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(NEXSTAR) After you receive a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, you receive a vaccination card that records the type of vaccine and the date of the shot.

But what happens if you lose the card?

For one, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend taking a photo of both sides of the card, in case you lose it. But if you forgot to do so, heres what the CDC says you can do:

When you do receive your vaccination card, dont post a selfie, watchdog groups say.

According to theBetter Business Bureau, posting your vaccination card on social media can make you the victim of identity theft and can help scammers create phony versions.

Your card has your full name and birthday on it, as well as information about where you got your vaccine. If your social media privacy settings arent set high, you may be giving valuable information away for anyone to use, the group warns.

TheFederal Trade Commissionechoed the bureau, likewise warning of the threat of identity theft when posting a photo of your card.

Thats not the only problem at play, however. According to the bureau, scammers in Great Britain have been caught selling fake vaccination cards on eBay and TikTok, and its only a matter of time before similar cons come to the United States.

Posting photos of the cards helps provide scammers with information they can use to create phony cards, BBB said.

BBB recommends the following actions to keep yourself safe:

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Lost your vaccination card? Heres what to do - KHON2

WASHINGTON (AP) A defeated Democrat abruptly dropped her bid Wednesday to challenge her six-vote loss for a House seat from Iowa, abandoning what loomed as a long legal and political battle in the face of shaky support from her own party.

In a statement, Rita Hart said she was abandoning her effort to have the Democratic-controlled House award her the seat, blaming a toxic campaign of political disinformation that she said had effectively silenced the voices of Iowans. While her campaign said it found 22 uncounted ballots, enough to make her the winner, she said shed made her decision following many conversations with people I trust about the future of this contest, whom she did not identify.

It is a stain on our democracy that the truth has not prevailed and my hope for the future is a return to decency and civility, Hart wrote. Her barbs were aimed at Republicans who strenuously fought her effort to reverse her loss.

Freshman Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks, the victorious Republican, thanked Hart in a one-paragraph statement. In January, Miller-Meeks was sworn into the southeastern Iowa seat, vacated by a retiring Democrat, while Hart pursued her challenge.

I know how extremely difficult it is to lose an election, but for the people to have faith and confidence in the election system and Iowa laws, it was gracious of her to concede at this time, Miller-Meeks said.

Harts appeal to the House ran smack into reluctance by some within her own party to do what they vehemently opposed doing just months ago reversing Donald Trumps presidential election defeat by overruling state-certified election results.

Rather than pursue her case in Iowa courts, Hart immediately asked the U.S. House to examine the balloting, asserting she lacked adequate time for a court challenge.

It also came as a battle over voting rights is escalating around the country.

Republicans enacted a strict new voting law in Georgia and have pushed other restrictive bills in other states, feeding off Trumps false assertions of rampant election fraud. Congressional Democrats have responded with H.R. 1, a House-passed bill that has stalled in the Senate that would essentially override many state curbs and make voting easier.

See: Voting rights intensify as partisan battleground, with Democrats pushing H.R. 1 and Republicans altering election procedures at state level

Also see: A step backward: Coca-Cola joins fellow top Atlanta employer Delta in blasting new Georgia voting curbs as undemocratic

Miller-Meeks initially won on Election Day by 47 votes, a margin that was trimmed to six in a recount Hart demanded and then officially certified by bipartisan Iowa officials. Citing the 22 uncounted ballots, Hart filed her challenge with the House, which under the Constitution decides such disputes.

Republicans relentlessly battered Hart and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for pursuing the case, arguing that Democrats were trying to steal an election theyd rightfully lost. Most Republicans making that argument including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and a majority of House GOP lawmakers backed Trump when he fought for weeks to undo his own state-certified defeat.

Pelosis attempted power grab failed. And Iowans and America are better off because of it, McCarthy, who appeared with Miller-Meeks in Iowa Wednesday, said in a written statement.

