Your Wednesday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here’s the latest. |
 | | Shannon Stapleton/Reuters |
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1. “The most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.” |
That’s Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on what he thinks the U.S. faces in the next three months. He sees a coronavirus death toll of “close to 450,000” by February unless a far larger percentage of the population follows precautions like wearing masks. |
Current hospitalizations are on track to pass 100,000 very soon, deepening concerns about overwhelmed hospitals. California, with a population of over 40 million people, has 1.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people. Only Washington and Oregon have fewer. Above, a Covid-19 patient being treated in Illinois. |
 | | Andrew Testa for The New York Times |
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2. Britain approved Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine. |
The emergency approval, the world’s first for a fully tested vaccine, may increase pressure on U.S. regulators, who are already under fire from the White House for not moving faster. |
But the two countries vet vaccines differently. U.S. regulators are painstakingly reanalyzing raw data from the trials. Regulators in Britain and elsewhere in Europe usually ground their decisions in company-provided documents, unless there are anomalies. |
One of the last hurdles drugmakers face is testing the vaccine on children, who have more active immune systems than adults and could have stronger reactions. |
 | | Erin Schaff/The New York Times |
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3. Biden voters are tuning out President Trump. |
In places where pre-election tensions ran high, like Bucks County, Pa., above, those who supported President-elect Joe Biden are looking forward to January and increasingly ignoring the president as he continues to rage against his electoral loss. |
“It’s like a weight has been lifted,” said Mike Carr, a real-estate lawyer. “It’s so nice not to be as plugged in.” |
Thomas Friedman, a Times Opinion columnist, spoke with Mr. Biden about his plans for fighting the virus, stimulus, taxes and foreign policy. Mr. Biden noted that his prospects depended to a large degree on how Republicans in Congress behave — especially Mitch McConnell, if he continues to control the Senate. |
 | | Pool photo by Nicholas Kamm |
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4. Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, was sworn in as senator. |
The victory by Mr. Kelly, a former astronaut and the husband of the former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, means that two Democrats will represent Arizona in the Senate for the first time in decades. At least for a while: Mr. Kelly is serving out the remainder of the late Senator John McCain’s term and will face voters again in 2022. |
 | | Kin Cheung/Associated Press |
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5. Three Hong Kong activists were sent to prison. |
Joshua Wong, a leading voice for democracy, will spend 13½ months in prison for leading chants at an antigovernment demonstration last year. Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam received shorter prison sentences for their roles in what the authorities labeled an “unauthorized assembly.” Above, Mr. Wong, center right, and Mr. Lam, center left, heading to court for the sentencing. |
Critics saw Mr. Wong’s sentence as an attempt to muzzle one of Hong Kong’s most globally recognized figures of resistance. Now 24, he rose to prominence almost a decade ago as a skinny teenager who rallied students to oppose what he saw as the Chinese Communist Party’s indoctrination in schools. |
China’s ambitions lie far beyond Hong Kong. The official state news agency reports that the country has landed a robotic spacecraft on the moon to gather rocks and dirt, with the goal of returning the first cache of moon samples to Earth since 1976. |
 | | Jae C. Hong/Associated Press |
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6. Americans are already dying from a hotter planet, public health experts say. |
In an annual report on climate change and health published by The Lancet, authors collaborating from around the world say that heat has already caused a 50 percent increase in deaths of people older than 65, especially in Japan, China, India and parts of Europe. |
And they warn that the U.S. is not immune: The rising temperatures, they write, combined with pollution and wildfires, are endangering the health of Americans, with fatal consequences for many older people. Above, California’s Silverado fire in October. |
The authors make the case for a rapid shift to a green economy and call on lawmakers to act aggressively to curb planet-warming gases in the next five years. “Climate action is a prescription for health,” one of the authors told reporters. |
 | | Mario Bonneau (left); Rene Limoges/Montreal Insectarium |
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7. A century-old mystery about the leaf insect, solved. |
One variety of the insect is native to Papua New Guinea. Hiding in forest canopies, the females, above right, are almost impossible to see in nature, and not much had been known about their mates — until 13 eggs were laid by a captured female. Five hatched. |
“These small leaf insects were so precious, like jewels in our laboratory,” marveled the manager of the Montreal insectarium that nurtured them. |
 | | Rose Marie Cromwell for The New York Times |
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Barry Gibb, the eldest member of the sibling trio that helped define the disco era, is 74, and his lion’s mane hair is gray and wispy. But he is releasing a new record, a country music album recorded in Nashville, in January. There’s also a Bee Gees documentary coming out this month on HBO. |
“The mission,” Barry Gibb told our interviewer, “is to keep the music alive. Regardless of us, regardless of me. One day, like my brothers, I will no longer be around, and I want the music to last.” |
 | | Alex Lau for The New York Times |
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Michael Kimmelman, The Times’s architecture critic, took a remote stroll through Chinatown, the Manhattan neighborhood that serves as the origin story for Chinese culture in New York, guided by Nancy Yao Maasbach, the president of Chinatown’s Museum of Chinese in America. |
There’s a special feature that lets you walk through time on Doyers Street, once known as Murder Alley. (The technology may take longer to load on some devices.) |
For a different type of escape, here’s our guide on how to bring Tokyo into your home. |
 | | Clockwise from center: BET, via Associated Press; Chad Batka for The New York Times; Evans Richardson; Amy Harris/Invision, via Associated Press |
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10. And finally, the Best of 2020 lists have arrived. |
Quarantine albums, livestreamed theater, at-home divas: Even during a pandemic, artists have managed to create and perform their work. |
Among our critics’ top choices for the best albums of 2020 were those by, clockwise from left above, Rina Sawayama, Fiona Apple, Moses Sumney and Sufjan Stevens. There was more great TV than any one person could watch. And it wasn’t exactly a year for celebration in theater, but our chief critic found 10 works, including “Girl From the North Country,” that reassured him that “theater was still doing what it does at its best: showing us how we live right now, and how we might live better.” |
And while much of the cultural world stood still in 2020, books kept arriving. Our critics list the year’s Top 20. |
Have an engrossing evening. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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