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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Saponin Nanoparticle Adjuvants Incorporating Toll-Like Receptor Agonists Improve Vaccine Immunomodulation</strong> -
<div>
Over the past few decades, the development of potent and safe immune-activating adjuvant technologies has become the heart of intensive research in the constant fight against highly mutative and immune evasive viruses such as influenza, SARS-CoV-2, and HIV. Herein, we developed a highly modular saponin-based nanoparticle platform incorporating toll-like receptor agonists (TLRas) including TLR1/2a, TLR4a, TLR7/8a adjuvants and their mixtures. These various TLRa-SNP adjuvant constructs induce unique acute cytokine and immune-signaling profiles, leading to specific Th-responses that could be of interest depending on the target disease for prevention. In a murine vaccine study, the adjuvants greatly improved the potency, durability, breadth, and neutralization of both COVID-19 and HIV vaccine candidates, suggesting the potential broad application of these adjuvant constructs to a range of different antigens. Overall, this work demonstrates a modular TLRa-SNP adjuvant platform which could improve the design of vaccines for and dramatically impact modern vaccine development.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.16.549249v2" target="_blank">Saponin Nanoparticle Adjuvants Incorporating Toll-Like Receptor Agonists Improve Vaccine Immunomodulation</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The Double-Edged Sword Mediatized Integration Processes during the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
The issue of media appropriation by refugees experienced a boom in 2015, but since then the topic has received less attention over the years. In addition, refugees have faced significant challenges since the appearance of COVID-19. In this paper, I discuss how Syrian migrants and refugees who have lived in Germany for at least four years used media technologies during COVID-19. I present findings from twelve guided interviews conducted in a northern German city. In summary, media use in general has increased, as has that of the majority society. On the other hand, media use during the pandemic has proven to be a double-edged sword: Some refugees had great(er) problems coping with the situation, while others gained self-empowerment and agency through using media during the pandemic.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/yjt23/" target="_blank">The Double-Edged Sword Mediatized Integration Processes during the COVID-19 Pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Trivalent mRNA vaccine-candidate against seasonal flu with cross-specific humoral immune response</strong> -
<div>
Seasonal influenza remains a serious global health problem, leading to high mortality rates among the elderly and individuals with comorbidities. It also imposes a substantial economic burden through increased absenteeism during periods of active pathogen circulation. Vaccination is generally accepted as the most effective strategy for influenza prevention. As both influenza A and B viruses circulate and cause seasonal epidemics, vaccines need to include multiple antigens derived from different viral subtypes. While current influenza vaccines are effective, they still have limitations, including narrow specificity for certain serological variants, which may result in a mismatch between vaccine antigens and circulating strains. Additionally, the rapid variability of the virus poses challenges in providing extended protection beyond a single season. Therefore, mRNA technology is particularly promising for influenza prevention, as it enables the rapid development of multivalent vaccines and allows for quick updates of their antigenic composition. mRNA vaccines have already proven successful in preventing COVID-19 by eliciting rapid cellular and humoral immune responses. In this study, we present the development of a trivalent mRNA vaccine candidates, evaluate its immunogenicity using the hemagglutination inhibition assay, and assess its efficacy in animals. We demonstrate the higher immunogenicity of the mRNA vaccine candidates compared to the inactivated split influenza vaccine and its enhanced ability to generate a cross-specific humoral immune response. These findings highlight the potential mRNA technology in overcoming current limitations of influenza vaccines and hold promise for ensuring greater efficacy in preventing seasonal influenza outbreaks.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.30.573722v1" target="_blank">Trivalent mRNA vaccine-candidate against seasonal flu with cross-specific humoral immune response</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Tying the Knot: Unraveling the Intricacies of the Coronavirus Frameshift Pseudoknot</strong> -
<div>
Understanding and targeting functional RNA structures towards treatment of coronavirus infection can help us to prepare for novel variants of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing COVID-19), and any other coronaviruses that could emerge via human-to-human transmission or potential zoonotic (inter-species) events. Leveraging the fact that all coronaviruses use a mechanism known as -1 programmed ribosomal frameshifting (-1 PRF) to replicate, we apply algorithms to predict the most energetically favourable secondary structures (each nucleotide involved in at most one pairing) that may be involved in regulating the -1 PRF event in coronaviruses, especially SARS-CoV-2. We compute previously unknown most stable structure predictions for the frameshift site of coronaviruses via hierarchical folding, a biologically motivated framework where initial non-crossing structure folds first, followed by subsequent, possibly crossing (pseudoknotted), structures. Using mutual information from 181 coronavirus sequences, in conjunction with the algorithm KnotAli, we compute secondary structure predictions for the frameshift site of different coronaviruses. We then utilize the Shapify algorithm to obtain most stable SARS-CoV-2 secondary structure predictions guided by frameshift sequence-specific and genome-wide experimental data. We build on our previous secondary structure investigation of the singular SARS-CoV-2 68 nt frameshift element sequence, by using Shapify to obtain predictions for 132 extended sequences and including covariation information. Previous investigations have not applied hierarchical folding to extended length SARS-CoV-2 frameshift sequences. By doing so, we simulate the effects of ribosome interaction with the frameshift site, providing insight to biological function. We contribute in-depth discussion to contextualize secondary structure dual-graph motifs for SARS-CoV-2, highlighting the energetic stability of the previously identified 3_8 motif alongside the known dominant 3_3 and 3_6 (native-type) -1 PRF structures. Integrating experimental data within minimum free energy (MFE) hierarchical folding algorithms provides novel structure predictions to distill the relationship between RNA structure and function. In particular, fully categorizing most stable secondary structure predictions via hierarchical folding supports our identification of motif transitions and critical site targets for future therapeutic research.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.28.573501v1" target="_blank">Tying the Knot: Unraveling the Intricacies of the Coronavirus Frameshift Pseudoknot</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>CParty: Conditional partition function for density-2 RNA pseudoknots</strong> -
<div>
RNA molecules fold into biologically important functional structures. Efficient dynamic programming RNA (secondary) structure prediction algorithms restrict the search space to evade NP-hardness of general pseudoknot prediction. While such prediction algorithms can be extended to provide a stochastic view on RNA ensembles, they are either limited to pseudoknot-free structures or extremely complex. To overcome this dilemma, we provide the theoretical framework and implementation for our algorithm, CParty, that follows the hierarchical folding hypothesis, i.e., the bio-physically well-motivated assumption that non-crossing structures fold relatively fast prior to the formation of pseudoknot interactions. Thus, we efficiently compute the conditional partition function (CPF) given a non-crossing structure G for a subset of pseudoknotted structures, i.e., density-2 structures G U G’ for non-crossing disjoint structure G’. Notably, this can enable sampling from the hierarchical distribution P(G’|G). With CParty we develop for the first time an unambiguous scheme based on HFold, i.e., the minimum free energy hierarchical folding algorithm based on a realistic pseudoknot energy model. Thus, we develop the first partition function variant for density-2 structures. Compared to the only other available pseudoknot partition function algorithm, which covers simple pseudoknots (and follows a different strategy, mapped from a pure minimum free energy structure prediction), our method covers a much larger structure class; at the same time, it is significantly more efficient—reducing the time as well as the space complexity by a quadratic factor. Summarizing, we provide an efficient, cubic time, algorithm for the stochastic analysis of pseudoknotted RNAs, which enables novel applications. We discuss one such application, i.e., how the CPF for a pseudoknotted therapeutic target in SARS-CoV-2 can provide insight into RNA structure formation.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.16.541023v2" target="_blank">CParty: Conditional partition function for density-2 RNA pseudoknots</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The 8C model of vaccination readiness: A common framework to facilitate cross-study comparisons.</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Several factors can potentially influence an individual’s vaccination readiness. To facilitate cross-study comparisons, it is essential that researchers use a shared framework to measure these factors. This would not only help determine their relative importance cross different contexts but also would aid in tailoring interventions to enhance vaccine uptake. Historically, five psychological antecedents of vaccination were identified: confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility. This 5C scale was later expanded to a 7C model by incorporating two additional components: compliance and conspiracy. Building upon this framework, we propose an eighth component, certification, defined as the person’s self-report that, in the past, they have had to provide evidence of vaccination. This component addresses a significant gap in the 7C model, as some individuals reported taking the COVID-19 vaccine primarily to obtain proof of vaccination, a motivation not captured by the 7C model. Our confirmatory factor analysis (N = 406) of a bifactor model of US citizens9 self-reported COVID-19 vaccination status showed that this eighth component had good psychometric properties and the 8C model had slightly higher criterion validity than the 7C model. We present the 8C model as a framework that provides a richer and more complete descriptions of the factors that determine vaccination readiness and encourage future studies of vaccination readiness to utilise it.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.22.23300464v1" target="_blank">The 8C model of vaccination readiness: A common framework to facilitate cross-study comparisons.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted Vaccine and COVID-19 Hospital Admissions and Ambulatory Visits in US Adults</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Importance Data describing the early additional protection afforded by recently recommended XBB1.5-adapted COVID-19 vaccines are limited. Objective We estimated the association between receipt of BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech 2023-2024 formulation) and medically attended COVID-19 outcomes among adults &gt;=18 years of age. Design, Setting, and Participants We performed a test-negative case-control study to compare the odds of BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted vaccine receipt between COVID-19 cases and test-negative controls among adults in the Kaiser Permanente Southern California health system between October 11 and December 10, 2023. Adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated from multivariable logistic regression models that were adjusted for patient demographic and clinical characteristics. Exposure The primary exposure was receipt of BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted vaccine compared to not receiving an XBB1.5-adapted vaccine of any kind, regardless of prior COVID-19 vaccination or SARS-CoV-2 infection history. We also compared receipt of prior (non-XBB1.5-adapted) versions of COVID-19 vaccines to the unvaccinated to estimate remaining protection from older vaccines. Main Outcomes and Measures Cases were those with a positive SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction test, and controls tested negative. Analyses were done separately for COVID-19 hospital admissions, emergency department (ED) and urgent care (UC) encounters, and outpatient visits. Results Among 4232 cases and 19,775 controls with median age of 54 years, adjusted ORs for testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 among those who received BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted vaccine a median of 30 days ago (vs not having received an XBB1.5-adapted vaccine of any kind) were 0.37 (95% CI: 0.20-0.67) for COVID-19 hospitalization, 0.42 (0.34-0.53) for ED/UC visits, and 0.42 (0.27-0.66) for outpatient visits. Compared to the unvaccinated, those who had received only older versions of COVID-19 vaccines did not show significantly reduced risk of COVID-19 outcomes, including hospital admission. Conclusions and Relevance Our findings reaffirm current recommendations for broad age-based use of annually updated COVID-19 vaccines given that (1) XBB1.5-adapted vaccines provided significant additional protection against a range of COVID-19 outcomes and (2) older versions of COVID-19 vaccines offered little, if any, additional protection, including against hospital admission, regardless of the number or type of prior doses received.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.24.23300512v1" target="_blank">BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted Vaccine and COVID-19 Hospital Admissions and Ambulatory Visits in US Adults</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Dengue Virus Serotype 2 Cosmopolitan C Genotype Reemerges with a New Subclade in Southwest Region of Bangladesh</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
In 2023, the Dengue virus (DENV) outbreak infected over 0.3 million cases and 1500 deaths in Bangladesh. Although the the serotype and genotype data were unavailable. Our study conducted serotyping and genomic surveillance in four districts of Southwest Bangladesh between September and October 2023. The surveillance data from 2019 to 2023 extracted from the Directorate General of Health Services in Bangladesh indicated a significant increase of Dengue infections in 2023, particularly during September-November. The two-layered hypothesis examination confirmed that, despite endemic months, 2023 dengue outbreak had a higher morbidity rate compared to previous years (2019-2022) in Southwest of Bangladesh. Serotyping and E gene sequence analysis of 25 randomly selected positive samples reveals that DENV-2 was the sole serotype circulating in this region during the study period. Genomic analysis exposed a new subclade of DENV-2, classified under Cosmopolitan genotype within C clade, distinct from previous years Bangladeshi variants until 2022. This subclade, possibly migrating from India, might be emerged during COVID-19 pandemic years and exhibited higher morbidity rates, thus challenging our existing mitigation strategies. This investigation provides valuable insights for public health interventions and underscores the importance of continuous genomic surveillance in managing Dengue outbreaks. Key words: Dengue serotype 2, Bangladesh, New Subclade, Cosmopolitan C, Phylogenetic tree
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.24.23300504v1" target="_blank">Dengue Virus Serotype 2 Cosmopolitan C Genotype Reemerges with a New Subclade in Southwest Region of Bangladesh</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Learning the fitness dynamics of pathogens from phylogenies</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The dynamics of pathogen genetic diversity, including the emergence of lineages with increased fitness, is a foundational concept of disease ecology with key public health implications. However, the identification of distinct lineages and estimation of associated fitness remain challenging, and are rarely done outside densely sampled systems. Here, we present a scalable framework that summarizes changes in population composition in phylogenies, allowing for the automatic detection of lineages based on shared fitness and evolutionary relationships. We apply our approach to a broad set of viruses and bacteria (SARS-CoV-2, H3N2 influenza, Bordetella pertussis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis) and identify previously undiscovered lineages, as well as specific amino acid changes linked to fitness changes, the findings of which are robust to uneven and limited observation. This widely-applicable framework provides an avenue to monitor evolution in real-time to support public health action and explore fundamental drivers of pathogen fitness.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.23.23300456v1" target="_blank">Learning the fitness dynamics of pathogens from phylogenies</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Associations between COVID-19 and putative markers of neuroinflammation: A diffusion basis spectrum imaging study.</strong> -
