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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>SpikeScape: A Tool for Analyzing Structural Diversity in Experimental Structures of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein</strong> -
<div>
In this application note we describe a tool which we developed to help structural biologists who study the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein. There are more than 500 structures of this protein available in the Protein Data Bank. These structures are available in different flavors: wild type spike, different variants, 2P substitutions, structures with bound antibodies, structures with Receptor Binding Domains in closed or open conformation, etc. Understanding differences between these structures could provide insight to how the spike structure changes in different variants or upon interaction with different molecules such as receptors or antibodies. However, inconsistencies among deposited structures, such as different chain or sequence numbering, hamper a straightforward comparison of all structures. The tool described in this note fixes those inconsistencies and calculates the distribution of the requested distance between any two atoms across all SARS-CoV-2 spike structures available in the Protein Data Bank, with the option to filter by various selections. The tool provides a histogram and cumulative frequency of the calculated distribution, as the ability to download the results and corresponding PDB IDs.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.15.516662v1" target="_blank">SpikeScape: A Tool for Analyzing Structural Diversity in Experimental Structures of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Beta-Cyclodextrins as affordable antivirals to treat coronavirus infection</strong> -
<div>
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic made evident that we count with few coronavirus-fighting drugs. Here we aimed to identify a cost-effective antiviral with broad spectrum activity and high safety and tolerability profiles. We began elaborating a list of 116 drugs previously used to treat other pathologies or characterized in pre-clinical studies with potential to treat coronavirus infections. We next employed molecular modelling tools to rank the 44 most promising inhibitors and tested their efficacy as antivirals against a panel of alpha and beta coronavirus, e.g., the HCoV-229E and SARS-CoV-2 viruses. Four drugs, OSW-1, U18666A, hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HbetaCD) and phytol, showed antiviral activity against both HCoV-229E (in MRC5 cells) and SARS-CoV-2 (in Vero E6 cells). The mechanism of action of these compounds was studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and by testing their capacity to inhibit the entry of SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses in ACE2-expressing HEK-293T cells. The entry was inhibited by HbetaCD and U18666A, yet only HbetaCD could inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication in the pulmonary cells Calu-3. With these results and given that cyclodextrins are widely used for drug encapsulation and can be safely administered to humans, we further tested 6 native and modified cyclodextrins, which confirmed {beta}-cyclodextrins as the most potent inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 replication in Calu-3 cells. All accumulated data points to beta-cyclodextrins as promising candidates to be used in the therapeutic treatments for SARS-CoV-2 and possibly other respiratory viruses.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.16.516726v1" target="_blank">Beta-Cyclodextrins as affordable antivirals to treat coronavirus infection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Molecularly distinct memory CD4+ T cells are induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection and mRNA vaccination</strong> -
<div>
Adaptive immune responses are induced by vaccination and infection, yet little is known about how CD4+ T cell memory differs between these two contexts. Notable differences in humoral and cellular immune responses to primary mRNA vaccination were observed and associated with prior COVID-19 history, including in the establishment and recall of Spike-specific CD4+ T cells. It was unclear whether CD4+ T cell memory established by infection or mRNA vaccination as the first exposure to Spike was qualitatively similar. To assess whether the mechanism of initial memory T cell priming affected subsequent responses to Spike protein, 14 people who were receiving a third mRNA vaccination, referenced here as the booster, were stratified based on whether the first exposure to Spike protein was by viral infection or immunization (infection-primed or vaccine-primed). Using multimodal scRNA-seq of activation-induced marker (AIM)-reactive Spike-specific CD4+ T cells, we identified 220 differentially expressed genes between infection- and vaccine-primed patients at the post-booster time point. Infection-primed participants had greater expression of genes related to cytotoxicity and interferon signaling. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) revealed enrichment for Interferon Alpha, Interferon Gamma, and Inflammatory response gene sets in Spike-specific CD4+ T cells from infection-primed individuals, whereas Spike-specific CD4+ T cells from vaccine-primed individuals had strong enrichment for proliferative pathways by GSEA. Finally, SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infection in vaccine-primed participants resulted in subtle changes in the transcriptional landscape of Spike-specific memory CD4+ T cells relative to pre-breakthrough samples but did not recapitulate the transcriptional profile of infection-primed Spike-specific CD4+ T cells. Together, these data suggest that CD4+ T cell memory is durably imprinted by the inflammatory context of SARS-CoV-2 infection, which has implications for personalization of vaccination based on prior infection history.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.15.516351v1" target="_blank">Molecularly distinct memory CD4+ T cells are induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection and mRNA vaccination</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Ethical reporting of research on violence against women and children during COVID-19: Analysis of 75 studies and recommendations for future guidelines</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Changes in research practice during the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates renewed attention to ethical protocols and reporting for data collection on sensitive topics. We systematically searched journal publications from the start of the pandemic to November 2021, identifying 75 studies that collected primary data on violence against women and children. We assess the transparency of ethics reporting and adherence to relevant guidelines against a 14-item checklist of best practices. Studies reported adhering to best practices on 31% of scored items with highest reporting for ethical clearance (87%) and informed consent/assent (84/83%) and lowest reporting for facilitating referrals for minors and soliciting participant feedback (both 0%). Violence studies of primary data collected during COVID-19 report on few ethical standards, obscuring stakeholder ability to enforce a “do no harm” approach and to assess the reliability of findings. We offer recommendations and guidelines to improve future reporting and implementation of ethics within violence studies.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.15.22282363v1" target="_blank">Ethical reporting of research on violence against women and children during COVID-19: Analysis of 75 studies and recommendations for future guidelines</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Why is right-wing media consumption associated with lower compliance with COVID-19 measures?</strong> -
<div>
Exposure to right-wing media has been shown to relate to lower perceived threat from COVID-19, lower compliance with prophylactic measures against it, and higher incidence of infection and death. What features of right-wing media messages account for these effects? In a preregistered cross-sectional study (N = 554) we test a model that differentiates perceived consequences of two CDC recommendations—washing hands and staying home—for basic human values. People who consumed more right-wing media perceived these behaviors as less beneficial for their personal security, for the well-being of close ones, and the well-being of society at large. Perceived consequences of following the CDC recommendations mediated the relationship between media consumption and compliance with recommendations. Implications for public health messaging are discussed.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/5b3cn/" target="_blank">Why is right-wing media consumption associated with lower compliance with COVID-19 measures?</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Comparison of Mental Health Symptoms Prior to and During COVID-19: Evidence from a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of 134 Cohorts</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Objectives: The rapid pace, high volume, and limited quality of mental health evidence that has been generated during COVID-19 poses a barrier to understanding mental health outcomes. We sought to summarize results from studies that compared mental health outcomes during COVID-19 to outcomes assessed prior to COVID-19 in the same cohort in the general population and in other groups for which data have been reported. Design: Living systematic review. Data Sources: MEDLINE (Ovid), PsycINFO (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCO), EMBASE (Ovid), Web of Science Core Collection: Citation Indexes, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, medRxiv (preprints), and Open Science Framework Preprints (preprint server aggregator). Eligibility criteria for selecting studies: For this report, we included studies that compared general mental health, anxiety symptoms, or depression symptoms, assessed January 1, 2020 or later, to the same outcomes collected between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2019. Any population was eligible. We required ≥ 90% of participants pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19 to be the same or the use of statistical methods to address missing data. For population groups with continuous outcomes for at least two studies in an outcome domain, we conducted restricted maximum-likelihood random-effects meta-analyses. Worse COVID-19 mental health outcomes are reported as positive. Risk of bias of included studies was assessed using an adapted version of the Joanna Briggs Institute Checklist for Prevalence Studies. Results: As of April 11, 2022, we had reviewed 94,411 unique titles and abstracts and identified 137 unique eligible studies with data from 134 cohorts. Almost all studies were from high-income (105, 77%) or upper-middle income (28, 20%) countries. Among adult general population studies, we did not find changes in general mental health (standardized mean difference of change [SMDchange = 0.11, 95% CI -0.00 to 0.22) or anxiety symptoms (SMDchange = 0.05, 95% CI -0.04 to 0.13), but depression symptoms worsened minimally (SMDchange = 0.12, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.24). Among women or females, mental health symptoms worsened by minimal to small amounts in general mental health (SMDchange = 0.22, 95% CI 0.08 to 0.35), anxiety symptoms (SMDchange = 0.20, 95% CI 0.12 to 0.29), and depression symptoms (SMDchange = 0.22, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.40). Of 27 other analyses across outcome domains, among subgroups other than women or females, 5 analyses suggested minimal or small amounts of symptom worsening, and 2 suggested minimal or small symptom improvements. No other subgroup experienced statistically significant changes across outcome domains. In the 3 studies with data from March to April 2020 and later in 2020, symptoms either were unchanged from pre-COVID-19 at both time points or increased initially then returned to pre-COVID-19 levels. Heterogeneity measured by the I2 statistic was high (e.g., &gt; 80%) for most analyses, and there was concerning risk of bias in most studies. Conclusions: High risk of bias in many studies and substantial heterogeneity suggest that point estimates should be interpreted cautiously. Nonetheless, there was general consistency across analyses in that most symptom change estimates were close to zero and not statistically significant, and changes that were identified were of minimal to small magnitudes. There were, however, small negative changes for women or females in all domains. It is possible that gaps in data have not allowed identification of changes in some vulnerable groups. Continued updating is needed as evidence accrues. Funding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CMS-171703; MS1-173070; GA4-177758; WI2-179944); McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity Emergency COVID-19 Research Fund (R2-42). Registration: PROSPERO (CRD42020179703); registered on April 17, 2020.