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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>The changing mix of gay bar subtypes after COVID-19 restrictions in the United States, 2017-2023</strong> -
<div>
What was the impact on gay bars of COVID-19 occupancy restrictions? Gay bars had been closing steadily for 30 years before public health authorities shuttered all bars and restaurants in March 2020. Trends are drawn from historic data from printed business guides were supplemented with two national censuses of online business listings for LGBTQ+ bars. Results show a rebound from a nadir of 470 gay bars in Spring 2021 to 803 two years later. Not all bars rebounded: bars serving mostly/only cisgender men plummeted in their share from 44.6% of all gay bars to only 24.2% in Spring 2023. Bars serving men’s kink communities also declined, from 8.5% to 6.6% of all gay bars. Bars serving men and women increased from 44.2% to more than 65.6% of all gay bars, by far the largest gay bar subtype. Lesbian bars, a small share of all gay bars, nevertheless nearly doubled from 15 to 29 establishments to 3.6% of the total. Bars serving people of color experienced a small decline in their share 2019-23. The COVID-19 pandemic marked a dramatic change in the gender composition of gay bars and a slowing rate of decline.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/4uw6j/" target="_blank">The changing mix of gay bar subtypes after COVID-19 restrictions in the United States, 2017-2023</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>In Support of Universal Admission Testing for SARS-CoV-2 During Significant Community Transmission</strong> -
<div>
Many hospitals have stopped or are considering stopping universal admission testing for SARS-CoV-2. We discuss reasons why admission testing should still be part of a layered system to prevent hospital-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections during times of significant community transmission. These include the morbidity of SARS-CoV-2 in vulnerable patients, the predominant contribution of presymptomatic and asymptomatic people to transmission, the high rate of transmission between patients in shared rooms, and the data suggesting surveillance testing is associated with fewer nosocomial infections. Preferences of diverse patient populations, particularly the hardest hit communities, should be surveyed and used to inform prevention measures. Hospitals’ ethical responsibility to protect patients from serious infections should predominate over concerns about costs, labor, and inconvenience. We call for more rigorous data on the incidence and morbidity of nosocomial SARS-CoV-2 infections and more research to help determine when to start, stop, and restart universal admission testing and other prevention measures.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/unfz7/" target="_blank">In Support of Universal Admission Testing for SARS-CoV-2 During Significant Community Transmission</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Cell-attribute aware community detection improves differential abundance testing from single-cell RNA-Seq data</strong> -
<div>
Variations of cell-type proportions within tissues could be informative of biological aging and disease risk. Single-cell RNA-sequencing offers the opportunity to detect such differential abundance (DA) patterns, yet this task can be statistically challenging due to the noise in single-cell data, inter-sample variability and because DA patterns are often of small effect size. Here we present a DA-testing paradigm called ELVAR that uses cell attribute aware clustering when inferring differentially enriched communities within the single-cell manifold. Using simulated and real single-cell and single-nucleus RNA-Seq datasets, we benchmark ELVAR against an analogous DA algorithm that uses Louvain for clustering, as well as local neighborhood-based DA-testing methods, demonstrating that ELVAR improves the sensitivity to detect DA-shifts in relation to aging, precancerous states and Covid-19 phenotypes. In effect, leveraging cell attribute information when inferring cell communities can denoise single-cell data, avoid the need for batch correction and help retrieve more robust cell states for subsequent DA-testing. ELVAR is available as an open-source R-package.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.28.538653v1" target="_blank">Cell-attribute aware community detection improves differential abundance testing from single-cell RNA-Seq data</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Cohort Profile: A longitudinal Victorian COVID-19 cohort (COVID PROFILE)</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Purpose: The COVID PROFILE cohort is a longitudinal clinical study based in Victoria Australia, which was established to understand immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in a low transmission population setting and to identify immunological markers of long-term immunity and immune-dysregulation after both infection and vaccination. Additionally, this cohort was established as a biobank resource for researchers to address other health-related immunological questions. Participants: We enrolled 178 adult community members, including household contacts, who had either recovered from a SARS-CoV-2 infection or were SARS-CoV-2 naive. Only participants 18 years of age or older and, in the case of female participants, non-pregnant women at the time of enrollment were included in the study. Detailed COVID-19 clinical data, vaccination status, medical history and demographics was collected. Findings to date: At enrollment, we found that 87.8% of COVID-19 recovered individuals were seropositive with detectable levels of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies. Seronegative COVID-19 recovered individuals included asymptomatic individuals or participants that were enrolled more than 12 months after their COVID-19 diagnosis. Except for one individual who was seropositive at baseline despite a previous SARS-CoV-2 PCR negative diagnosis, all household contacts and other community members enrolled as SARS-CoV-2 PCR negative, were seronegative for all SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies tested. The infection rate (re-infection or new infection) during 24 months of the study was 42.7%, as determined by either rapid antigen tests, PCRs or serology screens. Of the SARS-CoV-2 recovered participants, 32.6% reported ongoing symptoms at enrollment of which 47% had already experienced ongoing symptoms for more than 12 weeks. Future Plans: COVID PROFILE will be used to comprehensively understand temporal immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 vaccines and to understand the impact of host immunological composition on such immunity and symptom severity. Additionally, studies focusing on understanding immunity following breakthrough infections and immunological risk factors that contribute towards development of long COVID are planned.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.27.23289157v1" target="_blank">Cohort Profile: A longitudinal Victorian COVID-19 cohort (COVID PROFILE)</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Population immunity of natural infection, primary-series vaccination, and booster vaccination in Qatar during the COVID-19 pandemic: An observational study</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Waning of natural infection protection and vaccine protection highlight the need to evaluate changes in population immunity over time. Population immunity of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection or of COVID-19 vaccination are defined, respectively, as the overall protection against reinfection or against breakthrough infection at a given point in time in a given population. Methods: We estimated these population immunities in Qatar population between July 1, 2020 and November 30, 2022, to discern generic features of the epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2. Effectiveness of previous infection, mRNA primary-series vaccination, and mRNA booster (third-dose) vaccination in preventing infection were estimated, month by month, using matched, test-negative, case-control studies. Findings: Previous-infection effectiveness against reinfection was strong before emergence of Omicron, but declined with time after a wave and rebounded after a new wave. Effectiveness dropped immediately after Omicron emergence from 88.3% (95% CI: 84.8-91.0%) in November 2021 to 51.0% (95% CI: 48.3-53.6%) in December 2021. Primary-series effectiveness against infection was 84.0% (95% CI: 83.0-85.0%) in April 2021, soon after introduction of vaccination, before waning gradually to 52.7% (95% CI: 46.5-58.2%) by November of 2021. Effectiveness declined linearly by ~1 percentage point every 5 days. After Omicron emergence, effectiveness dropped suddenly from 52.7% (95% CI: 46.5-58.2%) in November 2021 to negligible levels in December 2021. Booster effectiveness dropped immediately after Omicron emergence from 83.0% (95% CI: 65.6 -91.6%) in November 2021 to 32.9% (95% CI: 26.7-38.5%) in December 2021, and continued to decline thereafter. Effectiveness of previous infection and vaccination against severe, critical, or fatal COVID-19 were generally &gt;80% throughout the study duration. Interpretation: High population immunity may not be sustained beyond a year. This creates fertile grounds for repeated waves of infection to occur, but these waves may increasingly exhibit a benign pattern of infection. Funding: The Biomedical Research Program and the Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and the Biomathematics Research Core, both at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, Ministry of Public Health, Hamad Medical Corporation, Sidra Medicine, Qatar Genome Programme, Qatar University Biomedical Research Center, and Qatar University Internal Grant ID QUCG-CAS-23/24-114.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.28.23289254v1" target="_blank">Population immunity of natural infection, primary-series vaccination, and booster vaccination in Qatar during the COVID-19 pandemic: An observational study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The epidemiological impact of digital and manual contact tracing on the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in the Netherlands: empirical evidence.</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background. The Dutch government introduced the CoronaMelder smartphone application for digital contact tracing (DCT) to complement manual contact tracing (MCT) by Public Health Services (PHS) during the 2020-2022 SARS-CoV-2 epidemic. Modelling studies showed great potential but empirical evidence of DCT and MCT impact is scarce. Methods. We determined reasons for testing, and mean exposure-testing intervals by reason for testing, using routine data from PHS Amsterdam (1 December 2020 to 31 May 2021) and data from two SARS-CoV-2 rapid diagnostic test accuracy studies at other PHS sites in the Netherlands (14 December 2020 to 18 June 2021). Throughout the study periods, notification of DCT-identified contacts was via PHS contact-tracers, and self-testing was not yet widely available. Results. The most commonly reported reason for testing was having symptoms. In asymptomatic individuals, it was having been warned by an index case. Only around 2% and 2-5% of all tests took place after DCT or MCT notification, respectively. About 20-36% of those who had received a DCT or MCT notification had symptoms at the time of test request. Test positivity after a DCT notification was significantly lower, and exposure-test intervals after a DCT or MCT notification were longer, than for the above-mentioned other reasons for testing. Conclusions. Our data suggest that the impact of DCT and MCT on the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in the Netherlands was limited. However, DCT impact might be enlarged if app use coverage is improved, contact-tracers are eliminated from the digital notification process to minimise delays, and DCT is combined with self-testing.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.27.23289149v1" target="_blank">The epidemiological impact of digital and manual contact tracing on the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in the Netherlands: empirical evidence.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Migrant healthcare workers experiences and mobility patterns in a global health crisis: a qualitative study with Romania physicians working in Germany</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Introduction. Attention to the healthcare workforce has increased, yet comprehensive information on migrant healthcare workers is missing. This study focuses on migrant healthcare workers experiences and explores mobility patterns in the middle of a global health crisis, aiming to explore the capacity for circular migration and support effective equitable healthcare workforce policy. Methods. Romanian physicians in Germany served as an empirical case study. We applied a qualitative explorative approach; interviews (n=21) were collected from mid of September to early November 2022 and content analysis was performed. Results. Migrant physicians showed strong resilience during the COVID-19 crisis and rarely complained. Commitment to high professional standards and career development were major pull factors towards Germany, while perceptions of limited career choices, nepotism and corruption in Romania caused strong push mechanisms. We identified two major mobility patterns that may support circular migration policies: well-integrated physicians with a wish to give something back to their home country, and mobile cosmopolitan physicians who flexibly balance career opportunities and personal/family interests. Conclusions. Health policy must establish systematic monitoring of the migrant HCWF including actor-centred approaches, support integration in destination countries as well as health system development in sending countries, and invest in evidence-based circular migration policy.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.29.23289300v1" target="_blank">Migrant healthcare workers experiences and mobility patterns in a global health crisis: a qualitative study with Romania physicians working in Germany</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Mortality Classification of Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients in Zambia Using Machine Learning</strong> -
<div>
The Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has wreaked havoc globally, resulting in millions of cases and deaths. The objective of this study was to predict mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Zambia using machine learning (ML) methods based on factors that have been shown to be predictive of mortality and thereby improve pandemic preparedness. This research employed seven powerful ML models that included: decision tree (DT), random forest (RF), support vector machines (SVM), logistic regression (LR), naïve bayes (NB), gradient boosting (GB), and XGBoost (XGB). These classifiers were trained on 1,433 hospitalized COVID-19 patients from various health facilities in Zambia. The performances achieved by these models were checked using accuracy, recall, F1-Score, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC_AUC), area under the precision-recall curve (PRC_AUC), and other metrics. The best performing model was the XGB which had accuracy of 92.3%, recall of 94.2%, F1-Score of 92.4%, and ROC_AUC of 97.5%. The pairwise Mann-Whitney U-test analysis showed that the second-best model (GB) and the third-best model (RF) did not perform significantly worse than the best model (XGB) and had the following: GB had accuracy of 91.7%, recall of 94.2%, F1-Score of 91.9%, and ROC_AUC of 97.1%. RF had accuracy of 90.8%, recall of 93.6%, F1-Score of 91.0%, and ROC_AUC of 96.8%. Other models showed similar results for the same metrics checked. The study successfully derived and validated the selected ML models and predicted mortality effectively with reasonably high performance in the stated metrics. The feature importance analysis found that knowledge of underlying health conditions about patients’ hospital length of stay (LOS), white blood cell count, age, and other factors can help healthcare providers offer lifesaving services on time, improve pandemic preparedness and decongest health facilities in Zambia and other countries with similar settings.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/africarxiv/98wvg/" target="_blank">Mortality Classification of Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients in Zambia Using Machine Learning</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Discovery of GS-5245 (Obeldesivir), an Oral Prodrug of Nucleoside GS-441524 that Exhibits Antiviral Efficacy in SARS-CoV-2 Infected African Green Monkeys</strong> -
