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<title>28 January, 2024</title>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Case of Myocarditis, Pericarditis, and Fatal Aortic Dissection following Covid-19 mRNA Vaccination</strong> -
<div>
We present a case study of a 34-year-old male who was in apparent good health prior to his COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. Sixteen days after his first dose, he experienced acute inflammation, sudden thoracic aortic dissection, and pericardial tamponade, rapidly leading to his death. Studies suggest that young males, in particular, appear to be at increased risk of adverse cardiac events following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. However, we propose that certain information gaps exist in the criteria that inform both public health agencies and the public on incidence rates in certain presentations of even severe myocarditis and cardiac adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination, as is often mentioned within COVID-19 vaccine myocarditis studies and is evident within the findings of this young man’s important case presentation.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/xnr5t/" target="_blank">Case of Myocarditis, Pericarditis, and Fatal Aortic Dissection following Covid-19 mRNA Vaccination</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>In silico assessment of immune cross protection between BCoV and SARS-CoV-2</strong> -
<div>
Background: Humans have long shared infectious agents with cattle, and the bovine-derived human common cold OC-43 CoV is a not-so-distant example of cross-species viral spill over of coronaviruses. Human exposure to the Bovine Coronavirus (BCoV) is certainly common, as the virus is endemic in most high-density cattle-raising regions. Since BCoVs are phylogenetically close to SARS-CoV-2, it is possible that cross-protection against COVID-19 occurs in people exposed to BCoV. Methods: This article shows an in silico investigation of human cross-protection to SARS-CoV-2 due to BCoV exposure. We determined HLA recognition and human B lymphocyte reactivity to BCoV epitopes using bioinformatics resources. A retrospective geoepidemiological analysis of COVID-19 was then performed to verify if BCoV/SARS-CoV-2 cross-protection could have occurred in the field. Brazil was used as a model for the epidemiological analysis of the impact of livestock density, as a proxy for human exposure to BCoV, on the prevalence of COVID-19 in people. Results: As could be expected from their classification in the same Betacoronavirus genus, we show that several human B and T epitopes are shared between BCoV and SARS-CoV-2. This raised the possibility of cross-protection of people from exposure to the bovine coronavirus. Analysis of field data added partial support to the hypothesis of viral cross-immunity from human exposure to BCoV. There was a negative correlation between livestock geographical density and COVID-19. Whole-Brazil data showed areas in the country in which COVID-19 prevalence was disproportionally low (controlled by normalization by transport infrastructure). Areas with high cattle density had lower COVID-19 prevalence in these low-risk areas. Conclusions: These data are hypothesis-raising indications that cross-protection is possibly being induced by human exposure to the Bovine Coronavirus.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.25.577193v1" target="_blank">In silico assessment of immune cross protection between BCoV and SARS-CoV-2</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>No Substitute for the Real Thing? Physical and Digital Cultural Participation in Denmark during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Research Note</strong> -
<div>
In this research note, we analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cultural participation. We use rich survey data from Denmark to construct pooled time-series cross-sectional data for each month of the years 2019-2021 and report three findings. First, participation in physical cultural activities (e.g., attending a concert or a museum) plummeted during two lockdowns and did not return to its pre-pandemic level by the end of 2021. Second, participation in digital activities (e.g., reading a digital book or following a museum on social media) did not change much during the pandemic. Overall, we find little evidence of substitution from physical to digital cultural participation during the COVID-19 lockdown in Denmark. Third, socioeconomic gradients in cultural participation decreased during the pandemic for physical cultural participation, but did not change for digital cultural participation. We end by discussing what we can learn from our results about how social disruptions affect patterns of cultural participation and inequality.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/ksy9w/" target="_blank">No Substitute for the Real Thing? Physical and Digital Cultural Participation in Denmark during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Research Note</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Stratification in Parents’ Selection of Developmentally Appropriate Books for Children: Register-based Evidence from Danish Public Libraries</strong> -
<div>
This paper studies socioeconomic gradients in selecting developmentally appropriate children’s books from public libraries. I draw on research on developmental gradients in parental inputs to hypothesize that families with high socioeconomic status (SES) are more likely to select books that match children’s developmental stage in order to best improve children’s learning environments. In contrast to previous survey-based research, I use behavioral data on the actual books families have selected from libraries. Based on Danish registry data that cover all books borrowed from public libraries in 2020, I find that highly educated families are more likely to use libraries and borrow more books when they use libraries, but they do not select a larger share of developmentally appropriate books; in fact, they select a slightly lower share. In contrast, I find only a weak positive income gradient for the amount of books borrowed and the share of developmentally appropriate books. The supplementary analyses show that results are robust across families with children of different ages and to account for nonrandom selection into the sample of library users, socioeconomic differences in children’s reading skills, and the impact of library lockdowns due to Covid-19. I conclude that stratification in library book selection is more prominent concerning the voraciousness with which highly educated parents provide reading inputs (more books) than how discriminating they are in terms of selecting developmentally appropriate books.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/8pzv5/" target="_blank">Stratification in Parents’ Selection of Developmentally Appropriate Books for Children: Register-based Evidence from Danish Public Libraries</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>No Utilitarians in a Pandemic? Shifts in Moral Reasoning during the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic poses many real-world moral dilemmas, which can pit the needs and rights of the many against the needs and rights of the few. We investigated the influence of this contemporary global crisis on moral judgments in older adults, who are at greatest personal risk from the pandemic. We hypothesized that during this pandemic, individuals would give fewer utilitarian responses to hypothetical dilemmas, accompanied by higher levels of confidence and emotion elicitation. Our pre-registered analysis (https://osf.io/g2wtp) involved two waves of data collection, before (2014) and during (2020) the COVID-19 pandemic, regarding three categories of moral dilemmas (personal rights, agent-centered permissions, and special obligations). While utilitarian responses considered across all categories of dilemma did not differ, participants during the 2020 wave gave fewer utilitarian responses to dilemmas involving personal rights; that is, they were less willing to violate the personal rights of others to produce the best overall outcomes.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/yjn3u/" target="_blank">No Utilitarians in a Pandemic? Shifts in Moral Reasoning during the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The global and specific cardiovascular burden of spike-based Covid-19 1 Vaccination</strong> -
<div>
Aims: The aim of this investigation was to determine whether the global and cardiovascular 10 burden associated with spike-based Covid-19 vaccination has continued to increase. 11 Methods and results: An updated analysis of spontaneously reported individual cases with 12 ADRs and their fatal outcomes associated with Covid-19 vaccines, as well as adverse 13 cardiovascular events caused by the spike-inducing vaccine Tozinameran, was performed. 14 Data were retrieved from the EudraVigilance web reports of the European Medicines Agency 15 (EMA). All evaluated adverse events correspond to the search terms of the EudraVigilance 16 based on clinical characterisation. 17 The total number of individual cases (n=2256506; i.e. 2338/day) with adverse effects that were 18 fatal in 2.3% (n=51740; i.e. 54 deaths/day), as well as the wide range of reports of 19 cardiovascular adverse effects, have revealed the unusual magnitude and specificity of these 20 events. 21 Tachycardia, arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation/flatter, bradyarrhythmia and impaired stimulus 22 formation and conduction (n=57438 combined) dominated the cardiovascular side effect profile 23 of Tozinameran, followed by blood pressure increase (n=25907), myo-/pericarditis (n=23775), 24 heart failure, cardiomyopathy, cardiac flatter/fibrillation, cardiac arrest, circulatory collaps 25 (n=16778 combined) and coronary artery disease/myocardial infarction (n=9912). The 26 importance of acute cardiovascular reactions is underlined by the fact that deaths caused by 27 them accounted for at least one third (35%) of all deaths associated with Tozinameran’s side 28 effects 29 Based on individual assessment, ARBs are currently recommended in the treatment of spike-30 induced symptoms. 31 Conclusions: The spectrum of side effects of spike-based Covid-19 vaccines is more extensive 32 and severe than is generally known, Adverse cardiovascular events convincingly reflect the 33 mode of spike action, namely down-regulating of the cardiovascular protective enzyme ACE2 34 resulting in increasing Ang II concentrations. A fundamental re-evaluation of the benefit-risk 35 assessment of these novel vaccines is mandatory. Health professionals should be educated about 36 the consequences of spike-induced ACE2 downregulation, the resulting symptoms and 37 therapeutic options.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/we5cx/" target="_blank">The global and specific cardiovascular burden of spike-based Covid-19 1 Vaccination</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Suspected Cardiovascular Side Effects of two Covid-19 Vaccines</strong> -
<div>
Fatalities or cardiovascular side effects of vaccines were rather uncommon in the past. So far, numerous reports of side effects and deaths associated with Covid-19 vaccination have been accepted behind the background of the pandemic situation and the priority vaccinated elderly population at the beginning of the vaqccination campaign. Cardiac and heart circulatory disturbances resp. cardiovascular side effects associated with the application of Covid-19 vaccines have not been recognized up to now with the exception of thrombotic/embolic side effects and cases of myo-/pericarditis. But the mechanism of action suggests that downregulation of ACE2 by non-neutralised spike proteins may have cardiovascular effects. The objective of this analysis was to determine the total number of reported adverse events and fatalities and to record suspected important cardiovascular adverse events up to the cut-off date in European countries. Therefore, a current review/analysis of spontaneously reported fatalities as well as of adverse events after application of Covid-19 vaccines has been performed. Data were retrieved from the EudraVigilance web reports of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), partly also from the safety reports of the German PEI. Covid-19 vaccine-associated suspected side effects and related deaths are alarming. Surprisingly, numerous cardiovascular reactions were reported, many of which were life-threatening. Cardiac and heart circulatory caused fatalities alone accounted for about 33% of all ComirnatyR vaccine-related deaths. The second most important side effects were vascular thrombotic/embolic side effects, often also associated with serious consequences. Based on their quality and quantity, these side effects seem to be characteristic for spike-producing vaccines and do not appear to be substance-specific. Further investigations are needed to clarify the approximately 3.5 times more frequent cases of sinus vein thrombosis and the some different frequent cases of thrombotic/embolic events after VaxzevriaR. The hypothesis could be confirmed. Because of their importance and their sometimes life-threatening consequences, cardiovascular side effects need to be better communicated. Limitations of the investigation result from the individual reporting and recording procedure, the lack of detailed individual information and the lack of an appropriate comparison population.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/gh9u2/" target="_blank">Suspected Cardiovascular Side Effects of two Covid-19 Vaccines</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are required to prevent SARS-CoV-2 persistence in the nasal compartment</strong> -
