We’re officially three weeks out from the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, kicking off 17 days of athletic competition in Milan and Cortina, Italy. But physical feats are just one part of the equation — we can also serve to learn a lot from the athletes’ mental toughness. “We get stronger by pushing ourselves to a limit where we’re at our maximum capacity — and then recovering," Emily Clark, a member of Team USA’s psychological services team, told the Associated Press. Learn more lessons from Olympians on success and failure (and on the importance of sleep).
Must Reads
How to sign up for tix to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics — and FYI, seats start at $28
Singapore Tops List of the World’s Most Powerful Passports, Again
tang90246/iStock
This week, the Henley Passport Index released its annual ranking of the world’s passports, listed by the number of countries and territories their holders can access without obtaining a visa prior. And for the second year in a row, Singapore alone holds the No. 1 spot, with its passport granting citizens visa-free entry to 192 of the 227 tracked destinations. Following closely behind, Japanese and South Korean passports rank jointly in the second slot, offering access to 188 countries and territories. And five European countries — Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland — are tied for third. See the full passport rankings.
Together With Fisher Investments
Planning for Retirement? Avoid These 13 Mistakes
You worked hard to build your nest egg, but when it comes time to retire, the wrong moves can erode decades of discipline. In Fisher Investments’ guide “13 Retirement Investment Blunders to Avoid,” the firm highlights common but often-overlooked pitfalls that can sabotage your savings. The mistakes range from being overly conservative and leaning too heavily on bonds (which may hamper long-term growth) to buying costly annuities that don’t keep up with inflation. Fisher also cautions against the conventional wisdom to “buy low, sell high,” which may not align with your personal timeline or goals. Even supposedly safe choices can leave you exposed to inflation, slow growth, or yield uneven returns — read the guide to learn more.
VR Headsets “Bring the Outside World Inside” for Incarcerated Folks
Creative Acts
For a moment, Jacob Smith is in an office for an interview, answering questions about why he’s good for the job — that is, until he takes off his VR headset and is transported back to reality, where he’s in a California state prison. Facilitated through the nonprofit Creative Acts, this VR program runs three times a year at four California prisons, per the Associated Press. It provides incarcerated people with an opportunity to get a fresh perspective on the world without ever stepping off prison grounds. Participants can get acquainted with practical locations (like a grocery store, job interview, or ATM) as well as more novel destinations, like the jungles of Thailand. The headsets may offer a brief mental escape for the users, but the ultimate goal is to help them prepare for life when they get out. Sabra Williams, the nonprofit’s founder, explained that formerly incarcerated people often find simple things like running errands difficult upon release, which can create a feeling of alienation. So the headsets — which she calls “hope machines” — are a way to “bring the outside world inside,” she said.
Health
Simple Blood Test May Detect Crohn’s Disease Over 2 Years Before Symptoms Appear: Study
Colin Dewar / Sinai Health / SWNS
An estimated 1 million people in the U.S. have Crohn’s disease, a form of inflammatory bowel disease that causes ongoing digestive symptoms, pain, and tiredness. But that number may one day decline thanks to a simple blood test, which Canadian scientists say not only can detect the disease years before symptoms appear but also opens the doors to potential prevention. The new test measures a person’s immune response to flagellin, a protein found on gut bacteria. Per a news release, in a healthy digestive system, different types of gut bacteria can “coexist peacefully” — but for patients with Crohn’s, the immune system launches an attack against innocuous, even beneficial, microbes. It’s previously been shown that Crohn’s patients have elevated levels of flagellin antibodies, so the research team sought to determine whether these antibodies were also present in healthy individuals who are at risk of developing the disease. “We wanted to know: Do people who are at risk, who are healthy now, have these antibodies against flagellin?” lead author Ken Croitoru, a clinician scientist with Mount Sinai Hospital’s Center for Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Toronto, explained. “We looked, we measured, and yes indeed, at least some of them did.” Learn how the team came to their conclusions.
Global Good
🏴 London’s homicide rate fell last year to its lowest number since 2014 (read more)
🇮🇹 A once off-limits ancient Roman residence will “open” to the public for the first time via livestream (read more)
🇨🇦 An Indigenous community in British Columbia is celebrating the return of a deeply symbolic mask (read more)
🇷🇼 Rwanda’s capital city is restoring thousands of acres of wetlands to boost climate resilience (read more)
🇩🇰 The largest-known medieval cog shipwreck was discovered off the coast of Denmark (read more)
Inspiring Story
Come From Away, round two
You may know Gander, Newfoundland, as the small town where residents came together to shelter nearly 7,000 grounded passengers during the Sept. 11 attacks (as immortalized in the Broadway musical Come From Away). Last week, the kind community showed up again to help hundreds of passengers stranded at the airport amid bad weather. “Everybody started going to the airport,” said Jackie Freake, the assistant manager at one of the town’s four hotels. “Locals from the community went up to the airport and brought them all down to the appropriate hotels.”
Photo of the Day
Dudley M. Brooks—The The Washington Post/Getty Images
On Tuesday, civil rights activist Claudette Colvin died at age 86. Back in 1955, Colvin refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white woman in Montgomery, Alabama — a few months before Rosa Parks took a similar stand. “I could not move because history had me glued to the seat,” she later recalled. “It felt like Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing me down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me down on another shoulder.” Read more of her little-known life story.
Learn How to Sidestep Retirement Mistakes With Fisher Investments
Understanding and avoiding common retirement mistakes — like relying too heavily on bonds or blindly following conventional advice — could save you money, stress, and regret later in life. To learn more, get your free copy of Fisher Investments’s “13 Retirement Investment Blunders to Avoid.”
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Up This Weekend
Australian Open: The first Grand Slam tournament of the year kicks off Sunday in Australia’s Melbourne Park, and true tennis junkies in the U.S. might find themselves sacrificing on sleep to keep up with the time difference
Wikipedia Day Celebrations: Yesterday marked Wikipedia’s 25th birthday (also known as Wikipedia Day), and fans of the site are hosting celebrations both in-person and online — see if there’s one near you
MLK Day: Here’s your reminder that today kicks off a long weekend! Learn the history behind how Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a federal holiday on the third Monday in January
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