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<title>21 April, 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>Establishment of a screening platform based on human coronavirus OC43 for the identification of microbial natural products with antiviral activity</strong> -
<div>
Human coronaviruses (HCoVs) cause respiratory tract infections and are of great importance due to the recent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Human betacoronavirus OC43 (HCoV-OC43) is an adequate surrogate for SARS-CoV-2 because it infects the human respiratory system, presents a comparable biology, and is transmitted in a similar way. Its use is advantageous since it only requires biosafety level (BSL)-2 infrastructure which minimizes costs and biosafety associated limitations. In this report, we describe a high-throughput screening (HTS) platform to identify compounds that inhibit the propagation of HCoV-OC43. Optimization of assays based on inhibition of the cytopathic effect and virus immunodetection with a specific antibody, has provided a robust methodology for the screening of a selection of microbial natural product extracts from the Fundacion MEDINA collection. Using this approach, a subset of 1280 extracts has been explored. Of these, upon hit confirmation and early LC-MS dereplication, 10 extracts were identified that contain potential new compounds. In addition, we report on the novel antiviral activity of some previously described natural products whose presence in bioactive extracts was confirmed by LC/MS analysis.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.20.537680v1" target="_blank">Establishment of a screening platform based on human coronavirus OC43 for the identification of microbial natural products with antiviral activity</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Overburdened Bureaucrats: Providing Equal Access to Public Services during COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
Discriminatory treatment of minorities by bureaucrats remains a serious challenge. A dominant explanation argues that bureaucrats discriminate because of high workloads in public organizations, but few empirical studies test this outside of the lab. In this study, I investigate whether workload matters for discrimination in a real-world public service context during the COVID-19 pandemic in Denmark in 2020. I document that unemployment services experienced a substantial increase in workload due to a 20% rise in unemployment and exploit the fact that the increase happened suddenly and spread asymmetrically. I use micro-level register data on bureaucrat-client interactions on more than 380,000 unemployed and examine whether bureaucrats provided fewer services to citizens of non-Western descent. The finding reveals that the substantial workload associated with the COVID-19 pandemic did not lead to increased discrimination. I discuss the special circumstances associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and the possible role of organizational structure and professional norms.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/zmt5y/" target="_blank">Overburdened Bureaucrats: Providing Equal Access to Public Services during COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Machine learning detection of SARS-CoV-2 high-risk variants</strong> -
<div>
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has evolved many high-risk variants, resulting in repeated COVID-19 waves of pandemic during the past years. Therefore, accurate early-warning of high-risk variants is vital for epidemic prevention and control. Here we construct a machine learning model to predict high-risk variants of SARS-CoV-2 by LightGBM algorithm based on several important haplotype network features. As demonstrated on a series of different retrospective testing datasets, our model achieves accurate prediction of all variants of concern (VOC) and most variants of interest (AUC=0.96). Prediction based on the latest sequences shows that the newly emerging lineage BA.5 has the highest risk score and spreads rapidly to become a major epidemic lineage in multiple countries, suggesting that BA.5 bears great potential to be a VOC. In sum, our machine learning model is capable to early predict high-risk variants soon after their emergence, thus greatly improving public health preparedness against the evolving virus.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.19.537460v1" target="_blank">Machine learning detection of SARS-CoV-2 high-risk variants</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Mobilisation and analyses of publicly available SARS-CoV-2 data for pandemic responses</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen large-scale pathogen genomic sequencing efforts, becoming part of the toolbox for surveillance and epidemic research. This resulted in an unprecedented level of data sharing to open repositories, which has actively supported the identification of SARS-CoV-2 structure, molecular interactions, mutations and variants, and facilitated vaccine development and drug reuse studies and design. The European COVID-19 Data Platform was launched to support this data sharing, and has resulted in the deposition of several million SARS-CoV-2 raw reads. In this paper we describe (1) open data sharing, (2) tools for submission, analysis, visualisation and data claiming (e.g. ORCiD), (3) the systematic analysis of these datasets, at scale via the SARS-CoV-2 Data Hubs as well as (4) lessons learned. As a component of the Platform, the SARS-CoV-2 Data Hubs enabled the extension and set up of infrastructure that we intend to use more widely in the future for pathogen surveillance and pandemic preparedness.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.19.537514v1" target="_blank">Mobilisation and analyses of publicly available SARS-CoV-2 data for pandemic responses</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>SARS-CoV-2 utilization of ACE2 from different bat species allows for virus entry and replication in vitro</strong> -
<div>
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2) is believed to have a zoonotic origin. Bats are a suspected natural host of SARS-CoV-2 because of sequence homology with other bat coronaviruses. Understanding the origin of the virus and determining species susceptibility is essential for managing the transmission potential during a pandemic. In a previous study, we established an in vitro animal model of SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and replication in a non-permissive avian fibroblast cell line (DF1) based on expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) from different animal species. In this work, we express the ACE2 of seven bat species in DF1 cells and determine their ability to support attachment and replication of the original SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan lineage virus, as well as two variants, Delta and Lambda. We demonstrate that the ACE2 receptor of all seven species: little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), great roundleaf bat (Hipposideros armiger), Pearson’s horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus pearsonii), greater horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum), Brazilian free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis), Egyptian rousette (Rousettus aegyptiacus), and Chinese rufous horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus sinicus), made the DF1 cells permissible to the three isolates of SARS-CoV-2. However, the level of virus replication differed between bat species and variant tested. In addition, the Wuhan lineage SARS-CoV-2 virus replicated to higher titers (104.5 -105.5 TCID50) than either variant virus (103.5-104.5 TCID50) on pass 1. Interestingly, all viruses tested grew to higher titers (approximately 106 TCID50) when cells expressed the human ACE2 gene compared to bat ACE2. This study provides a practical in vitro method for further testing of animal species for potential susceptibility to current and emerging SARS-CoV-2 viruses.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.19.537521v1" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 utilization of ACE2 from different bat species allows for virus entry and replication in vitro</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A rapid review of the effectiveness, efficiency, and acceptability of surgical hubs in supporting planned care activity</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated disruptions to elective care services in the UK, leading to longer waits for treatment and a growing elective surgery backlog. There have been growing calls for the creation of surgical hubs to help reduce this backlog. Surgical hubs aim to increase surgical capacity by providing quicker access to procedures, as well as facilitate infection control by segregating patients and staff from emergency care. This rapid review aimed to assess the effectiveness, efficiency, and acceptability of surgical hubs in supporting planned care activity, to inform the implementation of these hubs in Wales. The review identified evidence available up until January 2023. Twelve primary studies were included, eight of which used comparative methods. Most of the studies were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic and described surgical hubs designed mainly to mitigate the transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Outcome measures reported included clinical, performance, economic, and patient reported outcomes across a variety of different surgical disciplines. Most of the studies did not describe surgical hubs based on their structure, i.e., standalone, integrated, or ring-fenced hubs. The evidence relating to the impact of surgical hubs on clinical outcomes appeared to be heterogenous and limited. Included studies did not appear to control for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on outcomes. Evidence of the impact of surgical hubs on performance outcomes such as efficiency, utilisation/usage, volume of surgeries/treatments, performance, cancellations, and time from diagnosis to treatment is limited. Evidence relating to the economic impact of surgical hubs is also limited, however there is evidence to suggest that total average costs are lower in surgical hubs when compared to general hospitals. Evidence relating to the impact of surgical hubs on patient reported outcomes is limited but indicates there may be a positive effect on patient satisfaction and compliance. Considerable variation in the types of surgical hubs reviewed, surgical disciplines, along with the small number of comparative studies, as well as methodological limitations across included studies, could limit the applicability of these findings.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.20.23288815v1" target="_blank">A rapid review of the effectiveness, efficiency, and acceptability of surgical hubs in supporting planned care activity</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Mortality among persons with HIV in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic: a population-level analysis</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Whether COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on mortality among persons with diagnosed HIV (PWDH) in United States is unclear. Through our macro-scale analysis, we seek to better understand how COVID-19 and subsequent behavioral changes affected mortality among PWDH. Methods: We obtained mortality and population size data for the years 2018-2020 from the National HIV Surveillance System (NHSS) for the PWDH population aged ≥13 years in the United States, and from publicly available data for the general population. We computed mortality rates and excess mortality for both the general and PWDH populations. Stratifications by age, race/ethnicity, and sex-at birth were considered. For each group, we determined whether the 2020 mortality rates and mortality risk ratio showed a statistically significant change from 2018-2019. Results: Mortality rates increased in 2020 from 2018-2019 across the general population in all groups. Among PWDH, mortality rates either increased, or showed no statistically significant change. The mortality risk ratio between PWDH and the general population decreased 7.7% in 2020. Approximately 1550 excess deaths occurred among PWDH in 2020, with Black, Hispanic/Latino and PWDH above 55 and older representing the majority of excess deaths. Conclusions: While mortality rates among PWDH increased in 2020 relative to 2018-2019, the increases were smaller than those observed in the general population. This suggests that COVID-19 and resulting behavioral changes among PWDH did not result in disproportionate mortality among PWDH. These findings suggest that COVID-19, and any associated indirect effects, do not represent a proportionally greater risk for PWDH compared to the general population.