navan
/
Daily-Dose
mirror of https://github.com/navanchauhan/Daily-Dose.git
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Projects Releases Wiki Activity

Added daily report

This commit is contained in:
Navan Chauhan 2022-10-09 13:04:55 +00:00
parent d4c73fc8c9
commit cda0df68d6
3 changed files with 693 additions and 2 deletions
Show Stats Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

174
archive-covid-19/09 October, 2022.html Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,174 @@
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="" xml:lang="" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head>
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
<meta content="pandoc" name="generator"/>
<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" name="viewport"/>
<title>09 October, 2022</title>
<style type="text/css">
code{white-space: pre-wrap;}
span.smallcaps{font-variant: small-caps;}
span.underline{text-decoration: underline;}
div.column{display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; width: 50%;}
</style>
<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>
<body>
<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>Impact of COVID-19 on quality of care indicators in patients of carcinoma cervix treated with definitive radiotherapy: A cross-sectional study</strong> -
<div>
Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has affected cancer care worldwide. We audited adherence to 19 predefined quality indicators (QI) of treatment in patients with carcinoma cervix in our institute. Methods Patients with carcinoma cervix treated with curative intent radical radiotherapy were eligible for this study. Patients who started treatment between 24 March 2019 and 24 March 2021 were evaluated. We divided participants into two groups, the pre pandemic period between 24 March 2019 and 23 March 2020, and the period of pandemic from 24 March 2020 - 24 March 2021. Adherence to 19 predefined QI was evaluated for each patient’s treatment course. Multivariable analysis of adherence to QI was performed using proportional odds regression. Results 154 patients underwent treatment, of whom 83 (53.9%) received treatment during the pandemic. 17 patients had COVID-19 infection before or during treatment. Adherence to QI decreased during the pandemic, primarily driven by delays in the start and delivery of treatment. The median number of QI adhered to in the pre pandemic period was 17 (IQR: 16 - 17.5) versus 17 during the pandemic (IQR: 16 - 17). Multivariable analysis showed that treatment during the pandemic period was associated with a lower adherence to QI (Odds ratio 3.30, 95% confidence intervals 1.70 - 6.50). Conclusions The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with reduced adherence to QI. Treatment delivery was affected not only by COVID-19 infection, but also logistic challenges due to restrictions related to the pandemic.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/nz5s3/" target="_blank">Impact of COVID-19 on quality of care indicators in patients of carcinoma cervix treated with definitive radiotherapy: A cross-sectional study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Inhibition of the SARS-CoV-2 helicase at single-nucleotide resolution.</strong> -
<div>
The genome of SARS-CoV-2 encodes for a helicase called nsp13 that is essential for viral replication and highly conserved across related viruses, making it an attractive antiviral target. Here we use nanopore tweezers, a high-resolution single-molecule technique, to gain detailed insight into how nsp13 turns ATP-hydrolysis into directed motion along nucleic acid strands. We measured nsp13 both as it translocates along single-stranded DNA or unwinds short DNA duplexes. Our data confirm that nsp13 uses the inchworm mechanism to move along the DNA in single-nucleotide steps, translocating at ~1000 nt/s or unwinding at ~100 bp/s. Nanopore tweezers’ high spatio-temporal resolution enables observation of the fundamental physical steps taken by nsp13 even as it translocates at speeds in excess of 1000 nucleotides per second enabling detailed kinetic analysis of nsp13 motion. As a proof-of-principle for inhibition studies, we observed nsp13’s motion in the presence of the ATPase inhibitor ATP{gamma}S. Our data reveals that ATP{gamma}S interferes with nsp13’s action by affecting several different kinetic processes. The dominant mechanism of inhibition differs depending on the application of assisting force. These advances demonstrate that nanopore tweezers are a powerful method for studying viral helicase mechanism and inhibition.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.07.511351v1" target="_blank">Inhibition of the SARS-CoV-2 helicase at single-nucleotide resolution.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>SiRNA Molecules as Potential RNAi Therapeutics to Silence RdRP Region and N-Gene of SARS-CoV-2: An In Silico Approach</strong> -
<div>
COVID-19 pandemic keeps pressing onward and effective treatment option against it is still far-off. Since the onslaught in 2020, 13 different variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been surfaced including 05 different variants of concern. Success in faster pandemic handling in the future largely depends on reinforcing therapeutics along with vaccines. As a part of RNAi therapeutics, here we developed a computational approach for predicting siRNAs, which are presumed to be intrinsically active against two crucial mRNAs of SARS-CoV-2, the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), and the nucleocapsid phosphoprotein gene (N gene). Sequence conservancy among the alpha, beta, gamma, and delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 was integrated in the analyses that warrants the potential of these siRNAs against multiple variants. We preliminary found 13 RdRP-targeting and 7 N gene-targeting siRNAs using the siDirect V.2.0. These siRNAs were subsequently filtered through different parameters at optimum condition including macromolecular docking studies. As a result, we selected 4 siRNAs against the RdRP and 3 siRNAs against the N-gene as RNAi candidates. Development of these potential siRNA therapeutics can significantly synergize COVID-19 mitigation by lessening the efforts, furthermore, can lay a rudimentary base for the in silico design of RNAi therapeutics for future emergencies.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.08.511397v1" target="_blank">SiRNA Molecules as Potential RNAi Therapeutics to Silence RdRP Region and N-Gene of SARS-CoV-2: An In Silico Approach</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>An alternative mechanism for skeletal muscle dysfunction in long-term post-viral lung disease</strong> -
<div>
Chronic lung disease is often accompanied by disabling extrapulmonary symptoms, notably skeletal muscle dysfunction and atrophy. Moreover, the severity of respiratory symptoms correlates with decreased muscle mass and in turn lowered physical activity and survival rates. Previous models of muscle atrophy in chronic lung disease often modeled COPD and relied on cigarette smoke exposure and LPS-stimulation, but these conditions independently affect skeletal muscle even without accompanying lung disease. Moreover, there is an emerging and pressing need to understand the extrapulmonary manifestations of long-term post-viral lung disease (PVLD) as found in Covid-19. Here, we examine the development of skeletal muscle dysfunction in the setting of chronic pulmonary disease using a mouse model of PVLD caused by infection due to the natural pathogen Sendai virus. We identify a significant decrease in myofiber size when PVLD is maximal at 49 d after infection. We find no change in the relative types of myofibers, but the greatest decrease in fiber size is localized to fast-twitch type IIB myofibers based on myosin heavy chain immunostaining. Remarkably, all biomarkers of myocyte protein synthesis and degradation (total RNA, ribosomal abundance, and ubiquitin-proteasome expression) were stable throughout the acute infectious illness and chronic post-viral disease process. Together, the results demonstrate a distinct pattern of skeletal muscle dysfunction in a mouse model of long-term PVLD. The findings thereby provide new insight into prolonged limitations in exercise capacity in patients with chronic lung disease after viral infections and perhaps other types of lung injury.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.07.511313v1" target="_blank">An alternative mechanism for skeletal muscle dysfunction in long-term post-viral lung disease</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>When Lockdowns Force “Everyone” to Work From Home: Inequalities in Telework During COVID-19 in Uruguay</strong> -
<div>
Working from home arrangements have been on the rise globally throughout the 21st century. Despite this trajectory, developing economies have trailed developed countries in adopting such arrangements. However, because of COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing measures, countries such as Uruguay, where teleworking was scarce and unregulated, were forced to adopt this practice to ensure business continuity. Under such conditions, preexisting organizational and individual disparities stratified the likelihood of working from home during the pandemic. Conventional wisdom holds that the main determinants potential-to-telework stems almost exclusively from the nature of jobs themselves. This article expands the traditional understanding of telework determinants by showing that during the first stages of the pandemic individual features of the worker, and organizational and managerial features of the employer, were both determinative of the likelihood that a given worker would work from home. We conducted a secondary data analysis of the March 2020 wave of the Work Monitor, a web-based survey of 847 employed Uruguayan adults. We fitted several multivariate regression models predicting a) the odds of working for a company which adopted COVID-19-related teleworking policies at least for some workers and b) the odds of working from home as a consequence of COVID-19. As the adoption of telework was largely unplanned and abrupt, result show that disparities on organizational adoption of teleworking policies were related to pre-pandemic differences across organizations in terms of preparedness, technological investment, and management practices. Results also show that employers’ willingness to enable working from home policies was the strongest predictor, at any level, of the likelihood of individuals to telework during the national emergency. Individual disparities in terms of human capital also have a great impact on the likelihood of teleworking during lockdowns, but their effect depends on the existence of organizational teleworking policies. Findings’ implications for the present and future of telework in developing countries are discussed.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/nr4j3/" target="_blank">When Lockdowns Force “Everyone” to Work From Home: Inequalities in Telework During COVID-19 in Uruguay</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Using analogy-based messages to influence attitudes toward workplace COVID-19 vaccination mandates</strong> -
<div>
Workplace mandates are a highly effective strategy for increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates, and their adoption by United States employers grew throughout 2021. Still, public opinion on these mandates has remained starkly polarized. Drawing from the widespread use of analogies in health communication during the pandemic, we investigated whether analogies to widely-accepted workplace safety rules could affect attitudes toward vaccination mandates. In a survey experiment conducted in September-October 2021, 1194 respondents were randomized to one of three messages about workplace COVID-19 vaccination mandates that included (1) no analogy; (2) an analogy to workplace hard hat policies; or (3) an analogy to workplace smoking bans. Only the smoking analogy increased support for (b = 0.41; p &lt; .001) and perceived effectiveness of (b = 0.20; p = .037) workplace vaccination mandates. Moreover, the smoking analogy’s effect on perceived effectiveness was greater for unvaccinated respondents (b = 0.54; p = .015 for interaction) and was mediated via the perceived strength of mandate enforcement (indirect effect = 0.05; 95% confidence interval = [0.01, 0.10]; P = .006). Our results demonstrate that policymakers and administrators may use a simple analogy to boost public opinion on workplace mandates for COVID-19 vaccination.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/e8p4s/" target="_blank">Using analogy-based messages to influence attitudes toward workplace COVID-19 vaccination mandates</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Upregulation of CD55 complement regulator in distinct PBMC subpopulations of COVID-19 patients is associated with suppression of interferon responses.</strong> -
<div>
Complement activation has been verified in COVID-19 patients by both increased serum levels of complement factors C3a and C5b-9 and increased complement deposition at the tissue levels. Complement regulatory proteins (CRPs) CD55, CD46, CD59 and CR1 act to control complement overactivation and eliminate complement deposition and cell lysis. The aim of the study was to investigate the expression of CRPs in COVID-19 in order to identify potential dysregulated expression patterns of CRPs and address whether these may contribute to disease pathogenesis. Single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) analysis performed on isolated PBMCs revealed an increase of CD55 expression in severe and critical COVID-19 patients compared to healthy controls. This increase was also detected upon integrated subclustering analysis of the monocyte, T cell and B cell populations. Flow cytometric analysis verified the distinct pattern of upregulated CD55 expression in monocyte and T cell sub populations of severe COVID-19 patients. This upregulation was associated with decreased expression of interferon stimulated genes (ISGs) in patients with severe COVID-19 suggesting a potential suppressor effect of CD55 on interferon responses. The present study identifies a COVID-19 specific CD55 expression pattern in PBMC subpopulations that coincides with reduced interferon responses thus indicating that the complement regulator CD55 may contribute to COVID-19 pathogenesis.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.07.510750v1" target="_blank">Upregulation of CD55 complement regulator in distinct PBMC subpopulations of COVID-19 patients is associated with suppression of interferon responses.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Identification of motif-based interactions between SARS-CoV-2 protein domains and human peptide ligands pinpoint antiviral targets.</strong> -
