It is just over a week until Destiny 2’s Season of the Hunt comes to an end. This season is a bit different than past seasons as Bungie is now aiming to reduce “FOMO,” the Fear of Missing Out, by allowing a lot of seasonal stuff to carry over throughout the year. In this case, this includes things like Wrathborn Hunts, so no rush to farm those weapons, and storylines like the Crow/Hawkmoon quest, including the new secret quest, Harbinger, which is not going away.
And yet, some stuff is going away, and I wanted to make a short post detailing what exactly you should be remembering to do before the season ends on February 9.
1. Turn In Crucible Tokens
Bungie has made this very clear with both in-game and out of game announcements. Crucible tokens are going away, and you’ll need to turn them all in at Shaxx, whether you have 200 or 20,000, before the season ends, lest you lose them and all the gear/materials they could turn into. It’s not a terribly fun process, but it’s just a flat waste if you don’t do it for the shards, cores and the occasional good roll (very, very occasional). Gambit is changing to the same system as Crucible, but that mode never had tokens in the first place. The Vanguard will turn into this system eventually, but not this upcoming season, so no, you don’t have to turn in your Vanguard tokens now. Nor Weapon Parts at Banshee, as I’ve heard some people ask.
Destiny 2
Bungie
2. Claim High Stat Season Pass Armor
If you’ve paid for the season, don’t forget to claim your 60+ stat set of Wild Hunt armor that is between levels 37 and 57 on the pass, which I will assume you have reached by this point. I usually forget about it until the last minute since I’m already using armor from past seasons, but it’s always a solid set that will have the highest current sunset cap, so you don’t want to miss it. There are two other, lower stat sets you can get for either materials, or they will be at-level drops if you need to gap fill for a power upgrade.
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Destiny 2
Bungie
3. Spend All The Vaulted Destination Materials You Can
I think people forgot about this, but according to Bungie, this is the last season where stuff will be for sale for vaulted destination materials. As such, you should be heading to Spider or Banshee to buy whatever you can for materials from Titan, Io, Mercury or Mars, as they’re about to become useless. As you can see, I have not done a perfect job of this above, but I’ve tried to be conscious of it this season. It’s RNG for what you can buy on any given day so you may be physically unable to do this in time, but it’s worth giving it a shot.
Destiny 2
Bungie
4. Buy Drifter’s God Roll Rocket Launcher
Sure, he may have it next season, but you never know. With the Rocket Launcher buff, a 1360 power cap Bad Omens with tracking and cluster bombs could prove useful, and it’s something you can pick up without needing to wade through layers of RNG farming.
Destiny 2
Bungie
5. Turn In All Completed Weekly Bounties
If you’re like me, you probably save some amount of bounties to get some early, easy levels when the next season starts, but this time around, with Weekly Bounties going away next season, you can’t save them. Bungie has warned players to turn them in before the season ends or you will lose any rewards from them. No point holding them this time around.
Those are the main things I can think of for now. If anything else comes to mind I’ll add it in later.
The Miami Dolphins have been linked to Deshaun Watson for the better part of two weeks or more. After the trade last night of Matt Stafford to the Rams, the Dolphins should absolutely forget about trying to deal for Watson.
The Lions are receiving Jared Goff, a third-round pick, and two first-round picks for Matt Stafford. Stafford. Matt Stafford. A 32-year-old former first overall draft pick that has a lot of talent but is getting up there. On the other hand, Deshaun Watson is a 25-year-old top-five quarterback and the Texans have to be looking at the Stafford deal as a base only.
Nick Caserio, the Texans G.M. said they have no interest in trading Watson but after the bevy of picks and the player that Detroit got in their deal, he will have an interest.
If Stafford net the Lions this much what would Watson net the Texans? At a minimum, we are now taking Miami’s 3rd, 18th, and 2nd as well as their first next year and the year after that. Throw in Tua Tagovailoa for good measure.
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What I’m trying to say is that Watson just became very expensive and the Dolphins should seriously consider not making that deal. This would be a massive blockbuster trade that could rival the Hershel Walker trade made by the Cowboys in 1989.
In that draft, 18 players and draft picks combined were moved around and the Cowboys ended up with first and second picks in 1990, first and second picks in 1991, and first, second, and third-round picks in 1992. They also got a 6th-round pick as well.
The point is, it was expensive. A trade for Watson may not come that close but consider Miami received two 1’s and two 2’s for Laremy Tunsil and Kenny Stills.
Expensive? Watson is going to be just that. So much so that Miami seriously needs to stay out of this hunt.
One argument being made on social media is the fact that the Lions are taking on Goff’s incredibly high contract. The belief is that the Lions are getting more because of the contract they are taking on. If that is the case, could a trade for Watson, that has Miami absorbing his contract be less?
Tech giants and their AI-powered digital platforms and solutions can affect the destinies of world leaders, nation states, multinational corporations, global stock market, and individuals alike.
The creators of major digital platforms as well as the designers and developers of ubiquitous AI systems treat individuals as mere users, customers, or data points, oftentimes completely ignoring the individual’s role and rights as a citizen.
As a result, the individual users and customers are removed from the societal context with appalling consequences. The individual can unconsciously become a misinformation-spreading user. A misinformed customer can turn into a violent insurgent. Or she can be treated unfairly by a biased AI system while applying for a job or updating her insurance policy.
Why citizen experience design?
Now, as the societal impact of AI solutions is becoming obvious, their effects, as well as their design and development principles need to be considered from the point of view of citizens and society.
Already today, we’re seeing amazing work done in uncovering the effects of biased AI systems and their impact on various fields from healthcare to scientific research and from criminal justice to financial services. Simultaneously, we’ve been witnessing positive developments around data rights and practices.
But the regulation of tech companies, such as GDPR or data governance initiatives, isn’t enough. Similarly, the emerging field of algorithmic auditing doesn’t yet have sufficient means to directly affect AI development and its practices. Neither are the current AI ethics boards changing the course of AI development on a larger scale fast enough.
The most effective and sustainable impact on the field of AI will only be achieved by ensuring that the design and development of AI solutions is concretely guided by citizen-centric values and principles.
Previously, “citizen experience” has been seen as belonging solely to the field of public service. But no more. Today, we need a thoughtful citizen-centric approach that belongs to the general toolbox of every AI designer and developer.
