#UK Disorder 2024

[tmarshconnors]

UK Disorder 2024

In the summer of 2024, United Kingdom erupted in riots that spread from major cities to small towns, shaking the nation to its core. While the spark for these disturbances might have been immediate grievances, the tinderbox had been building for years. These riots are a symptom of deeper issues that have been ignored for too long. Understanding and addressing these underlying causes is essential if we are to move forward as a society.

For years, many people in United Kingdom have voiced concerns about immigration policies and border control.

There is a perception among a significant portion of the population that the government has not done enough to secure the borders, leading to economic strain, cultural tensions, and a feeling of being unheard. This sentiment has been simmering, with communities feeling increasingly marginalised and ignored by those in power.

Successive governments have often promised to tackle these issues but have failed to take substantial action. Instead, they have been accused of playing lip service, making grand promises during election campaigns and then delivering little in the way of real change once in office. This cycle of unfulfilled promises has eroded trust in political leaders and institutions, creating a sense of disillusionment and frustration among the populace.

Another significant factor contributing to the unrest is the perceived inequality in policing. There have been numerous reports and accusations of discrimination within the police force, with officers treating people differently based on their skin colour, background, or nationality. This has fostered a sense of injustice and alienation, particularly among minority communities.

The police are supposed to be protectors of all citizens, yet when certain groups feel targeted or unfairly treated, it undermines the very foundation of trust that law enforcement relies upon. Reforming the police to ensure equal treatment for all is not just a matter of justice but a necessary step towards rebuilding trust and community cohesion.

A Path Forward

To move beyond the riots and address the root causes of this unrest, several steps need to be taken:

Listening to the People: The government must genuinely listen to the concerns of its citizens about immigration and border control. This doesn't mean giving in to xenophobia but rather addressing legitimate concerns about resources, integration, and national security in a balanced and fair manner.

Realistic and Effective Policies: Rather than making empty promises, the government needs to implement realistic and effective policies that can make a tangible difference. This includes investing in border security, streamlining immigration processes, and ensuring that newcomers are supported in integrating into society.

Police Reform: Comprehensive police reform is essential to ensure that all citizens are treated equally under the law. This involves training officers in cultural sensitivity, holding them accountable for discriminatory actions, and fostering a police culture that values equality and justice.

Community Engagement: Building bridges between different communities is crucial. This can be achieved through dialogue, community projects, and initiatives that promote understanding and cooperation between diverse groups.

The riots of 2024 are a wake-up call for United Kingdom. They are a manifestation of deep-seated issues that have been ignored for too long. Addressing these problems requires more than quick fixes or political rhetoric; it demands genuine engagement, realistic policy-making, and a commitment to justice and equality.

Only by taking these steps can we hope to heal the divisions within our society and move forward together. Want to see real change? I strongly encourage each and every one of us to vote for the “Reform Party” it is the only way can get the change we all want. 

[alpha-mag-media]

WWE superstar, 32, diagnosed with rare immune disorder after weeks out of action | S3544KG | 2024-01-03 05:08:01 | January 03, 2024 at 06:08AM

WWE superstar, 32, diagnosed with rare immune disorder after weeks out of action | S3544KG | 2024-01-03 05:08:01 Read More … Check full articles at Source: ALPHA MAG

[louisupdates]

By Ed Power | Sat Nov 30 2024 - 05:15

During the pandemic the songwriter and producer James Vincent McMorrow would rise early, go for a run and write songs for Louis Tomlinson, of One Direction.

“I actually made half of a record for him,” he says. Tomlinson’s team “had a lot of songs but maybe not a lot that he was as into as he wanted to be. I think they were maybe looking for a weirdo. So they reached out to me. I love him. He’s a fascinating human being. I absolutely loved making that album,” adds McMorrow, who is about to start a tour of Ireland.

When it comes to potential collaborators with a boy band megastar, McMorrow’s name is not the first that springs to mind. He’s an indie songwriter whose open-veined, falsetto-driven pop has been compared to that of folkies such as Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens. But Tomlinson was a fan of the Dubliner’s beautifully wrought music. He wasn’t alone: Drake famously sampled McMorrow on his 2016 track Hype.

One of the tracks they wrote together, The Greatest, would serve as the opener to Tomlinson’s second LP, Faith in the Future. As is often the way with the music industry, the rest are in a vault somewhere. Still, for McMorrow the opportunity to work with a pop star was about more than simply putting his craft in front of a wider audience. The call from Tomlinson’s team had come at a low point for the Irishman, who had become mired in confusion and doubt after signing to a major label for the first time in his career.

Executives at Columbia Records had recognised potential in McMorrow as an artist who bridged the divide between folk and pop. The fruits of that get-together would see daylight in September 2021 as the excellent Grapefruit Season LP, on which McMorrow teamed up with Paul Epworth, who has also produced Adele and Florence Welch.

The album was a beautifully gauzy rumination on the birth of his daughter and the muggy roller coaster of first-time parenthood. It went top 10 in Ireland and breached the top 100 in the UK. Yet the experience of working within the major-label system was strange for McMorrow, who at that point had been performing and recording for more than a decade. He didn’t hate it. But he knew he didn’t ever want to do it again.

“It was a weird time. I stopped touring in 2017. My daughter was born in 2018. I signed with Columbia Records at the same time and made a record that ... There were moments within it I was proud of. But fundamentally, I think if I was being very honest, I would say that I definitely got lost in the weeds of what the music industry wanted for me rather than what I wanted for myself.”

[…]

McMorrow grew up in Malahide, the well-to-do town in north Co Dublin; as a secondary-school student he suffered debilitating shyness. In 2021 he revealed that he had struggled with an eating disorder at school, ending up in hospital (“Anorexia that progressed into bulimia”). He was naturally retiring, not the sort to crave the spotlight. But he was drawn to music. “It was definitely a difficult journey,” he says. He wasn’t alone in that. “The musicians that tend to cut through and make it ... A lot of my friends, musicians that are successful, they’re not desperate for the stage.”

The Tomlinson collaboration was part of his strange relationship with the mainstream music industry. It went back to McMorrow’s third LP, Rising Water, from 2016. A move away from his earlier folk-pop, the project had featured engineering from Ben Ash, aka Two Inch Punch, a producer who had worked with chart artists such as Jessie Ware, Sia and Wiz Khalifa.

That was followed by the Drake sample in 2016 and by McMorrow writing the song Gone, which was at one point set to be recorded by a huge pop star whom he’d rather not identify.

“Gone is the red herring of red herrings in my entire career. I wrote that song for other people. I didn’t write it for myself. The whole reason I signed to Columbia Records and I had all these deals was because of Gone. I was very happy tipping away in my weird little world. And then I wrote that song, and a lot of bigger artists came in to try to take it,” he says.

“I won’t name names. There were recordings of it done. It got very close to being a single for someone else. I would go in these meetings with all these labels, and I would play it for them – just to play. Not with any sense of ‘This is my song.’ And they were, like, ‘You’re out of your mind if you don’t take this song. This is the song that will make you the thing that is the thing.’ And I was, like, ‘You’re wrong.’ For a year I basically was, like, ‘I disagree.’ And if you go in a room with enough people enough times and they tell you that you’re crazy ... I loved the song, but I did not love it for me. I never felt I fit. There was a little part of me that wanted to believe.”

