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<title>24 July, 2023</title>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Protective role of N-acetylcysteine and Sulodexide on endothelial cells after SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> -
<div>
Objective: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 causes hyperinflammation and activation of coagulation cascade and in the result aggravates endothelial cell dysfunction. N-acetylcysteine and Sulodexide have been found to mitigate endothelial damage. Approach and Results: The influence on coronary artery endothelial cells of serum collected after 4+/-1 months from coronavirus infection was studied. The concentrations of serum samples of interleukin 6, von Willebrand Factor, tissue Plasminogen Activator and Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1 were studied. The cultures with serum of patients after coronavirus infection were incubated with N-acetylocysteine and Sulodexide to estimate their potential protective role. The blood inflammato-ry parameters were increased in the group of cultures incubated with serum from patients after coronavirus infection. Supplementation of the serum from patients after coronavirus infection with N-acetylcysteine or Sulodexide reduced the synthesis of interleukin 6, von Willebrand Fac-tor. No changes in the synthesis of tissue Plasminogen Activator were observed. N-acetylcysteine reduced the synthesis of Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1. N-acetylcysteine and Sulodexide increased the tPA/PAI-1 ratio. Conclusion: N-acetylcysteine may have a role in reducing the myocardial injury occurring in the post-COVID-19 syndrome. Sulodexide can also play a protective role in post-COVID-19 patients.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.19.549800v1" target="_blank">Protective role of N-acetylcysteine and Sulodexide on endothelial cells after SARS-CoV-2 infection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Recombinant Ranpirnase enhances the expression of co-transfected mRNA by modulating cellular metabolic activity</strong> -
<div>
As the world's first approved prophylactic mRNA vaccine, the development of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine marks a milestone in mRNA therapeutics. However, achieving efficient transgene expression in therapeutic applications such as protein replacement and cancer therapeutical vaccines remains challenging. This study explores the use of recombinant Ranpirnase, a small ribonuclease, as a novel expression-enhancing tool for mRNA-based therapeutics. In Balb/c mice, co-expression of Ranpirnase significantly increased transgene expression levels by 3- to 6-fold and prolonged expression duration by more than 85%, regardless of mRNA nucleoside modification status. Recombinant Ranpirnase induces a cytostatic state in host cells, stabilizing mRNA and protein transcripts, thereby enhancing transgene expression. Importantly, co-expression of Ranpirnase recombinants did not cause detectable cytotoxicity or alter the tissue distribution of transgene expression, ensuring safety and tolerability at higher translation levels. The compact size of the recombinant Ranpirnase gene allows for seamless fusion with the target gene or co-transfection with existing delivery technologies. Altogether, recombinant Ranpirnase shows promise as an expression-enhancing element in mRNA-based therapeutics, including veterinary applications.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.22.550185v1" target="_blank">Recombinant Ranpirnase enhances the expression of co-transfected mRNA by modulating cellular metabolic activity</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>High seroprevalence after the second wave of SARS-COV2 respiratory infection in a small settlement in the northern coastal of Peru.</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background. Due to more infections from variations that could escape vaccination and immunity by asymptomatic to uninfected transmission, COVID-199s second wave had higher seroprevalence globally. Public health constraints and herd immunity may not work against these novel variations9 infectivity. This population-based study in Peru9s Tumbes Region during the second wave of COVID-19 seeks to determine seroprevalence and demographic changes from the first wave. Methodology/Principal findings. In Dec 2021-Jan 2022, a study in Tumbes9 informal settlement sampled individuals over 2 years old from one in every four households. Finger-prick blood samples and symptom surveys were collected. On the second wave, there was a substantial rise in adjusted seroprevalence (50.15%, 95% CI [45.92 – 54.40]) compared with the first wave (24.82 %, 95%CI [22.49 – 27.25]), with females maintaining a higher seroprevalence (53.89; 95% CI [48.48-59.23]) vs. 45.49; 95% CI [38.98-52.12], p=0.042) compare to males. Those under 18 years of age had the highest IgG seropositivity: the 12–17 age group during the second wave (85.14%) and the 2–11 age group (25.25%) during the first wave. Nasal congestion and cough were symptoms associated with seropositivity, unlike the first wave. Conclusions/Significance. In Tumbes, the seroprevalence of COVID-19 increased by twofold compared to the initial wave. Inadequate infrastructure and limitations in human resources and supplies in healthcare facilities made the Peruvian health system collapse. We must include in epidemiological surveillance mHealth tools that enable real-time reporting of new cases. Working alongside the community is the only way to improve any new intervention strategy to prevent or control a new pandemic.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.19.23292491v1" target="_blank">High seroprevalence after the second wave of SARS-COV2 respiratory infection in a small settlement in the northern coastal of Peru.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Mucosal and Systemic Immune Correlates of Viral Control following SARS-CoV-2 Infection Challenge in Seronegative Adults</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Human infection challenge permits characterisation of the associated immune response in unparalleled depth, enabling evaluation of early pre-symptomatic immune changes and the dynamic immune factors important for viral clearance. Here, 34 healthy young adult volunteers, seronegative to SARS-CoV-2, were inoculated with a D614G-containing pre-Alpha SARS-CoV-2 strain. Nasal and systemic soluble mediator and antibody responses, and peripheral blood T cell and B cell responses were measured by MesoScale Discovery and flow cytometry just before and up to 1 year after intra-nasal inoculation. In the 18 (53%) participants who became infected, both nasal and systemic mediator responses were dominated by interferons (IFN) but with divergent kinetics. T cell activation and proliferation in blood peaked at day 10 in CD4+ T cells and day 14 in CD8+ T cells, returning to baseline by day 28. Following infection, antigen-specific T cells were largely CD38+Ki67+ and displayed central and effector memory phenotypes. T cells contracted after viral clearance with expanded antigen-specific memory T cell populations persisting past day 28. Both mucosal and systemic antibodies became detectable around day 10 but nasal antibodies plateaued after day 14 while circulating antibodies continued to rise. Using piecewise linear regression modelling, viral load related closely to the induction of type I IFN responses, moreover, CD8+ T cell responses and early IgA responses were strongly associated with viral clearance. Detailed analysis of innate and adaptive immune responses to primary SARS-CoV-2 infection following human challenge thus revealed the relationship between immune kinetics and viral load as factors associated with resolution of infection.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.21.23292994v1" target="_blank">Mucosal and Systemic Immune Correlates of Viral Control following SARS-CoV-2 Infection Challenge in Seronegative Adults</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Social Cohesion and Covid-19: an integrative review</strong> -
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background Nations of considerable wealth and sophisticated healthcare infrastructures have seen high rates of illness and death from Covid-19. Others with limited economic means and less developed healthcare infrastructures have achieved much lower burdens. In order to build a full understanding, an appraisal of the contribution of social relationships is necessary. Social cohesion represents a promising conceptual tool. Objective The aim was to examine scholarship on social cohesion during the Covid-19 pandemic: specifically – the constructions of social cohesion deployed, how it was measured, and the effects of and on social cohesion reported.   Methods The Pubmed, Scopus and JSTOR databases were searched for relevant journal articles and grey literature. 66 studies met the inclusion criteria. Data were extracted and analysed from these using spreadsheet software. Results Several constructions of social cohesion were found. These concerned interpersonal relationships; sameness and difference; collective action; perceptions/emotions of group members; structures and institutions of governance; local or cultural specificity; and hybrid/multidimensional models. Social cohesion was reported as influential on health outcomes, health behaviours, and resilience and emotional wellbeing; but also that there was some potential for it to drive undesirable outcomes. Scholarship reported increases or decreases in quantitative measures of social cohesion, a temporary ‘rally round the flag’ effect early in the pandemic, the variable impacts of policy on cohesion, and changing interpersonal relationships due to pandemic conditions. There are numerous issues with the literature that reflect the well-documented limitations of popular versions of the social cohesion concept. Conclusions Social cohesion has been used to express a range of different aspects of relationships during the pandemic. It is said to promote better health outcomes, more engagement with positive health behaviours, and greater resilience and emotional wellbeing. The literature presents a range of ways in which it has been altered by the pandemic conditions.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.19.23292904v1" target="_blank">Social Cohesion and Covid-19: an integrative review</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Cortical thickness alterations and systemic inflammation define long-COVID patients with cognitive impairment</strong> -
<div>
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As the heterogeneity of symptoms is increasingly recognized among long-COVID patients, it appears highly relevant to study potential pathophysiological differences along the different subtypes. Preliminary evidence suggests distinct alterations in brain structure and systemic inflammatory patterns in specific groups of long-COVID patients. To this end, we analyzed differences in cortical thickness and peripheral immune signature between clinical subgroups based on 3T-MRI scans and signature inflammatory markers in n=120 participants comprising healthy never-infected controls, healthy COVID-19 survivors, and subgroups of long-COVID patients with and without cognitive impairment according to screening with Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Whole-brain comparison of cortical thickness between the 4 groups was conducted by surface-based morphometry. We identified distinct cortical areas showing a progressive increase in cortical thickness across different groups, starting from healthy individuals who had never been infected with COVID-19, followed by healthy COVID-19 survivors, long-COVID patients without cognitive deficits (MoCA ≥ 26), and finally, long-COVID patients exhibiting significant cognitive deficits (MoCA &lt; 26). These findings highlight the continuum of cortical thickness alterations associated with COVID-19, with more pronounced changes observed in individuals experiencing cognitive impairment (p&lt;0.05, FWE-corrected). Affected cortical regions covered prefrontal and temporal gyri, insula, posterior cingulate, parahippocampal gyrus, and parietal areas. Additionally, we discovered a distinct immunophenotype, with elevated levels of IL-10, IFNg, and sTREM2 in long-COVID patients, especially in the group suffering from cognitive impairment. We demonstrate lingering cortical and immunological alterations in healthy and impaired subgroups of COVID-19 survivors. This implies a complex underlying pathomechanism in long-COVID and emphasizes the necessity to investigate the whole spectrum of post-COVID biology to determine targeted treatment strategies targeting specific sub-groups.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.21.23292988v1" target="_blank">Cortical thickness alterations and systemic inflammation define long-COVID patients with cognitive impairment</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Covid-19 related cognitive, structural and functional brain changes among Italian adolescents and young adults: a multimodal longitudinal case-control study</strong> -
<div>
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been associated with brain functional, structural, and cognitive changes that persist months after infection. Most studies of the neurologic outcomes related to COVID-19 focus on severe infection and aging populations. Here, we investigated the neural activities underlying COVID-19 related outcomes in a case-control study of mildly infected youth enrolled in a longitudinal study in Lombardy, Italy, a global hotspot of COVID-19. All participants (13 cases, 27 controls, mean age 24 years) completed resting state functional (fMRI), structural MRI, cognitive assessments (CANTAB spatial working memory) at baseline (pre-COVID) and follow-up (post-COVID). Using graph theory eigenvector centrality (EC) and data-driven statistical methods, we examined differences in ECdelta (i.e., the difference in EC values pre- and post-COVID-19) and volumetricdelta (i.e., the difference in cortical volume of cortical and subcortical areas pre- and post-COVID) between COVID-19 cases and controls. We found that ECdeltasignificantly between COVID-19 and healthy participants in five brain regions; right intracalcarine cortex, right lingual gyrus, left hippocampus, left amygdala, left frontal orbital cortex. The left hippocampus showed a significant decrease in volumetricdelta between groups (p=0.041). The reduced ECdelta in the right amygdala associated with COVID-19 status mediated the association between COVID-19 and disrupted spatial working memory. Our results show persistent structural, functional and cognitive brain changes in key brain areas associated with olfaction and cognition. These results may guide treatment efforts to assess the longevity, reversibility and impact of the observed brain and cognitive changes following COVID-19.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.19.23292909v1" target="_blank">Covid-19 related cognitive, structural and functional brain changes among Italian adolescents and young adults: a multimodal longitudinal case-control study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>COVID-19 mitigation behaviors and policies limited SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the United States from September 2020 through November 2021</strong> -