Concretely, we need AI companies, data scientists, and designers that think and act citizen-first. We need citizen experience experts that bring the societal understanding into the core of product thinking, design, and development.
How to start thinking about citizen experience design for AI
So how can we create a basis for sustainable practice of citizen experience design that truly aims to create AI solutions that take into account the individual as a citizen, belonging to a wider fabric of society?
First, citizen experience design needs to be a multidisciplinary effort, bringing together social sciences, data science, and design. Data literacy and algorithm literacy are required for citizen experience design, i.e. concretely understanding the pros and cons of different data, and being able to assess the applications as well as potential effects of different algorithms. And this literacy can only be achieved by multidisciplinary approach.
Second, citizen experience design should help designers and developers to think of individuals as user-citizens and consumer-citizens. Citizen experience design should provide concrete tools for considering individuals as real people living in a real world, thus allowing a company to assess its product decisions in a wider societal context. Such tools would enable deeper user experience and customer experience design and data science practices.
Third, citizen experience design should affect all the elements of product design and development, from use cases and goal setting to applied metrics and user interface design, and from data pipelines and selection of AI technologies to user research and analytics.
And fourth, the principles of citizen experience design must be created together with citizens. The co-creative practice will surface new insights that bring the citizen concretely into the center of things as an active force.
The founding principles of citizen experience design
It all starts with this: AI practitioners acknowledge the individual’s status as a full-fledged citizen and treat and respect her accordingly. AI solutions are never considered in the vacuum of a single product or platform.
Here are some concrete suggestions for further iteration:
AI systems should be designed and developed to guard the rights of the citizen. Algorithms are created in a responsible and transparent way. The AI system doesn’t treat citizens unfairly or endanger their immunity or integrity based on who they are.
A citizen’s data is handled and processed safely and responsibly. Personal data is not collected unnecessarily or used without explicit consent. Likewise, the citizen has to be made aware when she is interacting with, or being affected by, an AI system. An AI system should never try to fool or manipulate the citizen, for example by presenting itself as a human being or by optimizing a recommendation system for unhealthy addictive behavior.
When the citizen perspective is taken into account from the start, personal control of data must be thought of as a fundamental feature of any digital product. As the citizen’s rights to privacy are at the center of things, unnecessary AI-powered surveillance systems are out of the question.
AI systems should not promote behavior that violates any existing laws or the rights of other citizens. AI systems must respect the existing legislation and good manners. In short, AI designers and developers, or their AI solutions, do not decide independently what’s good, fair, or acceptable or what is lawful.
Citizen experience design empowers practitioners to proactively consider their solutions in the societal context through continuous dialogue with experts from different fields. AI solutions — recognized as socio-technological systems that are seamlessly intertwined with society — are continuously monitored, assessed, audited and iterated to mitigate potential problems or conflicts of interest early on.
AI systems should allow people to educate themselves about the use and effects of AI. When individuals are treated as full-fledged citizens, they also have to be held accountable for their use of AI solutions. For this, new citizenship skills are needed, including adequate data literacy, algorithmic literacy and digital media literacy. This requires effort both from citizens and AI practitioners. For example, the citizen could observe her data trails or exposure to algorithmic systems in an accessible manner.
Such educational transparency helps people to understand the motives and incentives of AI systems and their creators, building trust between citizens and AI developers. A citizen-centric and societally aware design informs citizens and empowers behavior and safety mechanisms that, for example, make harmful information operations easier to detect, mitigate, and even prevent.
A founding principle
Ideally, citizen experience design for AI should be a founding principle that concretely guides the design and development of AI solutions, not something that is used to assess or iterate the system retrospectively.
When looking at the big picture, it’s clear that citizen experience design will create new opportunities for AI innovations because the existing products as well as future solutions can’t ignore the individual’s multifaceted role as a citizen.
The core principles of citizen experience design must be created and iterated together. Let’s start today.
Jarno M. Koponen is Head of AI and Personalization at Finnish media house Yle. He creates smart human-centered products and personalized experiences by combining UX design and AI.
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In one week, shares of GameStop have gone from $35 to $350 as Reddit users bid up its stock price in an effort to crush hedge funds that were short the stock. A similar theme has persisted in other companies with high short interest like AMC Entertainment Holdings -- spiking volatility and disrupting investor confidence. This effect, paired with the Federal Reserve's updated January policy statement, led to the biggest decline in the S&P 500 in three months.
Long-term investors are better off ignoring the noise and focusing on fundamentally strong companies. We asked some of our contributors which red-hot dividend stocks they think are good buys right now. They came up with Raytheon Technologies(NYSE:RTX), Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure(NASDAQ:AY), and United Parcel Service(NYSE:UPS).
Image source: Getty Images.
Learning to fly
Lee Samaha(Raytheon Technologies): It's no secret that the commercial aviation market faces a multi-year recovery and there's no definite flight path laid out as of yet. That said, it shouldn't deter you from investing in the industry, and specifically in Raytheon Technologies.
While the exact timing of a recovery in passenger traffic and flights is subject to change, few people will argue that it won't happen over time. Raytheon's management believes it won't be until 2023 that commercial traffic returns to 2019 levels. That's a concern for a company that manufactures aircraft engines, commercial aerospace original equipment, and aftermarket components and structures.
However, before you give up on the stock, consider that Raytheon also has a substantive defense business. In addition, management just forecast it would generate bundles of free cash flow, which will easily cover its dividend (current yield 2.9%) and also allow for share buybacks.
In fact, the two defense-focused businesses, Raytheon Intelligence and Space and Raytheon Missiles and Defense, contributed 48% of sales and 83% of adjusted segment profit in the recent fourth quarter. This defense revenue will provide valuable earnings and free cash flow support as the commercial aerospace market comes back.
Meanwhile, management's guidance is for $4.5 billion in free cash flow in 2021, a figure which easily covers the $3 billion needed for the dividend. Moreover, CEO Greg Hayes plans to use the remaining $1.5 billion for share buybacks. All told, Raytheon's dividend is very well covered and with a multi-year recovery in aviation in progress investors can look forward to dividend increases down the line.
Strong cash flow powers this clean energy dividend
Scott Levine (Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure): While Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure (Atlantica Yield) is hardly the desire of Reddit investors, the stock has powered considerably higher of late. Outperforming the market over the past three months, shares of Atlantica Yield have soared 29% while the S&P 500 has risen about 10%. With the election of President Joe Biden -- a renewable energy advocate -- in November, it's unsurprising that investors have given the green light to this green energy stock. But it's not only investors keen on clean energy that are likely attracted to Atlantica Yield. Offering investors a 3.9% yield, Atlantica Yield's stock is surely attracting the attention of dividend-hungry investors as well.
