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- Tornadoes Hit Several States, With at Least 70 Dead in Kentucky

- Deaths Confirmed After Tornado Hits Amazon Warehouse in Illinois

- What to Know About the Deadly Tornado Outbreak

- In Bid for Control of Elections, Trump Loyalists Face Few Obstacles

- PowerPoint Sent to Mark Meadows Is Examined by Jan. 6 Panel

- Inside the Fall of Kabul: An On-the-Ground Account

- As Vaccines Trickle into Africa, Zambia’s Challenges Highlight Other Obstacles

- Omicron Can Weaken Vaccines, but Boosters Show Promise, U.K. Study Says

- Helicopters and High-Speed Chases: Inside Texas’ Push to Arrest Migrants

- Iran’s Nuclear Program Ignites New Tension Between U.S. and Israel

- What Is the Perfect Date to Bring Workers Back to the Office?

- Your Guide to the New Language of the Office

- Can Parties Help Us Heal?

- Silent Films Offer Rare Glimpses of Life in 1920s Ireland

- The Holidays Are for Martinelli’s

- How the United States Can Break Putin’s Hold on Ukraine

- As Omicron Looms, Fear Messaging Isn't Working

- We Can Live Better Lives While Being Smart About Covid

- What Can Schools Do About Disturbed Students?

- The Inflation Suspense Goes On

- Revoke the Omicron Travel Ban Against African Countries

- How the Great Resignation Could Help Workers

- Abortion: Real Stories, Not Abstractions

- I Have a Handle on History. The Future Is a Different Story.

- Why We Need to Address Scam Culture

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At Least 70 Dead After Tornadoes Hit Several States: Live Updates - The New York Times

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Mayfield, Ky., on Saturday morning after tornadoes ripped through the state overnight.Credit...Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Dozens of people were feared dead, and communities across the Midwest and South were digging through rubble on Saturday after a string of unseasonably powerful storms and tornadoes swept across five states overnight.

Officials said that there were “confirmed fatalities” after a roof collapsed at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, that three had died in Tennessee and two in Arkansas, one at a nursing home and one at a Dollar General store. Kentucky’s governor said that at least 70 had been killed in a tornado’s path of over 200 miles, and that the state’s death toll could increase to more than 100.

“This has been the most devastating tornado event in our state’s history,” Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said in a news briefing. “The level of devastation is unlike anything I have ever seen.”

The storms — dark and immense funnel clouds that roared across the nighttime landscape — obliterated homes, churches and businesses, set buildings on fire and knocked a train with 28 empty rail cars from its tracks, leaving unearthly scenes of destruction.

In Mayfield, Ky., among the hardest-hit communities, the center of town had been become a perilous maze of downed utility lines, dangling tree limbs and scattered debris. Officials said that around 110 people had been huddled inside a local candle-making factory when a tornado ripped through it. About 40 people were rescued, with the last one found at 3:30 a.m. Mr. Beshear said he believed “dozens” had been killed there.

A student at Western Kentucky University, who had been set to graduate on Saturday, died in his home off campus, the university’s president said.

In Arkansas, one person was killed when a tornado “totally demolished” the Monette Manor nursing home, where 67 people lived in the city of Monette, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said. A person was also killed at a Dollar General store in nearby Leachville, Ark., he said.

“Probably the most remarkable thing is that there’s not a greater loss of life,” Mr. Hutchinson said at a news briefing.

The White House said in a statement that President Biden had been briefed on the deadly tornadoes and that the federal government had pledged its “full support as needed.”

At least five states — Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee — were hit by tornadoes on Friday night, said Bill Bunting, the operations chief at the Storm Prediction Center, part of the National Weather Service.

He said the tornadoes were part of a weather system that was wreaking havoc in many parts of the country, causing substantial snowfall across parts of the upper Midwest and western Great Lakes.

The Edwardsville Police Department in Illinois said early Saturday that the storms had resulted in “catastrophic damage to a significant portion” of an Amazon warehouse. It was not immediately known how many people had died there. A search-and-rescue operation was underway and next of kin were being notified, the police said.

In Tennessee, two people died in Lake County and one in Obion County, in the western part of the state, said Dean Flener, a spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

As of Saturday morning, power had been lost to about 140,000 homes in Tennessee, 92,000 in Kentucky, 23,000 in Arkansas, and nearly 16,000 in Illinois and 10,000 in Missouri, according to reports compiled by PowerOutage.us.

Mr. Beshear said he had spoken to Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who had pledged his support to the state, where shaken local officials said they were struggling to comb through the debris.

Jesse Perry, the judge in Graves County, Ky., his voice wavering, called it “probably the toughest day in my life” and said local officials were “in the trenches, trying to find people.”

“We need your prayers,” he said. “We need your help.”

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/11/us/tornadoes-midwest-south

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Deaths Confirmed After Tornado Hits Amazon Warehouse in Illinois - The New York Times

The police in Edwardsville, Ill., said there were at least two “confirmed fatalities” at an Amazon warehouse after a direct hit from a tornado caused a major portion of the building to collapse on Friday night, leaving “catastrophic damage to a significant portion” of the building.

Three people were rescued from the building, and one of them was taken to a hospital, said Mark Mayfield, a captain with the Edwardsville Fire Department. He did not know the person’s status on Saturday morning but said he believed them to be in “stable condition.”

Thirty workers made it out of the building safely by themselves, the police said. A bus carried several workers to reunite with families in nearby Pontoon Beach, said Michael Fillback, the Edwardsville police chief.

Captain Mayfield said he did not know how many workers were inside the building when the tornado struck around 8:30 p.m., but Chief Fillback told the St. Louis station KDSK-TV on Saturday that the number was not “in the hundreds.” Chief Fillback estimated at a news conference on Saturday morning that about 50 people had been in the building.

Emergency responders received the initial call at 8:38 p.m. and arrived several minutes later, Captain Mayfield said, with about 100 responders on the scene shortly after the building collapsed. More than a dozen area police, fire and emergency medical service departments responded.

On Saturday morning, police blocked off the entrance to the campus, which is about 20 minutes northeast of St. Louis.

The building, which is two years old, is in a distribution hub on the west side of town with about 20 warehouses ranging from about 100,000 to 1.4 million square feet, he said. The tornado caused the collapse of a wall the size of a football field at the warehouse, along with the roof above it, according to The Associated Press.

“About half of it’s missing, it’s gone,” Captain Mayfield said of the building, which is about 400,000 square feet. The other half of the building remained standing on Saturday morning, he said, adding that workers were able to safely evacuate from that area.

“There’s a lot of debris from the concrete; that is predominately a concrete and steel structure,” Chief Fillback said on Saturday morning, adding, “It’s windy outside, so things are unstable.”

On Saturday morning, a steady stream of construction vehicles entered the scene. Workers appeared to be using a crane to clear wreckage from the site. Winds continued to blow at more than 20 mph Saturday morning, causing cars to shake.

Captain Mayfield said that the remaining part of the building would probably have to be demolished. “I don’t see anyway that they can salvage it,” he said.

Heavy machinery was brought in to move the collapsed walls to ensure that there were no other people unaccounted for, and rescue teams were checking inside vehicles that had been crushed by the collapsed walls.

“We’re deeply saddened by the news that members of our Amazon family passed away as a result of the storm in Edwardsville, Ill.,” Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement on Saturday. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their loved ones and everyone impacted by the tornado.”

Amazon opened two warehouses in Edwardsville, about 25 miles east of St. Louis, in 2016, employing about 2,200 people, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in 2017.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/us/amazon-warehouse-deaths-tornado.html

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What to Know About the Deadly Tornado Outbreak - The New York Times

What happened?

A tornado outbreak tore through several states on Friday night. At least five were struck, including Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.

The tornadoes were part of a weather system that was wreaking havoc in many parts of the country, causing substantial snowfall across parts of the upper Midwest and western Great Lakes.

Dozens of people were killed.

Kentucky’s governor said Saturday morning that at least 70 had been killed in a tornado’s path of over 200 miles, and that the state’s death toll could increase to more than 100 in the coming hours.

The storms caused a wall and roof to collapse at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, leaving workers trapped inside. The authorities confirmed people had died, but did not say how many as of Saturday morning.

Officials in Tennessee said three people were killed: two in Lake County and one in Obion County, in the western part of the state.

In Arkansas, at least one person was killed at a nursing home in Monette, and another at a Dollar General store in nearby Leachville, according to Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

The precise number of people killed and injured was not yet known, and search-and-rescue operations were continuing in several places Saturday morning.

What’s the damage like?

Officials across the five-state area were still assessing the extent of the damage on Saturday morning. Local news reports and videos on social media showed crumbled buildings and downed trees across the storm’s path.

