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<title>14 April, 2023</title>
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<title>Covid-19 Sentry</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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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>SARS-CoV-2 selectively induces the expression of unproductive splicing isoforms of interferon, class I MHC and splicing machinery genes</strong> -
<div>
Splicing is a highly conserved, intricate mechanism intimately linked to transcription elongation, serving as a pivotal regulator of gene expression. Alternative splicing may generate specific transcripts incapable of undergoing translation into proteins, designated as unproductive. A plethora of respiratory viruses, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), strategically manipulate the host’s splicing machinery to circumvent antiviral responses. During the infection, SARS-CoV-2 effectively suppresses interferon (IFN) expression, leading to B cell and CD8+ T cell leukopenia, while simultaneously increasing the presence of macrophages and neutrophils in patients with severe COVID-19. In this study, we integrated publicly available omics datasets to systematically analyze transcripts at the isoform level and delineate the nascent-peptide translatome landscapes of SARS-CoV-2-infected human cells. Our findings reveal a hitherto uncharacterized mechanism whereby SARS-CoV-2 infection induces the predominant expression of unproductive splicing isoforms in key IFN signaling genes, interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs), class I MHC genes, and splicing machinery genes, including IRF7, OAS3, HLA-B, and HNRNPH1. In stark contrast, cytokine and chemokine genes, such as IL6, CXCL8, and TNF, predominantly express productive (protein-coding) splicing isoforms in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. We postulate that SARS-CoV-2 employs a previously unreported tactic of exploiting the host splicing machinery to bolster viral replication and subvert the immune response by selectively upregulating unproductive splicing isoforms from antigen presentation and antiviral response genes. Our study sheds new light on the molecular interplay between SARS-CoV-2 and the host immune system, offering a foundation for the development of novel therapeutic strategies to combat COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.12.536671v1" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 selectively induces the expression of unproductive splicing isoforms of interferon, class I MHC and splicing machinery genes</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The impact of COVID-19 lockdown on postpartum mothers in London, England: An online focus group study</strong> -
<div>
Aims: The postpartum/postnatal period is widely acknowledged as a time when mothers require greater levels of support from multiple sources. However, stay-at-home orders commonly known as “lockdown” deployed in some countries to limit COVID-19 transmission reduced access to support. In England, many postpartum mothers navigated household isolation under intensive mothering and expert parenting culture. Examining the impact of lockdown may reveal strengths and weaknesses in current policy and practice, revealing opportunities to improve maternal experience and wellbeing. Subject and Methods: We conducted an online focus group involving 20 mothers living in London, England, with “lockdown babies,” following up on our earlier survey on social support and maternal wellbeing. We thematically analysed focus group transcripts, and identified key themes around Lockdown Experience and Determinants of Lockdown Experience. Results: Participants raised some positives of lockdown, including fostering connections and protection from external expectations, but also raised many negatives, including social isolation, institutional abandonment, and intense relationships within the household. Potential reasons behind variations in lockdown experience include physical environments, timing of birth, and number of children. Our findings reflect how current systems may be “trapping” some families into the male-breadwinner/female-caregiver family model, while intensive mothering and expert parenting culture may be increasing maternal stress and undermining responsive mothering. Conclusions: Facilitating partners to stay at home during the postpartum period and establishing peer/community support instead of reliance on professionals may promote positive postpartum maternal experience and wellbeing.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/r7enw/" target="_blank">The impact of COVID-19 lockdown on postpartum mothers in London, England: An online focus group study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Evaluation of mRNA-LNP and adjuvanted protein SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in a maternal antibody mouse model</strong> -
<div>
Maternal antibodies (matAbs) protect against a myriad of pathogens early in life; however, these antibodies can also inhibit de novo immune responses against some vaccine platforms. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) matAbs are efficiently transferred during pregnancy and protect infants against subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infections. It is unknown if matAbs inhibit immune responses elicited by different types of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. Here, we established a mouse model to determine if SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific matAbs inhibit immune responses elicited by recombinant protein and nucleoside-modified mRNA-lipid nanoparticle (mRNA-LNP) vaccines. We found that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-LNP vaccines elicited robust de novo antibody responses in mouse pups in the presence of matAbs. Recombinant protein vaccines were also able to circumvent the inhibitory effects of matAbs when adjuvants were co-administered. While additional studies need to be completed in humans, our studies raise the possibility that mRNA-LNP-based and adjuvanted protein-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have the potential to be effective when delivered very early in life.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.12.536590v1" target="_blank">Evaluation of mRNA-LNP and adjuvanted protein SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in a maternal antibody mouse model</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>SARS-CoV-2 spike antigen-specific B cell and antibody responses in pre-vaccination period COVID-19 convalescent males and females with or without post-covid condition</strong> -
<div>
A significant proportion of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection develop lingering symptoms for months, even years after their infection, a condition now known as Post-COVID Condition (PCC). The underlying pathophysiology of PCC is not known. The wide spectrum of symptoms encompassing various organ systems and the detection of viral transcripts and antigens in tissues other than lungs raise the possibility that PCC may be associated with aberrant immune response to the viral antigens. Here, we studied the antibody and B cell responses to the spike protein and the RBD domain in PCC patients who experienced mild COVID-19 disease during the early stages of COVID-19 pandemic in the pre-vaccination era. Our results suggest that the immune responses to the spike antigen may be altered in those who develop PCC.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.13.535896v1" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 spike antigen-specific B cell and antibody responses in pre-vaccination period COVID-19 convalescent males and females with or without post-covid condition</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Resolving a Guanine-Quadruplex Structure in the SARS-CoV-2 Genome through Circular Dichroism and Multiscale Molecular Modeling.</strong> -
<div>
The genome of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is made up of a single-stranded RNA fragment that can assume a specific second-ary structure, whose stability can influence the virus ability to reproduce. Recent studies have identified putative guanine quadruplex sequences in SARS-CoV-2 genome fragments that are involved in coding for both structural and non-structural proteins. In this contribution, we focus on a specific G-rich sequence referred as RG-2, which codes for the non-structural protein 10 (Nsp10) and assumes a parallel guanine-quadruplex (G4) arrangement. We provide the secondary structure of the RG-2 G4 at atomistic resolution by molecular modeling and simulation, validated by the superposition of experimental and calculated electronic circular dichroism spectrum. Through both experimental and simulation approaches, we have demon-strated that pyridostatin (PDS), a widely recognized G4 binder, can bind to and stabilize RG-2 G4 more strongly than RG-1, another G4 forming sequence that was previously proposed as a potential target for antiviral drug candidates. Overall, this study highlights RG-2 as a valuable target to inhibit the translation and replication of SARS-CoV-2 paving the way towards original therapeutic approaches against emerging RNA viruses.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.13.536758v1" target="_blank">Resolving a Guanine-Quadruplex Structure in the SARS-CoV-2 Genome through Circular Dichroism and Multiscale Molecular Modeling.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES OF E-LEARNING (A REVIEW DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC)</strong> -
<div>
In the past few years, e-learning is emerging as a global platform in the continuation of studies. E-learning has revolutionized the entire education system by providing flexibility and easy access to lectures anytime and anywhere, especially during covid-19 pandemic after which face-to-face learning was no longer possible. Although people were aware about e-learning and its usage but it got more prominent after COVID-19 pandemic. So, e-learning became a necessity for continuing education. This present study attempts to analyze the difficulties, benefits, and drawbacks of both educators and students by implementing these technologies as well as alternative solutions. This study discusses numerous prospects made possible by the COVID-19 pandemic and emphasizes the requirement for developing suitable methods to handle such an unanticipated crisis in the future. The problems faced by learners were a poor internet connection, a lack of electricity, a lack of interest, and a lack of desire. This study also suggests the government take the lead in assisting students who have limited access to the internet and technology, which are essential for participation in online classes, while also encouraging students to participate more actively in e-learning, particularly in context of the serious pandemic. To this purpose, various suggestions have been offered that could help academic institutions overcome these challenges and preserve academic quality during turbulent times.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/un5g8/" target="_blank">PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES OF E-LEARNING (A REVIEW DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC)</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Direct and indirect impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the survival of kidney transplant recipients: a national observational study in France.</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background During the pandemic period, healthcare systems were substantially reorganized for managing COVID-19 cases. The corresponding changes on the standard care of persons with chronic diseases and the potential consequences on their outcomes remain insufficiently documented. This observational study investigates the direct and indirect impact of the pandemic period on the survival of kidney transplant recipients (KTR), in particular in those not hospitalized for COVID-19. Methods We conducted a cohort study using the French national health data system which contains all healthcare consumptions in France. Incident persons with end stage kidney disease between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2020 who received a kidney transplant were included and followed-up from their transplantation date to December 31, 2021. The survival of KTR during the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods was investigated using Cox models with time-dependent covariates, including vaccination and hospitalization events. Findings There were 10,637 KTR included in the study, with 324 and 430 deaths observed during the pre-pandemic (15,115 person-years of follow-up) and pandemic periods (14,657 person-years of follow-up), including 127 deaths observed among the 659 persons with a COVID-19-related hospitalization. In multivariable analyses, the risk of death during the pandemic period was similar to that observed during the pre-pandemic period (hazard ratio (HR) [95% confidence interval]: 0.92 [0.77-1.11]), while COVID-19-related hospitalization was associated with an increased risk of death (HR: 10.62 [8.46-13.33]). In addition, pre-emptive kidney transplantation was associated with a lower risk of death (HR: 0.71 [0.56-0.89]), as well as a third vaccine dose (HR: 0.42 [0.30-0.57]), while age, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases were associated with higher risks of death. Interpretation Considering persons living with a kidney transplant with no severe COVID-19-related hospitalization, the pandemic period was not associated with a higher risk of death.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.05.23288113v2" target="_blank">Direct and indirect impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the survival of kidney transplant recipients: a national observational study in France.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Should Health Communication During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Emphasize Self- or Other-Focused Impacts of Mitigation Behaviors? Insights from Two Message Matching Studies</strong> -
<div>
