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<title>14 November, 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>Integrating stimulus-organism-response model and theory of planned behavior to explore athletes’ intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccine booster - A moderated mediation model</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
This study aims to investigate the factors influencing athletes9 intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccine booster in Mainland China by integrating the stimulus-organization-response (SOR) model and theory of planned behavior (TPB) as the theoretical framework. Purposive sampling was used to select respondents from the National Games of the People9s Republic of China. Hard-copy questionnaires were utilized to collect data, resulting in 981 valid responses. Descriptive analysis and partial least squares structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. The findings reveal that athletes9 subjective norm and knowledge significantly influence attitude, commitment, and perceived behavioral control. Attitude, commitment, and perceived behavioral control are verified as full mediators between subjective norm, knowledge, and intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccine booster. Knowledge to commitment is the most powerful path to predict athletes9 intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccine booster. Motivation moderates the relationships between knowledge, attitude, commitment, and perceived behavioral control. The integrating model9s explanatory power is 83.2%. Athletes9 knowledge is crucial in shaping a positive attitude, commitment, and perceived control, enhancing their intention to get the COVID-19 vaccine booster.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.13.23298480v1" target="_blank">Integrating stimulus-organism-response model and theory of planned behavior to explore athletes’ intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccine booster - A moderated mediation model</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A SOLUTION TO THE KERMACK AND MCKENDRICK INTEGRO-DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WHICH ACCURATELY PROJECTS COVID-19 CASE DATA USING GOOGLE MOBILITY DATA AS AN INPUT</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
In this manuscript, we derive a closed form solution to the full Kermack and McKendrick integro-differential equations (Kermack and McKendrick 1927) which we call the KMES. We demonstrate the veracity of the KMES using the Google Residential Mobility Measure to accurately project case data from the Covid 19 pandemic and we derive many useful, but previously unknown, analytical expressions for characterizing and managing an epidemic. These include expressions for the viral load, the final size, the effective reproduction number, and the time to the peak in infections. The KMES can also be cast in the form of a step function system response to the input of new infections; and that response is the time series of total infections. Since the publication of Kermack and McKendricks seminal paper (1927), thousands of authors have utilized the Susceptible, Infected, and Recovered (SIR) approximations; expressions putatively derived from the integro-differential equations to model epidemic dynamics. Implicit in the use of the SIR approximation are the beliefs that there is no closed form solution to the integro-differential equations, and that the approximation is a special case which adequately reproduces the dynamics of the integro-differential equations mapped onto the physical world. However, the KMES demonstrates that the SIR approximations are not adequate representations of the integro-differential equations, and we therefore suggest that the KMES obsoletes the need for the SIR approximations by providing not only a new mathematical perspective, but a new understanding of epidemic dynamics.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.13.23298463v1" target="_blank">A SOLUTION TO THE KERMACK AND MCKENDRICK INTEGRO-DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WHICH ACCURATELY PROJECTS COVID-19 CASE DATA USING GOOGLE MOBILITY DATA AS AN INPUT</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Assessing the Impact of Mask Mandates on SARS-CoV-2 Transmission: A Case Study of Utah</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the effectiveness of face masks mandates has been intensely debated. Many methods have been used to demonstrate mask effectiveness, including one that compares the change in reproduction number following implementing and removing face mask mandates. Methods: Using data from Utah, we calculated the effect of mask mandates (E<sub>Fm</sub>) in each local health district from before and after three key mandates: the Salt Lake and Summit County (SLSC) mask mandates enacted; the Utah statewide mask mandate enacted; and the Utah statewide mandate was lifted. Results: We found that most counties had a reduction in the growth rate of cases following the mandates. There were reductions in E<sub>Fm</sub> in many counties after the introduction of the SLSC mask mandates and a more widespread reduction in E<sub>Fm</sub> across the state following the statewide mandate. Lifting the mandates, many counties across the states saw an increase in E<sub>Fm</sub>. Conclusion: Our data show mask mandates were an effective way to reduce transmission both within the jurisdiction they were enacted and in neighboring jurisdictions. We provide evidence to support mask mandates as a way to prevent transmission to be better equipped to respond to future pandemics.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.13.23298464v1" target="_blank">Assessing the Impact of Mask Mandates on SARS-CoV-2 Transmission: A Case Study of Utah</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Drug Discovery in Low Data Regimes: Leveraging a Computational Pipeline for the Discovery of Novel SARS-CoV-2 Nsp14-MTase Inhibitors</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has led to significant global morbidity and mortality. A crucial viral protein, the non-structural protein 14 (nsp14), catalyzes the methylation of viral RNA and plays a critical role in viral genome replication and transcription. Due to the low mutation rate in the nsp region among various SARS-CoV-2 variants, nsp14 has emerged as a promising therapeutic target. However, discovering potential inhibitors remains a challenge. In this work, we introduce a computational pipeline for the rapid and efficient identification of potential nsp14 inhibitors by leveraging virtual screening and the NCI open compound collection, which contains 250,000 freely available molecules for researchers worldwide. The introduced pipeline provides a cost-effective and efficient approach for early-stage drug discovery by allowing researchers to evaluate promising molecules without incurring synthesis expenses. Our pipeline successfully identified seven promising candidates after experimentally validating only 40 compounds. Notably, we discovered NSC620333, a compound that exhibits a strong binding affinity to nsp14 with a dissociation constant of 427 {+/-} 84 nM. In addition, we gained new insights into the structure and function of this protein through molecular dynamics simulations. We identified new conformational states of the protein and determined that residues Phe367, Tyr368, and Gln354 within the binding pocket serve as stabilizing residues for novel ligand interactions. We also found that metal coordination complexes are crucial for the overall function of the binding pocket. Lastly, we present the solved crystal structure of the nsp14-MTase complexed with SS148 (PDB:8BWU), a potent inhibitor of methyltransferase activity at the nanomolar level (IC50 value of 70 {+/-} 6 nM). Our computational pipeline accurately predicted the binding pose of SS148, demonstrating its effectiveness and potential in accelerating drug discovery efforts against SARS-CoV-2 and other emerging viruses.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.03.560722v2" target="_blank">Drug Discovery in Low Data Regimes: Leveraging a Computational Pipeline for the Discovery of Novel SARS-CoV-2 Nsp14-MTase Inhibitors</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Real-world Effectiveness of BNT162b2 Against Infection and Severe Diseases in Children and Adolescents</strong> -
<div>
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Background: The efficacy of the BNT162b2 vaccine in pediatrics was assessed by randomized trials before the Omicron variant9s emergence. The long-term durability of vaccine protection in this population during the Omicron period remains limited. Objective: To assess the effectiveness of BNT162b2 in preventing infection and severe diseases with various strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in previously uninfected children and adolescents. Design: Comparative effectiveness research accounting for underreported vaccination in three study cohorts: adolescents (12 to 20 years) during the Delta phase, children (5 to 11 years) and adolescents (12 to 20 years) during the Omicron phase. Setting: A national collaboration of pediatric health systems (PEDSnet). Participants: 77,392 adolescents (45,007 vaccinated) in the Delta phase, 111,539 children (50,398 vaccinated) and 56,080 adolescents (21,180 vaccinated) in the Omicron period. Exposures: First dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine vs. no receipt of COVID-19 vaccine. Measurements: Outcomes of interest include documented infection, COVID-19 illness severity, admission to an intensive care unit (ICU), and cardiac complications. The effectiveness was reported as (1-relative risk)*100% with confounders balanced via propensity score stratification. Results: During the Delta period, the estimated effectiveness of BNT162b2 vaccine was 98.4% (95% CI, 98.1 to 98.7) against documented infection among adolescents, with no significant waning after receipt of the first dose. An analysis of cardiac complications did not find an increased risk after vaccination. During the Omicron period, the effectiveness against documented infection among children was estimated to be 74.3% (95% CI, 72.2 to 76.2). Higher levels of effectiveness were observed against moderate or severe COVID-19 (75.5%, 95% CI, 69.0 to 81.0) and ICU admission with COVID-19 (84.9%, 95% CI, 64.8 to 93.5). Among adolescents, the effectiveness against documented Omicron infection was 85.5% (95% CI, 83.8 to 87.1), with 84.8% (95% CI, 77.3 to 89.9) against moderate or severe COVID-19, and 91.5% (95% CI, 69.5 to 97.6)) against ICU admission with COVID-19. The effectiveness of the BNT162b2 vaccine against the Omicron variant declined after 4 months following the first dose and then stabilized. The analysis revealed a lower risk of cardiac complications in the vaccinated group during the Omicron variant period. Limitations: Observational study design and potentially undocumented infection. Conclusions: Our study suggests that BNT162b2 was effective for various COVID-19-related outcomes in children and adolescents during the Delta and Omicron periods, and there is some evidence of waning effectiveness over time.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.16.23291515v3" target="_blank">Real-world Effectiveness of BNT162b2 Against Infection and Severe Diseases in Children and Adolescents</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>How well do surveys on adherence to pandemic policies assess actual behaviour: measurement properties of the Dutch Covid-19 Adherence to Prevention Advice Survey (CAPAS).</strong> -
<div>
Background Survey data on adherence to COVID-19 prevention measures have often been used to inform policy makers and public health professionals. However, there is a lack of studies critically examining the validity and reliability of those self-reported measures. Aim We studied the measurement properties of the Covid-19 Adherence to Prevention Advice Survey (CAPAS), a novel questionnaire implemented in a repeated cross-sectional (i.e., ‘Trend’) Study and a Cohort Study in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods The CAPAS is a novel questionnaire developed in March 2020, with the aim to assess social activity and adherence to COVID-19 prevention measures. Items were formulated to minimise social desirability and aid memory retrieval. Based on the COSMIN framework, we investigated criterion validity by comparing trends of self-reported behaviour to trends in objective data. Responsiveness was assessed by studying whether self-reported behaviour changed following contextual (e.g., policy) changes. Test-retest reliability was examined over periods in which the context was stable. Results Overall, trends in self-reported behaviour closely corresponded to trends in external objective data. Self-reported behaviours were responsive to contextual changes and test-retest reliabilities were adequate. For infrequent behaviours reliability improved when measures were dichotomised. We were able to examine national representativeness for vaccination, which suggested a modest overestimation of on average 3.7%. Conclusions This study supports the suitability of using carefully designed, self-reported surveys (and the CAPAS specifically) to study changes in pandemic behaviours in a dynamic context.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/rm8qn/" target="_blank">How well do surveys on adherence to pandemic policies assess actual behaviour: measurement properties of the Dutch Covid-19 Adherence to Prevention Advice Survey (CAPAS).</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Tracking the development of COVID-19 related PsyArXiv preprints</strong> -
<div>
Given the need for a rapid and critical response from behavioural sciences during times of crisis, this study investigated the trajectory of all preprints posted to the repository PsyArXiv up to 19 May 2020 that were related to COVID-19 (n = 211). Specifically, we examined the traction, impact, quality, and diversity of these preprints as compared to PsyArXiv preprints unrelated to COVID-19 (n = 167) and articles published in psychology journal articles (n = 75) within the same time frame. Preprints related to COVID-19 had similar traction to published journal articles on COVID-19, but compared to preprints unrelated to COVID-19, the COVID-19 preprints were more likely to be subsequently published during a follow-up period (until 2 March 2021), were published more quickly, and received more citations. Preprints related to COVID-19 reported fewer open science practices than preprints unrelated to COVID-19, but more than COVID-19 journal articles. Primary affiliations for all article types predominantly originated from Western countries, but this was comparatively more for preprints (both related to and not related to COVID-19), even though preprints had more international authorship teams than journal articles. Overall, the results demonstrate that some of the structural problems in research are still in play despite the global effort to mobilise research efforts during the pandemic.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/evmgs/" target="_blank">Tracking the development of COVID-19 related PsyArXiv preprints</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Basic Psychological Needs, Quality of Motivation, and Protective Behavior Intentions: A Nationally Representative Survey</strong> -
<div>
This is a pre-print of a study published at Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine https://doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2023.2257295. Objective: Citizens’ volitional engagement in protective behaviors is essential for successful pandemic management, as much of the required adherence is beyond authorities’ control and difficult to monitor. Building on the Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this study examines how basic psychological need satisfaction (BPNS) related to COVID-19 behavioral measures is associated with the quality of motivation (autonomous vs. controlled), and whether this quality of motivation is predictive of the intention to wear a face mask and to avoid meeting others. Methods: Cross-sectional survey study involving a nationally representative sample (N = 2272) was conducted in Finland in May 2021, when protective behaviors were recommended to prevent acceleration of the epidemic. Mann-Whitney U tests, Kruskal-Wallis tests, linear regression analysis, and multinomial logistic regression were conducted. Results: All three psychological needs were positively related to autonomous motivation (all p&lt;.001). Satisfaction of autonomy (β = .234) and relatedness (β = .402) had larger effects than competence (β = .091). Autonomous motivation (range Exp(B) = 1.82‒3.55, p = .001) was consistently related to intention to wear a mask and intention to avoid meeting people. Controlled motivation (range Exp(B) = .66‒.93, p = .001‒.457) was associated with decreased protective behavior intentions. The effects of amotivation (range Exp(B) = .65‒1.02, p = .001‒.911) varied across analyses. Conclusions: Fostering autonomous motivation could increase adherence to protective behaviors in situations without clear mandates. The results also suggest that increasing perceptions of pressure or appealing to personal risk and fear may not advance adherence as effectively.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/qgvua/" target="_blank">Basic Psychological Needs, Quality of Motivation, and Protective Behavior Intentions: A Nationally Representative Survey</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Single Nucleus RNA Sequencing of Remnant Kidney Biopsies and Urine Cell RNA Sequencing Reveal Cell Specific Markers of Covid-19 Acute Kidney Injury</strong> -
<div>
