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<title>14 December, 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>Acceptability and feasibility of a theatre-based wellness programme to support people living with Long COVID: a single arm feasibility study.</strong> -
<div>
Objectives: To determine acceptability and feasibility of a theatre-based wellness programme to support the health and wellbeing of people with long COVID. Design: Single group, repeated measures feasibility study. Setting: Community centre and online. Participants: Adults with a diagnosis of long COVID experiencing breathlessness, mild to moderate pain, and/or loneliness. Intervention: A six-week participatory creative intervention delivered to two groups of participants, one online and one in-person. The groups were facilitated by movement, voice and drama consultants and designed to improve wellbeing, fatigue, pain, strength and balance through a series of breathing exercises, visualisation, group singing and sound imagery, storytelling, movement exercises and poetry. Primary outcome measures: Acceptability of the intervention and feasibility of recruitment procedures and data collection. Secondary outcome measures: Changes in mental health, wellbeing, quality of life, loneliness, social support, fatigue, breathlessness, and post-COVID-19 functional status. Results: 20 participants took part in the intervention, 19 completed baseline assessments and 16 completed study follow-up. Most participants found the programme acceptable and feasible and improvements were identified in all outcomes at 8-week follow-up, including decreases in generalised anxiety and depressive symptoms, loneliness, shortness of breath, respiratory dysfunction, chronic fatigue and increased mental wellbeing, social support, and self-rated health. Key programme features and mechanisms of action that led to improvements in health and wellbeing were identified in qualitative interviews. Barriers to engagement included: activities being outside of the participant’s comfort zone, ongoing and fluctuating long COVID symptoms, emotional consequences of sharing experiences with the group and connectivity and connecting with others online. Conclusions: A six-week theatre-based programme was perceived as acceptable to most participants and resulted in positive psychosocial impacts. The findings provide a rationale for supporting the ongoing development of this and related programmes and for scaling up research into arts programmes to support people living with long COVID.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/k25qj/" target="_blank">Acceptability and feasibility of a theatre-based wellness programme to support people living with Long COVID: a single arm feasibility study.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Reducing Waste in the Food Supply Chain: Systematic Literature Review, Theoretical Framework, and Research Agenda</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic has unraveled the inefficiencies in the global food supply chain. One glaring distortion is the wastage of close to a third of global food production, in the face of widespread food insecurity. With population explosion and climate change as additional pressure points, reducing food waste has emerged as an urgent imperative for achieving food security for all. In this paper, we develop a research framework and agenda for the use of Artificial Intelligence and robotics in reducing food loss and waste. The Cognitive Automation for Food (COGAF) has been developed as a theoretical framework for guiding future research. This framework delineates the research landscape into five distinct research streams: sensory enhancement, cognitive automation, physical automation, sensory-motor fusion, and collaborative automation. In order to develop a systematic research agenda, propositions have been developed in each of these research streams. In conjunction with the COGAF framework, this research agenda attempts to provide a road map for future research and knowledge creation pertaining to the use of AI and robotics to reduce food loss and waste.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/h3jgb/" target="_blank">Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Reducing Waste in the Food Supply Chain: Systematic Literature Review, Theoretical Framework, and Research Agenda</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Ursodeoxycholic acid and severe COVID-19 outcomes in people with liver disease: a cohort study using the OpenSAFELY platform</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Biological evidence suggests ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) - a common treatment of cholestatic liver disease - may prevent severe COVID-19 outcomes. With the approval of NHS England, we conducted a population-based cohort study using primary care records, linked to death registration data and hospital records through the OpenSAFELY-TPP platform. We estimated the hazard of COVID-19 hospitalisation or death between 1 March 2020 and 31 December 2022, comparing UDCA treatment to no UDCA treatment in a population with indication. Of 11,320 eligible individuals, 642 were hospitalised or died with COVID-19 during follow-up, 402 (63%) events among UDCA users. After confounder adjustment, UDCA was associated with a 21% (95% CI 7%-33%) relative reduction in the hazard of COVID-19 hospitalisation or death, consistent with an absolute risk reduction of 1.3% (95% CI 1.0%-1.6%). Our findings support calls for clinical trials investigating UDCA as a preventative measure for severe COVID-19 outcomes.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.11.23299191v1" target="_blank">Ursodeoxycholic acid and severe COVID-19 outcomes in people with liver disease: a cohort study using the OpenSAFELY platform</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A software tool for at-home measurement of sensorimotor adaptation</strong> -
<div>
Sensorimotor adaptation is traditionally studied in well-controlled laboratory settings with specialized equipment. However, recent public health concerns such as the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a desire to recruit a more diverse study population, have led the motor control community to consider at-home study designs. At-home motor control experiments are still rare because of the requirement to write software that can be easily used by anyone on any platform. To this end, we developed software that runs locally on a personal computer. The software provides audiovisual instructions and measures the ability of the subject to control the cursor in the context of visuomotor perturbations. We tested the software on a group of at-home participants and asked whether the adaptation principles inferred from in-lab measurements were reproducible in the at-home setting. For example, we manipulated the perturbations to test whether there were changes in adaptation rates (savings and interference), whether adaptation was associated with multiple timescales of memory (spontaneous recovery), and whether we could selectively suppress subconscious learning (delayed feedback, perturbation variability) or explicit strategies (limited reaction time). We found remarkable similarity between in-lab and at-home behaviors across these experimental conditions. Thus, we developed a software tool that can be used by research teams with little or no programming experience to study mechanisms of adaptation in an at-home setting.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.12.571359v1" target="_blank">A software tool for at-home measurement of sensorimotor adaptation</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Identification of an allele-specific transcription factor binding interaction that regulates PLA2G2A gene expression</strong> -
<div>
The secreted phospholipase A2 (sPLA2) isoform, sPLA2-IIA, has been implicated in a variety of diseases and conditions, including bacteremia, cardiovascular disease, COVID-19, sepsis, adult respiratory distress syndrome, and certain cancers. Given its significant role in these conditions, understanding the regulatory mechanisms impacting its levels is crucial. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), including rs11573156, that are associated with circulating levels of sPLA2-IIA. Through Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx), 234 expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) were identified for the gene that encodes for sPLA2-IIA, PLA2G2A. SNP2TFBS (https://ccg.epfl.ch/snp2tfbs/) was utilized to ascertain the binding affinities between transcription factors (TFs) to both the reference and alternative alleles of identified SNPs. Subsequently, ChIP-seq peaks highlighted the TF combinations that specifically bind to the SNP, rs11573156. SP1 emerged as a significant TF/SNP pair in liver cells, with rs11573156/SP1 interaction being most prominent in liver, prostate, ovary, and adipose tissues. Further analysis revealed that the upregulation of PLA2G2A transcript levels through the rs11573156 variant was affected by tissue SP1 protein levels. By leveraging an ordinary differential equation, structured upon Michaelis-Menten enzyme kinetics assumptions, we modeled the PLA2G2A transcription's dependence on SP1 protein levels, incorporating the SNP's influence. Collectively, these data strongly suggest that the binding affinity differences of SP1 for the different rs11573156 alleles can influence PLA2G2A expression. This, in turn, can modulate sPLA2-IIA levels, impacting a wide range of human diseases.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.12.571290v1" target="_blank">Identification of an allele-specific transcription factor binding interaction that regulates PLA2G2A gene expression</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Leveraging Tuberculosis Programs for Future Pandemic Preparedness: A Retrospective Look on COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
Worldwide, COVID-19 has decimated healthcare systems and highlighted the pressing need to ensure resilience for future pandemics. Given the almost 30% likelihood of another respiratory disease similar to COVID-19 manifesting in the next 10 years, it is imperative to prioritize pandemic preparedness in the immediate future. To this end, tuberculosis (TB) and its management share many similarities to respiratory disease protection, offering an opportunity to dually strengthen TB programs and protect against future pandemics. Looking at data from the World Health Organization (WHO), Global Fund, Our World in Data, and domestic health ministries. It was hypothesized that countries that had better TB program strength going into the pandemic fared better with COVID-19 than those with poorer TB treatment. It was found that countries that recovered their TB program strength (as measured by TB treatment coverage percentages) to or above pre-pandemic levels fared better in terms of COVID-19 pandemic incidence and death. Case studies helped identify common factors across resilient TB platforms in dually successful COVID-19 and TB countries, including community trust, co-epidemic responses that were able to maintain continuity of care, sustained innovation, comprehensive communication across public and private sectors, and maintenance of donor support for TB programs through the pandemic.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/t23ed/" target="_blank">Leveraging Tuberculosis Programs for Future Pandemic Preparedness: A Retrospective Look on COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>EduMap: Navigating a Learning Adventure</strong> -
<div>
Directed study maps are often used in order to create an overlay of knowledge relations. However, these connections often have to manually be created by subject matter and IT experts, which, although are a ground truth, limit these user to the topics of the maps at hand. To address this, we propose EduMap, which takes advantage of GPT 3.5 in a few-shot setting to create a study map for any user-provided topic. We conducted two user studies to address various aspects of the map: (1) A quantitative study to test out the effectiveness of this map medium in the context of navigating information concerning COVID-19 in a expert-curated graph, and (2) A quantitative study to test out the accuracy and usefulness of GPT-generated graphs. Our results show that the map medium is effective, and, though the graphs produced make sense, there is work to be done before it can be considered ground truth, with issues of vague topics and improper connections between topics arising. Altogether, our results establish a baseline for AI-generated study maps to be improved upon in the future with ground truth to create a more trustworthy software.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/edarxiv/ez2bk/" target="_blank">EduMap: Navigating a Learning Adventure</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Self-inhibiting percolation and viral spreading in epithelial tissue</strong> -
<div>
SARS-CoV-2 induces delayed type-I/III interferon production, allowing it to escape the early innate immune response. The delay has been attributed to a deficiency in the ability of cells to sense viral replication upon infection, which in turn hampers activation of the antiviral state in bystander cells. Here, we introduce a cellular automaton model to investigate the spatiotemporal spreading of viral infection as a function of virus and host-dependent parameters. The model suggests that the considerable person-to-person heterogeneity in SARS-CoV-2 infections is a consequence of high sensitivity to slight variations in biological parameters near a critical threshold. It further suggests that within-host viral proliferation can be curtailed by the presence of remarkably few cells that are primed for IFN production. Thus, the observed heterogeneity in defense readiness of cells reflects a remarkably cost-efficient strategy for protection.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.12.571279v1" target="_blank">Self-inhibiting percolation and viral spreading in epithelial tissue</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Syncytia Formation Promotes Virus Resistance to Interferon and Neutralizing Antibodies</strong> -
<div>
SARS-CoV-2, like many viruses, generates syncytia. Using SARS-CoV-2 and S (S) expressing recombinant vesicular stomatitis and influenza A viruses, we show that S-mediated syncytia formation provides resistance to interferons in cultured cells, human small airway-derived air-liquid interface cultures and hACE2 transgenic mice. Amino acid substitutions that modulate fusogenicity in Delta- and Omicron-derived S have parallel effects on viral interferon resistance. Syncytia formation also decreases antibody virus neutralization activity in cultured cells. These findings explain the continued selection of fusogenic variants during SARS-CoV-2 evolution in humans and, more generally, the evolution of fusogenic viruses despite the adverse effects of syncytia formation on viral replication in the absence of innate or adaptive immune pressure.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.12.571262v1" target="_blank">Syncytia Formation Promotes Virus Resistance to Interferon and Neutralizing Antibodies</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A broadly generalizable stabilization strategy for sarbecovirus fusion machinery vaccines</strong> -