<div>
The infection and replication cycle of all viruses depend on interactions between viral and host proteins. Each of these protein-protein interactions is therefore a potential drug target. These host-virus interactions often involve a disordered protein region on one side of the interface and a folded protein domain on the other. Here, we used proteomic peptide phage display (ProP-PD) to identify peptides from the intrinsically disordered regions of the human proteome that bind to folded protein domains encoded by the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Eleven folded domains of SARS-CoV-2 proteins were found to bind peptides from human proteins. Of 281 high/medium confidence peptides, 23 interactions involving eight SARS-CoV-2 protein domains were tested by fluorescence polarization, and binding was observed with affinities spanning the whole micromolar range. The key specificity determinants were established for six of these domains, two based on ProP-PD and four by alanine scanning SPOT arrays. Finally, two cell-penetrating peptides, targeting Nsp9 and Nsp16, respectively, were shown to function as inhibitors of viral replication. Our findings demonstrate how high-throughput peptide binding screens simultaneously provide information on potential host-virus interactions and identify ligands with antiviral properties.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.07.511324v1" target="_blank">Identification of motif-based interactions between SARS-CoV-2 protein domains and human peptide ligands pinpoint antiviral targets.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Development of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines encoding spike N-terminal and receptor binding domains</strong> -
<div>
With the success of mRNA vaccines against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), strategies can now focus on improving vaccine potency, breadth, and stability. We present the design and preclinical evaluation of domain-based mRNA vaccines encoding the wild-type spike-protein receptor-binding (RBD) and/or N-terminal domains (NTD). An NTD-RBD linked candidate vaccine, mRNA-1283, showed improved antigen expression, antibody responses, and stability at refrigerated temperatures (2-8{degrees}C) compared with the clinically available mRNA-1273, which encodes the full-length spike protein. In mice administered mRNA-1283 as a primary series, booster, or variant-specific booster, similar or greater immune responses and protection from viral challenge were observed against wild-type, beta, delta, or omicron (BA.1) compared with mRNA-1273 immunized mice, especially at lower vaccine dosages. These results support clinical assessment of mRNA-1283 (NCT05137236).
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.07.511319v1" target="_blank">Development of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines encoding spike N-terminal and receptor binding domains</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Fate and plasticity of SARS-CoV-2-specific B cells during memory and recall response in humans</strong> -
<div>
B cell responses to different pathogens recruit tailored effector mechanisms, resulting in functionally specialized subsets. For human memory B cells (MBCs), these include CD21+ resting, CD21-CD27+ activated, and CD21-CD27- atypical cells. Whether these subsets follow deterministic or interconnected fates is unknown. We demonstrate in COVID-19 patients that single clones of SARS-CoV-2-specific MBCs followed multiple fates with distinctive phenotypic and functional characteristics. 6-12 months after infection, most circulating MBCs were CD21+ resting cells, which also accumulated in peripheral lymphoid organs where they acquired markers of tissue residency. Conversely, at acute infection and following SARS-CoV-2-specific immunization, CD21- MBCs became the predominant subsets, with atypical MBCs expressing high T-bet, inhibitory molecules, and distinct chemokine receptors. B cell receptor sequencing allowed tracking of individual MBC clones differentiating into CD21+, CD21-CD27+, and CD21-CD27- cell fates. Collectively, single MBC clones can adopt functionally different trajectories, thus contributing to immunity to infection.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.07.511336v1" target="_blank">Fate and plasticity of SARS-CoV-2-specific B cells during memory and recall response in humans</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Incipient parallel evolution of SARS-CoV-2 Deltacron variant in South Brazil</strong> -
<div>
With the coexistence of multiple lineages and increased international travel, recombination and gene flow are likely to become increasingly important in the adaptive evolution of SARS-CoV-2. This could result in the incipient parallel evolution of multiple recombinant lineages. However, identifying recombinant lineages is challenging, and the true extent of recombinant evolution in SARS-CoV-2 may be underestimated. This study describes the first SARS-CoV-2 Deltacron recombinant case identified in Brazil. We demonstrate that the recombination breakpoint is at the beginning of Spike gene (S). The 5’ genome portion (circa 22 kb) resembles the AY.101 lineage (VOC Delta), and the 3’ genome portion (circa 8 kb nucleotides) is most similar to the BA.1.1 lineage (VOC Omicron). Furthermore, evolutionary genomic analyses indicate that the new strain emerged after a single recombination event between lineages of diverse geographical locations in December 2021 in South Brazil. This Deltacron, named AYBA-RS, is one out of almost 30 recombinants described this year. The submission of only four sequences in the GISAID database suggests that this Brazilian lineage had a minor epidemiological impact. On the other hand, the recent emergence of this and various other Deltacron recombinant lineages (i.e., XD, XF, and XS) suggests that gene flow and recombination may play an increasingly important role in the COVID-19 pandemic. We explain the evolutionary and population genetic theory that support this assertion, and we conclude that this stresses the need for continued genomic and epidemiological surveillance. This is particularly important for countries where multiple variants are present, as well as for countries that receive significant inbound international travel.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.06.511203v1" target="_blank">Incipient parallel evolution of SARS-CoV-2 Deltacron variant in South Brazil</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Baculoviral COVID-19 Delta DNA vaccine cross-protects against SARS-CoV2 variants in K18-ACE2 transgenic mice</strong> -
<div>
After severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV2) made the world tremble with a global pandemic, SARS-CoV2 vaccines were developed. However, due to the coronavirus’s intrinsic nature, new variants emerged, such as Delta and Omicron, refractory to the vaccines derived using the original Wuhan strain. We developed an HERV-enveloped recombinant baculoviral DNA vaccine against SARS-CoV2 (AcHERV-COVID19S). A non-replicating recombinant baculovirus that delivers the SARS-CoV2 spike gene showed a protective effect against the homologous challenge in a K18-hACE2 Tg mice model; however, it offered only a 50% survival rate against the SARS-CoV2 Delta variant. Therefore, we further developed the AcHERV-COVID19 Delta vaccine (AcHERV-COVID19D). Cross-protection experiments revealed that mice vaccinated with the AcHERV-COVID19D showed 100% survival upon challenge with Delta and Omicron variants and 71.4% survival against prototype SARS-CoV2. These results support the potential of the viral vector vaccine, AcHERV-COVID19D, in preventing the spread of coronavirus variants such as Omicron and SARS-CoV2 variants.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.07.511252v1" target="_blank">Baculoviral COVID-19 Delta DNA vaccine cross-protects against SARS-CoV2 variants in K18-ACE2 transgenic mice</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariant by a booster dose of bivalent adjuvanted subunit vaccine containing Omicron BA.4/BA.5 and BA.1 subvariants</strong> -
<div>
The dominance of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VoC), such as the Omicron subvariants, is a threat to the current vaccination scheme due to increased resistance to immune neutralization and greater transmissibility. To develop the next generation of prefusion SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (S-2P) subunit vaccine adjuvanted with CpG1018 and aluminum hydroxide, mice immunized with two doses of the adjuvanted ancestral Wuhan strain (W) followed by the third dose of the W or Omicron variants (BA.1 or BA.4/BA.5) S-2P, or a combination of the above bivalent S-2Ps. Antisera from mice were tested against pseudovirus neutralization assay of ancestral SARS-CoV-2 (WT) and Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariant. Boosting with bivalent mixture of Omicron BA.4/BA.5 and W S-2P achieved the highest neutralizing antibody titers against BA.4/BA.5 subvariant pseudovirus compared to other types of S-2P as boosters.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.07.511263v1" target="_blank">Neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariant by a booster dose of bivalent adjuvanted subunit vaccine containing Omicron BA.4/BA.5 and BA.1 subvariants</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Projecting the seasonality of endemic COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Importance: Successive waves of infection by SARS-CoV-2 have left little doubt that COVID-19 will transition to an endemic disease, yet the future seasonality of COVID-19 remains one of its most consequential unknowns. Foreknowledge of spatiotemporal surges would have immediate and long-term consequences for medical and public health decision-making. Objective: To estimate the impending endemic seasonality of COVID-19 in temperate population centers via a phylogenetic ancestral and descendent states approach that leverages long-term data on the incidence of circulating coronaviruses. Design: We performed a comparative evolutionary analysis on literature-based monthly verified cases of HCoV-NL63, HCoV-229E, HCoV-HKU1, and HCoV-OC43 infection within populations across the Northern Hemisphere. Ancestral and descendent states analyses on human-infecting coronaviruses provided projections of the impending seasonality of endemic COVID-19. Setting: Quantitative projections of the endemic seasonality of COVID-19 were based on human endemic coronavirus infection incidence data from New York City (USA); Denver (USA); Tampere (Finland); Trondelag (Norway); Gothenburg (Sweden); Stockholm (Sweden); Amsterdam (Netherlands); Beijing (China); South Korea (Nationwide); Yamagata (Japan); Hong Kong; Nakon Si Thammarat (Thailand); Guangzhou (China); and Sarlahi (Nepal). Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s): The primary projection was the monthly relative frequency of SARS-CoV-2 infections in each geographic locale. Four secondary outcomes consisted of empirical monthly relative frequencies of the endemic human-infecting coronaviruses HCoV-NL63, -229E, -HKU1, and -OC43. Results: We project asynchronous surges of SARS-CoV-2 across locales in the Northern Hemisphere. In New York City, SARS-CoV-2 incidence is projected in late fall and winter months (Nov.-Jan.), In Tampere, Finland; Yamagata, Japan; and Sarlahi, Nepal incidence peaks in February. Gothenburg and Stockholm in Sweden reach peak incidence between November and February. Guangzhou, China; and South Korea. In Denver, incidence peaks in early Spring (Mar.). In Amsterdam, incidence rises in late fall (Dec.), and declines in late spring (Apr.). In Hong Kong, the projected apex of infection is in late fall (Nov.-Dec.), yet variation in incidence is muted across other seasons. Seasonal projections for Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand and for Beijing, China are muted compared to other locations. Conclusions and Relevance: This knowledge of likely spatiotemporal surges of COVID-19 is fundamental to medical preparedness and expansions of public health interventions that anticipate the impending endemicity of this disease and mitigate COVID-19 transmission. These results provide crucial guidance for adaptive public health responses to this disease, and are vital to the long-term mitigation of COVID-19 transmission.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.26.22269905v2" target="_blank">Projecting the seasonality of endemic COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>COVID-19: impact of original, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 in vaccinated and unvaccinated pregnant and postpartum women</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Introduction This study compares the clinical characteristics and disease progression of vaccinated and unvaccinated pregnant and postpartum women positive for the original, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) using Brazilian epidemiological data. Methods Data of pregnant or postpartum patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) SARS-CoV-2 confirmed using polymerase chain reaction from February 2020 to July 2022 were extracted from a Brazilian national database. The patients were divided based on vaccination status and viral variant (original, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron). The patients demographic data, clinical characteristics, comorbidities, signs, symptoms, and outcomes were retrospectively compared. Results Data from 10,003 pregnant and 2,361 postpartum women were extracted from the database. Among unvaccinated patients, postpartum women were more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). These patients were more likely to require invasive ventilation when infected with the original, Gamma, and Omicron variants and were more likely to die when infected with the original and Gamma variants. Patients who were vaccinated had reduced adverse outcomes including ICU admission, requirement for invasive ventilation, and death. Conclusion Postpartum women were more likely to develop severe COVID-19 that required ICU admission or invasive ventilatory support or led to death, among all variants, especially when the patients were unvaccinated. Therefore, the risk of severe COVID-19 should not be underestimated after delivery. Vaccinated patients had a lower risk of severe outcomes. Vaccination should be a top priority in pregnant and postpartum patients.