On The Waves: Web.3

 You may have missed, overlooked, ignored or discounted it, or maybe you’d just as soon leave it for others to discuss.

But along with the various waves of Covid variants, threats to democracy, vibrations of the stock market and climate disasters, the third great iteration of the worldwide web has washed in over our anklets.

Whether we wanted or needed it to come or not, the web is mutating again, which guarantees another round of insecurity for those who depend on it — which of course means everybody who is not hiding in a cave in Tora Bora.

Of all the people who are commenting on web.3, I’m probably the last person anyone should listen to. What do I know of the metaverse, blockchain, NFTs, bitcoin, or “digital scarcity”?

The answer is, of course, next to nothing. But I do know something about waves, having spent an inordinate portion of my life on beaches.

Waves come in patterns, they build, crest and break, and in the process they deposit new things at our toes. Actually, not so much new things as old things disguised as new things, like shells, driftwood, seaglass, jobs or investment opportunities.

Most importantly not all waves are created naturally. Any old boat can cause a wave in the right body of water.

That brings me to web.3. As with dot.com and Web 2.0, this third wave is being driven by developers, many of whom are idealistic and hoping to improve on the technologies and the social outcomes of the previous models, including doing a much better job of protecting the privacy of our personal data and establishing fairer ownership standards and exchanges of value.

Accordingly, a set of more democratic outcomes appears to be the goal of those constructing web.3. None of them want to further the centralization of the Big Data monopolies (Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook — sorry, Meta, Yahoo, Twitter, Microsoft) that arose from the first two waves.

And as we enter this new digital phase, it’s also worth asking if and how it is going to affect the biggest issues we face — poverty, climate change, authoritarianism, hopelessness — beyond generating a rash of new fortunes for a few, and endlessly confusing software iterations for the many.

On the other hand, you might say, no one else has come up with much to address those universal issues, so why expect the best and the brightest of our tech geniuses to come to our rescue this time around? That isn’t exactly fair.

No it isn’t fair. 

So my one simple request of the new generation of developers and evangelists is that they do a better job at using words than the vague ones blowing in todays’ wind. Be precise, specific, honest, restrained, sensitive, kind, accurate and above all inclusive.

Languages fall into one of two categories — inclusive or exclusive. The outcome unfolds accordingly.

The words you choose matter. Stop excluding people.

TODAY’S NEWS:

• Scientists Are Racing to Gauge the Threat of Omicron — The variant will spread quickly through the United States, experts say. What happens after that is less certain. (NYT)

• Omicron induces whiplash for many Americans (WP)

• Warily eyeing omicron, Christmas revelers curb celebrations (AP)

• Stocks fell as investors worried about surging Omicron cases and wrestled with this week's hawkish turn from major central banks in the fight against inflation (Reuters)

• Booster at least 80% effective against severe Omicron (BBC)

• France bans nonessential travel to Britain over the Omicron surge. (NYT)

• As omicron threatens to wipe out monoclonal antibodies, U.S. is saving up one that will work (WP)

• Pfizer and BioNTech ask FDA to approve their Covid-19 vaccine for kids as young as 12 (Politico)

• We Know Enough About Omicron to Know That We’re in Trouble (Atlantic)

• CDC recommends Pfizer, Moderna COVID-19 shots over J&J’s (AP)

• Fox News Network lost its attempt to dismiss a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, a voting machine company that says Fox defamed it by amplifying conspiracy theories about its technology. (Reuters)

• Jan. 6 Panel Subpoenas Retired Colonel Who Shared Plan to Overturn Election (NYT)

• The US system is no match for Donald Trump — Absence of consequences for the Capitol riots makes it likelier that democracy will be subverted again (Financial Times)

• FDA ends key restriction on abortion pill as justices weigh case challenging Roe v. Wade (WP)

• A federal judge overturned a roughly $4.5 billion settlement that legally shielded members of the Sackler familywho stand accused of helping fuel the U.S. opioid epidemic, a decision that threatened to upend the bankruptcy reorganization of their company, OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma. (Reuters)

