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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>DNA origami vaccine (DoriVac) nanoparticles improve both humoral and cellular immune responses to infectious diseases</strong> -
<div>
Current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have demonstrated robust induction of neutralizing antibodies and CD4+ T cell activation, however CD8+ responses are variable, and the duration of immunity and protection against variants are limited. Here we repurposed our DNA origami vaccine platform, DoriVac, for targeting infectious viruses, namely SARS-CoV-2, HIV, and Ebola. The DNA origami nanoparticle, conjugated with infectious-disease-specific HR2 peptides, which act as highly conserved antigens, and CpG adjuvant at precise nanoscale spacing, induced neutralizing antibodies, Th1 CD4+ T cells, and CD8+ T cells in naive mice, with significant improvement over a bolus control. Pre-clinical studies using lymph-node-on-a-chip systems validated that DoriVac, when conjugated with antigenic peptides or proteins, induced promising cellular immune responses in human cells. These results suggest that DoriVac holds potential as a versatile, modular vaccine platform, capable of inducing both humoral and cellular immunities. The programmability of this platform underscores its potential utility in addressing future pandemics.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.29.573647v1" target="_blank">DNA origami vaccine (DoriVac) nanoparticles improve both humoral and cellular immune responses to infectious diseases</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Major role of S-glycoprotein in providing immunogenicity and protective immunity in mRNA lipid nanoparticle vaccines based on SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins</strong> -
<div>
Recently we have developed an mRNA lipid nanoparticle (mRNA-LNP) platform providing efficient long-term expression of an encoded gene in vivo after both intramuscular and intravenous application. Based on this platform, we have generated mRNA-LNP coding SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins M, N, S from different virus variants and studied their immunogenicity separately or in combinations in vivo. As a result, all candidate vaccine compositions coding S and N proteins induced excellent anti-RBD and N titers of binding antibodies. T cell responses mainly represented specific CD4+ T cell lymphocyte producing IL-2 and TNF-. mRNA-LNP coding M protein did not show high immunogenicity. High neutralizing activity was detected in sera of mice vaccinated with mRNA-LNP coding S protein (alone or in combinations) against closely related strains but was not detectable or significantly lower against an evolutionarily distant variant. Our data showed that the addition of mRNAs encoding S and M antigens to the mRNA-N in the vaccine composition enhanced immunogenicity of mRNA-N inducing more robust immune response to the N protein. Based on our results, we suggested that the S protein plays a key role in enhancement of immune response to the N protein in the mRNA-LNP vaccine.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.30.573713v1" target="_blank">Major role of S-glycoprotein in providing immunogenicity and protective immunity in mRNA lipid nanoparticle vaccines based on SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>An ATP-Binding Cassette Transporter Gene Links Innate and Adaptive Immune Responses</strong> -
<div>
Positive-strand RNA viruses and DNA viruses generate double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) during their replication processes and innate immune responses against viral infections are orchestrated by numerous interferon-stimulating genes, yet the detailed coordination of downstream signaling of anti-viral immune responses is not fully understood. Recent studies suggest 2’-5’-Oligoadenylate Synthetase 1 (OAS1) may have a protective role in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections; however, the mechanism regulating OAS1 remains uninvestigated. Our aim is to understand the regulation of OAS1 and its modulation of RNaseL activity, as this has significant implications for responses to RNA viruses, including Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and SARS-CoV-2. We explore the hypothesis that ABCF1 an ATP-binding cassette family member protein, a key regulator of innate immune responses and macrophage polarization and cytokine storm, play a role in regulating the antiviral responses and downstream dsRNA signaling revealed by measuring responses to the synthetic dsRNA analog termed poly (I:C). We utilize ABCF1 haplo-insufficient mice to discover that ABCF1 modulates the amplitude and frequency of VSV-specific Cytolytic T lymphocyte in anti-viral immune responses and suggests that innate immune responses underpin this process. To understand this mechanism, we describe that ABCF1 interacts with 2’-5’-oligoadenylate synthetase 1 (OAS1) which in turn modulates essential proteins that leads to the modulation of RNaseL activity via ABCE1. Furthermore, we find that ABCF1, possibly acting through IRF3 phosphorylation and dimerization, also influences the production of interferon-alpha (IFN-a) and interferon-beta (IFN-b) in bone marrow-derived macrophages. Overall, we unexpectedly discovered that ABCF1 acts as a crucial link between innate and adaptive immunity, regulating the development of adaptive Cytolytic T lymphocyte responses and interacting with OAS1, a key regulator of innate immune responses against viral infections. Exploring pharmacological agents that target ABCE1 or ABCF1 may lead to the discovery of novel modalities for countering SARS CoV-2 and other viruses where OAS1 is a crucial innate immune response gene.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.31.573785v1" target="_blank">An ATP-Binding Cassette Transporter Gene Links Innate and Adaptive Immune Responses</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Identifying Best Practices for Future Pandemic Preparedness: A Comparative Policy Analysis</strong> -
<div>
Background: This comparative policy analysis studies government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on countries severely impacted by the virus. The study aims to assess the impact of various confounding variables, including GDP, healthcare spending per capita, poverty rate, and population density, on the effectiveness of pandemic response policies. Methods: The data obtained for the policies employs a multifaceted approach that incorporates both economic and non-economic policies. The analysis includes fiscal policies encompassing healthcare and economic sectors, adaptability in policy adjustments, and non-economic measures. The study also utilizes a principal component analysis (PCA) to identify similarities and differences among countries with varying levels of success. Results: Key findings indicate that successful countries adopted proactive fiscal policies addressing healthcare and economic challenges simultaneously. Flexibility and adaptability in policy adjustments emerged as significant traits among effective responses. Stricter non-economic policies were generally associated with improved pandemic outcomes. Additionally, effective contact tracing played a pivotal role in case identification and isolation. Conclusions: This research underscores the importance of a comprehensive and adaptable approach to pandemic response, considering economic, healthcare, and social factors. The study’s insights offer valuable guidance to governments and policymakers seeking to enhance preparedness plans for future global health crises. As the world continues to grapple with ongoing and evolving pandemic challenges, the lessons drawn from the pandemic can be used as a model of future success.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/7mwbj/" target="_blank">Identifying Best Practices for Future Pandemic Preparedness: A Comparative Policy Analysis</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Assessing the differentiated impacts of COVID-19 on the immigration flows to Europe</strong> -
<div>
The immediate effects of COVID-19 on mortality, fertility, and internal and international migration have been widely studied. Particularly, immigration to high-income countries declined in 2020. However, the persistence of these declines, and the extent to which they have impacted different migration corridors are yet to be established. Drawing on immigration flows from Eurostat and ARIMA time-series models, we assess the impact of COVID-19 on different immigration streams to seven European countries. We forecast counterfactual levels of immigration in 2020 and 2021 assuming no pandemic, and compare these estimates with actual immigration counts. We use regression modelling to explore the role of immigrants´ origin, distance, stringency measures and GDP trends at origins and destinations as potential driving forces of changes in immigration during COVID-19. Our results show that, while there was a general decline in immigration during 2020, inflows returned to expected levels in 2021, except for Spain. However, immigration corridors originating from outside the Schengen Area were still hardly affected in 2021. Immigrant´s origin emerged as the main factor modulating immigration changes during the pandemic, and to a lesser extent stringency measures and GDP trends in destination countries. Contextual factors at origin seem to have been less important.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/bsezk/" target="_blank">Assessing the differentiated impacts of COVID-19 on the immigration flows to Europe</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Saponin Nanoparticle Adjuvants Incorporating Toll-Like Receptor Agonists Improve Vaccine Immunomodulation</strong> -
<div>
Over the past few decades, the development of potent and safe immune-activating adjuvant technologies has become the heart of intensive research in the constant fight against highly mutative and immune evasive viruses such as influenza, SARS-CoV-2, and HIV. Herein, we developed a highly modular saponin-based nanoparticle platform incorporating toll-like receptor agonists (TLRas) including TLR1/2a, TLR4a, TLR7/8a adjuvants and their mixtures. These various TLRa-SNP adjuvant constructs induce unique acute cytokine and immune-signaling profiles, leading to specific Th-responses that could be of interest depending on the target disease for prevention. In a murine vaccine study, the adjuvants greatly improved the potency, durability, breadth, and neutralization of both COVID-19 and HIV vaccine candidates, suggesting the potential broad application of these adjuvant constructs to a range of different antigens. Overall, this work demonstrates a modular TLRa-SNP adjuvant platform which could improve the design of vaccines for and dramatically impact modern vaccine development.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.16.549249v2" target="_blank">Saponin Nanoparticle Adjuvants Incorporating Toll-Like Receptor Agonists Improve Vaccine Immunomodulation</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The Double-Edged Sword Mediatized Integration Processes during the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
The issue of media appropriation by refugees experienced a boom in 2015, but since then the topic has received less attention over the years. In addition, refugees have faced significant challenges since the appearance of COVID-19. In this paper, I discuss how Syrian migrants and refugees who have lived in Germany for at least four years used media technologies during COVID-19. I present findings from twelve guided interviews conducted in a northern German city. In summary, media use in general has increased, as has that of the majority society. On the other hand, media use during the pandemic has proven to be a double-edged sword: Some refugees had great(er) problems coping with the situation, while others gained self-empowerment and agency through using media during the pandemic.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/yjt23/" target="_blank">The Double-Edged Sword Mediatized Integration Processes during the COVID-19 Pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Trivalent mRNA vaccine-candidate against seasonal flu with cross-specific humoral immune response</strong> -
<div>
Seasonal influenza remains a serious global health problem, leading to high mortality rates among the elderly and individuals with comorbidities. It also imposes a substantial economic burden through increased absenteeism during periods of active pathogen circulation. Vaccination is generally accepted as the most effective strategy for influenza prevention. As both influenza A and B viruses circulate and cause seasonal epidemics, vaccines need to include multiple antigens derived from different viral subtypes. While current influenza vaccines are effective, they still have limitations, including narrow specificity for certain serological variants, which may result in a mismatch between vaccine antigens and circulating strains. Additionally, the rapid variability of the virus poses challenges in providing extended protection beyond a single season. Therefore, mRNA technology is particularly promising for influenza prevention, as it enables the rapid development of multivalent vaccines and allows for quick updates of their antigenic composition. mRNA vaccines have already proven successful in preventing COVID-19 by eliciting rapid cellular and humoral immune responses. In this study, we present the development of a trivalent mRNA vaccine candidates, evaluate its immunogenicity using the hemagglutination inhibition assay, and assess its efficacy in animals. We demonstrate the higher immunogenicity of the mRNA vaccine candidates compared to the inactivated split influenza vaccine and its enhanced ability to generate a cross-specific humoral immune response. These findings highlight the potential mRNA technology in overcoming current limitations of influenza vaccines and hold promise for ensuring greater efficacy in preventing seasonal influenza outbreaks.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.30.573722v1" target="_blank">Trivalent mRNA vaccine-candidate against seasonal flu with cross-specific humoral immune response</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Tying the Knot: Unraveling the Intricacies of the Coronavirus Frameshift Pseudoknot</strong> -
<div>
