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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>Persistence of socioeconomic gaps in perinatal health in Spain, 2000-2019</strong> -
<div>
Objectives: Perinatal health is unequally distributed and studies on the Spanish case confirm the positive association between resources and perinatal health in the pre- and during recession (before 2015). This paper systematically looks at three key perinatal indicators –LBW, prematurity, and HBW– in the post-recession period (and prior to the onset of COVID-19). Setting: We investigate perinatal outcomes among live births in Spain between 2000 and 2019. The data comes from the Childbirth Statistics Bulletin and includes information provided by parents and health personnel on the delivery, context of the birth, and basic socioeconomic indicators of parents. Participants: Out of the total number of births in Spain between 2000 and 2019 (N=8,799,941), We focus on live births and exclude those with missing birthweight and/or gestational age (N=1,464,134) and deliveries before 26 weeks of gestation (N=6,980). Our final sample consists of 7,328,827 live births. Outcome measures: Primary measures are the prevalence in three key perinatal outcomes: low birth weight (LBW, &lt;2.5 kg.), high birth weight (HBW, &gt; 4 kg.) and prematurity (&lt;37 GA). We estimate gross, unadjusted prevalence for key socio-economic variables. Results: Higher parental resources –education, occupation– correlate with better perinatal outcomes. Younger mothers –and in some cases also fathers– and those who are married show superior birth outcomes as well. Migrant-origin mothers have lower chances of an LBW but are more prone to HBW and to preterm delivery. Primiparous mothers are clearly more likely to experience adverse birth results. Conclusions: Despite high-quality and free of cost health care provision in Spain and advancement in the monitoring of pregnancies and deliveries, socioeconomic gaps are strikingly persistent in Spain. Inasmuch as perinatal health is a relevant predictor of later life chances, tackling socioeconomic gaps in birth weight and gestational age might be consequential for mitigating intergenerational social inequalities.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/tpvaw/" target="_blank">Persistence of socioeconomic gaps in perinatal health in Spain, 2000-2019</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>World Health Organization Is Losing Public Credibility Towards Health-Sensitive Topics: Infodemiological Analysis of Facebook Users’ Reactions</strong> -
<div>
Background The scientific infodemic constitutes one of the greatest threats to public health and safety today. The credibility of the main dissemination agencies is an essential tool for adhering to measures to preserve public health. Methods Reactions such as “like,” “love,” “affection,” “surprise,” “sadness,” “anger,” and “derision” were collected under World Health Organization Facebook posts on climate change (from 2019 to 2022) and vaccines (from 2021 to 2022). Descriptive statistics, linear regression, and correlation methods were implemented to identify possible trends and causal relationships with the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Results These findings showed a worrying increase in derision reactions about climate change-related posts (up to 22% in November 2022, with a quadratically growing trend over time since December 2020). Furthermore, infodemic reactions such as anger and especially derision made up the majority of emotional reactions to vaccine-related posts since 2021 and up to 44% of total reactions in November 2022 (median since July 2021 = 9%, IQR: 4% - 14 %). Finally, there is evidence of a causal correlation between the start of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign and public distrust towards the WHO, even for issues unrelated to vaccines such as climate change. Conclusion These findings signal that the World Health Organization is losing public credibility towards extremely relevant issues for global health. Infodemiological interventions in accordance with the recent literature are urgently required.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/t37xd/" target="_blank">World Health Organization Is Losing Public Credibility Towards Health-Sensitive Topics: Infodemiological Analysis of Facebook Users’ Reactions</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Epidemiological Risk in Italy Increases During the Cold Season and Heatwaves: Considerations for Health Policies During COVID-19 and Future Crises.</strong> -
<div>
Objectives. This paper aims to investigate the overall epidemiological risk in Italy in relation to the seasonal temperature to provide useful indications for managing COVID-19 and other health crises. Methods. The relationship between the number of deaths in the period 2015-2019 and the average monthly temperatures was investigated. The excess deaths and confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in 2020, 2021, and 2022 were examined to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and its relationships with temperatures. Results. The epidemiological risk was markedly and surprisingly higher during the cold months in Italy from 2015 to 2019 (+45,000 annual deaths, SD = 4,700, S = 21). The COVID-19 crisis has further aggravated this scenario during 2020 (+115,000) and 2021 (+63,000, S &gt; 52). Mortality appeared to be boosted by low average minimum temperatures, although the death curve rose moderately during the four warmest months (Spearman r = -0.75, 95% CI = [-0.87; -0.56], S = 23). COVID-19 deaths also showed a pronounced seasonality, even if the latter was decreasing over time (Spearman r = -0.85, 95% CI = [-0.92; -0.70], S = 20). Monthly excess deaths during COVID-19 were extremely high and surprising (+4,200, IQR = [2,800; 8,000], one sample Wilcoxon signed rank test S = 28) but didn’t show a clear seasonality during 2021 and 2022. Overall COVID-19 mortality was strongly and surprisingly correlated with regional latitude (Spearman r = 0.86, 95% CI = [0.68; 0.94], S = 20). Discrepancies between COVID-19 and excess deaths during 2021 and 2022 suggest seasonal estimation errors and/or unexpected interactions between epidemiological variables. Among the latter, it should be noted that the over-50 population is increasing (+330,000/year until 2020, 95% CI: = [290,000; 360,000], S = 22) while the under-50 population is declining (-570,000/year, 95% CI = [-540,000; -600,000], S = 25). Conclusions. Based on these findings and what is known in the literature, it can be concluded that: i) the epidemiological risk in Italy is seasonal and geographically dependent since cold seasons and low temperatures lead to higher mortality, ii) COVID-19’s impact on public health is strongly influenced by both environmental/seasonal and virological factors, iii) temperatures’ increase due to climate change is able to create summer mortality peaks. Health authorities are called to develop policies that take these factors into account since the COVID-19 risk cannot be disjointed from the local epidemiological context. In particular, health systems need to be strengthened during cold seasons and in anticipation of heat waves during summer. This is even more urgent considering the rapid annual aging of the population. Future research should investigate the interrelation between all these epidemiological variables at the causal level. Keywords. COVID-19, epidemiology, Italy, mortality, public health, risk factors, seasonality, temperature.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/f9x5h/" target="_blank">Epidemiological Risk in Italy Increases During the Cold Season and Heatwaves: Considerations for Health Policies During COVID-19 and Future Crises.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Request for Immediate Intervention by the Public Health Authorities to Counter the Infodemic Related to the Russian Attack in Ukraine</strong> -
<div>
The growing infodemic related to the Russian attack in Ukraine risks creating a similar or even worse scenario than what happened with the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the evidence from this letter, we suggest that Google Trends be employed by public health authorities to monitor the infodemiological situation.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/frjtx/" target="_blank">Request for Immediate Intervention by the Public Health Authorities to Counter the Infodemic Related to the Russian Attack in Ukraine</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Combined Use of Google Trends and Talkwalker for Infoveillance: Listening to Web Concerns About COVID-19 Vaccines in Italy (Abstract in English, Main Text in Italian)</strong> -
<div>
Introduction An infodemic is an information epidemic capable of compromising public health. Based on the World Health Organization indications, this manuscript proposes an infoveillance method suitable for listening to web concerns on health in order to develop adequate infodemiological responses. In particular, the case of COVID-19 vaccinations in Italy was investigated. Methods Web interest and concern in COVID-19 vaccines over the past week (January 8 – 14, 2023) was investigated via the websites Google Trends and Talkwalker by searching for appropriate keywords. Thanks to the analysis of related queries and topics, it was possible to determine and examine the most debated topics relating to specific side effects. Results Emotional reactions regarding COVID-19 vaccines have been negative in varying percentages between 40 and 70%, depending on the topic discussed. Feelings of alarm, derision, doubt, and anger were common (about 60%). The concerns were mainly about the effectiveness against recent COVID-19 variants and alleged side effects such as sudden death, tumors, myocarditis, prion disease, and high ferritin. The most used media among those scrutinized was Twitter (over 90% of interactions). The male audience participated more and showed more negativity than the female one. The age groups mainly involved were the under-45s. Discussion and conclusion This research discussed the combined use of Google Trends and Talkwalker to conduct rapid infoveillance surveys. The results found showed that the web public has many doubts about COVID-19 vaccines, including the appearance of very rare or unproved side effects. Based on the WHO infodemic management strategy, it is essential that this or similar approaches are adopted by health and government authorities to listen to the community and calibrate appropriate infodemiological responses aimed at preserving public health.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/8mv6g/" target="_blank">Combined Use of Google Trends and Talkwalker for Infoveillance: Listening to Web Concerns About COVID-19 Vaccines in Italy (Abstract in English, Main Text in Italian)</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Online Credibility of National Health Institutions: Infodemiological Analysis of Facebook Users’ Reactions in Eight Countries Worldwide</strong> -
<div>
Public trust in physicians, health-related websites, and medical institutions is one of the main determinants of health behaviour. This paper aims to examine the online credibility of the leading national health authorities in various countries worldwide in order to estimate the extent of the reputation damage during the COVID-19 crisis and evaluate the countermeasures to be undertaken. Specifically, users’ reactions to Facebook posts related to vaccine development and administration were studied. From 2021 to 2022, a sharp deterioration in the online credibility of the leading national health institutions worldwide has been observed. Infodemic reactions such as derision and anger, which already represented a health issue in 2021, have reached alarming percentages (i.e., between 30 and 50%) in England, France, Italy, Spain, and the USA during 2022. Such reactions reached a disproportionate 90% in Germany, where the online infodemiological situation appears incredibly serious. Conversely, the situation seemed more moderate in Argentina and Brazil (below 20%). Regardless of the sample size and its suitability for representing the global situation, these findings reveal a rising global security threat. Future research should focus on verifying how much of this online infodemic directly translates into dangerous health behaviours (e.g., vaccine hesitancy) and what were the main causes for these communication crises.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/8ftnu/" target="_blank">Online Credibility of National Health Institutions: Infodemiological Analysis of Facebook Users’ Reactions in Eight Countries Worldwide</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The Influence of Mass Media on Italian Web Users during COVID-19: an Infodemiological Analysis.</strong> -
<div>