<div>
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United States jurisdictions implemented varied policies to slow SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Understanding patterns of these policies alongside individuals behaviors can inform effective outbreak response. To do so, we estimated the time-varying reproduction number (Rt), a weekly measure of real-time transmission using US COVID-19 cases from September 2020-November 2021. We then assessed the association between Rt and policies, personal COVID-19 mitigation behaviors, variants, immunity, and social vulnerability indicators using two multi-level regression models. First, we fit a model with state-level policy stringency according to the Oxford Stringency Index, a composite indicator reflecting the strictness of COVID-19 policies and strength of pandemic-related communication. Our second model included a subset of specific policies. We found that personal mitigation behaviors and vaccination were more strongly associated with decreased transmission than policies. Importantly, transmission was reduced not by a single measure, but by various layered measures. These results underscore the need for policy, behavior change, and risk communication integration to reduce virus transmission during epidemics.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.19.23292882v1" target="_blank">COVID-19 mitigation behaviors and policies limited SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the United States from September 2020 through November 2021</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Can computer simulation support strategic service planning? Modelling a large integrated mental health system on recovery from COVID-19</strong> -
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background COVID-19 has had a significant impact on people9s mental health and mental health services. During the first year of the pandemic, existing demand was not fully met while new demand was generated, resulting in large numbers of people requiring support. To support mental health services to recover without being overwhelmed, it was important to know where services will experience increased pressure, and what strategies could be implemented to mitigate this. Methods We implemented a computer simulation model of patient flow through an integrated mental health service in Southwest England covering General Practice (GP), community-based - talking therapies - (IAPT), acute hospital care, and specialist care settings. The model was calibrated on data from 1 April 2019 to 1 April 2021. Model parameters included patient demand, service-level length of stay, and probabilities of transitioning to other care settings. We used the model to compare - do nothing - (baseline) scenarios to - what if -(mitigation) scenarios, including increasing capacity and reducing length of stay, for two future demand trajectories from 1 April 2021 onwards. Results The results from the simulation model suggest that, without mitigation, the impact of COVID-19 will be an increase in pressure on GP and specialist community based services by 50% and 50-100% respectively. Simulating the impact of possible mitigation strategies, results show that increasing capacity in lower-acuity services, such as GP, results in demand being shifted to other parts of the mental health system while decreasing length of stay in higher acuity services is insufficient to mitigate the impact of increased demand. Conclusion In capturing the interrelation of patient flow related dynamics between various mental health care settings, we demonstrate the value of computer simulation for assessing the impact of interventions on system flow.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.19.23292289v1" target="_blank">Can computer simulation support strategic service planning? Modelling a large integrated mental health system on recovery from COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Serum VEGF Levels on Admission in COVID-19 Patients Correlate with SP-D and Neutrophils, Reflecting Disease Severity: A Prospective Study</strong> -
<div>
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Background and objective: The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has resulted in significant global morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to investigate the clinical significance of serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in COVID-19 patients and its association with disease severity and pulmonary injury. Methods: We prospectively collected data from 71 hospitalized COVID-19 patients between June 2020 and January 2021. Patients were classified as either mild or severe based on their oxygen requirements during hospitalization. Serum VEGF levels were measured using an ELISA kit. Results: In comparison to mild cases, significantly elevated serum VEGF levels were observed in severe COVID-19 patients. Furthermore, VEGF levels exhibited a positive correlation with white blood cell count, neutrophil count, and lymphocyte count. Notably, serum surfactant protein-D (SP-D), an indicator of alveolar epithelial cell damage, was significantly higher in patients with elevated VEGF levels. Conclusion: These results suggest that elevated serum VEGF could levels serve as a prognostic biomarker for COVID-19 as it is indicative of alveolar epithelial cell injury caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection. Additionally, we observed a correlation between VEGF and neutrophil activation, which plays a role in the immune response during endothelial cell injury, indicating a potential involvement of angiogenesis in disease progression. Further research is needed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of VEGF in COVID-19.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.17.23292653v1" target="_blank">Serum VEGF Levels on Admission in COVID-19 Patients Correlate with SP-D and Neutrophils, Reflecting Disease Severity: A Prospective Study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and hospitalization in individuals with natural, vaccine-induced and hybrid immunity: a retrospective population-based cohort study from Estonia</strong> -
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A large proportion of the worlds population has some form of immunity against SARS-CoV-2, through either infection (natural), vaccination or both (hybrid). This retrospective cohort study used data on SARS-CoV-2, vaccination, and hospitalization from national health system from February 2020 to June 2022 and Cox regression modelling to compare those with natural immunity to those with no (Cohort1, n=92917), hybrid (Cohort2, n=46813), and vaccine (Cohort3, n=252414) immunity. In Cohort 1, those with natural immunity were at lower risk for infection during the Delta (aHR 0.17, 95%CI 0.15-0.18) and higher risk (aHR 1.24, 95%CI 1.18-1.32) during the Omicron period than those with no immunity. Natural immunity conferred substantial protection against COVID-19-hospitalization. Cohort 2 - in comparison to natural immunity hybrid immunity offered strong protection during the Delta (aHR 0.61, 95%CI 0.46-0.80) but not the Omicron (aHR 1.05, 95%CI 0.93-1.1) period. COVID-19-hospitalization was extremely rare among individuals with hybrid immunity. In Cohort 3, individuals with vaccine-induced immunity were at higher risk than those with natural immunity for infection (Delta aHR 4.90, 95%CI 4.48-5.36; Omicron 1.13, 95%CI 1.06-1.21) and hospitalization (Delta aHR 7.19, 95%CI 4.02-12.84). These results show that risk of infection and severe COVID-19 are driven by personal immunity history and the variant of SARS-CoV-2 causing infection.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.18.23292858v1" target="_blank">Risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and hospitalization in individuals with natural, vaccine-induced and hybrid immunity: a retrospective population-based cohort study from Estonia</a>
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<li><strong>Exploring COVID-19 vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in Zimbabwe: A mixed methods study</strong> -
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With COVID-19 no longer categorized as a public health emergency of international concern, vaccination strategies and priority groups for vaccination have evolved. Africa Centers for Diseases Prevention and Control proposed the ‘100-100-70%’ strategy which aims to vaccinate all healthcare workers, all vulnerable groups, and 70% of the general population. Understanding whether healthcare workers were reached during previous vaccination campaigns and what can be done to address concerns, anxieties, and other influences on vaccine uptake, will be important to optimally plan how to achieve these ambitious targets. In this mixed-methods study, between June 2021 and July 2022 a quantitative survey was conducted with healthcare workers accessing a comprehensive health check in Zimbabwe to determine whether and, if so, when they had received a COVID-19 vaccine. Healthcare workers were categorized as those who had received the vaccine ‘early’ (before 30.06.2021) and those who had received it ‘late’ (after 30.06.2021). In addition, 17 in-depth interviews were conducted to understand perceptions and beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines. Of the 2905 healthcare workers employed at 37 facilities who participated in the study, 2818 (97%, 95% CI [92%-102%]) reported that they had received at least one vaccine dose. Geographical location, older age, higher educational attainment and having a chronic condition was associated with receiving the vaccine early. Qualitatively, (mis)information, infection risk perception, quasi-mandatory vaccination requirements, and legitimate concerns such as safety and efficacy influenced vaccine uptake. Meeting the proposed 100-100-70 target entails continued emphasis on strong communication while engaging meaningfully with healthcare workers’ concerns. Mandatory vaccination may undermine trust and should not be a substitute for sustained engagement.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.17.23292791v1" target="_blank">Exploring COVID-19 vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in Zimbabwe: A mixed methods study</a>
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<li><strong>Examining the Evolution and Drivers of COVID-19 Transmission Waves in Ghana, 2020 - 2022</strong> -
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Background: Ghana reported the first COVID-19 cases on 12 March 2020. Response actions were rolled out along seven thematic pillars to limit the importation, detect and contain the virus, effectively manage cases, ensure effective coordination and maintain essential services. A whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach was adopted for the response. The government instituted restriction measures at various stages of the response to contain the pandemic or limit the impact of the pandemic on the health, social and economic wellbeing of the citizens. Four distinct transmission waves were recorded within the first 2 years of the pandemic. The study examined the key drivers of the major waves. Methods: A descriptive analysis of the pandemic from March 2020 to March 2022 was conducted using data reported through the country’s COVID-19 surveillance platforms. All RT-PCR confirmed cases reported from the 16 administrative regions over the two-year period were analysed. The effective reproduction number was computed using a model developed by Cori and colleagues. Results: A total of 160,761 cases with 99.1% (159,227) recoveries or discharges were reported as of 12 March 2022. The Greater Accra Region reported 56.3% of the confirmed cases. Within the period, 1,445 deaths (CFR= 0.9%) were reported. Approximately 2.3 million tests (76,774 per million population) tests were conducted with a cumulative test positivity rate of 6.8%. COVID-19 vaccination was enrolled a year after the first cases were reported and 21.3% of the target population was fully vaccinated as of 12 March 2022. Ghana recorded four major COVID-19 transmission waves characterized mainly by variants of concern and sub-optimal adherence to the public health and social measures. Conclusion: Scaling up and enhancing community acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination as well optimising the current surveillance and response systems are essential is sustaining the current gains and limiting the emergence of new variants of concern.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.17.23292790v1" target="_blank">Examining the Evolution and Drivers of COVID-19 Transmission Waves in Ghana, 2020 - 2022</a>
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<li><strong>Worldwide trends in COVID-19 related attacks against healthcare</strong> -
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Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, violence targeting healthcare reportedly increased. Attacks against healthcare have the potential to impair the public health response and threaten the availability of healthcare services. However, there is little systematic understanding of the extent and characteristics of healthcare attacks in the setting of a pandemic. This study aimed to investigate global trends regarding COVID-19 related attacks against healthcare from January 2020 until January 2023. Methodology: COVID-19 related incidents that occurred between January 2020 and January 2023 were extracted from the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition database and screened for eligibility. Data collected per incident included temporal factors; country; setting; attack and weapon type; perpetrator; motive; number of healthcare workers (HCWs) and patients killed, injured or kidnapped; and whether the incident caused damage to a health facility. Results: This study identified 255 COVID-19 related attacks against healthcare. The attacks occurred globally and throughout the course of the pandemic. Incidents were heterogeneous with regards to motives, attack types and outcomes. At least 18 HCWs were killed, 147 HCWs were injured and 86 facilities were damaged or destroyed. There were two periods with a peak incidence of reports. The first peak occurred during the beginning of the pandemic, and predominantly concerned stigma-related attacks against healthcare. The second peak, in 2021, was mainly composed of conflict-related attacks in Myanmar, and attacks targeting the global vaccination campaign. Conclusion: COVID-19 related attacks against healthcare occurred globally and in a variety of settings throughout the course of the pandemic. The findings of this study can be used to prevent and mitigate healthcare attacks during the ongoing and future pandemics.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.18.23292819v1" target="_blank">Worldwide trends in COVID-19 related attacks against healthcare</a>
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<li><strong>The Sustainable Factors of the East Priangan Micro and Small Entrepreneurs during the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