As of Saturday morning, about 140,000 homes were without power in Tennessee, 92,000 in Kentucky, 23,000 in Arkansas, nearly 16,000 in Illinois and 10,000 in Missouri, according to reports compiled by PowerOutage.us.

The storms also caused a freight train to derail, although no injuries were reported.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/article/tornado-storms-weekend.html

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In Bid for Control of Elections, Trump Loyalists Face Few Obstacles - The New York Times

“Donald Trump and a lot of folks in his orbit were frankly ahead of the curve when it came to raising funds and organizing behind candidates who backed the big lie,” said Miles Taylor, a former official in Mr. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security who this year helped to start the Renew America Movement, an organization supporting Republican and Democratic candidates running against Trump-backed Republicans.

Mr. Taylor said that while his group was now active in congressional races, it did not yet have the resources to compete against Trump-endorsed candidates in state contests. Nor was the Democratic Party capable of filling the void, he said: “In a lot of these places, Democrats have no hope of winning a statewide election, and all that matters is the primary.”

In other areas, Democrats are disadvantaged by pre-existing political losses. In 23 states, Republicans control both state legislatures and governors’ mansions. Democrats control both in only 15 states.

The legislatures that Republicans now control have in the past year become laboratories for legislation that would remove barriers that stood in the way of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 results. In seven states this year, lawmakers proposed bills that would have given partisan officials the ability to change election results in various ways. Although none passed, Republican-led legislatures in Arizona and in Georgia passed laws that directly removed various election oversight responsibilities from the secretaries of state — legislation that appeared to directly target specific officials who had been vilified by Mr. Trump.

“We’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Wendy Weiser, the vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, who co-wrote a recent report on the new state-level legislation.

Ms. Weiser and other advocates have called for federal legislation to head off such efforts. “We must have that in order to have a comprehensive response,” said Norm Eisen, co-chair of the States United Democracy Center. But with the Democrats most likely to lose one or both houses of Congress in the next two election cycles, the time to pass it is fleeting.

Several election and voting rights reform bills have foundered this year upon unified Republican opposition in a Senate where Democrats hold a one-vote majority. Ten Senate Republicans would need to break ranks in order to overcome the party’s filibuster of the legislation. Only one, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has voted for any of the bills so far.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/us/politics/trust-in-elections-trump-democracy.html

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Mr. Meadows remains in a legal battle with the Jan. 6 committee, which is moving forward with holding him in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for a scheduled deposition or to turn over documents he believes could violate Mr. Trump’s assertions of executive privilege. Mr. Trump has filed suit claiming he still has the power to keep White House documents secret, an assertion several courts have rejected, though the case appears headed for the Supreme Court.

Mr. Meadows has responded by filing suit in an attempt to persuade a federal judge to block the committee’s subpoenas. His lawsuit accuses the committee of issuing “two overly broad and unduly burdensome subpoenas” against him, including one sent to Verizon for his phone and text-message data.

Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, has cited the 38-page PowerPoint as among the reasons he wants to question Mr. Meadows under oath.

Before coming to loggerheads with the panel, Mr. Meadows had provided some useful information to the committee, including a November email that discussed appointing an alternate slate of electors to keep Mr. Trump in power and a Jan. 5 message about putting the National Guard on standby. Mr. Meadows also turned over his text messages with a member of Congress in which the lawmaker acknowledged that a plan to object to Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory would be “highly controversial,” to which Mr. Meadows responded, “I love it.”

The Trump Investigations

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Numerous inquiries Since former President Donald Trump left office, there have been many investigations and inquiries into his businesses and personal affairs. Here’s a list of those ongoing:

Investigation into insurance fraud. The Manhattan district attorney’s office and the New York attorney general’s office are investigating whether Mr. Trump or his family business, the Trump Organization, engaged in criminal fraud by intentionally submitting false property values to potential lenders.

But Mr. Meadows also informed the committee that he had turned in the cellphone he used on Jan. 6 to his service provider, and that he was withholding some 1,000 text messages connected with the device.

In December, after Mr. Pulitzer testified before the Georgia State Senate and claimed to have “hacked” the state’s voting system, Georgia’s secretary of state issued a news release calling him a “failed treasure hunter” who had “provided no evidence.”

Mr. Pulitzer did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Waldron was featured in a film by Mike Lindell, the embattled chief executive of MyPillow who helped finance Mr. Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results. In the film, Mr. Waldron pushed the unfounded claim that the Chinese government had access to files and data through voting machines. He also claimed that overseas servers in Germany, Spain and Britain somehow played a role in manipulating results.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/us/politics/capitol-attack-meadows-powerpoint.html

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Inside the Fall of Kabul: An On-the-Ground Account - The New York Times

On July 15, I went to the palace to see Mohib. Above the gate tower, a giant tricolor of the republic fluttered against a clear blue sky. After passing through security, I walked across the long, deserted lawn toward the building that held the Office of the National Security Council. I waited in the council’s empty reception room until one of Mohib’s staff members, a young woman who had studied in America, brought me upstairs to his office, where he sat behind his desk. Our conversation was mostly off the record. He seemed exhausted as we spoke about the desperate fighting in Kandahar City, which had been surrounded by the Taliban.

Only a few days before, there had been a farewell ceremony for Gen. Austin S. Miller, the long-serving U.S. commander. The military had completed 90 percent of its withdrawal, well ahead of Biden’s deadline. This rapid pace was intended to reduce the risk of attack during the retreat, but it had a devastating impact on Afghan security forces. The U.S. military had spent billions to train and equip a force in its own image, heavily dependent on foreign contractors and air support. But the Afghan Army’s notoriously corrupt generals stole their men’s ammunition, food and wages; while security forces were supposed to total 300,000, the real number was likely less than a third of that. Out in the districts, the army and the police were crumbling, handing over their arms to the Taliban, who now controlled a quarter of the country.

Ghani had repeatedly insisted that he would stand and fight. “This is my home and my grave,” he thundered in a speech earlier in the spring. His vice president, Amrullah Saleh, and the security council were working on a post-American strategy called Kaf, a Dari word meaning “base” or “floor,” which envisioned garrison cities connected by corridors held by the army and bolstered by militias, similar to how President Mohammad Najibullah clung to power for three years after the Soviet withdrawal. “It was very much the Russian model,” said Bek, who returned to the government as the president’s chief of staff that month. “They had a good plan on paper, but for this to work, you needed to be a military genius.”

Earlier in July, Ghani was warned that only two out of seven army corps were still functional, according to a senior Afghan official. Desperate for forces to protect Kandahar City, the president pleaded with the C.I.A. to use the paramilitary army formerly known as counterterrorism pursuit teams, according to Afghan officials. Trained for night raids and clandestine missions in the borderlands, the units had grown into capable light infantry, thousands strong. They were now officially part of the Afghan intelligence service and were known as Zero Units, after codes that corresponded to provinces: 01 was Kabul, 03 was Kandahar and so forth. But according to the officials, the C.I.A. still paid the salaries of these strike forces and had to consent to Ghani’s request for them to defend Kandahar City that month. (A U.S. official stated that the units were under Afghan control; the C.I.A. declined to comment on details of their deployment.) “They’re very effective units, motivated, cheap,” Mohib told me in his office, saying Kandahar would have fallen without them. “They don’t need all sorts of heavy equipment. I wish we had more like them.”

But the Zero Units had a reputation for ruthlessness in battle; both journalists and Human Rights Watch have referred to them as “death squads” — allegations that the C.I.A. denied, saying they were the result of Taliban propaganda. I had been trying to track these shadowy units for years and was surprised to see them, in their distinctive tiger stripes, given glowing coverage on the government’s social media accounts.

In Kabul, I met with Mohammad, an officer from one of the N.D.S. units that operated around the capital, whom I had known for a few years. Mohammad had worked as an interpreter for the unit’s American advisers and as an instructor for undercover teams that carried out arrests inside the cities. He said morale had plummeted among his men, now that the Americans were leaving. According to Afghan officials, the station on Ariana Square was empty by late July. But Mohammad’s team still received advice from the Americans. He showed me messages that he said were from the C.I.A., urging his unit to patrol areas around Kabul that had been infiltrated by the insurgents. “The airport is still in danger,” one message said.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/magazine/fall-of-kabul-afghanistan.html

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NGWERERE, Zambia — Four people turned up at a health clinic tucked in a sprawl of commercial maize farms on a recent morning, looking for Covid-19 vaccines. The staff had vials of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine stashed in the fridge. But the staff members apologetically declined to vaccinate the four and suggested they try another day.

A vial of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine holds five doses, and the staff was under orders not to waste a single one.

