Joe Biden's biggest successes and failures in his second year in office

President Joe Biden

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

• Challenges with inflation, COVID-19, and immigration persisted throughout Biden's second year as president.
• But he made progress on his legislative agenda in Congress, despite Democrats' razor-thin majorities.
• He has also rallied world leaders in support of Ukraine against Russian aggression.

As he ended his first year in office, President Joe Biden was asked by a reporter about a laundry list of problems facing the nation: high inflation, his stalled domestic agenda, COVID-19, and division throughout the nation.

"Why are you such an optimist?" Biden responded, drawing laughter.

A year later, some of those issues persist. Grocery prices are high, gas prices have been volatile, and the White House is warning of another COVID-19 winter surge. Biden faces other setbacks, including his efforts to unravel former President Donald Trump's controversial border policies.

But he has also made progress on his domestic agenda.

His second year in office was marked by historic legislative achievements despite Democrats' razor-thin majority in Congress. The measures included bills to improve the nation's infrastructure, reduce prescription drug costs and climate change, boost semiconductor manufacturing, and promote gun safety. He nominated, and the Senate confirmed, the first Black woman to the Supreme Court.

And he rallied world leaders in defense of Ukraine against Russian aggression.

Biden's approval ratings, though still underwater, have ticked up slightly since the midterm elections, which exceeded expectations for Democrats when predictions of a so-called "red wave" of Republican victories fizzled.

Here are some of the highs and lows from Biden's second year:

Success: Ukraine

President Joe Biden talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy outside the White House.

Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin expected a swift and decisive victory when he ordered an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Instead, Russian forces are struggling and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country "is alive and kicking."

"Against all odds and doom-and-gloom scenarios, Ukraine didn't fall," Zelenskyy told members of Congress during a historic visit to Washington, DC, in December.

Biden has led a multinational coalition to support Ukraine and impose sanctions on Russia while the US has provided billions in humanitarian and military assistance, including a Patriot missile battery in December to boost Ukraine's air defense.

"I've spent several hundred hours face-to-face with our European allies and the heads of state of those countries, and making the case as to why it was overwhelmingly in their interest that they continue to support Ukraine," Biden said during a joint news conference with Zelenskyy.

Biden faced criticism for calling Putin's actions in Ukraine "genocide" and saying he "cannot remain in power." Republicans blamed the war on Biden, calling him weak.

Biden could have "tried harder to prevent the war," wrote Michael E. O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institute in October. But Biden helped lead an economic response that has "cut off most high-tech cooperation between the West and Russia" and "rightly decided that the United States should not directly enter the conflict and risk World War III," O'Hanlon wrote.  

Conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens in September called the "staggering gains" by Ukrainian forces "a victory for Joe Biden, too." Beyond military equipment assistance, he wrote, the US is providing "battlefield intelligence that enables them to maneuver, target, strike and evade in ways they otherwise couldn't."

Success: First Black woman to SCOTUS

President Joe Biden congratulates Ketanji Brown Jackson moments after the U.S. Senate confirmed her to be the first Black woman to be a justice on the Supreme Court in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on April 07, 2022.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Biden's judicial nominations have promoted diversity on the federal bench, most notably with the historic confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice.

Jackson won bipartisan support with three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah — joining 50 Democrats to vote in favor of her confirmation.

Her swearing-in represented "a profound step forward for our nation, for all the young, Black girls who now see themselves reflected on our highest court, and for all of us as Americans," Biden said in June.

Judicial nominations have been a priority for Biden, with more than 90 Article III federal judges confirmed, according to the Federal Judicial Center. 

The White House in November said 67% of his nominees were women and 66% were people of color.

Success: Pushing through some bipartisan legislation 

As a presidential candidate, Biden was greeted with skepticism by progressives when he touted the virtue of bipartisan dealmaking. But his second year in office ends with trillions of dollars pledged to infrastructure and semiconductor manufacturing. 

—President Biden (@POTUS) December 29, 2022

 

Even Republicans, such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have conceded that many in the GOP underestimated the president, whom right-wing critics taunt as being too old. Instead, the leader some Democrats refer to as "Dark Brandon" continued to sign more deals into law, including the largest gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years and expanded benefits for veterans exposed to toxic environments such as burn pits.

In ceding the spotlight to Congress, Biden has found a way to fulfill a slew of campaign promises.

But it hasn't been all kumbaya across Washington. Just as with COVID-19 relief, Democrats turned to a budget maneuver that allowed them to pass major priorities — including the largest investment in climate-related programs in US history and major expansion of Medicare's power to lower drug costs — without a single Republican vote.  

Success (mostly): The midterms 

Supporters of then-Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman celebrate on election night in Pittsburgh. Fetterman went on to a flip a seat to Democrats.

Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

Midterms are supposed to humble a first-term president. 

