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Start your day smarter with the most important world news, plus intriguing and offbeat stories. www.ozy.com [OZY]( [OZY]() Your World. Bold & Bright [Presidential Daily Brief]( Start your day smarter with a dossier on the most important world news, rounded off with a shot of intriguing and offbeat stories. Like the president, you deserve no less. Dec 23, 2022 Today The Jan. 6 committee handed down its final report into the insurrection and found “one man” to blame. North American travelers are bracing for a dangerous cold snap. Vladimir Putin called the Ukraine invasion a “war” for the first time. And the Taliban stand by their decision to deny women an education. All this and more in today’s PDB. [OGA]( While working at a neuropsychology clinic, Fordham University junior Avery Carty was alarmed at the astronomical rate of people being diagnosed with mental health disorders. She was particularly concerned over ADHD diagnoses, and how negatively worded assessment questionnaires could skew test results, leading to over-diagnosis and the over-consumption of powerful drugs. For her genius project, Avery seeks to develop new diagnostic questionnaires, with the involvement of health care professionals, and thereby reduce the consumption of unnecessary drugs that can lead to addiction. Avery hopes to help break this chain effect in young people, so they can avoid severe harm to their future health and job prospects. [WATCH MORE HERE]( IMPORTANT Trump Card Committee's Full Report Finds ‘One Man’ Was Behind Jan. 6 Riot And that man should never be allowed to hold public office again, the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection recommended. Its [814-page report](, released Thursday night, describes the “multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election” and clearly states: “The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump.” Over 18 months, the committee reviewed more than 1 million pages of documents and interviewed over 1,000 witnesses. The committee’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, concluded, “No man who would behave that way at that moment in time can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again.” (Sources: [NYT](, [The Hill]() Cold Snap North America Dreaming of a Not-So-White Christmas “This is not like a snow day when you were a kid. This is serious stuff,” President Joe Biden warned Americans after the National Weather Service issued alerts across the country. Expect “record-breaking cold and life-threatening wind chills” from the Great Plains across the East, the agency warned. Thousands of flights have already been canceled as millions of North Americans travel for Christmas. WestJet stopped flights in and out of Toronto Friday in anticipation of terrible conditions. “The prolonged and extreme weather events that continue to impact multiple regions across Canada are unlike anything we’ve experienced,” WestJet exec Diederik Pen said. (Sources: [NPR](, [Global News]() What Is It Good For? ‘Special Military Operation’ No More as Putin Declares It ‘War’ “Our goal is not to spin this flywheel of a military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address Thursday. It’s the first time since the February invasion of Ukraine that he’s referred to the conflict so bluntly, previously opting for euphemistic references. For Russians who have protested against the invasion, the change in language is a slap: Activists have been prosecuted for calling it a “war.” Putin’s comments come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the U.S. and addressed Congress before receiving fresh financial commitments to the war effort. (Sources: [WaPo](, [Al Jazeera]() Class Act Taliban Stand By Their Ban on Women in Universities The decree, announced earlier this week, triggered protests at home and abroad. Minister of Higher Education Nida Mohammad Nadim said during a televised interview Thursday that the ban is necessary to prevent mixing between men and women, adding that some female students had attended classes dressed inappropriately. He hit back at the criticism — which has come from both the West and Muslim-majority countries — and demanded the world stay out of Afghanistan’s domestic affairs. “Education is our right, universities should be opened,” chanted about 50 mainly female protesters at Kabul University, suggesting Nadim’s comments may not be the final word. (Sources: [AP](, [Reuters]() Briefly Here are some things you should know about today: Homecoming. Russia’s space agency is considering sending an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station in a rescue mission after a coolant leak was identified in the Soyuz capsule, the home away from home for three cosmonauts. (Source: [France24]() Friendly. North Korea sold arms to Russian mercenary group