Fixing Social Media for Good

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The use of peer-to-peer social media networking that is highly decentralized might become the future, especially if censorship becomes a real problem on Twitter and Facebook.

Feds Order States to Expand Covid-19 Vaccine Targets as Deaths Surge – The New York Times

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Feds Order States to Expand Covid-19 Vaccine Targets as Deaths Surge – The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, racing a surging Covid-19 death toll, instructed states on Tuesday to immediately begin vaccinating every American 65 and older, as well as tens of millions of adults with medical conditions that put them at higher risk of dying from coronavirus infection.

The federal government will release all available doses of the vaccine instead of holding about half in reserve for second doses, Alex M. Azar II, the health secretary, said, adding that states should start allowing pharmacies and community health centers, which serve largely poor populations, to administer the shots.

The announcement came with a cudgel: States will lose their allocations, Mr. Azar said, if they do not use up doses quickly. And starting in two weeks, state vaccine allocations will be based on the size of a state’s population of people 65 and older, not on its general adult population. It was unclear, however, whether that would hold past Jan. 20, when President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes office.

“This next phase reflects the urgency of the situation we face,ȁ Mr. Azar said. “Every vaccine dose that is sitting in a warehouse rather than going into an arm could mean one more life lost or one more hospital bed occupied.ȁ

The U.S. Capitol Building Houses an Empty Crypt for George Washington | Mental Floss

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The U.S. Capitol Building Houses an Empty Crypt for George Washington | Mental Floss

The U.S. Capitol Crypt is home to 40 oric columns, a dozen statues, and no human remains. It’s also a lot less far off the beaten track than your regular run-of-the-mill underground vault—visitor tours of the Capitol building pass through it on a daily basis.

In fact, the Capitol Crypt wasn’t exactly intended as a crypt. According to Architect of the Capitol, the building’s first architect, r. William Thornton, called it a “Grand Vestibuleȁ on a blueprint from 1797. Nine years later, his successor dubbed it the “General Vestibule to all the Offices.ȁ But while the room was mainly meant to function as a thoroughfare, it was also supposed to be the final resting place of George Washington and his wife, Martha.

After Washington died in 1799, Congress decided it would be fitting to entomb him in the Capitol. Though Washington’s will expressed his wish to be interred at Mount Vernon, Martha considered it her “public dutyȁ to grant Congress permission to move him. Architects altered the Capitol building plans to make room for a tomb below the so-called “Grand Vestibule,ȁ which itself was below the Rotunda (the extravagant circular chamber beneath the Capitol dome). A statue of the first president would sit atop the tomb, and a 10-foot hole in the vestibule’s ceiling would allow people in the Rotunda to look down on it.