But there was no "red wave" in 2022. In fact, Democrats expanded their Senate majority and the number of governorships they control. Republicans did retake the House, but their majority is so slim that it's still an open question whether House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will win enough far-right support to become Speaker of the House.

Like many items on this list, Biden can't take sole credit. 

The Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade galvanized a major segment of voters. And like his predecessors — outside of Trump — Biden had a limited presence on the campaign trail.

But he and the White House by all accounts appear vindicated in their branding of far-right Republicans as "ultra MAGA" and election deniers as a fundamental threat to democracy. And, no malarkey, Biden and his allies are delighting in how the fallout has left Trump weakened with GOP leaders calling for him to step aside.

Failure: Free community college, voting rights, and everything else Biden abandoned

President Joe Biden pauses as he speaks to reporters following a rare meeting at the Capitol with Senate Democrats where he implored them to partially kill the filibuster. His efforts failed.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The filibuster is still alive.

The survival of that procedural Senate hurdle meant a Democratic president was forced to accept that major campaign promises must be either broken or at least severely curtailed.

Candidate Biden stumped repeatedly for tuition-free community college. It was first lady Jill Biden, a longtime community college professor, that marked its demise.

"We knew this wouldn't be easy," Jill Biden told a summit of community college leaders in early 2022. "Still, like you, I was disappointed.

It was far from the only major policy that didn't survive 2022. Democrats' much-hyped push for voting rights ended in a failed effort to gut the filibuster.

Universal pre-K was included in a sweeping spending plan passed by House Democrats until their Senate colleagues cut that out too. The back-and-forth between the two sides at the Capitol — especially when it involved the views of Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema — helped kill another Biden pledge to help raise taxes on major corporations.

Even early successes, such as the expansion of the Child Tax Credit, which was credited for a large drop in poverty, weren't renewed by a divided Congress.

Failure: Immigration

Border Patrol agents transfer Venezuelan and Nicaraguan migrants after they crossed the Rio Grande river from Ciudad Juarez in late December

Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images

Legal challenges have been an obstacle for Biden in his attempts to end controversial Trump-era immigration policies at the southern border, including Title 42. The 2020 policy allows the US to expel certain migrants to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and Biden has said the policy's revocation is "overdue."

The Department of Homeland Security had been planning a surge of resources for the border in anticipation of Title 42 lifting in December, allowing migrants to make long-delayed cases for asylum.

But the Supreme Court allowed the policy to remain in effect temporarily after Republican-led states argued the states would be harmed by a potential influx of migrants. 

Another Trump-era policy known as "Remain in Mexico" is still in effect after a federal judge in Texas paused the administration's attempt to end it. The policy requires certain non-Mexican citizens to await immigration proceedings in Mexico instead of the US.

Migrants waiting across the border have described a desperate situation, living in encampments with tarp-covered tents in the cold. In December, El Paso's mayor issued an emergency declaration after thousands of migrants crossed the Rio Grande into the city. 

The US Customs and Border Protection agency says it has stopped migrants 2.38 million times at the southwest border for the fiscal year ending in September, compared to 1.73 million for the previous fiscal year.

Republicans routinely call on Biden to visit the border, and some say Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas should be impeached for failures there. The GOP has already vowed to use their power in the House to probe the Biden administration's handling of the border.

Failure: Inflation 

President Joe Biden arrives for an event focused on inflation and the supply chain at the Port of Los Angeles in June.

Evan Vucci/AP

It was supposed to be "transitory." It wasn't.

The good news is that Americans are starting to feel relief as inflation has cooled for five months straight.

The bad news is that inflation still hit peaks not seen in 40 years and there's still no guarantee disaster isn't looming for the broader economy.

Biden and his team like to point out that the US is far from the only nation that faced record inflation as COVID-19 mostly receded and riddled the world with supply chain disasters. 

Some economists, including Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, argue that Biden made it worse last year by pushing for a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan that overheated the economy.

Over time, the administration ramped up pressure on large corporations that it blamed for exacerbating price hikes.

At the pump, gas prices soared as supply-chain issues and Putin's invasion of Ukraine disrupted the global market.  Biden signed off on record releases from the nation's strategic oil reserves — even though economists said such action wouldn't provide much relief. Gas prices have since fallen back below their record highs.

The reality is that both issues are difficult for a White House or even Congress to tackle. That's why now and next year the focus will be on the Federal Reserve, which has aggressively raised interest rates to keep inflation in check — a move the central bank is likely to continue in 2023.

Failure (still lingering): Afghanistan

A Taliban fighter stands guard as a woman walks by him in Kabul in late December.

Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

Biden's record in the war-ravaged country was mixed in 2022 after his chaotic troop withdrawal in 2021.

In August, he announced that "justice has been delivered" after a drone strike killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader who oversaw the September 11, 2001 attacks with group founder Osama bin Laden. 

