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<title>26 September, 2023</title>
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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>Assessing the Impact of Language Barriers on Telehealth Utilization And Subsequent Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Cancer During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond</strong> -
<div>
Importance: The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a surge in telehealth utilization. However, language barriers have emerged as a potential obstacle to effective telemedicine engagement, impacting millions of limited English proficient (LEP) individuals. Understanding the role of English proficiency in telehealth outcomes is critical, particularly in cancer care, where consistent follow-up and communication are vital. Objective: The primary objective of this study is to assess the relationship between telehealth use and clinical outcomes in cancer patients while concurrently exploring the effects of English language proficiency on telehealth utilization. Design: This study utilizes a retrospective cohort design, encompassing cancer patients seen at the Chao Comprehensive Cancer Center between March 1, 2020, and December 31, 2022. The study incorporates both in-person and telehealth visits, examining the association between encounter type and clinical outcomes. Setting: The study took place at an NCI-designated cancer center, offering a controlled setting for assessing telehealth utilization and its consequences in cancer care. Participants: The study includes 7,890 patients with more than one outpatient visit during the study period. The majority of our cohort consists of English, Spanish and Vietnamese-speaking patients. Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s): Primary outcomes include the association between telehealth utilization and clinical outcomes, such as hospitalization rates, duration of hospital admissions, rates of readmission, and patient mortality. Results: There was decreased telehealth utilization in non-English speaking cancer patients throughout the pandemic. Increased telehealth utilization was associated with higher rates of admission, irrespective of cancer type. Additionally, telehealth visits were associated with higher rates of subsequent readmissions and longer duration of subsequent admissions compared to in-person visits. Spanish-speaking patients utilizing telehealth had higher rates of re-admission compared to English speakers utilizing telehealth. Patients who died had higher rates of telehealth utilization compared to patients who survived. Conclusions and Relevance: This study highlights the implications of telehealth usage in healthcare outcomes and the role of language barriers in telehealth engagement among cancer patients. The study underscores the need to optimize telehealth usage and minimize its limitations to enhance the quality of cancer care in a telehealth-driven era.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/5g2st/" target="_blank">Assessing the Impact of Language Barriers on Telehealth Utilization And Subsequent Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Cancer During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Lack of detection of SARS-CoV-2 in British wildlife 2020-21 and first description of a stoat (Mustela erminea) Minacovirus</strong> -
<div>
Repeat spill over of SARS-CoV-2 into new hosts has highlighted the critical role of cross species transmission of coronaviruses and establishment of new reservoirs of virus in pandemic and epizootic spread of coronaviruses. Species particularly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 spill-over include Mustelidae (mink, ferrets and related animals) and cricetid rodents (hamsters and related animals). These predispositions led us to screen British wildlife with sarbecovirus specific qPCR and pan coronavirus PCR assays for SARS-CoV-2 using samples collected during the human pandemic to establish if widespread spill-over was occurring. Fourteen wildlife species (n=402) were tested, including : 2 Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes), 101 Badgers (Meles meles), 2 wild American Mink (Neovison vison), 41 Pine Marten (Martes martes), 2 Weasels (Mustela nivalis), 7 Stoats (Mustela erminea), 108 Water Voles (Arvicola amphibius), 39 Bank voles (Myodes glareolous), 10 Field Voles ( Microtus agrestis), 15 Wood Mice (Apodemus sylvaticus), 1 Common Shrew (Sorex aranaeus), 2 Pygmy Shrews (Sorex minutus), 2 Hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) and 75 Eurasian Otters (Lutra lutra). No cases of SARS-CoV-2 were detected in any animals, however a novel minacovirus related to mink and ferret alphacoronaviruses was detected in stoats recently introduced to the Orkney Islands. This group of viruses is of interest due to pathogenicity in ferrets. The impact of this virus on the health of stoat populations remains to be established.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.28.538769v3" target="_blank">Lack of detection of SARS-CoV-2 in British wildlife 2020-21 and first description of a stoat (Mustela erminea) Minacovirus</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Sleep quality worsened in an evening chronotype compared to others: a year-long longitudinal cohort study with prolonged lockdowns and restriction relaxations in RECETOX MU university employees</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background. In 2020, people around the world were challenged by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries responded with various restrictions, including lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, in an attempt to prevent the spread of the disease. Citizens were thus subjected to unprecedented uncertainty and stress. Prolonged exposure to such conditions may impact human health and well-being. One of the core aspects of proper physiological functioning is sleep. This prospective longitudinal study aims to investigate sleep quality and its relationship to chronotype over a year-long period from September 2020. Methods and findings. Our year-long longitudinal prospective study focused on an employee cohort (N=54) at the Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment (RECETOX) of Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. During the first half of this period, three lockdowns with a cumulative duration of 100 days were imposed. During the second half of this period, the imposed restrictions were relaxed. Individuals were measured quarterly, i.e. at five time points. Sleep quality was measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) while chronotype was established using the Reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (rMEQ). We also used Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), and General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) to address potential confounders. The response rates of valid measurements across time points ranged from 87.04 % to 61.11 %. Our results show that sleep quality significantly worsened across the year for the evening chronotype but improved for the neutral and early chronotypes. Overall, over the year the incidence of poor sleep decreased by 16.13 % with 95% CI [-6.10%; 37.16%]. We did not find any significant sex differences in sleep quality. Perceived stress, symptoms of anxiety and depression were positively significantly associated with sleep problems in all measurements except in June. This study is limited by the small sample, decreasing number of individuals in chronotype categories and the lack of information on napping behavior. Conclusion. These findings shed new light on the long-term influence of pandemic-related restrictions on individuals and particularly on the potentially more vulnerable evening chronotypes.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.22.23295980v1" target="_blank">Sleep quality worsened in an evening chronotype compared to others: a year-long longitudinal cohort study with prolonged lockdowns and restriction relaxations in RECETOX MU university employees</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Association of Cognitive Deficits with Sociodemographic Characteristics among Adults with Post-COVID Conditions: Findings from the United States Household Pulse Survey</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background People infected with COVID-19 may continue to experience symptoms for several weeks or even months after acute infection, a condition known as long COVID. Cognitive problems such as memory loss are among the most commonly reported symptoms of long COVID. However, a comprehensive evaluation on the risks of cognitive decline following COVID infection among different sociodemographic groups has not been undertaken at the national level in the United States. Methods We conducted a secondary analysis on the datasets from U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey, encompassing the data collected from June 1, 2022 to December 19, 2022. Based on a cohort of 385,370 individuals aged 18 or older, we employed logistic regression analyses to examine the association between self-reported cognitive deficits and different sociodemographic factors among individuals with long COVID conditions. Results Among individuals aged 18 or older, 44.7% percent of survey respondents report having been diagnosed with COVID in the past, and 29.0% of those with previous COVID infection experienced long COVID symptoms lasting for more than 3 months. We have demonstrated that individuals with long COVID had significantly higher risk of experiencing cognitive deficits compared to those with no history of COVID infection. Furthermore, females, young adults, people with multiple races, or low levels of education attainment are at high risk of cognitive deficits if they experience long COVID. At the state level, the prevalence of cognitive deficits among long COVID patients varied across different US states, with the highest prevalence in West Virginia and Kentucky, and the lowest prevalence in Connecticut and Maryland. The variation could be due to differences in racial composition and education level among long COVID patients in the four states. Conclusions The risks of cognitive deficits among adults with post-COVID conditions are substantial. Various sociodemographic groups can have different risks of developing cognitive deficits after experiencing long COVID. Findings of this large-scale study can help identify sociodemographic groups at higher risk of cognitive deficits, and facilitate medical interventions and guide resource allocation to target populations at risk and to prioritize areas with a high rate of cognitive decline.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.22.23295981v1" target="_blank">Association of Cognitive Deficits with Sociodemographic Characteristics among Adults with Post-COVID Conditions: Findings from the United States Household Pulse Survey</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Moving Biosurveillance Beyond Coded Data: AI for Symptom Detection from Physician Notes</strong> -
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background Real-time surveillance of emerging infectious diseases necessitates a dynamically evolving, computable case definition, which frequently incorporates symptom-related criteria. For symptom detection, both population health monitoring platforms and research initiatives primarily depend on structured data extracted from electronic health records. Objective To validate and test an artificial intelligence (AI) based Natural Language Processing (NLP) pipeline for detecting COVID-19 symptoms from physician notes. Methods Subjects in this retrospective cohort study are patients 21 years old and younger, who presented to a pediatric emergency department (ED) at a large academic children9s hospital between March 1, 2020 and May 31, 2022. ED notes for all patients were processed with an NLP pipeline tuned to detect the mention of 11 COVID-19 symptoms based on CDC criteria. For a gold standard, 3 subject matter experts labeled 226 ED notes and had strong agreement (F1=98.6; PPV=97.2; Recall=100.0). F1, PPV, and recall were used to compare the performance of both NLP and ICD-10 to the gold standard chart review. As a formative use case, variations in symptom patterns were measured across SARS-Cov2 variant eras. Results There were 85,678 ED encounters during the study period, 4.0% with patients with COVID-19. NLP was more accurate at identifying encounters with patients that had any of the COVID-19 symptoms (F1=79.6) than ICD-10 codes (F1=45.1%). NLP accuracy was higher for positive symptoms (recall=93%) than ICD-10 (recall=30%). However, ICD-10 accuracy was higher for negative symptoms (specificity=99.4%) than NLP (specificity=91.7%). Congestion or runny nose showed the highest accuracy difference: NLP F1=82.8%, ICD-10 F1=4.2%. Prevalence of NLP symptoms among patients with COVID-19 differed across variant eras. And patients with COVID-19 were more likely to have each symptom than patients without this disease. Effect sizes (odds ratios) varied across pandemic eras. Conclusions This study establishes the value of AI based NLP as a highly effective tool for real-time COVID-19 symptom detection in pediatric patients, outperforming traditional ICD-10 methods. It also reveals the evolving nature of symptom prevalence across different virus variants, underscoring the need for dynamic, technology-driven approaches in infectious disease surveillance.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.24.23295960v1" target="_blank">Moving Biosurveillance Beyond Coded Data: AI for Symptom Detection from Physician Notes</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Coronavirus and Post-COVID-19 Syndrome: A Systematic Review</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Coronavirus infectious Disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first reported in Wuhan, China, and with its rapidly mutating variants, it soon became a global concern. In response to the pandemic, intensive research and development efforts led to the development of six vaccines approved by the World Health Organization (WHO). Coronavirus is divided into four genera: alpha, beta, gamma and delta. Its unstable ssRNA resulted in multiple strains in a short period, which acted as a selection pressure for transmissibility. Sequelae of COVID-19 infection include multiple syndromes which have been reported at high incidence globally. Using the Cochrane guidelines and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), we present a systematic review of the most common syndromes reported. A total of 12 eligible studies were included in this review. Syndromes reported in the literature include immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), viral encephalomyelitis, hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). We cover the hypothesized pathophysiology, presenting symptoms and treatment for each respective syndrome. We aim to discuss coronavirus and its variants to provide a foundation on which to examine the syndromes manifested after COVID-19 infection (post-COVID-19 syndrome).
