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<title>27 May, 2023</title>
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<title>Covid-19 Sentry</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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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>Food Insecurity amid COVID-19 Lockdowns: Assessing Sociodemographic Indicators of Vulnerability in Harar and Kersa, Ethiopia</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Objective The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with widespread social disruptions, as governments implemented lockdowns to quell disease spread. To advance knowledge of consequences for households in lower-income countries, we examine food insecurity during the pandemic period. Design Cross-sectional study using logistic regression to examine factors associated with food insecurity. Data were collected between August and September of 2021 through a Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) using a survey instrument focused on knowledge regarding the spread of COVID-19; food availability; COVID-19 related shocks/coping; under-five child healthcare services; and healthcare services for pregnant women. Setting The study is set in two communities in Eastern Ethiopia, one rural and one urban. Participants A random sample of 880 households residing in Kersa and Harar. Results Roughly 16% of households reported not having enough food to eat during the pandemic, an increase of 6% since before the pandemic. After adjusting for other variables, households were more likely to report food insecurity if they were living in an urban area, were a larger household, had a family member lose employment, reported an increase in food prices, or were food insecure before the pandemic. Households were less likely to report food insecurity if they were wealthier or had higher household income. Discussion After taking other characteristics into consideration, households in urban areas were at higher risk for food insecurity. These findings point to the need for expanding food assistance programs to more urban areas to help mitigate the impact of lockdowns on more vulnerable households.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.31.23284545v3" target="_blank">Food Insecurity amid COVID-19 Lockdowns: Assessing Sociodemographic Indicators of Vulnerability in Harar and Kersa, Ethiopia</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>What can New Zealand bats tell us about Coronaviruses?</strong> -
<div>
The current Covid-19 pandemic emphasizes the dramatic consequences of emerging zoonotic pathogens and stimulates the need for an assessment of the evolution and natural cycle of such microbes in a One Health framework. A number of recent studies have revealed an astonishing diversity of bat-borne Coronaviruses, including in insular environments, which can be considered as simplified biological systems suited for the exploration of the transmission cycles of these viruses in nature. In this work, we present two new lineages of alpha Coronaviruses detected by screening the only two extant New Zealand bat species: the lesser short-tailed bat (Mystacina tuberculata) and the long-tailed bat (Chalinolobus tuberculatus). Infection prevalence reaching 60% in long-tailed bats makes this host-pathogen model relevant for the investigation of maintenance mechanisms in a bat reservoir with peculiar physiological adaptations to temperate climates. A phylogenetic analysis shows that these viral lineages do cluster with Coronaviruses hosted by bat sister species from Australia, supporting co-diversification processes and confirming that the evolution of these viruses is tightly linked to that of their hosts. These patterns provide an interesting framework for further research aiming at elucidating the natural history and biological cycles of these economically-devastating zoonotic viruses.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.26.542035v1" target="_blank">What can New Zealand bats tell us about Coronaviruses?</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Multi-omic Profiling Reveals Early Immunological Indicators for Identifying COVID-19 Progressors</strong> -
<div>
The pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led to a rapid response by the scientific community to further understand and combat its associated pathologic etiology. A focal point has been on the immune responses mounted during the acute and post-acute phases of infection, but the immediate post-diagnosis phase remains relatively understudied. We sought to better understand the immediate post-diagnosis phase by collecting blood from study participants soon after a positive test and identifying molecular associations with longitudinal disease outcomes. Multi-omic analyses identified differences in immune cell composition, cytokine levels, and cell subset-specific transcriptomic and epigenomic signatures between individuals on a more serious disease trajectory (Progressors) as compared to those on a milder course (Non-progressors). Higher levels of multiple cytokines were observed in Progressors, with IL-6 showing the largest difference. Blood monocyte cell subsets were also skewed, showing a comparative decrease in non-classical CD14-CD16+ and intermediate CD14+CD16+ monocytes. Additionally, in the lymphocyte compartment, CD8+ T effector memory cells displayed a gene expression signature consistent with stronger T cell activation in Progressors. Importantly, the identification of these cellular and molecular immune changes occurred at the early stages of COVID-19 disease. These observations could serve as the basis for the development of prognostic biomarkers of disease risk and interventional strategies to improve the management of severe COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.25.542297v1" target="_blank">Multi-omic Profiling Reveals Early Immunological Indicators for Identifying COVID-19 Progressors</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Evolution of transient RNA structure-RNA polymerase interactions in respiratory RNA virus genomes</strong> -
<div>
RNA viruses are important human pathogens that cause seasonal epidemics and occasional pandemics. Examples are influenza A viruses (IAV) and coronaviruses (CoV). When emerging IAV and CoV spill over to humans, they adapt to evade immune responses and optimize their replication and spread in human cells. In IAV, adaptation occurs in all viral proteins, including the viral ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex. RNPs consists of a copy of the viral RNA polymerase, a double-helical coil of nucleoprotein, and one of the eight segments of the IAV RNA genome. The RNA segments and their transcripts are partially structured to coordinate the packaging of the viral genome and modulate viral mRNA translation. In addition, RNA structures can affect the efficiency of viral RNA synthesis and the activation of host innate immune response. Here, we investigated if RNA structures that modulate IAV replication processivity, so called template loops (t-loops), vary during the adaptation of pandemic and emerging IAV to humans. Using cell culture-based replication assays and in silico sequence analyses, we find that the sensitivity of the IAV H3N2 RNA polymerase to t-loops increased between isolates from 1968 and 2017, whereas the total free energy of t-loops in the IAV H3N2 genome was reduced. This reduction is particularly prominent in the PB1 gene. In H1N1 IAV, we find two separate reductions in t-loop free energy, one following the 1918 pandemic and one following the 2009 pandemic. No destabilization of t-loops is observed in the IBV genome, whereas analysis of SARS-CoV-2 isolates reveals destabilization of viral RNA structures. Overall, we propose that a loss of free energy in the RNA genome of emerging respiratory RNA viruses may contribute to the adaption of these viruses to the human population.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.25.542331v1" target="_blank">Evolution of transient RNA structure-RNA polymerase interactions in respiratory RNA virus genomes</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The lasting effects of the pandemic: A time series analysis of first-time speech delays in kids under 5 years of age</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Given the profound effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the way individuals interact, we sought to understand if there was an increase in pediatric first-time speech and language delay diagnoses in. We identified children under five years of age with a first-time speech delay diagnosis between January 1, 2018 and February 28, 2023, in Truveta Data. We calculated the monthly rate of first-time speech delay diagnoses per children with an encounter within the last year and no previous speech delay diagnosis. The Seasonal-Trend decomposition using LOESS (STL) method was used to adjust for seasonality. We also compared the difference in means between the 2018/2019 and 2021/2022 time periods. Significant increases in the mean of rates between 2018/2019 and 2021/2022 exist for the overall population and each age strata (p&lt;0.001). Likely the causes of these trends are multifaceted and future research is needed to understand the specific drivers at play.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.18.23290122v1" target="_blank">The lasting effects of the pandemic: A time series analysis of first-time speech delays in kids under 5 years of age</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The secretory IgA (sIgA) response in human milk against the SARS-CoV-2 Spike is highly durable and neutralizing for at least 1 year of lactation post-infection</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Although in the early pandemic period, COVID-19 pathology among young children and infants was typically less severe compared to that observed among adults, this has not remained entirely consistent as SARS-CoV-2 variants have emerged. There is an enormous body of evidence demonstrating the benefits of human milk antibodies (Abs) in protecting infants against a wide range of enteric and respiratory infections. It is highly plausible that the same holds true for protection against SARS-CoV-2, as this virus infects cells of the gastrointestinal and respiratory mucosae. Understanding the durability of a human milk Ab response over time after infection is critical. Previously, we examined the Abs present in milk of those recently infected with SARS-CoV-2, and concluded that the response was secretory IgA (sIgA)-dominant and that these titers were highly correlated with neutralization potency. The present study aimed to monitor the durability of the SARS-CoV-2 IgA and secretory Ab (sAb) response in milk from COVID-19-recovered lactating individuals over 12 months, in the absence of vaccination or re-infection. This analysis revealed a robust and durable Spike-specific milk sIgA response, that at 9-12 months after infection, 88% of the samples exhibited titers above the positive cutoff for IgA and 94% were above cutoff for sAb. Fifty percent of participants exhibited less than a 2-fold reduction of Spike-specific IgA through 12 months. A strong significant positive correlation between IgA and sAb against Spike persisted throughout the study period. Nucleocapsid-specific Abs were also assessed, which revealed significant background or cross reactivity of milk IgA against this immunogen, as well as limited/inconsistent durability compared to Spike titers. These data suggests that lactating individuals are likely to continue producing Spike-specific Abs in their milk for 1 year or more, which may provide critical passive immunity to infants against SARS-CoV-2 throughout the lactation period.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.19.23290192v1" target="_blank">The secretory IgA (sIgA) response in human milk against the SARS-CoV-2 Spike is highly durable and neutralizing for at least 1 year of lactation post-infection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Evaluation of the implementation and effects of management through care and services pathways: A protocol study</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: In 2015, the Government of Quebec undertook a vast reorganization of its health and social services network. This reform mainly aimed to promote and simplify access to services for the population, contributing to the improvement of the quality and safety of care, and increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the network. Since 2016, several health care organizations (HCOs) have pushed reform even further by developing management through care and service pathways (MCSP). This study aims to identify, in a processual manner, the different factors involved in implementing MCSP in different HCOs, in the turbulent context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: The methodology of this research project is based on developmental evaluation. The objective of developmental evaluation is to guide organizations and actors in the adaptation and development of innovations in complex and turbulent environments. Data will be collected over a three-year period using five strategies: i) organizational questionnaires; ii) analysis of clinical-administrative databases; iii) documentary analysis (grey and scientific literatures); iv) participant observations and v) semi-structured interviews with key actors involved in the implementation of MCSP. Discussion: In addition to the operationalization of pathways, the implementation of MCSP i) involves transforming the governance of the health care organization both at the strategic and operational levels and ii) is a demanding process that requires changes in practices, modifications in the allocation and configuration of resources and the development of new collaborations between the different actors in the organization, the partners and the users involved in this transformation. Several studies claim that governance innovations can create conditions that are favourable to the emergence of innovations in terms of available services and responding to the needs of populations. This research will develop knowledge of the factors involved in implementing MCSP in complex and turbulent contexts and propose scale-up across the province.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.25.23290549v1" target="_blank">Evaluation of the implementation and effects of management through care and services pathways: A protocol study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>An Open One-Step RT-qPCR for SARS-CoV-2 detection</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in millions of deaths globally, and while several diagnostic systems were proposed, real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) remains the gold standard. However, diagnostic reagents, including enzymes used in RT-PCR, are subject to centralized production models and intellectual property restrictions, which present a challenge for less developed countries. With the aim of generating a standardized One-Step open RT-qPCR protocol to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in clinical samples, we purified and tested recombinant enzymes and a non-proprietary buffer. The protocol utilized M-MLV RT and Taq DNA pol enzymes to perform a Taqman probe-based assay. Synthetic RNA samples were used to validate the One-Step RT-qPCR components, and the kit showed comparable sensitivity to approved commercial kits. The One-Step RT-qPCR was then tested on clinical samples and demonstrated similar performance to commercial kits in terms of positive and negative calls. This study represents a proof of concept for an open approach to developing diagnostic kits for viral infections and diseases, which could provide a cost-effective and accessible solution for less developed countries.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.29.21267000v2" target="_blank">An Open One-Step RT-qPCR for SARS-CoV-2 detection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The German Job Search Panel 2.0: The Pandemic Cohort</strong> -