Mask-wearing, social distancing, and vaccination remain effective ways to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Yet, many hesitate to enact some or all these preventive behaviors. We created three persuasive messages—framed to promote benefits to either 1) oneself, 2) close-others, or 3) distant-others—to determine whether the effectiveness of these messages varied based on personality differences (specifically independent/interdependent self-construal and chronic construal level). In two online experiments (N = 862), we measured individual differences and showed participants one of the three messages. Consistent interactions between interdependent self-construal and message conditions showed that those high in interdependent self-construal responded most positively to the self-focused messages promoting mask-wearing, social distancing, and COVID-19 vaccination. Those low in interdependent self-construal responded most negatively to the self-focused messages. Although no interaction effect was observed for independent self-construal, and inconsistent evidence emerged for construal level, other-focused messages performed either better or equally well to the self-focused messages for most participants and may thus be promising for future public health communication efforts.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/2ysn5/" target="_blank">Should Health Communication During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Emphasize Self- or Other-Focused Impacts of Mitigation Behaviors? Insights from Two Message Matching Studies</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Combination treatment of persistent COVID-19 in immunocompromised patients with remdesivir, nirmaltrevir/ritonavir and tixegavimab/cilgavimab</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Little data exists to guide the treatment of persistent COVID-19 in immunocompromised patients. We have employed a unique protocol combining tixegavimab/cilgavimab, and short-term combination antivirals including remdesivir. Methods: A retrospective single-center analysis of persistent COVID-19 in immunocompromised patients. Response was assessed by symptom resolution, declining C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and increasing SARS-CoV-2-PCR cycle-threshold (Ct) values. Results: Fourteen patients were included, including 2 kidney transplant recipients, 11 with B-cell lymphoproliferative disease, treated with anti-CD20 or ibrutinib, and 1 with rheumatoid arthritis, treated with anti-CD20. Median Ct-value was 27 (interquartile range (IQR):24-32). All patients received tixegavimab/cilgavimab and a 5-day course of remdesivir. Eleven also received nirmaltrevir/ritonavir and one received molnupiravir. Median follow-up was 45 days (IQR:12-89). Eleven patients had complete responses including symptom resolution, decrease in CRP, and increase in Ct values (all with either a negative PCR or Ct value&gt;30 on day 4-16). Three patients had a partial response with relapses requiring re-admission. One had died, and two responded to prolonged antiviral treatments. Conclusions: A combination of monoclonal antibodies with antivirals has led to complete resolution of persistent COVID-19 in most severely-immunocompromised patients. Controlled studies will further direct the treatment of these patients, while more effective antivirals are urgently needed.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.07.23288144v1" target="_blank">Combination treatment of persistent COVID-19 in immunocompromised patients with remdesivir, nirmaltrevir/ritonavir and tixegavimab/cilgavimab</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Switzerland and its impact on disease spread</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
We analyse infectious disease case surveillance data stratified by region and age group to estimate COVID-19 spread and gain an understanding of the impact of introducing vaccines to counter the disease in Switzerland. The data used in this work is extensive and detailed and includes information on weekly number of cases and vaccination rates by age and region. Our approach takes into account waning immunity. The statistical analysis allows us to determine the effects of choosing alternative vaccination strategies. Our results indicate greater uptake of vaccine would have led to fewer cases with a particularly large effect on undervaccinated regions while an alternative distribution scheme ignoring age would affect the vulnerable population at the time (the elderly) and is less ideal.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.06.23288251v1" target="_blank">The COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Switzerland and its impact on disease spread</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A methodological framework for assessing the benefit of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination following previous infection: case study of five to eleven year olds in the UK</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Vaccination rates against SARS-CoV-2 in children aged five to 11 years remain low in many countries. The current benefit of vaccination in this age group has been questioned given that the large majority of children have now experienced at least one SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, protection from infection, vaccination or both wanes over time. National decisions on offering vaccines to this age group have tended to be made without considering time since infection. There is an urgent need to evaluate the additional benefits of vaccination in previously infected children and under what circumstances those benefits accrue. We present a novel methodological framework for estimating the potential benefits of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected children aged five to 11, accounting for waning. We apply this framework to the UK context and for two adverse outcomes: hospitalisation related to SARS-CoV-2 infection and Long Covid. We show that the most important drivers of benefit are: the degree of protection provided by previous infection; the protection provided by vaccination; the time since previous infection; and future attack rates. Vaccination can be very beneficial for previously infected children if future attack rates are high and several months have elapsed since the previous major wave in this group. Benefits are generally larger for Long Covid than hospitalisation, because Long Covid is both more common than hospitalisation and previous infection offers less protection against it. Our framework provides a structure for policy makers to explore the additional benefit of vaccination across a range of adverse outcomes and different parameter assumptions. It can be easily updated as new evidence emerges.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.11.23288409v3" target="_blank">A methodological framework for assessing the benefit of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination following previous infection: case study of five to eleven year olds in the UK</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A gene-expression module in circulating immune cells is associated with cell migration during immune diseases.</strong> -
<div>
Circulating immune cells are critical mediators of the response to inflammation upon recruitment to the tissue but how gene expression state influences recruitment is not well known. Here we report the longitudinal single-cell transcriptome profiling of blood mononuclear cells in patients undergoing kidney transplantation rejection. We identify a gene expression module which is associated to transcriptional regulation, homing and early activation in multiple cell types. The circulating cells expressing this module are reduced in patients undergoing graft rejection. This reduction was confirmed in a pig model of acute kidney transplantation rejection. In connection with this, the module expression drastically increased in the kidney grafts undergoing rejection indicating a preferential recruitment of cells highly expressing this module. We identify the receptor CXCR4 within the module and its ligand CXCL12 expressed in the graft as a likely recruitment mechanism between circulating cells and the tissue. We then explore publicly available transcriptomics data in circulating cells and show that this module is generally expressed in healthy individuals and more importantly is associated with the response to infection, including SARS Covid-19. Moreover, we find that module expression is predictive of immune mediated diseases. In summary, we find a gene expression module in circulating immune cells which enables preferential recruitment to inflamed tissues to mediate effector function.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.11.536347v1" target="_blank">A gene-expression module in circulating immune cells is associated with cell migration during immune diseases.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A simulation-based method to inform serosurvey designs for estimating dengue force of infection using existing blood samples</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The extent to which dengue virus has been circulating in Africa is largely unknown. Testing available blood samples from previous cross-sectional serological surveys offers a convenient strategy to investigate past dengue infections, as such serosurveys provide the ideal data to reconstruct the age-dependent immunity profile of the population and to estimate the average per-capita annual risk of infection; the force of infection (FOI), which is a fundamental measure of transmission intensity. In this study, we present a novel methodological approach to inform the size and age distribution of blood samples to test when samples are acquired from previous surveys. The method was used to inform a dengue seroprevalence survey which is currently being conducted in Ghana by the Drug for Neglected disease initiative, utilizing samples previously collected fora SARS-CoV-2 serosurvey. The method described in this paper can be employed to determine sample sizes and testing strategies for different diseases and transmission settings.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.07.23288282v1" target="_blank">A simulation-based method to inform serosurvey designs for estimating dengue force of infection using existing blood samples</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Development of Accurate Long-lead COVID-19 Forecast</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) will likely remain a major public health burden; accurate forecast of COVID-19 epidemic outcomes several months into the future is needed to support more proactive planning. Here, we propose strategies to address three major forecast challenges, i.e., error growth, the emergence of new variants, and infection seasonality. Using these strategies in combination we generate retrospective predictions of COVID-19 cases and deaths 6 months in the future for 10 representative US states. Tallied over &gt;25,000 retrospective predictions through September 2022, the forecast approach using all three strategies consistently outperformed a baseline forecast approach without these strategies across different variant waves and locations, for all forecast targets. Overall, probabilistic forecast accuracy improved by 64% and 38% and point prediction accuracy by 133% and 87% for cases and deaths, respectively. Real-time 6-month lead predictions made in early October 2022 suggested large attack rates in most states but a lower burden of deaths than previous waves during October 2022 - March 2023; these predictions are in general accurate compared to reported data. The superior skill of the forecast methods developed here demonstrate means for generating more accurate long-lead forecast of COVID-19 and possibly other infectious diseases.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.14.22282323v2" target="_blank">Development of Accurate Long-lead COVID-19 Forecast</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A methodological framework for assessing the benefit of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination following previous infection: case study of five to eleven year olds in the UK</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Vaccination rates against SARS-CoV-2 in children aged five to 11 years remain low in many countries. The current benefit of vaccination in this age group has been questioned given that the large majority of children have now experienced at least one SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, protection from infection, vaccination or both wanes over time. National decisions on offering vaccines to this age group have tended to be made without considering time since infection. There is an urgent need to evaluate the additional benefits of vaccination in previously infected children and under what circumstances those benefits accrue. We present a novel methodological framework for estimating the potential benefits of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected children aged five to 11, accounting for waning. We apply this framework to the UK context and for two adverse outcomes: hospitalisation related to SARS-CoV-2 infection and Long Covid. We show that the most important drivers of benefit are: the degree of protection provided by previous infection; the protection provided by vaccination; the time since previous infection; and future attack rates. Vaccination can be very beneficial for previously infected children if future attack rates are high and several months have elapsed since the previous major wave in this group. Benefits are generally larger for Long Covid than hospitalisation, because Long Covid is both more common than hospitalisation and previous infection offers less protection against it. Our framework provides a structure for policy makers to explore the additional benefit of vaccination across a range of adverse outcomes and different parameter assumptions. It can be easily updated as new evidence emerges.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.11.23288409v2" target="_blank">A methodological framework for assessing the benefit of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination following previous infection: case study of five to eleven year olds in the UK</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>Effectiveness and Safety of Quinine Sulfate as add-on Therapy for COVID-19 in Hospitalized Adults in Indonesia ( DEAL-COVID19 )</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Standard of Care + Quinine Sulfate;   Drug: Standard of Care<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Universitas Padjadjaran;   National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia;   Prodia Diacro Laboratories P.T.