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.24.23296022v1" target="_blank">Coronavirus and Post-COVID-19 Syndrome: A Systematic Review</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Analyzing Pain Patterns in the Emergency Department: Leveraging Clinical Text Deep Learning Models for Real-World Insights</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Objective: To estimate the prevalence of patients presenting in pain to an inner-city emergency department (ED), describing this population, their treatment, and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: We applied a clinical text deep learning model to the free text nursing assessments to identify the prevalence of pain on arrival to the ED. Using interrupted time series analysis, we examined the prevalence over three years. We describe this population pre- and post-pandemic in terms of their demographics, arrival patterns and treatment. Results: 55.16% (95%CI 54.95% - 55.36%) of all patients presenting to this ED had pain on arrival. There were significant differences in demographics, arrival and departure patterns between those patients with and without pain. The COVID-19 pandemic initially precipitated a decrease followed by a sharp, sustained rise in the prevalence of pain on arrival, altering the population arriving in pain and their treatment. Discussion The application of a clinical text deep learning model has successfully identified the prevalence of pain on arrival. The description of this population and their treatment forms the basis of intervention to improve care for patients presenting with pain. The combination of the clinical text deep learning model and interrupted time series analysis has identified the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on pain care in the ED. Conclusion A clinical text deep learning model has led to identifying the prevalence of pain on arrival and was able to identify the effect a major pandemic had on pain care in this ED.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.24.23296019v1" target="_blank">Analyzing Pain Patterns in the Emergency Department: Leveraging Clinical Text Deep Learning Models for Real-World Insights</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Modeling the Transmission Mitigation Impact of Testing for Infectious Diseases</strong> -
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A fundamental question of any program focused on the testing and timely diagnosis of a communicable disease is its effectiveness in reducing community transmission. Unfortunately, direct estimation of this effectiveness is difficult in practice, elevating the value of mathematical modeling that can predict it from first principles. Here, we introduce testing effectiveness (TE), defined as the fraction by which transmission is reduced via testing and post-diagnosis isolation at the population scale, and develop a mathematical model that estimates it from the interactions of tests, within-host pathogen dynamics, and arbitrarily complex testing behaviors. While our model generalizes across pathogens, we demonstrate its flexibility through an analysis of three respiratory pathogens, influenza A, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and both pre-vaccine and post-vaccine era SARS-CoV-2, quantifying TE across post-exposure, post-symptom, and routine testing scenarios. We show that TE varies considerably by strategy and pathogen, with optimal testing depending on the number of tests available and when they are used. This work quantifies tradeoffs about when and how to test, providing a flexible framework to guide the use and development of current and future diagnostic tests to control transmission of infectious diseases.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.22.23295983v1" target="_blank">Modeling the Transmission Mitigation Impact of Testing for Infectious Diseases</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Omicron Breakthrough Infection Elicits Superior Humoral and Mucosal Immune Responses to SARS-CoV-2 Variants than an Intramuscular Booster Dose</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Our understanding of the quality of cellular and humoral immunity conferred by COVID-19 vaccination alone versus vaccination plus SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough (BT) infection remains incomplete. While the current (2023) SARS-CoV-2 immune landscape of Canadians is complex, in late 2021 most Canadians had either just received a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine, or had received their two dose primary series and then experienced an Omicron BT. Herein we took advantage of this coincident timing to contrast cellular and humoral immunity conferred by three doses of vaccine versus two doses plus BT. Our results show that mild BT infection induces cell-mediated immune responses to variants comparable to an intramuscular vaccine booster dose. In contrast, BT subjects had higher salivary IgG and IgA levels against the Omicron Spike and enhanced reactivity to the ancestral Spike for the IgA isotype, which also reacted with SARS-CoV-1. Serum neutralizing antibody levels against the ancestral strain and the variants were also higher after BT infection. Our results support the need for mucosal vaccines to emulate the enhanced mucosal and humoral immunity induced by Omicron without exposing individuals to the risks associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.22.23295541v1" target="_blank">Omicron Breakthrough Infection Elicits Superior Humoral and Mucosal Immune Responses to SARS-CoV-2 Variants than an Intramuscular Booster Dose</a>
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<li><strong>Is influenza B/Yamagata extinct and what public health implications could this have? An updated literature review and comprehensive assessment of global surveillance databases.</strong> -
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Introduction: Early after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a major drop in the number of influenza B/Yamagata detections was observed globally. Given the potential public health implications, particularly with regards to influenza vaccination, we conducted a systematic review of influenza B/Yamagata virus circulation data from multiple complementary sources of information. Methods: We searched articles published until 20th March 2023 in PubMed and EMBASE; examined epidemiological and virological influenza data for 2020-2023 contained in the publicly available WHO-FluNet and GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data) global databases, or collected by the multi-national Global Influenza Hospital Surveillance Network (GIHSN) study; and looked for influenza data in the webpages of respiratory viruses surveillance systems from countries worldwide. Results: Highly consistent findings were found across all sources of information, with a progressive decline of influenza B/Yamagata detections from 2020 onwards across all world regions, both in absolute terms (total number of cases), the positivity rate, and as a fraction of influenza B detections. Isolated influenza B/Yamagata cases continue to be sporadically reported, and these are typically vaccine-derived, mistaken data entries or under investigation. Discussion: While it is still too early to conclude that B/Yamagata is (or will soon become) extinct, the current epidemiological and virological data call for a rapid response in terms of influenza prevention practices, particularly regarding the formulation of influenza vaccines. The current epidemiological situation is unprecedented in recent decades, underlying the importance of continuously and carefully monitoring the circulation of influenza viruses (as well as SARS-CoV-2 and the other respiratory viruses) in the coming years.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.25.23296068v1" target="_blank">Is influenza B/Yamagata extinct and what public health implications could this have? An updated literature review and comprehensive assessment of global surveillance databases.</a>
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<li><strong>Micrometer-thick, porous, nanocomposite coating for electrochemical sensors with exceptional antifouling and electroconducting properties</strong> -
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Development of coating technologies for electrochemical sensors that consistently exhibit antifouling activities when exposed to diverse and complex biological environments over extended time is vital for development more effective medical devices and diagnostics. Here, we describe a micrometer-thick, porous nanocomposite coating with both exceptional antifouling and electroconducting properties that greatly enhance the sensitivity of electrochemical sensors. Nozzle-assisted printing of oil-in-water emulsion is used to create a 1 micrometer thick coating composed of cross-linked albumin with interconnected pores, which also contains electroconducting gold nanowires. Using this approach, the antifouling conductive coating can be deposited only on the surface of the working electrode, and not on the reference and counter electrodes, which greatly facilitates the fabrication and functionality of multiplexed electrochemical sensors. The layer effectively resists biofouling and maintains rapid electron transfer kinetics for over one month when exposed directly to complex biological fluids, including serum and nasopharyngeal secretions. Compared to previously described thinner (nanometer thick) antifouling electroconductive coating made with drop casting or a spin coating of the same thickness, the nozzle-printed sensors coated with this thick porous nanocomposite exhibited sensitivities that were enhanced by 3.75- to 17-fold when three different target biomolecules were tested. As a result, emulsion-coated, multiplexed electrochemical sensors coated were able to carry out simultaneous detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) nucleic acid, antigen, and host antibody in clinical specimens with high sensitivity and specificity. This thick porous emulsion coating technology may provide a way to address hurdles currently restricting the application of electrochemical sensors for point-of-care (POC) diagnostic applications, as well as their use in implantable devices and other healthcare monitoring systems.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.23.23296012v1" target="_blank">Micrometer-thick, porous, nanocomposite coating for electrochemical sensors with exceptional antifouling and electroconducting properties</a>
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<li><strong>Conducting developmental research online vs. in-person: A meta-analysis</strong> -
<div>
An increasing number of psychological experiments with children are being conducted using online platforms, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual replications have compared the findings of particular experiments online and in-person, but the general effect of online data collection on data collected from children is still unknown. Therefore, the current meta-analysis examines how the effect sizes of developmental studies conducted online compare to the same studies conducted in-person. Our pre-registered analysis includes 145 effect sizes calculated from 24 papers with 2440 children, ranging in age from four months to six years. We examined several moderators of the effect of online testing, including the role of dependent measure (looking vs verbal), online study method (moderated vs unmoderated), and age. The mean effect size of studies conducted in-person (d = .68) was slightly larger than the mean effect size of their counterparts conducted online (d = .54), but this difference was not significant. Additionally, we found no significant moderating effect of dependent measure, online study method, or age. Overall, the results of the current meta-analysis suggest developmental data collected online are generally comparable to data collected in-person.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/qc6fw/" target="_blank">Conducting developmental research online vs. in-person: A meta-analysis</a>
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<li><strong>On some general characteristics of the spread of the COVID epidemic</strong> -
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An analytical model for calculating the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic is described, and it is shown that the main patterns of epidemic development are determined by three dimensionless complexes representing the ratios of transmission rates, contact limitation due to lockdown, and population vaccination. A comparison of statistical data on the growth of the epidemic in Germany, Berlin and its various neighbourhoods shows that the development of the epidemic depends to a large extent on the ethnic composition of the population. In the same way as it is accepted in some sections of physics, it is proposed to use the methods of similarity theory to investigate the regularities of the emergence and development of the epidemic.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.22.23295959v1" target="_blank">On some general characteristics of the spread of the COVID epidemic</a>