<div>
Continuous evolution of SARS-CoV-2 alters the antigenicity of the immunodominant spike (S) receptor-binding domain and N-terminal domain, undermining the efficacy of vaccines and monoclonal antibody therapies. To overcome this challenge, we set out to develop a vaccine focusing antibody responses on the highly conserved but metastable S2 subunit, which folds as a spring-loaded fusion machinery. Here, we describe a protein design strategy enabling prefusion-stabilization of the SARS-CoV-2 S2 subunit and high yield recombinant expression of trimers with native structure and antigenicity. We demonstrate that our design strategy is broadly generalizable to all sarbecoviruses, as exemplified with the SARS-CoV-1 (clade 1a) and PRD-0038 (clade 3) S2 fusion machineries. Immunization of mice with a prefusion-stabilized SARS-CoV-2 S2 trimer vaccine elicits broadly reactive sarbecovirus antibody responses and neutralizing antibody titers of comparable magnitude against Wuhan-Hu-1 and the immune evasive XBB.1.5 variant. Vaccinated mice were protected from weight loss and disease upon challenge with SARS-CoV-2 XBB.1.5, providing proof-of-principle for fusion machinery sarbecovirus vaccines motivating future development.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.12.571160v1" target="_blank">A broadly generalizable stabilization strategy for sarbecovirus fusion machinery vaccines</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>SARS-CoV-2 induces acute neurological signs while Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) signaling blockade reduces interleukin 6 (IL-6) release and weight loss in mouse models</strong> -
<div>
COVID-19 can result in neurological symptoms such as fever, headache, dizziness, and nausea. We evaluated whether the Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonist, olcegepant, used in migraine treatment could mitigate acute neuroinflammatory and neurological responses to SARS-COV-2 infection. We infected wildtype C57BL/6J and 129/SvEv mice, and a 129 CGRP-null mouse line with a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV-2 virus, and evaluated the effect of CGRP receptor antagonism on the outcome of that infection. We determined that CGRP receptor antagonism provided protection from permanent weight loss in older (&gt;12 m) C57BL/6J and 129 SvEv mice. We also observed acute fever and motion-induced dizziness in all older mice, regardless of treatment. However, in both wildtype mouse lines, CGRP antagonism reduced acute interleukin 6 (IL-6) levels by half, with virtually no IL-6 release in mice lacking CGRP. These findings suggest that blockage of CGRP signaling protects against acute IL-6 release and subsequent inflammatory events after SARS-CoV-2 infection.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.23.563669v4" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 induces acute neurological signs while Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) signaling blockade reduces interleukin 6 (IL-6) release and weight loss in mouse models</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>SARS-CoV-2 nsp15 preferentially degrades AU-rich dsRNA via its dsRNA nickase activity</strong> -
<div>
It has been proposed that coronavirus nsp15 mediates evasion of host cell double-stranded (ds) RNA sensors via its uracil-specific endoribonuclease activity. However, how nsp15 processes viral dsRNA, commonly considered as a genome replication intermediate, remains elusive. Previous research has mainly focused on short single-stranded RNA as substrates, and whether nsp15 prefers single-stranded or double-stranded RNA for cleavage is controversial. In the present work, we prepared numerous RNA substrates, including both long substrates mimicking the viral genome and short defined RNA, to clarify the substrate preference and cleavage pattern of SARS-CoV-2 nsp15. We demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 nsp15 preferentially cleaved flexible pyrimidine nucleotides located in AU-rich areas and mismatch-containing areas in dsRNA via a nicking manner. The AU content and distribution in dsRNA along with the RNA length affected cleavage by SARS-CoV-2 nsp15. Because coronavirus genomes generally have a high AU content, our work supported the mechanism that coronaviruses evade the antiviral response mediated by host cell dsRNA sensors by using nsp15 dsRNA nickase to directly cleave dsRNA intermediates formed during genome replication and transcription.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.11.571056v1" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 nsp15 preferentially degrades AU-rich dsRNA via its dsRNA nickase activity</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>G6PD deficiency mediated impairment of iNOS and lysosomal acidification affecting phagocytotic clearance in microglia in response to SARS-CoV-2</strong> -
<div>
The glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is X-linked and is the most common enzymatic deficiency disorder globally. It is a crucial enzyme for the pentose phosphate pathway and produces NADPH, which plays a vital role in the regulation of oxidative stress of many cell types. The deficiency of G6PD causes hemolytic anemia, diabetes, cardiovascular and neurological disorders. Notably, the patient with G6PD deficiency was severely affected by SARS-CoV-2 and showed prolonged COVID-19 symptoms, neurological impacts, and high mortality. However, the mechanism of COVID-19 severity in G6PD deficient patients is still ambiguous. Here, using a CRISPR-edited G6PD deficient human microglia cell culture model, we observed a significant reduction in NADPH and an increase in basal reactive oxygen species (ROS) in microglia. Interestingly, the deficiency of the G6PD-NAPDH axis impairs induced nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) mediated nitric oxide (NO) production which plays a fundamental role in inhibiting viral replication. Surprisingly, we also observed that the deficiency of the G6PD-NADPH axis reduced lysosomal acidification, which further abrogates the lysosomal clearance of viral particles. Thus, impairment of NO production and lysosomal acidification as well as redox dysregulation in G6PD deficient microglia altered innate immune response, promoting the severity of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.12.570971v1" target="_blank">G6PD deficiency mediated impairment of iNOS and lysosomal acidification affecting phagocytotic clearance in microglia in response to SARS-CoV-2</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The complement pattern recognition molecule CL-11 promotes invasion and injury of respiratory epithelial cells by SARS-CoV-2.</strong> -
<div>
Collectin-11 is a soluble C-type lectin produced at epithelial surfaces to initiate pathogen elimination by complement. Given the respiratory epithelium is a source of CL-11 and downstream complement-pathway components, we investigated the potential of CL-11 to impact the pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2. While the SARS-CoV-2 spike trimer could bind CL-11 and trigger complement activation followed by MAC formation, the virus was resistant to lysis. Surprisingly, virus production by infected respiratory epithelial cells was enhanced by CL-11 opsonisation of virus but this effect was fully inhibited by sugar-blockade of CL-11. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 spike protein expressed at the bronchial epithelial cell surface was associated with increased CL-11 binding and MAC formation. We propose that SARS-CoV-2 pathogenicity is exacerbated both by resistance to complement and CL-11 driven respiratory cell invasion and injury at the portal of entry. Contrary to expectation, CL-11 blockade could offer a novel approach to limit the pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.11.571109v1" target="_blank">The complement pattern recognition molecule CL-11 promotes invasion and injury of respiratory epithelial cells by SARS-CoV-2.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Whole transcriptome profiling of placental pathobiology in SARS-CoV-2 pregnancies identifies placental dysfunction signatures</strong> -
<div>
Objectives: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus infection in pregnancy is associated with higher incidence of placental dysfunction, referred to by a few studies as a ‘preeclampsia-like syndrome’. However, the mechanisms underpinning SARS-CoV-2-induced placental malfunction are still unclear. Here, we investigated whether the transcriptional architecture of the placenta is altered in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: We utilized whole-transcriptome, digital spatial profiling, to examine gene expression patterns in placental tissues from participants who contracted SARS-CoV-2 in the third trimester of their pregnancy (n=7) and those collected prior to the start of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (n=9). Results: Through comprehensive spatial transcriptomic analyses of the trophoblast and villous core stromal cell subpopulations in the placenta, we identified signatures associated with hypoxia and placental dysfunction during SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy. Notably, genes associated with vasodilation (NOS3), oxidative stress (GDF15, CRH), and preeclampsia (FLT1, EGFR, KISS1, PAPPA2), were enriched with SARS-CoV-2. Pathways related to increased nutrient uptake, vascular tension, hypertension, and inflammation, were also enriched in SARS-CoV-2 samples compared to uninfected controls. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate the utility of spatially resolved transcriptomic analysis in defining the underlying pathogenic mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 in pregnancy, particularly its role in placental dysfunction. Furthermore, this study highlights the significance of digital spatial profiling in mapping the intricate crosstalk between trophoblasts and villous core stromal cells, thus shedding light on pathways associated with placental dysfunction in pregnancies with SARS-CoV-2 infection.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.20.524893v2" target="_blank">Whole transcriptome profiling of placental pathobiology in SARS-CoV-2 pregnancies identifies placental dysfunction signatures</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>EXERCISE TRAINING USING AN APP ON PHYSICAL CARDIOVASCULAR FUNCTION INDIVIDUALS WITH POST-COVID-19 SYNDROME</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Exercise; Behavioral: Control <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Nove de Julho <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Phase 1 Trial of Recombinant COVID-19 Trivalent Protein Vaccine （CHO Cell）LYB002V14 in Booster Vaccination</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19 Vaccine <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: 30μg dose of LYB002V14; Biological: 60μg dose of LYB002V14; Biological: placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Guangzhou Patronus Biotech Co., Ltd.; Yantai Patronus Biotech Co., Ltd. <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Against Recurrent Infection Among Lung Cancer Patients and Biomarker Research</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 Recurrent; Lung Cancer; Vaccination; Antibody; Chemotherapy; Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Any Chinese government-recommended COVID-19 booster vaccine <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Peking Union Medical College 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>IMMUNERECOV CONTRIBUTES TO IMPROVEMENT OF RESPIRATORY AND IMMUNOLOGICAL RESPONSE IN POST-COVID-19 PATIENTS.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long Covid19; Dietary Supplements; Respiratory Tract Infections; Inflammation <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Dietary Supplement: Nutritional blend (ImmuneRecov). <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Federal University of São Paulo <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>Study on Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome in Improvement of COVID-19 Rehabilitated Patients by Respiratory Training</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19, Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome, Dyspnea, Incentive Spirometer <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: breathing training <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Tri-Service General Hospital <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>Physical Activity Coaching in Patients With Post-COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-COVID-19 Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Self-monitoring; Behavioral: Goal setting and review; Behavioral: Education; Behavioral: Feedback; Behavioral: Contact; Behavioral: Exercise; Behavioral: Report; Behavioral: Social support; Behavioral: Group activities; Behavioral: World Health Organization recommendations for being physically active <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Alcala; Professional College of Physiotherapists of the Community of Madrid <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>Ensitrelvir for Viral Persistence and Inflammation in People Experiencing Long COVID</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID; Post Acute Sequelae of COVID-19; Post-Acute COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Ensitrelvir; Other: Placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Timothy Henrich; Shionogi Inc. <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>Low-intensity Aerobic Training Associated With Global Muscle Strengthening in Post-COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Procedure: muscle strengthening <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Centro Universitário Augusto Motta <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>Intravenous Immunoglobulin Replacement Therapy for Persistent COVID-19 in Patients With B-cell Impairment</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Immunoglobulins <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Jaehoon Ko <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>Effect of Inhaled Hydroxy Gas on Long COVID Symptoms</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: Hydroxy gas <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Oxford Brookes