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.05.22280754v1" target="_blank">COVID-19: impact of original, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 in vaccinated and unvaccinated pregnant and postpartum women</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>A Study to Learn About a Repeat 5-Day Treatment With the Study Medicines (Called Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir) in People 12 Years Old or Older With Return of COVID-19 Symptoms and SARS-CoV-2 Positivity After Finishing Treatment With Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: nirmatrelvir;   Drug: ritonavir;   Drug: placebo for nirmatrelvir<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Pfizer<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>COVID-19 iCura SARS-CoV-2 Ag OTC: Clinical Evaluation</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   SARS-CoV-2 Infection;   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Device: iCura COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Home Test;   Diagnostic Test: RT-PCR Test<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   EDP Biotech;   Paragon Rx Clinical, Inc.;   iCura Diagnostics, LLC<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study Evaluating Diltiazem in Combination With Standard Treatment in the Management of Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19 Pneumonia</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: DILTIAZEM TEVA 60 mg or placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Hospices Civils de Lyon;   Signia Therapeutics<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>FMT for Post-acute COVID-19 Syndrome</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post-Acute COVID19 Syndrome;   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Procedure: Faecal Microbiota Transplantation<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Chinese University of Hong Kong<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID-19 Booster Dose Reminder/Recall for Adolescents</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Vaccines<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: Reminder/Recall Sent Via Preferred Method of Communication<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Marshfield Clinic Research 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>VAX-MOM COVID-19: Increasing Maternal COVID-19 Vaccination</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Immunization; Infection;   Pregnancy Related;   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: VAX-MOM COVID-19 Intervention;   Other: Standard of Care<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   University of Rochester;   Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;   University of California, Los Angeles<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>Research on Community Based ATK Test Study to Control Spread of COVID-19 in Migrant Community</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pandemic<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: STANDARD Q COVID-19 Ag Test<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Oxford<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>Personalized Computerized Training Program for Cognitive Dysfunction After COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post-Acute COVID-19;   Long COVID<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: CogniFit’s CCT Post COVID-19<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Universidad Antonio de Nebrija<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>3EO Health SARS-CoV-2 OTC At Home Test</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pandemic<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Diagnostic Test: In Vitro<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   3EO Health<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>Understanding the Impact of Death Conditions Linked to the COVID-19 Crisis on the Grieving Process in Bereaved Families</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Psychological Disorder<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Qualitative research interview<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris<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>Sequential Enhanced Safety Study of a Novel Coronavirus Messenger RNA (mRNA) Vaccine in Adults Aged 18 Years and Older.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Corona Virus Disease 2019(COVID-19)<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: 0.3ml of mRNA vaccine<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Yu Qin<br/><b>Enrolling by invitation</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Bringing Optimised COVID-19 Vaccine Schedules To ImmunoCompromised Populations (BOOST-IC): an Adaptive Randomised Controlled Clinical Trial</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   HIV;   Organ Transplantation;   Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin;   Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia;   Multiple Myeloma;   COVID-19 Vaccines<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: BNT162b2;   Biological: mRNA-1273;   Biological: NVX-COV2373<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Bayside Health;   Monash University<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>PAPR: PAP + MBSR for Front-line Healthcare Provider COVID-19 Related Burnout</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Depression;   Burnout, Professional<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Psilocybin;   Behavioral: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   University of Utah;   Heffter Research Institute;   Usona Institute<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>Physiology of Long COVID and the Impact of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation on Quality-of-Life and Functional Capacity</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Post-acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: Exercise<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Colorado, Denver<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>Phase 3 Study to Evaluate Immunogenicity and Safety of BBV154 Booster Dose</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Respiratory Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: BBV154 Intranasal Vaccine;   Biological: Intramuscular vaccine COVAXIN;   Biological: Covishield<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Bharat Biotech International Limited<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluation of quality and antimicrobial efficacy of locally manufactured alcohol-based hand sanitizers marketed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the era of COVID-19</strong> - CONCLUSION: One-third of the tested ABHS did not comply with the WHO ethanol content limit and the majority of the products failed to meet the label claim for hydrogen peroxide content. Besides, nearly all products proved that they have activity against all the tested pathogenic microorganisms at a minimum concentration from 10 to 80%; though, they did not show 99.9% bacteriostatic or bactericidal activities as claimed. The study findings suggested regular monitoring of the quality of marketed…</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>An overview on nanoparticle-based strategies to fight viral infections with a focus on COVID-19</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) led to COVID-19 and has become a pandemic worldwide with mortality of millions. Nanotechnology can be used to deliver antiviral medicines or other types of viral reproduction-inhibiting medications. At various steps of viral infection, nanotechnology could suggest practical solutions for usage in the fight against viral infection. Nanotechnology-based approaches can help in the fight against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nanoparticles can play…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The inhibitory activity of methoxyl flavonoids derived from Inula britannica flowers on SARS-CoV-2 3CLpro</strong> - In our ongoing efforts to identify effective natural antiviral agents, four methoxy flavonoids (1-4) were isolated from the Inula britannica flower extract. Their structures were elucidated using nuclear magnetic resonance. Flavonoids 1-4 exhibited inhibitory activity against SARS- CoV-2 3CLpro with IC(50) values of 41.6 ± 2.5, 35.9 ± 0.9, 32.8 ± 1.2, and 96.6 ± 3.4 μM, respectively. Flavonoids 1-3 inhibited 3CLpro in a competitive manner. Based on molecular simulations, key amino acids that…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Recruitment of chalcone’s potential in drug discovery of anti-SARS-CoV-2 agents</strong> - Chalcone is an interesting scaffold found in the structure of many naturally occurring molecules. Medicinal chemists are commonly interested in designing new chalcone-based structures because of having the α, β-unsaturated ketone functional group, which allows these compounds to participate in Michael’s reaction and create strong covalent bonds at the active sites of the targets. Some studies have identified several natural chalcone-based compounds with the ability to inhibit the severe acute…</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>Calcium dobesilate reduces SARS-CoV-2 entry into endothelial cells by inhibiting virus binding to heparan sulfate</strong> - Recent reports demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 utilizes cell surface heparan sulfate as an attachment factor to facilitate the initial interaction with host cells. Heparan sulfate interacts with the receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein, and blocking this interaction can decrease cell infection. We and others reported recently that the family of compounds of 2,5-dihydroxyphenylic acid interferes with the binding of the positively charged groove in growth factor molecules to…</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>Combating the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (BA.1) and BA.2 with potent bispecific antibodies engineered from non-Omicron neutralizing antibodies</strong> - The highly mutated and transmissible Omicron (BA.1) and its more contagious lineage BA.2 have provoked serious concerns over their decreased sensitivity to the current COVID-19 vaccines and evasion from most anti-SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies (NAbs). In this study, we explored the possibility of combating the Omicron and BA.2 by constructing bispecific antibodies based on non-Omicron NAbs. We engineered 10 IgG-like bispecific antibodies with non-Omicron NAbs named GW01, 16L9, 4L12, and…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The use of adenoviral vectors in gene therapy and vaccine approaches</strong> - Adenovirus was first identified in the 1950s and since then this pathogenic group of viruses has been explored and transformed into a genetic transfer vehicle. Modification or deletion of few genes are necessary to transform it into a conditionally or non-replicative vector, creating a versatile tool capable of transducing different tissues and inducing high levels of transgene expression. In the early years of vector development, the application in monogenic diseases faced several hurdles,…</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>Therapeutic potential of metal ions for COVID-19: insights from the papain-like protease of SARS-CoV-2</strong> - Coronaviruses have been responsible for multiple challenging global pandemics, including coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Papain-like protease (PLpro), one of two cysteine proteases responsible for the maturation and infectivity of SARS-CoV-2, processes and liberates functional proteins from the viral polyproteins and cleaves ubiquitin and ISG15 modifications to inhibit innate immune sensing. Consequently, PLpro…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Comparison of Intracellular Transcriptional Response of NHBE Cells to Infection with SARS-CoV-2 Washington and New York Strains</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and caused a global pandemic resulting in millions of deaths and tens of millions of patients positive tests. While studies have shown a D614G mutation in the viral spike protein are more transmissible, the effects of this and other mutations on the host response, especially at the cellular level, are yet to be fully elucidated. In this experiment we infected normal human bronchial…</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>Inhibition of nonstructural protein 15 of SARS-CoV-2 by golden spice: A computational insight</strong> - The quick widespread of the coronavirus and speedy upsurge in the tally of cases demand the fast development of effective drugs. The uridine-directed endoribonuclease activity of nonstructural protein 15 (Nsp15) of the coronavirus is responsible for the invasion of the host immune system. Therefore, developing potential inhibitors against Nsp15 is a promising strategy. In this concern, the in silico approach can play a significant role, as it is fast and cost-effective in comparison to the trial…</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>Apelin as a new therapeutic target for COVID-19 treatment</strong> - CONCLUSION: Apelin is a potential therapeutic candidate against SARS-CoV-2 infection.</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>Two Cases of Acute Myocarditis in Young Male Adults After mRNA Vaccines Against COVID-19: Similarities and Differences</strong> - CONCLUSION: The benefits of vaccination against Covid-19 outweigh possible untoward effects and especially myocarditis. Health workers must close monitor the vaccinated patients for possible future cardiovascular complications.</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>Therapeutic Approaches in COVID-19 Patients: The Role of the Renin-Angiotensin System</strong> - Two and a half years after COVID-19 was first reported in China, thousands of people are still dying from the disease every day around the world. The condition is forcing physicians to adopt new treatment strategies while emphasizing continuation of vaccination programs. The renin-angiotensin system plays an important role in the development and progression of COVID-19 patients. Nonetheless, administration of recombinant angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 has been proposed for the treatment of the…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Integral Membrane Protein ZMPSTE24 Protects Cells from SARS-CoV-2 Spike-Mediated Pseudovirus Infection and Syncytia Formation</strong> - COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has had a devastating impact on global public health, emphasizing the importance of understanding innate immune mechanisms and cellular restriction factors that cells can harness to fight viral infections. The multimembrane-spanning zinc metalloprotease ZMPSTE24 is one such restriction factor. ZMPSTE24 has a well-characterized proteolytic role in the maturation of prelamin A, precursor of the nuclear…</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>Booster vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 induces potent immune responses in people with HIV</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: In PWH receiving a third vaccine dose, there were significant increases in B and T cell immunity, including to known VOCs.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