Acute kidney injury (AKI) in COVID-19 patients is associated with high mortality and morbidity. Critically ill COVID-19 patients are at twice the risk of in-hospital mortality compared to non-COVID AKI patients. We know little about the cell-specific mechanism in the kidney that contribute to worse clinical outcomes in these patients. New generation single cell technologies have the potential to provide insights into physiological states and molecular mechanisms in COVID-AKI. One of the key limitations is that these patients are severely ill posing significant risks in procuring additional biopsy tissue. We recently generated single nucleus RNA-sequencing data using COVID-AKI patient biopsy tissue as part of the human kidney atlas. Here we describe this approach in detail and report deeper comparative analysis of snRNAseq of 4 COVID-AKI, 4 reference, and 6 non-COVID-AKI biopsies. We also generated and analyzed urine transcriptomics data to find overlapping COVID-AKI-enriched genes and their corresponding cell types in the kidney from snRNA-seq data. We identified all major and minor cell types and states by using by using less than a few cubic millimeters of leftover tissue after pathological workup in our approach. Differential expression analysis of COVID-AKI biopsies showed pathways enriched in viral response, WNT signaling, kidney development, and cytokines in several nephron epithelial cells. COVID-AKI profiles showed a much higher proportion of altered TAL cells than non-COVID AKI and the reference samples. In addition to kidney injury and fibrosis markers indicating robust remodeling we found that, 17 genes overlap between urine cell COVID-AKI transcriptome and the snRNA-seq data from COVID-AKI biopsies. A key feature was that several of the distal nephron and collecting system cell types express these markers. Some of these markers have been previously observed in COVID-19 studies suggesting a common mechanism of injury and potentially the kidney as one of the sources of soluble factors with a potential role in disease progression.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.10.566497v1" target="_blank">Single Nucleus RNA Sequencing of Remnant Kidney Biopsies and Urine Cell RNA Sequencing Reveal Cell Specific Markers of Covid-19 Acute Kidney Injury</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Recreating the Biological Steps of Viral Infection on a Bioelectronic Platform to Profile Viral Variants of Concern</strong> -
<div>
Viral mutation rates frequently outpace the development of technologies used to detect and identify harmful variants; for SARS Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), these are called variants of concern (VOC). Given the continual emergence of VOC, there is a critical need to develop platforms that can identify the presence of a virus and readily identify its propensity for infection. We present an electronic biomembrane sensing platform that recreates the multifaceted and sequential biological cues that give rise to distinct SARS-CoV-2 virus host cell entry pathways and reports the progression of entry steps of these pathways as electrical signals. Within these electrical signals, two necessary entry processes mediated by the viral Spike protein, virus binding and membrane fusion, can be distinguished. Remarkably, we find that closely related VOC exhibit distinct fusion signatures that correlate with trends reported in cell-based infectivity assays, allowing us to report quantitative differences in fusion characteristics among them that inform their infectivity potentials. This cell-free biomimetic infection platform also has a virus-free option that equally reports infectivity potential of the Spike proteins. We used SARS-CoV-2 as our prototype, but we anticipate that this platform will extend to other enveloped viruses and cell lines to quantifiably explore virus/host interactions. This advance should aid in faster determination of entry characteristics and fusogenicities of future VOC, necessary for rapid response.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.11.566634v1" target="_blank">Recreating the Biological Steps of Viral Infection on a Bioelectronic Platform to Profile Viral Variants of Concern</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron sub-variant BA.2.86 is attenuated in hamsters</strong> -
<div>
SARS-CoV-2 variants have emerged throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a need to risk-assess newly emerged variants in near 'real-time' to estimate their potential threat to public health. The recently emerged Omicron sub-variant BA.2.86 raised concerns as it carries a high number of mutations compared to its predecessors. Here, we assessed the virulence of BA.2.86 in hamsters. We compared the pathogenesis of BA.2.86 and BA.2.75, as the latter is one of the most virulent Omicron sub-variants in this animal model. Using digital pathology pipelines, we quantified the extent of pulmonary lesions measuring T cell and macrophage infiltrates, in addition to alveolar epithelial hyperplasia. We also assessed body weight loss, clinical symptoms, virus load in oropharyngeal swabs, and virus replication in the respiratory tract. Our data show that BA.2.86 displays an attenuated phenotype in hamsters, suggesting that it poses no greater risk to public health than its parental Omicron sub-variants.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.10.566576v1" target="_blank">The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron sub-variant BA.2.86 is attenuated in hamsters</a>
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<li><strong>Insights into B Cell and Antibody Kinetics Against SARS-CoV-2 Variants Using Mathematical Modelling</strong> -
<div>
B cells and antibodies are crucial in protecting against infections like SARS-CoV-2. However, antibody levels decline after infection or vaccination, reducing defences against future SARS-CoV-2 infections. To understand antibody production and decline, we developed a mathematical model that predicts germinal center B cell, long-lived plasma cell, memory B cell, and antibody dynamics. Our focus was on B cell activation and antibody generation following both primary and secondary SARS-CoV-2 infections. Aligning our model with clinical data, we adjusted antibody production rates for germinal center B cells and plasma B cells during primary and secondary infections. We also assessed antibody neutralization against Delta and Omicron variants post-primary and secondary exposure. Our findings showed reduced neutralization against Omicron due to its immune evasion. In primary and secondary exposures to Delta and Omicron, our predictions indicated enhanced antibody neutralization in the secondary response within a year of the primary response. We also explored waning immunity, demonstrating how B cell kinetics affect viral neutralization post-primary infection. This study enhances our understanding of humoral immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and can predict antibody dynamics post-infection or vaccination.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.10.566587v1" target="_blank">Insights into B Cell and Antibody Kinetics Against SARS-CoV-2 Variants Using Mathematical Modelling</a>
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<li><strong>Crykey: Rapid Identification of SARS-CoV-2 Cryptic Mutations in Wastewater</strong> -
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We present Crykey, a computational tool for rapidly identifying cryptic mutations of SARS-CoV-2. Specifically, we identify co-occurring single nucleotide mutations on the same sequencing read, called linked-read mutations, that are rare or entirely missing in existing databases, and have the potential to represent novel cryptic lineages found in wastewater. While previous approaches exist for identifying cryptic linked-read mutations from specific regions of the SARS-CoV-2 genome, there is a need for computational tools capable of efficiently tracking cryptic mutations across the entire genome and for tens of thousands of samples and with increased scrutiny, given their potential to represent either artifacts or hidden SARS-CoV-2 lineages. Crykey fills this gap by identifying rare linked-read mutations that pass stringent computational filters to limit the potential for artifacts. We evaluate the utility of Crykey on &gt;3,000 wastewater and &gt;22,000 clinical samples; our findings are three-fold: i) we identify hundreds of cryptic mutations that cover the entire SARS-CoV-2 genome, ii) we track the presence of these cryptic mutations across multiple wastewater treatment plants and over a three years of sampling in Houston, and iii) we find a handful of cryptic mutations in wastewater mirror cryptic mutations in clinical samples and investigate their potential to represent real cryptic lineages. In summary, Crykey enables large-scale detection of cryptic mutations representing potential cryptic lineages in wastewater.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.16.23291524v2" target="_blank">Crykey: Rapid Identification of SARS-CoV-2 Cryptic Mutations in Wastewater</a>
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<li><strong>Application of the Fluctuation Test to the data of Morbidity and Mortality by COVID-19 in China 2020-2023</strong> -
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In this work the Luria and Delbruck Fluctuation Test was applied to the data of Morbidity and Mortality by COVID-19 in China from January 2020 to August 2023. Three types of data were used: es.statista.com, datosmacro.expansion.com and larepublica.co without modification, but trying to avoid and justify the anomalies and inconsistencies observed. The methods originally used to establish the interactions of two populations were evaluated: the viral population with that of its host and the drift of both organisms. Only the fluctuations of the weekly Variance of daily increase of Cases (Morbidity) and of the weekly Variance of daily increase of Deaths (Mortality) were studied. The results showed that the Fluctuation Test is applicable to the selected data from China and other data from India, Japan and South Korea, used as controls. The study was separated into two periods: a first initial period from January 2020 to September 2021 and a second final period from October 2021 to August 2023. Results were obtained for Morbidity and Mortality that relate the fluctuations of the first with the fluctuations of the second. However, it was possible to detect some anomalies and uncertainties that were possibly derived from inconsistencies in the original data. A repeated fluctuation was observed in the boreal winter in January, February and March of each one of the year studied. A clear decrease in fluctuation was detected in that period in 2021 that could be attributed to the strict confinement during the quarantine in China between 2020 and 2021. Massive, extensive and intensive vaccinations failed to completely eliminate the most important fluctuations. In this work we tried to correlate the appearance of some virus variants with the fluctuations. The most relevant results of said correlation are presented. With the results of this work, the animal origin cannot be confirmed nor can the human or laboratory origin of the SARS CoV-2 virus that caused the initial emerging infection, be ruled out. However, it was concluded that this method could be used to search for clues about its origin. One of these keys is the comparison of the result of the first important fluctuation in the boreal winter of 2020 in each of the countries studied as controls: India, Japan and South Korea. The comparison of this result with the first fluctuation of China for that same period could give clues about the origin of the virus.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.12.23298174v1" target="_blank">Application of the Fluctuation Test to the data of Morbidity and Mortality by COVID-19 in China 2020-2023</a>
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<li><strong>Synergistic Role of NK Cells and Monocytes in Promoting Atherogenesis in Severe COVID-19 Patients.</strong> -
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Clinical data demonstrate an increased predisposition to cardiovascular disease (CVD) following severe COVID-19 infection. This may be driven by a dysregulated immune response associated with severe disease. Monocytes and vascular tissue resident macrophages play a critical role in atherosclerosis, the main pathology leading to ischemic CVD. Natural killer (NK) cells are a heterogenous group of cells that are critical during viral pathogenesis and are known to be dysregulated during severe COVID-19 infection. Their role in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease has recently been described. However, the contribution of their altered phenotypes to atherogenesis following severe COVID-19 infection is unknown. We demonstrate for the first time that during and after severe COVID-19, circulating proinflammatory monocytes and activated NK cells act synergistically to increase uptake of oxidized low-density lipoprotein (Ox-LDL) into vascular tissue with subsequent foam cell generation leading to atherogenesis despite recovery from acute infection. Our data provide new insights, revealing the roles of monocytes/macrophages, and NK cells in COVID-19-related atherogenesis.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.10.23298322v1" target="_blank">Synergistic Role of NK Cells and Monocytes in Promoting Atherogenesis in Severe COVID-19 Patients.</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>A Multicenter, Adaptive, Randomized, doublE-blinded, Placebo-controlled Study in Participants With Long COVID-19: The REVIVE Trial</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID-19 Syndrome; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Fluvoxamine Maleate 100 MG; Drug: Placebo; Drug: Metformin Extended Release Oral Tablet <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Cardresearch <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>Connecting Friends and Health Workers to Boost COVID-19 Vaccination in Latino Communities</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: REDES; Behavioral: Control <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Johns Hopkins University; National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD); Rutgers University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Influence of Hypoxic, Normobaric and Hypobaric Training on the Immunometabolism of Post-covid-19 Athletes</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Normobaric Hypoxia; Hypoventilation; Normoxia <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Repeated sprint <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Faculdade de Motricidade Humana; University of Sao Paulo; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior. <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Clinical Evaluation of the Panbio™ COVID-19/Flu A&amp;B Panel</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19; Influenza A; Influenza B <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Diagnostic Test: Panbio™ <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Abbott Rapid Dx <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>The Safety and Tolerability of A8G6 COVID-19 Neutralization Antibody Combined With Nasal Spray</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV-2; Prevention <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: A8G6 SARS-CoV-2 Neutralization Antibody combination nasal spray; Other: A8G6 SARS-CoV-2 Neutralization Antibody nasal excipient <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Building Engagement Using Financial Incentives Trial - Colorectal Cancer Screening</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Health Behavior; Colorectal Cancer; Influenza; COVID-19; Vaccine Hesitancy; Vaccine-Preventable Diseases; Healthcare Patient Acceptance <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Financial incentive for colorectal cancer screening; Behavioral: Financial incentive for flu shot; Behavioral: Financial incentive for COVID-19 shot <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Tulane University; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Clinical Evaluation of the Panbio™ COVID-19/Flu A&amp;B Panel to Support Home Use</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19; Influenza A; Influenza Type B <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Diagnostic Test: Panbio™ COVID-19/Flu A&amp;B Panel <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Abbott Rapid Dx <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>Effects of Rehabilitation Combined With a Maintenance Program Compared to Rehabilitation Alone in Post-COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-COVID-19 Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Procedure: Rehabilitation combined to a digital maintenance program; Procedure: Rehabilitation only <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Schön Klinik Berchtesgadener Land; Bavarian State Ministry of Health and Care (Funding); Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund (German pension insurance) (Design); Betriebskrankenkassen Landesverband Bayern (Bavarian health insurance) (Design) <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>Child and Adolescent Mental Health Literacy for Primary Schools Teachers. A Multicomponent Intervention</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Child Mental Health <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Child Mental Health Literacy Program <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Universidad de Valparaiso <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>Brief Digital Intervention to Increase COVID-19 Vaccination Among Individuals With Anxiety or Depression</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Misinformation; Vaccine