The CIA operation in Kabul gave Biden an accomplishment to tout in Afghanistan. But the fallout from his handling of the withdrawal still lingers today. 

Thousands of Afghans who worked with the US during the 20-year war remain in the country, fearing retaliation from the Taliban, the militant Islamist group that seized control after the US withdrawal.

A $1.7 trillion federal spending bill that passed Congress in December includes a measure to provide more visas for Afghans who worked with the US, but it omits legislation to provide a pathway to permanent residency for them.

The Taliban has taken severe action against women, including banning female education, most jobs for women, and most freedoms.

Investigating the botched withdrawal is likely to be a priority for Republicans when they take control of the House. 

Anthony Cordesman, emeritus chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Biden could have done better in handling the collapse of the Afghan government and forces.

"But he inherited a lost cause, a failed and corrupt Afghan government, Afghan forces that could not fight on their own, and a peace process where the previous President had already announced the U.S. would leave on a fixed date," he wrote in an email. "The war was effectively lost before he took office."

Read the original article on Business Insider

from Business Insider https://ift.tt/zbBMLTG

The CDC is considering testing airline poop and toilet waste for COVID-19 as anxieties rise about China's virus spread

A man checks in at a COVID-19 testing site in the international arrivals area of Los Angeles International Airport

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images

• The US is considering testing airline wastewater for COVID-19 to track the virus.
• COVID-19 cases are surging among China's 1.4 billion people after a three-year of strict lockdowns.
• Wastewater tests showed the presence of COVID-19 variants up to two weeks before people tested positive using nasal swabs.

The US is considering testing the contents of plane toilets on international flights for COVID-19 to track the virus and any potential new variants, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency told Reuters. 

The policy option is being studied as COVID-19 cases surge in China among its 1.4 billion people after a three-year of strict lockdowns.

More than 5,000 people are likely dying from COVID-19 in China each day, according to Airfinity, a health data company, Insider reported last week. 

Several countries have moved to enforce additional tests for travelers arriving from China. 

Three infectious disease experts told Reuters that testing wastewater collected on airplanes would be more effective at tracking the virus than testing travelers on entry. 

Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, told the news agency that mandatory testing has so far failed to stop the spread of COVID-19 and is "essential from a political standpoint" but not from a scientific one. 

Dr. Eric Topol, a genomics expert, and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California, told Reuters that testing airline toilet water would offer a better idea of how the COVID-19 virus is mutating. 

This would also help combat China's lack of COVID-19 data, Topol said. 

According to the South China Morning Post, the Malaysian government has announced that they will start screening toilet water on flights from China to track the virus. 

They will not, however, be testing travelers upon arrival to Malaysia.

Current evidence suggests that testing wastewater is more effective than COVID-19 tests in revealing infections, with researchers from San Diego finding that wastewater tests showed the presence of the Alpha, Delta, Epsilon, and Omicron variants up to two weeks before people tested positive using nasal swabs.

Read the original article on Business Insider

from Business Insider https://ift.tt/KNVQtYu

Miami's mayor said the 'single hottest city in the world' will keep attracting tons of transplants in 2023

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez poses for a photo with the Miami skyline, Friday, October 29, 2021, at City Hall in Miami.

Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo

• Miami Mayor Francis Suarez predicted people from all over the world would move to Miami in 2023.
• That means high prices for housing will continue, even as 30,000 more units are being built.
• Suarez predicted Miami would effectively weather a recession. 

Thinking about moving to Miami in 2023? You're not the only one. 

Ever since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a huge influx of residents have moved to the Magic City. There are a lot of reasons for this, including that more employees started working remotely and reimagining what they wanted their day-to-day lives to look like. Others wanted open schools, better weather, lower taxes, or to move closer to grandparents who'd already retired to Florida. 

That has made Miami a far more expensive place to live than even just a few years ago. 

As the top executive for the city, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has shepherded along much of the city's economic changes by encouraging tech and venture capital companies to plant offices downtown. In an interview with Insider, Suarez called himself the "chief cheerleader" for the city and predicted the mass migration to Miami would continue even in the year ahead.

"I don't see any reason why it would slow," he said Wednesday at City Hall in Coconut Grove. "The dynamics that have created the migration have not changed." 

People coming here from the US are moving out of New York, California, and Illinois primarily, Suarez said, and were drawn to zero state income taxes, as well as concerns about crime and homelessness in certain large US cities.

"We have a very simple formula for success: We keep taxes low, we keep people safe, and we lean into innovation," Suarez said. 

People from outside the US will be moving to Miami as well, Suarez predicted, particularly following the elections in Brazil and Colombia. 

But the continued changes are also expected to make Miami more crowded — and the increased demand, coupled with still-high inflation, could make housing even more expensive.