In Indonesia, the number of micro and small businesses is dominant; therefore, their economic defense against uncertainty becomes vital, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. By utilizing the explorative approach, this study wants to know the effect of this pandemic on the ability of micro and small businesses in East Priangan to sustain and detect their internal and external sustainability factors during this pandemic. Furthermore, to accomplish these purposes, this study uses interviews to get the data based on the viewpoint of the eight businesspersons in one city: Tasikmalaya, and two regencies: Pangandaran and Ciamis. Based on the result, this study concludes that a heavily damaging effect exists in the business related to tourist attractions (a restaurant in Pangandaran), supplier of materials to restaurants (a tempeh producer in Ciamis), and crowding creation (the seller of various snacks and a wedding organizer in Ciamis). Meanwhile, the middle-damaging impact happens in the coffee shop in Tasikmalaya, the hawker of round-shaped snacks with a chewy texture, and the food staller of hollow tofu with a sauce made of salt, onion, and brown sugar in Ciamis but a street vegetable hawker in Ciamis experiences low-damaging influence. After being asked about internal and external sustainable factors fronting this pandemic, they declare that having money left and using Instagram and WhatsApp to receive consumer orders become their internal sustainable factors. Meanwhile, receiving government aid is an external factor for business survival during the pandemic.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/hgw8u/" target="_blank">The Sustainable Factors of the East Priangan Micro and Small Entrepreneurs 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>Smell in COVID-19 and Efficacy of Nasal Theophylline (SCENT 3)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: theophylline;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Washington University School of Medicine<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>Lymph Node Aspiration to Decipher the Immune Response of Beta-variant Recombinant Protein Booster Vaccine (VidPrevtyn Beta, Sanofi) Compared to a Bivalent mRNA Vaccine (Comirnaty Original/Omicron BA.4-5, BioNTech-Pfizer) in Adults Previously Vaccinated With at Least 3 Doses of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Procedure: Lymph node aspiration / Blood sampling<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris<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 Trial of the Candidate Vaccine MVA-SARS-2-S in Adults</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: MVA-SARS-2-S;   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf;   German Center for Infection Research;   Philipps University Marburg Medical Center;   Ludwig-Maximilians - University of Munich;   University Hospital Tuebingen;   CTC-NORTH<br/><b>Withdrawn</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>Treatment of Long COVID (TLC) Feasibility Trial</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Low-dose Naltrexone (LDN);   Drug: Cetirizine;   Drug: Famotidine;   Drug: LDN Placebo;   Drug: Cetirizine Placebo;   Drug: Famotidine Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Emory University;   CURE Drug Repurposing Collaboratory (CDRC)<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>Efficiency and Safety of Paxlovid for COVID-19 Patients With Severe Chronic Kidney Disease</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Renal Insufficiency, Chronic<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Chinese PLA General Hospital<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety, Efficacy, and Dosing of VIX001 in Patients With Neurological Symptoms of Post Acute COVID-19 Syndrome (PACS).</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome;   Cognitive Impairment;   Neurological Complication<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: VIX001<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Neobiosis, LLC<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>PROTECT-APT 1: Early Treatment and Post-Exposure Prophylaxis of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   SARS-CoV-2<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Upamostat;   Drug: Placebo (PO)<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine;   Joint Program Executive Office Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense Enabling Biotechnologies;   FHI Clinical, Inc.;   RedHill Biopharma 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 Clinical Evaluation of the Safety and Efficacy of Randomized Placebo Versus the 8-aminoquinoline Tafenoquine for Early Symptom Resolution in Patients With Mild to Moderate COVID 19 Disease and Low Risk of Disease Progression</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID 19 Disease;   Mild to Moderate COVID 19 Disease;   SARS-CoV-2;   Infectious Disease;   Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Tafenoquine Oral Tablet;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   60P Australia 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>A Study to Evaluate the Efficacy, Safety, Tolerability and PK of SNS812 in Mild to Moderate COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Disease Caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (Disorder)<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: MBS-COV;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Oneness Biotech 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>Efficacy of the Therapy With BRAINMAX® Using fMRI for the Treatment of Patients With Asthenia After COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Asthenia;   COVID-19;   Functional MRI;   Cognitive Impairment<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Structural and functional MRI;   Drug: Ethyl methyl hydroxypyridine succinate + Meldonium;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Promomed, LLC<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>NDV-HXP-S Vaccine Clinical Trial (COVIVAC)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: COVIVAC vaccine<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals, Vietnam;   National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE), Vietnam;   Center for Disease Control of Thai Binh Province, Vietnam<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>Immunoadsorption vs. Sham Treatment in Post COVID Patients With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Fatigue;   Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Procedure: Immunoadsorption vs. sham immunoadsorption<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Hannover Medical School<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>MR-spectroscopy in Post-covid Condition Prior to and Following a Yoga Breathing Intervention</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post COVID-19 Condition;   Somatic Symptom Disorder<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: yoga;   Behavioral: social contact<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Medical University Innsbruck<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>Clinical Evaluation of SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19), Influenza and RSV 8-Well MT-PCR Panel for In Vitro Diagnostics</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Respiratory Viral Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Diagnostic Test: SARS-COV-2, Influenza and RSV 8-Well MT-PCR Panel;   Diagnostic Test: BioFire Respiratory Panel 2.1<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   AusDiagnostics 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>Expressive Interviewing Agents to Support Health-Related Behavior Change</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Mental Stress<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Expressive Interviewing<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   University of Michigan;   University of Texas at Austin<br/><b>Completed</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>Regulation of autophagy by SARS-CoV-2: The multifunctional contributions of ORF3a</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-1 (SARS-CoV-2) regulates autophagic flux by blocking the fusion of autophagosomes with lysosomes, causing the accumulation of membranous vesicles for replication. Multiple SARS-CoV-2 proteins regulate autophagy with significant roles attributed to ORF3a. Mechanistically, open reading frame 3a (ORF3a) forms a complex with UV radiation resistance associated, regulating the functions of the PIK3C3-1 and PIK3C3-2 lipid kinase complexes, thereby…</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>Fangchinoline inhibits the PEDV replication in intestinal epithelial cells via autophagic flux suppression</strong> - Animal and human health are severely threatened by coronaviruses. The enteropathogenic coronavirus, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), is highly contagious, leading to porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), which causes large economic losses in the world’s swine industry. Piglets are not protected from emerging PEDV variants; therefore, new antiviral measures for PED control are urgently required. Herein, the anti-PEDV effects and potential mechanisms of fangchinoline (Fan) were investigated. Fan…</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>Silver N-heterocyclic carbene complexes are potent uncompetitive inhibitors of the papain-like protease with antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2</strong> - The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused a high demand for novel innovative antiviral drug candidates. Despite promising results, metal complexes have been relatively unexplored as antiviral agents in general and in particular against SARS-CoV-2. Here we report on silver NHC complexes with chloride or iodide counter ligands that are potent inhibitors of the SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PL^(pro)) but inactive against 3C-like protease (3CL^(pro)) as another SARS-CoV-2 protease. Mechanistic…</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>Nanoparticle approaches for the renin-angiotensin system</strong> - The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is a hormonal cascade that contributes to several disorders: systemic hypertension, heart failure, kidney disease, and neurodegenerative disease. Activation of the RAS can promote inflammation and fibrosis. Drugs that target the RAS can be classified into 3 categories, AT1 angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, and renin inhibitors. The therapeutic efficacy of current RAS-inhibiting drugs is limited by poor…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Natural fucoidans inhibit coronaviruses by targeting viral spike protein and host cell furin</strong> - Fucoidans are a class of long chain sulfated polysaccharides and have multiple biological functions. Herein, four natural fucoidans extracted from Fucus vesiculosus, F. serratus, Laminaria japonica and Undaria pinnatifida, were tested for their HCoV-OC43 inhibition and found to demonstrate EC(50) values ranging from 0.15 to 0.61 µg/mL. That from U. pinnatifida exhibited the most potent anti-HCoV-OC43 activity with an EC(50) value of 0.15 ± 0.02 µg/mL, a potency largely independent of its sulfate…</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>One master and two servants: One Zr(Ⅳ) with two ligands of TCPP and NH<sub>2</sub>-BDC form the MOF as the electrochemiluminescence emitter for the biosensing application</strong> - Here we put forward an innovative “one master and two servants” strategy for enhancing the ECL performance. A novel ECL luminophore named Zr-TCPP/NH(2)-BDC (TCPP@UiO-66-NH(2)) was synthesized by self-assembly of meso-tetra(4-carboxyphenyl)porphine (TCPP) and 4-aminobenzoic acid (NH(2)-BDC) with Zr clusters. TCPP@UiO-66-NH(2) has a porous structure and a highly ordered structure, which allows the molecular motion of TCPP to be effectively confined, thereby inhibiting nonradiative energy transfer….</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>Understanding structure activity relationships of Good HEPES lipids for lipid nanoparticle mRNA vaccine applications</strong> - Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) have shown great promise as delivery vehicles to transport messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) into cells and act as vaccines for infectious diseases including COVID-19 and influenza. The ionizable lipid incorporated within the LNP is known to be one of the main driving factors for potency and tolerability. Herein, we describe a novel family of ionizable lipids synthesized with a piperazine core derived from the HEPES Good buffer. These ionizable lipids have unique…</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>Identification and validation of fusidic acid and flufenamic acid as inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 replication using DrugSolver CavitomiX</strong> - In this work, we present DrugSolver CavitomiX, a novel computational pipeline for drug repurposing and identifying ligands and inhibitors of target enzymes. The pipeline is based on cavity point clouds representing physico-chemical properties of the cavity induced solely by the protein. To test the pipeline’s ability to identify inhibitors, we chose enzymes essential for SARS-CoV-2 replication as a test system. The active-site cavities of the viral enzymes main protease (M^(pro)) and papain-like…</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>Antibody Fc-binding profiles and ACE2 affinity to SARS-CoV-2 RBD variants</strong> - Emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants, notably Omicron, continue to remain a formidable challenge to worldwide public health. The SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD) is a hotspot for mutations, reflecting its critical role at the ACE2 interface during viral entry. Here, we comprehensively investigated the impact of RBD mutations, including 5 variants of concern (VOC) or interest-including Omicron (BA.2)-and 33 common point mutations, both on IgG recognition and ACE2-binding inhibition, 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>A quantum chemical study on the anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity of TMPRSS2 inhibitors</strong> - Nafamostat and camostat are known to inhibit the spike protein-mediated fusion of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by forming a covalent bond with the human transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) enzyme. Previous experiments revealed that the TMPRSS2 inhibitory activity of nafamostat surpasses that of camostat, despite their structural similarities; however, the molecular mechanism of TMPRSS2 inhibition remains elusive. Herein, we report the energy profiles 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>Effects of Sulforaphane on SARS‑CoV‑2 infection and NF‑κB dependent expression of genes involved in the COVID‑19 ‘cytokine storm’</strong> - Since its spread at the beginning of 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑19) pandemic represents one of