Understanding and targeting functional RNA structures towards treatment of coronavirus infection can help us to prepare for novel variants of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing COVID-19), and any other coronaviruses that could emerge via human-to-human transmission or potential zoonotic (inter-species) events. Leveraging the fact that all coronaviruses use a mechanism known as -1 programmed ribosomal frameshifting (-1 PRF) to replicate, we apply algorithms to predict the most energetically favourable secondary structures (each nucleotide involved in at most one pairing) that may be involved in regulating the -1 PRF event in coronaviruses, especially SARS-CoV-2. We compute previously unknown most stable structure predictions for the frameshift site of coronaviruses via hierarchical folding, a biologically motivated framework where initial non-crossing structure folds first, followed by subsequent, possibly crossing (pseudoknotted), structures. Using mutual information from 181 coronavirus sequences, in conjunction with the algorithm KnotAli, we compute secondary structure predictions for the frameshift site of different coronaviruses. We then utilize the Shapify algorithm to obtain most stable SARS-CoV-2 secondary structure predictions guided by frameshift sequence-specific and genome-wide experimental data. We build on our previous secondary structure investigation of the singular SARS-CoV-2 68 nt frameshift element sequence, by using Shapify to obtain predictions for 132 extended sequences and including covariation information. Previous investigations have not applied hierarchical folding to extended length SARS-CoV-2 frameshift sequences. By doing so, we simulate the effects of ribosome interaction with the frameshift site, providing insight to biological function. We contribute in-depth discussion to contextualize secondary structure dual-graph motifs for SARS-CoV-2, highlighting the energetic stability of the previously identified 3_8 motif alongside the known dominant 3_3 and 3_6 (native-type) -1 PRF structures. Integrating experimental data within minimum free energy (MFE) hierarchical folding algorithms provides novel structure predictions to distill the relationship between RNA structure and function. In particular, fully categorizing most stable secondary structure predictions via hierarchical folding supports our identification of motif transitions and critical site targets for future therapeutic research.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.28.573501v1" target="_blank">Tying the Knot: Unraveling the Intricacies of the Coronavirus Frameshift Pseudoknot</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>CParty: Conditional partition function for density-2 RNA pseudoknots</strong> -
<div>
RNA molecules fold into biologically important functional structures. Efficient dynamic programming RNA (secondary) structure prediction algorithms restrict the search space to evade NP-hardness of general pseudoknot prediction. While such prediction algorithms can be extended to provide a stochastic view on RNA ensembles, they are either limited to pseudoknot-free structures or extremely complex. To overcome this dilemma, we provide the theoretical framework and implementation for our algorithm, CParty, that follows the hierarchical folding hypothesis, i.e., the bio-physically well-motivated assumption that non-crossing structures fold relatively fast prior to the formation of pseudoknot interactions. Thus, we efficiently compute the conditional partition function (CPF) given a non-crossing structure G for a subset of pseudoknotted structures, i.e., density-2 structures G U G’ for non-crossing disjoint structure G’. Notably, this can enable sampling from the hierarchical distribution P(G’|G). With CParty we develop for the first time an unambiguous scheme based on HFold, i.e., the minimum free energy hierarchical folding algorithm based on a realistic pseudoknot energy model. Thus, we develop the first partition function variant for density-2 structures. Compared to the only other available pseudoknot partition function algorithm, which covers simple pseudoknots (and follows a different strategy, mapped from a pure minimum free energy structure prediction), our method covers a much larger structure class; at the same time, it is significantly more efficient—reducing the time as well as the space complexity by a quadratic factor. Summarizing, we provide an efficient, cubic time, algorithm for the stochastic analysis of pseudoknotted RNAs, which enables novel applications. We discuss one such application, i.e., how the CPF for a pseudoknotted therapeutic target in SARS-CoV-2 can provide insight into RNA structure formation.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.16.541023v2" target="_blank">CParty: Conditional partition function for density-2 RNA pseudoknots</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The 8C model of vaccination readiness: A common framework to facilitate cross-study comparisons.</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Several factors can potentially influence an individual’s vaccination readiness. To facilitate cross-study comparisons, it is essential that researchers use a shared framework to measure these factors. This would not only help determine their relative importance cross different contexts but also would aid in tailoring interventions to enhance vaccine uptake. Historically, five psychological antecedents of vaccination were identified: confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility. This 5C scale was later expanded to a 7C model by incorporating two additional components: compliance and conspiracy. Building upon this framework, we propose an eighth component, certification, defined as the person’s self-report that, in the past, they have had to provide evidence of vaccination. This component addresses a significant gap in the 7C model, as some individuals reported taking the COVID-19 vaccine primarily to obtain proof of vaccination, a motivation not captured by the 7C model. Our confirmatory factor analysis (N = 406) of a bifactor model of US citizens9 self-reported COVID-19 vaccination status showed that this eighth component had good psychometric properties and the 8C model had slightly higher criterion validity than the 7C model. We present the 8C model as a framework that provides a richer and more complete descriptions of the factors that determine vaccination readiness and encourage future studies of vaccination readiness to utilise it.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.22.23300464v1" target="_blank">The 8C model of vaccination readiness: A common framework to facilitate cross-study comparisons.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted Vaccine and COVID-19 Hospital Admissions and Ambulatory Visits in US Adults</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Importance Data describing the early additional protection afforded by recently recommended XBB1.5-adapted COVID-19 vaccines are limited. Objective We estimated the association between receipt of BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech 2023-2024 formulation) and medically attended COVID-19 outcomes among adults &gt;=18 years of age. Design, Setting, and Participants We performed a test-negative case-control study to compare the odds of BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted vaccine receipt between COVID-19 cases and test-negative controls among adults in the Kaiser Permanente Southern California health system between October 11 and December 10, 2023. Adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated from multivariable logistic regression models that were adjusted for patient demographic and clinical characteristics. Exposure The primary exposure was receipt of BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted vaccine compared to not receiving an XBB1.5-adapted vaccine of any kind, regardless of prior COVID-19 vaccination or SARS-CoV-2 infection history. We also compared receipt of prior (non-XBB1.5-adapted) versions of COVID-19 vaccines to the unvaccinated to estimate remaining protection from older vaccines. Main Outcomes and Measures Cases were those with a positive SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction test, and controls tested negative. Analyses were done separately for COVID-19 hospital admissions, emergency department (ED) and urgent care (UC) encounters, and outpatient visits. Results Among 4232 cases and 19,775 controls with median age of 54 years, adjusted ORs for testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 among those who received BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted vaccine a median of 30 days ago (vs not having received an XBB1.5-adapted vaccine of any kind) were 0.37 (95% CI: 0.20-0.67) for COVID-19 hospitalization, 0.42 (0.34-0.53) for ED/UC visits, and 0.42 (0.27-0.66) for outpatient visits. Compared to the unvaccinated, those who had received only older versions of COVID-19 vaccines did not show significantly reduced risk of COVID-19 outcomes, including hospital admission. Conclusions and Relevance Our findings reaffirm current recommendations for broad age-based use of annually updated COVID-19 vaccines given that (1) XBB1.5-adapted vaccines provided significant additional protection against a range of COVID-19 outcomes and (2) older versions of COVID-19 vaccines offered little, if any, additional protection, including against hospital admission, regardless of the number or type of prior doses received.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.24.23300512v1" target="_blank">BNT162b2 XBB1.5-adapted Vaccine and COVID-19 Hospital Admissions and Ambulatory Visits in US Adults</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Dengue Virus Serotype 2 Cosmopolitan C Genotype Reemerges with a New Subclade in Southwest Region of Bangladesh</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
In 2023, the Dengue virus (DENV) outbreak infected over 0.3 million cases and 1500 deaths in Bangladesh. Although the the serotype and genotype data were unavailable. Our study conducted serotyping and genomic surveillance in four districts of Southwest Bangladesh between September and October 2023. The surveillance data from 2019 to 2023 extracted from the Directorate General of Health Services in Bangladesh indicated a significant increase of Dengue infections in 2023, particularly during September-November. The two-layered hypothesis examination confirmed that, despite endemic months, 2023 dengue outbreak had a higher morbidity rate compared to previous years (2019-2022) in Southwest of Bangladesh. Serotyping and E gene sequence analysis of 25 randomly selected positive samples reveals that DENV-2 was the sole serotype circulating in this region during the study period. Genomic analysis exposed a new subclade of DENV-2, classified under Cosmopolitan genotype within C clade, distinct from previous years Bangladeshi variants until 2022. This subclade, possibly migrating from India, might be emerged during COVID-19 pandemic years and exhibited higher morbidity rates, thus challenging our existing mitigation strategies. This investigation provides valuable insights for public health interventions and underscores the importance of continuous genomic surveillance in managing Dengue outbreaks. Key words: Dengue serotype 2, Bangladesh, New Subclade, Cosmopolitan C, Phylogenetic tree
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.24.23300504v1" target="_blank">Dengue Virus Serotype 2 Cosmopolitan C Genotype Reemerges with a New Subclade in Southwest Region of Bangladesh</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Learning the fitness dynamics of pathogens from phylogenies</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The dynamics of pathogen genetic diversity, including the emergence of lineages with increased fitness, is a foundational concept of disease ecology with key public health implications. However, the identification of distinct lineages and estimation of associated fitness remain challenging, and are rarely done outside densely sampled systems. Here, we present a scalable framework that summarizes changes in population composition in phylogenies, allowing for the automatic detection of lineages based on shared fitness and evolutionary relationships. We apply our approach to a broad set of viruses and bacteria (SARS-CoV-2, H3N2 influenza, Bordetella pertussis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis) and identify previously undiscovered lineages, as well as specific amino acid changes linked to fitness changes, the findings of which are robust to uneven and limited observation. This widely-applicable framework provides an avenue to monitor evolution in real-time to support public health action and explore fundamental drivers of pathogen fitness.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.23.23300456v1" target="_blank">Learning the fitness dynamics of pathogens from phylogenies</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Associations between COVID-19 and putative markers of neuroinflammation: A diffusion basis spectrum imaging study.</strong> -
<div>
COVID-19 remains a significant international public health concern. Yet, the mechanisms through which symptomatology emerges remain poorly understood. While SARS-CoV-2 infection may induce prolonged inflammation within the central nervous system, the evidence primarily stems from limited small-scale case investigations. To address this gap, our study capitalized on longitudinal UK Biobank neuroimaging data acquired prior to and following COVID-19 testing (N=416 including n=224 COVID-19 cases; Mage=58.6). Putative neuroinflammation was assessed in gray matter structures and white matter tracts using non-invasive Diffusion Basis Spectrum Imaging (DBSI), which estimates inflammation-related cellularity (DBSI-restricted fraction; DBSI-RF) and vasogenic edema (DBSI-hindered fraction; DBSI-HF).We hypothesized that COVID-19 case status would be associated with increases in DBSI markers after accounting for potential confound (age, sex, race, body mass index, smoking frequency, and data acquisition interval) and multiple testing. COVID-19 case status was not significantly associated with DBSI-RF (all |B|&lt;0.28, pFDR &gt;0.05), but with greater DBSI-HF in left pre- and post-central gyri and right middle frontal gyrus (all B&gt;0.3, all pFDR=0.03). Intriguingly, the brain areas exhibiting increased putative vasogenic edema had previously been linked to COVID-19-related functional and structural alterations, whereas brain regions displaying subtle differences in cellularity between COVID-19 cases and controls included regions within or functionally connected to the olfactory network, which has been implicated in COVID-19 psychopathology. Nevertheless, our study might not have captured acute and transitory neuroinflammatory effects linked to SARS-CoV-2 infection, possibly due to symptom resolution before the imaging scan. Future research is warranted to explore the potential time- and symptom-dependent neuroinflammatory relationship with COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.20.549891v3" target="_blank">Associations between COVID-19 and putative markers of neuroinflammation: A diffusion basis spectrum imaging study.</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Could Wearing Face Mask Have Affected Demodex Parasite</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Pandemic, COVID-19; Demodex Infestation <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Diagnostic Test: standard superficial skin biopsy (SSSB) <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Nurhan Döner Aktaş <br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>TDCS Stimulation After Covid-19 Infection</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Procedure: Transcranial Direct Stimulation <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Istanbul Medipol University Hospital; Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and Immunogenicity of a Booster Vaccination With an Adapted Vaccine</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV2 Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: PHH-1V81; Biological: Comirnaty Omicron XBB1.5 <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Hipra Scientific, S.L.U <br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study to Evaluate the Safety, Tolerability, and Immunogenicity of a Combined Modified RNA Vaccine Candidate Against COVID-19 and Influenza.