<div>
COVID-19 remains a significant international public health concern. Yet, the mechanisms through which symptomatology emerges remain poorly understood. While SARS-CoV-2 infection may induce prolonged inflammation within the central nervous system, the evidence primarily stems from limited small-scale case investigations. To address this gap, our study capitalized on longitudinal UK Biobank neuroimaging data acquired prior to and following COVID-19 testing (N=416 including n=224 COVID-19 cases; Mage=58.6). Putative neuroinflammation was assessed in gray matter structures and white matter tracts using non-invasive Diffusion Basis Spectrum Imaging (DBSI), which estimates inflammation-related cellularity (DBSI-restricted fraction; DBSI-RF) and vasogenic edema (DBSI-hindered fraction; DBSI-HF).We hypothesized that COVID-19 case status would be associated with increases in DBSI markers after accounting for potential confound (age, sex, race, body mass index, smoking frequency, and data acquisition interval) and multiple testing. COVID-19 case status was not significantly associated with DBSI-RF (all |B|&lt;0.28, pFDR &gt;0.05), but with greater DBSI-HF in left pre- and post-central gyri and right middle frontal gyrus (all B&gt;0.3, all pFDR=0.03). Intriguingly, the brain areas exhibiting increased putative vasogenic edema had previously been linked to COVID-19-related functional and structural alterations, whereas brain regions displaying subtle differences in cellularity between COVID-19 cases and controls included regions within or functionally connected to the olfactory network, which has been implicated in COVID-19 psychopathology. Nevertheless, our study might not have captured acute and transitory neuroinflammatory effects linked to SARS-CoV-2 infection, possibly due to symptom resolution before the imaging scan. Future research is warranted to explore the potential time- and symptom-dependent neuroinflammatory relationship with COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.20.549891v3" target="_blank">Associations between COVID-19 and putative markers of neuroinflammation: A diffusion basis spectrum imaging study.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The double bind of communicating about zoonotic origins: Describing exotic animal sources of COVID-19 increases both healthy and discriminatory avoidance behaviors</strong> -
<div>
Many novel diseases are of zoonotic origin, likely including COVID-19. Describing diseases as originating from diverse exotic animals can increase risk perceptions and protective avoidance behaviors, but may also activate stereotypes, increasing discriminatory behaviors and disease stigma. Data from the first several weeks of the US COVID-19 pandemic tested how communications about zoonotic disease origins affect people’s risk perceptions, health behaviors, and stigma. Participants (N = 677) who read news articles describing exotic animals (e.g., snakes) as sources of COVID-19 viewed the virus as riskier and reported stronger intentions to engage in preventative behaviors (e.g., handwashing), relative to those who read about a familiar source (pigs). Reading exotic origin descriptions was associated with stronger intentions to avoid Asian individuals and animal products, both of which contributed to greater stigma for COVID-19. Results have implications for public health communicators who aim to increase risk perceptions without activating stigma or prejudice.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/948qn/" target="_blank">The double bind of communicating about zoonotic origins: Describing exotic animal sources of COVID-19 increases both healthy and discriminatory avoidance behaviors</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Discovery of 2-amide-3-methylester thiophenes that target SARS-CoV-2 Mac1 and repress coronavirus replication, validating Mac1 as an anti-viral target</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus has made it clear that further development of antiviral therapies will be needed to combat additional SARS-CoV-2 variants or novel CoVs. Here, we describe small molecule inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 Mac1, which counters ADP-ribosylation mediated innate immune responses. The compounds inhibiting Mac1 were discovered through high-throughput screening (HTS) using a protein FRET-based competition assay and the best hit compound had an IC50 of 14 M. Three validated HTS hits have the same 2-amide-3-methylester thiophene scaffold and the scaffold was selected for structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies through commercial and synthesized analogs. We studied the compound binding mode in detail using X-ray crystallography and this allowed us to focus on specific features of the compound and design analogs. Compound 27 (MDOLL-0229) had an IC50 of 2.1 M and was generally selective for CoV Mac1 proteins after profiling for activity against a panel of viral and human ADP-ribose binding proteins. The improved potency allowed testing of its effect on virus replication and indeed, 27 inhibited replication of both MHVa prototype CoV, and SARS-CoV-2. Furthermore, sequencing of a drug-resistant MHV identified mutations in Mac1, further demonstrating the specificity of 27. Compound 27 is the first Mac1 targeted small molecule demonstrated to inhibit coronavirus replication in a cell model. This, together with its well-defined binding mode, makes 27 a good candidate for further hit/lead-optimization efforts.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.08.28.555062v2" target="_blank">Discovery of 2-amide-3-methylester thiophenes that target SARS-CoV-2 Mac1 and repress coronavirus replication, validating Mac1 as an anti-viral target</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Effect of Heparin and Tocilizumab in Patients with Severe COVID-19: The HEPMAB Randomized Clinical Trial</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background Clinical presentation of severe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated to an intense inflammatory response and thrombogenesis. The benefits of the association of interleukin-6 receptor blockade (tocilizumab) and therapeutic-dose anticoagulation remains unclear. We aimed to assess whether heparin and tocilizumab could effectively reduce inflammation and thrombogenesis in severe COVID-19 patients. Methods This is an open-label, multicenter, randomized, clinical trial, involving patients with severe COVID-19 infection. Eligible patients were randomly assigned in a 1:1:1:1 ratio to receive either therapeutic or prophylactic anticoagulation with heparin, with or without an intravenous single dose of tocilizumab. The participants in the study were assigned to one of the four distinct arms: 1) therapeutic anticoagulation; 2) prophylactic anticoagulation; 3) therapeutic anticoagulation plus a single intravenous dose of tocilizumab; and 4) prophylactic anticoagulation plus a single intravenous dose of tocilizumab. The primary outcome was clinical improvement at day 30, defined as a composite of hospital discharge and/or a reduction of at least 2 points of the modified ordinal scale of 7 points recommended by the World Health Organization. Results We enrolled 308 patients. Patients randomized to receive therapeutic anticoagulation more frequently had clinical improvement at day 30 when compared to the prophylactic anticoagulation patients [64/75 (85%) versus 51/80 (64%), odds ratio, 3.31; 95% confidence interval, 1.51; 7.26 P=0.003]. Major bleeding was more frequent in the therapeutic anticoagulation group (6.7%) and in the therapeutic anticoagulation plus tocilizumab group (5.0%), compared to the prophylactic anticoagulation group (P=0.02). All-cause mortality at day 30 was significantly lower in therapeutic anticoagulation group (9.3%), when compared to prophylactic anticoagulation group (28.7%), therapeutic anticoagulation plus tocilizumab group (21.5%) and prophylactic anticoagulation plus tocilizumab group (25.7%), P=0.02. Conclusions In this randomized clinical trial involving severe COVID-19 patients, therapeutic anticoagulation resulted in clinical improvement at 30 days. Even if therapeutic anticoagulation increased bleeding, it was associated with a reduced overall mortality. Tocilizumab did not provide additional benefits to heparin in COVID-19 patients.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.22.23300466v1" target="_blank">Effect of Heparin and Tocilizumab in Patients with Severe COVID-19: The HEPMAB Randomized Clinical Trial</a>
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<li><strong>Synthesis and Assembly of mRNA-Bifunctional Lipid Nanoparticle (BLNP) for Selective Delivery of mRNA Vaccines to Dendritic Cells</strong> -
<div>
The fight against COVID-19 pandemic has gained a strong consensus about the importance of developing mRNA vaccines to rapidly respond to an outbreak. Several studies have shown that mRNA vaccines formulated as mRNA-lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for vaccination can elicit a robust and efficient immune response. In this study, we report the preparation of mRNA-bifunctional lipid nanoparticles (mRNA-BLNPs) as vaccines for targeted delivery to dendritic cells (DCs) to improve safety and enhance immune response. Using this DC-targeted delivery system, mice immunized with SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA-BLNP vaccine elicited a stronger immune response with higher titer of neutralizing IgG antibody response than the LNP-formulated vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. In addition, the spike mRNA-BLNP vaccine with deletion of glycosites in the stem elicited a broadly protective immune response against SARS-CoV-2 and variants. These findings suggest the importance and potential of developing DC-targeted mRNA vaccines to elicit broadly protective immune responses against human viruses.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.26.572282v1" target="_blank">Synthesis and Assembly of mRNA-Bifunctional Lipid Nanoparticle (BLNP) for Selective Delivery of mRNA Vaccines to Dendritic Cells</a>
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<li><strong>Inferring the sensitivity of wastewater metagenomic sequencing for pathogen early detection</strong> -
<div>
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Detecting novel pathogens at an early stage requires robust early warning that is both sensitive and pathogen-agnostic. Wastewater metagenomic sequencing (W-MGS) could meet these goals, but its sensitivity and financial feasibility depend on the relative abundance of novel pathogen sequences in W-MGS data. Here we collate W-MGS data from a diverse range of studies to characterize the relative abundance of known viruses in wastewater. We then develop a Bayesian statistical model to integrate these data with epidemiological estimates for 13 human-infecting viruses, and use it to estimate the expected relative abundance of different viral pathogens for a given prevalence or incidence in the community. Our results reveal pronounced variation between studies, with estimates differing by one to three orders of magnitude for the same pathogen: for example, the expected relative abundance of SARS-CoV-2 at 1% weekly incidence varied between 10^-7 and 10^-10. Integrating these estimates with a simple cost model highlights similarly wide inter-study and inter-pathogen variation in the cost of W-MGS-based early detection, with a mean yearly cost estimate of roughly $19,000 for a Norovirus-like pathogen and $2.9 million for a SARS-CoV-2-like pathogen at 1% incidence. The model and parameter estimates presented here represent an important resource for future investigation into the performance of wastewater MGS, and can be extended to incorporate new wastewater datasets as they become available.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.22.23300450v1" target="_blank">Inferring the sensitivity of wastewater metagenomic sequencing for pathogen early detection</a>
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</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>Could Wearing Face Mask Have Affected Demodex Parasite</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Pandemic, COVID-19; Demodex Infestation <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Diagnostic Test: standard superficial skin biopsy (SSSB) <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Nurhan Döner Aktaş <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>TDCS Stimulation After Covid-19 Infection</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Procedure: Transcranial Direct Stimulation <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Istanbul Medipol University Hospital; Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and Immunogenicity of a Booster Vaccination With an Adapted Vaccine</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV2 Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: PHH-1V81; Biological: Comirnaty Omicron XBB1.5 <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Hipra Scientific, S.L.U <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>A Study to Evaluate the Safety, Tolerability, and Immunogenicity of a Combined Modified RNA Vaccine Candidate Against COVID-19 and Influenza.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Influenza; COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Influenza and COVID-19 Combination A; Biological: Licensed influenza vaccine; Biological: COVID-19 Vaccine; Biological: Influenza and COVID-19 Combination B; Biological: Placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: BioNTech SE; 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>Transcranial Pulse Stimulation (TPS) in Post-COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-COVID-19 Syndrome; Fatigue <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: Transcranial pulse stimulation Verum; Device: Transcranial pulse stimulation Sham <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Medical University of Vienna; Campus Bio-Medico 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>Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of “Formosa 1-Breath Free (NRICM101)” in Subjects With the Symptoms of COVID-19 or Influenza-like Disease</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Influenza Viral Infections; COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Formosa 1-Breath Free (NRICM101); Drug: Placebo control drug <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: China Medical University Hospital; Tian-I Pharmaceutical,. Co. Ltd.; China Medical University, China; Qualitix Clinical Research Co., Ltd. <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Phase 3 Clinical Study to Evaluate the Efficacy, Safety and Immunogenicity of Booster Vaccination With Recombinant COVID-19 (XBB) Trimer Protein Vaccine (Sf9 Cell)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Recombinant COVID-19 (XBB) Trimer Protein Vaccine (Sf9 Cell); Biological: Recombinant COVID-19 Variant Vaccine (Sf9 Cell); Biological: Placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: WestVac Biopharma Co., Ltd.; WestVac Biopharma (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong><em>In silico</em> study of inhibition activity of boceprevir drug against 2019-nCoV main protease</strong> - Boceprevir drug is a ketoamide serine protease inhibitor with a linear peptidomimetic structure that exhibits inhibition activity against 2019-nCoV main protease. This paper reports electronic properties of boceprevir and its molecular docking as well as molecular dynamics simulation analysis with protein receptor. For this, the equilibrium structure of boceprevir has been obtained by DFT at B3LYP and ωB97XD levels with 6-311+G(d,p) basis set in gas and water mediums. HOMO-LUMO and absorption…</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>Novel sofosbuvir derivatives against SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase: an in silico perspective</strong> - The human coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, had a negative impact on both the economy and human health, and the emerging resistant variants are an ongoing threat. One essential protein to target to prevent virus replication is the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). Sofosbuvir, a uridine nucleotide analog that potently inhibits viral polymerase, has been found to help treat SARS-CoV-2 patients. This work combines molecular docking and dynamics simulation (MDS) to test 14 sofosbuvir-based…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Differential Roles of Interleukin-6 in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 Infection and Cardiometabolic Diseases</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection can lead to a cytokine storm, unleashed in part by pyroptosis of virus-infected macrophages and monocytes. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) has emerged as a key participant in this ominous complication of COVID-19. IL-6 antagonists have improved outcomes in patients with COVID-19 in some, but not all, studies. IL-6 signaling involves at least 3 distinct pathways, including classic-signaling, trans-signaling, and trans-presentation…</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>Excessive daytime sleepiness is associated with impaired antibody response to influenza vaccination in older male adults</strong> - CONCLUSION: Our results provide an additional and easily measured variable explaining poor vaccine effectiveness in older adults. Our results support that gaining sufficient sleep is a simple non-vaccine interventional approach to improve influenza immune responses in older adults. Our findings extend the literature on the negative influence of excessive daytime sleepiness on immune responses to influenza vaccination in older male adults.</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>Elevated ferritin, mediated by IL-18 is associated with systemic inflammation and mortality in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Ferritin is a clinically useful biomarker in ARDS and is associated with worse patient outcomes. These results provide support for prospective interventional trials of immunomodulatory agents targeting IL-18 in this hyperferritinaemic subgroup of patients with ARDS.</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>Sutimlimab suppresses SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-induced hemolytic crisis in a patient with cold agglutinin disease</strong> - Cold agglutinin disease (CAD) is a rare form of acquired autoimmune hemolytic anemia driven mainly by antibodies that activate the classical complement pathway. Several patients with CAD experience its development or exacerbation of hemolysis after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection or after receiving the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine. Therefore, these patients cannot receive an additional SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination and have a higher risk of severe SARS-CoV-2…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effects of host proteins interacting with non-structural protein nsp9 of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus on viral replication</strong> - Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a highly pathogenic virus that can cause acute intestinal infectious diseases in both piglets and fattening pigs. The virus encodes at least 16 non-structural proteins, including nsp9, which has been shown to bind to single-stranded RNA. However, its function and mechanism remain unclear. In this study, we aimed to identify potential host proteins that interact with PEDV nsp9 using immunoprecipitation combined with mass spectrometry. The interactions…</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 in Dental Practice Is Prevented by Eugenol Responsible for the Ambient Odor Specific to Dental Offices: Possibility and Speculation</strong> - Dental professionals routinely work in proximity to patients even when either or both of them have suspected or confirmed COVID-19. The oral cavity also serves as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 because the virus is present in and replicates in oral secretions (saliva and gingival crevicular fluid), oral tissues (salivary gland and periodontal tissue), and oral microenvironments (gingival sulcus and periodontal pocket). Despite a high risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, the prevalence of COVID-19 in…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of Porcine Deltacoronavirus Entry and Replication by Cepharanthine</strong> - Porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) is an emerging swine enteropathogenic coronavirus (CoV) that mainly causes acute diarrhea/vomiting, dehydration, and mortality in piglets, possessing economic losses and public health concerns. However, there are currently no proven effective antiviral agents against PDCoV. Cepharanthine (CEP) is a naturally occurring alkaloid used as a traditional remedy for radiation-induced symptoms, but its underlying mechanism of CEP against PDCoV has remained elusive. 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>Does denosumab exert a protective effect against COVID-19? Results of a large cohort study</strong> - CONCLUSION: Our study confirms that denosumab may be safely continued in COVID-19 patients. RANK/RANKL inhibition seems associated with a reduced incidence of symptomatic COVID-19, particularly among the elderly.</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>Intranasal murine pneumonia virus-vectored SARS-CoV-2 vaccine induces mucosal and serum antibodies in macaques</strong> - Next-generation SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are needed that induce systemic and mucosal immunity. Murine pneumonia virus (MPV), a murine homolog of respiratory syncytial virus, is attenuated by host-range restriction in nonhuman primates and has a tropism for the respiratory tract. We generated MPV vectors expressing the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (MPV/S) or its prefusion-stabilized form (MPV/S-2P). Both vectors replicated similarly in cell culture and stably expressed S. However, only S-2P was…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacies of S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) and GSNO reductase inhibitor in SARS-CoV-2 spike protein induced acute lung disease in mice</strong> - The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which initially surfaced in late 2019, often triggers severe pulmonary complications, encompassing various disease mechanisms such as intense lung inflammation, vascular dysfunction, and pulmonary embolism. Currently, however, there’s no drug addressing all these mechanisms simultaneously. This study explored the multi-targeting potential of S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) and N6022, an inhibitor of GSNO reductase (GSNOR) on markers…</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>Comparative transcriptome analysis of SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and HCoV-229E identifying potential IFN/ISGs targets for inhibiting virus replication</strong> - INTRODUCTION: Since its outbreak in December 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has spread rapidly across the world, posing significant threats and challenges to global public health. SARS-CoV-2, together with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, is a highly pathogenic coronavirus that contributes to fatal pneumonia. Understanding the similarities and differences at the transcriptome level between SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, as well as MERS-CoV is critical for developing effective strategies against these viruses.</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>Venomous gland transcriptome and venom proteomic analysis of the scorpion Androctonus amoreuxi reveal new peptides with anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity</strong> - The recent COVID-19 pandemic shows the critical need for novel broad spectrum antiviral agents. Scorpion venoms are known to contain highly bioactive peptides, several of which have demonstrated strong antiviral activity against a range of viruses. We have generated the first annotated reference transcriptome for the Androctonus amoreuxi venom gland and used high performance liquid chromatography, transcriptome mining, circular dichroism and mass spectrometric analysis to purify and characterize…</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>Targeting the tissue factor coagulation initiation complex prevents antiphospholipid antibody development</strong> - Antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) in primary or secondary antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) are a major cause for acquired thrombophilia, but specific interventions preventing autoimmune aPL development are an unmet clinical need. While autoimmune aPL cross-react with various coagulation regulatory proteins, lipid-reactive and COVID-19 patient-derived aPL recognize the endo-lysosomal phospholipid lysobisphosphatidic acid (LBPA) presented by the cell surface expressed endothelial protein C receptor…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Border Crisis</strong> - Dexter Filkins reports on the chaotic situation at the southern border. Plus, a poet whose writing on the DeafBlind experience is full of humor and life. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/the-crisis-at-the-border">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why the Noise of L.A. Helicopters Never Stops</strong> - The L.A.P.D. says it has the largest local airborne law-enforcement unit in the world. A recent audit found little evidence that its choppers deter crime. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-los-angeles/why-the-noise-of-la-helicopters-never-stops">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Colorado’s Top Court Kicked Trump Off the Ballot. Will the Supreme Court Agree?</strong> - A legal scholar analyzes how the nine Justices are likely to view the blockbuster decision. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/colorados-top-court-kicked-trump-off-the-ballot-will-the-supreme-court-agree">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>When Americans Are the Threat at the Border</strong> - Many people charged with trafficking in Tucson are U.S. citizens, suffering from the same problems of poverty and addiction that plague the rest of the country. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/when-americans-are-the-threat-at-the-border">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Netanyahu’s Right-Wing Critics See Israel’s Future</strong> - Danny Danon, the former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, believes there’s no path forward for a Palestinian state. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-netanyahus-right-wing-critics-see-israels-future">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>24 things we think will happen in 2024</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustrated “2024” is seen through a binocular field of view." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fOg5Cc6hEtITOLdGitJG72wu2dQ=/240x0:1680x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73013858/2024_2_PaigeVickers_Vox.0.png"/>
<figcaption>
Paige Vickers/Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
From Trump to Tesla, how 2024 will shake out, according to the Future Perfect team.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VAnzlG">
It was either the Nobel Prize-winning physicist <a href="https://blogs.cranfield.ac.uk/cbp/forecasting-prediction-is-very-difficult-especially-if-its-about-the-future/#:~:text=Niels%20Bohr%2C%20the%20Nobel%20laureate,model%20out%2Dof%2Dsample.">Niels Bohr</a> or Hall of Fame New York Yankees catcher <a href="https://markarmstrongillustration.com/2022/10/19/yogi-berra-beautiful-equations-and-predicting-the-future/">Yogi Berra</a> (or, quite possibly, <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/20/no-predict/">neither of them</a>) who coined the phrase: “Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fd2chU">
Nonetheless, for the fifth year in a row, the staff of <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect">Future Perfect</a> will venture its best estimations of what major news events will or won’t take place in 2024. Will <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> return to the White House? Will OpenAI release ChatGPT-5? Will antibiotic sales for farmed animals increase? Will inflation continue to moderate? Will <em>Oppenheimer </em>win Best Picture? (It would have Bohr’s vote, if he were a member of the Academy and if he were alive.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PAsMpR">
But we don’t just make blind predictions. In keeping with the <a href="https://www.xenonstack.com/insights/probability-forecasting-benefits#:~:text=Probability%20of%20Accurate%20Result,the%20risk%20of%20demand%20shortage).">best practices of forecasters</a>, we attach probabilities to each of our predictions. Pay attention to the probabilities! 80 percent, or even 90 percent, does not mean we are certain an event will definitely happen. (If we were, we would say 100 percent.) Rather, it means that if we made five predictions or 10 predictions, we’d expect four or nine of them to come true, respectively.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0sF7Ud">
And as we have every year, we’ll be keeping track of how we do in 2024 and letting you know our performance. (You can check out <a href="https://www.vox.com/e/23770574">how we did in 2023 here</a>.) —<em>Bryan Walsh </em>
</p>
<h2 id="NO3O80">
The United States
</h2>
<h3 id="foTwVQ">
Donald Trump will return to the White House (55 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="82ixu9">
Predicting a presidential race a year out is tough. As <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo13948250.html">political scientists Robert Erikson and Christopher Wlezien</a> have noted, “polls from the beginning of the election year have virtually no predictive power” when it comes to calling presidential races. People still respond to the state of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy">economy</a> the year the election is held and the new facts they learn about the candidates as campaigns progress.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="emqEKq">
A better approach than using polling is to reference some of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/6/14/11854512/trump-election-models-political-science">forecasting models</a> political scientists have developed for predicting elections in advance. But many of these rely on data that’s only available mid-year, like <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo13948250.html">presidential approval ratings</a> or <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/abs/political-economy-model-a-blue-wave-forecast-for-2020/5D1FDCC27BA1FB66A915A6F2F5419BCE">economic growth in the first half of the year</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HYfZw5">
The one exception is a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/abs/longrange-statelevel-forecast-of-the-2020-presidential-election/F5141387BE6F18F98D9013EF204A6B3B">model from political scientist Jay DeSart</a>, which does state-by-state predictions of outcomes based on prior voting habits of the state and the national polling average in October of the year prior to the election. I <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZD3Mb0ct2wP6RmS89mQl_hvx8Qpmau_67KkxCdCbG70/edit?usp=sharing">plugged October 2023’s head-to-head Biden/Trump polls into the model</a> and found that it predicts a healthy Trump victory (297 electoral votes to 241), with the median forecast seeing Biden lose Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin but hang on to Michigan.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Trump stands at a podium and speaks energetically into a microphone, pointing a finger at the crowd. Behind him, a decorated Christmas tree is topped with a red baseball cap." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1nXgPD7r_rFoaYn00vUX4DL1jJI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179351/1868624055.jpg"/> <cite>Scott Olson/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event on December 19, 2023, in Waterloo, Iowa.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kMM2GE">
But it’s a narrow advantage. The polls I relied on showed an average Trump lead of 0.2 points. A swing of less than 2 points in the polls would lead to a prediction of a Biden victory. So while I think the <a href="https://www.vox.com/23815490/joe-biden-economy-bidenomics-jobs-inflation-2024-election">public’s lackluster mood toward the economy</a> and Biden’s relative unpopularity put him at a disadvantage going into 2024, it’ll be a nail-biter for sure.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0qkY5H">
This, of course, assumes Trump will be on the ballot, and the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/23880607/trump-14th-amendment-lawsuits-federalist-society">disqualifying him</a> puts that in some doubt. But I don’t think <em>much</em> doubt; as <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/23880607/trump-14th-amendment-lawsuits-federalist-society">Andrew Prokop explained for Vox</a>, the likely outcome here is that the Supreme Court rules on whether Trump’s participation in the January 6, 2021, insurrection disqualifies him from the ballot, and I cannot envision the Court ruling against Trump, both because of its partisan leanings and out of fear of Trump supporter backlash delegitimizing the Court. <em>—Dylan Matthew</em>s
</p>
<h3 id="3M3m4E">
Republicans will recapture the Senate (85 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZKYLRg">
The <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/senate-race-ratings">2024 Senate map</a> is absolutely brutal for Democrats. They are defending 23 seats to only 11 held by Republicans, and only two of the latter (in Florida and Texas) are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/us/politics/manchin-democrats-senate-map.html">remotely competitive</a>. Democrats don’t stand much of a chance of regaining the seats they lost six years ago in deep-red Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota, and challenging Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) will be expensive and difficult. Florida is <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/23848897/florida-red-trump-desantis-republican-2024-election">trending Republican</a>, and Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office in three decades.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B3QE7C">