Savvy investors know that chasing high-yield dividend stocks is hardly a wise strategy. It's not uncommon for investors lured in by an attractive distribution to be quickly dismayed to find that the company's finances can't sustain the high payout. But Atlantica Yield's business model should comfort skeptical investors. As a yieldco, Atlantica Yield enters into long-term power purchase agreements -- relating to natural gas and water assets as well as solar and wind power projects -- that generate strong, consistent cash flows, so it has good foresight into its future finances. For example, over the past 12 months, Atlantica Yield generated $345 million in free cash flow, representing about 35% of its revenue. And that's far from an outlier in terms of the company's recent performance. Over the past three years, Atlantica has generated annual free cash flow that represents 37.5% of its sales, according to Morningstar. And that's to say nothing of the money the company has returned to investors by way of the dividend.
President Biden's immediate rejoining of the Paris Agreement is hardly the only signal that he's committed to renewable energy. He recently expressed interest in converting the federal government's fleet of vehicles to electric vehicles, and -- to the chagrin of the oil industry -- he announced a moratorium on new oil and gas drilling on federal land. These actions, in conjunction with the extension of solar and wind power tax credits included in the recent stimulus bill -- suggest that renewable energy stocks like Atlantica Yield are poised to prosper.
An e-commerce play that's just getting started
Daniel Foelber (UPS): Shares of UPS had a hot 2020, producing a total return of around 50%. And for good reason. It recorded a record rise in U.S. average daily package volume in the second quarter. It then followed up that performance by posting stellar third-quarter results as revenue and earnings per share (EPS) grew double digits year over year. Like other package delivery stocks, UPS is benefiting from increased consumer spending, especially from e-commerce. However, the company isn't just riding a short-term tailwind. It has made key investments in its e-commerce, healthcare, and automotive segments because it believes there will be growing demand for these services for years to come.
In addition to expanding its domestic presence, UPS CEO Carol Tome noted that the company's third-quarter international and supply chain and freight revenue "was the highest quarterly growth we've seen in nearly three years." However, supply chain and freight has been the company's weakest segment as operating profit and margins have been strained. Unsurprisingly, the company announced on Monday its decision to sell UPS Freight for $800 million. The sale will help UPS focus on growing its U.S. domestic and international presence.
UPS' strong revenue and profit growth support its stable dividend. The company has consistently grown its dividend since 2001 and now pays a $1.01 per share quarterly dividend -- a yield of 2.5%. That's above the S&P 500's average yield of 1.55%. Given the strength of its underlying business, UPS is well positioned to grow its dividend further.
The day after the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January, Facebook suspended Donald Trump’s account indefinitely. Two things about this decision are interesting. The first is that, as Will Oremus pointed out in a perceptive post, the decision was “an overnight reversal of the policy on Trump and other political leaders that the social network has spent the past four years honing, justifying and defending. The unprecedented move, which lacks a clear basis in any of Facebook’s previously stated policies, highlights for the millionth time that the dominant platforms are quite literally making up the rules of online speech as they go along.”
In this context, Facebook’s contorted decision-making about Trump throughout his presidency has been beyond parody. “The only thing that has been consistent, until now,” observes Oremus, “is Facebook’s determination to contort, hair-split and reimagine its rules to make sure nothing Trump posted would fall too far outside them.” In the end, it took the president inciting his followers to sack the Capitol to convince Zuckerberg and co that “the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government”.
The second interesting thing about the decision is that, after the predictable outrage at the decision from Trump supporters, Facebook then kicked the question of whether the ban should be permanent into the long grass, which in this case is its self-appointed “oversight board”.
This board (originally talked about within Facebook as a “supreme court”) is both a manifestation of preposterous hubris on the part of what is, after all, merely a commercial company and a cunning stunt by said company to avoid taking corporate responsibility for difficult decisions. It consists of up to 40 bigwigs, allegedly carefully chosen (“six in-depth workshops and 22 round tables, attended by more than 650 people from 88 different countries”) but who look awfully like the kind of longlist that might be produced by a high-end corporate headhunter. It includes, for example, a former prime minister of Denmark, nine professors, one vice-chancellor and a former editor of the Guardian. Such eminent worthies, of course, cannot be expected to work for nothing, so, according to theNew York Times, they receive at least $100,000 (£73,000) a year for a commitment of 15 hours a week.
Inspection of linguistic clues on the board’s website does not inspire confidence in its supposed collective IQ or independence. It is, it says, all about “ensuring respect for free expression, through independent judgment”. And, as regards its founder (and funder), it observes: “As its community grew to more than 2 billion people, it became increasingly clear to the Facebook company that it shouldn’t be making so many decisions about speech and online safety on its own.”
This looks awfully like Facebook PR-speak. Its claim that the board’s role concerns free speech is baloney. It’s about what people are allowed to say in a private shopping mall owned by a global corporation. Banning Trump from Facebook is not constraining his right to free expression. There is nothing stopping the former president from starting his own website or his own social network, come to that. The decision is about whether Trump should again have access to Facebook’s algorithmically curated public-address system. What most people in this controversy seem to forget is that, as Renée DiResta observed in a memorable article, “free speech is not the same as free reach”.
Then there’s the telltale burbling about Facebook’s “community”. This is a favourite theme of Mark Zuckerberg’s, embarrassingly outlined in 2017 in a vapid 5,000-word blogpost entitled Building Global Community. Facebook’s nameless hordes may be many things, but they are not a “community” in any meaningful sense of the term and it’s not exactly reassuring to find members of its notional supreme court spouting the same nonsense.
But the bottom line is that this is actually not about Trump at all: it’s about untrammelled monopoly power, specifically Facebook’s monopoly control of the virtual railway line that ferries ideas and information into people’s heads. In that sense, the company’s algorithmic curation of people’s news feeds (and the advertisements they are shown) has become part of the infrastructure of our public sphere, as two Harvard scholars, John Simons and Dipayan Ghosh argued in an interesting paper titled Utilities for Democracy last year, and it needs to be regulated accordingly. Arguing about whether Trump should be allowed back is like arguing about which kinds of freight can run on a railway, when the real question is: who owns the track? Sooner or later, that’s the question we will have to address and the Facebook “oversight” board should have no jurisdiction there. That’s for real democratic institutions, backed by legal muscle, to decide.
