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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>A novel microporous biomaterial vaccine platform for long-lasting antibody mediated immunity against viral infection.</strong> -
<div>
Current antigen delivery platforms, such as alum and nanoparticles, are not readily tunable, thus may not generate optimal adaptive immune responses. We created an antigen delivery platform by loading lyophilized Microporous Annealed Particle (MAP) with aqueous solution containing target antigens. Upon administration of antigen loaded MAP (VaxMAP), the biomaterial reconstitution forms an instant antigen-loaded porous scaffold area with a sustained release profile to maximize humoral immunity. VaxMAP induced CD4+ T follicular helper (Tfh) cells and germinal center (GC) B cell responses in the lymph nodes similar to Alum. VaxMAP loaded with SARS-CoV-2 spike protein improved the magnitude and duration of anti-receptor binding domain antibodies compared to Alum and mRNA-vaccinated mice. A single injection of Influenza specific HA1-loaded-VaxMAP enhanced neutralizing antibodies and elicited greater protection against influenza virus challenge than HA1-loaded-Alum. Thus, VaxMAP is a platform that can be used to promote adaptive immune cell responses to generate more robust neutralizing antibodies, and better protection upon pathogen challenge.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.30.578038v1" target="_blank">A novel microporous biomaterial vaccine platform for long-lasting antibody mediated immunity against viral infection.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>An isothermal calorimetry assay for determining steady state kinetic and enzyme inhibition parameters for SARS-CoV-2 3CL-protease</strong> -
<div>
This manuscript describes the application of Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (ITC) to characterize the kinetics of 3CLpro from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its inhibition by Ensitrelvir, a known non-covalent inhibitor. 3CLpro is the main protease that plays a crucial role of producing the whole array of proteins necessary for the viral infection that caused the spread of COVID-19, responsible for millions of deaths worldwide as well as global economic and healthcare crises in recent years. The proposed calorimetric method proved to have several advantages over the two types of enzymatic assays so far applied to this system, namely Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) and Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS). The developed ITC-based assay provided a rapid response to 3CLpro activity, which was used to directly derive the kinetic enzymatic constants KM and kcat reliably and reproducibly, as well as their temperature dependence, from which the activation energy of the reaction was obtained for the first time. The assay further revealed the existence of two modes of inhibition of 3CLpro by Ensitrelvir, namely a competitive mode as previously inferred by crystallography as well as an unprecedented uncompetitive mode, further yielding the respective inhibition constants with high precision. The calorimetric method described in this paper is thus proposed to be generally and widely used in the discovery and development of drugs targeting 3CLpro.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.31.578159v1" target="_blank">An isothermal calorimetry assay for determining steady state kinetic and enzyme inhibition parameters for SARS-CoV-2 3CL-protease</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Spike N354 glycosylation augments SARS-CoV-2 fitness for human adaptation through multiple mechanisms</strong> -
<div>
Selective pressures have given rise to a number of SARS-CoV-2 variants during the prolonged course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently evolved variants differ from ancestors in additional glycosylation within the spike protein receptor-binding domain (RBD). Details of how the acquisition of glycosylation impacts viral fitness and human adaptation are not clearly understood. Here, we dissected the role of N354-linked glycosylation, acquired by BA.2.86 sub-lineages, as a RBD conformational control element in attenuating viral infectivity. The reduced infectivity could be recovered in the presence of heparin sulfate, which targets the N354 pocket to ease restrictions of conformational transition resulting in a RBD-up state, thereby conferring an adjustable infectivity. Furthermore, N354 glycosylation improved spike cleavage and cell-cell fusion, and in particular escaped one subset of ADCC antibodies. Together with reduced immunogenicity in hybrid immunity background, these indicate a single spike amino acid glycosylation event provides selective advantage in humans through multiple mechanisms.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.29.577677v1" target="_blank">Spike N354 glycosylation augments SARS-CoV-2 fitness for human adaptation through multiple mechanisms</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A general platform for targeting MHC-II antigens via a single loop</strong> -
<div>
Class-II major histocompatibility complexes (MHC-IIs) are central to the communications between CD4+ T cells and antigen presenting cells (APCs), but intrinsic structural features associated with MHC-II make it difficult to develop a general targeting system with high affinity and antigen specificity. Here, we introduce a protein platform, Targeted Recognition of Antigen-MHC Complex Reporter for MHC-II (TRACeR-II), to enable the rapid development of peptide-specific MHC-II binders. TRACeR-II has a small helical bundle scaffold and uses an unconventional mechanism to recognize antigens via a single loop. This unique antigen-recognition mechanism renders this platform highly versatile and amenable to direct structural modeling of the interactions with the antigen. We demonstrate that TRACeR-II binders can be rapidly evolved across multiple alleles, while computational protein design can produce specific binding sequences for a SARS-CoV-2 peptide of unknown complex structure. TRACeR-II sheds light on a simple and straightforward approach to address the MHC peptide targeting challenge, without relying on combinatorial selection on complementarity determining region (CDR) loops. It presents a promising basis for further exploration in immune response modulation as well as a broad range of theragnostic applications.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.26.577489v1" target="_blank">A general platform for targeting MHC-II antigens via a single loop</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Some mechanistic underpinnings of molecular adaptations of SARS-COV-2 spike protein by integrating candidate adaptive polymorphisms with protein dynamics</strong> -
<div>
We integrate evolutionary predictions based on the neutral theory of molecular evolution with protein dynamics to generate mechanistic insight into the molecular adaptations of the SARS-COV-2 Spike (S) protein. With this approach, we first identified Candidate Adaptive Polymorphisms (CAPs) of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein and assessed the impact of these CAPs through dynamics analysis. Not only have we found that CAPs frequently overlap with well-known functional sites, but also, using several different dynamics-based metrics, we reveal the critical allosteric interplay between SARS-CoV-2 CAPs and the S protein binding sites with the human ACE2 (hACE2) protein. CAPs interact far differently with the hACE2 binding site residues in the open conformation of S protein compared to the closed form. In particular, the CAP sites control the dynamics binding residues in the open state, suggesting an allosteric control of hACE2 binding. We also explored the characteristic mutations of different SARS-CoV-2 strains to find dynamic hallmarks and potential effects of future mutations. Our analyses reveal that Delta strain-specific variants have non-additive (i.e., epistatic) interactions with CAP sites, whereas the less pathogenic Omicron strains have mostly compensatory variants. Finally, our dynamics-based analysis suggests that the novel mutations observed in the Omicron strain epistatically interact with the CAP sites to help escape antibody binding.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.14.557827v2" target="_blank">Some mechanistic underpinnings of molecular adaptations of SARS-COV-2 spike protein by integrating candidate adaptive polymorphisms with protein dynamics</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Low-coverage whole genome sequencing for a highly selective cohort of severe COVID-19 patients</strong> -
<div>
Despite advances in identifying genetic markers associated to severe COVID-19, the full genetic characterisation of the disease remains elusive. This study explores the use of imputation in low-coverage whole genome sequencing for a severe COVID-19 patient cohort. We generated a dataset of 79 imputed variant call format files using the GLIMPSE1 tool, each containing an average of 9.5 million single nucleotide variants. Validation revealed a high imputation accuracy (squared Pearson correlation {approx}0.97) across sequencing platforms, showing GLIMPSE1's ability to confidently impute variants with minor allele frequencies as low as 2% in Spanish ancestry individuals. We conducted a comprehensive analysis of the patient cohort, examining hospitalisation and intensive care utilisation, sex and age-based differences, and clinical phenotypes using a standardised set of medical terms developed to characterise severe COVID-19 symptoms. The methods and findings presented here may be leveraged in future genomic projects, providing vital insights for health challenges like COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.28.577610v1" target="_blank">Low-coverage whole genome sequencing for a highly selective cohort of severe COVID-19 patients</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Discovery of orally active SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PLpro) inhibitors</strong> -
<div>
Vaccines and first-generation antiviral therapeutics have provided important protection against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, there remains a need for additional therapeutic options that provide enhanced efficacy and protection against potential viral resistance. The SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PLpro) is one of two essential cysteine proteases involved in viral replication. While inhibitors of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) have demonstrated clinical efficacy, known PLpro inhibitors have to date lacked the inhibitory potency and requisite pharmacokinetics to demonstrate that targeting PLpro translates to in vivo efficacy in a preclinical setting. Herein, we report the machine learning-driven discovery of potent, selective, and orally available SARS-CoV-2 PLpro inhibitors, with lead compound PF-07957472 (4) providing robust efficacy in a mouse-adapted model of COVID-19 infection.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.26.577395v1" target="_blank">Discovery of orally active SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PLpro) inhibitors</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Multiple layers of innate immune response antagonism of SARS-CoV-2</strong> -
<div>
Several SARS-CoV-2 proteins have been shown to counteract the host innate immune response, mostly using in vitro protein expression, which may not fully reflect their role in the context of viral infection. In addition, while each viral protein was characterized in a different experimental system, their relative contribution in immunosuppression remains unclear. Here we used a SARS-CoV-2 bacterial artificial chromosome with en passant mutagenesis to recover a panel of twelve infectious recombinant SARS-CoV-2 viruses, each with mutations in either NSP1, NSP2, NSP3, NSP6, NSP12, NSP13, NSP14, NSP15, NSP16, ORF3a, ORF6 or ORF8. We used the interferon-stimulated response element (ISRE)-driven luciferase assay in 293T-ACE2/TMPRSS2 cells to test the panel, demonstrating that mutations in many proteins, especially in NSP1 and NSP15, increased the type I interferon response relative to the parental wild-type virus. RNA-seq analysis of mutant-virus infected Calu-3 cells showed that the mutations in NSP1 or NSP15 lead to higher expression of multiple genes involved in innate immune response, cytokine-mediated signaling and regulation of lymphocyte proliferation. Furthermore, mutations in either NSP1 or NSP15 resulted in a greater maturation of human monocyte-derived dendritic cells in vitro. Infection of K18 hACE2 transgenic mice with either NSP1 or NSP15 mutated viruses demonstrated attentuated respiratory tract replication. Analysis of lung immune cells from infected mice by single-cell RNA-seq identified 15 populations of major myeloid and lymphoid cells with changes in the pattern of their activation associated with viral infection. The effects of mutations in NSP1 or NSP15 on these responses are consistent with differences in the immunosuppressive mechanisms utilized by the two proteins. Overall, these data demonstrate different and redundant mechanisms of innate immune antagonism by SARS-CoV-2 and suppression of activation of antigen presenting cells and T and B lymphocytes mediated by multiple viral proteins.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.29.577695v1" target="_blank">Multiple layers of innate immune response antagonism of SARS-CoV-2</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Nanobody repertoire generated against the spike protein of ancestral SARS-CoV-2 remains efficacious against the rapidly evolving virus</strong> -
<div>
To date, all major modes of monoclonal antibody therapy targeting SARS-CoV-2 have lost significant efficacy against the latest circulating variants. As SARS-CoV-2 omicron sublineages account for over 90% of COVID-19 infections, evasion of immune responses generated by vaccination or exposure to previous variants poses a significant challenge. A compelling new therapeutic strategy against SARS-CoV-2 is that of single domain antibodies, termed nanobodies, which address certain limitations of monoclonal antibodies. Here we demonstrate that our high-affinity nanobody repertoire, generated against wild-type SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (Mast, Fridy et al. 2021), remains effective against variants of concern, including omicron BA.4/BA.5; a subset is predicted to counter resistance in emerging XBB and BQ.1.1 sublineages. Furthermore, we reveal the synergistic potential of nanobody cocktails in neutralizing emerging variants. Our study highlights the power of nanobody technology as a versatile therapeutic and diagnostic tool to combat rapidly evolving infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.14.549041v2" target="_blank">Nanobody repertoire generated against the spike protein of ancestral SARS-CoV-2 remains efficacious against the rapidly evolving virus</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Economic precarity and changing levels of anxiety and stress among Canadians with disabilities and chronic health conditions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple event stressors converged to exacerbate a growing mental health crisis in Canada with differing effects across status groups. However, less is known about changing mental health situations throughout the pandemic, especially among individuals more likely to experience chronic stress because of their disability and health status. Using data from two waves of a targeted online survey of people with disabilities and chronic health conditions in Canada (N = 563 individuals, June 2020 and July 2021), we find that approximately 25% of respondents experienced additional increases in stress and anxiety levels in 2021. These increases were partly explained by worsening perceived financial insecurity and, in the case of stress, additional negative financial effects tied to the pandemic. This paper understands mental health disparities as a function of social status and social group membership. By linking stress process models and a minority stress framework with a social model of disability, we allude to how structural and contextual barriers make functional limitations disabling and in turn, life stressors.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/w78su/" target="_blank">Economic precarity and changing levels of anxiety and stress among Canadians with disabilities and chronic health conditions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Undergraduate Research in the Department of Biology at Western University: Effect on project types, learning outcomes, and student perceptions.</strong> -