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<li><strong>Causal Inference for Estimation of Vaccine Effects from Time-to-Event Data</strong> -
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Vaccine is the most efficient method for controlling of infectious disease. Vaccine effectiveness estimation is extremely important in monitoring vaccine efficacy and controlling disease spreading. To study about the COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness from EHR data, we apply the counterfactual reasoning method with deep neural network for vaccine effectiveness estimation from the time-to-event data which are extracted from Optum EHR dataset. The estimated vaccine effectiveness by the counterfactual reasoning is compared with the Cox regression model and Random survival forest model. The preliminary results show that the proposed model is more unbiased than the Cox regression and Random survival forest models.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.24.23296040v1" target="_blank">Causal Inference for Estimation of Vaccine Effects from Time-to-Event Data</a>
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<li><strong>A comprehensive study of SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) inhibitor-resistant mutants selected in a VSV-based system</strong> -
<div>
Nirmatrelvir was the first protease inhibitor (PI) specifically developed against the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (3CLpro/Mpro) and licensed for clinical use. As SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread, variants resistant to nirmatrelvir and other currently available treatments are likely to arise. This study aimed to identify and characterize mutations that confer resistance to nirmatrelvir. To safely generate Mpro resistance mutations, we passaged a previously developed chimeric vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV-Mpro) with increasing, yet suboptimal concentrations of nirmatrelvir, using Wuhan-1 and Omicron Mpro variants, and selected a large set of mutants. Some mutations are frequently present in GISAID, suggesting their relevance in SARS-CoV-2. The resistance phenotype of a subset of mutations was characterized against clinically available PIs (nirmatrelvir and ensitrelvir) with cell-based and biochemical assays. Moreover, we showed the putative molecular mechanism of resistance based on in silico molecular modelling. These findings will help to understand SARS-CoV-2 protease-inhibitor-resistance mechanisms, the relevance of specific in the clinic and thereby inform treatment decisions.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.22.558628v1" target="_blank">A comprehensive study of SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) inhibitor-resistant mutants selected in a VSV-based system</a>
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<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>ACTIV-6: COVID-19 Study of Repurposed Medications - Arm G (Metformin)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Placebo;   Drug: Metformin<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Susanna Naggie, MD;   National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS);   Vanderbilt University Medical Center<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Psychosomatic, Physical Activity or Both for Post-covid19 Syndrom</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Post-COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Exercise Therapy;   Behavioral: Psychotherapy<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Hannover Medical School;   Health Insurance Audi BKK;   occupational health service Volkswagen AG;   Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research<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>SA55 Injection: a Potential Therapy for the Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: SA55 Injection;   Other: Placebo for SA55 injection<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sinovac Life Sciences Co., Ltd.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study to Assess the Safety, Tolerability and Preliminary Efficacy of HH-120 for the Treatment of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: HH-120;   Drug: placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Huahui Health<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>A Study to Investigate the Prevention of COVID-19 withVYD222 in Adults With Immune Compromise and in Participants Aged 12 Years or Older Who Are at Risk of Exposure to SARS-CoV-2</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   SARS-CoV-2<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: VYD222;   Drug: Normal saline<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Invivyd, Inc.<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>Omicron BA.4/5-Delta COVID-19 Vaccine Phase I Clinical Trial</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Omicron BA.4/5-Delta strain recombinant novel coronavirus protein vaccine (CHO cells);   Biological: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biologic Pharmacy Co., Ltd.;   Hunan Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention<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>Reducing COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among Hispanic Parents</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Vaccine-Preventable Diseases;   COVID-19 Pandemic;   Health-Related Behavior;   Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice;   Narration<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Baseline surveys;   Behavioral: Digital Storytelling Intervention;   Behavioral: Information Control Intervention<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Arizona State University;   Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)<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-pharmacological and TCM-based Treatment for Long COVID Symptoms</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Long Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: Acupuncture and TCM-based lifestyle management<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   The Hong Kong Polytechnic University<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cell Therapy With Treg Cells Obtained From Thymic Tissue (thyTreg) to Control the Immune Hyperactivation Associated With COVID-19 (THYTECH2)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Allogeneic thyTreg 5.000.000;   Biological: Allogeneic thyTreg 10.000.000<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañon;   Instituto de Salud Carlos III<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>SA55 Novel Coronavirus Broad-spectrum Neutralizing Antibody Nasal Spray in Health People</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: SA55 nasal spray<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sinovac Life Sciences Co., Ltd.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Bioequivalence Trial of Fasting Single Oral STI-1558 Capsule in Healthy Chinese Subjects</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: STI-1558<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Zhejiang ACEA Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Mind Body Intervention for Long COVID</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Long COVID;   Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19;   COVID Long-Haul<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: Mind Body Intervention #1<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center<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 Aerosol Box On Intubation Success Rate</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Intubation; Difficult or Failed<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Device: Intubation using aerosol box;   Device: Intubation without aerosol box<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre<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 of Simultaneous mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine With Other Childhood Vaccines in Young Children</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Fever After Vaccination;   Fever;   Seizures Fever<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine;   Biological: Routine Childhood Vaccinations<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Duke University;   Kaiser Permanente;   Columbia University;   Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati;   Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<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>SA55 Injection Phase II Study in the Treatment of Mild/Moderate COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Infection of Upper Respiratory Tract Caused by 2019-nCoV<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: SA55 Injection<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sinovac Life Sciences Co., Ltd.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Host range, transmissibility and antigenicity of a pangolin coronavirus</strong> - The pathogenic and cross-species transmission potential of SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses (CoVs) remain poorly characterized. Here we recovered a wild-type pangolin (Pg) CoV GD strain including derivatives encoding reporter genes using reverse genetics. In primary human cells, PgCoV replicated efficiently but with reduced fitness and showed less efficient transmission via airborne route compared with SARS-CoV-2 in hamsters. PgCoV was potently inhibited by US Food and Drug Administration…</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>NETs induce persistent lung tissue damage via thromboinflammation without altering virus resolution in a mouse coronavirus model</strong> - BACKGROUND: During infection, neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are associated with severity of pulmonary diseases such as acute respiratory disease syndrome. NETs induce subsequent immune responses, are directly cytotoxic to pulmonary cells and highly procoagulant. Anticoagulation treatment was shown to reduce in-hospital mortality, indicating thromboinflammatory complications. However, little data is available on the involvement of NETs in secondary events after virus clearance, which can…</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>Computational analysis of the interactions between Ebselen and derivatives with the active site of the main protease from SARS-CoV-2</strong> - The main protease (M^(pro)) of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is a key target for developing antiviral drugs. Ebselen (EbSe) is a selenium-containing compound that has been shown to inhibit Mpro in vitro by forming a covalent bond with the cysteine (Cys) residue in the active site of the enzyme. However, EbSe can also bind to other proteins, like albumin, and low molecular weight compounds that have free thiol groups, such as Cys and glutathione (GSH), which may affect its availability and…</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>Pharmacological inhibition of bromodomain and extra-terminal proteins induces an NRF-2-mediated antiviral state that is subverted by SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> - Inhibitors of bromodomain and extra-terminal proteins (iBETs), including JQ-1, have been suggested as potential prophylactics against SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, molecular mechanisms underlying JQ-1-mediated antiviral activity and its susceptibility to viral subversion remain incompletely understood. Pretreatment of cells with iBETs inhibited infection by SARS-CoV-2 variants and SARS-CoV, but not MERS-CoV. The antiviral activity manifested itself by reduced reporter expression of recombinant…</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>Computational study on the mechanisms of inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 M<sup>pro</sup> by aldehyde warheads based on DFT</strong> - SARS-CoV-2 main protease, M^(pro), plays a crucial role in the virus replication cycle, making it an important target for antiviral research. In this study, a simplified model obtained through truncation is used to explore the reaction mechanism of aldehyde warhead compounds inhibiting M^(pro) at the level of density functional theory. According to the calculation results, proton transfer (P_T)-nucleophilic attack (N_A) is the rate-determining step in the entire reaction pathway. The water…</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>Heat shock protein 90 inhibition in the endothelium</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>Determinants of <em>de novo</em> B cell responses to drifted epitopes in post-vaccination SARS-CoV-2 infections</strong> - Vaccine-induced immunity may impact subsequent de novo responses to drifted epitopes in SARS-CoV-2 variants, but this has been difficult to quantify due to the challenges in recruiting unvaccinated control groups whose first exposure to SARS-CoV-2 is a primary infection. Through local, statewide, and national SARS-CoV-2 testing programs, we were able to recruit cohorts of individuals who had recovered from either primary or post-vaccination infections by either the Delta or Omicron BA.1…</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>Recurrent Viral Capture of Cellular Phosphodiesterases that Antagonize OAS-RNase L</strong> - Phosphodiesterases (PDEs) encoded by viruses are putatively acquired by horizontal transfer of cellular PDE ancestor genes. Viral PDEs inhibit the OAS-RNase L antiviral pathway, a key effector component of the innate immune response. Although the function of these proteins is well-characterized, the origins of these gene acquisitions is less clear. Phylogenetic analysis revealed at least five independent PDE acquisition events by ancestral viruses. We found evidence that PDE-encoding genes were…</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>Complete substitution with modified nucleotides suppresses the early interferon response and increases the potency of self-amplifying RNA</strong> - Self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) will revolutionize vaccines and in situ therapeutics by enabling protein expression for longer duration at lower doses. However, a major barrier to saRNA efficacy is the potent early interferon response triggered upon cellular entry, resulting in saRNA degradation and translational inhibition. Substitution of mRNA with modified nucleotides (modNTPs), such as N1-methylpseudouridine (N1mΨ), reduce the interferon response and enhance expression levels. Multiple attempts…</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 human interferon signaling by transposon exonization</strong> - Innate immune signaling is essential for clearing pathogens and damaged cells, and must be tightly regulated to avoid excessive inflammation or autoimmunity. Here, we found that the alternative splicing of exons derived from transposable elements is a key mechanism controlling immune signaling in human cells. By analyzing long-read transcriptome datasets, we identified numerous transposon exonization events predicted to generate functional protein variants of immune genes, including the type I…</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>Modelling and analysis of the complement system signalling pathways: roles of C3, C5a and pro-inflammatory cytokines in SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> - The complement system is an essential part of innate immunity. It is activated by invading pathogens causing inflammation, opsonization, and lysis via complement anaphylatoxins, complement opsonin’s and membrane attack complex (MAC), respectively. However, in SARS-CoV-2 infection overactivation of complement system is causing cytokine storm leading to multiple organs damage. In this study, the René Thomas kinetic logic approach was used for the development of biological regulatory network (BRN)…</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>Utility of coproporphyrin-I determination in first-in-human study for early evaluation of OATP1B inhibitory potential based on investigation of ensitrelvir, an oral SARS-CoV-2 3C-like protease inhibitor</strong> - Coproporphyrin-I (CP-I) has been investigated as an endogenous biomarker of organic anion transporting polypeptide (OATP) 1B. Here, we determined the CP-I concentrations in a cocktail drug-drug interaction (DDI) study of ensitrelvir to evaluate the OATP1B inhibitory potential because ensitrelvir had increased plasma concentrations of rosuvastatin in this study, raising concerns about breast cancer resistance protein and OATP1B inhibition. Furthermore, CP-I concentrations were compared between…</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>Protection of eIF2B from inhibitory phosphorylated eIF2: a viral strategy to maintain mRNA translation during the PKR-triggered integrated stress response</strong> - The integrated stress response (ISR) protects cells from a variety of insults. Once elicited (e.g. by virus infections), it eventually leads to the block of mRNA translation. Central to the ISR are the interactions between translation initiation factors eIF2 and eIF2B. Under normal conditions, eIF2 drives the initiation of protein synthesis through hydrolysis of GTP, which becomes replenished when binding to the guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) eIF2B. The antiviral branch of the ISR is…</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>Computational analysis of substrate recognition of Sars-Cov-2 Mpro main protease</strong> - M^(pro) main protease takes an essential role in the Sars-Cov-2 viral life cycle by releasing the individual protein from the single poly-peptide chain via proteolytic cleavage in the beginning of the viral infection. Interfering with this step by inhibiting the protease with small compound-based inhibitors has been proven to be an effective strategy to treat the infection. Thus, understanding the substrate recognition mechanism of the M^(pro) main protease has gained great interest from the…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Green synthesis, characterization, anti-SARS-CoV-2 entry, and replication of lactoferrin-coated zinc nanoparticles with halting lung fibrosis induced in adult male albino rats</strong> - The ethanolic extract of Coleus forskohlii Briq leaves was employed in the green synthesis of zinc nanoparticles (Zn-NPs) by an immediate, one-step, and cost-effective method in the present study. Zn-NPs were coated with purified bovine lactoferrin (LF) and characterized through different instrumental analysis. The biosynthesized Zn-NPs were white in color revealing oval to spherical-shaped particles with an average size of 77 ± 5.50 nm, whereas LF-coated Zn-NPs (LF-Zn-NPs) revealed a larger…</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>Is Trump Just an Ordinary Republican Now?</strong> - The former President’s rhetoric during his recent trip to Iowa wasn’t any tamer, but he no longer sounds distinct from his G.O.P. rivals. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/is-trump-just-an-ordinary-republican-now">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Astra Taylor’s Age of Insecurity</strong> - The activist and writer sees capitalism as an insecurity-producing machine. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/astra-taylors-age-of-insecurity">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Soccer Players Re-Started Spain’s #MeToo Movement</strong> - A journalist describes the history of feminist activism in Spain and why the World Cup controversy marks a new phase. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-soccer-players-restarted-spains-metoo-movement">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Biden Administration’s Next Big Climate Decision</strong> - The liquefied-natural-gas buildout—and fossil-fuel exports—challenge progress on global warming. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-biden-administrations-next-big-climate-decision">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kelly Clarkson on “Chemistry,” Her Divorce Record</strong> - The singer tells the staff writer Hanif Abdurraqib about chronicling the end of a marriage in real time. Plus, the novelist Hernan Diaz, and Robert Samuels on figure skating. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/kelly-clarkson-on-chemistry-her-divorce-record">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Two young missionaries made headlines. Two new docs look at why.</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A young woman stands in the middle of a room, head bowed, arms outstretched." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JSJOqYaGu9xaJmDYvHFwIPcum_s=/243x0:1683x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72689105/saviorcomplex.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Renee Bach in fundraising materials for her NGO, Serving His Children, as seen in the new HBO documentary series <em>Savior Complex.</em> | HBO
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Savior Complex, The Mission, and the culture behind toxic missionary work.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ERrelc">
We aren’t born knowing who the heroes are. We’re taught to see them, instilled with desires to wear their cape, don their uniform, doff their 10-gallon hat, slip into their well-worn shoes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d9OqQa">
I don’t know who your heroes were, or how that affected your life’s trajectory, but I know for certain that you had your own heroes. I also know that for me and millions of other millennials in American evangelical churches — like Renee Bach and John Chau, the subjects of two new documentaries — those heroes were Christian missionaries: ordinary people who left their homes, ventured overseas, and preached about Jesus. They were adventurers and explorers, descended from people like the Apostle Paul and Francis of Assisi and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone">David Livingstone</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Taylor">Hudson Taylor</a>, all men who journeyed great distances propelled by their belief that God wanted them to do so because there were people who needed to hear that Jesus could save them from their sins. (<em>Evangelical</em> doesn’t mean <em>evangelism</em>, but the two words come from the same Greek root, <em>evangelion</em>, which means gospel, or good news.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xPJkrH">
We read their biographies and heard their stories. People like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Carmichael">Amy Carmichael</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Elliot">Jim Elliot</a> were household names. (In my early teens, I wore a sari to play Carmichael in a church skit.) For kids born in the ’80s and ’90s, the age when colorful mass entertainment became a part of evangelical subculture, movies, comic books, and cartoons illustrated their lives. At youth conferences we were exhorted to be “radical” for Jesus, to pledge our lives to go wherever God sent us, to be ready to sacrifice our lives, figuratively or literally, for the gospel. It was going to be amazing. It was heady fuel for the imagination.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bg3f02">
Imagination, as it happens, is where a lot of would-be missionaries find their origin story. The subject of <em>The Mission</em>, John Chau, found his inspiration in figures like Elliot, who died in 1956 alongside several white missionaries when they traveled to evangelize the Huaorani of Ecuador. At 26, Chau followed in Elliot’s footsteps, journeying illegally in 2018 to evangelize the Sentinelese people on a remote island off the Indian coast, then making global headlines when his body was found on the shore.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A young man of Chinese descent stands on the shore of huge body of water, looking at the camera. He’s wearing a backpack." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vS_g3bxET_JGzXBbUb2GyzRPiG0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24951373/themission.jpg"/> <cite>National Geographic Films</cite>
<figcaption>
John Chau in <em>The Mission.</em>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gaTSNu">
<em>The Mission</em> is an exemplary, thoughtful film about Chau, as well as the larger missionary movement, alongside Western tendencies to exoticize and simultaneously denigrate “primitive” people. (National Geographic Documentary Films is a producer on the movie, and it’s to their credit that the film spends a lot of time on the responsibility that <em>National Geographic</em>, specifically, bears in this area.) Empathetic and non-reactionary, the film weaves together perspectives from people highly skeptical of missions and those who are still true believers. “My friend did something stupid and courageous and bold,” says one of Chau’s closest friends near the start of the film. “I wish I was that bold.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="35h12Y">
<em>The Mission</em> — directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, whose 2014 <em>The Overnighters</em> was another thoughtful look at a faith community — lets audiences into Chau’s mental framework, as well as those of his critics. They’re grappling with the notion of “foreign missions” — traveling far from home to preach about Jesus. That’s built into the DNA of the modern evangelical movement, which was born in a period that coincided, not entirely accidentally, with the height of European colonialism. But Christianity is an evangelistic <a href="https://www.vox.com/religion">religion</a>, and spreading the “good news” has been a fundamental part of the practice in one way or another since the start.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O13jkl">
Yet as with most things in the age of mass media, it’s taken on its own turns of phrase and genre conventions. That’s why it’s hard for me to know how some of the film’s other interviewees sound to people who aren’t conversant in the very particular linguistic turns and codes of contemporary evangelical culture. Does “unreached people group” mean something? What about “the gospel call”? For those familiar with the language, though — and, I have to assume, even those who aren’t — <em>The Mission</em> digs directly into how the missions movement of this era often works: by creating what one pastor calls “fantasies” in the minds of young people, building up a <a href="https://www.vox.com/celebrities">celebrity culture</a> around missionaries, then making an emotional plea to them to join the effort.