• The Year of Inflation Infamy — Maybe the real takeaway should be how little we know about where we are in this strange economic episode. (Paul Krugman/NYT)

• Supply shortages and emboldened workers: A changed economy (AP)

• CDC finds coronavirus testing of exposed children in schools can safely replace quarantine (WP)

• A millipede with 1,300 legs has been found in Australia. It's a new record by far (NPR)

• In Boeing's factory of the future, immersive 3-D engineering designs will be twinned with robots that speak to each other, while mechanics around the world will be linked by $3,500 HoloLens headsets made by Microsoft. It is a snapshot of an ambitious new strategy to unify sprawling design, production and airline services operations under a single digital ecosystem - in as little as two years. (Reuters)

• This week’s major storms pushed the Sierra Nevada snowpack from 19 percent of normal for this time of year to 83 percent. (SFGate)

• Deforestation making outdoor work unsafe for millions, says study (Guardian)

• Afghans push through snowy Alps toward new lives in Europe (AP)

• Afghan currency slides and prices surge as already battered economy worsens (NPR)

• Biden Administration Considers Sending Ukraine Military Equipment Once Bound for Afghanistan (WSJ)

• Nato powers face re-engaging with Taliban and unfreezing the financial system or watching millions starve (Financial Times)

• Afghan siblings, wounded in Kabul airport bombing, seek new life in the U.S. while mourning the one they left behind (WP)

• This new space telescope should show us what the universe looked like as a baby (NPR)

• Why Electric Mail Trucks Are the Way of the Future (Politico)

• Crews may have found 1887 time capsule in Lee statue base (AP)

• Giant natural blue sapphire unveiled in Sri Lanka (NHK)

• Somewhat Athletic Couple Gives Birth To Potential Division III Lacrosse Player (The Onion)

TODAY’s LYRICS:

“Please Don’t Tell Me…”

Kris Kristofferson

This could be our last goodnight together

We may never pass this way again

Just let me enjoy 'till its over

Or forever

Please don't tell me how the story ends

See the way our shadows come together

Softer than your fingers on my skin

Someday this may be all

That we'll remember

Of each other

Please don't tell me how the story ends

Never's just the echo of forever

Lonesome as the love that might have been

Just let me go on loving and believing

'Till it's over

Please don't tell me how the story ends

Please don't tell me how the story ends

It's Life

 "Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?" — Clark Griswold

___________________________

The holiday season brings with it the usual flood of lackluster Christmas movies presumably meant to distract us from the orgy of unrestrained consumerism. Then again, there is something about “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” that will always resonate for us former head-of-household types.

And there is that exceptional, odd Frank Capra film, "It's a Wonderful Life." Until I read Zachary D. Carter's excellent essay in The Huffington Post (2018), there were many things I didn't know about that film or the Sicilian immigrant who made it.

Hoping to revive a career that had been disrupted by the war, Capra produced the film in 1946, but when it was released just before Christmas it bombed, losing a half million dollars at the box office. Critics panned it and Capra lost the rights and control of the film’s negatives.

His personal fortunes then proceeded to nose-dive, accelerated by the anti-Communist furor of the early 1950s. (His crime — like that of many thoughtful people — was he had briefly flirted with Marxism when he was younger.) 

His decline was such that he eventually reached a hopeless state and attempted suicide on a number of occasions. Rather like George Bailey.

Later, when he looked back on making the film that had helped ruin his career, he said: “I can’t begin to describe my sense of loneliness in making (it), a loneliness that was laced by the fear of failure. I had no one to talk to, or argue with.” 

As an aside, that probably describes what these holidays are like for many people, but for now let’s return to Capra’s story.

The Wonderful Life negatives lay forgotten and unvisited for almost three decades, by which time the film, considered worthless, had slipped into the public domain and was free for the taking. In the mid-1970s, the Public Broadcasting System did just that, becoming the first to air it since 1946. The commercial networks soon followed.

With that, a not-so-instant classic was (re)born. It’s now every bit as much a part of the season as Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.”

