A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced four bills on Friday aimed at reining in the power of the tech giants, with one potentially leading to their break-up.

Two of the bills address the issue of giant companies, such as Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google, creating a platform for other businesses and then competing against those same businesses.

One measure bans platforms from owning subsidiaries that operate on their platform if those subsidiaries compete with other businesses—potentially forcing the Big Tech firms to sell assets.

The 2020s have only just begun but there is already a rush to draw parallels with the past, prompted by a belief that COVID-19 will mark a turning point for the world economy and financial markets.

For some, a post-pandemic economic boom accompanied with optimism about the future echoes the 1920s. Others reckon this decade is beginning to feel like the 1970s, as dormant inflation awakens.

Whatever path the decade takes will of course matter for the trajectory of stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities.

Under clear blue skies, rugged peaks and the spectacular Potala Palace, one image is ubiquitous in Tibet’s capital city Lhasa: portraits of Chinese President Xi Jinping and fellow leaders.

In a rare and tightly chaperoned government tour of the region last week, a Reuters journalist saw the portraits in classrooms, streets, religious institutions, houses and the bedroom of a Buddhist monk.

More than a dozen other reporters were also on the trip.

Reuters – The reservoir created by Hoover Dam, an engineering marvel that symbolized the American ascendance of the 20th century, has sunk to its lowest level ever, underscoring the gravity of the extreme drought across the U.S. West.

Lake Mead, formed in the 1930s from the damming of the Colorado River at the Nevada-Arizona border about 30 miles east of Las Vegas, is the largest reservoir in the United States. It is crucial to the water supply of 25 million people including in the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas.

As of Wednesday, the lake surface fell to 1,071.56 feet above sea level, dipping below the previous record low set on July 1, 2016. It has fallen 140 feet since 2000—nearly the height of the Statue of Liberty from torch to base—exposing a bathtub ring of bleached-white embankments.

Naftali Bennett was sworn in Sunday as Israel’s new prime minister, ending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s record 12-year rule and a political crisis that resulted in four elections in the country in less than two years.

The next government, led by Mr. Bennet’s ultranationalist Yamina party, has vowed to chart a new course aimed at healing the country’s divisions and restoring a sense of normalcy.

The coalition consists of eight parties from across Israel’s political spectrum, including a small Arab party that has made history by joining a government for the first time. If even one party bolts, the government would be at serious risk of collapse, and Mr. Netanyahu, who intends to stay on as opposition leader, is waiting in the wings.

It was not long after Matthew Reed shoplifted a $63 set of sheets from a Target in upstate New York that the coronavirus pandemic brought the world to a standstill.

Instead of serving a jail sentence, he stayed at home, his case deferred more than a year, as courts closed and jails nationwide dramatically reduced their populations to stop the spread of COVID-19.

But the numbers have begun creeping up again as courts are back in session and the world begins returning to a modified version of normal. It is worrying criminal justice reformers who argue that the past year proved there is no need to keep so many people locked up in the U.S.

Karen Glidden’s loneliness became unbearable during the coronavirus pandemic.

The 72-year-old widow, who suffers from vision loss and diabetes and lives far from any relatives, barely left her house in Champion, Michigan, this past year, for fear of contracting the virus. Finally vaccinated, she was looking forward to venturing out when her beloved service dog died last month.

It does not help that her circle of trusted friends has dwindled to one neighbor she counts on to help her shop, get to the doctor and hang out.

An outage at a little-known firm that speeds up access to websites knocked a lot of top internet destinations offline on Tuesday, disrupting business and leisure for untold millions globally. The problem was quickly resolved. The company, Fastly, blamed a configuration error in its technology.

But the incident—Fastly’s traffic dropped 75 percent for about an hour just as the U.S. East Coast was beginning to stir—raises questions about how vulnerable the global internet is to more serious disruption.

What Is Fastly?

Illegal drug production on European soil increased during the coronavirus pandemic last year as lockdowns helped move drug sales from streets to encrypted online platforms, according to an analysis of continental drug trends released Wednesday.

The 2021 European Drug Report says criminal groups also adapted to travel restrictions and border closures by relying less on human couriers and turning instead to shipping containers and commercial supply chains to smuggle illicit substances.

The report is produced annually by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction drawing data from the European Union’s 27 member countries, Turkey and Norway.

The U.S. saw remarkable increases in the death rates for heart disease, diabetes and some other common killers in 2020, and experts believe a big reason may be that many people with dangerous symptoms made the lethal mistake of staying away from the hospital for fear of catching the coronavirus.

The death rates—posted online this week by federal health authorities—add to the growing body of evidence that the number of lives lost directly or indirectly to the coronavirus in the U.S. is far greater than the officially reported COVID-19 death toll of nearly 600,000 in 2020-21.

For months now, researchers have known that 2020 was the deadliest year in U.S. history, primarily because of COVID-19. But the data released this week showed the biggest increases in the death rates for heart disease and diabetes in at least 20 years.