discovery cohort (N= 437), we identified 413 higher plasma abundances of protein targets and 40 lower plasma abundances of protein targets associated with COVID-AKI (adjusted p &lt;0.05). Of these, 62 proteins were validated in an external cohort (p &lt;0.05, N =261). We demonstrate that COVID-AKI is associated with increased markers of tubular injury (NGAL) and myocardial injury. Using estimated glomerular filtration (eGFR) measurements taken after discharge, we also find that 25 of the 62 AKI-associated proteins are significantly associated with decreased post-discharge eGFR (adjusted p &lt;0.05). Proteins most strongly associated with decreased post-discharge eGFR included desmocollin-2, trefoil factor 3, transmembrane emp24 domain-containing protein 10, and cystatin-C indicating tubular dysfunction and injury. Using clinical and proteomic data, our results suggest that while both acute and long-term COVID-associated kidney dysfunction are associated with markers of tubular dysfunction, AKI is driven by a largely multifactorial process involving hemodynamic instability and myocardial damage.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.09.21267548v2" target="_blank">Proteomic Characterization of Acute Kidney Injury in Patients Hospitalized with SARS-CoV2 Infection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>COVID-19 prevention policies through the lens of intermediary organisations and networks: Five lessons for pandemic policy making</strong> -
<div>
Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, key stakeholders in local organisations like sport clubs, cultural-, education- or day- and healthcare facilities, are positioned between governments and citizens. Yet, their experiences, the dilemmas they face and solutions they generate in implementing COVID-19 prevention policies in their setting are understudied. Aim: To understand how formal and informal stakeholders in different organisations and community networks have experienced and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic policies in the Netherlands. Methods: Between October 2020 - November 2021, the Corona Behavioural Unit at the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM, Netherlands) conducted narrative research, including 65 in-depth interviews with 95 key persons from 32 organisations in 8 different sectors. An independent expert-panel reviewed the methodology, analysis and interpretation of data. Results: Five main themes emerged. First, local stakeholders support resilience and wellbeing of people involved, and enhance adherence through context-specific interventions and partnerships. Second, adherence is negatively affected when COVID-19 policies conflict with significant organisational goals and values. Third, small changes and unclarity in policies nationally, can have major impact on stakeholders locally. Fourth problem solving was based on trial-and-error, peer support, co-creation and transparent communication. Lastly, pandemic and COVID-19 prevention policies highlight inequalities in access to resources.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/hwfgy/" target="_blank">COVID-19 prevention policies through the lens of intermediary organisations and networks: Five lessons for pandemic policy making</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>SARS-CoV-2 reinfections during the first three major COVID-19 waves in Bulgaria</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the world over the past two years (2020-2021). One of the key questions about its future trajectory is the protection from subsequent infections and disease conferred by a previous infection, as the SARS-CoV-2 virus belongs to the coronaviruses, a group of viruses the members of which are known for their ability to reinfect convalescent individuals. Bulgaria, with high rates of previous infections combined with low vaccination rates and an elderly population, presents a somewhat unique context to study this question. Methods: We use detailed governmental data on registered COVID-19 cases to evaluate the incidence and outcomes of COVID-19 reinfections in Bulgaria in the period between March 2020 and early December 2021. Results: For the period analyzed, a total of 4,106 cases of individuals infected more than once were observed, including 31 cases of three infections and one of four infections. The number of reinfections increased dramatically during the Delta variant-driven wave of the pandemic towards the end of 2021. We observe a moderate reduction of severe outcomes (hospitalization and death) in reinfections relative to primary infections, and a more substantial reduction of severe outcomes in breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals. Conclusions: In the available datasets from Bulgaria, prior infection appears to provide some protection from severe outcomes, but to a lower degree than the reduction in severity of breakthrough infections in the vaccinated compared to primary infections in the unvaccinated.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.11.22271527v2" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 reinfections during the first three major COVID-19 waves in Bulgaria</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Increased Risk Perception, Distress Intolerance and Health Anxiety in Stricter Lockdowns: Self-Control as a Key Protective Factor in Early Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
Studies provide evidence that distress, (health) anxiety and depressive symptoms were high during the first weeks of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, decreasing over time, possibly due to individuals’ protective psychological factors. Relations between different lockdown restrictions, mental health issues, and protective factors need to be explored, since even small lockdown effects might increase the risk of future mental health issues. We merged objective lockdown stringency data with individual data (N = 1,001) to examine differences in lockdown effects in strict lockdown (Romania) and mild lockdown (Hungary) conditions between March and May 2020 on stressors and mental health symptoms, taking protective factors into account. The stricter lockdown in Romania revealed higher levels of perceived risk of infection, distress intolerance, and COVID-19 health anxiety. Protective psychological factors were not affected by the lockdown measures. Surpassing psychological flexibility and resilient coping, self-control proved to be the most promising protective factor. It is recommended that future research merge objective data with study data to investigate the effects of different COVID-19 lockdown measures on mental health and protective factors. Policy decisions should consider lockdown-dependent consequences of mental health issues. Intervention programs are suggested to mitigate mental health issues and to strengthen peoples’ protective psychological factors.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/ubfw2/" target="_blank">Increased Risk Perception, Distress Intolerance and Health Anxiety in Stricter Lockdowns: Self-Control as a Key Protective Factor in Early Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A psychological exploration into collecting behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
Over a third of Americans collect at least one type of item, with similar proportions found in other Western cultures. Despite the large size of the global population of collectors, little has been investigated in terms of collecting behaviors and their relationship with identity, compulsive buying, shopping addiction, mood modification, interpersonal relationships, spiritual aspects to collecting, and the differences between collectors. Cross-cultural research was used to investigate the aforementioned relationships and build a groundwork for future research. In addition, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on collecting behaviors was examined, with a focus on exploring the differences between people that greatly increased collection spending during the pandemic compared to those that did not or moderately increased their spending. High salience in collector identity was associated with higher levels of excessive buying, shopping addiction, mood modification, communal support for collecting, competitive collecting, relatedness with other collectors, viewing collecting as sacred/spiritual, and lower levels of doubt about collecting. Young and single collectors most drastically increased their spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to higher levels of doubt, guilt, disgust, fear, loneliness, relationship strain, higher levels of dependence on collecting to modify mood, and higher levels of withdrawal symptoms consistent with addiction.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/fdm5a/" target="_blank">A psychological exploration into collecting behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Effect of Pranayama on Perceived Stress, Well Being and Quality of Life of Frontline Healthcare Professionals on Covid-19 Duty: A Quasi- Randomized Clinical Trial</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unparalleled challenges for health systems worldwide, the impact of which has also been borne by the Healthcare Professionals (HCPs). Numerous studies have revealed the positive effects of Pranayama and Meditation on mental health. The effect of Pranayama in improving mental health of frontline HCP exposed to Covid-19 patients has not been studied. Aim &amp; Objective: This quasi-randomized clinical trial was done to study the effect of especially designed Pranayama protocol on perceived stress, wellbeing and quality of life of frontline health care professionals who were exposed to COVID-19 patients in hospital settings. Methodology This study was done with 280 frontline healthcare professionals (HCP) assigned duties with COVID-19 patients during September-November, 2020 in 5 government hospitals and COVID-19 quarantine/isolation centres in New Delhi, India. The HCPs were first assessed for COVID-19 infection in the past using antibody test, and only those found negative were recruited. The enrolled respondents were randomly assigned to two arms an intervention arm where there were to practice 28 day Pranayama module (morning and evening sessions) under supervision of a trainer and a Control arm where the HCPs continued routine physical activity (walking jogging etc). Baseline and end-line (total: 250 HCPs) Psychological parameters of Perceived Stress, Well Being and Quality of Life were collected through self-reported questionnaires. Results The intervention (HCPs 123) and control (HCPs 127) groups (Total 250) were comparable in their demographic profile and baseline characteristics. Intervention with Pranayama module led to a significant reduction (Mean diff -2.46 P-value 0.028) in perceived stress score in the intervention group compared to the control group. The wellbeing index in Interventional group intervention showed a non-significant increase. The WHO Quality-of-life score increased in the intervention group as compared to the controls (mean difference 2.78, p-value: 0.17). Of its four components, the one for Psychological domain increased significantly (mean diff: 1.52, P-value: 0.019), while those for Physical domain and Environmental domains increased (mean diff: 0.64, P-value: 0.29 and mean diff: 0.68, p-value: 0.48) though not statistical significantly. Conclusion: The intervention of twice daily practice of the Pranayama module for 28 days in frontline HCPs performing COVID-19 duties had a noteworthy effect in lowering Perceived Stress, improving perceived Quality of life, especially its Psychological domains as measured through standardized questionnaires.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.25.22279201v1" target="_blank">Effect of Pranayama on Perceived Stress, Well Being and Quality of Life of Frontline Healthcare Professionals on Covid-19 Duty: A Quasi- Randomized Clinical Trial</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Development and application of an uncapped mRNA platform</strong> -