<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 Efficacy of Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cell Exosomes in Treating Chronic Cough After COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Long COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: MSC-derived exosomes<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Huazhong University of Science and Technology<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>A Nasal Treatment for COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Optate;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Indiana 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>Clinical Study for the Efficacy and Safety of Ropeginterferon Alfa-2b in Adult COVID-19 Patients With Comorbidities</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Ropeginterferon alfa-2b;   Procedure: SOC<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   National Taiwan University Hospital<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>Assessment of Immunogenicity, Safety and Reactogenicity of a Booster Dose of Various COVID-19 Vaccine Platforms in Individuals Primed With Several Regimes.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: SCB-2019/Clover;   Biological: AstraZeneca/Fiocruz;   Biological: Pfizer/Wyeth<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   D’Or Institute for Research and Education;   Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation<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>Tailored COVID-19 Testing Support Plan for Francophone African Born Immigrants</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID19 Testing<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: FABI tailored COVID-19 testing pamphlet;   Behavioral: Standard COVID-19 home-based test kit<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Texas Woman’s University;   National Institutes of Health (NIH)<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>Complementary Self-help Strategies for Patients With Post-COVID-19 Syndrome</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Post-COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Complementary self-help strategies in addition to treatment as usual;   Other: Treatment as usual<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Universität Duisburg-Essen<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 Study to Understand the Effect and Safety of the Study Medicine PF-07817883 in Adults Who Have Symptoms of COVID-19 But Are Not Hospitalized.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   SARS-CoV-2 Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: PF-07817883;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   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>Traditional Chinese Medicine or Low-dose Dexamethasone in COVID-19 Pneumonia</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pneumonia<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: conventional western medicine treatment;   Drug: Dexamethasone oral tablet;   Other: Traditional Chinese medicine decoction<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   China-Japan Friendship Hospital<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inpatient COVID-19 Lollipop Study</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Diagnostic Test<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: Lollipop<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Wisconsin, Madison<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>Exploring the Effect of Video Interventions on Intentions for Continued COVID-19 Vaccination</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Vaccine Refusal;   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Informational Video;   Behavioral: Altruistic Video;   Behavioral: Individualistic Video<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sir Mortimer B. Davis - Jewish General Hospital<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>Effectiveness of Testofen Compared to Placebo on Long COVID Symptoms</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Long Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Testofen;   Drug: Microcrystalline cellulose<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   RDC Clinical Pty 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>Building Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic: a Randomized Controlled Trial</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Healthy;   COVID-19;   Distress, Emotional<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: RASMUS Resilience Training;   Behavioral: Progressive Muscle Relaxation<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Medical University Innsbruck<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>Rehabilitation Treatment of Patients With COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Rehabilitation;   Pneumonia, Viral;   COVID-19;   Quality of Life<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: exercises;   Other: massage<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University;   MEDSI Clinical Hospital 1, ICU<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>Addressing Vaccine Acceptance in Carceral Settings Through Community Engagement</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: ADVANCE Steering Committee interventions<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Yale University;   National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Molecular insights into the inhibition mechanism of harringtonine against essential proteins associated with SARS-CoV-2 entry</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has recently posed a serious threat to global public health. Harringtonine (HT), as a small-molecule antagonist, has antiviral activity against a variety of viruses. There is evidence that HT can inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 entry into host cells by blocking the Spike protein and transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2). However, the molecular mechanism underlying the inhibition effect of HT is largely elusive. Here, docking and all-atom…</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>Neutralization of the new coronavirus by extracting their spikes using engineered liposomes</strong> - The devastating COVID-19 pandemic motivates the development of safe and effective antivirals to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with infection. We developed nanoscale liposomes that are coated with the cell receptor of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19. Lentiviral particles pseudotyped with the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 were constructed and used to test the virus neutralization potential of the engineered liposomes. Under…</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>3-Arylidene-2-oxindoles as GSK3β inhibitors and anti-thrombotic agents</strong> - Development of novel agents that prevent thrombotic events is an urgent task considering increasing incidence of cardiovascular diseases and coagulopathies that accompany cancer and COVID-19. Enzymatic assay identified novel GSK3β inhibitors in a series of 3-arylidene-2-oxindole derivatives. Considering the putative role of GSK3β in platelet activation, the most active compounds were evaluated for antiplatelet activity and antithrombotic activity. It was found that GSK3β inhibition by…</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>Sphingosine Kinases Promote Ebola Virus Infection and Can Be Targeted to Inhibit Filoviruses, Coronaviruses, and Arenaviruses Using Late Endocytic Trafficking to Enter Cells</strong> - Entry of enveloped viruses in host cells requires the fusion of viral and host cell membranes, a process that is facilitated by viral fusion proteins protruding from the viral envelope. These viral fusion proteins need to be triggered by host factors, and for some viruses, this event occurs inside endosomes and/or lysosomes. Consequently, these ‘late-penetrating viruses’ must be internalized and delivered to entry-conducive intracellular vesicles. Because endocytosis and vesicular trafficking…</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>Low Peripheral B-Cell Counts in Patients With Systemic Rheumatic Diseases Due to Treatment With Belimumab and/or Rituximab Are Associated With Low Antibody Responses to Primary COVID-19 Vaccination</strong> - Background: Immunosuppressive agents inhibit COVID-19 vaccine antibody (Ab) responses in patients with systemic rheumatic diseases. Rituximab may fully block Ab responses when B cells become undetected. The effect of detected but low number of B cells due to treatment with a B-cell agent (belimumab and/or rituximab) has not been established. Purpose: We sought to examine whether there is an association between a low number of B cells due to treatment with belimumab and/or rituximab and impaired…</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>Impulsive Neural Control to Schedule Antivirals and Immunomodulators for COVID-19</strong> - New SARS-CoV-2 variants escaping the effect of vaccines are an eminent threat. The use of antivirals to inhibit the viral replication cycle or immunomodulators to regulate host immune responses can help to tackle the viral infection at the host level. To evaluate the potential use of these therapies, we propose the application of an inverse optimal neural controller to a mathematical model that represents SARS-CoV-2 dynamics in the host. Antiviral effects and immune responses are considered as…</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>Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Activity of <em>Ampelozizyphus amazonicus</em> (Saracura-Mirá): Focus on the Modulation of the Spike-ACE2 Interaction by Chemically Characterized Bark Extracts by LC-DAD-APCI-MS/MS</strong> - Traditional medicine shows several treatment protocols for COVID-19 based on natural products, revealing its potential as a possible source of anti-SARS-CoV-2 agents. Ampelozizyphus amazonicus is popularly used in the Brazilian Amazon as a fortifier and tonic, and recently, it has been reported to relieve COVID-19 symptoms. This work aimed to investigate the antiviral potential of A. amazonicus, focusing on the inhibition of spike and ACE2 receptor interaction, a key step in successful…</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>Papaverine: A Miraculous Alkaloid from Opium and Its Multimedicinal Application</strong> - The pharmacological actions of benzylisoquinoline alkaloids are quite substantial, and have recently attracted much attention. One of the principle benzylisoquinoline alkaloids has been found in the unripe seed capsules of Papaver somniferum L. Although it lacks analgesic effects and is unrelated to the compounds in the morphine class, it is a peripheral vasodilator and has a direct effect on vessels. It is reported to inhibit the cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) and cyclic guanosine…</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>Repurposing FIASMAs against Acid Sphingomyelinase for COVID-19: A Computational Molecular Docking and Dynamic Simulation Approach</strong> - Over the past few years, COVID-19 has caused widespread suffering worldwide. There is great research potential in this domain and it is also necessary. The main objective of this study was to identify potential inhibitors against acid sphingomyelinase (ASM) in order to prevent coronavirus infection. Experimental studies revealed that SARS-CoV-2 causes activation of the acid sphingomyelinase/ceramide pathway, which in turn facilitates the viral entry into the cells. The objective was to inhibit…</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>Exploring the Potential Medicinal Benefits of <em>Ganoderma lucidum</em>: From Metabolic Disorders to Coronavirus Infections</strong> - Ganoderma lucidum is a medicinal mushroom that has been traditionally used in Chinese medicine for centuries. It has been found to have a wide range of medicinal properties, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune-boosting effects. Recent research has focused on the potential benefits of G. lucidum in treating metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity, as well as its possible role in preventing and treating infections caused by the coronavirus. Triterpenoids are a major group…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Signaling Pathway of the ADP Receptor P2Y<sub>12</sub> in the Immune System: Recent Discoveries and New Challenges</strong> - P2Y(12) is a G-protein-coupled receptor that is activated upon ADP binding. Considering its well-established role in platelet activation, blocking P2Y(12) has been used as a therapeutic strategy for antiplatelet aggregation in cardiovascular disease patients. However, receptor studies have shown that P2Y(12) is functionally expressed not only in platelets and the microglia but also in other cells of the immune system, such as in monocytes, dendritic cells, and T lymphocytes. As a result, studies…</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 and Diarylamidines: The Parasitic Connection</strong> - As emerging severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants (Omicron) continue to outpace and negate combinatorial vaccines and monoclonal antibody therapies targeting the spike protein (S) receptor binding domain (RBD), the appetite for developing similar COVID-19 treatments has significantly diminished, with the attention of the scientific community switching to long COVID treatments. However, treatments that reduce the risk of “post-COVID-19 syndrome” and associated…</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>Roles of p53-Mediated Host-Virus Interaction in Coronavirus Infection</strong> - The emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has garnered global attention due to its highly pathogenic nature and the resulting health crisis and economic burden. Although drugs such as Remdesivir have been considered a potential cure by targeting the virus on its RNA polymerase, the high mutation rate and unique 3’ to 5’ exonuclease with proofreading function make it challenging to develop effective anti-coronavirus drugs. As a result, there is an increasing focus on host-virus 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>Identification of Potential Lead Compounds Targeting Novel Druggable Cavity of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Trimer by Molecular Dynamics Simulations</strong> - The global pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has become an urgent public health problem. Spike (S) protein mediates the fusion between the virus and the host cell membranes, consequently emerging as an important target of drug design. The lack of comparisons of in situ full-length S homotrimer structures in different states hinders understanding the structures and revealing the function, thereby limiting the discovery and development of therapeutic agents….