<div>
SARS-CoV-2 is the causative agent of COVID-19 and continues to pose a significant public health threat throughout the world. Following SARS-CoV-2 infection, virus-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are rapidly generated to form effector and memory cells and persist in the blood for several months. However, the contribution of T cells in controlling SARS-CoV-2 infection within the respiratory tract are not well understood. Using C57BL/6 mice infected with a naturally occurring SARS-CoV-2 variant (B.1.351), we evaluated the role of T cells in the upper and lower respiratory tract. Following infection, SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are recruited to the respiratory tract and a vast proportion secrete the cytotoxic molecule Granzyme B. Using antibodies to deplete T cells prior to infection, we found that CD4+ and CD8+ T cells play distinct roles in the upper and lower respiratory tract. In the lungs, T cells play a minimal role in viral control with viral clearance occurring in the absence of both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells through 28 days post-infection. In the nasal compartment, depletion of both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, but not individually, results in persistent and culturable virus replicating in the nasal compartment through 28 days post-infection. Using in situ hybridization, we found that SARS-CoV-2 infection persisted in the nasal epithelial layer of tandem CD4+ and CD8+ T cell-depleted mice. Sequence analysis of virus isolates from persistently infected mice revealed mutations spanning across the genome, including a deletion in ORF6. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of T cells in controlling virus replication within the respiratory tract during SARS-CoV-2 infection.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.23.576505v1" target="_blank">CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are required to prevent SARS-CoV-2 persistence in the nasal compartment</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Adaptive advantage of deletion repair in the N terminal domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in variants of concern</strong> -
<div>
Mutations within the N-terminal domain (NTD) of the spike (S) protein play a pivotal role in the emergence of successful SARS-CoV-2 viral lineages. This study investigates the influence of novel combinations of NTD lineage-defining mutations found in the Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants on viral success. We performed comparative genomics of more than 10 million public SARS-CoV-2 samples to decipher the transmission success of different NTD markers. Additionally, we characterized the viral phenotype of such markers in a surrogate in vitro system. We found that viruses bearing repaired deletions SDeltaH69/V70 and SDeltaY144 in Alpha background were associated with increased transmission rates. After the emergence of the Omicron BA.1 lineage, Alpha viruses harbouring both repaired deletions still showed increased transmission compared to their BA.1 counterparts. Remarkably, Alpha viruses with the SDeltaH69/V70 repair displayed the highest emergence rate, while those in BA.1 exhibited the lowest. Moreover, repaired deletions were more frequently observed among older individuals infected with Alpha, but not with BA.1. In vitro biological characterization of Omicron BA.1 spike deletion repair patterns revealed substantial differences with Alpha. In BA.1, SDeltaV143/Y145 repair enhanced fusogenicity and susceptibility to neutralization by vaccinated individuals' sera. In contrast, the SDeltaH69/V70 repair did not significantly alter these traits but reduced viral infectivity. Simultaneous repair of both deletions led to lower fusogenicity. These findings highlight the intricate genotype-phenotype landscape of the spike NTD in SARS-CoV-2, which impacts viral biology, transmission efficiency, and susceptibility to neutralization. Overall, this study advances our comprehension of SARS-CoV-2 evolution, carrying implications for public health and future research.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.23.575696v1" target="_blank">Adaptive advantage of deletion repair in the N terminal domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in variants of concern</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>In COVID-19 health messaging, loss framing increases anxiety with little-to-no concomitant benefits: Experimental evidence from 84 countries</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic (and its aftermath) highlights a critical need to communicate health information effectively to the global public. Given that subtle differences in information framing can have meaningful effects on behavior, behavioral science research highlights a pressing question: Is it more effective to frame COVID-19 health messages in terms of potential losses (e.g., “If you do not practice these steps, you can endanger yourself and others”) or potential gains (e.g., “If you practice these steps, you can protect yourself and others”)? Collecting data in 48 languages from 15,929 participants in 84 countries, we experimentally tested the effects of message framing on COVID-19-related judgments, intentions, and feelings. Loss- (vs. gain-) framed messages increased self-reported anxiety among participants cross-nationally with little-to-no impact on policy attitudes, behavioral intentions, or information seeking relevant to pandemic risks. These results were consistent across 84 countries, three variations of the message framing wording, and 560 data processing and analytic choices. Thus, results provide an empirical answer to a global communication question and highlight the emotional toll of loss-framed messages. Critically, this work demonstrates the importance of considering unintended affective consequences when evaluating nudge-style interventions.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/sevkf/" target="_blank">In COVID-19 health messaging, loss framing increases anxiety with little-to-no concomitant benefits: Experimental evidence from 84 countries</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A Global Experiment on Motivating Social Distancing during the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
Finding communication strategies that effectively motivate social distancing continues to be a global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-country, preregistered experiment (n = 25,718 from 89 countries) tested hypotheses concerning generalizable positive and negative outcomes of social distancing messages that promoted personal agency and reflective choices (i.e., an autonomy-supportive message) or were restrictive and shaming (i.e. a controlling message) compared to no message at all. Results partially supported experimental hypotheses in that the controlling message increased controlled motivation (a poorly-internalized form of motivation relying on shame, guilt, and fear of social consequences) relative to no message. On the other hand, the autonomy-supportive message lowered feelings of defiance compared to the controlling message, but the controlling message did not differ from receiving no message at all. Unexpectedly, messages did not influence autonomous motivation (a highly-internalized form of motivation relying on one’s core values) or behavioral intentions. Results supported hypothesized associations between people’s existing autonomous and controlled motivations and self-reported behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing: Controlled motivation was associated with more defiance and less long-term behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing, whereas autonomous motivation was associated with less defiance and more short- and long-term intentions to social distance. Overall, this work highlights the potential harm of using shaming and pressuring language in public health communication, with implications for the current and future global health challenges.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/n3dyf/" target="_blank">A Global Experiment on Motivating Social Distancing during the COVID-19 Pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A global test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy which modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries/regions (N = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vs. both control conditions) had consistent effects in reducing negative emotions and increasing positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world to build resilience during the pandemic and beyond.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/m4gpq/" target="_blank">A global test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Correlates of Health-Protective Behavior During the Initial Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Norway</strong> -
<div>
The coronavirus outbreak manifested in Norway in March 2020. It was met with a combination of mandatory changes (closing of public institutions) and recommended changes (hygiene behavior, physical distancing). It has been emphasized that health-protective behavior such as increased hygiene or physical distancing are able to slow the spread of infections and flatten the curve. Drawing on previous health-psychological studies during the outbreak of various pandemics, we investigated psychological and demographic factors predicting the adoption and engagement in health-protective behavior and changes in such behavior, attitudes, and emotions over time. We recruited a non-representative sample of Norwegians (n = 8676) during a 15-day period (March 12–26 2020) at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in Norway. Employing both traditional methods and exploratory machine learning, we replicated earlier findings that engagement in health-protective behavior is associated with specific demographic characteristics. Further, we observed that increased media exposure, perceiving measures as effective, and perceiving the outbreak as serious positively was related to engagement in health-protective behavior. We also found indications that hygiene and physical distancing behaviors were related to somewhat different psychological and demographic factors. Over the sampling period, reported engagement in physical distancing increased, while experienced concern or fear declined. Contrary to previous studies, we found no or only small positive predictions by confidence in authorities, knowledge about the outbreak, and perceived individual risk, while all of those variables were rather high. These findings provide guidance for health communications or interventions targeting the adoption of health-protective behaviors in order to diminish the spread of COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/6vgf4/" target="_blank">Correlates of Health-Protective Behavior During the Initial Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Norway</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Evaluation of the cross reactivity of neutralising antibody response in vaccinated human and convalescent hamster sera against SARS-CoV-2 variants up to and including JN.1 using an authentic virus neutralisation assay</strong> -
<div>