<script>AOS.init();</script></body></html>

517
archive-daily-dose/09 October, 2022.html Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,517 @@
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="" xml:lang="" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head>
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
<meta content="pandoc" name="generator"/>
<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" name="viewport"/>
<title>09 October, 2022</title>
<style type="text/css">
code{white-space: pre-wrap;}
span.smallcaps{font-variant: small-caps;}
span.underline{text-decoration: underline;}
div.column{display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; width: 50%;}
</style>
<title>Daily-Dose</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"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><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>
<body>
<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>Will Abortion Be Enough to Save Democrats in November?</strong> - With Republicans strong on the economy, it’s not clear how much any other issue will matter. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/will-abortion-be-enough-to-save-democrats-in-november">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Terrifying Car Crash That Inspired a Masterpiece</strong> - Fifty years ago, a Kansas family picked up a hitchhiker on their way to Iowa. What happened on that drive became part of literary history. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/the-terrifying-car-crash-that-inspired-a-masterpiece">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Stunning Neglect and Racist Politics Behind Alabama’s Prison Strike</strong> - In 2020, the Department of Justice sued the state for running prisons that were “riddled” with violence. Since then, things have got worse. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-stunning-neglect-and-racist-politics-behind-alabamas-prison-strike">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Iran’s Protests Are the First Counter-Revolution Led by Women</strong> - Women are still defying and dying in an uprising that is historically unique for being centered on women’s freedom. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/irans-protests-are-the-first-counterrevolution-led-by-women">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Many Times Will You Get COVID?</strong> - When it comes to coronavirus infections, the third time is not the charm. What is? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/how-many-times-will-you-get-covid">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>The Supreme Court is about to decide the fate of millions of pigs</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Supreme Court of the United States" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lpgQ-m3CCN3Jb9K2HcZr66HC9Ro=/334x0:5667x4000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71473033/1243781991.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Californians passed a landmark law that bans cages for pigs. Now the Supreme Court could overturn it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hphk7w">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A3Vp70">
The Supreme Court <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/7/3/23193465/dobbs-roe-abortion-bans-texas-ohio-access-new-jersey-connecticut">regularly makes decisions that directly affect</a> the lives of tens of millions of Americans. But next week, the Court will hear oral arguments in a case that could decide the fate of millions of pigs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aUktPN">
The case — <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-468.html"><em>National Pork Producers Council v. Ross</em></a> — hinges on a simple question: Can California set its own standards for how pigs are treated on farms, even when they’re raised in other states?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gkVQaN">
The case centers, quite literally, on how sausage gets made in the US. Each year, over 6 million female breeding pigs, or sows, are raised in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_vqIGTKuQE">“gestation crates”</a> — narrow metal crates that confine the pigs so tightly they’re unable to turn around for the duration of their four-month pregnancies (and they have about <a href="https://www.agupdate.com/iowafarmertoday/news/livestock/larger-pig-litters-cut-into-sow-longevity/article_12a5b276-2b92-11ec-9284-9b926d990d41.html#:~:text=He%20says%20on%20average%2C%20most,4%20litters%20in%20their%20lifetime.">four pregnancies</a> in their three- to four-year lifetimes). As the pioneering animal welfare scientist Temple Grandin <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/pork-industry-gives-sows-room-to-move/2012/05/25/gJQAISlxyU_story.html">once put it</a>, the crates are akin to forcing a human to live much of their life in an airline seat.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<div id="zQEQwz">
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cUXmIh">
The American Public Health Association <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/233519/20220815153028184_21-468_Amicus%20Brief.pdf">says</a> confining pigs so intensively also increases their stress levels and weakens their immune systems, which makes them more susceptible to infectious disease. (And given the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/news/variant-virus-pig-exposure.htm">ease with which some zoonotic viruses</a> can pass from swine to humans, that threatens us as well.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8PDWLf">
In 2018, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_12,_Farm_Animal_Confinement_Initiative_(2018)">over 62 percent</a> of California voters supported a state ballot measure called Proposition 12 that would ban the crates and require sows be raised with at least 24 square feet of space. Importantly, the measure applied whether or not the pigs had been raised in California, so all whole, uncooked pork sold in the state would be required to be produced according to California’s standard. Given the vast size of the state’s market, it’s having a transformative effect for pigs across the country — just as California’s stricter emissions standards for automobiles <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/09/09/1121952184/the-impact-of-californias-environmental-regulations-ripples-across-the-u-s">have changed the way cars are made nationwide</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gkOBn9">
The law has similar provisions for cage-free eggs and crate-free veal, which have already gone into effect — the challenge in the Supreme Court only covers pork, which will go into effect in <a href="https://www.natlawreview.com/article/california-finalizes-prop-12-regulations">five months</a>. (Disclosure: The ballot measure effort was led by the Humane Society of the United States, an organization I worked for from 2012 to 2017.)
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<div id="xXPslw">
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QUkYZY">
The win was a <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22576044/prop-12-california-eggs-pork-bacon-veal-animal-welfare-law-gestation-crates-battery-cages">watershed moment</a> for the movement against factory farming, with some 1 million pigs, 40 million hens, and tens of thousands of calves to be taken out of cages each year once the law is fully implemented. It also built momentum to <a href="https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2021/03/utah-adopts-cage-free-law-with-2025-start-date/">banish cages for hens</a> from <a href="https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/minimum-wage-hike-cage-free-chicken-rules-short-term-rental-law-take-effect-july-1">other states</a> in the following years.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SbgtSi">
“What may seem like a small, incremental change on paper, to the life of that pig, it’s immense,” says Chris Green, executive director of Harvard Law School’s animal law and policy program.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7pX4Dv">
The agriculture industry backlash was inevitable, asserting it would cost pork producers <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/193744/20210927102549231_NPPC%20v%20Ross%20Petition%20for%20Cert%20PDFA.pdf">$293 million to $347 million</a> to comply — a cost they said would invariably raise the price of pork not only for Californians, but for all Americans. In the years after it passed, meat trade groups filed <a href="https://casetext.com/case/n-am-meat-inst-v-becerra">three</a> <a href="https://casetext.com/case/iowa-pork-producers-assn-v-bonta-7">separate</a> <a href="https://casetext.com/case/natl-pork-producers-council-v-ross-2">lawsuits</a> against the pork provision. Each challenge argued the same point: California’s ban imposes an unfair burden on out-of-state pork producers, who produce most of the pork sold in California. (California produces a lot of dairy and eggs but <a href="https://www.minnpost.com/economy/2021/08/why-californias-new-pork-rules-could-mean-big-changes-for-minnesota-hog-farmers/">less than 1 percent</a> of the nation’s pork, while consuming around <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/193744/20210927102549231_NPPC%20v%20Ross%20Petition%20for%20Cert%20PDFA.pdf">13 percent</a> of it.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yoMUmM">
The pork producers <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/237235/20220907132411455_Natl%20Pork%20Producers%20v%20Ross%20No.%2021-468%20Reply%20Brief%20for%20Petitioners%20PDFA.pdf">argued</a> that retrofitting their barns to be crate-free would be too costly, and that they couldn’t easily segment crate-free pork from crated pork they might be able to sell in other states. That purported inability forces them to raise more of their pigs crate-free than needed, a cost they say will have to be passed on to consumers nationwide. However, several major pork producers now say they can comply (more on this later).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6TOd8T">
All three lawsuits <a href="https://www.theusconstitution.org/litigation/national-pork-producers-council-v-ross/#:~:text=A%20federal%20district%20court%20dismissed,agreed%20to%20hear%20the%20case.">were</a> <a href="https://www.proag.com/news/iowa-pork-producers-injunction-on-proposition-12-dismissed-by-california-judge/">dismissed</a> by <a href="https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/15024-us-states-back-namis-continued-appeal-of-prop-12-decision">lower courts</a>, but the Supreme Court took up the one filed by the National Pork Producers, the industry’s main trade group, and the American Farm Bureau Federation, an insurance company and agriculture lobbying group.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lE8wlz">
While it might be easy to assume that a conservative-dominated Court will rule in favor of business interests, it’s hard to predict how the case will ultimately turn out. Animal welfare questions don’t adhere to party lines as neatly as you’d think. Democrats are only a <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2022/8/2/voters-demand-farm-animal-protections-from-both-politicians-and-companies">little more likely</a> to say cruelty to farm animals is a moral concern, and plenty of <a href="https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/HSUS_state-farm-animal-protection-laws.pdf">red and purple states</a> have passed laws to reduce the suffering of farm animals. A group of conservative thinkers filed an <a href="http://supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/233493/20220815140847858_21-468%20Amicus%20Brief%20of%20O.%20Carter%20Snead%20et%20al_.pdf">amicus brief</a> in support of California’s animal welfare law while Biden’s Justice Department filed one <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/228387/20220617195711500_No.%2021-468%20Natl%20Pork%20Producers%20v.%20Ross%20Final.pdf">in opposition</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2ifj09">
“Anyone who says they know what’s going to happen is lying to you or themselves,” says Green.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HY67Kn">
The Court’s ruling won’t be delivered for months, but wherever it lands will have long-term effects on the welfare of the animals we factory-farm for food, potentially setting back the movement to improve their conditions by decades — or propelling it forward.