<div>
Undergraduate research is a high impact practice that offers numerous benefits to students, academic institutions, and the wider scientific community. Unfortunately, undergraduate research has faced restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to assess how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted: (1) the number and types of undergraduate research projects performed in the Department of Biology at the University of Western Ontario, and (2) the satisfaction-levels and perceived learning outcomes of students performing these projects. This study also aimed to incorporate a One Health framework through an emphasis on stakeholder involvement and the need for future action. A survey of 33 students who completed an undergraduate research project in the Department of Biology in the 2020/2021 academic year, and 68 students who completed an undergraduate research project in the 5 years prior was conducted. In keeping with the One Health approach, key stakeholders were identified, and a stakeholder map was constructed. The number of projects performed did not change dramatically despite COVID-19 restrictions. However, a shift towards dry research was observed with 87.9% of students in the 2020/2021 academic year conducting dry research, compared to 16.4% of students in the 5 years prior. Students who conducted research in the 2020/2021 academic year indicated lower overall levels of satisfaction and enjoyment, though their perceived learning outcomes were consistent with students who completed their projects in the 5 years prior. 53 key stakeholders from academia, government, industry, media, and the public were identified. Students provided invaluable feedback on their undergraduate research experiences that can be used to improve the quality of undergraduate research courses in the Department of Biology in the future. Findings may be of use to other departments and educational institutions that are seeking to improve their own undergraduate research courses amidst the COVID-19 pandemic or looking to incorporate experiential-based learning techniques into existing online courses.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.24.577125v1" target="_blank">Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Undergraduate Research in the Department of Biology at Western University: Effect on project types, learning outcomes, and student perceptions.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Case of Myocarditis, Pericarditis, and Fatal Aortic Dissection following Covid-19 mRNA Vaccination</strong> -
<div>
We present a case study of a 34-year-old male who was in apparent good health prior to his COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. Sixteen days after his first dose, he experienced acute inflammation, sudden thoracic aortic dissection, and pericardial tamponade, rapidly leading to his death. Studies suggest that young males, in particular, appear to be at increased risk of adverse cardiac events following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. However, we propose that certain information gaps exist in the criteria that inform both public health agencies and the public on incidence rates in certain presentations of even severe myocarditis and cardiac adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination, as is often mentioned within COVID-19 vaccine myocarditis studies and is evident within the findings of this young man’s important case presentation.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/xnr5t/" target="_blank">Case of Myocarditis, Pericarditis, and Fatal Aortic Dissection following Covid-19 mRNA Vaccination</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>nf-core/airrflow: an adaptive immune receptor repertoire analysis workflow employing the Immcantation framework</strong> -
<div>
Adaptive Immune Receptor Repertoire sequencing (AIRR-seq) is a valuable experimental tool to study the immune state in health and following immune challenges such as infectious diseases, (auto)immune diseases, and cancer. Several tools have been developed to reconstruct B cell and T cell receptor sequences from AIRR-seq data and infer B and T cell clonal relationships. However, currently available tools offer limited parallelization across samples, scalability or portability to high-performance computing infrastructures. To address this need, we developed nf-core/airrflow, an end-to-end bulk and single-cell AIRR-seq processing workflow which integrates the Immcantation Framework following BCR and TCR sequencing data analysis best practices. The Immcantation Framework is a comprehensive toolset, which allows the processing of bulk and single-cell AIRR-seq data from raw read processing to clonal inference. nf-core/airrflow is written in Nextflow and is part of the nf-core project, which collects community contributed and curated Nextflow workflows for a wide variety of analysis tasks. We assessed the performance of nf-core/airrflow on simulated sequencing data with sequencing errors and show example results with real datasets. To demonstrate the applicability of nf-core/airrflow to the high-throughput processing of large AIRR-seq datasets, we validated and extended previously reported findings of convergent antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 by analyzing 97 COVID-19 infected individuals and 99 healthy controls, including a mixture of bulk and single-cell sequencing datasets. Using this dataset, we extended the convergence findings to 20 additional subjects, highlighting the applicability of nf-core/airrflow to validate findings in small in-house cohorts with reanalysis of large publicly available AIRR datasets. nf-core/airrflow is available free of charge, under the MIT license on GitHub (https://github.com/nf-core/airrflow). Detailed documentation and example results are available on the nf-core website at (https://nf-co.re/airrflow).
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.18.576147v2" target="_blank">nf-core/airrflow: an adaptive immune receptor repertoire analysis workflow employing the Immcantation framework</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Development and validation of a federated learning framework for detection of subphenotypes of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a severe post-acute sequela of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The highly diverse clinical features of MIS-C necessities characterizing its features by subphenotypes for improved recognition and treatment. However, jointly identifying subphenotypes in multi-site settings can be challenging. We propose a distributed multi-site latent class analysis (dMLCA) approach to jointly learn MIS-C subphenotypes using data across multiple institutions. Methods We used data from the electronic health records (EHR) systems across nine U.S. childrens hospitals. Among the 3,549,894 patients, we extracted 864 patients &lt; 21 years of age who had received a diagnosis of MIS-C during an inpatient stay or up to one day before admission. Using MIS-C conditions, laboratory results, and procedure information as input features for the patients, we applied our dMLCA algorithm and identified three MIS-C subphenotypes. As validation, we characterized and compared more granular features across subphenotypes. To evaluate the specificity of the identified subphenotypes, we further compared them with the general subphenotypes identified in the COVID-19 infected patients. Findings Subphenotype 1 (46.1%) represents patients with a mild manifestation of MIS-C not requiring intensive care, with minimal cardiac involvement. Subphenotype 2 (25.3%) is associated with a high risk of shock, cardiac and renal involvement, and an intermediate risk of respiratory symptoms. Subphenotype 3 (28.6%) represents patients requiring intensive care, with a high risk of shock and cardiac involvement, accompanied by a high risk of &gt;4 organ system being impacted. Importantly, for hospital-specific clinical decision-making, our algorithm also revealed a substantial heterogeneity in relative proportions of these three subtypes across hospitals. Properly accounting for such heterogeneity can lead to accurate characterization of the subphenotypes at the patient-level. Interpretation Our identified three MIS-C subphenotypes have profound implications for personalized treatment strategies, potentially influencing clinical outcomes. Further, the proposed algorithm facilitates federated subphenotyping while accounting for the heterogeneity across hospitals.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.26.24301827v1" target="_blank">Development and validation of a federated learning framework for detection of subphenotypes of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>In silico assessment of immune cross protection between BCoV and SARS-CoV-2</strong> -
<div>
Background: Humans have long shared infectious agents with cattle, and the bovine-derived human common cold OC-43 CoV is a not-so-distant example of cross-species viral spill over of coronaviruses. Human exposure to the Bovine Coronavirus (BCoV) is certainly common, as the virus is endemic in most high-density cattle-raising regions. Since BCoVs are phylogenetically close to SARS-CoV-2, it is possible that cross-protection against COVID-19 occurs in people exposed to BCoV. Methods: This article shows an in silico investigation of human cross-protection to SARS-CoV-2 due to BCoV exposure. We determined HLA recognition and human B lymphocyte reactivity to BCoV epitopes using bioinformatics resources. A retrospective geoepidemiological analysis of COVID-19 was then performed to verify if BCoV/SARS-CoV-2 cross-protection could have occurred in the field. Brazil was used as a model for the epidemiological analysis of the impact of livestock density, as a proxy for human exposure to BCoV, on the prevalence of COVID-19 in people. Results: As could be expected from their classification in the same Betacoronavirus genus, we show that several human B and T epitopes are shared between BCoV and SARS-CoV-2. This raised the possibility of cross-protection of people from exposure to the bovine coronavirus. Analysis of field data added partial support to the hypothesis of viral cross-immunity from human exposure to BCoV. There was a negative correlation between livestock geographical density and COVID-19. Whole-Brazil data showed areas in the country in which COVID-19 prevalence was disproportionally low (controlled by normalization by transport infrastructure). Areas with high cattle density had lower COVID-19 prevalence in these low-risk areas. Conclusions: These data are hypothesis-raising indications that cross-protection is possibly being induced by human exposure to the Bovine Coronavirus.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.25.577193v1" target="_blank">In silico assessment of immune cross protection between BCoV and SARS-CoV-2</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Open-label, Multi-centre, Non-Inferiority Study of Safety and Immunogenicity of BIMERVAX for the Prevention of COVID-19 in Adolescents From 12 Years to Less Than 18 Years of Age.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS CoV 2 Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: BIMERVAX <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Hipra Scientific, S.L.U; Veristat, Inc.; VHIR; Asphalion <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 Study of Amantadine for Cognitive Dysfunction in Patients With Long-Covid</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID; Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Amantadine; Other: Physical, Occupational, Speech Therapy; Other: Provider Counseling; Other: Medications for symptoms management <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Texas Southwestern 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>Study on the Effect of Incentive Spirometer-based Respiratory Training on the Long COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 Pandemic; Diabetes; Hypertension; Cardiac Disease; Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Incentive Spirometer respiratory training <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences; Tri-Service General 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>Balance Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Long COVID</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-COVID-19 Syndrome; Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Balance Acceptance and Commitment Therapy <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: King’s College London <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>Predict + Protect Study: Exploring the Effectiveness of a Predictive Health Education Intervention on the Adoption of Protective Behaviors Related to ILI</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Influenza; Influenza A; Influenza B; COVID-19; Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: ILI Predictive Alerts, Reactive Content, and Proactive Content; Behavioral: ILI Predictive Alerts, Reactive Content; Behavioral: Proactive Content; Behavioral: No Intervention <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Evidation Health; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority <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>Long COVID-19 [11C]CPPC Study</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID Long-Haul <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: [11C]CPPC Injection; Drug: [11C]CPPC Injection <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Johns Hopkins University; Radiological Society of North America <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>Thrombohemorrhagic Complications of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Diagnostic Test: Prevention algorithm <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Volgograd State Medical University <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>Combined Use of Immunoglobulin and Pulse Steroid Therapies in Severe Covid-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Pulse Steroid and Immunoglobulins Drugs in Covid 19 Patients <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: pulse steroid and nanogam <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Konya City Hospital <br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Beneficial Effects of Natural Products on Management of Xerostomia</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Xerostomia; Diabetes Mellitus; Hypertension; Post COVID-19 Condition <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: (Manuka honey-green tea- ginger) <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: British University In Egypt <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>Eficacia Ventilatoria y Remolacha</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS CoV 2 Infection; Muscle Disorder; Fatigue <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Dietary Supplement: Remolacha <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Hospital de Mataró <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>Diet and Fasting for Long COVID</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long Covid19; Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Low sugar diet and 10-12 hour eating window; Other: Low sugar diet, 8 hour eating window and fasting <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences <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 Effectiveness of a Health Promotion Program for Older People With Post-Covid-19 