As he had predicted, Gone wasn’t a hit. He received a lot of other strange advice, including that he cash in on the mercifully short-lived craze for NFTs by putting out an LP as a watermarked internet file. All of that was swirling in his brain when Tomlinson got in touch. To be able to step outside his own career was exactly what McMorrow needed.

“With Louis it was like boot camp. I had a very limited time with him. I had to wake up every morning, go for a run, write a song in my head, go to the studio. We made songs all day long. It lit a fire in my head again. I loved the process. I like sitting and talking to someone like Louis, who’s had this unbelievably fascinating lifestyle – so much tragedy in his life,” he says. Tomlinson’s mother and sister died within three years of each other, and his 1D bandmate Liam Payne died in October. “So many things have happened to him. I chatted to him and then write constantly. That was a lovely process.”

Because life is strange and full of contrasts McMorrow ended up working with Tomlinson around the same time that he was producing the Dublin postpunk “folk-metal” band The Scratch, on their LP Mind Yourself. “Totally different animals,” he says. “The Scratch album was an intense period in the studio of that real old-school nature of making music. A lot of fights. A lot of pushing back against ideas. A lot of different opinions. And you have to respect everybody’s opinions and find the route through.”

During his brief time on a major label, McMorrow was reminded of the music industry’s weakness for short-term thinking. In 2019, the business was obsessed with streaming numbers and hot-wiring the Spotify algorithm so that your music posted the highest possible number of plays.

“Everyone was driven by stats. ‘This song has 200 million streams.’ ‘That song has 400 million streams.’ I went into my meetings with Columbia Records ... the day I had my first big marketing meeting was the day my catalogue passed a billion streams, which, for someone like me, who started where I started, was a day where I should be popping champagne corks. Instead they immediately started talking about how they have artists that have one song that has two billion streams. So by their rule of thumb I was half as successful as one song by one artist on their label.”

Five years later he believes things have changed. He points to Lankum, a group who will never set Spotify alight yet who have carved a career by doing their own thing and not chasing the short-term goal of a place on the playlist. They are an example to other musicians, McMorrow says.

“I was in Brooklyn, doing two nights, a week and a half ago. In the venue across the road from where we were, pretty much, Lankum were doing two nights and had [the Dublin folk artist] John Francis Flynn opening for them. Those are two artists that, if you were to look at their stats, you wouldn’t be, like, ‘These are world-beating musicians.’ You start aggregating to this stat-based norm and you miss bands like Lankum, bands like The Mary Wallopers, people like John Francis Flynn.”

McMorrow is looking forward to his forthcoming Irish tour, which he sees as another leg of his journey to be his best possible self.

“The last two, three years have been a process of building it back to a version of me that actually made me happy rather than making me cry at night-time – a version that was making music because I liked it. Within this industry there’s so much outside noise. It’s quite overwhelming. I was overwhelmed. It’s been nice to reset the clock.”

In November 2022, McMorrow posted this now deleted Instagram post:

Text: late 2021 I got a phone call asking me if I wanted to come to London to meet @louist91 and possibly write some songs. A few years ago he released a statement talking about changing his path musically, instead of the immediate search for hits, he’d start with music he genuinely loved and see where it got him. Seems like a simple and obvious thing to say, but considering the amount of people just chasing hits with little regard for vision or artistry, a statement like that struck me when I read it. So I was excited to meet him and see what he was about. First day we met we all wrote Common People, second day we wrote Lucky Again. In December of last year we went back in again, finished those ones, wrote and produced 3 others that are also on this album. It was the studio line-up of dreams, @mrfredball @jmoon1066, @riley_mac. Shouts to Louis for letting us do our thing, letting a dork like me come write some weird lyrics and weird melodies, trust us to shape the vision that he had. These last few years were dark at times, but it was moments like that where I remembered why I’m obsessed w music and why it’s all I’ve ever understood. incredibly proud of the work, Holding on to Heartache is genuinely one of my most favourite songs I’ve ever been a part of.

Also I was reading something about the album and it mentioned something about the gospel choir on the bridge of that song�� nah man thats’s just 200 stacked of me singing super super high in the studio out back of Fred’s house😂]

[covid-safer-hotties]

Long COVID patients have similar brain activity to those with dementia, UK researchers find - Published Sept 10, 2024

By: Kendall Staton

Some patients with COVID see similar brain changes to people with such neurodegenerative disorders as Alzheimer’s, according to University of Kentucky researchers.

As the COVID pandemic raged across the world in 2020, researchers came together to start better understanding the new disease. At UK, Yang Jiang, a professor in the Department of Behavioral Science, led a study digging into the long-term effects of the virus.

“We’re together trying to understand how the COVID virus goes from getting into the nose and the lung, to somehow affecting the heart and the brain,” she said.

“We think there may be a long COVID, which we still don’t totally understand. It’s likely a risk factor for other neurodegenerative diseases.”

Looking at the effects of long COVID, Jiang sought help from the UK Sanders Brown Center on Aging to better understand the lingering mental effects of the virus.

“They understand some of the neuroinflammatory processes and how oxygen and blood will go through the blood brain barrier and interact with the virus, and how that alters brain functions,” she said. “So we began to sort of put two sides of evidence together.”

Chris Norris, a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences and researcher at the Sanders Brown Center, said they were able to find brain cells, called astrocytes, in people diagnosed with COVID reacting similarly to brain cells of people with neurodecline.

“(Astrocytes) regulate blood flow to the brain, they regulate the shuttling of metabolites from the blood to the neurons, they support synaptic connections in the brain. When astrocytes become reactive and inflamed, like they do in COVID, all of those things – the metabolism, the blood flow, the synaptic communication – are adversely affected,” he said.

Those same cells also affect blood flow. Alzheimer’s patients and long COVID patients could both experience decreased blood flow in the brain, said Bob Simpol, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences and researcher at the Sanders Brown institute.

He called COVID a “risk factor” that could contribute to long-term cognitive impairment or neurodegeneration.

People experiencing inflammation of astrocytes will see symptoms like brain fog, lapses in memory or forgetting the name of common items. Norris said these symptoms go beyond misplacing your keys, to something more serious – like forgetting you had your keys to begin with.

The research also showed that the brains of people with long COVID had similar electroencephalography (EEG) patterns to people with dementia.

Jiang said EEG’s measure “brain age” by looking at the activity of brain waves.

“Our brain is active all the time, even when you’re resting and when you sleep. EEG can capture the synchronized neural activity at the scalp. So what we observed, in COVID-19 patients, is the same pattern we see in dementia patients, which is the brain literally slows down,” Jiang said.

A COVID diagnosis does not mean you have dementia. Instead, people who have been diagnosed with COVID should have their brain function checked regularly, to catch signs of deterioration early and promote intervention.

With early intervention, 40-60% of neurodegeneration symptoms are reversible, Jiang said. With this research, the team is pushing for patients who have had a COVID diagnosis to get regular neurological check-ups.

“You can now look at brain function pretty easily and non invasively with EEG, just as easily as taking your blood pressure or listening to your lungs,” Norris said.

“After your symptomatic, it may be a good idea to have your brain activity assessed.”