On top of that, scientists and climate experts warn that Miami and surrounding coastal regions will face increasing flood risks as sea levels rise an expected two feet over the next 40 years, threatening development and vulnerable residents.

While Miami's offerings continue to be lower-priced and offer more space and amenities than housing available in many other large US cities such as San Francisco and New York, the soaring rents have been a struggle for longtime locals. Their salaries cannot compete with the salary of someone who holds a remote job here from a place headquartered in Los Angeles or Washington, DC. 

Suarez knows it's a deep concern. When asked what he would choose to change about the city if he had a magic wand, he replied, "affordability and housing." 

"That's the most pressing thing on people's minds, and the one that affects them directly the most," he said. 

Cities in Florida aren't allowed to set rent prices, but Suarez said Miami is building more affordable housing and added that the housing supply would increase by roughly 20%, with 30,000 more units expected over the next 24 to 36 months. The city would not be raising taxes and Suarez didn't have any tools to prevent people from moving here, he said. 

But the city does have a plan for housing insecurity. Miami has 640 people who are unhoused and has a two-year plan to get that number even lower, the mayor told Insider.

"We want to be the first major American city to have zero homeless," he said. The city is pouring millions of dollars into shelters, mental health treatment, and job training. The money became available through President Joe Biden's COVID relief package, the American Rescue Plan.   

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a Republican, predicted the Magic City would be able to weather a recession.

MARCO BELLO/AFP via Getty Images

'Single hottest city in the world'

Suarez, 45, is of Cuban descent and leads the National Conference of Mayors. While he's a Republican, his role as Miami's mayor is considered to be nonpartisan.

He has crossed the aisle several times, including by not voting for former President Donald Trump in 2020, and voting for a Democrat for governor in 2018 before switching his support to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022. 

Looking ahead, Miami is considering ways to improve its transit system.

Elon Musk's Boring Company submitted a proposal to construct a 6.2-mile underground transit system in the city, Insider first reported. Suarez said Wednesday that Miami was conducting geological studies to assess whether the transit would be feasible, given that the subsoil would need to be strong and dense enough to handle the pressure of a new tunnel. 

All the changes to the city are leading people to pay "attention around the world," Suarez said, from the Middle East to South America. 

"Florida, mostly through Miami, has become a national and international success story," he said. 

Currently, Miami is No. 1 in job and wage growth and has 1.4% unemployment. The Financial Times called Miami "the most important city in America."

As some analysts forecast a global recession hit in 2023, the mayor predicted Miami would be able to weather it. 

"I think we're the most recession-resilient city in America, because we have a 1.4% unemployment, we have a very favorable business environment," he said. "So to the extent that the rest of the world feels a recession, it's possible that we feel it less or not at all because of the demand and the amount of of interest that there is in Miami right now. I think Miami is arguably the single hottest city in the world." 

One of Miami's biggest business gains in 2022 was the hedge fund and financial services company Citadel, which moved its headquarters from Chicago. Suarez said such business migrations would help turn Miami into what he called the "capital of capital" and "the epicenter of aggregation and deployment of capital." 

"Those kinds of big-movement events have an ability to change the dynamic and continue the process of changing the reputation of our city — from a city that was just a place to go to have fun, or a place that you would maybe go to retire, to a place where you could do serious business," he said. 

Read the original article on Business Insider

from Business Insider https://ift.tt/3lZ9gFQ

77 members of the 117th Congress violated a federal conflicts-of-interest and financial transparency law

Getty Images

• 77 members of Congress violated the STOCK Act in the 117th session of Congress.
• The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 is designed to curb insider trading and requires timely disclosure of financial trades.
• This term, Congress debated restricting its members from trading individual stocks, however, no bills were brought to a vote. 

Seventy-seven members of the 117th session of Congress violated a federal conflicts-of-interest and financial disclosure law, according to a review of congressional financial disclosures by Insider and other news outlets.

The law — the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, also known as the STOCK Act — passed in 2012 under President Barack Obama following insider trading scandals that rocked Congress. The STOCK Act notably requires members of Congress to report trades they made, or made by their spouses or dependent children, within 45 days or risk a financial slap on the wrist — the standard penalty for such a violation is $200.

But a decade on, Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike routinely violate the STOCK Act: 40 Republicans and 37 Democrats in the current Congress violated the law, per Insider's tally.

Some members of Congress violated the law more egregiously than others. GOP Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas, for example, violated the STOCK Act multiple times and waited months to disclose up to $17 million in trades. Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York repeatedly failed to file reports on time across nearly 300 personal financial transactions.

The House Committee on Ethics ultimately absolved Suozzi and Fallon from being penalized for violating the STOCK Act — the committee found that there was not "clear evidence"  either congressman committed "knowing or willful" violations of the act. This, despite a referral from the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, which conducted its own investigation and unanimously concluded earlier this year that there was "substantial reason to believe" Fallon and Suozzi violated the STOCK Act.