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.10.21256920v2" target="_blank">Comparison of Mental Health Symptoms Prior to and During COVID-19: Evidence from a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of 134 Cohorts</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection is time- and variant-dependant, France, January 2021 to August 2022</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Since the emergence of Omicron, reinfections with SARS-CoV-2 have been rising. We estimated the risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection in the widely vaccinated French population, from January to August 2022. At nine weeks post-infection, the relative risk of reinfection, primary infection with pre-Delta variants being the reference group, was estimated at 0.43 [95%CI 0.40-0.47] if the primary infection was attributed to Delta, 0.21 [95%CI 0.19-0.24] with BA.1 and 0.17 [95% CI 0.15-0.18] with BA.2, and rapidly waned overtime. After a BA.1 primary infection the protection was similar against BA.2 or BA.4/5 reinfection.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.09.22282113v2" target="_blank">Risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection is time- and variant-dependant, France, January 2021 to August 2022</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Potential impacts of prolonged absence of influenza virus circulation on subsequent epidemics</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background During the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the circulation of seasonal influenza viruses was unprecedentedly low. This led to concerns that the lack of immune stimulation to influenza viruses combined with waning antibody titres could lead to increased susceptibility to influenza in subsequent seasons, resulting in larger and more severe epidemics. Methods We analyzed historical influenza virus epidemiological data from 2003-2019 to assess the historical frequency of near-absence of seasonal influenza virus circulation and its impact on the size and severity of subsequent epidemics. Additionally, we measured haemagglutination inhibition-based antibody titres against seasonal influenza viruses using longitudinal serum samples from 165 healthy adults, collected before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and estimated how antibody titres against seasonal influenza waned during the first two years of the pandemic. Findings Low country-level prevalence of influenza virus (sub)types over one or more years occurred frequently before the COVID-19 pandemic and had relatively small impacts on subsequent epidemic size and severity. Additionally, antibody titres against seasonal influenza viruses waned negligibly during the first two years of the pandemic. Interpretation The commonly held notion that lulls in influenza virus circulation, as observed during the COVID-19 pandemic, will lead to larger and/or more severe subsequent epidemics might not be fully warranted, and it is likely that post-lull seasons will be similar in size and severity to pre-lull seasons. Funding European Research Council, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, Public Health Service of Amsterdam.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.05.22270494v2" target="_blank">Potential impacts of prolonged absence of influenza virus circulation on subsequent epidemics</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Efficient SARS-CoV-2 detection utilizing chitin-immobilized nanobodies synthesized in Ustilago maydis</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted the global economy and health care systems, illustrating the urgent need for timely and inexpensive responses to a pandemic threat in the form of vaccines and antigen tests. The causative agent of COVID-19 is SARS-CoV-2. The spike protein on the virus surface interacts with the human angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE2) via the so-called receptor binding domain (RBD), facilitating virus entry. The RBD thus represents a prime target for vaccines, therapeutic antibodies, and antigen test systems. Currently, antigen testing is mostly conducted by qualitative flow chromatography or via quantitative ELISA-type assays. The latter mostly utilize materials like protein-adhesive polymers and gold or latex particles. Here we present an alternative ELISA approach using inexpensive materials and permitting quick detection based on components produced in the microbial model Ustilago maydis. In this fungus, heterologous proteins like biopharmaceuticals can be exported by fusion to unconventionally secreted chitinase Cts1. As a unique feature, the carrier chitinase binds to chitin allowing its additional use as a purification or immobilization tag. In this study, we produced different mono- and bivalent SARS-CoV-2 nanobodies directed against the viral RBD as Cts1 fusions and screened their RBD binding affinity in vitro and in vivo. Functional nanobody-Cts1 fusions were immobilized on chitin forming an RBD tethering surface. This provides a solid base for future development of an inexpensive antigen test utilizing unconventionally secreted nanobodies as RBD trap and a matching ubiquitous and biogenic surface for immobilization.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.11.516239v1" target="_blank">Efficient SARS-CoV-2 detection utilizing chitin-immobilized nanobodies synthesized in Ustilago maydis</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Age and gender differences in loneliness during the COVID-19: Analyses on large cross-sectional surveys and emotion diaries</strong> -
<div>
Loneliness level was shown to vary by age and gender. Considering the recent COVID-19 outbreak had more impact on the susceptible groups’ mental health, this study scrutinized the joint influence of age and gender on loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea. We utilized large, government-funded public data that contains self-reported measures and emotion diaries collected from October 2020 to March 2021 (N=4,017, age 20-79, 76% female). Hierarchical regression, t-test, and analysis of variance examined the effect of age as a continuous or categorical variable and gender on loneliness. N-gram frequency analyses and topic modeling helped analyze the differences in expressions used by the age-gender groups in the diaries. Loneliness increased with age (p=0.043), and women were lonelier than men (p&lt;0.001). However, age and gender interacted to predict loneliness (p=0.004), showing that younger women and older men experienced higher levels of loneliness. Age (p&lt;0.001) and age-gender (p=0.030) interaction remained significant even with the presence of demographic and personality risk factors. When parceled by the age groups and gender, gender differences in loneliness level were significant within 20s (95% CI: Female [2.196, 2.264], Male [1.986, 2.133]) and 30s (95% CI: Female [2.390, 2.499], Male [2.071, 2.251]). In emotion diaries, all age-gender groups except women in their 60s-70s frequently expressed anxiety and depression. Women in their 20s talked more about work experiences and difficulties in job search, and women in their 30s wrote more about difficulties in childcare and lack of social connections. Spirituality was one of the major topics mentioned by women in their 50s and 60s-70s, but not by the other groups. The effects of age and gender on loneliness reflect social and psychological challenges in Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important to establish valid interventions targeted at younger women and older men.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/2bdek/" target="_blank">Age and gender differences in loneliness during the COVID-19: Analyses on large cross-sectional surveys and emotion diaries</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Using Genome Sequence Data to Predict SARS-CoV-2 Detection Cycle Threshold Values</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The continuing emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs) presents a serious public health threat, exacerbating the effects of the COVID19 pandemic. Although millions of genomes have been deposited in public archives since the start of the pandemic, predicting SARS-CoV-2 clinical characteristics from the genome sequence remains challenging. In this study, we used a collection of over 29,000 high quality SARS-CoV-2 genomes to build machine learning models for predicting clinical detection cycle threshold (Ct) values, which correspond with viral load. After evaluating several machine learning methods and parameters, our best model was a random forest regressor that used 10-mer oligonucleotides as features and achieved an R2 score of 0.521 +/- 0.010 (95% confidence interval over 5 folds) and an RMSE of 5.7 +/- 0.034, demonstrating the ability of the models to detect the presence of a signal in the genomic data. In an attempt to predict Ct values for newly emerging variants, we predicted Ct values for Omicron variants using models trained on previous variants. We found that approximately 5% of the data in the model needed to be from the new variant in order to learn its Ct values. Finally, to understand how the model is working, we evaluated the top features and found that the model is using a multitude of k-mers from across the genome to make the predictions. However, when we looked at the top k-mers that occurred most frequently across the set of genomes, we observed a clustering of k-mers that span spike protein regions corresponding with key variations that are hallmarks of the VOCs including G339, K417, L452, N501, and P681, indicating that these sites are informative in the model and may impact the Ct values that are observed in clinical samples.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.14.22282297v1" target="_blank">Using Genome Sequence Data to Predict SARS-CoV-2 Detection Cycle Threshold Values</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Detection of infectious SARS-CoV-2 in frozen aerosol samples collected from hospital rooms of patients with COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
We isolated infectious SARS-CoV-2 from aerosol samples collected from hospital rooms of COVID19 patients. Isolated virus successfully replicated in cell cultures 14 months after collection, opening up prospects for retrospective analyses of samples stored during the previous waves of COVID-19.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.14.22282295v1" target="_blank">Detection of infectious SARS-CoV-2 in frozen aerosol samples collected from hospital rooms of patients with COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Assessment of level of depression and associated factors among COVID-19 recovered patients: a cross sectional study</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Objectives: The Corona Virus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has psychological consequences such as increased risk of depression, anxiety, and stress problems, exacerbating human health disparities. This study aimed to analyze depression and its causes in COVID-19-recovered patients in Bangladesh. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted on COVID-19 recovered patients, who attended for follow-up after 14 days to 3 months at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) and Dhaka North City Corporation Hospital (DNCCH), Dhaka, Bangladesh from 1st January to 31st December, 2021. Respondents were face-to-face interviewed with a semi-structured questionnaire after written agreement. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) was used to assess respondents9 depression, and data were analyzed using SPSS version-23, with p &lt; 0.05 indicating statistical significance. Results: A total of 325 COVID-19 recovered patients aged from 15 to 65 years (mean 44.34 ±13.87 years) of age were included in this study, highest 23.1% of them belonged to 46-55 years, and majority (61.5%) of them were male. There were 69.5% of respondents had no signs of depression while 31% of them had with 26.7% being mildly depressed, 2.5% being extremely depressed, and 1.2% being severely depressed. Diabetes mellitus, hospitalization duration, social distancing, the social media post on COVID-19, loss of employment, family damage, and fear of re-infection were significantly associated with depression level of respondents. Conclusion: This study gives us a glimpse into the psychological health of COVID-19 recovered patients, and its findings highlight the imperative of alleviating their psychological anguish in Bangladesh.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.14.22282128v1" target="_blank">Assessment of level of depression and associated factors among COVID-19 recovered patients: a cross sectional study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Probing different paradigms of morphine withdrawal on sleep behavior in male and female C57BL/6J mice</strong> -
<div>