Sarcopenia</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post COVID-19 Condition <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Protein powder and Resistance exercise <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Mahidol University; National Health Security Office, Thailand <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Comparative immunogenicity and neutralizing antibody responses post heterologous vaccination with CoronaVac (Sinovac) and Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca) in HIV-infected patients with varying CD4+ T lymphocyte counts</strong> - The immune response to heterologous coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination in people living with HIV (PLWH) is still unclear. Herein, our prospective cohort study aimed to compare the immune response of heterologous vaccination with CoronaVac (Sinovac) and Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca) between PLWH having CD4 counts ≤ 200 cells/µL (low CD4+) and &gt; 200 cells/µL (high CD4+). Anti-receptor-binding domain (RBD) immunoglobulin G (IgG) levels and the percentage inhibition of neutralizing antibodies…</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>Dimethyl fumarate in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial</strong> - Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) inhibits inflammasome-mediated inflammation and has been proposed as a treatment for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. This randomised, controlled, open-label platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy [RECOVERY]), is assessing multiple treatments in patients hospitalised for COVID-19 (NCT04381936, ISRCTN50189673). In this assessment of DMF performed at 27 UK hospitals, adults were randomly allocated (1:1) to either usual standard of care alone or usual…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effects of antineoplastic and immunomodulating agents on postvaccination SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections, antibody response, and serological cytokine profile</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Antineoplastic and immunomodulating medications associate with an elevated risk of postimmunization SARS-CoV-2 infection in a drug-specific manner. This comprehensive, unbiased analysis of all WHO ATC classified antineoplastic and immunomodulating medications identifies medications associated with greatest risk. These findings are crucial in guiding and refining vaccination strategies for patients prescribed these treatments, ensuring optimized protection for this susceptible…</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>G3BP1-dependent condensation of translationally inactive viral RNAs antagonizes infection</strong> - G3BP1 is an RNA binding protein that condenses untranslating messenger RNAs into stress granules (SGs). G3BP1 is inactivated by multiple viruses and is thought to antagonize viral replication by SG-enhanced antiviral signaling. Here, we show that neither G3BP1 nor SGs generally alter the activation of innate immune pathways. Instead, we show that the RNAs encoded by West Nile virus, Zika virus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 are prone to G3BP1-dependent RNA condensation,…</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>Triple <em>in silico</em> targeting of IMPDH enzyme and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of both SARS-CoV-2 and <em>Rhizopus oryzae</em></strong> - Aim: Mucormycosis has been associated with SARS-CoV-2 infections during the last year. The aim of this study was to triple-hit viral and fungal RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRps) and human inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH). Materials &amp; methods: Molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation were used to test nucleotide inhibitors (NIs) against the RdRps of SARS-CoV-2 and Rhizopus oryzae RdRp. These same inhibitors targeted IMPDH. Results: Four NIs revealed a comparable binding…</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>High-throughput screening for a SARS-CoV-2 frameshifting inhibitor using a cell-free protein synthesis system</strong> - Programmed-1 ribosomal frameshifting (-1 PRF) is a translational mechanism adopted by some viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. To find a compound that can inhibit -1 PRF in SARS-CoV-2, we set up a high-throughput screening system using a HeLa cell extract-derived cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) system. A total of 32,000 compounds were individually incubated with the CFPS system programmed with a -1 PRF-EGFP template. Several compounds were observed to decrease the -1 PRF-driven fluorescence, and…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Prevention of lipid droplet accumulation by DGAT1 inhibition ameliorates sepsis-induced liver injury and inflammation</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that sepsis triggers lipid metabolism alterations that culminate in increased liver LD accumulation. Increased LDs are associated with disease severity and liver injury. Moreover, inhibition of LD accumulation decreased the production of inflammatory mediators and lipid peroxidation while improving tissue function, suggesting that LDs contribute to the pathogenesis of liver injury triggered by sepsis.</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>Pharmacokinetic analysis of placental transfer of ritonavir as a component of paxlovid using microdialysis in pregnant rats</strong> - BACKGROUND: Ritonavir is one of the most potent CYP3A4 inhibitor currently on the market, and is often used together with other antiviral drugs to increase their bioavailability and efficacy. Paxlovid, consisting of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir, was approved for the treatment of COVID-19. As previous studies regarding the use of ritonavir during pregnancy were limited to ex-vivo experiments and systemic safety data, to fully explore the detailed pharmacokinetics of ritonavir in pregnant rats’…</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>Efficacy and safety of aniseed powder for treating gastrointestinal symptoms of COVID-19: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial</strong> - Background: Gastrointestinal symptoms are prevalent amongst patients with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 and may be associated with an increased risk of disease severity. This trial aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of aniseed (Pimpinella anisum L.) powder as an add-on therapy to standard care for treating gastrointestinal symptoms experienced by adults with an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: The study was a randomized parallel-group double-blinded placebo-controlled add-on…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A narrative review on tofacitinib: The properties, function, and usefulness to treat coronavirus disease 2019</strong> - In coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the formation of cytokine storm may have a role in worsening of the disease. By attaching the cytokines like interleukin-6 to the cytokine receptors on a cell surface, Janus kinase (JAK)-signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT) pathway will be activated in the cytoplasm lead to hyperinflammatory conditions and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Inhibition of JAK/STAT pathway may be useful to prevent the formation of 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>A critical review of advances on tumor metabolism abnormalities induced by nitrosamine disinfection by-products in drinking water</strong> - Intensified sanitation practices amid the recent SARS-CoV-2 outbreak might result in the increased release of chloramine disinfectants into surface water, significantly promoting the formation of nitrosamine disinfection by-products (DBPs) in drinking water. Unfortunately, these nitrosamine DBPs exhibit significant genotoxic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic properties, while chlorinating disinfectants remain in global practice. The current review provides valuable insights into the occurrence,…</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>Cleavage of HDAC6 to dampen its antiviral activity by nsp5 is a common strategy of swine enteric coronaviruses</strong> - HDAC6, a structurally and functionally unique member of the histone deacetylase (HDAC) family, is an important host factor that restricts viral infection. The broad-spectrum antiviral activity of HDAC6 makes it a potent antiviral agent. Previously, we found that HDAC6 functions to antagonize porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV), an emerging enteropathogenic coronavirus with zoonotic potential. However, the final outcome is typically a productive infection that materializes as cells succumb to viral…</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>Campesterol and dithymoquinone as a potent inhibitors of SARS cov-2 main proteases-promising drug candidates for targeting its novel variants</strong> - The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has currently taken approximately 2.4 million lives, with no specific medication and fast-tracked tested vaccines for prevention. These vaccines have their own adverse effects, which have severely affected the global healthcare system. The discovery of the main protease structure of coronavirus (Mpro/Clpro) has resulted in the identification of compounds having antiviral potential, especially from the herbal system. In this study, 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>SARS-CoV-2 NSP2 as a Potential Delivery Vehicle for Proteins</strong> - The development of biomolecule delivery systems is essential for the treatment of various diseases such as cancer, immunological diseases, and metabolic disorders. For the first time, we found that SARS-CoV-2-encoded nonstructural protein 2 (NSP2) can be secreted from the cells, where it is synthesized. Brefeldin A and H89, inhibitors of ER/Golgi secretion pathways, did not inhibit NSP2 secretion. NSP2 is likely secreted via an unconventional secretory pathway. Moreover, both secreted and…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>AI-driven covalent drug design strategies targeting main protease (m<sup>pro</sup>) against SARS-CoV-2: structural insights and molecular mechanisms</strong> - The emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants has raised concerns about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. To address this challenge, small-molecule antivirals have been proposed as a crucial therapeutic option. Among potential targets for anti-COVID-19 therapy, the main protease (M^(pro)) of SARS-CoV-2 is important due to its essential role in the virus’s life cycle and high conservation. The substrate-binding region of the core proteases of various coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2,…</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>Is There Hope for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women?</strong> - A hashtag and a political campaign have brought attention to the epidemic of violence, but a New Mexico woman is fighting case by case. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/is-there-hope-for-the-missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Rural Ski Slope Caught Up in an International Scam</strong> - A federal program promised to bring foreign investment to remote parts of the country. It soon became rife with fraud. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/05/the-rural-ski-slope-caught-up-in-an-international-scam">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inside the Music Industry’s High-Stakes A.I. Experiments</strong> - Lucian Grainge, the chairman of UMG, has helped record labels rake in billions of dollars from streaming. Can he do the same with generative artificial intelligence? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/05/inside-the-music-industrys-high-stakes-ai-experiments">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Perverse Policies That Fuel Wildfires</strong> - We thought we could master nature, but we were playing with fire. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/05/the-perverse-policies-that-fuel-wildfires">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine’s Democracy in Darkness</strong> - With elections postponed and no end to the war with Russia in sight, Volodymyr Zelensky and his political allies are becoming like the officials they once promised to root out: entrenched. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/05/ukraines-democracy-in-darkness">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Conservatives have long been at war with colleges</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="DeSantis laughs and applauds as Rufo speaks at a lectern reading “Florida: The Education State.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3rYD5DTuMh2QmZghLO8ci7htEsc=/212x0:8660x6336/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73102959/1900670087.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis listens to activist and New College of Florida trustee Christopher Rufo before signing three education bills on the school’s campus in Sarasota, Florida, on May 15, 2023. | Photo by Thomas Simonetti for the Washington Post via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A brief history of the right’s long-running battle against higher education.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MIOWPH">
In the wake of the resignations of two university presidents; campaigns against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; and a <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus">Supreme Court</a> ruling ending <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/6/14/23761092/supreme-court-affirmative-action-college-admissions-race">affirmative action</a>, conservatives are vowing that their crusade against higher education is far from over.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R0IUI5">
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who played a role in smearing <a href="https://www.vox.com/22443822/critical-race-theory-controversy">critical race theory</a> and in pushing out Harvard President <a href="https://www.vox.com/24025151/claudine-gay-harvard-resignation-conservative-culture-war">Claudine Gay</a> last month, told students at the University of Colorado Boulder recently that America must “lay siege to the institutions” to root out radical liberal <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> that were established in the 1960s — an idea he’s been repeating for years. According to Rufo, those policies include diversity and inclusion initiatives that are bringing America down today.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gsUecj">
At a time when colleges and universities are facing criticism from all sides over rising tuition costs and resulting student debt, decreasing enrollment, and admissions challenges, conservatives want to spearhead the changes that lie ahead for the institutions. But the desire of Rufo and others to remake higher education in their conservative vision isn’t new.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YZ9B2l">
According to historian Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, who is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Resistance-Right-Conservatives-America-Politics/dp/1469674491"><em>Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America</em></a> and casts a sometimes critical eye on the conservative assault on higher education, the playbook has existed for decades.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aDqvsK">
Lassabe Shepherd and I discussed the parallels between the current moment and the early 20th century, when conservatives first grew suspicious of colleges and universities. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
</p>
<h4 id="nkCLAV">
Fabiola Cineas
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PPA6Yo">
What’s one word you would use to describe conservatives’ relationship with higher education today?