University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>PROmotion of COVID-19 BOOSTer VA(X)Ccination in the Emergency Department - PROBOOSTVAXED</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Vaccine Messaging; Behavioral: Vaccine Acceptance Question <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of California, San Francisco; National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); Pfizer; Duke University; Baylor College of Medicine; Thomas Jefferson 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>Community Care Intervention to Decrease COVID-19 Vaccination Inequities</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 Vaccination <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Community Health Worker Intervention to Enhance Vaccination Behavior (CHW-VB) <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: RAND; Clinical Directors Network; National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) <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>Stem Cell Study for Long COVID-19 Neurological Symptoms</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Stem Cell <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Charles Cox; CBR Systems, Inc. <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>Multilevel Intervention of COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake Among Latinos</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Vaccine Hesitancy <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Multilevel Intervention <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: San Diego State 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>Pursuing Reduction in Fatigue After COVID-19 Via Exercise and Rehabilitation (PREFACER): A Randomized Feasibility Trial</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long-COVID; Long Covid19; Post-COVID-19 Syndrome; Post-COVID Syndrome; Fatigue <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: COVIDEx <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Lawson Health Research Institute; Western University <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibitory effect of napabucasin on arbidol metabolism and its mechanism research</strong> - As a broad-spectrum antiviral, and especially as a popular drug for treating coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) today, arbidol often involves drug-drug interactions (DDI) when treating critical patients. This study established a rapid and effective ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method to detect arbidol and its metabolite arbidol sulfoxide (M6-1) levels in vivo and in vitro. In this study, a 200 μL incubation system was used to study the inhibitory…</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>Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) demonstrate antiviral functions <em>in vitro</em>, and safety for application to COVID-19 patients in a pilot clinical study</strong> - Coronaviruses are the causative agents of several recent outbreaks, including the COVID-19 pandemic. One therapeutic approach is blocking viral binding to the host receptor. As binding largely depends on electrostatic interactions, we hypothesized possible inhibition of viral infection through application of electric fields, and tested the effectiveness of Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields), a clinically approved cancer treatment based on delivery of electric fields. In preclinical models,…</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 of Rutan showed effective treatment for COVID-19 disease</strong> - Previously, from the tannic sumac plant (Rhus coriaria), we developed the Rutan 25 mg oral drug tablets with antiviral activity against influenza A and B viruses, adenoviruses, paramyxoviruses, herpes virus, and cytomegalovirus. Here, our re-purposing study demonstrated that Rutan at 25, 50, and 100 mg/kg provided a very effective and safe treatment for COVID-19 infection, simultaneously inhibiting two vital enzyme systems of the SARS-CoV-2 virus: 3C-like proteinase (3CLpro) and RNA-dependent…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of the K<sub>Ca</sub>2 potassium channel in atrial fibrillation: a randomized phase 2 trial</strong> - Existing antiarrhythmic drugs to treat atrial fibrillation (AF) have incomplete efficacy, contraindications and adverse effects, including proarrhythmia. AP30663, an inhibitor of the K(Ca)2 channel, has demonstrated AF efficacy in animals; however, its efficacy in humans with AF is unknown. Here we conducted a phase 2 trial in which patients with a current episode of AF lasting for 7 days or less were randomized to receive an intravenous infusion of 3 or 5 mg kg^(-1) AP30663 or placebo. The…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 Does Not Facilitate Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus Entry into Porcine Intestinal Epithelial Cells and Inhibits It-induced Inflammatory Injury by Promoting STAT1 Phosphorylation</strong> - ACE2 has been confirmed to be a functional receptor for SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, but research on animal coronaviruses, especially PEDV, are still unknown. The present study investigated whether ACE2 plays a role in receptor recognition and subsequent infection during PEDV invasion of host cells. IPEC-J2 cells stably expressing porcine ACE2 did not increase the production of PEDV-N but inhibited its expression. Porcine ACE2 knockout cells was generated by CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in IPEC-J2…</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 environmental impact of mask-derived microplastics on soil ecosystems</strong> - During the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant increased number of masks were used and improperly disposed of. For example, the global monthly consumption of approximately 129 billion masks. Masks, composed of fibrous materials, can readily release microplastics, which may threaten various soil ecosystem components such as plants, animals, microbes, and soil properties. However, the specific effects of mask-derived microplastics on these components remain largely unexplored. Here, we investigated…</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>Hospital healthcare workers’ use of facial protective equipment before the COVID-19 pandemic, implications for future policy</strong> - CONCLUSION: This study identified key determinants of FPE behavior. A review of context specific FPE guidance for ED by infection prevention and control professionals would help to promote practicable, sustainable compliance.</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>Hybrid immunity from SARS-CoV-2 infection and mRNA BNT162b2 vaccine among Thai school-aged children</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Immune response that arises from BNT162b2 vaccine after natural infection and infection after 2 doses of BNT162b2 was higher than infection after partially-vaccinated children.</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>Erythromycin, retapamulin, pyridoxine, folic acid, and ivermectin inhibit cytopathic effect, papain-like protease, and M<sup>PRO</sup> enzymes of SARS-CoV-2</strong> - CONCLUSION: The IC(50) for all the drugs, except ivermectin, was at the clinically achievable plasma concentration in humans, which supports a possible role for the drugs in the management of COVID-19. The lack of inhibition of CPE by ivermectin at clinical concentrations could be part of the explanation for its lack of effectiveness in clinical trials.</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>Evaluation of the clinical efficacy of racecadotril in the treatment of neonatal calves with infectious diarrhea</strong> - Racecadotril, used as an antidiarrheal drug in humans and some animals such as the dog, inhibits peripheral enkephalinase, which degrades enkephalins and enkephalinase inhibition induces a selective increase in chloride absorption from the intestines. The study material consisted of 46 calves with infectious diarrhea and 14 healthy calves in the age 2-20 days. The calves were divided into eight groups; healthy calves (HG), healthy calves administered racecadotril (HRG), calves with…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An ncRNA transcriptomics-based approach to design siRNA molecules against SARS-CoV-2 double membrane vesicle formation and accessory genes</strong> - CONCLUSION: Our novel in silico pipeline integrates effective methods from previous studies to predict and validate siRNA molecules, having the potential to inhibit viral replication pathway in vitro. In total, this study identified 17 highly specific siRNA molecules targeting NSP3, 4, and 6 and accessory genes ORF3a, 7a, 8, and 10 of SARS-CoV-2, which might be used as an additional antiviral treatment option especially in the cases of life-threatening urgencies.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Elevated peripheral levels of receptor-interacting protein kinase 1 (RIPK1) and IL-8 as biomarkers of human amyotrophic lateral sclerosis</strong> - Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating fatal neurodegenerative disease with no cure. Receptor-interacting protein kinase 1 (RIPK1) has been proposed to mediate pathogenesis of ALS. Primidone has been identified as an old drug that can also inhibit RIPK1 kinase. We conducted a drug-repurposing biomarker study of primidone as a RIPK1 inhibitor using SOD1^(G93A) mice and ALS patients. SOD1^(G93A) mice treated with primidone showed significant delay of symptomatic onset and improved…</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>Development of iminosugar-based glycosidase inhibitors as drug candidates for SARS-CoV-2 virus via molecular modelling and in vitro studies</strong> - We developed new iminosugar-based glycosidase inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2. Known drugs (miglustat, migalastat, miglitol, and swainsonine) were chosen as lead compounds to develop three classes of glycosidase inhibitors (α-glucosidase, α-galactosidase, and mannosidase). Molecular modelling of the lead compounds, synthesis of the compounds with the highest docking scores, enzyme inhibition tests, and in vitro antiviral assays afforded rationally designed inhibitors. Two highly active…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Enhancement efficiency delivery of antiviral Molnupiravir-drug via the loading with self-assembly nanoparticles of pycnogenol and cellulose which are decorated by zinc oxide nanoparticles for COVID-19 therapy</strong> - The target of the study is to modify the efficiency of Molnupiravir-drug (MOL) for COVID-19 therapy via the rearrangement of the building engineering of MOL-drug by loading it with self-assembly biomolecules nanoparticles (NPs) of pycnogenol (Pyc) and cellulose (CNC) which are decorated by zinc oxide nanoparticles. The synthesis and characterization of the modified drug are performing successfully, the loading and release process of the MOL drug on a nano surface is measured by UV-Vis…</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>Combating DC-SIGN-mediated SARS-CoV-2 dissemination by glycan-mimicking polymers</strong> - Many viruses exploit the human C-type lectin receptor dendritic cell-specific ICAM-3 grabbing nonintegrin (DC-SIGN) for cell entry and virus dissemination. An inhibition of DC-SIGN-mediated virus attachment by glycan-derived ligands has, thus, emerged as a promising strategy toward broad-spectrum antiviral therapeutics. In this contribution, several cognate fragments of oligomannose- and complex-type glycans grafted onto a poly-l-lysine scaffold are evaluated as polyvalent DC-SIGN ligands. The…</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>Colorado Reconsiders Letting Trump on the Ballot</strong> - A Colorado Supreme Court case is one of several considering whether Trump should be disqualified under the Fourteenth Amendment, but it has proceeded the furthest. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/colorado-reconsiders-letting-trump-on-the-ballot">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The War in Gaza Has Been Deadly for Journalists</strong> - The president of the Committee to Protect Journalists explains why Israel’s military campaign has led to an unprecedented number of deaths among members of the press in just two months. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-war-in-gaza-has-been-deadly-for-journalists">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What Trump’s Civil Trial Tells Us About His Upcoming Criminal Cases</strong> - The former President’s time in the witness-box generally does his defense more harm than good. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-trumps-civil-trial-tells-us-about-his-upcoming-criminal-cases">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What Did COP28 Really Accomplish?</strong> - At the end of the day—or record-hot year—what matters is not what language countries agree to but what they actually do. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/what-did-cop28-really-accomplish">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Can Guatemalans Save Their Democracy?</strong> - Months after the election, President-elect Bernardo Arévalo’s path to taking office remains uncertain. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/can-guatemalans-save-their-democracy">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>The weird, bad history of tampon testing</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustration shows a doctor’s outstretched arm holding a tampon partially soaked with blue liquid. Liquid dripping from the tampon forms a red pool of blood in the shape of a question mark on the table below." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6h5LmUIpeQ9zISXeYnsMFHvQ1so=/224x0:1696x1104/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72834088/EvaClaycomb_VoxHighlight.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Throughout the 1990s, tampons were routinely advertised using blue liquid, not red. | Eva Claycomb for Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
From blue liquid to glass vaginas, period stigma shapes our products — and hurts our health.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zor9tV">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cfWyiF">
If you’ve ever had a period — or if you just watched a lot of TV in the 1990s — you probably remember the blue-liquid ads.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8a9TD8">
In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58pFtDRfLIk">one example from 1995</a>, an actor extols the virtues of Always maxi pads as sapphire-colored fluid dribbles from a glass ampoule onto pristine white fabric. “It protects me better than any regular maxi I’ve tried,” she assures the viewer, though what exactly she needs protection <em>from</em> is left politely unsaid.
