Evening Briefing: A proxy battle within the GOP

February 3, 2021

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Good evening. Here's the latest.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

1. Congressional Republicans are at a turning point.

Trump loyalists want to strip Representative Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, above, of her leadership post as payback for her vote to impeach. And the party mostly wants to tiptoe around issue of the Georgia House freshman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who endorsed false claims about the election and has embraced conspiracy theories, bigoted language and violent behavior, including endorsing social media posts calling for the execution of top Democrats before she was elected.

House Republicans are meeting now to discuss their options, and Representative Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican, released a statement condemning Ms. Green's comments but declined to take any action against her.

Regardless, House Democrats intend to vote Thursday to strip Ms. Greene of her committee assignments. That is likely to force the Republicans to take a public stand on her.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats will assume chairmanships of committees under a power-sharing deal with Republicans.

Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

2. Brian Sicknick, the officer who died from the Jan. 6 riot, was honored in a ceremony at the Capitol he helped protect.

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Mr. Sicknick is the fifth person to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, a distinction reserved for private citizens, while government officials, like former presidents, lie in state. "Blessed are the peacekeepers like Brian," Senator Chuck Schumer said. "Let us be the peacekeepers now in his memory." (Watch a clip of the ceremony.)

President Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, paid their respects on Tuesday evening.

Separately, Canada formally designated the Proud Boys a terrorist group, and government officials said the group's presence at the Capitol riot had contributed to the move.

Sasha Rudensky for The New York Times

3. The Justice Department dropped a Trump administration lawsuit accusing Yale of discriminating against Asian-American and white applicants.

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The action suggests the Biden administration may be prepared to retreat from the Trump-era policy of targeting race-based college admissions. But the Justice Department said that it would continue an "underlying investigation" to ensure compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A violation could cost Yale millions of dollars in federal funding.

In other education news, San Francisco, with remarkably low rates of infection and death, plans to sue its school district to get students back into classrooms closed since March.

Vaccinating teachers has become a central point in the debate about reopening schools. A Times survey shows that almost half of U.S. states have begun allowing teachers to get shots.

Kenny Holston for The New York Times

4. After a rocky start, the Novavax coronavirus vaccine is showing promise, and if all goes well, it could add enough doses to inoculate 55 million Americans by summer.

That's on top of the 400 million doses that Moderna and Pfizer are contracted to supply to the U.S. by the middle of the year — enough for 200 million people.

The current scarcity of those two authorized vaccines seems to have made it easier for Novavax to recruit volunteers in its U.S. trials, above, putting the company on track to have results this spring.

If all goes well, government authorization could be possible as early as April. And Novavax is setting up plants around the world to produce up to two billion doses per year.

In other vaccine news:

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has the potential to slow the transmission of the virus, not just to protect against severe Covid-19, according to a new paper. Scientists have emphasized that the data are preliminary and the degree of protection unknown.
An international program to supply vaccines at low or no cost to countries around the world plans to deliver more than 300 million doses by June 30.

Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

5. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmar civilian leader deposed in a coup, faces up to three years in prison on an obscure charge of illegally importing walkie-talkies.

The country's military has a history of sidelining critics with bizarre and arcane charges like this one. The ousted president is also facing jail time, accused of violating coronavirus restrictions. Above, Myanmar activists protested today at the country's embassy in Tel Aviv.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi served a total of 15 years under house arrest before the generals released her in 2010 to allow the beginnings of the democracy she had championed. Now she is back under house arrest, and the army is dismantling the freedoms she helped win.

Pool photo by Alessandra Tarantino

6. Italy's political crisis may have an end in sight.

Mario Draghi, above, the former head of the European Central Bank, accepted a mandate from President Sergio Mattarella to form a new coalition government to guide the country out of the pandemic and through economic recovery.

The crises "requires an answer equal to the seriousness of the situation," said Mr. Draghi, who has steered Italy and the E.U. through multiple crisis over decades of public service.

Until Mr. Mattarella summoned Mr. Draghi on Tuesday, the idea that he could replace Giuseppe Conte as prime minister seemed like a pipe dream for the many Italians frustrated with the coalition led by Mr. Conte's Five Star party, which was paralyzed by ideological schisms and incompetence.

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

7. 432 Park was once the pinnacle of a cloud-piercing luxury condo boom that reshaped New York with a "billionaire's row" of skyscrapers. Now it's starting to leak and creak.

Six years after residents moved into the $3.1 billion tower, just southeast of Central Park, homeowners have made claims for millions of dollars in water damage and have suffered frequent elevator malfunctions and walls that creak like those of a ship — all of which may be connected to the building's immense height. The nearly 1,400-foot tower was briefly the tallest residential building in the world.

"I was convinced it would be the best building in New York," one of the earliest residents said. "They're still billing it as God's gift to the world, and it's not."

David Lee/Netflix

8. Many cinemas have been closed for the better part of a year, but the awards season must go on.

Streaming services, including Netflix and Amazon, dominated the list of Golden Globe nominees, often with their own films, like "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," above, and "One Night in Miami." Netflix drew a jaw-dropping 42 nominations, including six apiece for the TV series "The Crown" and the film "Mank." Here's the full list.

Black-led dramas were mostly snubbed, including the acclaimed BBC One/HBO series "I May Destroy You" and Spike Lee's Vietnam-veteran film "Da Five Bloods." Our awards-season reporter looked at where the Hollywood Foreign Press Association got it right — and very wrong.

The ceremony will hosted by Amy Poehler and Tina Fey on Feb. 28.

Angie Wang

9. Falling for string quartets.

String quartets can be intimate, intense and joyful, and all you need is five minutes to love them. For Wynton Marsalis, Beethoven's Quartet No. 16 "has all kinds of spirited hockets." The composer Jennifer Walshe says Tony Conrad's "Minor" is an "act of patience and devotion."

The audio collection is the latest in a monthly series that aims to make classical music as accessible to readers as a Top 40 track, said Zachary Wolfe, The Times's classical music editor. You don't need to know the difference between a cadenza and a concerto, he said: "It's about pure pleasure and exploration."

Niki Jabbour

10. And finally, the year-round garden.

Is it really possible to garden year-round? Yes, even in Nova Scotia, where one intrepid gardener discovered you can expand the growing season more than you may think — if you have the right tools.

Through years of experimentation, Niki Jabbour has developed an all-seasons approach to edible gardening. Her zone-cheating, season-extending tool kit, it turns out, is an effective barrier against not just weather but pests, too.

All you'll need is a lightweight row cover, a knitted shade cloth and durable, clear plastic sheeting. And if you're ready to step up to something semipermanent, try a cold frame, like the one above. Summer-sown salad greens in the dead of winter, anyone?

Have an intrepid night.

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