<div>
Remdesivir 1 is an amidate prodrug that releases the monophosphate of nucleoside GS-441524 (2) into lung cells thereby forming the bioactive triphosphate 2-NTP. 2-NTP, an analog of ATP, inhibits the SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase replication and transcription of viral RNA. Strong clinical results for 1 have prompted interest in oral approaches to generate 2-NTP. Here we describe the discovery of a 5’-isobutyryl ester prodrug of 2 (GS-5245, Obeldesivir, 3) that has low cellular cytotoxicity and three to seven-fold improved oral delivery of 2 in monkeys. Prodrug 3 is cleaved pre-systemically to provide high systemic exposures of 2 that overcome its less efficient metabolism to 2-NTP leading to strong SARS-CoV-2 antiviral efficacy in an African green monkey infection model. Exposure-based SARS-CoV-2 efficacy relationships resulted in an estimated clinical dose of 350-400 mg twice-daily. Importantly, all SARS-CoV-2 variants remain susceptible to 2 which supports development of 3 as a promising COVID-19 treatment.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.28.538473v1" target="_blank">Discovery of GS-5245 (Obeldesivir), an Oral Prodrug of Nucleoside GS-441524 that Exhibits Antiviral Efficacy in SARS-CoV-2 Infected African Green Monkeys</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Stratified by Transfer and COVID-19 Infection Status, on Inpatient Mortality in ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction Patients, Using a Nationally Representative Database</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted various aspects of healthcare, including the management of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients. Our study investigates the in-hospital outcomes and the impact of transfer and COVID-19 infection status on mortality in STEMI patients. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study to compare the inpatient outcomes of STEMI patients in 2020 with STEMI patients from 2016 to 2019 using the National Inpatient Sample database. We performed 1:1 greedy nearest neighbor matching and utilized logistic regression to compare mortality. Results: In our matched cohort, there was no difference in overall mortality between STEMI patients in 2020 and those from 2016 to 2019 (OR 1.00, 95% CI: 0.94-1.05; p = 0.87). When stratified by COVID-19 infection status, regularly admitted STEMI patients with concurrent COVID-19 infection in 2020 had 2.11 times higher odds of inpatient mortality compared to regularly admitted STEMI patients from 2016 to 2019 (OR 2.11, 95% CI: 1.55-2.87; p &lt; 0.001). STEMI acute care transfers with concurrent COVID-19 infection in 2020 had 3.17 times higher odds of inpatient mortality than those from 2016 to 2019 (OR 3.17, 95% CI: 1.83-5.50; p &lt; 0.001). STEMI non-acute care transfers with concurrent COVID-19 infection in 2020 had 5.13 times higher odds of inpatient mortality than those from 2016 to 2019 (OR 5.13, 95% CI: 1.87-14.06; p = 0.001). Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated many longstanding disparities within our healthcare system. Moving forward, it is crucial to engage in further discussions addressing the national physician shortage, the patient transfer system and healthcare in underserved regions.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.27.23289238v1" target="_blank">Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Stratified by Transfer and COVID-19 Infection Status, on Inpatient Mortality in ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction Patients, Using a Nationally Representative Database</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Quantifying the Risk of General Health and Early COVID-19 Spread in Residential Buildings with Deep Learning and Expert-augmented Machine Learning</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Buildings9 built environment has been linked to their occupants9 health. It remains unclear whether those elements that predisposed its residents to poor general health before the two SARS pandemics also put residents at risk of contracting COVID-19 during early outbreaks. Relevant research to uncover the associations is essential, but there lacks a systematic examination of the relative contributions of different elements in one9s built environment and other non-environmental factors, singly or jointly. Hence, the current study developed a deep-learning approach with multiple input channels to capture the hierarchical relationships among an individual9s socioecology9s demographical, medical, behavioral, psychosocial, and built-environment levels. Our findings supported that 1) deep-learning models whose inputs were structured according to the hierarchy of one9s socioecology outperformed plain models with one-layered input in predicting one9s general health outcomes, with the model whose hierarchically structured input layers included one9s built environment performed best; 2) built-environment features were more important to general health compared to features of one9s sociodemographic and their health-related quality of life, behaviors, and service utilization; 3) a composite score representing built-environment features9 statistical importance to general health significantly predicted building-level COVID-19 case counts; and 4) building configurations derived from the expert-augmented learning of granular built-environment features that were of high importance to the general health were also linked to building-level COVID-19 case counts of external samples. Specific built environments put residents at risk for poor general health and COVID-19 infections. Our machine-learning approach can benefit future quantitative research on sick buildings, health surveillance, and housing design.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.25.23289115v1" target="_blank">Quantifying the Risk of General Health and Early COVID-19 Spread in Residential Buildings with Deep Learning and Expert-augmented Machine Learning</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Inequalities in Healthcare Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe reductions in non-COVID related healthcare use, but little is known whether this burden is shared equally across the population. This study investigates whether the reduction in administered care disproportionately affected certain sociodemographic strata, in particular marginalised groups. Using detailed medical claims data from the Dutch universal health care system and rich registry data that cover all residents in The Netherlands, we predict expected healthcare use based on pre-pandemic trends (2017- Feb 2020) and compare these expectations with observed healthcare use in 2020. Our findings reveal a substantial 10% decline in the number of weekly treated patients in 2020 relative to prior years. Furthermore, declines in healthcare use are unequally distributed and are more pronounced for individuals below the poverty line, females, the elderly, and foreign-born individuals, with cumulative relative risk ratios ranging from 1.09 to 1.22 higher than individuals above the poverty line, males, young, and native-born. These inequalities stem predominantly from declines in middle and low urgency procedures, and indicate that the pandemic has not only had an unequal toll in terms of the direct health burden of the pandemic, but has also had a differential impact on the use of non-COVID healthcare.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.26.23289095v1" target="_blank">Inequalities in Healthcare Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Evaluation of the Pilot Wastewater Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in Norway, June 2022 - March 2023</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater-based surveillance gained great international interest as an additional tool to monitor SARS-CoV-2. In autumn 2021, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health decided to pilot a national wastewater surveillance (WS) system for SARS-CoV-2 and its variants between June 2022 and March 2023. We evaluated the system to assess if it met its objectives and its attribute-based performance. Methods: We adapted the available guidelines for evaluation of surveillance systems. The evaluation was carried out as a descriptive analysis and consisted of the following three steps: (i) description of the WS system, (ii) identification of users and stakeholders, and (iii) analysis of the system attributes and performance including sensitivity, specificity, timeliness, usefulness, representativeness, simplicity, flexibility, stability, and communication. Cross-correlation analysis was performed to assess the system ability to provide early warning signal of new wave of infections. Results: The pilot WS system was a national surveillance system using existing wastewater infrastructures from the largest Norwegian municipalities. We found that the system was sensitive, timely, useful, representative, simple, flexible, acceptable, and stable to follow the general trend of infection. Preliminary results indicate that the system could provide an early signal of changes in variant distribution. However, challenges may arise with: (i) specificity due to temporary fluctuations of RNA levels in wastewater, (ii) representativeness when downscaling, and (iii) flexibility and acceptability when upscaling the system due to limited resources and/or capacity. Conclusions: Our results showed that the pilot WS system met most of its surveillance objectives. The system was able to provide an early warning signal of 1-2 weeks, and the system was useful to monitor infections at population level and complement routine surveillance when individual testing activity was low. However, temporary fluctuations of WS values need to be carefully interpreted. To improve quality and efficiency, we recommend to standardise and validate methods for assessing trends of new waves of infection and variants, evaluate the WS system using a longer operational period particularly for new variants, and conduct prevalence studies in the population to calibrate the system and improve data interpretation.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.27.23289199v1" target="_blank">Evaluation of the Pilot Wastewater Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in Norway, June 2022 - March 2023</a>
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<li><strong>Demographic Influence on the Effectiveness of England’s SARS-CoV-2 Policies</strong> -
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Health data is key for the development of medicinal drugs, treatments, and policy-planning to control the spread of infectious diseases. However, the collection, curation, and interpretation of health data is often biased. This paper discusses England-wide impact of public policies to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) infections, based on the recorded per-capita infection cases between July 2020 to January 2023. The analysis presented herewith highlights the disparities across the upper local tier authorities, in the number of Covid-19 cases recorded in response to the policies. This paper further presents the correlation between the Covid-19 cases count and demographic factors, thus highlighting the key factors determining the effectiveness of the NHS policies, and therefore the need for incorporating demographic imbalance in the policy planning process. It is concluded that the upper local tier authorities comprise of three clusters of low, mid, and high prevalence of Covid-19 infections. Where the regions with high prevalence of Covid-19 cases are also the ones with higher proportions of Black/ Mixed racial groups, amongst a mid-range and low internal Migrations.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.25.23288871v1" target="_blank">Demographic Influence on the Effectiveness of England’s SARS-CoV-2 Policies</a>
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<li><strong>The impact of atypical intrahospital transfers on patient outcomes: a mixed methods study</strong> -
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: The architectural design of hospitals worldwide is centred around individual departments, which require the movement of patients between wards. However, patients do not always take the simplest route from admission to discharge, but can experience convoluted movement patterns, particularly when bed availability is low. Few studies have explored the impact of these rarer, atypical trajectories. Methods: Using a mixed-method explanatory sequential study design, we firstly used three continuous years of electronic health record data prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, from 55,152 patients admitted to a London hospital network to define the ward specialities by patient type using the Herfindahl-Hirschman index. We explored the impact of regular transfers between pairs of wards with shared specialities, atypical transfers between pairs of wards with no shared specialities and site transfers between pairs of wards in different hospital site locations, on length of stay, 30-day readmission and mortality. Secondly, to understand the possible reasons behind atypical transfers we conducted three focus groups and three interviews with site nurse practitioners and bed managers within the same hospital network. Results: We found that at least one atypical transfer was experienced by 12.9% of patients. Each atypical transfer is associated with a larger increase in length of stay, 2.84 days (95%CI: 2.56-3.12), compared to regular transfers, 1.92 days (95%CI: 1.82-2.03). No association was found between odds of mortality, or 30-day readmission and atypical transfers after adjusting for confounders. Atypical transfers appear to be driven by complex patient conditions, a lack of hospital capacity, the need to reach specific services and facilities, and more exceptionally, rare events such as major incidents. Conclusion: Our work provides an important first step in identifying unusual patient movement and its impacts on key patient outcomes using a system-wide, data-driven approach. The broader impact of moving patients between hospital wards, and possible downstream effects should be considered in hospital policy and service planning.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.26.23289016v1" target="_blank">The impact of atypical intrahospital transfers on patient outcomes: a mixed methods study</a>