Happily, Capra lived long enough to see this all come to pass before he joined the angels himself at the robust age of 94 in 1991. He had always maintained that “Wonderful Life" was the greatest film he ever made.

The main actors in the piece — James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore — are long since dead, of course. But recently, two surviving members among the children cast in the movie confirmed that Capra indeed controlled every detail of the filming down to the slightest detail of their expressions and movements.

The main point of the film — that each life matters — is always worth revisiting at this time of year when for so many, life feels considerably less than wonderful.

Depression is a widespread mental condition. And suicidal thoughts are no stranger to one who is deeply depressed. But as in the story, there could be hidden value in holding on a little longer, perhaps helped along by an angel or two. 

Of course the inequalities of wealth displayed in the film are worse today in the world than they were in the America of post-World-War-Two, and the only way out of thatmess would be a radical redistribution of wealth, a la Marxism perhaps, which certainly isn’t going to be happening around here anytime soon.

So for now this is roughly as wonderful a life as we can make of it, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. And in any event, it wouldn’t be what it is if we were no longer a part of it.

Wit that, bring on Christmas! And maybe listen for someone’s bell to ring out there somewhere.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Meadows and the Band of Loyalists: How They Fought to Keep Trump in Power— A small circle of Republican lawmakers, working closely with President Donald J. Trump’s chief of staff, took on an outsize role in pressuring the Justice Department, amplifying conspiracy theories and flooding the courts in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. (NYT)

• Role as Trump’s gatekeeper puts Meadows in legal peril — and at odds with Trump — Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has veered between steps aimed at bolstering his former boss and actions that, intentionally or not, have undermined him. (WP)

• How the January 6 committee finally exposed Trump's empire of lies (CNN)

• Election reviews persist despite no evidence of rigged vote (AP)

• Putin and Xi Show United Front Amid Rising Tensions With U.S. — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China, meeting in a video summit, sought mutual support in their conflicts with the West but have not yet declared a formal alliance. (NYT)

• EU Leaders to Warn Russia to Stay Out of Ukraine (WSJ)

• US imposes sanctions against China over abuse of Uyghurs (AP)

• The Turkish lira plunged as much as 5.6% to a record low against the dollar after the central bank slashed its policy rate in line with an unorthodox economic program set out by President Tayyip Erdogan. (Reuters)

• Water leaders in California, Arizona and Nevada signed an agreement to reduce intake from the Colorado River to stave off mandatory cuts. (AP)

• The California State University system is set to drop the SAT or the ACT as an admission requirement, a major step by the college system to expand access to higher education amid criticism that the standardized tests are biased against low-income people and students of color. [HuffPost]

• Colleges go back to drawing board — again — to fight COVID (AP)

• Thousands of students across California meet the requirements for the state’s top public universities but are struggling to gain admittance. (LAT)

• Colleges move exams online, urge boosters as coronavirus cases rise and omicron fears grow (WP)

• US sports leagues cope with COVID-19 outbreaks amid variants (AP)

• Universities canceled events, the National Football League reported a record number of cases, and long lines formed at New York City testing clinics as a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases and concern over the Omicron variant disrupted American life anew. (Reuters)

• Vaccine skeptics in Eastern Europe having change of heart (AP)

• California is exempting San Francisco from its new indoor masking mandate. (Cal Today)

• A vaccine specifically targeting the coronavirus omicron variant is not needed so long as individuals are entirely caught up on their vaccines, including their booster shot, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, citing recent data. [HuffPost]

• A new generation of flu vaccines may soon emerge, based on the same mRNA technology in Covid-19 vaccines. (Cal Today)

• From blood clots to infected neurons, how COVID threatens the brain — The virus that causes COVID-19 can cause strokes, inflammation, oxygen deprivation and infection in the brain. And each of these may lead to long term neurological problems. (NPR)

• Omicron’s Surge Is Changing the Rules of Travel (WSJ)

• Afghan central bank moves to stabilise collapsing currency (Al-Jazeera)