New vaccines, therapeutics and immunity elicited by natural infection create evolutionary pressure on SARS-CoV-2 to evolve and adapt to evade vaccine-induced and infection-elicited immunity. Vaccine and therapeutics developers thus find themselves in an “arms race” with the virus. The ongoing assessment of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants remains essential as the global community transitions from an emergency response to a long-term management plan. Here, we describe how an authentic virus neutralisation assay using low passage clinical virus isolates has been employed to monitor resistance of emerging virus variants to neutralising antibodies from humans and experimentally infected hamsters. Sera and plasma from people who received three doses of a vaccine as well as those who received a bivalent booster were assessed against SARS-CoV-2 variants, up to and including JN.1. Contemporary or recent virus variants showed substantial resistance to neutralisation by antibodies from those who had received three doses of an ancestral vaccine but were still effectively neutralised by antibodies from individuals who had received a bivalent booster (ancestral/BA.1). In our recent studies, however, the JN.1 VOI was found to be significantly more resistant to neutralisation by antibodies from those who had received the ancestral/BA.1 bivalent boost. Convalescent sera from hamsters that had been experimentally infected with one of seven virus variants (ancestral, BA.1, BA.4, BA.5.2.1, XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16, XBB.2.3) were also tested here. The recent contemporary variant, BA.2.86, was effectively neutralised by sera from hamsters infected with XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.16 but it was not neutralised by sera from those infected with BA.5.2.1. These data support the recommendations given by the WHO that a new vaccine was required and should consist of an XBB sub-lineage antigen.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.21.563398v2" target="_blank">Evaluation of the cross reactivity of neutralising antibody response in vaccinated human and convalescent hamster sera against SARS-CoV-2 variants up to and including JN.1 using an authentic virus neutralisation assay</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Comparing frequency of booster vaccination to prevent severe COVID-19 by risk group in the United States</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
There is a public health need to understand how different frequencies of COVID-19 booster vaccines may mitigate the risk of severe COVID-19, while accounting for waning of protection and differential risk by age and immune status. By analyzing United States COVID-19 surveillance and seroprevalence data in a microsimulation model, here we show that more frequent COVID-19 booster vaccination (every 6-12 months) in older age groups and the immunocompromised population would effectively reduce the burden of severe COVID-19, while frequent boosters in the younger population may only provide modest benefit against severe disease. In persons 75+ years, the model estimated that annual boosters would reduce absolute annual risk of severe COVID-19 by 199 (uncertainty interval: 188-229) cases per 100,000 persons, compared to a one-time booster dose. In contrast, for persons 18-49 years, the model estimated that annual boosters would reduce this risk by 14 (11-19) cases per 100,000 persons. Those with prior infection had lower benefit of more frequent boosting, and immunocompromised persons had larger benefit. Scenarios with emerging variants with immune evasion increased the benefit of more frequent variant-targeted boosters. This study underscores the benefit of considering key risk factors to inform frequency of COVID-19 booster vaccines in public health guidance and ensuring at least annual boosters in high-risk populations.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.10.23292473v4" target="_blank">Comparing frequency of booster vaccination to prevent severe COVID-19 by risk group in the United States</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Long COVID-19 [11C]CPPC Study</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID Long-Haul <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: [11C]CPPC Injection; Drug: [11C]CPPC Injection <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Johns Hopkins University; Radiological Society of North America <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>Thrombohemorrhagic Complications of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Diagnostic Test: Prevention algorithm <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Volgograd State Medical University <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>Combined Use of Immunoglobulin and Pulse Steroid Therapies in Severe Covid-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Pulse Steroid and Immunoglobulins Drugs in Covid 19 Patients <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: pulse steroid and nanogam <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Konya City Hospital <br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Beneficial Effects of Natural Products on Management of Xerostomia</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Xerostomia; Diabetes Mellitus; Hypertension; Post COVID-19 Condition <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: (Manuka honey-green tea- ginger) <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: British University In Egypt <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>Eficacia Ventilatoria y Remolacha</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS CoV 2 Infection; Muscle Disorder; Fatigue <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Dietary Supplement: Remolacha <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Hospital de Mataró <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>Diet and Fasting for Long COVID</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long Covid19; Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Low sugar diet and 10-12 hour eating window; Other: Low sugar diet, 8 hour eating window and fasting <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences <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>The Effectiveness of a Health Promotion Program for Older People With Post-Covid-19 Sarcopenia</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post COVID-19 Condition <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Protein powder and Resistance exercise <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Mahidol University; National Health Security Office, Thailand <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>Chronic-disease Self-management Program in Patients Living With Long-COVID in Puerto Rico</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long Covid19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: “Tomando control de su salud” (Spanish Chronic Disease Self-Management) <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Puerto Rico; National Institutes of Health (NIH) <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>Treatment of Persistent Post-Covid-19 Smell and Taste Disorders</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-covid-19 Persistent Smell and Taste Disorders <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Cerebrolysin; Other: olfactory and gustatory trainings <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Sherifa Ahmed Hamed <br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study to Evealuate Safety and Immunogenicity of TI-0010 SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine in Healthy Adults</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19; COVID-19 Immunisation <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: TI-0010; Biological: Placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: National Drug Clinical Trial Institute of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College; Therorna <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Anti-COVID-19 Potential of Withaferin-A and Caffeic Acid Phenethyl Ester</strong> - CONCLUSION: Wi-A and CAPE possess multimodal anti-COVID-19 potential, and their combination (Wi-ACAPE) is expected to provide better activity and hence warrant further attention in the laboratory and clinic.</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>Recurrent viral capture of cellular phosphodiesterases that antagonize OAS-RNase L</strong> - Phosphodiesterases (PDEs) encoded by viruses are putatively acquired by horizontal transfer of cellular PDE ancestor genes. Viral PDEs inhibit the OAS-RNase L antiviral pathway, a key effector component of the innate immune response. Although the function of these proteins is well-characterized, the origins of these gene acquisitions are less clear. Phylogenetic analysis revealed at least five independent PDE acquisition events by ancestral viruses. We found evidence that PDE-encoding genes were…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibitory Activity of Flavonoid Scaffolds on SARS-CoV-2 3CL<sup>pro</sup>: Insights from the Computational and Experimental Investigations</strong> - The emergence of the COVID-19 situation has become a global issue due to the lack of effective antiviral drugs for treatment. Flavonoids are a class of plant secondary metabolites that have antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 through inhibition of the main protease (3CL^(pro)). In this study, 22 flavonoids obtained from natural sources and semisynthetic approaches were investigated for their inhibitory activity against SARS-CoV-2 3CL^(pro), along with cytotoxicity on Vero cells. 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>Triterpenoidal Saponins from the Leaves of <em>Aster koraiensis</em> Offer Inhibitory Activities against SARS-CoV-2</strong> - Triterpenoidal saponins have been reported to be able to restrain SARS-CoV-2 infection. To isolate antiviral compounds against SARS-CoV-2 from the leaves of Aster koraiensis, we conducted multiple steps of column chromatography. We isolated six triperpenoidal saponins from A. koraiensis leaves, including three unreported saponins. Their chemical structures were determined using HR-MS and NMR data analyses. Subsequently, we tested the isolates to assess their ability to impede the entry of the…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Assessing Genomic Mutations in SARS-CoV-2: Potential Resistance to Antiviral Drugs in Viral Populations from Untreated COVID-19 Patients</strong> - Naturally occurring SARS-CoV-2 variants mutated in genomic regions targeted by antiviral drugs have not been extensively studied. This study investigated the potential of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) complex subunits and non-structural protein (Nsp)5 of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) to accumulate natural mutations that could affect the efficacy of antiviral drugs. To this aim, SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences isolated from 4155 drug-naive individuals from…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An Investigation of Severe Influenza Cases in Russia during the 2022-2023 Epidemic Season and an Analysis of HA-D222G/N Polymorphism in Newly Emerged and Dominant Clade 6B.1A.5a.2a A(H1N1)pdm09 Viruses</strong> - In Russia, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a decrease in influenza circulation was initially observed. Influenza circulation re-emerged with the dominance of new clades of A(H3N2) viruses in 2021-2022 and A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses in 2022-2023. In this study, we aimed to characterize influenza viruses during the 2022-2023 season in Russia, as well as investigate A(H1N1)pdm09 HA-D222G/N polymorphism associated with increased disease severity. PCR testing of 780 clinical specimens showed 72.2% of them to…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Antivirals for Broader Coverage against Human Coronaviruses</strong> - Coronaviruses (CoVs) are enveloped positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses with a genome that is 27-31 kbases in length. Critical genes include the spike (S), envelope (E), membrane (M), nucleocapsid (N) and nine accessory open reading frames encoding for non-structural proteins (NSPs) that have multiple roles in the replication cycle and immune evasion (1). There are seven known human CoVs that most likely appeared after zoonotic transfer, the most recent being SARS-CoV-2, responsible for…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Emerging Therapeutic Potential of Polyphenols from <em>Geranium sanguineum</em> L. in Viral Infections, Including SARS-CoV-2</strong> - The existing literature supports the anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antiviral capacities of the polyphenol extracts derived from Geranium sanguineum L. These extracts exhibit potential in hindering viral replication by inhibiting enzymes like DNA polymerase and reverse transcriptase. The antiviral properties of G. sanguineum L. seem to complement its immunomodulatory effects, contributing to infection resolution. While preclinical studies on G. sanguineum L. suggest its potential…</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>Excess phosphate promotes SARS‑CoV‑2 N protein‑induced NLRP3 inflammasome activation via the SCAP‑SREBP2 signaling pathway</strong> - Hyperphosphatemia or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) infection can promote cardiovascular adverse events in patients with chronic kidney disease. Hyperphosphatemia is associated with elevated inflammation and sterol regulatory element binding protein 2 (SREBP2) activation, but the underlying mechanisms in SARS‑CoV‑2 that are related to cardiovascular disease remain unclear. The present study aimed to elucidate the role of excess inorganic phosphate (PI) in 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>Quercetin inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infection and prevents syncytium formation by cells co-expressing the viral spike protein and human ACE2</strong> - CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that at low 3-digit micromolar concentrations of quercetin could impair SARS-CoV-2 infection of human cells partly by blocking the fusion process that promotes its propagation.