Coronavirus, New Hampshire, Oscars
Your Friday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here’s the latest. |
 | | Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters |
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1. Cruise ships around the world are on high alert as the coronavirus continues to spread. |
Royal Caribbean said it would not allow people with passports from China, Hong Kong or Macau, or anyone who traveled there in the past 15 days, to board its ships. A screening had already prompted the cruise line to delay a ship scheduled to leave New Jersey. |
And in China, a rare online revolt is underway over the death Li Wenliang, a doctor who had been silenced by the police after warning about the coronavirus. His death from the virus has become a potent symbol of Beijing’s failures. |
 | | Todd Heisler/The New York Times |
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2. Moving on from Iowa, all eyes are on New Hampshire. |
 | | Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times |
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3. And in an election year, the state of the economy is everything President Trump could hope for. |
Mr. Trump frequently celebrates the experience of black workers, noting correctly that the group’s unemployment rate is at its lowest on record. Their wages are also going up after a decade of stagnation, a Times analysis found, like those of Markus Mitchell of Philadelphia, above. |
 | | Erin Schaff/The New York Times |
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4. The impeachment saga has ended. Now, our White House reporters write, comes the president’s retribution. |
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a decorated Iraq war veteran whose testimony in the House impeachment inquiry infuriated President Trump, was fired from his post on the National Security Council and escorted from the White House. His twin brother, who also worked at the White House, was fired as well. |
“Lieutenant Colonel Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth,” his lawyer said. “His honor, his commitment to right, frightened the powerful.” |
 | | Kholood Eid for The New York Times |
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5. Tech companies found nearly 70 million images and videos of suspected child sex abuse last year, most of them on Facebook’s Messenger app. |
The record number was driven by a surge in illegal videos. Over 41 million videos were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, above; the number five years ago was under 350,000. More than a hundred companies submitted reports, including Snapchat, Twitter, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Dropbox. |
 | | Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times |
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6. High-flying kites in New Delhi are taking down the bird that shares the very same name. And two brothers are giving everything they have to treat them. |
The birds — black kites — are everywhere in the city, and about as unloved as the pigeon. Thousands are injured or killed every year when their wings are slashed by manja, a glass-encrusted kite thread that the city banned in 2017, but to little effect. |
That’s where Mohammad Saud, Nadeem Shehzad and a small team come in. The brothers treat more than 2,000 birds of prey a year, nearly all of which are black kites. “If not us, then nobody’s going to take care of them,” said one brother. |
 | | Esther Horvath |
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7. “There’s a feeling of being on some different planet or moon.” |
Markus Rex, a climate scientist, and Esther Horvath, a photographer, just returned from two months aboard the Polarstern, a research ship that has been frozen in the Arctic Ocean since October to learn more about climate change in the region. |
We talked to them about what it’s like to live in polar darkness 24 hours a day, photographing in minus-29-degree weather, and what they’re looking forward to when they return in April (when there will be 24-hour sunlight). |
 | | Mason Trinca for The New York Times |
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8. The best college basketball rivalry right now is separated by less than 50 miles in Oregon. |
The University of Oregon and Oregon State women’s teams have vastly different weapons in their chase for a Final Four berth. But their success is shared in some ways: They have both made smart coaching hires, established strong financial commitments and forged close ties to their communities. Sabrina Ionescu, above, is a likely top W.N.B.A. draft pick. |
Yesterday was the N.B.A. trade deadline. There were 12 trades in all this week, involving more than 40 players and numerous draft picks. Our basketball reporter picked his top five, including the star guard D’Angelo Russell’s move from the Warriors to the Timberwolves. |
 | | Keith Negley |
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9. #OscarsSoWhite sent a jolt to the movie business five years go. We asked industry insiders what it was like to live through that moment. |
And ahead of Sunday’s ceremony, one of our editors shared what he learned about filmmaking from his conversations with Oscar nominees over the past year. The right framing, a certain look, a bit of improvisation and some inspiring music all factored into how a few of the season’s most interesting scenes came together. |
 | | JooHee Yoon |
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10. And finally, teaching children the magic of nature. |
Cressida Cowell had a “gloriously wild childhood” on a tiny, uninhabited island off the coast of Scotland, where she had freedom to explore and wander off, with much encouragement from her parents. Those adventures became the inspiration for the “How to Train Your Dragon” series of children’s books. |
In an essay for Opinion, Ms. Cowell makes the case for giving children the opportunity to interact with the wilderness so that they learn to preserve the natural world. Her books, she says, are for children who do not know the “thrilling excitement of exploring nature without an adult hovering behind them.” |
Hope you get outside this weekend. |
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