Ida Musonda, the nurse who supervises the vaccination effort, suspected that her team might have found more takers if they packed the vials in Styrofoam coolers and headed out to markets and churches. “But we have no fuel for the vehicle to take the vaccines there,” she said.

They did vaccinate 100 people on their last trip to a farm; the records from that trip sat in a paper heap in the clinic because the data manager had no internet connection to access an electronic records system.

For months, the biggest challenge to vaccinating Africans against Covid, and protecting both the continent and the world from the emergence of dangerous variants, has been supply: A continent of about 1.4 billion people has received just 404 million doses of vaccine, and only 7.8 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

But as supply has begun to sputter into something like a more reliable flow, other daunting obstacles are coming into focus. All of them are on view at and around Ngwerere.

Weak health care systems with limited infrastructure and technology, and no experience vaccinating adults, are trying to get shots into the arms of people who have far more pressing priorities. At the same time, the global flow of information, and deliberate misinformation, on social media is generating the same skepticism that has stymied vaccination efforts in the United States and other countries.

Some Zambians are hesitant, but others have an attitude that could better be described as vaccine indifference. This is a poor country where the economy has contracted sharply during the pandemic, and many unvaccinated people are more focused on putting food on the table.

“I’d like to get it but I work Monday to Saturday, and I don’t know if they vaccinate on Sunday,” said Bernadette Kawango, who supports a large extended family with her wages from an auto-parts store in a low-income neighborhood on the edge of Lusaka, the capital. She has heard many rumors: that people who receive the vaccine will die in two years; that the vaccine is part of a plot by Europeans to kill Africans and take their land; that Bill Gates is on a campaign to reduce the world population.

Such stories make her roll her eyes. But Covid is not at the top of her list of health care worries. “It’s cholera season, and people have malaria, and there is H.I.V. and TB,” she said. She does not know anyone who has been diagnosed with Covid.

All these challenges create two major problems. First, the pace of vaccination is far too slow to prevent unnecessary deaths in a fourth wave, which is already beginning in southern Africa, or to prevent the emergence of new variants such as Omicron, which was first identified in South Africa late last month. The vaccines now in stock — many of them donations close to their expiration dates when they arrive — may not be used before they must be destroyed.

Second, the push to vaccinate against Covid is drawing resources from health systems that can hardly spare them, which could lead to disastrous consequences for the fight against other devastating health problems.

At the Ngwerere health clinic, the usual bustle and screeching at the mother-and-child health area, where babies are monitored for signs of malnutrition and given childhood immunizations, was absent because everyone on that staff had been repurposed as Covid vaccinators.

“Every time we have a wave here it really threatens the investments that have been made in H.I.V., maternal and child health, and TB and malaria, and it’s important that we protect those,” said Dr. Simon Agolory, who runs the large Zambia program of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Andrew Silumesii, the director of public health for Zambia’s health ministry, said there was already clear evidence that infant growth monitoring and childhood immunization had declined over the course of the pandemic. He worries that malaria, TB and H.I.V. infections will also increase.

Updated

Dec. 11, 2021, 11:21 a.m. ET

So far, 7 percent of Zambians have been vaccinated against Covid, according to Dr. Silumesii. President Hakainde Hichilema has set a target of vaccinating another two million by Christmas, and 70 percent of the population by the third quarter of 2022, a goal that looks exceedingly ambitious.

Zambia’s vaccines come mostly from Covax, the global vaccine-sharing initiative, with additional donations from China and the African Union. The fact that Zambia is dependent largely on donations means that it must adapt its program to whatever shipments arrive — a bit like making a meal with whatever arrives in a farm subscription box. The country is managing distribution of five different vaccines, each with different dosing regimens, storage requirements and vial volumes.

That has created a huge additional administrative burden for skeleton staffs such as Ms. Musonda’s team. Her staff has no budget for cellphone calls to remind people about second shots, and the effect can be seen in the charts stapled on the vaccination room wall: Of the 840 people who received a first dose of AstraZeneca in April, only 179 came back for a follow-up shot in July.

When Zambia experienced a severe third Covid wave earlier this year, the media coverage of people dying in the parking lots of hospitals that ran out of oxygen rattled a population that had been thinking of the virus as something that affected only white or rich people. There were pre-dawn lineups outside vaccination sites that couldn’t keep shots in stock.

But when the wave abated, so did the demand.

Many people here recall the time when Zambians were dying of AIDS in huge numbers and Western pharmaceutical companies refused to produce affordable lifesaving medications. There is skepticism now that those same companies have come offering free solutions.

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know

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Vaccine mandates in Europe. The latest wave of the pandemic is prompting countries like Germany and Italy to impose restrictions that single out those who are not vaccinated. The measures are rekindling the debate over governments’ right to curtail individual liberties in the name of public health.

The worldwide vaccination campaign. One year into the global vaccine rollout, the gap in vaccination rates between high- and low-income countries is wider than ever. Challenges in Zambia highlight how infrastructure issues and the public’s hesitancy to get vaccinated are proving to be large obstacles.

Vaccine misinformation spreads on TikTok and WhatsApp, and in evangelical churches where pastors warn that the shot “contains the mark of the beast.”

“No matter how educated people are, if their pastor says don’t trust the vaccine, they don’t trust,” said Dr. Morton Zuze, the clinical care coordinator at Chongwe District Hospital, where seven staff members sat idle in an empty vaccination tent.

As in the United States, there are false rumors in Zambia that the vaccine causes female infertility or erectile dysfunction. Zambians have heard AstraZeneca is not being used in many countries because of reports of blood clots in a very small number of people who received that shot. “It’s a global village and everyone can switch on CNN,” Dr. Zuze added.

Zambia normally vaccinates only small children, and it has no primary care practices. An adult goes to a clinic only when pregnant or receiving H.I.V. treatment, or in an emergency.

Dr. Lawrence Mwananyanda, an assistant professor with the Boston University School of Public Health and a special adviser to President Hichilema, said the government must balance between trying to create vaccine demand and not creating too much, when it can’t be sure if it will have the supply to deliver.

“To just walk up — and these health facilities are sometimes very far away, two, five, seven kilometers away and people don’t have cars, you have to be very motivated — sometimes people have gone to a health facility and then there is no vaccine,” he said. “All they are told is, ‘You can only vaccinate if there’s five or six people, so you can’t be vaccinated today’. How likely are you to come back?”

Charity Machika was vaccinated recently at a rural health center in Chongwe District. She went to the clinic for a prenatal checkup and then was encouraged to head to the next building, where the H.I.V. treatment center was repurposed for vaccinations. “I was scared because people say a lot of stories, that I will faint, that I will not be able to walk, that I will die,” she said. “I took the risk to come and protect myself and my baby.”

She is the only vaccinated person in her family. Her husband tried twice but the sites he went to never had vaccines in stock, and it was difficult for him to find the time to make the four-kilometer walk to try again, she said.

Felix Mwanza, a veteran H.I.V. activist in Lusaka, said the government had yet to tap into the vast network of H.I.V. and TB treatment activists in the country. “We seem not to learn from our past,” he said, recalling how testing and treatment for H.I.V. only reached critical mass when care was delivered in bars, at schools and on doorsteps.

“If they don’t use the structures we already have, donors will keep sending the vaccines and they’ll pile up here and expire and then they won’t send us anymore,” he said.

Dr. Mwananyanda said the key strategy for the planned rapid scale-up in vaccination was to do exactly that, taking vaccines to people in malls and at bus stops.

Amid the scramble, no one is thinking about what happens next. “We’re really just addressing the vaccination problems for now — but we don’t have a system for the long run,” said Dr. Agolory with the C.D.C. “And what are we going to do when boosters are needed or if there’s some new variants that escape the vaccine altogether, and we need to start from zero and give people more vaccines?”

Zambia will need help procuring more, and it will need funding to help bring on temporary health care workers to administer vaccines so that existing programs, like the Ngwerere mother-and-child clinic, are not abandoned, Dr. Agolory said.

Even with a huge boost in vaccination rates, the country won’t have enough coverage to blunt the coming wave, or, most likely, the one after it.

“I am hoping that we keep receiving vaccines so that we don’t get into a situation where people need vaccines and they can’t get them,” said Dr. Silumesii of the health ministry. “The flip side, which is something that I would really hate to see happen, is where we have brought in vaccines and we don’t have enough demand and vaccines go to waste. These are vaccines that cost a lot. Definitely that pinch would sting so badly.”

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/health/covid-vaccine-africa.html

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Covid-19 Live Updates: Omicron Cases, Vaccines and Boosters News - The New York Times

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Lining up to get a Covid-19 vaccine shot in London last week.Credit...Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The first real-world study of how vaccines hold up against the Omicron variant showed a significant drop in protection against symptomatic cases caused by the new and fast-spreading form of the coronavirus.