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.19.23288817v1" target="_blank">Mortality among persons with HIV in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic: a population-level analysis</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>COVID-19 testing avoidance among patients with cardiovascular disease</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Rapid coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) testing in symptomatic cases is extremely important for preventing the spread of COVID-19 infection and early therapeutic intervention. In contrast, whether symptomatic patients are tested depends largely on their health literacy, interpretation, and knowledge of COVID-19. We aimed to investigate the rate of COVID-19 testing avoidance despite having common cold symptoms in patients with cardiovascular disease and examine factors related to testing avoidance. Methods: A large-scale epidemiological questionnaire survey, the Japan COVID-19 and Society Internet Survey 2022 (JACSIS), was conducted online from April to May 2022. The rate of COVID-19 testing avoidance was investigated in patients aged 20 to 80 years with cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension, dyslipidemia, or diabetes) or a history of cardiovascular disease (angina, myocardial infarction, or stroke), only those exhibiting common cold symptoms during the 2 months in the survey. Results: Of the 1,565 eligible patients, 58% (909 patients) did not undergo COVID-19 testing. Multivariate analysis revealed that older age, obesity, non-walking regularly, long sedentary time, eating alone, frequent snacking, and having received 4 COVID-19 vaccinations were independently associated with testing avoidance. Conclusions: In the chronic phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, prompt COVID-19 testing at the time of symptomatic disease is important, and strategies to reduce testing hesitancy should be considered.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.17.23288710v1" target="_blank">COVID-19 testing avoidance among patients with cardiovascular disease</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>An estimate of pediatric lives saved due to non-pharmacologic interventions during the early COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The net effect of the pandemic mitigation strategies on childhood mortality is not known. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, mitigation policies and behaviors were widespread, and although vaccinations and effective treatments were not yet widely available, the risk of death from SARS-CoV-2 infection was low. In that first year, there was a 7% decrease in medical (“natural causes”) mortality among children ages 0-9 during the first pandemic year (5% among infants &lt;1 year and 15% among children ages 1-9) in the United States, resulting in an estimated 1,488 deaths due to medical causes averted among children ages 0-9, and 1,938 deaths averted over 24 months. The usual expected surge in winter medical deaths, particularly among children ages &gt;1 year was absent. However, smaller increases in external (“non-natural causes”) mortality were also observed during the study period, which decreased the overall number of pediatric deaths averted during both years and the pandemic period. In total, 1,468 fewer all-cause pediatric deaths than expected occurred in the United States during the first 24 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.18.23288763v1" target="_blank">An estimate of pediatric lives saved due to non-pharmacologic interventions during the early COVID-19 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>OVERVIEW OF ETHICS COMMITTEE REGISTRATION AND RE-REGISTRATION WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH RESEARCH IN INDIA</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The Government of India requires all ethics committees (EC) to register themselves with the Department of Health Research (DHR) and the study aimed to analyze the same. Since post-graduation mandates research-necessitating the presence of EC in the institution-we aimed to analyze the status of registrations along with the presence of ECs in National Medical Council(NMC) and Dental Council of India(DCI)-permitted colleges and also to study zone-wise differences in the same. We also studied the impact of COVID-19 on the registration process. The status of ECs was obtained from the DHR website. ECs information was extracted [location, date &amp; type of Approval]. The search terms “College” and “Hospital” were used to locate Institutional ECs (IEC). A list of Medical and Dental colleges was obtained from the NMC and DCI Websites with their location information. Of 931 IECs, 103(11.06%) had final, 728(78.2%) had provisional approval while 100(10.74%) ECs registration had expired. The median delay to file for provisional approval was 857 (IQR=407) days. The expired ECs functioning without registration for 90 (IQR=131) days. 440 of 931 (47.3%) ECs got registered during the COVID-19 period. The IEC to Medical Colleges ratio shows a significant zone-wise difference (Kruskal-Wallis, p=0.019) with the Northern Zone having the highest mean ratio of 0.90(SD=0.63). It is vital to improve DHR compliance and the EC/College Ratio for appropriate ethical governance and improve international acceptance of Indian Research.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.19.23288784v1" target="_blank">OVERVIEW OF ETHICS COMMITTEE REGISTRATION AND RE-REGISTRATION WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH RESEARCH IN INDIA</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Looking under the lamp-post: quantifying the performance of contact tracing in the United States during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Contact tracing forms a crucial part of the public-health toolbox in mitigating and understanding emergent pathogens and nascent disease outbreaks. Contact tracing in the United States was conducted during the pre-Omicron phase of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This tracing relied on voluntary reporting and responses, often using rapid antigen tests (with a high false negative rate) due to lack of accessibility to PCR tests. These limitations, combined with SARS-CoV-2s propensity for asymptomatic transmission, raise the question how reliable was contact tracing for COVID-19 in the United States? We answered this question using a Markov model to examine the efficiency with which transmission could be detected based on the design and response rates of contact tracing studies in the United States. Our results suggest that contact tracing protocols in the U.S. are unlikely to have identified more than 1.65% (95% uncertainty interval: 1.62%-1.68%) of transmission events with PCR testing and 0.88% (95% uncertainty interval 0.86%-0.89%) with rapid antigen testing. When considering an optimal scenario, based on compliance rates in East Asia with PCR testing, this increases to 62.7% (95% uncertainty interval: 62.6%-62.8%). These findings highlight the limitations in interpretability for studies of SARS-CoV-2 disease spread based on U.S. contact tracing and underscore the vulnerability of the population to future disease outbreaks, for SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.27.23287812v2" target="_blank">Looking under the lamp-post: quantifying the performance of contact tracing in the United States during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Population-Based Model of the Fraction of Incidental COVID-19 Hospitalizations During the Omicron BA.1 Wave in the United States</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background. Some reports have suggested that as many as one-half of all hospital inpatients identified as COVID-19-positive during the Omicron BA.1 variant-driven wave were incidental cases admitted primarily for reasons other than their viral infections. To date, however, there are no prospective longitudinal studies of a representative panel of hospitals based on pre-established criteria for determining whether a patient was in fact admitted as a result of the disease. Materials and Methods. To fill this gap, we developed a formula to estimate the fraction of incidental COVID-19 hospitalizations that relies upon measurable, population-based parameters. We applied our approach to a longitudinal panel of 164 counties throughout the United States, covering a 4-week interval ending in the first week of January 2022. Results. Within this panel, we estimated that COVID-19 incidence was rising exponentially at a rate of 9.34% per day (95% CI, 8.93-9.87). Assuming that only one-quarter of all Omicron BA.1 infections had been reported by public authorities, we further estimated the aggregate prevalence of active SARS-CoV-2 infection during the first week of January to be 3.45%. During the same week, among 250 high-COVID-volume hospitals within our 164-county panel, an estimated 1 in 4 inpatients was COVID-positive. Based upon these estimates, we computed that 10.6% of such COVID-19-positive hospitalized patients were incidental infections. Across individual counties, the median fraction of incidental COVID-19 hospitalizations was 9.5%, with an interquartile range of 6.7 to 12.7%. Conclusion. Incidental COVID-19 infections appear to have been a nontrivial fraction of all COVID-19-positive hospitalized patients during the Omicron BA.1 wave. In the aggregate, however, the burden of patients admitted for complications of their viral infections was far greater.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.22.22269700v4" target="_blank">Population-Based Model of the Fraction of Incidental COVID-19 Hospitalizations During the Omicron BA.1 Wave in the United States</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Preliminary clinical characteristics of Pediatric Covid-19 cases during the ongoing Omicron XBB.1.16 driven surge in a north Indian city</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
ABSTRACT India is experiencing a new surge in Covid-19 cases in most parts of the country. A new sub-variant of Omicron, XBB.1.16 which is far more aggressive and immune evasive than other sub-lineages of Omicron, is responsible for this outbreak. In this preliminary account, we describe key clinical characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 infected children, visiting an outdoor department of a pediatric hospital in a north Indian city. Our preliminary findings show a higher involvement of young infants than older children and mild respiratory illness predominates other presentations. One interesting finding was the presence of itchy, non-purulent conjunctivitis with mucoid discharge and stickiness of eyelids in 42.8% of positive infants. None of the children required hospitalization. All recovered with symptomatic treatment.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.18.23288715v1" target="_blank">Preliminary clinical characteristics of Pediatric Covid-19 cases during the ongoing Omicron XBB.1.16 driven surge in a north Indian city</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Brief Multimodal Intervention to Address Bedtime Procrastination and Sleep through Self-Compassion and Sleep Hygiene during Stressful Times</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Bedtime procrastination is increasingly recognized as a widespread impediment to health-promoting sleep. Based on its potential malleability, bedtime procrastination is starting to be targeted for intervention using traditional health behavior models, but other cognitive and emotional factors that potentially modulate bedtime procrastination warrant more targeted intervention. The present research recruited college students (n = 93) with self-reported tendencies toward bedtime procrastination and low self-compassion early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and it examined a hybrid intervention model involving a single group meeting and home practices that focused on comprehensive sleep hygiene or intentional self-compassion practices, simultaneously leveraging social motivation and commitment. It also examined bedtime procrastination, sleep, emotion regulation, and procrastinatory cognitions. The study showed evidence for feasibility, acceptability, reduced bedtime procrastination, improved sleep, and moderated mediation whereby the relationship between increased self-compassion and decreased bedtime procrastination was mediated by improved emotion regulation for those with elevated reductions in procrastinatory cognition. Predictors of bedtime procrastination reduction and other relevant sequelae differed between self-compassion and sleep hygiene virtual trainings. Thus, the present research expands and synthesizes a burgeoning literature, suggesting that integrating effective elements into acceptable interventions may help reverse a cycle of self-criticism, emotion dysregulation, bedtime procrastination, and sleep-related difficulties for many who might benefit.