Democrats, by contrast, are without a doubt losing a seat (the one <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23464862/senate-elections-2024-map-joe-manchin">Joe Manchin is vacating</a> in West Virginia), and the <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/senate-race-ratings">Cook Political Report</a> lists three others as tossups: the reelection bids of Jon Tester in Montana and Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/3/16/23641268/kyrsten-sinema-arizona-senate-race">three-way race</a> between independent Krysten Sinema, Democrat Ruben Gallego, and an as yet undetermined Republican in Arizona. Tester and Brown are both in states that Trump won in 2020 by wide margins, and both won very narrowly six years ago.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3xVYZY">
Democrats have a 51-49 majority right now, and the loss of West Virginia will narrow that to 50-50. So for Republicans to regain control, they either need to win the presidency (letting Donald Trump’s vice president break the 50-50 tie) or beat either Tester, Brown, or Gallego/Sinema. That’s before considering the several seats where Democrats are narrowly favored (in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Michigan) but could still be vulnerable.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cTzywO">
Simply put: There are many, many ways for Republicans to retake the Senate. Everything has to go right simultaneously for Democrats to keep it. That makes for high odds of Republican capture. <em>—DM</em>
</p>
<h3 id="rXRQry">
Democrats will recapture the House (55 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WOomrx">
Republicans currently hold a margin in the House nearly as razor-thin as the Democrats’ lead in the Senate. After George Santos’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/11/28/23979815/george-santos-house-expulsion-vote-ethics-committee">expulsion</a> in December, Republicans held 221 seats, just three above the bare minimum needed for a majority. If they lose five seats in November (or four and also lose Santos’s seat in the special election on February 13), they’re toast.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VKpUOr">
There are a few reasons to think Republicans will do slightly worse than they did in 2022, just enough to lose the House. Among the most important is a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/12/new-york-redistricting-house-00131434">recent court ruling in New York ordering a redistricting</a> of the state’s House seats, which most observers think will favor Democrats. That offsets an <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/25/north-carolina-congressional-map-gop-gerrymander-00123574">effort in North Carolina</a> to gerrymander in favor of Republicans.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8Ww02J">
More importantly, House and presidential voting are becoming <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/19/2020-saw-least-split-ticket-house-voting-decades/">increasingly correlated</a>, and that’s good news for Democrats. The 2022 midterms saw <a href="https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/the-new-crossover-members-of-the-house/">18 Republicans elected from Biden-won districts</a>, and only five Democrats elected in Trump-won districts. Redistricting scrambles those numbers somewhat (and Santos, one of the 18, is gone), but that suggests that Democrats have more obvious pickup opportunities than Republicans do in 2024.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fVQyqQ">
There’s still an easy-to-imagine world where Republicans hold the House, especially if Trump wins the presidential race and if he pulls out a popular vote victory this time. But Democrats have a modest leg up at this point.<em> —DM</em>
</p>
<h3 id="19uTrb">
Inflation will come in under 3 points (65 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TyfWM4">
In <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22824620/predicting-midterms-covid-roe-wade-oscars-2022">2022</a>, I predicted that inflation (measured by <a href="https://www.bea.gov/help/faq/518">the Fed’s preferred metric</a>) would stay below 3 percent; I was <a href="https://www.vox.com/22996474/inflation-federal-reserve-nairu-ngdp-powell">very wrong</a>, as prices continued to rise at rates we hadn’t seen in decades. In <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/1/2/23494204/biden-trump-putin-supreme-court-2023-predictions">2023</a>, I predicted inflation would stay above 3 percent; I was right, but inflation was falling rapidly by the end of the year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1znhNQ">
It looks like 2024 will actually enjoy the kind of low inflation I projected two years ago. Prices will probably rise moderately, and interest rates will remain pretty high, but the big spikes we saw a while back won’t return. The <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/fomcprojtabl20231213.pdf">Federal Reserve Board’s range of estimates</a> for the year is between 2.3 and 3 percent, with the median at 2.4 percent. The <a href="https://www.philadelphiafed.org/surveys-and-data/real-time-data-research/spf-q4-2023">Survey of Professional Forecasters</a>, which pulls together estimates from economists at banks and other private-sector entities, finds that on average they put 23.2 percent probability on prices rising by more than 3 percent between the fourth quarter of 2023 and that of 2024.
</p>
<aside id="bUBs0X">
<div>
</div>
</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GQ9mHz">
I’m a little less confident than them, partly because the 2022 experience made me reduce my overall confidence in our collective ability to forecast price dynamics this far in advance. More to the point, the specific forces that drove prices high in 2022, like a <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23048906/chip-shortage-manufacturing-america-biden">semiconductor shortage</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/22757240/global-supply-chain-management-shortage-covid">supply chain disruptions</a> from Covid and the Ukraine war, do not seem likely to repeat next year. Then again, I didn’t see the Ukraine war coming, and it’s possible another curveball like that (maybe a Chinese incursion into Taiwan?) could send prices soaring.<em> —DM</em>
</p>
<h3 id="nU57tU">
2023 US car crash deaths will again exceed 40,000 (60 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EU6Kha">
Every year since the Covid-19 pandemic, the US has faced a dismal surge in car crash deaths. In 2021, for the first time since 2007, car fatalities surpassed 40,000, likely due to how Covid <a href="https://www.vox.com/22675358/us-car-deaths-year-traffic-covid-pandemic">permanently altered</a> America’s driving routines, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/8/25/23844717/america-safe-air-travel-car-safety-accidents">among other factors</a>. The most recent full year figures available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), from 2022, show that close to 43,000 Americans were killed by cars that year, and an <a href="https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813530">early estimate</a> for the first nine months of 2023 (January through September) shows more than 30,000 deaths over that period. I’d be surprised if 2023 traffic patterns differed enough from 2022 to bring us back to the pre-pandemic baseline (and the preliminary data is consistent with that hunch), so I predict that when NHTSA releases total 2023 car death figures, they’ll easily remain above 40,000. —<em>Marina Bolotnikova</em>
</p>
<h2 id="JDlz62">
The world
</h2>
<h3 id="qZYKS0">
Netanyahu will be unseated as Israeli prime minister (75 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2ZebCc">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/7/23907683/israel-hamas-war-news-updates-october-2023">Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel</a> was an unprecedented calamity for the country, and many analysts think it will finally be the end of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin<strong> </strong>Netanyahu. Though he’s tried to <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/israel-hostages-palestine-hamas-benjamin-netanyahu-blames-security-agencies/">place the blame</a> elsewhere for the failure to protect Israelis, the people aren’t buying it: <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/election-poll-shows-gantz-at-43-seats-netanyahus-likud-at-18-smotrich-out/">Polls</a> keep showing that <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-768110">voters want him out</a> — <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip-2023-11-04/card/most-israelis-want-netanyahu-to-go-poll-shows-IQsE1tgo2akBSA2syvoX">by a wide margin</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ryMCDi">
In fact, the outrage being directed against him <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-16/netanyahu-faces-protests-as-more-hostage-death-details-emerge">is so intense</a> that some will find it weird that I’m only giving it 75 percent odds that he’ll be unseated in 2024. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my years living in and <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/author/sigal-samuel">reporting</a> <a href="https://forward.com/authors/sigal-samuel/">on</a> Israel, it’s that you should never underestimate Bibi’s canny campaigning and his ability to rise from the political ashes. We’ve <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-12/ty-article/.premium/israel-is-at-war-and-netanyahu-just-launched-his-re-election-campaign/0000018c-5f3f-de43-affd-ff3ff7c60000">seen it happen</a> before. It is conceivable that he manages to cling to power for yet another term. Still, I think if ever there was a time when he could be pushed out, it’s now. —<em>Sigal Samuel</em>
</p>
<h3 id="VQLjom">
The world will be hotter in 2024 than it was in 2023 (80 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="op0Yz4">
Future Perfect has <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22824620/predicting-midterms-covid-roe-wade-oscars-2022">repeatedly</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22167877/predicting-biden-coronavirus-transition-vaccines-2021">predicted</a> that the coming year will be warmer than the previous one, giving it 80 percent odds. As my colleague Kelsey Piper has <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22824620/predicting-midterms-covid-roe-wade-oscars-2022">noted</a>, “This is based on looking at the last 25 years of atmospheric temperature data: On average, in four out of five years, this prediction would be right.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vP0uXX">
With the continued burning of fossil fuels that cause climate change, it should come as no surprise that <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2023-hottest-year-ever-recorded-scientists-temperatures/">2023 was the hottest year ever recorded</a>. And 2024 will probably be even hotter, in part <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23992678/el-nino-south-america-peru-bolivia-flood-drought-dengue-cop28-climate">because of El Niño</a>, the warm phase of the Pacific Ocean’s temperature pattern. In fact, <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2407266-world-predicted-to-break-1-5c-warming-limit-for-first-time-in-2024/">experts predict</a> that 2024 may be the first year that the average global surface temperature tops 1.5 degrees Celsius above what it was in the pre-industrial period. <em>—SS </em>
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Narendra Modi, wearing frameless eyeglasses and a white beard, pictured mid-speech, lifting an arm in the air." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/stuseHI8miHJlMbH1Tl8as5R_NE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179484/1819262590.jpg"/> <cite>Prakash Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrates local election results at Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h3 id="qzidql">
Narendra Modi will remain as prime minister of India after the country’s 2024 elections (85 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vxlN2Q">
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could reasonably claim to be the most popular democratically elected leader in the world. According to Morning Consult’s weekly approval ratings of more than 20 democratic leaders, Modi’s <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/12/07/decoding-india-s-2024-election-contest-pub-91178">net approval was a sky-high +60</a> among Indian voters as of late November, twice as high as the next most popular leader. And while other politicians around the world have seen their fortunes ebb and flow, Modi’s popularity has barely changed since the polls first became available in August 2019. That personal popularity has translated to electoral wins, most recently in state elections in December, where Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) achieved a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/world/asia/india-state-elections-modi.html">sweeping victory</a> in three heavily populated northern states.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v7vhM8">
Beginning in April, hundreds of millions of Indian voters will go to the polls to pick their next government in the world’s largest election. Could Modi, who has been in power since 2014, lose? It’s possible — more than 20 opposition parties, including the BJP’s main opponent the Congress Party, formed the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance in July in an effort to present a unified opposition. But this election is easier to call than just about any other in 2024. I would be shocked if Modi doesn’t stay in power — and tighten his grip on it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ipWiLV">
In fact, the real question isn’t so much who will win the 2024 Indian elections, but whether we’ll see free and fair ones in the future. As my colleague Zack Beauchamp <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/6/21/23683842/india-democracy-narendra-modi-us-biden-china">wrote in June</a>, Modi has “systematically taken a hammer to the core institutions of Indian democracy.” From <a href="https://theprint.in/opinion/reasons-ranjan-gogoi-accepting-rajya-sabha-seat/382590/">manipulating judges</a> to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-is-india-falling-in-the-world-press-freedom-index/a-61697180">controlling the press</a> to <a href="https://vaishnavmilan.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/vaishnav-referee-institutions-submission-v2.pdf">undermining the machinery of elections</a>, Modi is pushing the boundaries on how authoritarian a leader can become while still being “democratically elected.” Add in the allegations that Indian intelligence <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/9/20/23880514/canada-india-sikh-killing-trudeau-hardeep-singh-nijjar">ordered the assassination of a Canadian citizen</a> in Canada, and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/15/india-us-partnership-biden-modi-quad-assassination-plot-pannun/">tried to do the same in the US</a>, and 2024 is set to be a watershed year for India and its democracy — whatever the outcome of the spring’s election. —<em>BW</em>
</p>
<h3 id="PRPjAQ">
Claudia Sheinbaum will become Mexico’s first female president (90 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DLQo7T">
If the US election in 2024 will be close, our neighbor to the south will probably see a resounding landslide. <a href="https://www.as-coa.org/articles/poll-tracker-contenders-mexicos-2024-presidential-vote">Current polling</a> suggests the overwhelming favorite is Claudia Sheinbaum, an engineering professor and climate researcher who until recently served as mayor of Mexico City. She is the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexican-president-backs-ruling-party-candidate-after-disputed-selection-process-2023-09-07/#:~:text=MEXICO%20CITY%2C%20Sept%207%20(Reuters,threatened%20to%20quit%20the%20party.">nominee of the left-wing Morena party</a> and a longtime ally of the party’s founder and leading figure, incumbent President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2qstdZ">
AMLO, as he is known by the Mexican public, remains <a href="https://www.as-coa.org/articles/approval-tracker-mexicos-president-amlo">wildly popular</a>, which is especially notable at a time when Covid-19 and inflation have <a href="https://www.slowboring.com/p/its-not-just-biden">cratered the popularity of many incumbent governments</a>. Being his preferred successor gives Sheinbaum an incredible edge. She’s not the intensely charismatic firebrand that her mentor is, but the fact that she remains roughly 20 points ahead of her nearest rival when that rival has the support of all three major opposition parties — parties that have historically fought each other tooth and nail but united to take down AMLO and Morena — makes me think she has this in the bag. —<em>DM</em>
</p>
<h3 id="URH9Bu">
Ukraine will not break the “land bridge” between Donbas and Crimea (70 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DZqPGu">
As of this writing, Russia controls the red portions of <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/36a7f6a6f5a9448496de641cf64bd375">Ukraine’s territory:</a>