Background: Alongside the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has had to face a growing infodemic, which has caused severe damage to economic and health systems and has often compromised the effectiveness of infection containment regulations. Although this has spread mainly through social media, there are numerous occasions in which the mass media have shared dangerous information, giving resonance to statements without a scientific basis. For these reasons, infoveillance and infodemiology methods are increasingly exploited to monitor online information traffic. The same tools have also been used to make epidemiological predictions. Among these, Google Trends - a service by GoogleTM that quantifies the web interest of users in the form of relative search volume - has often been adopted by the scientific community. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to use Google Trends to estimate the impact of Italian mass media on users’ web searches in order to understand the role of press and television channels in both the infodemic and the interest of Italian netizens on COVID-19. Methods: First, from January 2020 to March 2021, we collected the headlines containing specific COVID-19-related keywords published on PubMed, Google, the Ministry of Health, and the most read newspapers in Italy. These keywords were selected based on previous literature and the related queries of Google Trends. Second, we evaluated the percentage of infodemic terms on these platforms. Third, through Google Trends, we looked for correlations between newspaper headlines and Google searches related to COVID-19. We assessed the significance and intensity of changes in user web searches through Welch’s t-test and percentage differences or increases. We also highlighted the presence of trends via the Mann-Kendall test. Finally, we analyzed the web interest in infodemic content posted on YouTube. In particular, we counted the number of views of videos containing disinformation for each channel considered. Results: During the first COVID-19 wave, the Italian press preferred to draw on infodemic terms (from 1.6% to 6.3%) and moderately infodemic terms (from 88% to 94%), while scientific sources favored the correct names (from 65% to 88%). The correlational analysis showed that the press heavily influenced users in adopting the terms to identify the novel coronavirus (best average correlation = 0.91, P-value &lt;.001). The use of scientific denominations by the press reached acceptable values only during the third wave (about 80% except for Rai and Mediaset). Web queries about COVID-19 symptoms also appeared to be influenced by the press (best average correlation = .92, P&lt;.007). Furthermore, users have shown a pronounced web interest in YouTube videos of an infodemic nature. Finally, the press gave resonance to serious fake news on COVID-19 that caused pronounced spikes of interest from web users. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the Italian mass media have played a decisive role both in the spread of the infodemic and in addressing netizens’ web interest, thus favoring the adoption of terms unsuitable for identifying the novel coronavirus (COVID- 19 disease). Therefore, it is highly advisable that the directors of news channels and newspapers be more cautious and government dissemination agencies exert more control over such news.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/bu6cg/" target="_blank">The Influence of Mass Media on Italian Web Users during COVID-19: an Infodemiological Analysis.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>There is a need for more precise models to assess the determinants of health crises like COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on global mortality. While the causal relationship between SARS-CoV-2 and the anomalous increase in deaths is established, more precise and complex models are needed to determine the exact weight of epidemiological factors involved. Indeed, COVID-19 behavior is influenced by a wide range of variables, including demographic characteristics, population habits and behavior, healthcare performance, and environmental and seasonal risk factors. The bidirectional causality between impacted and impacting aspects, as well as confounding variables, complicates efforts to draw clear, generalizable conclusions regarding SARS-CoV-2 behavior and the cost-benefit ratio of non-pharmaceutical health countermeasures. Thus, it is imperative that the scientific community and health authorities worldwide develop comprehensive models not only for the current pandemic but also for future health crises. These should be implemented locally to account for micro-differences in epidemiological characteristics that may have relevant effects or, at least, to quantify the impact of the uncertainties. For instance, at present, it is not meaningful to compare the situations of different states. It is important to note that the lack of a universal model does not imply that local decisions have been unjustified, and the request to decrease scientific uncertainty does not mean denying the evidence of the effectiveness of the countermeasures adopted. Therefore, this paper must not be exploited to denigrate either the scientific community or the health authorities. In this regard, the author of this letter expresses their solidarity with the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic phenomenon and with those who made great responsibility decisions disposing only of limited and uncertain data during a period of extreme social tension.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/4agjs/" target="_blank">There is a need for more precise models to assess the determinants of health crises like COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Retrospective Longitudinal Analysis of Deaths and Mortality in the Over 50 Population Due to COVID-19 in Italy</strong> -
<div>
Introduction. COVID-19 has spawned the largest global health crisis of our time. However, part of the scientific community doubts the actual estimate of deaths and the effectiveness of the countermeasures adopted. This paper investigates these aspects in Italy. Methods. A retrospective longitudinal analysis from 2015 to 2021 was conducted to estimate monthly and annual excess deaths and mortality due to COVID-19 in the over 50 age group. Differences between 2020 and 2021 were explored to assess the long-term impact of countermeasures. Surprisals were adopted to measure statistical surprise (e.g., “S = 10” is as surprising as 10 consecutive heads). Effect size and statistical surprise were judged separately. Results. COVID-19 led to a large and unexpected increase in annual (March – December) deaths (excess 2020 = 109519, excess 2021 = 56197, SE = 2229, S &gt; 52) and mortality (excess 2020 = 0.42%, excess 2021 = 0.24%, SD = 0.012%, S &gt; 52). The disease caused relative increases in deaths in almost all months (median = 9%, IQR: 7-21, S = 12) but was more severe in the non-summer periods (median = 9%, IQR: 7-12, S = 12). In 2021 there was a drastic reduction in annual mortality (difference = 681%, SE = 4%, S = 18) and monthly deaths during the periods with the higher epidemiological risk (difference = 47114, SE = 1115, S = 19). Discussion and conclusions. In light of the comparison with the complementary literature, these findings strongly support the dangerousness of COVID-19 – the severity of which increases in the colder seasons but does not disappear in the warmer ones – and the effectiveness of the containment and prevention countermeasures adopted in Italy (especially vaccines). Further studies could investigate counterfactual scenarios to search for more optimal public health interventions.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/6hgvx/" target="_blank">Retrospective Longitudinal Analysis of Deaths and Mortality in the Over 50 Population Due to COVID-19 in Italy</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Web Pharmacovigilance to Monitor and Predict Epidemiological Trends: Paracetamol Web Searches in Lombardy Before and During COVID-19 First Wave</strong> -
<div>
Infodemiology is a widely applied field in epidemiological and public health investigations. Massive research efforts have been made to predict epidemiological trends based on users’ web queries on specific symptoms or pathologies. Nonetheless, a growing literature denounces that health-related web searches are more determined by mediatic clamor than diseases incidence and prevalence. This paper shows that well targeting the search topics on Google Trends can overcome this problem. In particular, selecting keywords related to pharmacological substances and drugs can provide essential information on monitoring known pathologies and detecting new diseases outbreaks such as COVID-19. Indeed, it is shown that the media hype around COVID-19 has influenced web searches related to symptoms such as fever much more markedly than those on paracetamol, significantly lowering a historical correlation between these two online topics. Moreover, during the beginning of February 2020, there was an anomalous increase in web searches related to paracetamol – not linked to the media hype – that could have signaled the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in Lombardy at least 20 days before the official outbreak of Codogno. Furthermore, observing the coefficient of variability in a 4-day retrospective moving window would have made it possible to easily identify an irregularity between 10 and 14 February 2020. If this anomaly had been discovered timely, authorities would have had the time necessary to implement appropriate control strategies, avoiding the uncontrolled circulation of SARS-CoV-2. Finally, there is evidence that the paracetamol-related web interest was causally correlated to COVID-19 evolution and historical influenza trends. Therefore, we suggest that the Italian Ministry of Health and international health authorities adopt this new infodemiological approach to preserve public health. Further research is needed to refine these methods.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/4w7mn/" target="_blank">Web Pharmacovigilance to Monitor and Predict Epidemiological Trends: Paracetamol Web Searches in Lombardy Before and During COVID-19 First Wave</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A New Infodemiological Approach Through Google Trends: Longitudinal Analysis of COVID-19 Scientific and Infodemic Names in Italy</strong> -
<div>
COVID-19 has been classified by the scientific community as the worst pandemic in human history. The damage caused by the new disease was direct (e.g., deaths) and indirect (e.g., closure of economic activities). Within the latter category, we find infodemic phenomena such as the adoption of generic and stigmatizing names used to identify COVID-19 and the related novel coronavirus 2019 variants. These monikers have fostered the spread of health disinformation and misinformation, and fomented racism and segregation towards the Chinese population. In this regard, we present a comprehensive infodemiological picture of Italy from the epidemic outbreak in December 2019 until September 2021. In particular, we propose a new procedure to examine in detail the web interest of users in scientific and infodemic monikers linked to the identification of COVID-19. To do this, we exploited the online tool Google Trends. Our findings reveal the widespread use of multiple COVID-19-related names not considered in the previous literature, as well as a persistent trend in the adoption of stigmatizing and misleading terms. Inappropriate names for cataloging novel coronavirus 2019 variants of concern have even been adopted by national health agencies. Furthermore, we also showed that early denominations influenced user behavior for a long time and were difficult to replace. For these reasons, we suggest that the assignments of scientific names to new diseases are more timely and advise against mass media and international health authorities using terms linked to the geographical origin of the novel coronavirus 2019 variants.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/6pj5x/" target="_blank">A New Infodemiological Approach Through Google Trends: Longitudinal Analysis of COVID-19 Scientific and Infodemic Names in Italy</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The Impact of Cheering on Sports Performance: Comparison of Serie A Statistics Before and During COVID-19.</strong> -
<div>
