Maria and Julio get into the latest on COVID-19 and the states lifting mask mandates. They also challenge media narratives comparing the January 6th insurrection to the 1954 attack by Puerto Rican nationalists on the U.S. Capitol. They also talk about misinformation and racism on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and how Spotify is handling the controversy.

ITT Staff Picks:

• Melody Schreiber writes about the blue states that are rolling back mask mandates and how some experts are warning it is too soon, for The Guardian.

• Brittany Valentine writes about the difference in reaction to Puerto Rican nationalists who stormed the Capitol in 1954 and the violent insurrectionists who attempted a coup on January 6th in this piece for Al Día News.

• “I do not wish to spend ancestral energy this Black History Month relitigating the lineage of the n-word and why it is never okay for White people to say it,” writes Karen Attiah in this piece for the Washington Post.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Gregory Payan, File