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #17

May 3-10 2024

Vice President Harris announced 5.5 billion dollars to build affordable housing and address homelessness. The grants will go to 1,200 communities across all 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico. 1.3 billion will go to HUD's HOME program which builds, buys, and rehabs affordable housing for rent or ownership. 3.3 billion is headed to Community Development Block Grants which supports housing as well as homeless services, and expanding economic opportunities. Remaining funds focus on building housing for extremely low- and very low-income households, Housing for people struggling with HIV/AIDS, transitional housing for those with substance-use disorder, and money to support homeless shelters and homeless prevention programs.

At the 3rd meeting of the Los Angeles Declaration group in Guatemala Security of State Blinken announced $578 million in new US aid to Latin America. The Los Angeles Declaration is a partnership between the US and 20 other nations in the Americas to address immigration, combat human trafficking, and support economic development and improved quality of life for people in poor nations in the Americas. The bulk of the aid, over $400 million will go to humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan people. Inside of Venezuela over 7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance due to decades of political and economic instability. Over 7 million more have been forced to flee the country and live in poverty across the Americas. The aid will help Venezuelans both inside and outside of Venezuela.

The Department of Energy lead an effort to get the G7 to agree to phase out coal by the early 2030s. The G7 is a collection of the 7 largest Industrial economies on Earth, the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy. To avoid catastrophic climate change the International Energy Agency believes coal needs to be phased out by 2035. However this has been a sticking point with the G7 since 1/3rd of Japan and 1/4th of Germany's energy comes from Coal. This agreement to phase out represents a major breakthrough and the US plans to press for even wider agreement on the issue at the G20 meeting in November.

President Biden announced a major investment deal in Racine, Wisconsin, site of the failed Trump Foxconn deal. In 2018 then President Trump visited Racine and declared the planned Foxconn plant "the eighth wonder of the world.". However the promised 13,000 jobs never materialized and the Taiwan based Foxconn after bulldozing 100s of homes and farms decided not to build. President Biden inked a deal with Microsoft for the land formally given to Foxconn which will bring 2,000 new jobs to Racine to help replace the 1,000 job losses during Trump's Presidency in the community.

200 tribal governments and the US territories of American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, published climate action plans. The plans were paid for by the Biden Administration as part of a 5 billion dollar Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program. The federal government is supporting all 50 states, territories, DC, and tribal governments to draft climate action plans, which will be used to apply for more than 4 billion dollars in grants to help turn plans into reality

As part of marking Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), the Biden Administration announced a number of action aimed at combating antisemitism and supporting the Jewish Community. This included $400 million in new funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The Program has supported Synagogues and Jewish Community Centers with security improvements like bullet proof windows and trainings for staff in how to handle active shooter and hostage situations. The Department of Education issued guidance to all schools districts and federally funded colleges stressing that antisemitism is banned under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These actions come as part of the Biden Administration's National Strategy To Counter Antisemitism, the first ever national strategy addressing the issue by any Administration.

USAID announced $220 million in additional humanitarian aid to Yemen. This new funding will bring US aid to Yemen over the last 10 years to nearly $6 billion. Currently 18 million Yemenis are estimated as needing humanitarian assistance, 9 million of them children, and the UN believes nearly 14 million face imminent risk of famine. The US remains the single largest donor nation to humanitarian relief in Yemen.

The Department of Interior announced nearly $150 million to help communities fight drought. The funds will support 42 projects across 10 western states. This is part of the President's $8.3 billion dollar investment in the nations water infrastructure over the next 5 five years.

[maaarine]

My PMDD hell: why I went abroad to have my ovaries removed (Sarah Gillespie, The Times, Nov 27 2024)

"For six years, from my late twenties, I have lived with a condition called premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD.

Due to a genetic quirk, I have a brain sensitivity that makes my body intolerant to its own hormonal changes.

Instead of becoming moody and irritable, as with PMS, I become catatonic and racked with pain.

Dysphoria blooms in my brain, making me depressed and paranoid. I binge on carbohydrates, needing 3,000 calories a day just to function.

This happens for 7-14 days every month, during the latter half of my menstrual cycle, as hormone levels plummet.

On the third day of my period, the fog lifts and I feel normal again. But relief is soon replaced by dread as I survey the destruction.

There are relationships to repair, overdue bills to pay and excess pounds to lose.

It is the life of Sisyphus: every month, I roll the boulder up the mountain only for it to roll down again. (…)

PMDD is surprisingly common and, according to World Health Organisation data, affects 5.5 per cent of women of child-bearing age — about 824,000 women in the UK.

Of these, more than a third have attempted suicide. Yet hardly anyone’s heard of it.

No one knows the cause, either, though scientists generally agree that it’s genetic — hence why psychological therapies can’t fully fix it.

It was only in 2019 that the WHO added PMDD to its international classification of diseases and related health problems (ICD-11), legitimising it as a medical diagnosis (though there are still medical professionals who dispute its existence). (…)

After diagnosis, women with PMDD are put onto a ladder of treatments ranked from least to most invasive.

But as the body ages and hormones become more erratic, PMDD gets progressively worse.

So even when I found a rung on the ladder that worked, I never got to rest there for long.

First, there were lifestyle changes: diet, weight training, high-intensity interval training (HIIT).

Then supplements: chasteberry, evening primrose, magnesium, calcium, L-tryptophan, vitamin B6. Then antidepressants: fluoxetine, sertraline, citalopram.

Then contraceptives: Evra, Yasmin, Eloine. Finally, there was HRT: Utrogestan, Estradot, Estraderm.

I climbed that ladder for five years. Only HIIT and fluoxetine worked, for about nine months each; the rest worked for two months, if at all. (…)

After all this, only one rung was left on the ladder — one with a 96 per cent satisfaction rate, the closest thing to a cure.

This last-resort treatment is a bilateral salpingo oophorectomy: the surgical removal of both ovaries and fallopian tubes.

Upon their removal, all hormone fluctuations would stop, my hormone levels would drop to almost zero and I would enter menopause.

I would need to take hormone replacement therapy (HRT) until my fifties or risk the early onset of osteoporosis, heart disease and dementia. It would also make me infertile. (…)

Getting approved for surgery on the NHS requires a trial period in a reversible “chemical” menopause: monthly injections that would shut down my ovaries, end my suffering and “prove” that I had PMDD.

That was the idea, anyway. Instead, the injections threw my hormones into chaos, resulting in a PMDD episode that lasted for 11 months.

Deprived of even the monthly breaks in my symptoms, I languished in bed.

My attention shattered; I spent countless days scrolling my phone. I gulped down painkillers and sleeping pills like Skittles.

My finances were collapsing. I gained more than two stone in weight.

“It should be working by now,” the gynaecologist said after three months. “Have you tried eating more vegetables?”

The next gynaecologist was no better. “If it hasn’t worked, that suggests it’s not PMDD,” she said. “I should probably refer you to a psychiatrist.”

After months of my pleading, she agreed to write to the surgeon. But her letter was an act of sabotage.

“Sarah has diagnosed herself with PMDD,” she wrote, ignoring my GP’s diagnosis.

“She is on many help groups and accessing a lot of support from other PMDD sufferers online.” In other words: “This hypochondriac is spending too much time on the internet.”

Yes, I was on the internet, but I wasn’t talking to help groups any more.

Instead I’d been digging into scientific papers to find studies on chemical menopause.

