The chaos inside the U.S. Capitol came after the police force that protects the legislative complex was overrun by a mob of Trump supporters in what law enforcement officials called a catastrophic failure to prepare https://t.co/DqwlosQxKY

A surge of retail stock trading over the last year lit the fuse that sent shares of GameStop rocketing higher without a clear business reason, market watchers say, squeezing hedge funds that had bet against the retailer and other companies that were out of favor on Wall Street

What is going on? Here are some answers 👇

More individuals have invested in stocks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and experts cite a number of reasons, including lockdowns boosted savings, stimulus putting cash into people’s pockets and extremely low interest rates

Also, a proliferation of trading apps allowed anyone with a smartphone to buy or sell stocks for free. Retail investors’ participation in U.S. equity order flows increased to nearly 20% in 2020 from 15% in 2019, data from Swiss bank UBS showed

What has been the impact of this surge in retail trading?

Big U.S. technology companies were among the beneficiaries last year. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google saw record inflows as their businesses benefited from lockdowns and their stocks soared

💵 With unprecedented stimulus and easy money policies from central banks, investors then shifted to smaller stocks, especially ones that got beaten down during the pandemic

U.S. President Biden hailed the ceasefire now in effect between Israel and Gaza, after 11 days of fighting in which he was criticized by fellow Democrats for not speaking out more forcefully against Israeli actions https://t.co/ANjZ6u9OOE

Trump may be best remembered for his use of Twitter as a bully pulpit to stoke controversy or browbeat opponents, but the noise his tweets generated often distracted from the big policy changes he made over his four-year term https://t.co/shNVNMoDfg

During his rollercoaster presidency, the focus was often on what Trump was saying and not on what he was doing. But a review of his policies shows that he had a real effect on people’s lives. Here's a closer look 👇

➖ China:

The Trump administration put China’s rise in the spotlight and helped forge a bipartisan and increasingly adversarial U.S. view of the world’s second-largest economy

From a raft of tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese imports to sanctions against top officials and a muscular use of penalties against top Chinese companies like Huawei, ZTE, SMIC and TikTok owner ByteDance, Trump hit Beijing on a variety of fronts

Tensions have risen especially over the past year with Trump repeatedly blaming China for the coronavirus, which originated in the city of Wuhan. The two global powers are increasingly at odds over a range of other issues, including Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea

So much has happened this year – the global pandemic, of course, but also political chaos, freak weather and wildfires, and protests everywhere.

So how do we capture 2020? @ReutersGraphics stitched together clippings from the longest year 👇 https://t.co/83ZgiqzV0W 1/13

January
🦠 The world welcomed 2020 as wildfires and protests clouded celebrations. Cities close to Wuhan saw a rise in coronavirus cases 2/13

February
The first coronavirus-related death occurred outside China.

⚽ One of the last soccer matches was played with fans in the stadium. One month later, Valencia said 35% of the squad tested positive for the virus 3/13

March
A deluge of death in northern Italy; Poor Indians flee to villages

’Some people will die of the virus. The rest of us will die of hunger,’ said Sanjay Sharma, a Mumbai taxi driver 4/13

April
China’s Wuhan came out of lockdown; A bread making frenzy swept the UK 🍞

Spain lifted its lockdown for children. Below, Paolo drew himself in a farm.
He said he missed climbing, friends and his grandparents the most 5/13

One America News, the far-right network whose fortunes and viewership rose amid the triumph and tumult of the Trump administration, has flourished with support from a surprising source: AT&T https://t.co/Jv28zgbXLY via @johnshiffman @specialreports

THREAD: We filed RTIs on behalf of @no2uid asking the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare questions about how your personal data will be protected while you're using CO-WIN, the COVID-19 vaccination registration platform.

We got answers... kind of. Here's the new info.

1/n

Just like with Aarogya Setu, many Indians are worried that about the potential CO-WIN has to leak your data or threaten your privacy in the name of dealing with a pandemic. So, we asked the MOHFW some questions about data protection under the Right to Information Act.
2/n

In the responses we received, MOHFW said that it cannot provide us with a privacy policy on CO-WIN (?!).

Thankfully it was clarified that Aadhaar is not mandatory for registration on Aarogya Setu or CO-WIN, and that physical vaccine certificates will be provided to everyone.
3/n

The data it says it will collect will be your name, gender, date of birth, photo ID, and number.