Background: The role of cheering in home advantage in sports performance is the subject of much debate. No definitive scientific evidence has so far been found capable of highlighting or denying its relevance. As pandemic restrictive measures (COVID-19) have prevented crowds from entering stadiums, analysis of the past two football seasons may reveal important new details. Objective: This paper aims to compare the statistics of the last two football seasons in Italy with the previous six, trying to highlight any pronounced and statistically significant changes due to the absence of cheering in the stadiums. Methods: We compared the average percentages of points obtained in home matches from 2013 to 2019 with those in the timelapse 2019-2021. The same operation was performed with referee statistics, such as fouls, penalties, and cards awarded against home teams. To do this, we used measures such as Welch’s t-test and percentage increases. The distributive normality of the datasets was evaluated with the Shapiro-Wilk test and a graphical control. The lack of trend in the series was assessed with the Mann-Kendall test and Sen’s Slope. Finally, Pearson and Spearman’s correlations were searched between the percentages of points collected in home matches and total points, year by year, from 2013 to 2021. Results: The average percentage of points collected by teams in home matches dropped by almost 8% (Welch’s t-test = -4.3). Moreover, the negative correlations between home collected points and total points in 2013-2019 timelapse have drastically diminished during the last two seasons (average Welch’s t-test = 6.0, 95% CI: 5.4 – 6.4), approaching zero. Finally, penalties against home teams have increased by 30% (Welch’s t-test = 2.6), reaching figures closer to 50%. Conclusions: This research provides statistical evidence in favor of the relevance of home advantage in the top football league in Italy, such as Serie A. During the anti-COVID-19 restrictive measures - which prevented public access to the stadiums - a net reduction in the points collected by the teams in home matches was detected. In addition, the number of penalties awarded against home teams has increased significantly, approaching the ideal 50%. Since there are valid psychological reasons in the literature to support the crowd’s impact on sports and refereeing performance, it is plausible that our findings are causally related to the absence of cheering. Finally, as the averages of points collected at home remained far from 50%, our results suggest that a not negligible part of the home advantage in Serie A is linked to factors independent of the audience. Future research can deepen the above phenomena from a theoretical-psychological point of view.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/sportrxiv/3xaph/" target="_blank">The Impact of Cheering on Sports Performance: Comparison of Serie A Statistics Before and During COVID-19.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Common Statistical and Methodological Errors in Scientific Investigations: A Simple Guide to Avoid Invalid Conclusions and Unfounded Decisions</strong> -
<div>
During my experience as an author, peer reviewer, and editor in the course of COVID-19, I have encountered – and committed – various types of errors related to the interpretation and use of statistical measures and tests. Primarily concerning sciences such as epidemiology, infodemiology, and public health, the evidence used to inform a conclusion carries an extremely high weight since it translates into decisions made to preserve the population’s well-being. Ergo, the above evidence must be reliable. In this regard, this short guide discusses the most common and dangerous mistakes I have experienced during my scientific journey. In particular, this framework makes it clear that a statistical test alone cannot answer any scientific questions. Indeed, interpretation of results and the verification of assumptions and test eligibility – subject to the author’s evaluation – are crucial components of the integrity of the scientific investigation. Therefore, before using a test or adopting a measure, we must ask ourselves the following fundamental questions: i) are there valid reasons to explore my research question? ii) am I sure that my approach can fully and properly answers my research question? iii) am I sure that all the assumptions of my model – basic and hidden – are sufficiently satisfied? iv) how could violating those assumptions affect the validity of the results and the stakeholders? v) is the effect size relevant regardless of statistical significance?
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/2xhce/" target="_blank">Common Statistical and Methodological Errors in Scientific Investigations: A Simple Guide to Avoid Invalid Conclusions and Unfounded Decisions</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The influence of mass media on Italian web users during COVID-19: an infodemiological analysis.</strong> -
<div>
Alongside the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has had to face a growing infodemic, which has caused severe damage to economic and health systems and has often compromised the effectiveness of infection containment regulations. Although this has spread mainly through social media, there are numerous occasions in which the mass media have shared dangerous information, giving resonance to statements without a scientific basis. For these reasons, infoveillance and infodemiology methods are increasingly exploited to monitor online information traffic. However, these tools have also been used to make epidemiological predictions. In particular, the “Google Trends” tool by GoogleTM has often been adopted by the scientific community to carry out this type of analysis. In this regard, the purpose of this paper is to estimate the impact of Italian mass media on users’ web searches in order to understand the role of the media in the infodemic and in the interest of Italian web users towards COVID-19. In particular, our results suggest that the Italian mass media have played a decisive role both in the spread of the infodemic and in addressing netizens’ web interest, favoring the adoption of terms unsuitable for identifying the novel coronavirus (COVID- 19 disease). Therefore, we suggest greater caution and attention by the directors of news channels and newspapers and greater control of the latter by government dissemination agencies.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/28m6n/" target="_blank">The influence of mass media on Italian web users during COVID-19: an infodemiological analysis.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Impact of socio-demographic factors and media consumption patterns on the ability to distinguish legitimate news from misinformation on COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
This research study deepens the existing theory on information disorders by pro- viding, through an experimental methodology, new empirical evidence on the dy- namics of spreading health-related hoaxes and false content in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a diversified sample of digital news users in Spain (n=1,063), the study investigates the ability to distinguish legitimate news from misinformation on 20 online publications about COVID-19. First, the study analy- ses the socio-demographic profiles of participants as education, age, gender, religion, ideology, technological knowledge and their ability to detect misinformation from le- gitimate news. Second, the characteristics of the news are analysed concerning the different elements constitutive of the news and the importance on subjects to decide on the veracity of the piece of news. Multilevel logistic regression models were fitted on the socio-demographic profiles of participants. The individual factors, education, religion, age and technological literacy were found to be important predictors for correcting identifying the type of news, while the gender and ideology were inconclu- sive in both models. When looking at the message level, the headline, the previously read information and the presence of sources are the most important aspects for the subject to inform their decision.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/3nxwk/" target="_blank">Impact of socio-demographic factors and media consumption patterns on the ability to distinguish legitimate news from misinformation on COVID-19</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>Smell in COVID-19 and Efficacy of Nasal Theophylline (SCENT 3)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: theophylline;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Washington University School of Medicine<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>Lymph Node Aspiration to Decipher the Immune Response of Beta-variant Recombinant Protein Booster Vaccine (VidPrevtyn Beta, Sanofi) Compared to a Bivalent mRNA Vaccine (Comirnaty Original/Omicron BA.4-5, BioNTech-Pfizer) in Adults Previously Vaccinated With at Least 3 Doses of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Procedure: Lymph node aspiration / Blood sampling<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris<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>COVID-19 Trial of the Candidate Vaccine MVA-SARS-2-S in Adults</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: MVA-SARS-2-S;   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf;   German Center for Infection Research;   Philipps University Marburg Medical Center;   Ludwig-Maximilians - University of Munich;   University Hospital Tuebingen;   CTC-NORTH<br/><b>Withdrawn</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>Treatment of Long COVID (TLC) Feasibility Trial</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Low-dose Naltrexone (LDN);   Drug: Cetirizine;   Drug: Famotidine;   Drug: LDN Placebo;   Drug: Cetirizine Placebo;   Drug: Famotidine Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Emory University;   CURE Drug Repurposing Collaboratory (CDRC)<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>Immunoadsorption vs. Sham Treatment in Post COVID-19 Patients With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Fatigue;   Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Procedure: Immunoadsorption vs. sham immunoadsorption<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Hannover Medical School<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>Non-ventilated Prone Positioning in the COVID-19 Population</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Proning;   Oxygenation;   Length of Stay<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Proning group;   Other: Control group<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center<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>Safety, Efficacy, and Dosing of VIX001 in Patients With Neurological Symptoms of Post Acute COVID-19 Syndrome (PACS).</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome;   Cognitive Impairment;   Neurological Complication<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: VIX001<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Neobiosis, LLC<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study on the Safety and Immune Response of a Booster Dose of Investigational COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines in Healthy Adults</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   SARS-CoV-2<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: CV0701 Bivalent High dose;   Biological: CV0701 Bivalent Medium dose;   Biological: CV0701 Bivalent Low dose;   Biological: CV0601 Monovalent High dose;   Biological: Control vaccine<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   GlaxoSmithKline;   CureVac<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>PROTECT-APT 1: Early Treatment and Post-Exposure Prophylaxis of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   SARS-CoV-2<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Upamostat;   Drug: Placebo (PO)<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine;   Joint Program Executive Office Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense Enabling Biotechnologies;   FHI Clinical, Inc.;   RedHill Biopharma Limited<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 Clinical Evaluation of the Safety and Efficacy of Randomized Placebo Versus the 8-aminoquinoline Tafenoquine for Early Symptom Resolution in Patients With Mild to Moderate COVID 19 Disease and Low Risk of Disease Progression</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID 19 Disease;   Mild to Moderate COVID 19 Disease;   SARS-CoV-2;   Infectious Disease;   Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Tafenoquine Oral Tablet;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   60P Australia Pty Ltd<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Impact of Covid 19 on Sinus Augmentation Surgery</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Bone Loss<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Procedure: Sinus lift in patients with COVID-19 history;   Procedure: Sinus lift with no COVID-19 history<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Cairo University<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>MR-spectroscopy in Post-covid Condition Prior to and Following a Yoga Breathing Intervention</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post COVID-19 Condition;   Somatic Symptom Disorder<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: yoga;   Behavioral: social contact<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Medical University Innsbruck<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Clinical Evaluation of SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19), Influenza and RSV 8-Well MT-PCR Panel for In Vitro Diagnostics</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Respiratory Viral Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Diagnostic Test: SARS-COV-2, Influenza and RSV 8-Well MT-PCR Panel;   Diagnostic Test: BioFire Respiratory Panel 2.1<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   AusDiagnostics Pty Ltd.