the major health problems. Despite the approval, testing, and worldwide distribution of anti‑severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) vaccines, the development of specific antiviral agents targeting the SARS‑CoV‑2 life cycle with high efficiency, and/or interfering with the associated ‘cytokine storm’, is highly required. A recent study, conducted by the authors’…</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>New Viral Diseases and New Possible Remedies by Means of the Pharmacology of the Renin-Angiotensin System</strong> - All strains of SARS-CoV-2, as well as previously described SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, bind to ACE2, the cell membrane receptor of β-coronaviruses. Monocarboxypeptidase ACE2 activity stops upon viral entry into cells, leading to inadequate tissue production of angiotensin 1-7 (Ang1-7). Acute lung injury due to the human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) or avian influenza A H7N9 and H5N1 viruses is also characterized by significant downregulation of lung ACE2 and increased systemic levels of…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Development of nanozymes for promising alleviation of COVID-19-associated arthritis</strong> - The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has been identified as a culprit in the development of a variety of disorders, including arthritis. Although the emergence of arthritis following SARS-CoV-2 infection may not be immediately discernible, its underlying pathogenesis is likely to involve a complex interplay of infections, oxidative stress, immune responses, abnormal production of inflammatory factors, cellular destruction, etc. Fortunately, recent advancements in nanozymes with enzyme-like…</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>Toxic effects of aging mask microplastics on E. coli and dynamic changes in extracellular polymeric matter</strong> - Contamination of disposable medical masks has become a growing problem globally in the wake of Covid-19 due to their widespread use and improper disposal. Three different mask layers, namely the outer layer, the meltblown (MB) filler layer and the inner layers release three different types of microplastics, whose physical and chemical properties change after prolonged environmental weathering. In this study, physical and chemical changes of mask microplastics before and after aging were…</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>New cyclic arylguanidine scaffolds as a platform for development of antimicrobial and antiviral agents</strong> - According to WHO, infectious diseases are still a significant threat to public health. The combine effects of antibiotic resistance, immunopressure, and mutations within the bacterial and viral genomes necessitates the search for new molecules exhibiting antimicrobial and antiviral activities. Such molecules often contain cyclic guanidine moiety. As part of this work, we investigated the selected antimicrobial and antiviral activity of compounds from the cyclic arylguanidine group. Molecules…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A New Lawsuit Alleges That Leonard Leo Called for the Arrest of a Pro-Choice Protester</strong> - The court filing claims that the Federalist Society leader, a champion of free speech, urged police to violate the First Amendment rights of a demonstrator near his Maine home. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-new-lawsuit-alleges-that-leonard-leo-called-for-the-arrest-of-a-pro-choice-protester">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Puzzling, Increasingly Rightward Turn of Mario Vargas Llosa</strong> - The writer has shocked many by endorsing Latin America and Spain’s rising authoritarian movements. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-puzzling-increasingly-rightward-turn-of-mario-vargas-llosa">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Day in the Life of Congress’s “Traffic Cop”</strong> - The House Committee on Rules decides which bills go forward. Jim McGovern, the ranking Democrat, has watched a decades-long erosion of the process. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/a-day-in-the-life-of-jim-mcgovern-us-congress">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is This the End of Bibi?</strong> - Netanyahu’s coalition of zealots, the resistance in the streets, and the Israeli Kulturkampf. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/is-this-the-end-of-benjamin-netanyahu">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Wrestling with the Ghost of Boris Johnson</strong> - An election for the seat in Parliament once held by the disgraced former Prime Minister goes down to the wire. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/wrestling-with-the-ghost-of-boris-johnson">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Vox, the far-right party making gains in Spain, explained</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Vice President Javier Ortega Smith wears a white dress shirt and holds up the left side of a light green Vox campaign poster. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/POloUS2450cw_Ex3-L-tCbRndwk=/27x0:4404x3283/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72471305/1557991101.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Vice President Javier Ortega Smith helps paste up Vox voting posters during a tour of different streets in the center of Pontevedra, on July 20, 2023, in Galicia, Spain. | Beatriz Ciscar/Europa Press/Getty Images
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The country’s upcoming elections could see a hard-right party enter national government for the first time in generations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lOPOoD">
<em><strong>Editor’s note, July 24, 8:30 am:</strong></em> <em>The results of the Spanish election were inconclusive, with neither a conservative Partido Popular-Vox coalition nor the current left-leaning governing coalition garnering enough votes to form a government. The Partido Popular is expected to attempt to find enough support to form a government. A coalition government between the center left, left, and separatist parties may be more realistic, however. The piece below, written before the election, explains a potential Partido Popular-Vox coalition, and how the far-right Vox expanded its power.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3LSGqC">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/4/27/18514497/spain-elections-vox-psoe-pedro-sanchez">After its July 23 national elections, Spain</a> could be partially governed by a far-right party for the first time in generations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="swCXnZ">
It’s a development that would be significant both for Spain <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2022/9/24/23366464/italy-elections-meloni-sweden-europe-far-right">— and the rest of Europe.</a> Domestically, it would mean that Vox, the country’s hard-right party, could help influence policy, advancing harsh attacks on <a href="https://www.vox.com/lgbtq">LGBTQ</a> people, women, and migrants. Broadly, it would also send a message outside Spanish borders, adding to the victories of the far right in places like <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/6/26/23774334/greek-elections-new-democracy-spartans">Greece</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65926194">Finland,</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63029909">Italy</a> in the last year.
</p>
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</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pDRcKn">
Ever since the demise of the ultranationalist dictatorship of Francisco Franco in the 1970s, Spanish voters have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/08/world/europe/far-right-parties-are-rising-to-power-around-europe-is-spain-next.html">hesitant to give the far right federal power</a>. That this could change in the coming elections signals how much ground the movement has gained in Spain and elsewhere.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kGnKPO">
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spains-right-verge-majority-general-election-polls-2023-07-17/">According to polls</a>, the July 23 elections are likely to see unpopular center-left Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez voted out and a new conservative coalition government voted in. While the center-right Partido Popular (PP) — home to Spain’s traditional conservatives — is set to win the most legislative seats, it’s not poised to get enough to secure the outright majority needed to form a government. As a result, it will likely need the help of Vox, and the seats that the hard-right party is able to secure, in order to set up a coalition.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VjlxtJ">
That puts Vox in the position of becoming PP’s “junior partner” in government, a role that will give it influence over key leadership positions in the administration and a much bigger platform to tout hard-line immigration <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> as well as misogynistic and homophobic views.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p5zxFL">
“If the party were to enter into government as a junior partner to … PP, I would expect the party to push the government toward the right on a whole host of issues, including social justice, gay rights, and gender parity,” Omar Encarnación, a Bard politics professor who studies Spain, told Vox.
</p>
<h3 id="8wACZQ">
What is Vox (Spain’s version)?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gO2UxC">
The two largest parties in Spain are PP, which is running Parliament member Alberto Núñez Feijóo for prime minister, and the center-left Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), which is running Sánchez for reelection.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rrM2CJ">
As <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/4/27/18514497/spain-elections-vox-psoe-pedro-sanchez">Vox’s Jen Kirby has previously explained</a>, discontent with how these two parties handled the 2008 financial crisis and a subsequent austerity program, as well as conservative blowback toward the Basque and Catalonian push for independence, led to the emergence of several smaller political parties, including Unidos Podemos on the left, and Vox on the right.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6ortNE">
As <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/4/27/18514497/spain-elections-vox-psoe-pedro-sanchez">Kirby writes: </a>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f0sOb1">
The Vox party was officially launched <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spain-politics/spanish-ruling-party-rebels-launch-new-conservative-party-idUSBREA0F1HM20140116">in January 2014</a>. Breakaway members of the center-right PP formed the party, disgruntled by what they viewed as the PP’s lackluster economic policies and weak response to separatists in Catalonia and the Basque country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ypIjm5">
Vox shares similarities with other far-right movements in Europe, such as the National Front in France or Alternatives for Deutschland (AfD) in Germany. Vox is <a href="https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/02/18/inenglish/1550506982_047374.html">anti-immigrant</a>, anti-Muslim, and skeptical of elements of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/european-union">EU</a>. It is also very conservative on issues like <a href="https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/03/20/inenglish/1553076032_593854.html">LGBT</a> rights, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/04/spain-vox-feminism/587824/">abortion, and women’s rights</a>.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9UdzmI">
Vox’s platform is founded heavily on nationalism and a return to “tradition” on social issues: The Spanish nation, to hear the party tell it, should prioritize its residents and practices like bullfighting rather than welcoming migrants, should be skeptical of efforts to advance gender equity, and should be actively opposed to LGBTQ rights, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spain-politics-vox-lgbt/far-right-vox-challenges-spains-acceptance-of-lgbt-rights-idUSKCN1SU1OC">including gay marriage</a>. Key stances Vox has championed include claiming that <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230623-spain-s-right-rattled-by-row-over-macho-violence">gender violence</a> doesn’t exist, pushing to <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/spain-election-lgbti-law/">reverse a trans rights law</a> that just took effect this year, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spains-far-right-party-vox-would-law-allowing-abortion-2023-07-07/#:~:text=Spain's%20far%2Dright%20party%20Vox%20proposed%20abolishing%20the%20current%20laws,election%20manifesto%20published%20on%20Friday.">banning abortion</a>, and closing shelters housing foreign minors.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CrFKtV">
A campaign poster in Madrid captures the party’s stances: In it, a hand can be seen throwing symbols that represent women’s empowerment and LGBTQ rights into the trash.
</p>
<div id="11mPS4">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="es">
Vox despliega una lona en Madrid contra contra el feminismo, independentismo, el lobby LGTBIQ+ y la Agenda 2030. <a href="https://t.co/PKNlFQfcQ3">pic.twitter.com/PKNlFQfcQ3</a>
</p>
— Wall Street Wolverine (<span class="citation" data-cites="wallstwolverine">@wallstwolverine</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/wallstwolverine/status/1670427043312312320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 18, 2023</a>
</blockquote></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G7ryry">
Vox’s prominence has grown since the party’s founding less than a decade ago. Part of that, again, was reactionary: A newly emerged class of nationalists and ultranationalists were looking for a political home amid the backlash to separatist movements in Catalonia and the Basque region. Vox also gained steam as a rise in migration from non-white Middle Eastern and African countries has increased in recent years due to conflict in these regions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TF2zXA">
Additionally, experts tie the rise of Vox to economic anxieties some Spaniards have: “There are cost-of-living issues, the fear of being left behind by tech and digital transformations, shifts in the economy and workforce,” says Jörn Fleck, a Europe expert at the Atlantic Council. Vox promises it can solve these problems, giving voters a “Spain First” message and pledging to invest in industries like the country’s <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/climate-change-spain-andalucia-far-right-vox-election-2022/">agricultural</a> sector.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B8jusz">
But it often ties those ideas to <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/climate-change-spain-andalucia-far-right-vox-election-2022/">anti-immigrant, anti-Islam</a>, and anti-LGBTQ stances. And now, those views are poised to help shape Spanish policy.