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<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 Study of mRNA-1283.222 Injection Compared With mRNA-1273.222 Injection in Participants ≥12 Years of Age to Prevent COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: mRNA-1283.222;   Biological: mRNA-1273.222<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   ModernaTX, Inc.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluation of the RD-X19 Treatment Device in Individuals With Mild COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Device: RD-X19;   Device: Sham<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   EmitBio Inc.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Postoperative Sugammadex After COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   General Anesthesia;   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Sugammadex Sodium;   Drug: neostigmine 50µg/kg + glycopyrollate 0.01mg/kg<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Korea University Ansan Hospital<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Phase 2/3 Study to Determine the Safety and Effectiveness of Azeliragon in the Treatment of Patients Hospitalized for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Azeliragon;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Salim S. Hayek<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>Cognitive-behavioral Therapy for Mental Disorder in COVID-19 Survivors</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Post Acute COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Azienda Socio Sanitaria Territoriale di Lecco<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>A Coping and Resilience Intervention for Adolescents</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pandemic<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Coping and Resilience Intervention for Adolescents;   Other: Printing materials of Coping and Resilience Intervention for Adolescents<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Taipei Medical University<br/><b>Enrolling by invitation</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>Effectiveness of Modified Diaphragmatic Training for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease Post Covid-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   GERD;   Post COVID-19 Condition;   Diaphragm Issues<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: modified diaphragmatic training;   Other: standard diaphragmatic training<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Indonesia University<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effect of Telerehabilitation Practice in Long COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Long COVID-19;   Long COVID;   Post COVID-19 Condition;   Post-COVID-19 Syndrome;   Post-COVID Syndrome<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Telerehabilitation;   Behavioral: Standard rehabilitation care<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Indonesia 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>The Safety, Tolerability and Pharmacokinetics Study of RAY1216 in Healthy Adult Participants</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019)<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: RAY1216 dose 1;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 2;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 3;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 4 &amp;ritonavir   Drug: RAY1216 dose 5;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 6;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 7;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 8;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 9;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 10<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Guangdong Raynovent Biotech Co., Ltd<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>Computerized Training of Attention and Working Memory in Post COVID-19 Patients With Cognitive Complaints</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Cognitive Impairment;   Cognition Disorder;   Memory Disorders;   Attention Deficit;   Memory Impairment;   Memory Loss;   Attention Impaired<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: RehaCom<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Erasmus Medical Center<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>Strategies and Treatments for Respiratory Infections &amp;Amp; Viral Emergencies (STRIVE): Immune Modulation Strategy Trial</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: abatacept infusion;   Drug: Placebo group<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Minnesota<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study of Silmitasertib (CX-4945) in Healthy Subject</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: CX-4945<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Senhwa Biosciences, Inc.<br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluation of the Efficacy and Safety of Nano-S1</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pneumonia<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: NANOS1 , argent colloïdal ,<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   General Administration of Military Health, Tunisia<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>Digital Mental Health Care for COVID-19 High-Risk Populations - Phase 2</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Stigma, Social;   Help-Seeking Behavior<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Adjusted Content Intervention;   Other: Non-Adjusted Intervention Video<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Inc.;   Columbia University<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Research of the Long-COVID-19 Syndrome in the Children</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Long COVID<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Device<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Samara State Medical University<br/><b>Enrolling by invitation</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>Fighting cytokine storm and immunomodulatory deficiency: By using natural products therapy up to now</strong> - A novel coronavirus strain (COVID-19) caused severe illness and mortality worldwide from 31 December 2019 to 21 March 2023. As of this writing, 761,071,826 million cases have been diagnosed worldwide, with 6,879,677 million deaths accorded by WHO organization and has spread to 228 countries. The number of deaths is closely connected to the growth of innate immune cells in the lungs, mainly macrophages, which generate inflammatory cytokines (especially IL-6 and IL-1β) that induce "cytokine storm…</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>Interactions of heparin with key glycoproteins of human respiratory syncytial virus</strong> - Introduction: The unexpected surge of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases following pandemic phase of COVID-19 has drawn much public attention. Drawing on the latest antiviral research, revisiting this heightened annual outbreak of respiratory disease could lead to new treatments. The ability of sulfated polysaccharides to compete for a variety of viruses binding to cell surface heparan sulfate, suggests several drugs that might have therapeutic potential for targeting RSV-glycosaminoglycan…</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>Powerful Avidity with a Limited Valency for Virus-Attachment Blockers on DC-SIGN: Combining Chelation and Statistical Rebinding with Structural Plasticity of the Receptor</strong> - The C-type lectin receptor DC-SIGN has been highlighted as the coreceptor for the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. A multivalent glycomimetic ligand, Polyman26, has been found to inhibit DC-SIGN-dependent trans-infection of SARS-CoV-2. The molecular details underlying avidity generation in such systems remain poorly characterized. In an effort to dissect the contribution of the known multivalent effects - chelation, clustering, and statistical rebinding - we studied a series of dendrimer…</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>Cognitive inhibition deficit in long COVID-19: An exploratory study</strong> - BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: An increasing number of research studies point toward the importance and prevalence of long-term neurocognitive symptoms following infection with COVID-19. Our objectives were to capture the prevalence of cognitive impairments from 1 to 16 months post-COVID-19 infection, assess the changes in neuropsychological functions over time, and identify factors that can predict long-term deficits in cognition.</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>SNAP@CQD as a promising therapeutic vehicle against HCoVs: an overview</strong> - This report discusses potential therapies for treating human coronaviruses (HCoVs) and their economic impact. Specifically, we explore therapeutics that can support the body’s immune response, including immunoglobulin (Ig)A, IgG and T-cell responses, to inhibit the viral replication cycle and improve respiratory function. We hypothesize that carbon quantum dots conjugated with S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP) could be a synergistic alternative cure for treating respiratory injuries caused…</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>GMI, a fungal immunomodulatory protein, ameliorates SARS-CoV-2 envelope protein-induced inflammation in macrophages via inhibition of MAPK pathway</strong> - Clinically, COVID-19 is often accompanied by a severe immune response (cytokine storm) which produces a large number of cytokines, such as TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-12, and consequently causes acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). GMI is a type of fungal immunomodulatory protein that is cloned from Ganoderma microsporum and acts as modulating immunocyte for various inflammatory diseases. This study identifies GMI as a potential anti-inflammatory agent and determines the effects of GMI on 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>Innate immune pathway modulator screen identifies STING pathway activation as a strategy to inhibit multiple families of arbo and respiratory viruses</strong> - RNA viruses continue to remain a threat for potential pandemics due to their rapid evolution. Potentiating host antiviral pathways to prevent or limit viral infections is a promising strategy. Thus, by testing a library of innate immune agonists targeting pathogen recognition receptors, we observe that Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3), stimulator of interferon genes (STING), TLR8, and Dectin-1 ligands inhibit arboviruses, Chikungunya virus (CHIKV), West Nile virus, and Zika virus to varying degrees….</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>Robust SARS-CoV-2-specific and heterologous immune responses in vaccine-naïve residents of long-term care facilities who survive natural infection</strong> - We studied humoral and cellular immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in 152 long-term care facility staff and 124 residents over a prospective 4-month period shortly after the first wave of infection in England. We show that residents of long-term care facilities developed high and stable levels of antibodies against spike protein and receptor-binding domain. Nucleocapsid-specific responses were also elevated but waned over time. Antibodies showed stable…</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>Sulfated endospermic nanocellulose crystals prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and HIV-1</strong> - Biomaterials with antimicrobial activity are gaining attention due to their biodegradability and efficacy in interacting with a wide range of microorganisms. A new cellulose nano-biomaterial, endospermic nanocellulose crystals (ENC) obtained from parenchymal tissue of ivory nut endosperm, has a natural capacity as a universal binder. This feature is enhanced when it is chemically functionalized, and can be exploited in the fight against microbes. We tested the ability of sulfated ENC in aqueous…</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>MasitinibL shows promise as a drug-like analog of masitinib that elicits comparable SARS-Cov-2 3CLpro inhibition with low kinase preference</strong> - SARS-CoV-2 infection has led to several million deaths worldwide and ravaged the economies of many countries. Hence, developing therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2 remains a core priority in the fight against COVID-19. Most of the drugs that have received emergency use authorization for treating SARS-CoV-2 infection exhibit a number of limitations, including side effects and questionable efficacy. This challenge is further compounded by reinfection after vaccination and the high likelihood of…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Recuperative herbal formula Jing Si maintains vasculature permeability balance, regulates inflammation and assuages concomitants of “Long-Covid”</strong> - Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a worldwide health threat that has long-term effects on the patients and there is currently no efficient cure prescribed for the treatment and the prolonging effects. Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) have been reported to exert therapeutic effect against COVID-19. In this study, the therapeutic effects of Jing Si herbal tea (JSHT) against COVID-19 infection and associated long-term effects were evaluated in different in vitro and in vivo models. 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>Fourteen immunomodulatory alkaloids and two prenylated phenylpropanoids with dual therapeutic approach for COVID-19: molecular docking and dynamics studies</strong> - The pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 caused by the new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is a global health burden. To date, there is no highly effective antiviral therapy to eradicate the virus; as a result, researchers are racing to introduce new potential therapeutic agents. Alternatively, traditional immunity boosters and symptomatic treatment based on natural bioactive compounds are also an option. The 3-chymotrypsin-like protease (3CL^(pro)) crystal structure, 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>Protecting the public interest while regulating health professionals providing virtual care: A scoping review</strong> - Technology is transforming service delivery in many health professions, particularly with the rapid shift to virtual care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health profession regulators must navigate legal and ethical complexities to facilitate virtual care while upholding their mandate to protect the public interest. The objectives of this scoping review were to examine how the public interest is protected when regulating health professionals who provide virtual care, discuss policy and practice…</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-spike protein to determine SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels: Is there a specific threshold conferring protection in immunocompromised patients?</strong> - CONCLUSION: We suggest specific adjusted thresholds (BAU/ml) for the four commercial antibody assays that are used to assess pre-exposure prophylaxis in immunocompromised patients.</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>MicroRNA-598 inhibition ameliorates LPS-induced acute lung injury in mice through upregulating Ebf1 expression</strong> - Acute lung injury is a critical acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) with high morbidity and mortality. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been demonstrated to play important roles regulating acute lung injury development. In this study, we found that the expression of miR-598 was significantly upregulated in the lung tissues of mice with lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced acute lung injury. Both loss-of-function and gain-of-function studies were performed to evaluate the function of miR-598 in acute…</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>A Security Camera for the Planet</strong> - A new satellite, funded by a nonprofit, aims to pinpoint emissions of methane—a gas that plays a major role in global warming. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-climate-action/a-security-camera-for-the-planet">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Week the Biden-Trump Rematch Got Real</strong> - One difference from 2020: the Republican attacks on the President’s even more unpopular Veep. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/the-week-the-biden-trump-rematch-got-real">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Climate Crisis Gives Sailing Ships a Second Wind</strong> - Cargo vessels are some of the dirtiest vehicles in existence. Can a centuries-old technology help to clean them up? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/the-climate-crisis-gives-sailing-ships-a-second-wind">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Curious Side Effects of Medical Transparency</strong> - When we peer into our patient portals, we don’t always see ourselves more clearly. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/the-curious-side-effects-of-medical-transparency">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Risky Gamble of Kevin McCarthy’s Debt-Ceiling Strategy</strong> - In the face of a catastrophic default, the House Speaker has pitted his most extreme members against the President. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-risky-gamble-of-kevin-mccarthys-debt-ceiling-strategy">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Smaller, cheaper, safer: The next generation of nuclear power, explained</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A hilly landscape with scattered trees and the sun rising in the background. Oversized nuclear power sources are emanating light in different colors amongst the landscape: a small modular reactor, a MARVEL microreactor, a portable reactor, and power plant cooling towers." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/v55I84l_afN2VBxLtL7zdjML3n8=/240x0:1680x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72237362/Final_NuclearPower_PaigeVickers.0.jpeg"/>