</p>
<div id="A8H2xL">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 75%;">
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fu0aYB">
The blue-liquid ads were easy to mock — Was that stuff water? Antifreeze? — but they were rooted in something real and enduring: American culture is so uncomfortable with menstrual blood that many people have trouble looking at it and talking about it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bIFAHp">
“We’ve seen menstruation and menstrual blood or fluid represented in such a strange, sanitized way,” said Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, author of the book <em>Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity </em>and<em> </em>the executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU School of Law<em>. </em>That discomfort has shaped the development of period products like tampons and pads from the very beginning, with real, sometimes serious, implications for everyone who menstruates.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fojjzm">
And the blue liquid? It wasn’t just for ads. Early tampons were actually tested with blue-dyed saline solution, rather than actual blood. That means that today, we still don’t know how much menstrual fluid a product like a tampon or pad can hold, making it difficult for ordinary people to know how much they’re bleeding, and even harder for doctors to diagnose conditions like endometriosis that are associated with heavy periods. “We’re very, very behind,” said Alice Lu-Culligan, a pediatrics resident at Boston Children’s Hospital who has studied menstruation.
</p>
<h3 id="yM4YNL">
In the US, periods have historically been treated as shameful and disgusting
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gOrvgv">
The lack of reliable testing for period products is inextricably linked to a problem that potentially puts the health and well-being of millions of Americans at risk: When it comes to understanding menstruation, medical science is woefully lacking. A PubMed search for “menstrual blood” turned up just 400 citations over the last several decades, compared with 10,000 for erectile dysfunction, according to <a href="http://press.psprings.co.uk/srh/august/srh201972.pdf">a recent editorial in the journal <em>BMJ Sexual &amp; Reproductive Health</em></a>. This lack of knowledge and attention has implications for our understanding not just of periods, but of everything from bleeding disorders to pregnancy, experts say.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vgu4N5">
Menstruation hasn’t always been stigmatized. “In many cultures, it’s seen as sacred,” said Kathryn Clancy, an anthropology professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the author of <em>Period: The Real Story of Menstruation.</em> European societies, however, developed taboos around menstruation in the Middle Ages, and later exported them to the US, influencing the way periods were seen and period products were developed and marketed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YtgTLb">
Take tampons. Invented in the 19th century to absorb blood from injuries, they became popular as period products in the 1930s, after Earle Cleveland Haas, a doctor of osteopathy, patented a cardboard applicator to make them easier to insert into the vagina, said Sharra Vostral, a historian and professor of instruction in communication studies at Northwestern University and the author of <em>Toxic Shock: A Social History</em>. When asked if he measured any part of the vagina or cervix during research and development, he <a href="https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/28788/_9">said</a>, “I have seen so damn many of them I had an idea. Some are short and some are longer, of course, but that didn’t make any difference.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="615TFX">
That comment was emblematic of the way uteruses, vaginas, and menstruation were treated in American culture — as topics to be avoided whenever possible. In this environment, advertising period products also posed challenges. With even <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/why-do-period-product-commercials-use-blue-liquid-the-practice-has-a-long-bizarre-history-2957963">the word “period”</a> considered taboo, advertisers began using blue liquid as a workaround in the 1990s. Unlike red, “blue is uniquely clinical and evokes cleaning products, like bleach or dishwashing liquid, emphasizing a sense of ‘cleanliness’ and hygiene,” <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/why-do-period-product-commercials-use-blue-liquid-the-practice-has-a-long-bizarre-history-2957963">JR Thorpe wrote at Bustle</a> in 2017. “It could show absorption and create a sanitary atmosphere instead of reminding people about, well, blood.”
</p>
<h3 id="p0ZldW">
The stigma has extended to the way period products are tested
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lWEMgu">
Advertisers weren’t the only people who had some hesitation around, well, blood. Prior to the 1980s, tampon manufacturers <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5436965/">tested their products</a> with a device called a “syngyna” (short for “synthetic vagina), Vostral said<em>. </em>The glass device used a condom to mimic the vagina and saline in place of menstrual fluid. According to <a href="https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/28788/_9">one researcher</a>, the saline solution was blue.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cabx5K">
In addition to their failure to test their products on real people or real blood, manufacturers had no uniform standards for absorbency. There was no reliable way for a customer to walk into a drugstore and choose the most or least absorbent product. This was an inconvenience for consumers, and soon, it became a health risk, too.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y7n9Ay">
In the 1970s, menstruating people began developing toxic shock syndrome, a condition usually caused by toxins from <em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> bacteria. By 1980, epidemiologists had linked the condition to super-absorbent tampons, which introduced oxygen into the vagina, making it easier for the bacteria to grow. To reduce the risk, the FDA recommended that people use the <em>least</em> absorbent tampons they could. But without consistent testing or labeling, there was no way for people to know which products were actually the least absorbent. In 1982, a task force composed of manufacturers and consumer advocates convened to study the issue and develop such a standard.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j2qU3I">
One of the advocates was Esther Rome, co-author of the reproductive health sourcebook <em>Our Bodies, Ourselves</em>, who recruited Nancy Reame, a nursing professor who was one of few researchers to actually study menstrual blood. Reame did not trust the tests performed by tampon manufacturers, who seemed ignorant of and disgusted by the actual process of menstruation (“they don’t even understand the functioning of the female human vagina,” a female researcher once <a href="https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/28788/_9">told Reame</a>). She and other advocates doubted that saline could be an effective stand-in for menstrual fluid, which does not have a uniform consistency. So she decided to test tampons using expired blood from a hospital instead.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GiWbNy">
Reame found that some tampons actually absorbed more blood than saline, meaning the manufacturers’ tests had indeed been inaccurate. But amid fighting among the tampon manufacturers, her findings never gained traction. Ultimately, the FDA approved new absorbency standards for tampons, based on experiments with saline. “One thing we learned from the Tampon Task Force is that the materials used in tampons have not been tested adequately,” Rome and co-author Jill Wolhandler <a href="https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/28788/_9">wrote in a 1985 New York Times op-ed</a>. “Most have never been studied in the vaginal environment.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ujCkAP">
Reame’s experiments were largely ignored, but her conviction that menstrual blood was worthy of study underlies the work that scientists and advocates are doing today. A team of researchers at Oregon Health &amp; Science University recently tested an array of tampons, pads, <a href="https://shopdiva.com/">cups</a>, <a href="https://www.intimina.com/ziggy-cup-2">discs</a>, and <a href="https://knix.com/category/period-underwear">period underwear</a> to find out how much actual blood — not watery blue fluid — they could hold. Using expired blood from the university blood bank (real menstrual blood would have been too hard to collect in the quantities they needed), they found that some products absorbed more than their marketing materials advertised. <a href="https://srh.bmj.com/content/early/2023/07/03/bmjsrh-2023-201895">The team’s study</a>, published earlier this year in <em>BMJ Sexual &amp; Reproductive Health</em>, was widely touted as the <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com.au/heavy-menstrual-bleeding-study">first to use real blood</a>, though it’s likely Reame’s work that holds that distinction.
