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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>Concepts and methods for predicting viral evolution</strong> -
<div>
The seasonal human influenza virus undergoes rapid evolution, leading to significant changes in circulating viral strains from year to year. These changes are typically driven by adaptive mutations, particularly in the antigenic epitopes, the regions of the viral surface protein haemagglutinin targeted by human antibodies. Here we describe a consistent set of methods for data-driven predictive analysis of viral evolution. Our pipeline integrates four types of data: (1) sequence data of viral isolates collected on a worldwide scale, (2) epidemiological data on incidences, (3) antigenic characterization of circulating viruses, and (4) intrinsic viral phenotypes. From the combined analysis of these data, we obtain estimates of relative fitness for circulating strains and predictions of clade frequencies for periods of up to one year. Furthermore, we obtain comparative estimates of protection against future viral populations for candidate vaccine strains, providing a basis for pre-emptive vaccine strain selection. Continuously updated predictions obtained from the prediction pipeline for influenza and SARS-CoV-2 are available on the website https://previr.app.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.19.585703v1" target="_blank">Concepts and methods for predicting viral evolution</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Differences in Vaccine and SARS-CoV-2 Replication Derived mRNA: Implications for Cell Biology and Future Disease</strong> -
<div>
Codon optimization describes the process used to increase protein production by use of alternative but synonymous codon changes. In SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines codon optimizations can result in differential secondary conformations that inevitably affect a protein’s function with significant consequences to the cell. Importantly, when codon optimization increases the GC content of synthetic mRNAs, there can be an inevitable enrichment of G-quartets which potentially form G-quadruplex structures. The emerging G-quadruplexes are favorable binding sites of RNA binding proteins like helicases that inevitably affect epigenetic reprogramming of the cell by altering transcription, translation and replication. In this study, we performed a RNAfold analysis to investigate alterations in secondary structures of mRNAs in SARS-CoV-2 vaccines due to codon optimization. We show a significant increase in the GC content of mRNAs in vaccines as compared to native SARS-CoV-2 RNA sequences encoding the spike protein. As the GC enrichment leads to more G-quadruplex structure formations, these may contribute to potential pathological processes initiated by SARS-CoV-2 molecular vaccination.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/bcsa6/" target="_blank">Differences in Vaccine and SARS-CoV-2 Replication Derived mRNA: Implications for Cell Biology and Future Disease</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Lateral Flow Assays Biotesting by Utilizing Plasmonic Nanoparticles Made of Inexpensive Metals - Replacing Colloidal Gold</strong> -
<div>
Nanoparticles (NPs) can be conjugated with diverse biomolecules and employed in biosensing to detect target analytes in biological samples. This proven concept was primarily used during the COVID-19 pandemic with gold NPs-based lateral flow assays (LFAs). Considering the gold price and its worldwide depletion, here we show that novel plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) based on inexpensive metals, titanium nitride (TiN) and copper covered with a gold shell (Cu@Au), perform comparable or even better than gold nanoparticles. After conjugation, these novel nanoparticles provided high figures of merit for LFA testing, such as high signals and specificity and robust naked-eye signal recognition. To the best of our knowledge, our study represents the 1st application of laser-ablation-fabricated nanoparticles (TiN) in the LFA and dot-blot biotesting. Since the main cost of the Au NPs in commercial testing kits is in the colloidal synthesis, our development with TiN is very exciting, offering potentially very inexpensive plasmonic nanomaterials for various bio-testing applications. Moreover, our machine learning study showed that the bio-detection with TiN is more accurate than that with Au.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.08.574723v2" target="_blank">Lateral Flow Assays Biotesting by Utilizing Plasmonic Nanoparticles Made of Inexpensive Metals - Replacing Colloidal Gold</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Hidden evolutionary constraints dictate the retention of coronavirus accessory genes</strong> -
<div>
Coronaviruses exhibit many mechanisms of genetic innovation (1-5), including the acquisition of accessory genes that originate by capture of cellular genes or through duplication of existing viral genes (6,7). Accessory genes influence viral host range and cellular tropism, but little is known about how selection acts on these variable regions of virus genomes. We used experimental evolution of mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) encoding a cellular AKAP7 phosphodiesterase and an inactive native phosphodiesterase, NS2 (ref 8) to simulate the capture of a host gene and analyze its evolution. After courses of serial infection, the gene encoding inactive NS2, ORF2, unexpectedly remained intact, suggesting it is under cryptic constraint uncoupled from the function of NS2. In contrast, AKAP7 was retained under strong selection but rapidly lost under relaxed selection. Guided by the retention of ORF2 and similar patterns in related betacoronaviruses, we analyzed ORF8 of SARS-CoV-2, which arose via gene duplication6 and contains premature stop codons in several globally successful lineages. As with MHV ORF2, the coding-defective SARS-CoV-2 ORF8 gene remains largely intact, mirroring patterns observed during MHV experimental evolution, challenging assumptions on the dynamics of gene loss in virus genomes and extending these findings to viruses currently adapting to humans.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.12.561935v2" target="_blank">Hidden evolutionary constraints dictate the retention of coronavirus accessory genes</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Identification of unique and potent inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 main protease from DNA-encoded chemical libraries</strong> -
<div>
In vitro screening of large libraries of compounds with automated High-throughput screening is expensive, time consuming and requires dedicated infrastructures. Conversely, the screening of DNA-encoded chemical libraries can be rapidly performed with basic equipment available in most laboratories. In this study we identified novel inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) through the affinity screening of the commercially available ''DELopen'' library, containing 4.2 billion compounds. The identified inhibitors were peptidomimetics compounds containing a C-terminal electrophilic group able to covalently bind to Mpro reactive Cys145 (confirmed by x-ray crystallography). Compound SLL11 had IC50 = 30nM and was found to be well optimized, proving that the rapid exploration of large chemical spaces, enabled by DECL technology, allows the direct identification of potent inhibitors avoiding several rounds of iterative medicinal chemistry. Compound MP6, a close analogue of SLL11, showed antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 in the low micromolar range when tested in Caco-2 and Calu-3 (EC50 = 2.3 M) cell lines. As peptidomimetics compounds can suffer from low cell permeability and metabolic stability, the cyclization of the compounds as well as the substitution of selected residues with D-enantiomers will be explored in the future to improve the antiviral activity of these novel compounds.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.16.585341v1" target="_blank">Identification of unique and potent inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 main protease from DNA-encoded chemical libraries</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A Protein Language Model for Exploring Viral Fitness Landscapes</strong> -
<div>
Successively emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants lead to repeated epidemic surges through escalated spreading potential (i.e., fitness). Modeling genotype-fitness relationship enables us to pinpoint the mutations boosting viral fitness and flag high-risk variants immediately after their detection. Here, we introduce CoVFit, a protein language model able to predict the fitness of variants based solely on their spike protein sequences. CoVFit was trained with genotype-fitness data derived from viral genome surveillance and functional mutation data related to immune evasion. When limited to only data available before the emergence of XBB, CoVFit successfully predicted the higher fitness of the XBB lineage. Fully-trained CoVFit identified 549 fitness elevation events throughout SARS-CoV-2 evolution until late 2023. Furthermore, a CoVFit-based simulation was able to predict the higher fitness of JN.1 subvariants before their detection. Our study provides both insight into the SARS-CoV-2 fitness landscape and a novel tool potentially transforming viral genome surveillance.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.15.584819v1" target="_blank">A Protein Language Model for Exploring Viral Fitness Landscapes</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Modulation of SARS-CoV-2 spike binding to ACE2 throughconformational selection</strong> -
<div>
The first step of SARS-CoV-2 infection involves the interaction between the trimeric viral spike protein () and the host angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (2). The receptor binding domain () of adopts two conformations: open and closed, respectively, accessible and inaccessible to 2. Therefore, motions are suspected to affect 2 binding; yet a quantitative description of the underlying mechanism has been elusive. Here, using single-molecule approaches, we visualize opening and closing and probe the /2 interaction. Our results show that RBD dynamics affect 2 binding but not unbinding. The resulting modulation is quantitatively predicted by a conformational selection model in which each protomer behaves independently. Our work reveals a general molecular mechanism affecting binding affinity without altering binding strength, helping to understand coronavirus infection and immune evasion.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.15.585207v1" target="_blank">Modulation of SARS-CoV-2 spike binding to ACE2 throughconformational selection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Binding of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein to uninfected epithelial cells induces antibody-mediated complement deposition</strong> -
<div>
SARS-CoV-2 infection triggers strong antibody response toward Nucleocapsid-Protein (NP), suggesting extracellular presence beyond its intra-virion RNA binding. Interestingly, NP was found to decorate infected and proximal uninfected cell-surfaces. Here, we propose a new mechanism through which extracellular NP on uninfected cells contributes to COVID-19 pathogenicity. We show that NP binds to cell-surface sulfated linear-glycosaminoglycans by spatial rearrangement of its RNA-binding sites facilitated by the flexible, positively charged, linker. Coating of uninfected lung-derived cells with purified NP attracted anti-NP-IgG from lung fluids and sera collected from COVID-19 patients. The magnitude of this immune recognition was significantly elevated in moderate compared to mild COVID-19 cases. Importantly, binding of anti-NP-IgG present in sera generated clusters that triggered C3b deposition by the classical complement pathway. Heparin analog enoxaparin outcompeted NP-binding, rescuing cells from anti-NP IgG-mediated complement deposition. Our findings unveil how extracellular NP may exacerbate COVID-19 tissue damage, and suggest leads for preventative therapy.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.17.585388v1" target="_blank">Binding of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein to uninfected epithelial cells induces antibody-mediated complement deposition</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>CORACLE (COVID-19 liteRAture CompiLEr): A platform for efficient tracking and extraction of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 literature, with examples from post-COVID with respiratory involvement</strong> -
<div>