<div>
A novel uncapped mRNA platform was developed. Five lipid nanoparticle (LNP)-encapsulated mRNA constructs were made to evaluate several aspects of our platform, including transfection efficiency and durability in vitro and in vivo and activation of humoral and cellular immunity in several animal models. The constructs were eGFP-mRNA-LNP (for enhanced green fluorescence mRNA), Fluc-mRNA-LNP (for firefly luciferase mRNA), S{delta}T-mRNA-LNP (for Delta strain SARS-CoV-2 spike protein trimer mRNA), gDED-mRNA-LNP (for truncated glycoprotein D mRNA coding ectodomain from herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV2)) and gDFR-mRNA-LNP (for truncated HSV2 glycoprotein D mRNA coding amino acids 1~400). Quantified target protein expression in vitro and in vivo was achieved with eGFP- and Fluc-mRNA-LNP. S{delta}T-mRNA-LNP, gDED-mRNA-LNP and gDFR-mRNA-LNP induced both humoral and cellular immune responses comparable to capped mRNA-LNP constructs reported previously. Notably, 25, 50 and 100 g of S{delta}T-mRNA-LNP elicited neutralizing antibodies in hamsters against the Omicron and Delta strains. Additionally, gDED-mRNA-LNP and gDFR-mRNA-LNP induced potent neutralizing antibodies in rabbits and mice. The mRNA constructs with uridine triphosphate (UTP) outperformed those with N1-methylpseudouridine triphosphate (N1m{psi}TP) in the in vivo expression of luciferase and induction of antibodies via S{delta}T-mRNA-LNP. Our uncapped, process-simplified, and economical mRNA platform may have broad uses in vaccines and protein replacement drugs.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.05.494796v2" target="_blank">Development and application of an uncapped mRNA platform</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Homologous and heterologous boosting with CoronaVac and BNT162b2: a randomized trial (the Cobovax study)</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: There are few trials comparing homologous and heterologous third doses of COVID-19 vaccination with inactivated vaccines and mRNA vaccines. Methods: We conducted an open-label randomized trial in adults &gt;=18 years of age who received two doses of inactivated vaccine (CoronaVac) or mRNA vaccine (BNT162b2) &gt;=6 months earlier, randomised in 1:1 ratio to receive a third dose of either vaccine. We compared the reactogenicity, immunogenicity and cell-mediated immune responses, and assessed vaccine efficacy against infections during follow-up. Results: We enrolled 219 adults who previously received two doses of CoronaVac and randomised to CoronaVac (“CC-C”, n=101) or BNT162b2 (“CC-B”, n=118) third dose; and 232 adults who previously received BNT162b2 and randomised to CoronaVac (“BB-C”, n=118) or BNT162b2 (“BB-B”, n=114). There were more frequent reports of mild reactions in recipients of third-dose BNT162b2, which generally subsided within 7 days. Antibody responses against the ancestral virus, Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 subvariant by surrogate neutralization and PRNT50 were stronger for the recipients of a third dose of BNT162b2 over CoronaVac irrespective of prior vaccine type. CD4+ T cells boost only occurred in CoronaVac-primed arms. We did not identify differences in CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses between arms. When Omicron BA.2 was circulating, we identified 58 infections with cumulative incidence of 15.3% and 15.4% in the CC-C and CC-B (p=0.93), and 16.7% and 14.0% in the BB-C and BB-B arms, respectively (p=0.56). Conclusions: Similar levels of incidence of infection in each arm suggest all third dose combinations may provide similar degrees of protection against prevalent Omicron BA.2 infection, despite very weak antibody responses to BA.2 in the recipients of a CoronaVac third dose. Further research is warranted to identify appropriate correlates of protection for inactivated COVID-19 vaccines.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.25.22279158v2" target="_blank">Homologous and heterologous boosting with CoronaVac and BNT162b2: a randomized trial (the Cobovax study)</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>DeepLPI: a novel deep learning-based model for protein-ligand interaction prediction for drug repurposing</strong> -
<div>
The substantial cost of new drug research and development has consistently posed a huge burden for both pharmaceutical companies and patients. In order to lower the expenditure and development failure rate, repurposing existing and approved drugs by identifying interactions between drug molecules and target proteins based on computational methods have gained growing attention. Here, we propose the DeepLPI, a novel deep learning-based model that mainly consists of ResNet-based 1-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D CNN) and bi-directional long short term memory network (biLSTM), to establish an end-to-end framework for protein-ligand interaction prediction. We first encode the raw drug molecular sequences and target protein sequences into dense vector representations, which go through two ResNet-based 1D CNN modules to derive features, respectively. The extracted feature vectors are concatenated and further fed into the biLSTM network, followed by the MLP module to finally predict protein-ligand interaction. We downloaded the well-known BindingDB and Davis dataset for training and testing our DeepLPI model. We also applied DeepLPI on a COVID-19 dataset for externally evaluating the prediction ability of DeepLPI. To benchmark our model, we compared our DeepLPI with the state-of-the-art methods of DeepCDA and DeepDTA, and observed that our DeepLPI outperformed these methods, suggesting the high accuracy of the DeepLPI towards protein-ligand interaction prediction. The high prediction performance of DeepLPI on the different datasets displayed its high capability of protein-ligand interaction in generalization, demonstrating that the DeepLPI has the potential to pinpoint new drug-target interactions and to find better destinations for proven drugs.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.01.470868v2" target="_blank">DeepLPI: a novel deep learning-based model for protein-ligand interaction prediction for drug repurposing</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Health System Resilience-enhancing Strategies for Managing Public Health Emergencies of International Concerns (PHEIC): Success and Challenges A Systematic Review Protocol</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Introduction Health system resilience is the ability to prepare, manage, and learn from a sudden and unpredictable extreme change which impacts health systems. Health systems globally have recently been affected by a number of catastrophic events, including natural disasters, and infectious disease epidemics. Understanding health system resilience has never been more essential until emerging global pandemics. Therefore, the application of resilience-enhancing strategies with existing frameworks needs to be assessed to identify the management gaps and give valuable recommendations from the lessons learnt from the global pandemic. Methodology The systematic review will be reported using the Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols guideline (PRISMA-P). Reporting data on health system building blocks and systematic searches on resilience enhancing strategies for the management of Public Health Emergencies of International Concerns (PHEIC) after the establishment of International Health Regulations (IHR) since managing PHEIC after the establishment of IHR in 2007 will be included. The search will be conducted in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and grey literature. Discussion Health system resilience is key to coping with catastrophic events, such as the economic crisis and COVID-19 pandemic. The mapping of available literature towards the application of resilience-enhancing strategies with existing frameworks needs to be assessed to identify the management gaps and give valuable recommendations from the lessons learnt from the global pandemic to improve the level of preparedness and response to similar public health emergencies in the future. Conclusion A protocol for a global review of health system resilience for pandemic management is described. This review will add to the body of knowledge about health systems enhancing research and policy formulation.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.14.22276386v3" target="_blank">Health System Resilience-enhancing Strategies for Managing Public Health Emergencies of International Concerns (PHEIC): Success and Challenges A Systematic Review Protocol</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Evidence from 35 countries that the social perception of key protagonists is associated with containment measures during the COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
It is crucial to understand why people comply with measures to contain viruses and their effects during pandemics. We provide evidence from 35 countries (Ntotal = 12,553) from six continents during the COVID-19 pandemic that the social perception of key protagonists on two basic dimensions of social perception – warmth and competence – played a crucial role in shaping pandemic-related behaviors. Firstly, heads of state, physicians, and protest movements were universally identified as key protagonists across countries. Secondly, the social perception of these and other protagonists differed significantly within and between countries across warmth and competence. Thirdly, warmth and competence perceptions of heads of state, physicians, and protest movements translated into support and opposition intentions, containment and prevention behaviors, as well as vaccination uptake. Our results have important implications for designing effective interventions to motivate desirable health outcomes and coping with future health crises and other global challenges.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/8xgb5/" target="_blank">Evidence from 35 countries that the social perception of key protagonists is associated with containment measures during the COVID-19 pandemic</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>A Clinical Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of SIM0417 Orally Co-Administered With Ritonavir in Symptomatic Adult Participants With Mild to Moderate COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: SIM0417;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Jiangsu Simcere 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>Self-management of Post COVID-19 Syndrome Using Wearable Biometric Technology</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Self-management of post COVID-19 respiratory outcomes<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Manitoba<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>Clinical Study to Compare Efficacy and Safety of Casirivimab and Imdevimab Combination, Remdesivir and Favipravir in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Casirivimab and Imdevimab Drug Combination;   Drug: Remdesivir;   Drug: Favipiravir<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Mansoura University 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>The Role of BCG Vaccine in the Clinical Evolution of COVID-19 and in the Efficacy of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin) vaccine;   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Oswaldo Cruz Foundation;   University of Sao Paulo;   Federal University of Juiz de Fora<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>Performance Evaluation of LumiraDx COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) Ag ULTRA Test (ASPIRE-2)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Diagnostic Test: Nasal Swab;   Diagnostic Test: Nasopharyngeal swab<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   LumiraDx UK Limited<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 2a Trial to Evaluate Safety and Immunogenicity of COVID-19 Vaccine Strategies in HIV-infected/Uninfected Adults.