What I’ve been reading
Adding up grief
Boris Johnson says one cannot compute the sorrow of 100,000 deaths. In a remarkable post on the Covid2020diary blog, the social historian David Vincent begs to differ.
Snap judgment
There’s a reflective essay on investor and photographer Om Malik’s blog about why the iPhone is today’s Kodak Brownie camera.
Club gossip
There’s a fine piece by Seth Thévoz on the openDemocracy site about the secret history of Trump’s Florida retreat, Mar-a-Lago.
January 31, 2021 at 04:14AM
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/30/forget-the-furore-over-trump-facebook-is-interested-only-in-maintaining-its-monopoly
Forget the furore over Trump - Facebook is interested only in maintaining its monopoly - The Guardian
If you're feeling the pain of missing out on GameStop stock's incredible rise, don't fixate on it. There are plenty of great investment opportunities out there, and you don't have to expose yourself to the risk that comes with chasing short-squeeze mania that will likely wind up being a short-lived game.
With that in mind, we asked three Motley Fool contributors to highlight a company that has the potential to deliver stellar returns. Read on to see why they identified Glu Mobile(NASDAQ:GLUU), Match Group(NASDAQ:MTCH), and Applied Materials(NASDAQ:AMAT) as stocks that are poised to crush the market.
Image source: Getty Images.
This small-cap stock could be a huge winner
Keith Noonan (Glu Mobile): If you're looking for exposure to the video game industry, or just stocks that have the potential to deliver tremendous performance, Glu Mobile stands out as one of my top picks. The publisher has a market capitalization of roughly $1.6 billion and trades at about 17.5 times this year's expected earnings and 2.6 times expected sales. It looks very cheaply valued in this range, and even moderate future success could be enough to send the stock significantly higher.
Glu has a collection of video game franchises that are primarily aimed at casual video game players. These properties include lifestyle genre entries such as Design Home and Covet Fashion, licensed celebrity game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, and sports franchise MLB Tap Sports Baseball. While these games are all free to play, Glu makes money by getting players to spend on in-game items and currencies. The game maker also prolongs the life of its titles with regular content updates.
Management expects that simply releasing content updates for its current lineup of games will be enough to drive bookings between 8% and 10% higher this year. That outlook suggests the company is seeing impressive longevity for its core franchises, and Glu also plans to launch four new intellectual properties this year. If even one of these new games goes on to be a hit, expect Glu's valuation to soar.
Even better, a relatively sturdy core lineup and the potential for robust performance from upcoming games aren't the only reasons to like Glu. The company has a strong cash position, and it's looking at acquisitions targets that can accelerate its growth. It's also ahead of the curve with its push to integrate world e-commerce stores into video games. Glu is far from the flashiest name in the gaming industry, but it has multiple avenues to big wins, and the stock continues to be cheaply valued.
The love connection
Joe Tenebruso(Match Group): People are social creatures, and the coronavirus pandemic has kept us apart for far too long. Fortunately, thanks to promising vaccines from the likes of Moderna, Pfizer, and perhaps Johnson & Johnson, we could soon be nearing the end of the COVID-19 crisis.
All of this bodes well for Match Group. The leading provider of dating apps is likely to see renewed demand for its wide array of relationship-building products, which are available in 40 languages in countries across the globe. Its crown jewel is Tinder, the most downloaded and top-grossing dating app in the world.
Already more than 10 million people subscribe to Match Group's products. This figure has climbed steadily in recent years, fueled by Tinder's torrid growth, and it's likely to rise even higher as the health crisis subsides.
Moreover, Match Group's subscription-based recurring revenue and robust cash flow production place the company on solid financial footing, thereby reducing the risks for investors. Over the first three quarters of 2020, Match Group's revenue rose nearly 16% to $1.7 billion. Its operating and free cash flow, meanwhile, increased 11% to $519 million and $486 million, respectively.
Management expects the company's growth to accelerate in the coming quarters, with revenue rising as much as 19% to $650 million in the fourth quarter. This love-filled growth story appears set to enjoy a post-pandemic boom, which makes now a great time to pick up some shares.
Applied Materials is firing on all cylinders
Jamal Carnette(Applied Materials): Instead of a failing video game retailer, how about you invest in a company helping to move the world into the next generation of technology? The Internet of Things, 5G connectivity, and artificial intelligence all need chips, and Applied Materials provides the critical support and equipment chipmakers need to keep cranking out silicon. Shares might not be up triple digits in 2021 like many of these fad names, but a one-year return of 70% is nothing to scoff at.
Applied Materials shares have continued to rally since the company reported a top- and bottom-line beat for the fourth quarter. The company's larger and more-profitable semiconductor systems division (66% of total sales) increased net sales by 33% year over year, pushing up its heavily watched gross margin to 1.9 percentage points and free cash flow up 58% over the prior year.
Look for Applied to continue outperforming in 2021 as management has been bullish on a host of fronts. First, the company guided for first-quarter revenue at $4.95 billion at the midpoint, significantly higher than consensus estimates. It's possible this is even too light as the fourth quarter was impacted by a government-imposed licensing requirement to a China foundry customer that appears to be on its way to being ironed out. Finally, the company's backlog has set a year-end record, pointing to a significant supply of business in 2021. If you look beyond the fad stocks and focus on the future, you'll see Applied Materials has a runway for growth in 2021 and beyond.
When it comes to bolstering the immune system, “a lot of people just want a quick fix or magic pill,” says Cristina Porch-Curren, an allergist and immunologist in private practice in Ventura County, Calif. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing, she says. If that’s disappointing, there’s still some good news: the most scientifically sound approaches to keeping your immune system healthy are healthy habits that don’t require you to buy pills or eat strange foods.
One of the most effective ways to improve your immune system's health is by reducing stress. Researchers have known for a long time that stress can hamper the immune system, Porch-Curren says.
For instance, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine back in 1991 found that when researchers gave volunteers nasal drops containing common respiratory viruses, participants who reported higher levels of psychological stress were more likely to become infected and develop symptoms of the common cold compared with people who had lower stress levels. The more stressed the volunteers were, the greater their chances of becoming sick.