Opioid misuse has dramatically increased over the last few decades resulting in many people suffering from opioid use disorder (OUD). The prevalence of opioid overdose has been driven by the development of new synthetic opioids, increased availability of prescription opioids, and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Coinciding with increases in exposure to opioids, the United States has also observed increases in multiple Narcan (naloxone) administrations as life-saving measures for respiratory depression, and, thus, consequently, naloxone-precipitated withdrawal. Sleep dysregulation is a main symptom of OUD and opioid withdrawal syndrome, and therefore, should be a key facet of animal models of OUD. Here we examine the effect of precipitated and spontaneous morphine withdrawal on sleep behaviors in C57BL/6J mice. We find that morphine administration and withdrawal dysregulate sleep, but not equally across morphine exposure paradigms. Furthermore, many environmental triggers promote relapse to drug-seeking/taking behavior, and the stress of disrupted sleep may fall into that category. We find that sleep deprivation dysregulates sleep in mice that had previous opioid withdrawal experience. Our data suggest that the 3-day precipitated withdrawal paradigm has the most profound effects on opioid-induced sleep dysregulation and further validates the construct of this model for opioid dependence and OUD.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.06.487380v2" target="_blank">Probing different paradigms of morphine withdrawal on sleep behavior in male and female C57BL/6J mice</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Moral decision making in healthcare and medical professions during the COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
With coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, healthcare and medical professions face challenging situations. High number of infected patients, scarce resources, and being vulnerable to the infection are among the reasons that may influence clinicians’ decision making and puts them in a moral situation. Furthermore, they may be carriers of coronavirus, resulting their social interactions to involve moral decision making. The aim of this study was to examine the moral decision making in clinicians during the COVID-19 pandemic and to find its relation to psychological, cognitive, and behavioral correlates. 193 clinicians who worked in hospitals allocated to coronavirus disease patients, participated in our study. We designed an online survey containing 8 dilemmas to test moral decision making in clinicians. Information on clinicians’ behavior, cognition and psychological state during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the degree of respect to social distancing, sources of stress, and dead cases of COVID-19 they confronted with were collected. The relation between these measures and moral decision making was assessed. Based on our results, clinicians’ most important source of stress was the infection of their families. There was a positive correlation between utilitarian responses and clinicians’ stress level, and number of dead cases they confronted with. Moreover, degree of utilitarian behavior was positively correlated to social distancing. Both age and sex contributed to individual differences in respecting social distancing, stress and utilitarian behavior. With increasing stress and encountering more deaths, clinicians tended to decide based on the outcome. Our results have critical implications in implementing policies for healthcare principals.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/5c769/" target="_blank">Moral decision making in healthcare and medical professions during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID-19 Bivalent Booster Megastudy</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: COVID Booster text messages<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Pennsylvania<br/><b>Enrolling by invitation</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study on Utilization, Adherence, and Acceptability of Voluntary Routine COVID-19 Self-testing Among Students, Staff and Health Workers at Two Institutions in Mizoram, India.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pandemic<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Diagnostic Test: COVID-19 Self testing and related messaging<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   PATH;   UNITAID;   Zoram Medical College;   Pacchunga University College;   ALERT India;   Government of Mizoram<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>Using a Community-level Just-in-Time Adaptive Intervention to Address COVID-19 Testing Disparities</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Multi-Level Multi-Component Intervention (MLI);   Behavioral: Community Just-In-Time Adaptive Intervention (Community JITAI)<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   The University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston;   National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)<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>Examining How a Facilitated Self-Sampling Intervention and Testing Navigation Intervention Influences COVID-19 Testing</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Facilitated Self-Sampling Intervention (FSSI);   Behavioral: Testing Navigation Intervention (TNI).;   Behavioral: Control<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   The University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston;   National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)<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>Assessing Performance of the Testing Done Simple Covid 19 Antigen Test</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Diagnostic Test: Testing Done Simple SARS CoV-2 Antigen Test<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Testing Done Simple;   Nao Medical Urgent Care<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 to Evaluate EDP-235 in Non-hospitalized Adults With COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: EDP-235;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The LAVA (Lateral Flow Antigen Validation and Applicability) 2 Study for COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   SARS-CoV-2 Infection<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Diagnostic Test: Innova Lateral Flow Test<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust<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>Q-POC COVID-19 Clinical Evaluation</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Diagnostic Test: RT-PCR Test;   Diagnostic Test: Real-time PCR Test<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   QuantuMDx Group Ltd;   EDP Biotech;   Paragon Rx Clinical;   PathAI;   PRX Research and Development<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>Enhancing Protection Against Influenza and COVID-19 for Pregnant Women and Medically at Risk Children</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Influenza;   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: Nudge<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Adelaide<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>Safety and Efficacy of Intranasal Administration of Avacc 10 Vaccine Against COVID-19 in Healthy Volunteers</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Avacc 10;   Combination Product: Outer Membrane Vesicles (OMV) : OMV alone in vehicle;   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Intravacc B.V.;   Novotech (Australia) Pty Limited<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Trial Evaluate the Immunogenicity and Safety of Recombinant COVID-19 Omicron-Delta Variant Vaccine (CHO Cell)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Omicron-Delta Recombinant Novel Coronavirus Protein Vaccine (CHO cells);   Biological: Recombinant Novel Coronavirus Protein Vaccine (CHO cells)<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biologic Pharmacy Co., Ltd.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID-19 Antibody Responses in Cystic Fibrosis</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Cystic Fibrosis<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: Blood sample<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Hospices Civils de Lyon;   Queen’s University, Belfast<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Phase 1, Randomised, Double-blinded, Placebo-controlled, Dose-escalation Study to Evaluate the Safety and Immunogenicity of RH109 as Booster</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pandemic<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Lyophilized COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine;   Drug: Sodium chloride<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Wuhan Recogen Biotechnology Co., Ltd.;   Shenzhen Rhegen Biotechnology Co., Ltd.;   Wuhan Rhegen Biotechnology Co., Ltd.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Immunogenicity and Safety of ChulaCov19 BNA159 Vaccine as a Booster Dose in Adults</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19, SARS CoV 2 Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: ChulaCov19 BNA159 vaccine (50 mcg);   Biological: Pfizer/BNT vaccine (30 mcg)<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Technovalia, Pty Ltd;   Chulalongkorn University;   BioNet-Asia;   Southern Star Research Pty Ltd.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Message From Local Pharmacy Team</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: COVID Booster text messages<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Pennsylvania<br/><b>Enrolling by invitation</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Repositioning of anti-dengue compounds against SARS-CoV-2 as viral polyprotein processing inhibitor</strong> - A therapy for COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 19) caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) remains elusive due to the lack of an effective antiviral therapeutic molecule. The SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro), which plays a vital role in the viral life cycle, is one of the most studied and validated drug targets. In Several prior studies, numerous possible chemical entities were proposed as potential Mpro inhibitors; however, most failed at various stages of drug…</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 of colchicine in patients with moderate COVID-19: A double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled trial</strong> - CONCLUSION: Colchicine was not found to have a significant beneficial effect on reducing mortality and the need for mechanical ventilation. However, a delayed beneficial effect was observed. Therefore, further studies should be conducted to evaluate the late benefits of colchicine.</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 variant Alpha has a spike-dependent replication advantage over the ancestral B.1 strain in human cells with low ACE2 expression</strong> - Epidemiological data demonstrate that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants of concern (VOCs) Alpha and Delta are more transmissible, infectious, and pathogenic than previous variants. Phenotypic properties of VOC remain understudied. Here, we provide an extensive functional study of VOC Alpha replication and cell entry phenotypes assisted by reverse genetics, mutational mapping of spike in lentiviral pseudotypes, viral and cellular gene expression studies, 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>Contribution of Chinese herbal medicine in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials</strong> - Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a global epidemic, and there is no specific treatment for anti-COVID-19 drugs. However, treatment of COVID-19 using Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been widely practiced in China. PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, CNKI, Wanfang and VIP databases were searched to evaluate the efficacy and safety of CHM in the treatment of COVID-19. Twenty-six studies were included in this meta-analysis. The included cases were all patients diagnosed with COVID-19…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluation of the anti-diabetic drug sitagliptin as a novel attenuate to SARS-CoV-2 evidence-based in silico: molecular docking and molecular dynamics</strong> - The current outbreak of COVID-19 cases worldwide has been responsible for a significant number of deaths, especially in hospitalized patients suffering from comorbidities, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension. The disease not only has prompted an interest in the pathophysiology, but also it has propelled a massive race to find new anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs. In this scenario, known drugs commonly used to treat other diseases have been suggested as alternative or complementary therapeutics. Herein…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong><em>In Silico</em> and <em>In Vitro</em> studies of taiwan chingguan yihau (NRICM101) on TNF-α/IL-1β-induced human lung cells</strong> - COVID-19 pandemic has been a global outbreak of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 virus) since 2019. Taiwan Chingguan Yihau (NRICM101) is the first traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) classic herbal formula and is widely used for COVID-19 patients in Taiwan and more than 50 nations. This study is to investigate in silico target fishing for the components of NRICM101 and to explore whether NRICM101 inhibits cytokines-induced normal human lung cell injury in vitro. Our results showed that network prediction…</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>Comparison of RT-qPCR and RT-dPCR Platforms for the Trace Detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Wastewater</strong> - We compared reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and RT digital PCR (RT-dPCR) platforms for the trace detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in low-prevalence COVID-19 locations in Queensland, Australia, using CDC N1 and CDC N2 assays. The assay limit of detection (ALOD), PCR inhibition rates, and performance characteristics of each assay, along with the positivity rates with the RT-qPCR and RT-dPCR platforms, were evaluated by seeding known concentrations of exogenous…</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>GLUCOSE AND MANNOSE ANALOGS INHIBIT KSHV REPLICATION BY BLOCKING N-GLYCOSYLATION AND INDUCING THE UNFOLDED PROTEIN RESPONSE</strong> - Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is the etiological agent for Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), an HIV/AIDS-associated malignancy. Effective treatments against KS remain to be developed. The sugar analog 2-deoxy-d-glucose (2-DG) is an anti-cancer agent that is well-tolerated and safe in patients and was recently demonstrated to be a potent antiviral, including KSHV and SARS-Cov-2. Because 2-DG inhibits glycolysis and N-glycosylation, identifying its molecular targets is challenging. Here we…</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>Differential upregulation of AU-rich element-containing mRNAs in COVID-19</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Compared to the rest of the transcriptome, ARE-containing mRNAs are preferentially upregulated in response to viral infections at a global level. In the context of COVID-19, they are most upregulated in mild disease. Due to their large number, their levels measured by RNA-seq may provide a reliable indication of COVID-19 severity.