Evening Briefing: All eyes on Georgia

January 5, 2021

Your Tuesday Evening Briefing

By Remy Tumin and Jeremiah M. Bogert, Jr.

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

1. One more election day.

Georgia voters are choosing two senators in races that will decide which party controls the Senate — and how far President-elect Joe Biden can take his agenda. If both the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff defeat the Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, Democrats would control the chamber.

Polls close at 7 p.m. Eastern. The results of Tuesday’s race are expected to come much more quickly than the presidential tally, which included two recounts in Georgia. It’s possible — but certainly not guaranteed — that we’ll know who won on Tuesday night, or very early on Wednesday. Above, voting in Marietta.

Here’s what to watch for as Georgians head to the polls. We also have a quick look at the candidates.

Live updates are here. And for one night only, the needle is back.

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Kenny Holston for The New York Times

2. President Trump falsely claimed that Vice President Mike Pence has the power to reject electors when the Electoral College vote is certified on Wednesday.

Mr. Trump has been pressing Mr. Pence for days to use his procedural role as president of the Senate to change the outcome of the election and overturn the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. But the Constitution states that the only role of the vice president in this event is to certify the Electoral College vote count, and legal experts say Mr. Pence has no power to alter the vote.

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Mr. Pence’s aides have said he will follow what the Constitution prescribes. The joint session of Congress begins at 1 p.m. Eastern.

Washington is on edge. Local authorities are cautioning residents to avoid potentially violent protesters, who are expected to gather downtown to amplify Mr. Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. Several hundred National Guard members are expected to be present for the rallies, with additional security teams on standby.

Wisconsin Department of Justice, via Associated Press

3. A prosecutor declined to bring charges against Rusten Sheskey, above, the police officer who shot Jacob Blake outside an apartment building in Kenosha, Wis., in August.

Mr. Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was left partly paralyzed after a white police officer shot him in the back. The episode set off protests and rioting and made Kenosha an instant flash point in a summer of unrest that began with the killing of George Floyd.

The City Council unanimously passed an emergency declaration on Monday that would allow the mayor to implement a curfew once the district attorney made his charging decision public. Barricades were preemptively erected around the courthouse; streets in the area were closed and businesses were boarded up.

Alvaro Barrientos/Associated Press

4. Vaccination drives are off to a slow start around the world.

There are shortages of needles in Italy, Greece and other countries. Spain, above in Pamplona, has not trained enough nurses. France has managed to vaccinate only about 2,000 people. Nearly every country in Europe has complained about burdensome paperwork. And the threat posed by the fast-spreading coronavirus variant is adding extra urgency to an already daunting challenge.

Acknowledging that vaccination around the U.S. was going slowly, Dr. Jerome Adams, the surgeon general, warned states not to let priority guidelines slow down vaccinations.

Separately, scientists are studying vaccine data to see whether the Moderna supply can be doubled by cutting doses in half, a move that could help increase vaccine supply. But the research could take about two months.

Bing Guan/Reuters

5. The situation in California is dire.

The state’s daily coronavirus case tallies are about four times as high as they were during the state’s summer surge, and officials predict that the aftereffects of a December surge linked to holiday gatherings will worsen matters even further. Gov. Gavin Newsom called it “a surge on top of a surge.” Above, Huntington Park, Calif.

The state is also facing an oxygen shortage for patients who are struggling to breathe. Los Angeles County’s E.M.S. agency issued guidelines to emergency workers for administering the “minimum amount of oxygen necessary” to keep patients’ oxygen saturation level at or just above 90 percent. (A level in the low 90s or below is a concern for people with Covid-19.)

The Grammy Awards, set to be presented this month, have been delayed as the coronavirus spreads rapidly in the Los Angeles area.

Nati Harnik/Associated Press

6. The Trump administration gutted protections for migratory birds, delivering a parting gift to the oil and gas industry.

Under a measure that changes the way the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act is implemented, companies will not be held liable for killing migratory birds as long as their actions were not intended to do so. The act was part of the basis for a $100 million settlement with BP for the deaths of more than one million birds in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.

President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for interior secretary, Representative Deb Haaland, is expected to repeal the measure, and the Biden administration has pledged to suspend and reverse many of the Trump administration’s last-minute rule changes. But legal experts said reversing the measures would not be a quick or easy process.

Alexis Duclos/Associated Press

7. Tanya Roberts, a former Charlie’s Angel and Bond girl, died on Monday night. She was 65.

The breathy-voiced actress found fame in the 1980s as a detective on “Charlie’s Angels” and as a brave earth scientist in the James Bond film “A View to a Kill,” pictured above with Roger Moore in 1985. She fell out of the spotlight until re-emerging in 1998 in the sitcom “That ’70s Show.”

Her publicist did not name a cause of death but said it was not Covid-19 related.

A miscommunication from her publicist led to erroneous reports of her death earlier, causing some news organizations to publish obituaries about her prematurely.

Liam Daniel/Netflix

8. “Bridgerton” pushes back against the racial homogeneity of hit period dramas like “Downton Abbey.” But like “Downton,” the show’s core is escapism, our critic argues.

The Netflix hit departs from traditional casting by imagining a 19th-century Britain with Black royalty and aristocrats. While it may offer a blueprint for more inclusive period dramas, Salamishah Tillet writes, in some ways it reinforces the very white privilege it seeks to undercut.

“Bridgerton” is the first series produced by Shonda Rhimes (of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal” fame) as part of her powerhouse Netflix deal. We talked to the prolific showrunner last month.

Ruru Kuo, Rob Dozier, Jaspal Riyait and Tara Parker-Pope

9. Make 2021 the year of the exercise snack.

During pandemic lockdowns, many of us learned the importance of quick exercise routines at home. Consider the 7-minute standing workout, part of the 7-Day Well Challenge. All you need is a wall, a chair for balance and sturdy shoes. (You can sign up for the challenge here).

Do you hate to exercise? Blame it on evolution. A new book by a human evolutionary biologist argues that burning extra calories was not something humans ever had to do before.

And the latest lucrative frontier in the wellness boom: Hydration. The popularity of water with lemon has reached a fever pitch this year, along with purported hydration supplements.

Juan Arredondo for The New York Times

10. And finally, a touch of wanderlust (from your couch).

Cartagena has long been a top stop for international visitors to Colombia. They are drawn to the city for glimpses of its history (it was once one of Spain’s most lucrative global outposts) but they end up falling in love with much more — the nightclubs, the seafood and fried treats and the magical realism that inspired Gabriel García Márquez.

For our former 52 Places traveler Sebastian Modak, Cartagena’s waters were “bluer than anything I’ve seen since.” We may not be able to go swimming, but he suggests a few ways to channel the magic of the city at home.

Have a dreamy night.

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

Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.

What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

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