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.16.23288655v1" target="_blank">Brief Multimodal Intervention to Address Bedtime Procrastination and Sleep through Self-Compassion and Sleep Hygiene during Stressful Times</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Outcomes of non-hospitalized isolation service during COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection or COVID-19 affected more than 500 million patients worldwide and overwhelmed hospital resources. Rapid increase of new cases forced patient isolation to be conduct outside the hospital where many strategies have been implemented. This study aimed to compare outcomes among non-hospitalized isolation service. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted in asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic adult patients who were allocated to home isolation, community isolation, and hospitel (i.e., hotel isolation) under service of Ramathibodi Hospital and Chakri Naruebodindra Medical Institute. Variables including patients9 characteristics, comorbidities, symptoms, and medication were retrieved for use in inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment model. Risks and risk differences (RDs) of death, oxygen requirement, and hospitalization were estimated from the model afterward. Results: A total of 3869 patients were included in the analysis. Mean age was 41.8 +/- 16.5 years. Cough was presented in 62.2% of patients, followed by hyposmia (43.7%), runny nose (43.5%), sore throat (42.2%), and fever (38.6%). Among the isolation strategies, hospitel yielded the lowest risks of death (0.3%), oxygen requirement (4.5%), and hospitalization (3.3%). Hospitel had significantly lower oxygen requirements and hospitalization rates compared with home isolation with the RDs (95% CI) of -0.016 (-0.029, -0.002) and -0.025 (-0.038, -0.012), respectively. Death rates did not differ among isolation strategies. Conclusion: Non-hospitalized isolation is feasible and could ameliorate hospital demands. Given the lowest risks of death, hospitalization, and oxygen requirement, hospitel might be the best isolation strategy.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.19.23288791v1" target="_blank">Outcomes of non-hospitalized isolation service during COVID-19 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effectiveness and Safety of Quinine Sulfate as add-on Therapy for COVID-19 in Hospitalized Adults in Indonesia ( DEAL-COVID19 )</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Standard of Care + Quinine Sulfate;   Drug: Standard of Care<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Universitas Padjadjaran;   National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia;   Prodia Diacro Laboratories P.T.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and Efficacy of Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cell Exosomes in Treating Chronic Cough After COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Long COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: MSC-derived exosomes<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Huazhong University of Science and Technology;   REGEN-αGEEK (SHENZHEN) MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacy and Safety of Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir for Treating Omicron Variant of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Omicron Variant of COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Xiangao Jiang<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>A Study of mRNA-1283.222 Injection Compared With mRNA-1273.222 Injection in Participants ≥12 Years of Age to Prevent COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: mRNA-1283.222;   Biological: mRNA-1273.222<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   ModernaTX, Inc.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>To Evaluate the Safety and Efficacy of Meplazumab in Treatment of COVID-19 Sequelae</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Meplazumab for injection;   Other: Normal saline<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Jiangsu Pacific Meinuoke Bio Pharmaceutical Co Ltd<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluation of the RD-X19 Treatment Device in Individuals With Mild COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Device: RD-X19;   Device: Sham<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   EmitBio Inc.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Clinical Study for the Efficacy and Safety of Ropeginterferon Alfa-2b in Adult COVID-19 Patients With Comorbidities</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Ropeginterferon alfa-2b;   Procedure: SOC<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   National Taiwan University Hospital<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Assessment of Immunogenicity, Safety and Reactogenicity of a Booster Dose of Various COVID-19 Vaccine Platforms in Individuals Primed With Several Regimes.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: SCB-2019/Clover;   Biological: AstraZeneca/Fiocruz;   Biological: Pfizer/Wyeth<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   D’Or Institute for Research and Education;   Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation<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>Postoperative Sugammadex After COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   General Anesthesia;   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Sugammadex Sodium;   Drug: neostigmine 50µg/kg + glycopyrollate 0.01mg/kg<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Korea University Ansan Hospital<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Phase 2/3 Study to Determine the Safety and Effectiveness of Azeliragon in the Treatment of Patients Hospitalized for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Azeliragon;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Salim S. Hayek<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tailored COVID-19 Testing Support Plan for Francophone African Born Immigrants</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID19 Testing<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: FABI tailored COVID-19 testing pamphlet;   Behavioral: Standard COVID-19 home-based test kit<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Texas Woman’s University;   National Institutes of Health (NIH)<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>Cognitive-behavioral Therapy for Mental Disorder in COVID-19 Survivors</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Post Acute COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Azienda Socio Sanitaria Territoriale di Lecco<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacy of Lactobacillus Paracasei PS23 for Patients With Post-COVID-19 Syndrome</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Post-COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Dietary Supplement: PS23 heat-treated<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Mackay Memorial Hospital;   Bened Biomedical Co., Ltd.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Exploring the Effect of Video Interventions on Intentions for Continued COVID-19 Vaccination</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Vaccine Refusal;   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Informational Video;   Behavioral: Altruistic Video;   Behavioral: Individualistic Video<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sir Mortimer B. Davis - Jewish General Hospital<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Building Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic: a Randomized Controlled Trial</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Healthy;   COVID-19;   Distress, Emotional<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: RASMUS Resilience Training;   Behavioral: Progressive Muscle Relaxation<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Medical University Innsbruck<br/><b>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>Prospecting native and analogous peptides with anti-SARS-CoV-2 potential derived from the trypsin inhibitor purified from tamarind seeds</strong> - The study aimed to prospect in silico native and analogous peptides with anti-SARS-CoV-2 potential derived from the trypsin inhibitor purified from tamarind seeds (TTIp). From the most stable theoretical model of TTIp (TTIp 56/287), in silico cleavage was performed for the theoretical identification of native peptides and generation of analogous peptides. The anti-SARS-CoV-2 potential was investigated through molecular dynamics (MD) simulation between the peptides and binding sites of…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Antiviral activities of hemp cannabinoids</strong> - Hemp is an understudied source of pharmacologically active compounds and many unique plant secondary metabolites including more than 100 cannabinoids. After years of legal restriction, research on hemp has recently demonstrated antiviral activities in silico, in vitro, and in vivo for cannabidiol (CBD), Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC), cannabidiolic acid (CBDA), cannabigerolic acid (CBGA), and several other cannabinoids against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), human…</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>Kinetics and ability of binding antibody and surrogate virus neutralization tests to predict neutralizing antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant following BNT162b2 booster administration</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: This study showed a significant drop in humoral immunity 6 months after booster administration. Anti-RBD IgG and Omicron sVNT assays were highly correlated and could predict neutralizing activity with moderate performance.</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>MHC class I links with severe pathogenicity in C57BL/6N mice infected with SARS-CoV-2/BMA8</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our work shows that host MHC molecules play a crucial role in the pathogenicity differences of SARS-CoV-2/BMA8 infection. This provides a more profound insight into the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2, and contributes enlightenment and guidance for controlling the virus spread.</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>Discovery and structural characterization of monkeypox virus methyltransferase VP39 inhibitors reveal similarities to SARS-CoV-2 nsp14 methyltransferase</strong> - Monkeypox is a disease with pandemic potential. It is caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV), a double-stranded DNA virus from the Poxviridae family, that replicates in the cytoplasm and must encode for its own RNA processing machinery including the capping machinery. Here, we present crystal structures of its 2’-O-RNA methyltransferase (MTase) VP39 in complex with the pan-MTase inhibitor sinefungin and a series of inhibitors that were discovered based on it. A comparison of this 2’-O-RNA MTase…</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>Synthesis of SARS-CoV-2 M<sup>pro</sup> inhibitors bearing a cinnamic ester warhead with <em>in vitro</em> activity against human coronaviruses</strong> - COVID-19 now ranks among the most devastating global pandemics in history. The causative virus, SARS-CoV-2, is a new human coronavirus (hCoV) that spreads among humans and animals. Great efforts have been made to develop therapeutic agents to treat COVID-19, and among the available viral molecular targets, the cysteine protease SARS-CoV-2 M^(pro) is considered the most appealing one due to its essential role in viral replication. However, the inhibition of M^(pro) activity is an interesting…</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>Diosmetin alleviates acute lung injury caused by lipopolysaccharide by targeting barrier function</strong> - Acute lung injury (ALI) is an acute and devastating disease caused by systemic inflammation e.g. patients infected with bacteria and viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 have an unacceptably high mortality rate. It has been well documented that endothelial cell damage and repair play a central role in the pathogenesis of ALI because of its barrier function. Nevertheless, the leading compounds that effectively accelerate endothelial cell repair and improve barrier dysfunction in ALI are largely unknown. In…</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>Molecular Networking Accelerated Discovery of Biflavonoid Alkaloids from Cephalotaxus sinensis</strong> - Four undescribed biflavonoid alkaloids, sinenbiflavones A-D, were isolated from Cephalotaxus sinensis using a MS/MS-based molecular networking guided strategy. Their structures were elucidated by series of spectroscopic methods (HRESIMS, UV, IR, 1D, and 2D NMR). Sinenbiflavones A-D are the first examples of amentoflavone-type (C-3’-C-8’’) biflavonoid alkaloids. Meanwhile, sinenbiflavones B and D are the unique C-6-methylated amentoflavone-type biflavonoid alkaloids. Sinenbiflavone D showed weak…</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>Myeloperoxidase Inhibition in Heart Failure With Preserved or Mildly Reduced Ejection Fraction: SATELLITE Trial Results</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: AZD4831 inhibited myeloperoxidase and was well tolerated in patients with HF and LVEF ≥40%. Efficacy findings were exploratory due to early termination but warrant further clinical investigation of AZD4831.