Hesitancy; Anxiety; Depression; COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Attitudinal inoculation; Behavioral: Cognitive-behavioral therapy-informed intervention; Behavioral: Conventional public health messaging <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: City University of New York, School of Public Health; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A PhaseⅡ Study to Evaluate the Safety and Immunogenicity of COVID-19 Vaccine</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV-2 Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (ZSVG-02-O); Biological: COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (ZSVG-02-O); Biological: COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero Cell) ,Inactivated <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: CNBG-Virogin Biotech (Shanghai) 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>Pilot Randomized Study of RD-X19 Tx Device in Subjects With PCC (Long Covid) in the Outpatient Setting</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post COVID-19 Condition (PCC) <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: RDX-19 <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: KNOWBio Inc.; NAMSA <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>CPAP Therapy Through a Helmet or a Full Face Mask in Patients With Acute Hypoxemic Respiratory Failure: Cross-over Study</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Pneumonia, Bacterial; Respiratory Failure; COVID-19 Pneumonia <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Diagnostic Test: Arterial blood gases; Diagnostic Test: Respiratory rate (RR); Diagnostic Test: Pulseoximeter; Diagnostic Test: Assessment of accessory respiratory muscles work; Diagnostic Test: Esophageal pressure measurement; Diagnostic Test: Discomfort Visual Analog Scale (VAS); Diagnostic Test: Noninvasive blood pressure; Diagnostic Test: Heart rate <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Investigation of Efficacy and Safety of Electrical Signal Therapy Provided by Dr Biolyse® Device in COVID-19 Disease</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 Pneumonia; Virus Diseases; COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: Signal Therapy provided by Dr.Biolyse device; Other: Liquid Support Treatment <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: AVB Biotechnology <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 Phase 1 Study to Evaluate the Safety and Immunogenicity of COVID-19 Vaccine</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV-2 Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Placebo; Biological: COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero Cell) ,Inactivated; Biological: COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (ZSVG-02-O) 10 μg; Biological: COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (ZSVG-02-O) 30 μg; Biological: COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (ZSVG-02-O) 60 μg <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: CNBG-Virogin Biotech (Shanghai) Ltd.; Shulan (Hangzhou) Hospital <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>Intranasal G5-BGG/pDNA vaccine elicits protective systemic and mucosal immunity against SARS-CoV-2 by transfecting mucosal dendritic cells</strong> - Infectious disease pandemics, including the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, have heightened the demand for vaccines that provide both disease protection and transmission inhibition. Although parenteral vaccines induce robust systemic immunity, their effectiveness in respiratory mucosae is limited. Considering the crucial role of nasal-associated lymphoid tissue (NALT) in mucosal immune responses, in this study, the intranasal complex composed of G5-BGG and antigen-expressing plasmid DNA…</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>Colloidal aggregation confounds cell-based Covid-19 antiviral screens</strong> - Colloidal aggregation is one of the largest contributors to false-positives in early drug discovery and chemical biology. Much work has focused on its impact on pure-protein screens; here we consider aggregations role in cell-based infectivity assays in Covid-19 drug repurposing. We began by investigating the potential aggregation of 41 drug candidates reported as SARs-CoV-2 entry inhibitors. Of these, 17 formed colloidal-particles by dynamic light scattering and exhibited detergent-dependent…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Application of Luteolin in Neoplasms and Nonneoplastic Diseases</strong> - Researchers are amazed at the multitude of biological effects of 3’,4’,5,7-tetrahydroxyflavone, more commonly known as luteolin, as it simultaneously has antioxidant and pro-oxidant, as well as antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and cancer-preventive, properties. The anticancer properties of luteolin constitute a mosaic of pathways due to which this flavonoid influences cancer cells. Not only is it able to induce apoptosis and inhibit cancer cell proliferation, but it also suppresses angiogenesis…</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>HSP90AB1 Is a Host Factor Required for Transmissible Gastroenteritis Virus Infection</strong> - Transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) is an important swine enteric coronavirus causing viral diarrhea in pigs of all ages. Currently, the development of antiviral agents targeting host proteins to combat viral infection has received great attention. The heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) is a critical host factor and has important regulatory effects on the infection of various viruses. However, its roles in porcine coronavirus infection remain unclear. In this study, the effect of HSP90 on TGEV…</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>Therapeutic Effect and Safety Evaluation of Naringin on <em>Klebsiella pneumoniae</em> in Mice</strong> - Critically ill patients with Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) often develop secondary bacterial infections that pose a significant threat to patient life safety, making the development of drugs to prevent bacterial infections in the lungs critical to clinical care. Naringin (NAR) is one of the significant natural flavonoids rich in Pummelo Peel (Hua Ju Hong), with anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and antioxidant activities, and is commonly used in treating respiratory tract infectious…</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>Interaction of Methylene Blue with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Envelope Revealed by Molecular Modeling</strong> - Methylene blue has multiple antiviral properties against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-related Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The ability of methylene blue to inhibit different stages of the virus life cycle, both in light-independent and photodynamic processes, is used in clinical practice. At the same time, the molecular aspects of the interactions of methylene blue with molecular components of coronaviruses are not fully understood. Here, we use Brownian dynamics to identify methylene blue…</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>Genetic Predisposition to Elevated Levels of Circulating ADAM17 Is Associated with the Risk of Severe COVID-19</strong> - High levels of ADAM17 activity have emerged as an important mediator in severe COVID-19. This study aims to characterize eventual causal relationships between ADAM17 and COVID-19. Using Mendelian randomization analyses, we examined the causal effects of circulating ADAM17 on COVID-19 outcomes using summary statistics from large, genome-wide association studies of ADAM17 (up to 35,559 individuals) from the Icelandic Cancer Project and deCODE genetics, as well as critically ill COVID-19 patients…</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>Sigma Receptor Ligands Prevent COVID Mortality In Vivo: Implications for Future Therapeutics</strong> - The emergence of lethal coronaviruses follows a periodic pattern which suggests a recurring cycle of outbreaks. It remains uncertain as to when the next lethal coronavirus will emerge, though its eventual emergence appears to be inevitable. New mutations in evolving SARS-CoV-2 variants have provided resistance to current antiviral drugs, monoclonal antibodies, and vaccines, reducing their therapeutic efficacy. This underscores the urgent need to investigate alternative therapeutic approaches….</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Novel Substituted Azoloazines with Anticoagulant Activity</strong> - Hypercytokinemia, or cytokine storm, often complicates the treatment of viral and bacterial infections, including COVID-19, leading to the risk of thrombosis. However, the use of currently available direct anticoagulants for the treatment of COVID-19 patients is limited due to safety reasons. Therefore, the development of new anticoagulants remains an urgent task for organic and medicinal chemistry. At the same time, new drugs that combine anticoagulant properties with antiviral or antidiabetic…</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>Insights into the mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 main protease autocatalytic maturation from model precursors</strong> - A critical step for SARS-CoV-2 assembly and maturation involves the autoactivation of the main protease (MPro^(WT)) from precursor polyproteins. Upon expression, a model precursor of MPro^(WT) mediates its own release at its termini rapidly to yield a mature dimer. A construct with an E290A mutation within MPro exhibits time dependent autoprocessing of the accumulated precursor at the N-terminal nsp4/nsp5 site followed by the C-terminal nsp5/nsp6 cleavage. In contrast, a precursor containing…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and immunogenicity of the third and fourth doses of vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 following a 2-dose regimen of inactivated whole-virion SARS-CoV-2 vaccine</strong> - This study followed healthcare personnel (HCP) who had completed a primary series of CoronaVac and then received the third and fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccine. The primary objective was to determine the seroconversion rate of neutralizing antibodies against wild-type SARS-CoV-2 and VOCs at day 28 after the third dose of vaccine and day 28 after the fourth dose of vaccine. This prospective cohort study was conducted at Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital, a tertiary care hospital affiliated to…</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>Mechanistic and thermodynamic characterization of antiviral inhibitors targeting nucleocapsid N-terminal domain of SARS-CoV-2</strong> - The nucleocapsid (N) protein of SARS-CoV-2 plays a pivotal role in encapsulating the viral genome. Developing antiviral treatments for SARS-CoV-2 is imperative due to the diminishing immunity of the available vaccines. This study targets the RNA-binding site located in the N-terminal domain (NTD) of the N-protein to identify the potential antiviral molecules against SARS-CoV-2. A structure-based repurposing approach identified the twelve high-affinity molecules from FDA-approved drugs, natural…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Exploring the disruption of SARS-CoV-2 RBD binding to hACE2</strong> - The COVID-19 pandemic was declared due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Viral infection is caused by the interaction between the SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD) and the human ACE2 receptor (hACE2). Previous computational studies have identified repurposed small molecules that target the RBD, but very few have screened drugs in the RBD-hACE2 interface. When studies focus solely on the binding affinity between the drug and the RBD, they ignore the effect of hACE2,…</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>Qinhuo Shanggan oral solution resolves acute lung injury by down-regulating TLR4/NF-<em>κ</em>B signaling cascade and inhibiting NLRP3 inflammasome activation</strong> - Acute lung injury (ALI) is a common condition, particularly in the COVID-19 pandemic, which is distinguished by sudden onset of respiratory insufficiency with tachypnea, oxygen-refractory cyanosis, reduced lung compliance and diffuse infiltration of pulmonary alveoli. It is well-established that increasing activity of toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)/nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) signaling axis and the NOD-, LRR- and pyrin domain-containing protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome activation are associated…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A review: Mechanism and prospect of gastrodin in prevention and treatment of T2DM and COVID-19</strong> - Gastrodin is an extract from the dried tuber of the Chinese herb Gastrodia elata (Tian ma), with anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antiviral properties. Recent studies have shown that, compared to commonly used diabetes drugs, gastrodin has antidiabetic effects in multiple ways, with characteristics of low cost, high safety, less side effects, protection of β-cell function, relieving insulin resistance and alleviating multiple complications. In addition, it is confirmed that gastrodin can…</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>How to Maintain Hope in an Age of Catastrophe</strong> - The psychoanalyst and author Robert Jay Lifton on what seventy years of studying both the victims and the perpetrators of horror has taught him about the human will to survive. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/how-to-maintain-hope-in-an-age-of-catastrophe">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Long Wait of the Families of Hamas Hostages</strong> - The relatives of those held by Hamas “live with a timer now that’s always on.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-israel/the-long-wait-of-the-hostages-families">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cherelle Parker Defies the Progressive Agenda</strong> - Philadelphia’s new mayor insists that the city’s safety depends on expanding its police department. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/cherelle-parker-defies-the-progressive-agenda">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What Comes After Panda Diplomacy?</strong> - Biden meets with President Xi as U.S.-China relations get less warm and fuzzy. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/what-comes-after-panda-diplomacy">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What Kind of Trouble Is Eric Adams In?</strong> - New York City’s mayor has downplayed the federal investigation into his campaign fund-raising, but, by dodging questions and obfuscating, he’s invited even more public scrutiny. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/what-kind-of-trouble-is-eric-adams-in">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Explaining “Twin Flames,” the subject of Netflix’s disturbing new documentary</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A young woman sits on her bed, looking at her laptop screen." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jzjtw3inYK1j_XqNHYTSikHESp8=/640x0:3200x1920/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72863376/Escaping_Twin_Flames_S1_E1_00_20_16_06.0.png"/>
<figcaption>
Former Twin Flames Universe member Marlee, a subject of the new Netflix docuseries <em>Escaping Twin Flames</em>. | Netflix
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Escaping Twin Flames shows how a self-styled guru turned soul mates into a dangerous form of coercive control.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D8rtCy">
Imagine a group that promises to help you find your soul mate. What could be more pure?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IOTCgk">
When I stumbled across the concept of “twin flames” years ago, my immediate reaction was to roll my eyes: On a niche corner of the web, a community of new age practitioners was trumpeting the idea of an intense cosmic romantic connection, at once both sexual and spiritual, that was stronger than any run-of-the-mill soul mate could ever be. To find your “twin flame,” you had to be uniquely attuned to the universe … or else you had to pay people who claimed to be able to identify your twin flame for you.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="494CGK">
On its face, this idea might sound like a straightforward scam, the type that often manipulates and commodifies new age practices and beliefs in order to rip off people looking for love. And it was: One “twin flame” guru named Jeff Ayan used the concept to fund a million-dollar lifestyle built from the profits of his (paradoxically not-for-profit) organization, the Twin Flames Universe, or TFU.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SZMfK5">
But the TFU is much more than just a matchmaking service and money-making scheme. Former members of the organization allege Ayan uses cult-like coercion and multilevel marketing tactics to control his followers. Over the course of its three episodes, <em>Escaping Twin Flames</em> gives us a truly disturbing, often shocking glimpse into the hold that Ayan exerts over his “twin flames” community — one that goes far beyond <a href="https://www.vox.com/relationships">relationship advice</a> toward controlling every aspect of his followers’ lives, with everything from their romantic partners to their gender identities dictated by his whims.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OFmUix">
While Ayan and his wife Shaleia insist their group isn’t a cult, <em>Escaping Twin Flames</em> will at least ensure that you never think about soul mates in quite the same way again.
