Your Evening Briefing

February 17, 2020

Your Monday Evening Briefing

By penn bullock and hiroko masuike

Good evening and Happy Presidents’ Day.

The news was on the slow side, so the briefing is shorter than usual. Here’s the latest.

Philip and Gay Courter, via Reuters

1. “Plastic sheeting and tape.”

That was one passenger’s description of the quarantine zone created on a chartered jet, above, for 14 Americans infected with the coronavirus. They were among the more than 300 Americans who landed in the U.S. today after being quarantined for nearly two weeks on a cruise ship in Japan.

Those infected were not supposed to be flown out, but the test results came in after the evacuation had begun, and U.S. officials decided to proceed — to the surprise of many, including the other passengers.

The quarantine of the ship, our reporters write, “has become an epidemiological nightmare.”

And a fringe theory about the virus as a bioweapon — for which there is no evidence or scientific backing — was repeated by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, on Fox News.

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Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

2. The Bezos Earth Fund starts big.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive and the world’s richest man, used Instagram to announce a new, $10 billion initiative to address the climate crisis.

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He said he expected to begin issuing grants this summer to scientists, activists and nongovernmental organizations to help “amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share.”

His pledge comes as Amazon workers have agitated for the company to tackle its own carbon emissions, which in 2018 were equivalent to burning almost 600,000 tanker trucks’ worth of gasoline.

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

3. A very big deal in milk.

Dairy Farmers of America, the country’s biggest milk cooperative, is planning to pay $425 million to buy a portion of the ailing milk company Dean Foods. Above, jugs of McArthur Dairy milk, a Dean Foods brand.

The arrangement must be approved by a bankruptcy court overseeing Dean and by antitrust regulators.

Some small farmers support the merger, hoping it stabilizes the milk market amid falling demand. Others say Dairy Farmers of America benefits from keeping milk prices low, which would hurt farmers.

Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

4. Flooding in the South.

Its reservoir filled to the brim, a dam was forced to discharge part of it into the Pearl River in central Mississippi over the weekend, adding to massive flooding that state officials said would only get worse.

Above, flooding near Byram, Miss. Tennessee has also been hard hit by the torrential rains.

Many people seem to have heeded warnings to evacuate, but some had to be rescued as the Pearl River swelled.

Officials were bracing for more water to reach into Jackson, Mississippi’s capital, and other communities along the Pearl River.

Bridget Bennett for The New York Times

5. Democratic candidates are preparing for Nevada.

The state’s caucuses on Saturday will show whether Joe Biden, above in Las Vegas on Sunday, the former vice president, can revive his campaign after his first two finishes sent his national poll numbers plummeting and put his donors on edge.

Mike Bloomberg isn’t in that contest, but he has his hands full anyway. Impolitic and insensitive remarks he made in the past are resurfacing, and he has emerged as a common enemy of the other Democratic candidates. At Bloomberg News, reporters and editors are confronting the dilemma of how to cover their boss.

Alastair Pike/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

6. Beyond the wedding announcement.

Our White House correspondent Katie Rogers put the marriage of two West Wing aides in the context of Washington.

The wedding of President Trump’s aide Stephen Miller and Katie Waldman, above at a state dinner last year, was at Mr. Trump’s hotel in Washington on Sunday, and the president attended.

“Washington’s highly politicized culture — a reality that the president and zealous officials like Mr. Miller have directly contributed to — can be brutal on dating life,” writes Katie. So young, eligible conservatives make their own dating pool.

Among other Trump-circle couples: John Pence, the vice president’s nephew, and Giovanna Coia, a White House aide and the cousin of Kellyanne Conway, and Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, and Max Miller, an official on the White House advance team.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

7. A Presidents’ Day history lesson.

Writing in Times Opinion, Alexis Coe, a biographer of George Washington, punctures some of the myths that her predecessors — overwhelmingly, white men — propagate about the first president.

His relationship to slavery is among them, but there are others.

“Washington’s story — all of it, in its entirety — is full of victory and triumph, inhumanity and catastrophe, often on a grand scale,” Ms. Coe writes.

Suzy Allman for The New York Times

8. And finally, it was such a quiet news day that one of our most-read stories today was this lasagna recipe from 2001, which our food editor, Sam Sifton, wrote about for his “What to Cook” newsletter.

His headline: “This Is the Best Lasagna on the Planet.”

Strangely, another popular article looked at the benefits of intermittent fasting.

Have it your way this evening.

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