</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>Awareness raising and dealing with methanol poisoning based on effective strategies</strong> - Intoxication with methanol most commonly occurs as a consequence of ingesting, inhaling, or coming into contact with formulations that include methanol as a base. Clinical manifestations of methanol poisoning include suppression of the central nervous system, gastrointestinal symptoms, and decompensated metabolic acidosis, which is associated with impaired vision and either early or late blindness within 0.5-4 h after ingestion. After ingestion, methanol concentrations in the blood that are…</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>Ferrocenoyl-substituted quinolinone and coumarin as organometallic inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 3CLpro main protease</strong> - The 3-chymotrypsin-like protease 3CLpro from SARS-CoV-2 is a potential target for antiviral drug development. In this work, three organometallic ferrocene-modified quinolinones and coumarins were compared to their benzoic acid ester analogues with regard to inhibition of 3CLpro using a HPLC-based assay with a 15mer model peptide as the substrate. In contrast to FRET-based assays, this allows direct identification of interference of buffer constituents with the inhibitors, as demonstrated by the…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Transcription factor <em>Dmrt1</em> triggers the SPRY1-NF-κB pathway to maintain testicular immune homeostasis and male fertility</strong> - Bacterial or viral infections, such as Brucella, mumps virus, herpes simplex virus, and Zika virus, destroy immune homeostasis of the testes, leading to spermatogenesis disorder and infertility. Of note, recent research shows that SARS-CoV-2 can infect male gonads and destroy Sertoli and Leydig cells, leading to male reproductive dysfunction. Due to the many side effects associated with antibiotic therapy, finding alternative treatments for inflammatory injury remains critical. Here, we found…</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>Selective translational control of cellular and viral mRNAs by RPS3 mRNA binding</strong> - RPS3, a universal core component of the 40S ribosomal subunit, interacts with mRNA at the entry channel. Whether RPS3 mRNA-binding contributes to specific mRNA translation and ribosome specialization in mammalian cells is unknown. Here we mutated RPS3 mRNA-contacting residues R116, R146 and K148 and report their impact on cellular and viral translation. R116D weakened cap-proximal initiation and promoted leaky scanning, while R146D had the opposite effect. Additionally, R146D and K148D displayed…</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>Discovery of Potent Pyrazoline-Based Covalent SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors</strong> - Among the various genes and proteins encoded by all coronaviruses, one particularly “druggable” or relatively easy-to-drug target is the coronavirus Main Protease (3CLproor Mpro), an enzyme that is involved in cleaving a long peptide translated by the viral genome into its individual protein components that are then assembled into the virus to enable viral replication in the cell. Inhibiting Mpro with a small-molecule antiviral would effectively stop the ability of the virus to replicate,…</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>Omicsynin B4 potently blocks coronavirus infection by inhibiting host proteases cathepsin L and TMPRSS2</strong> - The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants represents a major threat to public health and requires identification of novel therapeutic agents to address the unmet medical needs. Small molecules impeding viral entry through inhibition of spike protein priming proteases could have potent antiviral effects against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Omicsynin B4, a pseudo-tetrapeptides identified from Streptomyces sp. 1647, has potent antiviral activity against influenza A viruses in our previous study. Here, we found…</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>Jim Jordan’s Singular Pursuit of Justice</strong> - Republicans in Congress are united on at least one thing: the defense of Donald Trump. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/jim-jordans-singular-pursuit-of-justice">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>My Family and the Monterey Park Shooter</strong> - My mom and my uncle spent their evenings at the dance studios of the San Gabriel Valley. After a mass shooting, I finally saw what those studios looked like on the inside. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/my-family-and-the-monterey-park-shooter">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Stunning End of Dominion’s Case Against Fox News</strong> - The voting-machine company has agreed to a seven-hundred-million-dollar settlement in its defamation suit against Rupert Murdoch’s cable news network. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/the-stunning-end-of-dominions-case-against-fox-news">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Clarence Thomas’s Friend of the Court</strong> - Thomas claims that Harlan Crow’s extravagant gifts were tokens of friendship. Why do the Justices so often emphasize personal relationships? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/clarence-thomass-friend-of-the-court">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Fox News Doesn’t Do Apologies</strong> - Rupert Murdoch may have to pay for Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies, but who’s going to reimburse American democracy? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/fox-news-doesnt-do-apologies">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Florida is slimming down its plan to take on “woke” colleges — but not by much</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A blue sticker that says We Heart New College." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ri8FpydzjlS7JDgQkgb6MXOhBvQ=/167x0:2834x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72202285/1246703197.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Demonstrators protest as Gov. DeSantis appoints a new New College of Florida Board of Trustees. | Octavio Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Though less ambitious, two bills could still dramatically alter higher education in the state if signed into law.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZtjJJQ">
At the start of the year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced sweeping plans to dismantle major areas of Florida’s higher education system:<strong> </strong>weakening tenure protections for professors, eliminating majors like gender studies, and prohibiting programming related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wx6tEA">
The vehicle for those changes was two bills in the state legislature,<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/999">House Bill 999</a> and the Senate companion <a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/266">SB 266</a>. But the bills have stalled during the legislative session for concerns of overreach. Lawmakers, led by a Republican supermajority, have pulled back, acknowledging that the bills’ language on diversity, equity, and inclusion could lead some schools and programs to lose their accreditation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A0QrgV">
Both bills intended to prevent state colleges and universities from using public funding on initiatives and programs that promote diversity, equity, inclusion, or critical race theory.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ia8xZB">
But now the bills have been scrubbed of any references to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Lawmakers have instead opted for broader language against “programs” that support ideas related to “oppression and privilege,” “systemic racism,” and other related concepts. The changes were recently accepted by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Education during a two-hour hearing, where students, educators, and critics testified against the proposals.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NjfORh">
The revision, though, is only a small victory for supporters of academic freedom. While the lawmakers decided to pare back the restrictions on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the bills still seek to change how professors are hired and get tenure and what is taught on college campuses. And Republicans are making it clear that <a href="https://www.vox.com/22443822/critical-race-theory-controversy">removing critical race theory</a> is still their ultimate aim.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0McusL">
“It is encouraging to see the Legislature taking up this important topic and joining the conversation that the governor began with his legislative <a href="https://rumble.com/v27um2q-governor-desantis-announces-reforms-for-floridas-higher-education.html">proposals </a>for higher education reform in Florida. The governor is committed to ensuring that the DEI and CRT (critical race theory) bureaucracies are cut off and wither on the vine,” Jeremy Redfern, a spokesperson for the governor, told the <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/04/12/diversity-equity-inclusion-dei-crt-desantis-university/">Tampa Bay Times</a>. “This legislation is still part of the legislative process, but we look forward to it reaching the governor’s desk in final form.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="07CPQG">
Critics fear that, while specific bans on diversity, equity, and inclusion were removed, the broadening of the language could also present even more problems since there will be greater room for interpretation. Here’s what’s in the revised higher education legislation.
</p>
<h3 id="EUcqho">
The bans on diversity, equity, and inclusion have been removed — but the replacement might be more extreme
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V2xctB">
When DeSantis first announced plans to prohibit the funding of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, he said wanted to do so because they “force exclusion and division” and he wanted to “prevent discrimination in the workplace and public schools.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gaBuVT">
But concerns over accreditation for certain programs, raised by Florida Democrats, have halted those restrictions in the bills. Accreditation is, essentially, a stamp of approval in higher education from oversight bodies, which certifies that an institution meets certain educational standards. College and program accreditation allows students to receive federal financial aid, and schools to issue degrees and professional licenses when students graduate.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rK9P2D">
During the hearing, one lawmaker pointed out that curriculums on diversity, equity, and inclusion are required for certain education courses in the mental health profession. According to the lawmaker, she had received countless emails from students and educators who believe the bans would completely curtail certain programs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q2Fskc">
So Republicans pivoted to restricting broader ideas that “undermine institutions in the United States.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kCovUm">
Though the terms diversity, equity, and inclusion are no longer in the bills, the broadening of the language could mean that even more programs and course content are in jeopardy. As the bills originally stated, universities would have to review their curriculums to make sure they’re complying with the new legislation. This includes not teaching “theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political and economic inequities.”