<div>
The German Job Search Panel (GJSP) comprises survey data from workers who registered as jobseekers expecting the termination of their jobs. The data include an exceptionally broad range of measures of health and well-being, among other information. A first cohort was invited to participate between November 2017 and May 2019 (Hetschko et al., 2022). In 2020, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic drastically changed the macroeconomic environment of the German labor market and, in the process, the challenges associated with job search. We therefore decided to sample a second cohort of initially employed jobseekers from July 2020 to February 2021 (GJSP 2.0). Combining the two GJSP cohorts allows researchers to examine if and how the pandemic altered the experience of job search. This data report describes the pandemic cohort of the GJSP, changes to sampling, recruitment and questionnaires compared to the first cohort and documents determinants of participation and panel attrition.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/szjrx/" target="_blank">The German Job Search Panel 2.0: The Pandemic Cohort</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A Multi-Epitope/CXCL11 Prime/Pull Coronavirus Mucosal Vaccine Boosts the Frequency and the Function of Lung-Resident CD4+ and CD8+ Memory T Cells and Protects Against COVID-19-like Symptoms and Death Caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> -
<div>
The pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has created the largest global health crisis in almost a century. Following exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus particles replicate in the lungs, induce a cytokine storm and potentially cause life-threatening inflammatory disease. Low frequencies of function SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in the lungs of COVID-19 patients were associated with severe cases of COVID-19. The apparent low level of T cell-attracting CXCL9, CXCL10, and CXCL11 chemokines in infected lungs may not be sufficient enough to assure the sequestration and/or homing of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells from the circulation into infected lungs. We hypothesize that a Coronavirus vaccine strategy that boosts the frequencies of functional SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in the lungs would lead to better protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection, COVID19-like symptoms, and death. In the present study, we designed and pre-clinically tested the safety, immunogenicity, and protective efficacy of a novel multi-epitope//CXCL11 prime/pull mucosal Coronavirus vaccine. This prime/pull vaccine strategy consists of intranasal delivery of a lung-tropic adeno-associated virus type 9 (AAV-9) vector that incorporates highly conserved human B, CD4+ CD8+ cell epitopes of SARS-CoV-2 (prime) and pulling the primed B and T cells into the lungs using the T cell attracting chemokine, CXCL-11 (pull). We demonstrated that immunization of HLA-DR<em>0101/HLA-A</em>0201/hACE2 triple transgenic mice with this multi-epitope//CXCL11 prime/pull Coronavirus mucosal vaccine: (i) Increased the frequencies of CD4+ and CD8+ TEM, TCM, and TRM cells in the lungs; and (ii) reduced COVID19-like symptoms, lowered virus replication, and prevented deaths following challenge with SARS-CoV-2. These findings discuss the importance of bolstering the number and function of lung-resident memory CD4+ and CD8+ T cells for better protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection, COVID-19-like symptoms, and death.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.23.542024v1" target="_blank">A Multi-Epitope/CXCL11 Prime/Pull Coronavirus Mucosal Vaccine Boosts the Frequency and the Function of Lung-Resident CD4+ and CD8+ Memory T Cells and Protects Against COVID-19-like Symptoms and Death Caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Modifications to the SR-Rich Region of the SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid Regulate Self-Association and Attenuate RNA Interactions</strong> -
<div>
The nucleocapsid protein (N) of SARS-CoV-2 is essential for virus replication, genome packaging, and maturation. N is comprised of two folded domains that are separated by a highly conserved, disordered, Ser/Arg-rich linker, and flanked by disordered tails. Using NMR spectroscopy and analytical ultracentrifugation we identify an alpha-helical region in the linker that undergoes concentration dependent self-association. NMR and gel shift assays show that the linker binds viral RNA but this binding is dampened by both phosphorylation and a naturally occurring mutation, whereas in contrast, RNA binding to the full-length protein is not affected. Interestingly, phase separation with RNA is significantly reduced upon phosphorylation but enhanced with the mutation. We attribute these differences to changes in the linker helix self-association which dissociates upon phosphorylation but forms more stable higher order oligomers in the variant. These data provide a structural mechanism for how the linker region contributes to protein-protein interactions, RNA-protein interactions, liquid-liquid phase separation and N protein regulation.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.26.542392v1" target="_blank">Modifications to the SR-Rich Region of the SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid Regulate Self-Association and Attenuate RNA Interactions</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Dichotomy of neutralizing antibody, B cell and T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and protection in healthy adults</strong> -
<div>
Heterogeneity in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine responses is not understood. Here, we identify four patterns of live-virus neutralizing antibody responses: individuals with hybrid immunity (with confirmed prior infection); rare individuals with low responses (paucity of S1-binding antibodies); and surprisingly, two further groups with distinct serological repertoires. One group - broad responders - neutralize a range of SARS-CoV-2 variants, whereas the other - narrow responders - neutralize fewer, less divergent variants. This heterogeneity does not correlate with Ancestral S1-binding antibody, rather the quality of the serological response. Furthermore, IgDlowCD27-CD137+ B cells and CCR6+ CD4+ T cells are enriched in broad responders before dose 3. Notably, broad responders have significantly longer infection-free time after their third dose. Understanding the control and persistence of these serological profiles could allow personalized approaches to enhance serological breadth after vaccination.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.24.541920v1" target="_blank">Dichotomy of neutralizing antibody, B cell and T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and protection in healthy adults</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Longitudinal host transcriptional responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection in adults with extremely high viral load</strong> -
<div>
Current understanding of viral dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 and host responses driving the pathogenic mechanisms in COVID-19 is rapidly evolving. Here, we conducted a longitudinal study to investigate gene expression patterns during acute SARS-CoV-2 illness. Cases included SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals with extremely high viral loads early in their illness, individuals having low SARS-CoV-2 viral loads early in their infection, and individuals testing negative for SARS-CoV-2. We could identify widespread transcriptional host responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection that were initially most strongly manifested in patients with extremely high initial viral loads, then attenuating within the patient over time as viral loads decreased. Genes correlated with SARS-CoV-2 viral load over time were similarly differentially expressed across independent datasets of SARS-CoV-2 infected lung and upper airway cells, from both in vitro systems and patient samples. We also generated expression data on the human nose organoid model during SARS-CoV-2 infection. The human nose organoid-generated host transcriptional response captured many aspects of responses observed in the above patient samples while suggesting the existence of distinct host responses to SARS-CoV-2 depending on the cellular context, involving both epithelial and cellular immune responses. Our findings provide a catalog of SARS-CoV-2 host response genes changing over time.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.24.542181v1" target="_blank">Longitudinal host transcriptional responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection in adults with extremely high viral load</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Vascular Endothelial-derived SPARCL1 Exacerbates Viral Pneumonia Through Pro-Inflammatory Macrophage Activation</strong> -
<div>
Inflammation upon infectious lung injury is a double-edged sword: while tissue-infiltrating immune cells and cytokines are necessary to control infection, these same factors often aggravate injury. Full appreciation of both the sources and targets of inflammatory mediators is required to facilitate strategies to maintain antimicrobial effects while minimizing off-target epithelial and endothelial damage. Recognizing that the vasculature is centrally involved in tissue responses to injury and infection, we observed that pulmonary capillary endothelial cells (ECs) exhibit dramatic transcriptomic changes upon influenza injury punctuated by profound upregulation of Sparcl1. Endothelial deletion and overexpression of SPARCL1 implicated this secreted matricellular protein in driving key pathophysiologic symptoms of pneumonia, which we demonstrate result from its effects on macrophage polarization. SPARCL1 induces a shift to a pro-inflammatory "M1-like" phenotype (CD86+CD206-), thereby increasing associated cytokine levels. Mechanistically, SPARCL1 acts directly on macrophages in vitro to induce the pro-inflammatory phenotype via activation of TLR4, and TLR4 inhibition in vivo ameliorates inflammatory exacerbations caused by endothelial Sparcl1 overexpression. Finally, we confirmed significant elevation of SPARCL1 in COVID-19 lung ECs in comparison with those from healthy donors. Survival analysis demonstrated that patients with fatal COVID-19 had higher levels of circulating SPARCL1 protein compared to those who recovered, indicating the potential of SPARCL1 as a biomarker for prognosis of pneumonia and suggesting that personalized medicine approaches might be harnessed to block SPARCL1 and improve outcomes in high-expressing patients.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.25.541966v1" target="_blank">Vascular Endothelial-derived SPARCL1 Exacerbates Viral Pneumonia Through Pro-Inflammatory Macrophage Activation</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The landscape of biomedical research</strong> -
<div>