See: Kevin McCarthy becomes poster boy for Republicans walking back their recent Trump criticism as voter base stands by defeated president

Rather than pursuing her case in Iowa courts, Hart immediately asked the U.S. House to examine the balloting, asserting she lacked adequate time for a court challenge.

Though she had the right to do that, Republicans accused her of taking her case to the House because Democratic control there increased her chances of winning.

Democrats said there was no comparison between Trumps unfounded election challenge and Harts, whose team produced sworn affidavits from the voters whose ballots werent counted. And party leaders including Pelosi defended Harts right to have the House re-examine the voting and award her the seat.

But at least seven Democratic lawmakers publicly voiced reluctance to back her, and some party officials said opposition was even more widespread than that.

Those numbers would have been more than enough for Hart to lose a vote of the full House, which her party controls by just 219-211, with five vacancies.

Democratic unease over backing Hart was intensified by the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters who disrupted Congress as it was counting the Electoral College votes that produced now President Joe Bidens victory. That assault resulted in five deaths.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., speaking last week to Yahoo News, cited GOP efforts to override Trumps defeat, including by rioters who used violence to stop us from certifying an election. She added, I cant turn around and vote to decertify something thats been stamped and approved in Iowa.

Pelosis office did not immediately issue a statement.

But Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., chairperson of the House Administration Committee, acknowledged Harts withdrawal. That panel had begun examining the case, including collecting legal briefs from both sides, and the wrangling seemed likely to last at least into summer.

There being no contestant, there is no longer a contest, and the Committee will, accordingly, recommend that the whole House dispose of the contest and adopt a dismissal resolution reported out by the Committee, Lofgren said in a statement.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said he respected Harts decision but cast it in the broader context of voting-rights battles around the country.

Maloney, whose committee helps run his partys House campaigns, accused Republicans of throwing up roadblocks to the ballot box at every turn and said Democrats will always fight to ensure every American can vote and that every legal vote is counted.

Mike Berg, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Republicans were glad Hart admitted that Miller-Meeks had won and added, We wont let voters forget that Democrats will do whatever they can to subvert democracy if given the opportunity.

Miller-Meekss win was the narrowest House election since the Democratic-led chamber awarded a disputed Indiana seat to a Democrat by four votes after the 1984 election.

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Iowa Democrat Rita Hart drops bid to claim U.S. House seat lost by six votes to Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks - MarketWatch

WASHINGTON Senior Democrats on Monday proposed a tax increase that could partly finance President Bidens plans to pour trillions of dollars into infrastructure and other new government programs, as party leaders weighed an aggressive strategy to force his spending proposals through Congress over unified Republican opposition.

The moves were the start of a complex effort by Mr. Bidens allies on Capitol Hill to pave the way for another huge tranche of federal spending after the $1.9 trillion stimulus package that was enacted this month. The president is set to announce this week the details of his budget, including his much-anticipated infrastructure plan.

He is scheduled to travel to Pittsburgh on Wednesday to describe the first half of a Build Back Better proposal that aides say will include a total of $3 trillion in new spending and up to an additional $1 trillion in tax credits and other incentives.

Yet with Republicans showing early opposition to such a large plan and some Democrats resisting key details, the proposals will be more difficult to enact than the pandemic aid package, which Democrats muscled through the House and Senate on party-line votes.

In the House, where Mr. Biden can currently afford to lose only three votes, Representative Tom Suozzi, Democrat of New York, warned that he would not support the presidents plan unless it eliminated a rule that prevents taxpayers from deducting more than $10,000 in local and state taxes from their federal income taxes. He is one of a handful of House Democrats who are calling on the president to repeal the provision.

And in the Senate, where most major legislation requires 60 votes to advance, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, was exploring an unusual maneuver that could allow Democrats to once again use reconciliation the fast-track budget process they used for the stimulus plan to steer his spending plans through Congress in the next few months even if Republicans are unanimously opposed.