More recently, a 2004 review summarizing 30 years of research and more than 300 studies on stress and immunity concluded that chronic stress can cause measurable suppression of the immune system. It said that even short-term stressors, such as academic exams, can impair the body’s immune response.
You probably cannot eliminate stress from your life in this time of uncertainty, but anything you can do to manage or reduce it will be helpful, Porch-Curren says.
The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration offers tips for managing distress during a pandemic that includes building social connections, managing negative thoughts, maintaining a sense of humor, getting outside, and finding ways to relax, such as listening to music or meditation.
Meditation is a well-known approach to managing stress, and it comes with another benefit — it may also help you sleep better. A randomized, controlled trial published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2015 found that meditation could produce “robust improvements in sleep among older adults,” says the study’s senior author, Michael Irwin, a psychiatrist at the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine where he directs the Mindful Awareness Research Center.
Sleep is crucial to maintaining a robust immune system.
“We know that sleep problems, especially difficulties maintaining sleep, make you more susceptible to viral infections,” Irwin says. His research has shown that even modest amounts of sleep loss can increase the production of signaling molecules that promote inflammation and make someone more prone to illness. “Even one night of disturbed sleep can have an impact,” he says.
One phenomenon Irwin has been tracking is how health-care workers often experience particularly serious outcomes from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. (A report published by the National Nurses United in September estimated that more than 1,700 health-care workers in the United States have died of covid-19.) Although some of this is probably a result of them being exposed to high doses of covid-19 in their work, Irwin also suspects that lack of sleep may play a role.
“We know that many of them are experiencing huge sleep debts because of scheduling and the long hours and night shifts they’re working,” he says.
To keep your immune system healthy, it’s important to maintain a regular sleep schedule, Irwin says. “That means going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time every day.” Go easy on the alcohol, which can interfere with sleep, especially the deep sleep that Irwin calls especially critical for your body’s antiviral immune response.
Exercise can also improve your sleep — according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, even small amounts of physical activity can help you sleep better. But it comes with a huge added bonus: It helps your immune system become better prepared to fight off viral attacks, too, researchers have found.
Regular physical activity at moderate intensity — enough so that you’re breathing a little harder and your heart is pumping a little faster — improves the immune system’s surveillance against pathogens and reduces the chances of getting sick or dying from viral infection and respiratory illnesses, including the common cold, pneumonia and influenza, says David Nieman, an exercise physiologist at Appalachian State University. Thus, it may reduce your chances of getting sick at all. Nieman has conducted numerous studies on exercise and the immune system. Last year, he published a review of research over the past century regarding the relationship between exercise and the body’s immune defense system, which concluded that there’s “a clear inverse relationship between moderate exercise training and illness risk” and “habitual exercise improves immune regulation.”
Experiments have shown that exercise stimulates the recruitment of the immune system’s best fighter cells, Nieman says. “What exercise does is it signals the best fighters to come out and patrol the body at a higher rate than normal.”
It doesn’t take much to get these effects. Something as simple as a 30 to 45 minute brisk walk is enough to activate this immune response, which studies show begins during exercise and lasts several hours afterward, Nieman says. If you exercise day after day, “It’s like the military patrolling the countryside. You’re going to keep the enemy controlled a lot better as time goes on than if you haven’t done this patrolling.”
Nieman’s review concluded that exercise is associated with a 40 to 45 percent reduction in the number of sick days people experience from acute respiratory infections. The research done so far has found this effect for the common cold, influenza and pneumonia, but Nieman thinks that “it’s only a matter of time before we find that the coronavirus also responds in a similar fashion.”
If you’ve noticed that the list so far of scientifically confirmed approaches to maintaining immune system function essentially amounts to a set of common tips for improving one’s overall health, you can probably guess the final component that experts point to: nutrition. The Internet is littered with lists of “superfoods” that supposedly bolster the immune system, but Rene Leon, a clinical immunologist at Texas Regional Allergy and Asthma Center, says he doesn’t advise his patients to eat superfoods for their immune systems — in fact, “absolutely not.” If there was a food or subset of foods that would help patients improve their immune response, immunologists would be the first to say so, he says. “But we don’t, because I don’t think there’s any hard science to prove that.”
Nutrition is definitely important to staying healthy, but “you can’t just say, ‘I’m going to eat blueberries,’ because they’re full of antioxidants,” Porch-Curren says. Single foods aren’t the key to bolster immunity. Instead, it’s the totality of your diet that matters. If you’re trying to maintain a healthy immune system, the best approach is to eat a well-balanced diet with an emphasis on whole foods rather than processed ones, she says.
Despite the heavy marketing, there’s no vitamin or nutritional supplement that can magically bolster your immune system, experts say. Leon regularly works with patients who have suppressed immune systems because of diseases and genetic conditions. He says that if an easy immune booster really existed, he would jump at the chance to point his patients to it.
“There are a lot of bogus claims out there,” Leon says. Pay attention to the fine print, he says. “If there’s a disclaimer on there that says that [the product] doesn’t treat or cure any disease, then the proof is in the pudding.”
“I have patients who come in with a box of supplements and so many different bottles,” Porch-Curren says, but “none of them” have cured their immune deficiencies with any of these products.
When these things seem to work, it’s usually because of a placebo effect, and that might make it seem like there’s no harm in trying them. But diet, weight loss and sex supplements are tainted with unapproved drugs. In a single month of 2015 alone, for instance, the Food and Drug Administration issued warning letters to 14 companies selling supplements tainted with an illegal drug. And even seemingly harmless ingredients can cause health issues — such as liver toxicity reported by one doctor writing in The Washington Post.
It’s human nature to look for a quick fix, but there’s no single thing you can do to fortify your immune system, Porch-Curren says. The best way to bolster your immune system against covid-19 is with one of the vaccines now being rolled out across the United States.
Beyond that, the best approach to fortifying your immune system is to aim for an overall healthy lifestyle, Porch-Curren says.
“If you exercise more, you’ll sleep better. If you sleep better, your immune system is more functional,” she says. Add on to that a diet that’s rich in vitamins and whole foods, and you will be on your way to a more resilient immune system.