</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>Stabilization of the Dimeric State of SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease by GC376 and Nirmatrelvir</strong> - The main protease (Mpro or 3CLpro) is an enzyme that is evolutionarily conserved among different genera of coronaviruses. As it is essential for processing and maturing viral polyproteins, Mpro has been identified as a promising target for the development of broad-spectrum drugs against coronaviruses. Like SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, the mature and active form of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro is a dimer composed of identical subunits, each with a single active site. Individual monomers, however, have very low or…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A New Phase in the Rollback of Abortion Access</strong> - A Texas judge’s injunction on the use of mifepristone has further eroded the country’s standing as a leader in reproductive rights. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-new-phase-in-the-rollback-of-abortion-access">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What Really Happened at Waco</strong> - Thirty years later, an avoidable tragedy has spawned a politically ascendant mythology. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/what-really-happened-at-waco">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Liberal Victory in Wisconsin</strong> - Last week’s election upended the ideological balance of the state’s Supreme Court, with big implications for abortion access, voting rights, and gerrymandering. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-liberal-victory-in-wisconsin">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is the Trump Indictment a “Legal Embarrassment”?</strong> - Analysts have argued that the case, which was put down by previous prosecutors, sets a dangerous precedent in American politics. That might be naïve. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/is-the-trump-indictment-a-legal-embarrassment">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>All Gaffes Are Not Created Equal: Biden vs. the Almighty Trump</strong> - On a week when the 2024 contrast could not be clearer. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/all-gaffes-are-not-created-equal-biden-vs-the-almighty-trump">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Companies are keeping their prices inflated</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A Wingstop logo on a clear glass door, looking into the restaurant." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nBNDGT-7vCBJ0j9AI_LwuO1YR88=/0x0:2667x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72179363/1316693205.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
The Wingstop logo on the front door of one of the company’s restaurants on May 6, 2021, in Chicago, Illinois. | Scott Olson/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Prices aren’t going down. “Excuseflation,” explained.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qEMMMp">
New inflation numbers were released Wednesday. TL;DR: while the rate of price increases is slowing down, it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/business/inflation-fed-rates.html">remains stubbornly high</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9g9dHE">
The most common traditional explanation is an imbalance between supply and demand — “too much money chasing after too few goods,” <a href="https://mfidev.uchicago.edu/about/tribute/mfquotes.shtml#:~:text=%E2%80%9CInflation%20is%20caused%20by%20too,chasing%20after%20too%20few%20goods.%E2%80%9D">as Milton Friedman put it</a>. Most economists say that the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/fed-chairman-jerome-powell-says-supply-side-constraints-are-creating-more-inflation-risk-11634917630?utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Sentences%2010.22.21&amp;utm_term=Sentences">supply chain disruptions</a> contribute as well. But supply chain problems have eased in recent months, easing some supply concerns, and the Federal Reserve has been steadily raising interest rates, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/business/economy/biden-jobs-report-unemployment.html">slowing job growth</a> as a way to balance out the demand part of the equation. So why are prices still so high?
</p>
<aside id="XmRoAi">
<div>
</div>
</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IINJke">
Tracy Alloway, a Bloomberg journalist and co-host of the financial podcast <em>Odd Lots,</em> thinks the answer may be, in part, the fact that many companies are increasingly turning to a strategy known as “price over volume.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nVWq7j">
Translate that into plain English and you get something like “chasing fat profits.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a9Dz7e">
“So you’re selling fewer products, but you’re selling them at higher prices,” Alloway told <a href="https://www.vox.com/today-explained-podcast"><em>Today, Explained</em></a> co-host <a href="https://www.vox.com/authors/noel-king">Noel King</a> on a <a href="https://link.chtbl.com/TEXinflation">recent episode of the show</a>. “It’s a viable strategy in the current environment.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WzQ5tX">
<em>Today, Explained</em> spoke to Alloway about this corporate strategy and the reasoning they use to justify price hikes to their customers in the first place, a phenomenon she’s dubbed “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-09/how-excuseflation-is-keeping-prices-and-corporate-profits-high?sref=qYiz2hd0">excuseflation</a>.”
</p>
<div id="1mZBfE">
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U0MK7q">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ig8YtD">
<em>Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so find </em>Today, Explained<em> on </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/today-explained/id1346207297"><em><strong>Apple Podcasts</strong></em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3pXx5SXzXwJxnf4A5pWN2A"><em><strong>Spotify</strong></em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/today-explained"><em><strong>Stitcher</strong></em></a><em>, or </em><a href="https://link.chtbl.com/todayexplainedpod"><em><strong>wherever you listen.</strong></em></a>
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="Hxm2k5"/>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EyzjZA">
<strong>You recently identified a phenomenon that you call “excuseflation.” Tell me what it means. </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="58UrA2">
I think a lot of people at this point have heard about this idea that companies, you know, maybe they’re taking advantage of the current environment in order to raise prices and really gouging their customers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VYU0VA">
The thing about excuseflation is it’s sort of grounded in truth. It’s the idea that companies are using these once-in-a-lifetime disruptions. Think about the supply chain hiccups that we’ve had. Think about the Ukraine-Russia war. And they’re using those one-off disruptions as an excuse to raise prices. And that sounds fair enough. You know, companies, they have expenses. If their input costs go up, maybe it makes sense for them to pass some of those on to customers. But where it starts to become insidious is when they’re raising prices so much that they’re seeing their profits go up quite substantially as well.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uS668k">
<strong>Can you give me an example of something that has been excuseflated?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MMkT7z">
Sure. So one of my favorite examples, because, you know, I love these personally, but chicken wings. Let’s talk about chicken wings and Wingstop. Wingstop is a very large purveyor of very delicious chicken wings. And what they’ve been saying on their earnings calls is that they have been raising their prices for their delicious chicken wings. And the reason they’ve been doing that is because the wholesale cost of your basic chicken wing <a href="https://www.vox.com/22421095/chicken-wings-shortage-delivery-bar">went up quite a lot during the pandemic</a>. We had a lot of disruptions at various farms, chicken farms with labor shortages and things like that. So it made sense that chicken wing prices went up and the company started passing those on to consumers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D6P4uU">
The issue now, though, is that we have seen a substantial drop in chicken wing prices. And yet the company isn’t saying that it’s going to start dropping its prices. What it’s discovered, much like a lot of other businesses at the moment, is that actually this strategy of making up what you lose in sales volume with higher prices, so you’re selling fewer products, but you’re selling them at higher prices, [is] a viable strategy in the current environment, and it’s working for a lot of companies because profit margins are up.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8rVfV0">
<strong>Listen, you are an economics reporter. You see what’s happening. You are still buying chicken wings. Why are you not furious? Why have you not put your foot down?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GRENxs">
First of all, let me say that my personal price elasticity when it comes to chicken wings is probably infinite. But, you know, I will pay whatever it takes to eat Buffalo wings.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="seEODJ">
<strong>Wingstop is listening!</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r5GPPk">
We spoke to the owner of a bakery over in Chicago. And, you know, I think there’s a tendency when you think about things like greedflation or excuseflation, you think about these big corporations, these really sophisticated corporations that are, you know, formulating their pricing strategies and how to get the most out of customers. But this is a phenomenon that also is endemic in smaller and midsize businesses. And this baker in Chicago kind of laid it out for us. He said:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SyHcZ3">
<em>Whether it’s rye flour or bird flu, that impacts eggs when it makes national news just running a business, it’s an opportunity to increase the prices without getting a whole bunch of complaining from the customers. It’s not that we’re out there price gouging, but, you know, timing can be everything. —Ken Jarosch, owner of Jarosch bakery, </em><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-22/odd-lots-podcast-how-a-local-bakery-sees-the-economy-right-now?sref=qYiz2hd0"><em>as heard on </em>Odd Lots</a>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gtvIog">
<strong>Shouldn’t competition push prices down? If I’m a business owner, I’m going to let consumers know that I can get them stuff much cheaper than the other guys who have excuseflated everything. Shouldn’t that be happening? </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8YeSQX">
This is really the key thing about excuseflation and where it differs a little bit from greedflation. If a company starts raising its prices just because it can, then in theory, according to the basic rules of capitalism and economics, someone should come in and undercut them and steal all their business away. But the thing about excuseflation is it allows companies to raise prices all at the same time and all together.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LTQKSx">
The economist Isabella Weber, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZIHykCEgN4">she basically says what it does is it gives companies de facto monopoly power</a>. So you think about the reason that we tend not to like monopolies as consumers. We want, you know, a vibrant landscape of lots of smaller businesses that are all competing with each other so that we get a better value for our money. What happens when you have an industry-wide event that gives a group of businesses an excuse to raise prices: They are all effectively, not officially, but effectively acting as a monopoly. They can all say, well, you know, it’s bird flu, so we’re all going to raise the prices of our eggs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FjuCNw">
When it comes to specific company examples, you know, Pepsi has been pushing their prices higher for a while. And you would think that, well, customers can just buy Coke instead, but actually Coke is pretty much doing the same thing. And so you end up having these industries who are all acting together. And that means that there’s very little incentive for them to start lowering prices because they’re not seeing that competitive pressure.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="88BkiL">
We tend to think of monopoly power as this, you know, kind of static thing. So you might have one big company that dominates an industry, and that’s a classic monopoly. Consumers don’t have a lot of other options. But, in fact, monopoly power can be a fluid and temporary thing. So when you see a supply bottleneck or when you see an industry-wide disruption, it can lead to this situation where companies all start acting very similarly. They all start doing the same thing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9Imbif">
It’s almost, you know, I hesitate to use these words because they have legal connotations, but it’s almost like a de facto cartel, right? Everyone decides to raise their prices all at once because whatever crucial component or input cost is going up. That leads to an automatic monopoly. It feels the same to a consumer who finds that, actually, they don’t have a lot of options because one group of businesses is raising their prices all together, all at the same time.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0w0DDn">
</p></li>
<li><strong>What the hell is going on in Beau Is Afraid?</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A middle-aged man in pajamas stands, looking bewildered. His face is a bit dinged up." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mVKwy38Tb-f6JQhYAm73YbyAg8c=/188x0:4711x3392/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72179327/beau1.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Joaquin Phoenix in <em>Beau Is Afraid.</em> | A24
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The myths, mess, and creepy magic of Ari Aster’s latest nightmare.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Emg44q">
<em><strong>Warning: Spoilers for Beau Is Afraid follow. Lots of spoilers. Proceed at your own risk!</strong></em>
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Image reads “spoilers below,” with a triangular sign bearing an exclamation point." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uPQF4l3Wvpgo7pB7TTD6_3CasSQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8565937/spoilers_below.png"/>
<figcaption>
Spoilers! Beware!