<figcaption>
Advanced nuclear reactors, especially smaller designs, could help solve many of the persistent problems with nuclear energy. | Paige Vickers for Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The nuclear industry’s big bet on going small.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m7Xu8h">
<strong>IDAHO FALLS, Idaho</strong> — Inside the Transient Reactor Test Facility, a towering, windowless gray block surrounded by barbed wire, researchers are about to embark on a mission to solve one of humanity’s greatest problems with a tiny device.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p2psoH">
Next year, they will begin construction on the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/new-marvel-project-aims-supercharge-microreactor-deployment">MARVEL reactor</a>. MARVEL stands for Microreactor Applications Research Validation and EvaLuation. It’s a first-of-a-kind nuclear power generator, cooled with liquid metal and producing 100 kilowatts of energy. By 2024, researchers expect MARVEL will be the zero-emissions engine of the world’s first nuclear microgrid here at Idaho National Laboratory (INL).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zrqM4m">
“Micro” and “tiny,” of course, are relative. MARVEL stands 15 feet tall, weighs 2,000 pounds, and can fit in the trailer of a semi-truck. But compared to conventional nuclear power plants, which span acres, produce gigawatts of electricity to power whole states, and can take more than a decade to build, it’s minuscule.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LeadhT">
For INL, where scientists have tested dozens of reactors over the decades across an area three-quarters the size of Rhode Island, it’s a radical reimagining of the technology. This reactor design could help overcome the biggest obstacles to nuclear energy: safety, efficiency, scale, cost, and competition. MARVEL is an experiment to see how all these pieces could fit together in the real world.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LRlIHS">
“It’s an applications test reactor where we’re going to try to figure out how we extract heat and energy from a nuclear reactor and apply it — and combine it with wind and solar and other energy sources,” said Yasir Arafat, head of the MARVEL program.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ah9mYf">
The project, however, comes at a time when nuclear power is getting pulled in wildly different directions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uGso8n">
Germany just <a href="https://apnews.com/article/germany-nuclear-power-plants-shut-energy-376dfaa223f88fedff138b9a63a6f0da">shut down its last nuclear reactors</a>. The US just started up its <a href="https://www.energy.gov/lpo/vogtle">first new reactor in 30 years</a>. France, the country with the largest share of nuclear energy on its grid, saw its nuclear power output decline to the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-europe-energy-crisis-updates-france/">lowest levels since 1988</a> last year. Around the world, there are currently 60 nuclear reactors under construction, with <a href="https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-power.aspx">22 in China alone</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qbckrL">
But the world is hungrier than ever for energy. Overall electricity demand is growing: Global electricity needs will increase nearly 70 percent by 2050 compared to today’s consumption, according to the <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42555">Energy Information Administration</a>. At the same time, the constraints are getting tighter. Most countries in the world, including the US, have now committed to <a href="https://www.vox.com/22777957/cop26-un-climate-change-conference-glasgow-goals-paris">zeroing out their net impact on the climate</a> by the middle of the century.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WJ2cVm">
To meet this energy demand without worsening climate change, the US Energy Department’s <a href="https://liftoff.energy.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230320-Liftoff-Advanced-Nuclear-vPUB-0329-Update.pdf">report on advanced nuclear energy</a> released in March said “the U.S. will need ~550–770 [gigawatts] of additional clean, firm capacity to reach net-zero; nuclear power is one of the few proven options that could deliver this at scale.”
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Photo of MARVEL project lead Yasir Arafat in front of a prototype of the reactor" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LwBZ1ZNOR0BLqNDD4XSk7-JnEBc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24618023/image.png"/> <cite>Idaho National Laboratory/US Department of Energy</cite>
<figcaption>
MARVEL program director Yasir Arafat, in front of a prototype microreactor, said the project will study how small nuclear reactors could function on a power grid.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LOUtOc">
The US government is now renewing its bets on nuclear power to produce a steady stream of electricity without emitting greenhouse gases. The <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/us-department-energy-releases-guidance-second-award-cycle-bipartisan-infrastructure-laws-6">Bipartisan Infrastructure Law</a> included $6 billion to keep existing nuclear power plants running. The Inflation Reduction Act, the US government’s largest investment in countering climate change to date, includes a number of provisions to benefit nuclear power, including <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/new-era-nuclear-energy-post-inflation-reduction-act-2022-12-21/">tax credits for zero-emissions energy</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5AIOsL">
“It’s a game changer,” said <a href="https://bios.inl.gov/Lists/Researcher/DisplayOverrideForm.aspx?ID=307">John Wagner</a>, director of INL.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QXuMAP">
The tech sector is jumping in, too. In 2021, venture capital firms poured <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-22/tech-billionaires-rally-around-nuclear-as-energy-crisis-looms">$3.4 billion into nuclear energy</a> startups. They’re also pouring money into even more far-out ideas, like nuclear fusion power. Public opinion has also started moving. An April <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/474650/americans-support-nuclear-energy-highest-decade.aspx">Gallup poll</a> found that 55 percent of Americans favor and 44 percent oppose using nuclear energy, the highest levels of support in 10 years.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hBDu9i">
But nuclear energy is still facing some long-running headwinds. It’s the one power source whose operating costs have actually increased over time. Recent construction efforts have run years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Most reactors still rely on enriched uranium, a pricey fuel to mine and process. Finding a place to store nuclear waste remains a problem. The workforce needed to build and operate plants has withered, due to the decades between reactor builds. And now, with rising interest rates, it’s more expensive to finance ambitious energy projects.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FgJUzr">
Can the nuclear energy industry invent its way out of its toughest problems?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FwBEpn">
Advocates certainly hope so, and the potential for nuclear energy to meet the challenge of climate change is immense. Many new nuclear power technologies are now in design and testing phases. But one of the most promising strategies for nuclear is to go big by going small.
</p>
<h3 id="NXI6y5">
The new generation of nuclear power, explained
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h5qfXS">
Splitting atoms is the largest source of greenhouse gas-free electricity in the US and the second-largest in the world behind hydropower. Nuclear fission produces <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/nuclear-power-in-a-clean-energy-system">10 percent of the world’s electricity</a>. The US has the largest nuclear reactor fleet in the world, with <a href="https://www.nei.org/resources/fact-sheets/u-s-nuclear-plants">92 reactors</a> across 53 power plants in 28 states.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MqFLV1">
The current crop of nuclear reactors use a variety of different design approaches, tailored to their specific needs. That helped these power plants better fit into the power grids when they were initially built, but it made it harder for them to adapt to changing demands and for newer plants in other places to learn from them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cllsQl">
To understand what sets the new reactor designs apart, it helps to know how earlier designs worked. Generally, civilian nuclear reactors are divided into “generations” that refined the technology, economics, and safety with each iteration.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GShcf0">
The first generation of reactors were proofs of concept, according to <a href="https://inl.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/20-GA50518_Gehin-Long_Bio-1.pdf">Jess Gehin</a>, associate director for nuclear science and technology at INL. From there, they scaled up in size and added safety features to make them more usable in the real world, forming the second generation. The bulk of the world’s operating nuclear reactors right now are second-generation designs. They are also the foundation of most business models and the basis for nuclear energy regulations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NqjAZo">
More recent third-generation reactors advance this with improved safety features. “Several of those have been built that actually start moving away from the active safety systems to more passive systems,” Gehin said. The recently opened reactor at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia is a design called <a href="https://www.westinghousenuclear.com/energy-systems/ap1000-pwr">AP1000</a>. It’s considered a generation three-plus reactor that uses fewer moving parts than conventional designs and can cool off on its own should something go wrong. “You can go 72 hours without any operator interaction,” Gehin said.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Photo of the Transient Reactor Test Facility" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/E0U9HwXpMFECmTuYhfZW9zAqpWA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24618030/DSC01114.jpeg"/> <cite>Umair Irfan/Vox</cite>
<figcaption>
The Transient Reactor Test Facility at Idaho National Laboratory will host the MARVEL microreactor.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OLiF4c">
Fourth-generation reactors are now in the works. Unlike current reactors that mainly use water to control the reaction and to stay cool, these designs use other materials like liquid metal, pressurized gas, and molten salt. The advantage is that they can reach higher operating temperatures, which can lead to greater efficiency. Industrial processes like steel production could also draw on that extra heat.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zERzY8">
Many fourth-generation designs can also use cheaper, lower-grade nuclear fuels. That’s one of the approaches being developed by <a href="https://www.terrapower.com/">TerraPower</a>, a nuclear company founded by investor Bill Gates. Some fourth-generation designs can even use <a href="https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-advanced-reactor-systems-watch-2030">waste from other reactors</a>. They can also integrate equipment that allows them to ramp up and down more readily to scale with energy demands.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="auuioZ">
These combined effects improve the economics of nuclear power, streamlining the overall process from reducing fuel costs to generating power more effectively to reducing waste and to improving safety.
</p>
<h3 id="EJ4stb">
Nuclear can do more than generate electricity
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yThGGZ">
Some of the most significant advances in nuclear energy, however, may not be in the reactors themselves. Their biggest benefits could come from rethinking how they fit into the existing power infrastructure.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qNnzCm">
The Energy Department has suggested that hundreds of <a href="https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/doe-report-finds-hundreds-retiring-coal-plant-sites-could-convert-nuclear">sites for coal power plants</a>, which are rapidly shutting down across the country, could be repurposed for nuclear energy. The advantage is that they already have many of the necessary permits and the equipment to plug into the power grid, saving some of the startup costs of a new plant.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="w5qSiP">
Most conventional reactors are optimized to run flat out, with a steady output of energy. But demand on the power grid varies widely as lights switch on in the evening or heaters turn on during the day. While some nuclear power plants can ramp up and down, it’s not always easy. Windy and sunny days can also mean that there’s a surfeit of cheap electrons from renewables and undercut nuclear electricity on price. And since nuclear plants have high fixed costs even when they’re turned down, they prefer to stay up and sell as much of their electricity as possible.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LS93yo">
Now, engineers are planning nuclear reactors with this capricious demand in mind. “New reactors are designed to be dispatchable and flexible,” said <a href="https://inl.gov/article/christine-king-named-director-of-gateway-for-accelerated-innovation-in-nuclear/">Christine King</a>, director of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear at INL.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Photo of scientist operating remote armature" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/95cpGwmi68nQ4mPd01KgarZMj6M=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24618041/DSC01149.jpeg"/> <cite>Umair Irfan/Vox</cite>
<figcaption>
A researcher at Idaho National Laboratory investigates nuclear materials inside a containment chamber.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KTpBCu">
One idea is to integrate energy storage. Molten salt, for instance, can be used to store heat from a nuclear reactor for hours at a time and dispatch it as needed. Another approach is to use the heat from a reactor not just to boil water but to provide industrial heat to factories. Researchers are also designing reactors that can produce hydrogen when they have excess power, which in turn can run fuel cells in cars or put electrons back on the grid.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JvcxNJ">
Electricity from nuclear power plants doesn’t necessarily have to feed into the power grid either, according to King. It can instead power dedicated processes like capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air. Capturing this carbon dioxide is a highly energy-intensive process, though, and nuclear could provide the requisite power without making the problem worse. That captured carbon could then serve as a building block for synthetic fuels, particularly for sectors that are hard to electrify, like aviation and shipping.