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Influenza; COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Influenza and COVID-19 Combination A; Biological: Licensed influenza vaccine; Biological: COVID-19 Vaccine; Biological: Influenza and COVID-19 Combination B; Biological: Placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: BioNTech SE; Pfizer <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Transcranial Pulse Stimulation (TPS) in Post-COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-COVID-19 Syndrome; Fatigue <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: Transcranial pulse stimulation Verum; Device: Transcranial pulse stimulation Sham <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Medical University of Vienna; Campus Bio-Medico University <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of “Formosa 1-Breath Free (NRICM101)” in Subjects With the Symptoms of COVID-19 or Influenza-like Disease</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Influenza Viral Infections; COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Formosa 1-Breath Free (NRICM101); Drug: Placebo control drug <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: China Medical University Hospital; Tian-I Pharmaceutical,. Co. Ltd.; China Medical University, China; Qualitix Clinical Research Co., Ltd. <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Phase 3 Clinical Study to Evaluate the Efficacy, Safety and Immunogenicity of Booster Vaccination With Recombinant COVID-19 (XBB) Trimer Protein Vaccine (Sf9 Cell)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Recombinant COVID-19 (XBB) Trimer Protein Vaccine (Sf9 Cell); Biological: Recombinant COVID-19 Variant Vaccine (Sf9 Cell); Biological: Placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: WestVac Biopharma Co., Ltd.; WestVac Biopharma (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong><em>In silico</em> study of inhibition activity of boceprevir drug against 2019-nCoV main protease</strong> - Boceprevir drug is a ketoamide serine protease inhibitor with a linear peptidomimetic structure that exhibits inhibition activity against 2019-nCoV main protease. This paper reports electronic properties of boceprevir and its molecular docking as well as molecular dynamics simulation analysis with protein receptor. For this, the equilibrium structure of boceprevir has been obtained by DFT at B3LYP and ωB97XD levels with 6-311+G(d,p) basis set in gas and water mediums. HOMO-LUMO and absorption…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Novel sofosbuvir derivatives against SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase: an in silico perspective</strong> - The human coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, had a negative impact on both the economy and human health, and the emerging resistant variants are an ongoing threat. One essential protein to target to prevent virus replication is the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). Sofosbuvir, a uridine nucleotide analog that potently inhibits viral polymerase, has been found to help treat SARS-CoV-2 patients. This work combines molecular docking and dynamics simulation (MDS) to test 14 sofosbuvir-based…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Differential Roles of Interleukin-6 in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 Infection and Cardiometabolic Diseases</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection can lead to a cytokine storm, unleashed in part by pyroptosis of virus-infected macrophages and monocytes. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) has emerged as a key participant in this ominous complication of COVID-19. IL-6 antagonists have improved outcomes in patients with COVID-19 in some, but not all, studies. IL-6 signaling involves at least 3 distinct pathways, including classic-signaling, trans-signaling, and trans-presentation…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Excessive daytime sleepiness is associated with impaired antibody response to influenza vaccination in older male adults</strong> - CONCLUSION: Our results provide an additional and easily measured variable explaining poor vaccine effectiveness in older adults. Our results support that gaining sufficient sleep is a simple non-vaccine interventional approach to improve influenza immune responses in older adults. Our findings extend the literature on the negative influence of excessive daytime sleepiness on immune responses to influenza vaccination in older male adults.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Elevated ferritin, mediated by IL-18 is associated with systemic inflammation and mortality in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Ferritin is a clinically useful biomarker in ARDS and is associated with worse patient outcomes. These results provide support for prospective interventional trials of immunomodulatory agents targeting IL-18 in this hyperferritinaemic subgroup of patients with ARDS.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sutimlimab suppresses SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-induced hemolytic crisis in a patient with cold agglutinin disease</strong> - Cold agglutinin disease (CAD) is a rare form of acquired autoimmune hemolytic anemia driven mainly by antibodies that activate the classical complement pathway. Several patients with CAD experience its development or exacerbation of hemolysis after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection or after receiving the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine. Therefore, these patients cannot receive an additional SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination and have a higher risk of severe SARS-CoV-2…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effects of host proteins interacting with non-structural protein nsp9 of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus on viral replication</strong> - Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a highly pathogenic virus that can cause acute intestinal infectious diseases in both piglets and fattening pigs. The virus encodes at least 16 non-structural proteins, including nsp9, which has been shown to bind to single-stranded RNA. However, its function and mechanism remain unclear. In this study, we aimed to identify potential host proteins that interact with PEDV nsp9 using immunoprecipitation combined with mass spectrometry. The interactions…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID-19 in Dental Practice Is Prevented by Eugenol Responsible for the Ambient Odor Specific to Dental Offices: Possibility and Speculation</strong> - Dental professionals routinely work in proximity to patients even when either or both of them have suspected or confirmed COVID-19. The oral cavity also serves as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 because the virus is present in and replicates in oral secretions (saliva and gingival crevicular fluid), oral tissues (salivary gland and periodontal tissue), and oral microenvironments (gingival sulcus and periodontal pocket). Despite a high risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, the prevalence of COVID-19 in…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of Porcine Deltacoronavirus Entry and Replication by Cepharanthine</strong> - Porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) is an emerging swine enteropathogenic coronavirus (CoV) that mainly causes acute diarrhea/vomiting, dehydration, and mortality in piglets, possessing economic losses and public health concerns. However, there are currently no proven effective antiviral agents against PDCoV. Cepharanthine (CEP) is a naturally occurring alkaloid used as a traditional remedy for radiation-induced symptoms, but its underlying mechanism of CEP against PDCoV has remained elusive. The…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Does denosumab exert a protective effect against COVID-19? Results of a large cohort study</strong> - CONCLUSION: Our study confirms that denosumab may be safely continued in COVID-19 patients. RANK/RANKL inhibition seems associated with a reduced incidence of symptomatic COVID-19, particularly among the elderly.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Intranasal murine pneumonia virus-vectored SARS-CoV-2 vaccine induces mucosal and serum antibodies in macaques</strong> - Next-generation SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are needed that induce systemic and mucosal immunity. Murine pneumonia virus (MPV), a murine homolog of respiratory syncytial virus, is attenuated by host-range restriction in nonhuman primates and has a tropism for the respiratory tract. We generated MPV vectors expressing the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (MPV/S) or its prefusion-stabilized form (MPV/S-2P). Both vectors replicated similarly in cell culture and stably expressed S. However, only S-2P was…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacies of S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) and GSNO reductase inhibitor in SARS-CoV-2 spike protein induced acute lung disease in mice</strong> - The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which initially surfaced in late 2019, often triggers severe pulmonary complications, encompassing various disease mechanisms such as intense lung inflammation, vascular dysfunction, and pulmonary embolism. Currently, however, there’s no drug addressing all these mechanisms simultaneously. This study explored the multi-targeting potential of S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) and N6022, an inhibitor of GSNO reductase (GSNOR) on markers…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Comparative transcriptome analysis of SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and HCoV-229E identifying potential IFN/ISGs targets for inhibiting virus replication</strong> - INTRODUCTION: Since its outbreak in December 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has spread rapidly across the world, posing significant threats and challenges to global public health. SARS-CoV-2, together with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, is a highly pathogenic coronavirus that contributes to fatal pneumonia. Understanding the similarities and differences at the transcriptome level between SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, as well as MERS-CoV is critical for developing effective strategies against these viruses.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Venomous gland transcriptome and venom proteomic analysis of the scorpion Androctonus amoreuxi reveal new peptides with anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity</strong> - The recent COVID-19 pandemic shows the critical need for novel broad spectrum antiviral agents. Scorpion venoms are known to contain highly bioactive peptides, several of which have demonstrated strong antiviral activity against a range of viruses. We have generated the first annotated reference transcriptome for the Androctonus amoreuxi venom gland and used high performance liquid chromatography, transcriptome mining, circular dichroism and mass spectrometric analysis to purify and characterize…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Targeting the tissue factor coagulation initiation complex prevents antiphospholipid antibody development</strong> - Antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) in primary or secondary antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) are a major cause for acquired thrombophilia, but specific interventions preventing autoimmune aPL development are an unmet clinical need. While autoimmune aPL cross-react with various coagulation regulatory proteins, lipid-reactive and COVID-19 patient-derived aPL recognize the endo-lysosomal phospholipid lysobisphosphatidic acid (LBPA) presented by the cell surface expressed endothelial protein C receptor…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Border Crisis</strong> - Dexter Filkins reports on the chaotic situation at the southern border. Plus, a poet whose writing on the DeafBlind experience is full of humor and life. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/the-crisis-at-the-border">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why the Noise of L.A. Helicopters Never Stops</strong> - The L.A.P.D. says it has the largest local airborne law-enforcement unit in the world. A recent audit found little evidence that its choppers deter crime. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-los-angeles/why-the-noise-of-la-helicopters-never-stops">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Colorado’s Top Court Kicked Trump Off the Ballot. Will the Supreme Court Agree?</strong> - A legal scholar analyzes how the nine Justices are likely to view the blockbuster decision. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/colorados-top-court-kicked-trump-off-the-ballot-will-the-supreme-court-agree">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>When Americans Are the Threat at the Border</strong> - Many people charged with trafficking in Tucson are U.S. citizens, suffering from the same problems of poverty and addiction that plague the rest of the country. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/when-americans-are-the-threat-at-the-border">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Netanyahu’s Right-Wing Critics See Israel’s Future</strong> - Danny Danon, the former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, believes there’s no path forward for a Palestinian state. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-netanyahus-right-wing-critics-see-israels-future">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>How death threats get Republicans to fall in line behind Trump</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A blurry photo of Trump pointing out at a crowd from a stage." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nX6UVZ79QbHhal8S-x_Zj-_6vbI=/107x0:1814x1280/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73015852/Alt_AP21299820011960.0.png"/>
<figcaption>
Former president Donald Trump at a Turning Point Action gathering, in Phoenix, Arizona, on July 24, 2021. | Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The insidious way violence is changing American politics — and shaping the 2024 election.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1EF9Mf">
Stephen Richer should have been safe.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p5Zm3M">
In early 2021, Richer was an Arizona Republican official who regularly attended local party events. At the time, he was the newly elected county recorder of Maricopa County. The job was a new level of prominence — he was now the most important election supervisory official in the state’s largest county — but going to Arizona Republican events was routine: the kind of thing that Richer, like any state politician, had done hundreds of times before.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oQL58V">
But at one event, the crowd heckled and harassed him. When he tried to leave, they dragged him back in, yanking on his arms and shoulders, to berate him about the allegedly stolen <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election">2020 election</a>. He started to worry: Would his own people, fellow Republican Party members, seriously hurt him?