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gTLd02">
I have this recurring dream — a nightmare, really — where I’m trying to go somewhere, I must be there, I simply must, but people keep making me late, and no matter what I do, I can’t make any progress. It’s terrible. I hate it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="euN7ge">
It’s also kind of the plot of <em>Beau Is Afraid</em>, a demented unraveling of the <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheHerosJourney">hero’s journey</a> from Ari Aster, the guy who brought you <a href="https://www.vox.com/summer-movies/2018/6/1/17408988/hereditary-review-toni-collette-milly-shapiro"><em>Hereditary</em></a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/20/18691638/midsommar-review"><em>Midsommar</em></a>, some stuff you can never forget seeing. It is not, properly, a horror movie, though there’s horrifying stuff in it. It’s more of a nightmare movie, in which our main character, Beau (Joaquin Phoenix), is just having a pretty bad time of it. If it’s about anything, it’s about guilt. It’s what would happen if all the stuff you worry about in your therapist’s office — that everyone was mad at you, that you’re a huge disappointment to your parents, that you’ll get accused of doing something wrong and not even know what it is — was true. At every turn, the worst thing happens.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d0Zmj8">
Obviously, it’s great and I love it, and a lot of people won’t. And that’s fine. It’s manifestly not for everyone.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uYGnSj">
<em>Beau Is Afraid</em> is also, I think, the least scrutable of Aster’s three features. You know what’s happening, but you’re never totally sure why or what’s important to remember. Backtracking over the plot, you can start to see the outlines emerging, some themes, some breadcrumbs scattered throughout. There are little rabbit trails you can trace, jokes to notice in the background (the signs scattered throughout this movie are a rich source of humor), part of why your second viewing of the movie might be richer than the first.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2lPOiJ">
Yet it’s important to remember that <em>Beau Is Afraid</em> is not a puzzle to be solved or a mystery to be unlocked. That’s by design. Sink into it and don’t try to pick it apart, and you’ll get it. Get stuck on the details and you’ll lose the plot. So to speak.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Joaquin Phoenix, in a hospital gown, sitting on a patio chair, with an ordinary suburban house in the background." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/B9-LD5sjbJvB7KsAoLQhay25-Rk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24582557/beau6.jpg"/> <cite>A24</cite>
<figcaption>
Beau gets bad news.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tFxiXz">
If you really want to wrap your head around <em>Beau</em>, though, there are two main things to keep in mind. One is the promise of the title: that this is a movie about a guy named Beau, and he is afraid. And not even afraid of something specific, but afraid in a chaotically multidirectional manner. If it’s out there, Beau is afraid of it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l2IAo8">
The other is that this is a funhouse mirror version of the classic hero’s journey story, as codified by Joseph Campbell, sometimes called the “monomyth.” In its normal state, the hero’s journey is a narrative archetype for a particular kind of classic story. Think of, say, Odysseus, or Frodo in <em>The</em> <em>Lord of the Rings</em>: A hero is called out of his familiar life and armed by some supernatural power to embark on an adventure. He crosses the threshold into an unknown world, where he encounters helpers and mentors, challenges and temptations that he must overcome, and ultimately a moment of revelation, where he stares into an abyss and is reborn. Having been transformed, he must atone for himself, and then can return home with a gift. At home, everything is familiar but changed because the hero himself is changed. Now, he has freedom to live.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EIlE1p">
Aster, being Aster, has turned the whole thing inside out. But you can discern the outlines of the monomyth inside <em>Beau Is Afraid</em>, perhaps in a hilarious reinforcement of Campbell’s sense that the hero’s journey is built into the human heart. The ways it disintegrates into chaos is what makes it comitragical, or tragicomical. It’s funny and messed up, and that’s what makes it great.
</p>
<h3 id="jTxRyW">
Act 1: The Departure
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ViPa7S">
At core, <em>Beau Is Afraid</em> is the tale of a very lost soul named Beau Wasserman, the only son of his mother Mona Wasserman (played at different ages by Zoe Lister-Jones and Patti Lupone), a business maven who raised him on her own in their town of Wasserton. Throughout his childhood, Beau was his mother’s companion; he appeared in her advertisements, absorbed all her attention, was the focus of her life. She presented him with a world of dangers, in which she was his safe guide, and maybe his only safe guide.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A2raOP">
Now paunchy and middle-aged, Beau is the saddest of sacks living in the worst neighborhood you could possibly imagine, even if you’ve personally lived in a very bad neighborhood indeed. (It’s called Corrina, in the fictional state of Corrina, but resembles more than anything a Fox News fever dream of what a city is like.) His apartment is over a store called “Erectus Ejectus” (you get it) and the lobby is filled with obscene graffiti. Corpses rot in the streets. One local seems to spend a lot of time trying to dig people’s eyeballs out of their skulls while grinning maniacally.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IvnG5P">
This is Beau’s familiar starting place — well, rewind. Not quite. The movie actually starts with Beau’s birth, which is presented as a moment of bewilderment from baby Beau’s point of view. It was safe and quiet inside Mona, but bursting into the world is so terrifying that he can’t even cry.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XnUkEa">
Adult Beau is scared of most things, and his psychiatrist (Stephen McKinley Henderson) does not make a great deal of headway with him, prescribing him a “cool new drug” for anxiety that must be taken with water. Beau’s dismal apartment is loud and dingy, and next to the TV where he watches anxiety-inducing news bulletins is a stack of books with titles like <em>You Don’t Always Have to Live Like This</em>. There are posters on the doors with warnings of a brown recluse spider, concluded, spectacularly, with a Winston Churchill quote: “The price of greatness is responsibility.” The place sucks. The water goes out.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="t26Rop">
In one of the first hints that this world is not all it seems to be, Beau falls asleep the night before he’s meant to fly home to visit his mother. He wakes to a note slipped under his door courteously asking him to turn down his music, although he not only isn’t playing music (Beau is not really the night-rocking type), but can’t hear music playing at all. Notes appear over the night, increasingly aggressive, till suddenly Beau can hear the music — it still isn’t coming from his place — and just crawls under the covers and plugs his ears, hoping it will all go away.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tDtUZK">
Of course, he oversleeps.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Joaquin Phoenix, his head pretty beat up now, looks terrified." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gSPAtFxDWxCnKWohEcblEA-1dT4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24582568/beau8.jpg"/> <cite>A24</cite>
<figcaption>
Beau: Still afraid!