January 30, 2021 at 10:00PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/boosting-your-immune-system/2021/01/29/256fd52c-3fc4-11eb-8db8-395dedaaa036_story.html
To boost immunity, forget ‘magic pills.’ Focus on sleep, exercise, diet and cutting stress. - Washington Post
It’s been more than 18 months since you left us. For some reason, despite knowing that there is a “volcano of emotion” about to erupt, words are difficult this time. It is unclear if you ever received my previous correspondence to Heaven, but I hope that my wit, sarcasm, warmth, and candor have you smiling. Even though I have seen the “Blue Angel” at a variety of locations on Earth — including a new, 53-foot mural of you in downtown Indianapolis, I wish I could have more confirmation that you and Doda (aunt) Miriam are doing well.
Since you left us 18 months ago, I think about you every day. My thoughts vacillate between the good times and the bad. From the day I was born to that terrible morning of July 4, 2019 (when you passed away in our hotel room in Krakow), you were always by my side. I will never forget. I will never forget when you volunteered to be a Babe Ruth baseball coach (so I would be selected to be on a team) even though you had zero knowledge of the game of baseball. I will never forget what you told me when I wanted to quit my high school tennis team. You said “Keep trying! You will succeed!” I will never forget how you motivated me when I was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 26. “Your father is a survivor. I am a survivor. You will be a survivor.” I will never forget how proud I was when I heard you lecture at Fall Creek Valley Middle School in the early 1990s. I will never forget when you told me that you were going to forgive Dr. Munch. I will never forget when CANDLES Holocaust Museum was fire-bombed and that you were determined to rebuild. I will never forget when you and I had to sneak into the Gene Siskel Theater in Chicago when the usher told us that “Forgiving Dr. Mengele” was sold out and would not allow us entry. I will never forget the Clowes Hall premiere of “Eva: A-7063.” I will never forget how you made children laugh and adults cry. I will never forget how much I love you. I will never forget how you made me smile.
On Sunday, you would have been 87 years old. In thinking about Jan. 31, I recall all of the birthday gifts that I sent to you. Whether it was flowers (that you told me that you really did not like), candy (that you did like), or a simple birthday card. I always tried to celebrate your birthday.
But 25 years ago, I somehow got busy with my life and forgot to send you a gift. Mom, I recall as if it were yesterday when you said, “I do not care what you get me, but you should always remember my birthday and that of your dad and sister.” And for the last 25 years, I never forgot this special day. Even now, I will never forget. And moving forward, I will never forget.
Speaking of remembrance and the importance of never forgetting, Mom, you and your messages are needed here on Earth more than ever. Since you left us, our country and the world, at large, needs to better understand how to heal, forgive, and respect our fellow man and woman, and to be inclusive. Your life lessons that you indoctrinated in me and thousands of others will not be wasted. Like so many of your friends and admirers around the world, I am determined to continue your work. Your seeds of kindness will eventually germinate into a better world.
Lastly, as you and Doda Miriam celebrate your 87th birthday with chicken nuggets and Mountain Dew, I am sitting next to Dad watching basketball while he drinks his Coca-Cola. His health has been a concern, but he is stable, and he also sends his love.
Recently, we have had a lot of serious talks about life, death, basketball, family, etc. but he tells me that he is not yet ready to join you and Doda Miriam. Rather, he wants to wait until Purdue wins a national championship in football or basketball.
With everlasting love, Happy Birthday,
Alex Kor's mother, Eva Kor of Terre Haute, was a Holocaust survivor who inspired millions with her messages of forgiveness, tolerance, kindness and justice. Alex is a physician practicing in Zionsville.
January 30, 2021 at 05:00PM
https://www.tribstar.com/opinion/flashpoint/flashpoint-letter-to-heaven-i-will-never-forget/article_1554f8aa-6271-11eb-81dd-3bd8c4cbedb4.html
Flashpoint: Letter to Heaven: 'I will never forget!' - Terre Haute Tribune Star
One day this will all be over. That’s hard to believe now, when even this month seems interminable, the January that refused to end. But one day, not soon perhaps, we will speak of the pandemic in the past tense. When that time comes, how will we remember the plague that visited death upon us?
So far, the act of remembering has been deferred or even forbidden. Second only to the deaths themselves, perhaps the greatest pain the coronavirus has inflicted has been its denial of the right to say goodbye. Quarantine rules have kept people from the bedsides of loved ones in their final hours, their parting words exchanged by phone or left unsaid. I’m still haunted by the story of an early victim of the virus, a 13-year-old boy whose family had to stay away from their child’s funeral. For many, that most intimate of rituals has come via a livestream: better than nothing, but remote in every sense. Even those able to bury their dead in person have had to keep their distance from one another, denied the consolation of touch.
I lost my much-loved cousin Ruth to Covid in April. A memorial service for her was scheduled for spring 2021, on the assumption that the crisis would surely have passed by then. Now it has been postponed indefinitely.
It’s a bit like that for society as a whole, delaying the moment of collective mourning until we can be certain it’s all over. This week the UK death toll passed 100,000, the highest rate in the world. That offered an opening for contemplation – with plenty of graphics to make sense of such an unimaginably large number – but it was not quite mourning. The signals from the top are that commemoration, like the learning of lessons, will have to wait.
In the US, public expressions of grief were suppressed until last week because Donald Trump could not bring himself to utter so much as a word of recognition of the dead, let alone consolation for the bereaved. Joe Biden sought to make amends with a modest ceremony – 400 lights and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah – on the eve of his inauguration, but it released only a trickle of the sorrow that is pent up, waiting for the dam to break.
But even when the mortal danger has passed, will there be a process of collective remembering? Instinctively, you assume the answer has to be yes. After all, this has been an upending event on a global scale, one that has touched us all. Given that we still cherish ceremonies and monuments that recall the horrors of long-distant wars, including one fought a century ago, surely we will soon devise fresh rituals to channel this new collective sorrow.
History suggests we may not. Look around almost any British town or village and you will see a war memorial, usually first built to honour the fallen of 1914 to 1918. But scour this country and the rest of the world, and you will struggle to find more than a couple of markers for the event that, globally and at the time of the war’s end, took many more lives. The first world war killed some 17 million people, but the “Spanish” flu that struck in 1918 infected one in three people on the planet – a total of 500 million – leaving between 50 million and 100 million dead. The number of dead was so much greater and yet, as the leading historian of that pandemic, Laura Spinney, writes, “there is no cenotaph, no monument in London, Moscow or Washington DC” for any of them. The great writers of the age, the Hemingways and Fitzgeralds, all but ignored the plague that had descended.