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Stephen Richer is seen with a disturbed look on his face. A blur is in the foreground." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jgUivwuu990qDBkrR50ce4cmOyA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179435/GettyImages_1440627524.jpg"/> <cite>Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Maricopa County recorder Stephen Richer speaks to reporters during a news conference at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center on November 10, 2022, in Phoenix, Arizona.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aTDYEX">
There was a clear reason for the madness. Many of the Republican faithful had recently decided that Maricopa County had been the epicenter of “the steal,” <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>’s theft of Arizona from <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> — and the entire presidential election with it. This wasn’t true, obviously. Richer tried to tell them it wasn’t true, hoping his long track record in the state Republican party would give him some credibility.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jk0LgN">
It did not. What happened instead reveals a pattern that is quietly reshaping American politics: Across the board and around the country, data reveals that threats against public officials have risen to unprecedented numbers — to the point where <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4357594-majority-concerned-about-political-violence-threat-survey/">83 percent of Americans</a> are now concerned about risks of political violence in their country. The threats are coming from across the political spectrum, but the most important ones in this regard emanate from the MAGA faithful.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V51BY5">
Trump’s most fanatical followers have created a situation where challenging him carries not only political risks but also personal ones. Elected officials who dare defy the former president face serious threats to their well-being and to that of their families — raising the cost of taking an already difficult stand.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pFrsiH">
As a result, the threat of violence is now a part of the American political system, to the point where Republican officials are — by their own admissions — changing the way they behave because they fear it. For Richer, the price back in 2021 was high — and enough to prevent him from safely participating in his own party’s politics.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TDNCR2">
The more he tried to convince people that the 2020 results were legitimate, the more hostile the audience became — and <a href="https://www.azmirror.com/2022/08/04/how-stephen-richer-endures-a-job-thats-psychologically-unfun/">not just at this one event</a>. He recalls people at Republican meetings getting in his face, grabbing him, and even banging on his car windshield in the parking lot. Richer kept attending party meetings for three months, hoping that the attendees’ behavior would go back to normal.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nL9pHQ">
But they didn’t. The once-friendly events were emotionally exhausting — and, worse, potentially even dangerous.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I8K0cQ">
“I was a Republican activist. That’s what you do: show up to events,” Richer recalls. But eventually, “you don’t feel comfortable.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dRlo40">
By 2022, when Richer was presiding over the November election’s ballot tally, his office was fortified like a military base: surrounded by armed police deployed to protect him and his staff from threats. He recalls numerous staff members quitting on the spot after heated confrontations — and he was personally targeted by credible threats. When we spoke, he was about to testify in one of three federal cases against people who had vowed to kill him.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WLr5fY">
“You need to do your fucking job right because other people from other states are watching your ass,” the man <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1526911/download?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery">allegedly said in a voicemail</a>. “You fucking renege on this deal or give them any more troubles, your ass will never make it to your next little board meeting.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JBHmzg">
It’s been well over two years since Richer attended the kinds of Arizona GOP grassroots events where he was once welcome. Today, the institutional Arizona Republican party is dominated by politicians who have embraced Trump’s lies about the election — people like Kari Lake, Blake Masters, and Mark Finchem. The harassment and threats from the MAGA faithful was one weapon in the extremist takeover’s arsenal, working to push voices of sanity out of key party events — breaking even determined ones like Richer.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pPGfqg">
In Arizona, the Trumpist threat of violence <em>worked</em>. And it worked for reasons that should worry all of us at the beginning of an election year that could decide the fate of American democracy.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A woman wearing an american flag-patterned top holds a smartphone and points toward a man while standing at a podium." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MuV6u5r2YA-eKkEqDyNzx0KOLDI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179011/AP22332745642464.jpg"/> <cite>Matt York/AP Photo</cite>
<figcaption>
A woman points at Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer during the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors general election canvass meeting on November 28, 2022, in Phoenix.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8hD0Kp">
Brave Republicans at all levels of government, from local officials like Richer to Sen. Mitt Romney (UT), have been warning us of the dangers going into 2024. They have seen the recent rise in right-wing political violence, most notably on January 6, and seen how comfortable Trump is with openly directing his supporters to hurt people.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2kJWWz">
“Violence and threats against elected leaders are suppressing the emergence of a pro-democracy faction of the GOP,” <a href="https://ceipfiles.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/Political+Violence+the+2022+Midterm+Elections.pdf?v=2">writes</a> <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/experts/699">Rachel Kleinfeld</a>, an expert on political violence at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Absent threats, Kleinfeld argues, a move to Trump from inside the party — perhaps <a href="https://www.vox.com/23979441/nikki-haley-afp-koch-republican-billionaire-trump">a more serious challenge</a> in the presidential primary — might have had a better chance of getting off the ground.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9SIZQn">
In her paper, Kleinfeld notes a striking example of this effect at work — a comment by Kim Ward, the Trump-supporting Republican leader of the Pennsylvania state Senate, on what would happen if she spoke out against the former president.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bSYwSJ">
“I’d get my house bombed tonight,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/us/politics/trump-pennsylvania-electoral-college.html">Ward said</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="UsCavE">
Our politics have gotten more violent
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QW6FV2">
Bob Inglis, a South Carolina Congressman for 12 years who left office in 2011, remembers getting in some fairly bitter brawls with his Democratic rivals. In his later years as a Congress member, after making a more moderate turn, he recalled receiving some real vitriol from the base — even facing a crowd in his hometown that seemed so volatile that he refused to introduce his family on stage.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YCcGBm">
But that was the exception, not the rule.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VCr2ht">
“Now,” Inglis says, “members of Congress face that [level of hostility] routinely.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wTleWq">
In 2016, the Capitol Police recorded <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/18/congress-security-spending-violence-threats/">fewer than 900 threats</a> against members of Congress. In 2017, that figure more than quadrupled, per data provided by the Capitol Police.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wKDlt8">
The numbers continued to increase in every year of the Trump presidency, peaking at 9,700 in 2021. In 2022, the first full year of Biden’s term, the numbers went down to a still-high 7,500. The 2023 data has not yet been released, but a spike in threats against legislators during <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/20/house-republicans-death-threats-jim-jordan">the House Republican speaker fight</a> and <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/11/17/israel-hamas-war-protests-threats-palestinian-threats-congress">Israel-Hamas conflict</a> suggests an increase over the 2022 numbers is plausible.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="abUCsQ">
Members of Congress are taking these threats seriously. In September, three journalists at the Washington Post reviewed FEC filings to assess how much candidates for the House and Senate were spending on security. They found an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/18/congress-security-spending-violence-threats/">overall increase of 500 percent between 2020 and 2022</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bI1EzT">
The death threats aren’t just directed at politicians in Washington. Data has shown extraordinary levels of threats against <a href="https://mayorsinnovation.org/2022/05/11/an-assault-on-local-democracy/">mayors</a>,<a href="https://time.com/6227754/political-violence-us-states-midterms-2022/"> federal judges</a>,<a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/reuters-unmasks-trump-supporters-terrifying-us-election-workers-2021-11-09/"> election administrators</a>,<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7026e1.htm"> public health officials</a>, and even <a href="https://bridgingdivides.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf246/files/documents/Threats%20and%20Harassment%20Report.pdf">school board members</a>. It’s hard to know how large the increase is for many of these local positions because no one has been keeping records for all that long. In the past, there was simply no need.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YLWiMY">
“It’s not even accurate to say [threatening election workers] was rare prior to 2020. It was so rare as to be virtually nonexistent,” <a href="https://electioninnovation.org/team/david-becker/">David Becker</a>, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation &amp; Research, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22774745/death-threats-election-workers-public-health-school">told me in 2021</a>. “This is beyond anything that we’ve ever seen.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yN7JIG">
While this level of threat is unfamiliar in modern America, political violence is far from unprecedented in the long arc of the country’s history. We’ve seen a civil war, the assassinations of multiple presidents, <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm">and a senator beaten unconscious on the Senate floor</a>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7R3rNC">
“American politics has always been violent. The question is how violent,” says <a href="https://history.yale.edu/people/joanne-freeman">Joanne Freeman</a>, a historian at Yale and author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Field-Blood-Violence-Congress-Civil/dp/0374154775">a book on violence in Congress</a> before the Civil War.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="llxloE">
Freeman and other scholars see rising political violence as a reflection of deeper political tensions. Research suggests it tends to be perpetrated by angry, aggressive people with poor impulse control. Systematic increases in violent threats would thus happen at moments of heightened political emotion — meaning those times when the stakes of politics seem especially high and personal.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nxX4zT">
That’s clearly the case now.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CgFHy1">
Some of the recent increase in American violence (both political and otherwise) <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/why-homicide-rates-spiked-30-during-the-pandemic-/6420391.html">might be attributable to the pandemic</a>. But the spike in threats began well before <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19">Covid-19</a>. Something else is going on — something that’s raising the temperature of American politics, making people feel more angry, afraid, and feeling like they need to take political matters into their own hands.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="soMbxU">
That “something” is Donald Trump. No figure in American politics commands Trump’s devoted following; no figure is as capable of heightening the stakes of American politics to the breaking point.
</p>
<div class="p-fullbleed-block">
<div class="c-image-grid">
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4Vq6Ugz6aD3EDHyUy7B7FjSfiak=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179449/AP22088690963096.jpg"/> <cite>Evan Vucci/AP Photo</cite>
<figcaption>
President Donald Trump speaks during a rally protesting the electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President in Washington on January 6, 2021.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="An overhead shot of a crowd of people, many holding flags. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mQMx1Nn-o42TaSjs-DKSUDLdK2c=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179451/AP22008642553294.jpg"/> <cite>Evan Vucci/AP Photo</cite>
<figcaption>
People listen as then-President Donald Trump speaks during a rally on January 6, 2021, in Washington.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z7iUgJ">
Trump’s hardcore base is motivated by social grievances that are known to give rise to violence. Political scientists have repeatedly found that <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Understanding_Ethnic_Violence/eAGHrPd3lEwC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=roger+peterson+resentment+ethnic+conflict&amp;pg=PA37&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;bshm=rime/1#v=onepage&amp;q=&amp;f=false">ethnic violence</a> is <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&amp;aid=6866152&amp;fileId=S0043887109990219">particularly likely</a> when a privileged portion of society sees power slipping into the hands of a group that hadn’t previously held it — as has been happening in the United States for years. A backlash to social change is probably the single biggest reason behind both Trump’s political rise and the rash of white supremacist terrorism <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/6/20754828/el-paso-shooting-white-supremacy-rise">starting in the late 2010s</a>, like the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/18/20899208/tree-of-life-anniversary-pittsburgh-shooting-american-jews">Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018</a>, the attack on an <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/8/3/20753049/el-paso-walmart-cielo-vista-mall-shooting-what-we-know">El Paso Walmart frequented by Latinos in 2019</a>, or the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/5/16/23074812/buffalo-shooting-accelerationism-great-replacement-neo-nazi">2022 massacre of supermarket shoppers</a> in a Black area of Buffalo.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NXZTLr">
The former president’s rhetoric has often directly encouraged violence. At a 2016 rally in Iowa, Trump instructed his supporters to “knock the crap out of” disruptive protesters. “I promise you I will pay for the legal fees,” he added. During the 2020 protests over George Floyd’s murder, Trump implied that any rioters should be shot by tweeting <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/864818368/the-history-behind-when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts">an old white supremacist slogan</a>: “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7EhTIK">
And, at the fateful rally on January 6, 2021, he <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial">told his assembled supporters that</a> “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” That day, and ones immediately to follow, dramatize just how profoundly threats of violence have come to shape Republican politics.