Congressional stock trading ban?

In December 2021, following a question from Insider's Bryan Metzger, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected the idea of preventing members of Congress from trading individual stocks.

"We are a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that," Pelosi said.

Pelosi's answer quickly led to criticism from Democratic and Republican members of Congress. It also led some members to draft their own legislation banning the practice, such as Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Jon Ossoff, as well as Republican Sen. Josh Hawley.

"Year after year, politicians somehow manage to outperform the market, buying and selling millions in stocks of companies they're supposed to be regulating," Hawley said. "Wall Street and Big Tech work hand-in-hand with elected officials to enrich each other at the expense of the country. Here's something we can do: ban all members of Congress from trading stocks and force those who do to pay their proceeds back to the American people. It's time to stop turning a blind eye to Washington profiteering." 

After months of waiting, Democratic leadership wrote and sponsored its own bill banning members of Congress, their families, and dependent children from trading individual stocks. Democratic leaders, however, punted a vote on the bill until after the 2022 midterm elections.

Now, with little time left in the legislative session, the bill is poised to die.

With Republicans taking control of the House, there is a possibility for a stock trading ban to receive a resurgence in support. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said prior to the midterm elections that he was open to such a ban. Since it became clear that Republicans will control the House next legislative term, however, McCarthy — who is likely to become the next House speaker — has been silent on the topic.

Conflicted Congress

In late 2021, Insider endeavored to digitize each member of Congress' financial records, leading its reporters to pore over the data to find numerous unreported conflicts of interest from several members of Congress as part of its "Conflicted Congress" investigation.

This includes lawmakers who shape US defense policy while simultaneously holding shares of defense companies and legislators who actively traded stocks in companies that make COVID-19 vaccines at the height of the pandemic.

As part of the investigation, Insider also found that at least 182 high-ranking congressional staffers also violated the STOCK Act with late and overdue disclosures. 

Read the original article on Business Insider

from Business Insider https://ift.tt/eSWTiOt

These people kept New Year's resolutions like saving $20,000 and reading 52 books — here's how they did it

Framing your resolution as "What would make me feel really good this year?" is key.

Olena Ruban/Getty

• New Year's resolutions are hard to keep, and for good reason — they're often unquantifiable.
• The key to staying on track is to choose something concrete that you don't have to do every day.
• Also, if your resolution is something that will make you happier, you're more likely to keep at it.

Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Time is kind of fake, but the new year nevertheless feels like a clean slate — a moment where you have the opportunity to shed old sins and reinvent yourself anew.

For many, this translates to buying a gym membership and vowing to lose 15 pounds. So by March, when you still haven't set foot in your local Planet Fitness, you wonder where it all went wrong, and tell yourself that you'll try again next year. Still, there are plenty of people who are able to achieve their resolutions, and they have a variety of useful suggestions that can help you do the same.

Before I get into these success stories, I want to emphasize that not being able to keep your New Year's resolutions isn't a reflection of your fundamental flaws or anything — it's legitimately hard to do. My graveyard of failed resolutions include: from 2016, "get published in print" (I have achieved this many times over now, but I didn't back then, and it was probably a bad idea to set a goal that relies on factors beyond my control), from 2017, "write a book" (I'd still love to but I have no idea what I want it to be about), and from 2021, "do a pull-up" (this was a way of getting myself to work out more, which I did, but realized in June that instead of going to the gym, I'd rather play basketball, so it wasn't a total failure).

My most successful resolution to date was in 2020, when I vowed to learn how to drive a car. I made it happen because I put myself in a situation where I had no other choice. I moved away from my hometown of New York City to Reno, Nevada, where you need a car because sidewalks are by no means a guarantee and the buses don't run regularly. I was triumphant because I had no choice: I could either overcome my road anxiety and become a driver or never go beyond a two-mile radius of my apartment.

On December 30, 2020, in the nick of time, I became a licensed driver. Still, achieving my New Year's resolution was an anomaly for me, so I asked three people who have accomplished fairly difficult New Year's resolutions how they did it, and what advice they might have for you (and me, too).

Choose something concrete that you can track

Mike, a college-athletics administrator who read 52 books in 2021

Mike says finding a way to track your resolution throughout the year is the best way to keep it.

Courtesy of Mike

I used to only set unquantifiable New Year's resolutions for myself, like "lose weight." But the pandemic was a self-reflective time. In 2020, a friend put a post on social media saying, "If you need help getting connected to a library or an e-library, let me know and I'll figure out how to do it for you." I gave her my login for the Rhode Island library and she sent me a link where I could get books sent to my Kindle. That was a revelation in the middle of COVID-19. I started reading more and realized that I really enjoy reading. It makes me feel productive and it's very fulfilling.

