Your Friday Evening Briefing

March 6, 2020

Your Friday Evening Briefing

By Penn Bullock and Marcus Payadue

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

1. President Trump signed an $8.3 billion emergency spending bill to contain the coronavirus outbreak as the number of cases in the U.S. surpassed 250, with 15 deaths.

Worldwide, there have been more than 100,000 confirmed infections. While the World Health Organization said there was no time for excuses, governments traded blame about how the virus had managed to reach at least 80 countries.

Here are live updates, and a map of U.S. cases.

As schools closed in much of Seattle, students across the country wondered if they would even return to school after spring break. Twenty-one people tested positive on a cruise ship being held off the California coast, and New York State confirmed 11 new cases.

Handshakes are out, and so is touching your face. If you’re worried you might have the virus, here’s what to do.

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Andrew Kelly/Reuters

2. Stocks fell on Wall Street, but finished slightly up in a wild week, as investors struggled to assess the economic impact of the coronavirus. The NASDAQ, displayed above in Times Square, was down nearly 2 percent. Here’s our market coverage.

A robust February jobs report offered a cushion, but businesses from the wedding industry to Florida lobstering were facing sudden slides in demand. Oil prices plunged by more than 9 percent. The annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, was called off.

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A top official with the Federal Reserve implied that a drastic measure might be needed from the central bank: buying assets beyond government bonds, a move that would be possible only with changes to the law.

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

3. “In the end, the pink wave carried two white men ashore.”

For the first time in history, Americans saw a diverse group of female leaders pursuing the country’s highest office, Lisa Lerer writes in an analysis. But after Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the Democratic primary race this week, it’s all but assured the next president will be another man. Above, a Warren rally in November.

The contest for the nomination is now down to Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. And while Ms. Warren’s policies hew much more closely to Mr. Sanders’s, that doesn’t mean her supporters are more likely to back him.

Mr. Sanders, for his part, has not made much of an effort to soften his image. But is there a “real” Bernie the public doesn’t get to see?

Tom Brenner for The New York Times

4. A federal judge accused Attorney General William Barr of putting forward a “distorted” account of the special counsel report prepared by Robert Mueller.

Portions of the report, which investigated possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, were redacted from the public version by the Justice Department. The judge ordered the department to show him the full report so he could verify the justification for those redactions.

Omar Sobhani/Reuters

5. “A crime against humanity and against the national unity of Afghanistan.”

President Ashraf Ghani condemned an attack on a ceremony attended by the opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah that shook the capital, Kabul. Gunmen killed at least 32 civilians, with Mr. Abdullah escaping uninjured. Above, men outside a hospital on Friday.

The Taliban, which signed a tentative truce agreement with the U.S. last week, denied playing any role.

In Tunisia, two suicide bombers blew themselves up near the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, killing a police officer.

Grand Central Publishing, via Associated Press

6. Woody Allen gets the ax.

After announcing on Monday a deal to publish the director’s autobiography, Hachette Book Group has dropped those plans. The decision, which the publisher called “difficult,” came a day after employees staged a walkout in protest of the deal.

The investigative reporter Ronan Farrow, Mr. Allen’s son, had also condemned the publisher, which had published a book by Mr. Farrow under another imprint. Mr. Allen has been accused by his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow of sexual abuse; he has denied the allegations.

7. Rego Park. Vinegar Hill. Graniteville.

Far beyond Manhattan’s stuffy (and literal) Midtown and Upper West Side, many parts of New York City have retained their colorful, historical or downright odd monikers. Here’s a look at how the neighborhoods got their names.

Did you know? The name of the Jamaica section of Queens has nothing to do with the island nation. It’s derived from “Yamecah,” an Algonquin word for beaver, which was once abundant in the area.

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

8. Adam Ondra is the best climber alive.

He has conquered three of the four hardest routes, when no one else has done more than one. Our reporter followed him through a year of struggling to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, which will award a medal in climbing for the first time.

For Ondra, above training in the Czech Republic, getting to the Games meant mastering new skills for the speed climb, a fingernail-wrecking vertical sprint up 15 meters of wall. His goal: to do it in under seven seconds.

Gus Ruelas/A-RUELAS, via Associated Press

9. The Dixie Chicks are back, set to release their first new album since 2006.

Their debut single, “Gaslighter,” leads off our playlist of new music to check out this week. Caryn Ganz, our pop music editor, said the high-octane update of the group’s sound was a “tempting teaser of what’s yet to come.”

And in the film world, there has been a surge in movies made by women. We talked to five female directors about how they’re taking steps to avoid the “male gaze” that has long been the norm in Hollywood.

Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

10. And finally, the town without cellphones.

It may sound like a Luddite’s fairy tale, but it’s reality for Green Bank, W.Va., home to the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope. To protect the sensitive equipment from interference, Wi-Fi is banned and cellphone signals are nonexistent.

Phone booths loom near barns, and paper maps are still common. “It kind of makes us old-school,” said Charity Warder, above. “My parents would kill me if I was staring at my phone and not listening to them.”

Have a quiet evening.

Tom Wright-Piersanti contributed to this briefing.

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