While an aide to Mr. Schumer said a final decision had not been made to pursue such a strategy, the prospect, discussed on the condition of anonymity, underscored the lengths to which Democrats were willing to go to push through Mr. Bidens agenda.

The presidents initiatives will feature money for traditional infrastructure projects like rebuilding roads, bridges and water systems; spending to advance a transition to a lower-carbon energy system, like electric vehicle charging stations and the construction of energy-efficient buildings; investments in emerging industries like advanced batteries; education efforts like free community college and universal prekindergarten; and measures to help women work and earn more, like increased support for child care.

The proposals are expected to be partly offset by a wide range of tax increases on corporations and high earners.

In Pittsburgh, Mr. Biden will lay out the first of two equally critical packages to rebuild our economy and create better-paying jobs for American workers, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Monday.

Hell talk this week about investments we need to make in domestic manufacturing, R & D, the caregiving economy and infrastructure, she added. In the coming weeks, the president will lay out his vision for a second package that focuses squarely on creating economic security for the middle class through investments in child care, health care, education and other areas.

Mr. Bidens budget office is also expected this week to release his spending request for the next fiscal year, which is separate from the infrastructure plan. White House officials said it would lay out funding levels agency by agency, so that congressional committees could begin to write appropriations bills for next year. For the first time in a decade, they will not be limited by spending caps imposed by Congress. (Lawmakers have agreed to break those caps in recent years.)

That request will not include Mr. Bidens tax plans, the officials said. The administrations full budget will be presented to Congress this spring.

For now, some Democrats are already jockeying to make sure that their proposals are part of the plan.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, and a group of liberal Democrats on Monday proposed scaling back a provision in the tax code that allows wealthy heirs to reduce what they pay on assets they inherit, known as stepped-up basis. The proposal reflects one of Mr. Bidens campaign promises, and officials have suggested that it could be used to fund his infrastructure plans.

Current law reduces the taxes that heirs owe on assets that appreciate over time. Say a person buys $1 million worth of stock, and the value of that stock rises to $10 million before the person dies. If the person sold the stock before death, she would owe taxes on a $9 million gain. But if she died first, and her heirs immediately sold the stocks she gave them, they would not owe any capital gains taxes. Under the new proposal, which exempts $1 million in gains, the heirs would owe taxes on the remaining $8 million gain.

The full exemption reduces federal tax revenues by more than $40 billion a year. It was unclear on Monday how much the Democratic plan would raise in revenues to help Mr. Bidens spending efforts.

Other Democrats pushed the president to include further tax cuts in his plan.

Mr. Suozzi of New York said in an interview on Monday that he would not support changes to the tax code without a full repeal of the so-called SALT cap, which limits the amount of local and state taxes that can be deducted from federal income taxes. That change largely hurt higher-income households in high-tax states like California, Maryland and New York.

House Democrats passed legislation in 2019 that would have temporarily removed the cap, but it stalled in the Senate and attempts to include it in pandemic relief legislation were unsuccessful.

It has to be elevated as part of the conversation, Mr. Suozzi said. Theres a lot of different talk about going big and going bold and making significant changes to the tax code. I want to make SALT part of the conversation.

He is among the Democrats who have requested a meeting with Mr. Biden to discuss repealing the cap, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times.

No SALT, no dice, declared another Democrat, Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey.

Theres plenty of ways, in my opinion, to raise revenue and reinstate SALT, he said in an interview, adding that he wanted to see the full details of the proposal.

Ms. Psaki said on Monday that administration officials look forward to working with a broad coalition of members of Congress to gather their input and ideas, and determine the path forward, create good jobs and make America more competitive.

While members of both parties have said they support a major infrastructure initiative, Republicans have balked at the details of Mr. Bidens opening bid, which includes not only sweeping investments in traditional public works but also more ambitious proposals to tackle climate change and education, and tax increases to help offset the considerable costs.

