 More than 100 million Americans are under winter storm or flood alerts Thursday as a major system brings freezing rain, snow, and ice as far southwest as New Mexico and as far northeast as Maine. Winter Storm Landon will continue impacting much of the country through Friday, with parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and Mississippi specifically under an ice storm warning. More than 63,000 customers are without power in Texas, with demand for electricity set to rival last February's winter storm, which left millions without power, some for several days. More: - More than 4,800 flights within, into, or out of the U.S. were canceled on Thursday, according to FlightAware. Many of those flights were going through Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, which briefly closed due to icy conditions.
- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said roads in the state "could become very treacherous" due to ice.
- The cold front should leave the Southern Plains and Midwest overnight, but freezing rain, sleet, and snow should continue in New England through Friday.
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 Shares of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) plummeted on Thursday, the result of less-than-stellar revenue and the emergence of major competitors. Meta lost about 25% of its overall value at the start of trading on Thursday, shedding $220B in market cap, and leading to a $28B drop in CEO Mark Zuckerberg's net worth. Investors appear to be wary of Facebook's ability to maintain market share among TikTok's ascension and the potential for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in the coming months. More: - Spotify and PayPal also lost significant value on Thursday.
- The S&P 500 started the year trading at 21.5 times its projected earnings over the course of 2022. According to The Wall Street Journal, Meta, PayPal, and Spotify all were trading at a higher multiple of their projected earnings.
- Spotify started the year trading at 543.9 times projected earnings. The dip indicates that investors are going to be more skeptical of sky-high valuations.
- Meta said on Wednesday that it had lost one million daily users globally and that it expects revenue growth to slow. At the same time, its expenses have grown as the company invests in an ambitious metaverse project.
- A change in the privacy policy for Apple's OS may also have impacted Facebook's ability to target users with advertising.
- Zuckerberg emphasized the importance of its Reels feature, a TikTok knock-off, as a way to retain users.
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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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 A Ukrainian soldier in eastern Ukraine. U.S. officials say they have new evidence to back up their allegation that Russia is planning a "false flag" attack as a pretext for invading Ukraine. The intelligence officials say that Russia has developed plans to broadcast a propaganda video depicting graphic-but-fabricated images of explosions and attacks in Eastern Ukraine and Russia. The U.S. believes Russia wants to make it appear as if its forces have been attacked by Ukraine and NATO as a way to drum up support for an invasion. More: - The Biden administration's strategy amid the crisis in Eastern Europe has been to reveal Russia's intentions as a way of subverting its aggressive moves.
- The plan to release a propaganda video is in addition to plans, revealed by U.S. and U.K. intelligence last month, to send saboteurs into Ukraine to conduct a potential false flag attack.
- U.S. officials caution that Russian President Vladimir Putin has likely not made a final decision on whether to go through with the operations, but that Russian officials have been planning them as potential options.
- Some U.S. and U.K. military officials believe Putin is underestimating the number of casualties Russia would suffer if he decides to invade Ukraine.
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 GOOD NEWS: Two people who were treated with an experimental cancer therapy are still cancer-free 10 years later, suggesting a cure for certain blood cancers may be on the horizon. The patients received chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, which genetically engineers a patient's T-cells to identify and fight cancer cells. More than 10 years after the treatment, those altered T-cells are still active inside the patients, giving scientists confidence that the treatment could be a long-term solution for some blood cancer patients. More: - Until now, the treatment had only been proven as effective in short-term trials, often putting patients into remission who previously had only months to live.
- In the U.K., the treatment is already approved for patients with certain kinds of lymphoma, or children and young adults with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
- Solid, tumor-based cancers are harder to treat with this method, as those cancer cells are shielded from the immune system.
- Read the study in the journal Nature.
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 A message from M1 FINANCE Time in the Market > Timing the Market These days, there’s a lot of hype around day trading. But sometimes, identifying and committing to a good old fashioned long-term strategy is one of the best ways to build wealth. So says M1, the Finance Super App that was built with your financial well-being top of mind. M1 doesn’t believe that speculating and day trading is a viable path to building long-term wealth, so they built a hassle-free, distraction-free, and management fee-free app to easily invest, borrow, and spend. All you have to do is settle on a strategy, automate it, and then go on livin’ your life while M1 takes care of the day-to- day. For a limited time new users can earn up to $500 when you fund an account within 14 days of account opening. Terms and conditions apply. Sign Up Here *Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. M1 Finance LLC, member FINRA/SIPC
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 A butterfly sanctuary in Texas is shutting down "for the immediate future" due to credible threats originating from QAnon conspiracy theorists. The National Butterfly Center operates in Mission, Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border; in 2019, Brian Kolfage, a veteran who's been indicted on charges of fraud related to the "We Build The Wall" campaign, falsely accused the center's executive director Marianna Treviño-Wright of using the sanctuary for sex trafficking. Ever since, the center has been the target of harassment and threats. More: - Far-right organizations and commentary sites have continued to target the center and accuse its managers of using the land as a base for trafficking children, an accusation without evidence.
- In a statement, the butterfly sanctuary says it plans to pay staff during the closure, but that it could not detail when it will reopen.
- "We look forward to reopening, soon, when the authorities and professionals who are helping us navigate this situation give us the green light," Dr. Jeffrey Glassberg, president and founder of the North American Butterfly Association, said Wednesday.
- In 2017, the center sued the Trump administration, arguing that its proposed border wall would destroy butterfly habitats.
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 Spotify CEO Daniel Ek defended the company's decision to host "The Joe Rogan Experience" on its platform amid protests from prominent musicians. In a 15-minute speech to employees on Wednesday, Ek reportedly say that Spotify needed the exclusivity of Joe Rogan's podcast to differentiate itself from companies like Amazon, which have their own streaming music services with essentially the same content. Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify last week after accusing Rogan of spreading COVID-19 misinformation and hosting anti-vaccine activists. Other artists, including Joni Mitchell and India.Arie, have also pulled their catalogs from Spotify. More: - Ek has attempted to argue to his employees, as well as in a press release, that Spotify is a platform for hosting content, and not a publisher who is responsible for the content of programming.
- However, "The Joe Rogan Experience" became a Spotify exclusive podcast, unavailable on any other platform, in December 2020.
- Ek has said that Spotify should have been more transparent with its content moderation policies, and now plans to "add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about COVID-19."
- Other musicians have argued that a boycott of Spotify should also include a discussion about payment for artists. The platform pays only fractions of a penny per song stream, though this is similar on other streaming platforms.
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QUICK HITS - For completeness of vision and ability to execute, the Gartner Magic Quadrant named Adobe a leader among 17 vendors – See why here.*
- Rudy Giuliani was unmasked as a contestant on Fox's primetime singing competition "The Masked Singer," a revelation that apparently inspired judges Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke to briefly leave the stage in protest.
- Australian researchers say they believe they have found the wreckage of Captain James Cook's HMS Endeavor, which was sunk by the British during the American Revolution. U.S. researchers said, however, that those findings are inconclusive.
- A defamation trial against The New York Times brought by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resumed on Thursday after a week-long postponement following her positive COVID-19 diagnosis.
- Nintendo says it sold 10.67 million Switch units in the last three months of 2021. The console has now sold 103.54 million lifetime units, breaking the Wii's mark of 101.63 million.
- NASA will retire the International Space Station in 2030, and the following year it will crash into the Pacific Ocean.
- 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.*
*This is sponsored content.
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 |  | Jonathan Harris is a writer and editor who lives in Los Angeles. |  | | 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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