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: Ad26.COV2.S (VAC31518, JNJ-78436735) Vaccine, SARS-CoV-2 rS (CovovaxTM), BNT162b2 (Pfizer)<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   The Aurum Institute NPC;   Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations<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 Effects of a Sublingual Sprayable Microemulsion of Vitamin D on Inflammatory Markers in COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Vitamin D Deficiency<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Dietary Supplement: Vitamin D 25 (OH) 12000 IU in the form of a sublingual sprayable microemulsion<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Pauls Stradins Clinical University 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>UNAIR Inactivated COVID-19 Vaccine Phase III (Immunobridging Study)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19 Pandemic;   COVID-19 Vaccines<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Vaksin Merah Putih - UA SARS-CoV-2 (Vero Cell Inactivated) 5 µg;   Biological: CoronaVac Biofarma COVID-19 Vaccine<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Dr. Soetomo General Hospital;   Indonesia-MoH;   Universitas Airlangga;   Biotis Pharmaceuticals, Indonesia<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>Hydrogen-Oxygen Generator With Nebulizer for Rehabilitation Treatment of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   AMS-H-03;   Hydrogen-oxygen Gas<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Device: Hydrogen-Oxygen Generator with Nebulizer, AMS-H-03;   Other: basic treatment<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital<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>COVID Protection After Transplant - Sanofi GSK (CPAT-SG) Study</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Kidney Transplant<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: Sanofi-GSK monovalent (B.1.351) CoV2 preS dTM-AS03 COVID-19 vaccine<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID);   PPD;   Johns Hopkins University;   Sanofi Pasteur, a Sanofi Company<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>Canadian Adaptive Platform Trial for Long COVID</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Long COVID, Post COVID Condition, Post Acute Sequelae of COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Ibudilast;   Dietary Supplement: Whey Protein Isolate;   Drug: Pentoxifylline;   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University Health Network, Toronto<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>Clinical Trial of Jinzhen Oral Liquid in Treating Children With COVID-19 Infection</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Child, Only<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: Jinzhen oral liquid or Jinhuaqinggan granules<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University<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>Smartphone Intervention for Overdose and COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Substance Use Disorders;   Overdose;   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: iThrive WI Intervention<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   University of Wisconsin, Madison;   National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)<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>Phase 2 Study of the Safety and Immunogenicity of COVID-19 and Influenza Combination Vaccine</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Influenza<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: CIC Vaccine;   Drug: qNIV Vaccine;   Drug: SARS-CoV-2 rS Vaccine;   Drug: Influenza Vaccine<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Novavax<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>Study to Assess Efficacy and Safety of Treamid for Patients With Reduced Exercise Tolerance After COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   SARS-CoV-2 Infection;   Lung Fibrosis<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Treamid;   Drug: Treamid twice a day;   Drug: Treamid once a day;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   PHARMENTERPRISES LLC<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nonstructural Protein 1 of Variant PEDV Plays a Key Role in Escaping Replication Restriction by Complement C3</strong> - Zoonotic coronaviruses represent an ongoing threat to public health. The classical porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) first appeared in the early 1970s. Since 2010, outbreaks of highly virulent PEDV variants have caused great economic losses to the swine industry worldwide. However, the strategies by which PEDV variants escape host immune responses are not fully understood. Complement component 3 (C3) is considered a central component of the three complement activation pathways and plays a…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Anti-viral organic coatings for high touch surfaces based on smart-release, Cu<sup>2+</sup> containing pigments</strong> - Viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 can remain viable on solid surfaces for up to one week, hence fomites are a potential route of exposure to infectious virus. Copper has well documented antiviral properties that could limit this problem, however practical deployment of copper surfaces has been limited due to the associated costs and the incompatibility of copper metal in specific environments and conditions. We therefore developed an organic coating containing an intelligent-release Cu^(2+) pigment…</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 motivations and their conditions which drive students to seek higher education in a foreign country</strong> - This article summarizes a vast literature tracing the plethora of motivations of international students to study abroad. We detail the push factors (i.e., personal goals) and pull factors (i.e., attracting elements) for this decision to pursue higher education overseas. To elaborate, the push factors are around the attainment and/or increase of three main capitals: human, financial and psychological. Pull factors are around the attracting capacity of three main entities: the destination country,…</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>Exploring the mechanism of action of Xuanfei Baidu granule (XFBD) in the treatment of COVID-19 based on molecular docking and molecular dynamics</strong> - CONCLUSION: For the first time, it was found that the important active chemical components in XFBD, such as I-SPD, Pachypodol and Vestitol, reduce inflammatory response and apoptosis by inhibiting the activation of NLRP3, and reduce the production of inflammatory factors and chemotaxis of inflammatory cells by inhibiting the activation of CSF2. Therefore, XFBD can effectively alleviate the clinical symptoms of COVID-19 through NLRP3 and CSF2.</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>Complanatuside alleviates inflammatory cell damage induced by pro-inflammatory cytokines in skin keratinocytes</strong> - Cytokine-mediated inflammatory response is considered a cause of skin lesion in COVID-19 patients. Complanatuside is a flavonol glycoside isolated from Astragalus complanatus. Flavonoids from Astragalus complanatus were reported to have anti-inflammatory and anticancer activities but the potential protective effect of complanatuside on cytokine-induced inflammatory damage in skin keratinocytes is not known. The aim of this study is to explore the inhibitory effect of complanatuside on…</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>Probiotic-Based Bacteriocin: Immunity Supplementation Against Viruses. An Updated Review</strong> - Viral infections are a major cause of severe, fatal diseases worldwide. Recently, these infections have increased due to demanding contextual circumstances, such as environmental changes, increased migration of people and product distribution, rapid demographic changes, and outbreaks of novel viruses, including the COVID-19 outbreak. Internal variables that influence viral immunity have received attention along with these external causes to avert such novel viral outbreaks. The gastrointestinal…</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>Synthesis, characterization, DFT, antioxidant, antibacterial, pharmacokinetics and inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 main protease of some heterocyclic hydrazones</strong> - Three hydrazone derivatives have been synthesized using condensation reaction of 4-hydrazinylbenzoic acid with three aromatic aldehydes namely: thiophene-2-carbaldehyde, thiophene-3-carbaldehyde and 2-furaldehyde in ethanol at 78 °C reflux. The synthesized molecules have been characterized using spectroscopic and physicochemical methods including UV-Vis, IR, ¹H NMR, ^(13)C NMR, ^(15)N NMR and melting point determination. Optimized molecular structures, UV-Vis and IR spectra modeling, 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>Pre-exposure to mRNA-LNP inhibits adaptive immune responses and alters innate immune fitness in an inheritable fashion</strong> - Hundreds of millions of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-LNP vaccine doses have already been administered to humans. However, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the immune effects of this platform. The mRNA-LNP-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is highly inflammatory, and its synthetic ionizable lipid component responsible for the induction of inflammation has a long in vivo half-life. Since chronic inflammation can lead to immune exhaustion and non-responsiveness, we sought to determine the effects of pre-exposure…</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>Self-assembling short immunostimulatory duplex RNAs with broad spectrum antiviral activity</strong> - The current COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for broad-spectrum antiviral therapeutics. Here we describe a new class of self-assembling immunostimulatory short duplex RNAs that potently induce production of type I and type III interferon (IFN-I and IFN-III). These RNAs require a minimum of 20 base pairs, lack any sequence or structural characteristics of known immunostimulatory RNAs, and instead require a unique sequence motif (sense strand: 5’-C, antisense strand: 3’-GGG) that mediates…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Immunogenicity and immune-persistence of the CoronaVac or Covilo inactivated COVID-19 Vaccine: a 6-month population-based cohort study</strong> - CONCLUSION: Antibodies that were elicited by these two inactivated COVID-19 vaccines appeared to wane following their peak after the second vaccine dose, but they persisted at detectable levels through 6 months after the second vaccine dose, and the effectiveness of these antibodies against the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 was lower than their effectiveness against wildtype SARS-CoV-2, which suggests that attention must be paid to the protective effectiveness, and its persistence, of COVID-19…</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>Circulating microRNA signatures associated with disease severity and outcome in COVID-19 patients</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: We discovered circulating miRNAs associated with COVID-19 severity and mortality. The identified DE miRNAs provided clues on COVID-19 pathogenesis, highlighting signatures of impaired interferon and antiviral responses, inflammation, organ damage and cardiovascular failure as associated with severe disease and death.