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A map of Ukraine and surrounding countries Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, outlining portions of Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia in red. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sud1HdyXa49bt7LhNypRgJgg3gY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179491/Screen_Shot_2023_12_21_at_1.52.39_PM.png"/> <cite>Esri/USGS</cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EiyWrr">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/9/3/18088560/ukraine-everything-you-need-to-know">In 2014</a>, Russia seized Crimea and used separatist militias to establish two puppet regimes in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. When it began a full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022, it was able to seize the land between these two areas, establishing a “land bridge” that allowed it to run supplies between its two major footholds in Ukraine. Russia is also linked to Crimea by the Kerch Bridge and can use that to supply troops in Crimea as well, but Ukraine understandably <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2022/10/8/23394176/crimea-bridge-explosion-putin-ukraine-russia">keeps blowing</a> that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/15/europe/ukraine-crimea-bridge-drone-strike-video-intl/index.html">bridge up</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2XE6Ee">
<a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-crimean-land-bridge-russia-troops-push/32554441.html">Breaking the “land bridge,</a>” then, has become a major goal of the Ukrainian military. If they can lead an offensive through the middle of Russian-held territory, they can split the Russian zone in two, and perhaps even enable a <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/04/why-blockading-rather-than-retaking-crimea-might-be.html">blockade of Crimea</a> that could force the peninsula to yield. That would then free up resources to regain control of Russian-occupied land to the east.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4EaX3q">
It’s a good goal, but to date, Ukraine has struggled to achieve it. The much anticipated 2023 offensive by Ukrainian forces was <a href="https://www.vox.com/23819064/ukraine-war-counteroffensive-russia-mines-tanks">mostly a bust</a>, failing to change the frontlines appreciably. The proliferation of drones providing reconnaissance for both sides has made it <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/06/ukraine-russia-war-drones-stalemate-frontline-counteroffensive-strategy/">more challenging to launch surprise attacks</a>, effectively providing an advantage to the defending side. That’s good for retaining Ukrainian control over the majority of its territory, but bad for retaking land Russia has claimed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XFXlUN">
We’re not at a point of total battlefield surveillance, though, and more modest changes in the frontlines are possible. It’s also possible that one or the other side develops effective enough signal-jamming approaches that they can deny their enemy the ability to use drones, which could enable rapid movement. But I think the existing dynamics of the war make a severing of the land bridge unlikely in the next year. <em>—DM</em>
</p>
<h2 id="gWMaYK">
Science and technology
</h2>
<h3 id="vBa2WY">
The FDA will approve MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD (85 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qdUHT7">
After publishing some promising <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/health/mdma-ptsd-psychedelics.html">study results</a>, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) recently <a href="https://mapsbcorp.com/news/mdma-for-ptsd-fda-submission/">filed for FDA approval</a> of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. Now the two questions are: Will the FDA grant its approval, and if so, will it do so by the end of 2024?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qv5fhH">
For my prediction to come true, we need a “yes” to both. I am pretty confident MDMA will get the green light because in addition to the strong study results (and MAPS and the FDA agreed in advance on the study design), there is now robust public support for trying innovative methods to help people with mental health issues. A 2022 <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/07/26/mdma-psilocybin-fda-ptsd/">letter</a> from the Health and Human Services Department disclosed that President Biden’s administration anticipates regulators will approve MDMA for PTSD and psilocybin for depression within the next two years.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UiPP2Z">
But the FDA is, um, not exactly known for speed. If it views the MAPS filing as complete, it will aim to render a decision in <a href="https://psychedelicalpha.com/news/breaking-maps-pbc-files-new-drug-application-for-mdma-assisted-therapy-for-ptsd">six to 10 months</a>. But because this is a psychedelic drug we’re talking about, we may see extra risk evaluations, which could drag out the timeline. So although I think approval is likely in late 2024, I won’t give this prediction more than 85 percent odds. <em>—SS</em>
</p>
<h3 id="a55gH4">
OpenAI will release ChatGPT-5 by the end of November 2024 (75 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QOpoXQ">
A company that fires its CEO, promotes an interim CEO, then hires a new CEO, then experiences a total company rebellion, then brings back the original CEO, all within a week, is a company that is inherently hard to predict. And that’s especially true given that divisions over <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/4/28/23702644/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-technology">AI</a> safety and the rate at which OpenAI was commercializing its products <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/sam-altmans-firing-openai-reflects-schism-over-future-ai-development-2023-11-20/">played at least some role</a> in that internal division. It might make sense for OpenAI to take a beat and get its stuff together before unleashing the next full version of ChatGPT upon the world.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hIOT9R">
But the former and future OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is nothing if not ambitious, and we know the company <a href="https://singularityhub.com/2023/11/15/openai-ceo-sam-altman-says-his-company-is-now-building-gpt-5/">has been working</a> on ChatGPT-5. (For the purposes of this prediction, OpenAI will need to release a product called “ChatGPT-5” — no “ChatGPT-4.5 Turbo” or whatever.) If anything, 75 percent might be a bit low. The good people at Metaculus <a href="https://www.metaculus.com/questions/15462/gpt-5-announcement/">currently have</a> September 2024 as their median forecast for when ChatGPT-5 will be released.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DZ09p3">
My hesitancy largely stems from the possibility that in the aftermath of the management implosion, OpenAI might take the opportunity to be more deliberate with its commercial rollouts. That said, given the increasing competition in the <a href="https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-gemini-ai/">large language model</a> arena — and the need to generate revenue to cover the crippling cost of <a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/chatgpts-electricity-consumption-7873483feac4">all that computing</a> — OpenAI will probably continue its evolution into an actual tech company and just keep shipping. —<em>BW</em>
</p>
<h3 id="Hsgca1">
Starship will complete a launch without either stage exploding (65 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PuMmG6">
Last year, I predicted that Starship, SpaceX’s newest and biggest rocket system, would reach orbit. It did not, but its two test flights in 2023 nonetheless registered some progress, with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/science/spacex-starship-launch.html">the second</a> passing through the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line">Kármán line</a> and becoming the most powerful vehicle ever to reach outer space.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jqbfcf">
The <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/1/2/23494204/biden-trump-putin-supreme-court-2023-predictions">orbit prediction</a> was flawed not just because it was wrong, but because it was an ill-chosen threshold on my part. Even if the test flights SpaceX conducted had totally succeeded by the company’s own standards, the craft would not have entered orbit or made it a full rotation around the Earth.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DyHH4j">
A more meaningful standard would be a test where neither the first nor second stage of the rocket is lost due to an explosion or “unscheduled rapid disassembly,” to use the term SpaceX employed to describe the fate of the second stage during the second test flight this year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z1UcaS">
Ultimately, the goal is for Starship to be fully reusable and each part of it recoverable for future launches. That said, <a href="https://www.vox.com/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> has <a href="https://spacenews.com/starship-satellite-launches-a-year-away/">indicated that recovery is a secondary priority</a> to getting the system to a point where it can successfully launch satellites. My prediction will be met even if test flights do not result in the first or second stages being recovered in reusable form, or even fully intact. They can break apart on contact with the water. But they can’t explode due to the rocket’s flight termination system or some error during the flight like out-of-control ignition of fuel. Everything has to go as planned while the rockets are going up, even if they aren’t recognizable once they make it back down. <em>—DM</em>
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A futuristic-looking stainless steel vehicle parked in a showroom." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BoQULtThb7c-UIhe7rJRHI1_WJg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179497/1808067171.jpg"/> <cite>David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Tesla’s Cybertruck on display at a showroom.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h3 id="ZlxvGa">
Fewer than 1,000 Cybertrucks will be delivered to customers (60 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rQNXc5">
It has been over four years since Elon Musk unveiled the design of the Tesla Cybertruck, a disastrous event that culminated in lead designer Franz von Holzhausen attempting to show off how tough the vehicle’s “armor glass” windows were and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/25/20981489/tesla-cybertruck-glass-window-fail-elon-musk-explanation">smashing them in the process</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pgPjC9">
This past November, <a href="https://www.motortrend.com/news/2024-tesla-cybertruck-first-look-review/">Tesla finally unveiled the “finalized” model of the truck</a> to auto journalists and other observers, and it’s as ridiculous as promised. It’s still boxy, still looks like a poorly rendered car from a <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/cybertruck-makes-its-way-into-goldeneye-007/">Nintendo 64 game</a>, and it still has a single, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cybertruck-windshield-wiper-floppy">nearly 4-foot-long “monowiper”</a> to clean the windshield. (Will the wiper snap in half at the first sight of inclement weather? TBD!)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jY9IaN">
The first trucks were <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/30/1216083781/tesla-cybertruck-release-musk">delivered to consumers on November 30</a>. But knowing Tesla and Musk, and knowing that this truck was first promised to be available in 2021, that seems more like a publicity stunt than the beginning of the vehicle’s general availability. I have serious doubts about the likelihood of the model ramping up production enough to fill more than a small fraction of existing orders. The company is already saying that the <a href="https://www.caranddriver.com/tesla/cybertruck">base model will not be available until 2025</a>, and I expect delays on the higher-end all-wheel-drive models currently being promised for 2024.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bn7m1b">
I’m not too confident in this prediction; Tesla has more experience producing electric vehicles than any other company on earth, and that makes me think there’s a real chance they can figure out how to make this thing at scale. But they also have a well-earned reputation for overpromising and underdelivering, which I think is the likely outcome for the Cybertruck. <em>—DM</em>
</p>
<h3 id="vDDAdr">
Waymo will expand to a new city (80 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cJ4ran">
As of this writing, there are two US cities where average people can download an app from the Alphabet-owned firm Waymo and get a ride from a self-driving taxi that doesn’t even have a human driver in it as backup: <a href="https://waymo.com/waymo-one-san-francisco/">San Francisco</a> and <a href="https://waymo.com/waymo-one-phoenix/">Phoenix</a>. Waymo, formerly the self-driving division of <a href="https://www.vox.com/google">Google</a>, has long been a leader in this space, and has shot forward after the General Motors-owned Cruise was <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/24/23930629/california-dmv-suspends-cruise-robotaxi-permit-safety">banned from SF</a> following an incident in which a pedestrian was trapped under one of its vehicles. Cruise then <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934595/cruise-robotaxi-autonomous-vehicle-pause-operations-us-nationwide">announced it was suspending all US operations</a> to “earn public trust,” and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/19/23968698/cruise-co-founder-and-ceo-kyle-vogt-resigns">its CEO quit in due course</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KMDi3e">
Cruise’s travails mean Waymo is now the uncontested king of self-driving in the US, at least for the moment. “If Waymo can perfect its technology, it could have time to establish market dominance,” my former Vox colleague <a href="https://www.understandingai.org/p/kyle-vogt-exits-cruise-leaving-waymo">Timothy Lee</a> writes, who, along with <a href="https://www.theverge.com/authors/andrew-j-hawkins">the Verge’s Andrew Hawkins</a>, is one of the people I trust most on self-driving cars.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="thlVjl">
Establishing market dominance requires expansion, and Waymo seems set to expand in 2024. It has established customer waitlists in <a href="https://waymo.com/waymo-one-austin/">Austin</a> and <a href="https://waymo.com/waymo-one-los-angeles/">Los Angeles</a>, and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-10-11/waymo-driverless-taxi-launch-in-santa-monica-met-with-excitement-tension">offered a brief “tour”</a> in the latter city this year where <a href="https://waymo.com/blog/2023/09/waymo-one-tour-LA.html">ordinary customers could try it</a>. I’m predicting that at least one new city — probably Austin or Los Angeles, but anything’s possible I suppose — will reach the status of San Francisco and Phoenix in 2024, where ordinary people can download the Waymo One app and order a ride. Because of high demand, the company still rations out invite codes needed to use the app, but anecdotally those are pretty easy to get (you can DM Waymo on Twitter/X and usually get one). I assume they’ll do the same in new cities. But I’m guessing that several thousand more people are going to be using robotaxis routinely in 2024 than in 2023. <em>—DM</em>
</p>
<h2 id="EwmBI4">
Animals
</h2>
<h3 id="eKJ1Hd">
Antibiotics sales for farmed animals will increase at least 1 percent in 2023 (65 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="do1van">
Almost <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/bio/david-wallinga-md/antibiotic-use-remains-far-too-intensive-us-livestock">70 percent</a> of medically important antibiotics sold in the US go to the livestock sector in an attempt to ward off disease in unsanitary factory farms, giving rise to antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” which in turn make antibiotics less effective for humans. The World Health Organization has gone as far as to <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/07-11-2017-stop-using-antibiotics-in-healthy-animals-to-prevent-the-spread-of-antibiotic-resistance">call</a> on meat producers to phase out routine antibiotic use in livestock and only administer them when animals get sick.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7aTNB3">
New US Food and Drug Administration rules set in the mid-2010s led to a dramatic drop in antibiotic sales for livestock, but they’ve <a href="https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/antimicrobial-resistance/2022-summary-report-antimicrobials-sold-or-distributed-use-food-producing-animals">ticked back up</a> since 2017. I predict that trend will have continued in 2023 (the FDA will release sales data for 2023 at the end of 2024).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="onwPmp">
I could be wrong, given that a lot of antibiotics are fed to cattle and beef production is expected to have fallen almost <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=108145">5 percent</a> in 2023. The pork industry buys a lot of antibiotics, too, and their production is expected to increase only <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=108145">1 percent</a> in 2023. Turkey producers make up a small but growing share of antibiotic sales, and production is expected to have increased almost <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=108145">5 percent</a> in 2023. <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_5ckVlbE4oaIg8M833ft5KU0CBsnuSmE/edit#gid=1063326678"></a><a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=108145"></a>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ui9VPO">