Background: During COVID-19 pandemic there emerged a need to efficiently monitor and process large volumes of scientific literature on the subject. Currently, as the pandemic is winding down, the clinicians encountered a novel syndrome - Post-acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) - that affects over 10% of those who contract SARS-CoV-2 and presents a significant and growing challenge in the medical field. The continuous influx of new research publications underscores a critical need for efficient tools for navigating the literature. Objectives: We aimed to develop an application which will allow monitoring and categorizing COVID-19-related literature through building publication networks and medical subject headings (MeSH) maps to be able to quickly identify key publications and publication networks. Methods: We introduce CORACLE (COVID-19 liteRAture CompiLEr), an innovative web application designed for the analysis of COVID-19-related scientific articles and the identification of research trends. CORACLE features three primary interfaces: The "Search" interface, which displays research trends and citation links; the "Citation Map" interface, allowing users to create tailored citation networks from PubMed Identifiers (PMIDs) to uncover common references among selected articles; and the "MeSH" interface, highlighting current MeSH trends and associations between MeSH terms. Results: Our web application, CORACLE, leverages regularly updated PubMed data to aggregate and categorize the extensive literature on COVID-19 and PASC, aiding in the identification of relevant research publication hubs. Using lung function in PASC patients as a search example, we demonstrate how to identify and visualize the interactions between the relevant publications. Conclusion: CORACLE proves to be an effective tool for the extraction and analysis of literature. Its functionalities, including the MeSH trends and customizable citation mapping, facilitate the discovery of relevant information and emerging trends in COVID-19 and PASC research.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.18.584627v1" target="_blank">CORACLE (COVID-19 liteRAture CompiLEr): A platform for efficient tracking and extraction of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 literature, with examples from post-COVID with respiratory involvement</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Young Parents’ Experiences of Pregnancy and Parenting during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A qualitative study in the United Kingdom</strong> -
<div>
Young parents (aged 16-24 years) in the perinatal period may be at an increased risk of poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to multiple risk factors, including social and economic instability. COVID-19 related restrictions had significant implications for the delivery of some perinatal care services and other support structures for young parents. Investigating young parents’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, including their perceived challenges and needs, is important to inform good practice and provide appropriate support for young parents. Qualitative interviews were conducted with young parents (n=21) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom from February – May 2021. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Three key themes were identified to describe parents’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents reported specific COVID-19 related anxieties and stressors, including worries around contracting the virus and increased feelings of distress due to uncertainty created by the implications of the pandemic. Parents described feeling alone both at home and during antenatal appointments and highlighted the absence of social support as a major area of concern. Also, parents felt their perinatal care had been disrupted by the pandemic and experienced difficulties accessing care online or over the phone. This study highlights the potential impact of COVID-19 on young parents, including on their mental wellbeing and the perinatal support they were able to access during the pandemic. Insights from this study could inform the support and services offered to families during future pandemics. Specifically, the findings underlie the importance of (a) supporting both parents during perinatal appointments, (b) providing parents with early mental health support and (c) finding ways to facilitate communication pathways between professionals and parents.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/h3b6y/" target="_blank">Young Parents’ Experiences of Pregnancy and Parenting during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A qualitative study in the United Kingdom</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Demographic and health factors associated with pandemic anxiety in the context of COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
Objectives The mental health consequences of COVID-19 are predicted to have a disproportionate impact on certain groups. We aimed to develop a brief measure, the Pandemic Anxiety Scale, to capture the specific aspects of the pandemic that are provoking anxiety, and explore how these vary by health and demographic factors. Design Data were from a convenience sample of parents (N=4,793) and adolescents (N=698) recruited in the first 6 weeks of lockdown. Methods Factor analytic and IRT methods were used to validate the new measure in both parent and adolescent samples. Associations between scores on the new measure and age, gender, household income, and physical health status were explored using structural equation modelling (SEM). Results Two factors were identified in both samples: disease-anxiety (e.g. catching, transmitting the virus) and consequence anxiety (e.g. impact on economic prospects), and unique associations with health and demographic factors were observed. Conclusions Anxieties due to the COVID-19 are multifaceted, and the PAS is a short, reliable and valid measure of these concerns. These anxieties are differentially associated with demographic, social and health factors, which should be considered when developing strategies to mitigate the mental health impact of the pandemic.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/2eksd/" target="_blank">Demographic and health factors associated with pandemic anxiety in the context of COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A three-wave network analysis of COVID-19’s impact on schizotypal traits, paranoia and mental health through loneliness</strong> -
<div>
This manuscript is now published in open access UCL Open Environment: https://ucl.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/111.444/000092.v2 <strong>This manuscript has been submitted for publication and is likely to be edited as part of the peer-review process. Correspondence regarding this paper should be addressed to Keri Ka-Yee Wong, keri.wong@ucl.ac.uk.</strong> Background. The 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted people’s mental wellbeing. Studies to date have examined the prevalence of mental health symptoms (anxiety, depression, loneliness), yet fewer longitudinal studies have compared across background factors and other psychological variables to identify vulnerable sub-groups. This study tests to what extent higher levels of psychotic-like experiences – indexed by schizotypal traits and paranoia – are associated with various mental health variables 6- and 12-months since April 2020. Methods. Over 2,300 adult volunteers (18-89 years, female=74.9%) with access to the study link online were recruited from the UK, USA, Greece, and Italy. Self-reported levels of schizotypy, paranoia, anxiety, depression, aggression, loneliness, and stress from three timepoints (17 April to 13 July 2020, N1 =1,599; 17 October to 31 January 2021, N2 =774; and 17 April to 31 July 2021, N3 =586) were mapped using network analysis and compared across time and background variables (sex, age, income, country). Results. Schizotypal traits and paranoia were positively associated with poorer mental health through loneliness, with no effect of age, sex, income levels, countries, and timepoints. Loneliness was the most influential variable across all networks, despite overall reductions in levels of loneliness, schizotypy, paranoia, and aggression during the easing of lockdown. Individuals with higher levels of schizotypal traits/paranoia reported poorer mental health outcomes than individuals in the low-trait groups. Conclusion. Schizotypal traits and paranoia are associated with poor mental health outcomes through self-perceived loneliness, suggesting that increasing social/community cohesion may improve individuals’ mental wellbeing in the long run.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/p9wrv/" target="_blank">A three-wave network analysis of COVID-19’s impact on schizotypal traits, paranoia and mental health through loneliness</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on young people from black and mixed-ethnic groups’ mental health: A qualitative study</strong> -
<div>
Author Notes This is now published in BMJ Open on 5 May 2023: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/13/5/e071903.full <strong>This manuscript has been submitted for publication and is likely to be edited as part of the peer-review process. Correspondence regarding this paper should be addressed to Dr Keri Ka-Yee Wong, keri.wong@ucl.ac.uk</strong> Abstract Objectives The Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted vulnerable groups’ physical and mental health, especially young people and minority ethnic groups, yet little is known about how this is taking place and what support they would like. To address this gap, this qualitative study aims to uncover the effect of the Covid-19 outbreak on young people with ethnic minority backgrounds’ mental health, how this changed since the end of lockdown and what support they need to cope with these issues. Setting and Participants Ten 20-minute in-person semi-structured interviews were conducted with young people aged 12 to 17 years old from black and mixed-ethnic groups who regularly attend a community centre in West London. Results Through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, results indicated that the participants’ mental health was negatively impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with feelings of loneliness being the most common experience. However, positive effects were concurrently observed including improved well-being and better coping strategies post-lockdown, which is a testament to the young people’s resilience. That said, it is clear that young people from minority ethnic backgrounds lacked support during the Covid-19 pandemic and would now need psychological, practical and relational assistance to cope with these challenges. Conclusions Whilst future studies would benefit from a larger ethnically-diverse sample, this is a start. Study findings have the potential to inform future government policies around mental health support and access for young people from ethnic minorities, notably prioritising support for grassroots initiatives during times of crisis. Strengths and limitations • This qualitative interview study during Covid-19 gives voice to the experiences of young people from black and mixed-ethnic backgrounds in the UK • The in-person quality of the interviews helped build rapport between the researcher and the young people and sharing of sensitive issues around mental health access and support, increasing the results’ validity • This is a convenient sample, with girls and those aged 15 years and above being disproportionately represented in our data as they provided most of the answers. • The small sample size and lack of ethnic diversity limits the generalisability of the study to individuals from other ethnic minority groups.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/fe36p/" target="_blank">The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on young people from black and mixed-ethnic groups’ mental health: A qualitative study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Reflections, Resilience, and Recovery: A qualitative study of the COVID-19 impact on an international general population’s mental health and priorities for support</strong> -
<div>
<strong>This paper is now published in open access UCL Open Environment: https://ucl.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/111.444/000119.v2</strong>* The impact of the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on different countries and populations is well documented in quantitative studies, with some studies showing stable mental health symptoms and others showing fluctuating symptoms. However, the reasons behind why some symptoms are stable and others change are under-explored, which in turn makes identifying the types of support needed by participants themselves challenging. To address these gaps, this study thematically analysed 925 qualitative responses from five open-ended responses collected in the UCL-Penn Global COVID Study between 17 April to 31 July 2021 (wave 3). Three key themes comprised of 13 codes were reported by participants across countries and ages regarding the impact of COVID-19 on their health, both mental and physical, and livelihoods. These include: 1) Outlook on self/life, 2) Self-improvement, and 3) Loved ones (friends and family). In terms of support, while 2.91% did not require additional support, 91% wanted support beyond financial. Other unexpected new themes were also discussed regarding vulnerable populations suffering disproportionately. The pandemic has brought into sharp focus various changes in people’s mental health, physical health, and relationships. Greater policy considerations should be given to supporting citizens’ continued access to mental health when considering pandemic recovery. Keywords: COVID-19; mental health; behavioural change; qualitative; financial burden; support.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/8sdg4/" target="_blank">Reflections, Resilience, and Recovery: A qualitative study of the COVID-19 impact on an international general population’s mental health and priorities for support</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Child Externalizing and Internalizing Behavior and Parental Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