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The temporal association of CapZ with early endosomes regulates endosomal trafficking and viral entry into host cells</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that the temporal association of CapZ with EEs facilitates early-to-late endosome transition (physiologically) and the release of the viral genome from endocytic vesicles (pathologically).</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>Longitudinal plasma proteomics reveals biomarkers of alveolar-capillary barrier disruption in critically ill COVID-19 patients</strong> - The pathobiology of respiratory failure in COVID-19 consists of a complex interplay between viral cytopathic effects and a dysregulated host immune response. In critically ill patients, imatinib treatment demonstrated potential for reducing invasive ventilation duration and mortality. Here, we perform longitudinal profiling of 6385 plasma proteins in 318 hospitalised patients to investigate the biological processes involved in critical COVID-19, and assess the effects of imatinib treatment. Nine…</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>Drug repurposing platform for deciphering the druggable SARS-CoV-2 interactome</strong> - The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has heavily challenged the global healthcare system. Despite the vaccination programs, the new virus variants are circulating. Further research is required for understanding of the biology of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and for discovery of therapeutic agents against the virus. Here, we took advantage of drug repurposing to identify if existing drugs could inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection. We established an…</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>Mechanistic Understanding of the Modes of Ca<sup>2+</sup> Ion Binding to the SARS-CoV-1 Fusion Peptide and Their Role in the Dynamics of Host Membrane Penetration</strong> - The SARS-CoV-1 spike glycoprotein contains a fusion peptide (FP) segment that mediates the fusion of the viral and host cell membranes. Calcium ions are thought to position the FP optimally for membrane insertion by interacting with negatively charged residues in this segment (E801, D802, D812, E821, D825, and D830); however, which residues bind to calcium and in what combinations supportive of membrane insertion are unknown. Using biological assays and molecular dynamics studies, we have…</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>Pharmacokinetics of recombinant human annexin A5 (SY-005) in patients with severe COVID-19</strong> - Objective: Annexin A5 is a phosphatidylserine binding protein with anti-inflammatory, anticoagulant and anti-apoptotic properties. Preclinical studies have shown that annexin A5 inhibits pro-inflammatory responses and improves organ function and survival in rodent models of sepsis. This clinical trial aimed to evaluate the pharmacokinetic (PK) properties of the recombinant human annexin A5 (SY-005) in severe COVID-19. Methods: This was a pilot randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial….</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 Importance of the I.C.J. Ruling on Israel</strong> - The court did not order a ceasefire, but its finding that Israel is the subject of “plausible” claims that it is in violation of the Genocide Convention is momentous, an international-law expert says. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-importance-of-the-icj-ruling-on-israel">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Future of Academic Freedom</strong> - As the Israel-Hamas war provokes claims about unacceptable speech, the ability to debate difficult subjects is in renewed peril. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/the-future-of-academic-freedom">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How to Eat a Tire in a Year, by David Sedaris</strong> - Walking and talking with my friend Dawn. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/29/how-to-eat-a-tire-in-a-year-david-sedaris">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sofia Coppola’s Path to Filming Gilded Adolescence</strong> - There are few Hollywood families in which one famous director has spawned another. Coppola says, “It’s not easy for anyone in this business, even though it looks easy for me.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/29/sofia-coppola-profile">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rules for the Ruling Class</strong> - How to thrive in the power élite—while declaring it your enemy. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/29/rules-for-the-ruling-class">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>You’re probably eating way too much protein</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A photograph of a rotisserie chicken." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-vZ2wvcTIK8pNegDZwLp9JN_CeM=/222x0:3778x2667/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73091463/GettyImages_869095224.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
David Williams/Bloomberg Creative Photos
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Americans are obsessing over protein and forgetting about fiber.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xC4yAr">
<em>This story has been adapted from </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/22842911/how-to-eat-less-meat-newsletter-course"><em>Meat/Less</em></a><em>, Vox’s newsletter series to help you easily incorporate more plant-based foods into your diet. For five</em> <em>weeks, you’ll get challenges, recipes, and insights on how to make eating less meat work for you. Sign up </em><a href="http://vox.com/meatless"><em>here</em></a><em>!</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0PstBy">
Americans are <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/08/how-much-protein-diet/675156/">oddly obsessed with protein</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="23HyA7">
They eat around <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/well/eat/how-much-protein-do-we-need.html">twice as much</a> of it as the federal government <a href="https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/sites/default/files/2020-12/Dietary_Guidelines_for_Americans_2020-2025.pdf">recommends</a>, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/well/eat/how-much-protein-do-we-need.html">60 percent of US adults</a> are trying to get even more of it into their diets. And this obsession could be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/well/eat/can-you-get-too-much-protein.html?_r=0">making us sick</a>: Excessive protein consumption, especially from cholesterol-rich animal-based foods, is correlated with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/well/eat/can-you-get-too-much-protein.html?_r=0">increased risk of cancer and heart disease</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J8WoqN">
This doesn’t just affect those following high-protein, keto, paleo, or low-carb diets (which, combined, is more than<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/993725/consumer-diet-share-us/"> 1 in 5 Americans</a>). It’s a problem for most Americans, <a href="https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/2015-2020_Dietary_Guidelines.pdf">especially men</a>. One <a href="https://www.rgs.org/about-us/press-and-media/recent-press-releases/meat-free-men-men-want-to-eat-less-meat-but-avoid-vegetarian-and-vegan-food-in-social-settings-with">small, informal study</a> in the UK even found that some men who want to reduce their meat consumption are embarrassed to order vegetarian meals among male friends.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vpq6NF">
<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-too-much-protein-makes-pee-a-problem-pollutant-in-the-u-s/">Excessive protein consumption</a> is also wrecking the planet, with meat and dairy production accounting for upward of <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23738600/un-fao-meat-dairy-livestock-emissions-methane-climate-change">one-fifth</a> of greenhouse gas emissions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dCVM6S">
Globally, most people <a href="https://www.wri.org/data/people-are-eating-more-protein-they-need-especially-wealthy-regions">exceed protein consumption recommendations</a>, but Americans and Canadians take it to another level. Despite eating more protein than any other region, Americans and Canadians eat the least amount of plant-based protein — instead, they get it from animal meat, dairy, and eggs.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RFZGREPzxIZIBOZ2036JAjI-Byg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25246447/protein_requirement_per_country__1_.jpg"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g1dPCq">
This explains why one of the first questions people ask when they learn someone is vegetarian, or just reducing their meat intake, is “Where do you get your protein?” But there are many <a href="https://www.theveganrd.com/vegan-nutrition-101/vegan-nutrition-primers/plant-protein-a-vegan-nutrition-primer/">plant-based foods high in protein</a>, like beans, tofu, tempeh, lentils, peanut butter, plant-based “meat” products, nuts, and soy milk.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kNltet">
Unless you’re <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/1/20/7558995/how-to-build-muscle">pretty ambitious about bodybuilding</a>, you probably don’t need to worry about whether you’re getting enough protein while trying to reduce meat consumption or become vegetarian.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SMOz90">
“On a vegetarian or vegan diet, you can get enough protein if you eat an adequate number of calories from a variety of whole foods,” <a href="https://health.clevelandclinic.org/13-of-the-best-vegetarian-and-vegan-protein-sources/">says Nancy Geib</a>, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Diabetes and Nutrition. And if you are trying to gain a lot of muscle, it’s even possible to compete at the highest level of strength sports as a vegetarian or vegan: In 2016, <a href="https://qz.com/758648/kendrick-farris-vegan-weightlifter-rio-olympics-2016">Kendrick Farris</a> — who is vegan — was the only American to compete in men’s weightlifting at the Rio Olympics.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WhUGIM">
But one nutrient the average American isn’t eating nearly enough of is fiber, and eating more plant-based foods is a surefire way to change that.
</p>
<h3 id="PozcJb">
The fiber gap, explained
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HFYvvG">
A 2021 study found only <a href="https://nutrition.org/most-americans-are-not-getting-enough-fiber-in-our-diets/">7 percent</a> of Americans get enough fiber, a problem nutritionists call the “fiber gap.” Fiber is <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/3/20/18214505/fiber-diet-weight-loss">critical</a> because it’s “amazingly helpful in many ways: It slows the absorption of glucose — which evens out our blood sugar levels — and also lowers cholesterol and inflammation,” former Vox senior health correspondent Julia Belluz wrote.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="65QPvZ">
A fiber-heavy diet is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559033/">associated</a> with reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, high cholesterol, hypertension, certain cancers, and more. It can also improve your <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/fiber-diet-good-for-gut-and-health">gut health</a> and help keep you more regular, if that’s important to you. Luckily, <a href="https://www.benefiber.com/fiber-in-your-life/daily-fiber-intake/top-10-high-fiber-foods/">the most fiber-rich foods</a> happen to be plants: beans, avocados, berries, whole grains, broccoli, potatoes, nuts, and dried fruit.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jeaxGW">
There are many health benefits to be reaped from a plant-based diet as well. According to the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/">American Dietetic Association</a>, well-planned vegan diets are healthful and nutritionally adequate and can contribute to the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. (Well-planned = eating in a way that is balanced and not <a href="https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/orthorexia/">obsessing over health or “purity.”</a>) But let’s be clear: It’s not going to cure cancer, give you perfectly glowing skin, or make you feel amazing all the time, as some of the more fringe corners of the vegan internet might suggest.
</p>
<aside id="ldA9rr">
<div>
</div>
</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FFTXqt">
Health and nutrition is a sensitive issue, as there’s loads of pseudoscience out there. You can be an unhealthy vegan or flexitarian, a healthy omnivore, or anywhere in between. (Talk to your doctor or a registered dietitian if you have questions about what’s best for you.)