The number of publications in biomedicine and life sciences has rapidly grown over the last decades, with over 1.5 million papers now published every year. This makes it difficult to keep track of new scientific works and to have an overview of the evolution of the field as a whole. Here we present a 2D atlas of the entire corpus of biomedical literature, and argue that it provides a unique and useful overview of the life sciences research. We base our atlas on the abstract texts of 21 million English articles from the PubMed database. To embed the abstracts into 2D, we use a large language model PubMedBERT, combined with t-SNE tailored to handle samples of our size. We use our atlas to study the emergence of the Covid-19 literature, the evolution of the neuroscience discipline, the uptake of machine learning, and the distribution of gender imbalance in academic authorship. Furthermore, we present an interactive web version of our atlas that allows easy exploration and will enable further insights and facilitate future research.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.10.536208v2" target="_blank">The landscape of biomedical research</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>Investigation of the Effect on Cognitive Skills of COVID-19 Survivors</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: green walking and intelligence gam<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Bayburt University;   Karadeniz Technical University<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Effect of Special Discharge Training in the COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pneumonia<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: COVID-19 Discharge Education<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Kilis 7 Aralik University<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Conducting Clinical Trials of the Medicine “Rutan Tablets 0.1g” No. 10 in the Complex Therapy of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Patients With COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: The drug “Rutan 0.1”.;   Other: Basic treatment<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Research Institute of Virology, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan<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>Evaluation of Safety, Tolerability, Reactogenicity, Immunogenicity of Baiya SARS-CoV-2 Vax 2 as a Booster for COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19 Vaccine;   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: 50 μg Baiya SARS-CoV-2 Vax 2;   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Baiya Phytopharm 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>Physiotherapy in Mutated COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pandemic<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: Physiotherapy<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Giresun University<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Studying the Efficiency of the Natural Preparation Rutan in Children in the Treatment of COVID-19, ARVI</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Respiratory Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Rutan 25 mg;   Other: Control group<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Research Institute of Virology, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan<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>Phase 3 Study of Novavax Vaccine(s) as Booster Dose After mRNA Vaccines</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: NVX-CoV2373;   Biological: SARS-CoV-2 rS antigen/Matrix-M Adjuvant<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Novavax<br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>To Explore the Regulatory Effect of Combined Capsule FMT on the Levels of Inflammatory Factors in Peripheral Blood of Patients With COVID-19 During Treatment.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Fecal Microbiota Transplantation;   COVID-19 Infection<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Procedure: Fecal microbiota transplantation<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Shanghai 10th People’s Hospital<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Telerehabilitation Program and Detraining in Patients With Post-COVID-19 Sequelae</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Telerehabilitation program<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Campus docent Sant Joan de Déu-Universitat de Barcelona<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>REVERSE-Long COVID-19 With Baricitinib Pilot Study</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: Baricitinib 4 MG<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Vanderbilt University Medical Center;   Emory University;   University of California, San Francisco;   University of Minnesota;   Vanderbilt University;   Yale University<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dose Exploration Intramuscular/Intravenous Prophylaxis Pharmacokinetic Exposure Response Study</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: AZD3152;   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   AstraZeneca<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 Vaccine Uptake Amongst Underserved Populations in East London</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Influenza;   Vaccination Refusal<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: Patient Engagement tool<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Queen Mary University of London;   Social Action for Health<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>Use of a Hypochlorous Acid Spray Solution in the Treatment of COVID-19 Patients : COVICONTROL Study .</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   SARS CoV 2 Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Spray with Hypochlorous Acid Group;   Other: Spray with Placebo Group<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Monastir<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>Study to Assess Safety, Reactogenicity and Immunogenicity of the repRNA(QTP104) Vaccine Against SARS-CoV-2(COVID-19)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   SARS-CoV-2<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: QTP104 1ug;   Biological: QTP104 5ug;   Biological: QTP104 25ug<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Quratis Inc.<br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Monoclonal Antibodies for Long COVID (COVID-19)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Long COVID;   Post-Acute Sequela of COVID-19;   Post-Acute COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: AER002;   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Michael Peluso, MD;   Aerium Therapeutics<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Computational and experimental validation of phthalocyanine and hypericin as effective SARS-CoV-2 fusion inhibitors</strong> - Phthalocyanine and hypericin have been previously identified as possible SARS-CoV-2 Spike glycoprotein fusion inhibitors through a virtual screening procedure. In this paper, atomistic simulations of metal-free phthalocyanines and atomistic and coarse-grained simulations of hypericins, placed around a complete model of the Spike embedded in a viral membrane, allowed to further explore their multi-target inhibitory potential, uncovering their binding to key protein functional regions and their…</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>Brain Reward Circuits Promote Stress Resilience and Health: Implications for Reward-Based Interventions</strong> - From the COVID-19 global pandemic to racial injustice and the continued impact of climate change on communities across the globe, the last couple of years have demonstrated the need for a greater understanding of how to protect people from the negative consequences of stress. Here, I outline a perspective on how the brain’s reward system might be an important, but often understudied, protective mechanism for stress resilience and stress-related health outcomes. I describe work suggesting that…</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>Optimizing the Cas13 antiviral train: cargo and delivery</strong> - The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in 2020 highlighted the need for rapid, widespread responses against infectious disease. One such innovation uses CRISPR-Cas13 technology to directly target and cleave viral RNA, thereby inhibiting replication. Due to their programmability, Cas13-based antiviral therapies can be rapidly deployed to target emerging viruses, in comparison with traditional therapeutic development that takes at least 12-18 months, and often…</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>In silico design and evaluation of a novel therapeutic agent against the spike protein as a novel treatment strategy for COVID-19 treatment</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: In silico studies can provide a good opportunity to study viral proteins and new drugs or compounds since they do not need direct exposure to infectious agents or equipped laboratories. The suggested therapeutic agent should be further characterized in vitro and in vivo.</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>CD24-Siglec interactions in inflammatory diseases</strong> - CD24 is a small glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored glycoprotein with broad expression in multiple cell types. Due to differential glycosylation, cell surface CD24 have been shown to interact with various receptors to mediate multiple physiological functions. Nearly 15 years ago, CD24 was shown to interact with Siglec G/10 to selectively inhibit inflammatory response to tissue injuries. Subsequent studies demonstrate that sialylated CD24 (SialoCD24) is a major endogenous ligand for…</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 linear B-cell epitope close to the furin cleavage site within the S1 domain of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein discriminates the humoral immune response of nucleic acid- and protein-based vaccine cohorts</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Understanding the exact function of antibodies recognizing amino acid region 657-671 of SARS-CoV-2 Spike glycoprotein and why nucleic acid-based vaccines elicit different responses from protein-based ones will be helpful for future vaccine design.</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>Impacts of pregnancy and menopause on COVID-19 severity: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 4.6 million women</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Pregnancy and menopause are protective and risk factors for severe COVID-19, respectively. The protective role of pregnancy on COVID-19 is minimal and could be counteracted or masked by prepregnancy or pregnancy comorbidities. The administration of estrogen and progesterone may prevent severe COVID-19.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effect of voluntary human mobility restrictions on vector-borne diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: A descriptive epidemiological study using a national database (2016 to 2021)</strong> - The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic not only encouraged people to practice good hygiene but also caused behavioral inhibitions and resulted reduction in both endemic and imported infectious diseases. However, the changing patterns of vector-borne diseases under human mobility restrictions remain unclear. Hence, we aimed to investigate the impact of transborder and local mobility restrictions on vector-borne diseases through a descriptive epidemiological study. The analysis was…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effect of P2Y12 Inhibitors on Organ Support-Free Survival in Critically Ill Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19: A Randomized Clinical Trial</strong> - CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In this randomized clinical trial of critically ill participants hospitalized for COVID-19, treatment with a P2Y12 inhibitor did not improve the number of days alive and free of cardiovascular or respiratory organ support. The use of the P2Y12 inhibitor did not increase major bleeding compared with usual care. These data do not support routine use of a P2Y12 inhibitor in critically ill patients hospitalized for COVID-19.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Immunosuppressants exert differential effects on pan-coronavirus infection and distinct combinatory antiviral activity with molnupiravir and nirmatrelvir</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Different immunosuppressants have distinct effects on coronavirus replication, with 6-TG, MPA, tofacitinib and filgotinib possessing pan-coronavirus antiviral activity. The combinations of MPA, 6-TG, tofacitinib and filgotinib with antiviral drugs exerted an additive or synergistic antiviral activity. Thus, these findings provide an important reference for optimal management of immunocompromised patients infected with coronaviruses.</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>Myricetin possesses the potency against SARS-CoV-2 infection through blocking viral-entry facilitators and suppressing inflammation in rats and mice</strong> - CONCLUSION: Our findings showed that myricetin inhibited HCoV-229E and SARS-CoV-2 replication in vitro, blocked SARS-CoV-2 virus entry facilitators and relieved inflammation through the RIPK1/NF-κB pathway, suggesting that this flavonol has the potential to be developed as a therapeutic agent against COVID-19.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Promoting cognitive health: a virtual group intervention for community-living older adults</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: The synchronous virtual group intervention was shown to be feasible for the elderly in the community who participated in the study.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SARS-CoV-2 RBD and Its Variants Can Induce Platelet Activation and Clearance: Implications for Antibody Therapy and Vaccinations against COVID-19</strong> - The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus is an ongoing global health burden. Severe cases of COVID-19 and the rare cases of COVID-19 vaccine-induced-thrombotic-thrombocytopenia (VITT) are both associated with thrombosis and thrombocytopenia; however, the underlying mechanisms remain inadequately understood. Both infection and vaccination utilize the spike protein receptor-binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2. We found that intravenous injection of recombinant RBD caused significant…</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>HSPA5 Promotes Attachment and Internalization of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus through Interaction with the Spike Protein and the Endo-/Lysosomal Pathway</strong> - Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) has caused huge economic losses to the global pig industry. The swine enteric coronavirus spike (S) protein recognizes various cell surface molecules to regulate viral infection. In this study, we identified 211 host membrane proteins related to the S1 protein by pulldown combined with liquid-chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis. Among these, heat shock protein family A member 5 (HSPA5) was identified through screening as having a…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluation of the Inhibition Potency of Nirmatrelvir against Main Protease Mutants of SARS-CoV-2 Variants</strong> - SARS-CoV-2 continues to pose a threat to public health. Main protease (M^(pro)) is one of the most lucrative drug targets for developing specific antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 infection. By targeting M^(pro), peptidomimetic nirmatrelvir is able to inhibit viral replication of SARS-CoV-2 and reduce the risk for progression to severe COVID-19. However, multiple mutations in the gene encoding M^(pro) of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants raise a concern of drug resistance. In the present study, we…</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>What Can Ron DeSantis Do Now?