Your Wednesday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here’s the latest. |
 | | Erin Schaff/The New York Times |
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1. Two Senate runoffs in Georgia have influenced Republicans’ refusal to recognize President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. |
Though most leading Republicans haven’t repeated President Trump’s false claims that he won, they have declined to acknowledge Mr. Biden’s win for fear of enraging the president and his base ahead of the Jan. 5 contests, which will determine which party controls the Senate. |
“We need his voters,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Republican. |
Georgia will conduct a hand recount of the presidential vote, a move requested by the Trump campaign. Officials said it was unlikely to erase Mr. Biden’s slim lead of 14,000 votes in the state. |
 | | Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times |
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2. The Times called officials in every state. None reported any major voting issues, a forceful rejection of President Trump’s narrative. |
The president and his allies have baselessly claimed that rampant voter fraud stole victory from him. Election officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that wasn’t the case. “There’s a great human capacity for inventing things that aren’t true about elections,” said Frank LaRose, above, a Republican and Ohio’s secretary of state. |
The U.S. has never before had to force an incumbent out of office. While that moment has not yet arrived, Mr. Trump has borrowed from the playbook of autocrats and dictators the U.S. has long fought to quash — denying defeat, claiming fraud and using government machinery to reverse election results. |
 | | Elizabeth Frantz for The New York Times |
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3. Coronavirus infections and deaths are rising fast. The Trump administration remains largely disengaged. |
The White House task force has been all but publicly silent. Shortages of personal protective equipment are back, and governors are again competing with one another and big hospital chains for scarce gear. |
“With 1,000 deaths per day, it’s like two jumbo jets dropping from the sky,” an infectious disease expert said. “If every day, two jumbo jets would drop from the sky and kill everybody, don’t you think that everybody would be in a panic?” |
 | | Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times |
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4. Coronavirus restrictions are tightening in New York. |
As of Friday, the state will ban private indoor gatherings of more than 10 people and require bars and restaurants to close nightly at 10 p.m. The New York City area had seemed to keep the virus relatively contained, but infection rates have begun to increase sharply in the tristate area. |
Two months ago, India looked like a coronavirus disaster zone, with nearly 100,000 new infections a day and deaths shooting up. Today, reported infections, deaths and the share of people testing positive have all fallen significantly. But some researchers say that cases are falling off because of increased use of less reliable tests and fewer tests being administered. |
 | | Anthony Kwan/Getty Images |
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5. Beijing effectively silenced Hong Kong’s legislature, one of the last remaining forums for dissent in the city, by granting broad new powers that allow the removal of lawmakers who do not show clear loyalty to China. |
The Hong Kong government immediately ejected four pro-democracy lawmakers, prompting the 15 remaining members of their bloc to vow to resign in solidarity, above, with a pledge to work outside the system. The departures will reshape the city’s political landscape, which has been upended since China imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong this summer. |
Elsewhere in Asia, the party led by Myanmar’s civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is poised to stay in power. Her reputation overseas has been stained by her defense of a military accused of genocide, but in voting on Sunday, her party easily secured a parliamentary majority. Many voters from ethnic minorities were prevented from casting ballots. |
 | | Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times |
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Lt. Col. Nichelle Somers, pictured above with her three children at their home in California, recalled how hard it was for the whole family when she was serving in Djibouti for seven months. Her struggle, she said, was what all military parents experience: “being separated from the kids, and not being able to help when things were not going well.” |
 | | Kelsey McClellan for The New York Times |
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7. The election is over, but not the stress. Pass the edibles. |
In the weeks leading up to the election, sales surged for gummy bears, cookies and chocolates infused with cannabis to soothe 2020 jitters. No longer a fringe item limited to pot brownie experiments in college dorms, edibles are being sold as part of the wellness industry and marketed as pantry staples. |
 | | Caroline Tompkins for The New York Times |
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8. Steve Martin is known for his comedic work and even his Grammy Award-winning bluegrass music. He’s also an aspiring cartoonist — with no drawing skills. |
For Mr. Martin, writing punch lines for cartoons was trickier, in a way, than delivering a joke in front of an audience. “You don’t get to try them out,” he said. “Here, there’s virtually no feedback.” |
 | | M. Tschapka |
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9. And you thought human courtship was hard. |
When male wrinkle-faced bats feel amorous, they’ll sing and strut — and raise and lower skin flaps that can shield their faces like masks. The behavior observed by researchers could be one of the rarest of courtship rituals described among more than 1,400 species of bats. One bat biologist calls the males of the species “masked seducers.” |
In other animal news, a Hungarian researcher is leading an experiment testing the ability of dogs to remember words. Border collies from Spain, Brazil, Hungary, Florida and the Netherlands will compete in the Genius Dog Contest, which will be streamed on YouTube and Facebook today through Monday. |
 | | Angie Wang |
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10. And finally, falling for sopranos. |
We’ve asked some of our favorite artists to choose five minutes or so they would play to make their friends love classical music, the piano, Baroque music and more. Now we’ve collected recordings to inspire love for the soaring soprano voice. You’ll want to turn your volume up for this one. |
The novelist Ann Patchett suggests turning first to Renée Fleming, “who makes the most impossible repertoire seem effortless.” Ms. Fleming herself recommends going directly to the recordings of Leontyne Price, who makes “rapturous music unforgettable.” And for Kira Thurman, a historian, the sheer power of Jessye Norman’s voice “is enough to make your eyes water.” |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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