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Expressive Interviewing Agents to Support Health-Related Behavior Change</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Mental Stress<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Expressive Interviewing<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   University of Michigan;   University of Texas at Austin<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>Immunogenicity and Safety of an Inactivated SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Coadministered With Two Attenuated Vaccines</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   SARS-CoV-2 Infection;   Varicella;   Measles;   Mumps;   Rubella<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine coadministered with vricella vaccine;   Biological: Inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine coadministered with MMR;   Biological: Inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine administered alone<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention;   China National Biotec Group Company Limited<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>A case of T-cell-Epstein-Barr virus-haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and sustained remission following ruxolitinib therapy</strong> - CONCLUSION: EBV viraemia requires adequate treatment to control EBV-associated HLH as rituximab may be insufficient, and corticosteroid resistance can result in continued EBV infection in CD8^(+) T cells. This entity is known as T-cell-EBV-HLH. Ruxolitinib is a novel treatment strategy in this specific context and has several advantages, including inhibition of corticosteroid resistance to promote apoptosis of EBV-infected T cells.</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>Neuroimaging findings in adolescent gaming disorder: a systematic review</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: A number of key brain regions are affected in adolescent gaming disorder. These findings can help clinicians understand adolescent presentations with gaming disorder from a neurobiological perspective. Future studies should focus on forming a robust neurobiological and clinical framework for adolescent gaming disorder.</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 high-throughput screening system for SARS-CoV-2 entry inhibition, syncytia formation and cell toxicity</strong> - CONCLUSION: A BSL-2 compatible assay system that is equivalent to the infectious SARS-CoV-2 is a promising tool for high-throughput screening of large compound libraries for viral entry inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2 along with toxicity and effects on syncytia. Studies using clinical isolates of SARS-CoV-2 are warranted to confirm the antiviral potency of the leads and the utility of the screening system.</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>Rapid genetic screening with high quality factor metasurfaces</strong> - Genetic analysis methods are foundational to advancing personalized medicine, accelerating disease diagnostics, and monitoring the health of organisms and ecosystems. Current nucleic acid technologies such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and next-generation sequencing (NGS) rely on sample amplification and can suffer from inhibition. Here, we introduce a label-free genetic screening platform based on high quality (high-Q) factor silicon nanoantennas functionalized with nucleic acid fragments….</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>Corrigendum: Inhibition of phosphodiesterase 12 results in antiviral activity against several RNA viruses including SARS-CoV-2</strong> - No abstract</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>Chemoinformatics approach to design and develop vanillin analogs as COX-1 inhibitor</strong> - CONCLUSION: In comparison to other vanillin derivative compounds, 4-formyl-2-methoxyphenyl benzoate has the lowest binding energy value; hence, this analog can continue to be synthesized and its potential as an antithrombotic agent might be confirmed by in vivo studies.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Korean Red Ginseng Relieves Inflammation and Modulates Immune Response Induced by Pseudo-Type SARS-CoV-2</strong> - Few studies have reported the therapeutic effects of Korean red ginseng (KRG) against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, the positive effects of KRG on other viruses have been reported and the effects of KRG on pulmonary inflammatory diseases have also been studied. Therefore, this study investigated the therapeutic effects of KRG-water extract (KRG-WE) in a pseudo-type SARS-CoV-2 (PSV)-induced lung injury model. Constructing the pseudovirus, human…</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>Vector-delivered artificial miRNA effectively inhibits Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus replication</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: In summary, these results suggest that an RNAi based on amiRNA targeting the conserved region of the virus is an effective method to improve PEDV nucleic acid inhibitors and provide a novel treatment strategy for PEDV infection.</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>Deciphering the role of fucoidan from brown macroalgae in inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 by targeting its main protease and receptor binding domain: Invitro and insilico approach</strong> - The current study investigated the role of fucoidan from Padina tetrastromatica and Turbinaria conoides against 3-chymotrypsin like protease (3CL^(pro)) and receptor binding domain (RBD) spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 using an invitro and computational approach. The 3CL^(pro) and RBD genes were successfully cloned in pET28a vector, expressed in BL-21DE3 E. coli rosetta cells and purified by ion exchange affinity and size exclusion chromatography. Fucoidan extracted from both biomass using green…</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>Inactivated SARS-CoV-2 booster vaccine enhanced immune responses in patients with chronic liver diseases</strong> - Chronic liver disease (CLD) entails elevated risk of COVID-19 severity and mortality. The effectiveness of the booster dose of inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in stimulating antibody response in CLD patients is unclear. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional study involving 237 adult CLD patients and 170 healthy controls (HC) to analyze neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against SARS-CoV-2 prototype and BA.4/5 variant, anti-receptor binding domain (RBD) IgG, and total anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies….</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 kynurenine pathway of tryptophan metabolism: a neglected therapeutic target of COVID-19 pathophysiology and immunotherapy</strong> - SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) exerts profound changes in the kynurenine (Kyn) pathway (KP) of tryptophan (Trp) metabolism that may underpin its pathophysiology. The KP is the main source of the vital cellular effector NAD+ and intermediate metabolites that modulate immune and neuronal functions. Trp metabolism is the top pathway influenced by COVID-19. Sixteen studies established virus-induced activation of the KP mediated mainly by induction of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO1) in most affected…</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>Regulation of autophagy by SARS-CoV-2: The multifunctional contributions of ORF3a</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) regulates autophagic flux by blocking the fusion of autophagosomes with lysosomes, causing the accumulation of membranous vesicles for replication. Multiple SARS-CoV-2 proteins regulate autophagy with significant roles attributed to ORF3a. Mechanistically, open reading frame 3a (ORF3a) forms a complex with UV radiation resistance associated, regulating the functions of the PIK3C3-1 and PIK3C3-2 lipid kinase complexes, thereby…</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>Fangchinoline inhibits the PEDV replication in intestinal epithelial cells via autophagic flux suppression</strong> - Animal and human health are severely threatened by coronaviruses. The enteropathogenic coronavirus, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), is highly contagious, leading to porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), which causes large economic losses in the world’s swine industry. Piglets are not protected from emerging PEDV variants; therefore, new antiviral measures for PED control are urgently required. Herein, the anti-PEDV effects and potential mechanisms of fangchinoline (Fan) were investigated. Fan…</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>Silver N-heterocyclic carbene complexes are potent uncompetitive inhibitors of the papain-like protease with antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2</strong> - The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused a high demand for novel innovative antiviral drug candidates. Despite promising results, metal complexes have been relatively unexplored as antiviral agents in general and in particular against SARS-CoV-2. Here we report on silver NHC complexes with chloride or iodide counter ligands that are potent inhibitors of the SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PL^(pro)) but inactive against 3C-like protease (3CL^(pro)) as another SARS-CoV-2 protease. Mechanistic…</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>Nanoparticle approaches for the renin-angiotensin system</strong> - The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is a hormonal cascade that contributes to several disorders: systemic hypertension, heart failure, kidney disease, and neurodegenerative disease. Activation of the RAS can promote inflammation and fibrosis. Drugs that target the RAS can be classified into 3 categories, AT1 angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, and renin inhibitors. The therapeutic efficacy of current RAS-inhibiting drugs is limited by poor…</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>Should Hotel Chains Be Held Liable for Human Trafficking?</strong> - For decades, franchised hotels have been a common scene of sex-trafficking crimes in the U.S. A new legal strategy is targeting the corporations that collect royalties from them. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/should-hotel-chains-be-held-liable-for-human-trafficking">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Mike Pence’s Rickety Revival</strong> - In Iowa, the former Vice-President hopes to pull evangelical voters back from Trump. Is being born again enough? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/mike-pences-rickety-revival">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Prosecutors Might Charge Trump for January 6th</strong> - The Justice Department is reportedly using a civil-rights law that “puts front and center the injury to the American people,” rather than to the government. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/q-and-a/how-prosecutors-might-charge-trump-for-january-6th">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Heat Waves and the Sweep of History</strong> - This burning summer is taking us out of human time. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/heat-waves-and-the-sweep-of-history">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pope Francis’s Peace Envoy Comes to Washington</strong> - Can a progressive cardinal—who’s seen as a possible future Pope—help bring an end to the war in Ukraine? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/pope-franciss-peace-envoy-comes-to-washington">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>It has been a good year for the child tax credit</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A baby sits in a grocery cart at the supermarket while a woman standing behind the cart examines a product." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UkNxMnenHgko6zEFd9uGQOc5s3U=/312x0:5304x3744/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72488767/925809070.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
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</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