Author Notes <strong>This manuscript is now published in open access UCL Open Environment: https://ucl.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000040</strong>. <strong>This manuscript has been submitted for publication and is likely to be edited as part of the peer-review process. Correspondence regarding this paper should be addressed to Keri Ka-Yee Wong, keri.wong@ucl.ac.uk.</strong> Abstract In this study we surveyed families’ experiences with parental depression, stress, relationship conflict, and child behavioral issues during six months of the COVID-19 pandemic through the COVID-19: Global Social Trust and Mental Health Study. The current analyses used data collected from online surveys completed by adults in 66 countries from April 17, 2020-July 14, 2020 (Wave I), followed by surveys six months later at Wave II (October 17, 2020-January 31, 2021). Analyses were limited to 175 adult parents who reported living with at least one child under 18 years old at Wave I. Parents reported on children’s level of externalizing and internalizing behavior at Wave I. At Wave II, parents completed self-reported measures of stress, depression, and inter-partner conflict. Child externalizing behavior at Wave I significantly predicted higher levels of parental stress and marginally predicted parental depression at Wave II, controlling for covariates. Child internalizing behavior at Wave I did not predict parental stress or depression, controlling for covariates. Neither child externalizing nor internalizing behavior predicted parental relationship conflict. The overall findings demonstrate that child behavior likely influenced parental stress and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings suggest that mental health interventions for children and parents may improve the family system during times of disaster.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/4tpsr/" target="_blank">Child Externalizing and Internalizing Behavior and Parental Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Valacyclovir Plus Celecoxib for Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: PASC Post Acute Sequelae of COVID 19; Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: 1500 Valacyclovir 200 Celecoxib; Drug: 750 Valacyclovir 200 Celecoxib; Drug: Placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Bateman Horne Center <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>Supervised Computerized Active Program for People With Post-COVID Syndrome (SuperCAP Study)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-COVID Condition <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: SuperCAP Program <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Fundación FLS de Lucha Contra el Sida, las Enfermedades Infecciosas y la Promoción de la Salud y la Ciencia; Institut de Recerca de la SIDA IrsiCaixa; Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital <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>Utilizing Novel Blood RNA Biomarkers as a Diagnostic Tool in the Identification of Long COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Diagnostic Test: RNA Biomarker Blood Test <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: MaxWell Clinic, PLC <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>Home-Based Circuit Training in Overweight/Obese Older Adult Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis and Type 2 Diabetes</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Aerobic Exercise; Strength Training; Glycemic Control; Blood Pressure; Oxidative Stress; Metabolic Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: 12-week home-based circuit training (HBCT); Behavioral: Standard of care (CONT) <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University <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>RECOVER-AUTONOMIC Platform Protocol</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID; Long Covid19; Long Covid-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: IVIG + Coordinated Care; Drug: IVIG Placebo + Coordinated Care; Drug: Ivabradine + Coordinated Care; Drug: Ivabradine Placebo + Coordinated Care; Drug: IVIG + Usual Care; Drug: IVIG Placebo + Usual Care; Drug: Ivabradine + Usual Care; Drug: Ivabradine Placebo + Usual Care <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Kanecia Obie Zimmerman <br/><b>Enrolling by invitation</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SVF for Treating Pulmonary Fibrosis Post COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Pulmonary Fibrosis <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Autologous adipose-derived SVF IV administration <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Michael H Carstens; Ministerio de Salud de Nicaragua; Wake Forest University; National Autonomous University of Nicaragua <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>RECOVER-AUTONOMIC: Platform Protocol, Appendix B (Ivabradine)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID; Long Covid19; Long Covid-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Ivabradine; Drug: Ivabradine Placebo; Behavioral: Coordinated Care; Behavioral: Usual Care <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Kanecia Obie Zimmerman <br/><b>Enrolling by invitation</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>RECOVER-AUTONOMIC: Platform Protocol, Appendix A (IVIG)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID; Long Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid19); Long Covid-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: IVIG (intravenous immunoglobulin); Drug: IVIG Placebo; Behavioral: Coordinated Care; Behavioral: Usual Care <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Kanecia Obie Zimmerman <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>Understanding Adaptive Immune Response After COVID-19 Vaccination Boosters to Improve Vaccination Strategies in Vulnerable Groups.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Analisys of cellular response and humoral response to SARS-CoV-2 vaccine booster doses <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: IRCCS Sacro Cuore Don Calabria di Negrar <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>COVIDVaxStories: Randomized Trial to Reduce COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Populations of Color</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Vaccine Hesitancy <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Storytelling; Behavioral: Learn More (Active Comparator) <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Massachusetts, Worcester; Merck Sharp &amp; Dohme LLC <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An E-health Psychoeducation for People With Bipolar Disorders</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Bipolar Disorder; Psychoeducation; COVID-19 Pandemic <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: e-health psychoeducation <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Cagliari; Alessandra Perra <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>Sulfureous Water Therapy in Viral Respiratory Diseases</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long-COVID; Post COVID-19 Condition; Chronic COVID-19 Syndrome; Post Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Inhalation of Sulfurous Thermal Water; Other: Inhalation of Sterile Distilled non-pyrogenic Water <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Roma La Sapienza; Università degli studi di Roma Foro Italico; Queen Mary University of London; Bios Prevention Srl <br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Supramolecular Cylinders Target Bulge Structures in the 5’ UTR of the RNA Genome of SARS-CoV-2 and Inhibit Viral Replication</strong> - The untranslated regions (UTRs) of viral genomes contain a variety of conserved yet dynamic structures crucial for viral replication, providing drug targets for the development of broad spectrum anti-virals. We combine in vitro RNA analysis with molecular dynamics simulations to build the first 3D models of the structure and dynamics of key regions of the 5’ UTR of the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Furthermore, we determine the binding of metallo-supramolecular helicates (cylinders) to this RNA structure….</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 retrospective cohort study on early antibiotic use in vaccinated and unvaccinated COVID-19 patients</strong> - The bacteriophage behavior of SARS-CoV-2 during the acute and post-COVID-19 phases appears to be an important factor in the development of the disease. The early use of antibiotics seems to be crucial to inhibit disease progression-to prevent viral replication in the gut microbiome, and control toxicological production from the human microbiome. To study the impact of specific antibiotics on recovery from COVID-19 and long COVID (LC) taking into account: vaccination status, comorbidities,…</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>Yemazhui () ameliorates lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury modulation of the toll-like receptor 4/nuclear factor kappa-B/nod-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing 3 protein signaling pathway and intestinal flora in rats</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: In summary, our findings revealed that HEL has a protective effect on LPS-induced ALI in rats, and its mechanism may be related to inhibiting TLR4/ NF-κB/NLRP3 signaling pathway and improving intestinal flora disturbance.</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>Urinary cadmium concentration is associated with the severity and clinical outcomes of COVID-19: a bicenter observational cohort study</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Urine cadmium concentration in the early course of COVID-19 could predict the severity and clinical outcomes of patients and was independently associated with the risk of severe COVID-19.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Functional dissection of the spike glycoprotein S1 subunit and identification of cellular cofactors for regulation of swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus entry</strong> - Swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV) is a novel porcine enteric coronavirus, and the broad interspecies infection of SADS-CoV poses a potential threat to human health. This study provides experimental evidence to dissect the roles of distinct domains within the SADS-CoV spike S1 subunit in cellular entry. Specifically, we expressed the S1 and its subdomains, S1^(A) and S1^(B). Cell binding and invasion inhibition assays revealed a preference for the S1^(B) subdomain in binding 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>Health-promoting benefits of lentils: Anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial effects</strong> - This paper describes how lentils (Lens culinaris species) can positively affect health by reducing inflammation, providing antioxidants, and displaying antimicrobial properties. Lentils are rich in proteins, essential amino acids, minerals, and fibers, making them a valuable source of nutrition, particularly in low and middle-income countries. Lentils have many health benefits, including positive effects on diabetes management, support for cardiovascular health, and antioxidative properties. 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>Happy Hour: The association between trait hedonic capacity and motivation to drink alcohol</strong> - The (over)consumption of alcohol and other addictive substances is often conceptualized as a problem of low self-control (i.e., people’s inability to inhibit unwanted impulses). According to that view, people drink because they cannot resist. In the present studies, we approached this from a different perspective and tested whether alcohol consumption might also be a problem of low hedonic capacity (i.e., people’s inability to experience pleasure and relaxation, often due to intrusive thoughts)….</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>Compound C inhibits the replication of feline coronavirus</strong> - Feline Coronavirus (FCoV) is a viral pathogen of cats and a highly contagious virus. Cats in a cattery can be infected by up to 100%, and even household cats are infected by 20-60%. Some strains of FCoV are known to induce a fatal disease in cats named Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP). However, no effective treatments are available. We demonstrated that compound C (dorsomorphin) can potentially inhibit feline coronavirus replication. Compound C treatment decreased the FCoV-induced plaque…</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>Hyperoside inhibits EHV-8 infection via alleviating oxidative stress and IFN production through activating JNK/Keap1/Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathways</strong> - Equine herpesvirus type 8 (EHV-8) causes abortion and respiratory disease in horses and donkeys, leading to serious economic losses in the global equine industry. Currently, there is no effective vaccine or drug against EHV-8 infection, underscoring the need for a novel antiviral drug to prevent EHV-8-induced latent infection and decrease the pathogenicity of this virus. The present study demonstrated that hyperoside can exert antiviral effects against EHV-8 infection in RK-13 (rabbit kidney…</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>Effect of polyphenols against complications of COVID-19: current evidence and potential efficacy</strong> - The COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2019 and resulted in significant morbidity and mortality continues to be a significant global health challenge, characterized by inflammation, oxidative stress, and immune system dysfunction.. Developing therapies for preventing or treating COVID-19 remains an important goal for pharmacology and drug development research. Polyphenols are effective against various viral infections and can be extracted and isolated from plants without losing their therapeutic…</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 Poly Aptamer Encoded DNA Nanocatcher Informs Efficient Virus Trapping</strong> - Broad-spectrum antiviral platforms are always desired but still lack the