But the study, published by British government scientists on Friday, also indicated that third vaccine doses provided considerable defense against Omicron.

Government scientists on Friday also offered the most complete look yet at how quickly Omicron was spreading in England’s highly vaccinated population, warning that the variant could overtake Delta by mid-December and, without any precautionary measures, cause Covid-19 cases to soar.

Four months after people received a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the shots were roughly 35 percent effective in preventing symptomatic infections caused by Omicron, a significant drop-off from their performance against the Delta variant, the scientists found.

A third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, though, lifted the figure to roughly 75 percent.

Two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine appeared to offer virtually no protection against symptomatic infection caused by Omicron several months after vaccination. But for those recipients, an additional Pfizer-BioNTech dose paid big dividends, boosting effectiveness against the variant to 71 percent.

Still, the study’s authors said they expected that the vaccines would remain a bulwark against hospitalizations and deaths, if not infections, caused by Omicron. And the researchers cautioned that even in a country tracking the variant as closely as Britain is, it was too early to know precisely how well the vaccines would perform.

That study was released alongside new findings about how easily Omicron is managing to spread. Someone infected with the Omicron variant, for example, is roughly three times as likely as a person infected by the Delta variant to pass the virus to other members of his or her household, Britain’s Health Security Agency reported.

And a close contact of an Omicron case is roughly twice as likely as a close contact of someone infected with Delta to catch the virus.

Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London, said that Omicron’s ability to evade the body’s immune defenses accounted for most of its advantage over previous variants. But modeling work by his research team and other groups in Britain also suggested that Omicron was simply more contagious than Delta, by roughly 25 to 50 percent.

“I think that there’s a significant amount of immune escape,” Dr. Ferguson said, referring to the virus’s ability to dodge the body’s defenses. “But it’s also more intrinsically transmissible than Delta.”

He and other scientists have cautioned that evidence was still coming in, and that better surveillance in places where the Omicron wave is most advanced could affect their findings.

The World Health Organization said this week that some evidence had emerged that Omicron was causing milder illness than Delta, but that it was too early to be certain. Still, scientists have warned that if the variant keeps spreading as quickly as it is in England, where cases are doubling every 2.5 days, health systems around the world may be deluged with patients.

Even if Omicron causes severe illness at only half the rate of the Delta variant, Dr. Ferguson said, computer modeling suggested that 5,000 people could be admitted to hospitals daily in Britain at the peak of its Omicron wave — a figure higher than any seen at any other point in the pandemic.

Scientists said that widespread vaccination in countries like Britain and the United States would keep as many people from dying as have in earlier waves. But the experts also warned that patients with Covid and with other illnesses would suffer if hospitals became too full.

“It only requires a small drop in protection against severe disease for those very large numbers of infections to translate into levels of hospitalization we can’t cope with,” Dr. Ferguson said.

It will take several weeks to understand how the current surge in Omicron infections may translate into people needing hospital care. “I’m concerned that by the time we know about severity,” Dr. Ferguson said, “it may be too late to act.”

Read more

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Helicopters and High-Speed Chases: Inside Texas’ Push to Arrest Migrants - The New York Times

BRACKETTVILLE, Texas — Magdaleno Ruiz Jimenez huddled under a waxing moon in the rough brush of a Texas ranch. His journey to the small border community of Brackettville had been long, about 1,300 miles from his home in Mexico. But now a drone was buzzing overhead.

A lone officer, Sgt. Ryan Glenn, emerged from the darkness. He had a flashlight and a screen with coordinates for where Mr. Jimenez and six other men could be found on the cold caliche, blobs of heat visible to an infrared camera on the overhead drone. More officers soon arrived.

“I spent everything to get here,” Mr. Jimenez said after the officers wrested him and the other men from the brush.

The men assumed they had been detained by immigration officers for illegally crossing into the United States. They were wrong. Instead, they were arrested on charges of trespassing on a vast private ranch by highway patrol officers from the Texas state police

For several months now, Texas has been engaged in an effort to repurpose the tools of state law enforcement to stem the sudden increase of people crossing illegally into the country.

To do this, Texas officials led by Gov. Greg Abbott developed a way around the fact that immigration enforcement is a federal government job: State and local police departments partner with the owners of borderland ranches, and use trespassing laws to arrest migrants who cross their land.

“That’s an effective way of sending a message,” Mr. Abbott said, flanked by nine other Republican governors, at a news conference along the border this fall. “If you come into the state of Texas illegally, you have a high likelihood of not getting caught and released, but instead, arrested and jailed.”

The new approach relies on the participation of local officials and, so far, it has been adopted in just two of the state’s 32 border region counties: Kinney, which includes Brackettville, and Val Verde, its neighbor to the west.

State officials could not say what effect, if any, the program has had on reducing illegal crossings, which have surged to at least 1.2 million in Texas so far this year, the highest recorded figure in more than two decades. (It remains unclear how many migrants are trying to cross multiple times.) But the operation has upended life both for the migrants caught up in its ad hoc processes and for the rural residents living under its net.

Perhaps nowhere has that been more acutely felt than the town of Brackettville, a former frontier outpost of 1,700 known for its surrounding hunting and cattle ranches, an old fort that once housed the army’s Black Seminole scouts, and an aging replica of the Alamo built for a John Wayne film.

Lately, it has been flooded with state police.

High speed chases are so frequent that the local school installed rock barriers to protect against crashes. Helicopters patrol the night sky. Ranchers, who are mostly white, lock their doors and carry pistols around their own properties, which many never did before. Town residents, a majority of whom are poor and Hispanic, complain they are routinely followed by officers newly assigned to the area.

“That happens to a lot of people here in Brackett,” said the mayor, Eric Martinez, using the nickname for the town. He said he was followed and then pulled over after leaving a City Council meeting because, the officer told him, his license plate light was not bright enough.

The police push is part of an ongoing clash between Mr. Abbott and the Biden administration over how to handle the sudden increase of arrivals at the border with Mexico. Federal agents have been rapidly expelling migrants under a public health rule, but Mr. Abbott argues that the government has done little to halt the flow of them. He has dedicated $3 billion for a series of measures at the border, including sending state police and troops from the Texas State Guard, creating a border barrier with shipping containers and using the National Guard to construct several miles of fencing along the Rio Grande.

But the arrests of migrants for criminal trespassing has been a more disruptive element of what is known as Operation Lone Star, crowding courts and local jail populations and raising alarm among defense lawyers and advocates for migrants.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to comment on the initiative, and federal agents are not partnering with the state police in making trespassing arrests.

Representative Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, has asked for a federal investigation of the Operation Lone Star, saying in a letter this fall to the Justice Department that the program was “wreaking havoc on Texas’ judicial system” and has “directly led to a violation of state laws and constitutional due process rights.”

The men arrested under the program, some 2,000 so far, have often been held for weeks without access to lawyers. More than 1,000 are currently being held in state prisons that were repurposed to house them. (Women and children have been turned over to federal agents.)

Because the process is new, and taking place in small rural counties, the usual system for assigning criminal defense lawyers has been overwhelmed. Kinney County has also struggled to file arrest paperwork in the time required by law.

After their arrests, migrants are transferred to a single processing center, a large tent in the border town of Del Rio — where a surge of Haitian migrants flooded the community earlier this year — and then transferred to the repurposed state prisons in other counties.

While the state police checks identification documents of those arrested, the men are not turned over to federal authorities until the end of their cases, a process that, so far, has often lasted several months. Among those who have gone before a judge, most have had their cases dismissed or have been released on bond as they await hearing dates, their lawyers said.

And many of those released who have sought asylum have been allowed to stay in the United States to pursue their cases, defense lawyers said, unlike those apprehended at the border by federal authorities, because the public health rule that is used to rapidly expel migrants applies to new arrivals, not those already in the country.

More than 50 Kinney County ranchers have signed up with the Texas Department of Public Safety to allow the state police to patrol on their property and arrest people for trespassing, the agency said.

In interviews, ranchers who signed up for the program described feeling increasingly unsafe on their own land, because of the possibility of running into groups of migrants, though none of the ranchers said they had been assaulted or threatened. They trade information via Facebook and by text message and share stories on the latest “bailout” — a familiar local term for the end of a police chase in which migrants attempt to run from a car or truck, often after it has crashed.

Seated on the oak-shadowed patio of their ranch, a few head of cattle walking slowly nearby, Bill and Carolyn Conoly said the situation this year was the worst they could remember.

“We’re constantly repairing,” Mr. Conoly said, referring to ranch fences that are bent or cut. “We keep the doors locked and I have a gun available.”

Motion-activated cameras on the ranch capture images of passing migrants, information that helps the state police locate them. Earlier that day, cameras had picked up a large group walking through the Conoly family ranch; the police caught up with the migrants at night on an adjacent ranch — 14 men and one woman.