</p>
<h3 id="BXs7wA">
Hiring procedures and tenure protocol would change
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NRWDV0">
The bills aim to change the state university system’s hiring protocol. Currently, school deans, department chairs, and faculty committees usually control hiring decisions, but both bills would give university presidents the power to hire faculty members — and fire them. When making such decisions, university presidents wouldn’t have to consult others for their opinions, according to the bill.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l5i2GA">
Before this latest revision, hiring decisions were left to politically appointed boards of trustees. And if a professor is fired or stripped of tenure, they can’t appeal the decision beyond the school’s president.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WX8sSk">
Experts are already questioning whether this would even be legal. Andrew Gothard, president of the statewide union United Faculty of Florida, told the Tampa Bay Times, “There’s going to be some question of whether that’s legal and how well that would hold up in court. But even beyond the sort of technicalities of that, what we’re seeing is the continued efforts of the Legislature to enforce Governor DeSantis’ big government version of how Florida should operate.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ezY6vU">
Though these bills haven’t been signed into law, some schools are already facing challenges around tenure. At the New College of Florida, the school’s interim president Richard Corcoran, whom DeSantis appointed amid what critics have called a hostile takeover of the school, <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2023/04/07/sarasota-new-college-tenure-withdraw-conservative-trustees-desantis-corcoran-rufo/">recently told</a> seven faculty members to withdraw their tenure applications ahead of the upcoming April board of trustees meeting.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E5sNJk">
This request was unprecedented: Professors had been approved by colleagues and administrators at every required stage of the tenure process ahead of final approval at the board meeting. In April 2022, DeSantis signed a law requiring university leaders to review professors’ tenure every five years. Now HB 999 could go further by allowing university trustees to call for tenure review at any moment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Mtdfl6">
“We will be shutting down low-performing, ideologically-captured academic departments and hiring new faculty,” Christopher Rufo, the DeSantis-appointed trustee behind the anti-critical race theory movement, said in February. Critics say conservatives like Rufo are willfully misinterpreting the purpose of academic tenure. “Its goal is to give professors the freedom to pursue lasting truths without being cowed either by the trustees and presidents who appoint them, or by powerful majorities who might be offended by their teachings or findings,” Amherst College professor Adam Sitze <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/04/17/tenure-founding-american-value?utm_campaign=ihesocial&amp;utm_content=opinion_%7C_tenure_is_a_fou&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=facebook,linkedin,twitter">wrote</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JrYIXP">
The fate of the New College professors won’t be known before the next board meeting on April 26.
</p>
<h3 id="14jLWj">
<strong>The bills no longer target specific majors and minors</strong>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NjYcaz">
The new bills no longer specifically name restrictions on certain majors like “gender studies” but have now broadened their language to state that universities should remove “any major or minor that is based on or otherwise utilizes pedagogical methodology associated with Critical Theory, including, but not limited to, Critical Race Theory, Critical Race Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, Radical Feminist Theory, Radical Gender Theory, Queer Theory, Critical Social Justice, or Intersectionality.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wLtfwe">
These topics aren’t offered as majors or minors at Florida’s universities, but this language is broad and open to interpretation, which is alarming to education policy experts who spoke to Vox. A variety of majors, from African American studies to sociology to education, touch on these concepts. For example, the phrases “based on” and “methodology associated with” open the door for lawmakers to dispute a number of majors, including gender studies, which they originally targeted.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JJD43s">
According to Sam Sharf, a gender studies major at New College, the earlier versions of the bill wanted to “dismiss gender studies entirely.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6OeYhe">
Gender studies “is the study of human social expression, and human social expression is rooted in aspects like gender, race, and ethnicity. So even if you’re against LGBT people, we should still study these things as a form of sociology,” Sharf told Vox. “It’s my freedom to study this. So even if you ‘disagree’ with the framework of gender studies, it’s still my freedom the same way it’s other people’s freedom to go to a Christian school and learn about creationism.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6MISIe">
It’s unclear how lawmakers plan to enforce these restrictions or what kinds of consequences faculty members would face for teaching the topics.
</p>
<h3 id="O6bWeg">
Florida’s proposals are inspiring lawmakers in other states
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CCcGlJ">
Florida Republicans have pushed back against the idea that these bills are restrictive. State Rep. Alex Andrade of Pensacola said the intent was to improve rigor by removing concepts that have “not undergone the same amount of peer review, debate and scrutiny.” “The bill is far simpler than opponents want to give it credit for,” Andrade told the Tampa Bay Times. “The same folks saying ‘Stop Woke’ banned teaching of Black history are the same folks lying about this bill.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f3NDog">
Other states are following Florida’s lead. According to an Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/article/diversity-equity-inclusion-legislation-7bd8d4d52aaaa9902dde59a257874686">analysis</a>, at least a dozen states have introduced more than 30 bills this year that target diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at colleges and universities. Many of the bills mirror language developed by the Manhattan Institute and the Goldwater Institute, conservative think tanks, and seek to limit how administrators consider diversity, equity, and inclusion during hiring decisions and other areas of campus life.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z71PvF">
In Texas, for example, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/10/texas-senate-tenure-diversity/">a bill filed in March</a> would prevent professors hired after September from being able to seek tenure, a move that would <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2023/04/13/fight-over-tenure-has-texas-professors-fearing-loss-of-academic-freedom-job-security/">drain the state of talented academics</a>, critics have said. Bills in Missouri and Texas would also ban the mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum for medical students.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LQWJcp">
In Florida, the bills may undergo further revisions. Each legislative chamber will vote on them by early May, after which Gov. DeSantis is expected to sign them into law.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JEgvhW">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UTwurQ">
</p></li>
<li><strong>7 big Earth Day wins for the planet</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Paper work human hand holding a planet earth globe" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cPlBVXa23tSRkGeRlgrlVAYCLNs=/359x0:4746x3290/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72202164/GettyImages_1388897317.0.jpeg"/>
<figcaption>
Over the past year, humanity has made some huge policy gains to protect the planet. | Carol Yepes/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The most important environmental policies advanced since the last Earth Day.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LJXGCj">
Earth Day will be here again on April 22, and since the last time our planet reached this <a href="https://in-the-sky.org/solarsystem.php">part of its orbit</a>, humanity has actually taken surprisingly big new steps to avert the gargantuan threats to life as we know it: toxic pollution, habitat destruction, extinction, and climate change.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nK3waO">
These problems stem from the things we build, buy, and eat. But that also means if we change our actions, we can solve them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1UviU6">
Certainly, <a href="https://www.vox.com/23013748/un-climate-report-carbon-footprint-individual-action">individual decisions</a> about housing, appliances, transportation, and diet play a key role in reducing our harmful impacts on the planet. However, the biggest way you or I can have an impact is to pressure decision-makers at every level — city councils, statehouses, national governments, corporate boards — to cut greenhouse gas emissions, to protect wildlife beneath the sea, and to invest in cleaner energy. That means the most powerful tool to fix our environmental problems is ink on paper (or rather, pixels on screens).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tu7QQi">
Over the past year, this advocacy strategy blossomed. We now have the largest international land and ocean conservation target ever, a treaty to protect the high seas, and a commitment to phase out the most potent greenhouse gases completely.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0Rn2sb">
In the US, the world’s largest historical emitter and second-largest current emitter of carbon dioxide, the government is putting more money than ever into solving climate change. It’s proposing tough new goalposts to draw down emissions from vehicles ranging from tiny hatchbacks to heavy-duty trucks, in an effort to step on the accelerator for EVs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I1qQgd">
These were hard-fought wins, built on years of organizing, negotiations, and research. But these initiatives are just starting points, and they’re not enough to halt rising temperatures and the rapid pace of extinction.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DIO0TI">
Over the past year, we learned that the world is very likely to <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/05/1117842">heat up past the 2.7 degree Fahrenheit (1.5 degree Celsius) goalpost</a> of the Paris climate agreement, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23648274/climate-change-report-ipcc-ar6-warming-overshoot">scientists renewed their warnings</a> that the window to act is slamming shut. Despite this, countries like the US are simultaneously working against their own climate commitments by <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/2023/3/14/23637780/willow-project-biden-oil-drilling-climate-change">authorizing more fossil fuel development</a> that will further contribute to warming.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EG2Gkq">
So turning ink on paper into an actual reduction in carbon dioxide pollution demands even more political pressure, ensuring that powerful institutions meet their benchmarks and holding them accountable if they don’t.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ISMfyz">
Here are the seven biggest policy wins for the planet since the last Earth Day:
</p>
<h3 id="2pRyyE">
<ol type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Rich countries are finally starting to show the money
</li></ol></h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Women activists protest and demand Loss and Damage fund during the COP27 UN Climate Change Conference, held by UNFCCC in Sharm El-Sheikh International Convention Center, Egypt on November 17, 2022." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VmfanwtTN1aINq05xkiw85bWJ04=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24598852/GettyImages_1244852288.jpeg"/> <cite>Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Protesters at COP27 call for more funding for poorer countries harmed by climate change.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ACxV6m">
The countries that contributed the most to climate change — again, the US is number one among them — also have the wealth to cope with many of its effects. The poorer countries that contributed the least, like Pakistan, Somalia, and the Marshall Islands, are already seeing some of the worst climate change impacts now: worsened drought, torrential rainfall, and sea level rise.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gOv84o">
These countries argue that they deserve compensation for the damage from problems they didn’t cause and want financial help to deal with the shifts that lie ahead. But wealthy nations have been resistant to committing any money and were loath to sign on to any program that hinted at climate liability.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="t4s88Q">
Over the past year, that edifice started to crumble. At the <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23464353/cop27-egypt-outcome-climate-change-agreement-result-loss-damage">COP27 climate negotiations</a> in Egypt last year, countries finally struck a deal to compensate poorer countries for ongoing climate destruction. The proposal is short on details, but the fact that a deal was reached at all is a huge step forward. It helps some of the most afflicted regions deal with climate change now, and by attaching a price tag to climate damages, the whole world has a stronger incentive to do more to keep warming in check.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wELUy2">
Wealthy countries also struck direct climate deals with individual countries in the past year. The biggest was a $20 billion financing package from the US, Japan, and European countries to help <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/climate/indonesia-coal-agreement.html">Indonesia get off of coal</a>. They also struck a similar <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_7671">$15.5 billion deal with Vietnam</a>. Deals are in the works for <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/g7-and-indian-just-energy-transition-partnership-roadmap">India and Senegal</a>, and more may be in the pipeline.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NBzkdp">
And just this week, the White House announced that the US would contribute $1 billion to the UN Green Climate Fund, which finances adaptation and mitigation efforts in developing countries.