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kXrFiq">
This is the pattern of <em>Beau Is Afraid</em>: something kind of weird happens, and instead of dealing with it, Beau just knuckles under, and then ends up paying a worse price for his lack of courage than seems strictly necessary. There are 10 ways every situation could go wrong, but inevitably what happens is some 11th worse thing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="63YV0m">
On his rush out the door, Beau goes back to grab a small box of dental floss that he almost packed the night before — we watched him hesitate over it — but elected to leave in his bathroom. Now he needs it; this is a man who has been made to be afraid of terrible things happening, like missing one day of flossing and ending up with gum cancer or something. But when he does this, his keys disappear, as does his bag, and now he’s in a real pickle because of course he can’t leave his door unlocked, “open to the public,” as he thinks of it. Calling home, he discovers his worst fears are true: His mother is immensely disappointed with him. Another nightmare.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pdZ9N5">
The way to watch <em>Beau Is Afraid</em> is to assume that you’re not watching “reality,” in a kind of empirical sense. Instead, whatever’s happening onscreen is the worst thing that Beau can imagine. Those fears start to compound and overlap and make one another worse. And it all gets especially worse when he takes his anti-anxiety meds, only to realize that the water is out in his building and if he doesn’t drink water he’ll die, but oh there’s water in the convenience store across the street, but if he runs out without his keys what if the entire neighborhood of derelicts breaks into his apartment, what then? What will he do!?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1EDWBV">
He does the only thing he can do to stay alive, and what he expects to happen is exactly what happens, and Beau spends the night trapped on scaffolding outside his apartment, too scared to clear the invaders out. It’s very clear that this particular not-hero (not an antihero, even, just profoundly not a hero) is going to need a boot in the butt to get on his journey to see his mother.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PJ9XRX">
Then, on the phone with a UPS guy at his mother’s house, he discovers his mother is dead. Or at least it looks that way.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xsNNT0">
Now he’s got a whole other set of problems and is even less inclined to leave his house until forced to by an unexpected tangle with the man hiding in his ceiling. Nude, Beau runs into the street, encounters a cop who’s also shaking with fear and about to shoot him and, almost mercifully, gets slammed by some kind of van driven by Grace (Amy Ryan) and Roger (Nathan Lane).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TtQR5w">
Beau has crossed the threshold.
</p>
<h3 id="nnqqSN">
Act 2: Initiation
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OzK5Kh">
After sleeping for two days straight, Beau wakes up in Grace and Roger’s house, and at this point you might be starting to suspect a little of what’s going to happen. They seem nice enough, but things in their house seem kind of weird. There’s a shrine to their dead son, killed in action in Caracas — a true hero — whose disturbed buddy Jeeves (Denis Menochet), also a hero (as they frequently tell him) lives out back. As if stuck in a ridiculous foil, Beau has been put up in their teenage daughter Toni’s (Kylie Rogers) room, postered with tributes to K-pop boy bands, rather than their son’s empty room. And Toni is pissed about it. Hints she drops suggest that Grace and Roger are trying to adopt Beau, a man who is very obviously not of adoptable age.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A middle-aged man in a bedroom with all kinds of posters on the walls, mostly for pop stars." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ebbblQ-I90HZoCh7hiLlbtGFtqM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24582570/beau7.jpg"/> <cite>A24</cite>
<figcaption>
Beau wakes up in an unfamiliar room.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sC7UYJ">
Meanwhile, Beau gets a call from his mother’s lawyer (Richard Kind) who bellows at him over the phone that his poor mother, who should have been buried the day she died by Jewish custom, has been stuck unburied because Beau hasn’t bothered to show up yet. Beau’s biggest fear: that his mother will be ashamed and disgraced, and it will be his fault, and he won’t even be able to help it. His protestations that he got into a horrible accident have no effect. The lawyer orders him to come immediately to Wasserton so his mother won’t be further humiliated.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5tLi2U">
Beau tries. He really tries. Roger promises to take him to Wasserton, then postpones. Grace slips him strange notes about not incriminating himself. It’s as if Beau is being given a series of tests — like a hero would — that, if passed, will teach him valuable lessons. But he just keeps slipping down a hall of mirrors, each stranger than the last.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XWg4FD">
The big moment, where he might have a profound revelation, comes when Toni and a friend trick him into smoking some kind of joint (he asks what it is; “it’s three things,” they reply, with no further elaboration) and Beau spirals. But no; nothing. The next day, he discovers that there’s some kind of surveillance system in the house.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hEJ7rp">
It comes to a head when Toni drags him into her dead brother’s room, insisting he help her paint — though he knows Grace doesn’t want the room touched — and then screams at him, hysterically, that this is a test. He isn’t passing it, and she drinks paint, and he flees.
</p>
<h3 id="HiY2hf">
A Respite, Gone Wrong
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HbTBAs">
Then there’s an interlude, where you start to wonder if maybe things are looking up for Beau. Having run into the woods, he meets a pregnant young woman (Hayley Squires) who tends to his cuts and brings him to a little commune of players, all of whom are orphans. They travel around putting on plays, and they’re about to put on another.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tz7mSn">
And of course, the play is the hero’s journey. Beau becomes transfixed, hypnotized, inserting himself into what he’s watching, which starts out like the archetypal tale and then starts to kind of go off the rails. (This is also when the movie spins out into an artfully animated section, with Beau styled as a hero going through an animated world.) Eventually, the tale wraps into reality (well, “reality”), and the hero version of Beau walks into a woods where a play is going on that seems to be about him and his three sons.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Beau, in suspenders and a straw hat, walks into an animated field, with an angel flying in the air." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/s0Tt6IzJ3APXPua_bqnVlDh3IXk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24582572/beau5.jpg"/> <cite>A24</cite>
<figcaption>
Hero Beau.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gPRkz0">
Pause here to note that Beau has experienced a series of flashbacks and memories throughout the action thus far. There are two main categories. One is a dream he has, in which he sees his mother trying to undress him for the bath, as a boy, as he refuses. She’s livid at him. The dream expands; eventually he sees her shutting someone up in the attic.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cr5iy3">
The other is definitely a memory: Young Beau (Arman Nahapetian), on a cruise with his mother, meets a girl named Elaine (Julia Antonelli), on whom he develops a crush. His attraction to her is noticeable to his mother, who seems both pleased and a little strange about it. Elaine kisses Beau and then, in a weird twist, is removed from the cruise by her mother. Before she leaves, she gives him a Polaroid he took of her and makes him promise to “wait” for her. He promises.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="62OTrH">
That’s linked to a third weird thing, which is Beau’s belief — because his mother told him, as a boy — that if he ejaculates, he will die. His father, she tells him, died the night that he was conceived; the same happened to his grandfather and great-grandfather. Beau believes her, without question, and so he claims at his age that he’s never been with anyone, ever.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cBiict">
So how he has three sons is not exactly clear, but the confusion seems to clear his head and he’s back to watching the play. He meets a man in the woods who claims to have known his father, which seems impossible. Or is it? Before he can figure it out, Jeeves comes crashing through the underbrush, and Beau is off running again.