</p>
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<div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jJcv5t">
The actual work of missionaries, an issue that can deserve careful critique of its own, isn’t the focus of <em>The Mission</em>, though of course it comes up. Instead, the documentary deals with the <em>culture</em> that’s sprung up around promoting missionary work. Ways of talking and thinking about “unreached people” that dehumanizes and suggests they’re somehow not “modern,” the way we are. An encouragement of “idealism masquerading as God’s calling,” as one of Chau’s former pastors calls it in the film. There’s a wide range of views about missionary work, as wide a range as the types of work people engage in and the good and harm it can promote. What <em>The Mission </em>is wise to recognize is that even proponents need to reckon with the way missions work has been spoken about and promoted to young people in recent decades.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CfIXE0">
This issue runs directly parallel to the cottage industry that sprung up around creating “martyrs” from several students murdered at Columbine in 1999, a market that <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/20/15369442/columbine-anniversary-cassie-bernall-rachel-scott-martyrdom">expanded to books, movies, songs, and conferences</a>. On the surface, these were all aimed at creating a “radical” faith — there’s that word again — in young evangelical millennials, who’d be willing to stand up and declare their faith even when faced with opposition. Yet the method created a martyrdom fantasy in teens virtually indistinguishable from the feeling that propelled Chau to go against the wishes of the people he was so certain he was supposed to visit, love, and evangelize. (The Sentinelese are isolated by choice; as one person in the film puts it, “Outsiders coming there with friendship in their hearts can do a lot of harm.”)
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qwY893">
Most importantly, <em>The Mission</em> spotlights how stories, told with breathless admiration, create expectations in youthful, idealistic Christians who long to serve others so that they, too, will be the center of a heroic story. That same idea is at the center of <em>Savior Complex</em>, a three-episode <a href="https://www.vox.com/hbo">HBO</a> documentary series about Renee Bach, the Virginian who moved to Jinja, Uganda (a center of NGO work) when barely out of her teens. She launched a malnutrition rehabilitation center called Serving His Children that took in children discharged from the local hospital who needed treatment before returning home. In 2019, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/09/749005287/american-with-no-medical-training-ran-center-for-malnourished-ugandan-kids-105-d">she came under fire</a> for running the clinic without medical training (or, it turns out, being registered with the government as a medical NGO at all). She’s since returned to Virginia, and she and her mother — who was among the small leadership staff in her organization — are among the main subjects of the documentary.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A young white woman is surrounded by several Ugandan mothers and their children. She wears a stethoscope." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ITdjHYqp8RWBPqu-XrNgLE0xJeg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24951376/saviorcomplex2.jpg"/> <cite>HBO</cite>
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Renee Bach working with malnourished children and their families in Uganda, as seen in <em>Savior Complex.</em>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KqhovA">
<em>Savior Complex</em> is a tad clunkier in its storytelling than <em>The Mission</em>, though the reasons for one of its more unwieldy elements — the inclusion of an advocacy group called No White Saviors, which poured enormous energy into calling out Bach on social media platforms — becomes vitally clear by the end of the series.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tPTLNC">
Yet it’s a perfect companion piece, particularly for the incisive diagnosis raised by former Serving His Children volunteer Jackie Kramlich, a young nurse who moved to Jinja with her husband and became frustrated with what she saw as Bach’s inability to take criticism or suggestions, even from people more educated than herself. “I think Renee got into a fantasy that she was ordained and special and set apart,” Kramlich says. Her husband Chris agrees, saying he believes that “Renee felt like if she took advice from other people it would lessen her value to the story of being someone that God worked through to heal these children.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YctNfB">
“Lessen her value to the story” — that’s where it clicked for me. An element of solipsism exists in all of us, even those who want to spend their lives serving others. We all want to believe we’re in the right, that we’re doing the enlightened thing. What the Kramlichs saw in Bach’s unwillingness to take medical advice, however, was the belief that she was the heroine of this story — that she was appointed by God, in the way God appointed others in the past, to save these children, and that she thus innately had the skill to do so. “God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called,” as the popular saying (and the first episode’s title) goes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8PDD7A">
It’s an impulse that does, in fact, run counter to both Christian teaching (in which Jesus is always supposed to be the hero) and to being a good person. As my thesis director put it to me in grad school, when you tell your own story, you should be the protagonist, but probably not the hero.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ixwmg5">
That is not the way a lot of missionary storytelling works — nor the way that “white savior” stories, or “magical teacher” stories, or any other story that fires up youthful idealism, often work. <em>Savior Complex</em> even gently suggests that the kind of crusading the No White Saviors group and others like it engaged in falls into the same pattern: the idea that passion and drive and righteousness are enough to make change that matters.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4XKKSX">
The fact of the matter, as any long-time advocate will tell you, is that activism, service, and saving the world is hard, painful, frustrating, and often very boring work. It is not glamorous; it does not feel heroic; it is often ignored entirely. People like to give money to celebrities and people with good stories. They want to be those people. Especially when they’re young and full of possibility.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W1R4xx">
In this way, <em>The Mission</em> and <em>Savior Complex</em> contain a lesson for everyone, whether they find missions work reprehensible, admirable, or something in between. Heroes that we’ve heard of are just people with well-told stories on well-prepared platforms. The real heroic work happens in the shadows and the dirt. And very, very few of us are ready to take that on.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2AOL2j">
Savior Complex <em>premieres on HBO on September 26 at 9 pm ET and begins streaming on Max. </em>The Mission <em>opens in theaters on October 13.</em>
</p></li>
<li><strong>Naomi Klein on her doppelganger (and yours)</strong> -
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<img alt="A woman with a crystal ball in her hand showing a reflection of a river and blue sky." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3oJSKWuLIhAmLWtcTLljdsUhohM=/0x0:479x359/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72689028/gettyimages_1147506986_170667a.0.jpg"/>
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Getty Images
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Are we living through a uniquely brain-breaking era? Ask someone who went deep into the “mirror world.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uiFBfC">
One of the things I try to do on my podcast <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611"><em>The Gray Area</em></a> is sort through all the political and cultural confusion in our society.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ln7UUb">
To say that our world is becoming deranged by our technologies and media ecosystem might be a little much, but I do think that we’ve scrambled our relationships to ourselves and each other in profound and puzzling ways.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jxXyFA">
And yet I sometimes wonder if things are really<em> </em>as weird as they seem. Every generation thinks their time is uniquely strange or dysfunctional, so maybe we’re falling into that same trap — or maybe things are actually as strange as they appear.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CHilyt">
A new book by the influential writer and activist Naomi Klein is a near-heroic attempt to sort through these sorts of questions. It’s called <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374610326/doppelganger"><em>Doppelganger</em></a> and it’s ostensibly about her struggles to avoid being confused with Naomi Wolf, the former liberal feminist icon turned anti-vax conspiracist.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uz0pKe">
But you realize pretty quickly that the book isn’t really about this dynamic. It’s about the distortions and absurdities of life in the digital world and about how all of us, not just public figures, are experiencing our own bewilderment in this environment. It’s a fascinating — and often disorienting — read, so I invited her onto <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area"><em>The Gray Area</em></a> to talk about her journey and how it helped her make sense of this moment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TxUiG7">
Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow <em>The Gray Area</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/search/vox%20conversations">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations">Stitcher</a>, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.
</p>
<div id="eeJhgc">
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="zvgc0E"/>
<h4 id="OflXU1">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IP3kF3">
How do you sum up what this book is about when people ask?
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<h4 id="6KUNYQ">
Naomi Klein
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dwF6KQ">
I don’t really have a great elevator pitch for it. It’s an attempt to wrap my arms around the wildness of intersecting crises. There was a moment when I decided this isn’t going to be a quirky essay. I was going to write an essay about identity confusion that would revisit some of the themes from my first book, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312429270/nologo"><em>No Logo</em></a>, which came out before the idea that regular people could be brands was a reality, because it was pre-social media. And so I thought it was going to be maybe a 10,000-word kind of literary essay.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hPgsif">
The moment I thought, “No, this is way bigger than that,” was during the pandemic. I moved back to Canada from the US, and I live in a really beautiful remote part of British Columbia. Around September 2021, I was driving through our small sleepy town, and there were hundreds of people protesting outside of the local hospital, and they were holding all kinds of signs about “plandemics” and Nuremberg trials and Fauci. And I can’t stress to you enough that this kind of thing does not happen where I live. This is the largest gathering I had ever seen of a political nature in this part of the world. And it just seemed like, well, if this misinformation and conspiracy culture could have reached here, then this is so much bigger than whatever I’ve been experiencing on an individual level.
</p>
<h4 id="1lAKzL">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TUOUVZ">
One of the things you end up doing is immersing yourself in what you call the “Mirror World.” You start mainlining <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/7/17/23217452/steve-bannon-january-6-trump-propaganda-election">Steve Bannon’s podcast</a>, where your professional doppelgänger, Naomi Wolf, became a recurring guest, and you really dove into this whole space. Obviously, you weren’t red-pilled, but you clearly learned something about that side.