</p>
<h3 id="WFISjG">
What aspiring vegans should know about B12, iron, and more
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DRk9Rs">
According to a <a href="https://faunalytics.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Faunalytics-Study-of-Current-and-Former-Vegetarians-and-Vegans-%E2%80%93-Qualitative-Findings1.pdf">2015 report</a> from Faunalytics, an animal advocacy research organization, 26 percent of vegetarians and vegans quit their diet because they felt it wasn’t good for their health. That said, the main problems described — like not getting enough protein or iron — could have been addressed with some basic nutrition guidance. Let’s tackle those concerns.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LOhwkV">
The most important nutrient for vegans to pay attention to is <a href="https://nutritionstudies.org/12-questions-answered-regarding-vitamin-b12/">vitamin B12</a>, as it’s almost exclusively found in animal foods.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CM9HVT">
Vitamin B12 is <a href="https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminB12-HealthProfessional/">critical</a> to central nervous system development and function, healthy red blood cell formation, and DNA synthesis, and ignoring it can cause <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/vitamin-b12-deficiency-can-be-sneaky-harmful-201301105780">short- and long-term health issues</a> for vegetarians and vegans, though healthy meat reducers <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10448529/#:~:text=Vitamin%20B12%20deficiency%20is%20estimated,methylmalonic%20acid%20and%20homocysteine%20levels.">under 60 years old</a> need not worry about it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hL1cWh">
But it’s easy to get adequate B12 (the <a href="https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminB12-Consumer/">recommended daily amount</a> for adults is 2.4 micrograms) for just a few pennies per day. Take vitamin B12 in whatever form you’d like — pills, lozenges, or oral sprays, all of which can be purchased at your local pharmacy or grocery — and, when possible, eat B12-fortified foods (e.g., most breakfast cereals, <a href="https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/what-is-nutritional-yeast-healthy-vegan-cheese-alternative-article">nutritional yeast</a>, and plant-based milks).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dyHIjt">
Another critical nutrient is iron. As with protein, some think it’s hard to get enough iron on a less- or no-meat diet, since meat and other animal products are high in iron. However, many plant-based foods are high in iron, too. For example, half a cup of cooked lentils has almost <a href="https://www.theveganrd.com/vegan-nutrition-101/vegan-nutrition-primers/iron-a-vegan-nutrition-primer/">twice as much iron as 4 ounces of beef</a>, and vegans and vegetarians usually consume more iron than omnivores, <a href="https://www.theveganrd.com/vegan-nutrition-101/vegan-nutrition-primers/iron-a-vegan-nutrition-primer/">according</a> to registered dietitian Ginny Messina.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0hVUap">
The catch is that iron from plant-based foods — called non-heme iron — doesn’t absorb as well in the body as iron from animal sources. Because of this, vegetarians should eat almost twice as much iron as the <a href="https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iron-Consumer/">recommended daily amount</a>, which ranges from 8 to 27 milligrams, depending on age, sex, and whether you’re pregnant or lactating.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j7Csxq">
Like eating enough protein, that’s manageable because iron is found in a lot of commonly eaten plant-based foods: beans, lentils, soy products, nuts, seeds, squashes, dark leafy greens, oats, dried fruit, and quinoa. I recommend Messina’s <a href="https://www.theveganrd.com/vegan-nutrition-101/vegan-nutrition-primers/">“vegan nutrition primers”</a> for more practical, evidence-based nutrition guidance.
</p>
<h3 id="tXebbE">
Today’s challenge: Up your fiber
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rUOxY9">
Now that you’re aware of the fiber gap, try to close it by eating a few fiber-rich foods this week — and be sure to share this story with anyone who asks how you’ll get enough protein on a less-meat diet.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SPhHph">
</p></li>
<li><strong>The legal fight over whether Texas can seize control of the border, explained</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="People stand beside a pickup truck at the edge of a river." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IvXu4BX452xul2tukkScv2C5IKo=/106x0:723x463/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73089482/temp.0.png"/>
<figcaption>
US Border Patrol agents stand near a razor wire barrier erected near the US-Mexico border by the state of Texas. | Courtesy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The Constitution gives the Biden administration nearly exclusive authority over matters of immigration. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wants the courts to change that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VTs1ja">
Last Monday, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus">Supreme Court</a> made its <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2024/1/22/24047314/supreme-court-texas-homeland-security-razor-wire-eagle-pass-biden">first foray into a longstanding conflict</a> over who is in charge of the United States-Mexico border: the United States government or Texas’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wra80M">
In a 5–4 decision, the Court temporarily permitted federal officials to cut razor wire barriers set up by the Texas government, which had prevented US Border Patrol agents from entering an area where immigrants sometimes cross into the United States. This decision, moreover, came in one of several disputes between Texas and the United States over border policy — with <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/26/texas-border-dispute-gop-states-support-letter/72364737007/">many GOP-led states now backing Abbott</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N7vjU8">
Under existing law, it is well established that the federal government is in charge of nearly all questions of <a href="https://www.vox.com/immigration">immigration policy</a> and may override state immigration <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> that conflict with its goals. As the Supreme Court said in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-182#writing-11-182_OPINION_3"><em>Arizona v. United States</em></a> (2012), “[I]t is fundamental that foreign countries concerned about the status, safety, and security of their nationals in the United States must be able to confer and communicate on this subject with one national sovereign, not the 50 separate States.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JecO5k">
But it is unclear whether the current Supreme Court, with its 6–3 Republican supermajority, will honor this longstanding balance of power between the national government and the states, which has been in place at least as far back as the Court’s 1941 decision in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/312/52"><em>Hines v. Davidowitz</em></a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XyU0va">
Though the Court’s Monday order in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/012224zr_fd9g.pdf"><em>Department of Homeland Security v. Texas</em></a> was a victory for the <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden">Biden administration</a>, it was also an ominous sign that many of the justices are eager to shift power away from the federal government — and toward state officials like Abbott, who are eager to impose more draconian enforcement policies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3Zz7JR">
The case involved an extraordinary attack on the federal government’s primacy over immigration. Texas erected razor wire barriers along a river in Eagle Pass, Texas, that physically prevented federal Border Patrol agents from entering the area, processing migrants in those areas, or providing assistance to drowning victims. According to the DOJ, the Border Patrol was unable to aid an “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A607/294669/20240102145055112_23A%20DHS%20v.%20Texas%20app.pdf">unconscious subject floating on top of the water”</a> because of these barriers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8PZaBa">
Federal law, moreover, provides that Border Patrol agents may “<a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:8%20section:1357%20edition:prelim)">have access to private lands</a>, but not dwellings, for the purpose of patrolling the border to prevent the illegal entry of aliens into the United States.” So Texas claimed the power to use razor wire to prevent federal officers from performing their duties, in direct violation of a federal statute. Nevertheless, four justices dissented from the Court’s order allowing the Border Patrol to cut the razor wire when necessary to do their jobs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yNrNnb">
This dispute over razor wire is one of at least three ongoing legal disputes between Texas and the United States over who controls the border. The Biden administration also sued Texas, in a case known as <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.215588/gov.uscourts.ca5.215588.98.0.pdf"><em>United States v. Abbott</em></a>, seeking to remove a 1,000-foot floating barrier Texas erected in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. At least <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/03/texas-mexico-buoys-body-rio-grande-eagle-pass/#:~:text=Texas%20authorities%20believe%20the%20person,the%20buoys%20along%20the%20river.">one body was found trapped in this barrier</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NHZI5e">
Meanwhile, a third case, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1330861/dl?inline="><em>United States v. Texas</em></a>, challenges a Texas state law that purports to give state judges the power to issue deportation orders. That law will take effect in early March unless a court intervenes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="17kdQw">
At least two of these lawsuits — the razor wire case and the challenge to the state-authorized deportations — should be slam dunks for the federal government under decisions like <em>Arizona </em>and <em>Hines</em>. But Republicans have long railed against federal primacy in the immigration space. And, as the narrow vote in the razor wire case suggests, many of the GOP-appointed justices appear to have embraced their political party’s stance on this issue.
</p>
<h3 id="ELUySk">
Why the federal government has virtually exclusive authority over immigration
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="irAMmT">
So why do states play such a diminished role in immigration policy? A partial answer can be found in the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi">Constitution’s Supremacy Clause</a>, which states that federal law and federal treaty obligations “shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V9QtYJ">
This is why the <em>Homeland Security </em>case — the razor wire case recently decided by the Supreme Court — should have been a clear-cut victory for the federal government. There is a federal law explicitly stating that Border Patrol agents may enter other people’s land “for the purpose of patrolling the border to prevent the illegal entry of aliens into the United States.” Under the Constitution, that law is supreme over any state law or policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CIhIE4">
This principle, that federal law overcomes state law when the two conflict, is known as “preemption,” and preemption is particularly strong in the immigration context. As the Supreme Court held in <em>Hines</em>, preemption in immigration cases extends not just to federal laws that explicitly conflict with those in a state, but also to any area where <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress">Congress</a> has enacted a “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/312/52">complete scheme of regulation</a>” governing an aspect of US immigration policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wMGZcj">
<em>Hines</em> involved a Pennsylvania law that required non-citizens 18 years of age or older to register with the state, “receive an alien identification card and carry it at all times,” and to present this card upon demand to police officers and other state officials. At the time, federal law also required non-citizen immigrants to register with the federal government, but the federal law did not provide for ID cards or specify many of the requirements imposed by the Pennsylvania regime.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fNgQyi">
In striking down this Pennsylvania law, the Court warned that states must play an exceedingly limited role in immigration policy because of the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/312/52">risk that a single state could damage US relations with other nations</a>. “One of the most important and delicate of all international relationships,” <em>Hines</em> explained, “has to do with the protection of the just rights of a country’s own nationals when those nationals are in another country.” The Court added that “international controversies of the gravest moment, sometimes even leading to war, may arise from real or imagined wrongs” inflicted on the citizens of one nation by another.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5MBi5l">
That does not mean that the United States must treat every single foreign national with caution or deference. But it does mean that, if the United States decides to risk an international incident by treating a foreign national harshly, that decision should come from a government that is accountable to the entire American people — and not just to the people of one state.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="55cflX">
“The Federal Government, representing as it does the collective interests of the forty-eight states, is entrusted with full and exclusive responsibility for the conduct of affairs with foreign sovereignties,” the Court said in an opinion that was handed down before Alaska and Hawaii became states. Thus, “for national purposes, embracing our relations with foreign nations, we are but one people, one nation, one power.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LGdOEp">
One corollary to this rule of federal supremacy, <em>Hines</em> also held, is that comprehensive federal regulation over immigration-related matters preempts state regulation that touches on similar matters, even if the federal law does not explicitly say that state laws are preempted. In the Court’s words,
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0zBIu8">
where the federal government, in the exercise of its superior authority in this field, has enacted a complete scheme of regulation and has therein provided a standard for the registration of aliens, states cannot, inconsistently with the purpose of Congress, conflict or interfere with, curtail or complement, the federal law, or enforce additional or auxiliary regulations.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LmEv2H">
The same rule should apply to the not-yet-in-effect Texas law permitting state courts to issue deportation orders. Just like the Pennsylvania registration scheme at issue in <em>Hines</em>, Texas is stepping into an area that Congress has comprehensively regulated with its law allowing state courts to order deportations. Federal law provides for a network of immigration officials and <a href="https://www.justice.gov/eoir/immigration-court-information">specialized courts</a> that determine which immigrants may remain in the United States and which ones must be deported. Texas may neither “curtail or complement” these courts with its own state-level immigration system.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rJFa24">
Nevertheless, state laws seeking to undermine <em>Hines</em> now seem likely to arise whenever a Democrat is in the White House. The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-182#writing-11-182_OPINION_3">2012 <em>Arizona</em> case</a> involved such a state law, known as SB 1070, which sought to “discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens” by giving state police new authority to arrest and detain individuals they had “probable cause to believe … has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OedUNL">
Yet while the Supreme Court in 2012 was quite conservative, it did not bite on this effort to undercut <em>Hines</em> and instead blocked several key provisions of SB 1070. <em>Arizona</em> was a 5–3 decision, with Republican appointees Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy crossing over to vote with three liberal justices (Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal Obama appointee, was recused from the case).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tFE7D5">
Texas’s deportation law is probably best understood as an attempt to relitigate the <em>Arizona</em> case, but to do it with a much more conservative, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/7/8/23784320/supreme-court-2022-term-affirmative-action-religion-voting-rights-abortion">much more partisan</a>, Supreme Court. Since 2012, Kennedy left the Court and was replaced by Trump-appointee Brett Kavanaugh — a fairly hardline conservative who <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2024/1/22/24047314/supreme-court-texas-homeland-security-razor-wire-eagle-pass-biden">dissented from the recent <em>Homeland Security</em> order</a>. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.vox.com/21446222/ruth-bader-ginsburg-death-dead-supreme-court">Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg</a>, a liberal feminist icon, died in 2020 and was replaced by conservative <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/26/21457704/trump-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court-nominee">Justice Amy Coney Barrett</a> (though Barrett, it is worth noting, joined the majority in <em>Homeland Security</em>).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n5jE1m">
If <em>Hines</em> is overruled or undermined, in other words, it will not happen because of any change in American law or the Constitution. Rather, it will happen solely because the Court’s personnel has changed — and the new justices tend to vote with the Republican Party.