</p>
<h3 id="CGpKZq">
The pork industry’s contradictory argument against California, explained
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZdRMOk">
The animal welfare activists have a straightforward case: Pigs and other animals raised for food are thinking, feeling animals — like dogs and cats — and shouldn’t be treated like mere widgets in a factory. Plenty of scientific research has concluded what is intuitive to laypeople: Confining animals in tiny cages for years on end is really bad for their well-being, as noted by the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/233565/20220815174931670_Broom%20et%20al.%20amicus%20brief%20-%20Natl%20Pork%20v.%20Ross%20-%20No.%2021-468.pdf">378 veterinarians</a> and animal welfare scientists who filed an amicus brief in support of California’s law.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fy4mr0">
That straightforward case has been successful at chipping away at the practice of cage confinement: <a href="https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/HSUS_state-farm-animal-protection-laws.pdf">14 states</a> have banned cages to some degree, especially for egg-laying hens, and hundreds of food companies have been switching to cage-free eggs. In 2008, under 5 percent of hens were raised cage-free; today, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/9/12/23339898/global-meat-production-forecast-factory-farming-animal-welfare-human-progress">35 percent are</a>. The egg industry now welcomes a cage-free future, with the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/cal-maine-steps-up-investment-to-meet-demand-for-cage-free-eggs-11649107116">biggest producers</a> investing heavily in cage-free barn construction, generally not opposing cage-free state legislation, and in some cases <a href="https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/cage-free-eggs-hens-conditions-bill-passed-arizona-legislature-hickmans-11456474">even supporting it</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wQvLQY">
But the pork industry hasn’t been so amenable to change, and has continually invoked a legal doctrine called the dormant commerce clause to challenge California’s law. As I wrote in an <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22576044/prop-12-california-eggs-pork-bacon-veal-animal-welfare-law-gestation-crates-battery-cages">explainer</a> last year about the industry’s lawsuits against Prop 12:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qXzd5D">
The industry’s core argument is that Prop 12 violates the “dormant commerce clause,” a legal doctrine meant to prevent protectionism, or states giving their own businesses preferential treatment over businesses in other states. Industry groups argue that because most US pork is produced outside California, the financial and logistical burden of complying with Prop 12 falls mostly on out-of-state producers, and that those burdens outweigh any of the law’s supposed benefits.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XgBhuS">
On the surface, they have a point. Overhauling the housing of a million pigs or more is a costly logistical nightmare. Many crate-free sows today are raised with <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/193744/20210927102549231_NPPC%20v%20Ross%20Petition%20for%20Cert%20PDFA.pdf">16 or 18 square feet of space</a>; California’s law requires 24 square feet. Adapting to a patchwork of norms and regulations isn’t easy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pVBuz2">
In a separate but <a href="https://casetext.com/case/n-am-meat-inst-v-becerra">similar lawsuit</a> filed by the North American Meat Institute in 2019, a spokesperson for the largest US pork producer, Smithfield Foods, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22576044/prop-12-california-eggs-pork-bacon-veal-animal-welfare-law-gestation-crates-battery-cages">wrote</a> (under penalty of perjury): “It is no exaggeration to state that the expense and complications of complying with Proposition 12 may cause Smithfield to conclude it is no longer viable to do business in California.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pZQibh">
Other major pork producers similarly wrote in the lawsuit that compliance with Proposition 12 would be just too costly and would significantly hamper their operations. Some went so far as to say, like Smithfield Foods, that it may force their partial or total exit from the California marketplace.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TFQaof">
But now many in the industry say they can comply, including five of the largest pork producers: <a href="https://s22.q4cdn.com/104708849/files/doc_financials/2021/q3/08-11-21_Tyson-Foods-080921.pdf">Tyson Foods</a>, <a href="https://www.smithfieldfoods.com/getmedia/7ecf12e2-da3b-4d31-8796-d07e38b39e51/2021-Sustainability-Impact-Report.pdf">Smithfield Foods</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-pork-producer-resume-shipments-california-after-farm-animal-law-delayed-2022-02-08/">Seaboard</a>, <a href="https://www.hormelfoods.com/newsroom/news/hormel-foods-company-information-about-california-proposition-12/">Hormel</a>, and <a href="https://clemensfoodgroup.com/brands/hatfield/">Clemens Food Group</a>. It’s a confusing course reversal that also weakens the National Pork Producers Council’s argument that Prop 12 is overly burdensome.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="InoApg">
Jim Monroe, vice president of corporate affairs for Smithfield Foods, says he doesn’t see any inconsistency between the statements, writing in an email that “there is no doubt it will be more challenging to supply Californians with affordable pork with this law in place.” Monroe said the regulatory climate and escalating cost of doing business in California were factors in Smithfield Foods’ recent decision to <a href="https://www.ocregister.com/2022/06/10/farmer-john-meat-packing-plant-in-vernon-to-close-in-2023/">shutter</a> its Los Angeles County slaughterhouse. “The standards proposed are arbitrary, not based on science and require considerable time and expense without yielding any improvements to animal care,” he added.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YqxXV1">
(The National Pork Producers Council<strong> </strong>and Tyson Foods declined an interview request for this story; Hormel and Clemens Food Group did not respond to a request for comment.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tjeL7m">
Even California says big pork producers are hard at work to comply. As noted by <a href="https://civileats.com/2022/10/05/supreme-court-docket-farm-animal-welfare-prop-12-california-gestation-crates-pork-industry/"><em>Civil Eats</em></a>, an official with California’s state agriculture agency visited 10 hog farms and slaughter plants across the country over the last year and <a href="https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/AHFSS/pdfs/prop-12_pork_producer_visits.pdf">reported</a> that some of the nation’s largest pork producers were constructing new barns and overhauling old ones to be California-compliant, and had already implemented tracing systems to separate conventional pork from the California-bound pork.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IqioKe">
While the National Pork Producers Council has written a great deal about the difficulty of tracing California-compliant pork, the largest producers have long <a href="https://smithfield.sfdbrands.com/en-us/why-smithfield/">advertised</a> their <a href="https://www.food-safety.com/articles/435-food-quality-employee-safety-reign-supreme-at-seaboard-triumph-foods">sophisticated</a> traceability systems. As Richard Sexton, a UC Davis agricultural economist, recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/03/supreme-court-proposition-12-pig-gestation-crates-california-animal-welfare-law">told</a> the Guardian, “Products are being differentiated in a whole variety of ways: organic, GMO-free, different properties related to animal welfare, antibiotic-free.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f8JQKC">
The increased cost for Californians will be somewhat modest, around an <a href="https://s.giannini.ucop.edu/uploads/pub/2021/08/17/v24n6_2.pdf">8 percent hike</a>, according to Sexton and two colleagues, and almost no change in retail price outside California. In an <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/228373/20220617170252460_21-468AgriculturalAndResourceEconomicProfessors.pdf">amicus brief</a> to the Court, Sexton and another UC Davis economist also stressed that the pork producers’ claim that the costs of Prop 12 compliance would be felt by all pork producers, not just those selling into California, is flat-out wrong: “Not only are [the pork producers’] arguments flawed as a reflection of basic economic incentives, but they are factually implausible.” Their research was funded, in part, by the National Pork Board, a USDA-administered program that promotes US pork, as well as the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5UIAZp">
The price increase may be tough for Californians at a time of high inflation, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/15/how-to-save-money-as-food-inflation-jumps.html">especially for food</a>, but it’s important to remember that the price of conventional meat is artificially low, due to animals who are forced to live in the most <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/06/pregnant-sows-gestation-crates-abuse/">miserable conditions</a> imaginable, and to workers who toil in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/business/pork-factory-regulations.html">dangerous conditions</a> to raise and slaughter them. Rural citizens who live near hog farms also <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23003487/north-carolina-hog-pork-bacon-farms-environmental-racism-black-residents-pollution-meat-industry">bear the brunt</a> of the industry’s lightly regulated air and water pollution.