</p>
<h3 id="AERqks">
How the threat of violence cemented Trump’s control over the GOP when it looked most vulnerable
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R9ACNd">
On January 6, a crowd chanting “hang <a href="https://www.vox.com/mike-pence">Mike Pence</a>” rampaged through the Capitol’s halls. Members of Congress on both sides legitimately feared for their lives, leading many Republicans to privately support Democrats’ impeachment push afterward. Trump, they believe, needed to be held accountable for what they had been through.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j3Lpgv">
But the fear of physical harm, of someone killing them or their families, held some of these Republicans back from voting to impeach him. The threat even became a tool of peer pressure — Republicans citing the danger of speaking out to keep each other in line. Sen. Romney <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/mitt-romney-retiring-senate-trump-mcconnell/675306/">recounted stories</a> to this effect to the Atlantic’s McKay Coppins:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lABixR">
When one senator, a member of leadership, said he was leaning toward voting to convict, the others urged him to reconsider. You can’t do that, Romney recalled someone saying. Think of your personal safety, said another. Think of your children. The senator eventually decided they were right.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b4WHwg">
Romney personally refused to bow to this intimidation and voted to impeach, just as he did during Trump’s first impeachment. But not every Republican displayed this level of bravery in the face of serious threats to both their political and personal future.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G1t2Ai">
Just before the House vote on impeachment, Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) has said he heard firsthand from Republicans that fear was holding at least two of them back.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XGNFbj">
“I had a lot of conversations with my Republican colleagues last night, and a couple of them broke down in tears — saying that they are afraid for their lives if they vote for this impeachment,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/MeetThePress/status/1349369689227603968">said in an MSNBC</a> appearance.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7A9w1R">
Former Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI) <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2021/01/09/opinion-after-heinous-assault-time-reckon-reality/6599593002/">recalls</a> one of his House colleagues privately condemning Trump’s claims of election fraud, but voting to overturn the election results on the evening of January 6 — just hours after the assault.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3hpO6y">
“My colleague feared for family members, and the danger the vote would put them in,” Meijer wrote in a <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2021/01/09/opinion-after-heinous-assault-time-reckon-reality/6599593002/">Detroit News op-ed</a>. This fear wasn’t idle: After voting to impeach Trump, Meijer himself faced so many threats that felt the need to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/01/14/impeachment-vote-causes-republican-peter-meijer-buy-body-armor/4158935001/">purchase body armor</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fsAYHy">
And reporters confirmed these accounts.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uRMWzn">
“I know for a fact several members <em>want</em> to impeach but fear casting that vote could get them or their families murdered,” journalist Tim Alberta <a href="https://twitter.com/TimAlberta/status/1349389150622019584">tweeted before the House impeachment vote</a>.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Capitol police officers inside the Capitol building are seen through damaged glass." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/efodmYRvXYRHE6XZSIPOEP9Ohlk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179216/GettyImages_1230477353.jpg"/> <cite>Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Trump supporters hold a “Stop the Steal” rally in DC amid ratification of the presidential election on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TsfXJs">
While the January 6 riot failed to crown Trump president, it had a clear and undeniable secondary effect: intimidating Republicans who might otherwise have voted to impeach him. Absent these threats, it’s possible that Republicans like Romney could have mustered up additional GOP votes in the Senate to convict Trump.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="82MDV6">
If these threats could so powerfully shape the behavior of some of America’s wealthiest and most powerful legislators, how much might they affect state and local officials with far fewer resources?
</p>
<h3 id="cDKzKB">
The unique importance of Republican-on-Republican violence
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9qXIIv">
The increase in threats of late is bipartisan. Ordinary Democrats and Republicans feel like politics have taken on an existential cast in the Trump era, and there are angry people with poor impulse control from all factions in both parties. In 2017, a left-wing extremist opened fire on Republican members of Congress practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game, <a href="https://scalise.house.gov/media/press-releases/scalise-reflects-shooting-five-years-later-previews-tonight-s-congressional">nearly killing Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA)</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Db6PbC">
Since then, staunch Trump-aligned Republicans like Rep. Matt Gaetz (FL) have said they’d experienced significant levels of threat. <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/11/17/israel-hamas-war-protests-threats-palestinian-threats-congress">Jewish</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/muslim-ilhan-omar-congress-spikes-death-threats-rcna121248">Muslim</a> Democrats with differing positions on the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18079996/israel-palestine-conflict-guide-explainer">Israel-Palestine conflict</a> have reported significant increases in death threats during the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/7/23907683/israel-hamas-war-news-updates-october-2023">Israel-Hamas war</a>. All of this is consistent with data showing partisans of both sides issuing threats at higher rates than they did in the pre-Trump era.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="plGE38">
But this does not mean the threats are evenly distributed, or that the effects are symmetrical across officials of both parties.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cv7ECI">
The simplest way to think about it is that threats on the right are more credible than threats on the left. Statistics regularly show that far-right political violence is <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/far-right-violence-a-growing-threat-and-law-enforcements-top-domestic-terrorism-concern">not only more common</a> than other forms in today’s America but also <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/pushed-extremes-domestic-terrorism-amid-polarization-and-protest">far more deadly</a> and impactful. In recent years, far-right killers have been responsible for the largest mass murders of Jews <em>and</em> Latinos in American history and the only riot ever to breach the US Capitol.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2B6mUz">
Moreover, the physical realities of political life make one uniquely exposed to radicals on one’s own side. Stephen Richer wasn’t attending Democratic rallies back when Arizona Democrats hated his guts; he had no reason to. But putting himself in front of Republican crowds made him uniquely exposed, especially in places where people bring their firearms everywhere they go.
</p>
<div class="p-fullbleed-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vVMdzl-a8tPih8gLK_0zsIX_KkU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179079/GettyImages_1304077708.jpg"/> <cite>Lynsey Addario/Getty Images Reportage</cite>
<figcaption>
Supporters of Donald Trump gather in front of the Harrisburg Capitol building to protest the 2020 election results, which declared Joe Biden as the winner on November 7, 2020, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pIrLt5">
Romney recalls feeling this kind of fear when he went to Utah after the <a href="https://www.vox.com/trump-impeachment-inquiry">Trump impeachment</a> fight. Facing crowds full of Mormon Republicans who had long been his base, he received such a hostile reaction that he was beginning to fear for his life. “It only takes one really disturbed person,” he told Coppins, adding that he began paying $5,000 a day out of pocket for personal security.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="osSUZu">
The special impact of right-on-right violent threats isn’t just about means and opportunity; it’s also about motive.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q1vpGG">
Broadly speaking, Democrats have safety in numbers from the far right: Because the party in general opposes Trump and Trumpism, individual members’ anti-Trump positioning is less likely to attract ire from his supporters. By contrast, individual Republicans who dissent from the Trumpist line immediately get singled out in conservative and far-right media — attracting the sort of attention reserved for a handful of “most hated” Democrats such as Reps. Nancy Pelosi (CA) or Ilhan Omar (MN).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NPkwNg">
For all these reasons, threats of violence are likely to be uniquely effective on Republicans when issued from their own base. The threats work, more than anything else, to <em>discipline</em> elected Republicans — to force them to toe whatever line the Trumpists want them to walk, or else.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zy7WiX">
That said, the power of this disciplining effect will likely vary from case to case. During October’s battle to decide the next speaker of the House, supporters of the Trumpy Rep. Jim Jordan (OH) directed <a href="https://apnews.com/article/house-speaker-jim-jordan-threats-54eeecef0188edfcb9903e45019f190f">a large number of death threats</a> at House Republicans who refused to vote for him. But this time, the wavering Republicans refused to cave — even citing the threats as a reason for opposing Jordan, who was ultimately forced out of the race.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oU43Za">
But we have no reason to believe the threat of violence has lost its disciplining power entirely.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cf1tj2">
For one, the danger simply hasn’t gone away: <a href="https://www.civicpulse.org/post/the-cost-of-local-government-leadership">Data on threats to local officials</a> released in September, from Civic Pulse and Princeton’s Bridging Divides Institute, shows that the level of threat has remained constant over the past year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TxKMdW">
“The threat against [Trump-skeptical Republicans] is real and continuing,” <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/violent-far-right-terrorist-threat-republican-party-and-american-conservatism">writes</a> the Council on Foreign Relations’ <a href="https://www.cfr.org/expert/jacob-ware">Jacob Ware</a>. “Trump today retains an overwhelming power to deploy vitriol and violence against his political rivals.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E1edzS">
For another, the Jordan speakership fight was missing several crucial features that make threats appear more serious. Unlike the 2020 election, which forced Republicans in the House and Senate to pick between siding with Trump or the Democrats, this was an internal fight between conservative Republicans. And it’s one where Trump’s personal future wasn’t directly at stake — unlike, say, this year’s election.
</p>
<h3 id="0lS9XK">
Threats and the 2024 election
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QGRTUP">
As Trump returned to the campaign trail in 2023, he became <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/11/14/23958866/trump-vermin-authoritarian-democracy">increasingly willing to employ naked authoritarian rhetoric and physical threats</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iEX6vu">
He encouraged people to “go after” New York Attorney General Leticia James, suggested shoplifters should be shot, and intimated that former Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Mark Milley deserves to be executed. Perhaps most ominously, he vowed to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JArm1w">
According to Kleinfeld, people around the world are substantially more likely to engage in political violence when they feel like they have permission from their political representatives to do it. It’s a major part of the reason why, in the US data she’s examined, incidents of threats and actual violence are “three to five times higher” on the political right today than on the left.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0JZz9f">
This cannot be lost on Republican officials, and their behavior in the past few years suggests it in fact isn’t. The lockstep support for Trump even after four indictments, indicates they remain disciplined by the former president’s power — both electoral and physical. The lessons of January 6 and its aftermath have been fully internalized.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D4WsFW">
And we’re now entering an election season that’s especially likely to raise the threat level.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IHfExz">
During the last presidential election cycle, threats against public officials tended to rise at pivotal moments in the campaign calendar. Threats against local election officials <a href="https://bridgingdivides.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf246/files/documents/Threats%20and%20Harassment%20Report.pdf">peaked around the November 2020 election itself,</a> while threats against members of Congress (of course) spiked in the days around January 6. Thankfully, none were killed during either of those periods — but not for lack of trying.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2mGdcdDsT7Fw6_vp8VA-4XgZNhk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25179350/AP21008636939499.jpg"/> <cite>Paul Sancya/AP Photo</cite>
<figcaption>
Armed men stand on the steps at the Michigan State Capitol after a rally in support of then-President Donald Trump in Lansing, Michigan, on January 6, 2021.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4v1wcV">
Then-Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican responsible for election oversight, became a lightning rod in 2020 when Trump singled him out <a href="https://billypenn.com/2020/12/01/al-schmidt-death-threats-trump-philadelphia-election-zero-fraud-republican-commissioner/">by name in a tweet</a> as someone who was “being used big time by the Fake News Media” as a cover for election fraud.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zQOQsB">
He received <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/election-officials-under-attack">a wave of threats</a>; a deputy commissioner, Seth Bluestein, was subjected to anti-Semitic abuse. Schmidt’s wife got emails with threats such as “ALBERT RINO SCHMIDT WILL BE FATALLY SHOT” and “HEADS ON SPIKES. TREASONOUS SCHMIDTS.” The family left their home for safety reasons after the election, and Schmidt did not run for reelection in 2023 (he was recently appointed to serve as secretary of state under Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro).
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The <a href="https://www.vox.com/2024-elections">2024 election</a> promises to be every bit as contentious. If anything, Trump’s ongoing legal woes make the stakes even higher — both for him and his movement. His rhetoric is already escalating, his followers at even higher alert for signs of betrayal from the “RINOs” in the “Republican establishment.”
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Never before has it been more important for Republican officials to stand up for the integrity of the American electoral system. But they haven’t faced this level of threat in their political lives — in fact, no currently living elected official has.
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“They say ‘it’s never been this bad before.’ Well, on the one hand, it has,” says Freeman, the Yale professor. “On the other hand … I’m talking about the lead-up to the Civil War.”
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<em>Ben Jacobs contributed reporting to this piece</em>.
</p></li>
<li><strong>There’s more than one way to feel lonely</strong> -
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<img alt="A man wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head looking up into the distance. He stands all alone on an empty backdrop of orange and blue." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8aimuWBYxg4YUNYBarj7ZGhuJYs=/734x0:6067x4000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73015785/GettyImages_1339615370.0.jpg"/>
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Getty Images/iStockphoto
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Here’s how to interpret your own feelings.
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Despite having a network of friends and acquaintances, Rohit Singla, an MD-PhD student in Vancouver, knows no other existence than one of loneliness. “I think I associate myself with being baseline lonely,” the 31-year-old says. Beneath the exterior of a productive, competent scholar is a man who feels he is lacking deep, caring, reciprocal relationships. Seeing friends in long-term relationships only illuminates the distance that naturally grows when romance takes precedence over friendship. When the group chat is silent in response to his attempts at coordinating a hangout, Singla suspects he’s low on his friends’ lists of priorities.