</strong> - It isn’t that the Florida governor is charmless—or it’s not only that. It’s that his career has been spent on a charmlessness offensive. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/05/what-can-ron-desantis-do-now">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>E. Jean Carroll Discusses Trump’s Comeuppance</strong> - Since losing a civil case to the journalist, who accused him of sexual abuse and defamation, Trump has doubled down on his attacks. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/e-jean-carroll-discusses-trumps-comeuppance">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What Is a Weed?</strong> - The names we call plants say more about us than they do about the greenery that surrounds us. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-local-correspondents/what-is-a-weed">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>E. Jean Carroll on Defamatory Trump, and Rob Marshall on “The Little Mermaid”</strong> - Carroll and her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, on their next move against Donald Trump’s campaign of defamation. Plus, the director of Disney’s new film on bringing the mermaid to life. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/e-jean-carroll-on-defamatory-trump-and-rob-marshall-on-the-little-mermaid">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Andy Warhol Turned the Supreme Court Justices Into Art Critics</strong> - Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent reads as strenuously as a vintage piece by, say, Clement Greenberg, slamming Harold Rosenberg. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-warhol-turned-the-supreme-court-justices-into-art-critics">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Cannes and the banality of evil</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Two men in 1920s Western garb look at one another; one is in a car." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Vh2JKEMXVxHlyB5ssZ0sb4EUGOg=/34x0:3675x2731/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72318031/killers1.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s <em>Killers of the Flower Moon</em>. | Apple
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Robert De Niro, Johnny Depp, Thierry Fremaux, and where evil really lies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="93gpL3">
At the press conference following the Cannes premiere of Martin Scorsese’s <em>Killers of the Flower Moon</em>, someone asked Robert De Niro about his character, a kingpin of a sort with a tricky psyche. “It’s the banality of evil,” he said, describing the character’s moral ambiguity. “It’s the thing we have to watch out for. We see it today, of course. We all know who I’m going to talk about, but I’m not going to say his name.” (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/nov/20/robert-de-niro-v-donald-trump-history-quotes">Everyone knew who he meant</a>.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fZbL7t">
The banality of evil was hot at Cannes this year. De Niro’s statement came on the heels of the premiere of Jonathan Glazer’s <em>The Zone of Interest</em>, which set Cannes critics abuzz about the same phrase. That movie — <a href="https://www.vox.com/e/23498026">which I proposed</a> might best be understood as an adaptation of Hannah Arendt’s <em>Eichmann in Jerusalem</em>, even more than the Martin Amis novel it’s loosely based on — is not much like <em>Killers of the Flower Moon</em>, at first blush. Glazer’s is short, taut horror that evokes the Holocaust by keeping it offscreen; Scorsese’s is epic, bloody, and relentless in its depiction of a series of murders from a century ago.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gnUFxp">
Thematically, however, they often rhyme. Both are about mankind’s ability to exterminate one another while deluding themselves into thinking they’re doing the right thing. Both are about atrocities so heinous they’re hard to wrap your mind around. And both feel eerily contemporary, in an age where prejudice, racism, and fascism are on the rise around the globe.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2gl2WbkLAKZ-T1LqrZpr9nruvAE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24682540/1492011829.jpg"/> <cite>Mohammed Badra/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Robert De Niro with Martin Scorsese and Chief Standing Bear at the <em>Killers of the Flower Moon</em> press conference in Cannes.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cNnQi8">
Yet, with deep respect to De Niro (who gives one of his finest performances in <em>Killers</em>), only one of these movies is actually about the banality of evil, and it’s not the one he’s in. A key part of Arendt’s argument in <em>Eichmann in Jerusalem</em> is that her subject, Adolf Eichmann, the chief architect of the Third Reich’s euphemistically named “Final Solution,” was profoundly vapid, lacking a discernible motivation or conscious vendetta against the Jewish people he exterminated. (This is the chilling sense you get about <em>The Zone of Interest</em>’s characters, too.) Arendt observed Eichmann in court, where his defense was that he simply followed orders. What struck her was his lack of ego or intelligence or personal motivation. This evil, she wrote, was banal because it was hollow, perpetuated largely by people who had given up thinking, letting themselves exist within a corrupt and deadly system.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NmyJtq">
That is not the case with William Hale, De Niro’s character in <em>Killers of the Flower Moon</em>. Hale is complicated, to be sure — as De Niro noted, he seems to genuinely love the Osage people while actively plotting to kill them off and take their wealth for himself. But his motivation is obvious, his ego boundless, his arrogance and manipulation and conviction of his own supremacy on a level that rivals any mob boss from a Scorsese film. He is, indeed, a bit reminiscent of the former president De Niro refused to name; one line delivery (in which Hale boasts about his access to the best lawyers) even seems modeled on Trump. But what he (and Trump) is <em>not</em> is banal.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5oTLhc">
That doesn’t make Hale less evil than, say, Eichmann. But it does make him exceptional, the kind of person who people are still talking about a hundred years after the fact. If <em>The Zone of Interest</em>’s characters are banally evil, then <em>Killers of the Flower Moon</em>’s antagonists are sharply evil, even the ones who aren’t masterminds. (Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Ernest Burkhart shares some key qualities with Eichmann — he’s not very bright, he’s easily suggestible, and he doesn’t like thinking — but he is absolutely motivated, loudly and passionately, by money.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gskLgH">
Cannes is an interesting place to consider evil, in both its banal and exceptional forms. As the festival concludes its 76th edition, it remains the most prestigious in the world, its iconic red carpet attracting dense crowds of onlookers who stake out a spot hours before premieres (18, for <em>Killers</em>) just for the possibility of seeing a star in the flesh. Filmmakers around the globe consider a Cannes berth the apex of a career. The festival is well aware of its cachet, that it’s the place where artists gain a kind of immortality. Walk around the city of Cannes during the festival, and there are posters everywhere of stars present and past on the red carpet, just to remind you that this is where the legends have walked.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jortW3v-pjrPMaeO1uktVHDKO_4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24682548/1490759179.jpg"/> <cite>Samir Hussein/WireImage</cite>
<figcaption>
Johnny Depp and Maiwenn on the red carpet for the Cannes opening night gala screening of <em>Jeanne du Barry</em>.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L9X2Ry">
That means the festival wields a nearly unparalleled kingmaking power, an authority that the festival’s director Thierry Frémaux seems to both love and deny. Frémaux always manages to be controversial, but for 2023 he took it to new heights, programming the controversial French director Maïwenn’s period drama <em>Jeanne du Barry</em>, about the favorite mistress of King Louis XV, for the festival’s opening night gala. Opening night movies at Cannes are often not very good; <em>Jeanne du Barry </em>is, indeed, very bad, bafflingly so. But the film’s pre-fest buzz was almost entirely a function of its director, who’s known for her vocal <a href="https://worldcrunch.com/culture-society/who-is-maiwenn">anti-MeToo stances</a> and recent <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/maiwenn-director-jeanne-du-barry-accused-assaulting-journalist-1235369592/">assault</a> of a journalist, and its star, Johnny Depp, in his first major role since his <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23043519/johnny-depp-amber-heard-defamation-trial-fairfax-county-domestic-abuse-violence-me-too">circus of a court battle</a> with ex-wife Amber Heard.
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Prior to the film’s premiere, Frémaux claimed in an interview that he didn’t really have any idea why this was controversial. “I don’t know about the image of Johnny Depp in the US,” he said, claiming he only has “one rule: it’s the freedom of thinking, and the freedom of speech and acting within a legal framework.” He was, he claimed, “one person who didn’t find the least interest in this very publicized trial.” If reporters wanted to know why Depp was in the movie, Frémaux said, “you should ask Maïwenn.”
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It was a strange answer to a relatively straightforward question, for reasons that have not all that much to do with either Depp or Maïwenn. The opening night gala at Cannes is not just some random screening down at the local multiplex; it’s a position of honor, a signal of what an institution values. That’s what makes Frémaux’s response so strange: it’s one thing to choose to give platforms to two deeply controversial figures, but another altogether to refuse to defend them by explaining that choice. Given the festival’s rather <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/cannes-director-woody-allen-not-considered-controversy-1234828903/">ostentatious choice</a> to not program new films by Woody Allen or Roman Polanski, two of its former favorites, it’s especially strange. To shrug at these facts not only discounts the power Cannes holds, but is a sideways insult to the filmmakers — and swings dangerously close to claiming you’re just following orders.
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But Cannes is not one man. Sprinkled further throughout the festival were reflections on moral ambiguity and outright badness, in Scorsese’s and Glazer’s movies as well as many others. Todd Haynes’s <em>May December</em> features a central relationship based loosely on the infamous case of Mary Kay Letourneau, who spent seven and a half years in prison after being convicted of child rape following a sexual relationship with a 12-year-old in her sixth-grade class. She then married him, ultimately having six children with him. <em>May December</em> imagines a fictionalized version of the pair (played by Julianne Moore and Charles Melton) many years into their marriage, when they’re visited by an actress (Natalie Portman) doing research for a role. The film is funny and campy and off-kilter, but never loses its purposefully queasy undertone; something bad happened here, people were and are being exploited, and the mental gymnastics on display are both extraordinary and, in a sense, very familiar. Cliches about love and romance can’t quite push it all away, and the film wants us to dwell in the discomfort.
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<img alt="Two women stand near one another. One is putting on makeup; the other is taking notes." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JzkV7PK8EgyKfUFrDuGyP7cNUpM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24682551/maydecember.jpg"/> <cite>Netflix</cite>
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Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore in <em>May December</em>, Todd Haynes’s new movie, which premiered at Cannes.
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It was the same in Wang Bing’s extraordinary documentary <em>Youth (Spring)</em>, which centers on the lives of young people, mostly in their late teens or early twenties, who work in China’s textile factories making cheap clothes. The film’s three-and-a-half hour runtime is blanketed with pop music in the background, lyrics laden with swoony romantic fantasies; meanwhile, in the foreground, the workers live very differently, casually speaking of sexual assault and exploitation by bosses while also simply living the best lives possible under the circumstances.