</p>
<h4 id="Or7kH9">
Naomi Klein
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AWlXbb">
Yeah, I was interested in a perception among a lot of people who I knew that this whole world really didn’t exist or didn’t matter, or was unworthy of our attention. And I saw that very clearly with the reaction to my doppelgänger, Naomi Wolf, because she was deplatformed<strong> </strong>on a lot of social media networks, including the one she was most active on, which was <a href="https://www.vox.com/twitter">Twitter</a>.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OQ2GPw">
First, she became a kind of running joke on Twitter, and then, eventually, she was deplatformed. She’s back thanks to Musk, but she was kicked off in maybe late spring, early summer of 2021. The reaction on Twitter was a lot of jokes like “Ding dong, the witch is dead” and that sort of thing, as though she didn’t exist anymore. We don’t need to think about her anymore. And because I had already started to pay attention to what she was up to, I was so struck that the opposite was true, that she actually had a much bigger reach — despite the fact that she was no longer visible to liberals and leftists. She was now, as you say, a regular on Steve Bannon’s podcast. At one point, she was on his podcast every single day for two weeks, to give you a sense of the unlikely buddy movie they’re involved in. They published a book together. They put out T-shirts together. I don’t think they’re for sale anymore. But it was really a coming together. And the first time she went on his show, she said, “I used to think you were the devil.” But I learned a lot by listening to Steve Bannon. I got a strong sense of why a figure like her would be so important to him as an electoral and political strategist.
</p>
<h4 id="Z84d0l">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9HB3c2">
Why was she so important?
</p>
<h4 id="r9sVtQ">
Naomi Klein
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Crzkc1">
We all know for the MAGA right, women are a problem. Trump did not do as well as he needed to do with white suburban women in 2020, and the Republicans didn’t do well enough in 2022. And I think the reason why Bannon is as attracted to Wolf, as unlikely as that would be since she was a lifelong feminist and a former Democrat, is not just that he’s able to cosplay reaching across the aisle, which he likes to talk about how “We won’t cancel. We’re willing to come together across differences and across divides.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IzGNjF">
I think what she represents to him is a slice of white women voters who had a rough time <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19">during Covid</a>, who don’t like being called “Karen,” who didn’t like that the schools were closed for as long as they were closed, who got very worked up about mask policies and vaccines. And he’s now kind of pivoting them very quickly to book banning and transphobia. And so that’s one of the things I learned from listening to him. He’s a good strategist.
</p>
<h4 id="IabCQe">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fdc4fw">
This reminds me of something pretty important you say in the book, which is that the conspiracy theorists may get the facts wrong, but they often get the <em>feelings</em> right. People feel that they have less and less control over our lives. They feel like important truths are being hidden from them. They feel disconnected and they feel a sense of belonging that comes with getting wrapped up in some of these online worlds. And all of this gets supercharged under the hysteria of the pandemic.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Kqmrc2">
Anyone trying to make sense of our ideologically scrambled landscape, especially this drift of so many people to what we think of as the right or the far right, has to recognize that people like Bannon are very good at sensing these grievances and fears and then offering people a counterfeit vision of emancipation.
</p>
<h4 id="uApNV0">
Naomi Klein
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fnzmPr">
I think that’s exactly right. And then we dig ourselves in deeper when an issue gets co-opted, warped, and twisted in that world, which I call the “Mirror World.” Then the response among liberals and leftists is to mock. The more conspiratorial they are, the more credulous we become. All kinds of issues become untouchable. So if they’re mad about school closures, then we don’t see a single issue to talk about when it comes to school closures. Or if they’re talking about the lab leak theory, well, then that’s crazy-person talk and we won’t even mention it. So when they get the feelings, and then there’s a counter-reaction, whatever they’re tapping into becomes kind of unsayable, it’s an absolute gift to the Bannons of the world.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UnaeZE">
So I’ll give you an example involving Naomi Wolf [“Other Naomi”] that really turned the light on for me. The issue that was her right-wing star turn where she was suddenly invited on <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/4/25/23697600/tucker-carlson-tonight-fox-news-dominion-lawsuit">Tucker Carlson</a> regularly and other Fox shows and where Steve Bannon discovered her as a voice was when she started talking about how vaccine verification apps were actually surveillance tools that were going to bring Chinese Communist Party social credit systems to the West. At one point, I think she said, “They can cancel your life if you don’t … if they find out something wrong about you beyond just not getting vaccinated.” Basically, she was saying they’re going to extend it from vaccination to absolutely everything like they do in <a href="https://www.vox.com/china">China</a>. And if you don’t toe the line, then your kids won’t be able to get into the schools. They’ll be able to eavesdrop on your conversations in restaurants. They’ll know everybody who you’ve met with.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pRBaCz">
And the response on liberal Twitter to all of this overblown rhetoric about what vaccine verification apps could do when it came to surveillance was this pithy little joke, which was, “Wait till they hear about cell phones!” And I remember the first time I saw that, and I thought it was funny. I probably retweeted it. And then I thought, “What am I doing? Am I saying that the joke is these people think a vaccine verification app is tracking them everywhere they go and is able to somehow eavesdrop on them?” We smart liberals know your cell phone can do that, and we think it’s funny, right. But it’s not actually funny. A lot of people are really concerned about it, and they should be.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OpLUkv">
So what you see is that when an issue gets trivialized or abandoned in mainstream circles or even in left circles, then it’s ripe for the picking for somebody like Bannon to twist it. And so I think the way to respond to that is not to say, “Wait till they hear about cell phones.” The response is, “What are we actually going to do about this? And, in fact, didn’t we think that the Biden administration was going to do more to protect our data and our privacy online?” There are ways that we can offer substantive responses to the feelings that they’re getting right.
</p>
<h4 id="qEGcHv">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u60Uor">
I don’t know if “paradox” is the right word exactly, but there’s definitely a related trade-off you explore in the book. As more and more of our lives shift into the virtual world, we have more freedom to assert our identities, to experiment with identities, but we also become unmoored from the real world and, at the same time, kind of remade in the image of our digital tools and the twisted culture they create. And it seems like these things you’ve always written about — the phoniness of branding, the hyper-individualism of late capitalist culture — it all gets amplified by modern tech.
</p>
<h4 id="rxsUY4">
Naomi Klein
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6BP2qf">
I think the confusion around identity is a lot easier when we are not actually interacting with each other. We’re interacting with tiny little thumbnail avatars of one another, which are eminently more confusable with tiny little thumbnail-sized avatars of somebody else. And I’m not immune to it. There are people who I can’t keep straight on my Twitter feed. I don’t think our brains are wired to sort this many faces that we’re exposed to in a day. But I also think that [in] the combination of the unidimensionality of the technology and the fact that we are marketing ourselves, we are thing-ifying ourselves, that what it means to create the “brand” version of you is to create a thin version of you, a commodity version of you. I think this is part of why these are often such cruel spaces.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tT7LTJ">
We are all familiar with the analysis around how the algorithms encourage a certain kind of angry, indignant behavior. And all of that’s true, but I think missing from that analysis is the fact that it isn’t only that the algorithms reward rage and shaming, it’s also that it’s easier to treat people as a thing, as an object, if they’re performing themselves as an object. You would believe that there’s no human there and that they can just live through whatever pile-on the crowd has decided is the outrage of the day.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gKtFTA">
I thought a lot about this because I do think that the doppelgänger at the center of the book, Naomi Wolf, is somebody who has experienced one of those internet-shaming moments. She’s actually experienced a lot of them. She’s really been a punching bag over the years. And I’m not saying she hasn’t made huge errors. She has. But there’s this famous moment where a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/24/books/naomi-wolf-outrages.html">major error in a book of hers was revealed live</a> on the BBC. And look, we should hold each other accountable. We should take facts seriously. We should fact-check each other. There’s nothing wrong with that part of what happened. I think, in many ways, it’s right that there was a process of having somebody or an interviewer who did enough research to find this error. But what happened afterwards was just one of those really ugly internet moments where it became a sport to make fun of her as if she was not a human being at all. And I think that’s related to what you’re talking about, about this unmooring.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xCeuna">
<em>To hear the rest of the conversation, </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/naomi-klein-on-her-doppelganger-and-yours/id1081584611?i=1000629050269"><em>click here</em></a><em>, and be sure to follow </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/thegrayarea">The Gray Area</a><em> on </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611"><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://podcasts.google.com/search/vox%20conversations"><em>Google Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP"><em>Spotify</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations"><em>Stitcher</em></a><em>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.</em>
</p></li>
<li><strong>Will the economy finally un-weird itself?</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A man walking on a white line that zig-zags up and down over a green background." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/s-ywVVXM-nTary1CkCHHoULV8fg=/119x0:2004x1414/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72687315/GettyImages_1253985588.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
What to worry about if you’re in the mood to worry about the economy. | Klaus Vedfelt via Getty Images
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The economy’s “hold your breath moment,” explained
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cAMLQt">
Let’s get this out of the way: the <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy">economy</a> is not in bad shape at the moment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tmUzfA">
The red hot labor market is cooling off a little, but it remains resilient. It’s the type of thing you’d want to see if the “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23614066/inflation-soft-landing-economy-recession">soft landing</a>” scenario we’re aiming for, where the economy slows down without going into negative territory, is going to happen. Inflation has moderated. Consumers <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-20/bofa-cfo-says-recession-hard-to-see-as-consumers-keep-spending?sref=qYiz2hd0">are still hanging in there</a>. The country’s GDP growth for the third quarter <a href="https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/feature/2023/09/19-gdpnow#:~:text=On%20September%2019%2C%20the%20GDPNow,from%20September%2014%20after%20rounding.">is expected</a> to come in <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/2023/aug/lower-inflation-gdp-growth-positive-signs-us-economy">quite strong</a>. It actually needs to slow a little bit <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/yellen-says-us-growth-needs-slow-line-with-potential-due-full-employment-2023-09-19/">if inflation is going to come down more</a>. Objectively, you can’t look around and declare, “Yes, we are in the midst of a broad-based recession.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bEw1Ri">
Still, after the last few years, being nervous is well within many Americans’ rights. <a href="https://www.vox.com/money/23770003/economy-job-market-rich-poor-middle-class-stocks">Plenty of people</a> have been <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2022/6/8/23158436/economy-inflation-recession-odds-stock-market">nervous about the economy</a> for what feels like forever, to the point that it might just be time to accept that at least some level of economic anxiety is a permanent state of being. It’s understandable. The possibility of a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23810454/us-economy-2023-inflation-unemployment-recession-soft-landing">recession</a> is scary, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23717600/high-inflation-cpi-climate-change-population-aging">inflation</a> is a real bummer, and the thing most people do to exist in the economy — work — is not always super fun. For millions of low-income Americans, economic precarity feels like a fact of life.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<div id="pu6Dmw">
<div>
</div>
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</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x7bder">
There are potential headwinds ahead, as there always are — that’s sort of the name of the game. And there are indicators pointing in negative directions, too. A lot of the excess savings people built up in the pandemic <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2023/may/rise-and-fall-of-pandemic-excess-savings/">have dissipated</a>, and the programs the government put in place to shore up people’s finances and the economy have by and large dried up. The Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates for well over a year in an attempt to slow the economy down and combat inflation, and it’s not clear whether the full effects of that have been felt. (Remember the whole <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/23634433/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-silvergate-first-republic-fdic">Silicon Valley Bank collapse</a> from the spring? That was in part the result of Fed rate hikes.)
