Hi Inside.com Community, We are extending our Republic raise timeline, and we hope readers and investors love the reason. Inside.com Founder and CEO Jason Calacanis shared full details (and a video preview of our social news site) on our Republic campaign page. These are the key details: - Our social news site’s invitation-only beta will open up on February 28, 2022, with early access for all investors, Inside PRO members, and longtime readers.
- The full site launch is slated for the end of March 2022.
- If you want to get in early, we’ll share more soon — so be on the lookout.
For everyone participating in our Republic campaign, we want this extended investment period to allow our members to experience the social site before investing in Inside.com’s future. In the meantime, enjoy the preview of the new site in our video update, and we hope you will be among the first to try it out. Thanks for being readers and investors. The Inside.com Team | |  Daniel |  |
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 The Supreme Court has rejected a plan to redraw gerrymandered Congressional districts in Alabama in the leadup to the midterm elections. The Court's provisional decision keeps in place a district map that critics say dilutes the vote of Black Alabamans, violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965. More: - In the map that was barred by the lower court, Black voters are a majority in just one of seven Congressional districts.
- The lower court had ordered the Alabama legislature to create a second majority-Black district — 27% of Alabama's voters are Black.
- In the 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that it is too late to change congressional districts because of the proximity of the midterms, which will take place in early November.
- In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that changing electoral laws "when an election is close at hand ... can lead to disruption and to unanticipated and unfair consequences."
- The decision means that the GOP will have a greater chance to hold six of the state’s seven House seats.
- SCOTUS plans to hear Alabama's appeal of the lower court ruling, but it did not say when.
- The case could weaken the Voting Rights Act, which was designed to protect African Americans from state-level voting laws that diluted their voting power or made it more difficult for them to vote.
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 Meta said it might decide to shut down Facebook and Instagram in Europe if it is unable to transfer user data back to the U.S. In a bid to increase data protection, European regulators are writing new rules that might restrict the transfer of user data from EU citizens to the United States. More: - Meta currently uses standard contractual clauses (SCCs) to transfer its data back to the U.S. and EU regulators could potentially ask Meta to stop using SCCs.
- If it is forced to stop using SCCs or "other alternative means of data transfers from Europe to the United States," Meta said that it will be unable to offer Facebook and Instagram to EU users.
- Meta and other social media companies began using SCCs after a July 2020 decision by the European Court of Justice, which found that the methods of transfer at the time did not protect European users from potential data surveillance by the U.S. government.
- Meta's threat was criticized by several European politicians. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said yesterday:
- "Digital giants must understand that the European continent will resist and affirm its sovereignty."
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 U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reshuffling his cabinet after several senior advisors resigned last week. Johnson is under pressure to resign from opposition lawmakers — and some members of his own party — following the "Partygate" scandal and false accusations he made against Labour leader Keir Starmer in Parliament last week. More: - As part of the reshuffle, Johnson has appointed a new minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency and a new House of Commons leader.
- In the early days of the pandemic, senior members of Johnson's government threw parties despite rules banning social gatherings.
- An investigation into the scandal found that there were "failures of leadership and judgment" among Conservative Party leaders.
- Johnson last week falsely claimed that Starmer, a former head of public prosecutions, was responsible for the failure to prosecutive serial pedophile Jimmy Savile.
- This accusation was cited in the resignation letter published by former advisor Munira Mirza, who had worked with Johnson since 2008.
- Johnson could face a vote of no confidence if at least 54 Conservative MPs start a leadership challenge.
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 GOOD NEWS: The IRS is scrapping a plan to require taxpayers to submit videos of themselves to a private facial recognition company in order to access their accounts. The agency said that it plans to develop an authentication process that does not involve facial recognition. More: - The IRS had already started asking taxpayers to send a "video selfie" to ID.me to access their records on the IRS website.
- The Treasury signed a two-year $86M contract with ID.me last summer.
- It is unclear what will happen with the facial data of Americans who have already submitted a video.
- Critics said the plan was unfair to people without smartphones or webcams and would likely face data management problems and hacking risks.
- Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) had sent the IRS a letter asking that it stop working with ID.me, writing that it is:
- "Simply unacceptable to force Americans to submit to scans using facial recognition technology as a condition of interacting with the government online."
- Wyden proposed that the IRS use Login.gov, which is piloting methods of identity verification that include in-person partnerships with the Postal Service and Veterans Affairs.
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A new study found that individuals who suffered acute COVID-19 symptoms are at greater risk of cardiovascular disease following infection. People who were hospitalized or suffered from acute illness while infected with COVID-19 were more likely than non-infected individuals to experience those symptoms afterward, the study found. More: - Study authors found that individuals who had COVID-19 have a greater chance of suffering cardiovascular conditions including cerebrovascular disorders, dysrhythmias, pericarditis, and myocarditis, among others.
- These risks continue well after COVID-19 patients stop experiencing acute symptoms, the study says.
- The authors urged governments and healthcare systems to prepare for a future increase in cardiovascular diseases.
- They say that this increase will likely have "broad implications on economic productivity and life expectancy."
- The research, which was published in Nature, relied on a dataset of 153,760 individuals who had contracted COVID-19, plus two control groups of 5M+ each.
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 The United Nations said that ~13M people in the Horn of Africa are facing severe hunger and the threat of starvation due to drought. Pastoral and farming communities in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia have all been impacted and will likely continue to struggle due to forecasts of below-average rainfall in the coming months, the UN World Food Programme said. More: - Droughts during three consecutive rainy seasons have destroyed crop harvests and decimated herds of livestock.
- Aid groups said that more than 6 million people in Ethiopia and 7 million people in Somalia need humanitarian aid.
- Climate change is seen as a factor in the ongoing drought.
- Last year the UN warned that more than 100 million "extremely poor" people across Africa were threatened by climate change that could melt Africa's glaciers within the next two decades.
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- Oil & gas giant BP reported $12.8B in profit for 2021, its highest profit in eight years.
- Anti-vaccine mandate protestors blocked streets in front of the New Zealand Parliament in Wellington today, drawing on inspiration from ongoing protests in Ottawa, Canada.
- The deputy director of the British National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) criticized Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, who asked workers last week to hold off on asking for raises in 2022 to help prevent a wage-price spiral.
- Home workout company Peloton, whose stock has plummeted recently, is cutting 2,800 jobs and replacing its CEO with a former Spotify and Netflix executive.
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 Bull (plate VI) by Pablo Picasso. 1945
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UPCOMING EVENTS - February 09 - Interview with David King Lassman (GigXR) (Register Here)
- February 09 - A Twitter Spaces event with Bored Elon Musk (Register Here)
- February 10 - The Business of Wellness (Register Here)
- February 15 - Venturing in VC - Episode #6 with Marlon Nichols (MaC Venture Capital) (Register Here)
- February 17 - Efficient Marketing Strategies in a Post iOS 14 World (Register Here)
- February 23 - Need to Know NoCoder: Derya Sousa (Kianda Technologies) (Register Here)
- February 24 - Alternative Investments (Register Here)
- February 28 - Inside Investment DAOs with Global Coin Research (Register Here)
- March 10 - NoCode's Impact on the Gig Economy (Register Here)
- March 23 - Need to Know NoCoder: Nichole Bestman (Bubble) (Register Here)
- March 31 - How To Build In Web 3.0 (Register Here)
- April 07 - Blockchain and the Law (Register Here)
- April 14 - Shopping In The Metaverse (Register Here)
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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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