</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>Papain-like protease of SARS-CoV-2 inhibits RLR signaling in a deubiquitination-dependent and deubiquitination-independent manner</strong> - The newly emerged severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) can result in dysregulated interferon (IFN) responses that contribute to disease severity. The papain-like protease of SARS-CoV-2 (SCoV2-PLpro) has been previously reported to attenuate IFN responses, but the underlying mechanism is not fully understood. In this study, we found that SCoV2-PLpro potently suppressed IFN production and signaling induced by Sendai virus as well as RIG-I-like receptor (RLR)…</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>Ginsenoside Rg5 allosterically interacts with P2RY<sub>12</sub> and ameliorates deep venous thrombosis by counteracting neutrophil NETosis and inflammatory response</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Rg5 could attenuate experimental DVT by counteracting NETosis and inflammatory response in neutrophils via P2RY(12), which may pave the road for its clinical application in the prevention of DVT-related disorders.</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>Natural inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 main protease: structure based pharmacophore modeling, molecular docking and molecular dynamic simulation studies</strong> - Main protease (M^(pro)) plays a key role in replication of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This study was designed for finding natural inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 M^(pro) by in silico methods. To this end, the co-crystal structure of M^(pro) with telaprevir was explored and receptor-ligand pharmacophore models were developed and validated using pharmit. The database of “ZINC Natural Products” was screened, and 288 compounds were filtered according to pharmacophore…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of MEK signaling prevents SARS-CoV2-induced lung damage and improves survival of infected mice</strong> - Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the illness caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Over 500 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been recorded, with 6 million deaths. Thus, reducing the COVID-19-related medical burden is an unmet need. Despite a vaccine that is successful in preventing COVID-19-caused death, effective medication to relieve COVID-19-associated symptoms and alleviate disease progression is still in high demand. In particular, one in…</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 Censorship Machine Erasing China’s Feminist Movement</strong> - This summer, a viral video of a group of women being viciously attacked in a restaurant sparked national outrage. The response has been quashed. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-censorship-machine-erasing-chinas-feminist-movement">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Trying to Find Places for Asylum Seekers in New York City’s Homeless Shelters</strong> - An immigrants’-rights advocate describes receiving busloads of migrants from Texas at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/as-told-to/trying-to-find-places-for-asylum-seekers-in-new-york-citys-homeless-shelters">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Year After the Fall of Kabul</strong> - For the Biden Administration, supporting the Afghan people without empowering the Taliban is the foreign-policy case study from hell. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-year-after-the-fall-of-kabul">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ben Lerner Reads “Café Loup”</strong> - The author reads his story from the September 5, 2022, issue of the magazine. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-writers-voice/ben-lerner-reads-cafe-loup">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Mondragon Became the World’s Largest Co-Op</strong> - In Spain, an industrial-sized conglomerate owned by its workers suggests an alternative future for capitalism. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-mondragon-became-the-worlds-largest-co-op">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>TV shows keep making the loser in a love triangle bi</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6ktQ9zQiAu5G_TCrFud406srFm0=/735x0:3434x2024/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71300926/NeverHaveIEver_Season3_Episode2_00_27_18_23R.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Never Have I Ever’s Aneesa (left, Megan Suri) is the latest recipient of the Bisexual Safety Switch. Pictured here with Lee Rodriguez as Fabiola in episode 302. | Netflix
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Why shows like Never Have I Ever and Sex Ed keep throwing the Bisexual Safety Switch.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AbgxjA">
<em>Welcome to </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/2/1/18205669/design-culture-fashion-home-shopping-trends-movies-tv"><em>Noticed</em></a><em>, Vox’s cultural trend column. You know that thing you’ve been seeing all over the place? Allow us to explain it.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bv0Fa3">
<strong>What it is:</strong> A beloved and immortal plot line common to most good TV shows (do not fact-check this) is a love triangle between the heroine, her love interest, and her rival. After suitable amounts of romantic angst and pining, the love triangle traditionally comes to some sort of climax or resolution.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ooG7mP">
Over the past few years, we’ve started to see a new plot develop from this point. Abruptly, after very little foreshadowing, the heroine’s rival comes out as bisexual. She starts dating women, loses all interest in the heroine’s love interest, and quite possibly chops off her hair into a fetching long bob.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RQU9uC">
It’s as though the show thinks it can neutralize this character as a romantic rival for the heroine by simply and suddenly pivoting her sexual orientation. Call it the Bisexual Safety Switch.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NHYByy">
<strong>Where it is</strong>: The Bisexual Safety Switch first came to your humble correspondent’s attention in 2018, when both <em>Jane the Virgin</em> and <em>Crazy Ex-Girlfriend</em> flipped the switch on their heroines’ primary rivals (Petra and Valencia respectively) within months of one another. More recently, the trend has made its way into the teen show realm, showing up on both <em>Sex Ed</em> (Ola) and the latest season of <em>Never Have I Ever</em> (Aneesa). <em>Riverdale</em> also had a version of the trend, flirting briefly with the idea that Toni might rival Betty for Jughead’s affections before reassigning her as Cheryl’s love interest.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WvutRT">
<strong>Why you’re seeing it everywhere:</strong> For as long as TV has rejoiced in depicting beautiful people getting their hearts broken in various romantic polygons, it’s faced the problem of what to do with the losers of those polygons.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ydncy8">
Close-formed fiction like film and novels has it easy; it can simply end where the love triangle ends and not worry about tying up any loose strings afterward. But serialized television goes on for a long time, and even the most baroque love scaffoldings tend to come to some sort of resolution after a season or two of drama. Often, the actors playing defeated romantic rivals have contracts. The characters are embedded in the story structure. They can’t simply disappear.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Pv1ekD">
In the good old days of the ’80s and ’90s, there was a simple solution. The show would reveal that the heroine’s defeated romantic rival was a bitch, slut, or other misogynistic slur, and she would be safely neutralized as a possible match for the heroine’s virtuous love interest. From there, the rival could pivot. She could become a villain.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eCJzeb">
In the quasi-progressive era in which Hollywood now finds itself, it’s no longer considered acceptable to pit girls against one another quite so openly as the nighttime soaps of yore used to. Shows that aspire to feminism are no longer supposed to commit “girl-on-girl crimes” (a state of affairs that <em>Never Have I Ever</em>, for one, has greeted with <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/never-have-i-ever-season-3-episode-4-recap-made-someone-jealous.html">open dismay</a>).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VsCR6n">
Yet the idea of leaving a defeated romantic rival out roaming the streets, where she might somehow trick the love interest into falling for her again — no, no, unthinkable. These shows seem to shudder away from the mere possibility.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vt7DPX">
The Bisexual Safety Switch appears to present itself to these shows as a progressive-feeling solution to the problem. The rival no longer has to be a bitch or a slut or a villain. She can have layers. She and the heroine can form a nicely fraught friendship. <em>And</em> she can offer the show bisexual representation in the process. So where’s the problem?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0jlUeq">
There are in fact a few problems with the Bisexual Safety Switch.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yANR07">
To begin with, the Switch relies upon the subliminal notion that coming out as bisexual makes the character no longer a potential romantic rival to the heterosexual heroine. If we were taking the Switch strictly literally, it couldn’t work as intended. Bisexual women, after all, can still date men. But that the Switch has been used so often suggests that deep down, we believe that the post-Switch rival has been moved to a different plane, been somehow sullied, made less-than. We may no longer explicitly have to turn our rivals into villains, but the Switch wouldn’t be effective if it didn’t on some level feel as though it disqualified the rival from competition.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mQzZS3">
Secondly, the Bisexual Safety Switch appears to only ever be pulled on women. Both <em>Crazy Ex-Girlfriend</em> and <em>Jane the Virgin</em> featured bisexual male characters (<em>Crazy Ex-Girlfriend</em>, it must be said, much more successfully than <em>Jane the Virgin</em>), but only female characters come out as bi as part of the resolution of a love triangle. The frequency of the trend seems to suggest a storytelling landscape where we consider women’s sexuality to be mutable, up for debate, in a way that men’s sexuality is not.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0m6eI8">
Finally, and most damningly, the apparent necessity of the Bisexual Safety Switch betrays a profoundly regressive idea. It suggests a worldview in which once two women have been romantically interested in the same man, they must always be linked in rivalry until one of them is disqualified, by villainy, plot device, or sexuality.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HK7hpr">
There is no world in which all the characters simply agree that the love triangle has been resolved and move on with their lives otherwise unchanged. The rival must be made unthreatening. She must be disarmed. She must be neutralized.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q82Jda">
There are no alternatives; the rivalry is total and all-consuming. Once a man has entered the relationship dynamic between two women, there is simply no coming back from it without taking drastic measures. That’s how important male romantic approval is and should be to women and the way they relate to one another — at least, that’s how important it is according to the storytelling logic that brings you the Bisexual Safety Switch.