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Justine Triet’s incredible <em>Anatomy of a Fall</em> hinges on how the legal system employs euphemisms about “opinion” and “fact,” memory and gender and love, to manipulate the meaning of justice. In <em>How to Have Sex</em>, a debut from Molly Manning Walker, a young English woman on vacation with her friends discovers how cruelly some male acquaintances can wield language to cover up evil behavior. <em>About Dry Grasses</em>, from the great Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, features at its core a schoolteacher who is plenty comfortable with the misogyny around him, despite feeling like he’s above the people in his village. <em>The Sweet East</em>, from Sean Price Williams, is a careening tour through the stupidest underbelly of American society: white supremacists, misogynistic violence, a world that gleefully sexualizes young women. Or there’s <em>Monster</em>, from master filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, a story that keeps flipping and changing and doesn’t reveal till near the end how much it’s about the power of lazy language to warp a child’s self-image. Even <em>The Idol</em>, Sam Levinson’s new HBO show (two episodes of which premiered at Cannes), picks up the theme in its own way, embodying the same cruel hatred of young women in the pop industry that it seemingly intends to skewer.
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The list could go on; what’s striking is how often the movies at this year’s Cannes actually <em>were</em> about the simple banality of evil, perpetuated or indulged in by ordinary people who have left thought behind and followed, instead, the system in which they find themselves. You can’t make a proclamation about the future from a selection at a film festival, but the lack of exceptional and identifiable villains, at least in my viewing, was striking, <em>Killers of the Flower Moon</em> notwithstanding. If there’s a message emanating from Cannes this year — muddled as it might be — it’s that the world is set up to make evil as easy as possible to partake in. Whether we choose to start thinking about it clearly is the question that lingers, long after the lights come down and the red carpet is rolled back up.
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<li><strong>UN numbers say meat is bad for the climate. The reality is worse.</strong> -
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<img alt="A few dozen densely packed cows in a holding pen look at the camera." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oNEadStKnbOlQR-2YRdjwJ9a4gA=/318x0:1758x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72317987/GettyImages_1322560887__1_.0.jpg"/>
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The Harris Cattle Ranch feedlot, the biggest beef producer in California, confining nearly 100,000 cows. | George Rose/Getty Images
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As America gets ready to grill on Memorial Day, a reminder of meat’s role in climate change.
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In 2006, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a bombshell <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm">report</a>, called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” that focused public consciousness onto animal agriculture’s role in <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate">climate change</a>. It turned out it wasn’t just cars, planes, and coal plants that belched planet-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — it was also something as seemingly natural as the food we eat. The FAO estimated then that the production of meat, dairy, and eggs made up 18 percent of greenhouse emissions globally, a figure so high that, for many people in countries with high levels of meat consumption, dietary change came to be seen as perhaps <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/04/rules-eating-fight-climate-change/618515/">the single most important step</a> individuals could take to reduce their climate impact.
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Since then, the FAO estimates have gone through a few more iterations. Last October, it <a href="https://foodandagricultureorganization.shinyapps.io/GLEAMV3_Public/">released</a> its most recent estimate of animal agriculture’s carbon footprint, using data from 2015 (each estimate uses data from several years prior). It put livestock’s share of total annual greenhouse gas emissions at about 11 percent — down from its previous estimate of <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.fao.org_3_i3437e_i3437e.pdf&amp;d=DwMFAw&amp;c=7MSjEE-cVgLCRHxk1P5PWg&amp;r=ct6dauPa_NTjdRjj1u6cIc96YmXo5720qGQ3u69psLE&amp;m=_oofmHf3kenIwhdQvaoR4NnfSY6u8tOEdzoPD_SJQ9IHvKpvi87YHRpxJZVa5L5f&amp;s=F0GuvPGfTAViQQX2M07RBvzDTsX6k1-XhdaGRLa2x4A&amp;e=">14.5 percent</a> released in 2013, which itself was down from the 2006 estimate of 18 percent. In raw numbers, too, the new estimate is lower, with animal agriculture accounting for 6.19 billion tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions compared to 7.1 billion tons the FAO reported in <a href="https://www.fao.org/policy-support/tools-and-publications/resources-details/en/c/1235389/">2013</a>.
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This is a particularly surprising finding, given the <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/animals-slaughtered-for-meat">rapidly growing</a> number of animals raised for food globally. About 83 billion land animals were slaughtered for food in 2021 (chickens are the vast majority), up from about 68 billion a decade ago and 55 billion in 2006, according to FAO data. In the US, this Memorial Day weekend will kick off a summer grilling season when Americans alone <a href="https://wallethub.com/blog/memorial-day-facts/21363">are projected</a> to consume some 7 billion hot dogs, or roughly 818 per second.
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Compared to many peer-reviewed studies, which put livestock emissions at between 14.5 percent and 19.6 percent of the world’s total, the FAO’s new estimate (which is not peer-reviewed) is the lowest to date, according to <a href="https://www.datawrapper.de/_/VMdRe/">an analysis</a> by the Breakthrough Institute.
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That raises an obvious question: why is it lower? There’s considerable uncertainty on the answer among scientists. Peer-reviewed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/06/meat-dairy-rice-high-methane-food-production-bust-climate-target-study#:~:text=2%20months%20old-,Meat%2C%20dairy%20and%20rice%20production%20will%20bust,C%20climate%20target%2C%20shows%20study&amp;text=Emissions%20from%20the%20food%20system,high%2Dmethane%20foods%20are%20tackled.">research</a> continues to warn that emissions from agriculture, most of which are driven by animal agriculture, could push global temperature rise past the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5°C.
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“It is hard to say why the new FAO number is lower based on their documentation,” said Joseph Poore, a specialist in food sustainability analytics at Oxford University and co-author of an influential 2018 <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216">study</a> on livestock emissions. Other scientists interviewed for this story agreed.
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So far, the new estimate has only been published as a web app, with a more thorough report analyzing and contextualizing the findings due to be published in the fall, the FAO told Vox. Poore hopes the FAO report will provide a clearer accounting of the methodological changes that led to the 11 percent figure.
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Despite the lack of transparency, Poore and others suggested several factors that may have lowered the new estimate, including changes in the Global Warming Potential metric, or <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials">GWP 100</a>. That’s a key figure in climate science which is used to convert the warming effects of different greenhouse gases to “<a href="https://www.myclimate.org/information/faq/faq-detail/what-are-co2-equivalents/">carbon dioxide equivalents</a>,” so they can be easily be compared to one another. Methane is now considered 27 times as potent as carbon dioxide, down from a previous <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/649400/EPRS_BRI(2020)649400_EN.pdf">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimate</a> of 34 times, while nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas closely associated with animal agriculture, is considered 273 times as potent, down from a previous 298 times.
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A deeper concern about the FAO’s estimate voiced by some scientists is what it doesn’t<em> </em>include. It counts only emissions that the livestock industry is directly responsible for — like methane emitted by cows — but it doesn’t factor in the significant climate benefits we’d get if we freed up some of the land now dedicated to livestock farming and allowed forests to return, unlocking their potential as <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/7/4/20681331/climate-change-solutions-trees-deforestation-reforestation">“carbon sinks”</a> that absorb and sequester greenhouse gases from the air.
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Scientists call this the opportunity cost of animal agriculture’s land use. Because animal farming takes up so much land — nearly <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture#:~:text=If%20we%20combine%20pastures%20used,77%25%20of%20global%20farming%20land.">40 percent</a> of the planet’s habitable land area — that opportunity cost is massive, which means looking at figures like the FAO’s alone inevitably provides a limited picture of livestock’s full climate impact.
</p>
<h3 id="JZe57a">
Models aren’t actually measurements
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ySkqDF">
The FAO’s latest numbers were produced by the third version of its Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model, or GLEAM, a tool it’s been <a href="https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/gleam/docs/GLEAM_3.0_Model_description.pdf">refining</a> since 2009. The decreased estimate doesn’t actually mean that the world is successfully mitigating emissions from animal agriculture — it’s just changing the way it measures them. “The different figures should not be interpreted as a time series,” the dashboard reads. The FAO says it’s “impossible to draw conclusions like ‘emissions went up’ or ‘livestock emissions are becoming less important compared to total anthropogenic emissions.’”
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Since the revised numbers are still in the ballpark of other livestock emissions estimates, with room for error in either direction, they don’t fundamentally alter the scientific understanding of how much animal agriculture matters to climate change, said Theun Vellinga, a livestock researcher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and a member of the team who built the first GLEAM dashboard. “The situation is [still] relatively serious, given the animal population continues to rise,” he said, adding that the 6.19 billion-ton estimate was “still quite a worrying figure” and one that needed to be reduced.
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To untrained eyes, however, the dashboard’s lower figures are easy to misread. Unlike most scientific studies, the GLEAM dashboard provides no margin of error for its estimate, which gives it a false sense of precision, said NYU environmental scientist Matthew Hayek. “Putting a decimal point on this is absurd” because it implies an inappropriate level of certainty, Hayek said, referring to the estimates of 11.19 percent and 6.19 billion tons of CO2 emissions from livestock.
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“We know there is a 30 percent to 50 percent error” in livestock emissions estimates, Hayek said. “All we can really say is that animal agriculture accounts for 10 percent to 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.”
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That’s because the FAO hasn’t actually measured emissions from every livestock farm in the world, which, to be fair, would be an impossible task. It modeled them, and models are imprecise by definition.
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For example, in a 2021 <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac02ef">study</a> aiming to check the accuracy of estimates of cattle emissions, Hayek and a colleague found significant discrepancies between real-world measurements of the air downwind of intensive animal feedlots across America, compared to modeled versions. The measured methane emissions were between 39 percent to 90 percent higher than models like the FAO’s predict, they found. Hayek said this finding suggests models may be underestimating emissions from intensive cattle farms.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A calf inside a small pen looks at the camera." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mnCk6J1UGpayATz5r5kpevez0Lk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24684687/WAM26007.jpg"/> <cite>Havva Zorlu/We Animals Media</cite>
<figcaption>
A calf at a dairy farm in Turkey. Calves born on dairy farms are separated from their mothers, prevented from nursing, and kept inside individual pens. Cows are a major source of climate-warming emissions, particularly methane.
