 More Americans are testing positive for COVID-19 every day than at any other time since the start of the pandemic, according to CDC data. The seven-day average of daily U.S. cases topped 267,000 on Wednesday, surpassing the previous record of ~251,000 per day set in early January. The delta and omicron variants have combined to create the biggest U.S. surge to date, though officials remain hopeful that this winter will see fewer COVID-19 deaths than a year ago, due to improved therapeutics, widespread vaccinations, and generally milder illness with omicron. More: - The surge in cases has not yet resulted in a proportional surge in hospitalizations, though the number of individuals in the hospital with severe illness has increased in recent weeks.
- The daily average of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. is at ~75,000, up 11% from two weeks ago, while the average number of cases has increased by 126%. Hospitalizations tend to lag a few weeks behind new cases, indicating that they may peak later.
- Even if there are fewer hospitalizations and deaths than in last winter's surge, the U.S. medical system could still be overwhelmed as health care workers are increasingly infected.
- The CDC this week reduced the recommended isolation period from 10 days to five days for those who test positive for COVID-19 but do not have symptoms. Most evidence shows that transmission of omicron primarily occurs in the day or two before symptoms emerge and in the two or three days after.
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 Legendary football coach and broadcaster John Madden died unexpectedly on Tuesday at age 85. No cause of death was given. Madden coached the Oakland Raiders from 1969 to 1978 and won Super Bowl XI with the team in 1977. He retired from coaching in 1979 and served as a color commentator for NFL games for the next three decades, for which he won 16 Sports Emmy Awards. More: - Madden's name is also ubiquitous on one of the bestselling sports video game franchises of all time. Madden NFL games have sold more than 130 million copies.
- Among other things, Madden popularized the Thanksgiving Turducken, a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey.
- On Twitter, the Las Vegas Raiders shared a number of memories of Madden, including broadcasting highlights and condolence messages from players and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
- Fans online also shared some of their favorite Madden moments, including a clip from 1995 featuring Madden poking fun at Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman's inability to grow a beard.
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 President Biden will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on Thursday, reportedly at the Russian leader's request. Biden and Putin will primarily discuss the recent Russian military build-up on the country's border with Ukraine, as well as security talks between U.S. and Russian officials scheduled for Jan. 10. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday to discuss the upcoming diplomatic talks. More: - More than 100,000 Russian soldiers remain at the Russia-Ukraine border, with intelligence officials concerned that an invasion could be imminent.
- Russia said earlier this week it would withdraw 10,000 troops from the border, and the U.S. recently flew a reconnaissance mission over eastern Ukraine to gather intelligence.
- Earlier this month, Biden warned of "devastating" consequences to Russia's economy, in the form of sanctions, should Putin decide to invade Ukraine.
- Biden said sending ground troops to fight at the border was "never on the table," though the U.S. would help reinforce NATO's eastern flank.
- Russia says its military actions would only be a reaction to eastward NATO military expansion into Ukraine.
- The call between Biden and Putin is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.
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 Poet Amanda Gorman, who became a household name following the reading of her poem "The Hill We Climb" at President Biden's inauguration, has released a new work to usher in 2022. Released on Instagram, "New Day's Lyric" is a five-stanza poem sharing a hopeful vision for a future where "what was cursed, we will cure / what was plagued, we will prove pure." Read the first stanza of "New Day's Lyric":
May this be the day
We come together.
Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better.
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
We steadily vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward. Watch Gorman read the poem herself on Instagram. Watch her read "The Hill We Climb" at the inauguration.
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 A content moderator for TikTok is suing the company, saying that exposure to violent videos gave her "psychological trauma including anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder." Candie Frazier says that her job, attempting to filter out violent content from being viewed by TikTok users, exposed her to videos of sexual assault against children, beheadings, mass shootings, and the mutilation of animals, often for 12 hours a day. The lawsuit says that TikTok violated California labor laws requiring a "safe work environment." More: - Frazier is asking for compensation and mental health support for her and other current and former moderators.
- Frazier works for Telus International, which provides content moderation services, but the lawsuit is aimed at TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, as she alleges the organizations "control the means and manner in which content moderation occurred."
- Telus International is not named in the lawsuit, and says it has a "robust resiliency and mental health program."
- TikTok said it would not comment on active lawsuits, but added it plans to "expand on a range of wellness services" provided to moderators.
- TikTok said this month it would adjust its algorithm to avoid showing users too much of the same negative content, particularly that focused on dieting and suicide. The Wall Street Journal published an investigation of TikTok's algorithm in July, revealing that the platform has a tendency to highlight similar thematic content that often skews negative.
- TikTok says it has more than 1 billion global users.
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 2.11 million vinyl albums were sold in the U.S. last week, making it the top sales week for the format since at least 1991. The vinyl resurgence started in the late 2000s but skyrocketed in recent years, particularly during the pandemic. More than 27.5 million vinyl records were sold in 2020, up from 18.84 million in 2019. More:
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- Racism remains a critical problem in the U.S. military despite decades of efforts to stamp out violent extremism, according to an AP investigation.
- At-home rapid COVID-19 tests may have reduced sensitivity with the omicron variant and may provide a higher percentage of false negatives, the FDA said Tuesday. The agency says it is working with the National Institutes of Health to determine how accurate users can expect their rapid test results to be.
- More than half of all U.S. states are raising their minimum wages in the new year. California and New York will offer a $15/hour minimum wage, even as activists say that such a wage is not keeping up with inflation and the high cost-of-living.
- Kodiak, Alaska, recorded a temperature of 67°F on Sunday, the highest December temperature ever in the state.
- Some white-collar DoorDash employees are reportedly furious at the reinstitution of a policy by which all employees have to deliver food on the app once a month. DoorDash engineers earn an average of $175,000/year, plus bonuses, according to Glassdoor.
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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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