</p>
<h3 id="VunvDk">
Texas’s arguments in the floating barrier case are less frivolous than their arguments in the other two cases
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N1Szbu">
<em>Hines</em> is much less of a factor in the <em>Abbott</em> case, the one challenging the floating barrier blocking a stretch of the Rio Grande, because that case turns not on an immigration law but on a federal statute intended to keep major American waterways unobstructed.
</p>
<div class="c-float-left">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A muddy river with a long orange line of floats in the middle running parallel to the shore." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bgMw4n5sIF2qQtnDHjQmLbNuDy4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25250513/temp.png"/> <cite>Courtesy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit</cite>
<figcaption>
The floating obstruction at issue in the <em>Abbott</em> case.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z9dO6A">
The floating barrier at the heart of the <em>Abbott</em> case, according to two federal judges who ruled against Texas in this case, “is roughly 1,000 feet long, made up of large four-foot orange buoys fastened together with heavy metal cables and anchored in place with concrete blocks placed systematically on the floor of the Rio Grande.” It also features “a stainless-steel mesh ‘anti-dive net’ extending two feet into the water.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WhHjoq">
This barrier appears to be <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/03/texas-mexico-buoys-body-rio-grande-eagle-pass/#:~:text=Texas%20authorities%20believe%20the%20person,the%20buoys%20along%20the%20river.">responsible for at least one death by drowning</a> — an unidentified victim who most likely was a migrant attempting to cross the southern border into the United States
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E9CWDS">
The federal government challenges this barrier not under a federal immigration law but under a statute providing that “the creation of any obstruction not affirmatively authorized by Congress, <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.215588/gov.uscourts.ca5.215588.98.0.pdf">to the navigable capacity of any of the waters of the United States</a> is prohibited,” and forbidding the construction of any “wharf, pier, dolphin, boom, weir, breakwater, bulkhead, jetty, or other structures” in a “navigable river … of the United States” without approval from the Army Corps of Engineers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jPNJY8">
This case was previously heard by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/27/23496264/supreme-court-fifth-circuit-trump-court-immigration-housing-sexual-harrassment">far-right court</a> that frequently acts as a rubber stamp for legal theories offered by MAGA litigants. The three Fifth Circuit judges initially assigned to this case, however, included two Democrats and one Republican — and they split along party lines, with the majority agreeing that the floating barrier violates the federal statute.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VYrp9A">
That three-judge panel’s decision is no longer in effect because the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/17/texas-river-border-buoys-to-stay-in-place-while-5th-circuit-rehears-case-00136125">full Fifth Circuit agreed to rehear the case</a> in a process known as “en banc” — a process that, among other things, allows the full court’s right-wing majority to reconsider decisions that were randomly assigned to panels with a Democratic majority.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Esc5C7">
In any event, the panel divided on whether the particular stretch of river that contains the floating barrier qualifies as a “navigable” waterway under the relevant federal law.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d8GU7x">
Judge Dana Douglas, the Biden appointee who authored the panel’s majority opinion, pointed to the fact that federal law <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.215588/gov.uscourts.ca5.215588.98.0.pdf">defines what constitutes a “navigable” waterway quite expansively</a>. Among other things, the relevant federal regulation provides that “a determination of navigability, once made, applies laterally over the entire surface of the waterbody, and is not extinguished by later actions or events which impede or destroy navigable capacity.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tZRYR4">
Douglas also points to several official federal documents which concluded that the relevant section of the Rio Grande is navigable, including a 2011 determination by the Army Corps that this river is navigable from “the Zapata-Webb county line upstream to the point of intersection of the Texas-New Mexico state line and Mexico,” and a 1984 determination by the US Coast Guard that the Rio Grande “was listed among the navigable waters of the United States pursuant to treaties with Mexico and for Coast Guard regulatory purposes.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="86Z5HV">
In dissent, Judge Don Willett, a Trump judge, essentially argues that these determinations by expert federal agencies were wrong and that they misread two longstanding treaties.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nqEYDD">
It’s doubtful that Willett, a lawyer with no training in engineering, hydrology, or maritime navigation, reached a more accurate conclusion than two federal agencies with considerable expertise in such matters. But Willett does make a plausible case that the relevant section of the river has not historically been used very much by commercial vessels. Among other things, he points to a 1975 Army Corps study which found that “there was ‘no [then-current] commercial activity occurring within’ that stretch of the river.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eXyWCu">
So this does appear to be an edge case. It’s not surprising that migrants would prefer to cross the Rio Grande at a narrow point that does not lend itself to easy commercial navigation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JgHRZg">
Nevertheless, given that federal regulations explicitly state that “a determination of navigability, once made, applies laterally over the entire surface of the waterbody,” Willett is on very shaky ground by trying to second-guess a series of official determinations that the Rio Grande is navigable — many of which predate the <em>Abbott</em> litigation by decades.
</p>
<h3 id="A8iuq2">
Gov. Abbott’s public rhetoric about these disputes has focused on his worst legal argument
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PVPFdA">
On Wednesday, shortly after the Supreme Court ruled against him in the razor wire case, Abbott <a href="https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1750235544951349275/photo/1">released an angry statement</a> accusing the federal government of breaking “the compact between the United States and the States” by opposing Abbott’s preferred border policies. He also claimed that he has the authority to act against the federal government’s wishes because he “declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FppbBO">
This is, to put it mildly, a terrible legal argument.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lQ3iFb">
The <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/article-i?gad_source=1&amp;gclid=CjwKCAiAzc2tBhA6EiwArv-i6cuaN6iT508IQyWCVXThdQ3dNEMcQDV5qrrL9oQphYUZk-QmlohOjhoCu7kQAvD_BwE">clause of the Constitution</a> that Abbott references provides that “no State shall … engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” One thing that immediately stands out after reading this language is that it does not authorize any state to do anything. Rather, this clause is a prohibition on certain state actions; it forbids states from waging “War” except in limited circumstances.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LpxHEZ">
It is very odd to read a provision of the Constitution that limits state power as giving a state the power to violate federal law.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vMDFnZ">
Abbott’s argument that a rush of migrants trying to enter the United States constitutes an “invasion,” moreover, was <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-17-02-0202">rejected by no less of an authority than James Madison</a>. In an 1800 document, Madison wrote that “invasion is an operation of war … And as the removal of alien friends has appeared to be no incident to a general state of war, it cannot be incident to a partial state, or a particular modification of war.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3j8dI7">
In other words, undocumented migrants from non-hostile nations are neither an “invasion” nor are they something a state can wage “War” against.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="leJPa1">
Federal courts, moreover, have previously <a href="https://reason.com/volokh/2023/08/10/texas-is-wrong-to-equate-immigration-and-drug-smuggling-with-invasion/">agreed with Madison</a>. As one federal appeals court concluded in a <a href="https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914831eadd7b049344a1b96/amp">1996 opinion</a>, “[I]n order for a state to be afforded the protections of the Invasion Clause, it must be exposed to armed hostility from another political entity, such as another state or foreign country that is intending to overthrow the state’s government.” Immigration, even by people who do so illegally, does not constitute “armed hostility from another political entity.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p4Hk4A">
All of which is a long way of saying that, if the courts apply longstanding legal principles, Abbott should lose all three of these cases — and he should absolutely lose the two cases seeking to undermine <em>Hines</em>’s conclusion that states may only play an extremely limited role in setting immigration policy because of the danger that a state may harm the US’s relationship with a foreign power.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cqvbso">
But Abbott is betting that the Supreme Court’s current majority won’t care what established law has to say about his border policy.