</p></li>
<li><strong>The flooding in Pakistan is a climate catastrophe with political roots</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Mh8VZjtdrGGw_1gAQmaYiNjPkBQ=/145x0:3612x2600/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71300739/GettyImages_1242750214a.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
People move past a road washed out by floodwaters in Pakistan’s northern Swat Valley on August 27. | Abdul Majeed/AFP via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
How the flooding crisis became so awful.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d5q7NA">
Flash floods over the weekend left <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62712301">one-third of Pakistan</a> submerged from weeks of heavy rains, compounding an already difficult set of political and economic crises in the country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ynOTFz">
The catastrophic flooding has affected 33 million people, about 15 percent of the population, according to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority. More than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/international-aid-reaches-flood-ravaged-pakistan/2022/08/29/d2419186-276d-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html">1,130 people</a> have been killed since June’s monsoon season began, and at least 75 died in the past day. There has been <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-29/floods-ravage-pakistan-passing-1-000-dead-10-billion-in-damage#xj4y7vzkg">$10 billion of damage</a> and an estimated 1 million homes wrecked.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Rv6BOD">
“There was a super flood in 2010, but this is the worst ever in the history of Pakistan,” Shabnam Baloch, the country director for Pakistan at the International Rescue Committee, told me. “The type of catastrophe we are seeing at the moment is just indescribable. I don’t even have the right words to put it in a way that people can visualize it.”
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<div class="c-image-grid">
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ON5M_6YsbIMLj-zFaR6njwOWr6c=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23980660/AP22236553329080b.jpg"/> <cite>Zahid Hussain/AP</cite>
<figcaption>
A displaced family wades with their belongings through a flooded area in the Jaffarabad district of Pakistan’s Balochistan province on August 24.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3L_Y3YsAaumpS8CjoUtTX_BEYsA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23980644/AP22241503586970a.jpg"/> <cite>Mohammad Sajjad/AP</cite>
<figcaption>
Displaced families receive food rations, taking refuge in roadside tents after fleeing their flood-hit homes in Charsadda, Pakistan, on August 29.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UpkO-d6WGBXyaIBkzb1JICsSJ0w=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23980393/GettyImages_1242104593a.jpg"/> <cite>Asif Hassan/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
People make their way through flooded streets after heavy monsoon rainfall in Karachi, in Sindh province, on July 25.
</figcaption>
</figure></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QFydso">
The country’s south has been most affected, notably the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan. Though some degree of flooding is common in Pakistan during monsoon season, the intensity of the rainfall this month was 780 percent above average, according to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-27/highest-rainfall-in-30-years-threatens-pakistan-s-recovery#xj4y7vzkg">Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TJ3wEU">
“More than 100 bridges and some 3,000 km of roads have been damaged or destroyed, nearly 800,000 farm animals have perished, and two million acres of crops and orchards have been hit,” the United Nations’ <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125632">World Food Program</a> noted. The scale of flooding has impeded access for emergency groups seeking to get aid to the neediest.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GJAw16">
This <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/pakistan/pakistan-2022-monsoon-floods-situation-report-no-03-26-august-2022">calamity</a> alone would have been disastrous. But Pakistan this year has also endured economic difficulties and a <a href="https://www.vox.com/23057267/india-pakistan-heat-wave-climate-change-coal-south-asia">lethal heat wave</a> that, as Vox’s Umair Irfan reported, strained public infrastructure and social services. All these crises have been exacerbated by the country’s political situation, with the government targeting the recent ousted prime minister, Imran Khan, and by the global economic plight.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i0xJwB">
“Pakistan has faced a series of crises this year: economic, political, now, a natural disaster,” Madiha Afzal, a foreign policy researcher at the Brookings Institution, told me. “Running underneath all of this has been the political crisis.”
</p>
<h3 id="W1cOei">
Pakistan’s political crises, all too briefly explained
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pH33DB">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/23016679/pakistan-political-crisis-imran-khan-parliament">Early this year, a political crisis rattled Pakistan</a>. While the immediate crisis was resolved, the underlying tensions remain, and if anything, have become even more polarized — creating a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/05/pakistan-political-crisis-military-khan/">political conflict</a> that may affect the way the country addresses these floods.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y1TqCI">
In April, cricket-star-turned-pseudo-populist Prime Minister Imran Khan sparked a constitutional crisis when he tried to stave off a vote of no-confidence by dissolving the Pakistani parliament. Eventually, the country’s supreme court ruled that he had acted unconstitutionally, the uproarious no-confidence vote proceeded, and he lost the prime ministership.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JXHkNCzX5wN0TtupIu2M2n5gr08=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23980380/GettyImages_1242702291a.jpg"/> <cite>Aamir Qureshi/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan arrives to appear before an anti-terrorism court in Islamabad on August 25. Khan was granted bail, leaving him free to continue his nationwide rallies calling for early elections.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9tjhpg">
Since then, opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif became prime minister and has been presiding over a country hard hit by <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/10/pakistans-finance-minister-says-country-headed-in-right-direction.html">economic malaise</a> — rising debt, a foreign currency shortage, and record inflation — deepened by the wide-ranging knock-on effects for energy and food insecurity presented by the Ukraine-Russia war.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KveoRR">
All the while, the former prime minister has continued to <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1707148">hold political rallies</a> that reinforce his street power. In turn, the government has launched a crackdown on Khan. Most recently, the police <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/22/1118730792/police-terrorism-charges-against-pakistan-imran-khan">issued terrorism charges against him</a> over a speech he delivered earlier this month. The next general election will be held in 2023, but Khan has been <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/is-pakistan-heading-towards-early-elections/a-62585608">calling for early elections</a>. Taken all together, it threatens to send Pakistan into an even more dangerous political phase.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0Zo2TH">
It’s a serious situation, but also one that’s exacerbated and obscured the climate change-driven flood crisis.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="byg7yb">
Earlier this month, for example, Pakistan’s TV networks spent hours covering the story of an aide to Khan who had been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/detained-aide-of-pakistans-former-pm-imran-khan-in-hospital/2022/08/19/827f816a-1ff4-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html">detained on treason charges</a> and alleged that he had been tortured in custody. “As Balochistan was being flooded — scenes and videos were rolling in from Balochistan — the government was basically concerned entirely with politics, and Khan was concerned entirely with politics,” Afzal told me.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/12lLf5eevN6-hNEj3ApAY3y6rY8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23980192/GettyImages_1242773415a.jpg"/> <cite>Fida Hussain/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A man walks over his collapsed mud house after heavy monsoon rains flooded Jaffarabad, in Balochistan province, on August 28.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JcRxUq">
Sharif was caught up in politics, too. “The blame in many ways falls on the state for not taking charge of, for instance, its National Disaster Management Authority, not jumping into action right away,” Afzal told me. There have been no daily press briefings, she says, and very little awareness of the scale of the flooding — until last week.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="w9BrTs">
Afzal worries political tensions between the federal government and the areas affected by flooding have<strong> </strong>hampered the government’s response. The northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for instance, is run by Khan’s party, and Prime Minister Sharif <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/29/damage-to-main-roads-hampers-pakistan-flood-relief-effort">only visited it on Monday</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1jQorE">
For the Pakistani-British historian and activist Tariq Ali, the question is why the government has not done more to preempt the social crises that result from weather calamity. “Why has Pakistan, successive governments, military and civilian, not been able to construct a social infrastructure, a safety net for ordinary people?” he told <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2022/8/23/tariq_ali_terrorism_charges_imran_khan">Democracy Now</a>. “It’s fine for the rich and the well-off. They can escape. They can leave the country. They can go to a hospital. They have enough food. But for the bulk of the country, this is not the case.”