ability to cope with the threats to global public health. Herein, we develop a poly aptamer encoded DNA nanocatcher platform that can trap entire virus particles to inhibit infection with a broad antiviral spectrum. Ultralong single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) containing repeated aptamers was synthesized as the scaffold of a nanocatcher via a biocatalytic process, wherein mineralization of magnesium pyrophosphate on the ssDNA…</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>Unveiling the Antiviral Capabilities of Targeting Human Dihydroorotate Dehydrogenase against SARS-CoV-2</strong> - The urgent need for effective treatments against emerging viral diseases, driven by drug-resistant strains and new viral variants, remains critical. We focus on inhibiting the human dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (HsDHODH), one of the main enzymes responsible for pyrimidine nucleotide synthesis. This strategy could impede viral replication without provoking resistance. We evaluated naphthoquinone fragments, discovering potent HsDHODH inhibition with IC(50) ranging from 48 to 684 nM, and promising…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Targeting G9a translational mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis for multifaceted therapeutics of COVID-19 and its sequalae</strong> - By largely unknown mechanism(s), SARS-CoV-2 hijacks the host translation apparatus to promote COVID-19 pathogenesis. We report that the histone methyltransferase G9a noncanonically regulates viral hijacking of the translation machinery to bring about COVID-19 symptoms of hyperinflammation, lymphopenia, and blood coagulation. Chemoproteomic analysis of COVID-19 patient peripheral mononuclear blood cells (PBMC) identified enhanced interactions between SARS-CoV-2-upregulated G9a and distinct…</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>Soluble ACE2 correlates with severe COVID-19 and can impair antibody responses</strong> - Identifying immune modulators that impact neutralizing antibody responses against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is of great relevance. We postulated that high serum concentrations of soluble angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (sACE2) might mask the spike and interfere with antibody maturation toward the SARS-CoV-2-receptor-binding motif (RBM). We tested 717 longitudinal samples from 295 COVID-19 patients and showed a 2- to 10-fold increase of enzymatically active…</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>Evaluating Critical Thinking Disposition, Emotional Intelligence, and Learning Environment of Nursing Students: A Longitudinal Study</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Critical thinking and emotional intelligence did not change, but students favored the online learning environment over the traditional. These findings suggest that nurse educators persevered, adapted, and maintained the quality of the learning environment despite the pandemic. Moreover, the utilization of an online learning environment may have led to enhanced enjoyment and engagement for students, which could potentially result in improved learning outcomes.</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>A Financial Reckoning for Donald Trump</strong> - The former President’s inability to secure a $464-million bond in his New York civil fraud case is a reminder of the deep legal and financial peril he’s in. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/a-financial-reckoning-for-donald-trump">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Crime Rings Stealing Everything from Purses to Power Tools</strong> - In Los Angeles, a task force of detectives is battling organized retail theft, in which boosted goods often end up for sale online—or commingled on store shelves with legitimate items. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/25/the-crime-rings-stealing-everything-from-purses-to-power-tools">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Quinta Brunson Hacked the Sitcom with “Abbott Elementary”</strong> - With “Abbott Elementary,” the comedian and writer found fresh humor and mass appeal in a world she knew well. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/25/quinta-brunson-profile">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Julien’s Auctions Leads the Booming Market in Celebrity Memorabilia</strong> - As the art market cools, Julien’s Auctions earns millions selling celebrity ephemera—and used its connections to help Kim Kardashian borrow Marilyn Monroe’s J.F.K.-birthday dress. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/25/how-juliens-auctions-leads-the-booming-market-in-celebrity-memorabilia">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Has Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Improved His Standing in Russia?</strong> - As Russians go to the polls, the economy is booming and the public feels hopeful about the future. But the politics of Putinism still depend on the absence of any means to challenge it. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/has-putins-invasion-of-ukraine-improved-his-standing-in-russia">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>How the threat of a government shutdown became normalized</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Rangers stand near two official vehicles blocking a road. A sign reads, “Because of the federal government shutdown, this National Park Service facility is closed.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/w8zvUByG1pS0sQUHE0Ed87tt9jc=/270x0:4046x2832/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73220091/182949873.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
US Park Rangers stand at the closed gate to Joshua Tree National Park in California during the 2013 government shutdown. | Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Why we find ourselves on the precipice again and again … and again.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eLfgZ1">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/22810544/congress-democrats-government-shutdown-cycle">These days</a>, the threat of a <a href="https://www.vox.com/videos/22808675/us-government-shutdown-appropriations-bill-spending">government shutdown</a> is as <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/9/11/23868182/government-shutdown-republicans-house-freedom-caucus">commonplace</a> as lawmakers <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/taking-care-business-congress-winter-vacation-leaving-long/story?id=107264481">skipping town</a> for recess.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q37LRS">
This congressional term alone, the US has faced fears of a government shutdown no fewer than four times as lawmakers have failed to agree on long-term funding bills and passed last-minute, short-term patches instead.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eFSlme">
In 2019, the US saw its <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/1/12/18179711/longest-government-shutdown-us-history">longest shutdown yet</a> when former <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">President Donald Trump</a> tried to wield it as a political weapon in order to procure funding for his southern border wall. And overall, shutdowns took place <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/government-shutdown-history-congress/">more frequently</a> in the 2010s than the prior decade.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="47ltyv">
For context, <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress">Congress</a> must pass 12 funding bills each year that provide money for everything from the Department of Defense to the Food and Drug Administration. If they fail to do so by an end-of-September deadline, either they approve a short-term bill that buys them more time and keeps agencies funded or the government shuts down.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1UdrZV">
It’s now been almost six full months since the start of the fiscal year in October, and Congress has yet to approve multiple full-year appropriations bills. On Tuesday, lawmakers <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/funding-deal-eludes-congress-just-days-ahead-government-shutdown-deadl-rcna143566">announced a deal</a> to keep the government open and finally pass several of the remaining longer-term measures, potentially quelling shutdown fears for now.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qPue0N">
Every time there’s another funding deadline, however, concerns about a potential shutdown ramp up. That’s because funding bills, like all legislation, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/">are subject to growing polarization in Congress</a> — and a faction of Republicans, in particular, benefits politically from threatening to shut down the government.
</p>
<h3 id="MO3tob">
The causes of shutdowns have changed
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FWSv1J">
Shutdowns aren’t totally new.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P3aHKL">
Modern-day shutdowns began in the 1980s after Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti <a href="https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/10/a-brief-history-of-us-government-shutdowns-and-why-other-countries-do-not-have-them">issued an opinion</a> stating that government agencies couldn’t keep operating if Congress hadn’t explicitly approved the funds they needed to do so. A handful of shutdowns happened in the 1970s as well, but they didn’t really close the government in the same way that current ones do.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RH3Avn">
Multiple shutdowns of the 1970s and ’80s also centered on <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/01/12/683304824/the-longest-government-shutdown-in-history-no-longer-how-1995-changed-everything">specific disagreements</a> over spending, such as line items in legislation, versus less related ideological arguments about policy. (Abortion funding, a crime bill and welfare expansion were all factors in different shutdowns, however.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U9jhNi">
A major turning point in how shutdowns have been weaponized <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/01/12/683304824/the-longest-government-shutdown-in-history-no-longer-how-1995-changed-everything">occurred in the 1990s</a>. In December 1995, House Republicans, led by Speaker Newt Gingrich, initiated a lengthy 21-day shutdown in order to make a point about budget reforms. At the time, they argued that President Bill Clinton should develop a budget based on more conservative projections from the Congressional Budget Office versus other estimates made by the White House Office of Management and Budget. This was notable because the standoff wasn’t just about a particular spending figure, but a broader policy disagreement.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8QDfoe">
The 1995–1996 <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/would-a-government-shutdown-really-be-all-that-bad-for-republicans-yes/279790/">shutdown</a> was also widely viewed as harming Republicans, who held both the House and the Senate, by making them appear dysfunctional and unable to govern.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cn9I7q">
While Republicans only lost two House seats and added two Senate seats in the following election, Clinton was viewed as benefiting from the shutdown debacle and coasting to a landslide reelection victory, in part because of how it hurt the GOP’s image, Molly Ball <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/would-a-government-shutdown-really-be-all-that-bad-for-republicans-yes/279790/">wrote for the Atlantic.</a>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5dcp4i">
There’s <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/09/27/lessons-from-the-last-government-shutdown/">some debate</a> about how much damage Republicans ultimately suffered. Seemingly <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/01/12/683304824/the-longest-government-shutdown-in-history-no-longer-how-1995-changed-everything">scarred from the experience</a>, however, they <a href="https://manhattan.institute/article/shutdowns-always-backfire-especially-on-republicans">avoided a shutdown</a> for nearly two decades afterward — until a wave of Tea Party members focused on fiscal responsibility were elected in 2010. In 2013, these members pushed for a 16-day government shutdown and said they wouldn’t approve spending bills unless they defunded the <a href="https://www.vox.com/obamacare">Affordable Care Act</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bOXXu8">
That shutdown heralded the beginning of our current era. Since 2013, there have been three shutdowns, and many more times when a shutdown was threatened.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MsEPvD">
Throughout this time, the GOP has explicitly used spending bills as leverage for other policy goals — building on the 2013 and 1996 precedents. <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/22/16919882/government-shutdown-2018-senate-democrats-vote">In 2018,</a> Democrats similarly used this strategy to urge action on immigration reforms. It was at the end of that year that former President Donald Trump called for Republicans to shut down the government if funding wasn’t approved for his border wall.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zz7Iw8">
Trump’s public support for the 2018–2019 shutdown, which lasted 35 days and became the longest in US history, underscored how making these threats — and using them as evidence for their base voters that they’re fighting for their priorities — has become incentivized for Republicans.