• A Refugee Crisis Runs Into a Housing Crisis — Thousands of Afghan refugees are being released from military bases to U.S. cities to rebuild their lives. Settling them into homes amid a rental shortage is proving to be a challenge. (NYT)

• Afghanistan: What humanitarian aid is getting in? (BBC)

• Afghanistan’s health care system on the brink of collapse (AP)

• Reddit, known for its message boards that became the go-to destination for day traders during this year's meme stock frenzy, said it had confidentially filed for an initial public offering with U.S. securities regulators. Founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman and entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, Reddit was valued at $10 billion in a private fundraising round earlier this year. (Reuters)

• In a Texas Border Town, Armed Groups Arrive to Look for Migrants (WSJ)

• A new executive order from President Biden is designed to streamline the process for things like contacting the IRS, enrolling in Social Security online and, yes, renewing your passport. (NPR)

• Bird songs bump stars off Australian music chart (BBC)

• U.S. Facing Santa Shortage (The Onion)

LYRICS

“The Older I Get”

Alan Jackson

Songwriters: Adam Wright / Hailey Whitters / Sarah Turner

The older I get

The more I think

You only get a minute, better live while you're in it

'Cause it's gone in a blink

And the older I get

The truer it is

It's the people you love, not the money and stuff

That makes you rich

And if they found a fountain of youth

I wouldn't drink a drop and that's the truth

Funny how it feels I'm just getting to my best years yet

The older I get

The fewer friends I have

But you don't need a lot when the ones that you got

Have always got your back

And the older I get

The better I am

At knowing when to give

And when to just not give a damn

And if they found a fountain of youth

I wouldn't drink a drop and that's the truth

Funny how it feels I'm just getting to my best years yet

The older I get

And I don't mind all the lines

From all the times I've laughed and cried

Souvenirs and little signs of the life I've lived

The older I get

The longer I pray

I don't know why, I guess that I've

Got more to say

And the older I get

The more thankful I feel

For the life I've had and all the life I'm living still

The Lonely Plague

 In the past few days, several stories have appeared that try to capture the terrible and ongoing toll the pandemic is taking on our lives. 

First the numbers. The World Health Organization says there have been over 272 million cases with more than 5.33 million deaths and that is almost certainly an underestimate.

In the U.S. alone, over 800,000 have died. Three-quarters of them were elderly.

And as we’ve known from the beginning, this disease targets the old, the frail, the weak and the immunocompromised. According to the Times, we’ve lost one in every 100 adults aged 65 or over to the coronavirus. “Eighteen percent more older people died of all causes in 2020 than would have died in an ordinary year, according to data from the CDC.”

That is a lot of valuable “golden years” that have been lost.

Meanwhile, as Substack author Vinay Prasad has pointed out, as a society we may be pursuing anti-Covid policies that are seriously harming the youngest among us as well: 

“School closure was the greatest self inflicted wound of the pandemic,” he writes. “Sensible European nations did not close primary school at all, or only for 6 weeks, but places in the USA remained closed for more than a year. This was a net negative for the health and well-being of children, and will damage this nation for years to come.”

Prasad and others argue that ongoing restrictions such as requiring cloth masks of children, enforcing quarantines when someone tests positive for Covid (most of which prove to be ‘false positives’), and vaccine mandates are not based in science and will have lasting repercussions on the intellectual and emotional development of an entire generation of toddlers and children.

Of course, there is an obvious contradiction when any policy-maker tries to protect both the young and the old at the same time. If the young are free to remain unmasked and unvaccinated because very few of them get sick from the virus, they may be at increased risk of spreading it to the elderly, who remain uniquely vulnerable to the worst health outcomes. So you can’t actually help one group without harming the other.

Nevertheless, while there has been a disproportionately negative impact on both ends of the age spectrum, what about the great majority of people who are neither young nor old? Most people are in the middle, however you define that. For them, there is this cautionary report in the Times:

“It is still unclear how much of a threat the fast-spreading Omicron variant poses, but fear and a sudden revival of restrictions have added to an epidemic of loneliness.” 

No kidding! As many people continue to react and perhaps over-react to each new spike in cases and the inevitable scare headlines appearing in the daily press, more and more tenuous bonds of friendship are being fractured.