</p>
<h4 id="4U7NAc">
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CQwDB1">
Antagonistic.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wLz2qW">
There’s a culture war being fought right now by people like Chris Rufo and, in the K–12 sphere, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/16/us/politics/moms-for-liberty-sex-scandal.html">Moms for Liberty</a>. These people aren’t shy, and they’re not discreet. They’re writing op-eds and saying exactly what their plans are.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5yl0Ze">
But they’re not trying to dismantle public higher education brick by brick, as some commentators have suggested. They want to keep these institutions, but they want them to look like <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/10/the-christian-liberal-arts-school-at-the-heart-of-the-culture-wars">Hillsdale</a> [a small conservative Christian college in Michigan]. They want to do what they’re doing at the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23593369/ron-desantis-florida-schools-higher-education-woke">New College of Florida</a>. I think they do like these institutions — they just don’t like that they don’t control them.
</p>
<h4 id="36NIdG">
Fabiola Cineas
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m2ok7j">
What do you make of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/08/19/the-growing-partisan-divide-in-views-of-higher-education-2/">polling from Pew</a> that shows that Republicans have lost confidence in higher education in a matter of a few years? Why do you think the shift toward believing that colleges have a harmful effect on the nation has been that quick in recent times?
</p>
<h4 id="soI2V1">
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J0PZzc">
I think there was a big shift after 2016, when [political] strategists looked at election data and realized Trump didn’t do so well with college-educated people. So now strategists have framed this as “College-educated people are the problem.” They’re saying, “We need to make higher education a bogeyman, attack it and reform it into what we want it to look like.”
</p>
<h4 id="Ylbzor">
Fabiola Cineas
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AaWm3L">
Let’s take a step back and talk about how we got here. Historically, what’s been the function of colleges and universities? Was there a version of these elite institutions that conservatives aligned with?
</p>
<h4 id="e9gqzG">
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vZ3dnN">
The Ivies, our very first institutions, like Harvard — which is 150 years older than we are as a nation — were set up privately with charters. The idea was to train white men, usually second, third, fourth sons, and sometimes first sons, for the ministry, sometimes for medicine, sometimes for law, and also for public service.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ihedA7">
In addition to educating them, there was also a social component. It was about getting elite young men together through social clubs, like supper clubs, dining clubs, and secret societies, many of which are still around today.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lNsMXi">
Getting a degree wasn’t always the outcome. This was mostly for men from wealthy upper-class families, but you would occasionally have someone who came from a farming family. Christianity was also a really strong component. What we think of as the modern model of colleges didn’t emerge until after the Civil War. Before then, college was really like private high school.
</p>
<h4 id="oPmY5Y">
Fabiola Cineas
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4wqrdr">
So what would you say is the first major moment when conservatives begin to question the aims of colleges and universities?
</p>
<h4 id="49eBfa">
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vh1y4g">
In the 1950s, William F. Buckley Jr., who is widely regarded as the father of the modern conservative movement, pens his first book, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/God-and-Man-at-Yale/William-F-Buckley/9781596988033"><em>God and Man at Yale</em></a>. The whole premise of the book is that America’s elite institutions have lost their way, deviated from Christianity, and are teaching young men to be more liberal, open-minded, worldly, and more socialist. This is where we see the beginning of a concerted movement of the right being a little bit suspicious about the curriculum in higher ed. They began wondering, “What are they teaching these kids?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="e8nteG">
What happened in the decades before built up to this. During the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/3/7/14841292/liberal-universities-conservative-faculty-sizzler-pc">Red Scare</a>, there were suspicions about Jewish professors being communist or anti-American. There was also the effort to create Bob Jones College, a college for Christian men where the Bible is the curriculum. This was similar to today’s plan to make colleges look like Hillsdale. That means a biblical curriculum, but what they also want is “Western tradition.” They want students studying old classics written by and for white men.
</p>
<h4 id="9nmbGK">
Fabiola Cineas
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gfNRkD">
What role did outside organizations play in fighting to uphold conservative ideals in higher education?
</p>
<h4 id="A1HesB">
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="msvQZe">
Around the time of the Great Depression, they created parallel academic programs to promote conservative ideas. Those institutions still exist now. The big one today is ISI, the <a href="https://isi.org/">Intercollegiate Studies Institute</a>. Its whole purpose as a nonprofit is to identify conservative students and provide stipends or fellowships for their credentials so that they can become faculty themselves.
</p>
<h4 id="aYqMtc">
Fabiola Cineas
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gpBWY7">
You’ve also talked about the late 1960s as being a time when conservatives organized for their causes. When I think about that time, I think about liberal student movements that protested the Vietnam War or advocated for ethnic studies. So what were conservative students doing, and how does it inform what conservatives want to do with higher education today?
</p>
<h4 id="gbIS3t">
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vt6945">
Conservative students were part of groups like the Young Republican National Federation and the College Republicans National Committee. They were the pro-war voice on campus, and they framed themselves as being anti-communist. There was also Young Americans for Freedom, still around today as <a href="https://yaf.org/">Young America’s Foundation</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MwoYKP">
Those students in the ’60s, like <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/11/22/142599781/in-gingrichs-past-a-lesson-on-ambition">Newt Gingrich</a> and <a href="https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2019/12/the-education-of-billy-barr">Bill Barr</a>, that was their entry into politics. That’s where they cut their political teeth and learned how to organize and fundraise and set up counterdemonstrations. They had a hand up in the sense that there was lots of mentorship — a very welcoming and deep-pocketed set of advisers who helped them on their political journey.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3gkxb6">
Karl Rove is a really good example because he didn’t finish his degree at the University of Utah. He dropped out in that period and moved to Washington, DC, and immediately became a lobbyist working for the national College Republicans. That kind of activism and membership were career funnels. What the uniting factor is between them is they all don’t like the left. And when they say they don’t like the left, they’re actually just talking about liberals.
</p>
<h4 id="L4Cv8H">
Fabiola Cineas
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2XPadX">
So did conservatives basically build on this activism inside and outside of higher ed institutions? I’m specifically thinking about the rise of affirmative action, too.
</p>
<h4 id="EYAbZr">
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZmsYWG">
So, in that sense, the right’s worst fears came true. The campuses did diversify — very, very slowly, but they did.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6CK6eG">
And even still, campuses broadly — when we’re talking about the sum total of American higher education, the average college student goes to a large state public or community college. And they’re probably not even a traditional 18- to 21-year-old student, either. Harvard, MIT, Penn, and others have consumed the news. But those institutions are absolutely not representative of what the landscape of colleges and universities is in the country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FsWzpj">
Going forward, the conversation about conservatives and higher education has always been there, though it didn’t always make headlines. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, in his 1971 <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/05/09/launch-long-game">Powell Memorandum</a>, laid out this plan for fixing America’s institutions. He basically said, “We need to tear them apart brick by brick, and we do that through defunding and then placing our people in positions of power.” The Powell Memo is a document that definitely lays this plan all out, but the sentiment was certainly there before.
</p>
<h4 id="j6qNmm">
Fabiola Cineas
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RNSNlx">
Coming back to today, is the conservative fight to claim colleges and universities mostly happening at Harvard and Penn, as so much of the mainstream media would have us believe?