At the end of the year, I decided to outline a plan for my reading in 2021, to find more joy and slow down a little bit. I used to just read during vacations and holidays, and I would read a book a day. And then I was like, "Why don't I try to fit this into my life instead of cramming it into my quote-unquote free time?"

Throughout my self-exploration during COVID-19, I discovered that concreteness satisfies my brain. So in deciding to read 52 books this year, I could tick a box as opposed to doing something amorphous like "go to the gym more." I wanted a little objectivity, which is why I set a number.

For my next resolution, I'm thinking of other tangible things I can do in my life, as small as opening the curtains in my bedroom every day so I can get natural light, and other types of things where I can check a box. It's productive for my life. The idea is I make these resolutions and eventually they just become habit.

If you want to stick with your resolutions, I would find a way to track it. Have a moment of reflection — daily, weekly, or monthly. Ask yourself, "Where am I with my goal? January Mike really wanted to do this. How does March Mike feel about it?" There was something to it that made me want to make a year-long commitment. So I feel like I owe it to myself to keep going with it.

Pick something that you don't have to do every day and focus on what will make you happier

Kathryn, a communications director who recorded a song and got better at rollerskating, among other things, in 2021

Kathryn says she used to not stick to her resolutions — now she tries to be honest with herself about what she can achieve in a year.

Courtesy of Kathryn

I used to not stick with my resolutions because they felt unattainable — it's hard to go from not working out at all to working out every day. But now I think of resolutions as goals I can accomplish that would be nice for me, not for anyone else. When I write them down, I try to be honest with myself about what I can achieve. I don't want to do anything that's unattainable or feels like a bummer.

So for 2021, I decided I wanted to record some tracks with a friend of mine at his studio, which is something I've never done before because of stage fright. That wasn't something I had to do every day, just something I wanted to make sure I did. I also decided to continue to improve my guitar playing — not become the best guitar player ever or even play an hour every day. Just get better at guitar. I also wanted to get better at rollerskating, which was pretty easy to do since I was starting from nothing.

I moved to LA at the beginning of last year, so cultivating my new life in LA was also one of my 2021 resolutions. That could mean anything, right? Which is why it felt easier for me to stick with and feel like I actually accomplished something. I have a job in LA, a home that I love — I've met new people and I have a routine.

I really just try to frame my resolutions as, "What would make me feel really good this year?" For me as a person, if I have really hard rules in place, I'm going to want to rebel against them. Resolutions can feel daunting. What's empowering for me is to reframe them as new things I'd like to try this year, and ask myself what's going to make me happier and what's going to bring something new and exciting to my life.

'When circumstances align with intent, there's success'

Kelly, video-game marketer who saved $20,000 in 2020

Kelly used a free monthly budgeting spreadsheet on Google to save $20,000 last year.

Courtesy of Kelly

I usually do one New Year's resolution, and I usually make it something very subjective that I could claim at the end of the year, nothing actually taxing: One year I was like, "I want to have a more positive outlook on life." But at the end of 2019, I was looking at my finances. I'd gotten married that year, so my husband and I finally had our joint accounts, and I was really interested to see how much money we were bringing in because I realized I just didn't have any savings. I thought it would be really nice to have savings. It would help us sleep better at night.

I read this book by Cait Flanders called "The Year of Less." It was all about how she had turned her life around through managing her finances. I really identified with the author because she had struggled with addiction and so had I. At one point, the book was like, "Here's how you could save $20,000 in one year." So I decided I was going to do that.

I used a free monthly budgeting spreadsheet on Google and plugged in only my income, not my husband's, since I'm the primary breadwinner. I decided I'd only spend money on things I consume, so food, as well as rent, insurance, my 401(k), taxes, car payments, blah, blah, blah (I understand that I'm very privileged not to have any student loans).

From January to March, it was a little tricky because I was still commuting to work and coworkers were wanting to go out and grab coffee and stuff like that. At the end of January, I found out I was pregnant. I went back to my monthly budget and crunched the numbers for how much the baby would cost in 2021, and it was a lot of money. $20,000 was no longer a cushion — it would be spent by the time my son was one year old. So now I knew where the money was going and I had to save it. Instead of a New Year's resolution, which is supposed to be this thing that betters you, it became a matter of survival.

I could have not saved $20,000 if the pandemic didn't happen, which was a weird silver lining in such an awful, depressing year. I couldn't leave the house because I was immunocompromised since I was pregnant. I didn't really have to buy maternity clothes since I wasn't leaving the house.

I decided not to spend money on clothing, books, media, and video games, which was really hard because Animal Crossing came out that year. My husband and I got really creative with our weekly grocery shops, which was the only time we left the house. We wouldn't buy anything that wasn't on our list. I cut back on a lot of our media subscriptions because in Cait Flanders' book, she says that if you're an American, you have all the entertainment you need in your house: books you haven't read and movies you can watch again.