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There are times he feels appreciated, less alone: when a pal checks in just to see how he’s doing or when someone he hasn’t spoken to in awhile reconnects. But despite these respites of connection, the undercurrent of alienation persists. “Loneliness,” Singla says, “is this simmering, ongoing feeling.”
</p>
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Over the last decade, loneliness has reached <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/03/new-surgeon-general-advisory-raises-alarm-about-devastating-impact-epidemic-loneliness-isolation-united-states.html">so-called epidemic levels</a>, with <a href="https://www.vox.com/public-health">public health</a> officials and researchers alike quantifying the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/emotional-wellbeing/social-connectedness/loneliness.htm">mental</a> and <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation">physical health impacts</a> of living in social isolation. Still, there is no one way to experience loneliness. It’s the isolating dread of not having found your place in the world. It’s the heaving weight of grief after losing a person, a place, a community. It’s the pang of anxiety when you remember how long it’s been since you saw your best friend. It’s a sense of foreignness despite being surrounded by familiar faces. For Singla, loneliness is a palpable burden (“My loneliness physically feels heavy,” he says) as well as an emotionally destabilizing one. “It feels unsteady. I almost feel like I just lose myself.”
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Researchers have put names to this kaleidoscope of experiences in the hope that by distinguishing the root causes of loneliness, people can better understand how to address it. “The differentiation of the nature of loneliness is predicated, to some degree, on the fact that you can intervene and do something about it,” says <a href="https://www.brunel.ac.uk/people/christina-victor">Christina Victor</a>, a professor of gerontology and public health at Brunel University London.
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<h3 id="r76trH">
What is loneliness?
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The state of isolation is not the same as loneliness. “People can still feel lonely when they’re around other people,” says <a href="https://julianneholtlunstad.byu.edu/julianne-holt-lunstad">Julianne Holt-Lunstad</a>, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, ”and you can be isolated but not feel lonely.” <a href="https://peplau.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/141/2017/07/Perlman-Peplau-81.pdf">Loneliness refers</a> to the distressing feeling you have when your social desires don’t align with your reality. Someone may have a close confidant in their romantic partner but still feel lacking in social connection. Someone else could interact with people all day but crave deep conversation. Loneliness is a personal experience, Victor says, not an objective one. An outsider cannot diagnose a person as being lonely; only that person can admit loneliness to themselves and others.
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Just like hunger or thirst, loneliness is a biological signal prompting people to satiate their need for social interaction, Holt-Lunstad says.
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Within the overall scope of loneliness are distinct ways people can experience it. According to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chikako-Ozawa-De-Silva">Chikako Ozawa-de Silva</a>, a professor of Japanese studies and anthropology at Emory University, the breakdown is as simple as “ordinary” loneliness (sadness after a breakup or a move, homesickness), grief, and “afflictive” loneliness. The latter “is a deep, pervasive sense of disconnection,” says Ozawa-de Silva, who is the author of <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520383494/the-anatomy-of-loneliness"><em>The Anatomy of Loneliness: Suicide, Social Connection, and the Search for Relational Meaning in Contemporary Japan</em></a>. “Of not being accepted or acknowledged by others.” Victor distinguishes between transient loneliness — a period of heartache that comes and goes — and chronic loneliness.
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Three common types of loneliness have been defined in the scientific literature, Victor and her colleagues found in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8582800/">a 2021 review</a> of loneliness studies dating back to 1945. There, the experiences of loneliness fell into three categories: social, emotional, and existential. To be socially lonely is to lack social connection with those you know and love, Victor says. If you’re grieving the loss of a person, you’re experiencing emotional loneliness. Those who feel separated from others due to death, divorce, or physical or mental decline are said to endure existential loneliness. The lived experience of loneliness is less about feeling one of these three ways and more a Venn diagram of intersecting and overlapping social desires: a yearning for another community outside of the ones you already inhabit, desiring the intimate connection offered by a romantic partner.
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<a href="https://www.norc.org/about/experts/louise-hawkley.html">Louise Hawkley</a>, a principal research scientist at NORC, a nonpartisan research organization at the University of Chicago, isn’t totally satisfied with those descriptors. “Social loneliness, it’s also emotional,” she says. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16181443/">In her</a><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3889142/"> research</a>, Hawkley focused on areas of connectedness that contribute to loneliness: intimate connectedness (deep relationships with, say, a spouse); relational connectedness (quantity of friends and how often you see them); and collective connectedness (feeling like you’re a part of a community). Like other frameworks of loneliness, these dimensions of connectedness are not independent of one another; people need to connect in all three domains in order to feel emotionally fulfilled. “We think of those three dimensions as critical that underlie loneliness,” Hawkley says. “People who tend to feel lonely on one of those dimensions tend to feel lonely [overall].”
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While the signifiers may slightly differ, the experiences they describe are universal. The phrases “<a href="https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/alone-crowd">feeling alone in a crowd,</a>” <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8985970/">“lost at sea,” and “living in darkness”</a> conjure vivid images for social, emotional, and existential loneliness or the lack of intimate, relational, and collective connectedness.
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<h3 id="cIpPSd">
Experiences of loneliness change as life shifts
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Loneliness takes different forms throughout a person’s lifespan. A child, for instance, can feel socially ostracized by their peers. Young adulthood can be alienating for teens who leave home for college. New parents often feel untethered from their communities, especially among childfree friends. Come retirement, relationships with colleagues can be strained without physical proximity. “People who are lonely because they’ve geographically relocated,” Hawkley says, “are going to feel something different than somebody who’s lonely because their spouse just died, or somebody who feels lonely because they’ve become immobile and they’re limited to staying in their house.”
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For much of her career, loneliness was only thought to impact older people, Victor says. But young adults can feel social, emotional, and existential loneliness. “I hypothesize that one of the reasons that we see high levels of loneliness in young people is there probably is social loneliness: ‘People in my gang won’t talk to me anymore,’” she says. “There is the emotional loneliness of perhaps as a young person, losing your grandparent who might have been a very important part of your social group … And I’m quite taken with the idea that perhaps some of the loneliness that young adults experience is this existential bit, particularly if you think about the challenges confronting young people in terms of <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate">climate change</a> and war.”
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A more contemporary contributing factor, social media, shapes our expectations of relationships. Consuming the highlight reel of peers’ social lives fosters comparison among younger cohorts. Perhaps ironically, young people who spend more time on social media as a means of maintaining relationships feel lonelier than those who have differing motivations for using social media, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9817115/">according to a recent study</a>. “Are we using it to supplement our friendship experience,” asks friendship coach <a href="https://www.betterfemalefriendships.com/about">Danielle Bayard Jackson</a>, author of the forthcoming book <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/danielle-bayard-jackson/fighting-for-our-friendships/9780306830631/"><em>Fighting for Our Friendships</em></a>, “or are we using it to take the place of being with people?”
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Social, health, and economic factors also make a person more prone to loneliness. Young adults under the age of 30 and those who make less than $24,000 per year <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/473057/loneliness-subsides-pandemic-high.aspx">report higher levels of loneliness</a> compared to older and wealthier people, according to the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index. Hispanic and Black Americans, parents, and those with physical or <a href="https://www.vox.com/mental-health">mental health</a> challenges are also more likely to be lonely, according to a <a href="https://newsroom.thecignagroup.com/loneliness-epidemic-persists-post-pandemic-look">2021 survey by Cigna and Morning Consult.</a> “I wonder if that’s just a [lack of] group connectedness — the collective — because they’re often a peripheralized population,” Hawkley says. “They’re not made to feel like they belong. The same would be true [of] <a href="https://www.vox.com/lgbtq">LGBTQ</a> folks — [they] are definitely at a higher risk, immigrants at a higher risk.” Fostering meaningful connections can prove challenging when you’re working three jobs or don’t feel welcome in a community.
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<q>Just like hunger or thirst, loneliness is a biological signal prompting people to satiate their need for social interaction</q>
</aside>
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Multiple cross-country moves gave Emily Gonzales, 35, more clarity when it came to her own social needs. Upon relocating to Indianapolis, where she had grown up, she noticed a wedge between herself and her childhood friends. Their values didn’t align, she realized, and they didn’t have similar aspirations. “You’re around a bunch of people, but you don’t feel like anybody really gets you,” says Gonzales, who works in medical sales. “These people I’ve known for my entire life, but I don’t feel like they know me or I know them.”
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Once Gonzales and her husband moved to their current home base of Scottsdale, Arizona, she was purposeful when forging new connections. She used Bumble For Friends to spend time with people with similar interests and life experiences, like being a stepmom. One of the first women she met was Ashlee Smith, a 36-year-old insurance broker who had also recently moved to the area from Portland, Maine.
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Though Smith recently had a baby, she and Gonzales still make time for one another. Gonzales frequently checks in with Smith and even traveled with her and her infant to Portland. “Your world gets so much smaller,” Smith says of parenthood. “Emily and I even had a conversation about it because she could tell I was just a little off. So she checked in and she’s like, ‘What do you need? How can I help you?’”
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<h3 id="llAjrG">
How to address various dimensions of loneliness
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Understanding the drivers of loneliness can help individuals — and societies — effectively resolve it. Because each dimension of loneliness and connection requires different solutions, one blanket suggestion may not work for every lonely individual. “Simply increasing social contact may not reduce someone’s loneliness,” Holt-Lunstad says.
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Self-reflection can offer a few solutions. In one of her <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35716479/">studies</a>, Victor found 71 percent of older adults had felt lonely during their lives. She and her collaborators asked participants how they had addressed past loneliness. “People were referring to things that they did. One I really liked, but we’ve never published it,” she says. “A guy said, ‘If I feel lonely, I’d go to the church or the pub, depending upon what day of the week it is.’” To manage present loneliness, remember past bouts of alienation and mull over what made you feel more connected. Can you replicate the strategy in your current situation?
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If you feel like you’re <a href="https://www.vox.com/22992901/how-to-find-your-community-as-an-adult">lacking a community</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/23837430/how-to-make-friends-start-a-club">joining the first club</a> that comes to mind may not be inherently satisfying. Instead, consider important aspects of your identity you’d like to explore, suggests Bayard Jackson. Complete the phrase “I am …” to help guide you. “I might say, ‘I am Black. I am a woman. I am a Christian. I am a mom,’” she says. “Then ask yourself for each one of these identifiers, ‘Am I in community for each one of these in spaces that are formed by this aspect of identity?’” If not, you might want to seek out connection with people who share one of these domains.
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You don’t need to accomplish the modern feat of making new friends in adulthood to combat loneliness either. Deepening existing relationships is just as rewarding, but it also requires a shift in mindset: Strengthening these friendships must be a priority. Diversifying your social diet to include <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/23744304/how-much-social-interaction-do-you-need-loneliness-burnout">interactions with strangers and acquaintances</a> is also socially fulfilling. “We often have to make time out of our busy schedules to be physically active,” Holt-Lunstad says, “and we need to make time in our busy schedules to be socially active.” Both Gonzales and Smith say they were strategic in identifying the types of people and friendships that would satiate their loneliness.
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Connection can also be found absent other people. People form strong relationships to places (like a hometown or a hiking trail) and activities (like music or art), Ozawa-de Silva notes. Visiting these locales or engaging in these hobbies may curb loneliness.
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But the responsibility to address loneliness can’t fall solely to the individual. Societies that value productivity and competition over the unique merits of its people breed loneliness, says Ozawa-de Silva. “An increasing number of individuals who are experiencing loneliness, anxiety, panic [disorders],” she says, “I think that’s a sign that something is really not right in our society.” To help address this crisis, Ozawa-de Silva says communities can instill values like compassion and empathy at an early age and encourage a teamwork-oriented goal structure for children. “We need to address it at the systemic level,” she says. “Maybe social education, different kinds of programs, something that would hopefully change a few priorities in contemporary societies to think about the limitations of hypervigilance and a hyperfocus on competition and productivity.”