</p>
<h3 id="hXjwiO">
<ol start="2" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">An actual bipartisan climate treaty passed the Senate
</li></ol></h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Employee Victor Molina empties used refrigerants at the Tradewater Refrigerant Solutions Wearhouse in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, on August 11, 2021." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NJSFSK1lye6dHIx3mzSfLVDUYvs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24598863/GettyImages_1234801284.jpeg"/> <cite>Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
The Kigali Amendment phases out CFC and HFC refrigerants, which can be potent greenhouse gases.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jrJAjJ">
With the narrow, bitter political divide in Congress, it’s been difficult to get anything done at all. But last year, 21 Republicans in the Senate voted with Democrats to pass the <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23373026/kigali-amendment-signed-biden-republican-hfc-climate-change-montreal">Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WGGKgz">
The treaty phases out a class of chemicals called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). They’re used in refrigerators and air conditioners, but when they leak, they’re thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide at heating up the planet. Conversely, reducing a small amount of HFC pollution yields huge dividends. The Kigali Amendment alone is poised to avert upward of 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) of warming by the end of the century.
</p>
<h3 id="G4xp3O">
<ol start="3" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">A new accord will preserve nearly one-third of the Earth
</li></ol></h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Huang Runqiu (C), president of COP15 and China’s minister of ecology and environment, uses a gavel during the plenary session of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) at the Palais des Congres on December 19, 2022 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3Y7ALSCIyNWJxjEttn-p0T0P7KY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24598870/GettyImages_1450463553.jpeg"/> <cite>Yu Ruidong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A new global biodiversity treaty was created last year.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uIwUu3">
Countries also gathered last year to put together a treaty to protect biodiversity. At the <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2022/12/19/23515099/cop15-montreal-biodiversity-climate">COP15 meeting in Montreal</a>, just about every country in the world agreed to work together to protect species from extinction and halt the decline of the lands, skies, and waters where they live.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yhUXnp">
The agreement, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, sets 23 targets that countries must achieve by 2030. Among them, countries have to stop subsidizing activities that continue to destroy wilderness, like mining and industrial fishing. The agreement also protects at least 30 percent of all land and water on Earth by 2030 — the largest land and ocean conservation commitment in history. There’s money behind it, too: Wealthy countries promised $30 billion for these efforts, roughly triple the amount spent currently.
</p>
<h3 id="75JYG2">
<ol start="4" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">The planet’s largest habitat has a new legal shield
</li></ol></h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A humpback whale cow and calf" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SUZ55m8WuZQAgVd7Wm9vtD2cYoI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24598897/GettyImages_549034619.jpeg"/> <cite>Reinhard Dirscherl/ullstein bild via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Until recently, much of the open ocean had no legal protection against pollution and destruction.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BLkeVW">
Until recently, the open ocean was a bit of a black hole, legally speaking. Two hundred nautical miles off a country’s shoreline, no country has jurisdiction. This area adds up to half the surface area of the planet. It’s home to the largest animals and the tiniest creatures like phytoplankton, which provide about half of the oxygen we breathe.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l274gu">
Now, after 20 years of planning and negotiations, there’s a <a href="https://www.vox.com/science/2023/4/10/23672443/high-seas-treaty-bbnj-marine-protected-areas">legal framework</a>, backed by close to every country in the world, to protect this region. The treaty establishes protected areas in the ocean, akin to national parks, where fishing, mining, and dumping is prohibited. These regions will expand over time and will count toward the aforementioned targets in the Global Biodiversity Framework. The UN still has to adopt the agreement, though, and countries still have to ratify. And the tricky question of how to enforce it on the open seas remains.
</p>
<h3 id="TzsBVd">
<ol start="5" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accelerated Europe’s shift off of fossil fuels
</li></ol></h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A wind farm is located above the residential area in Rhineland-Palatinate, Freimersheim, Germany." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LvShE1Wc-09jqb_y_snqtdK1iyQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24598909/GettyImages_1251990722.jpeg"/> <cite>Andreas Arnold/picture alliance via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spurred many countries in Europe to speed up their move away from fossil fuels.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0sjhft">
Russia is the largest natural gas exporter in the world, and after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, many of its largest customers in Europe were desperate to find an alternative. Coal ended up filling some of the gap, but the energy crisis following the invasion also forced the continent to reckon with its <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/2023/2/21/23594544/europe-electricity-natural-gas-renewable-energy-russia">entire relationship with fossil fuels</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BLvhME">
Spikes in oil and gas prices alongside overall cost declines in wind and solar convinced policymakers to harness more clean energy. “After the invasion, energy security emerged as additional strong motivation to accelerate renewable energy deployment,” said the <a href="https://www.iea.org/topics/russias-war-on-ukraine">International Energy Agency</a>. Individuals are also using drawing on renewables to insulate themselves from volatility in energy markets. In 2022, European households installed three times as many gigawatts of solar as they did in 2021. That’s on track to triple again in the next four years.
</p>
<h3 id="gFnOZw">
<ol start="6" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">The US finally has a law to deal with climate change
</li></ol></h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="President Joe Biden speaks to union workers at a White House event highlighting the Inflation Reduction Act." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lB9c-xC996O1JQ07nSMr701GfXk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24598936/GettyImages_1244434080.jpeg"/> <cite>Oliver Contreras/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
The Inflation Reduction Act allocates billions of dollars to clean energy infrastructure including electric vehicle charging.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WQ1Vwq">
Last summer, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats passed an enormous spending influx to move the US economy away from fossil fuels. The law, known as the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/7/28/23281757/whats-in-climate-bill-inflation-reduction-act">Inflation Reduction Act</a>, or IRA, includes $369 billion for an array of climate priorities. Consumers will see tax breaks and rebates aimed at electrifying their homes and cars, utilities will receive investments to make the transition off of coal, oil and gas polluters will be held to new fees for their methane pollution, and communities that have been harmed by redlining policies and environmental racism will receive grants to clean up local pollution.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tcsnae">
The law will ultimately be an important marker in propelling the US into a future with more electric transportation, electric homes, and creating a homegrown clean energy. But the IRA is early yet in its implementation at the federal, state, and local level.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D7iFy2">
If that rollout goes well, the US could finally meet the Biden administration’s aim of slashing greenhouse gas pollution in half compared to 2005 levels by the end of the decade. The US is already one-third of the way there, and the IRA provides the extra boost, while helping to clean up the everyday air and water pollution Americans must contend with. But, worryingly, US emissions are <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23547051/greenhouse-gas-emissions-2022-increase-inflation-gas-price-climate-change-gdp">now trending upward</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="C3zTkp">
<ol start="7" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Fossil fuel-powered cars will soon be parked
</li></ol></h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="An electric car charges at a new fast charging station during a press event in Germany." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fmVlTabgQqGX0uVbmiZQ7boGgO8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24598955/GettyImages_1240392166.jpeg"/> <cite>Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Some of the largest auto markets in the world plan to ban the sale of gasoline and diesel cars by 2035.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RhbqWE">
Transportation is the largest source of climate pollution in the US, and one of the largest in the world. Switching cars and trucks from gasoline and diesel to fuel cells and batteries is thus an essential step for meeting climate change goals. Electric vehicles also <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/23583500/ev-electric-car-california-air-pollution-asthma-health">avoid dangerous pollutants</a> like particulates and nitrogen oxides. But EVs only made up <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-ev-sales-jolted-higher-in-2022-as-newcomers-target-tesla-11672981834">5.8 percent of cars</a> sold in the US last year and just over <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/ev-car-sales-energy-environment-gas/">10 percent around the world</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G7LfQV">
To speed up this trend, California last year approved a <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/23320166/california-gasoline-ban-electric-vehicle-car-diesel-climate">finish line for fossil fuel-powered vehicles</a> by 2035. Other states like New York and Massachusetts have since joined the race. More recently, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23680273/epa-emissions-rule-electric-vehicles-ev-pollution-climate-regulation-fuel-economy">Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new set of pollution regulations</a> for cars, pickups, SUVs, and delivery trucks. The rules mean that by 2032, two-thirds of cars sold in the US will have to run on electrons.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="T6anO8">
The <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/digest/eu-gas-car-phaseout-2035">European Union also proposed a ban on gasoline</a> and diesel vehicles by 2035. With looming cutoffs in the largest car markets in the world, the global auto industry is getting a loud signal that the internal combustion engine’s days are numbered.