Because I'm an addict in recovery, I don't believe in willpower. There's no such thing. I believe when circumstances align with intent, there's success. And that's all it was.

This story was originally published on Medium December 17, 2021.

Read the original article on Business Insider

from Business Insider https://ift.tt/jrIWCRF

Parents are scrambling to find children's Tylenol, Motrin, and Advil as medicine shortages plague stores like Walgreens and CVS

A CVS store in the Boston area had empty shelves in December 2022, due to a children's pain medication shortage.

David Slotnick.

• A combination of COVID-19, flu, and RSV has made kids sick and skyrocketed demand for medications.
• But the demand for that medicine has far exceeded the supply, experts say, causing shortages.
• CVS, Target, and Walgreens have all put limits on the amount of children's meds parents can buy.

First parents had a difficult time finding diapers for their kids on shelves. Then baby formula was nowhere to be seen.

And now, a shortage of children's medications is leaving parents scrambling to care for their kids as three potentially deadly diseases permeate the United States.

Four parents told Insider about their struggles dealing with yet another supply crisis of a critical child health item. Many have felt angry and stressed by these shortages, with some saying it reminds them of the early days of the COVID pandemic when it was difficult to find certain items at stores.

Parents can't find children's medicine

Caroline Moore's 3-year-old son has "basically been sick" since he started preschool in September, she said. The child's doctor recommended Moore purchase children's Motrin to alternate with Tylenol.

But she was out of luck.

"They had absolutely none on the shelves, only a generic chewable NSAID for kids, and I didn't think he'd chew it," said Moore, who didn't provide her location or which store she went to.

She added that not being able to find medicine is "very stressful on top of having a sick toddler in a tripledemic" — the term used to refer to the flaring of COVID-19; the flu; and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

Why children's Tylenol and other drugs are in short supply

The explosion of the three illnesses has left parents demanding more medications than stores and suppliers anticipated — leading to a shortage.

"Everybody is sick, and everybody needs medicine at once," and companies can't keep up with the high demand, Joanna Dolgoff, a pediatrician and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatricians, told the Washington Post this month.

And with short supply, retailers from CVS to Walgreens to Target have limited the amount of children's pain medication customers can purchase at once.

Srividya Chandrashekhar is one worried mother who needed medicine earlier in the month, as her 9-year-old daughter faced flu-like symptoms.

When she arrived at her local CVS in San Diego County, California, she only spotted two bottles of children's Tylenol left on the shelves. She only took one: "I really didn't want to empty the shelf."

"It felt very discouraging and frustrating to find empty shelves as my kid was ill," Chandrashekhar said.

Those who don't have sick children but need the pain medication for other reasons have also suffered.

Monica Rohleder went skiing with her family in Mammoth Lakes, California, earlier this month. When her nine-year-old daughter hurt her back while skiing, Rohleder and her husband went to a local Rite Aid for children's Tylenol or aspirin — only to find nothing.

"My husband said it felt like we were back to COVID hoarding days," Rohleder told Insider, "It felt pretty scary and stressful that if our child had been really bad off, there would have not been anything to help her."

'Lucky' dad's 5th trip to CVS

David Slotnick, a former Insider reporter, said that his 4-month-old son has begun to show signs that he's about to start teething, which can cause immense pain in infants. Because of that and the tripledemic, Slotnick's pediatrician recommended they keep infant Tylenol and Motrin in their medicine cabinet.

But when he went to a CVS in the Boston area, he couldn't find any vials of the medicine. Nor could he at the second. It took him until his third CVS to find only a single bottle of infant Tylenol. And he didn't get the infant Motrin until he tried his fifth CVS.

"All in all we're lucky," he said. "We didn't need the meds immediately, and it only took me a few hours of looking to find a bottle of each med. I can't imagine if we'd waited till we really needed them urgently and had a sick baby to contend with during the hunt."

He added: "Finding infant medicines now is as frustrating as trying to find formula a few months ago."

Having trouble finding medications for your child? Contact reporter Ben Tobin on email at btobin@insider.com or on Signal at +1 703-498-9171.

Read the original article on Business Insider

from Business Insider https://ift.tt/xTneyE8

The use of 3D printing in homebuilding is set to drastically expand in 2023. Take a look at the new projects under construction.

Brittany Chang/Insider

• Groundbreaking 3D-printed home construction projects are slated to finish in 2023.
• Using printers to build the walls of a home could reduce the project's build time, cost, waste, and required physical labor.
• The CEO of Alquist believes more homes will be printed than built traditionally by 2027.

Brick and wood framed homes are so 2022.

New US home sales dropped sharply in June, data showed on Tuesday.

CHRIS DELMAS/Getty Images

Next year, homes built using 3D printers could be the hottest trend in the home construction industry.