Perhaps this is all part of the serious mental health impact of the pandemic, as well as the deeply divided and polarized political response, which started at the top. First, the U.S. had a President who dismissed the “China virus” as “fake news;” now, the country is headed by a President who takes Covid seriously but is powerless to heal the epidemic’s long-lasting damage to our national psyche.

In my humble opinion, we’ve all simply gone a little bit crazy. I see it all around me: People getting angry over trivialities, dividing up into camps, falling for ridiculous conspiracy theories, taking actions and comments personally that were not meant to be; isolating from one another unnecessarily, and more. 

It suggests to me that the only permanent outcome of Covid-19 may be mass loneliness. I’m certainly feeling lonely. Are you? 

As Ian Bogost writes plaintively in the Atlantic, “Everyone knows the past is gone, but now the past’s future feels lost too. I hope it’s not, but I can’t shake the feeling.”

I’d like to get that future back.

TODAY’s HEADLINES:

• Across the World, Covid Anxiety and Depression Take Hold — It is still unclear how much of a threat the fast-spreading Omicron variant poses, but fear and a sudden revival of restrictions have added to an epidemic of loneliness. (NYT)

• As U.S. Hits 800,000 Virus Deaths, 1 of Every 100 Older Americans Has Perished — They are among the most vaccinated groups, but people 65 and older make up about three-quarters of the nation’s coronavirus death toll. (NYT)

• The pandemic policies that hurt children — (Vinay Prasad/Substack)

• I’m Starting to Give Up on Post-pandemic Life — Despair is not a mild symptom. (Atlantic)

• Where are the students? For a second straight year, school enrollment is dropping (NPR)

• Omicron spreading rapidly in U.S., could bring punishing wave as soon as January, CDC warns (WP)

• Pfizer’s Covid Pill Works Well, Company Confirms in Final Analysis — The treatment, called Paxlovid, is likely to work against Omicron and could be available in the United States before the end of the year. (NYT)

• Omicron spreads faster than any other variant, WHO says. It's now in 77 countries (NPR)

• UK Covid live: big rise in hospitalisations fairly certain due to Omicron (Guardian)

• House votes to hold Meadows in contempt over Jan. 6 panel subpoena (WP)

• A U.S. judge dismissed a bid by Trump to keep his tax returns from a House of Representatives committee, ruling that Congress' legislative interest outweighed any deference Trump should receive as a former president. (Reuters)

• Is There a Smoking Gun in the January 6th Investigation? (New Yorker)

• Who Gets Abortions in America? — The typical patient is already a mother; is poor; is unmarried and in her late 20s; and has some college education. (NYT)

• Abortion access shouldn’t depend on where you live (WP)

• Looming abortion pill rules could recast reproductive rights battle (Politico)

• The Anti-Abortion Movement Could Reduce Abortions if It Wanted To — Contraception would reduce abortions. Why doesn’t the anti-abortion movement promote it? (NYT)

• Retail Sales Slow as Holiday Shoppers Face Inflation (WSJ)

• The security flaw that’s freaked out the internet (AP)

• German police searched several locations in the eastern state of Saxony as part of an investigation into what they said was a plot to murder the state's prime minister, Michael Kretschmer, by anti-vaccination activists. (Reuters)

• Volunteers raise oyster gardens to help restore reefs (AP)

• Internet Association implodes in Washington — The once-powerful Internet Association is expected to dissolve. (Politico)

• Amazon’s use of plastic soared in 2020, environmental group says (WP)

• O.J. Simpson, the former football star and television personality who was tried and acquitted in the 1994 murder of his wife and her friend, won an early release from parole on a Nevada robbery conviction.