</p>
<h3 id="8rWeqs">
<strong>The “Twin Flame” builds on the double-edged premise of soul mates</strong>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="e51Xi9">
It’s maybe important to include a disclaimer up top that even if you believe in true love, the way we’re about to discuss soul mates <em>is not real</em>. You’ll quickly see why the idea of a cosmically ordained perfect romantic match that you can literally never escape from can be both damaging and dangerous.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b8cdFw">
Advocates of “twin flames” point to <a href="https://vedicfeed.com/physical-and-spiritual-concept-of-soulmates-in-hinduism/">various Hindu teachings</a> and other Asian spiritual practices and <a href="https://auromere.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/twin-souls/">writings</a> as evidence that the theme of cosmically aligned soul mates has existed throughout history and across cultures. The specific “twin flame” notion, however, was first popularized in 1999 thanks to American New Age spiritualist Elizabeth Clare Prophet, through her “pocket guide” book, <em>Soul Mates and Twin Flames: The Spiritual Dimension of Love and Relationships</em>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="S4lLsb">
Prophet’s approach to soul mates draws on the Hindu belief in karma and the Buddhist concept of yin and yang, but also fits thoroughly within an evangelical Christian view. She argues, complete with Bible verses, that you can’t find your perfect match until you are aligned with God. “It is our relationship to God and our Higher Self that holds the key to finding and becoming one with our twin flame,” she writes. In other words, one’s twin flame is more than just a soul mate. The relationship is a manifestation of a person’s relationship with the divine, and the two of them are meant to help each other continue along a mutual path to enlightenment.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vOtgHn">
Prophet claims that our separation from our perfect soul mate is a punishment from the divine because of our rebellion against “cosmic law,” so all of us are seeking to get back into the universe’s good graces so we can reunite with our other half. It’s a concept seen everywhere from <em>Plato</em> to <em>Hedwig and the Angry Inch</em>. Here, let Marisa Tomei explain.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y2mrI6">
Proponents of “twin flames” have developed even more esoteric versions of Prophet’s particular narrative. One of the most popular threads is the claim that <a href="https://meleriessee.wordpress.com/category/twin-rays/">only 144,000</a> actual “twin flames” exist — so only 72,000 couples throughout history have qualified. The number 144,000 happens to be huge in niche religions, thanks to <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/144,000">its significance</a> in the biblical Book of Revelation. It’s also not a whole lot of people, in total. (And if you’re thinking that gatekeeping who gets to be a super-special twin flame is a good way to get people to invest in the notion that they are “chosen” for something rare and divinely ordained, well … just wait.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xyfyvE">
The core characteristic of Prophet’s vision of the “twin flame” is that it’s permanent. “The thing about this karmic marriage or relationship that you are into is that you can never get out of it,” she writes. “No one in heaven or on earth can separate you from your twin flame.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cy5NEX">
This proclamation is a double-edged sword: On the one hand, it practically promises the believer a happily ever after, if they can only recognize their twin flame and align themselves accordingly. But on the other, as we’ll soon see, this pressure can potentially be devastating to someone involved in an abusive relationship, who’s then led to believe they’re destined to be tied to that person forever, or anyone on the receiving end of romantic delusion from a true believer who unilaterally determines that person to be their twin flame.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cOWKRi">
Witness one very discomfiting <a href="https://quantumstones.com/understanding-soul-mate-connections-and-twin-flames-in-troubled-times/#comment-4482505770">comment</a> on a “twin flame” blog from 2019: “I met my twin soul, and she is 50 years younger than I am … I’m wondering what it means for someone (i.e. my twin soul) so young and inexperienced in this life.” There’s no good outcome at all here, buddy!
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PBuFZf">
All of this is the general backdrop to the “twin flame” phenomenon. It sets the stage for the entry into the field of a self-styled guru who learned about “twin flames” from his girlfriend and then turned it into — well. You’ll see.
</p>
<h3 id="qfxhdu">
<strong>It only takes one shaky spiritual concept and a manipulative guru to make a coercively controlled group</strong>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BIJeV7">
Jeff Ayan <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ender-ayanethos-3290b651/">studied business</a> at Western Michigan University before <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120412220559/http://www.endersadventures.com/">moving to</a> Hawaii in his early 20s, where he went by the name Ender Ayanethos and styled himself as a “lifestyle design entrepreneur.” His decade-old website, with its <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120412195926/http://www.endersadventures.com/About.html">assertions</a> that “His mission is to inspire you to live a conscious, heart-centered lifestyle now,” reads like a spiritual leader in training, while his contemporaneous social media, with mantras including “<a href="https://twitter.com/EnderAyanethos/status/248876790511181825">I always</a> get what I want” and “<a href="https://twitter.com/EnderAyanethos/status/248724779274735616">I’m a leader</a>, and when I express my ideas I’m just describing my reality. I’m not concerned with anyone’s approval,” implies a more dominant, assertive side to his personality.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AJ713z">
Ayan <a href="https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/who-are-jeff-shaleia-ayan-escaping-twin-flames">met Shaleia</a> — real name Megan Plante — online in the early 2010s. They quickly married and moved to Michigan. According to <a href="https://www.vox.com/youtube">YouTube</a> videos the couple made, as shown in the documentary, Shaleia first introduced Jeff to a number of new age practices like tarot reading and twin flames, which he quickly adopted. Although Shaleia was the one who introduced Jeff to the concept, Jeff has clearly made himself the unquestioned leader of the Twin Flames group.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EQrtQ0">
The relationship between Jeff and Shaleia is intended to be the biggest draw of their Twin Flames Universe community. By branding themselves as the perfect couple, they’re also marketing their relationship as something they can teach others to have, and as vloggers they cultivated a steady audience. Since they created their YouTube channel in 2014 (styling themselves as “Jeff and Shaleia Divine”), they’ve gained nearly 30,000 subscribers and garnered over 3 million views. The TFU <a href="https://www.vox.com/facebook">Facebook</a> group <a href="https://time.com/6321502/twin-flames-universe-prime-video-documentary/">reportedly boasts</a> 40,000 members and counting — members who may have been drawn in simply because they were searching for information about love and attraction to people outside of the group.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HwdCdw">
Their success led to the publication of a book about twin flames and a coterie of coaching services for those interested in pursuing the “twin flame” path, all marketed under the group Twin Flames Universe. As taught by Ayan, the idea of finding a “twin flame” rapidly evolved into a whole lifestyle largely dictated by his teachings and trainings. And these trainings were expensive. As reported by <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/v747x4/this-youtube-school-promised-true-love-students-say-they-got-exploited-instead">Sarah Berman</a> and <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/93y44p/what-is-twin-flames-spirituality">Sian Bradley</a> for Vice in 2020 and 2021, respectively, costs to participate in TFU courses and workshops ranged from $699 to $4,000, and came with intense pressure to level up.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wmScKN">
It’s impossible to overstate what an abrasive personality Ayan has, as captured extensively on film in <em>Escaping Twin Flames</em>. He frequently speaks in a grating, mocking voice. He asserts to queer members of the group that queer identity isn’t real, and appears unfazed when members break down sobbing in conference calls. He berates, interrupts, and belittles group members, including his wife, whom he often talks down to and forbids from speaking. At one point, he describes throwing Shaleia down on the bed and forcing himself on her.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GHUmYQ">
The Jeff/Shaleia bond is supposed to be the glue keeping the group together. In reality, the documentary captures video after video of Shaleia sitting silent, only to be immediately shot down or talked over when she does speak up. Their relationship comes across as anything but idyllic; if anything, it frequently seems strained and forced.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tOVby5">
Ayan allegedly instructs members of the group to aggressively pursue their purported other halves at all costs. The thinking goes that being someone’s “twin flame” trumps everything else happening in your life — even if you never agreed to be co-opted into the “twin flame” concept to begin with. In <em>Escaping Twin Flames</em>, when one group member is dealing with the fact that her alleged twin flame is a man who was living in another state, in a relationship with another woman, and about to have a baby, Ayan tells her, “None of that fucking matters.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qLriVD">
According to one former TFU member, multiple members of the group had restraining orders because Ayan essentially encouraged them to become stalkers and to “aggressively pursue” the object of their affection. When she received a restraining order, she alleges, Ayan and other TFU coaches told her the restraining order didn’t actually exist, implying that she could overcome it with her mind.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QkrirW">
Jeff and Shaleia Ayan have repeatedly insisted, both in statements to Vice as well as <a href="https://time.com/6333184/escaping-twin-flames-netflix-what-to-know/">statements</a> posted on their website (and included as disclaimers at the end of each episode of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/netflix">Netflix</a> series) that they are not a cult and do not engage in cult-like practices.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fwFGff">
Yet Ayan’s attempts to insist he wasn’t a cult leader actually drove some members to the opposite realization. “Jeff told us to watch <em>Seduced</em> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/10/21/21525430/vow-finale-nxivm-interview-explained-raniere-noujaim-amer"><em>The Vow</em></a> and write a whole essay as to why Jeff is <em>not</em> a cult leader,” a former coach named Keely says in the documentary. “Every point we were coming across when we were doing this research was pointing to the fact that he was, in fact, a cult leader.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n9gfth">
In fact, over the course of <em>Escaping Twin Flames, </em>Ayan does a litany of things that are a veritable bingo card of cult tropes:
</p>
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He insists that only he, out of everyone on Earth, is enlightened enough to tell who a person’s twin flame is. Cult leaders nearly always purport to have a special spiritual power that makes them unique out of all other spiritual guides.