</p></li>
<li><strong>Narendra Modi is celebrating his scary vision for India’s future</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A silhouetted figure watches a tv screen. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RPYdc82YPrTeEYhvKyJm8WywUn0=/342x0:5707x4024/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73089424/1943615522.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
People in Ayodhya watch Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony on January 22, 2024. | Indranil Aditya/NurPhoto/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
National festivities this week danced on Indian secularism’s grave — and pointed to an existential threat to Indian democracy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KWZz8C">
On Monday, tens of millions across <a href="https://www.vox.com/india">India</a> celebrated the opening of the Ram Mandir — a huge new temple to Ram, one of Hinduism’s holiest figures, built in the city of Ayodhya where many Hindus believe he was born.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gFzEgH">
The celebration in Ayodhya, presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, attracted some of India’s richest and most famous citizens. But in the pomp and circumstance, few dwelled explicitly on the grim origins of Ram Mandir: It was built on the site of an ancient mosque torn down by a Hindu mob in 1992.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3ac9IA">
Many of the rioters <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/25/711412924/nearly-27-years-after-hindu-mob-destroyed-a-mosque-the-scars-in-india-remain-dee">belonged to the RSS</a>, a militant Hindu supremacist group to which Modi has belonged since he was 8 years old. Since ascending to power in 2014, Modi has worked tirelessly to replace India’s secular democracy with a Hindu sectarian state.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JMYGwl">
The construction of a temple in Ayodhya is the exclamation point on an agenda that has also included revoking the autonomy <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/8/5/20754813/india-kashmir-article-370-modi-hindu-muslim">long provided to the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir</a>, creating new citizenship and immigration rules <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50670393">biased against Muslims</a>, and rewritten textbooks to whitewash Hindu violence against Muslims from Indian history.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KEIYRy">
Modi has also <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/6/21/23683842/india-democracy-narendra-modi-us-biden-china">waged war on the basic institutions of Indian democracy</a>. He and his allies have consolidated control over much of <a href="https://www.vox.com/media">the media</a>, suppressed critical speech on social media, imprisoned protesters, suborned independent government agencies, and even <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/3/24/23654832/rahul-gandhi-expelled-lok-sabha-narendra-modi">prosecuted Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi on dubious charges</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sDU2P7">
For many Hindus, the inauguration of the Ram Mandir was a meaningful religious event. But viewed from a political point of view, the event looks like a grim portrait of Modi’s India in miniature: a monument to an exclusive vision of Hinduism built on the ruins of one of the world’s most remarkable secular democracies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wjAcZi">
Understanding the temple’s story is thus essential to understanding one of the most important issues of our time: how democracy has come under existential threat in its largest stronghold.
</p>
<h3 id="YKQSeT">
How the Ayodhya temple dispute gave rise to Modi’s India
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2Wys1X">
The dispute over Ayodhya has become a flashpoint in modern Indian politics because it speaks to a fundamental ideological question: Who is India for?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vH6BW5">
The relevant history here starts in the early 16th century, when a Muslim descendant of Genghis Khan named Babur invaded the Indian subcontinent from his small base in central Asia. Babur’s conquests inaugurated the Mughal Empire, a dynasty that would reign in what is now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh for generations. At least a remnant of the Mughal state survived until the British seized India in the 19th century.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1d1SGr">
The mosque in Ayodhya was a product of the early Mughal Empire, with some evidence suggesting it was built almost immediately after Babur’s forces conquered Ayodhya in 1529. Called the Babri Masjid — literally “Babur’s Mosque” — it was a testament to the impact the Mughal dynasty and its Muslim rulers had on Indian history and culture.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UeLiaG">
During the British colonial period, different Indian factions diverged sharply on how to remember the Mughal empire.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yBuEXV">
For Mahatma Gandhi, who led the mainstream independence movement, the Moghul Empire was <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2348448919834791">a testament to India’s history of religious diversity and pluralism</a>. Gandhi praised the Moghul dynasty, especially its early leadership, for <a href="http://rarre.org/documents/sen/Sen-%20Human%20Rights%20and%20Asian%20Values.pdf">adopting religious toleration</a> as a central state policy. “In those days, they [Hindus and Muslims] were not known to quarrel at all,” he said in 1931, blaming current sectarian tensions on British colonial policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bx9Sl7">
But the leadership of the Hindu nationalist RSS organization saw things differently. Focusing in particular on the late Mughal emperor Aurangzeb — who <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61519088">imposed a special tax on non-Muslims and tore down Hindu temples</a> — they argued that the Mughals were more like the British than Gandhi allowed. The Muslim dynasty was not, in their mind, an authentic Indian regime at all; it was just another colonial conquest of an essentially Hindu nation. Muslims could not, and should not, be seen as full and equal members of the polity.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l625CY">
The Babri Masjid swiftly became a major flashpoint for this historical and political dispute. Because Ayodhya was widely seen by Hindus as Ram’s birthplace, the presence of a prominent Mughal mosque there was <a href="https://time.com/6564148/ayodhya-ram-temple-modi-india/?utm_source=roundup&amp;utm_campaign=20230202&amp;itm_source=taboola.&amp;itm_version:control">seen as an affront by Hindu nationalists</a>. In 1949, shortly after independence, a statue of Ram was discovered inside the mosque itself. Hindu nationalists claimed that this was a divine manifestation, proof that the mosque itself was the site where Ram was born.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ewojeU">
But according to Hartosh Singh Bal, executive editor of the Indian news magazine The Caravan, the historical record tells a different story.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6vgdkU">
“Members of a Hindu right-wing organization clambered over the walls, took the idol, [and] placed it there,” Bal told Vox’s <em>Today Explained</em>. “This was the first supposed proof that this [site] was in any way connected to a Hindu monument.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FtHJrs">
For years, this manufactured conflict over <a href="https://www.vox.com/religion">religion</a> and the Mughal legacy didn’t play a major role in Indian politics. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress">Congress</a> party, the political descendant of Gandhi’s secular liberal vision for India, dominated Indian politics — winning every single national election for the first 30 years of Indian independence.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YFMfMg">
But in the 1980s, as the public tired of the Congress party’s domination, Hindu nationalist efforts to stoke tension surrounding the mosque intensified — and caught political fire. The BJP, the political arm of the RSS, made the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of the Babri Masjid a central part of its political agenda. The party, which won just two seats in India’s parliament in 1984’s election, won 85 seats in the 1989 contest.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="mosque on a hill guarded by fence." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LwlN4BLbjS5sLprrr1ASuXAdEOc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25249919/742040.jpg"/> <cite>Robert Nickelsberg/Liaison</cite>
<figcaption>
Indian police guard the Babri Masjid in 1990.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="M5oYh0">
The RSS and BJP kept pressing on the issue, helping organize a series of yatras (pilgrimages) to Ayodhya calling for the mosque’s demolition. These grew huge, unruly, and even violent. In 1992, an out-of-control Hindu nationalist mob armed with hammers and pickaxes stormed the Babri Masjid. They tore it down by hand, horrifying many Indians and setting off religious riots across India that killed thousands.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZBqmpg">
Andrea Malji, a scholar of Indian religious nationalism at Hawaii Pacific University, describes the Babri Masjid movement as creating a kind of “feedback loop.” By bringing widespread attention to a source of Hindu-Muslim conflict, the movement actually made Hindus and Muslims more afraid of each other — leading to more conflict between the groups and, thus, increasing support among Hindus for Hindu nationalism. This was very good for the BJP’s political fortunes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EilKc3">
“Mobilizing around identity — especially when you’re 80 percent of the country [as Hindus are] is an effective political strategy,” she tells me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2otbZa">
The Ayodhya dispute was not the only reason that, in the coming years, the BJP would displace Congress as the dominant party in Indian politics. Modi’s first national victory, in the 2014 election, owed more to economic issues and Congress’ many corruption scandals than anything else.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eB0zme">
But Ayodhya was the crucible in which the BJP’s modern political approach was formed. Modi’s political innovation has been refining this approach, developing a brand of Hindu identity politics with greater appeal to the lower castes than the historically upper caste BJP had previously managed. As time has gone on, he has only gotten more aggressive in pushing his ideological agenda.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s5nifA">
Through it all, the Ayodhya issue remained a major priority for both Modi and the BJP. In 2019, just months after Modi’s reelection, India’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus">Supreme Court</a> ruled that the construction of Ram Mandir on the former site of the Babri Masjid could begin. Its inauguration this week is a declaration of victory for Modi and the BJP on one of their signature issues — one of the most visible in a long line of successes.
