The Church of England Pensions Board has joined five other pension funds to bring legal action against Volkswagen AG (VW), after it refused repeated attempts to reveal crucial information on its corporate climate-lobbying activities.

The funds, four Swedish and one Danish in addition to the C of E board, are all part of the Institutional Investment Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and the Climate Action’s 100+ initiative. These have asked the company repeatedly to clarify its lobbying position. VW discloses trade association memberships, but does not disclose how the goals of these associations align with its own climate goals.

The boards wanted to table an agenda item at VW’s AGM, seeking publication of a report setting out how the company’s lobbying of policy-makers matched its stated ambition to support the Paris Agreement goals by becoming a net-zero company. VW refused to table the item.

The investors say that they tried over several years to get information before tabling the amendment. The case, supported by the legal charity ClientEarth, will test whether VW has the right to refuse the agenda item.

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C of E Pensions Board joins fight to force VW to open its books on climate lobbying https://t.co/F1UtlH7M2M

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) October 24, 2022

Erik van Nimwegen, from the University of Basel, says there are only small scraps of information and it is “hard to pull anything definitive out of that”. He adds, “one cannot really exclude at all that such a constellation of sites may have occurred by chance”. The authors of the paper concede this is the case. Kristian Andersen, a professor of immunology and microbiology, at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, described the pattern, on Twitter, as “random noise”.

Any conclusion that sars-cov-2 was engineered will be hotly contested. China denies the virus came from a Chinese lab, and has asked for investigations into whether it may have originated in America. Dr Washburne and his colleagues say their predictions are testable. If a progenitor genome to sars-cov-2 is found in the wild with restriction sites that are the same, or intermediate, it would raise the chances that this pattern evolved by chance.

Any widely supported conclusion that the virus was genetically engineered would have profound ramifications, both political and scientific. It would put in a new light the behaviour of the Chinese government in the early days of the outbreak, particularly its reluctance to share epidemiological data from those days. It would also raise questions about what was known, when, and by whom about the presumably accidental escape of an engineered virus. For now, this is a first draft of science, and needs to be treated as such. But the scrutineers are already at work.

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Controversial new research suggests SARS-CoV-2 bears signs of genetic engineering … china is responsible if this holds uphttps://t.co/Y37S4YCNHN

— FxMacro (@fxmacro) October 24, 2022

Less than three weeks before Election Day, voter interest has reached an all-time high for a midterm election, with a majority of registered voters saying this election is “more important” to them than past midterms.

What’s more, 80% of Democrats and Republicans believe the political opposition poses a threat that, if not stopped, will destroy America as we know it.

And two-thirds of reliable Democratic and Republican voters say they’d still support their party’s political candidate, even if that person had a moral failing that wasn’t consistent with their own values.

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NBC Poll: Some 80% of Democrats and Republicans believe the political opposition poses a threat that, if not stopped, will destroy America as we know it. https://t.co/NXuDemZXIz

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) October 23, 2022

Look through them all.

#water #news #waternews Photos: Mississippi River continues to sink to record lows as it passes through New Orleans https://t.co/W1rGNWNnmq via @nolanews

— World Water News (@WorldWater_News) October 24, 2022

Grant, we beseech thee, O God, that after the example of thy servant James the Just, brother of our Lord, thy Church may give itself continually to prayer and to the reconciliation of all who are at variance and enmity; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.

Today the Episcopal Church celebrates Saint James of Jerusalem, Brother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and Martyr, c. 62 https://t.co/4ZenSQxjO7

Image: Lateral sanctuary door with St James the Brother of Our Lord (Stephanos Tzangorolas, 1688). Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons pic.twitter.com/Sn1cHnQ78O

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) October 24, 2022

Grant me of Thy grace, O Christ, I beseech Thee, that Thy good Spirit may lead me in the right way, and remove far from me him who cometh to destroy; that casting away all malice of evil, I may search into the commandments of my God, and with the eyes of my mind awakened go forward faithfully to read and to weigh the marvels of Thy holy law.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

A wee square taken just after dawn on the way to work #landscapephotography #norway #thephotohour pic.twitter.com/s8QT8P7RDj

— Alexander Farrow (@jalexfarrow) October 24, 2022

And I will grant my two witnesses power to prophesy for one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.” These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands which stand before the Lord of the earth. And if any one would harm them, fire pours out from their mouth and consumes their foes; if any one would harm them, thus he is doomed to be killed. They have power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they desire.

–Revelation 11:3-6

The colors of the high-elevation huckleberry bushes, vine maple, larch and other bushes deliver an intense contrast to the evergreen conifers at @MountRainierNPS.

Photo by Claudia Cooper pic.twitter.com/2AS7Rpci6K

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) October 23, 2022