</p>
<h3 id="a2QVPa">
It’s hard to build anything these days
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hb9sUN">
The virtues of advanced nuclear reactors are all great in theory. In practice, building anything big is really, really hard.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TUl7KZ">
<a href="https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/about-us/people/bent-flyvbjerg">Bent Flyvbjerg</a>, a professor at the IT University of Copenhagen and a professor at the University of Oxford, recently co-authored a book called <a href="https://sites.prh.com/how-big-things-get-done-book"><em>How Big Things Get Done</em></a><em>.</em> It examines why so many major infrastructure projects like high-speed trains, IT systems, and even home renovations run behind schedule and over budget. Often, these problems arise from a failure of planning, inadequate expertise, political pressure, and limited experience.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NCRW67">
Nuclear energy brings even more unique challenges. One is that the technology itself is evolving, so it’s difficult to learn from past efforts to build reactors. Nuclear regulators also built their rules around second-generation designs. So as engineers come up with new ways to split atoms, nuclear observers also have to come up with new standards to make sure they’re safe. The back-and-forth between developers and regulators adds another layer of complexity to the design process.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9SMk6x">
And anytime there’s a problem with a nuclear power plant anywhere, regulators step up their scrutiny. “Once they had adapted to a certain set of standards, they would be raised because there was a nuclear incident or accident,” Flyvbjerg said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jHnJ1a">
Most existing commercial reactors also don’t scale up and down easily, so they have to start with bigger, more expensive designs at the outset. That means they have to recover that cost over decades, but if utilities get their electricity demand forecasts wrong, then nuclear power plants end up having to raise their prices or lose money. With new reactors being built for the first time, there’s little experience to draw on. Builders often encounter unanticipated problems that require more money and resources to fix.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hliu7R">
The Vogtle Plant was nearly six years behind schedule, and its cost was almost double its initial budget of $14 billion, for example. Utilities in <a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/business/3-years-later-how-the-fallout-from-scs-9-billion-nuclear-fiasco-continues/article_5d2a2684-d264-11ea-946f-935bbd3ffa98.html#newsletter-popup">South Carolina abandoned a $9 billion effort</a> to build two AP1000 reactors in 2017. If you’re an investor or a public utility, it’s enough to grind your molars into dust. Developing fourth-generation reactors stands to be an even more expensive, time-consuming process.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3mx373">
But there are some potential ways to chip away at these monumental challenges. One way is for governments to step in and provide research support to these new designs and test them out.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Photo of the Materials and Fuels Complex and Idaho National Laboratory" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jSUGLSCWyOVVhz0XjBC6L5yiTHQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24618075/DSC01117.jpeg"/> <cite>Umair Irfan/Vox</cite>
<figcaption>
Idaho National Laboratory builds and tests nuclear reactors to help the industry figure out how they’ll work in the real world.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uuLFji">
For the nuclear industry, the hot new strategy is to scale down with small modular reactors, or SMRs. Rather than building huge, customized reactors on site, companies like NuScale are developing smaller reactors, on the order of 10 to 50 megawatts, that can be built in factories and trucked or shipped around the world. The standardized designs could save costs. And by starting small and scaling up, they could meet a variety of use cases.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YCXEZ5">
This approach has already caught eyes around the world. The US Navy already operates <a href="https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/non-power-nuclear-applications/transport/nuclear-powered-ships.aspx">more than 200 small nuclear reactors</a> to power submarines and aircraft carriers. The test is to see whether the business case makes sense on land. China and Russia are <a href="https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featureiaea-ups-support-for-smrs-10528638/">already running SMRs</a>, and 19 countries are developing them. Canadian Prime Minister <a href="https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1650574651783798784">Justin Trudeau</a> said in April that Canada is making “a return to nuclear, which we’re very very serious about, and investing in some of the small modular reactors.” One of the first SMR plants in the world is now planned in <a href="https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/News/Press-Releases/2022/NuScale-Announces-First-International-E2-Center-at-University-Politehnica-of-Bucharest">Romania in 2028</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ShKHpC">
“This is the right experiment to be doing,” Flyvbjerg said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V9JScn">
And with designs like MARVEL, researchers are investigating even smaller reactors that can power remote communities, back up renewables, or provide emergency power after a disaster. As reactors get smaller, though, the question is how many it will take in order to achieve economies of scale.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5m3uXI">
“A lot of learning has to do with how many you build,” said <a href="https://lafollette.wisc.edu/people/nemet-gregory-f/">Gregory Nemet</a>, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison and author of <a href="https://www.routledge.com/How-Solar-Energy-Became-Cheap-A-Model-for-Low-Carbon-Innovation-1st-Edition/Nemet/p/book/9780367136598"><em>How Solar Energy Became Cheap</em></a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WV629d">
Technologies like wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, and lithium-ion batteries saw huge price drops in part because it was easy to build a lot of them, so small improvements in performance had big ripple effects. If smaller nuclear reactors could achieve even a fraction of these cost declines, they could finally push the cost curve of nuclear power in the other direction.
</p>
<h3 id="TZsK25">
It’s not clear how much advanced nuclear will cost
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vRBZQ6">
Balancing the books may prove to be a bigger obstacle for nuclear power than splitting the atom.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4LfzB8">
A new report from the <a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/laying-the-foundation-for-new-and-advanced-nuclear-reactors-in-the-united-states">National Academy of Engineering</a> says the economics of nuclear power “is perhaps the largest challenge to the commercial success of advanced reactors.” Advanced nuclear reactors are especially tricky to game out.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QuGaJF">
“Let me just say that anyone making estimates of what it will cost to produce electricity from these power plants has got to have a whole series of embedded assumptions, there’s a lot of uncertainty,” said <a href="https://www.cov.com/en/professionals/m/richard-meserve">Richard Meserve</a>, a former chair of the nuclear regulatory commission and a co-author of the report, during a briefing about the report.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uT2TjJ">
Another big issue is that most countries still don’t have a long-term solution for dealing with nuclear waste, which can remain hazardous for hundreds of years. It’s a huge technical and political problem.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MoN2TQ">
And while there is more demand for clean energy, interest rates are rising, making it more expensive to borrow money to build anything, let alone financially risky novel reactors. INL’s Wagner noted that US reactor construction halted in the ’80s due in part to high interest rates at the time. “When interest rates go to 10, 12, 15 percent, what happens? You’ve got cost overruns,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0JNzMZ">
At the same time, the world is about to overrun its carbon budget and <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23648274/climate-change-report-ipcc-ar6-warming-overshoot">overshoot the goal of limiting warming</a> to less than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) this century.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eeljbr">
The US has now committed to cutting its <a href="https://www.vox.com/22397364/earth-day-us-climate-change-summit-biden-john-kerry-commitment-2030-zero-emissions">greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030</a> compared to 2005 levels. It’s unlikely that new nuclear power plants will make much progress toward that goal, now less than seven years away. But the US and more than 130 countries in the world want to eliminate their contributions to climate change entirely by 2050. That goal demands far cleaner, more abundant, and reliable energy than we have now.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d1wxEE">
Nuclear could help the world achieve this. It’s a risky and expensive investment, but the foundations for this future have to be laid now.
</p></li>
<li><strong>The fight to make it harder for landlords to evict their tenants</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A protester holds a sign that reads “No eviction! Good cause!” at a housing justice march in New York City." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PYQ9W4K7bT2D-gQBbEKRj4DolJk=/0x943:2500x2818/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72237303/1364686227.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Pablo Monsalve/VIEWpress via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Landlords can kick renters out of housing for basically any reason. “Good cause” laws would change that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="F1tWFs">
In most US communities, renters have very little assurance of staying in their homes long term if they’d like to. Landlords can hike rents, evict tenants through court with little difficulty, or simply choose to not renew their lease. Nearly <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/future-land-housing/reports/displaced-america/">5 million Americans</a> lose their homes through eviction and foreclosure every year, and millions more deal with threats of housing loss.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2xz9ee">
In July 2021, local lawmakers in Albany approved <a href="https://nysfocus.com/2021/07/21/albany-passes-good-cause-eviction/">New York’s first “good cause” eviction law</a> — a city ordinance affirming tenants’ right to renew their leases, defining what could lead to eviction, and protecting<strong> </strong>them against “unconscionable” rent hikes exceeding 5 percent. Within a few months, four more upstate New York cities — <a href="https://hudsonvalleyone.com/2022/01/13/good-cause-eviction-passes-kingston-common-council/">Kingston</a>, <a href="https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/hudson-valley/public-safety/2021/10/26/newburgh-good-cause-eviction-law-passes">Newburgh</a>, <a href="https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/local/2021/11/16/poughkeepsie-passes-good-cause-eviction-law-protect-tenants/8637589002/">Poughkeepsie</a>, and <a href="https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/local/2022/03/08/good-cause-eviction-beacon-passes-why-debated/9428908002/">Beacon</a> — followed suit.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8QL0m5">
But tenant advocates didn’t have long to celebrate. Landlords challenged the measures in court,<strong> </strong>arguing the local laws<strong> </strong>violated their state<strong> </strong>property rights. In three separate rulings over the last six<strong> </strong>months, the courts agreed, and “good cause” laws in Newburgh, Albany, and Poughkeepsie were<strong> </strong>struck down. Kingston lawmakers <a href="https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailyfreeman.com%2F2023%2F04%2F20%2Fkingston-committee-votes-to-repeal-citys-good-cause-eviction-law-as-other-local-laws-have-been-struck-down%2F%23%3A%7E%3Atext%3DPUBLISHED%253A%2520April%252020%252C%25202023%2520at%2Cpassed%2520this%2520session%2520in%2520Albany">preemptively repealed</a> their own measure two weeks ago.<strong> </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KP6FqW">
A statewide “good cause” eviction law is now at the heart of<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-elections-government/ny-aoc-new-york-budget-good-cause-20230413-d5zr43ifhfelppfjkgddcyg7fi-story.html">one of the most high-profile battles</a> in New York’s legislature. It mirrors the growing focus of housing advocates across the country, who argue lawmakers need to do more to prevent <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hpb20210315.747908/">the harms clearly linked</a> to losing one’s home, including <a href="https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article-abstract/63/1/46/1844105?login=false">higher job loss</a>, <a href="https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/opportunity-ownership/projects/cost-eviction-and-unpaid-bills-financially-insecure-families-city-budgets">debt</a>, <a href="https://jech.bmj.com/content/70/4/409">suicide</a>, and reduced <a href="https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d21/d2186.pdf">credit access</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9jwq16">
Similar state-level “good cause” measures have passed recently <a href="https://www.weho.org/city-government/rent-stabilization/rental-housing/ab-1482-california-tenant-protection-act#:~:text=Starting%20January%201%2C%202020%20AB,units%20subject%20to%20the%20RSO.">in California</a>, <a href="https://www.oregonlandlord.net/landlord-tenant-law/legislation-sb-608-pcc-30-01-085/">Oregon</a>, and <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2021/05/10/wash-governor-signs-bill-requiring-just-cause-eviction/">Washington state</a>, and legislators in <a href="https://kdvr.com/news/local/just-cause-eviction-bill-passes-colorado-house/">Colorado</a>, <a href="https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/CT-rent-cap-tenant-union-no-cause-eviction-17713934.php">Connecticut</a>, and <a href="https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/hb0881?ys=2022RS">Maryland</a> have taken up the idea this year, too.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JuAnwV">
Landlord groups argue “good cause” eviction rules will upend the housing market during an already volatile period, and slow down <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23595421/biden-affordable-housing-shortage-supply">much-needed new construction</a>. Supporters of the protections say this is just real estate industry<strong> </strong>fear-mongering, noting that in states that have already passed “good cause” eviction laws, construction has continued apace.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nJks9X">
No state has had a “good cause” ordinance longer <a href="https://slate.com/business/2022/02/new-york-good-cause-eviction-new-jersey-housing.html">than New Jersey,</a> which passed its own version in 1974.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oQF8I1">
“There’s a thriving rental market in New Jersey, it has not collapsed by any stretch of the imagination,” said Peter Hepburn, a sociologist at Rutgers University-Newark and an analyst at <a href="https://evictionlab.org/">Princeton’s Eviction Lab</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bj8K7V">
Julia Salazar, the New York senator leading the push in her state legislature for “good cause” eviction, said opposition is led largely by those “who want to exploit the need people have to be housed.” She argued there’s been a lot of misinformation about her bill.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KpPiy1">
“No one is saying we have enough housing stock or we don’t need to build, and I believe we urgently need to build more housing,” she told Vox. “If ‘good cause’ were in fact any impediment to that then I would certainly be concerned, but the reality that we’ve seen in states like New Jersey and Oregon is it’s just not.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W2s2Qd">
However, whether these laws will provide the kind of protection advocates yearn to see is not clear, since many common reasons for eviction — like being a nuisance or damaging property — are listed as “good causes” in the statutes. There’s also been little<strong> </strong>research on the effectiveness of the laws in the states that have recently passed them, partly because they’re so new and partly because it’s challenging to disentangle the effect of “good cause” from all the other Covid-19 tenant protections.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qNAZDV">
In New Jersey, advocates concede, “good cause” has not been a strong deterrent<strong> </strong>against evictions, partly because <a href="https://www.nj.gov/dca/divisions/codes/codreg/pdf_regs/2A_18_61.pdf">its language barring “unconscionable” rent increases</a> lacks a specific threshold (like 5 percent, for example), making enforcement difficult.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2nsgOE">
“The note of caution I would sound is that every ‘good cause’ statute permits eviction for nonpayment of rent,” said Hepburn. “And nonpayment of rent is far and away <a href="https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/rental-insecurity-the-threat-of-evictions-to-americas-renters">the most common cause</a> that evictions are filed.”