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Accurately measuring livestock emissions is hard. “Biological systems (animals, plants, wetlands) are harder to assess [greenhouse gases] from because you need to model entire biological organisms and systems,” Hayek said in an email. “Modeling fuel use from buildings, transport, or energy is mostly just a matter of thermodynamics, making those relatively less complex.” There are also legal limitations: the US Environmental Protection Agency, for example, has been <a href="https://www.environmentalleader.com/2022/02/letter-asks-congress-to-give-epa-power-to-regulate-livestock-emissions/">blocked</a> from using its funds to measure livestock emissions, and <a href="https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2022/9/thune-ernst-introduce-bill-to-prohibit-government-monitoring-of-livestock-emissions-block-radical-climate-policies">a bill</a> introduced in the Senate last fall aims for an outright ban on monitoring methane emissions.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r9vkWa">
Another well-known uncertainty in livestock climate models is the role of nitrous oxide, among the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210603-nitrous-oxide-the-worlds-forgotten-greenhouse-gas">most potent</a> greenhouse gases, said Timothy Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton’s Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment. The gas, which comes from fertilizers and other <a href="https://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/nitrous-oxide-emissions">agricultural activities</a>, is difficult to <a href="https://www.producer.com/news/nitrous-oxide-soil-emissions-difficult-to-measure/">measure and model</a> because the amount emitted depends on a range of factors including soil temperature, moisture, and microbe levels.
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All this combined with media’s tendency to simplify data for wider communication, and people’s inclination to see what they want to see about polarizing issues like meat consumption, risks both “the willful and unintentional misinterpretation” of the new estimates, “which is worrying because the world still faces an urgent need to reduce methane emissions from livestock,” said Carlos Gonzalez Fischer, an agri-food systems sustainability researcher at Cornell University. While scientists understand that there’s uncertainty inherent in emission estimates, he said, for the general public and policymakers, clearer communication about what the estimates do and don’t mean is essential.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="82HhBh">
That could be accomplished by using a range for the percentage and tonnage estimates instead of single figures. Michael MacLeod, a climate change mitigation researcher at Scotland’s Rural College and another former member of the GLEAM modeling team, suggests displaying the estimate as a confidence interval: “six billion tons plus or minus one billion tons, with a 95 percent confidence of that range,” for example.
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The FAO responded to initial queries about how the model works but didn’t respond to a detailed list of questions about and criticisms of its model.
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<h3 id="W6bHqH">
The massive opportunity cost of livestock’s land use
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o93gGl">
Some researchers criticize the FAO’s model for excluding one of the most important ways animal agriculture exacerbates climate change: the immense <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0757-z">amount of land</a> it requires. “Livestock use 75 percent of the world’s agricultural land,” which includes both the land that farm animals live on and the land devoted to growing crops to feed them, Searchinger said. “Forty percent of the world’s pasture was originally forest. We have lost a huge amount of carbon storage on that land.”
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The FAO’s model continues “to ignore the massive land use of animal agriculture, and the major <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.nature.com_articles_s41893-2D020-2D00603-2D4&amp;d=DwMFAw&amp;c=7MSjEE-cVgLCRHxk1P5PWg&amp;r=ct6dauPa_NTjdRjj1u6cIc96YmXo5720qGQ3u69psLE&amp;m=_oofmHf3kenIwhdQvaoR4NnfSY6u8tOEdzoPD_SJQ9IHvKpvi87YHRpxJZVa5L5f&amp;s=jaSc05vNlDJjt1MhxXuijWwS5jrVbN662c342KRggNI&amp;e=">carbon opportunity</a> costs of that land,” Hayek said. Its estimate does account for new deforestation events — for example, when wild land is cleared to make way for cattle pasture or to grow animal feed crops like soy — but it doesn’t factor in carbon storage opportunities on land that’s already been deforested for animal agriculture.
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Freeing up some of that land would allow “large-scale reforestation and native ecosystem restoration,” Hayek said, pulling “multiple years’ worth of our carbon dioxide emissions out of the air and into trees, shrubs, and soils, improving the terrestrial carbon sink, and buying critical additional time that we need to reduce other emissions like <a href="https://www.vox.com/fossil-fuels">fossil fuels</a>.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DDIzFd">
One influential study, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22905381/meat-dairy-eggs-climate-change-emissions-rewilding">writes Vox’s Kenny Torrella</a>, found that ending meat and dairy production could cancel out emissions from all other industries combined over the next 30 to 50 years. Such a shift wouldn’t mean producing less food to feed the world — it would mean prioritizing more sustainable, plant-based foods that <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-per-protein-poore?country=Pig+Meat~Beef+%28beef+herd%29~Eggs~Lamb+%26+Mutton~Grains~Milk~Other+Pulses~Poultry+Meat~Tofu+%28soybeans%29~Peas~Nuts~Groundnuts~Fish+%28farmed%29~Cheese~Beef+%28dairy+herd%29~Prawns+%28farmed%29~Tofu">require fewer resources</a> to produce the same number of calories.
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<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A birds-eye view of a large cattle feedlot with thousands of cows dispersed between several holding pens." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sBRPsCNP94EyC-8mrv9VMYgOuoA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24684658/GettyImages_57354969.jpg"/> <cite>Getty Images/Glowimages RF</cite>
<figcaption>
One of the biggest cattle feedlots in the world, in Colorado, housing 120,000 cows. Animal agriculture uses nearly 40 percent of the planet’s habitable land, which could otherwise be used by wild, carbon-sequestering ecosystems.
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Despite consistent findings by a range of scientists on the benefits of reducing intensive livestock production, there are few signs of any significant moves to do so in global climate policy. Some climate and <a href="https://www.vox.com/animal-welfare">animal welfare</a> advocacy groups fear the livestock industry won’t let a good percentage go to waste, especially one that suggests, at least on the surface, that fewer emissions are coming from more animals.
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“I think the livestock sector will say [the new FAO estimates mean] it’s not as bad as everyone thought,” said Peter Stevenson, policy adviser for Compassion in World Farming and author of a <a href="https://www.ciwf.org/resources/reports-position-papers-briefings/factory-farming-who-benefits-how-a-ruinous-system-is-kept-afloat/">new report</a> on the environmental harms of livestock intensification. The US beef industry has already been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/03/beef-industry-public-relations-messaging-machine">fighting</a> hard against the growing recognition that keeping the climate within planetary limits will require substantial reductions in beef production.
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“There are billions at stake here for those producing the feed, cages, crates, pharmaceuticals, and fast-growing, high-yielding animals that make industrial production possible,” Stevenson said. “The feed industry is the most valuable … worth over <a href="https://ifif.org/global-feed/industry/">$400 billion</a> a year,” he added, referring to the cultivation of crops that feed farm animals. “They have one consumer — intensively raised animals — and of course they want to protect that business.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3AfRaT">
Policymakers now face the gargantuan task of not just convincing the meat and dairy industries to accept limits to their business models, but also of persuading a public that’s grown accustomed to cheap animal products to change its consumption habits. Clear science communication from agencies like the FAO, although not enough on its own, will be essential to realizing that goal.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kv4Ct5">
<em>Sophie Kevany is a freelance journalist covering intensive animal agriculture and its impacts on animal, human, and planetary health and welfare. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Vox, Sentient Media, the BBC World Service, the Irish Times, and other publications. She previously worked for </em><em>Dow Jones</em><em> and Agence France-Presse (AFP), and she holds a master’s degree in journalism from Dublin City University. </em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5MxFcm">
<em>The reporting of this story was partially</em><em><strong> </strong></em><em>supported by </em><a href="https://brightergreen.org/about/"><em>Brighter Green</em></a><em>’s Animals and Biodiversity Reporting Fund.</em>
</p></li>
<li><strong>Henry Kissinger is 100, but his legacy is still shaping how US foreign policy works</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Henry Kissinger seen on a projector with a crowd in the foreground." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bjY2gMualj1Vul8Gi2w0bEAjeNk=/0x0:3425x2569/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72317891/1244786770.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state, speaks virtually during the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore on November 15, 2022. | Bryan van der Beek/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
How Kissinger centralized White House power, went corporate, and never apologized.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l2c4Jj">
I was sitting on the mezzanine of the Yale Club’s ballroom in midtown Manhattan as a sea of men in dark suits and women in bright dresses stood up from their white-draped<strong> </strong>tables while a cake was brought out.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KL9TnT">
“Happy Birthday, dear Henry,” they sang, and the man a few days shy of his 100th birthday blew out the candles, then raised his two arms with a Richard Nixon-like flourish.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Nk1LVM">
This was Henry Kissinger’s birthday celebration at the Economic Club of New York, one of the city’s most elite organizations. He had been introduced by the chief executive officer of the New York Fed. Here everyone was, gathered to celebrate Kissinger and what he represents.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hCXnOL">
Kissinger’s legacy as a Cold War strategist, influential adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and jet-setting diplomatic shuttler has persisted even though he’s now been out of office much longer than in government and has outlived his peers. Despite his record for perpetuating <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/henry-kissinger-cambodia-bombing-survivors/">atrocities</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial_of_Henry_Kissinger">around</a> the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/12/06/indonesia.timor.us/">world</a>, he’s still called upon for counsel as to how the war in Ukraine will end or how to avert conflict with China.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="96BBYy">
During the Nixon administration, Kissinger opened relations with China and helped broker arms control agreements with the Soviet Union. But he also <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-vietnam-war-for-political-gainand-johnson-knew-about-it-newly-unclassified-tapes-suggest-3595441/">prolonged</a> the Vietnam War and extended the conflict into Laos and Cambodia. As many as 150,000 Cambodian civilians were killed, more than were previously known, when Kissinger ordered the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/henry-kissinger-cambodia-bombing-survivors/">carpet bombing of the country</a> from 1969 onward, as the Intercept’s Nick Turse reports. Kissinger backed leaders in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/opinion/nixon-and-kissingers-forgotten-shame.html">Pakistan</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/12/07/1975-east-timor-invasion-got-us-go-ahead/b59c47dc-3e54-4a3c-bca8-9f9f5120686a/">Indonesia</a> as each killed 200,000 people in neighboring territories, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/dec/06/argentina.usa">embraced Argentina’s military</a> as it disappeared tens of thousands, and supported Gen. Pinochet’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/12/the-price-of-power/376309/">military overthrow</a> in Chile.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ArJNRQ">
Much has been written about his record. Yet three aspects of his legacy — the centralization of foreign policymaking power in the White House, the avoidance of ever apologizing for his destructive actions, and the corporatization of foreign policy — have been less covered. But they capture how America works as a superpower in 2023.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lJ6AJa">
For those reporting on foreign policy, and especially in New York, one is always in Kissinger’s shadow. Even as <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/indefensible-kissinger-102123/">scholars</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1661919317154209792">journalists</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/ilhanmn/status/1661796880873865216?s=46&amp;t=-g_m-gV7Q1lmj1cogryW0w">progressives</a> make a credible case that he committed war crimes (an accusation he has <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/henry-kissinger-at-100-artificial-intelligence-global-tensions-and-addressing-his-critics/">rejected</a>), Kissinger retains many admirers for his realpolitik prowess during the Cold War tensions; new books about his <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n20/charles-glass/he-ll-have-ye-smilin">ingenuity as a statesman</a> keep coming out; and <a href="https://prospect.org/culture/books/myth-of-artificial-intelligence-kissinger-schmidt-huttenlocher/">he is still writing books</a>, too. On the subway to the event, I saw a young man in shorts and a hoodie reading Kissinger’s new hardcover <em>Leadership</em>. I happened to stumble upon a tiny, 1950s-style shoe store blocks away from the Yale Club, with a picture of Kissinger and its owner on the wall.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H0CUK2">
He still attends marquee international conferences like Davos and Bilderberg. Kissinger’s assistant told me that he has a tough time keeping up with his boss, even at 100.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ogKwax">
Kissinger spoke for an hour at the Economic Club as he slowly and carefully waded into Russia’s war, China’s rise, and the shape of US foreign policy. He has always been circumspect and extremely careful with his words. He stood by everything he had done in his long career.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vb65ui">
“My view is, we need to be always strong enough to resist any pressures. We must always be ready to defend what we define as our vital interests. We must also be clear about what our vital interests are and stay within those bounds,” he said.