Unfortunately, it looks like this is not going to head in the direction I had hoped, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said at an event in his state. My advice to the administration is: If you want to do an infrastructure bill, lets do an infrastructure bill. Lets dont turn it into a massive effort to raise taxes on businesses and individuals.

Id love to do an infrastructure bill, he added. Im not interested in raising taxes across the board on America. I think it will send our economy in the wrong direction.

Should Democratic lawmakers try to move Mr. Bidens plan through the regular legislative process and overcome the 60-vote filibuster threshold, at least 10 Republicans would need to join them.

But the reconciliation process allows a fiscal package included in the budget resolution to be shielded from a filibuster. Mr. Schumer has asked the Senates top rule-enforcer whether Democrats can revisit the budget blueprint that was approved last month to include the infrastructure plan, which would enable them to undertake a second reconciliation process before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 and pass it with a simple majority.

Because there is no precedent for passing two reconciliation packages in the same budget year with the same blueprint, Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian, will have to issue guidance on whether doing so is permissible under Senate rules.

If Democrats succeed, they could potentially use the reconciliation maneuver at least two more times this calendar year to push through more of Mr. Bidens agenda.

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Democrats Look to Smooth the Way for Bidens Infrastructure Plan - The New York Times

A New York State oversight agency admonished a judge who presides over East Hampton Town Court and Sag Harbor Village Court for helping a local political candidate, which violates judicial ethics rules.

The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct admonished Justice Lisa Rana on March 18 for engaging in inappropriate political activity by editing essays and letters to the editor authored by David Gruber, who unsuccessfully tried to unseat East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc in 2019.

Rana admitted that she participated in prohibited political activity and prohibited campaign activity when she edited candidate Grubers draft submissions, the commission wrote in its admonishment. Even political activity that is anonymous violates the rules. [Rana] also violated the ethical rules when she provided strategic political advice to candidate Gruber.

Rana, a Republican, was advising Gruber, a Democrat running on the Independence and Libertarian lines against the Democratic incumbent. The East Hampton Star, which received some of the letters along with the East Hampton Independent, first reported on the issue when an editor noticed that the judges name was highlighted in the track changes editing function on the files submitted to the newspapers.

The letter that was sent to the Indy and Star did have the tracking turned off, yes? Rana wrote to Gruber. Otherwise, they will see my name attached to the corrections?? That would be very bad indeed.

Gruber denied sending files showing Rana edited his letters. But when a reporter questioned her about it at the time,, Rana admitted editing the letters and denied that she violated the rules. She later acknowledged to the commission that she knew providing anonymous political advice to a candidate was wrong.

Rana, an attorney for 28 years who grew up in East Hampton, has been a town justice since 2004 and village justice since 2011. Her terms for both posts expire in 2023.

She did not edit any political opinion essays and letters to the editor for any other political candidate and will not do so in the future, the commission wrote. Prohibited political activity is not renderedpermissible by being conducted anonymously. While judges are permitted to engage in political activity on behalf of their own campaigns for judicial office, the ethical rules strictly prohibit a judges direct and indirect engagement in political activity

The commission concluded, We trust that respondent has learned from this experience and in the future will act in strict accordance with her obligation to abide by all the rules governing judicial conduct.

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NY Ethics Board Admonishes East Hampton Town Judge for Helping Political Candidate - Dan's Papers

Identifying as male and more hours spent online also contributed

As social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and others continue to grow in popularity, adolescents are spending more of their time online navigating a complex virtual world.

New research suggests that these increased hours spent online may be associated with cyberbullying behaviors. According to a study by the University of Georgia, higher social media addiction scores, more hours spent online, and identifying as male significantly predicted cyberbullying perpetration in adolescents.

Amanda Giordano

There are some people who engage in cyberbullying online because of the anonymity and the fact that theres no retaliation, said Amanda Giordano, principal investigator of the study and associate professor in the UGA Mary Frances Early College of Education. You have these adolescents who are still in the midst of cognitive development, but were giving them technology that has a worldwide audience and then expecting them to make good choices.

