| | | | | | | Presented By Walmart | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen ·Feb 14, 2022 | | 💐 Happy Valentine's Day! Thanks for being part of my family. - Pro tip: Send a shout to someone who may be having a hard day.
Smart Brevity™ count: 1,167 words ... 4½ minutes. Edited by Justin Green. | | | | | | 1 big thing: The new rush hour |  Data: TomTom Traffic Index 2021. Chart: Jacque Schrag/Axios The pandemic didn't kill rush hour, but instead has spread traffic throughout the day. - Why it matters: With remote and flexible work here to stay, the change in traffic patterns could be one of pandemic's permanent legacies, Axios transportation correspondent Joann Muller writes.
Fewer cars are on the road during traditional peaks, particularly the morning commute, according to the annual "TomTom Traffic Index." - In some cities, there's a new "late morning peak" around 11 a.m.
- In others, the evening rush started earlier — as early as 3 or 4 p.m.
 Month by month, congestion has been building. Data: "TomTom Traffic Index." Chart: Thomas Oide/Axios 🔥 Hot stat: In New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Las Vegas, congestion levels are almost back to normal — down just 1% or 2% compared with 2019. - But in San Francisco, L.A., D.C. and San Jose, congestion remains significantly below 2019 levels.
How it works: TomTom collects hundreds of millions of anonymized GPS signals from cars and smartphones around the world to analyze traffic in more than 400 cities. - Globally, New York is the only U.S. city in the world's top 50 for congestion — and it's 43rd. Istanbul has the planet's worst traffic jams.
Go deeper: Explore the congestion report ... Share this story. |     | | | | | | 2. U.S. needs a COVID forecast |  | | | Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios | | | | The U.S. needs clearer, more defined standards that will help the public understand when it's safe to relax COVID restrictions — and when it might be necessary to bring them back. - Why it matters: Weather forecasts show people are willing to accept inconveniences if they understand them, Axios health care editor Tina Reed writes.
Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, told Axios: "I think what people are tired of are these protracted, long periods of disruption with no clear goal and, therefore, this anxiety that it's going to keep going." - Instead, local officials could say: "Listen, we're trying to get the hospitals to under 75% full. We're trying to get case rates under 50 per 100,000 ... Once that happens, great — masks can come off again."
State of play: Several blue states recently laid out timelines for removing community masks mandates, as well as mask rules in schools. - Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, told Axios: "Governors had to act because they could not wait any longer. ... I wish the CDC had laid out these off-ramps and on-ramps."
What they're saying: Public health experts said there are a number of different ways for officials to think about what guideposts they're using to remove restrictions — and communicate them to the public. - "Let's make it really simple," Wen said. "There should only be two things we look at, at this point. Number one: Are hospitals and ICUs overwhelmed? Number two: Are the vaccines still protective against severe illness?"
- Faust pointed to California's "Spare the Air" days, when the public is alerted to expect poor air quality.
- Combine local vaccination rates, particularly in schools + local case rates + ICU capacity, suggests Megan Ranney, academic dean at Brown University School of Public Health.
Share this story. | | | | | | | | 3. Fantasy holiday: Super Bowl Monday |  | | | Illustration: Gabriella Turrisi/Axios | | | | Super Bowl Monday is one of the year's least productive workdays, with today's Super Bowl Valentine's Day creating a double whammy of distraction. - Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the outplacement firm, estimates the U.S. could lose $3.5 billion in productivity from people skipping work today — $6.5 billion if you count employees who show up but spend a couple hours gabbing.
There've been scattered but persistent pushes to make Super Bowl Monday a national holiday, Axios Sports editor Kendall Baker writes. - Cincinnati Public Schools and other Cincinnati-area districts canceled school today — a decision made weeks before the Bengals lost last night's thriller to the Rams, 23-20.
- 39% of U.S. workers believe Super Bowl Monday should be a national holiday, a Harris Poll found last year.