CPH-3D

Throughout 2022, homes built using 3D printers have popped up across the world from a luxury house with printed walls in Austin, Texas …

Icon's over 2,000-square-foot House Zero in Austin.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Source: Insider

… to a fully printed 400-square-foot concrete tiny home in Denmark.

3DCP Group

Source:Insider

And the momentum behind printed homes won't be slowing down in the new year.

3DCP Group

Several major 3D printing construction projects are slated to finish next year.

Azure Printed Homes

And by the end of 2023, we could see people living in 3D-printed homes made of recycled plastic …

Azure Printed Homes

… studying in printed schools …

BOTO Friddet

… and reserving units for a 100-home community built with the help of several printers.

Icon

The housing market has been in flux over the last few years amid COVID-19, inflation, supply chain restraints, fluctuating demand, and rising interest rates.

People walk by a sold sign in front of a house along the Erie Canal in Pittsford, New York, on Monday, Sept. 6, 2021.

Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo

A 3D printer can't solve all of these problems.

Aiman Hussein

But proponents of the construction tech — like Zack Mannheimer, CEO of 3D printing construction startup Alquist — believe printing may alleviate some of the sore spots in the traditional home building process.

Alquist

Source: Insider

Using 3D printers to build houses reduces the time, cost, waste, and physical labor needed to construct a home.

The 3D printer.

Icon

In the future, these cuts will be more dramatic.

3DCP Group

But as of now, many companies have yet to achieve what they say will be the full potential of the nascent technology.

Hannah

And the majority of startups are only printing the layered walls, leaving the remainder of the home to be built "traditionally" …

The site of the 3D-printed home.

Habitat for Humanity

… although this is already making the building process "radically faster and meaningfully cheaper," Jason Ballard, the cofounder and CEO of 3D printing construction startup Icon, told Insider in March.

Icon's over 2,000-square-foot House Zero in Austin.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Source: Insider

A traditional construction project that takes six to seven months to build can currently be completed in five to six months using a printer, Mannheimer told Insider in May, noting that the goal is a four-month timeline.

Alquist

And as of now, printed homes are only marginally more affordable than traditionally built homes.

Icon

But these prices could continue to drop as more construction companies scale the use of 3D printers, Mannheimer said.

3DCP Group

And if his projections are correct, we could see 3D printers at every construction site by 2025.

3DCP Group

As of now, the industry-wide integration of 3D printing construction tech may be hard to believe.

3DCP Group

But in 2023, we could begin to see the start of this rapid shift toward printed buildings.

Icon's over 2,000-square-foot House Zero in Austin.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Alquist has plans to build 200 concrete homes in southwest Virginia within the next five years.

Alquist

Source: Insider

And the company is working with Muscatine, Iowa, and the city's local organizations to print a collection of 10 homes next year, Marci Clark reported for KWQC.

Alquist

Source: KWQC

On the West Coast, Los Angeles-based Azure will begin delivering its accessory dwelling units (ADUs) printed using recycled plastic in 2023 …

Azure Printed Homes

Source: Insider

… which will include 10 rental homes throughout California's Los Angeles and Orange County.

Azure Printed Homes

Source: Insider 

Similarly, Tampa, Florida startup CPH-3D (Click, Print, Home) and Alquist will begin construction on a home that's been listed at nearly $600,000.

CPH-3D

Source: Insider

The project has yet to find a buyer. But Matt Gibson, the listing agent and founder of CPH-3D, says the home will be sold and completed in 2023.

CPH-3D

Home construction giant Lennar and Icon's 100-home community also isn't complete yet.

A rendering of the upcoming 100-home community.

Icon, Lennar, BIG

But when it's done, the Texas community will be the largest of printed houses, according to its builders.

Icon

And reservations for these homes — which will start in the mid-$400,000s — will open in 2023 as well.

A rendering of the upcoming 100-home community.

Icon, Lennar, BIG

Source: Insider 

But this printing application is slated to extend beyond homes in the new year.

Thinking Huts

Nonprofit Thinking Huts is using 3D printers to build schools in countries that need them the most.

Thinking Huts

Source: Insider

In 2022, seven years after the nonprofit was founded, the team completed its first prototype school in Madagascar.

Thinking Huts

And next year it plans to use a "honeycomb" design to build a campus in Madagascar with multiple connected buildings.

Thinking Huts

Source: Insider

Compared to traditional homebuilding, this construction technology is still relatively nascent.

3DCP Group

But with all these projects slated to enter the market in 2023, it seems like we're at the precipice of a 3D-printed home boom.

Alquist

And by 2027, Mannheimer believes more homes will be printed than built traditionally.

Icon

"I don't want to build a worse world faster and cheaper," Ballard said. "I want to build a better world faster and cheaper."

Icon

Source: Insider

Read the original article on Business Insider

from Business Insider https://ift.tt/w57z6hZ