</p>
<h3 id="4ToG20">
Not just a natural disaster
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tJe6us">
It’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/29/monster-monsoon-why-the-floods-in-pakistan-are-so-devastating">likely that climate change contributed to the scale</a> of the catastrophe in Pakistan. But Ayesha Siddiqi, a geographer at the University of Cambridge who has researched Pakistan’s response to <a href="https://reliefweb.int/disaster/fl-2010-000141-pak">the 2010 flooding</a>, told me that “all disasters are very much constructed, they’re constructed by society, and they’re constructed by people.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5N7unB">
She <a href="https://twitter.com/ayeshasiddiqi12/status/1563746206097997824">explained</a> that structural inequalities, bad policy-making, and an emphasis on grand-scale infrastructure projects have made much of Pakistan woefully unprepared for the flooding.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kOjLY5NAf470IjulJzjySIrTp0o=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23980194/GettyImages_1242803960a.jpg"/> <cite>Shahid Saeed Mirza/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Children return home from school by boat in a flooded area of the Dera Ghazi Khan district of Pakistan’s Punjab province, on August 29.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/d_XTdVdGzNsnUZUM9_2s6S-zs5g=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23980655/AP22240608367077a.jpg"/> <cite>Zahid Hussain/AP</cite>
<figcaption>
A family looks for items they can salvage from their flooded home, in Sohbat Pur, Balochistan province, on August 28.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AqmuST">
Pakistan “has kind of famously projected this idea of, ‘We need to build large dams, and we need to build large drainage projects, and we need to show our military might through these large projects to control water,’” Siddiqi told me. But whenever there’s extreme rainfall, the water has to flow somewhere. “So then there are these pockets of water that collect in these infrastructural reservoirs and dams, etc., that has to be released. And there’s a whole range of ecological issues that have arisen.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zqt4V4">
Pakistan can learn from that history — and the last catastrophic floods it experienced a decade ago.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d3dlwp">
The main lesson the Pakistani government learned from the 2010 floods was how to get <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2013/04/15/pakistan-uplifting-lives-and-livelihoods-through-cash-transfers">direct cash transfers</a> to those affected. “People always want cash after a disaster — they much prefer cash, let’s say, compared to relief goods and things like that,” Siddiqi told me. “The state has learned how to go about reaching out to people, but what the state has been far less adept at managing is the longer-term issues of, how do we rehabilitate people in the next five years, 10 years, so that they are not this vulnerable again?”
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vWw1xJtoW5bv-4qUEbret_MuPKg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23980197/GettyImages_1242804432a.jpg"/> <cite>Asif Hassan/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Women displaced from their homes by flooding show their national identity cards to receive 25,000 rupees in government cash aid in Sukkur, Pakistan, on August 29.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3jkz5t">
For a country mired in political turmoil and economic setbacks, coordinating this response in the immediate and longer term will undoubtedly be a challenge.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f08jAt">
Though international assistance will not in itself address these deeper inequalities in the country, aid groups are calling for a robust international response. “Pakistan contributes less than 1 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions,” Farah Naureen, Mercy Corps’ country director for Pakistan, said <a href="https://www.mercycorps.org/press-room/releases/mercy-corps-response-deadly-floods-pakistan">in a statement</a>. “This humanitarian catastrophe is yet another example of how countries that contribute the least to global warming are the ones that suffer the most.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KL5omW">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xFg3WN">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gvpejq">
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>The fight to expand the child tax credit is not over</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustration of a US $1 bill with childlike drawings of people below it and a sun above it." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/M0gM9LDeahrlR9BCGyeF9LzZ3L4=/167x0:2834x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71300650/bigbill.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Amanda Northrop/Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
But in Congress, at least, Republicans are now in the driver’s seat.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vYuLrw">
As the ink dries on <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/7/28/23282217/climate-bill-health-care-drugs-inflation-reduction-act">the Inflation Reduction Act</a> — the landmark federal law that tackles climate change, drug pricing, health insurance, and tax enforcement — advocates for the expanded<strong> </strong>child tax credit have been quietly mourning their loss.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cm1hgv">
The expansion, passed as part of President Joe Biden’s pandemic relief program, delivered hundreds of dollars into parents’ bank accounts every month in 2021, ultimately helping <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/if-congress-fails-to-act-monthly-child-tax-credit-payments-will-stop-child">65 million children</a> and keeping <a href="https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/news-internal/monthly-poverty-december-2021">3.7 million</a> of them out of poverty. A year ago, the expanded CTC was <a href="https://www.rand.org/blog/2021/04/bidens-child-tax-credit-will-bring-lifetime-of-improvement.html">heralded</a> as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/benefit-to-biden-expanded-child-tax-credit-if-democrats-pass-it-rcna2930">one of the most significant</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23056876/expanded-child-tax-credit-poverty-american-families-impact">policy achievements</a> of the Biden era, so important to the broader Build Back Better negotiations that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described its upcoming expiration as “<a href="https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/121521-0">really important leverage</a>” for getting the rest of their agenda through.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bJ5lHn">
It wasn’t enough. By January 2022, it was clear that any attempt to pass Biden’s agenda would likely exclude<strong> </strong>the child tax credit due to <a href="https://www.vox.com/23040707/child-tax-credit-ctc-midterms">irreconcilable differences</a> between West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and his Democratic colleagues<strong> </strong>over whether tax credit recipients should be required to work. When the Inflation Reduction Act passed last month, it didn’t include the CTC.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IqyqJA">
Now<strong> </strong>advocates for the CTC say they’re looking ahead to next steps. The first<strong> </strong>opportunity for new legislation could come at the end of the year, when Congress negotiates extensions on <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/financial-accounting/the-r-d-tax-break-and-bipartisan-support-for-its-restoration">expiring business tax breaks</a>. Advocates are also looking at new administrative solutions at the IRS, and thinking more seriously about state-level reform, amid state budget surpluses and new research detailing just how much families benefited from the now-expired expanded federal credit.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O8Fg6j">
“It was very unfortunate that we didn’t get the expansion that we wanted in reconciliation, but it still is a very live issue,” said Brayan Rosa-Rodríguez, a senior policy analyst at UnidosUS, a national Latino advocacy group. “We’re going to focus on it over the next couple months to see if we can get it included in a tax extender bill.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iur8f3">
During the past year, as inflation wreaked havoc on bank accounts and <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/indexing-the-child-tax-credit-is-long-overdue/">eroded the value</a> of existing family benefits, lawmakers have faced pressure to <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/new-grassley-proposal-seeks-to-help-families-students-overcome-effects-of-inflation">offer relief</a>. In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning <em>Roe v. Wade, </em>conservatives have also been facing more pressure to support families, and a proposal introduced in June by Republican Sens. Mitt Romney (UT), Richard Burr (NC), and Steve Daines (MT) to distribute monthly cash payments to parents has garnered a lot of attention. Notably, this Republican proposal includes a requirement that families earn <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/comparing-rubio-and-romneys-plans/">at least $10,000</a> to receive its full benefit, the kind of work requirement progressives rejected during reconciliation. Virtually every Republican has said that some “connection to work” is essential for any family policy they’d vote for.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/26d5RObexEiA6d7NRRIJho0Ij5s=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23979266/GettyImages_1238538381a.jpg"/> <cite>Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Sens. Richard Burr, left, and Mitt Romney chat on an elevator in the US Capitol during a Senate vote on February 16.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="St9Oe2">
To reach a bipartisan deal at the end of the year, advocates recognize they will have to entertain terms they rejected with Manchin.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iL7ytF">
“It’s obviously easier to get to 50 votes than it is to get to 60 votes, and that’s what it is,” said Zach Tilly, a policy associate with the Children’s Defense Fund, which <a href="https://www.abccoalition.org/">co-led a coalition</a> that pushed for the expanded CTC. “I think the way we’re looking at this opportunity at the end of the year is basically just as one where we may still have some leverage to get something done.”
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<h3 id="KZFuRu">
Progressives are looking to an end-of-the-year compromise
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NsT2or">
Romney’s new child tax credit proposal — the Family Security Act 2.0 — is a modified version of a child allowance policy <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22264520/mitt-romney-checks-parents-4200">he introduced in 2021</a>. One of the major differences between the two proposals is that the new one has a work requirement, something his Republican colleagues demand and which Manchin demanded last year during reconciliation.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qOBzxw">
The FSA 2.0 would increase the maximum annual child tax credit from $2,000 to<strong> </strong>$4,200 for each child under age 6 and $3,000 for each child ages 6 through 17, paid out in monthly installments. Expecting parents could also qualify for an additional $2,800 credit during the final four months of pregnancy.<strong> </strong>The “phase-in” of Romney’s plan — meaning the time at which families could start receiving their benefit<strong> </strong>— is much faster compared to the status quo. Right now the first $2,500 of earnings does not count toward CTC eligibility, while Romney’s plan would phase in the credit beginning with a family’s first earned dollar. This expansion would all be financed by consolidating other tax benefits, including a significant revamp of the earned income tax credit.
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The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/romney-child-tax-credit-proposal-is-step-forward-but-falls-short-targets-low">estimates</a> that the number of children living in poverty would decline by 1.3 million under the Romney proposal, and that roughly 20 million children in families making less than $50,000 would be better off. But the CBPP also argues that roughly 10 million children would be worse off under the Romney plan, due in part to its proposed cuts to the EITC and its elimination of the “head of household” tax filing status, which millions of single parents use when they file their income tax returns.