Eventually, I found one — a meta-analysis of five clinical trials published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

It stated that chemical menopause treats PMDD in “upwards of 70 per cent” of cases — but not 100 per cent, as the NHS doctors had said.

The International Association for Premenstrual Disorders (IAPMD) backs this up.

On its page on chemical menopause it says, “In rare cases [chemical menopause] does not fully suppress the cycle and there are breakthrough symptoms… If this was the case, you may still respond well to surgical menopause.”

Two months later, I was in Lithuania. Feeling desperate and unable to afford the £10,000 it would cost for private surgery in the UK, I had googled “gynaecology surgery Europe”.

This led me to Nordclinic in Kaunas, which treats about 2,000 British patients annually.

I sent my medical records to the surgeon, who agreed to perform the surgery. (…)

Though it’s early days, I still can’t believe how well I feel. My future unfurls before me without interruption.

I have so much time: time to write, to see friends and family, to travel, go on dates, paint and sing and read and run.

Time to cook, as I can now handle knives without fear. Time to sit and do nothing and burst out laughing from sheer wonder — for life without PMDD is so, so wonderful and I will forever be grateful for it.

That said, I still need to reckon with all the time taken from me over the past six years.

My trust in our healthcare system is broken and will probably never be restored.

I need to kick away the crutches — food, phone, pills, alcohol — that have held me up and rediscover better ways to cope.

But this time, I don’t need to keep starting again and again and again every month.

Yes, the scars are still red and raw. But by next summer, they’ll be gone."

[carrottheluvmachine]

Help me move to Scotland to be with the one I love

Hello, my name is Colie and I'm trying to raise the money needed to be able to apply for a partner visa to go and live with my girlfriend in Scotland.

3 years ago, my life was in a hellish place. My step-dad, the greatest person I have ever known, was diagnosed with cancer and put on hospice care. He took me in when I had to leave my old life behind me; when I lost my home in New York and had no where else to turn to. He accepted my 3 elderly cats and cared for them like they were his own. Although he came into my life late, he acted as a father and a friend to me.

In August of 2021, right as my step-dad was diagnosed, I met the love of my life. I wasn't looking for love. I was searching for a writing partner and she came along. 2 weeks later, I told her I thought I might be in love with her, and to my surprise she said she felt the same way.

Steph was there for me as my step-dad grew weaker and weaker. She was the first person I told the morning when he passed away. I helped my mother care for him in his last days. I listened obsessively at the wall between our bedrooms for his last breaths. To this day, I still refuse to go into the spare bedroom where he passed away. I am traumatized, I am broken, but to Steph I am so much more. She was there for me to lean on whenever I needed her. She cheered me up with her silly puns. She made me smile and she reassured me that I was worth loving.

My life has never been easy, but the easiest thing in it has always been Steph. I knew right away that I loved her. I admired her from the first moment I met her. She stuck by my side despite my disabilities, despite my losses, despite my will to end it all.

I have severe anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. Because of this, it has never been easy for me to keep down a job. Because I have never been able to hold down a job, I have been living off the good graces of others and cannot afford therapy. Only recently did I find a way to receive remote therapy and I'm working to improve myself.

I have lived a sheltered life since moving down here to Florida. I lost everything I ever knew in New York. I have seen family members only a handful of times in the past 11 years, and I haven't visited any of my friends since. I have lost touch with the people I called my friends back home, and I haven't been able to make new friends down here.

It's a different world here, and I am very fearful as a gay person in a red state. I do not tell anyone that I'm gay because I fear for my life here. Especially after the 2024 election results.

I have become a recluse who has nothing but her online friends, her mother, and her cats. The one shining light in all of my life has been Steph. We were able to meet in the summer of 2023 and I flew to Scotland to be with her. For the first time in my life, I was living and doing what I wanted to do. I was happy. I smiled every single day. I was traveling outside and seeing things I've never seen before, all with the person I loved most in the world. At the end of my trip, Steph turned to me and said "So, what do you think about living here?" and I swear to you, I've never smiled brighter.

The reason I have started this campaign is because of the financial requirements to obtain a visa to move to the UK. The financial requirement is £29k, which is roughly $37k USD. Steph just graduated from university with a degree in screenwriting, but she has yet to find a job in her field. For the time being, she's working in childcare, which she also has a degree in, but it does not make the kind of money needed to sponsor me for a visa.

Our choices were either to make the 29k annually, or to have 31k in savings (equating roughly to 39k USD) so that I could apply for a visa stay support both of us for 2 years before I would have to apply again. Unfortunately, the income earned cannot be combined with any savings to meet the financial requirement. The requirement also does not allow me to contribute with a US income, as the person who is responsible for sponsoring me has to be the one earning the money because I won't be able to work in the UK until I have a spouse visa.

It is incredibly difficult not seeing the one you love day in and day out. My life has never been easy, as I said before, but I feel as if it has been put on pause ever since I was forced out of my home to come and live in Florida. I haven't been living, I have been surviving.

I want to live again, and I want to live with the girl I love.

Please, if you can, donate. Even if it's just a dollar, anything helps. Please help my dreams come true.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

~Colie

Link to gofundme

If you could reblog this post, I would greatly appreciate it!

[melodygatesauthor]

Feeling You Can't Fight - Chapter Three

Not Beta Read - Masterlist - Pride Event Fic 🏳️‍🌈

Written for the @flightlessangelwings pride event - (Yes this was written for the 2023 pride event and I'm trying to finish it before pride 2024 I'M SORRY).

Summary (Entire Fic Summary)

After replacing the loathsome former staff manager of the National Art Gallery in London, you find yourself all too interested in one of your employees in particular. Manager and employee relationships aren't allowed, and even if they were, you aren't sure if the nervous gift shoppist would be interested in you anyway. There's only one way to find out...

Reader Inclusivity

Reader is not race coded, is a cis man, taller than MK by a few inches, British, ex military, has a big peen

Tags/Warnings (for entire series)

NSFW, writer is NOT from the UK so please be gentle, I did my best with UK terms and such, smut, anal sex, oral sex, anal creampies, cum eating, cum swallowing, rough sex, Marc has DID, reader has mild PTSD, PTSD symptoms, trauma responses, semi-public sex, praise kink, fluff, comfort, angst, romance, love, forbidden relationship (boss and employee), minor physical violence.

Word Count: 3.1k

“Wait love wait!”

The entire demeanor of the man in front of you changed into the sweet, caring man that you were smitten with. You let go of him, stepping back and looking down at him with a furrowed brow. You felt your heart racing as your fight or flight kicked in. Steven looked nervous as he stepped forward, pressing his palm to your broad chest.

“D-darling I…well…we have something we want to share with you and I thought that if we’re getting more serious then…no time like the present yeah?”

“Steven…what’s going on?” You were trying not to express your irritation with him, but your balled fists gave you away.

“M’gonna let Marc tell you everything but you have to promise not to hurt him, yeah?” Steven looked up at you, brows turned up and knitted together as he awaited your answer.

He gulped, rubbing your clothed pecks with his hand, smoothing out the wrinkles in your button-down. He tried smiling at you, biting his bottom lip. You didn’t like making Steven so frightened so you let out a deep exhale. If he wasn’t scared or in danger, then you didn’t need to be so on edge. You nodded slowly.

Steven let out a deep breath, “right then, gonna let him out now.”

