The NIH director says states with vaccination rates below 70% are at increased risk for future outbreaks. / CNN

See also: Charts and maps show how Covid cases are declining across the US. / BuzzFeed News

Say what you will—and many have—about the AstraZeneca vaccine, but it was instrumental in containing the outbreak in the UK. / NPR

Historians are concerned about the GOP's shift toward authoritarianism, noting that for a major party to so thoroughly discard the rules of American democracy was previously unthinkable. / VICE

Facebook will no longer allow politicians to post hate speech on its platform. Formerly, the company cited newsworthiness as a reason to keep the posts up. / The Washington Post

"It is a rejection of reality, a rejection of law, and, ultimately, a rejection of the entire system of American government." Maggie Haberman is right about Trump. / National Review

Trump's Justice Dept. seized the phone records of four New York Times reporters, in addition to the logs of CNN and Washington Post journalists. / The New York Times

This week, a federal judge's decision moved the Sackler family a step closer to immunity from opioid lawsuits. / NPR

Ethiopia invited former enemy Eritrea to police a shared threat in the Tigray—but Eritrean forces have brutally taken over. / Associated Press

Please consider joining us today as a Sustaining Member to help support the future of The Morning News. / TMN Membership

Inspired by flat-packed furniture, Carnegie Mellon scientists invent pasta that ships 2D and boils 3D. / Ars Technica

Video: Why do people always say Saturday Night Live used to be funnier? Based on watching one episode from every season, the answer is: because most of the '80s were bad. / The Morning News

After Obama killed irony, our fiction and politics are now either sentimental or gothic. / Bookforum

Today we learned: The CPR dummy's physiognomy is based on the death mask of a 19th-century Parisian teen who drowned in the Seine. / ScienceAlert

The greatest, dumbest web videos—aka "a Criterion Collection of completely stupid, but absolutely genius internet content." / Polygon

A graph of how the Art Institute of Chicago's collection has grown from 1879 to 2021. / Reddit

The colors Bob Ross used most frequently in his paintings, broken out by individual pieces and seasons. / Connor Rothschild

Drop a raindrop on a map of the contiguous US and travel along with it on its journey to the sea. / River Runner

Along the southwestern coast of Lake Michigan, a "pneumonia front" causes a temperature drop of as much as 40 degrees in minutes. / Atlas Obscura

The unique power of the letter "X." / The New York Times