With teachers across the country burning out, school districts are trying big changes, including longer holiday breaks and shorter days, Axios' Erin Doherty reports.

• Why it matters: Extreme fatigue has teachers considering retiring early or leaving the profession altogether.

What's happening: Many educators were happy to get back into the classroom this year. But districts across the country faced major staffing crises, forcing some teachers to take on extra roles and give up planning periods to fill in.

• Teachers in many districts are also tasked with navigating COVID protocols — ensuring students social distance and keep their masks on.

Gail Miller, a special education teacher in Kentucky, has taught for 22 years, and says she's never felt more exhausted.

• "I love what I do, but I hate all the extra stuff that we're having to do," she told Axios. "I've got like five years left before I can retire. I'm just like: Keep on pushing."

What's next: Two school districts in Hampton Roads — Virginia Beach and Suffolk — announced early student departures on select Wednesdays, to alleviate teacher stress and fatigue due to the pandemic.

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The Justice Department's contempt of Congress charges against Steve Bannon send a message not only to other witnesses called by the Jan. 6 inquest, but to countless other people who face Congressional subpoenas.

• Think pharmaceutical execs, NFL bosses, baby food manufacturers, social media moguls — you name it, Jonathan Swan writes.

That message is: It's a new day for Congress' investigative muscle.

• Lawmakers have sent a spate of referrals for prosecution to the Justice Department in recent years, and they've fallen on deaf ears.
• This case signals that congressional subpoenas matter, and that people under subpoena take big risks when they defy them.

Reality check: Bannon was uniquely defiant of Congress. According to the indictment, he didn't even figure out what documents he has that the committee might want — a typical step, even for people who have no intention of turning over those documents.

• Unlike ex-DOJer Jeff Clark — another top committee target — he didn't even show up for his deposition. Those moves could have made it a little trickier for Justice to build a case against him. 

What we're watching: It's not clear what this indictment means for former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, who's also been subpoenaed.

• First, Trump has a much stronger executive privilege claim regarding him than Bannon — at least, comparatively speaking.
• Second, Meadows and his lawyer engaged with the committee in a way that Bannon didn't. But Meadows' lawyer has signaled he won't play ball, and will rather wait for the conclusion of Trump's lawsuit against the National Archives and the committee — which could take years. The committee, meanwhile, is in a hurry.

What's next: Bannon is expected to turn himself in on Monday for arraignment. And if his case goes to trial, it could be quite a scene.

• The Justice Department could call members of Congress or Hill staff as witnesses. And Lord knows who Bannon would call.

Asked for comment, Bannon pointed Swan to this tweet by his daughter:

The Economist said Hong Kong declined to renew the employment visa of correspondent Sue-Lin Wong without explanation, as alarm grows about media freedom in the global financial hub.

• Why it matters: Since Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong last year, democracy activists, newspaper editors and journalists have been arrested, Reuters notes.

📊 In a survey released last week by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong, 46% of 99 members polled (response rate: 25%) said they were considering leaving or already had plans to do so.

Homer Plessy, a 30-year-old shoemaker who became one of the most famous names in Supreme Court annals, was arrested in New Orleans in 1892 after boarding a train car as part of an effort by civil rights activists to challenge a state law that mandated segregated seating.

• Yesterday, the Louisiana Board of Pardons voted unanimously to pardon Plessy, whose seat in the "whites-only" car led to the 1896 "separate but equal" affirmation 0f state segregation laws, AP reports.
• The decision goes to Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), who has final say. Plessy died in New Orleans in 1925, at age 62.

The backstory: The Plessy v. Ferguson decision cemented racial segregation for a half century, until the Supreme Court unanimously overruled it with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

• Plessy pleaded guilty to violating the Separate Car Act, and was fined $25.
• After the Supreme Court ruling, Plessy worked as a laborer, warehouseman and collector for a Black-owned insurance company.

Go deeper: In 2020, The New York Times began printing obituaries of remarkable men and women whose deaths went unreported in The Times, including "Overlooked No More: Homer Plessy, Who Sat on a Train and Stood Up for Civil Rights" (subscription).

Ethnic news outlets have been filling a void of local news, and serving up coverage that seeks to rectify journalistic bias in story selection and how news is framed, Axios' Eileen O'Reilly and Sara Fischer write.

• 📧 More later today in an Axios Hard Truths special edition on race and the media.

"Taylor's Version" of Taylor Swift songs hold 3 of the top 5 slots on Apple Music's chart of most-played songs in the USA.

• Why it matters: Swift is reclaiming her music. Big Machine, which had released all of Swift's albums, was sold in 2019 to music producer Scooter Braun, who Swift hates. Braun turned around and sold the masters for Swift's first six albums to a private equity firm. She vowed to re-record her back catalog once contractually able. And is she ever.

In "Taylor Swift’s battle to shake off the suits," the Financial Times writes (subscription) that it looks like the pop star "will emerge victorious":

Swift's above average level of determination has kicked off one of the most interesting experiments in modern music history. One of the most commercially successful artists of the past decade is painstakingly creating a copy of her first six albums.

There have been examples of famous artists recording new copies of their songs, such as Frank Sinatra and Def Leppard. But those cases were before the streaming era. Swift’s new versions now sit alongside the private equity-owned tracks on people’s phones.

🎞️ Watch "Taylor Swift - All Too Well: The Short Film," out yesterday.