</p>
<h3 id="rg3UlS">
How the conservative Court might think about the case — and animal welfare
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CEVqHZ">
It wouldn’t be a shock if all or most of the conservative justices side with the meat industry, as several business groups (like the Chamber of Commerce) and <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/199568/20211110130101781_21-468%20tsac%20Brief%20of%20Indiana%20and%20Nineteen%20Other%20States.pdf">20 mostly red</a> state attorneys general filed an amicus brief in support of the pork producers (<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/233377/20220812155148618_NPPC%20v.%20Ross%20State%20Amicus%20Brief%20Final%20PDFA.pdf">15 attorneys general</a> from mostly blue states filed an amicus brief in support of California). California is also the right wing’s favorite punching bag.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HKKnkK">
But there are some reasons to believe that the justices won’t rule along predictable political lines. Justice Clarence Thomas has <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3399670">said</a> the dormant commerce clause — the legal doctrine continually invoked by the pork producers to argue its case — “has no basis in the text of the Constitution, [and] makes little sense.” Justice Neil Gorsuch has <a href="https://reason.com/2019/06/28/neil-gorsuch-disappoints-libertarians-votes-to-uphold-protectionist-liquor-law/">called</a> it a source of “judicial activism.” At the same time, the liberal Justice Elena Kagan wrote the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-224.pdf">decision</a> when the Court struck down a California farm animal welfare law in 2012, and in 2010, when the Court struck down a federal animal cruelty law, the conservative Justice Samuel Alito <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/559/460/#tab-opinion-1963154">dissented</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hzUAIV">
And animal welfare hasn’t been as ensnared in the culture war as other issues on the Supreme Court’s docket, such as immigration and affirmative action. That becomes clear when reading the <a href="http://supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/233493/20220815140847858_21-468%20Amicus%20Brief%20of%20O.%20Carter%20Snead%20et%20al_.pdf">amicus brief</a> in support of California’s animal welfare law written by Megan Wold, a former law clerk for Alito. The brief was filed on behalf of other conservative thinkers, including former George W. Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully, University of Notre Dame law professor O. Carter Snead, and writer Mary Eberstadt.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aLpb0o">
Wold wrote that voters’ support for Proposition 12
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fOXRSj">
reflects concerns of ancient lineage in Western moral thought. Western philosophers and religious leaders have considered the treatment of animals to be an appropriate and important subject of inquiry for millennia. They have explained how human decency demands that animals be treated with basic respect for their needs, natures, and dignity as living creatures, and why humans are morally bound not to participate in or facilitate animal abuse.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FDde35">
Last week, the Washington Post conservative columnist Kathleen Parker also made a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/04/supreme-court-california-pork-law/">passionate plea</a> for the Court to side with the animals, writing “… the justices that make up the high court’s conservative majority have a rare opportunity to align themselves not only with their liberal counterparts but with some of history’s greatest ethicists and philosophers.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OWf4TM">
Fervent support for animal welfare is not uncommon among conservatives: Bob Dole championed <a href="https://doleinstitute.org/legacies/senator-bob-dole/a-legacy-of-leadership/protecting-animals-from-cruelty/#:~:text=In%201983%2C%20Dole%20introduced%20legislation,to%20minimize%20stress%20and%20pain.">important amendments</a> to the Animal Welfare Act in 1985; Rick Santorum may be vehemently opposed to LGBTQ rights but is also vehemently opposed to <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/food/2012/03/santorum-puppy-humane-society/">cruelty to dogs and horses</a>. Even if their primary motive is to slash government spending, dozens of Republican members of Congress have voted to <a href="https://undark.org/2018/02/28/bellotti-animal-research-white-coat-waste/">curtail government-funded animal research experiments</a> in recent years.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QMpXPO">
While Big Pork is behind the challenge to California’s animal welfare law, many farmers (who <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/23242/farmers-presidential-election/">tend to be conservative</a>) are <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/233586/20220815212509809_IndFarmers_Ross_Amicus%20Document%20August%2015%202022%20EFile.pdf">in support</a> of the law, saying that it could help level the playing field in an industry that is dominated by meat giants that cut costs by mistreating animals. One of the largest meat companies, Perdue Farms, also <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/233498/20220815141539359_21-468_Amicus%20Brief.pdf">supports</a> the animal welfare law (Perdue mostly raises chickens for meat but also owns Niman Ranch, a higher-welfare pork company).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vNEJ2s">
If the Court does side with the National Pork Producers Council, it could have lasting, devastating consequences for the future of farm animal welfare in the US. It would not only condemn nearly a million pigs a year to extreme confinement, but it could also inspire others in the animal agriculture industry to challenge similar state laws, or dissuade state lawmakers and food companies from moving on the matter. Some observers say the effects could be felt far beyond animal welfare, too, endangering <a href="https://animal.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/ALPP-Prop-12-Report.pdf">state laws</a> that cover renewable energy or product safety.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zAx3vP">
In the past two decades, we’ve witnessed a rapid shift away from cages, supported by voters, consumers, corporations, and policymakers of a number of political stripes. If California’s animal welfare law is eventually overturned, it will certainly be a setback for the anti-factory farming movement, but not the death knell.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pR16yA">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1FcoP8">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rxnGbe">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="861cYT">
</p></li>
<li><strong>Should California be allowed to raise the price of bacon in Florida?</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Pigs in crowded conditions climb over each other." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/AQlVJOhTg7CMRERNwLkGhLSNv8c=/289x0:4912x3467/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71472884/1404569588.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A pig climbing over others in the yard. | Edwin Remsberg/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
National Pork Producers Council v. Ross asks just how far one state can go to change life in the other 49 states.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wKDGuD">
One of the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei">most important provisions</a> of the Constitution states that “Congress shall have power … To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sTf8Hk">
This provision gives the federal government vast authority over the national economy, and over the various businesses that make up that economy. It is the reason why landmark federal laws ranging from the <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/312/100/">minimum wage</a>, to the <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/379/294/">ban on whites-only lunch counters</a>, to much of Obamacare, are allowed to exist.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wU8Z31">
This constitutional provision, known as the “Commerce Clause,” does not simply empower Congress to regulate interstate and international trade, and in effect, the national economy. It’s also long been understood to prevent states from enacting laws that significantly impede free trade throughout the Union.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<div id="hiOPQb">
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LOC0v4">
As the Supreme Court explained in <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/441/322.html"><em>Hughes v. Oklahoma</em></a> (1979), the Commerce Clause addresses “a central concern of the Framers that was an immediate reason for calling the Constitutional Convention”: the Framers’ belief that “the new Union would have to avoid the tendencies toward economic Balkanization that had plagued relations among the Colonies and later among the States under the Articles of Confederation.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="S4thN8">
Which brings us to <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/national-pork-producers-council-v-ross/"><em>National Pork Producers Council v. Ross</em></a>, a case the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday. In that case the pork industry accuses California’s voters of trying to impose their own food policy preferences upon the nation as a whole, in violation of the Constitution’s safeguards against allowing one state to interfere with the nation’s economy as a whole.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="azKfxc">
In 2018, California <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22576044/prop-12-california-eggs-pork-bacon-veal-animal-welfare-law-gestation-crates-battery-cages">enacted Proposition 12</a>, a ballot initiative that imposes some of the strictest animal welfare standards in the country upon certain farmers. Of particular relevance to the <em>Pork Producers</em> case, Prop 12 forbids pork farmers from confining a breeding sow “<a href="https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_12,_Farm_Animal_Confinement_Initiative_(2018)">with less than 24 square feet of usable floor space per pig</a>.” And it forbids the sale of any pork in California that was produced by a farm that did not comply with this rule.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gncfVj">
Trade organizations representing the pork industry sued, claiming that Prop 12 will impose high costs on farmers in all 50 states, and drive up pork prices nationwide. Among other things, they argue that it is “impracticable” for the industry to track in advance which cuts of pork will ultimately be sold in California, so pork farmers everywhere in the country will need to change their operations so that all of their meat complies with Prop 12.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6Noqoh">
And in order to comply, the pork industry claims, these farmers will “need to spend “$293,894,455 to $347,733,205 of additional capital in order to reconstruct their sow housing and overcome the productivity loss that Proposition 12 imposes.” Ultimately, the pork producers argue that Prop 12 will “increase farmers’ production costs by over $13 per pig, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/227679/20220610132221228_Natl%20Pork%20Producers%20v%20Ross%20No.%2021-468%20Brief%20for%20Petitioners.pdf">a 9.2% cost increase</a>,” and those costs will need to be passed on to the consumer.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FI2SWL">
It’s unclear whether these dire predictions will actually become a reality, and key figures within the pork industry have, at times, seemed to contradict the more alarmist positions taken by the industry’s lawyers. Hormel Foods, for example, put out a statement saying that it has “<a href="https://www.hormelfoods.com/newsroom/news/hormel-foods-company-information-about-california-proposition-12/">confirmed that it faces no risk of material losses from compliance with Proposition 12</a>.” Similarly, Tysons Food CEO Donnie King said in a <a href="https://s22.q4cdn.com/104708849/files/doc_financials/2021/q3/08-11-21_Tyson-Foods-080921.pdf">2021 interview</a> that, while Prop 12 is “not something we were excited about,” his company can “certainly provide the raw material to service our customers in that way.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LgCM96">
Nevertheless, the pork producers’ legal position is that Proposition 12 violates the Constitution’s guarantee that one state will not interfere too much with the rest of the nation’s markets.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j9JFzB">
These sorts of lawsuits, which lawyers refer to as “Dormant Commerce Clause” suits, rarely prevail. But the pork producers do raise an unusually strong case under some of the Supreme Court’s caselaw, assuming that they can prove many of their dire economic predictions about Proposition 12’s impact.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HzeAo2">
At the same time, there is a very good reason why the Court has historically been reluctant to strike down state laws that interfere with the economy in other states. In a modern, integrated economy, virtually any state law will have <em>some</em> economic impacts across a state’s borders. If the Court hands down a ham-handed decision in <em>Pork Producers</em>, it could call into question hundreds or even thousands of state laws throughout the country.