</p>
<h3 id="n2FQLE">
Act III: Return
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KXTp2L">
At last, Beau makes it to his mother’s house. But he is too late. The funeral is over. The house is empty. He walks through it, bereft, examining what his mother’s life was. In the middle of a long gallery of photos of Beau on Mona’s spiral staircase wall, there’s a recent photo of Beau, so recent that we’ve seen it before. Mona’s whole life seems to have been wrapped around Beau.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gFRSr9">
Then a woman shows up, and it’s Elaine (Parker Posey), and in a moment where you think that maybe Beau is about to receive some hero’s reward, they have sex. He is astonished to discover that he doesn’t die. He is elated. He is grateful. And then, he is horrified to discover that she … does die. And his mother, apparently not dead, has been watching all this time. And, worse, she’s heard his therapy tapes, in which he routinely talks about her. It’s the kind of dream you are desperate to wake up from.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="LXph7k">
<q>You can watch <em>Beau Is Afraid</em> very carefully and get near the end and still have a whole lot of questions </q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ydUbCG">
What transpires is a final confrontation with his mother (whom Elaine referred to as “the dragon”), a final ordeal he must face, and he simply does not nail it. She excoriates him, and he finds himself inside his very, very worst nightmare: that his mother isn’t just mad at him for missing his flight, but has ascribed myriad slights and ill intent to actions he performed unwittingly, even when he was a boy, even when he was a baby. He is wrong and has been wrong his whole life, a passive lump without a will of his own, so scared of the world that he never does anything at all. She hates him, she says. And he chokes her.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VDpMTT">
You can watch <em>Beau Is Afraid</em> very carefully and get near the end and still have a whole lot of questions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wyy3Ka">
For instance: Is that Beau’s father in the attic? And if the answer is yes<em>, </em>what is Beau’s father in the attic: the giant phallus, or the guy who Beau briefly sees before his horror takes over?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uFuNhs">
Or: Is Beau actually being <em>Truman Show</em>ed by his mother, living in a world that’s totally set up by her? Did she deliberately create for him a world in which he would disappoint her, or did she create a world in which he might succeed, and he disappointed her anyhow? Both seem possible. She’s in cahoots with the therapist; she employs at least Elaine and Roger, and maybe Grace (she knows about the surveillance channel); the housing complex he lives in was advertised by her. Every moment of his life is on her walls, sometimes in the form of advertisements. After Elaine’s untimely demise, Beau seems on the verge of asking whether Elaine was a plant all this time, “from the beginning.” And there’s that photo on the staircase.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LiUgc6">
Or is that just Beau’s head playing tricks on him? Does it even make sense to ask that question?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RwJrlT">
There are other little mysteries that lead you down strange pathways. But to get too swept up in them is probably a fool’s errand. <em>Beau Is Afraid</em> is not “about” something, exactly; it’s not a movie with a point to make or a puzzle to unlock. It’s weird and offensive and wickedly funny and confusing as hell. That, for me, is what makes it worthwhile; it’s entertainment that respects my ability to be confused and uncomfortable and also have a blast.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hezouq">
It’s really no wonder that the last section of <em>Beau Is Afraid</em> — the “road back” sequence, in the hero’s journey mythology — goes so horribly wrong. Beau pilots a little boat onto the peaceful night waters he’s seen in his dream, and into a cave, and you think he is maybe about to return home, having learned a lesson. But nope! The lights come on and he’s in a stadium where everyone can judge him, especially his mother and her lawyer. (This scene seems to borrow heavily from Albert Brooks’s <em>Defending Your Life</em>, which Aster picked for a series on his <em>Beau</em> influences.) He has a defense lawyer, true, but it’s a limp defense — the phone number emblazoned above the lawyer’s head is 1-800-DEFENCE, presumably because they couldn’t get the S — and the lawyer ends up splattered on a rock in a moment a bit reminiscent of <em>Midsommar</em>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jpalgj">
Defeated, Beau never reaches home. Or maybe this is his home. In his last moments, his eyes, full of sadness, also reach some resignation. Of course this is how things end; of course things will never get better. Beau has confronted the dragon and failed. He’s not transformed. He can’t atone for himself. He’s failed the tests. He’s given away any gift he received. He’s refused to gain courage, refused the help of friends, and discovered that every mentor along the way was a trap. His mother constructed a world so airtight he never actually learned to breathe, and now, faced with a twisted mirror of his life, one in which his main sin is passivity, he is out of chances to act.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LgANiM">
Beau will never change. And so, he just combusts.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MZdkeV">
Which might be one way the movie reclaims the hero’s journey. Now, at any rate, he’s free.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8Lp3C4">
Beau Is Afraid <em>opens in limited theaters on April 13, and wide on April 20.</em>
</p></li>
<li><strong>The astonishing radicalism of Florida’s new ban on abortion</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Governor Ron DeSantis holds signed legislation surrounded by supporters." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rGDSVeoq7rtOVD-94ece4SX1dIM=/192x0:4009x2863/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72149312/1239991499.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Gov. Ron DeSantis pictured on April 14, 2022, signing Florida’s 15-week abortion ban into law. | Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Ron DeSantis, gearing up for a presidential bid, signed the 6-week ban late Thursday night.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZOwLY1">
Last summer, just days after the US Supreme Court <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/6/24/23181720/supreme-court-dobbs-jackson-womens-health-samuel-alito-roe-wade-abortion-marriage-contraception">overturned <em>Roe v. Wade</em></a><em>, </em>a new law in Florida took effect that banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, down from the previous legal threshold of 24 weeks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YwfDwE">
On Thursday, the state took even more aggressive action against reproductive freedom: Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that would restrict abortion at six weeks of pregnancy. The bill will not take effect until after a court challenge to the 15-week ban is resolved.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8pi6pU">
In practical terms, this is a total ban: Many people do not even know they’re pregnant at six weeks. Even if they are aware, the Florida requirement to obtain an abortion — two in-person doctor visits with a 24-hour waiting period in between — is a challenging logistical burden at 15 weeks and would be nearly impossible at six.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8Ykiu9">
The ban, if it takes effect, not only would decimate what’s left of abortion access for residents in Florida, but also significantly would curtail care for women across the South, who have been traveling to Florida from more restrictive states since <em>Roe </em>was overturned last summer. Annie Filkowski, the policy director of Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, told Vox their clinics have seen nearly four times the patient volume since June, with people seeking abortions from “the surrounding states and the entire Southeast.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9K7tgg">
The 15-week ban was already challenged in state court, and the six-week ban will not take effect until after the Florida Supreme Court rules on the legality of the earlier ban. While abortion rights advocates believe they have a strong case, they know their odds are long thanks to a politicized judiciary. DeSantis has stacked the state’s high court with conservative appointees, <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/ron-desantis-transforms-florida-supreme-court/">transforming the bench</a> from a 5-2 liberal majority to a 6-1 conservative one.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DSdPUF">
Still, advocates say it is imperative that the public understand that, no matter what, abortion care will remain legal up to 15 weeks in Florida, at least until that decision comes down later this summer.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CNZnj0">
“Having an effective date tied to a Supreme Court decision is really hard for the public to understand, and it is intentionally confusing,” said Filkowski.
</p>
<h3 id="pvFPkb">
Florida’s 15-week abortion ban is already being challenged in court
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yrZkL9">
Anabely Lopes was 15 weeks into her pregnancy when her doctors informed her that her fetus had a fatal congenital disorder that would kill the baby shortly after birth. Lopes was devastated, and then soon alarmed when she could find no doctor who would even give her a medically exempt abortion, as the providers all feared being sued. At 16 weeks and three days pregnant, Lopes traveled 1,000 miles to Washington, DC, to end her pregnancy. She later joined Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) in February as her <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article272168923.html">guest at the State of the Union</a>, serving as an example of someone denied critical treatment under extreme abortion laws.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aNpL5u">
Abortion rights advocates <a href="https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/01/23/florida-supreme-court-agrees-to-decide-the-fate-of-states-15-week-abortion-ban/">have been challenging</a> the 15-week ban as illegal under Florida’s constitution, but the law that barred Lopes from receiving the procedure has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-health-florida-government-and-politics-e8bdb85e6736085606ba2661c186a1d5">remained in effect</a> as the litigation plays out. A decision is expected sometime this summer.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7005D3">
In the meantime, though, the state is trying to go further. If the bill takes effect, as experts think is likely given the aggressive political climate in the Republican-controlled state, it would instantly catapult Florida into the ranks of the most restrictive states in the country on abortion access.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rzdc0r">
The new law not only bans abortion after six weeks but also bans abortion by telemedicine, and requires any medication abortion to be dispensed in person, which effectively outlaws mail orders of the pills. (Researchers <a href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/24950/the-safety-and-quality-of-abortion-care-in-the-united-states">have affirmed</a> there is no medical need for abortion pills to be administered in the physical presence of a health care provider.) No other state has had a six-week ban with a requirement for two in-person doctors visits and no option for telehealth.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tMU9zF">
While <a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/300/BillText/Filed/PDF">the Florida law</a> included exceptions for rape and incest, it require anyone claiming those exceptions to provide a copy of a police report, medical record, or court order — even though victims often do not involve law enforcement. The executive director of the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-ne-florida-abortion-bill-rape-exception-20230309-xwyvkk5tm5aa3gdslvqrvkdtou-story.html">has called the exceptions</a> “meaningless” and “harmful.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SX0mGA">
Six weeks is simply not enough time for the vast majority of people to get abortion care, especially if remote options are off the table. As of 2017, nearly three-quarters of counties in Florida<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/state-facts-about-abortion-florida">did<strong> </strong>not have any abortion clinics</a>. In medical terms, pregnancy is measured from the date of the last menstrual period, not from the date of conception, and <a href="https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/menstruation/conditioninfo/irregularities">up to 25 percent of women</a> don’t even have regular menstrual cycles, meaning a missed period wouldn’t signal anything unusual. It can take at least three weeks for a pregnancy hormone to appear on a home pregnancy test, and while blood tests can also confirm pregnancies, Florida <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/fl-ne-6-week-ban-headed-to-florida-senate-20230328-mkrlwjjtvrajjhovtwupmz6m44-story.html">health care professionals testified</a> that it can take weeks to months to get an appointment with an OB-GYN, with wait times particularly long for low-income and Black Floridians.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zp3Ann">
Once a pregnancy is confirmed, a patient, under Florida law, would need to schedule an ultrasound with an abortion provider. Scheduling these appointments takes even more time. Filkowski told Vox wait times at their clinics average about 20 days.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZNAB8I">
These barriers would prove virtually insurmountable for most people, and even harder for minors in Florida, who are required by law to either get parental consent to end a pregnancy or petition a judge to bypass their parents.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JI2kOH">
The Republican state senator who sponsored the six-week ban, Erin Grall, <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article273734550.html">conceded a teenager</a> would be unlikely to go through that legal process within six weeks. “I think the purpose of this bill is to say that when there is life, we are going to protect it,” Grall said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XDvZad">
The law also includes $25 million in new state funding for <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/3/2/21146011/crisis-pregnancy-center-resource-abortion-title-x">anti-abortion pregnancy centers</a>, which are typically religiously affiliated clinics that provide women with items like diapers and baby clothes, and counsel them against getting abortions. This represents a more than <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/03/22/anti-abortion-pregnancy-centers-may-get-vastly-more-state-funds-florida-lawmakers/">fivefold increase from the $4.45 million in taxpayer funds</a> Florida already allocates to such centers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kjySat">
Lacking enough votes to block the Senate bill, Democratic lawmakers tried and failed to amend it. <a href="https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/03/30/senate-debate-over-6-week-abortion-ban-sparks-clash-between-jews-christians/">Amendments included</a> religious exemptions (two Jewish state senators argued Judaism encourages abortion to protect the health and safety of the mother, and other religions like Buddhism and Unitarianism allow abortions), an effort <a href="https://www.wokv.com/news/local/florida-six-week-abortion-bill-headed-senate-floor/KWGO3TJ5MRCFHAAWGDNSVJLK7Y/">to eliminate the state’s 24-hour waiting period</a>, and an exception for women facing mental health risk.