</p>
<h3 id="1t0npW">
Is Vox really going to be part of the Spanish government? How’d that happen?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nmFKJa">
Vox finds itself on the verge of federal power not because it’s widely popular but because <a href="https://apnews.com/article/spain-regional-local-elections-3eeb96fa34bc1f8a54d15f2507a44a25">discontent with Sánchez’s government</a> has created an opening for the center-right to return to power — but PP likely won’t have the numbers to govern on its own.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="19zhoO">
While Sánchez has had some policy wins as prime minister, including lowering inflation, he’s also faced pushback. Votes from a left-wing Basque separatist party helped him get through major labor and housing reforms, for instance, but his alignment with the group — which includes people convicted of armed violence and terrorism — has prompted backlash from some voters, among other issues.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xaY1as">
After his party struggled in regional elections this spring, Sánchez called early elections.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3OOaXL">
But for any party to take control of the government unilaterally, it needs 176 of 350 seats in Spain’s lower house of Parliament. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spains-right-verge-majority-general-election-polls-2023-07-17/">Recent surveys show PP securing roughly 140 seats</a> and Vox projected to win roughly 36 seats, a combined total that could clear the threshold needed. Of Spain’s political parties, Vox is the most likely partner for the Popular Party as the other major options are left-leaning.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uvfAam">
That doesn’t mean Vox is broadly welcome in national government: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/10/spaniards-worried-about-far-right-vox-party-sharing-power-poll-finds">Sixty percent of Spaniards</a> have said in a recent Ipsos poll they are worried about it being part of a coalition. And thus far, it’s estimated to only get about 10 percent of seats in the upcoming election, per recent surveys.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JsU5xW">
Still, if it’s able to become a junior partner, that could do a lot to normalize the party and its extreme views. The support it received in regional May elections, for example, allowed it to join coalition governments in several autonomous regions including Valencia and Extremadura. That gave Vox a foothold and legitimacy it had previously struggled to achieve.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6nWSL3">
“Leaders across Spain said they wouldn’t get in bed with Vox,” says Johns Hopkins University Iberian Studies professor Bécquer Seguín. “Within a two-three week span, every single one of them flipped.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r7X9Bc">
The July 23 elections could mark some of Vox’s most substantial inroads yet. The party first picked up 24 legislative seats in the April 2019 election, a number it went on to double when another snap election was held in November 2019.
</p>
<h3 id="SlbBHS">
What would Vox coming into power mean for Spain?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0uWV80">
If the PP were to form a governing coalition with Vox’s members, it’s not clear exactly what that arrangement would include. But it could lead to the incorporation of some of Vox’s hard-line views on immigration, abortion, and LGBTQ rights in the administration’s approach to governance.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oOqPu8">
As a junior partner, “Vox would be entitled to make petitions upon the PP, like controlling ministries or adopting some of its electoral agenda,” Encarnación told Vox. “Spain at the moment has a coalition government in place led by the Socialist party in coalition with Podemos, a left-populist party. As part of that coalition, Podemos controlled several ministries, including labor, and at one point it had the vice-presidency.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OQcjf2">
Overall though, a coalition could include some discomfort for both parties. Many of Vox’s policy positions are viewed as extreme even by leaders in the conservative Popular Party.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z3mlnv">
“Gender violence does not exist, macho violence does not exist,” José María Llanos, the <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230623-spain-s-right-rattled-by-row-over-macho-violence">head of Vox in Valencia</a>, has said. Already, Vox’s wins at the local level have spurred policy changes that incorporate elements of their nationalistic and traditional ideology.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QFjze2">
A town in eastern Spain has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spanish-town-ban-lgbt-flag-after-far-right-vox-takes-power-2023-06-21/#:~:text=MADRID%2C%20June%2021%20(Reuters),there%20in%20recent%20local%20elections.">banned the use of the pride flag</a> in public places following the election of a Vox-aligned mayor there. And another <a href="https://ground.news/article/censorship-continues-pp-and-vox-ban-a-film-in-bezana-because-of-a-kiss-between-two-women">town in Northern Spain</a> has barred the screening of a <a href="https://www.vox.com/disney">Disney</a> film about Buzz Lightyear because it includes a same-sex kiss.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="katuEM">
A top leader for the PP, Esteban González Pons, told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/08/world/europe/far-right-parties-are-rising-to-power-around-europe-is-spain-next.html">the New York Times</a> that the party does not support Vox’s views on gay marriage or violence toward women, describing them as “red lines.” Pons also described Vox as anti-Europe and in favor of movements like Brexit, something PP opposes. Climate is perhaps another area where the two groups disagree, with Vox denying that human-made <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate">climate change</a> exists, and PP taking a slightly more moderate approach.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8hQ0yU">
The two do have similarities, however, with some members of the PP also pushing more restrictive immigration policies, which are often backed by leaders on the coasts. Additionally, both have used anti-trans rhetoric and signaled interest in reversing a law that <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/lgbtq-rights-are-forefront-spains-election-rcna94712">expanded trans rights</a> in the country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lsXy5g">
Some in the center right hope that a partnership with Vox would neutralize some of its more extreme views. But others fear that if the PP needs Vox to come into power, their coalition would give the smaller party much more credence than it previously had.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NsQJHu">
“First, the bad scenario: We can legitimize Vox,” Pons told the New York Times. “Then, there is a second chance: We can normalize Vox … Vox will be another party, a conservative party inside of the system.”
</p>
<h3 id="lyrkMm">
What does Vox’s rise mean for Europe broadly?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AoRbV4">
Vox’s rise in the national elections would add to the gains that far-right parties have made across Europe in recent years and may embolden such groups further.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ceqq3F">
“The rise of Vox in Spain cannot be separated from the global forces giving rise to right-wing populism in the developed West — including anxiety about immigration, economic insecurity, and a perceived sense of loss of national identity,” says Encarnación.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LozViO">
The Spanish election follows races in other countries where members of the hard right also saw increased momentum. In Greece, a rebranded version of the far-right group <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/30/very-worrying-three-far-right-parties-enter-greek-parliament">Golden Dawn</a> won seats in the legislature in June. The far-right anti-immigration <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65926194">Finns Party</a> also made inroads during the Finnish election this past spring, and the alt-right Alternative for Deutschland party <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-far-right-afd-wins-first-governing-post/a-66024256">won its first local election in June</a> after securing about <a href="https://www.bundestag.de/en/parliament/plenary/distributionofseats">10 percent of the Bundestag</a> in the last national elections. Any gains Vox makes could, in turn, boost the momentum of far-right efforts in other European countries as, for example, elections loom in Germany in 2024.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xHGVhr">
Vox has been buoyed by other far-right leaders across Europe as well, with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offering a fiery endorsement at a recent rally, and others, including Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, praising its positions. Spain’s relationships with these leaders could deepen if Vox secures its foothold in national government, particularly if the right’s influence over European Union politics grows.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MIW5PA">
“Vox is openly Euro-skeptical and seems willing to violate EU norms,” says Oberlin College Hispanic studies professor Sebastiaan Faber. “But if there is a change of guard at the EU after next year’s elections, the EU itself may become much more right-leaning.”
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>The film Oppenheimer forces us to ask hard questions about America’s nuclear arms program</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mf6GRfCqOzhOw3tcC1xOnVLhT_k=/0x0:2720x2040/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72477678/545021299.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
American nuclear physicist and father of the atom bomb Robert Oppenheimer (1904 - 1967) stands in front of blackboard with scientific problems written on it, in the 1940s. | Ullstein bild/Ullstein bild via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Our nuclear reality is Oppenheimer’s “worst nightmare.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UUNhJP">
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still have the power to shock: In an instant, the US killed <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2020/08/counting-the-dead-at-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/">more than a hundred thousand people</a>. But even if the director Christopher Nolan fictionalized some of the story <em>Oppenheimer</em>, his biopic of the scientist behind the Manhattan Project, the film may spark a new conversation about a history many of us studied in high school, but that often fails to resonate as it should.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m90ChF">
The reality is that 78 years after the first atomic bomb was tested at Trinity Site in New Mexico, we are living in a <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2022/10/7/23393019/how-worried-should-you-be-about-nuclear-war-biden-says-very">dangerous nuclear moment</a>. Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to use <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/23409451/secret-history-of-americas-tactical-nukes">tactical nuclear weapons</a> over the war in Ukraine. China has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/us/politics/china-nuclear-weapons-russia-arms-treaties.html">expanded</a> its own once-small nuclear arsenal, even as it has declined to engage in arms-control treaties with the US, which itself will spend about <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59054">$750 billion over the next decade</a> revamping its nuclear weapons. Countries in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia, are vying to create civilian nuclear programs, partially<strong> </strong>in response to <a href="https://www.vox.com/23002229/return-iran-nuclear-deal-vienna-explained">Iran’s efforts in developing nuclear technology</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fIGhjM">
Can <em>Oppenheimer</em> remind us of these dangers and push us to think critically about how the Manhattan Project has led to this reality? I put that question to Alex Wellerstein, a historian at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey and the author of <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/restricted-data-the-history-of-nuclear-secrecy-in-the-united-states-alex-wellerstein/15427862"><em>Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States</em></a><em>.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E4BLqA">
Wellerstein told me that <em>Oppenheimer </em>accurately portrays its subject’s personal complexity, unlike previous historical films about him. But the movie also falls into the trap of outdated scholarship in how it dramatizes President Harry Truman’s ultimate decision to use Oppenheimer’s creation on Japan.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s33RRM">
One question that Wellerstein often asks his students is, “What are the conditions that you think it would be acceptable for the United States to deliberately burn 100,000 civilians alive? That’s a really ugly question, right? Like, that really gets you into really dark territory. But I like using it because it pushes you out of the familiar justifications, even though it’s actually the same question.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sQBzlA">
Nolan does, however, get across some of the key themes. “Oppenheimer’s worst-case scenario for what could happen after the atomic bomb was invented is that we end up in a world where multiple countries have nuclear weapons that could be delivered very quickly,” Wellerstein told me. “We live in that worst nightmare.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ae0hm0">
Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vKpOkM">
<strong>As a scholar in this field, what do you think the film gets right and wrong?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aVme7G">
