One month before the Olympics, China puts a second city into total lockdown after just three asymptomatic Covid-19 cases were detected. / BBC News 

In Hong Kong, one of the few places still pursuing a zero-Covid policy, testing positive for Covid means lockdown for nearly a month, symptoms or not. / CNN

French President Macron says he wants to "piss off" people who don't get vaccinated against Covid. (Here's the original interview.) / Bloomberg, Le Parisien

The United States and European Union warned Sudan's military against naming its own prime minister. / Barron's

Yemen's seven-year war witnesses a fresh surge in violence. / France24

Interesting data and trends on political leader ideologies over time. / Bastian Harre

As more and more US counties have no source of local news, an assortment of "lost" local stories of interest. / The Washington Post

From March 2021, Los Algodones, Mexico, is the dental tourism capital of the world. / Hazlitt

Why do newer songs "sound the same" to older generations? The brain's ability to distinguish between different rhythms and melodies gets worse with age. / Screen Shot

See also: The best rap songs of 2021. / TMN

A round-up of the worst things people purchased last year. / Slate

A short essay on whether gigantism in design is "an admirable quest for new horizons... or irrational and wasteful overreach." / IEEE Spectrum

Female filmmakers lost ground in Hollywood in 2021; behind the scenes, three out of every four top filmmaking jobs goes to a man. / LAist

Novelist Emma Straub recounts what it's like to go from bookstore clerk to bookstore owner. / Lithub

Jami Attenberg: "Rejection gave me a fresh start, a new year." / The Guardian

The web game Wordle, rapidly gaining in popularity, turns out to be a former Reddits engineer's gift to his partner. Here's the actual game.  / The New York Times, Wordle