More states are stepping up, and on a bipartisan basis.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d0PDCV">
When federal lawmakers expanded the child tax credit (CTC) in 2021 as part of <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden">President Joe Biden</a>’s pandemic relief program, some 35 million parents across the US began receiving hundreds of dollars monthly.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vCyYjJ">
With the expanded credit, nonworking and extremely poor families were eligible for the credit’s full value for the first time since its passage in 1997, and the federal government increased the value of the subsidy itself — up to $3,600 per child. Almost <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/09/record-drop-in-child-poverty.html#:~:text=Child%20poverty%2C%20calculated%20by%20the,Census%20Bureau%20data%20released%20today.">3 million children were lifted out of poverty</a> as a result, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23056876/expanded-child-tax-credit-poverty-american-families-impact">families used the funds</a> to help them afford gas, food, and school expenses.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UikqF3">
But when Democrats failed later to approve an extension of this program — it carried a price tag of $100 billion per year and Sen. Joe Manchin <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/4/18/23026908/child-tax-credit-joe-manchin-policy-feedback-partisan">wanted to see a work requirement reinstated</a> — the federal CTC returned back to its pre-Covid form, with a maximum of $2,000 per child for working families only. Economists at Columbia University estimated that making the expanded federal credit permanent would have resulted in a <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29854/w29854.pdf">more than 10 times return on investment</a>, measured in terms of increased future tax revenue and less future spending on <a href="https://www.vox.com/health-care">health care</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/criminal-justice">criminal justice</a>, foster care, and other <a href="https://www.vox.com/social-programs">welfare programs</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yIck0s">
While gridlock and partisanship hobbled <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress">Congress</a> from expanding this consequential cash-assistance program, state governments have since used the success of the federal experiment to push forward their own versions of the subsidy. All told, since the expanded federal CTC expired, 11 states have passed or expanded their own child tax credits available to families earning $0, or what policy wonks refer to as “refundable.” The subsidies range from up to $180 per child (in Massachusetts) to $1,750 per child (in Minnesota).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wSR9zX">
The new child tax credits have passed in states that currently hold Democratic majorities, but the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> have been markedly less polarized on the state level compared to Congress. An <a href="https://jainfamilyinstitute.org/state-guaranteed-income-ctcs/">analysis of the new laws from the Jain Family Institute</a>, a progressive think tank, found that, on average, 40 percent of Republican state senators and 30 percent of Republican state representatives have voted in favor of fully refundable child tax credits. In Montana, it was the state’s Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, who proposed a new $1,200 child tax credit for every kid under age 6, and <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/171813/gianforte-child-tax-credit-montana#:~:text=A%20proposal%20from%20Montana's%20Greg,something%20of%20a%20flipped%20script.&amp;text=A%20child%20tax%20credit%20proposal,part%20to%20opposition%20from%20Democrats.">it was Democrats there who helped sink</a> the idea’s passage.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A map of the US titled Map of States With Refundable Child Tax Credits with California, Maine, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Vermont, and Oregon highlighted in blue. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0reBCOFtYW6K_qPjQbhkgsP_tzg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24812441/ctc_map.png"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wKPHBX">
All of these legislative wins bode well for families — especially because the odds of expanding a child credit once it’s established are relatively high. Of the 11 states with refundable child tax credits, six have already raised their benefit amount or broadened eligibility, per the Jain Institute. Plus, even modest child tax credits have been shown to make real differences: <a href="https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Cash-Infusions_LessonsfromFII-LIFT.pdf">One study found</a> quarterly cash payments of just $150 to low-income families led to increased household savings, fewer late fees on bills, and more spending on health and education.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7bo5ln">
Perhaps most importantly, this state trend is encouraging because in our byzantine, kludgy tax system — replete with exemptions, deductions, work requirements<strong>,</strong> and nonrefundable credits — refundable child tax credits have the potential to be one of the most inclusive and progressive social assistance programs for<strong> </strong>parents and kids. Unlike the other benefit options, refundable child tax credits offer cash that can be spent on a range of needs, and they can benefit even families with no earned<strong> </strong>income.
</p>
<h3 id="0sAULV">
How the new state child tax credits vary
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HLL5fd">
When policymakers consider passing or refining a child tax credit, they have to make a number of design trade-offs, weighing the financial and administrative implications of each choice. Will the credit apply to all children or just younger children? Will it be a large credit or a smaller credit? Will the benefits phase out quickly or slowly? Will eligible families receive the benefits annually? Quarterly? Monthly? What do they need to do to claim it?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B3VmBB">
Some states, like New Jersey, require beneficiaries to fill out just a quarter page of additional questions on their tax filing to get the new cash assistance. By contrast, in Colorado, beneficiaries have<strong> </strong>to fill out three additional pages of paperwork, which could deter some from applying for or receiving the aid.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FJZwLi">
States have also taken different approaches to funding new child tax credits. One financing path is through consolidating existing benefits into a more<s> </s>simplified child credit, which is the approach Massachusetts and Minnesota embraced. In Massachusetts, prior to 2021, the state offered a tax deduction for children under 12, but since deductions only help families with tax liability, the lowest-income families were excluded. Now Massachusetts lawmakers have replaced that with a refundable tax credit so that all families can benefit. In Minnesota, lawmakers combined an existing earned income tax credit (EITC) into <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/06/13/minnesota-bets-on-child-tax-credit-to-cut-poverty-will-it-work">one new child tax credit</a>, making it the largest state CTC thus far in the country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gkpNsE">
Another approach is financing state child credits through state revenues from economic growth, rather than new taxes. New Mexico, for example, <a href="https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/news/new-mexico-governor-approves-rebates-and-certain-tax-cuts/#:~:text=The%20amendment%20is%20effective%20April,amounts%20to%20account%20for%20inflation.">authorized a new child tax credit</a> this way, using new revenue from the oil and gas industries (though as the Jain Institute warns, oil and gas revenues can be volatile and could create budgetary strain during a recession). A third path for financing is through new progressive tax increases, which is how Colorado <a href="https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2021A/bills/fn/2021a_hb1311_f1.pdf">first advanced</a> its child tax credit, though ultimately it relied on increased revenue instead.
</p>
<h3 id="Ug5U8A">
How state CTCs could be improved further
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5oB80e">
While these new policies are significant, advocates say there are ways the child tax credits could be improved upon.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7DXlKx">
If more states were to create or expand child tax credits, one option is phasing out existing benefits that are currently geared toward high-income earners. According to Jack Landry, a researcher at the Jain Institute, Minnesota’s CTC would have been far more expensive — possibly prohibitively so — if it hadn’t been paired with EITC consolidation. “A lot of other states have these earned income tax credits so that’s a possible path forward for them too,” he told Vox.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4tFEd7">
States can also work to ensure their policies are as inclusive as possible for families where parents or children may not be American citizens. Most states already allow parents with individual taxpayer identification numbers (ITINs) to receive the benefit, but ITINs themselves are not always easy for families to obtain, and states can design other ways to verify residency for child aid.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g5KplJ">
Another way to improve the effectiveness of state CTCs is by expanding their uptake among those who are already eligible — whether through awareness campaigns to potential beneficiaries or through administrative tax reforms that make claiming the aid easier. In terms of awareness campaigns, the Jain Institute suggests using data from other welfare programs like SNAP and Medicaid to alert parents of their eligibility for new state programs. To distribute the funds more easily, states could also create simplified web portals for applicants, or even just send the money out to eligible families automatically. (The expanded federal CTC <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/child-tax-credit/">was sent automatically</a> to eligible families who had previously filed their taxes or who had signed up to receive an IRS stimulus check.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uKJkWO">
The flurry of bipartisan progress on state-level refundable child tax credits is a silver lining to the federal government’s failure to expand its generous pandemic-era credit. Even in Washington, DC, though, advocates and federal lawmakers are once again turning their attention to improving the federal CTC, in part because of looming Trump-era tax cuts set to expire at the end of 2025. That tax deal negotiated in 2017 included an expansion to the federal CTC to make it more generous, and without further federal action, the already shrunken child tax credit could diminish further to <a href="https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/take-action-to-improve-health/what-works-for-health/strategies/child-tax-credit-expansion#:~:text=If%20no%20further%20legislation%20is,the%20refundability%20threshold%20at%20%243%2C000">pre-2017 levels</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yq766L">
The House Problem Solvers Caucus, a centrist group of 32 Republicans and 32 Democrats, <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/07/17/bipartisan-efforts-on-child-tax-credit-afoot-in-house/">recently signaled its interest</a> in negotiating a new deal on the credit, though little enthusiasm exists for reviving the expanded CTC wholesale, and Republicans remain staunchly committed to the idea of work requirements. Senators, too, have recently voiced interest in working together on the federal credit. “I think we will find far more areas of agreement and learn from each other,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/07/17/bipartisan-efforts-on-child-tax-credit-afoot-in-house/">told</a> Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) during a subcommittee hearing this month.
</p></li>
<li><strong>Scammers can ruin your next vacation before you even leave</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A drawing of a tabletop with a cup of coffee, a passport, and a hand creeping out of a tablet to steal a checkbook." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fkj1UGyVDTrWTcHzOmFIKZ2XWOc=/480x0:3360x2160/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72488613/vox_scam_edit_nobag.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Naomi Elliott for Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Do not click on that travel website (probably).