Nolan goes way inside baseball. It’s interesting to watch it as somebody who has spent quite some time thinking about Oppenheimer, because you see a lot of things you think, “Well, that’s really obscure.” There are a million examples. Some are technical things: They didn’t have to show some of the components that were used in assembling the bomb, but they chose to, and they depicted them accurately. There are a lot of supporting characters who are essentially either unnamed or barely referenced who are clearly meant to represent actual people who have these small roles in the project.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GrLE2e">
In general, his approach to Oppenheimer is to make him a very complicated figure. And that is not the normal approach to Oppenheimer in fictionalization. Usually they see him as a simple martyr, or as an Icarus-type figure who went too high and then came crashing down.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5GMQQy">
On the other hand, there are things in it, some of which are wrong, because he clearly chose to do them wrongly, because he needed to for the purposes of the film. So it cuts out a huge chunk of time in its narrative. It jumps from the end of World War II to the Soviet Union getting the bomb. That’s a big jump, because in that time period, Oppenheimer is at his most important point after Los Alamos. He was a very influential policy adviser in the US government at that time. But you can see why Nolan cut it, because it’s a very long film as it is, and he wanted to get to this other crisis point.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RO4r5m">
There’s another category of things he gets wrong, where I’m not sure he knows he got them wrong. Those are the deeper framing issues that are, in some ways, more important than a lot of the details, in my view, because I don’t really care if you know the name of Oppenheimer’s secretary. To me, that isn’t as important as some of the issues regarding the choices they had in front of them that led to the atomic bomb getting used. There’s an older scholarship represented in Nolan’s film — one that will be very familiar to most people — that is not what most historians who work on this would characterize it as.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PZf398">
<strong>What does the new scholarship say about the atom bomb? Where does this film fit into this new scholarship?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aJ9QAP">
The place where things are not in line with the scholarship are on some of the broader framing issues. There’s a whole line of scholarship now that is not new — it’s 20 to 30 years old, or older — which gets into the fact that the standard narrative that most people have about the use of the atomic bombs and World War II is wrong.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Qe5NRf">
We can call that the decision-to-use-the-bomb narrative, like just the idea that Harry Truman very carefully weighed whether to use the bomb or not. It was a question of, “Do you bomb? Or do you invade?” And so with a heavy heart, he chose to bomb and that was the lesser of two evils. That is just 100 percent not what happened at the time.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wm5swZ">
It’s much less rationalized and thought out. They were planning to bomb <em>and</em> invade. And they didn’t know what the future would be. And Truman played very little role in all of this. This isn’t news to any scholars, but it hasn’t penetrated popular culture. And it’s not in this film at all.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Hiroshima is seen desolate and flattened, reduced to rubble and a few standing buildings that are completely destroyed. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WiacWMzg7Z1WUXABvffrH7fiBxs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24797723/566461865.jpg"/> <cite>Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
After the explosion of the atom bomb in August 1945, in Hiroshima, Japan.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="63HJl4">
<strong>How much of a game-changer is this new scholarship? </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IWRnLo">
In the United States, in particular, we don’t just talk about the history of the atomic bomb because we’re interested in historical facts. We talk about it because it’s one of those core historical episodes that we use to think about what it means to be the United States of America, and also what kind of moral compass the country has.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N6UDgv">
So a lot of the discussions we have about the decision to use the atomic bomb — in elementary schools and high schools and even in college — it’s really a question of, if you have two bad options in front of you, are you allowed to take one of them? Are you forced to take one? So it’s about, what are the conditions in which you were allowed to destroy an entire city?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jdPq4A">
And when we construct it that way, we are actually repeating a bad version of history that was invented by people trying to justify the use of the atomic bomb. Because if you get into the situation where you’re saying, is it better to use the atomic bomb or is it better to have this horrible, terrible invasion that will kill some giant number of people, it’s really hard to conclude that the atomic bomb wasn’t justified.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VGFQb4">
That wasn’t how it was seen in 1945. One of the questions that often comes up is, did they have to use two bombs? Why Nagasaki, so soon after Hiroshima? There’s a whole way to justify that in this rational language: you say, the first bomb was to prove we had one; the second was to prove that we had more than one. And we had to do it because the Japanese didn’t respond to Hiroshima. So it was necessary. And that’s why they chose to do it. That’s all false.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rRmlNe">
It’s false in the sense that there was no strategic choice about Nagasaki. Truman didn’t even know Nagasaki was going to happen. The [military] people on the island Tinian, who were in charge of dropping the bombs, had an order that they could drop the bombs as soon as they were ready to use, and they happened to have two bombs ready at about the same time. They got a weather forecast that said the planned date for the second bombing was going to have bad weather. So they moved it up a day to accommodate the weather. It had nothing to do with high-level strategy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1ZLrY8">
The Japanese were, at this time, still trying to figure out what had happened at Hiroshima. They hadn’t actually concluded or even deliberated about it in any formal way. It wasn’t part of some grand scheme. It complicates the discussion quite a bit when you know those details.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lZJS6p">
<strong>What are some of the questions that you and your colleagues are grappling with around the set of issues right now?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1gpSBF">
I find it really useful, for example, to ask questions about what did people know when they knew about the bomb? We might call this an epistemological approach. Instead of taking for granted that people saw this, the way we might see it, we might look at what they really saw at different moments.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OjHW6N">
There’s a colleague of mine at Princeton named Michael Gordin, and he has a book called <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691128184/five-days-in-august"><em>Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War</em></a>, which is all about how people thought about the atomic bomb in-between Hiroshima and the surrender of Japan. At that point, it’s not clear that the bomb has actually ended the war. And if that is the case, then your feelings on, “Well, is it some world-changing weapon or is it just a really efficient way of doing what they could already do?” [A single night of incendiary bombing <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/deadliest-air-raid-history-180954512/">killed more than 100,000 people</a> in Tokyo on March 9, 1945.]
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K5u238">
So those guys on the island who decided to go ahead with the Nagasaki mission on their own choice, they see it as just another weapon. Whereas there are other people, including some of the politicians, who do not see it that way. They see it as this really core political strategic device. Once the war ends, the bomb as a special political thing, that viewpoint wins out. Looking at how people’s attitudes change, you can get a lot out of that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8rQOlf">
Then there are questions about, you know, how the bomb becomes not usable — what is called the “nuclear taboo.” This is Nina Tannenwald. [a Brown University political scientist who has <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2601286">researched</a> why nuclear weapons have <em>not</em> been used since 1945.] How does the idea come about that you shouldn’t use nuclear weapons? And when does that come about? And why does it come about? Because it’s not obvious that it has to be that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a55bDb">
My next book is all about, how did Truman understand the bomb, and what was going on in World War II, going from the assumption that everybody’s understanding is incomplete to some degree. And I would argue his was incredibly incomplete. And if you start not assuming that people understood things, but looking at the process of how they think about them, or learn things, you find all sorts of interesting stuff.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gh9XAP">
That timeline is really compressed between Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if you start looking practically at like, what exactly is happening, and how do you actually confirm a fact? To me, these lead you to all sorts of new questions and new insights, that are just not part of the older scholarship,
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JmYSBv">
<strong>What about the perspective of US military leadership? I’m thinking of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s remarks in the </strong><em><strong>Fog of War</strong></em><strong> documentary, where he says, we “were behaving as war criminals. [Air Force General Curtis] LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?”</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vPf1RX">
We have a lot of almost<strong> </strong>cultural defense mechanisms, to avoid talking about things of that nature.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U6by5x">
US policy during World War II included the deliberate targeting of civilians, included burning hundreds of thousands of people alive, many of whom had no choice in the war and had no ability to stop it even if they had wanted to. Of course, we have all these ways of justifying that, some of which are more or less true, some of which are just false. And some of which are just repeating fake justifications that were given at the time, like the idea that they had broken up all their production into little bits and the houses were actually, each of them, a little factory. And it turns out, that’s not true. It turns out, that was never really true. And they just made that up to justify it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EanwtY">
It’s really hard to get Americans to engage with the ugly aspects of it. And I think it’s also tricky, because even if you can get them to engage with it, and really see it for what it is, they’re very quick to then move to essentially justify it. And to say, well, “That’s what you have to do in war, or that’s what the other guy was doing — really awful things, too.” And neither of those are really strong moral justifications or positions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1btPDM">
When I teach, I like to ask students, instead of asking, “were the atomic bombs justified?” because that just provokes the same arguments that you would see over and over again, I instead ask, “What are the conditions that you think it would be acceptable for the United States to deliberately burn 100,000 civilians alive?” That’s a really ugly question, right? Like, that really gets you into really dark territory. But I like using it because it pushes you out of the familiar justifications, even though it’s actually the same question.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f8RhDZ">
<strong>For audiences who aren’t familiar with this history, what questions do you think this film should spark? We’re at this incredibly dangerous nuclear moment with Russia threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons, without arms control agreements with China, and so forth. </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iql0PW">
One of the things they do get across in the movie effectively: Oppenheimer’s worst-case scenario for what could happen after the atomic bomb was invented is that we end up in a world where multiple countries have nuclear weapons that could be delivered very quickly. And they’re very large, and they’re in great quantities. And we’ve entered into a situation that over the long-term is not likely to be permanently stable. And if it becomes unstable, there’s a high chance of just, you know, disaster.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vW8p6I">
We live in that worst nightmare. We live in it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ojDvZb">
That was what he was distraught about as time went on, not so much what he did in World War II, but what they couldn’t do afterwards, which was rein that nightmare in. I would like people to consider that the way things are, is not the only way they have to be.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1tJvz4">
We need to think in terms of, what’s the world we would like, and figure out how you get there, as opposed to just saying, well, it’s got to be the way it is, which really is a way to just disengage.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VdLKRk">
If you disengage, then the only people who are really making decisions on this issue are going to be the people who have a lot to gain from it. And that’s how you end up in a situation with arms races, when the military, Congress, and contractors are making a lot of the decisions.
