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Renowned Israeli gastronome Michal Ansky knows her food. She’s a professional taster and a Master Chef judge. So when she was invited to the world’s first public blind taste test pitting lab-grown, or cultivated, chicken up against a conventionally raised product, she jumped at the chance. It was a historic opportunity, but she was also confident that she would be able to tell the difference.

Schools may be a local issue, but how they are run—especially during the pandemic—can stoke the outrage politics that define many state and national races. Democrats, to their grief, learned as much in November when Republican Glenn Youngkin thumped a former Democratic governor by harping on the disastrous performance of the state’s schools when COVID-19 hit. And I got a refresher on a snow day.

Lino Marrero was leaving cello practice one day when he noticed several blisters on his fingers. The pain was so bad that the 10-year-old inventor from Frisco, Tx. wanted to quit playing the instrument for good, even though he loved music. So he started doing some research online to find a solution. “I learned that a lot of musicians actually quit their instrument because of finger pain,” says Marrero, now 15. “That’s when I realized I need to invent something for this.

Welcome to COVID Questions, TIME’s advice column. We’re trying to make living through the pandemic a little easier, with expert-backed answers to your toughest coronavirus-related dilemmas. While we can’t and don’t offer medical advice—those questions should go to your doctor—we hope this column will help you sort through this stressful and confusing time. Got a question? Write to us at covidquestions@time.com. Today, A.B.

This week, nearly two full years into the on-going pandemic, the Biden Administration told Americans that they would, at long last, be given access to free, rapid COVID-19 tests — a key tool in containing the spread of the virus. The government's plan was two-fold. First, on Jan. 15, federal agencies implemented new rules requiring private health insurers to cover at-home tests. And second, on Jan.

As Omicron spreads across the nation, some schools are going virtual and an unprecedented number of people are testing positive and needing to take time at home to recover or care for loved ones. As a mother to three young children, and a journalist who’s been documenting the impact of the pandemic on moms, this all feels like a grim Groundhog Day. It’s hard to accept that we are all being forced to do all of this, again, without a national paid family leave program.

Late Wednesday night, Democratic Senators suffered a stinging defeat when their months-long effort to pass sweeping voting-rights reform was torpedoed by the entire Republican caucus—with help from two of their own: Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

Former Vogue creative director and editor-at-large André Leon Talley, known for his rare combination of exuberance, intellect, and brilliant humor, died on Jan. 18 in White Plains, New York at the age of 73. So many, in and outside of the fashion industry, have shared memories of interactions with him, which is a testament to the kind of person he was; happy to hold forth and share his knowledge—and love—of fashion with anyone interested in hearing them.

In September 1965, James Stockdale was a naval wing commander on his third tour of combat duty over North Vietnam. Flying just above the treetops at nearly 600 miles-per-hour, his A-4 Skyhawk jet ran into a barrage of flak. The plane caught fire and Stockdale ejected. Upon landing he was captured by North Vietnamese troops who beat him so badly that he walked with a limp for the rest of his life.

Dad movies, at least among those who aren’t actual dads, tend to be undervalued pleasures; they pluck a certain satisfying, resonant chord, often without being particularly flashy. Munich: The Edge of War, directed by Christian Schwochow and adapted from Robert Harris’ 2017 novel, is the ultimate dad movie: its setting is the 1938 Munich conference in which European leaders met with Hitler in an earnest, if naive, attempt to stave off war. That part really happened.

Roughly 1.6 million people are caught up in an ever-expanding backlog in United States immigration court, according to new data tracking cases through December 2021. Those with open immigration cases must now wait for a decision determining their legal status for an average of 58 months—nearly five years.

Mars is both a wonderful and a terrible place to go looking for life. On the one hand, the planet is a wasteland, where wintertime temperatures plunge to -153º C (-225º F), and the atmosphere—such as it is—is just 1% the density of Earth’s and composed principally of carbon dioxide. On the other hand, the Red Planet wasn’t always such a wreck. For the first billion or so years of its 4.

ASPEN, Colo. — The U.S. Olympic team's top doctor says all of the 200-plus athletes heading to Beijing for the Winter Games next month are fully vaccinated, and not a single one asked for a medical exemption. Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Finnoff told The Associated Press the 21-day quarantine period the IOC is requiring for unvaccinated participants, combined with the education the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee provided, “really resonated with the athletes.

Ronnie Spector’s voice made pop songs into pop symphonies. You could feel the angst and passion in every note. You can sing great but if you don’t have that passion; that heart and soul, it means nothing. Spector, who died on Jan. 12, at 78, had it all. You felt it. When she sang, you felt every word.

When the Omicron variant of COVID-19 emerged this fall, governments across East and Southeast Asia returned to a tried-and-true strategy to stop it: They doubled down on border restrictions. Japan banned entry for nearly all foreigners—including students who had already been admitted to universities. The Philippines barred foreign nationals arriving from countries with local Omicron cases. Thailand ended programs that allowed tourists to enter without quarantine.

WASHINGTON — Voting legislation that Democrats and civil rights leaders say is vital to protecting democracy collapsed when two senators refused to join their own party in changing Senate rules to overcome a Republican filibuster after a raw, emotional debate. The outcome Wednesday night was a stinging defeat for President Joe Biden and his party, coming at the tumultuous close to his first year in office.

Joe Biden seemed to have a lot he wanted to get off his chest. Just over an hour into the second press conference of his presidency and the first since his approval ratings plummeted this fall, Biden stopped referring to his seating chart printed with reporters’ faces and names and started calling on anyone shouting questions. “How long are you guys ready to go?” Biden asked.

(WASHINGTON D.C.) — In a rebuff to former President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court is allowing the release of presidential documents sought by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. The justices on Wednesday rejected a bid by Trump to withhold the documents from the committee until the issue is finally resolved by the courts. Trump's lawyers had hoped to prolong the court fight and keep the documents on hold.

The year was 2018. Ariana Grande’s Sweetener topped the charts. Avengers: Infinity War smashed records. The U.S. midterm elections were in full swing, with Republicans on the way to holding the Senate and Democrats poised to take control of the House. And the day before Sen. Ted Cruz won his reelection, he loaned his campaign $260,000 out of his own pocket.

NEW YORK — André Leon Talley, the towering former creative director and editor at large of Vogue magazine, has died. He was 73. Talley’s literary agent David Vigliano confirmed Talley’s death to USA Today late Tuesday, but no additional details were immediately available. Talley was an influential fashion journalist who worked at Women's Wear Daily and Vogue and was a regular in the front row of fashion shows in New York and Europe.