</p>
<h3 id="s70jtJ">
The political motives for threatening shutdowns, briefly explained
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U8Mmlz">
All told, there have been <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4221150-heres-how-many-times-the-federal-government-has-shut-down/">21 government shutdowns</a> over the past 50 years. They’re more likely to take place when there’s a split Congress, or when the party that controls Congress is different from the party holding the White House.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xFisSJ">
In recent years, partisanship has only gotten worse, increasing lawmakers’ incentives to use shutdown threats and other disruptive tactics. Because of this polarization, lawmakers have become more willing to play to their base voters, with the hopes of rallying them for the next election. And due to gerrymandering in states like Florida and Tennessee, for example, Republicans now <a href="https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/redistricting/">have more districts that are GOP-leaning. </a>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SSpZlW">
“Members of the House, particularly, have less incentive to compromise with their Democratic colleagues because they’re more worried about a primary challenge from their flank than they are losing their seat to the other party,” George Washington University political management professor Todd Belt tells Vox.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JApQD4">
Between the two parties, Republicans are also more likely to use these tactics than Democrats because they’re in line with conservative political commitments to cutting spending. As a result, the furthest-right members of the GOP — such as the Freedom Caucus — are often among the most vocal in threatening a shutdown over issues such as immigration.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YYoion">
Additionally, there’s some evidence that lawmakers are no longer being punished at the ballot box for using such disruptive tactics. Voters may be unhappy when a shutdown is happening, but they might potentially forget about it by the time the next election rolls around. For example, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/11/politics/shutdown-blame-polling/index.html">Republicans were blamed</a> in polls for the major shutdowns in 2019 and 2013, but there’s little evidence it harmed them in the subsequent national elections, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read/shutdowns-yet-cost-todays-gop-rcna118018">according to NBC News</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NcNfeb">
“We live in an increasingly noisy political environment. We have more crises and more breaking news and a louder political environment than we did 10, 20, 30 years ago,” says Bipartisan Policy Center senior analyst Andrew Lautz. “You could see backlash electorally, but … I’m not sure how much difference these budgeting fights make at the polls.”
</p>
<h3 id="L72I1w">
Congress likes to procrastinate
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vq9CyH">
Congress rarely passes funding bills <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/13/congress-has-long-struggled-to-pass-spending-bills-on-time/">on time</a>, and the reliance on short-term bills — also known as continuing resolutions, or CRs — is part of the reason it often feels like we’re regularly on the verge of a shutdown. Since a short-term bill might only last a few weeks or months, any time one expires, the country risks shutting down.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EBL2oo">
This term, Congress has already used multiple CRs, renewing them in November, January, and February. “I’m done normalizing this dysfunction,” first-term Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4232340-fetterman-im-done-normalizing-this-dysfunction/">griped last September</a> when asked to vote for a short-term patch.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fVDP8K">
Because of polarization, Congress is also <a href="https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-CONGRESS/PRODUCTIVITY/egpbabmkwvq/">passing fewer bills</a>, on average, over time. As a result, appropriations bills are more contentious because lawmakers may try to add in other policy riders, knowing a funding bill is guaranteed to pass.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FQy0wU">
“I think that one consequence of it getting harder to legislate generally is this idea that the discretionary appropriations process ends up bearing more of Congress’s political conflicts than it used to, because of the sense that this is the only thing we’re going to do,” Molly Reynolds, a procedural expert at Brookings, tells Vox.
</p>
<h3 id="Sl2136">
Shutdowns still cause real damage
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UqKoH5">
Even though they’ve been normalized, shutdowns and the threat of shutdowns aren’t good.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cgGAaj">
They’ve cost the <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy">economy</a> billions of dollars in recent years, and they create significant uncertainty for federal workers. “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the five-week partial government shutdown in 2018 and 2019 reduced economic output by $11 billion in the following two quarters — including $3 billion that the U.S. economy never regained,” a <a href="https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/issue-briefs?id=B7FCE9F4-4DFE-495C-8263-AD277CE4716B#:~:text=The%20Congressional%20Budget%20Office%20(CBO,the%20U.S.%20economy%20never%20regained.">report</a> from Senate Democrats noted.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3p7xFf">
“They only serve to hurt the economy, they scramble federal departments and agencies, and they lead to a waste of federal dollars,” says Lautz. Even when a threatened shutdown doesn’t occur, agencies still have to prepare for the possibility, taking time and resources away from implementing <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> and programs they’d otherwise be focused on.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7Gacg8">
Shutdowns also have an outsize impact on government employees. During a shutdown, tens of thousands of federal workers are furloughed or forced to work without pay, and prominent services like immigration courts, food inspections, and National Park access get curtailed or delayed. Additionally, thousands of federal contractors <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/13/18223471/back-pay-federal-contractors-shutdown">may never recoup back pay</a> from shutdowns after they end. And certain services are left <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/25/18197354/government-shutdown-tipping-point">dangerously understaffed</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RmnoEA">
Despite these consequences, lawmakers still seem plenty comfortable bringing the country to the brink again and again and again.
</p></li>
<li><strong>Can a friend be your most significant other?</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustration of two people hiking in a mountain landscape." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/spEUZefUxdkuLMvadOwHFvuWA3g=/326x0:4895x3427/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73220042/GettyImages_1094956810.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Getty Images/fStop
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Author Rhaina Cohen on what we can learn from people who choose a friend as a life partner.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PKopzh">
We live in a culture that privileges romance. Specifically, marriage.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PsZFop">
It’s not just that the fairy tales we grow up with end in some couple’s “happily ever after.” The reign of romance is in our laws, too. In America, married people get <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/201804/unearned-privilege-1000-laws-benefit-only-married-people">over 1,000 legal benefits</a> that<em> </em>single people can’t access.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gz03GP">
That’s … weird! Why should society assume that romantic love is the ultimate form of commitment? For some people, the most meaningful and long-lasting relationship they’ll have is actually a deep friendship.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LRVhuu">
What if society were structured so that people who choose a friend as a life partner — people in a platonic partnership — could <a href="https://www.vox.com/parenting">raise kids</a> together, share health insurance with each other, and make medical decisions for one another, rather than being dismissed as “just friends”?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lqqYSU">
To explore these questions, I invited Rhaina Cohen onto <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area"><em>The Gray Area</em></a>. She’s the author of the new national bestseller, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250280916/theothersignificantothers"><em>The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life With Friendship at the Center</em></a><em>. </em>This deeply reported book follows several pairs of platonic partners, who unsettle societal assumptions about which relationships are supposed to scaffold our lives. It argues that we’re undermining romantic relationships by expecting too much of them while diminishing friendships by expecting too little of them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y3Bjgg">
Rhaina is also a personal friend of mine, so we had the opportunity to get a bit meta in our podcast discussion about friendship. Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
</p>
<div id="TaKaOJ">
</div>
<h4 id="gnfddu">
Sigal Samuel
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6WkZOB">
A major project of your book is to take these ideas that we’re all familiar with — friendship, romance, marriage — and historicize them. By that I mean you try to show readers that these ideas have actually changed a lot over the centuries. It’s not like they just fell from the heavens in their current form. So tell me some of the surprising things that the historical record has revealed to you about friendship.
</p>
<h4 id="DzSCfE">
Rhaina Cohen
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xna1UP">
We could start in the present, where we think about friendship now as a relationship that is kind of an add-on, not necessarily the crux of a good life, and as a relationship that is private rather than one that is publicly recognized or celebrated. And it’s a relationship that’s lower on the hierarchy than family, than romantic relationships, even career.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VLa2Lt">
But if you look back in time, the picture is actually really different. You can go back to the story of David and Jonathan in the Hebrew Bible. You can go back to ancient Roman thinkers and how they talked about their friends as “the other half of my soul,” or “the better half of my soul.” The kind of language that would seem more like what you would say for your romantic partner who is supposed to be at the top of your hierarchy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0MmRGn">
And there were practices in the past, like a ritual called sworn brotherhood, where men would walk into a church, put their hands one on top of the other on the Gospels, and have a priest say a blessing over them that made them committed to each other for life. Sometimes these men were buried with each other rather than with their wives. So it’s making friendship public and equal to, if not greater than, marriage. It’s turning friendship into an enduring kinship relationship. And there is this emotional experience and adoration and effusion that we don’t necessarily think of as appropriate in friendship right now.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bludsc">
This kind of sworn brotherhood relationship was something that you could see throughout medieval England and in the Byzantine Empire. You could also find versions of this practice among monks in other parts of the world, like China.
</p>
<h4 id="jomIMh">
Sigal Samuel
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="barLXx">
Fast-forward to modern-day America and we see an extremely sharp contrast. So how did we get to this thinner, more impoverished view of friendship that we have today?
</p>
<h4 id="kCMqB3">
Rhaina Cohen
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="32Kfql">
There are basically two trends that braid together. One has to do with the way marriage has been understood over time, and the other has to do with what’s possible within friendship.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kFT0jb">
Marriage used to be much more of a pragmatic institution. People would enter into it to merge their families and their wealth, not so much for love, let alone finding a soulmate. And there was, of course, tons of inequality — women until kind of recently were property of their husbands — so it really is not much of a surprise that people tended to find much more emotional intimacy in their same sex-friendships, which were more egalitarian than in their marriages.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WEBlNB">
But starting 150 years ago or so, it’s much more common for love to be seen as an essential part of marriage. And then in the last half century, you have even higher expectations of marriage, where people want their spouse to be their best friend, which doesn’t leave as much room for friendship.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o8GxuG">
And then alongside this, by the turn of the 20th century or so, emotional and physical intimacy between same-sex friends became suspect, as you have the introduction of the category of homosexuality and any kind of same-sex sexual interaction being seen as really stigmatized.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a3bQYM">
So you don’t get to have this kind of closeness, where women were exchanging locks of hair with their friends, where same-sex friends would share beds together because that was a norm at the time. There was really this crowding out of the emotional and physical intimacy of friendship. There was just a lot of fear around being labeled as homosexual.
