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Today’s Top Stories from NBC News FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2022 Good morning, NBC News readers.
The 2022 Beijing Olympics officially kick off today with lots of pomp, pageantry and politics. More than 300,000 have been left without power by the deadly winter storm sweeping the U.S. Plus, more on the racial reckoning hitting the NFL as the failures of the "Rooney Rule" are exposed.
Here's what we're watching this Friday morning. 
The 2022 Winter Olympics kicks off Friday with a comparatively pared-back opening ceremony in Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium.
China aims to impress billions around the world with these Games, and perhaps momentarily transcend the politically charged atmosphere and strict Covid-19 restrictions that have characterized the runup to the competition.
"The world is turning its eyes to China, and China is ready," President Xi Jinping said Thursday. "We will do our best to deliver to the world a streamlined, safe and splendid Games."
However, politics loom large over these Games. A number of world leaders, including President Joe Biden, will not be in attendance, after announcing a diplomatic boycott of the Games on human rights grounds.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin will be there in a show of unity with China amid Moscow’s standoff with the West over Ukraine.
Putin and Xi met Friday in Beijing for a pre-Olympic summit and issued a joint statement pushing back against U.S. "interference" in other states' "internal affairs" as Russia amasses troops on Ukraine's borders and China hosts the Games.
Aside from all the politics, Olympic competition is already well underway. Team USA has already put its stamp on figure skating with American Nathan Chen recording the second-highest short program score ever on Friday. Friday's Top Stories
Helicopters roared suddenly early Thursday over Atmeh, once a sleepy Syrian village, signaling the start of a chaotic and violent raid by U.S. special forces that left at least 13 dead, including a number of women and children. 
Though Covid cases and hospitalizations are falling fast in the U.S., two key metrics are still too high to ditch mask recommendations. 
Almost two decades after the so-called Rooney Rule was adopted by the NFL to correct the lack of diversity among coaching staff and top management in the league, there is still just one head coach who is Black — Mike Tomlin of the Steelers. 
U.S. and European warnings about a potential Russian military attack on Ukraine may have staved off an invasion for the moment, but the statements have also caused collateral damage for Ukraine’s economy, officials in Kyiv and experts say. Also in the News
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Experts say the recent bomb threats at a more than a dozen historically black colleges and universities build on years of racist attempts to stop Black people from getting an education. Select
As Black History Month begins, we put together a list of acclaimed and hotly-anticipated fiction works written by Black authors. One Grateful Thing
Three fishermen who clung to debris in the frigid waters off the coast of Massachusetts for nearly an hour after their boat sank survived thanks to a sharp-eyed woman on shore who was the only person to call 911.
The 55-foot boat went down so fast about a mile from shore Tuesday afternoon that the crew didn’t have time to don survival suits or even make a distress call.
Thankfully Pam Harght happened to be one of the few people to see the ship sink and called the police.
“If it wasn’t for this woman, I probably wouldn’t be here,” crew member Joe Roderick said.
Read the full story here.
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