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ABVcJo">
He separates members from their families, often by convincing them that their families have been abusive to them. This is a classic form of cult control. The documentary series introduces us to a support group of mothers who have all been fully or nearly entirely separated from their children due to their involvement in the group.
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He institutes a rigorously controlled lifestyle regimen, dictating everything from how members should eat and exercise to when/if they should get married. One couple, who ultimately wind up leaving the group together, get married after just two months of dating after Ayan tells them they are soul mates.
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6USqpX">
He creates a system of isolation that deems anyone not in the Twin Flames Universe community a suspicious or unenlightened person who isn’t to be trusted. This is described as “energy leaks” in the series — the idea that any energy you give toward anyone who’s not your twin flame or not a member of the community is wasted, a “leak.”
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Boxz6e">
He claims, as countless cult leaders have, to be the reincarnation of Jesus. As Ayan leans more into the idea of Twin Flames Universe as a religious non-profit, he increasingly styles himself to resemble Jesus, growing his hair long and remarking on his resemblance to the biblical representation of Christ. (Ayan is white, and not Jewish.)
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vRv10j">
He facilitates “healing” sessions that emphasize personal failings and serve as an ongoing form of coercive control. This is similar to the process of many other cults, such as Scientology’s infamous auditing sessions. Former TFU members report being forced to do healing sessions that last up to 24 hours. These sessions as well as a routine practice called the “mirror exercise” are designed to keep members in a constant state of turbulence and upheaval, excavating personal trauma and issues that may or may not be real, all in order to maintain a state of crisis and further dependence and reliance on the guidance of Ayan, the coaches, and other members of the group. According to the docuseries, Ayan presents members’ personal problems as manifestations of how broken and damaged they are as individuals.
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He arranges relationships and marriages within the group, essentially ordering certain members to get together by virtue of telling them that they are one another’s twin flames. The entire concept of a “twin flame” is that it’s unique and permanent, and the entire basis for Ayan’s alleged spiritual powers is that he is the only one who can identify a person’s unique permanent cosmically ordained twin flame. Yet multiple members are initially informed that their twin flame is one person, only to have Jeff change his mind and assign them a different twin flame, often after the first person has left the group.
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He pressures members to invest more and more money in the program, either by “leveling up” to become a more central part of the organization, or by purchasing yet another product offered by the group. While he and Shaleia bragged about driving Porsches, living in a mansion, and wearing designer fashion, they encouraged members to shell out thousands of dollars to purchase group materials and training sessions. One former TFU member reports spending $20,000 just to become a certified TFU coach.
</li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i5KB2P">
“Those who stayed ended up going deeper and deeper,” one former TFU member says in the documentary.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RFKIHX">
In one aspect, The Twin Flames Universe community goes much further than typical cults might: Ayan insists<strong> </strong>that certain members are either “spiritually masculine” or “spiritually feminine,” and that they need to accept and express their true gender. This pressure frequently escalates into pressure for members to convert to a different gender expression altogether. Since Ayan denies the existence of homosexuality and nonbinary identity, this trick makes it easier for him to more effectively arrange relationships between members of the community, most of whom are women.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pfmsI9">
It also, of course, is an extreme form of coercive control, and it can’t be overstated that the modes of coercion in this group have nothing to do with actual <a href="https://www.vox.com/lgbtq">trans</a> identity. Indeed, one former member of TFU who <em>is</em> trans left the group because she saw through Ayan’s attempts to coerce members into artificially changing their gender expressions. Another former member named Angie found herself first being pressured to accept that she was “spiritually masculine” and to dress and style herself as increasingly butch. After developing a crush on another woman in the group, this escalated into pressure to live and present as a man, including changing her name. Angie finally broke and left the group, resuming life as a cisgender woman.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v4cbEG">
One of the most heartwrenching stories recounted in <em>Escaping Twin Flames</em> concerns a young woman named Marlee who joined the group at the age of 19, only to be told by Ayan that her twin flame was a random stranger who had messaged her on Facebook. The man turned out to be 11 years older than Marlee, with no job, severe <a href="https://www.vox.com/mental-health">mental health</a> problems, and a criminal record. Nevertheless, Ayan coerced Marlee into moving to a different state in order to be with him, even though in her own words, “I did not like this guy; he was creepy.” In one video early in their relationship, a sobbing Marlee relates the criminal problems her new twin flame is having, clearly distraught. “Everyone has issues,” a supremely unbothered Ayan tells her. “You should look at this as the prequel to your union.” After living like this for three years, Marlee ultimately concludes that “the person who I thought was my twin flame was just some random guy I was forced to be with.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v7dhAQ">
Other TFU members were coerced into moving across states to live with their twin flames, even if they’d just met. Some were coerced into changing their names or getting gender reassignment surgery or other related surgery. The group also seems to institute hierarchies of abuse, with higher-level coaches passing along to newer members the abusive tactics and orders Ayan used on them. One member, according to the documentary, died by suicide shortly after joining the group. The group, according to <em>Escaping Twin Flames</em>, disclaims that it’s not a mental health treatment group, but internally enforces the idea that members should look to its teachings for all their mental <a href="https://www.vox.com/health">wellness</a>.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DUmtdG">
It’s important to remember that higher-up members of TFU are most likely also subject to <a href="https://www.jenkiaba.com/lessons-on-leaving/why-didnt-you-just-leave">intense forms of coercive control</a> and persuasive tactics that keep them from questioning their role in the group too deeply. But there is hope. Nearly all of the former TFU members featured in <em>Escaping Twin Flames</em>, including several members in positions of authority, departed from the group after exposés of the group appeared in Vice and other media outlets. The impact of <em>Escaping Twin Flames</em> debuting at No. 1 on the Netflix Top 10 in its first week of release can’t be overstated. Even if it can’t reach everyone who’s committed to the Ayans and their community, perhaps it will reach the next person looking for cosmic answers to life’s questions — before they become a target for a self-styled guru with anything but divine intentions.
</p></li>
<li><strong>It’s time to break up with fast fashion</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustration shows a woman grabbing the stripes printed on her top as if breaking through prison bars. She stands in front of a line of people all looking the opposite direction, happily wearing the same pattern on their shirts." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6is2xJhdie3uBGThMD_Zv8y6VVM=/280x0:1965x1264/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72852438/LorenaSpurio_WhyYouShouldBreakUpWithFastFashion.0.jpg"/>
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Lorena Spurio for Vox
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
It isn’t classist to say that Americans do not need hauls of dozens of garments.
</p>
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In a marketplace full of seemingly infinite choices, every piece of clothing purchased could be construed as a moral quagmire. Are you a bad person if you <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/is-wearing-real-leather-or-faux-leather-sustainable.html">buy leather</a>? What about <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/fashion/fashion-news/a30640996/vegan-leather-sustainability/">vegan leather</a>? Conversations about the relative importance of various, often opposed ethical concerns are rightly packed with tough, worthwhile questions and considerations.
</p>
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There are a million and one lines to draw, all dependent on a person’s particular value system. But there’s one clear-cut distinction that anyone should be able to understand: We can all do more to buy less (or, ideally, nothing) from <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/2/3/21080364/fast-fashion-h-and-m-zara">fast fashion</a> giants.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7jihL2">
When you say something like this in public, though, there are a few types of pushback, with differing degrees of validity and popularity. One of the most common — and effective — is that fast fashion is accessible. This is true and entirely to the point. Fast fashion is accessible to people of lower incomes, and often accessible to people in a <a href="https://www.voguebusiness.com/fashion/challenging-a-fatphobic-industry-to-adapt">range of sizes</a> — two extensive problems in the fashion industry. With fast fashion, people who otherwise might not be able to can express themselves through trends. This is, in a vacuum, a nice thing.
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This nice thing also exists in a much broader and more complicated context.
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Academics, human rights activists, and experts who work in fashion and sustainability have spent years sounding the alarm: Clothing overconsumption is <a href="https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/environmental-costs-fast-fashion">awful for the environment</a> and <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2021-11-11/how-dead-white-mans-clothing-is-clogging-the-global-south">hurts the poorest of the world’s poor</a>. The boom of fast fashion — the breakneck business model where retailers mimic trendy runway or streetwear looks to mass produce them at lower price points — has normalized a culture of constantly buying new clothes without thinking twice about the consequences to other <a href="https://sustainablereview.com/exploring-the-consequences-of-fast-fashion-on-garment-workers/#:~:text=The%20effects%20of%20rapid%20manner,safety%20risks%20for%20garment%20workers.">people</a>, <a href="https://www.bbcearth.com/news/5-fashion-materials-you-didnt-realise-were-bad-for-wildlife">animals</a>, or the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/09/23/costo-moda-medio-ambiente">planet at large</a>.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZvVdfr">
Every piece of clothing comes with two costs: the one we pay as consumers and the actual one, which takes into account the climate effects of production and shipping and the impact on the people who make the production and shipping possible. If a T-shirt retails for $5, what does that say about the wage of its constructor and of the materials that went into making it?
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Companies are incentivized to cut corners when it comes to paying workers fairly, sourcing materials ethically, and ensuring the living conditions of animals. I’ve previously written about <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23529587/consumer-goods-quality-fast-fashion-technology">how our stuff — from blenders and bras to telephones and tractors — has gotten worse</a> in the last decade because of the corporate pursuit of overproduction and overconsumption. Given the speed needed to keep up with trends, it’s not physically possible to quickly mass produce something that is of a decent quality, ethically made, and affordable.
</p>
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The problems endemic to the fashion industry, however, are relatively under-discussed, and there’s a reluctance among consumers to take a good, hard look at their own purchasing habits. There isn’t enough clear information about the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/1/27/21080107/fashion-environment-facts-statistics-impact">environmental or human rights impacts</a>, the topic of fashion itself is seen by some as shallow, and the discussion is frequently derailed by related conversations. It’s not simple — nor is it solely our individual responsibility when policymakers and brands can step up — but none of that means we have to buy into a narrative that normalizes a culture of overconsumption.
</p>
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“Clothing isn’t frivolous. It’s something that touches every human being on the planet,” said JD Shadel, editor-at-large at <a href="https://goodonyou.eco/">Good on You</a>, a fashion evaluator site. “I don’t think we have a right to transgress the human rights of other individuals for our own stylishness. Fast fashion has sold us the lie that to be a whole person, we need more cheap clothes, and that’s not true.”
</p>
<h3 id="aqXMSJ">
Fast fashion is bad, but some brands are worse than others
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lYLIL0">
Americans already have pretty full closets.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xshj8X">
In 2018, the average American bought 68 items of clothing, with the majority of it going barely worn, Rent the Runway CEO Jennifer Hyman told the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/rent-the-runway-wants-to-lend-you-your-look">New Yorker</a>. That figure was before the rise of Shein, the Chinese <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22573682/shein-future-of-fast-fashion-explained">mega-retailer that outputs thousands of new, cheaply made styles a day</a>, alongside brands like Boohoo, Cider, Princess Polly, and Fashion Nova. The mall staples of yesteryear, your Forever 21s and Zaras, pale in comparison to the magnitude of <a href="https://www.vox.com/e-commerce">e-commerce</a> behemoths (<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/2/3/21080364/fast-fashion-h-and-m-zara">though they’re not blameless</a>). If social media is any indication, with <a href="https://www.vox.com/influencers">influencers</a> and everyday people alike touting monthly <a href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/shein-took-over-fast-fashion-then-came-the-backlash/9609ac6d-9f41-4aaf-83e6-4adf2119fb74">“hauls”</a> of clothing, it wouldn’t be surprising if Americans were buying significantly more than 68 garments a year today.