You watched in awe as Steven’s eyes rolled back in his head and then his body changed again. He stood a little taller, and his expression appeared a little darker. The man breathed deeply, looking up at you before pulling his hand off your body as though he’d been burned. He averted his gaze. You could’ve sworn you saw his cheeks get a little more rosy.

“What the fuck is happenin’?” You asked in a serious tone.

“Look, I told Steven you weren’t ready for this conversation but he insisted we have it so…here we are. He said it was gettin’ serious with you and he didn’t want any more secrets between you two,” he cleared his throat nervously, “my name is Marc Spector.” The man shrugged, “I guess the easiest way to tell you is to just get it out there so…I have an identity disorder as a result of my childhood trauma.”

You both stood silently for a moment while you absorbed the information. You recalled your time in the British Armed Forces, and some of the horrific things you’d seen. Trauma caused the brain to do amazing things; Things that were difficult to explain sometimes. You understood trauma well. You looked at Marc’s face, seeing the seriousness behind his eyes. This wasn’t a game. This wasn’t some guy trying to mess with you, or pull a fast one on you. This was a man who had been through something horrible, or several horrible things, and it caused his mind to tear at the seams.

You nodded in understanding, “alright, yeah, I don’t know everything there is to know about identity disorders but, I’ve got some mental issues of my own mate, keep goin’.”

Marc nodded and exhaled in relief, “well, my…our mom…”

You put a hand on Marc’s shoulder, “s’fine, you don’t have to explain it t’me.”

“I…Steven, wants me to, he wants you to know, and he’s right…I need to be the one to tell you, because I’m the one who was there.” He looked away from you and at the floor, “our mom used to beat me, she hated me.”

You squeezed Marc’s shoulder gently. His head jolted up, glossed eyes meeting with yours. He shook his head, as though he were begging you not to make him continue.

“I meant what I said, and I’m talkin’ to Steven too…you don’t have to explain this t’me. I understand.”

“Fuck,” Marc said, turning away from you and covering his face in his hands.

I was awkward as hell to stand there while Marc cried, but you were glad he was getting it off his chest. You wondered if he’d ever shared this with anyone, or if it was only you. Either way, you knew he wasn’t sharing for his own sake, but instead for Steven’s, and you could respect that. When you look back now, you think that on the same day you met Marc, was the day you fell in love with him too, but you didn’t realize it yet.

“There’s another one too,” Marc looked at the water glass on the table.“Steven, I have to tell him.” You watched the - from your perspective - one sided conversation between Marc and Steven. “You didn’t want to keep this a secret but you want to keep him a secret? St–” Marc grumbled and then looked at you, “I’m telling you, even though Steven doesn’t want me to.”

“Tellin’ me what?”

“Jake is the third one of us. You may never meet him, but he’s here nonetheless,” Marc let out a sharp exhale, “We don’t really see him much either, but…the three of us get along…kinda.”

“Well, if he’s part of Steven’s life, then I look forward to meeting him,” you gave Marc a kind smirk.

You watched Marc’s entire body language change. It wasn’t like before when he switched from Steven to himself, but instead, it looked like his entire body relaxed with your reassurance. Marc looked like he might collapse and start crying again right then and there. You wondered when the last time he’d talked to someone about this was…if he’d ever talked to someone about this.

“Damn. That was…easier than I thought. You took that surprisingly well,” he said, giving you a tight lipped smirk.

“Had a boatload of therapy,” you shrugged, “I learnt long ago that you can’t really tell how the mind is gonna deal with trauma.” You thought now was as good a time as any to change the subject, seeing that Marc was getting uncomfortable again. “So are you…do you like…” you pointed to yourself. Of course you would hop from one uncomfortable topic to another.

Marc’s eyes shot wide once he realized what you were suggesting, “no, no, I like women, one hundred percent.”

Marc crossed his arms and cleared his throat nervously.

“But this, Steven and me, that doesn’t bother you?” You asked.

“Oh, oh, no. Steven’s happy, and the way I see it, that’s the only thing that matters,” Marc’s lips managed to curl into a smirk.

You could tell he cared about Steven, and so the two of you had that much in common, but that wasn’t the last time you saw Marc. You saw him again when you and Steven got into your first argument. It wasn’t anything serious, but it seemed to upset Steven enough to force him into the headspace.

The argument was stupid, and if you were being honest, it was a little funny. Steven walked into your office one afternoon, closing the door behind himself. He was stammering, as he often did when he was thinking about what he wanted to say faster than the words could come out. You chuckled, standing up and walking over to him, cupping his face.

“S’alright love, just tell me what’s wrong,” you brushed your thumb over his stubbled cheek.

“Gettin’ fed up with Linda not pickin’ up her mess in the break room,” Steven groaned, “I know s’not a big deal, not really, but I told her three times to pick up after herself and she still acts like a right slob.”

“Steven, that’s not really somethin’ I deal with,” you said as he huffed out a frustrated breath.

“I know, sometimes I just want to complain a bit, yeah?”

“C’mere,” you said, motioning with your finger.

He walked back over to you and pressed his face into your chest, “I’m irritated.”

You wrapped your arms around him, “I know darling,” you pushed him back at arm’s length, but I know something that might help.”

Steven had joked about wanting to blow you under your desk, but he’d never actually done it yet. In fact, he hadn’t blown you before at all. He acted like you were doing him a favor when you sat down in your big office chair with your legs spread out and his face between them. The way his eyes went wide with excitement and he started drooling you would’ve thought he was the one getting a blowjob.

He looked hungry, fumbling with the button and then the zipper of your pants as he released your cock from its confines. He always - always - made a comment about how big you were. His eyes crossed as your dick lined up between them, and he seemed breathless despite not yet having done anything at all.

“Steven, darling, might be too big f’you to fit in your mouth, it’s alright if you don’t want to.”

He looked up at you, putting a hand on either of your thighs.

“I want to,” he said softly.

Steven licked a stripe up your length, forcing your cock to twitch in response. You grabbed the arms of your chair as he repeated the gesture. You bucked your hips upward involuntarily. Steven giggled and looked up at you.

“Ooh, needy…” He wrapped his fingers around your girth, pumping up and down slowly, “you’re a bit leaky too love.”

“Are you gonna keep teasin’ me, or are you gonna be a good boy and take this thing like you were made to?” You asked, raising an eyebrow.

Steven nodded with a shaky breath, smile fading at your words. You felt bad being so verbally rough with him sometimes, but you knew he enjoyed it. Whenever the two of you were in bed together it was like flipping a switch, making him hard in an instant. You slid down further in your chair, moving one of your hands to the back of his curly head.

He licked up your length again before taking the head in his mouth. You shuddered seeing Steven’s lips stretched around your fat dick. It seemed like he really was made to take it, sliding over the length as though his gag reflex was nonexistent. You exhaled sharply, feeling the way his tongue rolled over the underside of your shaft.

“Oh god Steven, takin’ me so well love, that’s it, just like t-that,” you pushed him down over you even more, “you tap my knee if it’s too much darling, don’t wanna hurt you.”

You felt his throat contract around you. There was still more to go, and you wanted nothing more than to see your entire dick disappear inside his precious mouth. You brushed a thumb over his cheek.

“Relax your throat, Steven, open up f’me,” you felt his muscles relax and you were able to push in further. “That’s it, that’s my good boy.”