</p>
<h4 id="MXJz3h">
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3h71nh">
Harvard is an easy target for headlines, but when it comes to practical application, like where the right can really have impact, it’s the large state public universities that are most at risk. Those institutions that don’t make headlines and can slowly be changed behind the scenes, and it’s almost like no one notices. In red states, legislators have direct control over public education budgets. This is why New College in Florida was so easy to tear apart.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="shYIAn">
</p></li>
<li><strong>The chances that Trump will be a convicted felon by Election Day have dropped</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Trump walking to his car with his hand raised in a fist. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KbqtUbtPwc4AMK4d_w7S5Rs-Ngw=/228x0:3544x2487/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73102885/GettyImages_1918188009.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Former US President Donald Trump departs after speaking to the press after attending the civil fraud trial against the Trump Organization in New York State Supreme Court, in New York City on January 11, 2024. | John Lamparski/AFP via Getty
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
It could still happen — but the four prosecutions of Trump have been beset by delays and challenges.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CosiYv">
Democrats perturbed about <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>’s lead in 2024 polling have long had a comforting hope to fall back on: that Trump, who is facing four criminal prosecutions, will likely become a convicted felon before election day — or even be sent to prison.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sPanA2">
That’s still possible — but it’s not as sure a bet as it once seemed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="amACk4">
Delays have piled up in federal court proceedings in the District of Columbia case about Trump’s attempt to steal the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election">2020 election</a> and the Florida classified documents case against Trump, making it unclear whether either case will go to trial before November. (For the DC case, the hold-up is <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/12/22/24012602/supreme-court-jack-smith-donald-trump-delay-election-theft-criminal-trial">higher-court appeals</a>; for Florida, it’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/22/aileen-cannon-trump-trial-slow-00128391">a slow-walking judge</a>.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mUcVfI">
Meanwhile, the Georgia election case has recently been consumed by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/fani-willis-georgia-trump.html">scandalous allegations</a> about Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, which throw the future of that prosecution into question. A judge will soon consider whether Willis and her office should be disqualified. He could decide not to do that, but even then, a trial date has not yet been set in the complex case.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xiUSv2">
That leaves the New York hush money case as the only trial that still seems on track. It’s currently scheduled to begin on March 25 — but first, on February 15, a judge will consider whether the felony charges against Trump there <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/podcasts/the-daily/trump-indictment-court-case.html">are legal</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fyybX7">
The upshot is that Trump’s only trial this year could end up being the New York one — the <a href="https://www.vox.com/trump-investigations/23832341/trump-charges-prison-time-sentence-indictments">least substantively significant</a> of the four. The charges are about whether Trump improperly logged Trump Organization payments to his then-attorney Michael Cohen as legal expenses, when they were reimbursements for hush money Cohen paid Stormy Daniels. It’s shady behavior, but it’s not exactly at the level of stealing an election or jeopardizing <a href="https://www.vox.com/defense-and-security">national security</a> secrets.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YElund">
Yet there’s little that can be done to expedite things at this point. Prosecutors filed their cases last year, but now, they’re in judges’ hands — and judges are not beholden to the election calendar.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rsWlY2">
It’s not certain that even multiple Trump convictions would be the game-changer in the polls Democrats hoped for. But getting a verdict before November 5 is the only way we’d ever come close to finding out. (As to whether Trump might be sentenced to prison, we can’t know that until an actual trial takes place.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="T9QSkF">
So Election Day could come and go with most of Trump’s legal jeopardy unresolved — and, if he wins, some of those delays could become permanent, since he’d almost surely shut down the federal investigations targeting him.
</p>
<h3 id="Y4e6Wn">
Fani Willis is facing allegations in Georgia
</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yvrdvqiVxruWMr2uDQXNAfI7xbw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25259566/GettyImages_1615634919.jpg"/> <cite>Joe Raedle/Getty</cite>
<figcaption>
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis arrives to speak at a news conference at the Fulton County Government building on August 14, 2023, in Atlanta, Georgia.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GiDIVp">
Until recently, <a href="https://www.vox.com/trump-investigations/2023/8/15/23831815/trump-georgia-indictment-giuliani-eastman-powell-meadows">the sweeping racketeering case</a> against Trump and 18 co-defendants filed by Willis’s office last August seemed to be notching win after win. The case was lauded by many in the press as the most comprehensive attempt to hold Trump accountable for trying to steal the 2020 election. And though a trial date had not yet been set, four of those co-defendants, including former Trump attorneys<a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/19/sidney-powell-pleads-guilty/"> Sidney Powell</a> and<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=jenna+ellis+guilty&amp;rlz=1C5GCEM_enUS895US895&amp;oq=jenna+ellis&amp;gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7MgoIARAuGLEDGIAEMgYIAhBFGEAyBwgDEAAYgAQyBwgEEAAYgAQyBwgFEAAYgAQyBwgGEAAYgAQyBwgHEAAYgATSAQgxMjEwajBqOagCALACAA&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8"> Jenna Ellis</a>, had already pleaded guilty.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AQ1ktc">
But earlier this month, an attorney for another co-defendant, former Trump campaign aide Mike Roman, made some explosive allegations <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24352568-roman-motion-to-dimiss-010824">in a court filing</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PTxlvq">
These allegations center on the claim that Willis has been having a “clandestine personal relationship” with a special prosecutor she had brought on to the case, Nathan Wade. That alone would not seem to be disqualifying. But Roman’s attorney alleges several improprieties about Wade’s role, including that he was unqualified for the job (his prosecutorial exprience <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/10/us/georgia-trump-nathan-wade.html">is very thin</a>), that Willis overpaid him, and that he then paid for vacations they took together.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uxLUUg">
Some legal experts have said these allegations <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/91627/the-fulton-county-disqualification-allegations-myths-facts-and-unknowns/">aren’t a big enough deal</a> to warrant her removal. Others are more concerned. “If her choices to extend or prolong the investigation benefit a romantic partner, who is paying for her meals and vacations, that is an actual conflict,” Georgia defense attorney Andrew Fleischman <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-we-cant-just-shrug-off-the-fani-willis-scandal">writes in the Daily Beast</a>. “Willis needs to level with the public, and she needs to do it fast,” former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/24/a-reality-check-on-the-fani-willis-scandal-00137238">writes in Politico Magazine</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E3WH1o">
Willis has not yet directly addressed these claims — but Judge Scott McAfee has told her to respond by Thursday. If McAfee decides there is impropriety here, he can disqualify Willis’s office from prosecuting the case. If that happens, the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia would get to choose a replacement prosecutor — and the path forward for the case would depend on whom they choose.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hd5FeQ">
But, needless to say, the prosecutor getting tossed would not be a good sign for getting this case tried before election day.
</p>
<h3 id="b43Fhx">
DC trial preparation is on hold while higher courts decide on presidential immunity
</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DnZcl0zn8IzF8m5mn0HxaEhg1T8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25259569/GettyImages_1583882702.jpg"/> <cite>Saul Loeb and Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP/Getty</cite>
<figcaption>
This combination of pictures shows special counsel Jack Smith in Washington, DC, on August 1, 2023, and Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, on November 8, 2022.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D1xrEI">
The federal prosecution against Trump for trying to steal the 2020 election was brought by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington, DC. And Judge Tanya Chutkan seemed to be moving ahead quickly, with a trial date of March 4.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c99hHH">
In pretrial motions, however, Trump’s attorneys put forward a defense: that he couldn’t be prosecuted for what he did between November 2020 and January 6, 2021, because has president — and a sitting president, they claim, should be absolutely immune from prosecution for actions that related to his official conduct while he was in office.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RPJ9j5">
Judge Chutkan rejected that argument <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.171.0_1.pdf">in an early December ruling</a>, but Trump’s attorneys appealed to the DC Circuit. And, importantly, while the appeal is pending, Chutkan decided (in accordance with the law) to <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.186.0_5.pdf">pause</a> pretrial preparations. That stay was issued on December 13 — more than a month and a half ago.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bVLinM">
The first stop in the appeal process is before a three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Arguments before that panel took place <a href="https://rollcall.com/2024/01/09/appeals-court-skeptical-of-trump-immunity-arguments/#:~:text=All%20three%20judges%20on%20the,actions%20they%20took%20as%20president.">on January 9</a>, but they have not yet issued their ruling. If they side against Trump, as expected, he could ask the full DC Circuit Court to hear the case — and then, inevitably, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus">Supreme Court</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0qrMwr">
In December, Smith tried to move this process along by asking the Supreme Court to consider the immunity question right away — but the justices <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/12/22/24012602/supreme-court-jack-smith-donald-trump-delay-election-theft-criminal-trial">declined to do so</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kTlOTq">
How long this will all take to shake out is anyone’s guess. But the longer each step in the process takes, the more the date for the trial will slip.
</p>
<h3 id="SdjQng">
Judge Aileen Cannon has slowed the Florida case to a crawl
</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A headshot of Cannon." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HKXTHS35waC3cMCmO5wWb0gWpws=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25259574/Screen_Shot_2024_01_31_at_3.43.10_PM.png"/> <cite>United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida</cite>
<figcaption>
Judge Aileen Cannon
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="onDDIl">
Delays have also plagued Smith’s prosecution of Trump for mishandling classified documents in Florida. Here, the holdup is not higher-court appeals, but the district court judge assigned to handle the case: Aileen Cannon.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nxMieG">
Cannon, a Trump appointee, has courted controversy on this case since before the former president was even indicted. After the FBI’s 2022 searches at Mar-a-Lago, Trump sued to try and block the government from reviewing some seized documents. Cannon heard the suit, and her conduct <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/us/trump-special-master-aileen-cannon.html">shocked legal observers</a>, when she <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/6/13/23757893/aileen-cannon-donald-trump-jack-smith-indictment-mar-a-lago-maga">contorted the law</a> in various rulings in Trump’s favor. A three-judge appeals court panel <a href="https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2022/12/02/was-aileen-cannon-the-biggest-loser-in-the-11th-circuits-special-master-ruling/?slreturn=20240031091753">eventually reined her in</a> in what the National Law Journal called “a rebuke.” (Two of those judges were themselves Trump appointees; the third is a hardline conservative appointed by George W. Bush.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NIdO4C">
So it was of course great news for Trump that, when the special counsel indicted him last June, Cannon got the case. Initially, she didn’t seem to blatantly be going out of her way to help Trump — she set a May 20, 2024, trial date. It was, however, widely understood that this date might slip due to the need to settle complex issues about how the classified information at issue was to be handled and shared with Trump’s legal team.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9F5c2U">
The problem is that since then, Cannon has appeared to be in no hurry whatsoever to resolve these issues. By November, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/22/aileen-cannon-trump-trial-slow-00128391">Politico’s Josh Gerstein wrote</a> that Cannon was “slowing down the case,” saying she “has postponed key pretrial deadlines, and she has added further slack into the schedule simply by taking her time to resolve some fairly straightforward matters.” For instance, Cannon <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/10/trump-classified-documents-trial-date-aileen-cannon">moved</a> one hearing about how the classified documents at issue would be redacted from October to February — a four-month delay.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RFqBfZ">
Things haven’t improved lately. Two weeks ago, <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/01/judge-aileen-cannon-trump-classifed-sabotage.html?pay=1706713564446&amp;support_journalism=please">Dennis Aftergut and Laurence Tribe argued in Slate</a> that Cannon was continuing to demonstrate a “pattern” of “laying the groundwork for delaying Trump’s trial — until it’s too late for a jury to be empaneled and the case tried to verdict before the election.” No one seems to believe at this point that this trial will actually happen in May, and there are real doubts about whether it will happen this year at all.