That should all lead to about a 1 percent overall decrease in antibiotic sales for 2023, but the amount of antibiotics purchased by meat producers doesn’t neatly correspond with production levels. For example, in 2022, the growth in antibiotic sales for beef and pork far outpaced the growth in actual pork and beef production. So, I’m going to predict an increase of at least one percent. <em>—KT</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qJxuwi">
<a href="https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/r207tp32d/8p58qs65g/g445dv089/lsan0423.pdf"></a><a href="https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/r207tp32d/8p58qs65g/g445dv089/lsan0423.pdf"></a>
</p>
<h3 id="Kuu0CK">
Oatly’s stock price will not exceed $5 in 2023 (60 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gcm9qA">
Oatly makes, in my opinion, the tastiest plant-based milk on the market. A lot of people agree, and the company took the dairy alternative sector <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/oatly-files-initial-public-offering.html">by storm</a> in the late 2010s.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G8D7Ut">
The fervor drove the company to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/20/oatly-ipo-otly-starts-trading-on-nasdaq.html">go public</a> in May 2021 with a stock price debut of $17 per share, which peaked at almost $29 that summer. Since then, it’s been in free fall. It’s now just a little over $1 per share, and earlier this year, it went under 50 cents per share.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QQmR0Z">
The company has been plagued by <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-03/oatly-shifts-production-duties-to-ya-ya-foods-in-new-partnership">manufacturing shortages and inefficiencies</a>, and a wave of imitators. Oatly pretty much created oat milk in the 1990s, but once it started to become popular, every company that was making plant milk from soy, almonds, and other ingredients began making milk from oats, too. In other words, it’s partly a victim of its own success.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eiIe9v">
In its <a href="https://investors.oatly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/oatly-reports-third-quarter-2023-financial-results">quarter three financials</a> released in November, it reported just a 2.5 percent revenue increase year over year, with sales shooting up in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, slightly declining in the Americas, and dropping sharply by 31 percent in Asia. It just opened its first production facility in <a href="https://investors.oatly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/oatly-leader-plant-based-milk-category-china-opens-first-chinese">China</a>, which could help it turn things around in the region where it’s arguably poised for the most growth.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SUYJpJ">
That said, global plant-based milk sales were still <a href="https://foodinstitute.com/focus/deep-dive-the-state-of-alternative-milk/">growing</a> last year, and the company has a better product and branding than its competitors. But I’m skeptical it’ll be enough to help the company ramp up its revenue. <em>—KT</em>
</p>
<h3 id="mM1DOM">
45 percent of the US egg supply will be cage-free by late November (70 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UzWCoA">
From the start of 2015 to the end of 2023, the share of US eggs from cage-free chickens leapt from around <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22331708/eggs-cages-chickens-hens-meat-poultry">6 percent</a> to <a href="https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/rj4304553?locale=en#release-items">39 percent</a>. It was the result of <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22331708/eggs-cages-chickens-hens-meat-poultry">persistent campaigning</a> from <a href="https://www.vox.com/animal-welfare">animal welfare</a> advocates that stretched back to the early 2000s — primarily lobbying state legislatures, passing statewide ballot measures, and persuading food corporations to change their animal welfare policies. (Disclosure: I worked on the issue on and off from 2012 to 2017 at animal welfare nonprofits prior to joining Vox.)<strong> </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QY1t9l">
The share of hens raised cage-free has grown by about 5 percent each year since 2019, but I’m going to predict we’ll see a slightly bigger percentage growth — 6 percent — in 2023 for two reasons.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wVjVUH">
The first is that <a href="https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/HSUS_state-farm-animal-protection-laws.pdf">three state laws</a> requiring all eggs sold in the state to be cage-free come into effect on January 1, 2024, in Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Their populations combined account for around 5 percent of US egg consumption. Even more state laws go into effect at the start of 2025, covering around 7 percent of US egg consumption. However, I’m not predicting a 12 percent increase because some of those states’ egg supply is already cage-free. Plus, some of the ramp-up to these laws may already be reflected in recent data or won’t be reflected in the end of 2024 data.<strong> </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5MIP3p">
Second, most food corporations that committed to going cage-free set a <a href="https://welfarecommitments.com/cage-free/">2025 deadline</a>. Many companies <a href="https://www.eggtrack.com/en/">have or will meet it</a>, but many won’t, especially grocers, which sell a big portion of the US egg supply. Two of the biggest — <a href="https://www.wattagnet.com/egg/cage-free-laying-systems/article/15536685/walmart-kroger-will-not-meet-2025-cage-free-commitments">Kroger and Walmart</a> — have already backed away from their 2025 deadlines. But speaking from experience, nothing spurs action better than a deadline, so we may see companies inch closer to their goal than they did in previous years.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2cytw2">
The switch from a cage farm to a cage-free farm represents just a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/10/20/her-head-has-been-torn-off-activists-film-alleges-abuse-at-costco-linked-cage-free-egg-farm/#:~:text=The%20advocacy%20group%20Direct%20Action,and%20even%20eating%20one%20other.">marginal improvement</a> for a hen’s life, but it’s remarkable that a tiny, <a href="https://farmanimalwelfare.substack.com/p/a-year-of-wins-for-farmed-animals">poorly funded movement</a> has been able to change a fundamental practice of a massive industry. I’ll bet that in 2024, the rate of change will be a little faster than in recent years. <em>—KT</em>
</p>
<h3 id="3cXRYj">
More than 20 million poultry birds will be culled due to bird flu (60 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TILZbe">
2022 was the worst year ever for avian flu in the US. The outbreak tore through giant chicken and turkey factory farms throughout the country, resulting in the mass extermination (using, it’s worth emphasizing, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23963820/bird-flu-surge-us-ventilation-shutdown-veterinarians">cruelest</a> kill method imaginable) of more than <a href="https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/animal-disease-information/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-2022/2022-hpai-commercial-backyard-flocks">57 million</a> birds. Last year, Future Perfect predicted that 2023 bird flu deaths would again exceed 50 million, which didn’t quite come true. As of this writing (December 21), only about 19 million poultry birds have been culled in 2023, bringing the total from the bird flu outbreak that began in 2022 to about 77 million.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mhs8je">
Nearly all of those 2023 killings took place in the last couple months of the year, which means that we’re currently in a big resurgence of the disease (consistent with its seasonal transmission pattern). The number of birds culled between October and the end of 2023 was more than double the number from the same period the previous year, which tells me avian flu is heavily ramping up right now rather than slowing down, as it was in late 2022. But the flow of animal diseases can be pretty surprising, so with all that in mind, I predict with medium confidence that by the end of this year, the 2024 death toll from bird flu will exceed 20 million. —<em>MB</em>
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Participants marching in a rally chant and hold signs, on October 5, 2019, in Manhattan, New York. One sign reads: Right To Rescue" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JqKbAL69Ax9m8DF9M363daKWe0w=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179503/1174195672.jpg"/> <cite>Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Animal rights activists with the grassroots animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere organized a march from Bryant Park to the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan, New York, in 2019.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h3 id="qkpVb4">
More animal rights activists will be sentenced to jail or prison (40 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AZdVt8">
This past November, animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23952627/wayne-hsiung-conviction-direct-action-everywhere-dxe-rescue-sonoma-county-chickens">was convicted and sentenced to jail</a> time for his role in mass actions at two California factory farms in 2018 and 2019. The group Hsiung co-founded in 2013, Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), has <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23647682/factory-farming-dxe-criminal-trial-rescue">fueled a resurgence of the radical wing of the animal rights movement</a>, with risky tactics including trespassing at factory farms and rescuing animals suffering there.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ejpshz">
Hsiung’s jail sentence was the first one ever for DxE, and I think there will soon be more. This year, he and two other activists, Eva Hamer and Paul Darwin Picklesimer, will face trial in Madison, Wisconsin, for entering a facility that breeds <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/05/17/inside-the-barbaric-u-s-industry-of-dog-experimentation/">beagles for animal testing</a> and rescuing three of the dogs in 2017.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KDY6H4">
I think at least one conviction and jail or prison sentence is more likely than any other individual outcome (the others include acquittal, conviction with no jail time, a deadlocked jury, or the case getting dropped or delayed by prosecutors), though my confidence is quite low because jury trials can be very unpredictable. In October 2022, for example, Hsiung and Picklesimer were <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/10/08/smithfield-animal-rights-piglets-trial/">acquitted</a> for rescuing two piglets from pork giant Smithfield Foods in a historic trial in a very conservative Utah county. Madison (where I live!) is ultra-progressive by comparison, and it’s adorable beagles, rather than food animals, that are at the heart of the case. I’ll be watching the trial closely and will definitely keep readers apprised<em>. —MB</em>
</p>
<h2 id="rFo3mZ">
Culture and sports
</h2>
<h3 id="fI4pKA">
Billie Eilish will win a Grammy for “What Was I Made For?” (90 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mVfouq">
If you didn’t cry during the womanhood montage in <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23800753/barbie-review-bible-eden"><em>Barbie</em></a><em> </em>set to Billie Eilish’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW8VLC9nnTo&amp;ab_channel=BillieEilishVEVO">melancholic crooning</a>, you didn’t do the <a href="https://www.vox.com/movies">movies</a> right, I’m afraid. But in all seriousness, the Gen Z icon has a pretty strong track record at the <a href="https://www.vox.com/grammy-awards">Grammys</a>. She holds seven Grammys, one of which was for her James Bond song, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BboMpayJomw&amp;ab_channel=BillieEilishVEVO">No Time to Die</a>.” If there’s anything Billie does especially well, it’s an emotional ballad for a movie! It also doesn’t hurt that “What Was I Made For?” was <a href="https://pitchfork.com/news/grammy-nominations-2024-see-the-full-list-here/">nominated across five categories</a>. I will be shocked if her girl sadness anthem doesn’t get another win under her belt next month. <em>—Izzie Ramirez </em>
</p>
<h3 id="7voakG">
One of the Kardashian-Jenners will appear in a Schiaparelli dress for the Met Gala (60 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W68pHB">
2023 was Schiaparelli’s year! Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour featured this <a href="https://www.schiaparelli.com/en/news/2023-07-22-beyonce-wore-custom-schiaparelli-haute-couture-to-the-renaissance-world-tour">custom moment from the haute couture brand,</a> and who could forget rapper Doja Cat’s controversial, <a href="https://www.schiaparelli.com/en/news/2023-01-23-doja-cat-wore-custom-schiaparelli-haute-couture-spring-summer-2023">head-to-toe scarlet bedazzled look</a>? Kylie Jenner is already a fan of Schiaparelli, <a href="https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/kylie-jenner-schiaparelli-keyhole-cut-out-dress-paris-fashion-week">wearing a glittery gold gown earlier this year</a>, and Kim Kardashian wore the brand at the <a href="https://www.schiaparelli.com/en/news/2023-05-02-kim-kardashian-wore-custom-schiaparelli-haute-couture-to-the-2023-met-gala">2023 Met Gala.</a>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8BaiCi">
Given that the gala and accompanying exhibition’s <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/press/exhibitions/2023/sleeping-beauties">theme for 2024</a> — “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” — is centered around the sensory qualities and ephemeral nature of a garment prior to being archived, I truly believe one of the Kardashians or Jenner family members will roll up to the steps of the Met adorned in Schiaparelli. Creative director Daniel Roseberry has revitalized the fashion house with edge, a keen sense of humor, and plenty of historical nods to the <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/shocking-elsa-schiaparelli-paris-exhibition-opening">brand’s founder, Elsa Schiaparelli</a>. There are a lot of motifs to choose from, ranging from the <a href="https://www.schiaparelli.com/eshop/en/e-shop/accessories/bags/handprint-anatomy-jewelry-bag-/p/sa159101_300-taille">surreal anatomic iconography</a> to the <a href="https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1937-schiaparelli-lobster/">groundbreaking lobster dress.</a>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kWb7hK">
While I don’t quite think the Kardashian-Jenners will repeat wearing an archival piece <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2022/11/marilyn-monroe-jfk-dress-timeline-kim-kardashian-met-gala-damage.html">given the hoopla around Kim in Marilyn Monroe’s dress</a>, Schiaparelli will certainly be up to the artistic and technological challenge of bringing the gala’s theme to life. It’s just a matter of choosing between Kim, Kylie, Kendall, Khloe, Kourtney, or Kris. <em>—IR</em>
</p>
<h3 id="0upwgF">
<em>Oppenheimer </em>will win Best Picture at the 2024 Academy Awards (70 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nZ8fNH">
Did any of the other likely nominees for Best Picture successfully simulate a nuclear explosion on film <a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/christopher-nolan-oppenheimer-recreated-nuclear-blast-without-cgi">without the use of CGI</a>? Let’s see …
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YIShoj">
Martin Scorcese’s <a href="https://ew.com/movies/martin-scorsese-defends-killers-of-the-flower-moon-long-running-time/#:~:text=Martin%20Scorsese%20knows%20you%20can,%2C%22%20the%20acclaimed%20filmmaker%20says.">three-hour and 26-minute</a> 1920s epic <em>Killers of the Flower Moon</em>? Nope.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bb8O2B">
<a href="https://www.miramax.com/movie/The-Holdovers/"><em>The Holdovers</em>’s</a> grouchy Paul Giamatti in a New England boarding school take on the modern Christmas film? Zero explosions, other than the verbal kind.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gsld1A">
Very, very weird Emma Stone-starring <em>Poor Things</em>? No, only <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23992608/poor-things-review">sex bombs</a>. (And <em>Oppenheimer </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23998242/sex-scenes-poor-things-oppenheimer-passages-discourse">had those, too</a>.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bBUuf2">
The other half of Barbenheimer, Greta Gerwig’s “is it a feminist masterpiece or a toy commercial or some kind of postmodern mashup of the two” <em>Barbie</em>? Honestly, I’m not sure — I took my 6-year-old son to the film and he demanded we leave once Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie showed up about 20 minutes in. I think he had his first existential crisis.