Cyberbullying can take on many forms, including personal attacks, harassment or discriminatory behavior, spreading defamatory information, misrepresenting oneself online, spreading private information, social exclusion and cyberstalking.

The study surveyed adolescents ranging in age from 1319 years old. Of the 428 people surveyed, 214 (50%) identified as female, 210 (49.1%) as male, and four (0.9%) as other.

When adolescents are online, they adapt to a different set of social norms than when theyre interacting with their peers in person. Oftentimes, they are more aggressive or critical on social media because of the anonymity they have online and their ability to avoid retaliation. Additionally, cyberbullies may feel less remorse or empathy when engaging in these behaviors because they cant see the direct impact of their actions.

The perpetrator doesnt get a chance to see how damaging their bullying is and to learn from their mistakes and do something different, said Giordano. Its a scary situation because they dont have the natural consequences they do with offline bullying.

Teenagers who are addicted to social media are more likely to engage in cyberbullying, as well as those who spend more time online. Participants in the study reported spending on average over seven hours online per day, and the reported average maximum hours spent online in one day was over 12 hours.

Social media addiction is when people crave it when theyre not on it, and continue their social media use despite negative consequences, said Giordano. Some negative consequences could be theyre tired during the day because theyre scrolling all night long, theyre having conflicts with their parents, theyre getting poor grades in school or theyre engaging in actions online that they later regret, but they still continue to use social media.

Social networking sites are designed to give people a dopamine hit, she added, and some people compulsively look for that hit. Its feeding into that addictive behavior, and they may be using cyberbullying as a way to get likes, shares, comments and retweets, she said. Thats the common thread you see in behavioral addictionspeople start relying on a rewarding behavior as a way to make them feel better when theyre experiencing negative emotions. And so, I think the social media addiction piece is really interesting to show that theres another factor at play here in addition to the number of hours spent online.

The study also found that adolescent males are more likely to engage in cyberbullying than females, aligning with past studies that show aggressive behaviors tend to be more male driven. More research on the socialization process of men can help determine whats leading them to engage in more cyberbullying behaviors.

Giordano believes that counselors need to start assessing adolescents for social media addiction if they are engaging in cyberbullying and to provide treatment plans to help redefine their relationship with technology. These interventions may include helping adolescents examine how they define their self-worth and restricting the amount of time they spend on social media platforms.

Theres quite a few strong and reliable assessments for social media addiction for adolescents that have good psychometric properties, said Giordano. I think when clinicians see cyberbullying happen, they really need to explore the individuals relationship with social media and to address social media addiction, not just the cyberbullying.

Often, school counselors are not aware of cyberbullying until after an incident occurs. To address this issue, Giordano recommends that schools start educating students earlier about cyberbullying and social media addiction as a preventive method instead of waiting to repair the damage. Whether its through an awareness campaign or support group, schools can help students talk about cyberbullying to give them a chance to understand the consequences of their actions and prepare them for potential risks.

We need schools and school counselors to do this preventative work early and educate students about the risk of addiction with some of these rewarding behaviors like gaming and social media, said Giordano. We need to teach them the warning signs of behavioral addiction, what to do if they start to feel like theyre losing control over their behaviors and help them find other ways to manage their emotions, rather than turning to these behaviors. There are a lot of programs already moving in this direction, and I think thats amazing and there needs to be more of it.

Counselors can help decrease the risk of some of these addictive behaviors at a young age by teaching and equipping children with emotional regulation skills and other ways to cope with their feelings.

If you think about it, adolescents are not only figuring out who they are offline, but theyre also trying to figure out who they want to be online, said Giordano. Were giving them even more to do during this developmental period, including deciding how they want to present themselves online. I think its a complex world that were asking adolescents to navigate.

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Social media addiction linked to cyberbullying - University of Georgia