Missing stimulus check money: How to claim the Recovery Rebate Credit on your taxes The deadline to file for a missing stimulus check this year has passed, but you can still claim your payment as Recovery Rebate Credit on your taxes in 2021.
The W.T.O. Is Having a Midlife Crisis Fixing the global trading system means first coming to grips with why it is broken. ....... The W.T.O. has ordered countries to gut programs that encouraged renewable energy and laws that protected workers from unfair foreign competition, as if international commerce were more important than climate change and workers’ rights.
Can We Do Twice as Many Vaccinations as We Thought? Data suggests significant protection even without a second shot. If studies prove that’s true, it could be a game changer.
The Next 3 Months Are Going to Be Pure Hell Lessons from Lewis and Clark on living through the darkest days and longest nights. ....... “the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation” ....... During the coronavirus pandemic, the number of adults exhibiting symptoms of depression has tripled, and alcohol consumption has risen. We are prisoners of our homes and our minds, Zoom-fatigued, desperate for social contact. As a nation, we are diminished and exhausted, and millions remain out of work. .............. Biden won the popular vote by 7 million, but came within 43,000 votes of losing the election because of the anti-democratic relic of the Electoral College. ............ more than 500,000 Americans likely will have died from Covid-19 by the end of March. ........... How to get through it? Hibernation ....... Looking inward, discovering the nuance and overlooked dimensions of things long neglected.
When a Family Is Fractured For most people, estrangements and family rifts are a source of chronic stress that threatens “mental, social and physical well-being.” .......... a relationship-severing dispute may reflect years of accumulated resentments that were never expressed or addressed. ......... family rifts were surprisingly pervasive and often result in long-lasting emotional and physical distress. ........... For most people, estrangements are a source of chronic stress that threatens “mental, social and physical well-being” ........... Unresolved rifts can precipitate chronic stress in one or both participants that undermines their emotional and physical health. The resulting anxiety or depression can worsen heart disease and diabetes, cause reproductive problems, undermine immunity and even shorten the person’s life ............. rifts can sometimes be health-saving for the person who precipitates them ............. “Estrangement can be a way to manage unsustainable tension and anxiety.” .......... Reconciliation is often not easy, but the folks Dr. Pillemer interviewed who achieved it said it was well worth the effort. ......... for a reconciliation to work, rehashing of past hurts and rebuttals had to cease and the relationship restored on a new footing that goes forward, not backward ............ “Going over the past was just not going to work for us; we learned how to move ahead together.”
It’s Time to Scare People About Covid Our public messaging about the virus should explain the real costs — in graphic terms — of catching the virus. ............ It’s time to make people scared and uncomfortable. It’s time for some sharp, focused terrifying realism. ......... I’m not talking fear-mongering, but showing in a straightforward and graphic way what can happen with the virus. ............. a soft-focus video of a person on a ventilator, featuring the sound of a breathing machine, but not a face. It exhorted people to wear a mask for their friends, moms and grandpas. ............. bodies naturally rebel against the machine forcing pressurized oxygen into the lungs, which is why patients are typically sedated. ............ Covid long hauler, the 5 percent to 10 percent of people for whom recovery takes months. ........... “One consistent research finding is that even when people see and understand risks, they underestimate the risks to themselves” .......... We hear from many who resist taking precautions. They say, “I know someone who had it and it’s not so bad.” Or, “It’s just like the flu.” ............... studies have shown that emotional ads featuring personal stories about the effects of smoking were the most effective at persuading folks to quit. And quitting smoking is much harder than social-distancing and mask-wearing.
When Culture Really Began to Reckon With White Privilege Black artists didn’t wait around for institutional change. They are making it happen. ............ “We see you. We have always seen you,” the letter read a few lines later. “We have watched you pretend not to see us.” ......... set out to expose how white gatekeepers and predominantly white-led cultural institutions systematically oppress artists and audiences of color that they claim to support. ........ They demanded that organizations, many of which have long congratulated themselves for their open-mindedness and liberalism, reckon with their own racist practices from inside out. .......... “The key to antiracism is sharing power,” Carden told The Times in August. “It takes a lot of work and a lot of humility, and it requires that white people step aside.” ............. Whiteness, like any other source of power and site of privilege, must be challenged and moved out of the way as our dominant gaze so we can all finally see each other and ourselves.
The Coronavirus Vaccines Were Developed in Record Speed. Now, the Hard Part. the most important factor in a given vaccine’s success is not necessarily how well that vaccine works. It’s everything else: how quickly and strategically the vaccine is distributed across the country, how well received it is and whether people continue to abide by other edicts, like mask wearing and physical distancing. .......... That’s especially bad news for the United States, which has invested billions of dollars into vaccine development, but very little into actually getting people vaccinated. ....... The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials has said that its members need at least $8.4 billion to develop and run successful coronavirus vaccination programs. So far, the federal government has allocated less than $400 million. ......... 100 million Americans could be immunized against the coronavirus in the next 100 days: 20 million in December, 30 million in January and 50 million February. ........ it will be crucial to wear face masks and practice physical distancing for a good while still ......... they have not yet been tested in children, pregnant women or nursing mothers