National, State, and District level admins will have access to use the app, but there is not much further clarity on this point.

But most importantly...
4/n

The responses (or rather lack of them) related to your data privacy and protection are completely vague. We received no clear answers on which Ministries/Depts will have access to your personal data, the permissions provided, etc. This is a failure in terms of transparency.
5/n

Unless we pass laws which support people to enable them to self-isolate properly, any improvements to test & trace will have marginal impact and cases will simply spiral out of control once again as we ease lockdown in December.

A short thread on what we can do and why 👇
1/

Improving the currently poor rates of self-isolation is actually the key point, which many scientists, politicians, & commentators do still seem to be missing.

This requires good public health communication, proper support for those who need to self-isolate, & trust.
2/

Massive testing and tracing will only significantly reduce
transmission if positive cases isolate effectively. Yet
currently fewer than 20% of those who should isolate are fully adherent.

I don't think I need to explain why it's so critical to improve these rates.

3/

Survey data shows intention to adhere to test/trace/isolate behaviours is higher than self-reported adherence: whilst 76% of people intend to share contacts, only 50% of people correctly recognise symptoms &
just 12% get a test, 18% isolate, & 11% of contacts isolate properly.
4

Self-reported ability to self-isolate
is three times lower in those who earn less than £20,000 per year or have less than £100 saved.

5/

I think the UK trans debate has teased out the sticking points for feminists, and it might be useful to lay them out given that the battle in the US, with a very different legislative environment, is just starting.

The GRA of 2004 gave trans people the ability to change legal sex via a GRC, but only if they had a psychiatric diagnosis of dysphoria and only after having lived in role for 2 years. The spousal veto gave spouses a chance to annul or obtain a favourable divorce.

While this ultimately created the loophole in women's rights that we've been fighting against in the last few years, it catered for a tiny number of dysphoric transsexuals and so did not have an enormous impact.

Discussions with trans friends and allies make it clear that, although surgery wasn't a requirement for a GRC, the diagnostic procedures were expected to trap and exclude males who did not want surgery, thereby preventing fetishists and opportunists from exploiting a GRC.

The Equality Act of 2010 defined the various protected characteristics, including both sex and 'gender reassignment', and provided for sex-based exemptions, under the auspices of which it is legal to exclude trans people from some single-sex spaces and services.

My wonderful @jainfamilyinst colleagues @laura_bmw & @Edi_Nilaj have released their new report "Student Debt and Young America," which pretty comprehensively demolishes many of the myths about who does and doesn't have student debt.
https://t.co/y02KFosRQ3
Highlights to follow
/1

@laura_bmw @Edi_Nilaj First of all, look at this one chart that tells you why the student debt crisis is happening: rising debt; stagnant income, and the gap has opened widest for minority borrowers.
/2

You look at that chart and you see the total failure of the human capital model to explain labor market outcomes, insofar as it even is a falsifiable social science hypothesis.
/3

Second, while it's true that total loan balances are increasing in income, student debt has increased most over time among the lowest-income groups. This tells you that student debt is becoming a marker of the disadvantaged rather than the advantaged.
/4

Third, balances on outstanding loans are rising over time, not declining. As I said in my last report, the student debt crisis is a crisis of non-repayment. This is why it's foolish to think the student debt is ever going to be paid back, whether it's cancelled now or not.
/5

MY RACIST

If U remember from an earlier post I brought up Sen Elizabeth Warrens remark that "Obama did more for Wall Street than Main Street." I concur. U can ignore poor black people all day, but under no circumstance can U ever ignore poor white

Now Biden must be careful not to repeat the same mistakes of Obama. Biden most go big & go big fast. Fuck inflation. Order the treasury to start printing money. You will not beat Trump by impeaching or prosecuting him. You must beat him on the battlefield of ideas & you do so by-

helping the people he ignored. People with good jobs, food on the table & a roof over their head dont have time to do insurrections. If U help these people, you will choke off the fuel to Trumpism. Some black people will criticize me for taking this approach. My simple retort is-

you can't out-violence white people. We don't make guns. We don't make bombs. We don't make shit. You have to make it such that everyone eats. Otherwise you have to deal with the warning Heather McGhee lays out in her new book: white

Obama did not get this. He made it such that only rich white oligarchs got to feast. Everyone else got crumbs. I need you to get precisely what peace requires. There are a good number of white people in this country which would rather burn this country down than to allow any-