Why is that? An explanation begins in the novelist Graham Swift’s conception of man as “the storytelling animal”. Wars offer a compelling, linear story. There are causes and consequences, battles, surrenders and treaties, all taking place in a defined space and time. Pandemics are not like that. They sprawl the entire globe. And the facts can take decades to emerge. For many years, the 1918-20 pandemic was thought to have cost 20 million lives. Only relatively recently has the truer, more deadly picture emerged.
Crucially, a pandemic lacks the essential ingredients of a story: clear heroes and villains with intent and motive. The Covid enemy is, despite our best efforts to anthropomorphise it, an invisible and faceless virus. That matters because commemoration is necessarily a moral exercise. Think of the way we marked Holocaust Memorial Day this week, lighting candles and telling the stories of those who survived or resisted the Nazi menace. We cast the past as a moral test, judging who passed and who failed. Wars can be remembered proudly by those who won, and even by those who lost: witness the Confederate statues put up in the early 20th century to honour what white racist southerners believed was a noble if lost cause.
A mass illness does not invite that kind of remembering. The bereaved cannot console themselves that the dead made a sacrifice for some higher cause, or even that they were victims in an epic moral event, because they did not and were not. To die of the Spanish flu or Covid-19 is to have suffered the most terrible bad luck.
That’s especially true when the virus is as indiscriminate as the 1918 disease was, affecting everyone, everywhere. The global number killed by illnesses related to HIV-Aids since 1981 is a staggering 35 million, most of them in Africa. That epidemic, too, has scarcely had the commemoration such a toll should command. But, as the absorbing Channel 4 drama It’s a Sin demonstrates, just as Angels in America did before it, HIV/Aids lends itself to storytelling precisely because that disease initially seemed to single out one group in particular. There is a moral story to be told about that first phase of the disease, a story of prejudice, bigotry and shame.
In this sense Covid is rather more like Spanish flu, which, as the medical historian Mark Honigsbaum writes, cut “across social, sexual and ethnic lines” and so “did not become a vehicle for stigma or a motor for outrage”. Lacking those elements, the current pandemic could eventually be enveloped in the same cultural amnesia that surrounded the one that struck a century earlier.
There’s one last piece of common ground between these two events, one that might further encourage forgetting. Scholars of the Spanish flu speak of “contagion guilt”, as the living asked themselves whether they might have inadvertently infected and killed a mother, a daughter, a son. Relatives of those who die in battle might also be cursed by guilt, but it will rarely be so direct.
We are practised in the collective memory of war, but with pandemics we do something different. “We remember them individually, not collectively,” says Spinney. “Not as a historical disaster, but as millions of discrete, private tragedies.”
That’s what the precedent of 1918 suggests we’ll do this time, and yet I can’t help but hope that’s wrong. When this is over, I hope we take each other’s hands and remember this strange, dark period together – even if we spent so much of it apart, so much of it alone.
Eric Garcia was "all tied up," they said, but somehow he escaped. "Garcia: OK," Barcelona said. "Garcia: now," they said. "Garcia: done," they said. A bit like they had said, "Neymar: OK," "Neymar: now," and "Neymar: done." The Brazilian had been coming pretty much every day for months, right up to the day when he didn't. And then, they said, he was still coming. The window shut, but they didn't shut up; they carried on regardless.
They'd said Lautaro Martinez was coming, too. You might have noticed that he didn't, either. They had said the choice was between Neymar and Lautaro, when the reality was that Barcelona didn't have any choice, and they didn't have either of them. They didn't even have Memphis Depay. And so it went, over and over and over again. This week it was Garcia, but it was also David Alaba. It was Jose Gaya and Marcos Alonso. They were "candidates," they said.
Which was at least true: candidates for their front pages.
Reading the Catalan sports papers El Mundo Deportivo and Sport this week -- and last week, and the week before, and the weeks and months before that -- it was easy to be reminded of another moment's illumination from the great philosopher of our age, the man who foresaw everything. "This," Homer Simpson tells Lisa, sitting at the kitchen table, that morning's "US of A Today" in his hands, "is the only paper in America that's not afraid to tell the truth: that everything's just fine."
This week, Marca splashed their front page with a declaration of Barcelona's financial situation, the punning headline roughly translating as "bottomless pit." An economic black hole had opened up. Barcelona's situation was, it said, "dramatic." There was a "haemorrhage," a "crisis."
Ah, some said, well of course: that's Marca, the living embodiment of what Pep Guardiola called the "Madrid milk board" -- media accused of being at the behest of Real Madrid and, especially, their president, Florentino Perez. Marca, they suspected, were taking the chance to dance on Barcelona's grave. To make it out to be a grave in the first place, in fact.
They probably had a point. Experience tells everyone that. It's worth noting that virtually all of Europe's big clubs have huge debts at the moment. The pandemic has hit everyone hard. It's also true that few were swift to note the figures coming from Real Madrid. If Barcelona's total debt is €1.173 billion and their net debt €488 million, Madrid's is €901m and €355m, respectively. Hardly small change, either.
But the figures, quietly and unexpectedly released this week, are not some invention. They are Barcelona's own. And, well, look at that number again: €1.173 billion.
Everyone knew that Barcelona's financial situation was bad; it's been reported repeatedly. Everything that has happened in the past year or so -- yes, even pre-pandemic -- has pointed at it. But seeing it in black and white was still quite shocking, and think about it: the fact that it occupied a front page in Madrid but not in Barcelona is pretty shocking, too. As was seeing it played out over the potential signing of Garcia.
And that's the other thing to note here: All those headlines, all those stories, all those big names supposedly on their way -- don't make the mistake of thinking that all those are purely invented by the media, of thinking it's not what they were told or that it's what people want to hear, however much the urge grows to grab them and shout: You. Can't. Sign.
Everything's not just fine: over a billion euros in debt; wages accounting for 74% of the budget; a short-term debt of €720m; €186m in amortisations; a €488m loss in 2019-20; the need, somehow, to raise almost €200m this summer alone; a negative working capital of €602m; a long list of players to be paid for.
That list of players, by the way, makes for grim reading: €40m on Philippe Coutinho, €48 on Frenkie de Jong, €9.8m on Francisco Trincao, €52m on Miralem Pjanic (who only came as an act of financial engineering in the first place), €8m on Arthur (the man they sold while signing Pjanic, purely to bring the books in line), €6m on Emerson (who hasn't even arrived yet), €10.14m on Malcolm (who's been and gone). They still owe Bayern Munich for Arturo Vidal and Eibar for Marc Cucurella, and on it goes.