</p>
<h3 id="zNyheP">
Inadequate testing has real implications for people’s health
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9UxCt2">
The menstrual product market has changed a lot in recent years, with the entry of cups, discs, and period underwear. However, the old saline standards still largely haven’t changed, and newer products don’t have any standards at all, said Bethany Samuelson Bannow, the lead author of the Oregon study. That has had implications beyond toxic shock syndrome.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="atcegD">
Doctors often rely on menstrual products as a diagnostic tool. To measure heavy menstrual bleeding, which can be a problem in its own right as well as a symptom of conditions like endometriosis, clinicians often ask how many pads or tampons a person uses in a certain time period. But without a reliable measure of how much real blood these products hold, doctors don’t have an accurate idea of how much blood their patients are actually losing. As a result, they may be missing patients who need testing for an underlying condition or who are at risk of problems like anemia.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9QEYSH">
“It’s a very challenging environment to know how to advocate for ourselves as patients when there is little appetite for these discussions,” Weiss-Wolf said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gxpChr">
Samuelson Bannow, who studies disorders that can cause heavy menstrual bleeding, tested an array of menstrual products to get a better idea of their real-world absorbency. She and her team found that “a lot of the modern products hold a lot of blood,” she said. The product with the highest capacity, the Ziggy Cup menstrual disk, held up to 80 milliliters, which is considered “excessive blood loss for an entire menstrual cycle,” the team wrote.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tNGyoL">
Their findings show that a lack of reliable testing and standards for menstrual products has had a real impact on patient care. “We’re underdiagnosing heavy menstrual bleeding, because we haven’t realized just how much most of these products hold,” Samuelson Bannow said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QeJ4SI">
While we know that manufacturers in the 1970s used saline to test their products, it’s not at all clear what they’re using today. Vox reached out to Procter &amp; Gamble (parent company of Tampax), Kimberly-Clark (Kotex), Diva, Knix, and Intimina (which makes the Ziggy Cup), and none responded to inquiries about testing methodology by press time. Despite the fact that these products are used by close to half the American population many times every year, we don’t actually know how, or if, they’re evaluated.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PbMyYC">
All of this is a symptom of a deeper problem; in a lot of ways, we’re still stuck in the blue-liquid era. Menstruation is “something that we as a society have chosen not to prioritize,” Samuelson Bannow said. “The scientific community is not immune to the effects of sexism and taboo in the culture at large.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2KGqo2">
The lack of research on menstruation makes it harder to diagnose and treat endometriosis, fibroids, polycystic ovary syndrome, and infertility, said Lu-Culligan, who has studied the impact of <a href="https://www.vox.com/22935125/covid-vaccine-trials-menstrual-cycle-period-changes-fertility-myths">Covid vaccines on menstruation</a>. Indeed, although endometriosis affects one in 10 women in the US, it takes <a href="https://www.yalemedicine.org/conditions/endometriosis">an average of 10 years</a> to get a diagnosis.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zPjo7a">
For ordinary people, the enduring stigma around menstruation and the lack of standards for menstrual products make it hard to figure out if their bleeding warrants medical attention. People still don’t receive education about what’s normal and abnormal when it comes to periods, Weiss-Wolf said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N1iQ79">
Today, however, a growing number of scientists are following in Reame’s footsteps by studying periods and period blood. Some are <a href="http://press.psprings.co.uk/srh/august/srh201972.pdf">exploring the possibility</a> of using menstrual blood to test for a variety of illnesses, including HPV, and even for blood sugar monitoring. Samuelson Bannow is interested not only in how much the uterus bleeds, but in how it stops. “We’re always trying to figure out how to stop bleeding,” she said. “We have an organ that literally bleeds every month for 40 years, and we don’t understand how it stops bleeding.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vtuGaW">
There’s “a whole new generation of scholars that are not willing to be quiet” about menstruation, Vostral told Vox, “because there’s no reason to be quiet.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BDmnnm">
<em><strong>Correction, November 27, 4:30 pm ET:</strong></em><em> A version of this story that appeared on Apple News had an outdated affiliation for Sharra Vostral, who is a historian and professor of instruction in communication studies at Northwestern University.</em>
</p></li>
<li><strong>We’re all addicted to cheap stuff — and Temu knows it</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustration shows a woman sitting on the bottom tier of a giant shopping cart filled with all kinds of items available on Temu. Starburst shapes mixed in with the items read “Blowout sale,” “Only 10 left,” and “Up to 90% off.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XE2EyMJkud1Kxt0sZfWiLDN8PY0=/480x0:1920x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72962001/Vox_1.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Siobhán Gallagher for Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
How the new Chinese shopping site came from seemingly nowhere and is changing the way we shop.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g7BJkm">
The first time I opened the app for Temu, the viral Chinese shopping site, a pop-up greeted me: I could spin a wheel to win $200. The spinner landed on “1 more chance.” I spun again, and this time, I won $200. But wait, there was more — if I checked out in the next 10 minutes, I could net a cool $300. Cold hard cash right into my wallet? Well, no: $300 worth of coupons, which, on Temu, can buy you selected home goods, cutesy electronics, apparel — really, anything you can imagine.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ULj9G4">
This carnival barker’s pitch is Temu’s opening gambit; it’s how the company hopes to draw you in and keep you coming back. Such promotional offers and games are brazen enough to catch the eye — or turn off a skeptical shopper completely. The loud and disorienting introduction is also your first<strong> </strong>clue into what Temu offers: a dizzying circus of dirt-cheap <em>things</em>. A pair of wireless over-the-ear headphones for $6.80. An earbud-cleaning set (for getting into the tiny crevices) for just 98 cents. A 14-piece food chopper for $15.49. A set of hair clips in the shape of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_cookie">Danish biscuits</a> for $2.49. It’s virtual aisle after virtual aisle of amusing, offbeat, baffling objects and gag gifts, a Dollar General mixed with Etsy, with a dash of Spencer’s.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AULs1Z">
A little over a year ago, Temu didn’t exist. It launched in September 2022 but quickly rose to the top of app store charts, thanks in large part to a flurry of ads across social media and not one, but two, pricey Super Bowl ads that touted the company’s discordant tagline: “Shop like a billionaire.” As of May, according to the app-industry analysis site Business of Apps, Temu, which sells in 48 countries, had <a href="https://www.businessofapps.com/data/temu-statistics/">more than 100 million active users</a> in the US.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5EKi17">
Like Amazon, the site sells a seemingly infinite range of products, but where Amazon revolutionized easy shopping, particularly for those customers who have a clear idea of what they’re looking to buy (usually some essential item that’s cheapest on the site or hard to source elsewhere), Temu has refined the art of nudging people to make impulse purchases. It does this by accentuating how affordable it is to indulge your every curiosity online.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ed8xSo">
Earlier this year, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/05/is-temu-the-future-of-buying-things.html">New York Magazine’s John Herrman</a> wondered whether Temu was the future of buying things; it’s more like the inevitable conclusion of a retail race to the bottom for which Amazon drafted the blueprint.
</p>
<h3 id="uzdu7j">
How Temu found its market in the US
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D4kToi">
With such a diversity of often downright weird stuff on the site, it’s hard to know precisely who the Temu customer is. On a cursory browse, I see five pairs of ankle socks for $2.69 and a pack of adorable miniature poker cards for just 39 cents. A Temu spokesperson told Vox in an email that “every day is like Black Friday on our platform.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MIP7kJ">
“The thing with cheap stuff is that the barrier to entry is really low,” says <a href="https://sites.rutgers.edu/wendy-woloson/about/">Wendy Woloson</a>, a historian of consumer culture at Rutgers University and the author of <em>Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America</em>. Temu hands over the cheap goods while feeding our “desire for novelty,” Woloson says. If a product isn’t as good as you hoped, it’s no big deal. “We want to be stimulated by things — and by the act of shopping.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D0FoTV">
That explains the company’s slogan, to “shop like a billionaire” — an exhortation to customers to buy anything they want without worrying about the cost, just like the rich. Never mind that the roulette wheel games and the onslaught of affordable, mass-produced items are the opposite of how the wealthy shop. The ultra-wealthy seek out what’s bespoke and scarce, rarities often handpicked by a human personal shopper. What Temu gives us is “what seems like a hyper-personalized variety store,” says Woloson. It’s the illusion that something was picked out just for you, when in fact the products were cheaply mass-produced in the tens of thousands.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WmgCrQ">
And though its tagline evokes billionaires, Temu’s core customer is on a tight budget. The greatest share of its US sales between September 2022 to August 2023 — about 40 percent — came from households making less than $40,000 a year, according to <a href="https://www.yipitdata.com/resources/temu-impact">an analysis by market research firm YipitData</a>. Among the big retailers studied, only Walmart, Dollar General, and Family Dollar had a larger bulk of sales from under-$40k households, and Walmart beat out Temu by just a sliver. (By contrast, less than 20 percent of H&amp;M’s sales came from this income group.) Google Trends data shows that searches for Temu are highest in Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Alabama, states with some of the <a href="https://data.census.gov/table?q=S1701:%20POVERTY%20STATUS%20IN%20THE%20PAST%2012%20MONTHS&amp;g=010XX00US,%240400000&amp;y=2022">highest poverty rates</a> in the country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wnokuz">
In a Deutsche Bank Research survey of US consumers, almost a third said they would shop less at Walmart and Amazon because of Temu. It’s not a direct threat to Dollar General; YipitData shows that average spending at Dollar General remained about the same for customers before and after discovering Temu. On the other hand, Shein spending dipped.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i1odKs">
Contacted by Vox, a spokesperson for Temu repeatedly emphasized the affordability of the site for household items as well as recreational goods such as pickleball sets and even musical instruments. “With many households facing higher living costs, Temu is a place where their money goes further,” the spokesperson said in an email.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1FvooF">
But bottom-barrel prices on its front page don’t tell the full Temu story. The deep discounts are strategic. Temu’s prices are somewhat higher than big discount chains like Dollar General, says Rui Ma, a tech analyst at Tech Buzz China, and they’re not always cheaper than Amazon. “They’ll do those really incredibly crazy cheap things,” she says, then make some of the money back on other items where “their prices are actually comparable, or sometimes even higher than Amazon.” One waterless aromatherapy diffuser on Temu <a href="https://www.temu.com/waterless-aromatherapy-diffuser-nebulizing-technology-for-essential-oils-super-quiet-portable-no-water-cold-mist-g-601099518639427.html?top_gallery_url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.kwcdn.com%2Fproduct%2FFancyalgo%2FVirtualModelMatting%2F5f914ca8fb695467b5adbd0e06865354.jpg&amp;spec_gallery_id=2023688908&amp;refer_page_sn=10009&amp;refer_source=0&amp;freesia_scene=2&amp;_oak_freesia_scene=2&amp;_oak_rec_ext_1=NzE5OQ&amp;search_key=humidifier&amp;refer_page_el_sn=200049&amp;_x_sessn_id=zcxpdxfepi&amp;refer_page_name=search_result&amp;refer_page_id=10009_1701301650234_iiyguibmnf">retailed at the time of publication at $79.98 $67.98</a>, more expensive than <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=waterless+aromatherapy+diffuser&amp;crid=NS5NNYTZIBEI&amp;sprefix=waterless+aromatherapy+diffuser%2Caps%2C66&amp;ref=nb_sb_noss_1">many of the top hits on Amazon</a>. The discounts, for now, are to draw in traffic — to intrigue customers so they return and never stop browsing for the next deal.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JJmMIs">
If you find yourself spending hours endlessly scrolling on Temu, that’s by design. Temu places an extra emphasis on serving up personalized recommendations based on an opaque mix of user behavior — you might say that it’s a little overzealous about it. Early in my Temu forays, I clicked on a pair of fuzzy cow slippers to wear at home. Next thing I knew, I was being served everything bovine: a cow-print thermos, cow jibbitz (the little accessories you can attach to Crocs), cow-print nails, and cow-themed duvet sets.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jQAld3">
This puzzling variety is the point. “They try to go after things that are not being sold currently on Amazon,” says Ma.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LHYKmf">
The Chinese retailer also immediately suggested some distinctly American apparel to me, including almost certainly unofficial merch such as Morgan Wallen tees, a sweatshirt with “T.S. 1989” printed on it, and several pieces of New York-specific clothing, like a round-neck sweatshirt that reads “BROOKLYN” and in smaller letters “Union Made” and “Raw Denim” (claims that seem dubious) and candles emblazoned with clever slogans for the twee millennial in your life. Together, it was an entertaining potpourri of items that attempted to elicit a tickled reaction: <em>Wow, I didn’t know I needed that.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9sVILc">
In truth, I probably don’t. But a lot of modern e-commerce is oriented around creating this siren call. Temu’s hypnotic assemblage of non-essential stuff in some ways might remind you of Wish, the other huge, gamified, algorithm-driven marketplace of discounted goods that was once <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/6/17/18679107/wish-shopping-app">one of the top downloaded apps</a>, too. Temu stands apart as the go-to online shopping destination for cash-strapped Americans who want cheap, unique products that may not even be found on Amazon. And it has a deep-pocketed benefactor determined to see it succeed.
