Europe could soon reach a "ceasefire" with COVID thanks in part to high rates of immunity following the spread of the Omicron variant, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO Director for Europe, said that a slowdown in infections could prompt authorities to lift lockdowns and other social restrictions. More: - Kluge said Europe could enter a "long period of tranquility" due to high vaccination rates and the less severe nature of COVID infection with the Omicron variant.
- He said authorities should be able to tackle future COVID-19 waves "without re-installing the kind of disruptive measures we needed before."
- Denmark this week became the first E.U. country to lift all COVID restrictions, including mask-wearing, and other European countries could follow suit in the coming weeks.
- Norway and Sweden plan to ease restrictions soon. Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson told reporters: "The pandemic is not over, but we are entering a whole new phase."
- The U.K. has seen a surge in the number of people eating out and shopping in person after ending COVID restrictions at the end of January.
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 Sarah Bloom Raskin, President Biden's nominee to serve as the Federal Reserve's vice chairwoman for banking supervision, is set to face questions from senators during her confirmation hearing today. Raskin is a former law professor who served as a Fed Reserve Board member and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury during the Obama Administration. More: - Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson, two economics professors who have been nominated to serve on the Federal Reserve Board will also take questions from the Senate Banking Committee during their confirmation hearings today.
- In their prepared testimony, all three nominees said the Fed must focus on tackling high inflation.
- In her academic work, Raskin has proposed increasing regulations on financial markets in a bid to tackle climate change.
- In March 2020, she published an op-ed titled "Why is the Fed Spending So Much Money on a Dying Industry?" in the New York Times that argued against government relief to fossil fuel companies.
- Raskin's nomination has been opposed by the Chamber of Commerce and a group of 41 oil-and-gas trade groups.
- She will need to win the votes of every Democratic senator to have her nomination confirmed.
- If she is confirmed, Cook will be the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board in its 108-year history.
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 The leader of the Islamic State was killed during a raid by U.S. Special Operations in Syria last night. During the operation, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi detonated a bomb that killed himself, as well as members of his family, an unnamed U.S. official told the New York Times. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 13 deaths, including three women and four children. More: - Helicopters bearing Special Forces commandos surrounded a house in Syria's Idlib Province.
- When the commandos had situated themselves around the house, loudspeakers sent Arabic-language warnings to the residents of the house demanding their surrender.
- After a two-hour standoff, U.S. soldiers engaged the house with machine guns and "apparent missile strikes."
- President Biden said the raid successfully took the leader of the Islamic State "off the battlefield."
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 GOOD NEWS: Mississippi legalized medical marijuana for people with debilitating health conditions like cancer, AIDS, or sickle cell disease. The bill was passed in the Mississippi state legislature last week and was signed into law by Governor Tate Reeves on Wednesday, making Mississippi the 37th state to legalize medical marijuana. More: - The law allows approved patients to buy up to 3 ounces per month, lays out rules for growing cannabis and the tax burden for the production and sale of cannabis products.
- Governor Reeves said: "There is no doubt that there are individuals in our state who could do significantly better if they had access to medically prescribed doses of cannabis."
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 A message from AXONIUS The software as a service (SaaS) model was a major paradigm shift in the history of IT — and has since become a go-to for many organizations. After all, SaaS models offer unquestionable benefits, like increased flexibility, accessibility, and cost savings. But as SaaS adoption continues to skyrocket, it's creating more complexity for IT and security teams. Tasks like gaining visibility into SaaS apps, monitoring spending, managing configuration, and licensing can feel complicated. Impossible, even. In this new white paper, Axonius explains why a modern, comprehensive approach to SaaS management — one that challenges what we think we know about the process — can help. Download "Navigating the Complexity of SaaS Management" and learn: - The top SaaS challenges — including shadow SaaS and SaaS spend — and how it impacts IT and security teams
- Current approaches to SaaS management — and their limitations
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 For the first time since 2004, the Bank of England (BoE) raised interest rates in two consecutive meetings. The first rate hike, which happened in December, increased the BoE's main Bank Rate from 0.1% to 0.25%. Today's 5-4 decision by the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee raised the benchmark interest rate to 0.5%. More: - Four members of the Monetary Policy Committee voted to raise rates to 0.75%.
- U.K. inflation hit a 30-year high in December, and the BoE raised its inflation forecast for April from a projected 6% to 7.25% in today's meeting.
- The BoE's plans to conclude its bond-buying program by late 2023 could be accelerated, depending on two factors: the "medium-term inflation outlook" and "energy and global tradable good prices."
- The committee said that "some further modest tightening in monetary policy is likely to be appropriate in the coming months."
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A panel of medical and technical experts assembled by the White House and U.S. intelligence agencies found that some Havana Syndrome cases could have been caused by directed electromagnetic energy attacks. The report sheds light on the mysterious ailment that has plagued hundreds of U.S. diplomatic workers worldwide in recent years. More: - Eric Lander, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the panel had access to intelligence reports and patient data during their nine-month investigation.
- The report said hundreds of the "anomalous health incidents" could not be easily explained and "could be due to external stimuli."
- It is possible for devices to direct electromagnetic energy or ultrasound waves as a way of triggering health problems in individuals, the report said.
- However, the panel did not say whether such technology has been developed by foreign nations or if it exists at all.
- A previous report commissioned by the State Department found that "directed, pulsed radio-frequency energy appears to be the most plausible" explanation for Havana Syndrome symptoms.
- Several weeks ago, the CIA concluded that only two dozen or so of 1,000 officially reported cases could not be explained by conventional medical or environmental sources.
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- The Phase I trial for Moderna's mRNA vaccine for HIV began today. The experimental vaccine was co-developed by Moderna and IAVI, a non-profit scientific research organization.
- Spike Lee is set to direct a multi-part documentary about the life of former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick for ESPN.
- Jason Van Dyke, a former Chicago police officer who was convicted of second-degree murder for killing 16-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014, is set to leave prison today after serving less than four years of his 6.75-year sentence.
- More than $320M was stolen in a crypto hack on the Wormhole bridge connecting the Ethereum and Solana blockchains yesterday.
- Your money matters. Let's make more of it. Stocks are great, but there are many more options now. That's why we've been reading the Alts newsletter.*
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 Interior of Salisbury Cathedral by William Turner. 1805
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 |  | Daniel Smith is an Inside Analyst who currently resides in Miami, Florida. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Daniel spent the last four years as a PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. He is fascinated by tech, business, politics, venture capital, and everything in between. When he’s not writing for Inside he can be found kicking a ball on the nearest rugby pitch. Follow him on Twitter @DanSmithInside. |  | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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