</p>
<h4 id="hWRV3O">
Sigal Samuel
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q7Dfds">
In the book, when you talk about friendship versus romance and love versus lust, you get into the neurobiology a bit. Tell me what the science reveals about the difference between friendship and romance or love and lust.
</p>
<h4 id="dvhDEO">
Rhaina Cohen
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8foLza">
I think most people today, in a place like the US, assume that these two things go together, that love is impossible to have without lust. So many of the friends that I write about in this book, who clearly love each other, are kind of incomprehensible to the world around them, because everybody wants to imagine that they must have some kind of sexual desire for one another.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LmBU2b">
But in fact, there’s research that shows that the drive for love or attachment is different from the sex drive. And while they might go together, they don’t always. Different chemicals and networks in the brain are involved in the attachment versus the sex drive. So, hormones like androgens and estrogens are involved in sex, whereas when you’re forming a close attachment or love relationship, we’re getting a hit of oxytocin and dopamine. This helps explain how it is possible to feel passion and infatuation, which you might connect to an attachment relationship or a love relationship, without having that sexual drive.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZAi8yw">
The researcher who’s done a lot of this work is Lisa Diamond, who’s at the University of Utah. And it helped her understand a bunch of women she had interviewed and traced over the course of decades, who had a friendship that she talks about as a kind of in-between world, where they did not seem to be denying any kind of sexual desire that they had for another person — they just didn’t feel it. And yet they had more intensity than we think of as being reasonable in “just” friendship.
</p>
<h4 id="ZKJXXF">
Sigal Samuel
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CCYfGU">
When I think about the implications of the neurobiology for how we’re living, I get the image in my mind of Lego blocks. I’m wondering if we should think of different relationships as structures made of these Lego blocks that we can assemble, disassemble, reassemble into different configurations over time as our needs shift.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Peujho">
At one point, someone might be your housemate and your sexual partner and your co-parent and your closest supporter in times of crisis. And at another point in life, maybe that’s not the right fit, and they might be just one or two of those things. Maybe that makes sense if a different neurochemical thing is happening at a different point. Maybe we should have more okayness about that shift.
</p>
<h4 id="wHCjva">
Rhaina Cohen
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vZsmOb">
I think a familiar version of this for a lot of people is imagining a very stereotypical romantic relationship over the course of decades that starts off with sex being really an important part of it, and then people have kids and they don’t have time or energy to have much of a sexual relationship. And that may or may not be an issue for the couple — they might feel mutually okay about that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8wwoM6">
We have a stereotype in our society that older people are not that sexual, which I don’t subscribe to, but there is some understanding that a marriage can still be really meaningful even if it becomes more companionate over time, and it’s built more on emotional intimacy and the sex piece is less important.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iT5bkJ">
So there’s already recognition that you can have that kind of modularity in marriages. And I think this can apply to other kinds of relationships, too.
</p>
<h4 id="2fMUUJ">
Sigal Samuel
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="utdyES">
There is this great term in your book, “compulsory coupledom,” to describe this fixation in our society on romantic relationships and particularly on marriage. And that’s not just a cultural thing. The government seems to really promote and push marriage. How did that come to be, historically? Why does the state want to be so up in my business — and should it get out?
</p>
<h4 id="I55Xya">
Rhaina Cohen
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="367XiR">
A lot of the rights and benefits that are attached to marriage really develop around the New Deal, when there are these new government programs. A good proxy to make sure that everyone is covered in a society where almost everybody is married is to use marriage as a criterion for something like dependency. So it’s a way to cover women for retirement benefits, to make sure they’re not in poverty when they themselves are not working.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HHozxO">
Basically, marriage is a shortcut to tell you something about caregiving and dependency, and for the state to encourage people to have those sorts of relationships. We need people to be caring for each other.
</p>
<h4 id="ZOfKnw">
Sigal Samuel
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XwQeST">
That’s also because it serves the state, right? That means fewer people on government rolls.
</p>
<h4 id="FhpHu0">
Rhaina Cohen
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QmTo81">
Fewer people on government rolls, yes. But also there is value to people raising children, and there is a value to people caring for somebody who is sick. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have other people do it, but it’s a way of recognizing that it is important societally for that to happen, that that’s not just free.
</p>
<h4 id="gkXMxF">
Sigal Samuel
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0fTJDH">
To this day in the US, marriage comes with this huge package of rights and benefits, while friendships, no matter how deep or committed they are, get basically nothing. To me, that seems pretty silly because functionally these deep friendships are often doing a lot of the same stuff — the stuff that the state wants to see happen, like caregiving.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q4q0eN">
What would be the most effective way to grant unmarried people the same rights as married couples have? Do we need a legal alternative to marriage?
</p>
<h4 id="xqDbLG">
Rhaina Cohen
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y3nUCB">
I want to pinpoint a word you used, which was “function.” So much of the law is built around the form or the structure of relationships and not paying as much attention to the function. But there’s been, certainly in family law, a shift to look more at the function. One of the arguments that I saw from several legal scholars is that it is caregiving and economic interdependence that the state has a vested interest in supporting.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WwtDow">
So, you can do an inventory where you’re only keeping the rights and benefits that pertain to caregiving and economic interdependence — for example, worker’s compensation for a surviving spouse, which is compensating for lost income in a relationship where people are economically interdependent — and use those as criteria [for deciding who gets certain benefits] rather than marriage. Because marriage is not, especially in this day and age, as good of a proxy as it used to be. So you can basically strip marriage down and extend benefits on a different basis.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9yuJGV">
I think simpler options are just having people designate a person who is the default stop for making major decisions in their lives. That could be something as simple as a form that you fill out when you’re at the DMV or at the post office.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mXGM1g">
And then the final option would be the legal alternative to marriage that doesn’t have the romantic connotation attached to it. Colorado has this law called a “designated beneficiary agreement.” It’s different from marriage, where you have this giant bundle of more than 1,000 rights and benefits. It’s a little bit more à la carte: There are two sheets of paper, very simple, 16 different rights and benefits, and you can check off which ones you want to give and receive from the other person. That kind of template could be used in other places that would allow people in nonmarital relationships to ensure that the person who is making medical decisions on their behalf is the one that they want, and the person who is handling end-of-life care is the person that they want, and so on.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6uQWVp">
It is okay for one person to not be the right person for everything. I’m very aware of my weaknesses, and it would be a relief to me to know that there might be another person for my husband to turn to for certain kinds of things that I’m not the best at.
</p>
<h4 id="FoX80y">
Sigal Samuel
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vEYqze">
When you look ahead to 20 years from now, what route do you think policy could take that would actually work to accommodate the committed friendships that we do see on the ground?
</p>
<h4 id="rnBFbn">
Rhaina Cohen
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qG6eSe">
There are already legal alternatives to marriage that are happening in the US, and there are groups that are really pushing for this. In Somerville and Cambridge, Massachusetts, there are already domestic partnerships that you can sign up for that actually allow more than two people to sign up. They were explicitly made so that they didn’t have a romantic connotation, so friends could take advantage of them. The first legislation that would prevent discrimination on the basis of family structure was also passed in that part of the country. And on Valentine’s Day this year, basically the same kind of legislation was introduced in Oakland and in Berkeley.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YBfDLa">
So I already see people moving in this direction of trying to put other options on the table. And what I think is promising about the Colorado law is that it’s very cheap, and it’s easy to get, and it also has at least some amount of customizability. I think something that has that mix could be helpful in the future. But let’s talk again in 20 years, and we’ll see.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K2VlcI">
</p></li>
<li><strong>Reddit is going public. Will its unruly user base revolt?</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A laptop screen shows the site Reddit and the page for Wall Street Bets. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/a5xXFJqinrAdktEaQNOxv9GCvb8=/0x0:3556x2667/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73219981/1230831471.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
The subreddit r/wallstreetbets has thoughts on Reddit’s IPO. | Brent Lewin/Bloomberg via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Reddit could become the next meme stock — or flop.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nJaEKm">
Reddit, the launchpad for many <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23482690/amc-gamestop-stock-ape-ryan-cohen-adam-aron-reddit">meme stocks</a>, could now become one: The social media giant makes its debut on Wall Street this week in one of the most highly anticipated initial public offerings of the year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zKVfxd">
The nearly 20-year-old company is seeking to raise up to <a href="https://nl.nytimes.com/f/a/HAjXyZ3LSHA587-92yI67w~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRn0Xi7P0TmaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2VjLmdvdi9BcmNoaXZlcy9lZGdhci9kYXRhLzE3MTM0NDUvMDAwMTYyODI4MDI0MDEwMTM3L3JlZGRpdC1zeDFhMS5odG0_Y2FtcGFpZ25faWQ9NCZlbWM9ZWRpdF9ka18yMDI0MDMxMSZpbnN0YW5jZV9pZD0xMTcyOTcmbmw9ZGVhbGJvb2smcmVnaV9pZD03MTU5OTUzMCZzZWdtZW50X2lkPTE2MDQzOSZ0ZT0xJnVzZXJfaWQ9MWZmZWZhNDE2NDA3MzkwYjgxNjM4YmE3ZWZiYTY4NzVXA255dEIKZeK78-5ldzLIaFIYcHVpLXdpbmcudGFtQG55dGltZXMuY29tWAQAAAAD">$748 million</a> in its IPO on March 21, putting its valuation at <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/reddit-targets-up-64-bln-valuation-much-awaited-us-ipo-2024-03-11/">about $6.4 billion</a>. It’s the first time that a major social <a href="https://www.vox.com/media">media company</a> has gone public since Snap (i.e., <a href="https://www.vox.com/snapchat">Snapchat</a>) in 2017.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wV1xaA">
It will sell approximately 22 million shares priced at $31 to $34 each under the ticker symbol “RDDT.” The company is reserving about <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/reddit-preparing-sell-shares-public-108046252">1.76 million shares</a> for top Reddit users, people who have taken a significant number of “moderator actions” or who have high “karma” scores, a measure of community engagement with their posts. They will have the option to buy in at that initial price early and then sell as soon as the IPO happens.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W67YPu">
That perk is unavailable to most investors, who usually have to hold stock for a mandatory six-month period after an IPO. Reddit is attempting to curry favor with a user base that hasn’t taken kindly to the company’s past efforts to monetize the site enough to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/23/tech/reddit-ipo-filing-business-plan/index.html">turn a profit</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sGrt7U">
Reddit says there are many reasons for people to buy in, according to a <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1713445/000162828024006294/reddits-1q423.htm">prospectus released</a> ahead of the IPO. While the company isn’t yet profitable, revenue grew by 21 percent to $804 million and losses declined 43 percent to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/reddit-makes-us-ipo-filing-public-2024-02-22/">$90.8 million</a> in 2023. It’s hoping to offer more advertisers access to its 73 million daily active users, many of whom come to Reddit looking for product recommendations. Advertisers could then target users based on their interests. The company hopes that microtargeting will allow it to continue growing its revenue, even if digital ad spending remains down.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QhbF8f">
Reddit also recently signed a data licensing deal with <a href="https://www.vox.com/google">Google</a>, reportedly valued at <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/reddit-ai-content-licensing-deal-with-google-sources-say-2024-02-22/">about $60 million a year</a>, to help train the search engine’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/4/28/23702644/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-technology">artificial intelligence</a> models on the conversations happening on Reddit.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gEiDO6">
The AI boom is a boost to Reddit’s debut on Wall Street — but its plans for profitability risk angering its users by undermining the very reasons for the site’s success. Reddit has thrived as a relatively egalitarian, all-in-one online forum. In contrast to <a href="https://www.vox.com/facebook">Facebook</a> or <a href="https://www.vox.com/twitter">Twitter</a>, most users remain anonymous and the site has historically had a relaxed attitude toward content moderation. But recent pivots ahead of the IPO toward a more investor-focused strategy, such as cracking down on third-party apps, has already led to significant backlash from the user base.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sTy6MZ">
Now Reddit has to convince its users that they stand to benefit from any of the features that might make the company attractive to investors. If it can’t, it risks another mutiny.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DuNjve">
“I think there will be rough waters to navigate early on, but that seems normal for most companies, especially those with boisterous customers,” said Kyle Stanford, lead <a href="https://www.vox.com/venture-capital">venture capital</a> analyst at PitchBook. “This is a natural progression.”