</p>
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We can estimate how many clothes Americans buy. We can calculate how many <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-fashion-industry-environmental-impact/#xj4y7vzkg">garments are ending up in landfills globally</a>. What’s harder is knowing how many pieces are being produced industry-wide. Only 12 percent of brands publicly disclose the number of products made annually, according to the <a href="https://www.fashionrevolution.org/about/transparency/">2023 Fashion Transparency Index report</a> from nonprofit Fashion Revolution. If we went along with the largest approximation of <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/1/27/21080107/fashion-environment-facts-statistics-impact">150 billion articles of clothing</a> per year, which could honestly still be on the conservative side, the sheer scale reveals something unsettling: There are way too many clothes for the 8.1 billion people on the planet.
</p>
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“There’s an inherent flaw in fashion’s business model that does not value the products it makes,” Holly Syrett, the impact programs and sustainability director at <a href="https://globalfashionagenda.org/">Global Fashion Agenda,</a> wrote to Vox in an email. “Looking at all market segments of fashion, figures indicate that just 30 percent of clothing made is sold at full price, 30 percent of clothing is sold at discount, and another 30 percent not sold at all.”
</p>
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Meanwhile, you can see the <a href="https://www.space.com/mountain-discarded-clothes-chile-satellite-photo">world’s textile waste from space</a>. In Chile’s <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/unbutton-fashion">Atacama Desert</a>, almost 800 acres of unused and no longer loved clothing sits to rot. The mostly polyester-laden fast fashion shipped from the US, Europe, and Asia will take centuries to decompose. Unlike, say, food waste (<a href="https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/5/9/15594598/food-waste-dumbest-environmental">a similar problem</a>), those synthetic fibers can’t be easily composted the way a pomegranate can be. So that slinky going-out dress from 2016 will either slowly disintegrate, leeching its chemicals into nearby water systems, or be burned to create space, which in turn <a href="https://www.bbcearth.com/news/will-fashion-firms-stop-burning-clothes">shoots chemicals into the air.</a>
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<aside id="LNjfoo">
<q>“30 percent of clothing made is sold at full price, 30 percent of clothing is sold at discount, and another 30 percent not sold at all”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ORjemr">
Waste is only one of the environmental downsides of the fashion industry. Synthetic materials made from fossil fuels like polyester, nylon, and acrylic contribute <a href="https://www.indianaenvironmentalreporter.org/posts/synthetic-fibers-in-clothing-contribute-to-pollution">chemical byproducts</a> to the air, water systems, and soil that are difficult to contain. Natural fibers — cotton, wool, silk, leather — require massive quantities of <a href="https://conservationhierarchy.org/sectors/fashion-textiles/">land</a> and <a href="https://www.commonobjective.co/article/the-issues-water">water use</a>, not to mention the <a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/sustainability/animal-welfare-leather-fashion-fur/">animal welfare</a> of it all. The fashion industry is also a significant source of pollution. A <a href="https://unfashionalliance.org/">recent estimate from the United Nations</a> calculates the fashion industry is responsible for anywhere between 2 to 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. At this pace, the industry’s share of emissions could surge by 50 percent by 2030, <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/09/23/costo-moda-medio-ambiente">according to the World Bank</a>.
</p>
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There’s plenty to be worried about here for the future, but what and how much we buy also hurts people today. The fashion industry employs some <a href="https://fashionunited.com/global-fashion-industry-statistics">60 million people in the production of textiles and apparel globally,</a> and it can feel like an understatement to say that not everyone is paid fairly. Most countries in the Global North outsource their labor to developing countries like <a href="https://apparelmagic.com/outsourcing-manufacturing-in-the-fashion-industry-pros-cons-for-small-businesses/#:~:text=Most%20United%20States%20or%20Europe,such%20as%20Vietnam%20or%20Bangladesh.">Bangladesh or Vietnam</a> due to a lack of regulations that protect labor. The garment workers responsible for stitching a pair of leggings together or knitting a warm sweater work <a href="https://studentbriefs.law.gwu.edu/ilpb/2021/10/28/fast-fashion-getting-faster-a-look-at-the-unethical-labor-practices-sustaining-a-growing-industry/">long hours in terrible conditions</a> for little pay in order to make cheap clothes possible.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KDBQqJ">
The<a href="https://www.theindustrywewant.com/wages#:~:text=The%20Industry%20Wage%20Gap&amp;text=The%20Industry%20We%20Want%20wage,set%20is%2048%2C5%25."> industry wage gap</a> — the average percentage gap between minimum wages and the average living wage — across key producing countries has also increased to 48.5 percent, with many workers receiving less than half of the money they need to reach a living wage. <a href="https://www.ilo.org/infostories/en-GB/Stories/discrimination/garment-gender#main-challenges">Women</a> and <a href="https://labs.theguardian.com/unicef-child-labour/">children</a> along the supply chain see even lower wages.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="t0ZuCE">
Fast fashion and its discontents have been on the rise since the 2000s, with criticism aimed at brands like <a href="https://turnaroundhm.org/wage-research-september-2018/?ref=affiliatesection">H&amp;M</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-grew-into-the-worlds-largest-fashion-retailer.html">Zara</a>. Not even other mall favorites, like <a href="https://www.curiouslyconscious.com/2020/07/is-gap-fast-fashion-brand.html/">the Gap</a> or <a href="https://www.fashionatingworld.com/new1-2/aberchrombie-fitch-is-still-a-fast-fashion-brand-despite-sustainability-initiatives">Abercrombie &amp; Fitch</a>, are spared as they, too, overproduce. But right now, one of the biggest players in the game is Shein. It leads the e-commerce pack in terms of its production, environmental impacts, and disregard for worker well-being. The overconsumption encouraged by Shein and its ilk essentially put the industry on steroids.
</p>
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<a href="https://www.udel.edu/faculty-staff/experts/sheng-lu/">Sheng Lu</a>, a professor at the University of Delaware who studies the apparel industry, analyzed Shein’s output compared to other fast-fashion retailers in 2022. He told <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/fast-cheap-out-of-control-inside-rise-of-shein/">Wired</a> that in a 12-month period, Gap had around 12,000 different styles; H&amp;M had approximately 25,000; and Zara clocked in around 35,000. Shein had 1.3 million. Mind you, that’s not the total number of individual garments, but the number of <em>styles</em>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1fF3Yh">
Shein’s pricing is also a differentiator. More than 1,000 people bought this <a href="https://us.shein.com/SHEIN-BASICS-Solid-Crop-Tee-p-15229312-cat-1738.html?src_identifier=fc%3DSale%60sc%3DSALE%60tc%3D0%60oc%3D0%60ps%3Dtab02navbar02%60jc%3DitemPicking_017210185&amp;src_module=topcat&amp;src_tab_page_id=page_home1699538743564&amp;main_attr=27_2436&amp;mallCode=1">$2.69 brown crop top</a>. You could also buy a <a href="https://us.shein.com/SHEIN-Kids-QTFun-Young-Boy-Christmas-Santa-Claus-Print-Tee-p-21410162-cat-2107.html?src_identifier=fc%3DAll%60sc%3DKids%60tc%3DShopByCategory%60oc%3DToddlerBoysClothing47Y%60ps%3Dtab00navbar05menu01dir09%60jc%3Dreal_2059&amp;src_module=topcat&amp;src_tab_page_id=page_real_class1699536003693&amp;mallCode=1&amp;imgRatio=3-4">$3 shirt featuring Santa hitting a dab</a>, a <a href="https://us.shein.com/Floral-Print-Cami-Nightdress-p-25916490-cat-2209.html?src_identifier=uf=usgooglebrandshein10fj_new_20190829&amp;src_module=ads&amp;mallCode=1&amp;imgRatio=3-4">$5 nightdress</a>, or an <a href="https://us.shein.com/Manfinity-Homme-Men-Half-Zip-Raglan-Sleeve-Sweatshirt-p-24357663-cat-1974.html?src_identifier=fc%3DMen%20Fashion%60sc%3DMenFashion%60tc%3D0%60oc%3D0%60ps%3Dtab06navbar06%60jc%3DitemPicking_100215777&amp;src_module=topcat&amp;src_tab_page_id=page_goods_detail1699535631696&amp;mallCode=1&amp;imgRatio=3-4">$11 men’s zip-up sweater</a>. In no world do those prices make any logical sense, but they do allow consumers to normalize low price tags and buy a high volume of low-quality products.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qxA3fg">
Despite being around for more than a decade, Shein didn’t <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/fast-cheap-out-of-control-inside-rise-of-shein/">take off internationally until TikTok</a> did, plus the onslaught of <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23279350/pandemic-consumer-buys-peloton-bike-games-dog-covid">pandemic impulse purchases</a> that happened around the same time. Shein experienced massive growth extremely quickly, operating more than <a href="https://time.com/6247732/shein-climate-change-labor-fashion/">6,000 factories</a> (including in western China, the site of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22311356/china-uyghur-birthrate-sterilization-genocide">Uyghur genocide</a>).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Lpiagy">
Shein’s scale makes its harms markedly worse. There are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/05/shein-admits-working-hour-breaches-and-pledges-12m-to-improve-sites">media reports</a> of several <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-11-21/shein-s-cotton-clothes-tied-to-xinjiang-china-region-accused-of-forced-labor#xj4y7vzkg">human rights violations</a>, including workers needing to clock in for back-to-back 18-hour days, with no weekends, in order to make a living wage. A <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/consumer/shein-fast-fashion-workers-paid-3p-18-hour-days-undercover-filming-china-1909073">2022 investigation by UK publication iNews alleges</a> that workers are paid as little as 0.03694 cents per item. Living wages with this kind of payout are impossible unless tons of clothes are made.
</p>
<h3 id="AB0s2N">
The lies we tell ourselves about fast fashion
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2rvn7f">
Recently, I watched a <a href="https://www.vox.com/tiktok">TikTok</a> where a foodie influencer touted a cute screen-printed shirt she’d recently purchased from a local brand. One of her followers scolded her for buying a $40-something top. “How can you share an expensive top to your college student audience?” the follower asked.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uwUtqb">
$40 isn’t nothing. But once you factor in labor, production costs, and overhead, it’s hard to say that it isn’t an ethical, reasonable price for a shirt. As Aja Barber, author of <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/consumed-aja-barber/1139759103"><em>Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism</em></a><em>, </em>explained to Vox in an interview, the vast majority of people, especially young folks, do not know what things actually cost<em>. </em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QAWDcS">
“We need to educate the younger generations because they don’t really know what a world looks like without fast fashion,” Barber told me. “We can’t blame them for not knowing.” Barber likes to do a thought experiment, asking people how much they’d like to be paid hourly. Garment workers, she points out, deserve a living wage, too — and hey, guess how long that T-shirt takes to make?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ypw13x">
Today, to say that something should cost more is considered by some to be <a href="https://twitter.com/SpiderIiIy_/status/1583600548531798016">classist</a>. A go-to argument for many fast-fashion proponents, according to the experts I spoke with, is that buying from a retailer like Shein is a necessity because it has the most affordable, new, trendy clothing. Being poor limits your options, so how else could you keep up with the Joneses? Similar arguments have been lobbed when it comes to <a href="https://www.artefactmagazine.com/2020/11/20/the-conversation-around-fast-fashion-is-fatphobic/">anti-fat bias</a> — that it’s discriminatory to tell people not to shop from a brand that might have cheaper options for larger clothes in an industry notorious for producing limited size ranges.
