Change Your Relationship With Food | | | | The worst part of dieting is getting started, but sticking with rigid meal plans and strict exercise schedules is almost as bad. Noom is different. Their psychology-based approach helps you make behavioral changes to understand your body and why you make the choices you do, so you can start making healthier ones. You’ll make long-lasting changes and achieve long-lasting results. Their program comes with daily psych-based lessons, guided coaching, and group accountability to help keep you on track as you make your way through your new healthy lifestyle – and it only takes 10 minutes a day. Noom cares about helping you reach your health goals, but they’ll make sure you aren’t miserable while you’re doing it. Join half a million regular people learning to push past plateaus and tame temptations without starving or stressing out, and get the behavior change tools to forgive, practice, and (finally) stick to plan. Learn More |
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IMPORTANT
| | | | | ‘Blizzard of the Century’ | Buffalo Digs Out After Storm Brings Piles of Snow and Travel Chaos At least 28 people have died in what’s being called New York’s worst storm in 50 years. President Joe Biden declared a federal emergency Monday night as snowplows struggled to clear as much as four feet of snow. Gov. Kathy Hochul said “scores and scores of vehicles” abandoned along roads were complicating that effort. Though conditions have improved slightly, Mayor Byron Brown urged residents to stay home, saying, “You will still get stuck out there.” Many travelers are also stuck as the storm wreaks havoc on air travel across the country. Southwest alone had canceled more than 2,870 flights by Monday night. (Sources: Buffalo News, NYT, NPR) |
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| | | Chilly Reception | Texas Gov: Migrants ‘Agreed’ to Go to VP’s House in Winter Storm Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration dismissed criticism of his latest migrant-busing stunt, saying the roughly 130 migrants shipped to Washington, D.C., Saturday night had agreed to go there. They were deposited outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in 18-degree weather, some dressed in shorts and T-shirts. “Governor Abbott abandoned children on the side of the road in below-freezing temperatures on Christmas Eve,” said a White House spokesman. But Abbott isn’t backing down on his criticisms of President Biden’s immigration policies. Earlier this week, he warned Biden that asylum-seekers in Texas were at risk of “freezing to death on city streets.” (Sources: NYT, WaPo) |
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| | | On Edge | Serbia Puts Army on High Alert Amid Tensions With Kosovo Defense Minister Milos Vucevic said Serbian forces are on the “highest level of combat readiness … to the level of the use of armed force.” Tensions between the neighboring countries, already high in recent months over protests and blockades, spiked on Sunday after shots were fired near NATO troops in northern Kosovo. Since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, Belgrade has refused to recognize the state and has stoked dissent among the 120,000 ethnic Serbs living there. Earlier this month, Kosovo officially applied for European Union membership, while Serbia has strengthened its ties to Russia during the invasion of Ukraine. (Sources: DW, The Guardian) |
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| | | Two Lies and ... Another Lie? | New York Congressman-Elect Admits He ‘Embellished’ His Résumé Republican Rep.-elect George Santos ended a weeklong silence Monday and confirmed some of the findings of a New York Times investigation into his background. “My sins here are embellishing my résumé,” Santos confessed, admitting he lied about graduating from college. “I didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning,” he said. “I’m embarrassed and sorry.” He also admitted he “never worked directly” for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, despite his previous claims. And he confessed that when he said his grandparents “fled Jewish persecution” during WWII he didn’t mean to imply that they were Jewish, clarifying, “I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’” (Sources: NYT, AP) |
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| | | Briefly | Here are some things you should know about today: Royal reception. A record 10.6 million viewers tuned in for King Charles’ first Christmas speech. The new monarch paid tribute to his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, and addressed the cost of living crisis gripping the U.K. (Source: The Guardian) Something new. Scientists have identified two new minerals never before seen on Earth from a 33,000-pound meteorite discovered in Somalia. (Source: CNN) Zero ‘zero-COVID.’ China has announced that beginning Jan. 8, 2023, overseas visitors will no longer need to quarantine upon arrival if they have a negative PCR test result. (Source: NYT) |
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INTRIGUING
| | | Tickled Pink | Endangered Pink Iguana Makes Comeback in Galápagos The Pacific Ocean archipelago off the coast of Ecuador is famously home to a range of rare creatures found nowhere else on Earth. Among them is the Galápagos pink land iguana, first discovered in 1986, which is found exclusively on the slopes of Isabela Island’s Wolf Volcano. Only 200-300 of these critically endangered pink beauties remain, but this year — for the first time since they were discovered — researchers have spotted hatchlings and juvenile populations. The new generation has “given us the first hope for saving this enigmatic species from extinction,” said Galápagos Conservancy President Paul Salaman. (Source: Popular Science) |
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| | | Alloy’s Well That Ends Well | Move Over, Graphene: There’s a New Toughest Material on Earth Researchers have proven that a metallic alloy of chromium, cobalt and nickel is over 100 times tougher than the famously sturdy graphene. Better yet, it gets even tougher at extremely low temperatures. Physicist Dong Liu and her team tested the alloy at temperatures as low as minus 424 degrees Fahrenheit and found it “mind-boggling” how strong it remained. That could make it ideal for space infrastructure — or for storing clean energy on Earth. “If you drive a car with a hydrogen vessel made from something very brittle, you’re essentially carrying a bomb around with you,” Liu said. “But not with this material.” (Source: LiveScience) |
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| | | Foreign Relations | South Korea Reverses Ban on Imported Sex Dolls While there wasn’t a specific law prohibiting the adult toys from being brought into the country, for years, customs officials had — perhaps overzealously — applied a law banning goods that “harm the country’s beautiful traditions and public moral.” As a result, thousands of sex toys have been confiscated at the border. But after reviewing recent court rulings and consulting with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the customs service officially began enforcing a new rule Monday that allows life-size adult dolls into the country. Officials estimate there are still at least 1,000 seized sex dolls in government storage. (Source: AP) |
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| | | | | Phone Phobia | Consultant Helps Millennials Overcome Fear of Talking on Phone Mary Jane Copps noticed 16 years ago that smartphone-savvy young workers were missing a vital business skill: actually talking on the phone. “In my generation, the phone was on the wall in everyone’s house, and we were taught to answer it and make calls at a young age,” she explains. “Now we have several generations that were never taught anything about talking on the phone.” Copps started a consultancy called The Phone Lady to help Gen Zers and millennials get comfortable with old-school tech. An hour of one-on-one coaching will set you back $480 and a full-day corporate workshop runs $3,500. (Source: Insider) |
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| | | Penalties | Iran Grounds Flight to Keep Soccer Star’s Family From Leaving Iranian soccer legend Ali Daei was waiting to meet his wife and daughter on Monday in Dubai for a family vacation. Instead, their flight from Tehran was diverted to Iran’s Kish Island in the Gulf and the pair were removed from the plane. Daei, a former captain of Iran’s national soccer team and one of the country’s biggest sports stars, has spoken out in support of ongoing antigovernment protests. Local media reported that a travel ban had been ordered against his wife, and the family’s jewelry store and restaurant were forced to shut earlier this month for “cooperation with antirevolutionary groups.” (Sources: Al Jazeera, BBC) |
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COMMUNITY
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