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Addressing any form of loneliness isn’t an overnight endeavor. Relationships of every variety require dedication and persistence to bloom. Consider your quest toward social harmony like tending to a garden, planting seeds for a variety of different types of connection — intimate, relational, and collective alike.
</p></li>
<li><strong>Broadway is full of jukebox musicals and movie adaptions. That might not be as bad as it sounds.</strong> -
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gNx1w9Gl0nkHy3cevr-zb_685j8=/0x0:5332x3999/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73013956/1570802514.0.jpg"/>
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The cast of <em>Back to the Future: The Musical </em>performs at the Winter Garden in New York on July 25, 2023. | Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
What does Broadway look like after Sondheim? A lot like how it looked before.
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The current <a href="https://www.vox.com/theater">Broadway</a> revival of <a href="https://www.vox.com/22805681/stephen-sondheim-obituary">the late Stephen Sondheim</a>’s most notorious flop, 1981’s <em>Merrily We Roll Along</em>, has unquestionably reclaimed the show’s reputation, not only through the rave reviews of critics but by garnering the <a href="https://www.nytix.com/news/merrily-we-roll-along-ticket-sales">highest average ticket price</a> of any show this season, with seats <a href="https://www.nytix.com/news/merrily-we-roll-along-ticket-sales">ranging</a> up to $600.
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With <em>Merrily</em> raking it in at the Hudson Theatre, last year’s acclaimed <em>Sweeney Todd</em> revival going strong at the Lunt-Fontanne, and the composer’s decidedly experimental show, <em>Here We Are</em>, garnering a <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2023/10/theater-review-sondheim-here-we-are.html">mixed reception</a> off-Broadway, it’s perhaps worth taking stock of what American musical theater has become in this era where Sondheim is both everywhere and nowhere. While Sondheim’s shows are currently playing all over New York, his influence over the modern musical itself has become somewhat harder to track.
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“There’s a half-voiced fear among musical acolytes, understandable in a time in which theater itself is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/opinion/theater-collapse-bailout.html">newly under siege</a>,” former New York Times critic Ben Brantley <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/opinion/sondheim-broadway-revivals.html">recently wrote</a>, “that on some level Stephen Sondheim represents the end of the line for a once-flourishing art form.” If that sounds dire, it’s because the stakes are high: It’s a common axiom that musicals are one of the few purely American art forms; they evolved within American pop culture to become a global export and one of our most popular, enduring forms of entertainment. But it’s also widely understood in the theater world that for all the composers like Sondheim who helped make the musical what it is, a show like <em>Merrily</em> — with unknown songs, a conceptual plot adapted from a little-known play, and a narrative told in reverse — could never make it to the Great White Way today. That’s because today’s successes tend to be jukebox musicals and shows based on very famous <a href="https://www.vox.com/movies">movies</a> you already know.
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<aside id="dIiybC">
<q>Today’s successes tend to be jukebox musicals and shows based on very famous movies you already know</q>
</aside>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ILxcON">
This doesn’t mean, however, that musicals are doomed to wither on the vine as <a href="https://www.vox.com/consumerism">consumerism</a> pushes us toward ever more derivative, watered-down franchise adaptations stacked with mediocre songs. It’s easy to assume this, and to cling to Sondheim as the last great theater composer. But perhaps there’s a different perspective on the current state of the musical: That it isn’t dying at all, that many potentially worrying aspects that seem unique to the modern landscape are as old as the medium itself, and that the artform is evolving into something new and equally interesting.
</p>
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The new modern musical is arguably finding its way into a hybrid form that routinely plays with structure and genre expectations, pairs self-aware storytelling and innovative design with traditional crowd-pleasing elements, and deploys the mechanisms of social media and <a href="https://www.vox.com/tiktok">TikTok</a> to bolster audience interactivity and unite shows with their core fanbases. No, it’s not Sondheim — but in a new era of storytelling, we don’t yet know what the next Sondheim will look or sound like.
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Broadway shows have always relied on pop hits to drive their success
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To understand exactly where we’re headed, it’s helpful to understand that the musical as we know it has been through all this before. First, think of the musical as a sum of its parts. There’s the story — the book or the libretto — and the songs that go along with the story. Regardless of whatever else you put onstage, how well these two elements mesh determines whether you’ve created something coherent.
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That might sound like a foregone conclusion, but the history of the form begs to differ. The musical evolved from two totally opposite impulses: vaudeville, which paired popular songs of the day with entertaining skits and short sketches, and operettas, which had dense, sophisticated scores descended from operas. So, in one corner, shows whose songs were random and interchangeable — in the other, shows whose stories couldn’t be told without the music.
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In the middle, you had Tin Pan Alley, where many of America’s most famous 20th-century songwriters churned out songs at a feverish pace. In this era, songwriters such as George and Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin thrived, churning out still-popular hits that helped form the backbone of what’s referred to as the <a href="https://time.com/3916642/america-songwriting-history/">American Songbook</a>. Often, those songs found their way into frothy shows whose plots were negligible and served as little more than marketing for the music — which rarely had anything to do with the story. Florenz Ziegfeld’s <em>Follies</em>, which reigned over the 1920s, was even more vague, delivering conceptually innovative spectacle but functioning primarily as a fashion show with music.
</p>
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In 1928, however, this started to change, when Ziegfeld produced Jerome Kern’s <em>Showboat</em>, a challenging drama steeped in the influence of operetta and teeming with social issues. Not only was <em>Showboat</em>’s score nearly continuous throughout, but the songs were designed to relay information and insight into the characters. In 1943, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II further codified these ingredients when they took a holistic approach to their first collaboration. In <em>Oklahoma!</em>, the music, lyrics, and choreography were all utilized to deepen characterization and advance the plot. But, crucially, while Rodgers’s lush score was influenced by operetta, the songs were all bangers. The songs from <em>Oklahoma!</em> were so popular that for the first time in Broadway history, the production <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/theater/oklahoma-cast-album.html">made a recording</a> to preserve the original cast, thereby turning the Original Broadway Cast Recording) into an indelible part of the musical theater experience.
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For most theater lovers, the original cast recording is an introduction to the show itself, long before they ever get a chance to see it. But while these recordings are a vital marketing tool, it can decontextualize songs from the performance. Thus, ironically, at the same time Rodgers and Hammerstein were nailing home the ingredients for a fully constructed musical, their cast album was instigating the process for its deconstruction.
</p>
<h3 id="GyTWOc">
What even is a Broadway musical anymore? It’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer
</h3>
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Most recent Broadway productions fall into one of two camps. In the first camp, we have musical revues — jukebox musicals — which are loosely plotted vehicles for previously written well-known songs from pop songwriters or performers. Think <em>Jersey Boys</em>, <em>Moulin Rouge</em>, or the recent <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23814154/britney-spears-fans-conspiracy-theories-conservatorship">Britney Spears</a> musical, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23775444/once-upon-a-one-more-time-broadway-britney-spears-jukebox-musical-six-bad-cinderella-juliet"><em>Once Upon a One More Time</em></a>.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D1Ujhl">
In the second camp, we have musicals written in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/disney">Disney</a> vein, adding songs or other elements to a previously beloved, well-known franchise. Think <em>Mean Girls</em>, <em>Legally Blonde</em>, <em>Back to the Future</em>, or the upcoming musical adaptation of <em>The Notebook</em>.
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Excluding revivals, the vast majority of recent Broadway musicals fall into either category, with varying degrees of success. An ever-dwindling third category is what we might think of as the “traditional” American musical — the <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21305967/hamilton-debate-controversy-historical-accuracy-explained"><em>Hamiltons</em></a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/4/22/18508067/hadestown-review-broadway-anais-mitchell-rachel-chavkin"><em>Hadestowns</em></a>, built not around a previously existing juggernaut franchise or pop hitmaker, but around an original idea or story adaptation, with a fully original score.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c7tciE">
There are obvious limitations to these categorizations. You can argue, perfectly correctly, that shows built around previously existing franchises are also “traditional” musicals — they tend to have fully or mostly original scores with a two-act plot structure. At the same time, these distinctions have become ever more blurry in a musical landscape where shows have to appeal to the tastes of both tourists and hardcore musical lovers with sophisticated palettes and tremendous fan power. It’s increasingly common for jukebox musicals like <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/1/15/21012689/jagged-little-pill-broadway-jukebox-musical-review-roundtable"><em>Jagged Little Pill</em></a> and the recent Neil Diamond revue <em>A Beautiful Noise </em>to not only interpolate their pop hits but to deconstruct, interrogate, and recontextualize them. Is that still a revue? Meanwhile, shows based on movies like <em>The Lion King</em> and <em>Matilda</em> are straightforward story adaptations, but feel fresh and transformative based on their musical and theatrical strengths.
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<div class="c-float-left">
<aside id="zZnrqJ">
<q>It’s hard to let go of the 20th-century dream of an elevated musical form where every song feels inextricably linked to a unique character and story</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0OFsS1">
Still, there’s a clear distinction between shows that exist to further the art form and those that exist to further expand an existing IP. With the franchise and jukebox musicals dominating Broadway, it feels important to separate the “originals” from the ever-growing crop of shows that seem to fulfill the latter purpose. It’s hard to ignore that many of these latter types of shows are not only derivative but also <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23775444/once-upon-a-one-more-time-broadway-britney-spears-jukebox-musical-six-bad-cinderella-juliet">sloppy and creatively vapid</a> — and that since Broadway reopened, these shows have been turning profits even at their most muddled and cringe, as other, more artistic and innovative shows <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/01/04/broadway-2022-review-ticket-sales-lion-king-record-closures-phantom-opera-pandemic/">close up shop early</a>.
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Applying the whole <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/4/29/11531350/rent-musical-20th-anniversary"><em>Rent</em> sellout debate</a> to a crop of shows that are bringing Times Square back to life nearly four years into a pandemic that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/opinion/theater-collapse-bailout.html">debilitated</a> the American theater, however, seems at minimum ill-timed and misguided. It also isn’t entirely accurate to say that only the derivative musicals get all the attention. Of the <a href="https://playbill.com/article/the-10-highest-grossing-broadway-shows-of-the-decade">10 highest-grossing shows</a> of the last decade, only two, <em>Beautiful — The Carole King Musical</em> and <em>Jersey Boys</em>, were jukebox musicals, and only two, <em>The Lion King</em> and <em>Aladdin</em>, could be said to fit under the “franchise musical” heading. However one feels about the rest of the musicals on the list, no one can say they aren’t innovative. This was a decade that saw a steady effusion of original musicals, from <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/9/17/6332045/alison-bechdel-genius-grant-macarthur-fellow"><em>Fun Home</em></a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/22672012/dear-evan-hansen-review-kenny-g"><em>Dear Evan Hansen</em></a> to <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/8/14/17664930/be-more-chill-michael-in-the-bathroom-joe-iconis"><em>Be More Chill</em></a>,<em> </em>and <a href="https://nymag.com/listings/theater/something-rotten/"><em>Something Rotten</em></a>, many of which found passionate fanbases. And even as Broadway limped along for most of last season, the three shows that recouped post-pandemic — so far <a href="https://playbill.com/article/broadways-six-has-recouped-its-investment">including</a> girl-powered history romp <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21171636/six-broadway-musical-review"><em>Six</em></a>, the Michael Jackson musical <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/05/mj-recoup-michael-jackson-broadway-musical-1235366770/"><em>MJ</em></a>, and <a href="https://www.theatermania.com/news/funny-girl-revival-recoups-on-broadway_1710927/">the revival</a> of <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23408892/lea-michele-funny-girl-review"><em>Funny Girl</em></a> — arguably represented a range of ideas and creative concepts rather than a narrowing of the field.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DATZ1g">
Still, the idea that Broadway should be about more than just milking cash cows feels noble. It’s hard to let go of the 20th-century dream of an elevated musical form where every song feels inextricably linked to a unique character and story brought to us by consummate songwriters. It’s also hard not to resent the <em>Mean Girls</em> and the <em>&amp; Juliets</em> for robbing the <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23158789/queer-canon-pride-moonlight-pose"><em>Strange Loops</em></a> of their chance to find a mass audience.