For months, the Conolys have also had constables from Galveston, just south of Houston and about 370 miles away, staying in their white stucco guesthouse.

“If it makes a difference, I don’t know,” said one of the constables, Lt. Paul Edinburgh, who had never been to the border before. “But it’s better than me sitting on the couch reading about it.”

Around 9 p.m. on a recent weeknight, a row of state highway patrol SUVs sat outside the only gas station in town, as two officers, parked nearby, led a woman out of their car and removed her handcuffs.

The woman, an American citizen, had been caught transporting 10 undocumented people in a pickup truck, the officers said, a felony. But because Kinney County did not have a place to hold women, she was given a court date and released.

Not long after, an officer with a drone located a group of men on a nearby ranch. Sergeant Glenn, who was leading a team of seven officers that night, searched for tracks on the ground. It was then that he found Mr. Jimenez, the man who had traveled from Chiapas, Mexico.

A house painter looking for a job, Mr. Jimenez had tried to cross the border once before, in August. After being turned back, he gathered more money and paid to cross again — 150,000 pesos, he said, or about $7,000.

“There’s almost no work. They suffer,” he said of people in Chiapas, a Mexican state along the border with Guatemala. Now, with all his money spent on trying to cross, he would not have enough to return home. (He is currently being held on $2,500 bond.)

As the officers awaited their prisoner transport — rented white vans without official insignia — they received an alert of movement from a camera deep inside another ranch. It was 12:20 a.m.

The police vehicles bumped across overgrown ranch roads. A helicopter hovered over what appeared to be three migrants but was running out of gas.

The officers arrived at a locked gate and decided to cut the lock. When they could go no further by car, they started walking. But after a long march across rough terrain, and a meticulous search in the thorny brush, no one could be found.

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Iran’s Nuclear Program Ignites New Tension Between U.S. and Israel - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Long-running differences over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program have erupted into new tensions between the Biden administration and Israel, with two senior Israeli officials leaving Washington this week concerned that the Americans’ commitment to restoring the 2015 nuclear deal will lead to a flawed agreement allowing Tehran to speed ahead with its nuclear enrichment program.

The strains were evident all week, as the Biden administration sought to bring the alliance with Israel into a united front about how to deal with Iran over the next year.

In an effort to close the gap, American officials let out word this week that two months ago, Mr. Biden asked his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, to review the Pentagon’s revised plan to take military action if the diplomatic effort collapsed. Administration officials also outlined new efforts to tighten, rather than loosen, sanctions on Iran.

Mr. Biden’s focus on military options and sanctions was an effort to signal to Tehran that the United States was running out of patience with Iranian foot-dragging in the nuclear negotiations in Vienna, administration officials said. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said last week that the new Iranian government “does not seem to be serious about doing what’s necessary to return to compliance” with the 2015 nuclear deal.

But the tougher line was also aimed at calming increasingly frustrated Israeli officials. Though they will not criticize the American president in public the way former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did during the Obama administration, Israeli officials in private argue that the Iranians are advancing their nuclear program while betting that the United States, eager to diminish American commitments in the Middle East, will not abandon the Vienna talks for more forceful action.

This article is based on discussions with more than a dozen American and Israeli officials who spoke on the condition they be granted anonymity to discuss both sensitive matters of diplomacy and classified intelligence assessments.

After a tense phone call with Mr. Blinken 10 days ago, the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, dispatched his defense minister, Benny Gantz, and the new head of the Mossad, David Barnea, to Washington this week armed with new intelligence about Iranians’ uranium enrichment and the work of what Israel says is their weapons group. Despite the tougher American talk, Israeli officials left worried that the diplomatic outreach to Iran would continue.

The disagreement over Iran is just one of several issues troubling the Biden-Bennett relationship. The pair started off on a strong footing: Mr. Biden spoke with Mr. Bennett within hours after the Israeli leader took office in June — a signal of support given that Mr. Biden had taken weeks after his inauguration to speak directly with Mr. Bennett’s predecessor, Mr. Netanyahu.

But the two governments have since clashed on whether the U.S. should reopen the American consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which was closed by President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Bennett says such a move would undermine Israel’s sovereignty in its capital city.

There are also disagreements over Israeli plans to expand its settlements in the occupied West Bank, and over the Biden administration’s decision to blacklist two Israeli spyware firms, NSO Group and Candiru, whose products, the U.S. alleges, have been used by authoritarian governments to hack the phones of dissidents and rights activists.

But at the heart of the tensions between Israel and the United States is the fundamental disagreement over how to stop the Iranian program. It is not a new argument: The two allies fought bitterly over the 2015 agreement, which Israel opposed and President Barack Obama signed.

More recently, they have disagreed about the wisdom of Israeli sabotage of Iranian facilities, which Mr. Bennett’s government believes has set back the program, and which some in the United States argue only encourages the Iranians to build back the nuclear enrichment facilities with more efficient, up-to-date equipment.

Israeli officials had been happy with the warm welcome the White House offered Mr. Bennett. The Biden administration had praised his government for being far more transparent with it than Mr. Netanyahu had been. Indeed, the Israelis consulted with the Americans before launching two covert strikes against Iran, one in September against a missile base and one in June against an Iranian factory building nuclear centrifuges, according to people briefed on the actions.

But the call between Mr. Bennett and Mr. Blinken last week was contentious, with the two sides embracing very different opinions about the value of a renewed agreement to check Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. The call left officials in both countries frustrated, according to officials from both countries.

During the phone call, Mr. Bennett said that Iran was trying to blackmail the United States by increasing the enrichment percentage, according to an official familiar with details of the call. Mr. Bennett added that no official, American or Israeli, wants to be the one to report that Iran has reached bomb-grade enrichment, but fears of a nuclear-armed Iran should not lead to surrendering to Iranian demands or signing a reckless agreement.

Some American officials believe those concerns about concessions are misplaced. Israeli officials had complained that the United States was considering offering an interim deal with Tehran that would roll back some sanctions in return for a freeze on some of its nuclear activity. But American officials say such an offer is not actively being considered, at least for now, because of Iran’s unwillingness to engage.

Israeli officials have not been reassured. They are increasingly concerned that the United States will eventually reach a deal with Tehran and then seek to block Israeli intelligence services from carrying out covert sabotage attacks. Israeli leaders say they want a guarantee from the Biden administration that Washington will not seek to restrain their sabotage campaign, even if a renewed nuclear deal is reached.

Disagreements over intelligence assessments about the Iranian nuclear stockpile and bomb-making know-how remain relatively small, mostly focused on how long it would take Iranians to produce a weapon if they get enough bomb-grade nuclear fuel.

But the gulf about the meaning of those assessments is wide. American officials believe that so long as Iran has not moved to develop a bomb it does not have a nuclear military program, since it suspended the existing one after 2003. Israeli officials, on the other hand, believe that Iran has continued a clandestine effort to build a bomb since 2003.

Some Israeli officials believe that the sabotage campaign is having strategic effects and could be one of the reasons Iranians, however tentatively, have returned to Vienna. A senior Israeli intelligence official said the sabotage operations had created crippling paranoia at the top of the Iranian government. The operations, the official said, have caused Tehran to rethink whether it should accelerate the nuclear project.

But even American supporters of the Israeli approach say it is akin to “mowing the grass,” a necessary step to keep Iran in check but not one that will ever fully halt Tehran’s nuclear research. These American officials believe that the only durable way to prevent Iran from developing a weapon is to reach an agreement, like the one in 2015, that requires Iran to ship its nuclear fuel out of the country. And that would require significant sanctions relief in return.

In the meetings this week, Israeli officials tried to persuade Washington not to work toward a diplomatic agreement and to instead tighten sanctions. But Israeli officials say they fear that the U.S. is conducing secret back-channel communication with Iran, and that a new round of talks in Vienna will eventually lead to the signing of a deal.

The meetings came against the backdrop of a recent Iranian attack on American forces in Syria, a senior American official said. The Israelis, the official said, had an aggressive attitude on the Iranian threat, related to both the nuclear program and the risk of missile and other weapon proliferation.

But there is a growing American concern that it is just a matter of time before an American service member is killed or wounded by an Iranian proxy drone strike on Mr. Biden’s watch. With Iran making clear it will retaliate against American personnel in Syria or Iraq if Israel strikes Iran or its proxies, it complicates strike planning.

In an appearance at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council on Monday, William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, raised concerns about the Iranian nuclear work. He said the Iranians were “dragging their feet” on negotiations as they were “making steady advances in their nuclear program, particularly enrichment to 60 percent now as well.” That is the closest the Iranians have ever come to bomb-grade fuel, which is usually defined as 90 percent purity.

