The increase in government aid prompted by the coronavirus will cut poverty nearly in half this year from prepandemic levels. / The New York Times

Congressional Republicans want to move on from the 2020 presidential election, but Trump won't let his party shift gears. / Slate

Norman Lear is a century old and pissed as hell at racist Right-wingers. / The Washington Post

A sister of Congressman Gaetz's fiancée goes on TikTok to discuss his being a "literal pedophile." / Twitter

What it's like to be an essential worker and prom queen this season. "I was always team 'I'm not going to cry.'" / Vox

See also: Women drawn by Canadian-Korean artist Hanna Lee Joshi. / Colossal

At the Lake of the Ozarks, vaccines are shunned, masks are mocked, and long-term consequences take a back seat to partying. / Politico

Ezra Klein: What if the unvaccinated can't be persuaded? / The New York Times

A travel report from the Farallon Islands off San Francisco—a wildlife refuge, closed to the public, that's protected by volunteers. / The San Franciscan

A short documentary about activists who climbed into the canopy of a redwood forest and didn't come down for four years. / The Morning News

A new study suggests that only about a third of the carbon recycled beneath volcanic chains returns to the surface. / Phys.org

Yet another reason the Tokyo Olympics are dismal: they are (as predicted) the hottest, most humid Olympics ever recorded. / The Cut

A sociologist says female Black American Olympians have always carried "a triple cross." / NPR

Billionaire Elon Musk sells off his possessions and homes, preferring a prefabricated box house that he rents in Texas. / Fortune

Famous people respond to Gawker's return: "Keith McNally is unfamiliar with Gawker and will thus be passing." / Gawker

TikTok's algorithm needs only one piece of information to know what you want to see: the amount of time you spend watching videos. / Kottke

It's hard to write a positive hotel review when you're involved in rescuing someone from being eaten alive. (Here's the backstory.) / Trip Advisor, SFGate