</p>
<div id="1SwsR4">
<div class="volume-video" id="volume-placement-727">
</div></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kQE96c">
The bottom line? The Academy <a href="https://www.slashfilm.com/806826/the-long-legacy-of-the-biopic-at-the-academy-awards/#:~:text=Over%20the%20course%20of%20Oscar,Picture%20nominations%2C%20earning%2022%20wins.">loves biopics</a>, it loves <a href="https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-period-piece-definition/#:~:text=And%2C%20of%20the%2096%20films,took%20home%20the%20prestigious%20prize.">period pieces</a>, and for some reason, it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/feb/15/the-oscars-love-affair-with-monochrome-is-not-black-and-white">weirdly loves</a> modern films that feature black-and-white scenes. J. Robert Oppenheimer wasn’t quite the hero the film makes him out to be — <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/7/22/23803380/j-robert-oppenheimer-film-movie-nuclear-weapons-manhattan-project-world-war-ii-christopher-nolan">read our piece</a> on the “cry baby scientist” — but come Oscar night, Oppie is going home a winner. —<em>BW</em>
</p>
<h3 id="h9bsad">
Shohei Ohtani will lead the major leagues in home runs in the 2024 season (75 percent)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UIxBwK">
For those of you who don’t follow baseball — which, <a href="https://www.sportcal.com/media/mlb-2023-world-series-draws-record-low-viewership/?cf-view">given the ratings</a> for the 2023 World Series, is essentially all of you — Shohei Ohtani may be the best baseball player since Babe Ruth. That is not hyperbole. In 2023, Ohtani <a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/war/leaders/_/type/seasonal/year/2023">recorded</a> a WAR stat of 10.1, a full 16 percent higher than the next-best player. (WAR <a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/war/leaders/_/type/seasonal/year/2023">means</a> “wins above replacement,” and it calculates how many more game wins an individual player is worth than a totally average player at the same position. It’s basically the stat to rule all stats for <em>Moneyball </em>heads.) But what’s really amazing is that while Ohtani wasn’t the best hitter or best pitcher by WAR rankings, he was the only player in baseball who did both. He hits baseballs a long way, and he strikes lots of guys out. No one in baseball has done that since … <a href="https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/68377/veteran-presence-the-greatest-two-way-players-of-all-time/">Babe Ruth</a>.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Ohtani wears a white Dodger’s uniform and smiles as he puts on a blue LA dodgers baseball cap." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mum8kqkoMczQWnckVPM3kowOzxI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179513/1856015817.jpg"/> <cite>Meg Oliphant/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Shohei Ohtani at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, on December 14, 2023.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TyBslB">
Those unique skills earned Ohtani the <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/shohei-ohtani-contract-explaining-680-million-deferral-in-dodgers-deal-with-unique-andrew-friedman-clause/">largest contract in sports history</a>, with the Los Angeles Dodgers paying him $700 million for 10 years. (It also comes with some <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/shohei-ohtani-contract-explaining-680-million-deferral-in-dodgers-deal-with-unique-andrew-friedman-clause/">unique elements</a>, including the fact that Ohtani will actually defer $680 million of that $700 million until after the 10 years of his contract is completed, which apparently is legal?) That sets him up for some sky-high expectations in the 2024 season.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mN1cOQ">
Because of an <a href="https://www.mlb.com/news/shohei-ohtani-could-make-history-in-2024#:~:text=But%20Ohtani%20will%20be%20facing,him%20from%20pitching%20next%20season.">injury last season</a>, Ohtani won’t be able to pitch in 2024, which means he’ll be focused exclusively on hitting. He was already on pace for <a href="https://www.mlb.com/player/shohei-ohtani-660271">51 home runs</a> last year before his injury, which would have put him just behind the major league lead in that category. I think he has an excellent chance to lead the league in homers in 2024 — and without the distraction of pitching, I’d even give him an outside chance to break Barry Bonds (<a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=3113127">just ever so slightly steroid-tainted</a>) major league record of 70. Go, Ohtani-san, go! —<em>BW</em>
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, explained</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="South African President Ramaphosa Meets With Organisations Supporting The Liberation Of Palestine" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KCxOV5cDyLzaBWFQ13_U55bmJ1U=/391x0:5768x4033/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73012522/1861251469.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
President Cyril Ramaphosa with the delegates of Organisations supporting the Liberation of Palestine at Chief Albert Luthuli House on December 18, 2023, in Johannesburg, South Africa. | Luba Lesolle/Gallo Images via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Friday’s action reflects South Africa’s solidarity with the Palestinian cause — and its domestic and foreign interests
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ad2EP3">
The South African government has taken its firmest stance yet against <a href="https://www.vox.com/israel">Israel</a>’s war in <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080046/gaza-palestine-israel">Gaza</a>, accusing Israel of genocide against <a href="https://www.vox.com/palestine">Palestinians</a> in a new case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P9OELS">
South Africa initiated the case Friday and requested the ICJ order Israel to stop its onslaught in Gaza immediately. While South Africa’s filing may not affect the outcome of the war in any meaningful way, it does draw on longstanding ties between Black South Africans’ liberation struggle and that of the Palestinian people. It also signals the country’s desire to challenge the US-dominated international order that it sees as unfair to African and non-Western interests.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5B2a9E">
The <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf">84-page application</a> states that “The acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group,” in violation of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CaPS84">
Israel quickly <a href="https://apnews.com/article/south-africa-israel-un-court-palestinians-genocide-ffe672c4eb3e14a30128542eaa537b21">rejected</a> the filing “with disgust,” calling it a “blood libel” — a reference to a false accusation that originated in the Middle Ages that Jewish people would murder Christians and use their blood in rituals, and which was used as a justification for oppression of Jewish communities.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tf6oGT">
The ICJ is different from the International Criminal Court, which is already investigating alleged war crimes committed by both Israel and <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/10/23911661/hamas-israel-war-gaza-palestine-explainer">Hamas</a> stemming from the October 7 attacks. The ICC is set up to investigate and prosecute individuals at the highest levels who are accused of planning and directing war crimes, while national courts are typically the venue to prosecute perpetrators of low-level war crimes — individual fighters who may have carried out war crimes directed by those high-level commanders or leaders.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u7Zn6Y">
Under the Genocide Convention, any country can bring charges of genocide against another at the ICJ, regardless of whether they are party to the conflict; in 2019, Gambia brought a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/12/05/questions-and-answers-gambias-genocide-case-against-myanmar-international-court">genocide case</a> against Myanmar due to its crimes against the Rohingya ethnic group, and the ICJ upheld the legality of the case in 2022. South Africa’s petition represents one of the few avenues for an international body to make a clear statement about Israel’s actions in Gaza.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NnkKbH">
Israel continues to bombard Gaza, the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas, following that group’s attack on Israel on October 7. During that attack, Hamas and fighters from Palestine Islamic Jihad killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages, many of whom have been released. Since then, Israel has killed more than 21,000 people <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/12/28/photos-gaza-children">including more than 8,500 children</a>, according to Gaza’s media office; internally displaced <a href="https://www.nrc.no/news/2023/december/gaza-displacement/#:~:text=A%20staggering%201.9%20million%20Palestinians,additional%2050%2C000%20units%20completely%20destroyed.">1.9 million</a>; and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/gaza-destruction-bombing-israel-aa528542">damaged or destroyed</a> nearly 70 percent of the homes and 50 percent of the buildings in the region.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3mGNCY">
The Palestinian foreign ministry, based in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080034/west-bank-israel-palestinians">West Bank</a>, lauded South Africa’s action and called on the court to “immediately take action to protect Palestinian people and call on Israel, the occupying power, to halt its onslaught against the Palestinian people.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y6eVPX">
Accusations of genocide are difficult to prove because they include not just actions <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/11/13/23954731/genocide-israel-gaza-palestine">but intention</a>. Throughout the conflict, pro-Palestinian activists, scholars on the subject, and politicians have accused Israel of genocide — an accusation that’s particularly fraught since Israel was founded in the wake of the Holocaust. But there have been successful prosecutions of genocide in the 20th century, in Rwanda and <a href="https://www.icty.org/en/outreach/documentaries/srebrenica-genocide-no-room-for-denial">Bosnia</a>, via international criminal tribunals set up through the UN.
</p>
<h3 id="xzWFef">
<strong>South Africa has multiple reasons to file the accusation against Israel</strong>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EhuOBJ">
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has deep ties to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), stretching back to its former leader and South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela. The ANC aligned itself with the PLO and other revolutionary causes while Mandela was in prison; after his release, Mandela was a vocal supporter of the PLO and its leader Yasser Arafat, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/12/5/unpack-the-past-mandela-the-keffiyeh-and-south-africas-palestine-embrace">saying in 1990 that</a> “we identify with the PLO because, just like ourselves, they are fighting for the right of self-determination.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s8HIHp">
Decades later, that sentiment remains in the South African government, and for many ordinary South Africans who see their struggle against colonialism and apartheid in the Palestinians’ own plight and decades-long struggle for self-determination. That’s particularly salient in an election year for South Africa as the ANC and its leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa, struggle to stay the dominant power there.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uV7Yml">
“There’s huge historical precedent for it, both in a domestic political context and in a moral [and] legalistic context,” Michael Walsh, visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley, told Vox. “South Africa has been engaged on the Palestinian issue since really the end of apartheid and the founding of the state. It’s been a prominent issue in South African politics and among South African leaders.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CB8leg">
The ICJ referral is not the first step South Africa has taken to hold Israel to account for its attacks on Gaza; Ramaphosa has repeatedly condemned Israel’s actions against Palestinians; since the October 7 attacks and subsequent Israeli campaign in Gaza, the government has repeatedly condemned Israel in the international press. The <a href="https://apnews.com/article/south-africa-israel-ambassador-recall-gaza-bb30d780d0d33f2220dc08bf032a5738">parliament also voted to close the Israeli embassy</a> and withdrew its diplomatic staff from Israel, while the foreign ministry <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2023-11/ICC-Referral-Palestine-Final-17-November-2023.pdf">delivered a referral to the International Criminal Court</a> to investigate alleged crimes, including the crime of genocide, in the Palestinian territories in November.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uK4TYl">
Though South African solidarity with the Palestinian cause is a crucial part of its condemnation of Israel, there are domestic and foreign policy reasons to try to hold Israel to account on an international stage — one of those reasons being “legitimacy in the international system and being perceived as a major player,” Walsh said. “I think there’s a perception that South Africa has really fallen in its stature on the international stage.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U084Nq">
That perception is at least partly due to South Africa’s refusal to arrest Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2015, when the ousted leader traveled to the country for a meeting of the African Union. The ICC had<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2010/07/13/sudan-icc-warrant-al-bashir-genocide?gad_source=1&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQiAv8SsBhC7ARIsALIkVT0f8orfxJ0KoCOnHB_uU-kY-wfd54jx0D-Djhw0Ubl0WtitCQtr42QaAqWMEALw_wcB"> issued warrants for Bashir’s arrest</a> on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2009, and on genocide charges in 2010; South Africa, as a party to the ICC, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/world/africa/icc-south-africa-sudan-bashir.html">was obligated to arrest Bashir and turn him over to the court for prosecution</a>. However, the ICC effectively failed to punish the country by refusing to refer South Africa to the UN Security Council or the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties, perhaps out of concern that South Africa would withdraw from the ICC.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="F26KB9">
South Africa avoided a similar conundrum last year when Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is also subject to an ICC arrest warrant for his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/18/world/europe/putin-south-africa.html">opted to attend a summit via video instead of in person this summer</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="71yOFT">
“There’s been lots of pressure put on South Africa over the last couple of years to deal with individuals who have been accused of war crimes but who are clearly not on the Western side of the international political divide,” Walsh said. With the ICJ case, South Africa is able to assert itself as a player on the international stage, express longstanding solidarity with the Palestinian cause, address domestic political sentiments, and point out the imbalance of international bodies when it comes to prosecuting war crimes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Avv4pd">
South Africa has a “deep-seated belief that Israel is committing war crimes, and that there’s an important need to hold accountable any state that commits war crimes,” Walsh said. “And I think that they see a tremendous hypocrisy in how war crimes are prosecuted around the world. And so they’ve made this a cause.”
