COVID cases are rising again in half the states, although national totals continue to fall, Axios' Tina Reed and Kavya Beheraj report.

• The Omicron subvariant BA.2 is the dominant strain circulating around the U.S., accounting for almost three out of four cases.
• With in-person gatherings ramping up, COVID has sickened several House and Cabinet members.

Why it matters: We're reminding you — yet again — we're not out of the woods with this pandemic.

What we're watching: The highly contagious subvariant surged through parts of Europe but probably will spare many Americans, partly due to this winter's Omicron surge.

• U.S. officials have said they aren't expecting a big rise in hospitalizations or deaths. But there are signs of hospitalizations rising among the elderly in the U.K., The Guardian reported.

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Trust in tech companies continued to decline in the U.S. and Canada, while rising in most of the rest of the world, Axios' Ina Fried writes from exclusive data from the Edelman Trust Barometer.

• Why it matters: The decline in trust comes as pressure is mounting for regulators and legislators to regulate the industry more tightly.

Globally, the tech industry remains the most trusted sector of business, earning the faith of 74% of those served, ahead of health care and education. Social media is the lowest-ranked sector, trusted by only 44% of respondents.

• Only 54% of Americans are confident tech companies will do the right thing, down three points from last year — and 19 points since 2019.

Between the lines: Those with higher incomes trusted tech more than those who made less. The gap narrowed last year, with trust improving among lower-income Americans, and falling among the wealthier.

• Nearly two-thirds of Democrats said they trust tech companies, while only 49% of Republicans and 50% of independents said the same.

👀 What we're watching ... Dan Susong, chair, U.S. Tech Sector at Edelman, said: "[T]ech can, and will, regain trust if it commits to better education — about what it is, what it does."

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer declared on the Senate floor last night that the reported atrocities in Bucha amount to "genocide" of the Ukrainian people, condemning Vladimir Putin as "pure evil."

• "When we murder wantonly innocent civilians because of who they are, whether it be their religion, their race, their nationality — that is genocide. And Mr. Putin is guilty of it," Schumer said.

Why it matters: No Western government, including the Biden administration, has gone as far as Schumer and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in characterizing the reported massacre of hundreds of civilians in the Kyiv suburb as genocide, Axios' Zachary Basu reports.

👀 What to watch: The Senate last night unanimously passed "lend-lease" legislation to allow President Biden to cut through red tape to expedite the supply of weapons to Ukraine, as the U.S. famously did for the Allies in World War II.

"I remember his eyes. I wish I didn’t," Valerie Biden Owens writes in a new memoir, "Growing Up Biden," describing the moment when her brother — Joe Biden, barely 30 and just elected to the U.S. Senate — understood that his wife and baby daughter had been killed in a car accident.

• Why it matters: No one knows President Biden better than his sister, his closest lifelong confidant, supporter and adviser. Her book, out Tuesday, is her story — but it's chockablock with new insights about her big brother, Axios managing editor Margaret Talev writes.

An excerpt provided to Axios details the night Biden's first wife, Neilia, and daughter, Naomi, died.

• "Memories of that night are buried deep within each of us like pieces of shrapnel that stopped just shy of killing us but are impossible to extract," Owens writes.

She describes Biden being sworn in as a senator at a hospital in Wilmington, as his sons Hunter and Beau were still recovering.

• "Watching him, I struggled with a confused, displaced sense of pride: my brother, the Senator, assuming his role amid ruins. The whole scene felt like a ghoulish parody of our dreams and ambitions."
• Valerie and her brother Jimmy — with help from a few senators — intervened so that Joe Biden wouldn't quit. She decided to move in to care for the boys as long as needed.

Owens describes driving toddler Hunter home from the hospital, unable to find words to make him secure.

• "He slept with me in the bed, the two of us curled around each other like little animals," she writes. "Shattered into many pieces, the Bidens began to pull together and assemble into a new shape."

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Twitter shares have soared since Elon Musk disclosed a 9.2% ownership stake this week, then was added to its board.

• Why it matters: Investors expect Musk to help silence some conservative critics — and shake up a staid product, Axios Pro Rata author Dan Primack tells me.

A police reform group is launching a campaign to stop police departments from using a technology meant to detect gunshots, claiming it confuses them with other noises and has not been proven to reduce serious violent crime.

• Why it matters: When these devices falsely identify a gunshot, critics argue, police officers can end up rushing to a perfectly peaceful area on unnecessarily high alert — creating a risk of violent interactions out of thin air, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.

Campaign Zero tells Axios it conducted a year-long study of the ShotSpotter technology in dozens of cities, which often pay millions of dollars to use the service.

• ShotSpotter denied Campaign Zero's claims and said its technology operated at a 97% aggregate accuracy rate for real-time detections, across all of its customers, between 2019 and 2021.

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Walmart's new Apple-like HQ will include an expansive fitness center and onsite child care for employees' children, writes Alex Golden of Axios Northwest Arkansas.

• Why it matters: The major amenities — for the 14,000+ people who will work at the new headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. — are pioneering incentives for encouraging workers to return to campus.

The fitness center: The Walton Family Whole Health & Fitness (rendering above) will be 360,000 square feet.

• The center will include an open space with a café, a youth activity center, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, multipurpose courts, fitness studios, three pools and a meditation garden.
• Alice Walton said yesterday during an event at the existing home office: "What we want to do is give our associates all the tools for well-being — and that includes mental, emotional, spiritual and physical."

The child care center: The 73,000-square-foot center will have space for up to 500 children.

• The facility will include classrooms and an outdoor parent plaza for holiday events.

Flashback: Walmart has operated out of its existing office since 1971.

• The new home office will open in phases, and is expected to be fully open in 2025.

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It's been 156 days since the Braves' improbable World Series run. At long last, baseball returns today, Jeff Tracy writes for Axios Sports.

• FiveThirtyEight will update these predictions after every game.