</p></li>
<li><strong>Inside the Republican effort to force millions of farm animals back into cages</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A close-up of a pig inside a truck." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YRQMpQAfBBo9kyMTPB8T6AAyT7Y=/0x0:959x719/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72477647/WAM10603.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A pig en route to slaughter. | Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals Media
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Decades of progress for animal welfare are potentially at risk.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0yI28Q">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W4lh2G">
You may not have noticed it, but the grocery store egg aisle has increasingly been going cage-free. In 2015, just a <a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/ww1ie0z745y7/5x4LpTMoZLQbGpYSaZXpY3/24e96497c51f7398f03776790e9a1b9d/E008R01-us-egg-production-data.pdf">few percent</a> of eggs sold in the US came from hens that weren’t confined in tiny cages. Today, it’s close to 40 percent. That swift change has come in part because <a href="https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/HSUS_state-farm-animal-protection-laws.pdf">eight states</a> have prohibited the sale of eggs from caged hens; some of those states have also prohibited the sale of pork and veal from cruelly confined animals. <a href="https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/pymcagefree.pdf"></a><a href="https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/fb494842n/rj431m23w/5138kx67j/ckeg0623.pdf"></a>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VISqHJ">
While some cage-free conditions are <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22331708/eggs-cages-chickens-hens-meat-poultry">far from humane</a>, the shift in farming practices represents one of the few examples of progress in the decades-long fight against animal factory farming. Now a GOP-led bill in Congress could blow it all up.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qEIQM5">
The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/2019?s=1&amp;r=14">EATS Act</a>, short for Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression, was introduced last month by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) with a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/4417?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22hinson%22%5D%7D&amp;s=4&amp;r=4">companion bill</a> in the House from Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), and would prohibit state and local governments from setting standards for how agricultural products imported from other states are produced. The bill’s language is not only sweeping, but vague, and some of its potential effects are unclear. For example, it covers the “preharvest” production of agricultural products, but “preharvest” isn’t defined.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<div id="OLFLqM">
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Qsqmqy">
If enacted, and if it were to survive likely court challenges, the EATS Act would open up all those cage-free laws to lawsuits, potentially erasing decades of progress for animals suffering on factory farms. The bill would also threaten other farmed animal welfare laws, like California’s and New York City’s prohibitions on the sale of <a href="https://themessenger.com/grid/scofflaw-chefs-and-litigious-farmers-will-new-yorks-foie-gras-ban-make-a-difference">foie gras</a>, a product made by force-feeding ducks and geese. (Disclosure: Prior to Vox, I worked at animal welfare groups that advocated for cage-free laws and opposed legislation similar to the EATS Act.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="So8FFg">
A Vermont law concerning genetically modified food provides an example as to how passage of the EATS Act could play out. The 2014 law required food producers that use genetically modified ingredients to disclose the use of the technology on their product labels, but in 2016, shortly after it went into effect, Congress passed a <a href="https://www.vermontpublic.org/vpr-news/2016-07-15/congress-passes-a-gmo-labeling-bill-that-nullifies-vermonts-law">watered-down version</a> of the law that preempts state law, essentially nullifying Vermont’s regulation. Vermont’s attorney general <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20221220143416/https://ago.vermont.gov/ge-food-labeling-rule/">decided</a> to stop enforcing the original law rather than defend it in court, and state attorneys general with cage-free laws might take a similar course in response to the EATS Act.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Several sows in small crates at night inside a barn." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-JazL0L4iobqMULo0LXi1wmHS24=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24799147/WAM26884.jpg"/> <cite>Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals Media</cite>
<figcaption>
Sows in gestation crates at a pig-breeding farm in Canada.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0kp45n">
But the reach of the EATS Act could go far beyond animal cages. The bill is written so broadly that it could threaten some 1,000 other state and local laws and regulations that govern agriculture, from timber to beef to crops, according to Kelley McGill, a regulatory policy fellow at Harvard Law School’s Animal Law and Policy Program. It may even block state prohibitions on certain recreational drugs, like salvia and kratom, that aren’t federally banned.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pYHp1h">
“The scope is really, really broad — it could encompass basically anything raised on a farm,” McGill said. “Crops, livestock, but also potentially cats and dogs, exotic animals. It could also be said to include products that include just small amounts of crops — for example, medicines that include cornstarch as an ingredient.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zEHLs0">
The bill also gives anyone affected by a regulation the opportunity to sue to block its enforcement, and makes it easier to win a preliminary injunction by putting the burden on the state or local government — not the litigant — to prove it could likely win at trial, reversing the standard of how preliminary injunctions typically work, McGill said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="567iSf">
While the sponsors of the EATS Act have <a href="https://www.iowaagribusinessradionetwork.com/hinson-talks-eats-act-and-the-consequences-of-prop-12/">one goal</a> — to undo cage-free laws and prevent states from passing more — most agricultural laws have nothing to do with moral positions like whether it’s okay or not to confine an animal in a tiny cage. Rather, many are intended to protect consumers and farmers by improving food safety and preventing the spread of disease from livestock and plants across state lines.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Pjx3cl">
Congressional Republicans have been trying to pass some iteration of the EATS Act <a href="https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/11/proposed-king-amendment-threatens-broad-spectrum-of-food-issues/">since 2013</a> as a countermeasure against the growing number of states and <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22331708/eggs-cages-chickens-hens-meat-poultry">food corporations</a> phasing out cages. This year’s version was introduced just weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in May to <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/11/23719825/supreme-court-pigs-california-national-pork-producers-ross-neil-gorsuch">uphold California’s cage-free law</a>, Proposition 12, which the pork industry had challenged in the courts for years. The case centered on the pork component of the law, which requires that female breeding pigs, or sows, are given at least 24 square feet of space. Currently, most sows are confined in what are called <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/10/9/23393017/supreme-court-pork-pigs-prop-12-california-animal-welfare">gestation crates</a>, which are so narrow the pigs can’t turn around for virtually their entire lives.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x4ttM0">
Marshall’s office didn’t respond to an interview request for this story. Hinson’s office declined an interview request and declined to answer specific questions on the record about the bill, but sent a quote that reads in part: “Prop 12 allows liberal lawmakers and radical activists in California — who don’t know the first thing about farming or raising animals — to regulate how Iowa farmers do their job, devastating small family farms and making food more expensive.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ebrpum">
“My EATS Act will ensure Iowa farmers can continue to feed the nation and protect interstate commerce,” Hinson added.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="96Us0t">
After losing in the highest court, pork producers are now <a href="https://southeastagnet.com/2023/07/11/eats-act-abrogate-proposition-12/">pushing</a> for the EATS Act, hoping it will free them from having to comply with Prop 12. The bill is opposed by a coalition of groups that advocate for independent farmers, animals, and state and local governments, and who worry it could be snuck into this year’s farm bill.
</p>
<h3 id="QgIJrR">
The origin of the EATS Act, and the chance of it actually becoming law
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EgQrnP">
The EATS Act can be traced back to one of America’s most controversial politicians: former Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King. King was best known for his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/us/politics/steve-king-offensive-quotes.html">far-right views</a> and outlandish racist remarks, ranging from the belief that whites contribute more to civilization than non-whites and that culture-mixing will lead to a lower quality of life, to wondering out loud how terms like “white supremacist” and “white nationalist” had become offensive.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q8cmD4">
He also had a lot of egg-producing factory farms in his district that wanted to keep locking hens in tiny cages. So, King went to bat for them.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A long row of thousands of hens in stacked indoor cages." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9PjFtoxAPjzyKiC1DWbCbLY7lp4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24799153/AP18276514558872__1_.jpg"/> <cite>Rich Pedroncelli/AP</cite>
<figcaption>
Caged egg-laying hens at a farm in California.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qPU7UP">
In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/opinion/a-hidden-threat-in-the-farm-bill.html">2014</a> and <a href="https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=82933C7D-B597-4DD2-8F50-5B122962620A#:~:text=The%20amendment%2C%20offered%20by%20Congressman,violate%20state%20and%20locals%20laws.">2018</a>, he managed to get an amendment almost identical to the EATS Act in the House versions of the farm bill, which is passed every five years; a <a href="https://www.snaptohealth.org/farm-bill-usda/snap-in-the-farm-bill/">large majority</a> of the bill’s spending goes to fund SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. Ultimately, neither amendment made it into the final version of the bill.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YexL9g">
But according to <a href="https://www.localrootstrategies.com/">Jake Davis</a>, a Missouri hog farmer and farm policy consultant advising advocacy groups that oppose the bill, EATS Act supporters have a better shot to get it in this year’s farm bill than when King was in office.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tpQAhH">
For one, the powerful meat lobby — after its defeat at the Supreme Court — is especially fired up. “The National Pork Producers and the American Farm Bureau Federation and their state affiliates are all making a full-court press for the EATS Act,” Davis said. “In my opinion, they are now seeing that [Supreme Court] ruling as sort of an affront to their way of doing business, and there is a lot of motivation … to getting it in the [farm] bill. And you’re seeing politicians reflect that advocacy.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zWxEag">
Neither organization responded to Vox’s request for comment on the bill.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6E2j9w">
Davis pointed to the House Agriculture Committee chair Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA), a key player in farm bill negotiations who’s already <a href="https://omny.fm/shows/agritalk/agritalk-5-18-23-chairman-thompson">publicly voiced support</a> for the EATS Act, something previous agriculture committee chairs didn’t do for King’s bill, Davis said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AyT5pP">
“When the chair of the House [agriculture committee] says that they are in favor of it sort of very openly, I think it’s probably a good chance that it ends up in the base text of the bill,” Davis added, meaning the first draft of the House’s version of the farm bill, which has a September 30 deadline for passage (though that deadline could be extended).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y28i4p">
According to Davis, however, it will still be an uphill battle for the EATS Act to make it into the final farm bill, in part because a lot of members of Congress are already on record opposing Steve King’s amendment in previous farm bill negotiations. But he said the EATS Act has a better chance than previous efforts, for several reasons.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="npYURj">
For one, Hinson and Marshall don’t have the baggage King did. In the weeks before the passage of the 2018 farm bill, King <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/chuck-grassley-steve-king-752145/">lost support</a> from the National Republican Congressional Committee and some corporate donors after refusing to say whether or not he identified as a white supremacist (anger from Republican leaders reached a boiling point weeks after the farm bill passed and he was stripped of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/steve-king-white-supremacy.html">committee assignments</a>).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oFF4x3">
Hinson’s bill also has much more support — 23 cosponsors to <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3599/cosponsors">King’s two</a> in 2018 — and Davis said <a href="https://kiow.com/2023/07/17/ernst-going-whole-hog-for-pork-producers/">supporters</a> of the EATS Act appear to be <a href="https://www.kmaland.com/news/grassley-gives-update-on-2023-farm-bill-eats-act/article_62ce73ba-2199-11ee-97fa-ef99ee4c4e7c.html">more vocal</a> about their support than they were of King’s amendment, especially <a href="https://twitter.com/ChuckGrassley/status/1669739185740161024">in the wake</a> of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold California’s Prop 12 law.
</p>
<h3 id="SiEIe0">
The unintended consequences of upending agricultural law
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TF4rA3">
The bill has also received support from governors of <a href="https://governor.iowa.gov/media/209/download?inline">11 red states</a>, but the short-term gain of dismantling cage-free laws could come with buyer’s remorse, as it would open up state laws critical to livestock and plant disease prevention to legal challenge.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SRTslK">
The US is currently experiencing its worst outbreak of the highly pathogenic <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/11/22/23472207/bird-flu-vaccine-turkey-prices-chickens-hens-cull-depopulation">bird flu</a>, which has resulted in the death or killing of nearly <a href="https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/animal-disease-information/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-2022/2022-hpai-commercial-backyard-flocks">60 million</a> farmed birds since late 2021, ravaging the poultry industry (the 2015 outbreak caused <a href="https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/emergency_management/downloads/hpai/2015-hpai-final-report.pdf">$3.3 billion</a> in losses to the industry, and this one is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10113833/#:~:text=The%202022%20avian%20flu%20outbreak,influenza%20outbreaks%20are%20also%20significant.">worse</a>). Rightfully so, <a href="https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/iac/chapter/21.65.pdf">Iowa law</a> prohibits people from moving birds exposed to infectious diseases into Iowa unless approved by a veterinarian and requires trucks transporting livestock to be cleaned and disinfected. Those laws could be prohibited under the EATS Act.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cxGPwAxH_3VgB3Z6O8T5etdsTVs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24799186/Ec180dkY.png"/> <cite>Courtesy of Direct Action Everywhere</cite>
<figcaption>
A truck transports hundreds of egg-laying hen carcasses after a mass cull at a Rembrandt Farms operation in Iowa in response to a bird flu detection.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Dtp8xH">
There are also a number of laws around the country that set standards on milk quality, fish sourcing, and beekeeping that could be vulnerable to legal challenge.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3uXIif">
Taylor Haynes, a conservative cattle rancher who ran for governor of Wyoming as a Republican and serves as the board president of the <a href="https://competitivemarkets.com/our-work/oppose-eats-act/">Organization for Competitive Markets</a> (OCM), a group that advocates against monopolization in agriculture, is worried the EATS Act could wrest too much control from state and local governments. And he’s confused as to why the GOP, ostensibly the party of states’ rights, is advocating for it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PcHAuQ">
“It’s a little embarrassing that Republicans are leading this,” Haynes said. “Moreso, it’s confusing. It’s quite confusing.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LaE0SJ">
<a href="https://dailycaller.com/2023/07/16/iuculano-latest-deregulation-bill-risks-gifting-china-our-meat-production/">Some</a> <a href="https://townhall.com/columnists/christianjosi/2023/07/11/beware-the-pork-perk-for-china-in-the-2023-farm-bill-n2625523">conservatives</a>, along with OCM’s lobbying arm, have even fueled <a href="https://www.competitivemarketsaction.org/eats-act">anti-Chinese sentiment</a>, framing the EATS Act as a gift to China. America’s <a href="https://static.onecms.io/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/sites/58/2023/06/16/29771-Pork-Powerhouse-2022-Rankings.pdf">largest</a> pork producer, Smithfield Foods, is Chinese-owned and has <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22576044/prop-12-california-eggs-pork-bacon-veal-animal-welfare-law-gestation-crates-battery-cages">said</a> Prop 12 could force it out of business in California (though ultimately it <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/10/9/23393017/supreme-court-pork-pigs-prop-12-california-animal-welfare">said</a> it will comply with the law).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p87pbI">
Conservatives like Haynes also say the bill is constitutionally suspect, as do legal experts. McGill, the Harvard Law fellow, said it could violate the Constitution under the anti-commandeering doctrine, which is based in the 10th Amendment and prohibits Congress from directly compelling or forbidding state action.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OagpR0">
In an email to Vox, Laurence Tribe, a leading constitutional law scholar and emeritus constitutional law professor at Harvard University, also questioned the bills’ constitutionality: “Congress has wide latitude to regulate or not regulate agricultural practices, but one thing it has no power to do under our federal system is command States and Localities not to regulate those practices in their effort to protect the health of their residents and prevent inhumane treatment of the animals that their residents purchase and consume.”