</p>
<h3 id="9eVi9x">
Just how successful is Temu?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zcfrxc">
By June 2023, Temu had a monthly gross merchandise volume (GMV) — the total value of the goods it sells — of $1 billion, according to Business of Apps. That pales in comparison to <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-may-be-the-largest-us-retailer-in-2024-according-to-jpmorgan-analysts-140145529.html">Amazon’s estimated annual GMV of about $477 billion</a>, but it’s head-spinning for a company that hadn’t even reached its first birthday. Shein, which launched in 2008, had an <a href="https://www.businessofapps.com/data/shein-statistics/">annual revenue of about $610 million in 2016</a>, based on Business of Apps’ data; it didn’t really explode in popularity until the pandemic.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="31PKl8">
How could a fledgling retailer grow so quickly? Because it can stomach selling at extremely low prices, thanks to its parent company PDD Holdings, a juggernaut of Chinese e-commerce that also owns Pinduoduo, a massively popular Chinese online shopping site. PDD is listed on the Nasdaq, and its market cap is roughly the same as Verizon’s. “This is just the international expansion of a $155 billion company,” says Ma. Among the various fiefdoms of internet retail in China, where <a href="https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/global-historic-first-ecommerce-china-will-account-more-than-50-of-retail-sales">online shopping is far bigger</a> than it is in the US, PDD is currently the third-largest company, but it’s on track to outgrow its competitors soon, largely due to Temu’s foreign push, <a href="https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3232732/pdd-owner-temu-and-pinduoduo-sees-sales-surge-despite-china-gloom">according to Morgan Stanley</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bnZzJ9">
For PDD, creating a billion-dollar business is simple: Just have many billions to start with and be willing to spend it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8lCcN6">
According to Wired, Temu <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/temu-is-losing-millions-of-dollars-to-send-you-cheap-socks/">loses about $30</a> for every order placed. When reached for comment, Temu said that figure was outdated but declined to provide a current estimate. Chinese news site 36kr suggests the company currently loses <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/temu-is-burning-cash-to-challenge-shein-and-amazon-on-black-friday/">about 30 to 35 percent </a>on every US order. It only loses that much, instead of much more, thanks to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/temu-is-losing-millions-of-dollars-to-send-you-cheap-socks/">how aggressively it pressures</a> to cut prices the thousands of third-party sellers it works with.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QWB6nY">
Unlike Amazon, which sells a large chunk of its goods directly, Temu is entirely a third-party marketplace: an online platform that essentially matches sellers with consumer demand. The attraction for sellers is that Temu provides all the know-how and marketing necessary to get their products in front of customers. It’s also much easier to start selling through Temu than Amazon, which has stricter requirements for sellers to join its marketplace. Yet sellers who work with Temu also report how cutthroat it is <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/580f8ec3-61c2-4e40-9958-98481d582c45">about slashing prices</a> — to the point of being unprofitable for sellers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v3GSdu">
According to Temu, the reason it can offer such low prices is that its supply chain is streamlined: It argues that it has cut out all the middlemen and can offer wholesale prices. “Our goal is to democratize the global supply chain, ensuring equal access to the world’s most cost-effective products for everyone,” a Temu spokesperson told Vox.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bSQNvc">
Here’s the irony about Temu. Decades ago, it was Amazon that approached Chinese manufacturers to convince them to sell on its third-party marketplace, which launched in 2000. Third-party sellers are now responsible for <a href="https://sell.amazon.com/blog/amazon-stats">over 60 percent of sales on Amazon</a>, and almost <a href="https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/chinese-sellers-didnt-quit-amazon">half of these sellers are based in China</a>. “Amazon taught them how to market in the States because Amazon marketplace was doing the marketing for them,” says <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=6446">John Deighton</a>, a professor emeritus at Harvard Business School with expertise in consumer behavior and marketing. Now, he says, Chinese companies, including Temu, are taking direct control, cutting Amazon from the supply chain and trimming prices.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AnZHVM">
Temu’s use of third-party sellers has elicited questions about the ethics of its supply chain. In June, the US Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released an <a href="https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/media/press-releases/select-committee-releases-interim-findings-shein-temu-forced-labor">interim report</a> alleging that there was an “extremely high risk” that Temu’s supply chain uses <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/8/17/21372466/uighur-forced-labor-supply-chain-masks-shirt">forced Uyghur labor</a> — prohibited in the US under the <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/trade/uyghur-forced-labor-prevention-act-statistics">Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nU2xaw">
In a statement the company sent Vox, Temu said that it has always “prioritized following the rules and regulations,” and that, regarding compliance with US law on forced labor, its “current standards and practices are no different from those of major U.S. e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, eBay and Etsy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="By36rC">
“The allegations in this regard,” the company told Vox, “are completely ungrounded.” It did not address specific questions about whether it conducted audits of sellers to ensure no forced labor was being used or whether it prohibited sellers from the <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/9/14/23351153/china-uyghur-muslim-genocide-xinjiang-united-nations">Xinjiang region</a>, where numerous governments and rights groups say China is <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22632448/xinjiang-cotton-ban-china-uyghurs-fast-fashion">obscuring forced labor camps</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jQZVc8">
The other big factor driving Temu’s success at selling cheaply is what sets it apart most from Amazon: slow shipping. A Temu order can take weeks to reach a US customer, arriving at a snail’s pace for anyone accustomed to Amazon’s shipping speeds. But that slow shipping lets Temu avoid import taxes that could otherwise be prohibitive, and would likely be passed on to the consumer. Each customer’s order is shipped out directly from the factory to the customer, so sellers don’t have to keep bulk container loads of inventory stored in US fulfillment centers for quicker delivery. With no need for large shipments, sellers avoid <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/trade/trade-enforcement/tftea/section-321-programs">current US law</a> requiring duty on shipments over $800. US lawmakers have also argued that Temu’s use of this exemption allows it to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/temu-shein-forced-labor-china-de7b5398c76fda58404abc6ec5684972">effectively evade customs scrutiny</a>. (In response to specific questions about the customs allegations, the company re-sent its previous statement.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jn9SgX">
Not keeping inventory on US shores is a boon for Temu, for now. “But if they’re ever going to compete with Amazon on a large scale — and Amazon is much, much larger at the moment — they’re going to have to do that,” says Deighton.