</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 Spike protein suppresses CTL-mediated killing by inhibiting immune synapse assembly</strong> - CTL-mediated killing of virally infected or malignant cells is orchestrated at the immune synapse (IS). We hypothesized that SARS-CoV-2 may target lytic IS assembly to escape elimination. We show that human CD8+ T cells upregulate the expression of ACE2, the Spike receptor, during differentiation to CTLs. CTL preincubation with the Wuhan or Omicron Spike variants inhibits IS assembly and function, as shown by defective synaptic accumulation of TCRs and tyrosine phosphoproteins as well as…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Charge-Dependent Signal Changes for Label-Free Electrochemiluminescence Immunoassays</strong> - Label-free electrochemiluminescence (ECL) immunoassays (lf-ECLIA), based on biomarker-induced ECL signal changes, have attracted increasing attention due to the simple, rapid, and low-cost detection of biomarkers without secondary antibodies and complicated labeling procedures. However, the interaction rule and mechanism between analytical interfaces and biomarkers have rarely been explored. Herein, the interactions between biomarkers and analytical interfaces constructed by assembly of a…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rational Development of Hypervalent Glycan Shield-Binding Nanoparticles with Broad-Spectrum Inhibition against Fatal Viruses Including SARS-CoV-2 Variants</strong> - Infectious virus diseases, particularly coronavirus disease 2019, have posed a severe threat to public health, whereas the developed therapeutic and prophylactic strategies are seriously challenged by viral evolution and mutation. Therefore, broad-spectrum inhibitors of viruses are highly demanded. Herein, an unprecedented antiviral strategy is reported, targeting the viral glycan shields with hypervalent mannose-binding nanoparticles. The nanoparticles exhibit a unique double-punch mechanism,…</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>DNA virus oncoprotein HPV18 E7 selectively antagonizes cGAS-STING-triggered innate immune activation</strong> - Cellular infections by DNA viruses trigger innate immune responses mediated by DNA sensors. The cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS)-stimulator of interferon gene (STING) signaling pathway has been identified as a DNA-sensing pathway that activates interferons in response to viral infection and, thus, mediates host defense against viruses. Previous studies have identified oncogenes E7 and E1A of the DNA tumor viruses, human papillomavirus 18 (HPV18) and adenovirus, respectively, as inhibitors of 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>Favipiravir Efficacy And Safety For The Treatment Of Severe Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Retrospective Study</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: In this study, Favipiravir showed better therapeutic responses in patients with severe COVID-19 infection, in terms of average duration of stay in the intensive care unit and was well tolerated in the younger age, but showed no mortality benefit. However, elevated levels of inflammatory markers, including increased ALT, AST, BUN, bilirubin, and creatinine, needs to be carefully examined.</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>Characteristics and source apportionment of PM<sub>2.5</sub> under the dual influence of the Spring Festival and the COVID-19 pandemic in Yuncheng city</strong> - Based on the online and membrane sampling data of Yuncheng from January 1st to February 12th, 2020, the formation mechanism of haze under the dual influence of Spring Festival and COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease) was analyzed. Atmospheric capacity, chemical composition, secondary transformation, source apportionment, backward trajectory, pollution space and enterprise distribution were studied. Low wind speed, high humidity and small atmospheric capacity inhibited the diffusion of air pollutants….</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The End of Donald Trump?</strong> - Murdoch may have pulled the plug on him for 2024, but it’s not clear yet if the rest of the G.O.P. will follow. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/the-end-of-trump-presidential-campaign-announcement-2024">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Catherine Cortez Masto Won Nevada and Secured Democratic Control of the Senate</strong> - She positioned herself as a champion of working-class voters, courting organized labor and the Latino community. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/how-catherine-cortez-masto-won-nevada-and-secured-democratic-control-of-the-senate">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Enduring Power of Trumpism</strong> - No matter what becomes of Donald Trump, the forces of intolerance, racism, and belligerence he harnessed in American politics will persist. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-enduring-power-of-trumpism">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Precarious Future of Sanibel Island</strong> - After Hurricane Ian, should the government help people rebuild, or help them leave? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-south/the-precarious-future-of-sanibel-island">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>John Mearsheimer on Putin’s Ambitions After Nine Months of War</strong> - The realist political scientist explains why Russia’s move to annex four Ukrainian provinces isn’t imperialism. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-ambitions-after-nine-months-of-war">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Silicon Valley layoffs aren’t just a cost-cutting measure. They’re a culture reset.</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="The sign in front of Meta headquarters in California" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mmbbscIJPzgR_ewlEN1vd4cQkQE=/273x0:2846x1930/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71639736/GettyImages_1244782922.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
As the economy worsens and inflation rises, investors are looking for safer bets, and tech companies are coming back to Earth. | Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Why Big Tech’s glory days are coming to a close.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QSl4h3">
A wave of significant layoffs is crashing across Silicon Valley.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="T5pvrV">
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg cut 11,000 employees, or 13 percent of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-parent-meta-to-cut-11-000-jobs-11667992427">Facebook</a>. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-cut-10-000-employees-from-corporate-ranks-11668617313?mod=rss_Technology">Amazon</a> has confirmed plans to slash as many as 10,000 corporate and tech jobs. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/03/tech/lyft-layoffs">Lyft</a>. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/02/robinhood-23-layoff-vlad-tenev-responsibility-hiring/">Robinhood</a>. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/03/stripe-plans-to-lay-off-14percent-of-workers.html">Stripe</a>. <a href="https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/netflix-layoffs-fired-jobs-lost-1235301553/">Netflix</a>. <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/coinbase-is-cutting-more-jobs">Coinbase</a>. They’re all downsizing. And they’re not just axing jobs — they’re also doing away with some of the perks that have become synonymous with working in tech.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dSc5Qm">
Each company has its own, unique problems driving cost-cutting measures. But there are also a couple of macro reasons for the contractions. First, tech companies were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/technology/big-tech-pandemic.html">pandemic winners</a>. When consumers were stuck at home on Zoom meetings, Peloton rides, and watching Netflix, tech companies’ stock went up. They got huge infusions of cash and used it to expand — a lot, and sometimes in <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/meta-metaverse-horizon-worlds-zuckerberg-facebook-internal-documents-11665778961">increasingly risky verticals</a>. But as the economy worsens and inflation rises, while pandemic restrictions ease, investors are looking for safer bets, and tech companies are <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/10/29/23429085/big-tech-boom-over-wall-street-stock-meta-amazon-google-alphabet-apple">coming back to Earth</a>. Hence the belt-tightening.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QwCw5J">
The other macro reason for cost-cutting, as Recode’s Peter Kafka argues on <a href="https://www.vox.com/today-explained"><em>Today, Explained</em></a>, is that the biggest tech companies are now mature. In other words, they can’t provide investors the same kind of massive growth they could in the boom times of the late 2000s and 2010s. And that will have all kinds of ramifications for players in the industry.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y8HULF">
Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to<em> Today, Explained</em> wherever you get podcasts, including <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/today-explained/id1346207297">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYXJ0MTkuY29tL3RvZGF5LWV4cGxhaW5lZA==">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3pXx5SXzXwJxnf4A5pWN2A">Spotify</a>, and <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/today-explained">Stitcher</a>.
</p>
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<h4 id="7RXNlF">
Noel King
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vdfcUZ">
What do cost-cutting measures look like at this point?
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Peter Kafka
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These are cost-cutting measures, but if you talk to people in tech, they’re sort of emotional, cultural resets as well. Google really kicked this off many years ago, saying, “We’re making so much money that we can afford to do this. We’re going to hire all the best talent. We’re going to keep them here by paying them a lot, but also through these outrageous perks: Not just free food but multiple cafeterias at every one of our offices where you can gorge yourself all day. Really elaborate gyms and shuttle buses to take you from your house down to our campus.”
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And what you started to see last spring was companies like Facebook and Google saying, “We’re going to tap the brakes on this stuff, too.” Facebook last spring said, “You can still have free food if you stay here and work late into the evening, but we’re not going to give it to you quite so early.” So you really do have to sort of stick around at work. And as petty a thing as, “We’re going to give you smaller to-go boxes so you can’t take the steak we’re giving you and go feed your family with it.” They’re saying, “We don’t want you to think of Facebook that way anymore.” It’s going to be closer to what normal working conditions for lots of people around the US, at least, are used to.
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<h4 id="BX4gv2">
Noel King
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VuzKNY">
How much of an existential shift in tech do you think this time period is?
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Peter Kafka
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I think it’s a pretty big shift. I think most people who are working in tech have only been there during boom times. The last real deflation in tech was all the way back in 2000, 2001. There’s almost no one working in tech now who was around for that.<em> </em>So if you’ve been working in tech, you’ve only known things going up and to the right. You got paid a lot. There were always companies who wanted to hire you away from the company you were at, so you got paid even more. You knew that you could leave Facebook or Google and go to a startup, and if that startup didn’t work, maybe it would get bought by Facebook or Google.