• They Said the Tornado Would Hit at 9:30. It Hit at 9:30. — Scientists have reached success rates of nearly 100 percent in predicting when and where violent tornadoes will strike. That hasn’t stopped people from being killed in the ferocious winds. (NYT)

• Afghan Women Face Old Family Pressures (WSJ)

• ‘The Taliban say they’ll kill me if they find me’: a female reporter still on the run speaks out (Guardian)

• Is Afghanistan being cut off from the world? (Al-Jazeera)

• On the front line as Afghan children battle malnutrition and measles (BBC)

• The AP Interview: Karzai ‘invited’ Taliban to stop chaos (AP)

• The Job Offer You Want Could Come From Your Old Boss — Companies are tapping their alumni networks to lure back talented people they know are reliable. (WSJ)

• Mayor London Breed of San Francisco called for significantly increasing the police presence in the Tenderloin neighborhood as part of a public safety blitz and drug crackdown. (SFC)

• NASA probe that ‘touched the sun’ for first time could help people better understand the solar system (WP)

• Biden administration releases previously classified JFK assassination documents (CNN)

• What’s Missing From the New JFK Document Release (Politico)

• Zebras in Maryland have been caught after months on the run, officials say (WP)

• O.J. Simpson, the former football star and television personality who was tried and acquitted in the 1994 murder of his wife and her friend, won an early release from parole on a Nevada robbery conviction. (Reuters)

• A baby was taken from her mother’s arms in the Holocaust. The family just reunited. (WP)

• Pfizer Granted Emergency Use For Pill That Kills You Before Covid Can (The Onion)

  LYRICS

  “The Cold Hard Truth”

  by George Jones

  You don't know who I am 

  But I know all about you 

  I've come to talk to you tonight 

  About the things I've seen you do. 

  I've come to set the record straight 

  I've come to shine the light on you 

  Let me introduce myself

  I'm the cold hard truth.

The Plague of Poverty: Afghan Conversation 20

 This the latest in an ongoing series of conversations with an Afghan friend trapped within his country. I am withholding his identity out of concern for his safety.

***

Dear David:

My sister is in her last year of university. Normally, when she goes home on winter vacation, she teaches about 100 students as a volunteer in the local school. But this winter she says that no one is interested in education any longer and half of the students have fled the country. So she will just spend the time reading books. 

The life of villagers in Afghanistan is such that they work from spring to autumn to provide enough food for themselves and their animals over the winter months. They typically can only afford 400 kilos of wheat and enough vegetables for about 10 sheep. They buy other things like beans, rice, oil, etc from the market. If a family member doesn’t work in Iran or another country, they can't even afford these things, so then the family is obligated to ask shopkeepers to loan them food. 

"I can't do anything as I did before," a friend in the village named Mohammad told me. "My feet are unable to move quickly in this desperation and uncertainty. You know that the passenger cars of Hazara people are being blown up with sticky bombs; the value of Afghani is collapsing every day, and the cost of food is rising accordingly. There is a drought, and the crops are shriveling. All the people in the village are frustrated; they don't work as enthusiastically as in previous years." 

Another friend who is a teacher told me: ”I haven't received my salary for five months now. Moreover, I don't have any friends in foreign countries who I borrow money from. I don't know what to do.

The situation is so dire that it is difficult to describe. With each passing day, we are encountering new problems. This week alone the value of the Afghani has decreased as much as in the past 20 years. The currency exchange has closed, as have some markets. There is no hope from the UN, as it can't feed 40 million hungry people. Only the citizens who are connected to the UN organizations directly are able to get the available aid. 

While the rest of the world battles Covid, this is the plague we live with.

***

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Across the World, Covid Anxiety and Depression Take Hold — It is still unclear how much of a threat the fast-spreading Omicron variant poses, but fear and a sudden revival of restrictions have added to an epidemic of loneliness. (NYT)

• Climate change has destabilized the Earth’s poles, putting the rest of the planet in peril (WP)

• More than 100 former Afghan national security forces and others have been killed since the Taliban takeover in August, most at the hands of the hardline Islamist group which is recruiting boy soldiers and quashing women's rights, the U.N. said. (Reuters)

• Politics Was Supposed to Return to Normal in 2021. What Happened? (WSJ)

• Where have all the workers gone? (Financial Times)

• The Nightmare Scenario Looming in Ukraine—And Beyond (Atlantic)