</p>
<h3 id="uhTNiu">
The EATS Act could hinder some farmers in the long run
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ETp4tO">
Large pork producers have fought against measures like California’s Prop 12 because it raises the cost of doing business, with one estimate projecting <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/193744/20210927102549231_NPPC%20v%20Ross%20Petition%20for%20Cert%20PDFA.pdf">$294 million to $348 million</a> in compliance costs for the industry. But many pork producers — both large companies and independent farming contractors — have <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/10/9/23393017/supreme-court-pork-pigs-prop-12-california-animal-welfare">already begun</a> to build new crate-free facilities or convert existing barns.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="21O4vj">
The egg industry, according to trade group United Egg Producers, has already invested $3 billion to $4 billion in its cage-free transition. The EATS Act could suddenly devalue all that investment, slashing the premium producers might make from raising animals compliant with certain state laws. It also creates more uncertainty for producers thinking of changing their practices amid a shifting legal and corporate landscape for animal welfare.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LVscJW">
“As you start to see these challenges and these pauses in this progress toward cage-free, it creates a little bit of uncertainty, obviously, in industry, as to what the path forward is,” said Brian Moscogiuri, a global trade strategist at Eggs Unlimited, an egg brokerage company. “It’s kind of like red light, green light.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ja1Wkw">
“I think we’re at that stage where there’s been enough of the [pork] industry that have made those [crate-free] investments that they obviously want to be able to capitalize on those investments for some time,” ​​said a pork industry insider who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the issue. “The expression that I’ve used with some people in the industry is that I feel like, at least with Prop 12, the train has left the station, or Pandora’s out of the box and it’s kind of hard to put her back in.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gtbD5c">
If passed, that devaluing could hit home for key players in the farm bill. One of the pork companies <a href="https://civileats.com/2020/10/26/could-crate-free-pork-become-the-new-industry-standard/">more proactive</a> in converting its barns to crate-free, Clemens Food Group, has an <a href="https://www.simplyhired.com/job/RweS5jINyiU1q0zxytL6IBHPmGZBMeHSQFIA1r87o_Nh5lp0wCrauQ">operation</a> in Thompson’s district. The largest egg producer in Michigan, which is represented by Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow, has invested <a href="https://www.michiganfarmnews.com/herbruck-s-poultry-ranch-eyes-2023-opening-of-pennsylvania-facility">$100 million</a> in a cage-free operation in Pennsylvania. Neither office responded to a request for comment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JuEmaf">
The fight for animal welfare, like any other social movement, is one for which progress has always come with setbacks. After years of high-profile undercover investigations that exposed and, in some cases, helped to change some inhumane farming practices, the meat industry successfully lobbied for legislation that simply made it illegal to film on farms. (Most of these have since been <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/11/18176551/ag-gag-laws-factory-farms-explained">struck down as unconstitutional</a>.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u3jcMs">
Similarly, ever since states began banning cages, the industry has fiercely opposed such laws. The EATS Act, despite its innocuous acronym and concise text, puts on display the depravity of intensive animal agriculture and its political might: To maintain the right to cage animals so tightly they can barely move, nearly 40 Republican members of Congress are willing to trade away a critical right of state and local governments.<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/4417?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22hinson%22%5D%7D&amp;s=4&amp;r=4"></a><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/2019?s=1&amp;r=14"></a>
</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>Karman Kaur Thandi wins title in Evansville</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>Novak Djokovic withdraws from Toronto tournament, opts for more rest after loss in Wimbledon final</strong> - Eubanks will gain automatic entry into the main draw as Djokovic pulls out due to fatigue</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>Morning Digest | Over 13,000 detained in Manipur over the last fortnight; Delhi prepares as Yamuna river level set to cross danger mark again, and more</strong> - Here is a select list of stories to start the day</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>Faction war to secure control over Tripura Cricket Association</strong> - While one faction has announced its decision to disqualify TCA president, the other alleged scam in floodlights purchase</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>Morocco, Benzina set to make Women’s World Cup history in a game against Germany</strong> - Nouhaila Benzina will make history when she steps onto the field for Morocco’s first match of the Women’s World Cup against Germany — and not just as a player for the first Arab or North African nation ever in the tournament</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Watch | Bhumi Pednekar’s latest venture - a boutique hotel in Goa</strong> - This boutique resort, facing the Ashwem beach in Goa, has a familiar name connected with it – ‘Badhaai Do’ famous Bhumi Pednekar.</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>Amaravati farmers protest as A.P. CM launches construction of houses for poor in R5 Zone</strong> - We are not against the interests of the poor, but the government should develop the returnable lands of farmers and ensure justice, says Amaravati Farmers’ JAC Convener P. Sudhakar</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>AP-Genco, NHPC to set up joint venture for implementing pumped storage hydropower projects in Andhra Pradesh</strong> - A 1,350 Megawatt (9x150 MW) PSHP at upper Sileru in GK Veedhi mandal of ASR district will be the first one to take off under the aegis of the joint venture</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>Justice Vipul M. Pancholi sworn in as Patna High Court judge</strong> - He was administered the oath of office by Bihar Governor Rajendra Arlekar at the Raj Bhavan</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>Enforcement Directorate arrests Samajwadi Party U.P. State secretary in ‘Bike Bot scam’ case</strong> - Central agency says Dinesh Singh Gujjar ‘used his network to locate beneficiaries of the proceeds of crime generated’ in a Ponzi-like scheme for investing in motorcycles to be run as two-wheeler taxis</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>Spain’s conservatives miss out on all-out victory as left celebrates</strong> - Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo narrowly wins but is held back by left-wing parties.</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: Russia attacks grain stores at River Danube ports</strong> - The attacks targeted grain for export along the Danube just across from the Nato member state.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Russia accuses Ukraine of Moscow drone attack</strong> - Moscow’s mayor says there were no casualties after “two non-residential” buildings were hit in the capital.</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>Unilever will let Russia employees be conscripted</strong> - The Cornetto maker says it will comply with Russian law to permit staff to be conscripted.</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>Corfu latest Greek island to evacuate over wildfires</strong> - The popular tourist island has started evacuations after 19,000 had to leave Rhodes.</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>The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives</strong> - In this deep-dive explainer, we look at a big-business mainstay. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1930955">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Understanding the octopus and its relationships with humans</strong> - A new book tracks the human fascination with octopuses across centuries. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1955903">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two great Star Trek shows revive the lost art of the gimmicky crossover episode</strong> - <em>Lower Decks</em> and <em>Strange New Worlds</em> have a lot of fun blending their styles. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1955274">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Here’s the trailer for the live-action One Piece we’ve been waiting for</strong> - Netflix has a mixed track record when it comes to adapting beloved Japanese anime. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1955937">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Long-forgotten frozen soil sample offers a warning for the future</strong> - Ancient soil was buried under a mile of ice until excavated during the Cold War. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1955679">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>There’s a man named Johnson who owns a nail company, Johnson Nails.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Business had been slow lately, so Johnson figures he might want to try putting out a youtube video to drum up some business.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He goes to an advertising agency and meets a man named Jim who assures him he can make the perfect ad for Johnson’s company. He tells Johnson to come back the next week.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The next week rolls around, and Johnson goes back to see what kind of ad Jim has put together for him. Jim has Johnson sit down, and pops in a USB drive.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A scene of the crucifixion of Jesus comes on. He’s screaming in agony as a Roman centurion hammers away at his wrists. The Roman stops, turns to the camera, smiles and says “You always know you’re doing the job right when you use Johnson nails!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Johnson is irate. He yells at Jim, accusing him of trying to run him out of business. Jim manages to calm Johnson down, and begs for another chance. Reluctantly, Johnson agrees, and they set up a meeting for next week.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Johnson shows up to the meeting expecting to be disappointed, despite Jim’s assurances that this time everything will be fine. Jim pops in a USB drive and the scene begins. It’s a beautiful desert scene, the blue sky merging perfectly with the rolling dunes. Suddenly, a naked, bearded man comes running from off screen, being followed closely by a pack of Roman centurions. The camera pans in on the group, and one of them, sweating and panting says sadly, “I guess we should have used Johnson nails.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Dan-Quixote"> /u/Dan-Quixote </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/157tukb/theres_a_man_named_johnson_who_owns_a_nail/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/157tukb/theres_a_man_named_johnson_who_owns_a_nail/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>My new stepdaughter is convinced our house is haunted</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I don’t understand. I’ve lived here for 276 years and I’ve never noticed a thing.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/foxmachine"> /u/foxmachine </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1583fnb/my_new_stepdaughter_is_convinced_our_house_is/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1583fnb/my_new_stepdaughter_is_convinced_our_house_is/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each..</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers; “Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
They never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Now you have a better understanding of how the cryptocurrency market works.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/HelpingHandsUs"> /u/HelpingHandsUs </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/157ji5w/once_upon_a_time_in_a_village_a_man_appeared_and/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/157ji5w/once_upon_a_time_in_a_village_a_man_appeared_and/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>With Twitter being re-branded to “X” What do we call tweets after the change?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Excretions
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/KnotsCherryFarm"> /u/KnotsCherryFarm </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1582x89/with_twitter_being_rebranded_to_x_what_do_we_call/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1582x89/with_twitter_being_rebranded_to_x_what_do_we_call/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Free Porn.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
If you get an email with a link called “free porn”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Don’t opin it, It is a virus wich deactivates your spelcheck
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
and fcuks up you riting, I also receibed it but lukily I dont
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
vatch porn so I dint opin it, plaese warm yu frends.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Buddy2269"> /u/Buddy2269 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/157qy20/free_porn/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/157qy20/free_porn/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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