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And all of that comes to a record-scratch stop this year. People say, “Oh, I can’t just walk out. I can’t just leave Facebook or Google and go to a crypto or Web3 startup and make even more money. I might just actually have to sort of do the job that I have right now and be content with that.” And that’s a big cultural reset.
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Noel King
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Peter, you argue that the fundamental problem underlying a lot of these cuts is one that we love talking about on <em>Today, Explained</em>: the problem is growth — or lack thereof.
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<h4 id="FA3hfD">
Peter Kafka
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Yes. There’s a bigger story that goes back a couple of decades. These tech companies, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple all had crazy, crazy, crazy growth. They were selling tons of ads. They were selling tons of iPhones. They reflected a big change in the way the world used technology. They were at the front of that. They got rewarded for that.
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But those companies aren’t growing at the same rate anymore. Many of them are pretty old now — or their main product is pretty old. The iPhone is 15 years old. Google’s main search ad business is 20 years old. YouTube is 15 years old, more or less. A lot of these companies and products are still very big and very profitable, but they’re not going to grow like gangbusters anymore. It’s hard to extract the rapid revenue and profit gains these companies had for the last couple of decades. And so if you’re Wall Street and you’re looking for growth, it’s harder to find that in Big Tech these days. And Big Tech is less dynamic than it used to be. These Big Tech companies were disruptors, and now they’re kind of the big, established giants. And from a Wall Street perspective, that is less appealing.
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<h4 id="n5LvRy">
Noel King
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Do these companies have to grow?
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Peter Kafka
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You can definitely do it. It helps if you own your own company, if you don’t owe anyone money, if you don’t have shareholders looking for a return, but you can definitely do it. And you can even get away with not growing that much if you’re a certain kind of company that has told investors, “We’re going to grow a couple percent each year, but we’re not going to grow like gangbusters.” That’s a pretty rational way to live life and to run a business. Wall Street, though, often says “That’s fine, but what we want are big returns. We want to make more money, so we want massive growth and we want you to promise us massive growth.” That’s what a lot of these tech companies were delivering on for a couple of decades. And now it’s harder for them to do it.
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<h4 id="2gIakN">
Noel King
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And are the tech companies being honest with investors? Have they gone to them and said, “Look, guys and gals. We’re not going to grow quite as much as we used to.”
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<h4 id="AyGzYM">
Peter Kafka
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Yes and no. They have to report their numbers publicly. But if they say, “Look, we’re essentially going to stop growing, period,” or, “We’re only going to grow a little bit for a long time,” that’s game over. Wall Street doesn’t want to hear that. Or Wall Street will say, “That’s fine. But you’re now worth 70 percent less than what you used to be because we want to get that growth somewhere.” So you find lots of companies saying, “All right, things are slowing now, but trust us, X number of years from now, this magic bean is going to sprout, and we’re going to have a new VR headset. We’re going to have a new metaverse. We’re going to grow in markets that don’t exist yet. Trust us, we’re going to get there.” Netflix is going through a version of this where they’re saying, “Yeah, it turns out maybe streaming isn’t quite as big as we thought it was, but we’re also in gaming. That sounds good, right?”
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<h4 id="4JI7Qp">
Noel King
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What does all of this mean for the founders? They’re old, too, now. What happens to them?
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<h4 id="aozLbF">
Peter Kafka
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One thing that I think is pretty telling is almost all of the men — and they’re all men — who started these Big Tech companies and ran them: They’re not there anymore. There’s different stories in every case — Steve Jobs is dead — but a lot of these guys said, “We don’t want to run these companies anymore.” Amazon, Google, Microsoft all said, “We’re going to bring in professional managers and say, you go for it. We’re going to do other stuff.” We’re going to go buy the Washington Post. We’re going to go, in Bill Gates’ case, try to vaccinate the world. We’re going to do other stuff because frankly, it’s more interesting to do other stuff than to run these big companies. Mark Zuckerberg is the one big exception.
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<h4 id="g89KbF">
Noel King
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Does all of this shakiness mean that the Big Tech companies have less power than they used to?
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Peter Kafka
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I don’t know that they have less power, frankly. They are much less valuable, but they’re still the most valuable companies in the world. So comparatively, they’re still the big dogs. I think it’s going to be harder for them to get the best and brightest, the most ambitious people, because those people will look around and say, “We as employees, we want to go to places where there’s a lot of growth. That’s fun for us personally. It’s intriguing. It’s also — there’s a lot of financial upside for us. So maybe we’re not going to go work at Facebook or Google or Amazon or Apple. We’ll go do something else instead.”
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Noel King
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I hear you saying there’s a potential upside here, like a broader upside.
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Peter Kafka
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Yeah. I don’t want to be pollyannaish about this because people are losing jobs. And people are going to have a harder time paying rent or mortgages or feeding their families. But it’s part real and part fable of Silicon Valley to have this creative destruction where old things get taken down. New, cool things get built in their place. It’s part of the fable and myth of Silicon Valley that has a great deal of truth to it as well. And so there’s lots of folks saying, “All right, we’re going to go make something new. By the way, we made a bunch of money in the last couple of years, the last 10 years. We can afford to not be working at a Big Tech company for a while. Let’s go cast around for a new idea.”
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<li><strong>FDA approval puts lab-grown meat one step closer to your dinner plate</strong> -
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<img alt="A knife and fork cutting a piece of lab-grown chicken meat on a dinner plate with greens and bruschetta." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/pvnl5yGuaEHw9GRSxvAx8kwe7yQ=/0x0:3000x2250/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71639680/AP19182837225322.0.jpg"/>
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UPSIDE Foods’ cultivated chicken made from growing animal cells. | Terry Chea/AP Photo
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The FDA has given a California startup approval to sell its lab-grown “cultivated” chicken. Now the USDA has to weigh in.
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On Wednesday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) <a href="https://www.fda.gov/food/cfsan-constituent-updates/fda-completes-first-pre-market-consultation-human-food-made-using-animal-cell-culture-technology">gave approval</a> to Upside Foods, a startup based in the San Francisco area, to sell its lab-grown, or “cultivated,” chicken. The product — which is biologically indistinguishable from chicken meat taken from a slaughtered bird — is made by growing animal cells in bioreactors, which are fed a mix of nutrients to develop into fat and muscle tissue. Though the company still needs USDA approval before it can sell to consumers, it’s a major step forward in the race to what could be an ethically and environmentally superior form of meat.
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“We evaluated the information Upside Foods submitted to the agency and have no further questions at this time about the firm’s safety conclusion,” the FDA announced in a <a href="https://www.fda.gov/food/cfsan-constituent-updates/fda-completes-first-pre-market-consultation-human-food-made-using-animal-cell-culture-technology">statement</a> Wednesday. “The firm will use animal cell culture technology to take living cells from chickens and grow the cells in a controlled environment to make the cultured animal cell food.”
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In a press release, Upside Foods said it will now work with the USDA to finalize the approval process before it can finally be sold to consumers. If granted USDA approval, their chicken will likely first be sold in small quantities at Atelier Crenn, a restaurant run by Michelin-starred chef Dominique Crenn, who <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/upside-foods-partners-with-three-michelin-star-chef-dominique-crenn-301358764.html">announced</a> a partnership with Upside Foods late last year.
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According to <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lab-grown-meat-approval">Wired</a>, Upside’s cultivated chicken has been approved through the FDA’s “generally recognized as safe” process, or GRAS, in which the FDA reviews a food company’s production process and final product and gives it a “no further questions” <a href="https://www.fda.gov/media/163260/download">letter</a> if it’s deemed safe to consume.
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“Today we are one step closer to your dining tables as Upside Foods becomes the first company in the world to receive the US FDA green light — that means the FDA has evaluated our production process and accepts our conclusion that our cultivated chicken is safe to eat,” Upside <a href="https://upsidefoods.com/">wrote on its website</a>.
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In late 2020, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/12/2/22125518/lab-grown-chicken-meat-singapore-bioreactor-approve">Singapore</a> became the first country to approve the sale of cultivated meat, a chicken product from the US-based startup Eat Just, which has been sold at a <a href="https://gfi.org/blog/rational-optimism-for-cultivated-meat/">loss</a> in small quantities at a high-end restaurant, a hotel, and through a food delivery service in the Southeast Asian city-state.
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The taste of cultivated meat
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Earlier this year, I had an opportunity to taste Upside’s cultivated chicken, and a few of its other products, at the company’s Emeryville, California, production facility outside San Francisco. I’ve been vegan for 15 years, but it reminded me of the poultry of my youth — gamy and crispy. Upside Foods’ production facility can produce around <a href="https://www.fooddive.com/news/upside-foods-cultivated-cell-based-meat-plant-epic/609182/">50,000 pounds</a> of cultivated meat a year, and the startup plans to eventually expand to produce 400,000 pounds of meat a year.
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The novel meat goes by many names: lab-grown, cultivated, cell-based, and cell-cultured, to list just a few. For years, the “lab-grown” descriptor was accurate, given that efforts hadn’t gone much further than the lab. Now, some of the <a href="https://gfi.org/resource/cultivated-meat-eggs-and-dairy-state-of-the-industry-report/">100 startups</a> around the world working to get it on your dinner plate are moving out of the lab and into small production facilities as they gear up for regulatory approval. But their offerings are wholly distinct from the vast array of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/5/28/18626859/meatless-meat-explained-vegan-impossible-burger">plant-based meat products</a> already on the market, like those from Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, which are made with plant ingredients like soy, wheat, peas, beans, starches, and oil.
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Cultivated meat, on the other hand, is real meat, but made without slaughtering or harming any animals. Startups take a biopsy of a living animal, a minimally invasive procedure, and create cell lines to avoid the need for continual biopsies. The cells are then grown in bioreactors — large stainless steel tanks — meant to mimic the inside of an animal, meaning the cells are kept at a certain temperature and fed a mix of nutrients, like amino acids, sugars, salt, and proteins, to help them proliferate and develop into fat or muscle tissue.