Reality check: New federal holidays are extremely rare. And just about everyone celebrates Halloween and Valentine's Day — but still have to show up for work. | | | | | | | | A message from Walmart | | Walmart invests in the future of fresh produce with Plenty | | |  | | | | Walmart is the first large U.S. retailer to significantly invest in vertical farming — collaborating with Plenty to use technology to bring fresh produce to Walmart's California stores. The goal: Accelerate agricultural innovation, delivering fresh, pesticide-free produce to shoppers. | | | | | | 4. 📷 Hip-hop halftime | | Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images 50 Cent made a surprise upside-down entrance as the Super Bowl halftime show embraced hip-hop for the first time, with a fiery medley by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar. - It was a rare Super Bowl halftime show performed in daylight, at SoFi Stadium outside L.A.
- But it still had the feeling of a nightclub, with a set made up to look like the houses of nearby Compton and South L.A., AP reports.
Photo: Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images As his rendition of "Lose Yourself" ended, Eminem — next to Dr. Dre on the piano — took a knee, inspired by Colin Kaepernick. - An NFL spokesman said officials were aware Eminem would kneel, since they "watched it during rehearsals this week," The New York Times reported.
🥊 N.Y. Times pop music credit Jon Caramanica writes in his review (subscription) that the NFL waited "until hip-hop had become oldies music — apart from Lamar, every artist onstage Sunday had their commercial and creative peak more than a decade ago." | | | | | | | | 5. Ukraine as proxy for Taiwan |  | | | Cover: Daily Mail | | | | The Biden administration believes Beijing is gauging the U.S. response to Russian threats to Ukraine as a proxy for how America would deal with more Chinese aggression against Taiwan, Bloomberg reports. - Why it matters: If Putin invades this week, as U.S. intelligence says could happen "any day now," the West would have new worries about the security of Taiwan, which is claimed by China. Beijing has increased military activity nearby in the past two years.
U.S. officials told Bloomberg they believe Xi's government is studying the cohesion of the NATO alliance as it seeks to deter Moscow. - Secretary of State Tony Blinken said last week in Melbourne, Australia, without naming China: "Others are watching. Others are looking to all of us to see how we respond."
| | | | | | | | 6. Texas abortions down 60% after ban |  Data: Texas Health and Human Services. Chart: Danielle Alberti/Axios Abortions performed in Texas fell by nearly 60% in the first month after the most restrictive abortion ban in the U.S. went into effect, Axios Austin writes from state data. - Last August, 5,404 clinic abortions were perfomed. That number fell in September to 2,197, Axios' Oriana Gonzalez reports.
| | | | | | | | 7. 🏈 "Los Angeles, you've got another champion" | | "Move over, Lakers. Back up, Dodgers. Everybody clear space for the oldest of friends, the newest of heroes, the prodigal sons turned Super Bowl champions," L.A. Times columnist Bill Plaschke writes on A1. - "Six years after returning to Los Angeles with helmet in hand, the Rams raised those helmets to the sky Sunday with a 23-20 comeback victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI."
- "The exhausted Rams stalked triumphantly off their sidelines, falling into padded embraces as their fans began chanting the familiar 'Whose house? ... Rams' house!'"
Keep reading. | | | | | | | | 8. Our Valentine's treat for you | | Graphic: Jacque Schrag/Axios. Illustrations: Aïda Amer, Brendan Lynch, Shoshana Gordon, Maura Losch/Axios Click here to sample a gift from the geniuses of Axios Visuals: Choose a chocolate to read an Axios story. Axios Visuals | | | | | | | | A message from Walmart | | Walmart advances innovative sustainable food solutions | | |  | | | | Walmart and Plenty are working collaboratively to increase access to fresh food through vertical farming — supplementing traditional farming practices to ease system challenges. Walmart will source Plenty's leafy greens for its California stores from Plenty's Compton farm later this year. | | | | 📬 Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here for your own personal copy of Axios AM and Axios PM. |  | Bring the strength of Smart Brevity® to your team — more effective communications, powered by Axios HQ. | | | |
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