</p>
<div class="c-float-left c-float-hang">
<aside id="RisQ94">
<q>“It’s a core American problem that a lot of Americans are unable to see beyond themselves”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Dzxqsm">
These arguments are ultimately just noise. America’s lower classes are not the ones with an overconsumption problem. One-off purchases aren’t meaningfully helping <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/shein-valued-at-100-billion-in-funding-round-11649126740">Shein reach the $100 billion evaluation milestone</a>. It’s the folks who take advantage of low prices to buy more than they need or will ever use. When advocates talk about how people should buy less or buy nothing from fast-fashion companies, they’re not telling poor people that they don’t need stuff or that people with bigger bodies should go naked. Instead, that advice is intended for those who have the luxury of choice. “If someone is talking about affordability, then they should be asking themselves, what are they buying for?” Barber said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3yjQyy">
This also doesn’t change the fact that <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23792854/poverty-mortality-study-public-health-antipoverty-america-deaths-poor-life-expectancy">poverty in the US</a>, while horrific and unacceptable, pales in comparison to the <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/poverty">everyday reality of those in the Global South</a>. More likely than not, middle- and upper-class overconsumers are hiding behind the shield of affordability rather than simply acknowledging their culpability in the harms caused by the industry.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L7wg4k">
“It’s a core American problem that a lot of Americans are unable to see beyond themselves,” said Cora Harrington, a lingerie expert and critic of fast fashion. “One thing that just jumps out in such startling clarity when you’re discussing companies like Shein is that people say they’re the most victimized and oppressed people in this equation. The notion that people are not being paid fairly, that people work in dangerous conditions, that people are exploited to make your $6 bathing suits don’t even enter the equation of what they see as oppression.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fBGI0X">
Having access to a glut of cheap clothes in order to be fashionable isn’t a human right, nor is it a requirement to express yourself. As political theorist John Stuart Mill posited a little more than two centuries ago, your rights end the moment they <a href="https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/harm-principle">infringe upon and harm the rights of others.</a> “If it comes at a cost to another human, is it right?” Barber asked. “Are we entitled to cheap clothing at the cost of other humans? That’s the question. I think we all know what the answer is deep down inside.”
</p>
<h3 id="LdrkpS">
How fast fashion sells itself (and what to do about it)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iIwiWy">
To be clear, it is not simply that consumers are lying to themselves so they can feel good about their purchases: A whole misinformation machine is at work, thanks to the fashion industry.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dwIIQ5">
As Shadel explained to Vox, brand evasion makes everything more complicated: “It’s really hard for a consumer who wants to put their values at the center of their spending and vote with their wallets if you don’t know if this brand is profiting off of forced labor and wage exploitation.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="clmymi">
Fast-fashion brands take advantage of the overwhelming difficulty of knowing and proving what’s going on behind closed doors. For a lot of the most devoted buyers, no amount of outside evidence will be enough. “How can I stand against them if I don’t have anything to back it up?” a Shein fan <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/style/shein-clothing.html">told the New York Times last year</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mU715v">
And when independent evidence points toward unglamorous truth, as was the case with Shein’s factories, well … just fly a bunch of influencer “partners” on an <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/30/1184974003/shein-influencers-china-factory-trip-backlash">international trip</a> to scope out a mostly empty “innovation factory.” In late June, six influencers were shown a facility in Guangzhou, China, and made a series of videos, espousing the merits of the brand. Naturally, the gullible influencers were dunked on <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/831191/internet-eviscerates-shein-brand-trip-influencers/">left</a> and <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexalisitza/reactions-shein-influencer-trip">right</a>.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<div id="C2rCEp">
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aqSQid">
“The China trip has been one of the most life-changing trips of my life,” said influencer Dani Carbonari in a now-deleted video defending the excursion, where she emphasized her “surprise” at the “rumors” spread in the US. “My biggest takeaway from this trip is to be an independent thinker — get the facts and see it with your own two eyes.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ws53TW">
Ironically or not, this is the takeaway we should all have when it comes to companies like Shein: to think smarter about our own habits and use the data we have available. We have to remember that clothing hasn’t <a href="https://www.bookandsword.com/2017/12/09/how-much-did-a-shirt-really-cost-in-the-middle-ages/">historically been this cheap</a>; it’s only a recent development in the last few decades. “Fashion didn’t always used to be fast fashion and ultra-fast fashion,” Shadel said. “That’s not to say it was always perfect, but it’s a lot worse now in a lot of ways. And so we can change the system because it’s not inherent.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TJgEJ1">
The responsibility for real and lasting change lies with corporations and governments. There’s no easy one-size-fits-all solution, no magic polyester blend made of <a href="https://www.wellandgood.com/sustainability-of-recycled-bottle-clothes/">recycled water bottles</a>, no number of <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/22679378/tree-planting-forest-restoration-climate-solutions">trees planted</a> that will gloss over the need for systemic reconstruction and reimagining. Some initiatives, like <a href="https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/topics/circular-economy-introduction/overview">promoting a circular economy</a> or regularly releasing reports of factory conditions, are moves in the right direction. Crucially, what’s needed is a deep shift in the current business model — and that will take time, collaboration, and pressure across the industry.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FF83PF">
The good news is that we’re making progress. The EU has passed <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32022L2464">several</a> <a href="https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/doing-business-eu/corporate-sustainability-due-diligence_en">initiatives</a> targeting reporting standards, accountability for human rights and environmental regulations, and textile waste. In the US, there’s the <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2023/A4333/amendment/A">New York Fashion Act</a>, a proposed law that will require accountability to standardized environmental and social due diligence policies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7IecQL">
Still, the crushing wheel of bureaucracy and lack of international agreement about what accountability should look like remain roadblocks in shifting fast fashion’s business model at scale. So that leaves us, the consumer.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hLAgG2">
If there’s one thing we can do, immediately and easily, it’s stop lying to ourselves that we need these brands, that we deserve to have this much stuff, that our wants and desires stateside are more important than the lives of people across the globe or the future of our planet. We can just admit that fast fashion is not a good thing.
</p>
<p class="c-end-para" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AIhVSw">
“If we don’t get a grip on this, nobody’s going to care in 10 years about your Shein haul,” Barber said. “We can either fix the system, or we can just drive the car until the wheels fall off.”
</p></li>
<li><strong>How I stopped buying my way out of everything</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustration shows a tiny figure walking away from a cluster of giant shopping bags covered in a maze pattern." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KYqnivFzTnk1TEqAiHd0xoSpbVg=/280x0:1965x1264/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72843995/LorenaSpurio_HowIStoppedWorrying.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Lorena Spurio for Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I learned the hard way I couldn’t shop my way to a new self.
</p>
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The pile of recycling in the corner of my kitchen was taller than the counter at some points in the month. The precariously stacked boxes from <a href="https://www.vox.com/amazon">Amazon</a>, the Gap, Williams Sonoma, and direct-to-consumer brands I had found on <a href="https://www.vox.com/tiktok">TikTok</a> threatened to fall over, though that didn’t stop me from adding another to the top when a new supposedly life-changing package arrived at my doorstep.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z6TIwz">
I didn’t realize that I was <a href="https://wwd.com/feature/is-revenge-shopping-on-the-horizon-in-the-u-s-1234776273/">revenge shopping</a> — a term that explains the way people spend compulsively on less-than-necessary consumer goods to make up for lost time after a period of being denied the opportunity to shop. It became <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/what-is-revenge-shopping">hugely popular about a year into the pandemic</a>, with <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/17/post-covid-revenge-spending-is-costing-americans-765-more-a-month.html">millennials and Gen Z reporting that they were spending $1,016 more per month in 2021 than they were in the summer prior</a>. By the time I hit my shopping peak, it was late 2021. Like many others at that time, I was bored of sitting at home in the same clothes. Perhaps more importantly, I was bored with myself and I couldn’t find another way out of the life I was living.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jkpSGA">
Shopping made it easy to envision myself in a new life — one where, instead of working a series of dead-end <a href="https://www.vox.com/labor-jobs">jobs</a> and hardly leaving my apartment, I was always surrounded by friends, eating at the best restaurant in my city, and casually wearing the perfectly put-together outfit that would reify me as a Hot Girl.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PchihD">
As I came to see much later, shopping never delivered on that promise. There was never an end in sight — only new opportunities to reinvent myself. If I was constantly trying on something new, there would never be a moment to ask myself who I actually was, or to even consider why I was so scared of the question itself. That would’ve required me to make changes I wasn’t ready for: to go out and meet new people, to quit the job that made me feel unappreciated and less-than, to look in the mirror and accept that <em>this just may be what I look like, and that’s okay.</em> Until I faced that fear, there was only recycling piling up, a flash of guilt or shame as I broke down the boxes, and the quickly returning urge to buy my way out of being unhappy. Month after month, I flipped myself like an old house with decent bones, hoping a new layer of shiplap or subway tile backsplash would cover up what I wanted to hide.
</p>
<div>
<aside id="NOAmOC">
<q>I flipped myself like an old house with decent bones, hoping a new layer of shiplap or subway tile backsplash would cover up what I wanted to hide</q>
</aside>
</div>
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A short scroll on <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/9/14/23872449/tiktok-shop-for-you-page-ads">TikTok</a> or <a href="https://www.vox.com/instagram-news">Instagram</a> Reels will present you with thousands of different single-use tools that purportedly deliver the ultimate life hacks, must-have “staple pieces” for your closet that’ll “never go out of style,” and skin care products that will make your face glow and pores shrink. In these videos, people with blown-out hair and shockingly white teeth tell you about that one Amazon item that improved their entire life — whether it’s a jade roller that “de-puffed” their face or the dress that has fulfilled their lifelong aesthetic goals. As you sift through video after video, watching before-and-afters or step-by-step outfit tutorials, it’s easy to start believing them. I certainly did.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KOYjRl">
Rarely do these videos mention the psychological impacts of continuous shopping, or the environmental ones. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2023/07/05/fast-fashion-impact-climate-environment-shein-china-cnntm-vpx.cnn">US consumers now have about five times more clothing in their closet than in the 1980s</a>, despite the fact that <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/2/3/21080364/fast-fashion-h-and-m-zara">many items will only be worn once</a>; in the US alone, <a href="https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2022/the-aftermath-of-fast-fashion-how-discarded-clothes-impact-public-health-and-the-environment/">over 34 billion pounds of textiles are thrown out each year</a>, meaning that each resident produces roughly 100 pounds of textile waste per year. While it can be easy to downplay individual responsibility to combat <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate">climate change</a> when considering the more significant role that large corporations play in creating waste, <a href="https://www.vox.com/21450911/climate-change-coronavirus-greta-thunberg-flying-degrowth">our consumption habits still have a measurable impact on the environment</a>. The hard truth: The more you buy, the more that companies create to buy, and the more you are willing to throw away and replace.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yYPJPs">
Through our consumption, we are complicit in this vicious cycle, while it’s the large corporations behind the products and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/influencers">influencers</a> marketing them that stand to gain the most. Influencers using the popular online shopping platform LTK sold over $3.6 billion worth of products in 2022 alone, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/03/08/rise-of-the-deinfluencer-growing-social-media-movement-challenges-influencers-and-consumerism/?sh=4016c0294a44">according to the company’s numbers</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6UzWBx">
At the height of my revenge shopping, I prioritized figuring out my “aesthetic” rather than leveraging any power I could have as a conscious consumer. I spent weeks mindlessly scrolling — and shopping. I bought flared leather pants, and a couple of weeks later I found myself thinking they were cringe. I succumbed to the Shein haul, a TikTok trend in which one buys copious amounts of low-cost clothing from the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22573682/shein-future-of-fast-fashion-explained">Chinese fast fashion giant</a>, to buy all new bathing suits before a trip to the beach with friends, and still felt self-conscious about my body in nearly all of the photos. The algorithm served me countless videos of <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22573682/shein-future-of-fast-fashion-explained">girls each discovering their own hyper-specific look</a> — <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23831903/girl-dinner-tiktok-trends-hot-girl-walk">tomato girls</a> who shined wearing reds and neutrals, cottagecore girls who preferred baking bread and wearing loose linens. Their smiles told me: I’ve figured out who I am, and I feel lighter because of it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1nfRH7">
I tried on a “clean girl” aesthetic, and then the “model off duty” one, but my hair seemed too unmanageable for either. I recalled the videos I had seen during my hours of scrolling, of proud “curly girl” influencers who created entire careers around their perfect hair, whose comment sections were filled with endless compliments. <em>So</em> <em>that’s my problem</em>, I thought again and again, as I purchased the supposed solutions on their Amazon storefronts: $40 conditioner, $75 hair gel, a $35 Denman brush. When my curls still broke apart and fell out of place, I thought it must be my fault, and I turned back to the app for advice (and more product recommendations).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1TGEp4">
Buying matching athleisure sets was going to make me work out every day. A detailed planner was going to make me more productive. Each purchase offered a second of control, in the face of mounting, overwhelming insecurity. Despite how bad I felt whenever I discovered a new problem in need of fixing, seeking out signals online to tell me how to behave felt natural; it was far from the first time the internet molded how I lived my life.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d9UaRv">
I was in seventh grade when Instagram came out, and my childhood best friend and I were early adopters. We didn’t know then that our blurry pictures of our backyards or our Starbucks cups with sepia-toned filters were an introduction into a digital panopticon — one that opened us up to a world of strangers in addition to the already steep judgment of our peers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9AuSu0">
By the time I was in college in the mid- to late 2010s, I was self-conscious about posting twice in the same outfit — especially in posts too close to each other on my profile. The problem was that I barely had enough cash to cover necessities like school supplies, food, and toiletries. By making the ill-advised decision to attend a private school I couldn’t afford, and to live among people who <em>could </em>afford it, I had put myself on a stage that I wasn’t ready for. I felt like I was performing an improv show — attempting to convince my peers that, in my empty hand, there was really the latest iPhone and that I wasn’t wearing the same pair of threadbare leggings every day.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lpcDey">
Not long after the pandemic hit, I realized I had more money in my bank account than ever before. I had found a slightly higher-paying work-from-home job, so I wasn’t commuting or taking Ubers anywhere, I wasn’t going out to bars, and I wasn’t eating out at any restaurants. At first, I was responsible; I took some time to set aside an emergency fund, and I opened a retirement account. But when I still had funds left over from my paycheck, I started shopping.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WyMJK7">
Suddenly, I had access to a world that I felt I had previously been denied entry to. For many groups of women, including my friends, shopping is a collaborative activity: You wait outside the dressing room to give one friend your honest opinions on her look; you say, “Just do it, you deserve it,” when another asks if she should splurge. Virtually, you send a link to the group chat when your favorite store is having a sale or a video of your most recent haul.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cJCeiz">
When I was younger, this was a bonding experience I couldn’t as readily participate in without feeling immense financial anxiety. Now, I was far from meeting any of my long-term financial goals, but the opportunity to avenge my younger self was tantalizingly within reach. Finally, I could buy the same signifiers that had always told me someone else had it all together, without actually needing to have it all together: porcelain pasta <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/best-pasta-dinner-bowl-plates">blates</a> from Sur La Table, jeans in every wash and cut, a puffer jacket with North Face emblazoned on the front.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pQi4jX">
In the process, I built up a graveyard of things hardly worn, hardly looked at — my very own pigeon’s nest of lightly used garbage that I swore I would donate (and, more excitingly, replace). But the pile presented a problem. It made it difficult to explain why, with so many options, I still felt like I had nothing to wear. Why nothing felt right or comfortable or like “me” except for a couple of sweaters that I had stolen from my boyfriend or a few pairs of jeans that I had worn into the ground. Eventually, the prospect of attempting yet again to find and buy more stuff to make these feelings go away started to feel exhausting rather than exciting.