But, Mr. Burns added, the United States continues to believe that Iran has not made a decision to weaponize its nuclear program.

Patrick Kingsley contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

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What Is the Perfect Date to Bring Workers Back to the Office? - The New York Times

“We decided as a leadership team, ‘what was magical about these dates?’” Ms. Anas said. “It was extremely liberating saying, ‘We’re going to see how this nets out and we’re not solving for a date.’”

She is unsettled by the possibility that they will still be working from home in March, two years since they first packed up their desks. But with coronavirus infections spiking, Ms. Anas is relieved that the company doesn’t have to weigh the merits of an early 2022 return, leaving workers to wait worriedly for updates.

“If we had kicked the can to January, they’d be fixated on that,” she said. “We keep focused on the work. This is just a distraction.”

For many organizational leaders, addressing the anxieties of their work force has been the only constant in the R.T.O. process.

With the spread of Delta, Jessica Saranich, who runs U.S. operations at the productivity software company Monday.com, got a flurry of notes from colleagues: Will we really go back to the office in August? Last month brought the news of Omicron, with a fresh set of questions: What does this mean for the January off-site gathering, with its promise of free food, partying and a Miami D. J.? Ms. Saranich’s team has delayed its return to office date three times, which has left some employees pleading for more permanence in the company’s policies.

“Sometimes our team will say please just make a decision, pick something, make us come back to the office or make us be remote,” Ms. Saranich said. “But it’s not something that we want to rush. To be able to lean into the discomfort and say we don’t know is a great gift that we can give to our team.”

Still, plenty of organizations aiming for an early 2022 return haven’t budged.

Express Employment Professionals, a staffing provider in Oklahoma City, aims to bring half of its 300 workers back to their newly remodeled headquarters on Jan. 15. The company had originally reopened its office in July in a phased re-entry plan, which was temporarily scaled back in September. Keith McFall, chief operating officer, feels that clear R.T.O. dates serve as a force of stability for workers navigating months of tumult.

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Bookcase credibility

Some have a copy of Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker” on display for video calls. Others opt for something subtler — maybe “Jude the Obscure,” which the actor Paul Rudd chose, or Thomas Piketty’s “Capital,” featured behind Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “Seeing into every person’s home, no matter how well you knew them, felt intrusive,” Ms. Nancherla said. “But it was also bonding in that you’re like, ‘You’re stuck at home like me.’” Stars: They’re quarantined just like us.

Commuter’s delight

When people sit in morning traffic, they owe themselves a treat. Maybe it’s a scone or a smoothie. Maybe it’s one of those egg white wraps from Starbucks that probably dates back to the Paleolithic era. Cameron Parkins, who started a new job during the pandemic as a graduate programs administrator in Richmond, impressed his co-workers by making banana cheesecake for his first day at the office. His team appreciated it, he said, maybe even too much: “They joked around that it was the real reason they hired me.”

Mask-issist

That office colleague who inexplicably lowers his mask when he has to cough, as if he was the only person in the room. At least he filled out his Covid symptom self-scan this morning.

Polywork

Working flexibly means more time away from your day job to sell crafts on Etsy, trade cryptocurrencies or write the 2021 twist on “King Lear.” “When you’re not in the office, it’s a lot easier to switch back and forth between tasks,” said the lexicographer Erin McKean, who noted a recent spike in usage of the word “polywork,” a more official-sounding form of the side hustle.

R.T.O.

Who knew three little letters could contain so much angst? They became ubiquitous this year, as bosses promised a triumphant Return to Office, only to have their plans hijacked by coronavirus variants. Still, better to talk about a return to the office than a return to work, according to Chris Herd, a technology entrepreneur. “People are genuinely offended about being told they’re returning to work,” he said, “when they’ve been working their socks off for the last 18 months.”

Show and tell

When offices disappeared, the boundaries between the professional and domestic went with them. Alexis Gay, a comedian who used to work at Patreon, realized early on in the work-from-home era that the seven employees she managed would become intimately familiar with her kitchen. “It was like, here’s my mug, here’s my plants,” she said. “You were forced to be a little more yourself by nature of the office coming to you.” Hopefully they’ll attest to her interior design skills in year-end reviews.

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Can Parties Help Us Heal? - The New York Times

On the first night of December, the scene at Nowadays, a bar and club in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens, was uncharacteristically tranquil. In place of the usual crowded dance floor, people were lying on blankets in the middle of the club. Instead of bumping beats, the music was calming, and the space was filled with candles. Rather than dancing body to body, guests engaged in gentle forms of touch: caressing, hugging and leaning on each other.

They had gathered for an event called “Under the Tongue: A Hibernation Temple and Ceremony,” organized by Nocturnal Medicine, a nonprofit that hosts parties meant to encourage spiritual healing. Together, the group would work to ease each other’s worries about the seasonal transition to winter — the second since the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic in March 2020.

“We noticed, in ourselves and in our friends and in the people we were speaking to, an uneasiness about winter approaching,” said Michelle Shofet, 33, who founded Nocturnal Medicine with Larissa Belcic, also 33. “There was this kind of discomfort, uncertainty, fear, anxiety of returning to the cold, to this time of being shut in.”

As the pandemic closes in on its second year, people are continuing to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety at a high rate. Many still feel socially isolated and deprived of human touch. Some have tried adopting pets to combat loneliness, or went to therapy. Others have sought relief through nonclinical means: by creating new rituals and immersing themselves in new social settings, where conversation and connection can lead to new realizations.

Though some of Nocturnal Medicine’s events are referred to “raves,” they don’t involve shoulder-to-shoulder dancing or rely on hedonistic drug consumption. Rather, the organization borrows principles from rave culture such as the power of crowds and the sense of release that parties can provide.

That evening’s offerings included a sound bath, a guided meditation, a candle-lighting ritual and an invitation to interact with an art installation in the center of the dance floor.

The installation, which consisted of sculptures made of tree stumps, horseshoe crab bodies, stone and dirt, was meant to serve as a “visual cue for the concepts of cycles and time,” Ms. Shofet said. “The stone is meant to reference geological time scales that are moving much more slowly than us. With horseshoe crabs, which are one of the oldest living species on earth, we wanted to have this sort of ancient creature present.”

Donesh Ferdowsi, 33, an architectural designer who lives in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn, said that engaging with the installation helped him feel more connected to the earth. “Touching the dirt, holding the logs, putting my hand by the fire, it’s sort of this return to the elemental,” he said. “My whole job is all in my head, so you forget that you’re not just a disembodied brain.”

Ambient music helped set the tone. “I was trying to find tracks that can meet different moods,” said Ian Kim Judd, the night’s DJ. “Things that emanated a lot of light, things that also tend to have some darker edges underneath.”

For Mr. Ferdowsi, the fact that the event fell on a Wednesday night, rather than on a weekend, was also significant. “It’s incredible that it’s in the middle of the week because you can’t wait for the right time,” he said. “It’s in the middle of everything, and that’s how winter is. I wanted to be able to drop everything and go to something that touches on sacredness in a universal way.”

Kelsa Trom, 33 who works with writers and lives in Ridgewood, agreed that the gathering was well timed. “Who doesn’t need a hug before another pandemic winter?” she said, as she waited for the sound bath and meditation to begin. “I’ve been to Nowadays as a club. I haven’t been here as a ritual space. It’s calmer, easier to speak and listen in.”

Ms. Shofet said that the decision to host the event at a nightclub — rather than at, say, a meditation center — was intentional. “The dance floor is a space that’s already charged with so much collective energy, it’s already used for this kind of communication with things outside of ourselves like music or other people,” she said. “One of our big underlying goals and desires is to knit together contemporary clubbing and raving with environmental awareness.”

Though attending a healing rave might not solve all of one’s anxieties, the sense of connectedness it may bring about can be beneficial, said Scott Hutson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Kentucky, who has researched the ways raves have helped foster spiritual transformations.

“The therapeutic rave experience comes precisely from being in community, in unity with others,” Mr. Hutson added. “The ability to break down barriers between other people and yourself, to sort of be away from your own anxieties and your own ego, to basically unite and forge bonds with a whole crowd of people.”

Ms. Trom refers to that as a “beautiful anonymous intimacy.” “It’s a feeling that is hard to come by in New York City, and maybe everywhere,” she said after the event. “It felt like a gift.”

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Silent Films Offer Rare Glimpses of Life in 1920s Ireland - The New York Times

DUBLIN — Mícheál Ó Mainnín always wondered whether his grandfather had been telling the truth.

When Mr. Ó Mainnín was growing up on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland, there was no radio or television to pass the time, he said, so people would tell stories. His grandfather had many, but he told one more than others.