</p>
<h3 id="VA630h">
What the IPO means for Reddit as a company
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j4hJbd">
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/15/1182457366/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-its-time-we-grow-up-and-behave-like-an-adult-company?ft=nprml&amp;f=1002">said</a> last year that it was “time we grow up and behave like an adult company.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TWAGSg">
Reddit is one of the last major Web 2.0 social networks to go public: <a href="https://www.vox.com/meta">Meta</a> (then Facebook) went public in 2012, X (then Twitter) in 2013 before <a href="https://www.vox.com/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> took it private again, Tinder parent company Match in 2015, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/pinterest">Pinterest</a> in 2019.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="491Nfq">
Going public means that Reddit will have new fiduciary obligations to its shareholders, which demand that the company try to maximize its profits. The company is already taking additional steps to try to further monetize the platform.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kLW6k7">
The new Google data licensing deal is a big one, especially given that licensing has only been a small share of Reddit’s revenue up until this point. The advent of AI large language models like Google Gemini has opened up new opportunities in licensing. While AI search crawlers have been scraping data from websites including Reddit to develop their models without permission from those sites, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/24062159/ai-copyright-fair-use-lawsuits-new-york-times-openai-chatgpt-decoder-podcast">lawsuits have recently put that practice under threat</a>, so Google has been eager to secure licensing deals with major publishers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TGElzV">
If Reddit were going public right now as a standalone social media and advertising business, Stanford said it would be a “tough market to IPO in, and we should assume the price range would be lower if that was the case.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cu1JPP">
“AI is a big boost to the IPO, and probably a reason the company is choosing now to IPO,” he said, adding that the company’s hope is that it will “boost its prospects and boost the interest from investors that it can continue its revenue growth and move toward profitability.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TbXPF2">
The Federal Trade Commission, however, has opened an <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/03/15/reddit-generative-ai-license-user-data">inquiry into the Google deal</a>. Though Reddit says it has not engaged in any anticompetitive practices, it acknowledged in an <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1713445/000162828024011477/reddit-fwp31524.htm">updated investor prospectus</a> that the probe could lead to “substantial costs” and “require us to change our policies or practices, divert management and other resources from our business, or otherwise adversely impact our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GcTFIR">
Last year, Reddit also started charging third-party developers to access its API, a tool that allows the social media network to share information with other software. It generated a huge backlash among Redditors, with thousands of volunteer moderators shutting down their subreddits in protest for days or longer. Popular third-party apps that have a unique user interface to browse Reddit on mobile — <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/exploring-reddits-third-party-app-environment-7-months-after-the-apicalypse/">like Narwhal 2 or Infinity</a> — used to be free, but now have to charge for subscriptions as a result of the new API restrictions. Other third-party developers have decided to just <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/reddit-api-changes-are-imminent-heres-whats-happening-to-your-favorite-apps/">shut down their apps</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2RSv7q">
But Huffman never budged. He <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/15/1182457366/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-its-time-we-grow-up-and-behave-like-an-adult-company?ft=nprml&amp;f=1002">told NPR</a> at the time that Reddit had been “subsidizing other [businesses] for free for a long time. We’re stopping that. That is not a negotiable point.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mhgf7w">
Reddit has also begun to take steps to attract more advertisers. That has meant toughening <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/29/21304947/reddit-ban-subreddits-the-donald-chapo-trap-house-new-content-policy-rules">content moderation</a>. And it has promised <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1713445/000162828024006294/reddits-1q423.htm#i1b9a579e78a34dfa99f7f26daeec195b_16">further investment</a> in its contextual and interest-based ad targeting technology <a href="https://www.adexchanger.com/investment/what-reddits-ipo-filing-reveals-about-its-ads-business/">introduced last year</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ObGFdH">
“If the data licensing is able to grow significantly and reduce the pressure on increasing advertising, that is probably the best option,” Stanford said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y0RneE">
Despite all of its preparations for going public, it seems like Reddit is tempering its expectations for the IPO. Last week, it <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/4cd0ef3e-3dc2-4ae5-9660-52ed024b4e0b?shareType=nongift">cut pay incentives</a> for Huffman if the stock hit a $25 billion valuation after IPO, suggesting that the company isn’t as optimistic as it once might have been about hitting that astronomical number.
</p>
<h3 id="jtyk6i">
How Redditors are reacting
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qJWlxt">
All eyes are on the subreddit r/wallstreetbets ahead of its parent site’s IPO, which could provide an early window into how the user base and investors are responding.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sedYNK">
The subreddit has previously made and ruined fortunes, temporarily driving up the price of stock in down-and-out companies like <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22249458/gamestop-stock-wallstreetbets-reddit-citron">GameStop</a>, the movie theater chain <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23482690/amc-gamestop-stock-ape-ryan-cohen-adam-aron-reddit">AMC</a>, and Y2K smartphone maker <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/memestocks/other-memes/is-it-finally-time-to-buy-blackberry-stock">BlackBerry</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cjuvdt">
In some of those cases, Redditors’ goal was to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/ivs6dw/bankrupting_institutional_investors_for_dummies/">orchestrate a short squeeze</a> — forcing institutional investors who were betting against the stock to buy it back at a higher price to cover their losses. (They also just thought it was <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/shelbyheinrich/game-stop-memesreddit-stock-market">funny</a>.) For example, r/wallstreetbets (with a <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354174279894642703?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1354174279894642703%7Ctwgr%5E7a5b1c4c491fe6bbc2f50bb54778baf16ceeb9ac%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2FBusiness%2Fgamestop-timeline-closer-saga-upended-wall-street%2Fstory%3Fid%3D75617315">later endorsement</a> from Elon Musk) propelled the price of GameStop stock from <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GME/history?period1=1600819200&amp;period2=1616457600&amp;interval=1d&amp;filter=history&amp;frequency=1d&amp;includeAdjustedClose=true">under $5<strong> </strong></a>a share in January 2021 to <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gamestop-stock-hits-as-high-as-500-in-premarket-action-2021-01-28">as high as $500</a> by the end of the month. The brokerage platform Robinhood eventually made the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22254270/robinhood-gamestop-amc-block-wallstreetbets-day-trading">controversial decision</a> to temporarily shut down trading of the stock, citing market volatility and regulatory requirements.
</p>
<div id="IUiu79">
<blockquote align="center" class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
Gamestonk!! <a href="https://t.co/RZtkDzAewJ">https://t.co/RZtkDzAewJ</a>
</p>
— Elon Musk (<span class="citation" data-cites="elonmusk">@elonmusk</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354174279894642703?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 26, 2021</a>
</blockquote></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FVYgo4">
Reddit itself could be the next stock to attain <a href="https://www.vox.com/internet-culture">meme</a> status.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NLfx6q">
“I think the Reddit stock has the right ingredients to be a meme stock,” said Jonathan Brogaard, a finance professor at the University of Utah who has studied meme <a href="https://www.vox.com/stock-market">stocks</a>. “Specifically, it has the attention of lots of retail investors and its price will likely be volatile, just based on the fact that it is a new listing. These seem to be the two necessary ingredients for a security to become a meme stock.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9H0072">
That said, as with any meme stock, it’s hard to predict how the market might behave. “Even if the price is clearly wrong, the saying, ‘The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent,’ still applies,” Brogaard said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CswLEv">
Recently, there’s been chatter about the Reddit IPO on r/wallstreetbets, almost none of it positive. Some choice examples:
</p>
<ul>
<li id="Kh0RTR">
“Reddit about to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1bfelny/comment/kuzvuna/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3">break all records</a> for speed running to a penny stock.”