</p>
<h3 id="i4tBh9">
The New York trial is still on track — but a judge will soon consider whether the charges will stand
</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Bragg speaks at a podium, next to a sign that is titled “People v. Donald J. Trump.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mqeH-LEX0fAH3-l1P6bGWZxugrI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25259579/GettyImages_1479828203.jpg"/> <cite>Kena Betancur/Getty</cite>
<figcaption>
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks during a news conference following an arraignment of Trump on April 4, 2023, in New York City.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gJwCyB">
When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump for falsifying business records last March, he faced <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/05/alvin-bragg-case-against-trump-00090602">a good deal of skepticism</a> from national legal commentators about both the strength of the case and whether his decision to charge Trump was politicized. It’s also the <a href="https://www.vox.com/trump-investigations/23832341/trump-charges-prison-time-sentence-indictments">least substantively important</a> of the four prosecutions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z8781z">
So naturally, this is the only trial that seems like it will happen anytime soon.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lq4tpi">
Last year, Judge Juan Merchan set the trial date for March 25, 2024. But he openly acknowledged <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/nyregion/donald-trump-manhattan-trial-date.html">he might move that date</a>, to let Trump’s federal prosecutions get priority to go first. With the delays in those other prosecutions, though, New York seems like the best bet to go first after all.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="toqOhF">
There is just one hurdle first: On February 15, Merchan will hold a hearing at which he’ll <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Just-Security-Hush-Money-New-York-Trump-Clearinghouse-%E2%80%94-Trump-memorandum-of-law-in-support-of-omnibus-motions-to-dismiss-the-charges-Sept.-29-2023.pdf">consider Trump’s pretrial motions</a>. And in those motions, Trump has raised many of the same <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictment-legal-analysis-bragg-election-law-3cf41eb0cc5de0146840a436e49cfccc">doubts that outside legal commentators</a> — and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/trump-hush-money-charges-would-bring-zombie-case-back-life-2023-03-22/">a former top prosecutor in the district attorney’s office</a> — had about the charges.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cUpd8R">
Specifically, there’s been much debate over whether Bragg was on firm ground to charge the 34 falsifying business record counts against Trump as felonies, rather than misdemeanors. (Misdemeanor charges would not come with the possibility of prison time and would not make Trump a convicted felon.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vZl8GW">
To charge felonies, Bragg must assert that Trump falsified business records — specifically, that he categorized reimbursements to Michael Cohen for Stormy Daniels’s hush money as legal expenses — with the intent to commit or conceal “another crime.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qFRU8n">
The problem is: What crime?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aCIkzS">
Violating federal <a href="https://www.vox.com/campaign-finance">campaign finance</a> law seemed like the clearest fit, but it involved federal and not state law, and existing case law was unclear about whether a state prosecutor could use federal law to justify this felony enhancement. Another potential federal crime, dodging taxes, had the same issue. A third possibility was a state law about unlawfully conspiring to promote an election candidate — but does state law apply to a federal presidential election?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c0nyJx">
This question bedeviled Mark Pomerantz, who was a lead prosecutor of the district attorney’s case before <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/2/23/22947946/trump-prosecutors-new-york-bragg">resigning</a> shortly after Bragg took office. Pomerantz wrote about his worries <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/People-vs-Donald-Trump/Mark-Pomerantz/9781668022443">in a book</a> written before the indictment last year, opining that no specific “other crime” seemed to be a slam dunk guaranteed to survive judicial scrutiny. He said he hoped Bragg would charge the case anyway, but, he said, there would be a risk “that the charge will be reduced to a misdemeanor before a jury even hears it.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kraRfG">
Trump’s pretrial motions cite all these objections (and repeatedly cite Pomerantz’s book). “Even the most ardent and publicly supportive former prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz, to have worked on the case doubted that DANY’s legal theory is viable,” <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Just-Security-Hush-Money-New-York-Trump-Clearinghouse-%E2%80%94-Trump-memorandum-of-law-in-support-of-omnibus-motions-to-dismiss-the-charges-Sept.-29-2023.pdf">his attorneys wrote</a>. Bragg’s team, for their part, claims that they don’t need to be specific — that they only need to establish “general intent” to commit or conceal a crime. However, they <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Just-Security-Hush-Money-NY-Trump-Clearinghouse-%E2%80%94-State-of-New-York-memorandum-of-law-in-opposition-to-Trump-omnibus-motions-Nov.-9-2023-e-filed-Nov.-15.pdf">also argue</a> that all of the crimes mentioned above apply.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6YaUb8">
So on February 15, these matters will finally be addressed at a hearing from Judge Juan Merchan. If Merchan lets the felony charges stand, Trump could then appeal. But one problem would be that he’d be appealing in New York state court, where few judges are likely to be particularly sympathetic to him. Bragg’s charges may well survive. And, flawed as it is, the New York case seems to be the best bet remaining for a Trump conviction before the election.
</p></li>
<li><strong>From Gaza to Sudan, conflict is driving a rise in hunger worldwide</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="People stand behind a barrier with empty dishes. In the foreground is a large bowl of food." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lK6IVkyptj2Vpd0auSmwxDa37Bo=/401x0:3953x2664/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73102830/GettyImages_1952235268.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
The war in Gaza is the latest example of the recent rise in global conflict creating humanitarian crises. | Abed Zagout/Anadolu via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
In the 21st century, famine isn’t inevitable. It’s a policy choice.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MIsvk1">
Over the long term, humanity has made great progress in eradicating hunger. Famines on the scale of the 20th century’s catastrophes — the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34907689/">Nazi starvation policies</a>, social transformations in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1127087/">China</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/03/12/holodomor-famine-ukraine-stalin/">Soviet Russia</a> that came at the cost of tens of millions of lives — have not been experienced in decades.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Nfk4cR">
There was a general decline in conflict over the second half of the 20th century, with notable exceptions, but in the aftermath of two global wars, more peace has led to less hunger. Agricultural tech advances have led to <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/03/05/look-agricultural-productivity-growth-united-states-1948-2017">bigger crop yields</a>, despite the pressures a warming climate has put on food production.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TJIz4o">
The improvement was such that, in 2015, the UN <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/hunger/">set</a> the ambitious goal of eliminating world hunger by 2030. Over the last decade, though, all that progress has started to reverse: Instead of moving toward zero, the number of hungry people worldwide has been on the rise.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cydeXr">
Conflict is the culprit. <a href="https://www.vox.com/palestine">Palestinians</a> in <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080046/gaza-palestine-israel">Gaza</a> are running <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/tiny-gaza-is-home-to-most-of-the-worlds-hungriest-people-df62eeda">dangerously short</a> of food amid the Israeli army’s invasion, putting half a million people — a quarter of the total population — <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/29/health-organisations-disease-gaza-population-outbreaks-conflict">at risk of starvation</a> within the next year. Sudan is experiencing a deadly civil war that has <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/news/famine-fears-stalk-sudan-as-conflict-spreads/">threatened food access</a>, leaving 13 million people facing dangerous levels of food insecurity. The recent Western attacks on the Houthis in Yemen, where some 17 million people are food insecure, have halted humanitarian aid in what is already <a href="https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/yemen-emergency">one of the world’s long-running hunger crises</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Sz4BGt">
For the past decade, almost anywhere there has been conflict in the world, hunger has followed. Gaza and Sudan reflect a longer trend of <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2024/1/25/24049551/war-increasing-ukraine-gaza-sudan-ethiopia">increasing international and intranational combat</a>: The <a href="https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/syria-emergency#:~:text=Syria%20remains%20among%20the%20ten,risk%20of%20becoming%20food%20insecure.">Syrian civil war</a> and <a href="https://www.wfpusa.org/articles/one-year-of-war-in-ukraine-how-russias-invasion-fueled-the-global-hunger-crisis/">the war in Ukraine</a> have led to serious food insecurity for millions of people. The repressive tactics of authoritarian regimes from <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/01/11/1071485460/why-the-kids-of-venezuela-arent-getting-enough-to-eat">Venezuela</a> to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-koreans-face-increasing-repression-threat-starvation-un-says-rcna100564">North Korea</a> have fostered food crises across the world; in the latter country, an internal crackdown on informal marketplaces and a focus on militarization over the citizenry’s material needs have led to fresh reports of people starving.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="S46uN8">
“We’re not back to where we were, but the same factors that have historically caused famine, like totalitarianism and using starvation as an instrument of war, they’re now happening again,” said Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University. “That’s why we’re seeing a return of famine.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kmv1iu">
Solving hunger is not merely a matter of improving humanity’s technological capacity to produce food — if that were the case, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/nov/15/can-the-world-feed-8bn-people-sustainably">no one today would go to bed hungry</a>. Hunger these days isn’t primarily the result of bad harvests and acts of God, but of politics and policymaking. Conflict and human choices are now the driving forces in global access to food.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jMZpoh">
For a long time, hunger in war zones was viewed as “a peripheral event rather than a central narrative” in human conflicts, Catriona Murdoch, a senior legal consultant at Global Rights Compliance in London, told me. Now, she said, “what we’re seeing is that it’s not a side issue, it’s not an inevitable consequence [of war] — but actually, in many instances, a deliberate, primary strategy.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="S4QS2H">
The structural weaknesses of the international system have made it difficult to stop food crises in the midst of war. International criminal law on the use of starvation as a weapon of war is untested, and multilateral groups like the UN have shown a limited willingness or ability to confront states using starvation as a weapon of war.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="17tbqo">
Until that changes, so long as we have conflict, hunger will follow.