Yes, they're owed €46m by other clubs too -- although imagine if they default -- but they owe €126m.
This week, Carlos Tusquets -- the interim president who doesn't seem too keen on the "interim" bit -- said that he was in favour of signing Garcia now. Ronald Koeman is, too. And so Tusquets called the presidential candidates -- Victor Font, Toni Freixa and Joan Laporta, with the club's presidential election occurring on March 7 -- to get their OK before going ahead, because the financial situation does not allow them to take decisions like this lightly. (In truth, Tusquets shouldn't be taking them at all.)
A battle played out. Font said yes, Freixa said sign him now but for next season when he will be free, Laporta said no. Tusquets and Laporta exchanged accusatory letters, the latter already annoyed that elections had been postponed from their originally scheduled Jan. 24 date. But beyond that there is something very basic:
Garcia's cost is €3m, plus potentially another €3m in add-ons. He would cost Barcelona just €230,000 in this year's budget, Tusquets insisted. But it now looks like it won't happen.
Strip away the other elements -- whether this president should sign anyone, how he can propose a deal that postpones payments when that's part of what has put them in this mess in the first place, the interests of each of the candidates, why they would spend what might amount to €6m for six months on a 20-year-old defender they're going to get anyway -- and this is the bottom line: Barcelona cannot just sign a player for €230,000.
The new president will have to restructure the debts. He may have to seek new ones for short-term stability. They will go -- again -- to banks and investment funds. This summer, they will have to sell -- more headlines -- and sell big. And yet if there's one thing that makes selling hard, it's having to sell -- and everyone knowing it. It can be difficult enough saving on wages, let alone making money back. They have been here before.
play
1:47
Shaka Hislop marvels at Pedri's rise at Barcelona and taps the 18 year old for a breakout year in 2021.
As one agent put it last summer, "If I was a big European club, I'd wait until the deadline for Barcelona's accounts and then make a laughably small bid for their players; they'd have almost no choice and might bite." Nelson Semedo raised €40m, it is true, but Vidal, Ivan Rakitic, Luis Suarez, all of them left; Barcelona made just €1.5m up front. Coutinho didn't go at all. Nor did Lionel Messi. Economically, him doing so would have suited them, Tusquets admitted.
They'll try again with Coutinho. Antoine Griezmann, too, maybe Ousmane Dembele. Anyone they can, in short. But while the good news is the quality of the new generation -- any club would love to have De Jong, Pedri, Ansu Fati, Ronald Araujo, Sergino Dest -- it won't be easy. And signing players will be even harder. Just as it was last year: no Lautaro, no Depay, no Neymar.
As Messi put it: "How are they going to pay for him?" How can you buy Neymar when even €230,000 makes you think twice? How bad must things be?
January 30, 2021 at 03:39AM
https://www.espn.com/soccer/barcelona/story/4301666/barcelonas-debt-is-greater-than-1-billion-forget-bringing-back-neymarthey-cant-even-afford-eric-garcia
Barcelona's debt is greater than €1 billion. Forget bringing back Neymar, they can't even afford Eric Garcia - ESPN
Important dates to know: When you could get the missing stimulus money and your tax refund
Though you can still technically file your taxes by post and request a paper check, the fastest way to get the money you're owed is to file electronically and have funds deposited directly into your bank account. This year, the IRS won't begin accepting tax returns until Feb. 12, making that the soonest you can submit your own (April 15 is the last day to file). The IRS says 90% of filers will receive their refunds in 21 days or sooner, but it could also take even less time than that.
The IRS says its Where's My Refund tool will reflect the status of your refund within 24 hours of filing, which could include a confirmation that your refund has been issued. From there, it could take anywhere from one to three days for the money to appear in your bank account.
When to expect your tax refund
If you file on this date
This is the soonest
This is the latest
Feb. 12
Feb. 19
March 5
March 1
March 8
March 22
April 1
April 8
April 22
April 15 (last day to file)
April 22
May 6
Oct. 15 (last day with extension)
Oct. 22
Nov. 5
Assuming seven days is the soonest you'd get your combined tax/stimulus refund and 21 days is the longest, we've sketched out what a difference filing sooner, rather than later, could make. (There's more directly below on how to calculate how much money you might get in addition to your tax refund.)
How do I know if the IRS owes me a stimulus payment?
To figure out whether and how much money you're owed from a previous round of stimulus checks, if any, first you have to determine how much you were owed for each previous payment, then subtract from that the amount you actually received (if any).
Now playing:Watch this: Second stimulus checks: Everything you need to know
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Here's how to calculate the payments you were owed:
If you no longer have that letter, you can use the IRS's Get My Payment tool to help you figure out when you received the payment. It'll also show you the last four digits of the bank account it was deposited into if it was deposited directly.
There's also a form to help you figure out the amount you're owed on page 59 of this PDF detailing instructions for 1040 and 1040-SR tax forms, but it's a doozy to follow.
If one of your previous stimulus checks was mistakenly cut, you can claim the difference as a tax credit when you file this year.
Angela Lang/CNET
Why the IRS could owe you money from one or both stimulus payments
There are all kinds of reasons why the IRS might still owe you stimulus check money, including:
How to claim your missing stimulus payment on your taxes
The IRS requires you to fill out either form 1040 or 1040-SR if you're going to claim a Recovery Rebate Credit on your 2020 taxes. Once you have the amount you're owed worked out, you'll enter it on line 30 of either of those forms (see screenshot). Yes, it's that simple.
The fastest way to get your money is to file electronically and have the funds deposited into a bank account.
Sarah Tew/CNET
How your missing stimulus money will be sent to you
If you're due a refund from the IRS, it'll include both your full refund amount plus whatever you're owed from the Recovery Rebate Credit. In other words, it'll be bigger. If, however, you owe the IRS money, your Recovery Rebate Credit will be applied to the debt. If the tax credit is more than you owe, you'll receive the difference as a refund.
January 29, 2021 at 04:30PM
https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/forget-about-your-tax-refund-stimulus-check-money-is-the-real-reason-to-file-early-this-year/
Forget about your tax refund. Stimulus check money is the real reason to file early this year - CNET