</li>
<li id="sDXlyk">
“I can’t wait to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1bc4a6w/comment/kuduloe/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3">short the shit</a> outta this!”
</li>
<li id="WeoFyG">
“This shit is going to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1axi9co/comment/kro4njc/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3">absolutely plummet</a> and I can’t wait to see it.”
</li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xSOdT3">
When I reached out to the moderators of r/wallstreetbets to ask if they were buying into the IPO, they responded with characteristic cheek: by making fun of my username. Without doxxing myself, I thought my username was a clever allusion to one of my favorite books, <em>The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</em>; the mods derided it as “one of them high-brow classic lit references about your destructive nature as a journalist.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dExSEN">
My hurt feelings aside, this is part of what has always made Reddit so compelling.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RXAlQz">
Unlike X, where blue checks with verified identities have always driven the conversation, Reddit has a flatter structure where communities form around niche topics, giving way to an unruliness that doesn’t respect anyone because of their title (especially because many people go by pseudonyms.) Rather, earning upvotes on Reddit is about having something knowledgeable, interesting, or entertaining to add.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XKX4t2">
This is also what has long made Reddit a more difficult sell to advertisers than apps like Facebook, where users generally go by their own name and disclose a lot of personal information by design. Its user-driven content model doesn’t give advertisers much control over where their ads are placed, which could be right next to controversial, inappropriate, or even illegal content with which they don’t want to be associated.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O3LToz">
Reddit has historically had no shortage of such content, even if it was later banned: take <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6121195/reddits-ban-of-thefappening-explained">r/thefappening</a>, where photos of naked <a href="https://www.vox.com/celebrities">celebrities</a> stolen from their private iCloud accounts were posted, or <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/29/21304947/reddit-ban-subreddits-the-donald-chapo-trap-house-new-content-policy-rules">r/thedonald</a>, a MAGA subreddit that often violated the social network’s policies on hate speech.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4rPXeO">
As it goes public, the company’s challenge is striking a balance between preserving what has always allowed communities to flourish on the platform with the pursuit of profitability.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G3M70N">
“It will be tough to keep users and investors happy at the same time,” Stanford said. “Finding ways to continue incentivizing users to participate on Reddit without adding barriers specifically to increase revenue will be the path forward.”
</p>
<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>Reminiscence and Creative Girl catch the eye</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Real Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois suffers new knee injury ahead of return from long absence</strong> - The injury is a major blow for Real Madrid who will have to make do without the services of the goalkeeper for their Champions League quarterfinal tie against Manchester City</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>Morning Digest | Congress plans to reach every household with 25 guarantees and ‘paanch nyay’; Lokpal orders CBI probe into charges against Mahua Moitra, and more</strong> - Here is a select list of stories to start the day</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Air of anticipation as Rishabh Pant prepares to take guard again</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>IPL | Starc is as good as anyone in T20s, says McGrath</strong> - The former Australian pacer says the batters have taken away the game with new innovative shots and it is time for the bowlers to step up</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>Will you filter vegetarian delivery workers, gig union asks Zomato</strong> - Food delivery app sparks concerns of discrimination after its CEO announces the rollout of an exclusive fleet of delivery executives who would only be assigned orders from vegetarian restaurants</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>Here are the big stories from Karnataka today</strong> - Welcome to the Karnataka Today newsletter, your guide from The Hindu on the major news stories to follow today. Curated and written by Nalme Nachiyar.</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>Budaun double murder: Barber accused of killing 2 boys had gone to their house seeking money</strong> - Police have also not confirmed the motive behind the incident. They have booked two for murder.</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>CPI to contest from 14 Assembly and two Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh</strong> - The Left parties have completed the initial talks with Congress on seat sharing and a consensus will be reached in a day or two, says CPI State Secretary K. Ramakrishna</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>Assam University apologises for showing Muslims as criminals</strong> - Bodoland University’s Department of Geography organised a cultural rally on March 16, portraying various social facets</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>Varadkar to step down as Irish prime minister</strong> - Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar became the Republic of Ireland’s youngest prime minister in 2017.</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>Italy PM Meloni seeks damages over deepfake porn</strong> - Giorgia Meloni is suing two men after digitally altered videos featuring her face appeared online in 2020.</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>Dani Alves to be freed on bail after rape conviction</strong> - A court in Spain sentenced the former Brazil player to four and a half years in prison last month.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Russian Mazepin wins case to remove EU sanctions</strong> - Russian racing driver Nikita Mazepin overturns European Union sanctions imposed as part of the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.</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>Dozens jailed in France’s largest cyberbully case</strong> - A total of 28 people convicted for targeting Magali Berdah in a campaign against “thieving influencers”.</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>“Disabling cyberattacks” are hitting critical US water systems, White House warns</strong> - Biden administration rallies nation’s governors to secure their facilities. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2011436">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rocket launch marks big step in building China’s lunar infrastructure</strong> - Queqiao-2 will relay data between Earth and Chinese spacecraft on the far side of the Moon. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2011332">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Entirely accurate 3D-printed Mac Plus built in these 29 painstaking steps</strong> - What could have been a dozen separate videos is instead one 48-minute marvel. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2011150">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Users ditch Glassdoor, stunned by site adding real names without consent</strong> - Anonymous review site Glassdoor now consults public sources to identify users. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2011340">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>It’s official: Europe turns to the Falcon 9 to launch its navigation satellites</strong> - The European Union agreed to pay a 30 percent premium for Falcon 9 launches. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2011210">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>Mom, who is my daddy?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Son, I guess you are old enough to know. You know our town is strict about no pre-marital sex. Several town men used to… um… relieve their stress into the local well. One dark night, I was heading back to our house, and I fell in the well. After some fuss, our family got me out, and 9 months later, you were born. “
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Um… mom, I still don’t quite understand where I came from, but thanks for telling me.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Son, you’re well cum.”
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Holden_place"> /u/Holden_place </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bj5gbr/mom_who_is_my_daddy/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bj5gbr/mom_who_is_my_daddy/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I got sent on a blind date with a beautiful girl</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
My friend thought I was lonely so he set me up on a blind date with a beautiful girl from his work. She had long dark hair. Amazing boobs that really complemented her hourglass waist and a peach of a booty.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The date went amazing, we shared lots of different interests and got on really well. She told me early on that she found me attractive.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
After many drinks we agreed to continue the conversation at my place so I ordered a taxi and off we went. Few more glasses of wine a things moved to the bedroom.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
We were kissing on the bed and my hands moved from her waist to her boobie area. She grabbed my hand and suddenly looked nervous. “I have a confession to make” she said. “I actually only have really small boobs. I put socks in my bra to make them look bigger”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I told her it wasn’t a problem but I also had a confession to make. “I’m sorry but I also must confess I have the penis of a baby” I told her. My voice full of shame.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
She put her hand on my mine and told me it was ok. We started kissing again then I slowly removed her dress. I took off her bra and out popped the socks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
She then pulled down my pants.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Her eyes when wide with shocked, the air left her body and she started to tremble.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Yo yo you ttttold me you ha ha hadd the penis of a baby” she said shaking.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“I do” I replied grabbing the monster. “8 pound 4 ounces”
</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/kingaling49"> /u/kingaling49 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bj0sy3/i_got_sent_on_a_blind_date_with_a_beautiful_girl/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bj0sy3/i_got_sent_on_a_blind_date_with_a_beautiful_girl/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I just don’t get hookup culture</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
On nights out, when I tell them I’ve got a dick like a horse, there’s no end of people willing to come home with me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
They’re all eager and flirty in the taxi.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
But when we get home it’s all: screaming, running and shouting <em>“why has it got legs‽”</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/Goatboy292"> /u/Goatboy292 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bj8weu/i_just_dont_get_hookup_culture/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bj8weu/i_just_dont_get_hookup_culture/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The president of a fledgling East Asian democracy visits a grade school…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The principal meets him at the gate and begs, “Sir, the summers are so hot my students are falling over in class, please we need something to give the children air.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The president looked mildly concerned and said to his aide, “Implement a new policy or something, make the parents pay more tuition and get ceiling fans installed in schools.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The next stop on his itinerary is a state prison. The warden is at the door. “Sir, the summers are so hot the prisoners are having heatstrokes even in their cells, we need to do something.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The president was aghast. “Aide, take money out of the treasury and have air conditioning installed in every cell, in fact build them a pool so they can have nice swims during their exercise hours, come on people these are our fellow human beings!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Later back in the presidential palace, the aide found the courage to speak his mind. “Sir, I couldn’t help but notice you seemed much more concerned about the condition of the prison than the grade school.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The president said, “After my term is over, where do you think I’m more likely to end up?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Disclaimer: I’m from the Asian country where this joke is based on a true story. I’ve decided not to say which country but bonus point if anyone’s from around here and has heard this joke before.
</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/YouGotServer"> /u/YouGotServer </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bj38w4/the_president_of_a_fledgling_east_asian_democracy/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bj38w4/the_president_of_a_fledgling_east_asian_democracy/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Smart Watch</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A cowboy walks into a bar and takes a seat next to a very attractive woman.<br/> He gives her a quick glance and then causally looks at his watch for a moment.<br/> The woman notices this and asks, “Is your date running late?”<br/> “No”, he replies, “I just got this state-of-the-art watch, and I was just testing it..”<br/> The intrigued woman says, “A state-of-the-art watch? What”s so special about it?”<br/> The cowboy explains, “It uses alpha waves to talk to me telepathically.”<br/> The lady says, “What”s it telling you now?”<br/> Well, it says you’re not wearing any panties.”<br/> The woman giggles and replies “Well it must be broken because I am wearing panties!”<br/> The cowboy smiles, taps his watch, and says, “Damn thing’s an hour fast.”
</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/Azurebluenomad"> /u/Azurebluenomad </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bj249m/a_smart_watch/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bj249m/a_smart_watch/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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