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The Niskanen Center, a centrist think tank that helped Romney craft his new proposal, pushed back on the CBPP’s analysis and defended the elimination of the “head of household” filing option, something conservatives have long argued <a href="https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Lyman_Stone_Affordability_or_achievability.pdf">disincentivizes marriage</a> by <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11150-016-9348-7">imposing financial penalties</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1545573824644653057">on couples</a> who tie the knot.
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Niskanen agreed some families would be worse off, but said some of CBPP’s concerns could be addressed by increasing the phase-in and phase-out rate of the Romney proposal, to account for inflation. Niskanen also said the CBPP understates the benefit of making tax refunds administratively simpler <a href="https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2019/CES-WP-19-14.pdf">for both recipients</a> and the government.
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As recently as this spring, progressive tax wonks and the Biden administration told Democrats in Congress that they should not consider any possible work requirement for expanding the child tax credit in reconciliation. But left-leaning groups are now acknowledging a compromise on this will likely be needed.
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The Family Security Act doesn’t include any of the more politically popular exceptions<strong> </strong>to work requirements, such as exempting families with very young children, or families where the primary caregiver is disabled, elderly, or a student.
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“If policymakers move toward a compromise on a Child Tax Credit expansion, the highest priority should be to make the credit fully refundable,” the CBPP said, meaning eligible to all regardless of whether they’re earning a certain amount of income. “But if that isn’t politically possible,” the CBPP concedes, “and an earnings requirement is included, important exemptions should be included as well.”
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Z1rmaC6cTZPHGknaJxrWWtFOBnw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23979430/GettyImages_1241319045a.jpg"/> <cite>Andrea Morales for The Washington Post via Getty Images</cite>
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Melissa Roberts, who lost her job at an insurance company at the start of the pandemic, prepares dinner for her children in January. Roberts struggled to find employment and relied on the federal child tax credit to help provide for her 5- and 7-year-old children.
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Writing earlier this month in The Hill<em>, </em>University of California Berkeley public policy professor Bruce Fuller <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3584621-biden-must-meet-romney-in-the-middle-on-the-child-tax-credit/">urged Biden</a> to step up and find a compromise with Romney, such as a work requirement that starts when children enter school. “Romney’s bid has drawn deafening silence from the White House and leading Democrats,” Fuller wrote.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fx7E1c">
Josh McCabe, a family policy analyst at the Niskanen Center, thinks most advocacy groups were waiting for reconciliation negotiations to finally be over and are now starting new discussions. “I think people are more open to things that they weren’t before, and everyone’s feeling out what’s possible,” he told Vox. “So with the FSA 2.0 there’s a more generous phase-in, which is unattractive relative to the fully refundable CTC from 2021, but it’s very attractive relative to the status quo.”
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Tilly, of the Children’s Defense Fund, acknowledged that it will take 60 votes to get anything done on the child tax credit at the end of the year. “So that limits what’s possible,” he said, though he emphasized that advocates have some leverage, as they recognize it will be politically difficult for Republicans to extend federal business tax cuts without offering any economic relief to families. An <a href="https://www.economicsecurityproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Economist-letter-CTC-Inflation-April-2022-1-1.pdf">open letter published in March</a> from 133 economists also made the case that an expanded CTC would be too small to meaningfully increase inflation, but large enough to help offset inflation’s toll, particularly for lower-income households.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4S1MJm">
“There’s a big gap between where we and most Democrats are and where the most CTC-sympathetic Republicans in the Senate are,” Tilly said. “So that’s obviously going to be the focus for us and a lot of the people that we work with in the fall, to try to bridge that gap and make improvements.”
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<h3 id="cvAT3p">
New ideas for reform are cropping up at the state level
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fdHXmq">
While Democrats and activists were not successful in expanding the federal CTC, the flurry of organizing, research, and media coverage on the <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/congress-found-an-easy-way-to-fix-child-poverty-then-it-walked-away/">policy’s success</a> has had spillover effects, prompting more local policymakers <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/california-bill-97-billion-surplus-expand-child-tax-credit-lowest-income-families/">to think about</a> <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/state-level-ctc-reforms-can-strengthen-american-families/">opportunities for state-level CTC reform</a>.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="83UzoA">
In 2021, Colorado passed a new state child tax credit, which families will get to claim for the first time next year. Maryland <a href="https://www.marylandtaxes.gov/forms/Tax_Publications/Tax_Alerts/21-03-11_SB218_Tax_Alert.pdf">recently passed a new child tax credit</a> for families with children with disabilities, and New Mexico <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/fn-document-service/file-by-sha384/e26909fb4287d8fffccc10f191d9e45d8f0eed4aafbcdfddcb8ccd68ea6dce79dc52eb9bd12fe5f96830eef5f91fdfdd">recently created a fully refundable tax credit </a>worth up to $175 per child.
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Last year, Massachusetts also converted two existing tax deductions for dependents into fully refundable child tax credits, and this year the state’s Republican Gov. Charlie Baker <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/strengthening-family-tax-benefits-in-massachusetts/">proposed doubling</a> the value of those credits. In Vermont, Republican Gov. Phil Scott just signed a tax cut package <a href="https://vtdigger.org/2022/05/27/phil-scott-signs-1000-child-tax-credit-into-law/#:~:text=Mike%20Dougherty%2FVTDigger-,Gov.,households%20making%20%24125%2C000%20or%20less.">that will send $1,000 for every child 5 and under</a> to Vermont households making $125,000 or less, a program state lawmakers say was modeled on the expanded federal CTC.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IgqFCE">
McCabe, of the Niskanen Center, says the big difference between state CTCs and the expanded federal CTC right now is the states have tended to target their aid toward lower-income families, though exceptions exist, as in Massachusetts and Vermont. States are also tending to focus their CTCs on families with younger children, whereas the federal CTC supported families with older teens, too. One reason for this is means-testing state CTCs and limiting them to younger children helps keep the overall cost of the program down. Another reason is that there’s mounting evidence that the cost of raising younger children, compared to older teens, is more difficult for parents to afford.
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<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jekeQRSZ-d97Ul94IYIp1PVowyc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23979603/GettyImages_1358862218a.jpg"/> <cite>Alex Wong/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Children draw on top of a “cancelled check” prop during a rally in front of the US Capitol on December 13, 2021, to urge passage of the Build Back Better legislation to extend the expanded child tax credit.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iZGT77">
The CBPP recently <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/blog/states-should-create-and-expand-child-tax-credits#:~:text=Child%20tax%20credits%20(CTCs)%20are,communities%20recover%20from%20the%20pandemic.">put out an analysis</a> encouraging states to create their own CTCs, and noted that the cost of enacting or improving existing ones is “typically small enough that states may be able to absorb them without raising additional revenue.”
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In <a href="https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/projects/extending-child-benefits/">a new report published by the People’s Policy Project</a>, a crowdfunded leftist think tank, founder Matt Bruenig proposes reforming state-level tax credit programs (<a href="https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/state-earned-income-tax-credits">both CTCs and EITCs</a>) to counteract the exclusion of low-income children from the federal tax credits. In other words, states could step up to push for what advocates were not able to get passed on the federal level during reconciliation negotiations.
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“Minor and inexpensive tweaks to state tax credit programs could effectively extend the federal child benefit regime to poor families,” Bruenig writes. “This kind of state-level policymaking is where child benefit advocates should focus their attention over the next few years.”
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Bruenig notes 29 states currently have these kinds of programs, and there will be 32 states that have them beginning in 2023. He identifies 14 states and Washington, DC, that have full Democratic control and could be more easily persuaded to make progressive tax policy reforms.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RrOVh5">
Bruenig told Vox there could also be a scenario where Romney’s proposed child tax credit was passed but gave states the option to effectively opt out of the work requirement, by allowing states to contribute money to the federal government so that the federal benefit would not phase in for their own<strong> </strong>residents.