</p>
<div>
<aside id="ggU5CM">
<q>When do you actually start accepting who you are? At what point are you living your life, instead of planning for a new reinvention of it? </q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xN0igO">
Shopping didn’t give me freedom or agency. By placing me on a conveyor belt where I was constantly tasked with keeping up with the latest trends, it took control away from me. The ease with which many of us can shop now — through the same digital panopticon that encourages us to always present ourselves as something new — is a quick comfort. It’s easy to feel that way when you are trapped under flooding Brooklyns, global pandemics, and threats of international war. It’s also a double-edged sword. It’s true, shopping can provide a dopamine hit that feels like a momentary break from the life you’re living in. But if you’re constantly taking that break when you feel unsatisfied and insecure, you are letting the muscle that deals with the negative parts of your life atrophy. When do you actually start accepting who you are? At what point are you living your life, instead of planning for a new reinvention of it?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D8rlHR">
Deep into my shopping spiral, I started experiencing reinvention fatigue. There was no epiphany, only a gradual decline until I felt less happy, and less like myself, than ever. Half of the clothes in my closet looked like they belonged to a stranger, and I was tired of pantomiming trends set by people being paid to create them. (I mean, when was I ever going to wear that Y2K-inspired backless top from American Eagle or the “SHEIN Knot Strap Ruched Bust Shirred Back Ditsy Floral Top?”)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i8DKW4">
Even though I had more money than before, I hadn’t gotten any better at my performance of happiness or of what I perceived to be normal. Not to mention, I felt less creative than ever. I was still in the same rut I had been in when the pandemic started, but now I was down hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Shopping helped me turn my brain off, but deciding to close the tab of an online cart filled with things I didn’t actually need made me realize that I didn’t want to be off<em> </em>anymore. I can’t deny that I still miss the boxes arriving on my doorstep, but every time I go out in an outfit I’ve worn dozens of times before, it feels like a small win, an acknowledgment that I am consciously accepting who I am and where I’m at.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ebnudl">
When I was younger, I felt stuck with what I had: frizzy hair, hand-me-down clothes, glasses that never sat completely straight on my face. Like most teens and young adults, I was deeply insecure, and I blamed that on the fact that I couldn’t buy things like my friends could. But, in the same way that revenge shopping didn’t help me today, having more stuff wouldn’t have helped me then, either. This is a realization I didn’t come to until I actually stopped shopping — especially in the moments that I really, really wanted to, when I was feeling the most restless, the most desperate for an easy way out. It was in those moments that I had the opportunity to reckon with what made me uncomfortable or unhappy with myself, and to make changes. To write, or go on a walk outside, or call one of my friends and have a long conversation.
</p>
<p class="c-end-para" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wZ8C6O">
Remembering all the times from my younger years when I yearned for a different life, a different closet, a different body, I now think: The fact that I was forced to stick with what I had wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. And I’m proud that, even though I didn’t have much choice, I was able to be myself through it all. As an adult, I’m trying to return to that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CZJoRg">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s9j2Hm">
</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>Williamson will know how to tackle Kuldeep Yadav, says Sunil Gavaskar</strong> - India are considered favourites against New Zealand in what will be a repeat of the final four clash four years ago in the 2019 edition.</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>IND vs NZ semifinal | Williamson okay with ‘underdogs’ tag, praises India for adjusting with Hardik’s absence</strong> - New Zealand were the last to book their semifinal slot with India being the first side in the final four, followed by South Africa and Australia.</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>World Cup semifinal: India’s dominance vs New Zealand’s perseverance</strong> - The 2019 Manchester heartbreak might be lingering in a corner of the hosts’ mind as an irritant. Both India and New Zealand have bowlers who can inflict severe damage with the new ball.</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>Cummins open to Australia ODI captaincy extension, to put his name in IPL auction</strong> - Having guided Australia to the World Cup semifinals on the back of seven straight wins after opening two losses, Cummins has made a strong case for captaincy extension.</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>T20 in Visakhapatnam | Tickets for India vs Australia match to be sold from November 15</strong> - Secretary of Andhra Cricket Association S. R. Gopinath Reddy said the sale of online tickets will be on November 15 and 16.</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>Call to support children suffering from leprosy</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>Testimony of interested witnesses cannot be totally discarded as partisan: Supreme Court judgment</strong> - ‘The only requirement is that their evidence has to be scrutinised with greater care and circumspection,’ a three-judge Bench noted in its recent judgment</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Here are the big stories from Karnataka today</strong> - Welcome to the Karnataka Today newsletter, your guide from The Hindu on the major news stories to follow today. Curated and written by Nalme Nachiyar.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Andhra Pradesh govt. issues new guidelines for implementation of Jagananna Vidya, Vasathi Deevena schemes</strong> - The objective is to ensure that the student remains the primary beneficiary; the process of opening a new joint account has to be completed by November 24</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>Criticism of Zionism is not anti-Semitism, says art critic Ranjit Hoskote</strong> - Indian poet and cultural critic, denounced by German art festival Documenta 16, has resigned as a member of its selection committee</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>Iceland volcanic eruption still likely, say scientists</strong> - Residents of a fishing port remain on edge as scientists say a volcanic eruption is still imminent.</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>Anna Politkovskaya: Russian convicted of journalist murder gets pardon</strong> - An ex-police officer jailed for the 2006 murder of Anna Politkovskaya is freed after fighting in Ukraine.</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>UK woman Rita Roberts identified 31 years after Belgium murder</strong> - The UK family of Rita Roberts saw her distinctive tattoo in a BBC News report and contacted police.</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>Russian memorials to victims of Stalin vanish</strong> - While plaques marking his rule of terror disappear, the Soviet dictator’s popularity is on the rise.</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 war: Russian state media retract report of retreat</strong> - The Russian defence ministry has blamed the report’s publication on a “fake account” linked to Ukraine.</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>Dealmaster: Apple iPads, HP printers, OLED TVs, robo vacuums, and more</strong> - From 4K screens to robot cleaning machines, you’ll find serious savings below. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1983353">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>US studying 2,786 megahertz of spectrum to fuel “next-generation” services</strong> - White House highlights five spectrum bands, hopes to avoid interference fights. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1983557">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Google witness accidentally blurts out that Apple gets 36% cut of Safari deal</strong> - Google and Apple specifically requested that detail be confidential. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1983539">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SpaceX founding employee successfully moves from rockets to in-space propulsion</strong> - “We want to make it cheap and easy to get anywhere in the Solar System.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1983306">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nvidia introduces the H200, an AI-crunching monster GPU that may speed up ChatGPT</strong> - The H200 will likely power the next generation of AI chatbots and art generators. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1983396">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Guy walks into a store…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Guy walks into a store and asks the clerk, “Where’s the alcohol?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Clerk replies, “I’m sorry, this is a candy store.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Guy pleads, “Do you have any candy with alcohol in it?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Clerk walks down an aisle and returns with a bag.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Guy looks at the bag and says, “This isn’t quite what I wanted.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Clerk replies, “Well, it is liquor-ish…”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/___HeyGFY___"> /u/<strong><em>HeyGFY</em></strong> </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17uw16n/guy_walks_into_a_store/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17uw16n/guy_walks_into_a_store/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>One day a man, who had been stranded on a desert island for over ten years sees an unusual speck on the horizon. “It’s certainly not a ship”, he thinks to himself. As the speck gets closer and closer he begins to rule out the possibilities of a small boat, then even a raft.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Suddenly, emerging from the surf, comes a drop dead gorgeous blonde woman wearing a wet suit and scuba gear. She approaches the stunned guy and says: “Tell me, how long has it been since you’ve had a joint?” “Ten years,” replies the stunned man. With that she reaches over and unzips a waterproof pocket on her left sleeve and pulls out a bag of joints. He takes one, lights it, takes a long drag and says: “Man, oh man! Is that good!” “And how long has it been since you’ve had a sip of bourbon?” she asks him. Trembling the castaway replies: “Ten years.” She reaches over, unzips her right sleeve, pulls out a flask and hands it to him. He opens the flask, takes a long swig and says: “WOW, that’s absolutely fantastic!” At this point she starts slowly unzipping the long zipper that runs down the front of her wet suit, looks at the man seductively, and asks: “And how long has it been since you’ve had some real fun?” With tears in his eyes, the guy falls to his knees and sobs: “OMG! Don’t tell me you’ve got a laptop?”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/YZXFILE"> /u/YZXFILE </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17ujfx3/one_day_a_man_who_had_been_stranded_on_a_desert/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17ujfx3/one_day_a_man_who_had_been_stranded_on_a_desert/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Justice is a dish best served cold.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Because if it were served warm, it would be justwater.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Lentra888"> /u/Lentra888 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17uszjc/justice_is_a_dish_best_served_cold/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17uszjc/justice_is_a_dish_best_served_cold/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Back in the USSR</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
In the days of state control, a Russian man saved and saved and saved until he finally had enough money to buy a car.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He took the bus to the state car agency to arrange the purchase.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
After an hour of filling in paperwork, he handed over the money and asked when he could pick it up.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The agent looked at a book and replied “exactly one year from today.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The man thought for a minute and asked “morning or afternoon”?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The agent, surprised, said “morning or afternoon! It’s next year. What difference does it make?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The man replied “The plumber is coming in the morning…”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/bigredcar"> /u/bigredcar </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17uhttv/back_in_the_ussr/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17uhttv/back_in_the_ussr/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
None. They use gas lighting.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Kind_Substance_2865"> /u/Kind_Substance_2865 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17uzpqh/how_many_narcissists_does_it_take_to_change_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17uzpqh/how_many_narcissists_does_it_take_to_change_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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