Your Tuesday Evening Briefing

February 4, 2020

Your Tuesday Evening Briefing

By remy tumin and hiroko masuike

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

Hilary Swift for The New York Times

1. Nearly a day late, and incomplete.

Iowa’s Democratic Party released partial results for Monday’s caucuses. Above, its chairman, Troy Price, tried to explain how the first statewide test of the 2020 primary descended into chaos.

The margins were close. With 62 percent of the precincts reporting, Pete Buttigieg captured 26.9 percent of the vote; Bernie Sanders 25.1 percent; Elizabeth Warren 18.3 percent and Joe Biden 15.6 percent. We’ll update with more results as they become available.

The delay was caused by a coding issue in an app used to tabulate caucus results that, as our tech columnist Kevin Roose noted, was hastily designed and inadequately tested.

The lesson, he writes: The only safe election is a low-tech election.

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Jason Andrew for The New York Times

2. And on Capitol Hill, a set change.

President Trump will deliver his third State of the Union, after a day of Senate commentary on the impeachment and a day before the senators are expected to acquit him.

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The annual address begins at 9 p.m. Eastern. We’ll have live coverage and analysis at nytimes.com. Here’s what to watch for.

Xiao Yijiu/Xinhua, via Associated Press

3. President Xi Jinping appears to recognize that China’s coronavirus outbreak is a serious political threat.

In comments reported by China’s state-run news media, he called the crisis “a major test of China’s system and capacity for governance,” warning officials not to resist orders or to let “bureaucratism” slow government efforts to bring the outbreak under control. Above, a new hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus.

But the number of cases in the country is rising fast, and our New New World columnist Li Yuan writes, “The Chinese people are getting a rare glimpse of how China’s giant, opaque bureaucratic system works — or, rather, how it fails to work.”

Tyrone Siu/Reuters

4. Oil markets were down again, another expression of the disruption caused by the coronavirus.

Hong Kong reported its first death from the virus and, under pressure from health workers, closed more of its border points with the mainland. Macau shut its casinos, above.

Japan quarantined a cruise ship because of a passenger’s infection, Britain advised all its citizens in mainland China to leave if they could, and Hyundai is suspending production in South Korea because of supply chain problems.

And more Americans prepared to leave Wuhan on government evacuation flights.

Punit Paranjpe/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

5. “Honk More Wait More”

As New York pedestrians, we really liked this story.

In a test to reduce honking in traffic, the Mumbai police played a trick. They installed decibel meters at red lights, and when the noise exceeded a certain level, the light stayed red longer. They also put up a few explanatory signs that, clearly, not everyone understood.

The police filmed all of this and posted a video on social media last week. Now Indians in every corner of the country are laughing about it — and officials in several other cities are inquiring about the tool.

Virginia Mayo/Associated Press

6. Tesla’s stock has more than doubled since Jan. 1. It rose 40 percent in two days alone.

Some of that makes sense. Backers are enthusiastic, since Tesla came back from a rocky start to 2019 to generate $1 billion in cash in the fourth quarter alone. Profits are no longer unknown.

The company also has a lock on the growing battery electric vehicle market and is expanding factory production in China and Europe.

But there’s another reason: The many investors who have been short-selling Tesla — selling borrowed stock in hopes that the price would drop — are caught in what’s called a “short squeeze.” The stock has only gone up, so they’re scrambling to buy some to cover their deals before it goes even higher.

David Maurice Smith for The New York Times

7. The world’s strangest mammal is struggling to survive.

Australia’s platypus — a rare egg-laying mammal with fur, bills and webbed feet — must fight habitat loss, predation from invasive species (including foxes and feral dogs and cats), severe drought and now wildfires wrought by climate change.

A recent study estimated that climate change alone could lead the number of platypuses to decline as much as 73 percent in the next 50 years.

We also looked at the post-wildfire future of the country’s Kangaroo Island. Once a wildlife haven, tourist magnet and agricultural center, it’s now unrecognizable.

Sundance Institute, via Associated Press

8. Taylor Swift has long shaped her image by bridging the divide between transparency and privacy. A new Netflix documentary shows that might be changing.

“Miss Americana” pulls back the curtain (slightly) as the pop star grapples with a formidable opponent — the patriarchy — and shows how her self-protection instincts have begun to thaw. Our music critics (and resident Swifties) discuss.

And our culture reporter, a Swift fan starting at age 11 who then lapsed, says the film “rekindled a connection to Swift as a person, beyond my nostalgia for her early albums, that I haven’t felt in a long time.”

Matt Genders

9. And for a different kind of listening experience: a Beethoven marathon.

In anticipation of Ludwig van’s 250th birthday later this year, a Times editor listened to all 16 quartets by the composer — nearly nine hours of music in all — over 10 days. He grabbed a movement or two at a time, adding “a piece to a puzzle” with each additional movement.

“I recommend completism,” he writes. “It’s a fine antidote to the fragmentation bomb of culture we live in and a chance to encompass an artist in totality. And when it comes to total immersion, there is nothing like Beethoven.”

Jason Henry for The New York Times

10. Finally, the joy of cooking. Naked.

When it comes to cooking and dining, many nudists are unequivocal. Naked means fewer inhibitions, more creativity. For them, it’s worth the occasional splatter burn.

Our reporter visited Lake Como Family Nudist Resort in Lutz, Fla., where residents said their relationship to eating, at home or in restaurants, is better without all the clothing.

“It’s like a painter when his mind is free of everything else,” said Jack Clark, an optometrist who lives part-time at the resort. “He paints whatever.”

Have a breezy night.

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