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“It’s a hold-your-breath moment, because you’re just waiting,” said <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/claudiasahm/">Claudia Sahm</a>, the founder of Sahm Consulting and a former economist at the Federal Reserve. “That’s always the case, but now I think it’s even more reinforced. We’ve been in uncharted territory since 2020, and now it’s seeing if we can get out of it. You can make the case in every direction.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H1bajj">
On the economy, the vibes and realities <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2022/6/8/23158436/economy-inflation-recession-odds-stock-market">don’t always match</a> — there’s often a negative bias here, too. People’s individual circumstances vary as well. If you’re a striking auto worker, if your <a href="https://www.vox.com/student-loan-debt">student loan</a> payments are about to come back, or if you got swept up in some of the tech layoffs earlier this year, you’re of course going to be extra worried right now.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="aj5ycz">
<q>“We’ve been in uncharted territory since 2020”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jOmN2N">
At the macro level, really, things do seem pretty solid. But there are some potential uncertainties to keep in mind.
</p>
<h3 id="MxAoXy">
Strikes, student debt, and the shutdown are an economic “triple threat,” in the bad way
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HMEBbZ">
In the short term, there are multiple factors that, while small on their own, could add up to a significant drag on the economy when combined. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/9/15/23875044/uaw-strike-news-contract-demands-wentzville-toledo-wayne">United Auto Workers strikes</a>, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/23755273/prepare-return-student-loan-payments-servicer-budget">pending resumption of student debt payments</a>, and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/9/11/23868182/government-shutdown-republicans-house-freedom-caucus">risk of a government shutdown</a> represent a “triple threat on the economy” at the moment, Greg Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, told me in a recent interview. “It’s the combination of the headwinds that can hurt you more than any single isolated incident.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VtcsF7">
The UAW strikes cost the economy $1.6 billion in their first week, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-strike-set-hit-deep-into-industrys-supply-base-2023-09-22/">according to an estimate</a> by Michigan consulting firm Anderson Economic Group, with the impact largely being felt in the places where the <a href="https://www.vox.com/unions">union</a>’s strikes are taking place. The longer the strikes go on — and the more the UAW escalates to have more workers walk off the job — the worse the scenario will get. Initially, the UAW struck at just three plants in three states, now it’s escalated to 38 plants across 20 states. That’s expanded its geographic reach as well as its disruption.
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It’s a similar situation with a potential government shutdown, which could be just days away if <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress">Congress</a> doesn’t strike a deal by midnight on September 30. Some of the economic activity lost during shutdowns will be recovered — government workers who have to forgo their paychecks during that time eventually do get paid. Still, there is damage: the 2018-2019 shutdown, which lasted 34 days, led to <a href="https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/what-happens-if-the-government-shuts-down-in-2023/#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20economic%20impact%20of%20a%20shutdown">$3 billion</a> in permanent lost economic growth, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bMWve9">
Regardless, a shutdown isn’t an awesome sign for the state of anything. “The government shutdown is about politics and dysfunction,” Sahm said. “It can’t be good for the economy.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AREXRV">
Student loan repayments, put on pause during the pandemic, are set to become due again in October — for real this time. Analysts at Goldman Sachs <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/business/economy/restart-student-loan-payments.html#:~:text=Goldman%20Sachs%20analysts%20expect%20renewed,to%201.4%20percent%2C%20they%20estimate.">estimate</a> that will cost American households some $70 billion each year. That is likely to hit consumer spending somewhat — borrowers will be sending $200 or $300 to the government each month instead of injecting it into the economy. It’s not going to do the economy in.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nLofFL">
“Sure, it’s going to have an effect, but I think the magnitudes are not big enough to drive us into a recession unless we’re already on the verge of a recession,” said <a href="https://www.chicagobooth.edu/faculty/directory/y/constantine-yannelis">Constantine Yannelis</a>, an associate professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The White House <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/student-loans/the-student-loan-on-ramp-should-you-delay-payments-for-a-year">has laid out an “on-ramp” for student loan repayments</a> to get people back to paying over time that may also soften the economic blow.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mmWR6I">
There are other short-term negative factors in play as well. Oil prices have risen and, in turn, so has the cost of gas. Mortgage rates <a href="https://www.vox.com/money/2023/8/18/23837416/mortgage-rates-surge-housing-market-supply-soft-landing">are spiking</a>. Most, if not all, pandemic relief programs have sunsetted, including <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/3/4/23625015/snap-poverty-covid-benefits">food stamps</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2023/2/13/23582863/medicaid-health-insurance-covid-19-coverage-florida-texas">Medicaid</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22638555/unemployment-extension-benefits-biden">unemployment insurance</a>. Congress <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/4/18/23026908/child-tax-credit-joe-manchin-policy-feedback-partisan">allowed</a> the expanded child tax credit to expire as well.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="escAeC">
“The pandemic relief programs clearly had effects on demand, clearly had effects on improving balance sheets and debt,” Sahm said. “It’s not hard to think about which direction [the end of the programs] goes.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lnjgOi">
Child poverty <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/9/21/23882353/child-poverty-expanded-child-tax-credit-census-welfare-inflation-economy-data">spiked in 2022</a> after supplemental programs were ended. <a href="https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2023/almost-38-million-people-have-lost-their-medicaid-coverage-end-covid-19-public-health">Millions</a> of people have lost Medicaid.
</p>
<h3 id="rqXaRa">
The labor market is still good! But it’s slowing down, and the Fed’s still doing its thing.
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4AgUYl">
If everything we were talking about up to this point was sort of small-scale, short-term risk, this is the part where we get to the medium stuff. Keeping with the spirit of the rule of threes, let’s put it into three categories that are top of mind: <a href="https://www.vox.com/labor-jobs">jobs</a>, inflation, and the Fed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="85YE2b">
The overarching headline about the US labor market during the pandemic recovery has been that it’s astonishingly resilient. Many workers were able to get hired, to trade out of bad jobs for better ones, and to join the labor force. Inflation did outpace wage growth for a while, but <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/pay-raises-are-finally-beating-inflation-after-two-years-of-falling-behind-3e89bc2d">that’s no longer the case</a>, and those at the bottom end of the income spectrum in particular <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2022/">have really been able to make important gains</a>. In recent months, things have started to moderate. People are quitting their jobs at more normal rates, and job openings have fallen. Job gains have slowed as well. As of the August jobs report, the US was adding an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/01/economy/jobs-report-august-final/index.html">average of 150,000 jobs</a> per month over the past three months. By comparison, at the start of the year, <a href="https://www.hiringlab.org/2023/04/07/march-2023-jobs-report/#:~:text=But%20average%20payroll%20gains%20of,employment%2Dto%2Dpopulation%20ratios.">the figure was more than double that</a>.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="R5qiRp">
<q>“The very pillar that is reason for optimism is becoming less solid as we move through the year”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7kkIya">
This is all headed in the direction of “normal” territory. The question is whether normal sticks. The downward trend could continue into negative territory, meaning the labor market adds fewer and fewer jobs until we eventually see job losses. “What stops that deceleration?” Sahm said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lcSMzy">
“We’re seeing an ongoing slowdown in the labor market,” Daco said. “The very pillar that is reason for optimism is becoming less solid as we move through the year.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5s8G7A">
It’s also worth noting that a normal jobs market doesn’t mean an optimal one. The Black unemployment rate has typically remained much higher than the white unemployment rate, though this recent tight labor market has led to historically low unemployment rates for Black workers. If anything, the past few years have shown that we don’t have a great sense of just how good the labor market can get.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0Z6eLq">
Inflation increasing again is another concern. It’s moving in the right direction generally, but the ride is likely to be bumpy. While the hope for the labor market is that it stays close to where it is, the hope for inflation, which is in the 3-4 percent range annually, continues to come down, heading more toward that <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/economy_14400.htm">2 percent rate the Fed aims for</a> in the long term. What’s more, some of the factors that could contribute to increasing inflation — trade disruptions, rising oil prices — are very much out of the Fed’s hands.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JdneUy">
“We’re seeing a lot of political instability in <a href="https://www.vox.com/china">China</a> at the moment and an increasing decoupling between China and the US, and more generally, we’ve entered, since the pandemic, a new era of trade protectionism,” Yannelis said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yxqUqx">
“While the Fed will say they care about all inflation, they can do nothing about [oil and gas price] inflation,” Sahm said. “That’s global demand, that’s global politics.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ynDTM4">
Speaking of the Fed, that’s where another wild card comes in — or, at least, wild-ish. In September, it <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/business/fed-meeting-september-final/index.html">left interest rates unchanged</a> in a sign that it’s relatively optimistic about where the economy is headed. It’s expected to raise interest rates once more this year and has also indicated it will keep rates higher for longer in 2024. It’s a sign the Fed seems to believe the economy can withstand higher rates for longer. That means borrowing costs will likely stay high, something many consumers, businesses, and investors may not love. Still, the economy is unpredictable, and economic forecasts are just that — forecasts.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J3XwY5">
It’s still not clear if we’ve seen the full fallout of the actions the Fed’s already taken. “I’m still in the camp that we haven’t seen the effect of all the Fed’s interest rates, and frankly, I’m most concerned with the risks in the financial sector,” Sahm said, pointing to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/money/2023/3/14/23640065/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-fdic-interest-rates-federal-reserve">role higher interest rates played in Silicon Valley Bank’s implosion</a>. That being said, the Fed hiking interest rates so much thus far could have pushed the country into a recession, and it didn’t. “With a recession, typically there’s been a shock. The Fed rapidly raising interest rates by over 5 percentage points, that could have been a shock, but it’s not like we rolled right into a recession,” she said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="w5v5wM">
Qian Wang, an economist at Vanguard Group, said she sees a potential problem where the Fed gets stuck between a rock and a hard place as different parts of the economy move in different directions. “I think the biggest risk is that the Fed may get into a dilemma and inflation may pick up actually again and economic growth may weaken and slow down, so that literally makes a soft landing impossible,” she said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MSZjlt">
To be sure, there are all sorts of scenarios that could play out. Yannelis pointed to “tail-risk nightmare scenarios” in the long term (or, really, whenever) that could obviously do big damage to the economy — artificial intelligence getting out of control, a disastrous <a href="https://www.vox.com/2024-elections">2024 election</a> where people en masse refuse to accept the results, large-scale confrontation between global powers, like <a href="https://www.vox.com/russia">Russia</a> and NATO. It’s important to point out here that these are really unlikely scenarios. Also, if there is a global nuclear war, it’s not really going to matter what mortgage rate your local bank is offering.