In the mid-1920s, an American visited Dingle to study birds and collect specimens. Sometimes Mr. Ó Mainnín’s grandfather would bring the man — his name was Benjamin Gault, though the locals called him “Kaerty” — in his fishing boat to the nearby Blasket Islands. Kaerty always had a hand-cranked camera with him. One day, as he was filming Mr. Ó Mainnín’s grandfather and his friends, the grandfather stuck a pipe in his dog’s mouth as a joke.

“It was a very far-out story,” Mr. Ó Mainnín, 55, a farmer and fisherman in Dingle, said. “You would never think that it was true.”

Long after Mr. Ó Mainnín’s grandfather, also named Mícheál Ó Mainnín, died in 1981, the family wondered whether any of the film shot by the visiting American still existed.

Mr. Ó Mainnín’s curiosity ultimately led to the discovery of a collection of silent film reels depicting life in 1920s Ireland — police officers directing traffic in Cork City, horse-drawn carts piled high with wicker lobster pots, people attending horse races and Mass — all shot in 1925 and 1926, in the early years of Irish independence from Britain.

Footage of Ireland from that time — a period when memories of the First World War were still fresh, and Ireland was recovering from its own civil war — is incredibly rare. Most of the film that does exist is newsreel footage of major events, according to Manus McManus, the film collections and acquisitions manager for the Irish Film Institute.

“This stands out as quite unique in the sense of essentially recording the ordinary daily lives of people,” Kevin Rockett, a retired professor of film studies at Trinity College Dublin, said. “There’s lots of footage of the war, so that was what people would be most familiar with.”

Mr. Ó Mainnín started his search in 2011 with little to go on beyond the American’s name, but he quickly found out that Mr. Gault was an ornithologist from the Chicago area. That led him to the Chicago Academy of Sciences, home to the Gault collection, which includes bird specimens, dried plants and, as he had hoped, old film.

Mr. Gault’s films are not the only reels in the academy’s archives, but they are among the oldest. Dawn Roberts, the academy’s senior director of collections, was trying to raise money to digitize the reels when she received an email from Mr. Ó Mainnín.

The academy did not have the resources to digitize the Gault reels, but Ms. Roberts shared catalog notes with Mr. Ó Mainnín along with scanned journal entries and photographs belonging to Mr. Gault. Mr. Ó Mainnín brought those materials to the Irish Film Institute to see if it could help fund the digitization process.

Mr. McManus had secured some funding from a nonprofit when Rob Byrne, the president of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, caught wind of the story. Mr. Byrne, who lives in Ireland, had been looking for an Irish project, and Mr. Gault’s reels presented a rare opportunity. The Silent Film Festival had a lot of experience with restoring silent films.

“Because the footage was shot by an American in Ireland, it’s fitting that, after nearly 100 years, the U.S.-Ireland connection endures,” Mr. McManus said.

Mr. Gault shot on 35-millimeter nitrate film, which was rare for a hobbyist because it was a very professional and higher-resolution medium, Mr. McManus said. The downside is that nitrate is also unstable and flammable, which makes the film hard to preserve.

“First of all, these are amateur films shot 100 years ago that, fortunately, nobody ever threw out,” Mr. Byrne said. “Films like these are disappearing. They’re a huge, single unique copy on a combustible, flammable, deteriorating film base. Fifty years from now, this film would not exist at all.”

Mr. Gault’s reels were in exceptional condition. After the funding was arranged to have a third-party laboratory digitize the reels, it was up to the Silent Film Festival to restore the footage. That job fell to a senior film restorer, Kathy O’Regan, who also happened to be a native of Gort, County Galway, a rural area in the west of Ireland not unlike the places Mr. Gault shot in Counties Cork and Kerry.

“It was magical to see it,” Ms. O’Regan said. “On a personal level, the first time I watched it was so exciting. There’s this one shot of two farmers who are planting potatoes, and I swear to God, one of the men is the absolute spitting image of one of my next-door neighbors. I know it’s impossible, but it’s wild just to watch.”

The 19 reels of film will amount to about 35 minutes of footage once the frame rate is adjusted. After they are graded and restored, Mr. McManus wants to screen the footage in Dingle. He hopes that if more local people see what Mr. Gault shot, they’ll be able to identify some of the people featured.

For Mr. Ó Mainnín, the film footage offered a chance to see familiar faces in a different light.

“I know all those people that were in the film, but they were older,” he said. “But that’s when they were young and strong and full of life, you know?”

As with the birds he studied, Mr. Gault observed the people of rural Ireland in their natural habitats. His reels show people dancing in the streets, baling hay, walking arm in arm.

And, yes, a dog smoking a pipe.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/world/europe/silent-film-ireland-discovery.html

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The Holidays Are for Martinelli’s - The New York Times

That the sparkling cider is nonalcoholic is a tradition that dates back to Prohibition. The Martinelli family, immigrants from Switzerland, had been making hard cider in Watsonville, Calif., since 1868, but when the sale of alcohol became illegal in 1920, S. Martinelli & Company had to shelve that product. In addition to selling apple juice starting in 1917, the family made money by bottling Coca-Cola at their plant. On the side, they also began making single-serve sparkling juice, said John Martinelli, the chairman of the company, in a recent interview.

Mr. Martinelli, a fourth-generation leader of the business, recently ceded his role as chief executive to Gun Ruder, who introduced himself as the “first nonfamily member to run the family business.” (Still, by most definitions, he is family; Mr. Martinelli’s wife is Mr. Ruder’s sister.)

Both Mr. Martinelli, 64, and Mr. Ruder, 51, are real Martinelli’s dads, with plenty of stories of keeping their families and friends well stocked in “bubble juice,” as Mr. Martinelli’s kids called the sparkling cider when they were little.

Even after stepping down as chief executive, Mr. Martinelli continues to taste every day’s production of apple juice and cider so that he can pick up any flavor variations.

“That’s one of those things that is kind of a family tradition that was passed down,” he said, brightly, adding, “I do believe I have a very perceptive palate, especially as it relates to apple juice and apple juice flavors.”

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/style/martinellis-sparkling-cider.html

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Opinion | How the United States Can Break Putin’s Hold on Ukraine - The New York Times

Over the past 30 years, Ukraine has made major strides in its experiment with democracy. Despite worrying instances of government-backed corruption — undeniably, there is still more work to be done — Ukraine has made hard-fought progress on reform in the midst of war. Six presidents, two revolutions and many violent protests later, the people of Ukraine have sent a clear message that reflects the most fundamental of American values: They will fight for basic rights, and against authoritarian repression.

A prosperous Ukraine buttressed by American support makes an authoritarian Russia unviable in the long term. Ukraine’s success would upend Russia’s irredentist aspirations for empire and highlight the Kremlin’s failures, just as West Germany’s achievements once did in comparison to the totalitarian East German state during the Cold War. It may even convince the Russian people — who share a culture, history and religion with Ukrainians — to eventually demand their own framework for democratic transition.

To be sure, this doesn’t happen overnight. A generational investment is necessary to realize such a vision. Nevertheless, the outlines of the stark contrast between a prosperous democratic Ukraine and a repressive and economically stagnant Russia are already evident. This is, in large part, why Mr. Putin needs Ukraine to be a failed state.

U.S. support for Ukraine could also help drive a wedge between China and Russia. Preventing Mr. Putin from invading Ukraine demonstrates the strength of the West’s commitment to opposing autocracy and makes Russia a less potent partner to China in their mutual efforts to undermine the Western rules-based international order.

To that end, the United States should consider an out-of-cycle, division-level military deployment to Eastern Europe to reassure allies and bolster the defenses of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This kind of deployment would signal that Russia’s aggression will result in the sort of NATO security posture Russia most wishes to avoid.

And the United States cannot adequately support Ukraine without significant European involvement. The Kremlin wishes to make NATO membership for Ukraine a central issue of any discussions. That’s a distraction right now because an assurance that Ukraine won’t be a part of NATO is unlikely on its own to stop Russia from still trying to bring Ukraine to heel.

The more important issue to consider is that negotiations with Russia should be dealt with at the level of European security. These talks should devise off ramps that alleviate both European and Russian security concerns: for Russia, NATO encroachment and ballistic missile defense, and for NATO, Russia’s over-militarized western border.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/opinion/international-world/putin-ukraine-biden.html

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Opinion | As Omicron Looms, Fear Messaging Isn't Working - The New York Times

Billions of people have been subjected to both of these experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the spring of 2020, we all went through flooding. We were suddenly confronting an invisible, lethal pathogen that was killing thousands across the globe and around us. The media bombarded us with harrowing images of patients struggling to breathe on ventilators.