</p>
<h3 id="mGPPlD">
How “good cause” eviction laws work
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ooBD24">
Laws requiring “good cause” for eviction (sometimes called “just cause” or simply eviction “for cause”) are tenant protections meant to give renters a greater sense of housing security and empower them to hold landlords accountable for poor conditions without fear of retaliation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P7uK84">
The laws vary from place to place but they always include specific reasons a landlord could choose to legally evict a tenant or opt not to renew their lease. A tenant can then challenge an eviction in court if they feel it was ordered without legitimate cause.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NkkC0s">
The National Low Income Housing Coalition lists <a href="https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Promoting-Housing-Stability-Through-Just-Cause-Eviction-Legislation.pdf">three core components</a> of “good cause” legislation. Beyond defining the legal grounds for an eviction, advocates say most place limits on rent increases (some of these limits are vaguer than others), and most laws also include enhanced requirements for written eviction notices, so tenants have enough time to gather any documentation they need to challenge it. In Oregon, for example, landlords have to provide a tenant they want to evict with 90 days notice.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Yj9phO">
While there has not been much research to date on the impact of “good cause” eviction laws, some evidence suggests they make a difference. <a href="https://jpia.princeton.edu/news/effect-just-cause-eviction-ordinances-eviction-four-california-cities">One study found</a> local “good cause” ordinances in four California cities lowered eviction rates between 2000 and 2016. The researcher concluded the measures “have a significant and noticeable effect on eviction and eviction filing rates” and provide a low-cost policy solution for other states and cities.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ywBWnn">
Ned Resnikoff, the policy director for California YIMBY, said he doesn’t believe there’s any reliable data yet on California’s statewide “good cause” measure that took effect in 2020, partly because some eviction moratoriums remain in effect. “But the Terner Center has <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__ternercenter.berkeley.edu_wp-2Dcontent_uploads_2022_09_AB1482-2DBrief-2DFinal.pdf&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=7MSjEE-cVgLCRHxk1P5PWg&amp;r=qZLA9xQgGlxUr0U6NvKAiy6fS-EwRVQRODHMm2i1d9M&amp;m=JKewnFqXSl4soWGld4LzoUlkriMxTQOvbB34aGMxjpubrrhPg3U4UPD4br12TDhl&amp;s=EIoPTe2Vsc1-cjQs7UOreJ3z5A-qFb37ubMNSVjOPlg&amp;e=">found</a> that the rent stabilization piece of [the law] isn’t being adequately enforced, so I think it’s reasonable to surmise that we might face a similar issue with just cause protections,” he told Vox.
</p>
<h3 id="f7qVYU">
Progressives are throwing their weight behind the fight in New York
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="itkFDM">
Progressive activists have named “good cause” eviction <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-elections-government/ny-aoc-new-york-budget-good-cause-20230413-d5zr43ifhfelppfjkgddcyg7fi-story.html">a top priority</a> for this year, and powerful congressional Democrats including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jerry Nadler, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have also come out in support.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jhSoy4">
The bill would bar rent increases that exceed 3 percent of the previous rental amount, or 1.5 percent of the Consumer Price Index, whichever is higher. This could provide significant protection: Even among New York City’s 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, tenants are looking at rent increases for next year that could range <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/nyregion/rent-stabilized-apartments-nyc.html#:~:text=by%2016%20Percent%3F-,Here's%20What%20to%20Know.,%2Dyear%20leases%20%E2%80%94%20are%20unlikely.">between 5 and 16 percent</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="t04MAC">
New York’s bill would go further in protecting tenants than the “good cause” laws that passed on the West Coast, as New York’s proposed limits on rent increases would apply not only to old units, but also to new and future housing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jzgw4b">
The Community Service Society of New York, a progressive advocacy group, estimates that <a href="https://www.cssny.org/news/entry/good-cause-eviction-resources-information">1.6 million New York households</a> would be protected from eviction based on unreasonable rent increases under Salazar’s bill.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Plywfw">
<a href="https://www.thecity.nyc/housing/2023/3/28/23659366/chinese-landlords-good-cause-eviction-democrats">Landlords</a> are <a href="https://www.thecity.nyc/housing/2022/2/15/22936346/landlords-wage-crusade-against-good-cause-anti-eviction-bill">fighting back</a>, arguing the eviction moratorium from the pandemic already put them under severe financial strain, will lead to more backlogged court cases, and will leave them financially vulnerable in an inflationary period. The right-leaning New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/03/24/progressives-good-cause-eviction-bill-spells-doom-for-nyc-housing/">blasted the proposed law</a> for potentially discouraging new housing and driving existing landlords out of business.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ULUhfT">
Tim Foley, the CEO of the Building and Realty Institute, which represents Westchester and mid-Hudson region real estate professionals, told Vox his members worry it will hurt their ability to get financing to complete their projects. He pointed out that banks, including <a href="https://www.bankrate.com/banking/signature-bank-collapse/">the recently collapsed</a> Signature Bank, <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/signature-banks-new-york-real-estate-problem/">paused or stopped lending</a> following the passage of New York’s 2019 state tenant protections. His organization also found repairs and maintenance in rent-stabilized units decreased after the 2019 law,<strong> </strong>suggesting <a href="https://www.realestateindepth.com/news/new-study-concludes-2019-rent-laws-having-tangible-and-unintended-consequences-on-county-buildings/">there could be “unintended consequences”</a> to the tenant rights law.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0S90UL">
Foley said his members instead back bills <a href="https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?default_fld=%0D%0A&amp;leg_video=&amp;bn=1493&amp;term=2023&amp;Summary=Y&amp;Actions=Y&amp;Committee%26nbspVotes=Y&amp;Floor%26nbspVotes=Y&amp;Memo=Y&amp;Text=Y">to expand legal representation for low-income New Yorkers</a> during eviction proceedings (known as “right to counsel”) and to <a href="https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/ny-state-of-politics/2023/02/14/statewide-housing-voucher-bill-advances-in-new-york-assembly">expand access to housing vouchers</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k4mmkI">
Ann Korchak, the board president of Small Property Owners of New York, a landlord advocacy group with roughly 600 members, told Vox she believes her state “already has incredibly strong tenant protections” and disagrees with advocates who say otherwise.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wVA9jz">
Salazar told Vox she sees Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul as their biggest political obstacle, and <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-elections-government/ny-aoc-new-york-budget-good-cause-20230413-d5zr43ifhfelppfjkgddcyg7fi-story.html">previously indicated</a> she’s open to making modifications to her bill. Lawmakers tried and failed to pass a similar bill in 2019, but Salazar thinks there are more elected officials now who embrace a “housing justice” platform.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7EWdTB">
Hochul, who introduced <a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/programs/new-york-housing-compact">her own housing agenda</a> earlier this year, has thus far signaled disinterest in the proposed “good cause” eviction bill, though her proposals <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/kathy-hochuls-plan-for-affordable-housing-was-doomed.html">have failed to gain traction</a> and pressure remains for lawmakers to do something on the affordability crisis.
</p>
<h3 id="qvnXS6">
Evictions are life-altering and preventable
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SrSlaJ">
Despite research showing harms related to eviction,<strong> </strong>it wasn’t until the pandemic that the government stepped up to help families avoid this traumatic experience. One of the most significant Covid-19<strong> </strong>social policy developments was the <a href="https://www.vox.com/23140987/evictions-housing-rent-assistance-erap-tenant">creation of the federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program</a>, which authorized $46.5 billion to help people stay housed. More<strong> </strong>than half of states passed their own eviction prevention measures as well.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RBPb2v">
But now emergency rental aid has mostly tapped out, state and local eviction moratoriums have mostly expired, and <a href="https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/6/bennet-portman-brown-and-young-reintroduce-bipartisan-legislation-to-tackle-the-eviction-crisis">a federal bill</a> to establish a permanent eviction prevention fund died in Congress.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RviF4H">
Advocates say “good cause” measures, especially since they can be passed at little cost to governments, represent a meaningful<strong> </strong>interim step lawmakers can take now as they continue fighting for more rental assistance, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22547660/section-8-housing-vouchers-landlords-realtors-lawsuit-century-21-keller-williams-realty">source-of-income discrimination bans</a>, and right to counsel. To make “good cause” ordinances more effective, tenant advocates say local courts and legislators must also develop stronger enforcement mechanisms, including better ways to track and analyze eviction filings and judgments. The National Low Income Housing Coalition also emphasizes the need to pass “equitable marketing strategies” that can help tenants learn how to exercise their rights.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tmHDR2">
Hepburn, of Rutgers and the Eviction Lab, said “good cause” eviction measures are worthy ideas, especially in a place like New York, which has the <a href="https://www.move.org/states-with-highest-lowest-owner-occupied-homes/">highest share of renters</a> among all 50 states. Yet he noted the unfortunate reality that gaps in housing security between blue and red states continue to widen.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d3G1PD">
“These laws should happen, but it should be noted that where they’re passing are in places that have tenant protections already,” he said. “These bills are not coming up in places like South Carolina, like Virginia, like Georgia. How do we do something like this in Indiana?”