</p></li>
<li><strong>Why so many top Republicans want to go to war in Mexico</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IP9AlwfOmbmd7VajuT7PtzpxUEY=/288x0:2592x1728/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72202092/1173237283.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A Mexican soldier secures an illegal marijuana plantation in the municipality of Cosala, state of Sinaloa, Mexico, on October 2, 2019. | Rashide Frias/AFP/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
An astonishingly bad idea that’s gotten popular very quickly.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fCIFGV">
One of the hottest new ideas in Republican politics is, apparently, launching a war in Mexico.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QHty9Z">
Three recent articles — in <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/donald-trump-mexico-military-cartels-war-on-drugs-1234705804/">Rolling Stone</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/10/gop-bomb-mexico-fentanyl-00091132">Politico</a>, and <a href="https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/04/14/2023/semafor-americana-2024-republicans-drug-war">Semafor</a> — traced the rise of the proposal from obscurity to the party’s highest levels, finding ample evidence of the idea’s popularity in the GOP ranks. Former President Donald Trump, for example, has been asking for a “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/donald-trump-mexico-military-cartels-war-on-drugs-1234705804/">battle plan</a>” to “attack Mexico,” specifically targeting drug cartel strongholds in the country. <a href="https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/04/14/2023/semafor-americana-2024-republicans-drug-war">Every single declared Republican presidential candidate</a> has endorsed treating cartels like terrorist organizations. And in both <a href="https://crenshaw.house.gov/2023/1/reps-crenshaw-and-waltz-introduce-aumf-targeting-mexican-drug-cartels">the House</a> and <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/graham-we-are-going-to-unleash-the-fury-and-might-of-the-us-against-these-drug-cartels">the Senate</a>, leading Republicans have proposed authorizing the use of military force in Mexico to fight cartels.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="68oyAP">
These proposals are typically billed as responses to the fentanyl overdose crisis. Roughly 107,000 Americans <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/202205.htm">died</a> from opioid overdoses in 2021, the last year data was available, a 15 percent increase over the 2020 death total. Of those deaths, a majority were attributable to fentanyl — <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/29/20836719/opioid-epidemic-fentanyl-rand-report">a synthetic opioid painkiller considerably stronger than heroin</a>. This is a major problem, and coming up with some kind of policy response is as important as it is <a href="https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-opioid-crisis-is-an-objectively">difficult</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9xx9bS">
But launching cross-border raids into the territory of the US’s neighbor and third-largest trading partner, a vital partner on many issues, is just about the worst one. The US and Latin American partners have been waging a literal war on drugs for decades; military campaigns like <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/08/15-years-and-10-billion-later-u-s-efforts-to-curb-colombias-cocaine-trade-have-failed/">Plan Colombia</a> have repeatedly failed to stop narcotics from entering the United States. Attacks on Mexican soil seem no more promising — and considerably more likely to backfire in dangerous ways.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ITvrYZ">
In reporting this piece, I spoke to four different experts on foreign policy and/or the Mexican border from across the ideological spectrum; not one of them thought these proposals contained anything like a workable idea. “The planning would embarrass <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/29/timep.wolfowitz.tm/">Paul Wolfowitz</a>,” quipped Justin Logan, the director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2pC8im">
What this exposes, more than anything else, is an important way the Republican party <em>hasn’t</em> changed in the Trump era.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iRcpSE">
As much as Trump billed himself as a kind of isolationist critic of the Republican foreign policy consensus, <a href="https://www.vox.com/23677654/trump-foreign-policy-revisionist-history-dove-anti-imperial">his actual track record</a> as president shows that he was quite willing to use force aggressively. He used force in somewhat different ways, and for different reasons, than his predecessors — but very clearly accepted that some of America’s big foreign policy problems could be solved by bombing them into oblivion.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jMMrJr">
The enthusiasm for a new Mexican-American war illustrates the same sort of principle. It marries a longtime idea on the center-right mainstream, the war on drugs, to the Trumpist concerns about illegal immigration and the decline in quality of life for the white working class — and claims that the troops can solve them both.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ERd0GX">
In one sense, the surge in proposals to use force in Mexico is both a new and extremely dangerous development. But in another sense, it’s old Republican wine in a Trump Vineyards bottle.
</p>
<h3 id="jEnR2l">
What, exactly, are Republicans calling for?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5dUjZP">
The vogue for war in Mexico seems to date back to the late Trump presidency. In 2019, after the Sinaloa cartel brutally murdered nine US citizens, President Trump announced that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/us/trump-drug-cartels-terrorists.html">he would designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations</a> (FTOs). He tweeted that “Mexico, with the help of the United States, [should] wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oRkCll">
Designating a group as an FTO is complicated; it requires that cartels have a political motivation for their violence, which isn’t really the case. Nor is it clear that it would do very much aside from creating a headache for federal counterterrorism agents, who would now have to decide whether a gang member purchasing weed from a cartel was engaging in material support for terrorism (a federal crime).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DZ5iBP">
Perhaps for these reasons, the designation never happened. But Trump still wanted to wage war on the cartels as if they were terrorists. In 2020, the president reportedly asked Defense Secretary Mark Esper twice if the military could “shoot missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CmsoRX">
Per <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/us/politics/mark-esper-book-trump.html">Esper’s memoir</a>, Trump argued that the Mexican government could not stop the cartels on their own — “they don’t have control of their own country” — and that destroying narcotics manufacturing labs would be a swift and painless operation. “We could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,” the president reportedly said. “No one would know it was us.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wSCVnW">
The idea is so outlandish that Esper at first thought Trump was joking. First of all, Patriot missiles can’t do this: they’re surface-to-air missiles designed to shoot down enemy aircraft. Presumably, Trump meant some form of cruise missiles fired from US silos or warships, but such a strike would make it exceptionally obvious who hit the laboratories. Most fundamentally, bombing a few drug manufacturing labs would not end trafficking into the United States. Even if the US had good enough intelligence to target most of them, the cartels would simply rebuild them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r5sL1M">
It’s worth dwelling on this Trump proposal not only because of its absurdity, but because it helps illustrate why some on the right have moved on to more ambitious war plans.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tPJYqR">
In their logic, if the cartels are a violent threat to the US homeland akin to ISIS, then it follows that the US should do what it did with ISIS: take away the territory that they control and use it as a base to operate. In the case of ISIS, that meant airstrikes in tandem with local Iraqi and Syrian fighters who could take back the territory held by the terrorist group. But according to Mexico hawks, the Mexican government and its security forces have been corrupted by the cartels — unable or unwilling to wage war on drug and human traffickers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N2ByAm">
As a diagnosis, that’s not entirely wrong. Leftist Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, widely known as AMLO, has been <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/23/mexico-drug-war-amlo-lopez-obrador-demilitarization-national-guard-human-rights/">more willing to use force against cartels than his “hugs not bullets”</a> campaign slogan would suggest. But he has failed to address the cartels’ growing clout, which includes significant penetration of the Mexican government. A recent <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/14/1129001666/data-leak-exposes-mexico-military-corruption-including-collusion-with-drug-carte">tranche of leaked documents revealed</a>, among other things, that Mexican soldiers ordered to fight cartels were actually selling guns to them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tuDULn">
Mexico’s failure to stop the cartels is a major motivating factor behind <a href="https://americarenewing.com/issues/its-time-to-wage-war-on-transnational-drug-cartels/">an October 2022 policy proposal written by Ken Cuccinelli</a>, an immigration hardliner who served as acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security in the last two years of the Trump administration. In the paper, written for the Trumpy Center for Renewing America think tank, Cuccinelli calls for a “defensive war” against cartels facilitating drug trafficking and undocumented migration.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jaTlfS">
The proposal is thin on military detail. It proposes that “the President should conduct specific military operations to destroy the cartels,” but does not specify what exactly those operations would look like aside from involving special forces and airstrikes. If that fails, he argues for deploying unspecified “elements of the Marines, Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard” to Mexico.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MvmmKL">
The proposal fails to answer basic questions. For example: How many troops would an operation require, and where would they be deployed? What would the casualties look like on both sides? How would a US troop presence suppress drug trafficking and production <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-opium-poppy-production/">when it failed to do so in Afghanistan</a>? If the cartels start using locations where American troops aren’t, does the war expand to more parts of Mexico or even other countries? And would any gains be sustained after a US withdrawal?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PmyTGG">
Given <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/6/2/8703059/bush-isis-middle-east">all</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/7/7/5877091/drug-war-failure-afghanistan">the</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2022/8/15/23300236/no-one-held-accountable-catastrophic-afghanistan-withdrawal-biden-white-house">things</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/22654167/cost-deaths-war-on-terror-afghanistan-iraq-911">that</a> <a href="https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-afghanistan-43d8f53b35e80ec18c130cd683e1a38f">have</a> <a href="https://www.iraqbodycount.org/">gone</a> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/03/-the-iraq-takeaway-american-ground-invasions-destabilize-the-middle-east/274190/">wrong</a> with recent American invasions of foreign countries, you’d think that the proponents of a new one might want to sweat the details.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CqU0lK">
And make no mistake: This is an invasion plan. While Cuccinelli repeatedly calls for the Mexican government’s cooperation, Cuccinelli explicitly says Mexican refusal shouldn’t block American action. “It is vital that Mexico not be led to believe that they have veto power to prevent the US from taking the actions necessary to secure its borders and people,” he writes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hjqjf5">
Cuccinelli’s paper, for all its murkiness, is actually the most developed of the many different proposals for going to war in Mexico floating around. Even actual proposed legislation on the topic is vaguer.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CFsZoC">
In the Senate, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Kennedy (R-LA) have <a href="https://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/2dda5a5e-67ab-4e16-9706-4c7cf4fddbf0/ending-the-narcos-act.pdf">proposed designating nine cartels as foreign terrorist groups</a>. The text of the legislation does not provide any explicit permission to use military force or any framework for its use, but Graham said in a press conference that his intent is to authorize it in some unspecified fashion.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jphFli">
“[We will] give the military the authority to go after these organizations wherever they exist. Not to invade Mexico. Not to shoot Mexican airplanes down. But to destroy drug labs that are poisoning Americans,” <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/graham-we-are-going-to-unleash-the-fury-and-might-of-the-us-against-these-drug-cartels">he said</a>.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-gtUGn_Q_mNOc9aKgFbb8mhQPdc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24599215/1247591952.jpg"/> <cite>Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Sen. Lindsey Graham speaking in Washington in front of posters depicting cartels and terrorist groups.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OywHVg">
Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and Mike Waltz (R-FL) have written a more specific <a href="https://crenshaw.house.gov/2023/1/reps-crenshaw-and-waltz-introduce-aumf-targeting-mexican-drug-cartels">Authorization for Use of Military Force</a> for the cartels, one modeled on the laws that permitted the use of force against the Taliban and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Like Graham, Crenshaw insists that any use of force wouldn’t constitute an invasion — that he primarily envisions the military assisting with surveillance of cartels, and that any bombings or troop deployments would be <a href="https://twitter.com/DanCrenshawTX/status/1636504209305612290">coordinated with the Mexican government</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="t2f9n9">
But there are no such restrictions in the actual legislation, which authorizes the president to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against cartel targets — specifically permitting its use against “foreign nations” deemed to “have trafficked fentanyl” into the United States. This opens the door to direct attacks on, let’s say, Mexican soldiers who are on the take from Sinaloa.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v1XFue">
Nor would Mexico’s president ever cooperate with a US incursion. After these congressional proposals began bubbling in March, AMLO understandably erupted in fury at the thought of US military action inside his country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oz4sG8">
“They have the arrogance to say that if we don’t fight crime in Mexico, they’re going to pass an initiative in Congress so the armed forces of the US intervene in our territory,” AMLO said in a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-10/amlo-blasts-republicans-call-for-us-troops-in-mexico?sref=qYiz2hd0">press conference</a>. “We won’t allow it. And not only are we not going to allow it, we’re denouncing it.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zqPfpY">
So how could “military force” be used “to destroy drug labs” in Mexico without either bombing the country or invading it? Graham and Crenshaw don’t really say.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="55WfFt">
The bottom line is, very simply, that these are not intellectually serious proposals. At this stage, they’re barely even policy proposals at all. This is something even some of the harshest conservative critics of Biden’s Mexico policy acknowledge.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kwfV8n">
“[People] just throw this stuff out — ‘Yeah, bomb ’em! Call them all terrorists!’ — without a lot of thought,” says Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies.