</p>
<h3 id="IbSiCv">
Kissinger centralized foreign policy power in the White House
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YuID0O">
Kissinger made an important observation at the Economic Club. “In almost every administration, in foreign policy, the most sensitive tasks are given to the security adviser and not the secretary of state,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CX3uYX">
That’s a development that he helped advance, building on the track record of President John F. Kennedy’s national security adviser McGeorge Bundy, who also began to concentrate new powers within the White House.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R6RWKg">
‪Thanks to Kissinger, the national security adviser remains the “most important element of performing foreign policy,” as he put it. “You learn how to manage bureaucracy; you don’t learn to ask where you should be going.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j4QLhl">
Kissinger eventually consolidated the job of national security adviser and the nation’s top diplomat, serving in the White House and as secretary of state at once. While that exact dual-hatted official hasn’t existed since,<strong> </strong>that concentration of foreign policymaking among the president’s staff, and away from the State Department, has endured in Democratic and Republican administrations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jwDENs">
He also built out the National Security Council, then just three decades old, <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/history.html">expanding</a> the president’s advisory apparatus. In the 1974 biography <em>Kissinger</em>, Marvin Kalb and Bernard Kalb <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kissinger-Marvin-L-Kalb/dp/0316482218">called it</a> “Henry’s wonderful machine” and emphasized how he worked to “centralize foreign policy in the White House and to dismiss or silence dissenters within the bureaucracy — including the Secretaries of State and Defense …” At first, William Rogers, who served as Nixon’s secretary of state from 1969 to 1973, “made no fuss and later, when he did, it was too late,” they write.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tnpSNJ">
That’s a lesson that Tony Blinken, Biden’s longtime aide and the current secretary of state, has recognized. He reflected on his time both as an adviser to the Obama White House and then as deputy secretary of state during that administration in a <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/process-makes-perfect/">think tank paper from 2017</a>. “The State Department needs to lean in and put ideas forward. When you lean back, no one in the White House will wait around,” Blinken said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6gPtCA">
The national security adviser, who is not subject to Senate confirmation and is often across the hall from the president, has become indispensable for foreign policymaking. Not just as an arbiter of options or an honest broker among secretaries of departments and generals, but in effect as a policymaker.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NCEHk5">
“Kissinger started that model,” says Jeremy Shapiro, who worked in the State Department during the Obama administration and is now research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Every administration since Kissinger has been the most White House-centric ever.”
</p>
<h3 id="YylPFA">
Kissinger never apologized for overseas actions, and few US leaders do to this day
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8n2GDV">
In 2001, firebrand author Christopher Hitchens made the case in <em>The Trial of Henry Kissinger</em> that Kissinger was liable for war crimes. At the time, Kissinger <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n18/r.w.-johnson/how-would-richelieu-and-mazarin-have-coped">sought assurances</a> before doing media interviews that the book would not be raised. He still rarely answers reporters’ questions about the Vietnam War.
</p>
<div id="5AYozw">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
To conclude an extraordinary conversation, Dr. Henry Kissinger blows out the candles on his 100th birthday cake on the Economic Club of New York stage. Thank you to all who attended and tuned in, the Club is honored to have hosted such a special celebration. <br/>_<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ECNYKissinger?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ECNYKissinger</a> <a href="https://t.co/KBOIV83OVr">pic.twitter.com/KBOIV83OVr</a>
</p>
— The Economic Club of New York (<span class="citation" data-cites="EconClubNY">@EconClubNY</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/EconClubNY/status/1661057401246695481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 23, 2023</a>
</blockquote></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gBBFUN">
Kissinger has been the original “don’t apologize and just tweet through it.” It’s part of how Reagan, Bush, and Trump have persevered and survived — Kissinger modeled that you can play foreign policy like chess and not have to answer domestically for the disastrous consequences in other countries. And it’s had a major impact on the way leaders subsequently have conducted themselves internationally. “The methods employed by Nixon and Kissinger to circumvent democratic scrutiny of foreign policy have since become standard; they were deployed recently to discredit critics of and spread disinformation about the invasion of Iraq,” historian Greg Grandin has <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n23/greg-grandin/sucking-up-to-p">written</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="04BL2i">
“He’s never apologized,” Carolyn Eisenberg, a professor of history at Hofstra University, told me. And this says as much about the foreign policy establishment as Kissinger himself. “It’s taking place in a context where the damage of these policies has not really been acknowledged — the killing of huge amounts of people in Laos, and Cambodia, and the list goes on.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DF6kPl">
As Eisenberg said, “The fact that Kissinger’s kind of immune from criticism is a consequence of that larger failure.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MiRHRC">
This is an ongoing feature of America at war. Twenty years after the disastrous and misguided US invasion of Iraq, former President George W. Bush has fashioned himself into an elder statesman and rarely faces tough questions on the war. A <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/1100016029/george-w-bush-condemns-putins-invasion-of-iraq-instead-of-ukraine">2022 gaffe</a> was particularly revealing. Bush described the “decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq,” and then he laughed and corrected himself to say Ukraine, as he was referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war. But there has not been true accountability for the former US president and his inner circle for launching the invasion of Iraq and other post-9/11 wars that continue to this day.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5r9MDz">
Or take the civilian toll of the US’s air wars across the Middle East. Some (<a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/trumps-secret-rules-for-drone-strikes-and-presidents-unchecked-license-to-kill">but not all</a>) administrations have worked to minimize civilian casualties, and the Pentagon has a review process to investigate reported civilian casualties. But that process — one of the few accountability measures in places — is deeply insufficient, marred by “a pattern of impunity,” a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/19/magazine/victims-airstrikes-middle-east-civilians.html">New York Times investigation found</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k6a1hQ">
That pattern included failures “to detect civilians, to investigate on the ground, to identify causes and lessons learned, to discipline anyone or find wrongdoing that would prevent these recurring problems from happening again,” wrote Azmat Khan. “It was a system that seemed to function almost by design to not only mask the true toll of American airstrikes but also legitimize their expanded use.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kYyTFJ">
At a Kennedy Library <a href="https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/events/vietnam">conference</a> in 2006 on Vietnam, anchor Brian Williams moderated a panel with Kissinger and asked him, “Is there anything you would like to apologize for?” Eisenberg recounts this scene in the epilogue of her new book, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/fire-and-rain-9780197639061?cc=us&amp;lang=en&amp;"><em>Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Wars in Southeast Asia</em></a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1hXCqx">
Kissinger called the question “highly inappropriate.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vwhBWv">
“We have to start with the assumption that serious people were making serious decisions with the national interest and world interest at heart,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G8g3DA">
At the Economic Club, Kissinger did not take any questions from the media.