Steven moaned over your length as he started bobbing his head in a delicious rhythm. He took one hand off your thighs and you heard the clank of his belt while he started freeing his own cock. The sound of him jerking himself could just barely be heard over the sound of him choking on your dick.

He looked up at you with affectionate and tear glossed eyes when you carded your hand through his hair. You bit your bottom lip and started rolling your hips slowly forward into his mouth, brushing your pubes against his nose as he took every single inch you had to offer.

“Steven, you sure you’ve never done this before?” Your entire body trembled, “s-so good…”

You heard the distinct sound of footsteps approaching the door. You both froze.

“Steven, you locked the door, yeah?”

Steven, in fact, hadn’t locked the door.

Steven made himself as hidden as he could in the space under your desk, where the intruder wouldn’t be able to see him. You rolled up as close as you could get without crushing him in there. John, your boss, walked in, smiling big. He stepped over, putting a hand on the varnished surface of the desk, leaning in to talk to you.

“Hey! Just stoppin’ in to tell you I think you’re doin’ great, and those reports you sent me yesterday…perfect.” He patted your shoulder and you jumped in response.

You felt Steven between your legs trying to put your cock back in your pants, but struggling given its current…state. You were close before while he had it buried in his throat, and that hadn’t changed in the seconds that had gone by. You were still close, and him moving it around wasn’t helping that issue. You kept your eyes on John, but tried like hell to push Steven’s hands and face away from you, but to no avail.

“Well I’m…oh…” you cleared your throat, “I’m glad you l-liked them.”

Steven didn’t get the hint, he was still sliding his hand over your length, trying to get it back inside your boxers. You couldn’t try very hard to stop him, or it would be obvious you were trying to do something under your desk, so you stopped trying, and just hoped that John would leave before…oh god.

You slammed your hand on the desk, “f-fuck!”

To John, you must’ve looked insane, like you were staring at him wide-eyed and shouting for no apparent reason. To you and Steven, you were coming, hot ropes of your spend hitting your boyfriend in the face under the desk. You managed to keep yourself from saying anything too telling, and you kept your breathing level…as level as you could.

“Fuck I forgot to sign the agreement for the…the uhhh–”

“Oh! For the new display going into the Ancient Egypt section of course! I’ll go get that right now!” John chuckled, “glad you remembered that, I’ll be right back.”

As he walked out, you rolled back in your chair to see Steven’s pretty face covered in globs of your spend. He looked pissed off, crawling out from under the desk and grabbing a few tissues from your desk to clean himself off.

“Darling, what’s wrong? You’re the one who–”

“You…did this…all over my face!”

“Love, I couldn’t help it, you kept touchin’ me and–”

“And,” he held a finger up, “and you could’ve locked the door before havin’ me do that in the first place!”

“Steven, you could’ve locked the door yourself when you walked–”

“I wasn’t plannin’ to come in here and do somethin’ like that now was I?”

You could see the embarrassment in his flush cheeks. He seemed exasperated, chest rising and falling with every heavy breath. He wasn’t really mad at you, but you doubted you’d be getting another ‘under the desk’ blow job any time soon.

“Now your boss knows what we were doin’ and he’s gonna make you fire me and maybe he’ll even fire you and–”

“Stop…” you cupped his cheeks and kissed his forehead.

“No!” he pushed you off of him, “no, m’not gonna let you just kiss this one away. We could’ve been caught, you’re reckless and this isn’t like me at all! I don’t do things like this!” Steven stormed out of your office, passing John on his way out.

That was it…that was the argument.

You supposed that with Steven never having really been in a relationship before, an argument with his first ever significant other could be upsetting, despite it being such a silly thing to argue over. Taking that into consideration, you decided to tread lightly when you got home, toeing off your shoes in the entryway of his flat when you arrived almost silently. That’s when you noticed that Marc was there, not Steven.

“Hey,” he said, tipping back the beer in his hand and then holding it up, “want one?”

You shook your head, “no thanks.”

It was like Steven had a roommate. At least…that’s how it felt. Marc was the more stern one, like he was the polar opposite of Steven, but you didn’t mind. You liked the company regardless. Marc was a good guy, you could just tell. After a couple of minutes talking about the weather, the two of you managed to get into something more serious. 

“You said you’ve been to therapy? Mind if I ask what for?” Marc took another swig of his beer.

“Uh, PTSD, spent a few years in the British Armed Forces and then got myself honorably discharged after…” you sniffed out a laugh, “maybe I will take that drink after all.”

After a few drinks, you and Marc were trading war stories and with it, your tales of trauma. You wondered how long it was going to take him to open up to you about why and how Steven came to be, but there Marc was, letting down his always stoic demeanor in order to open himself up to you.

He cried, and you opened your arms to him.

“No, no I told you I’m not…that’s not my thing…”

You laughed, “s’not a ‘thing’ to hug someone when they’re sad, Marc. C’mere…”

You tugged his jacket and pulled his rigid frame into your arms, wrapping them around him tightly. At first he was stiff, still mumbling some protests, but then you felt him exhale, like his entire body were a balloon being emptied of the air inside of it. That’s when the heavier sobs came, tears spilling out of his eyes and onto your forearm.

“Steven is so good, and sometimes I think it would just be best if I don’t ever come out. Sometimes I think that the world would be a better place without me in it,” he said between heavy cries. He looked up at you, “Steven could be happy, and be with you all the time and–”

“Steven would miss you, Marc,” you looked into his eyes, seeing the pain he felt just made you want to hold him closer, but you knew that would only make it more awkward.

You didn’t have to worry about feeling awkward though, because he leaned up and slotted his lips over yours all on his own. You pulled back in surprise, wondering if he did that by mistake or not, or if Steven had decided to come back when you didn’ notice.

“S-Steven?” You asked, looking between his eyes rapidly.

He shook his head, “no, still me,” he said breathlessly, looking down at your mouth before pulling you in again.

You smiled against his lips, “how unexpected.”

Moon Knight Masterlist

Main Masterlist

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Gabriella Swerling

Published: Mar 21, 2024

An NHS Trust is investigating accusations that pro-Palestine nurses denied a nine-year-old Jewish boy care.

Elliott Smus, who is based in Tel Aviv, Israel, wrote on LinkedIn on Wednesday about an alleged incident at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital involving his young nephew, who suffers from a rare blood disorder.

Mr Smus said that his nephew, who has suffered with his condition for most of his life, requires a blood transfusion every month or two, spending up to days in hospital for treatment.

He said that his nephew is from a religious Jewish family and wears a kippah and tzitzit, clothing typically worn by orthodox Jewish males.

But he claimed that the child was “kicked out of his bay” by nurses wearing “Free Palestine” badges and forced “to lie on the floor with a canula in”.

As a result, Mr Smus said that his nephew is now scared that if he wears clothing that identifies him as visibly Jewish, he will not receive treatment.

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust has launched an investigation.

Incident was ‘horrendous’

Countdown presenter Rachel Riley, who is Jewish, described the alleged incident as “horrendous” and called on Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, and the NHS to investigate “with urgency”.

Mr Smus, who has been contacted for comment, said on social media: “As a religious Jewish family, my nephew wears his black kippah (yamulka, religious hat whatever you want to call it) and his tzitzit proudly.

“Not today. Why you ask? The nurses (NHS employees) are all walking around wearing “Free Palestine” pins and he was scared.