</p>
<h3 id="8yiEGs">
The remarkable progress in alleviating hunger since the 19th century
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4wCyOU">
Human history has for centuries been <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/famine/">marred by famines</a>. In 1816, known as the year without summer, a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/17/world/tambora-eruption-year-without-summer-scn/index.html">massive volcanic eruption</a> in Indonesia changed global weather patterns, leading to stunted harvests, <a href="https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/palmer.2/Geradstetten/Report%20of%20the%20Famine%20and%20Hhe%20Hyper-Inflation%20of%201816%20and%201817.pdf">price increases, and starvation around the world</a>. In the 19th century, Western colonialism often <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv362chnc">led to mass starvation</a>. Colonial powers exploited <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians">local economies for their own gain</a>, exporting crops and other goods while impoverishing the colonized people. When hunger emergencies took root, such as during the Great Famine in India in 1876, colonial governments were often <a href="https://www.theglobalist.com/the-global-famine-of-1877-and-1899/">reluctant to intervene aggressively</a> with food aid.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6IfHUT">
In the 20th century, catastrophic wars and totalitarian governments brought mass starvation. More than 20 million people died from famine between 1911 and 1920. A couple decades later, Nazi Germany <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/contemporary-european-history/article/abs/food-and-genocide-nazi-agrarian-politics-in-the-occupied-territories-of-the-soviet-union/96622C97783F907D2D2516D898EBEC51">adopted</a> an explicit policy of starving the local population during its invasion of the Soviet Union, and more than 4.5 million people died as a result — nearly 20 percent of all Soviet casualties during the war.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zrTELr">
In the 1930s, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin’s Five-Year Plan <a href="https://www.holodomorsurvivors.ca/Harvest%20of%20Despair/FIVE-YEAR%20PLAN.html#:~:text=The%20first%20five%2Dyear%20plan%20saw%20the%20introduction%20of%20the,expropriated%20to%20pay%20for%20industrialization.">had already led</a> to millions of people dying of hunger. During Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward in China between 1958 and 1962, another period of forced economic modernization and internal repression, between 18 and 32 million people starved to death as a result of the government’s policies — widely considered the worst famine of all time.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FhNizO">
But in the 1980s, global deaths from famine started to <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/famine/">drop precipitously</a>. By the 1990s and 2000s, catastrophic hunger was for many years largely isolated to a handful of nations in a near-constant state of conflict (Sudan, Uganda, and Somalia). Since 1980, the annual death toll from famines has been around 75,000 — just 8 percent of the historical average from the 1870s to now, even as the global population nearly doubled.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y62SRH">
Economic development across the world and the creation of a professional humanitarian sector post-World War II that delivers food in emergencies and in areas with chronic challenges to food security can be credited in part with that decline. Although extreme weather events still routinely damage harvests — something that is likely to intensify as the climate warms — the world now has a practiced playbook for deploying aid.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8RjjQl">
By 2015, the UN released <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/hunger/">a strategic plan</a> with the goal of eliminating hunger by 2030. The following year, when foreign aid averted a potential famine during a severe drought in Ethiopia, scholars <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/opinion/is-the-era-of-great-famines-over.html">openly wondered if the era of great famines was over</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OoZbRA">
But that goal, always aspirational, has been slipping out of reach.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Chart show global rates of undernourishment from 2000 through 2020. Rates steadily dropped from 13 percent in 2000 to less than 8 percent by 2017, but ticked up to over 9 percent by 2020." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XVx5xJ-G_wYxSLuj88LWc1unU8w=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25259978/rozRk_the_world_s_stalled_progress_on_hunger_2.png"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SGFDA8">
In theory, we know how to eradicate hunger. Our capacity to produce food has grown exponentially in the past two centuries. Humanitarian groups have more effective means of delivering aid, from <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23180175/cash-aid-food-global-africa-famine-hunger">cash-based assistance</a> to <a href="https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/what-ready-use-therapeutic-food">special food products</a> that deliver vital nutrition in a small package.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Rh2zYb">
But the situation on the ground in conflict zones often makes it impossible in practice.
</p>
<h3 id="9why0W">
The sudden omnipresence of hunger crises
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nsEaBd">
Global hunger occurs along a spectrum. Some people may have intermittent problems accessing food, which presents longer-term health risks from undernourishment without the imminent risk of death. Emergency and catastrophic hunger, otherwise known as famine, <a href="https://www.ipcinfo.org/famine-facts/en/">describe situations</a> in which people have prolonged gaps in their food consumption and experience the resulting malnutrition and mortality.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CFZ99y">
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a coalition of UN agencies and nonprofit relief groups, a famine is <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/ipc-famine-factsheet-updated-december-2020">technically underway</a> when 20 percent of households in a region face an extreme lack of food, 30 percent of children have acute malnutrition, and two people out of every 10,000 in an area are dying every day from starvation or hunger-related health problems.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2M0El6">
Experts on hunger caution against getting too caught up in the <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2021/2/3/yemen-famine-aid-hunger-crises-south-sudan-malnutrition">specific terminology</a>. The overarching story is that hunger is on the rise, particularly in war zones like Gaza and Sudan, and there is a real risk of millions of civilians dying in these conflicts because of a lack of food.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UU7bjn">
Of the 600,000 people worldwide who currently face an immediate threat of starvation, 95 percent of them <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/tiny-gaza-is-home-to-most-of-the-worlds-hungriest-people-df62eeda">live in Gaza</a>, according to the IPC. The situation could reach famine levels in the next six months, the coalition warns.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zOWTA8">
Before the war in Gaza broke out, the territory was already chronically vulnerable to food insecurity because it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/17/crisis-gaza-why-food-water-power-running-out">depended</a> on imports coming through Israeli-controlled crossings for most of its food. Local food production in Gaza, a highly urbanized area built on arid land, has always been limited. Since <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/10/23911661/hamas-israel-war-gaza-palestine-explainer">Hamas</a>’s attacks on October 7, <a href="https://www.vox.com/israel">Israel</a> has instituted a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/29/briefing/gaza-food-crisis.html">blockade</a> of Gaza and restricted the movement of food and other supplies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AeUsxD">
Humanitarian groups <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/17/gaza-aid-starvation-humanitarian-crisis/">contend</a> that the Israeli military campaign has made it impossible to effectively deliver food to Gaza. Aid truck inspections conducted by Israel at Gaza’s border with Egypt are laborious and inefficient, while Gaza’s heavily damaged infrastructure makes it difficult to distribute aid once it does get through the border and much of the region remains off-limits to aid workers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sXHwqZ">
Meanwhile, the recent US and UK airstrikes in Yemen last month have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/jan/16/usuk-airstrikes-force-aid-agencies-to-suspend-operations-in-yemen?mkt_tok=Njg1LUtCTC03NjUAAAGQtkeOTNCH36NBpnfdW8aaL5tyVdudClCKzx0MjXRv1TfshqBKDejFoh2C3_KGJ8igyYCYN-hl-vOcpCgV7Wt8gDaVhrZ-i1IJs82mUwX5GInEj4g">caused</a> humanitarian groups to suspend operations in the country, which was already plagued by some of the highest levels of food insecurity in the world. There are also <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68061876">renewed fears of famine</a> in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, in the wake of yet another outburst of conflict.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EdfpVz">
In Sudan, a major civil war has reignited one of the world’s long-running humanitarian crises. More than 7 million people have been displaced, while aid groups <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/agencies-consider-new-aid-route-into-sudan-humanitarian-crisis-worsens-2024-01-15/?mkt_tok=Njg1LUtCTC03NjUAAAGQsSHq-Gebp-dHrFk74ag5zjKFJVd0BQaOzc3jAV9WPuMLnGQBN4rpy7_PLSI5u4vbsF2Avox1uGum4wLyiz4fORXg_rzP0M5lS9WpyowwzRMeDhc">say</a> their supply trucks have been looted and workers attacked, even as the government makes it difficult to obtain permits for humanitarian workers to move to certain parts of the country. By the end of 2023, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/war-pushes-sudan-towards-catastrophic-famine-like-conditions-2023-12-14/">18 million people</a> were in need of urgent food assistance, the highest levels ever seen during what is supposed to be the plentiful harvest season.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tu7SSj">
Fighting between the Sudanese national government and the anti-government paramilitary Rapid Support Forces is <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/news/famine-fears-stalk-sudan-as-conflict-spreads/">expected to spread</a> to the Gedaref State in the country’s east, a major producer of staple food crops that has so far been unaffected by the war.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3Ka3Om">
“We can’t avoid famine at this point,” said Eric Reeves, an activist and fellow at the Rift Valley Institute who has worked for decades on alleviating hunger in Sudan. “The real question is: How widespread will it be?”
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A child in a refugee camp pushes a wheelbarrow containing several large dead fish." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3pr8EhWCDWOsR360My655qTv7IU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25259801/GettyImages_1820816952.jpg"/> <cite>Luke Dray/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
The renewed conflict in Sudan has forced some people to return to the refugee camps in South Sudan, shown here.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ORXcng">
In 2021, a group of scholars at the London School of Economics’ Conflict Research Programme <a href="https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/110722/1/de_Waal_transactional_politics_and_humanitarian_crisis_crp_policy_brief.pdf">identified</a> two key conditions driving contemporary humanitarian crises: war and the presence of transactional politics in which political corruption and repressive violence are commonplace.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s0OBoV">
Even without the presence of an outright war, authoritarian regimes that adhere to that transactional mode of governance — <a href="https://www.vox.com/north-korea">North Korea</a>, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela being a handful of examples of these “political marketplaces” — tend to have <a href="https://www.globalhungerindex.org/ranking.html">some of the hungriest populations</a>. Their behavior both creates the condition for a humanitarian crisis and makes it more difficult to intervene successfully, by obstructing or commandeering food aid. It is, on a smaller scale, a continuation of the same dynamics that led to starvation under the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PxCnP2">
Fragile states and paramilitary groups tend to have their own reasons for enabling food insecurity to emerge and persist. Famine is a cheap and effective method of warfare and repression. That ultimately limits their incentives to tolerate humanitarian efforts — and therefore makes it harder to alleviate conflict-driven hunger once it arises.