</p>
<h3 id="FYB24e">
Kissinger corporatized US foreign policy
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rAB4oE">
Another dynamic on display at the Economic Club’s celebration was that Kissinger, throughout his career, has connected the business community to the foreign policy elite in government.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MB8ehv">
It’s an underreported part of his legacy: The Economic Club’s hosts did not mention his commercial work in Kissinger’s extensive bio at the birthday party, but it has defined generations of US foreign policy as he pioneered a new way to travel through the revolving door.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gac15C">
In 1982, he launched Kissinger Associates. He hired some of his most powerful colleagues from the national security state, and they sought to keep their client list secret, even when Congress pushed to know. Reporter <a href="https://james-mann.com/books/the-china-fantasy/">James Mann</a> has emphasized that Kissinger’s firm distinguished itself by the large size of its retainer, about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/08/24/kissingers-new-team/c313bd33-2912-4855-8efb-73674d5c56dd/">$250,000</a>, or about $785,000 in today’s dollars.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lus33n">
Journalists later uncovered that the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/30/us/kissinger-and-friends-and-revolving-doors.html?pagewanted=all">firm advised major banks, multinational corporations, and financial institutions</a>, among them American Express, Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Heinz, Fiat, Volvo, Ericsson, and Daewoo. “For example, one client, the ITT Corporation, a $9 billion corporation with about 7 percent of its annual business in military contracts, operates various United States missile systems under a $700 million contract, according to the company’s annual reports,” the Times reported.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jAcDeV">
Kissinger also served as a <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-kissinger-was-played-by-china/">conduit between big business and China</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7oMlFA">
When he launched the firm four decades ago, journalists raised many of the same questions that I think about today. Is it ethical for a former senior official to continue to serve on federal advisory boards that give policy recommendations to the Pentagon, the State Department, or the president while also advising companies that are likely to profit from those geopolitical decisions?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Obvs8u">
Kissinger helped normalize this dynamic of being a consultant to big business and a public policy voice.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9KhlZ2">
His <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/2004/03/29/taking-costly-counsel-from-a-statesman/2f6bbe67-6ee1-40c8-8d66-446fedd4837f/">successors</a> have followed this trend. Brent Scowcroft worked as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/03/14/scowcrofts-88-income-was-500000/9756be0c-2944-434e-b914-fa0b3ac515c2/">vice chair of Kissinger Associates</a> prior to joining the George H.W. Bush administration as national security adviser and later started his own firm. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and national security adviser Sandy Berger, after serving in the Clinton administration, each launched their own consultancies. Former Bush Cabinet officials Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates started a firm together. And Blinken banded together with national security leaders from the Obama administration in 2017 to establish <a href="https://prospect.org/world/how-biden-foreign-policy-team-got-rich/">WestExec Advisors</a> to <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/07/06/westexec-biden-administration/">counsel</a> tech companies, finance, and military contractors, before joining the Biden administration.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CII0LK">
Kissinger’s nondisclosure of clients <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/16/world/nominee-for-deputy-post-at-state-is-challenged-on-consulting-ties.html">has become the norm</a> and set the tone across this entire network of consulting firms, which tend to only publicly reveal clients as legally required, such as when their employees go into government.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JH4GNw">
“A big part of Henry Kissinger’s legacy is the corruption of American foreign policymaking,” says Matt Duss, who previously worked for Sen. Bernie Sanders and is now a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It is blurring the line, if not outright erasing the line, between the making of foreign policy and corporate interests.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k6Vya5">
Kissinger’s firm has never had a website. Reporters stopped asking as many questions over the years of his work and his clients.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ofurng">
Kissinger still sits on the <a href="https://policy.defense.gov/OUSDP-Offices/Defense-Policy-Board/">Defense Policy Board</a> that advises Pentagon leadership, and his current client list remains a closely held secret. As his former colleague Les Gelb put it in the New York Times Magazine in 1986, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/20/magazine/kissinger-means-business.html">Kissinger Means Business</a>.”
</p>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Fast Pace claims the War Hammer Million</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>Parul Chaudhary bags bronze medal in Los Angeles Grand Prix 2023</strong> - Ms. Chaudhary clocked a new personal best of 9:29.51 to finish third</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>Indian women’s hockey team registers 2-1 win over Australia A</strong> - The second quarter started with India continuing to build momentum from the backward line.</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>Malaysia Masters badminton | Prannoy enters final, Sindhu loses in semifinal</strong> - It will be Prannoy’s first final of the season and second since the runner-up finish at the Swiss Open last year.</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>IPL 2023 | Didn’t want to experiment against SKY: Mohit</strong> - The 2014 Purple Cap winner with Chennai Super Kings revealed it was about sticking to the basics when Suryakumar was on a roll</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>Andhra Pradesh: Extend helping hand to accident victims, people urged</strong> - ‘Their lives can be saved if they are shifted to hospitals within the golden hour’</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>TTD is harassing its low-cadre workers, alleges Chinta Mohan</strong> - Congress party workers led by him stage a protest demanding the TTD refrain from forcing pregnant sanitation and health workers to do additional work during odd hours</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>Parul Chaudhary bags bronze medal in Los Angeles Grand Prix 2023</strong> - Ms. Chaudhary clocked a new personal best of 9:29.51 to finish third</p></li>
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<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>Oleksiy Danilov interview: Ukraine counter-offensive ‘ready to begin’</strong> - Oleksiy Danilov tells the BBC that Kyiv has an “historic opportunity” to strike a major blow to Russia.</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>Hundreds of expelled Germans set to leave Russia</strong> - The expulsions follow increasingly strained relations between Russia and Germany over Ukraine.</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>Turkish election: Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu clash in desperate race for votes</strong> - The last hours of Turkey’s presidential race turn sour as the candidates argue over refugees.</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 destroys hospital in latest missile attack</strong> - At least two people were killed and more than 30 injured in the attack in the city of Dnipro.</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>Wagner: US sanctions boss of mercenary group in Mali</strong> - The Russian mercenary group could be using African states to procure weapons for Ukraine, US says.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The lessons of a wildfire that destroyed a town and burned for 15 months</strong> - Until it hit, the local firefighters couldn’t conceive of something that ferocious. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1942536">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inner workings revealed for “Predator,” the Android malware that exploited 5 0-days</strong> - Spyware is sold to countries including Egypt, Indonesia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Serbia. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1942660">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>No A/C? No problem, if buildings copy networked tunnels of termite mounds</strong> - “For the first time, it may be possible to design a true living, breathing building.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1942139">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>HP printers should have EPEAT ecolabels revoked, trade group demands</strong> - Complaint to EPEAT organizers spells out why Dynamic Security, HP+ suck. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1941600">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study narrows long COVID’s 200+ symptoms to core list of 12</strong> - Loss of taste/smell and post-exertional malaise were the top two symptoms. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1942604">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A soldier ran up to a nun. Out of breath he asked, “Please, may I hide under your skirt. I’ll explain later..</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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The nun agreed…
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A moment later two Military Police ran up and asked, “Sister, have you seen a soldier?”
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The nun replied, “He went that way.”
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After the MPs ran off, the soldier crawled out from under her skirt and said, “I can’t thank you enough, sister. You see, I don’t want to go to Iraq.”
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The nun said, “I understand completely.”
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The soldier added, “I hope I’m not rude, but you have a great pair of legs!”
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The nun replied, “If you had looked a little higher, you would have seen a great pair of balls…. I don’t want to go to Iraq either…
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<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/13snn70/a_soldier_ran_up_to_a_nun_out_of_breath_he_asked/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13snn70/a_soldier_ran_up_to_a_nun_out_of_breath_he_asked/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jane was obviously attracted to Tarzan and asking him about his life asked how he had sex..</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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“Tarzan not know what is sex” he replied.
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Jane then explained to him what sex was.
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Tarzan said ….“Tarzan use knot hole in trunk of tree.”
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Stunned by his response, Jane said: “Tarzan you have it all wrong, you don’t shag a tree to get yourself off. Tell you what, I will show you how to do it properly.”
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She took off her clothing and laid down on the ground.
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“Here” she said, pointing to her privates,“you must put it in here.”
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Tarzan removed his loin cloth, showing Jane his considerable manhood, stepped closer to her and kicked her as hard as he could in the crotch.
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Jane rolled around in agony for what seemed like an eternity.
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Eventually she managed to grasp for air and screamed: "What the bloody hell did you do that for?
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“Tarzan check for squirrel.” he responds
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<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/13sndgs/jane_was_obviously_attracted_to_tarzan_and_asking/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13sndgs/jane_was_obviously_attracted_to_tarzan_and_asking/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Back in the 50’s Bobby goes to pick up his date,</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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Back in the 50’s Bobby goes to pick up his date, Peggy Sue. Bobby’s a pretty hip guy with his own car and a ducktail hairdo. When he arrives at the front door, Peggy Sue’s father answers and invites him in. “Peggy Sue’s not ready yet, so why don’t you have a seat?” he says. “That’s cool.” says Bobby.
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Peggy Sue’s father asks Bobby what they are planning to do. Bobby replies politely that they will probably just go to the malt shop or to a drive-in movie.
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Peggy Sue’s father responds “Why don’t you kids go out and screw? I hear all of the kids are doing it.”
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Naturally this comes as quite a surprise to Bobby and he says “Whaaaat?”
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“Yeah,” says Peggy Sue’s father, “Peggy Sue really likes to screw; she’ll screw all night if we let her!”
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Bobby’s eyes light up and a smile breaks out from ear to ear. Needless to say, the evening’s plans have just been completely revised. A few minutes later, Peggy Sue comes downstairs in her little poodle skirt with her saddle shoes and announces that she’s ready to go. Almost breathless with anticipation, Bobby escorts his date out the front door while Peggy Sue’s dad calls out “Have a good evening kids,” with a wink for Bobby.
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About 20 minutes later, a thoroughly disheveled Peggy Sue rushes back into the house, slams the door behind her and screams at her father: “DAMMIT DADDY! THE TWIST!!!!! IT’S CALLED THE TWIST!!!!!”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Built4thekill"> /u/Built4thekill </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13t1yz2/back_in_the_50s_bobby_goes_to_pick_up_his_date/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13t1yz2/back_in_the_50s_bobby_goes_to_pick_up_his_date/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>This elderly lady went to the doctor for a check-up. Everything checked out fine. The old lady pulled the doctor to the side and said, ”Doctor, I haven’t had sex for years now and I was wondering how I can increase my husband’s sex drive.”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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The doctor smiled and said, ”Have you tried to give him Viagra?” The lady frowned. ”Doctor, I can’t even get him to take aspirin when he has a headache,” she claimed. ”Well,” the doctor continued, ”Let me suggest something. Crush the Viagra into a powder. When you are having beans, stir it in, and serve it. He won’t notice a thing.” The old lady was delighted. She left the doctor’s office quickly.
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Weeks later the old lady returned. She was frowning and the doctor asked her what was wrong. She shook her head. ”How did it go?” the doctor asked. ”Terrible, doctor, terrible.” ”Did it not work?” ”Yes,” the old lady said, ”It worked. I did as you said and he got up and ripped his clothes off right then and there and we made mad love on the table. It was the best sex that I’d had in 25 years.” ”Then what is the problem, ma’am?” ”Well,” she said. ”I can’t ever show my face in Taco Bell again.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/YZXFILE"> /u/YZXFILE </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13sp4m5/this_elderly_lady_went_to_the_doctor_for_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13sp4m5/this_elderly_lady_went_to_the_doctor_for_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s the stormtrooper’s favorite store?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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The one next to Target.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/AndrewLisowsky"> /u/AndrewLisowsky </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13sg0o7/whats_the_stormtroopers_favorite_store/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13sg0o7/whats_the_stormtroopers_favorite_store/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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