</p>
<h3 id="BNiLaN">
<strong>The ICJ has limited power to enforce its rulings</strong>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="29K439">
The ICJ represents one of the only possibilities to bring the conflict before an international body, Iva Vukušić, assistant professor in international history at Utrecht University, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/29/south-africa-accuses-israel-of-committing-genocide-in-gaza">told the Guardian</a>, as “states, globally, don’t have a lot of places to ‘go to’ in these kinds of situations, especially with the [UN] Security Council being as polarized and dysfunctional.” But it has little ability to put consequences behind its decisions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hxihjP">
The <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/about/how-the-court-works#:~:text=Judges%20consider%20all%20evidence%2C%20then,Defence%20and%20by%20the%20Prosecutor.">ICC can prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression</a> — for example, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And it has the ability to hold people in detention in the Hague until they can serve out their sentence in one of the countries that have agreed to carry out those sentences. The ICJ can render judgments on these, too, but against states and not individuals.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ox3rDR">
But the mechanism for carrying out that ruling is the ruling itself, which does not mean that a state will comply — for example, the ICJ ruled that Russia should immediately end its hostilities in Ukraine; that war is getting ready to enter its second year. The <a href="https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/repertoire/relations-other-un-organs#:~:text=Relations%20with%20the%20International%20Court%20of%20Justice,-1.&amp;text=Article%2094%20(2)%20of%20the,the%20judgment%20rendered%20by%20ICJ.">UN Security Council</a> theoretically enforces consequences should a party to the case fail to comply, but, as Vukušić noted, that body is highly politicized, especially among the five permanent members with veto power.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nAqUGY">
It could be months or even years before the ICJ delivers a ruling in the case. But in the immediate term, South Africa is calling for an interim order for a ceasefire from the court, which could be delivered in the coming weeks, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/south-africa-israel-un-court-palestinians-genocide-ffe672c4eb3e14a30128542eaa537b21">the Associated Press reports</a>.
</p></li>
<li><strong>2023, in 7 minutes</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/epigWo5x-1iij1DheAhOj6x7J8s=/0x0:1440x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73011537/VDC_PRO_052_2023_year_in_review_THUMB_SYN.0.jpeg"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The year’s already over? Let’s look back.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Efo04I">
2023 was dominated by a few big stories: <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate">climate change</a> making everything hotter, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/7/23907683/israel-hamas-war-news-updates-october-2023">Israel-Hamas war</a>, blockbuster <a href="https://www.vox.com/movies">movies</a> and concert tours. And during all the massive global shifts, celebrations, and devastation — life happened. Watch this video to remember the major events from this turbulent year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zo8Z2Q">
To see more Vox videos, check out our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/voxdotcom"><strong>YouTube page</strong></a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3hOAlQ">
And for more about this year, check out these stories from Vox:
</p>
<ul>
<li id="y8oJXj">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/24001338/ozempic-bodies-barbie-botox-corporate-feminism">The year of Ozempic bodies and Barbie Botox</a>
</li>
<li id="2tDkuL">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/24006274/oppenheimer-napoleon-maestro-ferrari-biopics">This year’s “great man” biopics have a couple of things in common</a>
</li>
<li id="GzP1C5">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/money/24008141/restaurants-dining-out-price-inflation">We dined out less this year — but it wasn’t just about the price</a>
</li>
<li id="a77nwJ">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24009949/future-perfect-oppenheimer-animal-welfare-electric-vehicles-chicken-wings-milk">The 10 most read Future Perfect stories of 2023</a>
</li>
<li id="1l5OW3">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/24008240/2023-best-books-vaster-wild-lauren-groff-chain-gang-all-stars-nana-kwame-adjei-brenyah">The very best books of 2023</a>
</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Synthesis and Emerald Queen excel</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>Invincible, Ruling Dynasty and Golden Legend please</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>Steve Waugh slams South Africa for naming depleted squad, ICC for not caring about Test cricket</strong> - The top South African cricketers are contracted to play in the second season of the SA20, the T20 league launched by CSA and Indian Premier League investors, which clashes with the tour.</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>Take one match at a time: Hockey legend Eliza Nelson’s advice to Indian Women’s Hockey Team ahead of Olympic Qualifiers</strong> - The FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers Ranchi 2024 will kick off on January 13 and conclude on January 19.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Harmanpreet Kaur’s form with bat in focus as India look to salvage pride in final ODI against Australia</strong> - The focus is on Indian captain Harmanpreet Kur’s poor batting form even as India seeks to defeat Australia and end a nine-match losing streak</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>No tsunami threat to India: INCOIS</strong> - ITEWC identified the source of the earthquake and passed the necessary information to the relevant countries within seven 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>Printing ‘date of manufacturing’, ‘unit sale price’ on packaged items becomes mandatory from January 1</strong> - Printing the date of manufacturing will help consumers know how old the packaged item is and help them make conscious purchase decisions</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>CJI Chandrachud refuses to respond to criticism over judgements on scrapping Article 370, same-sex marriage</strong> - The 50th Chief Justice of India, however, acknowledged the “long and hard battle” queer couples fought for realisation of their rights.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Andhra Pradesh government to launch second phase of Jagananna Aarogya Suraksha on January 2</strong> - As a part of the programme, 13,954 health camps will be conducted in six months, beginning in villages on January 2 and urban areas the next day</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Year in Review | How India’s economic indicators fared in 2023</strong> - Year in Review is an attempt to show the events that marked the year 2023. Here’s a recap of India’s economic indicators.</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>Queen Margrethe II: Danish monarch announces abdication live on TV</strong> - Margrethe II, who has reigned for half a century, will step down to be replaced by her son.</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>Crown Prince Frederik: What do we know about the next king of Denmark?</strong> - “I don’t want to lock myself in a fortress. I want to be myself,” Crown Prince Frederik once said.</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>Queen Margrethe II: Danish monarch’s 52-year reign in pictures</strong> - 83-year-old Margrethe II is Europe’s longest-serving living monarch, having taken the throne in 1972.</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>Zelensky vows more Ukraine-made weapons in new year address</strong> - The Ukrainian president’s message comes as five people were killed in attacks early on New Year’s Day.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Vladimir Putin makes little mention of Ukraine in new year speech</strong> - The Russian president hailed soldiers as heroes, but didn’t directly mention the war in Ukraine.</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>How archaeologists reconstructed the burning of Jerusalem in 586 BCE</strong> - Hebrew bible is only surviving account of siege that laid waste to Solomon’s Temple. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1993081">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Smartphone manufacturers still want to make foldables a thing</strong> - Foldables are barely 1% of the market, but that’s not stopping anyone but Apple. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1993084">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Aaarr matey! Life on a 17th century pirate ship was less chaotic than you think</strong> - Ars chats with historian Rebecca Simon about her most recent book, <em>The Pirates’ Code</em>. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1993048">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A cat video highlighted a big year for lasers in space</strong> - NASA has invested more than $700 million in testing laser communications in space. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1992668">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SpaceX launches two rockets—three hours apart—to close out a record year</strong> - This was the shortest time between orbital launches at Cape Canaveral since 1966. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1992995">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin made a bet who has more disciplined army.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">They gathered on the top of the scyscraper with their hand-picked soldiers from respective armies.</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">First was Roosevelt with his decorated infantry sergeant.</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Bill, there are our national pride at the stake, you must jump from the roof immediately.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Segeant looked at the ground, shuddered and said:
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Sir, I respect you personally, you are my commander-in-chief, but I just can’t do this, I have a family to think of.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Next was Churchill with leutenant of Royal Marines.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">John, - said Churchill, - Britain must win this, in the name of our King I order you to jump from the roof.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Leutenant looked down, shuddered and said:
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Sir, you are the best premier-minister in 20 years, you helped our nation repel Nazi attack, but I can’t do this, I have a family to thinl of.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Stalin puffed on the pipe and said to Red Army soldier:
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Ivan, jump.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Ivan immediately jumps from the roof. He is catched with the net a few stories down. He is met with Roosevelt and Churchil and asked why he did it?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">I have a family to think of, - answered soldier.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
​
</p>
</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></div>
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submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/mougrim"> /u/mougrim </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18vt4bj/roosevelt_churchill_and_stalin_made_a_bet_who_has/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18vt4bj/roosevelt_churchill_and_stalin_made_a_bet_who_has/">[comments]</a></span></li>
</ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A colon can completely change the meaning of a sentence … for example:</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Jane ate her friend’s sandwich.
</p>
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Jane ate her friend’s colon.
</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/winkelschleifer"> /u/winkelschleifer </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18vmjyj/a_colon_can_completely_change_the_meaning_of_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18vmjyj/a_colon_can_completely_change_the_meaning_of_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A guy goes to Las Vegas to gamble and he loses all his money. He doesn’t even have enough for a cab, but he flagged one down anyway. He explained to the driver that he would pay him back next time and gave him his phone number, but the driver told him, “Get the fuck out of my cab.”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He walked all the way to the airport and got home.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Some times rolls by and he decides to go back to Vegas again and this time he wins BIG.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He gets his bags and is ready for the airport with all his new winnings.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
There are a line of cabs and at the very end he sees the driver from last time that kicked him out.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He stood for a moment thinking how can he get his revenge on that driver.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
So, he gets in the first cab.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“How much is it to the airport?” he asks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The driver says, “$15.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Great, how much is it for a blowjob on the way there?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The cab driver says, “Get the fuck out of my cab.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
So he goes to the next one and asks the same thing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“How much to airport?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“$15.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Great, how much for a blowjob on the way there?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
And that cab driver also tells him to get the fuck out of his cab.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He does this all the way down the line of drivers, each one kicking him out.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He finally gets to the last driver, the one from his last trip.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He asks, “Hey how much to the airport?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Driver responds, “$15.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The guy hands him $15 and says, “Great let’s go!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
And so the driver leaves, slowly passing all the other drivers who are staring out their window while the guy in the back smiles back with a thumbs up.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/madazzahatter"> /u/madazzahatter </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18v5p3e/a_guy_goes_to_las_vegas_to_gamble_and_he_loses/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18v5p3e/a_guy_goes_to_las_vegas_to_gamble_and_he_loses/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A math teacher welcomed a new French exchange student into her class and then started teaching a lesson on fractions.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The French exchange student raised his hand and said, “Excuse me Madam, but I don’t know how to say fractions. How do you say those?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Easy,” said the teacher, “you just say the top number and then the bottom number is read as an ordinal number. For example, 2/3 is ‘two-thirds’, 3/4 is ‘three-fourths’, and 2/5 is ‘two-fifths’.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Thanks, I understand,”said the exchange student.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Good,” said the teacher, and then asked the student, “so how do you say 4/8?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Should I reduce?” asked the boy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“That would be best,” said the teacher.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“One-second,” said the boy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Take as long as you need,” said the teacher.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/arztnur"> /u/arztnur </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18vbvm3/a_math_teacher_welcomed_a_new_french_exchange/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18vbvm3/a_math_teacher_welcomed_a_new_french_exchange/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Found out my wife is racist</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Brought home my Asian girlfriend tonight, and my wife has been really mean to her.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Frank4202"> /u/Frank4202 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18vnrro/found_out_my_wife_is_racist/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18vnrro/found_out_my_wife_is_racist/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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