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The FDA approval is the culmination of seven years of R&amp;D for Upside Foods, formerly known as Memphis Meats, which has attracted more than $600 million in investments, including from Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and the meat giant Cargill. And the approval comes almost a decade after the cultivated meat field held its unofficial kickoff in London, when Dutch scientist Mark Post, a pioneer in the industry who co-founded the startup Mosa Meat, debuted a $325,000 cultivated hamburger in 2013.
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Since then, cultivated meat companies have sprouted up around the world, concentrated in the US, Europe, Israel, and Singapore, armed with <a href="https://gfi.org/press/record-5-billion-invested-in-alt-proteins-in-2021/">billions</a> in venture capital funding.
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Designing the meat of the future
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Despite the pending US regulatory approval and enormous R&amp;D war chest, you won’t find slaughter-free meat on grocery store shelves or fast food menus anytime soon; it’s still highly expensive to produce. Since the $325,000 burger in 2013, many startups have claimed they’ve been able to make it at a fraction of that cost, with <a href="https://goodseedventures.com/cultivated-meat-production-costs-past-present-future-2/">estimates</a> ranging from the tens of thousands of dollars per pound in the late 2010s down to thousands or hundreds of dollars per pound in the last few years.
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Cultivated meat has long been promoted by its boosters as a technology that, if affordably produced at scale, could reduce our dependence on conventional animal agriculture and its multitude of social costs: <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22905381/meat-dairy-eggs-climate-change-emissions-rewilding">environmental degradation</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21437054/chickens-factory-farming-animal-cruelty-welfare">animal cruelty</a>, and looming public health threats such as <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/10/14/21364965/antibiotics-factory-farms-bacterial-infections">antibiotic resistance</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/22/21228158/coronavirus-pandemic-risk-factory-farming-meat">zoonotic risk</a>.
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But as the hype around cell-cultured meat has been building over the last decade, so too has the skepticism. <a href="https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/">Some experts</a> say startups will never be able to produce the stuff in large-enough quantities and at a low-enough price to ever displace conventional meat production. It’s a question of economic, manufacturing, and biological constraints.
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Even some startups making cultivated meat are skeptical about the possibility of making 100 percent cultivated meat efficiently enough to compete with slaughtered meat on price, and are going the route of making <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23378912/meat-animals-beef-cultivated-in-vitro-food-plant-based-animal-welfare-impossible-burger">“hybrid meat”</a> products — that is, products mostly made from plants, with enough cultivated fat or muscle tissue sprinkled in to make it taste meatier than your average veggie burger.
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Today’s announcement brings cultivated meat startups a step closer to testing the viability of their technology — and the prescience of their skeptics.
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<li><strong>Why America can’t seem to quit Saudi Arabia</strong> -
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<img alt="A graphic showing President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/AzRNW6gL4V9Jti6g59fDi4dA7As=/139x0:2362x1667/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71639568/Biden_MBS_v2.0.jpg"/>
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Dion Lee/Vox
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Biden wants to reevaluate Saudi Arabia policy. Here are four questions to guide the review.
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President Joe Biden wants a re-evaluation of the United States’s policy toward Saudi Arabia.
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In early October, the kingdom announced that, together with the OPEC+, it would <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2022/10/7/23391575/opec-oil-prices-biden-naive-saudi-arabia">cut oil production</a>, effectively raising gas prices and siding with Russia’s best interests. After almost two years of navigating the difficult relationship with the oil-rich autocracy, it was the event that pushed Biden to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/11/biden-saudi-arabia-oil/">say</a>, “There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done, with Russia.”
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Biden “wants to be able to reevaluate in a methodical, strategic, effective way,” <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2022/10/12/on-the-record-press-call-by-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-previewing-the-biden-harris-administrations-national-security-strategy/">clarified</a> national security adviser Jake Sullivan, “rooted in his fundamental interest in making sure that the relationship the United States has with Saudi Arabia serves the American people effectively.” Sullivan in essence suggested that things so far had not been going well.
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It marks the third time since taking office that Biden has re-evaluated Saudi policy. On the campaign, Biden <a href="https://www.vox.com/22881937/biden-saudi-arabia-mbs-khashoggi-yemen-human-rights">promised a harder line</a>. He lambasted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, or MBS, for his role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Once in the White House, Biden broke with Trump by releasing part of the intelligence report, sanctioning some Saudis involved in the killing, and informally pledging not to meet MBS, as part of a re-evaluation.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h1NaJk">
But as the war on Ukraine changed geopolitical considerations, with high gas prices exacerbating inflationary woes, came the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/6/21/23172734/biden-trip-saudi-arabia-foreign-policy-tension-oil-human-rights">second re-assessment</a>. In spring 2022, the White House announced a surprising turnaround: Biden would <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/7/19/23220600/biden-middle-east-policy-human-rights">travel to Saudi Arabia</a> and, at last, meet MBS face-to-face. “It’s a relationship that is now on steady footing,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price <a href="https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnr/date/2022-06-07/segment/22">said</a> in June.
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Now that the Biden administration re-evaluates its approach a third time, will it come to a new conclusion? It will be tough to change much. The US, after all, relies on the kingdom as a major oil producer and economic power with important shipping lanes, a close partner in countering Iran and terrorist organizations, and a <a href="https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/middle-eastnorth-africa/saudi-arabia">significant trading partner</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/veterans-us-foreign-jobs-saudi-arabia/">number-one purchaser of US weapons</a>. Those perceived shared interests, limited leverage over Saudi Arabia, and the proclivities of Biden’s inner circle weigh in favor of the status quo.
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The Biden administration’s call for a re-evaluation may be more of a pause button than a substantive policy review. “Everyone is sort of taking a deep breath,” a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to speak with the press, told me. “The fact that nothing happened immediately is a sign that there’s some second thoughts.” (The White House declined to provide an official to interview or detail the status of the review.)
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I asked a dozen former senior officials, several congressional offices, and Saudi and Arab activists what’s possible. The consensus is that major policy change is unlikely. But the Biden administration could establish guardrails to prohibit future escalatory violence from the crown prince and to save political face after the president’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/7/19/23220600/biden-middle-east-policy-human-rights">embarrassing trip to Saudi Arabia</a>. And if the US doesn’t do that, activists worry that MBS will emerge with more authoritarian tendencies at home and further license to take brazen actions abroad, all in contradiction of US interests and values.
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<h3 id="Lwza0O">
<ol type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">What are the interests the US shares with Saudi Arabia?
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JmAn4o">
The first question policymakers ought to ask: Has the world changed enough that the US and Saudi Arabia’s interests have diverged?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="INXMRf">
Since FDR, the US has found economic and regional stability from the kingdom — which is the world’s second-biggest oil producer, home of Islam’s two largest mosques, maritime neighbor to much of the world’s trade, and perceived partner on counterterrorism. The kingdom, meanwhile, benefits from the backing of the world’s largest military.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ibQjID">
Now that MBS has taken Saudi Arabia in directions that often strain that partnership — the most recent one being the OPEC+ decision — the underlying sense in the Biden administration that the kingdom is a partner that can’t be let go hasn’t changed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OCy2sv">
In recent years, the interests of Israel, America’s closest Middle East partner, and Saudi Arabia have grown closer, though the two countries do not have formal diplomatic relations. Israel and Saudi Arabia’s alignment over anti-Iranian sentiment continues to bring them closer. The Trump administration helped Israel make diplomatic deals with its <a href="https://prospect.org/world/kushner-defines-america-interests-at-expense-human-rights/">autocratic neighbors</a> the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Bahrain, which has contributed to a hope among certain US policymakers that Saudi Arabia and Israel could forge an accord.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="etqSFm">
The Biden administration still sees Saudi Arabia as a partner as US global strategy is refracted through the lens of competition with Russia and with China. MBS has recently met with the leaders of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/05/putin-mohammed-bin-salman-russia-saudi-arabia-deepen-ties">each</a> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/16/xi-jinping-saudi-arabia-trip-middle-east-influence-00052023">country</a>, deepening relationships that <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/saudi-arabia/how-saudi-arabia-sees-world">benefit Saudi Arabia’s export market for energy</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="w4mcl2">
A key question is whether it’s possible to work with MBS to fulfill shared goals. Many in the media, including the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-arab-spring.html">painted</a> MBS as a reformer in 2017 as the young prince jetted through Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and New York in what in hindsight looks like an influence operation. But now many analysts call MBS <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/6/21/23172734/biden-trip-saudi-arabia-foreign-policy-tension-oil-human-rights">a rogue leader willing to break convention</a> to achieve whatever he wants, even by violent and extralegal means. Others who have met him see the 37-year-old crown prince as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/04/world/middleeast/mckinsey-bcg-booz-allen-saudi-khashoggi.html">McKinsey administrator</a>, focused on data-driven solutions and project management. Some former officials I spoke with said it doesn’t matter who MBS is since the US has no choice over who is Saudi’s leader.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MH8w52">
Many of the interests the two countries hold in common are now obscured by the way that Saudi Arabia played US domestic politics in the Trump years — and how Saudi Arabia has since invested in the financial endeavors of former <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/business/jared-kushner-steven-mnuchin-gulf-investments.html">Trump officials Jared Kushner and Steven Mnuchin</a>. The Saudis have misplayed how polarized America has become under Trump. “They glommed on to Trump, and Trump glommed on to them,” F. Gregory Gause III, an international affairs professor at Texas A&amp;M University, told me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3avtyc">
Ben Rhodes, who served as Obama’s deputy national security adviser, explained that the shared interests are nonexistent at this point and that MBS is actively working against the US by partnering with Russia and China. “The reality is that MBS has not moved into the autocratic camps because of something the US did. It’s because that’s where he’s comfortable, and that’s what the reassessment has to take into account,” he told me. “I don’t think there’s anything the US can do to change how MBS is, and Washington has been slow to recognize who he is.”