</p>
<h3 id="JEuAOU">
Hindu nationalism versus democracy
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ueXvHo">
The Ayodhya dispute helps us understand a deeper connection between the rise of Modi-style populism and the erosion of Indian democracy — that anti-democratic politics is not some kind of bug in BJP rule, but an essential feature.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jqSrvl">
India’s constitution and founding documents unambiguously declare the country a secular nation of all of its citizens. This universalistic vision permeates Indian law and government; it lies at the heart of the Indian state. India’s founders believed this was essential to making the Indian state a viable democracy: There is no world in which the citizens of such a large and staggeringly diverse country could cooperate together if they weren’t guaranteed certain basic equal rights.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d6PoGg">
“We must have it clearly in our minds and in the mind of the country that the alliance of religion and politics in the shape of communalism is a most dangerous alliance,” Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, <a href="https://library.bjp.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/347/1/On-Independence%20-%20Speeches%20-%20Nehru.pdf">said in a 1948 speech</a>. “The only right way for us to act is to do away with communalism in its political aspect in every shape and form.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i0J0PG">
Modi’s Hindu nationalism, by contrast, posits that legitimacy flows not from consent of all the citizens but consent of true people of India. That means Hindus in general, and Hindu nationalists in particular. Because they believe they represent the true nation, Modi and the BJP have no problem steamrolling on the rights of those who disagree with them — including not just Muslims, but also Hindu critics in the press and checks and balances in the Indian state.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i3RCRn">
“It’s very difficult for me to find compatibility between Hindu nationalism and democracy,” says <a href="https://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/political-science/faculty/aditi_malik">Aditi Malik</a>, a political scientist at the College of the Holy Cross who studies Indian politics.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rmyzSG">
There is nothing in theory undemocratic about the construction of a Hindu temple on a recognized holy site, especially when the construction is duly authorized by the legal authorities. But when it’s built on the ruins of a mosque torn down by a Hindu nationalist mob aligned with the ruling government, it sends a signal not just of Hindu joy but of Muslim subordination by any means necessary. Notably, Modi did not, <a href="https://www.onmanorama.com/news/kerala/2024/01/22/ram-temple-cpi-mp-binoy-viswam-asks-if-pm-modi-will-apologise-for-babri-masjid-demolition.html">at any point during the ceremony</a>, apologize to India’s Muslims for the violent way in which the road to Ram Mandir was paved.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/J1HkFZSaajv5SWjKbYZZ5otdAG8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25249923/1956609527.jpg"/> <cite>Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Devotees queue to get a glimpse of a statue of Ram one day after the consecration ceremony of the Ram Mandir on January 23, 2024, in Ayodhya, India.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LnjQK7">
Milan Vaishnav, an India expert at the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, sees this as exemplary of the BJP’s general approach to wielding power. In his view, the party has presided over a gradual breakdown of norms of restraint governing Indian politics — adopting an “ends justify the means” approach to imposing the Hindu nationalist agenda because they believe they speak for the true majority.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KPWw1H">
“There is this feeling that, because this government is democratically elected, whatever they do has a democratic imprimatur,” he says.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="33j8Pb">
Modi’s <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/focus/20231102-india-s-declining-press-freedom-journalists-face-increasing-threats">war on the free press</a> — which has included friendly oligarchs buying up independent media outlets, siccing auditors on critical media outlets, and even imprisoning reporters on terrorism charges — is a case in point.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UpBf8B">
Seeking to force the media to tow a friendly line is undemocratic under any definition, even if the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> are authorized by a legislative majority. But the BJP believes that it, and it alone, speaks on behalf of the Hindu nation — and that critics in the press have no more right to challenge them than Muslims do.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VmZYFV">
There is every reason to believe that India will continue following this anti-democratic path in the years to come.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6aL670">
Across India, Ram Mandir’s inauguration was widely seen as the beginning of Modi’s reelection campaign. With elections scheduled to begin sometime in the mid-to-late spring, Modi is previewing a campaign focused on his appeal <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/22/world/asia/modi-india-ram-temple.html">as an almost godlike</a> champion for Hindus.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q30bsZ">
“[The temple inauguration] bolsters an image of Mr. Modi as the champion of Indians abroad and Hindus at home; as someone who keeps his promises,” <a href="https://www.cfr.org/expert/manjari-chatterjee-miller">Manjari Chatterjee Miller</a>, a senior fellow studying South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, tells me. “Expect much much more of this as election season gets underway.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ob8ty0">
The consensus among India watchers is that Modi will win comfortably. The BJP is coming off three victories <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/31/bjp-modi-india-general-election-2024">in December local elections</a>, and the prime minister himself has an approval rating <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/with-approval-rating-of-76-narendra-modi-most-popular-global-leader-morning-consult/articleshow/105849567.cms?from=mdr">somewhere in the 70s</a>. Whatever one’s opinion of Modi’s Hindu nationalism, there’s no doubt that it’s genuinely popular with hundreds of millions of Indians.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g5ksVX">
In evaluating India, we have to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. First, Modi and his agenda is genuinely popular with the Hindu majority. Second, this popularity has given him room to pursue an ideological agenda that imperils the long-term viability of Indian democracy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zaJlX2">
When Modi said in his speech at Ayodhya that the day marks “the beginning of a new era,” this might very well be true. India could be at the beginning of a long illiberal night — one its democracy may not be able to survive.
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Fully fit Deepak Chahar sets sights on Twenty20 World Cup</strong> - Chahar said while he did not get a lot of time to train apart from doing fitness-related work, he went to the NCA to work on his readiness as he eyes a spot in India’s T20 World Cup squad.</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>AUS vs WI second Test | Shamar Joseph bowls West Indies to stunning win over Australia in day/night Test</strong> - West Indies bowled Australia out for 207, giving the Caribbean side their first win in Australia since 1997.</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>India v England 1st Test | England beat India by 28 runs in first Test</strong> - Ollie Pope had a fantastic day in Hyderabad; Jasprit Bumrah, Ravichandran Ashwin shine for India</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>Australian Open 2024 | Melbourne set to get a new champion as Jannik Sinner faces Daniil Medvedev in the men’s finals</strong> - History is in the making today as the Australian Open will see a new champion for the first time in a decade</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>Darja Semenistaja and Alexandra Eala win doubles title</strong> -</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>CJI says it is time to begin ‘difficult conversations’ on the need for long vacations in the Supreme Court</strong> - CJI calls for a ‘culture of professionalism’ and a level playing field for first generation lawyers, draws attention to delayed judicial outcomes as a result of lengthy oral arguments</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>DMK government must ensure smooth implementation of PM Vishwakarma scheme: BJP MP Biplab Kumar Deb</strong> - He alleged the State government was favouring DMK people under the scheme</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>AAP will contest all Assembly seats in Haryana on its own, Lok Sabha polls as part of INDIA bloc: Kejriwal</strong> - The Lok Sabha polls are due in April-May while the Assembly elections in Haryana will be held later this year, a few months after the general elections</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>Watch | ASI report on Gyanvapi | What are the political and legal implications?</strong> - In this episode of Talking Politics, we discuss the political and legal implications of the ASI survey report on Gyanvapi mosque case</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>INSAT-3DS satellite flagged off to Sriharikota</strong> - The satellite is designed for enhanced meteorological observations and monitoring of land and ocean surfaces for weather forecasting and disaster warning.</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>Mona Lisa: Protesters throw soup at da Vinci painting</strong> - The 16th Century painting by Leonardo da Vinci sits behind protective glass at the Louvre in Paris.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine says it has uncovered major arms corruption</strong> - Ukraine’s security service accuses senior officials of trying to steal about $40m in an order for mortar shells.</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>Xavi: Barcelona manager to leave at end of season</strong> - Barcelona manager Xavi says “the club needs a change of dynamic” and will step down at the end of the season.</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>Beauty giant Avon under fire over Russia links</strong> - The firm is facing criticism for continuing production and recruiting new sales agents in Russia.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Italian net closes in on ‘Fleximan’ - vigilante destroyer of speed cameras</strong> - Some Italians are impressed by the man dubbed “Fleximan”, but Italy has a high rate of road deaths.</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>Following lawsuit, rep admits “AI” George Carlin was human-written</strong> - Creators still face “name and likeness” complaints; lawyer says suit will continue. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1999215">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Gotta go? We’ve finally found out what makes urine yellow</strong> - The yellow color comes from bacteria metabolizing waste from red blood cells. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1999349">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Air pollution from Canada’s tar sands is much worse than we thought</strong> - Oil operations release vast quantities of damaging particles and noxious compounds. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1999303">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>In major gaffe, hacked Microsoft test account was assigned admin privileges</strong> - How does a legacy test account grant access to read every Office 365 account? - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1999478">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Measles is “growing global threat,” CDC tells doctors in alert message</strong> - Since December, there have been 23 measles cases in the US, including two outbreaks. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1999449">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>A lady walks into a store and asks where the XL condoms at kept…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A lady walks into a store and asks where the XL condoms are kept.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The manager sends her off to the family planning section.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
After ten minutes, the manager takes routine a walk around the store, to check on things. He finds the lady still in the family planning section, humming to herself, just looking around. The manager goes up to her.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Hello, did you find the condoms?”
</p>
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“Oh, yeah”, says the lady, pointing in the direction of the condoms and then goes back to humming.
</p>
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The manager is confused, “umm, is there anything else I can help you with?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Oh no,” the lady said, “I’m just waiting to see who buys them”
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DerApexPredator"> /u/DerApexPredator </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1acwiu6/a_lady_walks_into_a_store_and_asks_where_the_xl/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1acwiu6/a_lady_walks_into_a_store_and_asks_where_the_xl/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>After my boss died, I attended his wake.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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He had an open casket, and I got in line to pay my respects. When it was finally my turn, I knelt down beside the body, and said softly:
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
<em>“Who’s thinking outside the box now, Gary?”</em>
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/airscottie"> /u/airscottie </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1acrlch/after_my_boss_died_i_attended_his_wake/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1acrlch/after_my_boss_died_i_attended_his_wake/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>’nother goat joke</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Traveling salesman stops at a farmhouse. Young girl answers the door. Farmer asks ‘is your mother here?’ and the girl says ‘she’s out back, fucking the goat’. The salesman says ‘excuse me?’ and the girl repeats ‘Mother’s out back, fucking the goat’. The salesman thinks this girl is out of her mind’ and asks, ‘can you just take me to her?’ The girl says sure and takes her out back where, sure enough, is a woman being fucked by a goat. The salesman is flabbergasted, and finally manages to ask, ‘does your father mind?’ and the girl bleats ‘naaaaaah’.
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/kickypie"> /u/kickypie </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1act166/nother_goat_joke/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1act166/nother_goat_joke/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why doesn’t America parade its new military hardware and tanks down main street like other countries?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Because they prefer to parade it down main street IN other countries.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MissEvaTaylor"> /u/MissEvaTaylor </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1actmes/why_doesnt_america_parade_its_new_military/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1actmes/why_doesnt_america_parade_its_new_military/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A husband and wife on a holiday were driving through New Mexico.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
As they approached Albuquerque, they started arguing about the pronunciation of the name of the city. The husband thought it was pronounced like Albu-que-que, while the wife thought it was pronounced like Albu-kway-kway. They argued back and forth, then they stopped for lunch. At the counter, the husband said to the restaurant worker, “Before we order, could you settle an argument for us? Can you please pronounce the name of the place we’re in?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
She leaned over the counter and said “Burger King.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/JustOurKind"> /u/JustOurKind </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1acq0et/a_husband_and_wife_on_a_holiday_were_driving/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1acq0et/a_husband_and_wife_on_a_holiday_were_driving/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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