</p>
<h3 id="4GnBrO">
It’s not the games, it’s the variety (and the algorithm)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ouFQBq">
A lot of the initial fanfare about Temu focused on its gamified shopping experience. There are wheels to spin, like the one I came across, and “lucky draw” contests that give away gifts; there are even fishing and farming minigames. While there are <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurendebter/2023/06/22/temus-relentless-push-to-woo-american-shoppers-freebies-spam-and-half-a-billion-in-losses/?sh=6c282beb1a43">people who claim to have earned thousands of dollars</a> worth of rewards by playing Temu’s games, it’s unclear whether these time-consuming features have significantly boosted sales. “I think it’s not paying off,” says Ma. Already, she says, Temu has scaled back on some of the games it used to offer on the app.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uim5Ws">
Temu doesn’t really need slot machines and Animal Crossing-style add-ons. It has made the experience of shopping into a kind of treasure hunt. You dig up your heart’s desire and find a deal. The shopping<em> is</em> the game.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GddnVS">
That is what has attracted American consumers — our hunger to keep <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/2023/11/14/23955673/fast-fashion-shein-hauls-environment-human-rights-violations">buying cheap stuff we probably don’t need</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FgedpA">
It’s what drives so much of our modern economy, and certainly so much of online shopping. E-commerce companies like Temu offer an approximation of abundance while obscuring what it costs to create something so cheap — the exploited laborers, the environmental pollution — as if the objects appear out of thin air.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MtMQRH">
Whether Temu’s popularity will last is up in the air. Wish, the online direct-from-China retailer similar to Temu, had its <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/6/17/18679107/wish-shopping-app">time in the limelight, too</a>, but was soon dragged down by complaints of defective products, misleading pictures, counterfeit items, and more. It’s currently <a href="https://www.modernretail.co/technology/how-wish-is-trying-to-reinvent-itself-by-focusing-on-product-quality-and-retention/">trying to repair that reputation</a>, but its current single-digit stock price is a sliver of what it was during its heyday in early 2021, when it surpassed $900.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r5rV3U">
Temu’s success or failure will depend on a lot of factors: its ability to avoid Wish’s mistakes, how long PDD is willing to subsidize the cost of business, whether Temu focuses <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/07/business/media/wish-online-dollar-store.html">too much on short-term growth</a>, and how aggressively Temu is willing to make customers happy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="M9s2o3">
The basic model of selling more of the cheap goods manufactured in China directly to American consumers, though, is one that promises to endure. The spinners, coupons, and bootleg Taylor Swift gear might have our attention now, only to be abandoned in another year, when the next shiny carnival of optimized bargain-bin prices rolls into town.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J72DQf">
</p></li>
<li><strong>Why Biden may give in to Republican demands on immigration</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="President Biden and several men in uniforms walk past a very tall fence with netting between the posts. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/REMQkMNVgHJ7v6DYVG4y105Ng2U=/459x0:7798x5504/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72961887/GettyImages_1246095870.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
President Joe Biden walks along the US-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023. | Jim Watson/AFP via Getty
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
It’s partly about Ukraine aid. But the politics of immigration have also changed for Democrats.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qgH4Md">
In exchange for approving more aid to Ukraine, congressional Republicans <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-white-house-congress-border-security-detention-deportation/">want Democrats</a> to agree to dramatically limit the options migrants have to claim asylum from the United States and to ramp up detention and deportation of migrants.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pu9Ghc">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden">President Biden</a> is seriously considering it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C29vkl">
For the past several weeks, congressional negotiators have been trying to come to an agreement linking these issues, along with aid to Israel. Biden <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/biden-ready-for-significant-compromises-on-border-to-get-ukraine-aid-83525f26">said last week he was</a> “willing to make significant compromises” to “fix the broken border system.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i5ZVsY">
But when it comes to immigration, those compromises would be mainly coming from one side. The longtime reason for congressional gridlock on immigration is that Democrats traditionally insist tougher border measures be paired with an agreement to legalize the status for unauthorized immigrants already living here. Democrats now know they can’t get that from today’s GOP, but they may agree to restrictionist measures anyway.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cc0oXv">
Why the change?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hP5qsS">
In part, it’s to get the Ukraine aid, a top priority for Biden and the foreign policy establishment. ”The fate of the world — the fate of Ukraine and Israel — hangs in the balance,” <a href="https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/12/07/congress/next-steps-border-talks-senate-murphy-lankford-00130616">said</a> Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), urging a deal. (Politico’s Ryan Lizza <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/29/left-border-backlash-00129022">characterized this</a> as immigration reformers’ longtime priorities being “traded away and replaced with Biden’s foreign aid priorities.”)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OEjP0z">
But it’s also because more and more Democrats have grown uncomfortable with the border and asylum situation in the Biden years, which have featured a dramatic surge in border crossings and asylum requests.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dzUtTJ">
Conservatives have long argued that far too many people are coming in far too chaotically, and some Democrats — blue-city mayors, blue-state governors, and swing staters eyeing reelection — have started to agree. They view it as both a substantive mess and a political liability, and they are weary of holding out for a legalization deal that seems vanishingly unlikely to happen anytime soon.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HbrzSy">
When <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> was in office, Democrats embraced openness to immigration as a core defining issue to differentiate themselves from the president’s intolerance and cruelty. Cutting an immigration restriction deal would be a major shift for the “in this house, we believe no human is illegal” party. It would sink the hopes of many of the millions of people coming to the US to seek a better life for themselves and their families, often braving a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/world/americas/migrants-darien-gap.html">treacherous journey</a>. And it would cause immense controversy among progressives and activists on the left.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="spyxdz">
And though Biden is currently struggling to cut a deal with Senate Republicans, he’ll also have to win the assent of the GOP House, which has even more extreme demands. The president has some tough choices ahead, and he’s out of good options. But the signals currently suggest he wants to make many concessions — accepting Trumpian immigration restrictions Democrats have long condemned.
</p>
<h3 id="mPusNw">
The border and asylum under Biden
</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Two men carry an injured woman with a bandaged foot. Another man holds a pair of crutches. In the distance, a very tall wall-like fence, brightly lit with lamp posts, can be seen." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/paf7BFBKTn4zywvPsjeO3911nvc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25160689/GettyImages_1488575564.jpg"/> <cite>Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Venezuelan immigrants seeking asylum in the United States arrive to the US-Mexico border fence, hoping to be processed by US border agents on May 8, 2023, in El Paso, Texas.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B0ywh1">
Republicans have been talking about a crisis at the border for years, but the numbers since Biden took office have reached a new level. For most of the decade before Biden took office, US Customs and Border Protection had <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/homesec/R46999.pdf">four or five hundred thousand</a> “encounters” with migrants at the southern border each year. Under Biden, the average number has been about 2 million a year, with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/21/us/politics/cbp-record-border-crossings.html#:~:text=There%20were%20more%20than%202.4,more%20than%201.7%20million%20apprehensions.">this year being the highest yet</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ex6B4o">
Many of these arriving migrants end up claiming asylum. Asylum is for migrants already in the US or at a port of entry who have a “<a href="https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/asylum/questions-and-answers-credible-fear-screening">well-founded fear of persecution</a>” in their home country based on one of five grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or “membership in a particular social group.” There is no cap on how many people can be granted asylum — if someone is found to qualify on one of those grounds, then under the law, they should get it. But note that economic reasons like poverty are not on the list.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bmcEYT">
You might think the prototypical migrant tries to slip into the country and avoid detection, but many asylum claimants do not do that. Instead, they present themselves to authorities at the border, saying they want asylum. Importantly, once they do this, they are often released into the US while they wait for their cases to be processed and adjudicated — something that can take years. (This is an “affirmative asylum” request. Asylum claims can also be raised “defensively,” to avert a pending deportation.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tF5jQe">
When the Obama administration began, the number of new affirmative asylum claimants was well below 100,000 a year, but toward the end of his time in office, <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Refugees_Asylees_2016_0.pdf">that changed</a>. The rise continued at the start of Trump’s term, and he <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/3/5/18244995/migrant-protection-protocols-border-asylum-trump-mexico">adopted sweeping policies</a> meant to discourage asylum seekers, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> Democrats roundly condemned. Under Biden, affirmative asylum claims surged again <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/FY2022_Annual_Statistical_Report.pdf">to a record 239,000</a> in the fiscal year 2022. And because so many new claims keep coming in, the <a href="https://www.gao.gov/blog/u.s.-immigration-courts-see-significant-and-growing-backlog">backlog</a> of unresolved cases keeps rising too.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JTy2cF">
The new migrants are coming from a variety of places — most notably<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/venezuelan-migrants-us-mexico-border-september-numbers/#:~:text=Washington%20%E2%80%94%20Approximately%2050%2C000%20migrants%20from,statistics%20obtained%20by%20CBS%20News."> Venezuela</a>, but also elsewhere in Central and South America and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/24/us/politics/china-migrants-us-border.html">even China</a>. Many make a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/how-treacherous-darien-gap-became-migration-crossroads-americas">long and arduous land journey</a>, passing through several countries after paying an increasingly sophisticated <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/25/us/migrant-smuggling-evolution.html">people-smuggling operation</a> linked to cartels.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ubag3j">
There are two competing narratives on why this massive surge has happened. Progressives often prefer to emphasize what are known as the <a href="https://immigrationforum.org/article/push-or-pull-factors-what-drives-central-american-migrants-to-the-u-s/">“push” factors</a> — the conditions that drive migrants to leave their home countries, like the catastrophic collapse of Venezuela’s economy and degradation of conditions in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/world/americas/nicaragua-us-migration.html">Nicaragua</a> and <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/haitians-flee-collapse">Haiti</a>. Crises like these, they argue, have simply gotten worse in recent years, both in the region and around the world.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g0Z3Jc">
In contrast, conservatives emphasize the “pull” factors, arguing that there are specific features of US and Biden administration policy and messaging that are driving the surge. People are mainly coming, they say, because they’ve heard that, with the way our system is set up, they have a pretty good shot at getting in.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KSIf7v">
The dramatic surge in claims has led to questions about how many of these migrants are truly fleeing political persecution. Many are likely migrating for (sympathetic and understandable) economic reasons — simply to make a better life for themselves and their families. And they may be using less-solid asylum claims as, basically, a means to an end — thinking that, after claiming asylum, there’s a good chance of being released into the US and eventually working (legally or not).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ivjXln">
Yet in the political debate, the question of how many asylum claims are “legitimate” often seems beside the point. One side generally believes that we should help people, whatever their reasons for coming. The other side generally believes that there are simply too many people coming in, regardless of their reasons.
</p>
<h3 id="CVwRH9">
How Biden and Democrats have tried to respond to the migrant surge
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vjEjfw">
Since taking office, the Biden administration has been torn between progressives’ impulse to help more immigrants and moderates’ fear that too many arrivals poses practical and political problems.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iPrT5h">
The progressives argue that, for humanitarian and moral reasons, the goal of policy should be to help people who need help: in this case, the migrants, who typically come with nothing and risk everything for a shot at a better life. Policies aimed at deterring migrants, progressives believe, are cruel and unlikely to succeed, since they clearly have very powerful reasons for coming. And why should it matter if people are coming for fear of persecution or economic desperation? We should help them in either situation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m4YS3m">
Initially, Biden adopted <a href="https://www.nilc.org/issues/immigration-reform-and-executive-actions/biden-administration-day-one-immigration-actions/">some of progressives’ preferred policies</a>, but he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-wheels-fell-off-how-bidens-misgivings-on-border-surge-upended-plan-on-refugees/2021/04/20/b495163a-a11d-11eb-a7ee-949c574a09ac_story.html">soon had second thoughts</a>. Early on, top White House officials <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-disillusionment-of-a-young-biden-official">reportedly concluded</a> that the constant headlines and footage about record numbers of unauthorized border-crossers were a political risk — so they’ve been trying to get those numbers down. “The border is not open,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-homeland-chief-says-us-mexico-border-not-open-irregular-migration-2021-06-15/">has repeatedly said</a>, trying to dissuade more people from coming.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Of84Ol">
The pressure rose in 2022 and 2023, when Democratic politicians in blue states and cities seeing an influx of migrants increasingly complained that they were overwhelmed — with their shelter systems, schools, and budgets being seriously strained with the challenge of helping so many needy people. Essentially, this meant conceding that a longtime Republican argument — that it’s actually disruptive, difficult, and expensive to deal with a huge inflow of migrants to your area — was correct. New York City Mayor Eric Adams <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/nyregion/eric-adams-migrant-crisis-response.html">led the backlash</a>, and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/mayor-lightfoot-gov-pritzker-migrant-crisis/">others joined</a> too.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qKYy8b">
“When it was just Republicans complaining, they could ignore them. They could say they were just being partisan, or racist,” a former Biden administration official <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/19/bidens-dilemma-at-the-border">told the New Yorker</a> earlier this year. “When the Democrats started complaining, they had to listen.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SPAdmt">
So this year, Biden<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/2/22/23610849/biden-border-asylum-app-transit"> embraced a two-sided policy</a>. On one hand, he announced that asylum seekers would be presumed ineligible unless they’d made an appointment through an app or been denied asylum in a country they’d passed through. This was said to be bringing more order to the process, but the changes faced much criticism over technical problems and access difficulties for asylum seekers lacking cellular or internet service. There were also far too few app appointments to meet demand — so in practice, this shared similarities with Trump’s much-criticized policy aimed at keeping asylum seekers in unsafe conditions in Mexico.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bkiW4Y">
But Biden also wanted to give people more legal pathways to get in. So he let in tens of thousands of appointees <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2023/08/03/fact-sheet-cbp-one-facilitated-over-170000-appointments-six-months-and-continues-be">through that app each month</a>. He’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/23/us/biden-immigration-humanitarian-parole.html">increasingly used</a> an authority known as “parole” to let hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Cuba stay for two years if they have a private sponsor. And he’s offered “temporary protected status” and work permits to many more immigrants, including nearly 500,000 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/20/nyregion/biden-adams-migrants.html">from Venezuela</a> (though the White House reportedly feared doing this would attract yet more migrants, they conceded to the demands of Democrats like Adams, who argued many who have already made it in needed permission to work and support themselves).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zjanyK">
“All told, these temporary humanitarian programs could become the largest expansion of legal immigration in decades,” the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/23/us/biden-immigration-humanitarian-parole.html">New York Times’s Miriam Jordan wrote</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H8Dqzv">
Yet after <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2023/06/06/border-encounters-remain-low-biden-harris-administrations-comprehensive-plan-manage">an initial lull</a> when Biden’s new policies were rolled out earlier this year, unauthorized border crossings <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/migrant-encounters-us-mexico-border-pace-reach-record-highs-september-2023-09-21/">returned to record levels</a> again in recent months. And many Democrats in “receiving communities” say still more needs to be done to reduce those numbers. “We want them to have a limit on who can come across the border. It is too open right now,” New York <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kathy-hochul-new-york-governor-face-the-nation-transcript-10-01-2023/">Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said in October</a>, calling it “a real problem for New York City.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gt7vWL">
“It’s in our DNA to welcome immigrants,” Hochul continued. “But there has to be some limits in place.”