</p>
<h3 id="uWxnPB">
<ol start="2" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">What are the points of leverage?
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JKxyMq">
If under Mohammed bin Salman, this is going to be a transactional relationship, then what things does the Biden administration want and what is it prepared to do to achieve them?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A5I5JP">
“There are so many things that we can do together,” Robert Jordan, who served as the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 2002 to 2003, told me. “At the same time, we can also make it clear that there are guardrails, and there are norms, and that that kind of cooperation will be injured by reckless behavior on the part of the Saudis.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cyG4Pk">
US policymakers then are probably debating how to send a strong message that there will be repercussions for MBS’s moves that affect the US. It was the issue of oil production, not human rights, that pushed the Biden administration to consider how to readjust the relationship. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken <a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-peruvian-foreign-minister-cesar-landa-at-a-joint-press-availability/">put it</a> last month, “We will keep all of those interests in mind and consult closely with all of the relevant stakeholders as we decide on any steps going forward.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1rRSwQ">
Congress has the power to hold or suspend arms sales. Saudi Arabia has been the US’s <a href="https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/fs_2203_at_2021.pdf">biggest weapons buyer</a> for <a href="https://www.cato.org/study/2021-arms-sales-risk-index#trends-us-arms-exports">a decade</a>. The Pentagon has notified Congress of <a href="https://www.forumarmstrade.org/major-arms-sales-notifications-tracker.html">$3.07 billion</a> of arms sales to Saudi Arabia in 2022,<strong> </strong>something that could push the president in a different direction. “The most important aspect of Saudi dependence on the US is security, of course, technology that comes with it,” says Hala Aldosari, a Saudi human rights activist.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WPyGqD">
In response to the OPEC+ decision, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) <a href="https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/murphy-statement-on-recalibrating-our-military-assistance-to-saudi-arabia">says</a> that the US should stop approving arms sales to the kingdom and take its<strong> </strong>Patriot missiles, which are in high demand, from there and send them to Ukraine. Similarly, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/09/the-u-s-has-leverage-over-saudi-arabia-its-time-to-use-it-00061082">argue</a> that such a pause would show American leverage over Saudi Arabia without detracting from US security interests.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CyAeeq">
“You may even decide on the back end of that and not resume them,” Rhodes told me. It may lead to a more limited security relationship with conditions attached. “There needs to be a whole new kind of regime around whatever the security relationship is,” he added.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5zZsfV">
In contrast, James Jones, the retired general who served as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, argues that the shared interests are too big to set aside. “My recommendation, if I were still a national security adviser, would be to say, ‘Be more consistent and be more declarative in who our friends and who our allies are, and what we’re willing to do to help them,’” he told me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OzYoI2">
Biden has at times been critical of Saudi Arabia. Jones says that rhetoric “encourages our friends and allies to consider other options that we would not want them to seriously consider.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fMLF89">
Jones, who recently came under scrutiny for his private firm’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/veterans-us-foreign-jobs-saudi-arabia/">extensive for-profit advisory work</a> for the Saudi Ministry of Defense, said America should maintain those types of relationships with the kingdom. He told me his work, which the Trump administration had approved, “is in our national interest.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Rm0Zix">
“To suggest that retired military people, who are patriots, can’t engage with the approval of our country to help transform and develop better relations with friends and allies, seems to me a little bit off,” he added.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cuxkhM">
Cutting back on the arms transfers might encourage Saudi Arabia to turn elsewhere, defenders of the relationship worry. But several Congressional staffers told me that it’s no longer credible to say that such punitive measures from the US would push the kingdom <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/10/21/saudi-arabia-china-oil-cooperation">toward China</a>. The Saudis are “welcome to, but they’re not going to do it,” a senior Democratic Congressional aide told me. “China’s not going to come defend them, Russia is not going to come defend them. And they would never be able to switch weapons systems anyways.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wQYnbT">
Regardless, suspending arms sales seems to be a far-off possibility right now, unless Congress takes initiative. (In 2019, Congress <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/25/745200244/trump-vetoes-bills-intended-to-block-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia">blocked</a> $8 billion of sales to the kingdom, a move that Trump then vetoed.) The US military is moving ahead with a <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/10/us-military-eyes-counter-drone-experimentation-saudi-arabia">counter-drone program in Saudi Arabia</a>, the kind of thing that Congress could delay to make a point.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q0OWRl">
Congress may also weigh writing language into the annual bill authorizing the defense budget that makes US arms sales to Saudi Arabia dependent on the country releasing political prisoners, for example, or other internal reforms. There is also the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-is-nopec-us-bill-pressure-opec-oil-group-2022-10-05/">NOPEC bill</a>, which has passed committee and would give the US attorney general the ability to target OPEC+ with antitrust legislation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kRyqhT">
If the administration isn’t willing to curtail the military relationship, its other options are limited. The US could also consider ways to make it more difficult to do business with Saudi Arabia. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/world/middleeast/saudi-davos-in-desert.html">urged</a> US corporations and investors to consider “reputational concerns that can arise from public policy choices made by host countries” and incentives could be established there — though <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2022/10/3/23380680/global-elite-have-forgotten-jamal-khashoggis-murder-mbs-new-york-investment-conference">investors nonetheless have rushed back</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0T8IkR">
A more extreme version of this would involve implementing sanctions on MBS personally, something the Biden administration has yet to do. Another point of leverage is whether the crown prince will be <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/82693/is-mbs-entitled-to-head-of-state-immunity/">granted immunity</a>, as a head of state, for a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/02/biden-administration-seeks-delay-over-prince-mohammed-immunity-decision-khashoggi">civil case against him</a> related to the murder of Khashoggi.
</p>
<h3 id="DG6ewv">
<ol start="3" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Could human rights make for better policy?
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hILV1K">
This is not a values-driven relationship, but a security relationship. Human rights experts say that an emphasis on values might actually make for more pragmatic policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QJBr75">
Though Khashoggi’s dismemberment and disappearance from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul gripped the world, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/23219049/biden-saudi-arabia-human-rights-mbs-khashoggi">direness of the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia</a> is ongoing but overlooked. It’s how someone like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/06/revealed-jailed-saudi-woman-was-convicted-of-spreading-lies-through-tweets">Noura al-Qahtani</a> can be sentenced to 45 years in prison in Saudi Arabia only for supporting the release of political prisoners in a tweet.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y1C5Eh">
MBS’s track record exposes how few values are shared by the two countries. Saudi Arabia is un-democratic: there is no free speech and it is risky to criticize MBS; the country has grown more authoritarian with highly centralized decision-making under MBS. The country’s military adventurism in Yemen, a Saudi war enabled by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/arms-deals-raytheon-yemen.html">US bombs where thousands of civilians have been killed</a>, shows how risky it is to put in with MBS.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TTZ4vl">
Biden initially resisted meeting MBS, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/05/biden-wants-to-get-out-more-seething-that-his-standing-is-now-worse-than-trumps-00037278">Politico</a>, because he reportedly exclaimed that his presidency “should stand for something.” At a 2019 Democratic debate, he <a href="https://www.vox.com/22881937/biden-saudi-arabia-mbs-khashoggi-yemen-human-rights">said</a>, “We were going to, in fact, make them pay the price, and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ATkjZL">
Many former officials say that it’s time for the US to move on. General Jones highlights that MBS has overseen liberalizing reforms in the country. “I recognize that the Khashoggi murder was a terrible thing, but the United States did not break relations with Saudi Arabia over that. As a matter of fact, we continue to work with them,” he told me. “To me, helping friends and allies transform, whether it’s on a societal basis, or on a military basis, or on an education basis, whatever it is, is in our long-term interests.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XNUDpu">
For Ambassador Jordan, who knew Khashoggi and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-us-ambassador-to-saudi-arabia-says-kingdom-lying-about-khashoggi-2018-11">condemned</a> his murder, human rights conversations with Saudi Arabia are more productive when conducted privately. “Only by having the relationship in place, can we have enough influence on issues like human rights, women’s rights, and freedoms,” he told me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4OZCdI">
Several former officials told me that too much focus on<strong> </strong>human rights will throw off the parts of the relationship that benefit American citizens, namely energy prices. “We all have these views on human rights. [Biden’s] entitled to his, I have mine,” said Victoria Coates, who served as Trump’s deputy national security adviser. “But in this case, they can’t be the driver of my energy policy.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mXl6Ob">
That may be true, but the energy policy doesn’t seem particularly effective at this point either.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mZ4yu4">
One convincing argument at this table, however, is that democratic values ultimately make for a better foreign policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UG7Bvd">
“Countries that are democratic and respect human rights, at the end of the day, are more stable, more peaceful, more prosperous, and better allies,” said Tess McEnery, the executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy, who worked on democracy issues for the past 15 years throughout the federal government, including on Biden’s National Security Council.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R43Xk6">
Whether there’s anyone dedicated to advancing that viewpoint in administration policy debates is another matter.
</p>
<h3 id="W4FSxB">
<ol start="4" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Should Biden’s reevaluation extend to his own advisers?