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“This would make the state supplement more administratively simple since you wouldn’t have to administer a separate state CTC,” Bruenig added, noting that the <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/ssi/#:~:text=The%20Supplemental%20Security%20Income%20(SSI,who%20meet%20the%20financial%20qualifications.">supplemental security income (SSI) program</a> also works like this.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TxOvuT">
Rodriguez, from UnidosUS, said he thinks it’s a good time for state legislators to try to plug weaknesses in state versions of federal programs, particularly as states are experiencing historical budget surpluses from Covid-era investments. Rodriguez says he and his colleagues have also been encouraging states to allow immigrant workers with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (an alternative to Social Security numbers) to collect state EITC benefits, something <a href="https://www.nilc.org/issues/taxes/tax-credit-itin-filers/">eight states</a> currently allow. Eighteen percent of US citizen children in poverty — more than 1.63 million kids — <a href="https://www.diversitydatakids.org/research-library/policy-equity-assessment/policy-equity-analysis-eitc">are currently excluded</a> from the EITC because they live in mixed-status families with undocumented members.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V8JhiR">
“This is a moment where we could have an inclusive and generous EITC at the state level, and the same goes for state-level CTCs,” Rodriguez said.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MBLjBB">
McCabe said one issue with Bruenig’s proposal is states may be hesitant to design their CTC programs around federal policy, as federal policy can change pretty quickly. States may also not want to wait around for federal enabling legislation if they were to opt for the idea that more closely resembles how SSI is administered. Moreover, if Republicans in Congress opposed the expanded CTC last year for being fully refundable, they very well may oppose making it easier for states to blunt the pain of their federal work incentives.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dn6J4v">
“I think states might be better off with creating entirely new infrastructure,” McCabe said. “I think Massachusetts is right to do it much broader, more limited by age, and then slowly grow their credit over time.”
</p>
<h3 id="poYa3o">
The expiring Trump tax cuts present opportunities for CTC advocates through 2025
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CXl2sn">
Advocates for the expanded child tax credit see opportunities to build on and improve the child tax credit as Trump-era tax cuts expire over the next few years. “We’re looking at the tax extenders at the end of the year, and as we’re doing that, we’re trying to think through what we need to do to really build momentum to pass something more permanent,” said Elisa Minoff, a senior policy analyst with the <a href="https://cssp.org/team/elisa-minoff/">Center for the Study of Social Policy</a>.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/W0UJZs_2IXiS_O9W4klBACmR6_Q=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23979633/GettyImages_1369365621.jpg"/> <cite>Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Rep. Rosa DeLauro speaks during a press conference at the US Capitol on February 8, as members of Congress spoke out on renewing the child tax credit and earned income tax credit.
</figcaption>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nd4jeU">
Advocates also see opportunities to push for administrative improvements at the IRS, to make the tax filing process easier and less costly for families. The IRS will have a new Biden-tapped commissioner next year, and the agency will have new money flowing in from the Inflation Reduction Act, some of which can be used to upgrade the agency’s technology.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DJpOa4">
Much of what CTC advocates say they will push for next in Congress depends on how the elections shake out this November. If Democrats win deeper majorities in the midterms, then they might be able to pass a more generous expanded federal CTC, like the House passed in its <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/11/19/22776638/house-democrats-pass-185-trillion-social-spending-bill">$1.85 trillion Build Back Better package</a> last fall.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="F4AmAf">
If Democrats lose seats in Congress, or even if they hold their number of seats steady, advocates may have to rethink their strategy around negotiating with Republicans or Manchin. Manchin’s demands for the CTC included limiting the number of affluent families who could claim the credit and having some form of work requirement. He also disliked the idea of only expanding the credit for one year, but worried about the cost of a big permanent expansion.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pMhxJC">
Climate advocates were able to win big priorities in the reconciliation deal this year only by ceding to all the main legislative priorities of the West Virginia Democratic senator.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z785Ot">
“I think if we wound up in a position where now the entire future of the CTC turns on Joe Manchin’s approval, then I think the lesson of this reconciliation bill is that you have to tailor the process to him,” said Tilly. “Because he obviously has no qualms about letting it die.”
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</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>KBA’s new eligibility rule draws flak</strong> - It has put paid to the hopes of many players to participate in the State senior championships</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>U.S. Open | Retirement getting closer but Stan Wawrinka says he is not done yet</strong> - The injury-hit pair of Stan Wawrinka and Dominic Thiem made first-round exits in the U.S. Open men’s singles</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>Nobody can fill Jhulan Goswami's shoes, her passion for cricket is unmatched, says Harmanpreet</strong> - The 39-year-old is set to retire after the third and final ODI against England at Lord's on September 24.</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>Volleyball championship | India bags silver at Asian under-20 meet</strong> - Qualifies for World under-21 championships</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>Football Transfer News | Cavani signs for Valencia; West Ham sign Paquetá, and more</strong> - Valencia signs veteran Uruguay striker Edinson Cavani on a two-year contract, West Ham signs Lucas Paquetá on a five-year deal, and Conte issues another update</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>Ban on heavy vehicles on Agumbe Ghat extended</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>For this Kerala medical college, India’s first PM was the first patient</strong> - The Medical College and Hospital celebrates its 70th anniversary</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>Video on Sabari coconut oil fake, says Supplyco</strong> - Agency seeks help of Kerala Police cyber wing to trace its source</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>Will form better govt. than KCR’s, says Kishan</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>1992-93 riots | SC asks Maharashtra govt if legal heirs of 168 missing persons were paid compensation</strong> - A bench headed by Justice S. K. Kaul said it requires information on whether any compensation was paid for the loss of property, when was the compensation paid and the time lag between the date of incident and payment of compensation</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>Kherson: Ukraine claims new push in Russian-held region</strong> - Ukraine is seeking to retake the southern Kherson region - but Russia says the offensive failed.</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>Indianapolis: Dutch commando dies after shooting outside US hotel</strong> - The special forces soldier was one of three Dutch commandos wounded in an attack early on Saturday.</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>EU faces awful winters without gas cap - minister</strong> - Calls mount for an EU-wide cap on the price of gas and for it not to dictate the price of electricity.</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>UK looks to Sweden for a solution to nuclear waste</strong> - After decades of experimentation Sweden is ahead of the UK when dealing with nuclear waste.</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>Undeclared pools in France uncovered by AI technology</strong> - Millions in tax revenue has been collected after more than 20,000 undeclared pools were found.</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>Android 13 review: Plans for the future, but not much to offer today</strong> - Android 13 is a very small update, but it’s also the second one this year. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1871260">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>AMD makes Ryzen 7000 official: Launching September 27, starting at $299</strong> - Company promises a big 29% jump in single-core CPU performance from Ryzen 5000. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1876762">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Poliovirus outbreak expands in NY: Third county has vaccination rate of 62%</strong> - “One New Yorker paralyzed by polio is already too many,” state health commissioner says. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1876830">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Musk subpoenas Twitter whistleblower, hoping to prove company lied about spam</strong> - The whistleblower complaint might help Twitter’s case instead, though. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1876775">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Trademark filing for “Reality Pro” suggests Apple’s headset is on the way</strong> - Legal firms and shell companies Apple has used in the past were involved. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1876739">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Jesus drove a Honda, but never spoke of it.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“For I speak not of my own Accord” - John 12:49
</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/pvsocialmedia"> /u/pvsocialmedia </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/x154q5/jesus_drove_a_honda_but_never_spoke_of_it/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/x154q5/jesus_drove_a_honda_but_never_spoke_of_it/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>3 guys were at a sleep over</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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They just watched a horror movie so decide to sleep on the same bed. In the morning when they wake up. The guy on the left says “I had great dream where he was being wanked of by a hot blond” The guy on right says “Oh shit, I had a dream where I was being wanked of but by a brunette” The guy in the middle said " Fuck I had a dream I was skiing"
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/TippyTree354924"> /u/TippyTree354924 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/x159zd/3_guys_were_at_a_sleep_over/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/x159zd/3_guys_were_at_a_sleep_over/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>Why is American beer like making love in a canoe ?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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It’s fu*king close to water
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This joke was paid for by the EU
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Alfiy_wolf"> /u/Alfiy_wolf </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/x1cj0j/why_is_american_beer_like_making_love_in_a_canoe/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/x1cj0j/why_is_american_beer_like_making_love_in_a_canoe/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A sweater I bought was picking up static electricity. So, I returned it to the store.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<strong>They gave me another one free of charge.</strong>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SmartEnergyHomes"> /u/SmartEnergyHomes </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/x1frhj/a_sweater_i_bought_was_picking_up_static/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/x1frhj/a_sweater_i_bought_was_picking_up_static/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>Large boobs</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Olivia was sitting at a bar with her friend Brenda when she first revealed she wanted to have plastic surgery to enlarge her breasts.
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The bartender overheard her and offered some friendly advice. “Hey, you don’t need plastic surgery to enlarge your breasts. It’s now being done without surgery…”
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Olivia knew plastic surgery was expensive, and going under the knife scared her, so she was immediately interested in hearing more about non-surgical breast enlargement. Intrigued, she asked the bartender, “How’s it done without surgery?” “You do it yourself at home. All you have to do is rub 4-ply toilet paper between them three times a day,” the bartender replied…
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“Really?”, Olivia asked, “How does that make ’em bigger?”
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“I don’t know, exactly,” the bartender said, "But look what it did for your ass!
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Jackie-Daytona-"> /u/Jackie-Daytona- </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/x14on2/large_boobs/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/x14on2/large_boobs/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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