“Beyond that, the last few times he went in he was denied correct medical care by the same couple of nurses every time.

“This culminated the last time he went in, when my visibly Jewish nine-year-old nephew, with an autoimmune blood disease was kicked out of his bay by one of the nurses who was covered in pro-Palestine badges and stickers, and had to lie on the floor with a canula in.

“Now the damage is done and my proudly Jewish nephew (and his parents) is scared to not get treatment if he wears his kippah and tzitzit.

“Coincidentally, today when not visibly Jewish, he received quick care. Also worth noting, prior to the conflict he received excellent care.

“It is terrifying to be a Jew in the world again.”

Anti-Semitism at all-time high

The Community Security Trust, which records anti-Semitic incidents in the UK, said that anti-Semitism hit an all-time high in 2023 in an “explosion of hatred” following the Hamas terror attacks on Israel.

The charity said the surge in anti-Jewish attacks, threats and abuse amounted to a “celebration” of Hamas’s Oct 7 massacre by anti-Semites whose own hatred was fuelled by the brutality of the attacks.

Its annual report said that there were 4,103 anti-Semitic incidents in the UK in 2023, nearly double the previous record in 2021, covering all types of “hate” against Jewish people.

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are aware of images and very serious claims which are circulating on social media.

“We are rapidly investigating these to establish the situation and are discussing them with the family involved. Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital is committed to providing high-quality care to all patients.”

Mr Burnham said: “I have seen the troubling reports shared on social media and have asked the Royal Children’s Hospital to launch an urgent investigation. No one should feel treated differently in our hospitals because of their race or religion. I’ve asked the hospital management to provide regular updates as they gather the facts.”

==

The "be kind" "right side of history."

Let's put aside for a moment that it's unethical for medical professionals to be wearing political paraphernalia of any variety.

Whether or not the accusation is true, literally nobody doubts that people who are pro-Hamas and support Islamic terrorism are completely capable of this kind of atrocity.

[magz]

"Huge Alzheimer's breakthrough as scientists say new jab could 'transform' lives"

Article Date: March 30, 2024.

Beginning Article Excerpt:

"A revolutionary jab, which is designed to remove toxic proteins from the brain before they cause the damage leading to the most common form of dementia, is undergoing trials on patients in the early stages of the disease.

Once through clinical trials scientists say it could be widely available within five years, preventing future generations from the misery of being struck down by Alzheimer's or seeing loved ones slowly diminish.

[...]

Studies of the vaccine to prevent the degenerative brain disorder are being carried out in five centres across the UK, including at Oxford and Cambridge universities, as well as centres in Europe and the US. The UK trials are backed by the government's National Institute for Health and Care Research. The first results will be presented at a conference in Philadelphia in the US in July, where experts will show images of brain scans showing the effect of the new vaccine on the brain. [...]

The new vaccine aims to stop this damage before it is caused and seems to have only mild side effects."

[vague-humanoid]

HOPE not hate exposes the individuals behind the disturbances and their links to far-right organisations and longstanding anti-migrant campaigns.

The week of 29 July to 5 August 2024 witnessed the largest outbreak of far-right rioting and disorder in the post-war period.

As we have previously written, these events reflect the “post-organisational” nature of the modern far right. The disorder was primarily driven by local people who are not members of any formal far-right organisations, but are plugged into decentralised networks online.

However, HOPE not hate has identified numerous individuals linked to a broad sweep of far-right groups present at the disturbances. They include convicted child sex offenders, animal abusers, burglars and more. Some cannot be named at present due to ongoing legal proceedings.

This is the first entry in a new series exposing the links between convicted participants in the disorder and far-right organisations, including Reform UK, Britain First, Patriotic Alternative, the National Rebirth Party, the North West Infidels and ongoing anti-migrant campaigns. We have already exposed some participants in an earlier blog.

@midians-world

[bpod-bpod]

Taf1 Made Easier

Knocking out a gene called Taf1 in mice is lethal for males at early embryo stage while females with one knocked out copy of the gene show weight gain and impaired movement – insight and a new tool for investigating the disorders caused by TAF1 mutation in humans

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Elisa M. Crombie and Andrea J. Korecki, and colleagues

Department of Neuromuscular Diseases, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK; Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics at BC Children's Hospital, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, July 2024

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

[mariacallous]

Russia and “other bad guys” will try to exploit a Donald Trump US election loss if he attempts to “play dirty” and contest the result, intelligence and diplomatic sources have warned.

Current and former diplomats and US and UK intelligence insiders told i that they believe enemies of the West will try to take advantage of the situation if the Republican candidate loses but refuses to concede to Vice-President Kamala Harris.

They are warning that hostile state actors will spread disinformation and whip up disorder.

An American intelligence source said: “It is safe to say in this environment there are plans to anticipate how our adversaries may try to exploit this opportunity.”

A British source said that Russia could use disinformation campaigns to encourage “militant action” among Trump’s supporters if he loses in the election, which is believed to be on a knife-edge.

When he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump made baseless claims that the election had been stolen from him through widespread voter fraud.

He was later accused of whipping up the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, when his supporters stormed Congress in a bid to stop the counting of Electoral College votes to formalise Biden’s victory.

Trump is facing a federal prosecution for allegedly conspiring to overturn that election defeat, along with criminal charges in Georgia for allegedly conspiring to change the result in that state.

On Thursday, he repeated the false claims about fraud during the last Presidential election, saying “bad, bad things” stopped him winning in 2020, and that he will prevail next week “if we can keep that cheating down”.

While Trump is the favourite in the betting markets, the gap between the Republicans and Democrats in key battleground states remains within the margin of error, making the final outcome still too close to call.

A tight result either way could see the losing side raising legal objections.

Trump’s previous form and utterances on the campaign trail have sparked particular concerns that if he loses, he will bitterly contest the outcome, plunging the US into political chaos that could be exploited by the West’s enemies.

A senior former British diplomat told i: “Trump has said the only result he is going to accept is one if he wins.

“So what bothers me is whether there is a narrowish victory for Kamala Harris and we end up with a crisis of democracy because Trump won’t accept.

“You end up not only with the usual lame duck period between the election and the inauguration day, but you have several months when America is off the stage and unable to do anything.

“The trouble with that scenario is that bad guys may well decide that’s a good moment for them to do whatever it is they would not otherwise do if America is up and running and fully loaded to deal with a crisis.

“If Trump wins fair and square, well we know what we’re dealing with. But what bothers me is if he doesn’t and then he plays dirty like he did last time.

“Quite apart from it being a bad example for American democracy, it …opens the door for other guys to take advantage of it.”

The UK intelligence source said that adversaries such as Russia would “seize the opportunity” if Trump were to lose to “invoke militant action” among the Republican candidate’s supporters.

The Kremlin has been accused of meddling in US elections in the past, most notably in 2016, when Hillary Clinton, despite having the largest popular vote total in history after Barack Obama in 2008, lost to Trump due to the electoral college system.

Last month, a group of American right-wing influencers said they had been deceived by Russian media executives after the US Department of Justice released an indictment charging Moscow with interfering in the 2024 election.

The indictment accused the Russian state broadcaster RT of paying a US firm $10m (£7.6m) to “create and distribute content to US audiences with hidden Russian government messaging”.