</p>
<p class="p--has-dropcap" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c4631O">
Kathy could have sworn she called Qatar Airways to change her flight last spring. Looking through her call records now, she clearly didn’t. Instead, she wound up talking to a third-party booker called Infinity Travels. She has paid Infinity thousands of dollars she may never get back, even after spending countless hours trying.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zHqcbp">
Her labyrinth of a saga is hard to keep straight. In November 2022, she realized she would need to fly back home to Canada early from a trip to visit her husband in the Middle East scheduled for the following March. She called to make the switch. Kathy, who asked to withhold her last name to protect her privacy, spent six hours on the phone in the endeavor.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LWwU4g">
Initially, she says she was told she’d need to spend 1,650 Canadian dollars on a new flight and would get a CA$2,700 credit from the airline — she wanted a refund, not a credit, and was transferred to a supposed supervisor. The next agent told her she needed to pay CA$6,990 for the new flight and that she’d receive a refund of CA$8,080 after she had taken her departing flights. She took the deal, which was confirmed in an email from Infinity. “It was dumb of me,” she says. “But by this time it was 1 am and I was so tired.”
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<div id="9PPwTY">
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="51wsNS">
That refund never came through, and Kathy has been locked in a battle with Infinity for months, which is taking place over <a href="https://www.vox.com/whatsapp">WhatsApp</a> and the phone. Infinity claimed the initial agent who offered her the refund was fired for making unauthorized deals. A subsequent agent she spoke to — while on her vacation — told her they would refund CA$4,250, nearly half the original amount promised. That was supposed to come through if she agreed not to dispute the CA$6,990 charge, which she did. That agent seems to have disappeared, too, after allegedly being promoted to a new job.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GyFMlJ">
Kathy isn’t sure how she found that wrong number to make her flight change, but it seems likely she did an internet search and called the number that came up without checking its provenance. “It’s incredibly frustrating,” she says. “For me, the money sucks to lose, but it’s more like how are they getting away with doing this? Because I’m sure there are other people.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ekh25l">
There are. A look at <a href="https://www.trustpilot.com/review/theinfinitytravel.com">TrustPilot</a> and the <a href="https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/irvine/profile/airline-ticket-agency/infinity-travels-1126-172018784/customer-reviews">Better Business Bureau</a> shows others have had similarly confusing experiences with Infinity.
</p>
<p class="p--has-dropcap" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KqxV6a">
People all over the world get sucked into a variety of travel-related schemes and scams all the time. In this day and age of vacation, sketchy websites and companies and third-party bookers abound.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QRO97M">
Third-party booking websites and companies — meaning entities consumers can use to handle reservations without dealing directly with, for example, an airline — are everywhere. Not all of them are bad. Plenty of people use them without issue all the time, including popular ones such as Expedia, Travelocity, and Booking.com. But some of them employ shady and even fraudulent tactics.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="pUMxQf">
<q>In this day and age of vacation, sketchy websites and companies and third-party bookers abound</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VVyl2x">
These operations seek to get consumers’ money by saying they’ll take care of their travel plans, booking their plane tickets, hotels, and rental cars, or even helping them get their passports faster. They then go on to charge exorbitant fees for executing the transaction or making minor changes and often give consumers the runaround. Sometimes, they never reserve anything at all. Victims of these scams show up at the airport for a flight that doesn’t exist, or appear at a hotel to sleep in a room that was never booked, and their money’s just gone.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LHpwff">
Feelings can run high when people travel, whether they’re going to an event or spending time with family and friends or just getting a much-needed and much-anticipated break. “That’s one thing scammers prey on,” said Melanie McGovern, director of public relations and social media for the International Association of Better Business Bureaus, “the emotion of it all.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EKYyZa">
Kathy’s emotions got the better of her the night she made that payment to Infinity — endless hours on the phone will do that to you. Since then, she has gotten about CA$325 back from Qatar Airways. After months of wrangling (and after I reached out for comment for this story), Infinity returned CA$1,816 to her. She’s got all of the documentation from the ordeal: emails, text messages, recorded phone calls. It’s just not clear whether any of that matters.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WtjxAe">
Kathy still has that number she first called saved in her phone as “Qatar Airways Help,” even though that’s not what it is. When you call the number now, the person on the other end of the line simply says, “Reservations.” It’s easy to see how people get tricked.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AXRqTL">
Qatar Airways said in a statement that Infinity is a travel agent that is entitled to sell its tickets, like many others, but that as an airline, “we do not forward phone calls to travel agents, and we do not accept agents making promises on our behalf.” Infinity said in an email it was “disappointed to hear about the poor experience by this individual” and did not respond to a follow-up email.
</p>
<p class="p--has-dropcap" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hJJGAH">
One of the primary ways fraudulent third-party companies suck people in is with the promise of a deal. They offer a price that seems too good to be true — because it is — and people’s internet-driven deal-hunting instincts take over.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7I3Qyt">
“The biggest thing we see are the people who are using a third-party website trying to get something a little bit cheaper,” McGovern said. “We know travel can be really, really expensive, and … people are trying to find an alternative.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2NF0Rg">
That’s what happened to Sarah, who asked for her last name to be withheld to protect her privacy, when she was trying to snag a flight to Iceland to see the northern lights in late 2022. Most of the flights she found were above her $800 budget, but she found one option for $755 from a website called Travelcation. After booking the trip, she received an email from the company saying the fare she had agreed to was no longer available and had increased to $995.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5DXhxd">
Sarah noted the email had weird language and grammatical errors, as did the company’s website, upon further inspection. She then googled “Travelcation scams.” “I started reading these horror stories,” she says. She responded to the email saying she didn’t agree to the new price and alerted her bank that any attempted charge would be unauthorized. “My card never ended up getting charged, so I managed to avoid the worst of it,” she says. She took a budget-friendlier trip to Puerto Rico instead.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rxAOal">
A spokesperson for Travelcation said in an email that in the travel industry it’s “not uncommon” for prices to fluctuate because of issues such as airline ticket availability, dynamic pricing, taxes, fees, and other charges added during the booking process.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TR30vz">
What is uncommon, or at least should be, is for prices to fluctuate after<em> </em>booking.
</p>
<p class="p--has-dropcap" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O1TmV8">
Reporting for this story, I spoke with multiple experts and individuals about their experiences with scammy websites and travel agencies and combed through complaints to the Better Business Bureau. Many of the strategies these entities employ are quite simple — and effective.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hUjKFo">
Some websites will figure out how to game search engines like <a href="https://www.vox.com/google">Google</a>. Travelers might think they’re calling Delta or Hilton or Hertz but are actually on the phone with someone else because they just called whatever number came up in search results or on some website without verifying it’s right. The numbers can be completely different from the actual phone number, or they might be one or two off — and 888 instead of 800.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="uWjdTI">
<q>Many of the strategies these entities employ are quite simple — and effective</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i2E08V">
In the same vein, consumers wind up on these websites because they appear in their searches, sometimes because those websites have paid to rank higher. People then book there, not realizing the website is untrustworthy. The site in question then follows up with a call or email saying that the price of the booking has increased to try to squeeze more out of consumers there, or they charge super-high fees for small changes. (Assuming they make the booking at all, which doesn’t always happen.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2ekeN1">
Jim still isn’t entirely sure how he wound up in his predicament. He called Delta’s phone number on a voice over internet service (VoIP) to book a flight to San Francisco; in his first interaction, everything seemed fine. He got a confirmation email from a company called Boketo, not Delta, but he didn’t immediately notice. A while later, he realized his middle initial was incorrect on the reservation, so he called to change it. After agreeing to pay $200 and receiving a follow-up email, this time from an outfit called Travel Makers, it dawned on him he had been duped. “That’s when I recognized that I’m an idiot,” he says.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D1EeXa">
Jim reported the charges as fraud to his credit card company, which he thought would be the end of it. But in the lead-up to his trip, he says the agent he first dealt with began calling him and harassing him, saying she would not issue his tickets unless he restored the $200 payment. In the end, the flights went just fine, although Jim was worried until he successfully boarded his plane. He asked for his last name to be withheld out of fear of more harassment from the agent.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cytQkr">
Jim’s phone records show he did indeed call Delta’s real number, which is quite disturbing. A spokesperson for Delta recommended consumers take extra precautions when using VoIP internet calling to make sure their service is secure. “Whenever we become aware of an alleged scam targeting our customers, including in this situation, we immediately conduct an investigation. Using the facts gained from an investigation, when able, we can then address each unique situation as appropriate with the necessary legal means at our disposal,” the spokesperson said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qPziu6">
Boketo did not respond to a request for comment for this story. When I reached out to Travel Makers for comment, someone purporting to be from the company said that it has nothing to do with Boketo and that the situation “seems like a case of misplaced anger.” They defended the extra $200 charge. Their email address was listed as Fly Cheapest Online.