</p></li>
<li><strong>Save the male chicks</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A close-up of a baby chick with a black background. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XHcyvA76laOSfw9zvwMWQtKdi_k=/240x0:4016x2832/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72237227/GettyImages_185284289.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
mericsso/Getty Images/iStockphoto
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</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The egg industry brutally grinds up billions of male chicks each year because they can’t lay eggs. But new tech could change that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GvXXmK">
Even the most clueless consumer likely suspects that all is not well on the big factory farms that raise animals for food, but let me share the details of one practice with which you might be unfamiliar: Every hour, across the world, around <a href="https://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/poultry/layers/what-the-poultry-sector-is-doing-to-address-male-chick-culling">742,000</a> freshly hatched male chicks are born. A <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2022/739246/EPRS_ATA(2022)739246_EN.pdf">few hours later</a>, they’re <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZEsElYyO0Y">tossed into a grinder</a>, which kills them instantly, or gassed with carbon dioxide, which knocks them unconscious before killing them. (Rarer methods include <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFJPWknSEtk">burning</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070927010751/http://www.agri.gov.il/AGEN/Reports/Shamir001.html">electrocution</a>, <a href="https://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/poultry/layers/animal-rights-group-films-chick-maceration-french-hatchery">suffocation</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFJPWknSEtk">drowning</a>).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CG18ZF">
While the female chicks go on to lay the more than <a href="https://www.internationalegg.com/resource/global-egg-production-continues-to-grow/#:~:text=There%20is%20a%20large%20variation,eggs%20per%20person%20per%20year.">1.2 trillion eggs</a> humans consume annually, <a href="https://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/poultry/layers/what-the-poultry-sector-is-doing-to-address-male-chick-culling">6.5 billion</a> male chicks each year are hatched, only to be quickly snuffed out. That’s because they don’t lay eggs, so they’re of no use to the egg industry, and because they don’t grow as big and fast as other chicken breeds, they’re of no use to the chicken meat industry. Even though culling costs egg producers an estimated <a href="https://foundationfar.org/programs/egg-tech-prize/">$500 million</a> a year, it makes more economic sense to just kill the males on day one, rather than spend an additional dollar raising them.
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q64Eo1">
<a href="https://london.ctvnews.ca/undercover-video-brings-unwanted-attention-to-hanover-chick-hatchery-1.1777604">Undercover</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/19/animal-rights-activists-call-for-ban-after-video-shows-male-chicks-being-shredded">investigations</a> into hatcheries have drawn some public attention to male chick culling, enough that in recent years a number of European countries, including Germany and France, have gone so far as to ban the practice, giving hatcheries and egg producers a few options: raise male chicks for meat (albeit inefficiently), raise <a href="https://blog.meyerhatchery.com/2018/08/5-dual-purpose-breeds-to-consider/">“dual-purpose”</a> breeds (ones that lay a relatively moderate number of eggs and grow to a moderate size), import hens from neighboring countries, or shut down operations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lJSqB3">
But there’s another option: They can use emerging technology to identify the sex of the chick while still in the egg so they can destroy it before it hatches, before the chick can feel pain.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zFPoEsFHbpxnP5jm-dOMROdxaBs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24617878/WAM8052.jpg"/> <cite>Luis Tato/<em>Hidden: Animals in the Anthropocene</em>/We Animals Media</cite>
<figcaption>
Workers sort hours-old chicks on a conveyor belt at a chicken hatchery in Spain.
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</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kyJkwD">
That last possibility has gained momentum in recent years. Since 2019, <a href="https://animallaweurope.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Animal-Law-Europe-%E2%80%93-Chick-Killing-Report-2023.pdf">five</a> <a href="https://www.hendrix-isa.com/en/news/hendrix-genetics-and-orbem-have-announced-the-successful-launch-of-mri-based-technology-for-in-ovo-sexing-poultry-eggs-on-a-commercial-scale/">companies</a> have managed to commercialize in-ovo — meaning in egg — sexing technology that enables them to identify the sex of the chick around either day nine or day 12/13 from when the egg incubation starts, depending on the approach. Such advances have already saved tens of millions of male chicks from being born, only to be swiftly culled. It’s estimated that <a href="https://www.animalinnovation.org/blog/market-snapshot-in-ovo-egg-sexing">10 to 20 percent</a> of Europe’s hen flock now comes from cull-free hatcheries.<strong> </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iyVMd8">
But there’s a catch: Scientists believe that chick embryos could potentially feel pain as early as <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22374193/eggs-chickens-animal-welfare-culling">day seven</a> of their 21-day incubation period. That means that even with the most advanced in-ovo sexing, male chick embryos could still be experiencing suffering.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cQUuK4">
A <a href="https://www.bmel.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2023/036-schmerzempfinden-huehnerembryonen.html">new preprint study</a>, funded by the German government and conducted by researchers at the Technical University of Munich, provides some evidence that chicken embryos may not be capable of feeling pain until much later in the incubation period, after day 12.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dPzydc">
<a href="https://service.ble.de/ptdb/index2.php?detail_id=52203310&amp;ssk=673b20eafa&amp;site_key=141&amp;stichw=H%C3%BChnerembryonen&amp;zeilenzahl_zaehler=1#newContent">Researchers</a> applied potentially painful stimuli like heat and electricity to chicken embryos from day 7 to day 19 of their 21-day incubation, measuring their heart rate, blood pressure, brain activity, and movement, all in an effort to uncover whether the stimuli translated to experienced pain. Brain activity only began on day 13, movement from beak stimulation increased significantly on day 15, blood pressure increased significantly on day 16, heart rate jumped on day 17, and body movement increased significantly on day 18.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XGIVSM">
The findings arrive at a critical juncture for the effort to end the annual shredding and gassing of 6.5 billion male chicks. Beginning in 2022, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-bans-male-chick-culling-from-2022/a-57603148">Germany required</a> hatcheries to destroy male chick embryos prior to hatching, and <a href="https://www.bmel.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2023/036-schmerzempfinden-huehnerembryonen.html">starting in 2024</a>, German hatcheries must destroy eggs containing male embryos before day seven of incubation. That would require in-ovo sexing technology that works earlier than any company has yet been able to commercialize.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1N9saA">
As a result of the new study, however, Germany’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture has <a href="https://www.bmel.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2023/036-schmerzempfinden-huehnerembryonen.html">suggested</a> the government will instead require hatcheries to destroy eggs before day 13, which means the companies that cull at days 9 and 12 are in the clear (France’s ban on chick culling, which went into effect in January of this year, starts on <a href="https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/French-news/50-million-male-chicks-saved-as-France-bans-egg-industry-from-culling">day 15</a>).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4DajZU">
The study also provides clarity to policymakers elsewhere — Italy’s ban goes into effect in 2026 but doesn’t yet stipulate a cull-day threshold, while the European Commission is <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/commission-to-propose-eu-wide-phaseout-of-male-chick-killing/">expected</a> to eventually ban the practice continent-wide.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E9MI2p">
But the German study may not be the final word. Future research could determine the pain threshold to be sooner or later than day 13.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0GMdhh">
“We have to see whether this will become the new consensus or whether more confirmatory research has to be performed,” said Matthias Corion and Simão Santos, leading in-ovo sexing researchers at the MeBioS division from the Department of Biosystems at the University of Leuven in Belgium, over email to Vox.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s95Le9">
Animal advocates are cautiously optimistic. “I think that we need to be very flexible,” said Sharon Nuñez Gough, president of Animal Equality, an animal rights group that has campaigned in Europe to end male chick culling. “I think if [German policymakers] move it up to day 13 it’s wonderful … but there could be studies that come out in a couple of years that say no, it’s actually day 11 or it’s actually day 10.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XxWvOy">
Jörg Hurlin, managing director of in-ovo sexing company Agri-AT noted over email to Vox that the study leaves the door open to pain perception beginning even later: “[T]he scientists only say that from the 12th day of incubation, a pain sensation can no longer be excluded, but they do not prove it either.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NPrqPU">
Despite the scientific and political tailwinds behind efforts to phase out male chick culling, they face strong headwinds with the global egg industry under pressure to take on other costly issues, like converting barns to <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22331708/eggs-cages-chickens-hens-meat-poultry">cage-free</a> and bringing <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/07/wholesale-egg-prices-have-collapsed-from-record-highs-in-december.html">record prices</a> down amid high inflation and a <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/11/22/23472207/bird-flu-vaccine-turkey-prices-chickens-hens-cull-depopulation">deadly bird flu</a> outbreak that has resulted in the death of tens of millions of hens.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JgU0gs">
Those challenges aside, ending the culling of 6.5 billion male chicks is a critical and doable low-hanging win for animal welfare — if the technology can further advance.
</p>
<h3 id="iXmJBi">
There’s more than one way to sex an egg
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iDeOb4">
One thing the in-ovo sexing field has going for it is that there are <a href="https://www.animalinnovation.org/blog/market-snapshot-in-ovo-egg-sexing">so many ways</a> to identify the sex of chickens before they hatch, which is why some <a href="https://animallaweurope.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Animal-Law-Europe-%E2%80%93-Chick-Killing-Report-2023.pdf">13 companies</a> and academic teams have sprung up over the last decade to turn their theories into workable technology.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E8un4s">
Some companies employ noninvasive imaging to look inside the egg, which is what Agri-AT uses in its Cheggy machine, scanning 20,000 eggs per hour at nine hatcheries across Europe. It’s fast and low-cost, but it only works for brown eggs, and it identifies the sex on day 13 — meaning the embryos could feel pain — though it can <a href="https://www.agri-at.com/en/products/in-ovo-sex-determination/stunny">stun</a> them prior to killing them, rendering them insensitive. It can also work on day 12, though it’s <a href="https://www.agri-at.com/presse/15-pressemitteilungen-in-ovo/234-cheggy-technologie-auch-an-tag-12-moeglich">less accurate</a>. The company is currently trialing a new approach with researchers at the Technical University of Dresden to identify the sex as early as between <a href="https://animallaweurope.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Animal-Law-Europe-%E2%80%93-Chick-Killing-Report-2023.pdf">day four</a> to day six of incubation.
</p>
<aside id="aHkFC5">
<div>
</div>
</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qmOTjX">
<a href="https://www.hendrix-isa.com/en/news/hendrix-genetics-and-orbem-have-announced-the-successful-launch-of-mri-based-technology-for-in-ovo-sexing-poultry-eggs-on-a-commercial-scale/">Orbem</a>, another company that uses noninvasive imaging, recently deployed its technology in a French hatchery and says it works on day 12 and for both white and brown eggs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="My6DLi">
Another approach is allantoic sampling, which entails making a tiny hole in the egg and extracting fluid for rapid analysis, not unlike the amniocentesis tests used on pregnant people. It’s nearly <a href="https://www.seleggt.com/seleggt-milestones/">100 percent</a> effective as of around day eight or nine of incubation, though it’s slower and costlier than the imaging technology. Three companies in Europe have commercialized this approach and grocery shoppers in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and elsewhere in Europe can find both eggs and egg-based products under the <a href="https://www.respeggt.com/en/">Respeggt brand</a> that come from supply chains free of male chick culling, with an additional cost of around one to three Euro cents per egg or more. (Aldi, one of the largest grocers in Europe and Germany, has <a href="https://www.aldi-nord.de/content/dam/aldi/germany/verantwortung/ALDI_National_Animal_Welfare_Purchasing_Policy_ENG.pdf.res/1571815025029/ALDI_National_Animal_Welfare_Purchasing_Policy_ENG.pdf">pledged</a> to phase out male chick culling from its egg supply in Germany, but declined to answer questions about the status of its progress.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OUJt5R">
And there are other approaches in the innovation pipeline. Late last year, an Israeli research center <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63937438">successfully gene-edited DNA</a> into chickens so that when their eggs are exposed to blue light, the DNA is activated and the development of male embryos stops. Gene editing is potentially much cheaper and faster (once the technology is fully developed) than the other approaches, but it likely faces steep political hurdles: Many European countries have slow regulatory processes for genetically edited food, and the same consumers who might be willing to pay extra for cull-free eggs could balk at a gene-editing process. It’s worth noting, however, that the eggs consumers eat won’t be genetically altered — female embryos are genetically left untouched.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dI5zJkf9FIGZ1DyBWDup7IwJULo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24617894/Circuit_Line.jpg"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BWqGBQ">
“Farmers will get the same chicks they get today and consumers will get exactly the same eggs they get today,” one of the Israeli researchers <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63937438">told the BBC</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="DyPL5W">
The promising if shaky start to the end of male chick culling
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yBOQzu">
Despite the burst of innovation, <a href="https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202303.0288/v1">experts say</a> no single approach has yet met all six criteria hatcheries require to scale up: the ability to process a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369272127_Insights_and_Interpretation_of_the_Trends_for_in_ovo_Sexing_Technologies_in_Papers_and_Patents">high volume</a> of eggs (20,000 to 30,000) per hour, effective for both white and brown eggs, 98 percent or higher accuracy, low cost, sex identification early in the incubation period, and high hatchability rates. That has kept the egg industry from fully adopting any of them, and while regulation is coming down the pike (or already in place), lack of clarity about which day of incubation will be the cut-off further complicates matters.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NG2IHa">
“There is always a trade-off somewhere,” said Corion and Santos over email. “Hatcheries are reluctant to adopt a technology right away because these technologies are still in development and when they invest, they want it to hold for years.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GLWGay">
Robert Yaman of Innovate Animal Ag, a new organization based in the US that aims to speed up the development of animal welfare technology, said that while in-ovo sexing isn’t where it needs to be, it will get there.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hqulZm">
“With any sort of industrial agricultural technology, it just takes time to roll out,” Yaman said. “Once the technology is ready, you’re not going to see it in every country around the world the next day. It’s going to take time to manufacture the equipment, to work on those commercial partnerships. And so I think if you look at the rate of progress and speed of uptake, it’s actually going very well.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KrHlci">
While it’s impressive that an estimated <a href="https://www.animalinnovation.org/blog/market-snapshot-in-ovo-egg-sexing">10 to 20 percent</a> of Europe’s hen flock now comes from cull-free hatcheries, a shift that occurred from 2019 to 2023, there have been some unexpected consequences to Germany and France’s laws.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q9Psuq">
Public policy often lags behind technological change, but the case of male chick culling is the opposite: Germany banned the practice in 2019 (the ban went into effect in 2022) when the technology was just starting to go online in European egg hatcheries. While the technology has been adopted relatively quickly, and policymakers have moved uncharacteristically fast on the issue, many egg companies are holding out until the technology develops further — and have found loopholes around the law in the meantime.