</p>
<h3 id="yHqkPw">
Why a deal may be coming into view — and why progressives are so suspicious of it
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QKgfoX">
This Democratic shift is why, when Republicans chose to make border and asylum changes their demand in talks over Ukraine aid, they weren’t laughed out of the room.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eqFJWb">
Biden had already insisted that aid to Israel, which has broad bipartisan support, be linked to aid to Ukraine, which is controversial among Republicans (but strongly supported by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the country’s bipartisan foreign policy establishment). In Biden’s aid request, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-ukraine-israel-budget-3762a0bdf00653e3c8a38175d3c3d3cb">he also asked</a> for $14 billion to fund more border agents and officials to process asylum cases.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="omt7W1">
So when Republicans insisted all this money needed to be paired with <a href="https://www.vox.com/immigration">immigration policy</a> changes, many Democrats were willing to negotiate — some because they believed border and asylum reforms were politically or substantively necessary, and some because they viewed it as a reasonable price to pay for their highest priority of Ukraine aid.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3qPK9e">
“I think that 50 years from now, no one is going to remember whether we changed asylum policy,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) said last week, <a href="https://themessenger.com/politics/senate-us-border-ukraine-aid-talks-stall-whispers-of-working-through-christmas-begin">per the Messenger’s Lindsey McPherson and Nolan McCaskill</a>. “They will remember whether we let Putin take another country by force in a ground war in Europe.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8BE2vi">
Yet these shifting politics have also emboldened Republicans to make even steeper demands. Democrats’ attempts to talk about legalizing the status of the DREAMers, unauthorized immigrants who came here as children, were flatly rejected by the GOP. Instead, they want Democrats to embrace Trumpian “crackdown” measures — turning more people away more quickly.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ufg7mk">
Reportedly, Democratic negotiators are ready to toughen the standard it would take for a migrant to establish that they have a “credible fear” of persecution in their initial screening (and therefore get permission to stay while their claims are being adjudicated), but <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/us/democrats-asylum-ukraine-israel.html">that would make</a> only a small impact on the overall numbers, since only a small share of people at the border currently get such screenings.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G5dwsh">
But Republicans argue that too many people have figured out they can questionably claim asylum in the US and then get released here while their claims are pending. The only way to get these numbers down, they say, is to change that perception — with more detention of people whose claims are pending, and quicker resolutions and deportations for those found ineligible. For instance, more apprehended Venezuelan migrants should be sent back to Venezuela, they say (and the Biden administration agrees, having <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/immigration-venezuelan-arrivals-us-southern-border-biden-deportations/">cut a recent deal</a> with the country to do just that).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2GdDYv">
The GOP also wants to give the president new broad powers to effectively <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-white-house-congress-border-security-detention-deportation/">suspend asylum law</a> and turn asylum seekers away — similar to Trump’s use of “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/5/16/23725482/immigration-title-42-us-mexico-border-biden-trump-uscis-homeland-security">Title 42</a>” authority, but without requiring the justification of a public health emergency. They want to expand “<a href="https://www.slowboring.com/p/expedited-removal-wont-fix-asylum">expedited removal</a>,” a quicker expulsion process without asylum screenings already in place at the border, to the whole country. Biden is open to both, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-white-house-congress-border-security-detention-deportation/">CBS News’s Camilo Montoya-Galvez</a> reported this week.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c5vEgR">
Another thorny ask the GOP is making has to do with parole, the power Biden has used to try and create “legal pathways” to meet the massive demand for immigration. Republicans have been <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/11/20/texas-lawsuit-parole-immigrants-nicaragua-cuba-haiti-venezuela/">furious about</a> what they say is Biden’s massive expansion of that authority to let hundreds of thousands of people get permission to stay in the country temporarily. The administration argues that this is a more orderly and legal process than the chaotic alternative. But Republicans say that power needs to be reined in somehow — something Democrats have so far resisted in negotiations.<strong> </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k9V8ZR">
Progressives say that this all amounts to trying to deter asylum seekers by making asylum more difficult and dangerous to get. They argue that this won’t work and people will still come, due to the situations in their home countries. But, more to the point, they argue that it would be immoral — and that, depending on the details in a final agreement, these changes could amount to a dismantling of the existing asylum system.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jn0ZFK">
In a late November statement, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and 10 other progressive senators <a href="https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/padilla-leads-10-colleagues-in-joint-statement-on-proposed-threats-to-asylum-system-in-supplemental-aid-package-negotiations/">said</a> they were “concerned about reports of harmful changes to our asylum system that will potentially deny lifesaving humanitarian protection for vulnerable people, including children, and fail to deliver any meaningful improvement to the situation at the border.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ADk4YI">
But Biden and many other Democrats appear to have concluded that the current situation is politically and practically untenable. We don’t yet know whether they will reach a final deal with Senate Republicans — and whether the GOP House would pass such a deal. Yet the writing seems to be on the wall for major White House concessions — and for a significant shift to the right from Democrats on immigration that could affect a great many lives and define the party for years to come.
</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>AUS vs PAK, 1st Test | David Warner’s powerful 164 in farewell series leads Australia to 346/5</strong> - David Warner, who will be retiring after the last Test in his Sydney hometown, made Pakistan toil in the first couple of sessions before he holed out at deep square leg in the last hour. He hit 16 fours and four sixes</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>It’s My Time and Misty impress</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Wonder Woman, Cyrenius and Tesorino excel</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>PSG advances in tense finish to Champions League group; Porto also into round of 16</strong> - Newcastle’s loss to AC Milan left the English side in last place without even the consolation prize of entering the second-tier Europa League as a third-place finisher.</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>Australia cricketer Khawaja wears a black armband after a ban on his ‘’all lives are equal’’ shoes</strong> - Usman Khawaja’s act was in reaction to the ICC’s policy prohibiting displays of political or religious statements on team uniforms or equipment.</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>Promising cricketer from Telangana’s Pothugal village finds a place in India U-19 team</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>CJI puts his foot down; says if case is listed before a judge, the judge takes the call to hear it or not</strong> - CJI informs that Satyender Jain’s bail plea was shifted to J. Trivedi after J. Bopanna, who has not resumed judicial duties after Diwali vacations due to medical reasons, has requested all partially heard cases before him to be released.</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>Minister inspects construction works at medical college and hospital in Udhagamandalam</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Here are the big stories from Karnataka today</strong> - Welcome to the Karnataka Today newsletter, your guide from The Hindu on the major news stories to follow today. Curated and written by Nalme Nachiyar.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Special team steps up combing operations to capture elusive tiger in Kerala’s Wayanad district</strong> - The big cat, nearly 13 years old, has been identified as WWL-45 of the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, as per Forest department’s database</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>Russia-Ukraine war: Putin tells Russia his war objectives are unchanged</strong> - Russia’s leader holds his first major news conference since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.</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>Eyes on Hungary’s Orban as EU leaders decide on support for Ukraine</strong> - If Ukraine is to get anything out of an EU leaders’ summit, it will need the backing of Hungary’s PM.</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>Paris 2024 Olympics: IOC boss defends move to allow Russians and Belarusians to compete as neutrals</strong> - Thomas Bach says Ukraine is “one war among 28 wars and conflicts going on this world”.</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>Aitana Bonmati: Ballon d’Or and World Cup winner forged by adversity</strong> - From the moment she was named, Aitana Bonmati has stood out from the rest and stood up for something more than herself.</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>Germany to cut green spending to meet budget rules</strong> - Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition was thrown into crisis last month after its budget was ruled illegal.</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>Ukrainian cellular and Internet still out, 1 day after suspected Russian cyberattack</strong> - Hackers tied to Russian military take responsibility for hack on Ukraine’s biggest provider. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1991011">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Guidemaster: A cheat sheet for comparing the iPhone 15 lineup’s cameras</strong> - Most folks don’t need the Pros, but there are some use cases where it matters. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1987647">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>You can now access Apple’s official diagnostics tool online for DIY repairs</strong> - Parts pairing still irks right-to-repair activists, though. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1990929">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effects of Falcon Heavy launch delay could ripple to downstream missions</strong> - Officials hope to launch before the end of the year, but a longer delay is possible. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1990914">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Trains were designed to break down after third-party repairs, hackers find</strong> - The train manufacturer accused the hackers of slander. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1990928">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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