</p>
<p class="p--has-dropcap" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AUlT0l">
There is no surefire way to scam-proof your life or even your next vacation, but there are measures you can take to try to protect yourself.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7LVGLn">
The first step is really to slow down, take a deep breath, and pay attention to what you’re doing, said Amy Nofziger, the director of fraud victim support with AARP. It’s not always easy — people’s lives are busy, and we’re often distracted or in a hurry or stressed. But those situations are where we’re likeliest to make mistakes.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="c645uU">
<q>“Even if you think you’re going to get the deal of the century, they’re going to get the deal of the century, not you”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nQtzdH">
Nofziger also said to be wary of offers that are really out of step with the rest of the market. “If you find the best deal on a flight or on a car, I would be really suspect of why it’s the best deal. Go into this with the mindset that I think this is a scam until I’m proven otherwise,” she says. “Even if you think you’re going to get the deal of the century, they’re going to get the deal of the century, not you.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bUtgkO">
If the website’s charging you $500 less than everywhere else, question why that might be. Yes, it feels good to beat the system, but there might not be a system to beat. This goes not only for hotels and flights but also, for example, for expedited passport processing, which Nofziger says AARP gets complaints about weekly. Consumers pay some website extra to get their passports faster, only to hand over sensitive personal information in exchange for no quicker service. “There really is no ‘beat the system’ with the State Department,” she says. “I suggest everyone pull their passport out today, look at when it expires, and start the process.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2P13uu">
If you see a website offering what appears to be a good deal, open up another browser and type the name of that site in along with words like “scam,” “fraud,” and “reviews.” You might save yourself a real headache, depending on what you find. “Do your research,” McGovern says.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WKQoUY">
Experts say it generally is better to book directly with the hotel or airline or whatever you’re trying to accomplish, or at least to start there. And triple-check the number you’re calling. Really. “Travel agents can be reputable … but you need to be clear that who you’re talking to is who you intended to talk to,” says Summer Hull, director of content at The Points Guy. “If you intended to talk to American Airlines and you’re now talking to a travel agency, that’s a red flag.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KrDtLs">
You should also be suspicious if you get a follow-up phone call asking for more information. “Never provide personal information to an inbound call, even to an airline,” Hull says. “They should not be calling you to ask for your confirmation number or your credit card number or your flight plan,” she said. If you’re not sure it’s legitimate, say you’ll call them back.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qtd1Ar">
There can be some recourse in the event you are scammed. You can try to dispute charges as fraud with your credit card company, which is why it’s always best to pay with a credit card (and not with Venmo, crypto, or a prepaid card). You can also report your experiences on websites such as the Better Business Bureau, TrustPilot, and other places, and, if necessary, contact law enforcement. Still, options are limited.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dSJmb5">
“Most people don’t think they’re ever going to be scammed, but unfortunately, I’ve had this job for 21 years, and I don’t see it going away anytime soon,” Nofziger says.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dZhmUo">
As for Kathy, she remains stuck in what feels like a doom loop, most of her refund still pending.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5G5qzT">
<em>We live in a world that’s constantly trying to sucker us and trick us, where we’re always surrounded by scams big and small. It can feel impossible to navigate. Every two weeks, join Emily Stewart to look at all the little ways our economic systems control and manipulate the average person. Welcome to </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-squeeze"><em><strong>The Big Squeeze</strong></em></a><em>.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NF25sR">
<a href="http://vox.com/big-squeeze-newsletter"><em><strong>Sign up to get this column in your inbox</strong></em></a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fEmYHz">
<em>Have ideas for a future column or thoughts on this one? Email </em><a href="mailto:emily.stewart@vox.com"><em><strong>emily.stewart@vox.com</strong></em></a>.
</p></li>
<li><strong>The nuclear bomb’s enduring, evolving place in pop culture</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Petter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove; Cillian Murphy as Robert Oppenheimer." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HH8_efDeHFfQqBJl9G5dO3MVsDk=/100x0:1700x1200/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72488605/headshots_1690386556281.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Columbia Pictures; Universal Pictures
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The bomb has haunted pop culture since the Cold War. But it’s different now.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nCLNBs">
Before the bomb, the destruction of humanity was strictly the purview of the non-human. Whole civilizations told stories of floods or plagues sent by the gods designed to wipe everyone out. People could imagine mass weather events or catastrophes that might end the human race, but in those stories, our role in our own destruction was indirect, at most. No person could just push a button and end it all for everyone.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eold95">
That changed when the world realized how nuclear power could be harnessed. Now, we could level whole cities, or more, in the blink of an eye, and scientists knew there was a chance we could accidentally light the atmosphere on fire. For the first time in human history, the power to destroy the planet was in our hands. There was no stuffing the evils back into Pandora’s box. (Following the Trinity test, which proved the capacity of the bomb he’d spearheaded, J. Robert Oppenheimer famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” He didn’t just mean himself.)
</p>
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The discovery that any of us, theoretically, can annihilate the whole of humanity — perhaps by accident or on a whim — induces a whole new level of existential angst. There’s the fear of sudden death, of course. But then there’s a deeper dread, the sense that something in the balance of the universe has shifted. With a deity, you can petition and hope for forbearance. But look, we all know what humans are like.
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Even if a person can push that threat of total destruction out of mind for a while, it provokes an ambient anxiety, a permanent mental load. The movie industry has always been both a shaper of fears and a reflection of them, a means for dealing with reality at arm’s length, through a big screen. The bomb, and the world that brought it into being, has flooded back into pop culture in recent years, from <em>Manhattan</em> to <em>Asteroid City</em> to <em>Oppenheimer</em>. But that’s just the continuation of a long history: no wonder that in the Cold War years just after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, filmmakers were obsessed with the events that could turn “mutually assured destruction” into just “destruction.” The <a href="https://www.vox.com/movies">movies</a> understood the grave danger and the pitch-black farce of it all.
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<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A man in a black-and-white image holding a 1950s-era phone receiver to his ear. He looks worried." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rK4msdP9gjdXgozSpQW608rCikM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24811244/failsafe.jpg"/> <cite>Columbia Pictures</cite>
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In 1964, <em>Fail Safe </em>explored the fear of accidental annihilation.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KdRUMi">
Which is how we got movies like <em>Fail Safe</em> (1964), a somewhat plodding but haunting Sidney Lumet drama in which a technology failure sets off an international incident that ends in mass destruction. Characters throughout the film espouse varying and somewhat academic views on whether a nuclear war, and the mass deaths that would ensue, would be a necessary evil to exterminate Communism. Yet rubber meets the proverbial road when a computer issues an erroneous order to strike; by the end of the movie, we’re watching ordinary people get exterminated in a nuclear bomb explosion.
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There were many movies like <em>Fail Safe</em> during the Cold War, somber dramas that understand the weightiness of the destructive power now in the hands of fallible humans. The 1966 pseudo-documentary <em>The War Game</em>, for instance, portrays the effects of an all-out nuclear war on ordinary citizens — most notably, by the end, children whose futures have been obliterated before their eyes. Nearly a generation later, films like <em>The Day After</em> (1983) and <em>Threads</em> (1984) were still at it. Meanwhile, Japanese filmmakers dealt over and over with the grief and psychological trauma of a country that saw the bomb firsthand, developing everything from the <em>Godzilla</em> films to <em>Barefoot Gen</em> (1983) and <em>Grave of the Fireflies</em> (1988) to process the complexity of the ongoing wound.
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While many movies took an appropriately grave stance, there was a bleak comedy to it all, a sense of total absurdity that shone through perhaps the most famous nuclear film of the Cold War: <em>Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb</em>, Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 barnburner. In <em>Strangelove</em>, doctrines of mutually assured destruction and the wielding by powerful men of powerful weapons are cast in slyly phallic terms, suggesting that if humanity wipes itself out it will be mostly because of some horny, insecure men. The film once more ends with footage of detonating bombs (for which it uses footage of actual bomb tests, including the Trinity test). A less satirical but still light touch pops up in <em>WarGames</em> (1983), about a teenage hacker who accidentally gains access to a DoD mainframe computer that simulates nuclear war and almost starts World War III. (Ronald Reagan was reportedly obsessed with <em>WarGames</em>.)
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During the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war in films was literal, not a metaphor (<em>Strangelove</em>’s phallic fixation notwithstanding). Mutually assured destruction was something you just knew about, as an average person on the street; it was something you could both fear and joke about, fodder for gallows humor and nightmares. A couple of generations of kids had been trained in how to hide under the desk in case of a nuclear blast, just as their children and grandchildren would participate in active shooter drills decades later. The president was on TV <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/strategic-defense-initiative-sdi/">proposing policies</a> to shoot weapons out of the sky from space. The ability to wipe out humanity felt concentrated in a couple of words: A-bomb, H-bomb, thermonuclear warfare.
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Yet somewhere in the last few decades, “nuclear warfare” has fallen out of most people’s consciousness, at least on a daily basis. I was in the second grade when the Soviet Union was dissolved, and I never learned to hide under my desk. Activists, military strategists, and people whose jobs depend on thinking about nuclear warfare know that the threat is hardly gone, but the ordinary person on the street, when asked what worries them most about the end of humanity, is thinking of different matters.
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There are always exceptions to the rule, of course; several guys living off the grid on the fringes of New York City in the new season of <em>How to With John Wilson</em> cite “nuclear war” as one of the things they feel safe from. (Nobody could accuse them of perfect logic.) But even the movies have abandoned nuclear warfare as the scary way to raise the stakes in a blockbuster. Now it’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/comic-books">comic book</a> villains or climate change, or (as in the recent <em>Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One</em>), sentient AIs gone rogue.
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<img alt="Manhattan" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/08v20ORYMGXgWfvte1I19C-L5hw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2368292/herbershickey.0.jpg"/> <cite>WGN America</cite>
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The TV drama <em>Manhattan </em>delved into the lives of the creators of the bomb.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3zoRan">
Curiously, though, as a culture we’ve started to circle back around to the Manhattan Project — perhaps, you might say, as a way to process the present. We live in the world that Oppenheimer and his team created, a world that seemingly would have eventually been created by someone, whether American or German or Soviet scientists. It’s a new stage in human history, in which we have the power previously reserved for the gods. And plenty of us are thinking about it all the time. The feeling of doomsday lingers thickly today; the real question isn’t whether you feel as though the world is ending but how you think it will end and why, and what you plan to do about it.