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0KeeYu">
Ultimately, Biden’s policies are only as good as his closest<strong> </strong>advisers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="20i9h6">
In my conversations with administration insiders I got the sense that there are not enough human rights voices at the policy-making decision table. Biden’s nominee for the crucial assistant secretary of state role for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Sarah Margon, has been on hold for <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/07/biden-human-rights-envoy-nominee-stuck-senate/">more than a year</a> due to Republican stonewalling. That vacancy means the absence of a senior appointee focused on this set of issues.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fpqnss">
Earlier this year, the <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/09/human-rights-official-leaving-biden-nsc/">top human rights official</a> at the White House’s National Security Council departed her job. Now, there is no coordinator-level person there. No senior human rights official attended the meetings in Saudi Arabia in July as part of Biden’s entourage, according to the White House’s manifest.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2tsFko">
“The NSC Democracy Directorate reliably asserts that democracy and human rights are not just values, but vital national security interests. It remains difficult to get other national security officials on board with this approach,” McEnery told me. “It would require people willing to break with the status quo to implement democracy and human rights as the center of our foreign policy.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1lVyg9">
Many progressive sources are particularly incensed by the prominent and influential role played by <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2022/10/7/23391575/opec-oil-prices-biden-naive-saudi-arabia">White House Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk</a>. Since he has served as a senior official in four subsequent presidencies, it’s easy to criticize him for embodying the structural deficiencies in this relationship (and of Middle East policy more broadly). Yet for every critic of him I spoke with, there was someone impressed by his bureaucratic deft.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tYI3Bq">
But expect members of Congress and activists to further <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brett-mcgurk-biden-saudi_n_63498d63e4b08e0e60833bba">personify Biden’s Saudi policy</a> on him. It may lead to McGurk’s exit after the midterms.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pbx4cX">
Yet there have been effective diplomats in Biden’s orbit. State Department envoy Tim Lenderking, who has been a frequent flier to Saudi Arabia along with McGurk, has worked to negotiate a <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/07/bidens-yemen-envoy-heads-region-press-truce-extension">ceasefire</a> between the kingdom and Yemen’s Houthis.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ne29XQ">
To get a sense of what a broader vision of what US policy toward Saudi Arabia might look like, one has to look to the strident words Biden officials were willing to say before they went into government.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rrDmX1">
When Jake Sullivan was working in the private sector prior to 2020, he was among the strongest voices on bringing human rights into the US-Saudi relationship. Together with Rhodes, he co-founded an advocacy group called National Security Action where dozens of policymakers who would go into the Biden administration met and crafted policy memos. “In the Middle East, Trump and his family have advanced Saudi interests instead of our national interest,” the organization wrote on its <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190504191947/https://nationalsecurityaction.org/our-focus/#exposing-corruption">website</a>. “Enabling or excusing oppression abroad today only fuels the injustices and instability that endanger us all tomorrow.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8vqTZI">
Or <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-116hhrg35360/pdf/CHRG-116hhrg35360.pdf">as Sullivan told Congress</a> during a February 2019 hearing on US policy toward Saudi Arabia, “I think we have too frequently been willing to say we have to make human rights concerns a fifth, sixth, or seventh tier priority rather than something on the plane with other more fundamental interests that we have, and I think that should change.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4L7hMF">
It is significant that someone like Sullivan would take a progressive position when out of government, and then reverses toward what’s perceived as realism when he is chairing meetings. It’s less a statement of individual hypocrisy and more an exemplary case study. (Obama’s advancement of extralegal drone wars and support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, among other non-progressive foreign policies, come to mind.) Little wonder that many in Washington are cynical about whether the US-Saudi relationship could ever change.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6vCR6i">
Maybe rather than firing his advisers, Biden could encourage them to revisit the big policy rethinks they proposed in the off-season and find ways to make them work today.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fHuGFf">
For Nancy Okail, an Egyptian activist and president of the Center for International Policy, the fact that Biden has not stood by his pledge to make Saudi Arabia a pariah undermines policy writ large on human rights. “It’d be seriously damaging if these words aren’t translated into concrete and corrective foreign policy measures,” she <a href="https://twitter.com/NancyGEO/status/1579854364302520321">said</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VsCNjS">
Every time the Biden administration says it’s re-evaluating a policy and uses strong rhetoric that isn’t matched with new policies, it undermines American credibility in the world.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nyQqxc">
</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>Women’s Challenger Trophy at Raipur from November 20</strong> - Poonam, Deepti, Sneh, Pooja appointed captains</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>FIFA World Cup 2022 | Full squad of South Korea and schedule</strong> - Here is the official South Korea national football team squad and their group H stage schedule for the FIFA World Cup 2022</p></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SC reserves judgement on issue of summoning additional accused after pronouncing verdict</strong> - A five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice S.A. Nazeer heard submissions from Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, amicus curiae S. Nagamuthu and others on questions of reference.</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>NCW seeks revocation of doctors’ licenses for performing tubectomy sans anaesthesia</strong> - Around 24 women who had opted for tubectomy at two State-run public health centres in Khagaria district were treated without anaesthesia</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>13% of drug abuse victims in India are below 20 years: UN official</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>Gyanvapi case: Varanasi court to hear plea seeking worship of ‘Shivling’ in mosque complex</strong> - The Judge has fixed December 2 for taking up the matter</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Gas plant hit in latest Russian strikes</strong> - At least four deaths are reported, days after one of the most fierce Russian bombardments of the war.</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>Ukraine war: Bodies found amid reports of Russian atrocities in Kherson</strong> - The BBC speaks to people held by Russians in Kherson, as reports of atrocities emerge from the city.</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>Ukraine war: Kyiv not to blame for Poland missile - Zelensky</strong> - President Zelensky says he has “no doubts” that Ukraine wasn’t behind a blast that killed two people.</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>MH17: Ukraine plane crash murder trial draws to a close</strong> - The trial over the deaths of 298 people on board a jet shot down over Ukraine is finally ending.</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>Malta moves to ease EU’s last total ban on abortion</strong> - The reform would allow doctors to terminate a pregnancy if a mother’s life or health were at risk.</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>Record number of parents miss work as respiratory illnesses spike in kids</strong> - Though there are signs things could get worse, the White House has a rosy outlook. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1898421">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>New test shows loose RTX 4090 power connectors cause overheating and melting</strong> - Failure is rare, but can be caused by any kind of 12VHPWR cable or adapter. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1898349">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nvidia and Microsoft team up to build massive AI cloud computer</strong> - AI supercomputer will use “tens of thousands” of Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1898351">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Amazon begins layoffs of up to 10,000 jobs, blames “uncertain” economy</strong> - Amazon confirms Devices &amp; Services layoffs; warehouse jobs apparently safe. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1898348">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A cosmic hourglass: Webb captures image of protostar swathed in dark clouds</strong> - New image offers window into what our Sun and Solar System looked like in infancy. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1898238">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>An Airbus 380 is flying across the Atlantic</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
An Airbus 380 is on its way across the Atlantic. It flies consistently at 800 km/h at 30,000 feet, when suddenly a jet fighter appears. The pilot of the fighter jet slows down, flies alongside the Airbus and greets the pilot of the passenger plane by radio: “Airbus, boring flight isn’t it? Now have a look here!” He rolls his jet on its back, accelerates, breaks through the sound barrier, rises rapidly to a dizzying height, and then swoops down almost to sea level in a breathtaking dive. He loops back next to the Airbus and asks: “Well, how was that?” The Airbus pilot answers: “Very impressive, but watch this!” The jet pilot watches the Airbus, but nothing happens. It continues to fly straight, at the same speed. After 15 minutes, the Airbus pilot radios, “Well, how was that? Confused, the jet pilot asks,”What did you do?" The Airbus pilot laughs and says: “I got up, stretched my legs, walked to the back of the aircraft to use the shitter, then got a cup of coffee and a chocolate fudge pastry.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Key-Ad9733"> /u/Key-Ad9733 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/yxby83/an_airbus_380_is_flying_across_the_atlantic/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/yxby83/an_airbus_380_is_flying_across_the_atlantic/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>I like my women like I like my whiskey..</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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..18 years old and mixed up with coke.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DannkHippo"> /u/DannkHippo </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/yxbq2i/i_like_my_women_like_i_like_my_whiskey/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/yxbq2i/i_like_my_women_like_i_like_my_whiskey/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>Elon is firing Twitter employees with bad posture</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I have a hunch I might be next.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Edit: I stand corrected, I still have a job.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/BigTaeng"> /u/BigTaeng </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ywwfh3/elon_is_firing_twitter_employees_with_bad_posture/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ywwfh3/elon_is_firing_twitter_employees_with_bad_posture/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>I was shocked today when my wife told me that my son wasn’t really mine</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I have GOT to pay more attention when I pick him up from school
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Prossdog"> /u/Prossdog </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/yxgnlk/i_was_shocked_today_when_my_wife_told_me_that_my/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/yxgnlk/i_was_shocked_today_when_my_wife_told_me_that_my/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>Three Buddhist monks die in a car crash…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
They arrive in a beautiful clouded world and begin to walk towards a man. He is standing in front of the golden gates of heaven.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Hello! I am Peter. Behind me, is Heaven. Unfortunately, I can’t let you in since you three weren’t Christians… But! if you can tell me what the meaning of Easter is, I will gladly open these gates for you.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The three monks look at each other and nod in agreement.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Monk 1 proudly claims to Peter, “Oh! Yes! Easter! Big man, white beard get on sled and give presents to children!”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Peter looks at him with sadness, “No. That’s Christmas.” Monk 1 instantly vanishes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Monk 2 pauses with thought, looks up at Peter and states, “Easter. Families sit at table together. Cook Turkey and pray.” He pauses for Peters response.
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“Wrong. Last try,” says Peter as monk 2 poofs away.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Monk 3 has a serious look in his eyes and says in a low deep voice, “Yes. Jesus. Son of God. Taken. Beaten. Nailed to cross. Die. Put in cave. 3 day go by. Cave opens. Jesus comes out. Sees shadow. Goes back inside!”
</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/HaplessPenguin"> /u/HaplessPenguin </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/yxf8ha/three_buddhist_monks_die_in_a_car_crash/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/yxf8ha/three_buddhist_monks_die_in_a_car_crash/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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