</p>
<h3 id="HNsOsV">
Florida provides critical reproductive health care for people throughout the South
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ay2Evr">
While abortion banned after 15 weeks is far more restrictive than Floridians had to deal with prior to 2022, women in neighboring states like Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama have been contending with even stricter abortion rules since the overturn of <em>Roe. </em>As such, many have been traveling to Florida to end their pregnancies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SvjDZu">
State data <a href="https://ahca.myflorida.com/content/download/7205/file/TotalsByCounty_2022.pdf">shows 82,192 people got abortions</a> in Florida in 2022, compared to 79,817 in 2021. The increase was largely driven by those coming in from out of state. There were 6,708 non-Floridians who ended pregnancies in Florida in 2022, <a href="https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/health-news-florida/2023-02-21/out-of-state-patients-increase-abortions-florida">38 percent more than the year prior</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WPd1eG">
If the ban goes into effect, people in the South will need to travel even farther for care, and many will likely turn to North Carolina, where it’s currently legal up to 21 weeks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8I9MLz">
Stephanie Loraine Pineiro, who leads the reproductive justice group Florida Access Network, told Vox that if the ban takes effect, their work “will be focused on those needing to travel out of state, to wherever is safest and has the least amount of barriers.”
</p>
<h3 id="cPz7W0">
DeSantis is readying himself for the Republican presidential primary
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SdNwfH">
The Republican governor is expected to announce his candidacy for the White House in the coming months, and no doubt expects signing a radically restrictive abortion law will help him in the competitive conservative primary. At <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html">least 13 GOP-controlled states</a> have banned most abortions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YGGhKO">
Among Florida voters, though, such restrictions are out of step with public opinion. One survey conducted by Florida Atlantic University last year <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-fau-florida-poll-abortion-ukraine-covid-immigration-may-2022-20220528-6q3s7p3jnffzrcwi3stlngkdl4-story.html">found 67 percent of Floridians said abortion should be legal in all or most cases</a>, while just 12 percent supported a total ban. Another recent survey, led by the Public Religion Research Institute, found <a href="https://www.prri.org/research/abortion-attitudes-in-a-post-roe-world-findings-from-the-50-state-2022-american-values-atlas/">64 percent of Floridians</a> backed abortion in all or most cases.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zg6rKd">
Abortion rights advocates say they are not surprised to see the aggressive enthusiasm for restricting reproductive rights from DeSantis, even as he worked to avoid commenting on abortion much last year during his campaign.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="slYoSS">
“This is Ron DeSantis seeing the success other states have had in implementing six-week bans on abortion care, like Texas, Alabama, and Georgia,” said Pineiro. “I’m sure those served as fuel and inspiration for him to say, ‘Oh, it’s already been litigated.’”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4n7C8V">
Filkowski, of Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, agreed. “Ron DeSantis has shown from day one a perpetual thirst to have control over our bodies, our lives, our <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23593369/ron-desantis-florida-schools-higher-education-woke">libraries</a>,” she said. “I think we have seen his political maneuvering to give the answer that suits the crowd that’s in front of him. Like, when he was asked about abortion during his campaign, he’d practically run <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/us/politics/desantis-florida-abortion.html">and never gave a full answer</a>. But we are not surprised now.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1681419551.832909">
<em><strong>Update, April 14, 7:00 am ET: </strong></em><em>This story was originally published on April 5 and has been updated to include details about the Florida House’s vote and DeSantis signing it. </em>
</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>IPL 2023 | This is the worst, you can’t go any lower than this: Tewatia told Dayal after 5 sixes</strong> - After the well-set Shubman Gill’s dismissal for a 49-ball 67, Tewatia hit the winning runs for GT against PBKS</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>IPL 2023: LSG vs PBKS | Punjab looks to fix batting woes, Lucknow eyes top spot</strong> - After a flying start to the new season with two wins, Punjab endured two back-to-back losses following their failure to post good totals on the board.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>IPL 2023: RCB vs DC | Winless Delhi needs to fire in unison to effect turnaround against Bangalore</strong> - Nothing is going right for the David Warner-led side and the team’s think-tank is struggling to stem the rot that has set 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>WRC | Irish rally driver Craig Breen dies in accident</strong> - Rally driver Craig Breen died in an accident after his car skid off track during a test ahead of a World Championship event in Croatia</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>Manchester United fans growing impatient for sale of club</strong> - Qatari banker Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani and British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe are both hoping to take control of the 20-time English league champions and submitted second bids last month</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>CBI summons Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal in excise policy scam case on April 16</strong> - Mr Kejriwal has been asked to be present at the agency headquarters at 11 AM to answer queries of the investigating team, they 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>Pinarayi is a carbon copy of Modi: Satheesan</strong> - Notice issued to media by the Legislative Secretariat for their filming of the acrimonious scenes in front of the office of the Assembly Speaker is unilateral and condemnable, he says</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>Oting killing : Centre denies prosecution sanction against 30 Army men</strong> - The Army had set up a ‘court of inquiry’ on the incident but the findings have not been made public</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>‘Adi’ movie review: A wafer-thin plot upends masculine ideas of revenge</strong> - Fronted by Shine Tom Chacko and Ahaana Krishna, this revenge story with a message has only enough material for an engaging short film</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>KCR asserts BRS would form next government at Centre</strong> - Response in Maharashtra has been overwhelming and similar situation will come in other States too</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 war: Pentagon leaks reveal Russian infighting over death toll</strong> - US documents suggest Russian officials disagreed over how casualties were being counted.</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>Sweden’s plan to make a giant hot water bottle underground</strong> - Hot water can be stored underground and the heat used when needed to keep buildings warm.</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>Norway expels 15 Russian diplomats accused of spying</strong> - Norway’s foreign minister claims the intelligence officers were operating under diplomatic cover.</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>Twitter staff cuts leave Russian trolls unchecked</strong> - Troll farms are thriving after Elon Musk wiped out the team fighting them.</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>Joe Biden in Ireland: President concludes visit in County Mayo</strong> - Up to 20,000 people are expected to line the streets of Ballina to welcome the US president “home”.</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>Intel’s Core i5 is the best bargain in CPUs right now, but which should you get?</strong> - We test and compare the i5-13400 to other Core i5 and Ryzen CPUs. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1926817">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Banks say they’re acting on climate but continue to finance fossil fuel expansion</strong> - Two new reports say banks are not shifting away from fossil fuels fast enough. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1931717">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rocket Report: SpaceX may lease High Bay 1 in the VAB; China to fight price war</strong> - “It is the only company that could see material cost savings by fully acquiring ULA.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1931438">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>LG and Samsung are getting serious about their OLED panel deal again</strong> - Samsung is getting price gouged, and LG is bleeding cash. It could be a win-win. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1931743">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Trendy “raw water” source under bird’s nest sparks diarrheal outbreak</strong> - Health officials would like to remind you that drinking untreated water is a bad idea. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1931778">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>Why are chess players good in bed?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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They can find up to 8 G spots for their queen.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Spy_Mouse"> /u/Spy_Mouse </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12lm912/why_are_chess_players_good_in_bed/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12lm912/why_are_chess_players_good_in_bed/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>My wife said, “The Last of Us is a strange show, don’t you agree?”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Me: Yeah, but I’ve seen Stranger Things on Netflix.
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/porichoygupto"> /u/porichoygupto </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12l9yz4/my_wife_said_the_last_of_us_is_a_strange_show/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12l9yz4/my_wife_said_the_last_of_us_is_a_strange_show/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>My wife said we could each have 3 hall passes. She picked Henry Cavil, Jason Momoa, and Matt Damon; but then she got mad at me for my picks…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Apparently her sister, our kids kindergarten teacher and and Kelsey in the marketing department were the wrong answers.
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/BigPZ"> /u/BigPZ </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12kp1l6/my_wife_said_we_could_each_have_3_hall_passes_she/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12kp1l6/my_wife_said_we_could_each_have_3_hall_passes_she/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A biker stops by the local Harley-Davison shop to have his bike repaired.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
They couldn’t fix it while he waited, so he said he didn’t live far and would just walk home.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
On the way home he stopped at the hardware store and bought a bucket and an anvil. He stopped by the farm store and picked up a couple of chickens and a goose.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
However, struggling outside the store he now had a problem: how to carry all of his purchases home.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
While he is scratching his head he was approached by a little old lady who told him she was lost. She asked, “Can you tell me how to get to 1603 Mockingbird Lane?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The biker said, “Well, as a matter of fact, I live at 1616 Mockingbird Lane. I would walk you home but I can’t carry this lot.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The old lady suggested, “Why don’t you put the anvil in the bucket, carry the bucket in one hand, put a chicken under each arm and hold the goose in your other hand?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Why, thank you very much,” he said and proceeded to walk the old girl home.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
On the way he says “Let’s take my shortcut and go down this alley, we’ll be there in no time!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The little old lady looked him over cautiously then said, “I am a lonely widow without a husband to defend me. How do I know that when we get in the alley you won’t hold me up against the wall, pull up my skirt, and have your way with me?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The biker said, “Holy smokes lady! I am carrying a bucket, an anvil, a goose and two chickens. How in the world could I possibly hold you up against the wall and do that?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The lady replied, “Set the goose down, cover him with the bucket, put the anvil on top of the bucket and I’ll hold the chickens.”
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DarthSilas"> /u/DarthSilas </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12lb2ve/a_biker_stops_by_the_local_harleydavison_shop_to/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12lb2ve/a_biker_stops_by_the_local_harleydavison_shop_to/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What did the pirate call his non-seafaring girlfriend?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
His land lover
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/TechnicalSymbiote"> /u/TechnicalSymbiote </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12lmuia/what_did_the_pirate_call_his_nonseafaring/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/12lmuia/what_did_the_pirate_call_his_nonseafaring/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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