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In the midst of this, the origin of this power is worth reexamining, both as a moment where the cat permanently escaped the bag and a metaphor for a lot of other “bombs,” some that are slowly detonating. There was, for instance, the excellent TV drama <em>Manhattan</em>, which premiered in 2014 and explored the lives of the scientists and their families at Los Alamos. The Hiroshima bombing was the backdrop for a painful (<a href="https://screenrant.com/eternals-movie-hiroshima-phastos-scene-defense-firpo-comments/">and controversial</a>) sequence in <em>Eternals</em> (2021); the question of atomic destruction and the survival of man is threaded throughout Alan Moore’s <em>Watchmen</em> comic (1986) and its adaptations as a film (2009) and as a TV series (2019).
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Even more recently, Wes Anderson’s <em>Asteroid City</em> presents a story of <a href="https://www.vox.com/23760833/asteroid-city-wes-anderson-review-cold-war">Cold War-era dread</a>, with bomb tests occurring in the background every so often. The feeling that destruction could be around any corner is what powers the film, which ultimately is a reflection on how we use art to set ourselves apart from existential angst and grief and process it at arm’s length. And then <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23800888/oppenheimer-review-physics-donne-trinity-christopher-nolan-fission-fusion-manhattan-project">there’s <em>Oppenheimer</em></a>, Christopher Nolan’s R-rated juggernaut that’s less a biopic and more a movie about power and its production, from the atomic level to the geopolitical.
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Part of the reason <em>Oppenheimer</em> is so successful, and so brilliant as a document of our time, is that it latches onto exactly this fact about the detonation of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. These were not events that stand in isolation as acts of war. They are events with long, long fallouts, decades of people whose lives and health and families and existence are scarred by having been targeted, and others whose geographic separation from the events allowed them to pretend a psychological separation, too.
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Yet the stories we tell about the nuclear age betray us. We are afraid. At best, we learn how to avoid thinking about it too much. Any apocalypse, however, is a moment of unveiling, and since then we have lived through wave after wave of new apocalyptic discoveries, to the point where we’re just waiting to see which one will be the big one. The stories we tell evolve a little, but what they tell us is all the same. We have become gods, and also, the bringer of death.
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Portofino Bay, Almas and Zarak show out</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Universiade, China’s big test before this September’s Asian Games, begins on Friday</strong> - WORLD UNIVERSITY GAMES | India withdraws wushu team over visa issues; Jyothi Yarraji, Tejaswin Shankar and Manu Bhaker among Indiann stars to watch out for</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 Ashes 2023 | Australia wins toss, opts to bowl first in the final Test against England</strong> - Australia leads the series 2-1 going into the final game at The Oval with a chance to win it outright.</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>Ukrainian fencer Kharlan wins historic bout with Russian opponent</strong> - The Ukrainian sports ministry late on July 26 changed its previous policy from barring athletes from facing Russians or Belarusians competing as neutrals.</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>WI vs Ind ODI series | Mohammed Siraj rested as precautionary measure, flies back home</strong> - “The right-arm pacer has a sore ankle and as a precautionary measure has been advised rest by the BCCI medical team,” the BCCI release added.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>KMML produces iron sinters from byproduct</strong> - First load of iron sinters produced sent to Kalliyath TMT. Five tonnes of iron sinters produced in existing plant on experimental basis.</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>Pakistan criticises Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s LoC crossing remarks</strong> - Responding to Mr. Singh’s remarks, the Foreign Office in Islamabad said Pakistan is fully capable of defending itself against any aggression</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>Biocon Foundation announces Oral Potentially Malignant Disorders Atlas project</strong> - The Atlas Project aims to evaluate and accurately deploy point-of-care (PoC) diagnosis systems in the national healthcare system for accurate screening, detection and prognosis of oral potentially malignant disorders</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>Business reality show ‘Nenu Super Woman’ ups its stakes</strong> - Aha’s Telugu business reality show ‘Nenu Super Woman’, featuring women entrepreneurs, attracts 1.65 crore investment in its second week</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Western armour struggles against Russian defences</strong> - Russians use layers of mines to prevent Ukraine’s advance on the southern front.</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>Russia-Africa summit: Putin seeks to extend influence</strong> - Russia’s president is hosting a summit of African leaders in a bid to increase Moscow’s influence.</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>Mediterranean fires: Evacuations as new blazes break out in Greece</strong> - Efforts are continuing to contain blazes in a number of Mediterranean countries.</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>North Korea: Kim Jong Un shows off missiles to Russia defence chief Shoigu</strong> - The tour comes amid accusations that Pyongyang is supplying Russia with arms for the Ukraine war.</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>Moldova expels 45 Russian diplomatic staff in spy row</strong> - Moscow is accused of “unfriendly actions” in the latest escalation of long-running tensions.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A nearly 20-year ban on human spaceflight regulations is set to expire</strong> - Commercial space industry argues for extension to moratorium on regulations. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1956567">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Over 230 people get puzzling neurological disorder in Peru; emergency declared</strong> - Cause of Guillain-Barré cases is under investigation, but gut microbe suspected. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1956957">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Browser Company’s unconventional browser Arc releases publicly on Mac</strong> - It’s still based on Chromium, but the user experience is quite different. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1956914">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Launch of heavyweight commercial communications satellite reset for Thursday night</strong> - SpaceX will again launch a competitor’s satellite, this time a 10-ton behemoth. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1956756">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Namibian fairy circle debate rages on: Could it be sand termites after all?</strong> - Study offers four-point rebuttal to 2022 claim that they’re a kind of eco-Turing pattern. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1955177">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A man loses his ass at a Las Vegas casino… (NSFW)</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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He has only his return plane ticket and a stash of cash at home, but not a penny with him. He sees one cab outside of the casino and pleads with the driver to give him the short ride to the airport, and he’ll send the driver double his fare when he gets home.
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“Goddamn filthy losers”, says the cab driver, “you go fuck off. Walk to the airport, I don’ give a damn about your problems”
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Stunned, the man manages to get to the airport and makes his flight. He returns to the same casino the next year and is killing it. Poker, blackjack, slots - he just cannot lose. He makes a fortune.
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It’s time to leave so he walks out of the casino and sees a long line of cab drivers, and at the very end is the one who humiliated him the year before.
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He goes to the first driver in the line and says “Will you give me a ride to the airport and throw in a blowjob for 2 bucks?”
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“What?!”, says the first driver, “get lost, freako! I’m not giving you a blowjob!”.
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The man goes to the next driver with the same offer, with a similar response.
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He works his way through all the drivers, being rebuffed by all on his offer, until he reaches the guy from the previous year that was such an asshole to him. “To the airport, and if you make it snappy, I’ll double your fare as a tip” he tell the driver, who obviously doesn’t recognize him from the previous year.
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The driver gleefully agrees, the man gets in the car, and the driver starts toward the airport with a giant smile on his face. As they drive away past the line of other cab drivers, the man looks out the rear side window at all the other drivers he spoke to with a smile and a big thumbs up.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/TheLyinKing"> /u/TheLyinKing </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15abmx0/a_man_loses_his_ass_at_a_las_vegas_casino_nsfw/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15abmx0/a_man_loses_his_ass_at_a_las_vegas_casino_nsfw/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I asked my girlfriend to meet me at the gym</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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When she did not show up, I knew we weren’t going to workout.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/yacozaragoza"> /u/yacozaragoza </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15aovoo/i_asked_my_girlfriend_to_meet_me_at_the_gym/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15aovoo/i_asked_my_girlfriend_to_meet_me_at_the_gym/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A man is sitting on the train, chewing gum in silence.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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After a while, an elderly lady leans forward from opposite and says: “Sir, it’s very kind of you to tell me so much, but unfortunately I’m deaf!”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/BezugssystemCH1903"> /u/BezugssystemCH1903 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15axxn6/a_man_is_sitting_on_the_train_chewing_gum_in/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15axxn6/a_man_is_sitting_on_the_train_chewing_gum_in/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A mother is on her deathbed…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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A 90 year-old mother is on her deathbed. Summoning her last bit of strength, she lifts her head and whispers: “Is my beloved husband John here with me?” And John says, “Yes, I am here.”<br/> She then says: “Are my children – my wonderful children – are they here with me?” And they reply, “Yes Mother, we are here with you to see you breathe your last.”<br/> And she says: “Are my brothers and sisters here with me as well?” And they too tell her that they are there.<br/> So the mother lays back quietly, closes her eyes, and says, “If everybody is here … why is the light on in the kitchen?”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/dirtybird971"> /u/dirtybird971 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15a7kg5/a_mother_is_on_her_deathbed/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15a7kg5/a_mother_is_on_her_deathbed/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The frog which was trained to eat pussy.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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A man walks into a bar with a frog on his shoulder and sits next to a woman.
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The woman is intrigued and asks him about the frog.
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Man: “This is my trained frog. He will eat pussy on command”.
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Woman: “No, I don’t believe you”.
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Man: “Really, it’s quite amazing”.
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Woman: “I still don’t believe you”.
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Man: “If you don’t believe me, see it for yourself”.
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Woman: “Alright, I’ve got to see this”.
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They go back to her apartment. The woman takes off her clothes and lies on the bed.
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The man takes the frog and places it on the bed between her legs and commands the frog.
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Man: “Frog. Eat pussy”.
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Nothing happens.
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The man tells the frog with more emphasis.
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Man: “Frog. Eat pussy”!
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Still nothing.
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The man sighs and exclaims “Ok, fine. I’ll show you ONE MORE TIME”.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Thankamani"> /u/Thankamani </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15b0dob/the_frog_which_was_trained_to_eat_pussy/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15b0dob/the_frog_which_was_trained_to_eat_pussy/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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