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The dictum that not even Sondheim could become Sondheim in the current environment of American theater is meant to underscore the fact that culturally, we’ve moved past the age of visionary composers driving what gets a Broadway production. The current glut of jukebox/franchise shows make it incredibly difficult for less-known and experimental shows to break through. While <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwHMO-XSj3Q">everybody still wants to be Sondheim</a>, only a handful of today’s musical composers have the kind of fan following and name recognition that allows them to mount a Broadway show and recoup its investment on the strength of their score. It’s not easy, as Brantley observed for the Times, “to imagine any of them ascending to the unapproachable dominance of their profession that was Mr. Sondheim’s for roughly half a century.” A side factor is that many of them have moved away from the theatrical trenches after recruitment into the Disney fold — a less risky, more lucrative career path, but not one that leads to new shows.
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<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Radcliffe and Groff face each other with animated expressions and Mendez excitedly hits Groff’s back." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/39KbYZR_7mfekiPzMknhcG0BXHw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25178951/1725196604.jpg"/> <cite>Bruce Glikas/WireImage</cite>
<figcaption>
Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff. and Lindsay Mendez at the opening night curtain call of<em> Merrily We Roll Along</em>, October 2023.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4WhL4Z">
But this idea — that there will never be another Sondheim to innovate and push the musical forward — also obscures the reality that most of Sondheim’s musicals barely made it to Broadway to begin with. (<em>Merrily</em> only ran for <a href="https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/about/our-blog/its-a-hit-the/">16 tortured performances</a>.) For most of his career, Sondheim dealt with critical dismissal and audiences who didn’t know what to do with his work. It took decades for many of his shows, with their famously “<a href="https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/Movies/2014/12/25/Meryl-Streep-talks-about-making-her-own-the-iconic-witch-from-Into-the-Woods/6121419443999/">unsingable</a>” scores, to become the cultural icons that established him not only as one of America’s most important composers, but a pop culture mainstay.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0pqPIq">
In other words, even Sondheim often persevered despite, not because of, the modes and means of Broadway success. For all we laud “the American musical” as a pure art form, the truth is that Broadway has always been a commercial enterprise, first and foremost, more closely tied to Top 40 pop music than to high art. The Gershwins, Cole Porter, Lerner and Loewe, even Leonard Bernstein — most of the 20th century’s venerated musical composers were primarily hitmakers.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gmh8yv">
This is a hard pill for many theater lovers to swallow. Musical theater’s relationship to classical music and opera has historically been such an incendiary subject that <a href="https://variety.com/2005/legit/news/inside-move-lachiusa-s-criticism-draws-blood-retorts-1117927224/">every few decades</a> someone drops <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/opinion/musical-theater-opera.html">an impassioned rant</a> on the public about it. The ever-present tension between perceptions of “highbrow” and “lowbrow” art means that theater composers and critics frequently wage war over which realm the musical belongs to. It also means that critics have been handwringing that the modern musical is dead for roughly <a href="https://www.commentary.org/articles/terry-teachout/is-the-musical-comedy-dead/">20 years</a> — no, make that <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/did-andrew-lloyd-webber-ruin-the-musical-or-rescue-it">40 years</a>. The modern musical has allegedly been in its death throes since before many of us were born, and yet somehow these death throes have produced most of Broadway’s longest-running and lucrative shows, from <em>The Phantom of the Opera</em> to <em>Wicked</em>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CMUIal">
The more I consider the era we’re in, the less I’m bothered by the state of things. The current Broadway season already holds promise beyond the remnants of Sondheim: The upcoming jukebox musical <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zlxc16RawE"><em>Hell’s Kitchen</em></a>, loosely based on the life of Alicia Keys, <a href="https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fmagazine%2F2023%2F12%2F04%2Fhells-kitchen-theatre-review-the-gardens-of-anuncia">promises to unite</a> the standard jukebox biopic with the thematic complexity of <em>Jagged Little Pill</em>. Elton John’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/oct/27/tammy-faye-a-new-musical-review-elton-john-almeida-theatre-bakker-televangelists#:~:text=Infectious%20in%20its%20music%2C%20exuberant,Tammy%20Faye%20(Katie%20Brayben)."><em>Tammy Faye</em></a> looks like it will inject a needed amount of satirical froth into the mix. Revivals of <em>Cabaret</em> and <em>The Wiz</em> already feel like they are arriving at exactly the moment we need them most. Meanwhile, audiences <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/broadway-grosses-1235740617/">continue to return</a> to theaters — and <a href="https://www.broadwaynews.com/the-broadway-league-releases-2022-2023-audience-demographics-report/">those audiences contain</a> fewer tourists and more locals and a more diverse, young crowd overall. In other words, nature is healing, and it wants to sing show tunes.
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Royal Exemplar and Royal Marquess work well</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>Siege Courageous, Bharat, Touch Of Grey, King Of War, Golden Time and Art Gallery shine</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>Enabler, Dash, Jendayi and Cordelia show out</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>Brisbane International | Rafael Nadal roars back with ‘emotional and important’ win over Thiem</strong> - The 37-year-old Spaniard has not played singles since a second-round loss at the Australian Open last year, undergoing two rounds of hip surgery.</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>Daily Quiz | On sports achievements from 2023</strong> - A quiz on some sporting achievements in the year gone by</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>Kishan Reddy questions Telangana Govt’s stand on probe into KLIS flaws</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>Centre’s allocation to TN has risen by more than 2.5 times under BJP rule: PM Modi</strong> - Prime Minister inaugurates and lays foundation stones for ₹20,140 crore worth of development projects in Tamil Nadu, including new terminal of Tiruchi International Airport</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>Further delay in conducting caste-wise survey will contribute to social injustice: Anbumani</strong> - The survey is necessary to get a realistic picture of the socio-economic development of all communities, says PMK leader</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>‘Vijayakant echoed the social ethos of his time’</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>Supreme Court says break-up of Bihar caste survey data ought to ‘normally’ be made available in public domain</strong> - Counsel for the Bihar government said work was still being done on the data compiled in the caste-based survey, and information was made public as and when an analysis was completed</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>Ukraine hit again after Putin vows intensified strikes</strong> - Russia hits Ukraine’s biggest cities, leaving five dead, after Vladimir Putin vows intensified attacks.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Italian outcry as MP Pozzolo’s gun wounds man at New Year’s Eve party</strong> - Emanuele Pozzolo, a member of PM Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, denies firing the shot.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Queen Margrethe II: Danish monarch announces abdication live on TV</strong> - Margrethe II, who has reigned for half a century, will step down to be replaced by her son.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Crown Prince Frederik: What do we know about the next king of Denmark?</strong> - “I don’t want to lock myself in a fortress. I want to be myself,” Crown Prince Frederik once said.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Queen Margrethe II: Danish monarch’s 52-year reign in pictures</strong> - 83-year-old Margrethe II is Europe’s longest-serving living monarch, having taken the throne in 1972.</p></li>
</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>Here’s how the EPA calculates how far an EV can go on a full charge</strong> - Ever wonder how an EV’s official range estimate is calculated? Wonder no more. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1987157">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study: the best free-throw shooters share these biomechanical traits</strong> - Best shooters have greater control over release point height, trunk lean in particular. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1993101">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How archaeologists reconstructed the burning of Jerusalem in 586 BCE</strong> - Hebrew bible is only surviving account of siege that laid waste to Solomon’s Temple. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1993081">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Smartphone manufacturers still want to make foldables a thing</strong> - Foldables are barely 1% of the market, but that’s not stopping anyone but Apple. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1993084">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Aaarr matey! Life on a 17th century pirate ship was less chaotic than you think</strong> - Ars chats with historian Rebecca Simon about her most recent book, <em>The Pirates’ Code</em>. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1993048">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A woman comes home to find her husband in bed with a very attractive young woman.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
She starts yelling and cursing for several minutes, when the husband says“will you at least let me explain?”. The woman became quiet and her husband continued.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
"Well, I found this beautiful young woman with almost no clothes and barefoot, homeless and hungry on the street. So I took her home. I gave her these dresses that you never wear cuz’ it makes you look fat. Then I gave her the steak from yesterday you didn’t eat because you suddenly became vegan. Then I gave her these shoes you never wear because your friend already has them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
She loved them all. When I walked her out the door, she asked “Is there anything else your wife doesn’t want?”
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<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/1HotCanadian"> /u/1HotCanadian </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18wekxg/a_woman_comes_home_to_find_her_husband_in_bed/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18wekxg/a_woman_comes_home_to_find_her_husband_in_bed/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ivan was working at a vacuum cleaners factory in USSR, but couldn’t afford to buy one himself…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">One day his wife said: Vanya, you are an idiot, you can steal a single part of a vacuum cleaner every day, after a month or two we will have all the parts we need, and you’ll assemble it yourself.</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">After two months of stealing parts Ivan locked himself in a workshop and begun assembling vacuum cleaner. Wife waited for six hour for him to finish and then knocked and asked if something wrong.</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">You see, - answered distressed Ivan - I’ve assembled and re-assembled it six times, and still getting a grenade launcher!
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
</li></ul></div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/mougrim"> /u/mougrim </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18wl7z5/ivan_was_working_at_a_vacuum_cleaners_factory_in/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18wl7z5/ivan_was_working_at_a_vacuum_cleaners_factory_in/">[comments]</a></span></li>
</ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A guy approaches his friend in the Synagogue.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Dave, I need your big favor as my best friend. I am heading to the rabbi’s to have sex with his wife. Please keep him here for two hours. Ask complicated questions, follow up on the answers, trade stories… Whatever you can do to make him stay,” the guy says.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
David reluctantly agrees and goes to see the rabbi.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Rabbi, I got myself into a predicament. My friend pressured me to prevent you from leaving here while your wife and he were having sex at your house. What is your advice?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Rabbi: “Run home. I am not married.”
</p>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/andmig205"> /u/andmig205 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18w9s4p/a_guy_approaches_his_friend_in_the_synagogue/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18w9s4p/a_guy_approaches_his_friend_in_the_synagogue/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Jewish man, Abram, is on his deathbed</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
His faithful wife Sarah of 50+ years is by his side. While he’s suffering through his illness, he turns to his wife.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Sarah, we’ve been married for over 50 years. When the Nazis came through our village and took us to a concentration camp and we somehow survived, you were there with me.”
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Sarah replies “I was, Abram.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Abram says “and when the economy went down, and our business went under, you were there with me.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Sarah replies “I was, my love.”
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Abram says “and when we lost our home, and had to live in a shack, you were there with me.”
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She says “yes sweetheart, I was.”
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Abram says “and when our children rebelled, and got in all sorts of trouble, and we didn’t know what we would do to get them on the right path…. you were there.”
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Sarah is tearing up at this point over all the times they’ve been through. “I was Abram.”
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Abram looks at her with a serious face. “I’m beginning to think you’re bad luck, Sarah.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MaroonTrucker28"> /u/MaroonTrucker28 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18w6q1r/a_jewish_man_abram_is_on_his_deathbed/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18w6q1r/a_jewish_man_abram_is_on_his_deathbed/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>On my first day in prison, my cell mate said to me…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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“If you ever come close to me, I’ll fucking skin you alive. When we’re sleeping, you don’t fucking touch me. You hear me? Don’t ever talk to me, either.”
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“Fucking great.” I thought, “First day in here and I’m already married.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MudakMudakov"> /u/MudakMudakov </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18vz6vz/on_my_first_day_in_prison_my_cell_mate_said_to_me/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18vz6vz/on_my_first_day_in_prison_my_cell_mate_said_to_me/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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