Wagner as part of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. said. Both Wagner and the North Korean government have denied the claims. (Source: [BBC]() Progress. Spain’s lower house of Congress voted to allow those over the age of 16 to change their legal gender without the input of medical practitioners. It is expected to shortly pass the Senate and become law early next year. (Source: [Al Jazeera]()  INTRIGUING Frozen Future 65% of Antarctica’s Plants and Animals Will Disappear This Century That’s the prognosis from researchers studying the impact of climate change on the continent. Isolation and the local ecosystem have helped Antarctica dodge many climate change-caused disasters we’ve seen elsewhere in the world, like massive fires and devastating flooding, but that good fortune is running out. Sea ice is now disappearing faster than previously seen and for the continent’s iconic penguin populations — the emperor and Adélie — this wreaks havoc on nesting cycles. “There’s not a large-scale number of people living there, so the greatest threat to the continent is coming from outside the continent,” lead researcher Jasmine Lee said. (Source: [CNN]() $tolen Hacking Is the Answer to North Korea’s Empty Pockets Around $1.2 billion in digital assets have been stolen by North Korean hackers in the last five years, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service. The agency estimates more than half of that was stolen in 2022 alone, and around $78 million of it was swiped from South Korea. Pyongyang has focused much of its computing capacity on cybercrime after economic sanctions blocked traditional revenue sources — an issue exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S., Japan and South Korea identified North Korean cybercrime as a serious issue at trilateral meetings earlier this year and vowed to step up monitoring. (Source: [AP]() Ticketdisaster Taylor Swift Fans Come for Ticketmaster in the Courtroom — Again Swifties filed a federal class-action lawsuit after November’s disastrous presale for her 2023 Eras tour. Fans who were shut out of buying tickets said, “Ticketmaster intentionally and purposefully misled millions of fans into believing it would prevent bots and scalpers from participating in the presales.” The 26 plaintiffs want fines of $2,500 per violation after “14 million unverified Ticketmaster users and a ‘staggering’ number of bots” descended on the site and inflated resale prices. Meanwhile, another suit this month alleged “fraud, price-fixing, and antitrust violations,” and the ticketing giant’s tactics have earned the attention of federal investigators and antitrust advocates in Congress. (Source: [Pitchfork]() GOAT-ee? Beard-Decorating Enthusiast Snags Hairy Holiday World Record An Idaho man with lots of facial hair and even more free time has bested his own Guinness World Record for the most Christmas baubles in his beard. Joel Strasser’s bedecked chin supported 710 ornaments this year — a marked improvement over last year’s 686, 2020’s 542 and 2019’s barely-even-festive effort with a mere 302 beard baubles. Strasser, who has really found his niche, also holds records for the most forks in a beard (126), most golf tees in a beard (607), most toothpicks in a beard (3,500), most clothespins on a beard (359) and — obviously — most chopsticks put into a beard in one minute (86). (Source: [UPI]() Sidelined How Did Salt Bae End Up on the World Cup Pitch? It’s a question many asked after seeing photos of Turkish restaurateur and influencer Nusret Gökçe, better known as Salt Bae, joining Argentinian players and cradling the winner’s trophy Sunday. Soccer governing body FIFA vowed to investigate, saying, “The appropriate internal action will be taken.” Just a few select individuals are authorized to touch the trophy, including the winning players and FIFA officials. Gökçe was seen earlier in the tournament with soccer celebrities including Brazilian players Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Cafu. He was also spotted with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, a professed fan of Salt Bae’s chain of Nusr-Et restaurants. (Source: [The Guardian]() NOW STREAMING FROM OZY STUDIO COMMUNITY What else are you curious about? Share your questions or thoughts with us at OzyCommunity@Ozy.com ABOUT OZY OZY is a diverse, global and forward-looking media and entertainment company focused on “the New and the Next.” OZY creates space for fresh perspectives, and offers new takes on everything from news and culture to technology, business, learning and entertainment. [www.ozy.com]( / #OZY Curiosity. Enthusiasm. Action. That’s OZY! [TV]( | [PODCASTS]( | [NEWS]( | [FESTIVALS]( A Modern Media Company OZY Media, 800 West El Camino Mountain View, California 94040 This email was sent to {EMAIL} [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Policy](