</p>
<h3 id="tdyXdZ">
How the world could fight hunger better
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FA3O4H">
To alleviate conflict-induced hunger, the focus will have to be more on the conflict than on the hunger itself.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QJh60r">
Since its founding in 1998, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has named the use of starvation in interstate conflicts as a war crime. In 2019, using starvation in a civil war was <a href="https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/documentation/media-releases.msg-id-77442.html">added</a> to the ICC’s list of war crimes. (Many countries, however, including the US, have not ratified the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZfJXiB">
In recent years, <a href="https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/alex-de-waal-starvation-crimes/">some leading scholars of hunger and famine</a> have pushed to make it politically and morally untenable to use starvation as a tactic of war or repression. But international standards on hunger have been slow to take shape.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jDdAWx">
That project has made some progress. In 2018, the UN Security Council passed <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2018/sc13354.doc.htm">Resolution 2417</a>, in which the members for the first time uniformly condemned the starvation of civilians and the unlawful obstruction of the delivery of humanitarian aid as methods of warfare, and charged the UN’s leadership with carefully monitoring for the emergence of conflict-induced hunger.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mnhDmP">
“The resolution has not been a game changer, but it has raised the political profile of hunger,” said Michelle Brown, associate director of advocacy at Action Against Hunger.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9u2hyS">
For these laws and resolutions to have teeth, somebody needs to be willing to enforce them. To date, the UN Secretary-General has not used the authority granted by Resolution 2417 to raise a hunger-related issue before the UN’s Security Council, even amid the international uproar over the risk of famine in Gaza. The world is still waiting for the first successful prosecution of a starvation-related crime.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oocBCL">
“You can’t make [starvation] morally toxic without prosecutions,” Murdoch explained. “There needs to be a really clear statement: This type of behavior will be investigated, it will be prosecuted, someone will be held responsible. Otherwise, you’re left languishing in these legal gray zones.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nNeE4v">
Starvation is an inherently challenging crime to prosecute. These crimes are often committed in war zones from which it can be difficult to gather thorough, accurate information. A successful prosecution must also prove intent, a challenge in any criminal proceeding, and especially one carried out amid the fog of war. It is easy to imagine a defense centered on the argument that the defendants in question didn’t know that their policies or actions would lead to people starving.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X92dzP">
Nevertheless, experts say it is conceivable that some of the hunger crises currently in motion, particularly Ukraine and Gaza, could lead to prosecutions. South Africa’s attempt to bring genocide charges against Israel in the International Court of Justice has put <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2024/01/16/can-the-international-court-of-justice-stop-starvation-in-gaza/">hunger in that crisis</a> front and center. Though that case does not technically turn on the question of starvation, observers told me that a prosecution focused on famine might eventually follow.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A2snTm">
“Gaza is the perfect storm, a ready-made prosecution,” Murdoch said. “I hope it happens.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dZ1J6e">
More consistency from the world’s leading democracies would help set stronger international norms. Human Rights Watch and other humanitarian groups have <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/human-rights-abuse-authoritarian-nations-emboldened/">criticized</a> the US and its allies for picking and choosing when to speak out about abuses.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8mJsbA">
Despite the passage of Resolution 2417, the UN can still be ineffectual in combating hunger. In some cases, member states are the ones perpetrating policies that lead to starvation against their own population. Any permanent member of the UN Security Council — which includes the US, <a href="https://www.vox.com/russia">Russia</a>, and China — can veto an action on the basis of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-un-resolution-ceasefire-humanitarian-6d3bfd31d6c25168e828274d96b85cf8#:~:text=UNITED%20NATIONS%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20The,humanitarian%20cease%2Dfire%20in%20Gaza.">their own geopolitical interests</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="51YmEt">
“Until the UN is willing to actually address the political decisions made internally by its members, we’re going to continue to have state-induced famine,” Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, who leads international human rights studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, told me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wla5l7">
In the short term, more welcoming refugee policies would be another valve for relieving hunger. While refugee camps in foreign countries are hardly an ideal scenario for civilians fleeing war, they are an easier and safer place for humanitarian groups to deliver aid.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fahpx4">
In the long run, an international treaty around hunger — similar to longstanding UN conventions regarding <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-against-torture-and-other-cruel-inhuman-or-degrading">torture</a> and <a href="https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/#:~:text=The%20Convention%20on%20the%20Elimination,bill%20of%20rights%20for%20women.">women’s rights</a>, which hold more legal weight than a Security Council resolution — could be the most effective way to compel compliance and lay the groundwork for a successful prosecution in a future famine. Some nations, <a href="https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/27/issue/8">particularly Germany</a>, have also introduced the idea of having universal jurisdiction — meaning the right to prosecute human rights crimes under international law outside their borders. But any such cases will run into thorny questions of sovereignty.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="edjKXY">
Where there’s war, there’s hunger. As the world enters a new era of increased conflict, the need to sharpen our tools in the fight against hunger is as urgent as ever.
</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>Thailand Masters | Treesa-Gayatri pair, Manjunath, Ashmita enter quarterfinals</strong> - Treesa and Gayatri beat Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa; Mithun Manjunath, beating Kidambi Srikanth, and Ashmita Chaliha, beating Chinese Taipei’s Yu Po, also made the next round</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ind vs Eng 2nd Test | Spinner Jack Leach ruled out with knee injury</strong> - Leach’s team mate at Somerset, 20-year-old spinner Shoaib Bashir, is in the frame to make his international debut as a potential replacement.</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 | Liverpool outclass Chelsea to move five points clear</strong> - The 4-1 thrashing was Jurgen Klopp’s 200th win with Liverpool</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>Al Nassr vs Inter Miami | No Ronaldo-Messi reunion as Portuguese star ruled out with injury</strong> - Ronaldo is recovering from a reported calf injury and will not be fit in time to play in the exhibition match between Al-Nassr and Inter Miami</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>Khelo India Games embodiment of PM Modi’s interest in harnessing power of youth: Anurag Thakur</strong> - PM Modi has constantly supported the youth, Union Sports Minister Anurag Singh Thakur said</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>Three more arrested by Telangana CID in fake passports case</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>Karnataka Cabinet approves ₹1,200 crore action plan for white topping in Bengaluru</strong> - Approval was given for ₹208 crore for ensuring drinking water supply in 110 newly added villages to the BBMP about 18 years ago</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>Budget 2024: Spending on rural development increases marginally, but not all schemes benefit | Data</strong> - Allocations as a share of the Budget have decreased in four schemes and increased in two schemes, even while rural development’s overall allocation has increased</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 | What’s the update on taxes? | Interim Budget 2024</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>Mortuary inaugurated at Swarg Vatika in Secunderabad</strong> -</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>EU leaders unlock €50bn support package for Ukraine</strong> - The agreement came earlier than expected, overcoming previous opposition from Hungary’s 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>Dozens arrested at farmers’ protest in Paris</strong> - More than 90 people were arrested, police say, as tensions in a dispute over better conditions for farmers escalated.</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>‘If not Putin, then who?’ - How Russians view looming elections</strong> - Many Russians say they can’t imagine anyone in charge of Russia but incumbent Vladimir Putin.</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>Swedish police destroy object outside Israeli embassy</strong> - Officers say they found a “live” device outside the building in Stockholm, without giving further details.</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>‘God Mum, please leave’ – The struggle to exit town under attack</strong> - Footage from Avdiivka, a town on Ukraine’s front line, shows the pain of leaving home as it is bombed.</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>Biogen dumps dubious Alzheimer’s drug after profit-killing FDA scandal</strong> - The move ends a long saga that “ended up doing a lot of actual damage.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2000435">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Should you flush with toilet lid up or down? Study says it doesn’t matter</strong> - Pardon us while we go stock up on toilet tank disinfectant dispensers. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2000168">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Chinese malware removed from SOHO routers after FBI issues covert commands</strong> - Routers were being used to conceal attacks on critical infrastructure. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2000376">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Apple declares last MacBook Pro with an optical drive obsolete</strong> - The laptop hadn’t been for sale in more than seven years. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2000360">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>ChatGPT’s new @-mentions bring multiple personalities into your AI convo</strong> - Bring different AI roles into the same chatbot conversation history. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2000179">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>Why did the chicken cross the road?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The chicken clucked silently to himself as he wiped the rain water from his eyebrows. It has been raining for hours now, but that was good, he would be harder to follow. He breathed in and put his eye to the glass, staring down the scope, using it to peer through the window of the diner across the street. That’s where the man sat, the farmer that started it all. He raised him from a chick, fed him, gave him a wife and child…. then took it all away for his own gain. But the chicken wasn’t going to let it end like that, oh no. He clucked his final prayer, watched, waited for the rain to fall straight down, a sign of no wind…. and pulled the trigger. Quickly he descended the ladder, leaving the gun behind, chickens didn’t have fingerprints… he sprinted across the road, ducked into a nearby alley, and fled. Never to be seen again.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/kickypie"> /u/kickypie </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1ag58fo/why_did_the_chicken_cross_the_road/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1ag58fo/why_did_the_chicken_cross_the_road/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Iraqi hockey sensation!</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The Detroit Red Wings foreign scout flies to Baghdad to watch a young Iraqi play hockey in the new American sponsored league, and is suitably impressed and arranges for him to come over to the US .<br/> Ken Holland signs him to a one year contract and the kid joins the team for the preseason.<br/> Two weeks later the Wings are down 4-0 to the Blackhawks with only 10 minutes left. Mike Babcock gives the young Iraqi the nod and he goes in. The kid is a sensation - scores 5 goals in 10 minutes and wins the game for the Wings! The fans are delighted, the players and coaches are delighted, and the media love the new star.<br/> When the player comes off the ice he phones his mom to tell her about his first day of NHL hockey. “Hello mom, guess what?” he says in an Iraqi accent. “I played for 10 minutes today, we were 4-0 down, but I scored 5 goals and we won. Everybody loves me, the fans, the media, they all love me.”<br/> “Wonderful,” says his mom, “Let me tell you about my day. Your father got shot in the street and robbed, your sister and I were ambushed, raped and beaten, and your brother has joined a gang of looters, and all while you were having such great time.”<br/> The young Iraqi is very upset. “What can I say mom, but I’m so sorry.”<br/> “Sorry? You’re Sorry? !!” says his mom, “It’s your fault we moved to Detroit in the first place!”
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/dirtybird971"> /u/dirtybird971 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1afr0m2/iraqi_hockey_sensation/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1afr0m2/iraqi_hockey_sensation/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I was driving my date to her house and told her that I was not good with directions; she just laughed at me…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
… So I right her left there
</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/Majorpain2006"> /u/Majorpain2006 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1ag1np6/i_was_driving_my_date_to_her_house_and_told_her/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1ag1np6/i_was_driving_my_date_to_her_house_and_told_her/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why are there so many beautiful woman in Scandinavia?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Because the Vikings left all the ugly fuckers in Scotland.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Comfortable-Car-6762"> /u/Comfortable-Car-6762 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1ag0gaf/why_are_there_so_many_beautiful_woman_in/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1ag0gaf/why_are_there_so_many_beautiful_woman_in/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A cannibal, a spy and a soldier…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
…are at a bar one night in ancient Rome. The soldier is unusually quiet, drinking heavily and fighting back tears.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“What’s got you down?” the spy asks the soldier.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He sighs. “I think my wife is cheating on me. She’s out late at night, avoids me, ignores me, lately she hasn’t come home at all. The signs point to her being unfaithful, and I don’t know what to do.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Geez, that’s a tough one, buddy,” the cannibal says. He takes one last drink. “I have to head out, but keep us posted if you hear anything.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
After the cannibal leaves, the spy turns to the soldier and says, “Listen. Let me follow her for a few days. I’ll see what I can find and will get back to you if it’s anything suspicious.” The soldier thinks it over and agrees to let the spy follow her.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A few days later, the spy finds the soldier drinking in the bar again.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“I’ve got some bad news, my friend. This isn’t even the worst part, but ….your wife WAS cheating after all!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The soldier is shocked. “This can’t get any worse!” He buries his head in his hands. “Who was she cheating with?!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“She was cheating with ….the cannibal! And that’s not even the worst part!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The soldier is shocked again. “The cannibal!” He buries his head in his hands. “This really can’t get any worse!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Oh, but it does. I’m sorry to tell you this but your wife ….is dead! The cannibal killed her!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The soldier lifts up his head and resumes his drinking.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The spy is surprised by this reaction. “Did you hear what I said?? Your wife died, and the cannibal is the killer!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The soldier shrugs. “Eh, it happens. I’m really gladiator.”
</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/ElizaBame"> /u/ElizaBame </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1afm49k/a_cannibal_a_spy_and_a_soldier/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1afm49k/a_cannibal_a_spy_and_a_soldier/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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