</p>
<h3 id="fhiXCh">
The real reasons Republicans are proposing war with Mexico
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2NQIwO">
It’s tempting, given the thinness of these proposals, to simply dismiss them as political nothings: empty gestures of being “strong on crime” and “strong on border security.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BxtW7v">
Many of these proposals conflate drug trafficking, undocumented migration, and violence as various different problems caused by cartels that could be solved with sufficient amounts of American ordinance. That makes little sense as a policy matter — each has different contours, even if the cartels have a hand in all of them — but makes perfect sense as a political matter, as it conjures a picture of a lawless border that the Biden administration is failing to secure out of sheer fecklessness.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="prMsND">
But dismissing this rhetoric as purely political would be a mistake.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gnkvle">
For one thing, ideas like this have a tendency to go from absurdities to policy. When Trump <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/12/7/9867900/donald-trump-muslims">first called for</a> a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslim immigration to the United States in 2015, it was widely rejected by Republicans and Democrats alike. During his presidency, Trump repeatedly tried to do it — at first causing chaos at American airports and, ultimately, successfully implementing a version of it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NFKQud">
Given that the former president is once again the prohibitive favorite in the 2024 race, and that he is reportedly asking for “battle plans” for a war on the cartels, the proposal needs to be taken at least somewhat seriously.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="t4bBh4">
Moreover, the fact that these ideas have gained so much traction in the past month — accelerating after another <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mourners-gather-american-killed-cartel-mexico-trip-98127999">brutal murder of Americans by cartels</a> — illustrates some profoundly important things about the state of the Republican party.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4IqktK">
Dara Lind, a senior fellow at the pro-migration American Immigration Council (and my former Vox colleague), sees the vogue for using force as an outgrowth of broader Republican ideology: “the ongoing conflation of migration with invasion” and “the idea that fentanyl importation is a deliberate plot to weaken America.” On these theories, cartels and the Mexican government (through its inaction) are facilitating nothing less than the broad-based destruction of American communities.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DbkQ2N">
This kind of apocalyptic picture of the United States, a country whose middle class is being destroyed by drugs and undocumented migrants driving down wages, is an archetypical Trump-era Republican theme. Again and again, the populist right mentions drugs and immigration — along with the decline of manufacturing and the rise of “wokeness” — as some of the root causes of terminal American decline.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vgRYfk">
But as well tailored as “invade Mexico” is to the Trump era, it’s not a wholly new impulse. Waging literal war on drugs outside of America’s borders is a very old idea, one with significant bipartisan support. For Republicans in particular, casting themselves as tough on drugs and crime — in contrast to weak Democrats — predates Trump’s rise by decades.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9Ps3tu">
So too does a willingness to launch a unilateral ground invasion in the name of fighting non-state actors that allegedly threaten American national security.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7e2jHH">
Trump, in theory, was supposed to be a break with that kind of hawkishness: he ran in part on <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2016/5/27/11608580/donald-trump-foreign-policy-war-iraq-hillary-clinton">his (false) claim to have opposed the war in Iraq</a>. Yet time and again in his presidency, we saw that the strangely widespread idea of “Donald the Dove” was essentially false: <a href="https://www.vox.com/23677654/trump-foreign-policy-revisionist-history-dove-anti-imperial">Trump was no less willing to use force</a> than other post-Cold War presidents, just willing to do it for somewhat different reasons.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="T8lrR9">
A new Mexican-American war would be every bit as reckless as the Iraq war, quite possibly more so, since Mexico is literally America’s neighbor. That it’s become popular again shows both how the focus of the Republican party has changed in the past 20 years — and the ways in which its essential hawkishness has not.
</p></li>
</ul>
<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>T.N. government justifies decision to revise rate of stamp duty</strong> - ‘Burden is lesser compared to the two legislation adopted in 2013 and 2019 during the AIADMK regime’</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>36 BJP candidates are ‘parivarvad’ beneficiaries, says AICC spokesperson</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>FSSAI’S FOSCOS web application to be available in regional languages</strong> - The FOSCOS is a comprehensive system for the registration and licensing of FBOs</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>Andhra Pradesh: Work in tandem, Vizianagaram Collector tells officials</strong> -</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Russian warplane accidentally bombs own city</strong> - A dramatic blast which shook residents of Belgorod is being blamed on an accidental air strike.</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>Cocaine-smuggling submarine reveals Europe’s drug crisis</strong> - One secret boat took three men and $150m (£121m) of drugs from the Amazon rainforest to Spain.</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>Russian lawyer for jailed opposition activist Kara-Murza flees</strong> - Vadim Prokhorov says he left before the end of his client’s trial after a warning from a prosecutor.</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>World Press Photo won by image of wounded pregnant woman in Mariupol</strong> - Evgeniy Maloletka’s picture was taken outside a maternity hospital damaged in a Russian airstrike.</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>Sevilla 3-0 Manchester United (Agg: 5-2): Dreadful Red Devils dumped out of Europa League</strong> - Manchester United produce a dreadful display as they are eliminated from the Europa League following a 3-0 second-leg loss away to Sevilla.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rocket Report: Starship RUDs on the way to space; Rocket Lab to reuse engine</strong> - “Obviously we’re closely following that.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1932949">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Twitter permanently suspended journalist who interviewed Matt Walsh’s hacker</strong> - Hacker called Doomed delights as First Amendment debate stokes chaos on Twitter. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1933486">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Amazon introduces new feature to make dialogue in its TV shows intelligible</strong> - It’s an accessibility feature, sure, but muddled audio is a problem for everyone. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1933438">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Googlers say Bard AI is “worse than useless,” ethics concerns were ignored</strong> - Internal employee messages beg Google: “Please do not launch” the Bard AI. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1933284">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Man battling Google wins $500K for search result links calling him a pedophile</strong> - Google’s attempt to apply Section 230 immunity in Canada failed. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1933437">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Yo momma is so fat…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
…her car has stretch marks.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Successful_Low1098"> /u/Successful_Low1098 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12tkl2l/yo_momma_is_so_fat/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12tkl2l/yo_momma_is_so_fat/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A physicist, a mathematician and an engineer are arrested and are to be executed by the electric chair</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
First, they strap the physicist and pull the lever and nothing happens. Thinking its a sign from God, the physicist is set free.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Then, they strap in the mathematician and pull the lever and again, nothing happens. Thinking its a sign from God, they release the mathematician.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Finally, they bring in the engineer and strap him in. As they were going to pull the lever, the engineer suddenly exclaimed, “Wait! The chair is not plugged in!”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/EquesInferi"> /u/EquesInferi </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12tqpw3/a_physicist_a_mathematician_and_an_engineer_are/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12tqpw3/a_physicist_a_mathematician_and_an_engineer_are/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I always play Jenga on a first date,</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
that way she knows how strong my pull out game is
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/International_Bee653"> /u/International_Bee653 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12tcpcq/i_always_play_jenga_on_a_first_date/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12tcpcq/i_always_play_jenga_on_a_first_date/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>“Holiday sex is the best sex”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Not the postcard I was hoping to receive from my husband
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/EireBlonde"> /u/EireBlonde </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12tvzr8/holiday_sex_is_the_best_sex/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12tvzr8/holiday_sex_is_the_best_sex/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s the difference between hungry and horny?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Where you put the cucumber.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/redmambo_no6"> /u/redmambo_no6 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12twr6s/whats_the_difference_between_hungry_and_horny/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12twr6s/whats_the_difference_between_hungry_and_horny/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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