</p>
<h3 id="eSupsB">
What’s at stake in <em>Pork Producers</em>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lEydfg">
Republican appointees have a supermajority on the current Supreme Court, so lawyers advocating for conservative policy outcomes frequently file briefs <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/10/2/23377432/supreme-court-alabama-merrill-milligan-racial-gerrymandering-voting-rights-act">proposing sweeping, avulsing changes to federal law</a> — before taking on a more measured and reasonable legal argument near the end of their brief.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DRConG">
The <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/227679/20220610132221228_Natl%20Pork%20Producers%20v%20Ross%20No.%2021-468%20Brief%20for%20Petitioners.pdf">pork industry’s brief</a> in <em>Pork Producers</em> fits this pattern. Much of its brief calls for broad new limits on a state’s ability to enact laws with “extraterritorial” effects — meaning that the law’s economic impacts are felt outside the state. Indeed, at one point, the pork producers suggest that “a State may not enact laws that have the practical effect of controlling conduct outside that State’s borders.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rzRFle">
If the Supreme Court were to embrace such an extreme rule, then the United States might as well give up on the project of state lawmaking altogether. Nearly any state law will have some impact on the economy in other states.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4FNMbN">
Take, for example, the ongoing debate about whether states should <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/4/12/22371929/marijuana-legalization-connecticut-biden">legalize recreational marijuana</a>. In my home state of Virginia, people over the age of 21 may <a href="https://norml.org/laws/virginia-penalties-2/">lawfully possess up to an ounce of marijuana in public</a>. But marijuana possession is typically <a href="https://norml.org/laws/north-carolina-penalties-2/">illegal just across the border in North Carolina</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AOmnMA">
Yet, as the Supreme Court explained in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-1454.ZO.html"><em>Gonzales v. Raich</em></a> (2005), one state’s marijuana laws necessarily impact the national market for this drug. Increased marijuana production anywhere in the country “has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity.” Similarly, by banning recreational marijuana, North Carolina lawmakers discourage hardworking Virginia cannabis farmers from growing product that can be sold in North Carolina, diminishing those farmers’ profits in the process.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MwSOgm">
Nevertheless, it is widely accepted that each state may decide whether or not to ban marijuana — or a myriad of other products they deem harmful — without running afoul of the Dormant Commerce Clause. California, for example, recently <a href="https://www.mintz.com/insights-center/viewpoints/2171/2020-10-05-california-becomes-first-state-ban-24-ingredients">banned 24 ingredients from cosmetics and personal care products</a>, because it believes them to harm people’s health.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6WTuM3">
Similarly, imagine that California enacted a new law which appropriates funding to hire 10,000 new public school teachers in the state. This law would also have extraterritorial effects. Among other things, because California competes with other states to hire teaching talent, this new appropriation would place upward pressure on teaching salaries throughout the country. But there’s no serious argument under existing law that hiring new teachers violates the Dormant Commerce Clause.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nOPeYn">
Again, the point is that a strict ban on state laws that have “the practical effect of controlling conduct outside that State’s borders” could potentially prohibit states from legislating altogether — especially if the phrase “practical effect” is read broadly. A state law raising its hourly minimum wage, for example, could have the practical effect of making businesses in counties across the state line raise their wages too. Name any state law, and it’s probably possible to identify some way that it shapes conduct outside of that state’s territory.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ants3C">
To win their case, in other words, the pork industry should have to do much more than show that Proposition 12 impacts how pork is produced in other states. If that were enough, virtually any state law would be unconstitutional.
</p>
<h3 id="CcmVwD">
The strongest case against Prop 12
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3l0Fex">
At the same time, however, there need to be some limits on one state’s ability to pass laws that impact nonresidents of that state. In 2021, for example, Texas enacted a law that effectively forces major social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/9/19/23361050/supreme-court-texas-twitter-facebook-youtube-social-media-fifth-circuit-netchoice-paxton">stop removing content they deem offensive</a> — including content from Nazis and white supremacists, as well as many forms of targeted harassment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mH2aAC">
While this law theoretically only applies to Texas residents and people and businesses who take certain actions in Texas, social media companies would likely find it very difficult to identify which of their users are subject to the Texas law — and therefore would have <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/9/19/23361050/supreme-court-texas-twitter-facebook-youtube-social-media-fifth-circuit-netchoice-paxton">no choice but to impose Texas’s rules on everyone who uses their site</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xr4DdY">
Even setting aside the fact that this Texas law <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/9/19/23361050/supreme-court-texas-twitter-facebook-youtube-social-media-fifth-circuit-netchoice-paxton">violates the First Amendment</a>, why should Texas get to decide for the entire country what sort of content appears on Twitter? There’s something profoundly undemocratic about allowing a single state to decide this question for the other 49 states, as most Americans do not get to vote for members of the Texas state legislature.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8Slq7K">
If the pork producers are correct about the economic impacts of Proposition 12, then a similar argument could be applied to California’s law. Why should the voters of California get to pass a law that might drive up the price of bacon in Florida by nearly 10 percent?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="flR4eR">
The Supreme Court’s decision in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/397/137"><em>Pike v. Bruce Church</em></a> (1970) established that a state law should be struck down if it imposes a burden on commerce in other states that “is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” And the pork producers make a reasonable argument that Prop 12 is the rare state law that runs afoul of <em>Pike</em>. (Notably, the Biden administration also filed a brief <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/228387/20220617195711500_No.%2021-468%20Natl%20Pork%20Producers%20v.%20Ross%20Final.pdf">arguing that <em>Pike</em> requires the Court to strike down Prop 12</a>.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cdrcMp">
The argument goes something like this: The pork producers claim that <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/227679/20220610132221228_Natl%20Pork%20Producers%20v%20Ross%20No.%2021-468%20Brief%20for%20Petitioners.pdf">99.87 percent of the nation’s pork production</a> occurs outside of California, but Prop 12 will nonetheless force those out-of-state producers to comply with California’s animal welfare standards. They also argue that Prop 12 does nothing to protect the health and safety of actual California residents. And they bolster this claim by pointing to the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s own conclusion that it could not “confirm, according to its usual scientific practices” that Prop 12’s sow confinement rules “reduce the risk of human food-borne illness.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wOriZb">
Assuming that all of this is true, that would mean that Prop 12 does very little to actually improve the lives of Californians, while simultaneously imposing tremendous costs on pork farmers in other states.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SvGzK5">
To this, California offers two responses. One is that, even if Prop 12 does not advance any public health goals, the state still has a legitimate interest in “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-468/232996/20220808154802887_National%20Pork%20Producers%20Council%20v%20Ross%20-%20Brief%20for%20the%20State%20Respondents.pdf">prohibiting the in-state sale of animal products that the voters view as morally objectionable</a>.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RoQXSZ">
But this argument is hard to square with <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZO.html"><em>Lawrence v. Texas</em></a> (2003), the landmark civil rights decision striking down a Texas ban on “sodomy.” Among other things, <em>Lawrence </em>held that “the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G8ICLm">
To sustain a law, a state must offer a justification that goes beyond “we banned this practice because we think it is bad.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DyEFUk">
California’s strongest legal argument, meanwhile, is simply that Courts should be very cautious about striking down state laws that have extraterritorial effects. As Justice Antonin Scalia warned in a 1987 opinion, the question of whether a particular state law imposes a burden on commerce that is “clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits” is the sort of inquiry that “<a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12056582029421610686&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr">is ill suited to the judicial function and should be undertaken rarely if at all</a>.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TfJjLQ">
Judges simply are not very good at tracing out the economic impacts of a particular law. Or at predicting just how much the price of ham will go up in Wisconsin if California imposes new burdens on pork producers. And, for all the reasons explained above, it’s not clear where to draw the line between an ordinary law with extraterritorial effects — such as North Carolina’s marijuana ban — and a more extraordinary law that has too much impact on other states.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f0s5Yk">
In any event, the Court’s current majority has <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/6/30/23189610/supreme-court-epa-west-virginia-clean-power-plan-major-questions-john-roberts">not shown much sympathy for arguments that judges should be cautious</a> about poking around in policy areas that they barely understand, so California may face an uphill climb in the Supreme Court if its best argument is that the judiciary should exercise restraint.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iTLD41">
But whatever the Court decides in <em>Pork Producers, </em>we should hope that it shows the same trepidation about striking down laws with extraterritorial effects that Scalia articulated in the 1980s. The United States has an integrated economy, and virtually any state law will have at least some marginal effect on commerce in other states.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GkrO9e">
If this Supreme Court starts policing those laws, it will find it difficult to figure out where to stop.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SDxiVE">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nNuK9q">
</p></li>
<li><strong>The Crimea bridge explosion is a devastating blow to Putin and Russian morale</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0oFdxhohQUvKLW2MqoYwFz0r0yg=/115x0:918x602/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71471010/1243811254.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A screen grab from a surveillance footage shows flames and smoke rising up after an explosion at the Kerch bridge in the Kerch Strait, Crimea, October 8, 2022. | Security Camera/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
An embattled Putin suffers another loss in the annexed Ukrainian territory.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kc1eQj">
A major explosion destroyed parts of the only bridge connecting Russia and Crimea, temporarily cutting off a critical supply route for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces and representing another potential escalation of the Ukraine war. Though the bridge has since reopened, it’s still a severe blow to Russian morale as the tide of the war continues to turn against them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XYa1VR">
A truck driving towards Crimea exploded on the Kerch Bridge Saturday morning, igniting fuel tankers as a freight train passed by and killing three people, according to <a href="https://t.me/sledcom_press/3549">Russian authorities</a>. Video shows that parts of the bridge had collapsed and were burning intensely.
</p>
<div id="3b2qnL">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
Reported footage of the moment of the explosion. Lots of speculation circulating about the cause — from a squad of Ukrainian sappers or a missile, or a truck bomb. Whatever the case, a blow to Russia - psychologically and logistically. <a href="https://t.co/mzwBCP0ygH">pic.twitter.com/mzwBCP0ygH</a>
</p>
— Nolan Peterson (<span class="citation" data-cites="nolanwpeterson">@nolanwpeterson</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/nolanwpeterson/status/1578644463240765440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2022</a>
</blockquote></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uRS0di">
Ukrainian officials haven’t claimed responsibility for the explosion, but have publicly celebrated it. “Sick burn,” <a href="https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1578634825417650176?s=20&amp;t=785MH0Hvysziq_b7aOlbAw">tweeted</a> the Ukrainian government. The country’s defense ministry <a href="https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1578651480294592513?s=20&amp;t=QOuo7b4DVQLw8M6e8Wa8bA">compared</a> the attack to the sinking of Russia’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61103927">Moskva missile cruiser in April</a>: “Two notorious symbols of Russian power in Ukrainian Crimea have gone down. What’s next in line?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s1wB82">
On Saturday, Sergei Askynov, the Russian-installed head of Crimea, <a href="https://t.me/s/Aksenov82">posted on social media</a> that his administration would be launching a probe into the cause of the attack and raised the terrorist threat level in the region to “yellow,” signifying that it was high.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3uOAZ3">
Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, seemed to suggest that Russian actors were behind the attack, noting that the truck with the explosives had <a href="https://twitter.com/Podolyak_M/status/1578714525867859969?s=20&amp;t=mKzSLyujF5hqoIRCN-HCJg">come from the Russian side of the bridge</a>. Ukraine, however, has previously denied involvement in other Russian sabotage operations, including the assassination of the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist which US intelligence agencies later said they believed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/05/us/politics/ukraine-russia-dugina-assassination.html">was authorized by the Ukrainian government</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p7xw3u">
The collapse of the bridge is a limited strategic loss for Russian forces who have taken control of most of southern Ukraine’s Kherson region. Road traffic has<a href="https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1578736101904510976?s=20&amp;t=785MH0Hvysziq_b7aOlbAw"> since been restored</a> in an undamaged lane, and rail traffic is also expected to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-ria-state-agency-reports-fuel-tank-fire-kerch-bridge-crimea-2022-10-08/">resume</a> Saturday night. There are also alternative boat routes across the Kerch strait through the Ukrainian city of Melitopol, which has been occupied by Russia since the early days of the war.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sWzkPU">
But it’s a major symbolic loss. The bridge was inaugurated by Putin just four years ago, touted as <a href="https://twitter.com/Elizrael/status/1578675708876193793?s=20&amp;t=QOuo7b4DVQLw8M6e8Wa8bA">impossible to attack</a> based on 20 different defenses protecting it, and has served as a physical monument to Russia’s illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014. “This is a massive influence operation win for Ukraine. Even if they didn’t do it, it is a demonstration to Russians, and the rest of the world, that Russia’s military cannot protect any of the provinces it recently annexed,” Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army Major General and Center for Strategic and International Studies fellow, <a href="https://twitter.com/WarintheFuture/status/1578617224524615682?s=20&amp;t=QOuo7b4DVQLw8M6e8Wa8bA">tweeted</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yVMuWS">
It may also make it more difficult for a weakened, desperate Putin to continue to assure his people that the war is going his way.