• Omicron is more resistant to vaccines but causes milder covid cases, major South African study finds (WP)

• Data indicate omicron is milder, better at evading vaccines (AP)

• Workers at the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory in Kentucky said supervisors threatened to fire them if they left their jobs early to try and avoid a tornado that later destroyed the factory. Eight people were confirmed dead after the storm tore through Mayfield. [HuffPost]

• The Supreme Court refused to halt a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for health care workers in New York that does not offer an exemption for religious reasons. New York is one of just three states that do not accommodate health care workers who object to the COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds. [AP]

• Covid Is Disrupting Sports. Again. (WSJ)

• Covid-19 live updates: Omicron spreads at a rate not seen before, should not be dismissed as mild, WHO warns(WP)

• Pfizer's Covid-19 pill cut risk of hospitalization and death by 89 percent, final results show (Politico)

• Her Instagram Handle Was ‘Metaverse.’ Last Month, It Vanished. — Five days after Facebook changed its name to Meta, an Australian artist found herself blocked, with seemingly no recourse, from an account documenting nearly a decade of her life and work. (NYT)

• Instagram sorry for blocking user named metaverse (BBC)

• Meta Platforms, the owner of social media network Facebook, is behind a $60 million deal to acquire the trademark assets of U.S. regional bank Meta Financial Group, spokespeople for the companies said. The deal underscores how valuable the Meta name has become for the technology giant. (Reuters)

• Fox News hosts urged Meadows to have Trump stop Jan. 6 violence, texts show — Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade expressed alarm, concern, according to messages shared during House select committee hearing.(WP)

• QAnon follower gets 28-month sentence for death threats to Pelosi (Politico)

• A Trump supporter who attacked police officers with a fire extinguisher during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6 told a judge that he now realizes that the former president and those acting on his behalf were lying when they claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Robert Scott Palmer wrote that he offered his “most sincere and deepest apologies” for believing in Trump’s lies. [HuffPost]

• AP seeks answers from US gov’t on tracking of journalists (AP)

• How a 100-year-old newspaper became the go-to way to influence Biden (Politico)

• Bugs across globe are evolving to eat plastic, study finds (The Guardian)

• 'We owe them action': Biden honors Sandy Hook victims on 9th anniversary (Politico)

• Ships traveling the thawing Arctic are leaving garbage in their wake, scientists warn (Reuters)

• Arctic temperature soared to an unprecedented 100 degrees in 2020, scientists confirm (WP)

• Big California storm dumps snow, drenches parched regions (AP)

• Apple's market value hovered just shy of the $3 trillion mark, following a stunning run over the past decade that has turned it into the world's most valuable company. (Reuters)

• What’s your religion? In US, a common reply now is “None” (AP)

• The top three-point shooter in NBA history is Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors. He broke the record last night in Madison Square Garden, where New York fans gave him an extended ovation. (DW)

• Astronomers Discover Massive Asteroid That Could Wipe Out Life On Earth, Force Nordstrom Out Of Business (The Onion)

  TODAY’s LYRICS

  “Handle with Care”

  Traveling Wilburys

  Been beat up and battered 'round
  Been sent up, and I've been shot down
  You're the best thing that I've ever found
  Handle me with care

  Reputations changeable
  Situations tolerable
  Baby, you're adorable
  Handle me with care

  I'm so tired of being lonely
  I still have some love to give
  Won't you show me that you really care?

  Everybody's got somebody to lean on
  Put your body next to mine, and dream on

  I've been fobbed off, and I've been fooled
  I've been robbed and ridiculed
  In daycare centers and night schools
  Handle me with care

  Been stuck in airports, terrorized
  Sent to meetings, hypnotized
  Overexposed, commercialized
  Handle me with care

  I'm so tired of being lonely
  I still have some love to give
  Won't you show me that you really care?

  Everybody's got somebody to lean on
  Put your body next to mine, and dream on

  I've been uptight and made a mess
  But I'll clean it up myself, I guess
  Oh, the sweet smell of success
  Handle me with care