The UK intelligence source said a period of instability following a possible Trump loss would see Russia attempt to “enforce its western right-wing influence” using disinformation campaigns in a move which would cause “maximum distraction” to wider geopolitical issues, such as the war in Ukraine.

Along with Russia, other adversaries that may seek to capitalise on the US taking its eye of the international stage could include Iran and North Korea, as well as non-state terrorist groups.

Lord Ricketts, a former permanent secretary of the Foreign Office and ex-national security adviser, told i that there was “of course” a risk that Trump will be “just as bad a loser this time” if Vice-President Kamala Harris triumphs.

“Even worse – he’d hate losing to a woman,” he said.

Lord Ricketts said that while US law enforcement agencies would likely be more ready for potential unrest than in 2021, militant supporters of the Republican candidate “might be better prepared” too.

He added: “It will be a dangerous time, because this is his last shot. He’s not going to run again four years after this, so if he’s lost, he will be an extremely bad loser.”

A serving diplomatic source said it was “not impossible” there could even be violence on polling day.

“There are lots of people who are facilitating the elections who are worried about risks to them and to polling stations,” they told i. However, the source added these were “limited” and “very localised” concerns.

Sir Keir Starmer’s government has been careful not to comment on the race for the White House, particularly after Trump’s team accused Labour of “blatant foreign interference” in relation to party activists campaigning for Vice-President Harris.

However, a Whitehall source told i that preparations were taking place in government for what might happen in the election, with officials “working through a range of scenarios”.

While it is possible that the result of the election might be confirmed by the morning of 6 November, recent history and the closeness of the contest suggests it could take a few days for every state’s votes to be reported.

After election night, the outcome may remain unresolved if the race is too close to call in key battleground states or if significant numbers of absentee and mail-in ballots remain uncounted. In 2020, it took nearly four days for all votes across the country to be counted, eventually declaring Joe Biden the winner with 306 electoral college votes and 81,283,501 popular votes to Trump’s 74,223,975.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Alzheimer's-like brain changes found in long COVID patients - Published Sept 2, 2024

New research from the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging shows compelling evidence that the cognitive impairments observed in long COVID patients share striking similarities with those seen in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

The study, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia, highlights a potential commonality in brain disorders across these conditions that could pave the way for new avenues in research and treatment.

The study was a global effort, and brought together experts from various fields of neuroscience. Researchers at the UK College of Medicine led the study, including Yang Jiang, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Behavioral Science; Chris Norris, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences; and Bob Sompol, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences. Their work focuses on electrophysiology, neuroinflammation, astrocytes and synaptic functions.

"This project benefited greatly from interdisciplinary collaboration," Jiang said. "We had input from experts, associated with the Alzheimer's Association International Society to Advance Alzheimer's Research and Treatment (ISTAART), across six countries, including the U.S., Turkey, Ireland, Italy, Argentina and Chile."

Jiang and the collaborative team focused their work on understanding the "brain fog" that many COVID-19 survivors experience, even months after recovering from the virus. This fog includes memory problems, confusion and difficulty concentrating. According to Jiang, "The slowing and abnormality of intrinsic brain activity in COVID-19 patients resemble those seen in Alzheimer's and related dementias."

This research sheds light on the connection between the two conditions, suggesting that they may share underlying biological mechanisms. Both long COVID and Alzheimer's disease involve neuroinflammation, the activation of brain support cells known as astrocytes and abnormal brain activity. These factors can lead to significant cognitive impairments, making it difficult for patients to think clearly or remember information.

The idea that COVID-19 could lead to Alzheimer's-like brain changes is a significant development.

"People don't usually connect COVID-19 with Alzheimer's disease," Jiang said. "But our review of emerging evidence suggests otherwise."

The research reveals that the cognitive issues caused by COVID-19 reflect similar underlying brain changes as those in dementia. The study's insights emphasize the importance of regular brain function check-ups for these populations, particularly through the use of affordable and accessible tools like electroencephalography (EEG).

The study not only highlights the shared traits between long COVID and Alzheimer's, but also points to the importance of further research.

"The new insight opens avenues for future research and clinical practice, particularly in studying brain oscillations related to neural biomarkers of mild cognitive impairment in people with long COVID," said Jiang.

One of the key findings is the role of astrocytes—support cells in the brain that have not been as thoroughly studied as neurons. The research suggests that damage or activation of these cells by COVID-19 can cause synaptic dysfunctions, leading to the abnormal brain activity observed in both conditions. This discovery is significant because it may help explain why EEG patterns in COVID-19 patients resemble those seen in the early stages of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.

Researchers believe this work could have a direct impact on patient care. They are advocating for routine EEG exams to detect early brain changes in both COVID-19 survivors and those at risk for cognitive decline.

"EEG patterns in COVID-19 patients resemble those seen in early neurodegenerative diseases," said Norris.

"These similarities may be due to shared issues such as brain inflammation, astrocyte activity, low oxygen levels and blood vessel damage," said Sompol.

By detecting these changes early, health care providers could potentially identify at-risk individuals sooner and implement interventions to prevent or slow the progression of cognitive decline.

As research continues, the team is particularly interested in how EEG monitoring can predict long-term outcomes in COVID-19 patients and assess the effectiveness of treatments aimed at preventing cognitive decline.

More information: Yang Jiang et al, Parallel electrophysiological abnormalities due to COVID‐19 infection and to Alzheimer's disease and related dementia, Alzheimer's & Dementia (2024). DOI: 10.1002/alz.14089

alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.14089

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Aspen Institute - Katie Couric & Just Harry. SXSW - Katie Couric & Megsy Markle by u/Snowball995

Aspen Institute - Katie Couric & Just Harry. SXSW - Katie Couric & Megsy Markle Katie Couric is on the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute. She's also a Co-Chair on the "Commission for Information Disorder." Just Harry is a member on that commission. In the picture of the members, Katie is standing right in front of Just Harry. Is it a coincidence that Megsy Markle is on the same panel Katie Couric is on at SXSW? Or is this yet another instance where the man in her life, in this case Just Harry, uses his connections to get her a gig? ---- Hard to say. This self-proclaimed women's champion who (rather laughingly) uses her UK title by marriage to define herself in all the press releases for the panel, "Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead." ---- The irony.SXSW did end up turning off their comments on their Instagram post of the panel with Megsy. ​ post link: https://ift.tt/ZbzighA author: Snowball995 submitted: March 06, 2024 at 08:17PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[stuff-diary]

Heartstopper (Season 3)

TV Shows/Dramas watched in 2024

Heartstopper (Season 3, 2024, UK)

Director: Andy Newbery

Creator & Writer: Alice Oseman (based on her own graphic novel)

Mini-review:

And that's another great season. As I said on my review for the previous one, Hearstopper feels like nothing short of a queer miracle. I can't think of many other shows that can have me burst out crying over the simplest scenes and conversations. This season delves deeper into some of the show's darker themes and topics, but Alice Oseman handles everything with the beautiful sensitivity and gentleness she's become known for. In particular, her portrayal of mental illness and eating disorders remains one of the best and most enriching I've ever seen, just like it was when she wrote this part of the comic. And really, I love that the show gives her a chance to flesh out the entire cast. In fact, this season's true stars were Elle and Tao for me (but the rest had fantastic storylines as well). I really can't wait to see how Alice wraps this story up, both in comic and TV form.