</p>
<h3 id="L1koQA">
Maybe it’s just time to embrace economic anxiety acceptance
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lNUm5M">
Now that I’ve spent a lot of this story bumming you out a little, I want to emphasize here that there really are plenty of reasons for optimism about the economy — on jobs, consumer spending, and growth. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23810454/us-economy-2023-inflation-unemployment-recession-soft-landing">soft landing</a> scenario seems very much possible, though most economists and policymakers aren’t rushing to call this a definitive win.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6HyerN">
“We do feel that a soft landing is not impossible, of course, but we don’t think that’s our baseline scenario,” Wang said, noting Vanguard’s base case is a recession within the next 18 months. “The market sentiment is getting too high.”
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="HHARsI">
<q>“We have not soft landed, we are still in the landing process”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nrEAZj">
“Objectively, the economy’s feeling pretty good, but it’s vulnerable, because it’s still dealing with high interest rates. And you throw in these headwinds, and I don’t think we’re home free yet,” said <a href="https://www.moodysanalytics.com/about-us/subject-matter-experts/mark-zandi">Mark Zandi</a>, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “You can’t declare mission accomplished yet. We have not soft landed, we are still in the landing process.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fQGoTH">
The US economy <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/08/24/recession-indicator-us-economy-downturn">has been claimed to be near a recession for months and months now</a>, and one <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/with-gallic-shrug-fed-bids-adieu-recession-that-wasnt-2023-08-16/">doesn’t appear to have happened yet</a>. There will very likely be a downturn again at some moment, because recessions, historically, have been a fact of economic life. It’s fair to say that right now, the economy looks quite strong and resilient, and there are also risks. Whether those risks will add up to something impactful isn’t something anyone can definitively declare.
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Multicrown, Kings Walk, Dancing Queen, Gutsy, Seattle Blue, The Awakening and Slainte excel</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>2023 ODI World Cup venues: Arun Jaitley Stadium — capacity, pitch info and areas that need attention</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>Time And Tide and Kanya Rashi catch the eye</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Vivaldo, All Attractive and Pink Jasmine shine</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Steve Smith’s form not a concern but Australia must adapt well, feels Mitchell Starc</strong> - Usually a prolific scorer against India, Smith has scores of 0 and 41 in the first two ODIs on batting-friendly tracks, having flopped earlier in the Test series in February-March when he could only manage 145 runs across four Tests</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>China refuses to further expand cooperation with Pak in energy, water, climate under CPEC</strong> - Pakistan also gave up its opposition to setting up a new imported coal-fired power plant in Gwadar and agreed to a number of Chinese demands to address Beijing’s concerns</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 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>A.P. govt. forms steering committee to frame guidelines for IB syllabus in State-run schools</strong> - The SSC and Intermediate Boards will be transformed and made equivalent with the International Baccalaureate Board, in a move that is aimed at reforming the education sector in the State</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>Madras High Court calls for DVAC inquiry report into 2018 complaint over irregularities in T.N. Secretariat construction</strong> - Justices D. Krishnakumar and P.B. Balaji ask Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram to submit the inquiry report in a sealed cover on October 3</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>Sugarcane farmers stage sit-in protest in Thanjavur</strong> -</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nagorno-Karabakh: Fuel depot blast kills 20 as refugee count rises</strong> - Officials say 290 people have been taken to hospital with dozens in a critical condition.</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>Ukraine: The soldiers who can’t leave the front line until the war is over</strong> - For Ukrainian troops, life on the front line is far from easy, as the BBC’s Mark Urban witnessed up close.</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>Five alleged Russian spies appear in London court</strong> - The Bulgarian nationals were charged after a counter-espionage investigation uncovered an alleged spy ring.</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>River Danube: Ukrainian captain jailed after fatal river tour boat crash</strong> - Twenty-five South Korean tourists died after a boat sank during a rainstorm on the River Danube.</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>Chess grandmaster Hans Niemann denies using vibrating sex toy to cheat</strong> - Hans Niemann was accused of cheating after he beat Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen last September.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Space Force chief says commercial satellites may need defending</strong> - “It would stand to reason that same philosophy would extend into space.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1971008">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jeff Bezos finally got rid of Bob Smith at Blue Origin</strong> - “I am confident that Blue Origin’s greatest achievements are still ahead of us.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1970954">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ford pauses work on $3.5 billion battery factory in Michigan</strong> - The site was going to make lithium iron phosphate cells for electric vehicles. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1970975">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SEC obtains Wall Street firms’ private chats in probe of WhatsApp, Signal use</strong> - Execs’ “messages discussing business have been handed to the SEC,” report says. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1970944">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The first foldable PC era is unfolding</strong> - LG’s 17-inch foldable OLED arrives October 4 for 4.99 million won (~$3,726). - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1970796">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 dad told his 15 year old son that he would buy him a car…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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…in 6 months on his 16th birthday if he (the son) got a job, made all “A’s” in school, started going to church every week and cut his hair. The son agreed to do all four things.
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Six months go by and the dad told his son, “Son, you got a job, you are going to church every Sunday and are making all “A’s” in school. But you also agreed to cut your hair, which you have not done. So I’m sorry, but I will not buy you a car.”
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The son said, “Dad, like you said, I’ve been going to church every week and I’ve been looking at all the pictures of Jesus and HE had long hair, so why can’t I?”
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The dad replied, “He did have long hair and he also walked everywhere!”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Indotex"> /u/Indotex </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16saks6/a_dad_told_his_15_year_old_son_that_he_would_buy/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16saks6/a_dad_told_his_15_year_old_son_that_he_would_buy/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>One night….</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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One night a little girl walks in on her parents having sex.
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The mother is going up and down on the father and when she sees her daughter looking at them she immediately stops.
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“What are you doing, Mommy?”
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The mother too embarassed to tell her little girl about sex so she makes up an answer.
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“Well, sweetie, sometimes daddy’s tummy gets too big so I have to jump up and down on it to flatten it out.”
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The little girl replies, “Well, mommy you really shouldn’t bother with that.”
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The mother has a confused look on her face, “Why do you say that sweetheart?”
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The little girl replies, “Because mommy, everytime you leave in the morning, the lady next door comes over and blows it back 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/MercyReign"> /u/MercyReign </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16s8tjh/one_night/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16s8tjh/one_night/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I asked the gym trainer which machine to use to get the most beautiful women</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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He said the ATM outside
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SecurityNo1814"> /u/SecurityNo1814 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16scneq/i_asked_the_gym_trainer_which_machine_to_use_to/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16scneq/i_asked_the_gym_trainer_which_machine_to_use_to/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What weighs more, a gallon of water, or a gallon of butane?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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A gallon of water. Butane is a lighter fluid.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/_-Logic-"> /u/_-Logic- </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16s8bz0/what_weighs_more_a_gallon_of_water_or_a_gallon_of/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16s8bz0/what_weighs_more_a_gallon_of_water_or_a_gallon_of/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two Brothers Move to the City</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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There were two brothers who lived in the country.
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One day they decided they wanted to move to the big city and get jobs there. When they got there they went to the employment office to ask for jobs.
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The first brother went in for an interview and less than 10 minutes later he comes out of the office jumping for joy yelling “hoo wee! I got a job!”
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The second brother was so happy and excited for what he would get.
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He enters the office and the interviewer asks him what his skills are.
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“Well” he says, “I can cut and split wood like crazy”
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The interviewer looks at him and says “Hmm, well it’s going to be hard to find a job in this city with those skills. Everything in the city is steel and concrete, we don’t have much use for a wood cutter”
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Disheartened, the second brother says “but my brother was just in here and he got a job”
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The interviewer says, “yes but he says he can pilot, and that’s a valuable skill”
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The brother sits up in his chair and says, “that may be so, but he can’t pile’it ’till I cut it”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Canadiannoob25"> /u/Canadiannoob25 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16rt70v/two_brothers_move_to_the_city/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16rt70v/two_brothers_move_to_the_city/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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