</p>
<aside id="H3mBUU">
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</div>
</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9puQmI">
According to the German magazine <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/kuekentoeten-warum-das-verbot-kein-erfolg-fuer-den-tierschutz-ist-a-a5b5d196-2a91-4a62-9a3b-7e237279df12">Der Spiegel</a>, many male chicks hatched in Germany were raised for meat, and at least 300,000 male chicks have been hatched and transported to other countries to be raised for meat, including Poland, where animal welfare standards are weaker. Many German egg producers are <a href="https://www.wattagnet.com/articles/42211-german-male-chick-culling-could-create-market-disadvantage">importing egg-laying hens</a> from the Netherlands to stock their farms.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6bNGf4">
France’s ban went into effect at the start of 2023, but egg producers <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230102-france-fails-to-end-culling-of-male-chicks">received permission</a> to continue culling male chicks from white chicken eggs as complying with the ban required the allantoic sampling approach, which is costlier. (Most eggs in France are brown; white eggs account for just a little over 10 percent of the egg supply — however, the company Orbem, which just launched, can sex both brown and white eggs). One animal rights group <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230102-france-fails-to-end-culling-of-male-chicks">called</a> the carve-out a “betrayal.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qdGnl6">
The US, by contrast, has moved far slower on the issue, with the only significant contribution coming from the Foundation for Food &amp; Agriculture Research — an organization that collaborates with industry and academia — and its <a href="https://foundationfar.org/programs/egg-tech-prize/">Egg-Tech Prize</a>, which is offering up to $6 million in prizes to in-ovo sexing researchers and startups. Open Philanthropy, a foundation that funds animal welfare initiatives, contributed up to <a href="https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/foundation-for-food-and-agriculture-research-egg-tech-challenge/">$3 million</a> to the contest.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FQhThJ">
In 2016, the United Egg Producers (UEP) — the US egg industry’s main trade group — <a href="https://unitedegg.com/united-egg-producers-updated-statement-on-male-chicks-2/">called for the elimination</a> of male chick culling by <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/6/9/11896096/eggs-chick-culling-ended">2020</a>, but in 2021 <a href="https://unitedegg.com/united-egg-producers-updated-statement-on-male-chicks-2/">said</a>, “[A] method that meets the food safety, ethical standards and scalable solutions needed for the United States is not yet available.” UEP declined responding to questions,<strong> </strong>but did recently tell <a href="https://agfundernews.com/egg-tech-prize-unclaimed-as-no-applicants-met-criteria">Ag Funder News</a> that nothing had changed since its 2021 statement. This means that American consumers, unlike their European counterparts, have no real way to buy eggs free of the taint of culling.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u9cf9S">
However, USPoultry — an organization representing egg and poultry trade groups, including UEP — <a href="https://unitedegg.com/uspoultry-announces-funding-for-egg-tech-prize/">donated</a> toward the Egg-Tech Prize in 2020.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yoGH5a">
“You tend to think of the US as an innovation leader and technological leader but I think this is one area where we’re kind of falling behind,” Yaman said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J5pFgS">
Carmen Uphoff, COO of Respeggt, said the company hopes to expand into the US soon and help pioneer a new higher-welfare egg category, like organic or cage-free.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tMWOpE">
“Hatcheries don’t like to do chick culling, it’s just they didn’t have any other solutions until now,” she said, later adding, “The technology is actually there and could be ordered … the market is ready.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xwg11D">
As is the case with so many other animal welfare issues, the US is lagging years behind Europe. If that holds true on the matter of ending the brutal culling of billions of male chicks, America’s egg supply probably won’t have cull-free eggs anytime soon. But if the technological and political progress continues at the pace it has, it could only be a matter of time until in-ovo sexing isn’t just the more ethical choice for US egg producers, but also the more economical one.
</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>Referee’s error in Dortmund vs Bayern Munich match casts pall on Bundesliga race; no help from VAR</strong> - The video assistant referee didn’t intervene to award a penalty in Borussia Dortmund’s game on April 28 as the team was held to a 1-1 draw, a result that could have a major impact on the title race</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>Sanjam gets the better of Ritu in the first round</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>Premier League | Chelsea can learn from Arsenal rebuild, says Lampard</strong> - Chelsea’s 2-0 defeat by Brentford last week left them 12th in the standings, stumbling towards possibly their worst campaign since the 1993-94 season</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 injury hit Satwik, this Asian championship title is a stepping stone for Olympics</strong> - For injury-hit R. Satwiksairaj, it has never been easy to stage those comebacks given the kind of mental and physical challenges he has to face</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>Kerala’s iconic Thrissur Pooram held in full grandeur featuring Lionel Messi during ‘Kudamattam’</strong> - During the ‘Kudamattam‘ the Thiruvambady side stole the show with a display of an impressive, illuminated cutout of Argentinian football legend Lionel Messi holding the World Cup</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>After Bihar, Odisha govt. begins Backward Class survey</strong> - The social and educational conditions of 208 OBC communities enlisted by the State government will be collected during the survey</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>Congress MP Rahul Gandhi asks why Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not mention B.S. Yediyurappa, Basavaraj Bommai in his speeches in Karnataka</strong> - Rahul Gandhi addressed a rally at Arsikere in Hassan district</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>Nitish will fail in uniting opposition, says Kushwaha; pledges not to merge Party</strong> - Mr. Kushwaha claimed that his entire attempt will have no outcome and he is just trying to make the perception of the opposition’s unity which will ultimately fail</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>Watch | This cattle fair in Tamil Nadu goes back over 1,000 years</strong> - A video on the 1,000-year-old Kannapuram Cattle Festival at Kangeyam near Coimbatore.</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>Here are the big stories from Karnataka today</strong> - Welcome to the Karnataka Today newsletter, your guide from The Hindu on the major news stories to follow today. Curated and written by Nalme Nachiyar</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>Ukraine war: Russia launches second pre-dawn missile attack in three days</strong> - The city of Pavlohrad, a logistics hub, was hit ahead of a much-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive.</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>Pope Francis urges Hungarians to ‘open doors’ to migrants</strong> - The pontiff addressed up to 100,000 people, including Hungary’s nationalist PM Viktor Orban.</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>Bulgari store in Paris robbed in broad daylight</strong> - Video shows suspects making a getaway on motorbikes from the city’s flagship Bulgari store.</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>Napoli 1-1 Salernitana: Hosts forced to wait for first Serie A title in 33 years after draw</strong> - Napoli are forced to wait for their first Serie A title in 33 years after a 1-1 draw with Salernitana at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.</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>Portugal: Four dead after suspected pigeon racer dispute</strong> - A man in Portugal reportedly shot three people before killing himself in a feud related to pigeons.</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>Those scary warnings of juice jacking in airports and hotels? They’re nonsense</strong> - Juice jacking attacks on mobile phones are nonexistent. So why are we so afraid? - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1935117">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Driving across the American West in techno-excess with the BMW XM</strong> - “Hey Batman, turn on the seat massage.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1935214">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Curious about screen-based fitness machines? Here are the best we’ve found</strong> - We tried the most interesting devices on the market to see what’s worth your dollar. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1934016">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An ominous heating event is unfolding in the oceans</strong> - Average sea surface temperatures have soared to record highs—and stayed there. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1935397">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sensitive data is being leaked from servers running Salesforce software</strong> - There’s disagreement about how easy it is to configure Salesforce Community. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1935543">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Three nuns die in a car accident and arrive at the pearly gates.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
St. Peter says to the first nun, “Sister, you’ve lead an exemplary life, performed many good deeds, feed the hungry, cared for the sick. Do you have anything to confess before I let you in to heaven?” The nun looks serious and answers him, “St. Peter, I have to confess something. Once, when I was a young novice and naive about the world, I gave a man a hand job in the confessional.” St. Peter is surprised, but he tells her, “Well, sister, that was one tiny mistake in a lifetime of pious service. Wash your hands in the holy water, say 10 hail Marys and you can go on in to heaven.” Seeing all this, the third nun in line taps the sister in front of her and says, “Sister, would it be ok if I cut in front of you in line?” The second nun says, “well, certainly sister, but why?” The third nun replies “I want to gargle that holy water before you stick your ass in it.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Necessary_Web4029"> /u/Necessary_Web4029 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/133v7zv/three_nuns_die_in_a_car_accident_and_arrive_at/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/133v7zv/three_nuns_die_in_a_car_accident_and_arrive_at/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Your momma so ugly…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
She went into a haunted house and came out with a job application
</p>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Sharpguy6559"> /u/Sharpguy6559 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1344ed8/your_momma_so_ugly/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1344ed8/your_momma_so_ugly/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is it ok for me to start drinking as soon as the kids are at school?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Or does that make me a bad teacher?
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<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/TackyKnacky"> /u/TackyKnacky </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1348wwp/is_it_ok_for_me_to_start_drinking_as_soon_as_the/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1348wwp/is_it_ok_for_me_to_start_drinking_as_soon_as_the/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>So I broke up with my handicapped girlfriend and stole her wheelchair..</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
But guess who came crawling back!!?!
</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/BarryMcCockenor"> /u/BarryMcCockenor </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/134jdvz/so_i_broke_up_with_my_handicapped_girlfriend_and/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/134jdvz/so_i_broke_up_with_my_handicapped_girlfriend_and/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two asexuals are sitting in a tree</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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S-I-T-T-I-N-G
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Doctor__Hammer"> /u/Doctor__Hammer </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/133xkuh/two_asexuals_are_sitting_in_a_tree/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/133xkuh/two_asexuals_are_sitting_in_a_tree/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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