Evening Briefing: 250,000 Americans died from the coronavirus

November 18, 2020

Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

By Remy Tumin and Jeremiah M. Bogert, Jr.

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

Anna Watts for The New York Times

1. More cities and states act against the pandemic.

Rising positivity rates prompted New York City to return its vast public school system to all-remote learning, perhaps the most significant setback since the spring, when the city was a global coronavirus epicenter.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said the nation needed “a uniform approach,” instead of a “disjointed” state-by-state, city-by-city response. But so far, that’s what the country has.

New today: Ohio announced a nightly curfew, and Mississippi extended a mask mandate to seven more counties. Maryland will order all bars, restaurants and night clubs to close by 10 p.m. Los Angeles will put in effect similar restrictions. And Pennsylvania will require anyone who enters the state to be tested before arrival.

Gov. Kim Reynolds issued Iowa’s first statewide mask order as the state faces a spiraling hospital crisis. She joins a wave of Republican governors who are reversing course.

A quarter of a million Americans have died from the coronavirus, passing the number Dr. Fauci predicted in March, with no sure end in sight.

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John Hart/Wisconsin State Journal, via Associated Press

2. The virus is overwhelming hospitals and killing more than 1,100 Americans a day. Above, Madison, Wis.

That out-of-control surge is actually helping scientists measure more quickly how well their vaccines protect against the coronavirus, enabling the drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna to accelerate trials. Trials of treatments may also speed up.

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Pfizer said that complete results from its late-stage vaccine trials showed its vaccine to be 95 percent effective, with no serious side effects. On Monday, Moderna said that early analysis had found its vaccine to be 94.5 percent effective.

Separately, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the first completely at-home rapid coronavirus test, which can return results in about half an hour. It is projected to cost $50 or less.

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

3. President-elect Joe Biden is pressuring the Trump administration to authorize the presidential transition.

“We’re all ready to go and do an awful lot of work right now,” Mr. Biden said on a call with emergency medical workers to the coronavirus, objecting to delays caused by President Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his victory and the refusal of Emily Murphy, the administrator of the General Services Administration, to sign paperwork giving his team access to funds, equipment and government data.

He did note that he plans to work with state and local leaders on mask mandates.

In other Democratic news, the party’s House caucus nominated Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 80, as their leader for another term. She suggested it could be her last.

Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

4. Republicans in Michigan face accusations of racism after blocking certification of the election over slight discrepancies in majority-Black precincts while ignoring similar problems in heavily white areas. An outcry forced them to reverse themselves.

Around the country, President Trump and his allies have been accused of playing into ugly racist stereotypes by casting doubt on Black voters in their last-ditch effort to overturn the election.

Georgia’s county-by-county hand recount of roughly five million ballots in the presidential race is expected to be completed by tonight’s midnight deadline. President-elect Joe Biden is up by over 12,000 votes.

Lindsey Wasson for The New York Times

5. Boeing’s 737 Max will fly again.

Twenty months after the jet was grounded around the world, the Federal Aviation Administration said changes in software, design and training had made the plane safe to operate.,

The two fatal crashes that prompted the grounding, in Indonesia and Ethiopia, killed 346 people, and investigations faulted Boeing software and a host of company and U.S. regulatory failures. Relatives of victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash questioned whether Boeing had done enough to address safety concerns.

It will be weeks, if not months, before American, United and Southwest can get pilots retrained and the altered plane back into service — and reassure travelers about its safety. Other countries’ aviation authorities will have to issue similar rulings before it can operate elsewhere. Here’s what travelers need to know.

Adrees Latif/Reuters

6. A federal judge blocked President Trump’s policy of turning away unaccompanied migrant children at the border as public health risks.

Since March, the Trump administration has used an emergency decree to effectively seal the border to migrants, citing the potential spread of the coronavirus in detention facilities. But the judge ruled that the expulsion of thousands of children without due process exceeded the authority that public health emergency decrees confer. It is unclear if the Trump administration will appeal.

In other administration news, an elite force of Somali commandos the U.S. has trained to fight the Qaeda-linked terror group Al Shabab could fall apart if Mr. Trump withdraws American troops from Somalia. Mr. Trump plans to pull many troops from Afghanistan and Iraq as well.

Joseph Guzy/Miami Marlins, via Associated Press

7. Kim Ng has been ready to be a general manager for years.

The pioneering baseball executive, 52, proved herself over and over for three decades. Now, tapped to be the Miami Marlins’ new general manager by Derek Jeter, the team’s chief executive and part owner, she has become the first woman to hold the role in any major men’s leagues in North America. Several of her peers say they can’t think of anyone more qualified for the job.

Her mother was more blunt: “Show them boys how it’s done.”

In other sports news, tonight is the first round of the N.B.A. draft. The Minnesota Timberwolves spent months watching films, traveling the country and conducting interviews on video to prepare for making the first pick — or trading it away.

Christopher Simpson for The New York Times

8. Ina Garten’s Hamptons quarantine is not our quarantine. Her fabulous kitchen is not our kitchen. But this year, her Thanksgiving is pretty much our Thanksgiving: tiny and improvised.

As the Barefoot Contessa, Ms. Garten, 72, has published 12 cookbooks in 18 years, produced 18 seasons of her show on Food Network, and steadily built up a following and fan base that puts her among the most popular culinary figures of the past two decades.

Her relatability to home cooks became clear in the first few minutes of the interview she gave our food reporter Julia Moskin. “I find cooking hard,” Ms. Garten said. “I’m not a trained chef. I love cooking, but it is not easy.”

Reinhold Thiele/Thiele, via Getty Images

9. Chasing the aromas of the past.

A team of historians is trying to recreate the smells of Europe from the 16th century through the early 20th century, from the rosemary and tar burned in plague years to the odors of industrialization. Above, London in 1899.

The $3.3 million “Odeuropa” project will use artificial intelligence to sift through images and medical textbooks, novels and magazines to gather references to smells, and then bring in chemists and perfumers to help recreate roughly 120 scents that could be pumped through museums for a more immersive experience.

What aromas define the space around us now? We asked Times readers what smells they would archive if they could. Here’s what they told us.

Watcharapong Hongjamrassilp

10. And finally, a shrimp parade.

In northeastern Thailand, throngs of crowds gather just after sunset to watch shrimp climb out of the water and scramble along the rocks all night long. A graduate biology student decided to try to figure out what was behind the shrimps’ long march.

Watcharapong Hongjamrassilp, from the University of California, Los Angeles, recorded the shrimp as they traveled up to 65 feet upstream; some even stayed out of water for 10 minutes or more. Further observations and lab experiments showed that the shrimp, most of which were young, probably leave the water when the current becomes too strong for them to fight.

The tourists might be the most surprising part of all. “We have crayfish festivals, we have all kinds of things,” said an ecologist who praised the new research, “but generally it’s people eating them, not watching them move.”

Hope your night is filled with pomp.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

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