</p>
<h3 id="2QYFSE">
The bridge explosion could escalate the war
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sOPlH0">
The bridge explosion comes at a delicate moment when Putin is licking his wounds from a series of military losses.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o2aLvc">
In early September, Ukraine launched a successful counteroffensive in which they reclaimed large swaths of territory in the northeastern Kharkiv region and in parts of the southern Kherson region, forcing Russian soldiers to flee and abandon their <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/09/13/russia-retreat-abandoned-weapons-izyum/?itid=lb_war-in-ukraine-what-you-need-to-know_13">military equipment</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9bhsaz">
Though Russian elites have not dared criticize Putin for those losses or the objectives of the war directly, they have publicly voiced their frustration with the nation’s military brass. One official, the head of the lower house of parliament’s defense committee, said the army should “<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221006-russian-elite-voice-growing-anger-as-losses-mount-in-ukraine">stop lying</a>” in their daily briefings about the Russian retreat. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/07/russia-military-commanders-dismissed-war/">Multiple top military commanders</a> have since been dismissed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RjJFxx">
Increasingly backed into a corner, Putin has begun to escalate his rhetoric. In late September, Russia held staged referenda in four Ukrainian regions partially occupied by Russian troops — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson — on formally joining Russia. The US and Western allies have refused to recognize these <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/09/28/1125543244/ukraine-sham-referendums-russia-annexation">sham votes</a>, in which ballots were cast at gunpoint. But Putin has threatened to use “<a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2022/9/22/23366499/putin-russia-ukraine-war-nuclear-threat-expert">all forces and means</a>” to defend these territories.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3XDM6Q">
He also recently announced a partial mobilization of up to an additional 300,000 troops, though hundreds of thousands of Russian men have <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/7/putin-turns-70-with-a-prayer-for-his-health-amid-war-crisis">fled the country</a> to avoid being drafted, and US military officials say they have yet to observe those forces being <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3178285/senior-military-official-says-russia-in-defensive-crouch-in-kherson/">deployed en masse</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X9e1FA">
In the wake of the bridge explosion, Russian war hawks have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/08/world/russia-ukraine-war-news?smid=url-share#the-crimea-bridge-explosion-prompts-calls-for-revenge-from-russian-hard-liners">urged </a>Putin to step up military tactics even further by targeting Ukrainian infrastructure without concern for loss of civilian life, arguing that he needs to harness fear to force Ukrainians into submission.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jlIvub">
President Joe Biden raised concerns earlier this week that Putin has no “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/us/politics/biden-putin-armageddon-nuclear-threat.html">off-ramp</a>” that would allow him to end the war and still save face, warning that the world is now closer to nuclear <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-cites-cuban-missile-crisis-describing-putins-nuclear-threat-2022-10-07/">“Armageddon”</a> than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Cold War. (European leaders, however, have argued that Putin’s <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/finnish-prime-minister-sanna-marin-video-explains-vladimir-putin-possible-ukraine-exit-1750014">only option</a> should be withdrawing from Ukraine entirely.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wxqHNb">
The attack on the Kerch bridge is another major publicity blow for Putin that could make it even less palatable for him to exit Ukraine. If there were an off ramp for Putin, it may now be lying in the sea:
</p>
<div id="4T37Ve">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
Is that an off-ramp down there?<a href="https://t.co/hNIgbQN5Bw">pic.twitter.com/hNIgbQN5Bw</a>
</p>
— Julia Davis (<span class="citation" data-cites="JuliaDavisNews">@JuliaDavisNews</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1578619795087687680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2022</a>
</blockquote>
</div>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Djokovic takes 90th career title with Astana victory</strong> - The 35-year-old Novak Djokovic defeated Tsitsipas 6-3, 6-4 in 75 minutes</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>Directorate General NCC clinches the crown</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>Count Of Savoy, Kalamitsi and Sierra Dela Plata impress</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>Fenesta National tennis play washed out</strong> - Referee Supreeth Kadavigere had scheduled matches from 7 a.m., but had to call of the day’s play as the rain would not relent</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>Karandeep and Avani win golf titles</strong> - AHMEDABAD</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Delhi Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam resigns after controversy over religious conversion event</strong> - The BJP had attacked him and the AAP after a video was circulated showing him attending a conversion event on October 5</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>Campaign under way to promote integrated management practices for coconut</strong> - The distribution is being taken up on campaign mode in connection with the ‘Kera Raksha Vaaram’</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>Activists raise concern over Beladakuppe jathra in Bandipur</strong> - NGOs want curbs and crowd regulation to minimise human disturbance to wildlife</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>Heroin seized off Kochi bound for US, Europe markets via Sri Lanka</strong> - International drug smugglers use Indian ports of call as safe houses for concealing heroin sourced from Afghanistan to dodge severe cargo profiling at foreign ports. A shipment from Iran, Pakistan, or Afghanistan will invite a fiercer scrutiny in foreign harbours than cargo from India or Sri Lanka, say officials</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>Kerala Congress (M) completes revamp, appoints Jose K. Mani as chairman</strong> - State meet forms seven-member political affairs panel, the party’s highest decision-making body</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>Crimea bridge: Russia ramps up security after blast</strong> - Moscow moves to secure the key connector and repair it as soon as possible after the explosion.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: ‘Russian attack’ on city claimed by Moscow kills 17</strong> - Zaporizhzhia is controlled by Ukraine but is in a region illegally annexed by Russia.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Names released of victims in petrol station blast</strong> - A woman and her teenage son and a 14-year-old girl are also among the victims of the petrol station blast.</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>Albanian people-smuggling gang ‘dismantled’ after arrests in Spain</strong> - Police say it took officers based in the UK and Spain more than a year to identify the ringleaders.</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>Eurovision: Liverpool will put on best party ever, mayor says</strong> - Liverpool promises to put on the best party ever for Eurovision, after the city is named as 2023 host.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The fight to cut off the crypto funding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine</strong> - Violent Russian militias have received at least $4 million in crypto donations. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1888260">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>We’ll take it: Prime Video unveils brief sneak peek at Wheel of Time S2 at NYCC</strong> - “The only way to stop all this suffering is to stop the wheel itself.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1888426">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rivian recalls 12,212 EVs due to potentially loose suspension</strong> - Rivian is the latest automaker to have to recall a big batch of electric vehicles. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1888412">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How green are biofuels? Scientists are at loggerheads</strong> - Replacing gasoline with ethanol has changed landscapes across the globe. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1888105">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The actor who claims he co-created Mortal Kombat</strong> - <em>Mortal Kombat</em>’s digitized martial artists went to court for more credit in the ’90s. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1886505">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>I met a genie once. He gave me one wish. I said “I wish I could be you.”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The genue saud, “weurd wush but U wull grant ut.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Majorpain2006"> /u/Majorpain2006 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xz8q9w/i_met_a_genie_once_he_gave_me_one_wish_i_said_i/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xz8q9w/i_met_a_genie_once_he_gave_me_one_wish_i_said_i/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>Home Covid Test.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
1: Open a can of beer and try to smell it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
2: If you can smell the beer, drink it to see if you can taste it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
3: If you can taste it and smell it, this confirms you don’t have Covid.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Last night, I did the test 15 times and all were negative. Tonight I am going to do the test again because this morning I woke up with a headache and feeling like I am coming down with something.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I am so nervous.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Buddy2269"> /u/Buddy2269 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xz5ief/home_covid_test/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xz5ief/home_covid_test/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>Heard this at a wedding</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A woman and her husband had been married for 60 years and had remained faithful and loving this entire time. However, the woman did have one secret; a shoebox in her closet. The shoebox itself was not a secret, but the wife had told the husband that he was never to open or ask about the box, so the contents remained unknown.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The wife fell ill one day and the doctor said he may not make it. The husband took the box and brought it to her bedside and asked if he may open it. With her permission, he took the top off and pulled out $95,000 and two crocheted dolls. He asked what all of this was.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Well,” the wife began, “my grandmother once told me that the secret to a successful marriage was to never get angry at your husband. Instead, when you’re angry, you should crochet a little doll”.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The husband began to weep tears of joy that she had been angry so few times.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“That’s wonderful, dear”, the man began. “But what’s with the $95,000?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“That’s the money I made from selling dolls.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/trash_bin_84"> /u/trash_bin_84 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xz8l44/heard_this_at_a_wedding/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xz8l44/heard_this_at_a_wedding/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>What did the man with the average size penis say while getting a blowjob?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
You suck a mean dick
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DFSPete"> /u/DFSPete </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xyqfw2/what_did_the_man_with_the_average_size_penis_say/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xyqfw2/what_did_the_man_with_the_average_size_penis_say/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>I uninstalled Facebook as i got depressed of seeing my friends post their relationship and marriage</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I uninstalled LinkedIn as i got depressed of seeing my colleague post their job change and promotion
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I uninstalled instagram as i got depressed of seeing my friends travel and enjoy their lives.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
But I’ll never uninstall reddit because you guys are more miserable than me .
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Indianfattie"> /u/Indianfattie </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xzf5ie/i_uninstalled_facebook_as_i_got_depressed_of/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xzf5ie/i_uninstalled_facebook_as_i_got_depressed_of/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
<script>AOS.init();</script></body></html>

4
index.html
View File

File diff suppressed because one or more lines are too long