Our daily trip around the world

🇮🇷 Iranian citizens commemorated the one-year anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death. Amini, 22, died while in the custody of Iran’s morality police for an alleged violation of the country’s strict hijab requirements for women. Her death sparked months of anti-government protests among Iranians, prompting a government crackdown that resulted in at least 537 deaths and 20,000+ arrests. On Saturday, the anniversary of Amini’s death, her father Amjad was placed under house arrest by Iranian police as he left to visit her grave, per multiple reports.

🇮🇪📱 Irish regulators fined TikTok $368 million for failing to protect children’s data privacy. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the lead privacy regulator for Big Tech companies with European headquarters in Dublin, levied the fine on Friday after its investigation found TikTok’s sign-up process for teens back in 2020 resulted in their accounts being public by default. In a statement, TikTok said it disagrees with the regulator’s decision, and pointed to changes the company implemented in early 2021 which made all under-16 accounts private by default.

🇮🇹 Italian researchers found some genes inherited from Neanderthals are linked to severe Covid risk. Scientists spent the past few years analyzing the DNA of nearly 10,000 people in the Bergamo area of Italy, which recorded one of the world’s highest Covid death rates. The new peer-reviewed study identified three genes inherited from Neanderthals which made patients twice as likely to develop severe pneumonia from Covid, and three times more likely to be hospitalized due to the virus when compared to patients who didn’t carry the gene.