Your Wednesday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here's the latest. |
 | | Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times |
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1. The electricity crisis in Texas is worsening. |
The Houston mayor's office tweeted that the city's power loss would "likely last another few days." |
Pipes froze and burst; warming centers lost power; ambulances in San Antonio were overwhelmed; and the county government in coastal Galveston prepared to collect bodies from freezing, powerless houses. Clean water is becoming an issue. Above, Dunia Perez and her family are on day four of no electricity or water. |
The power failure was largely caused by freezing fuel lines to Texas' natural-gas plants. That didn't stop advocates for fossil fuels, including Gov. Greg Abbott, from trying to shift blame to renewable energy — which could help forestall the wild weather events caused by climate change. |
Across the country, at least 31 people have died in this week's punishing weather. Another barrage of sleet and snow is expected late into Wednesday evening in Central Texas, and another storm is expected to sweep across the South and East over the next two days. |
 | | Pete Kiehart for The New York Times |
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2. The Biden administration pledged nearly $200 million to better identify coronavirus variants. |
The White House said the funds would increase the number of virus samples that federal labs can sequence from around 7,000 to around 25,000 each week. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its lab partners are still a long way from 7,000 sequences a week — right now, public health labs and universities are doing more. |
 | | Dan Balilty for The New York Times |
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3. Social distancing is the antithesis of life in Israel's ultra-Orthodox communities. Unfortunately, so is the coronavirus. |
The first vaccine doses arrived in Gaza amid a heated debate over whether Israel bears responsibility for the health of Palestinians living in occupied territory. Israel allowed the shipment of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, which was purchased by the Palestinian Authority. |
 | | Mark Wilson/Getty Images |
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4. Pentagon leaders delayed promotions for two female generals over fears of Donald Trump's interference. The women are now getting their due. |
The former defense secretary, Mark Esper, said he and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, decided to wait to nominate them until after the election — and held to the plan even after Mr. Trump fired Mr. Esper. |
"They were chosen because they were the best officers for the jobs, and I didn't want their promotions derailed because someone in the Trump White House saw that I recommended them," Mr. Esper said. |
 | | Andrea Mohin/The New York Times |
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5. Rush Limbaugh, the relentlessly provocative voice of conservative America who dominated talk radio for more than three decades, died of lung cancer at the age of 70. |
A star of the right since his nationally syndicated program began during the presidency of his first hero, Ronald Reagan, Mr. Limbaugh was a furious critic of former President Barack Obama and a full-throated cheerleader for former President Donald Trump. |
 | | Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg |
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 | | The New York Times |
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7. Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in central Yangon in Myanmar's single largest rally since the Feb. 1 coup that ousted Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. |
In Rwanda, the trial of Paul Rusesabagina, the genocide-era hero of "Hotel Rwanda" fame, also began this week. He angered the Rwandan government with his pointed criticism from exile, and his supporters say he has no chance of getting a fair hearing. Here's what we know. |
 | | Alana Holmberg for The New York Times |
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8. The Australian Open barrels toward a close. |
All eyes will be on the semifinal tonight between 10th-seeded Serena Williams and third-seeded Naomi Osaka. The match starts at 10 p.m. Eastern. Here's what to look for. The victor has a good chance of prevailing in the final over either No. 25 Karolina Muchova or No. 22 Jennifer Brady. |
Whatever the outcome, Williams's courtside outfit has already won, our fashion critic writes. The design is a nod to Florence Griffith Joyner, the Olympic track star who famously won her 1984 silver medal in a one-legged catsuit. |
 | | Stephanie Keith/Getty Images |
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9. More of us seem to be saying it with flowers. |
Florists are increasingly on the front lines of their customers' rawest emotions. Over 80 percent of respondents to one industry survey reported an increase in holiday sales in 2020 compared with 2019. 1-800 Flowers estimated that it had delivered 22 million stems for Valentine's Day. |
"My father told me when I was a young man that the flower business is recession proof," said a New Orleans florist. "It's kind of a denial of the hard times." |
 | | Gleb Danilov |
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10. And finally, what really old DNA can reveal. |
Researchers long believed that a single lineage of Siberian mammoths gave rise to two known species: woolly and Columbian mammoths. But then a team analyzed three mammoth molar fossils "the size of a carton of milk" that had been unearthed in northeastern Siberia. Above, two researchers in Siberia with a mammoth tusk. |
Using a series of painstaking processes, the team was able to reconstruct the DNA from one fossil that was more than a million years old — smashing the record by several hundred thousand years. And the researchers found that the Columbian mammoth is in fact a hybrid of the woolly mammoth and a previously unrecognized mammoth lineage. |
The findings open up the possibility of reconstructing DNA that could be millions of years old. "I don't think we're at the limit yet," one researcher said. |
Have a rejuvenating night. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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