Each new wave of communication since then has operated as a form of systematic desensitization. People around the world have been through so many alarms — both real and false — that many have been conditioned to stop fearing Covid-19 in the same way. And every trip outside the house that doesn’t result in people getting sick can serve to desensitize them further. At this point, it’s as if we have built up antibodies against fear.

The mood of the year might also be numbing people’s fear response. As the pandemic has dragged on, I’ve highlighted how many people are languishing in a state of emptiness and ennui. When you feel that “blah” or “meh,” your emotional reactions are subdued. The sense of impending doom that plunged you into action last spring feels more like a nagging headache this fall. Many are tired of being afraid — and just plain tired, too. If a Covid-19 variant falls in a community and no one is there to fear it, does it still make a sound?

This isn’t to say scare tactics have no place in public health messages or private conversations. There’s extensive evidence that appealing to fear motivates people to avoid dangers. It can drive them to quit smoking or wear seatbelts. But as intense as fear feels as an emotional state, it’s also fleeting, which can reduce its effectiveness at motivating continuing behavior change. For example, with efforts to reduce the spread of H.I.V., research suggests that while stoking fear initially increases patients’ perceptions of their H.I.V. risk, it actually reduces their condom use. (Counseling and testing programs are more effective in changing behavior.) You can sustain fight, flight or freeze for only so long.

Fear generally works best for motivating one-time acts, especially those that feel risky. Last year, fear was probably an effective way to motivate people to get their first vaccine shot. But it tends to be less effective for driving repeated behaviors such as getting a second dose and a booster.

Of course, the problem isn’t just being oversaturated with fear messages. Safety behaviors have become so politicized that many people are skeptical not only of vaccines and face masks, but also even of the threat that Covid-19 presents. For a fear message to get through and change behaviors, people need to be confident both that there’s a clear and present danger and that taking action will protect them.

Since 2020, scientists have made astonishing strides in learning how to prevent and treat Covid-19. Health authorities should be applying the same scientific discipline to communications about Covid. Some promising approaches include informing people that a shot has been reserved for them, inviting them to do their part in reciprocating the enormous sacrifices of health care workers and inquiring about what would motivate them to consider a vaccine.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/opinion/covid-omicron-psychology-fear.html

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Opinion | We Can Live Better Lives While Being Smart About Covid - The New York Times

Masking in schools is uniquely challenging. No one wants to force young children to wear masks for several hours a day indefinitely, but it would also be foolish to abandon the practice completely. A happy medium may be to require masks for students during surges or when new variants of concern are detected and vaccine escape is still being measured. The rest of the time, evidence so far suggests the requirement could be lifted. Nevada has successfully tied its school masking mandates to community transmission rates, and experts say it’s worth trying the same in other states.

Prepare for surges. No scientist or health official has managed to predict, or even explain after the fact, what constellation of forces causes the pandemic to ebb and flow around the globe the way it does. But it’s clear that there will continue to be periods of substantial uptick in coronavirus cases, and there should be sensible, significantly better policies in place for dealing with them.

Country-specific travel bans are futile: By the time a variant like Omicron is detected in one country, it’s already spread halfway around the globe. Penalizing countries that report new variants — as South Africa did, with Omicron — will only discourage them from sharing that kind of information in the future. Blanket policies — like requiring everyone entering the United States to test negative or possibly quarantine — would be tougher and more expensive to carry out.

It would also have a better chance of actually working. If federal officials are serious about using border control to slow the spread of dangerous pathogens, they will need to establish clear, enforceable test and quarantine protocols, not to mention adequate quarantine facilities, at ports of entry.

Do away with Covid theater. The coronavirus is airborne, and any money spent on deep cleaning would be better put toward improved building ventilation. But instead of upgrading their HVAC systems, too many schools and businesses are still relying on things that won’t work nearly as well. The plastic barriers that have become common in restaurants, nail salons and offices, for example, can actually impede air flow and exacerbate viral spread. Lawmakers and local officials should make a concerted effort to change that. Not only would improved ventilation help thwart coronavirus, it would also curb the spread of other airborne pathogens including the flu and those that cause the common cold.

Keep going on vaccines. Public health powers were once a common feature of American life. When cholera and yellow fever routinely stalked the nation’s major cities, citizens accepted and expected their health departments to issue mandates, quarantine orders and travel restrictions. It’s crucial for officials to shore up those powers now, because scientists say that epidemics and pandemics will only become more common in the years ahead. Mr. Biden’s vaccine mandates have been bold and effective — and administration officials should stay the course no matter how many legal battles they encounter.

In the meantime, government officials and private businesses would do well to stand firm on some basics: Covid vaccines should be required for public employees and in large companies, for health care workers, in schools (for staff as well as students for whom the shots are authorized) and for a range of indoor activities including dining in restaurants and attending concerts. Masks should be worn again in indoor public settings anytime transmission rates are high, vaccination rates are low or new variants of concern are circulating.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/opinion/covid-vaccine-omicron-booster.html

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Opinion | What Can Schools Do About Disturbed Students? - The New York Times

Josh McKivigan, a behavioral health therapist who works with middle and high school students, said that the majority of threats that he has encountered do not turn into violence. “It’s usually students acting out, needing some sort of mental health treatment,” McKivigan said. And he said that students are getting better and better at identifying and sounding the alarm to teachers and counselors when their friends are exhibiting worrying behaviors — like not sleeping, not bathing, isolating from people or saying bizarre things.

Still, he said that as a school therapist, he found the Michigan incident chilling because it seemed, based on reports, like the accused student’s parents weren’t willing to work with the school to help monitor their child. McKivigan also said that with Covid, he’s seeing a baseline level of irritability, anger and mistrust among parents and students alike, which he finds worrisome. “It feels like a perfect storm for a crisis happening,” he said.

Despite the absolute terror that mass shootings inspire in just about everyone, it’s worth pointing out that these types of events are relatively rare, and schools remain among the safest places for children. According to the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which monitors youth behaviors every two years, 11.8 percent of students carried a weapon on school property in 1993 in the 30 days before the survey and only 2.8 percent did in 2019. Brock also pointed out to me that violence in schools is prevented all the time; we just don’t often hear about those cases. The Post just ran a story about a grandmother who did contact authorities, potentially averting a tragedy.

Just because students may be relatively physically safe does not mean they feel psychologically safe. There is evidence that they don’t. According to YRBS data, almost twice the percentage of students missed at least one day school because of safety concerns in the 30 days before the survey than was the case years ago — 8.7 percent in 2019, up from 4.4 percent in 1993. Lauren Koong, who won a Times Learning Network essay contest, wrote about how every time she hears the lunch bell ring at her Houston high school, she is reminded of a gang-related shooting that happened her freshman year.

For too many of our kids, we can’t erase these awful memories, and I confess that after reporting this out, I don’t feel optimistic. Not because I don’t think teachers and school counselors aren’t prepared to address potential violence. On the contrary, I think most of them are doing their best to keep students safe. But they aren’t psychic, and in a country where there are, according to one study, 120.5 firearms for every 100 residents, there will always be the potential for a worst-case scenario.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/opinion/schools-students-staff.html

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Opinion | The Inflation Suspense Goes On - The New York Times

Today’s consumer price report came as a huge surprise to almost everyone — because the numbers came in almost exactly in line with expectations, which basically never happens. Analysts whose job is to forecast what official numbers will say a few hours before they come out — a job of dubious usefulness, but whatever — expected the one-year rate of inflation to come in at 6.8 percent; it came in at … 6.8 percent. “Core” inflation that strips out volatile food and energy prices came in right on expectations too.

If there was any information content in today’s release, it was that extreme scenarios in both directions became a bit less likely. There wasn’t anything in the report suggesting that inflation is rapidly spiraling upward; nor was there anything lending comfort to those hoping to see inflation fade away in the next few months. For what it’s worth, financial markets appear to have taken onboard the reduction in risks of really high inflation: “breakeven rates,” which measure market expectations of the inflation rate over the next few years, came down modestly. But nothing major happened.

That said, the headline number is highly likely to come down over the next few months, if only because the big run-up of oil prices from their pandemic lows seems to have gone into reverse:

Some other components may also be coming down — or will at least stop rising rapidly. Hyun Song Shin, head of research for the influential Bank for International Settlements, recently made the case that a lot of recent inflation reflects the “bullwhip effect”: panic or at least precautionary buying of goods that seem to be in short supply, which intensifies the shortage. Remember last year’s toilet paper shortage?

Shin points out, among other things, that shipping costs, while still very high, seem to have peaked:

But even if you try to adjust for special circumstances, underlying inflation appears to be running high by recent standards, maybe around 4 percent instead of the 2 percent that is the Fed’s target and has been the norm since the mid-1990s. This in turn reflects an economy in which spending is more or less back to the prepandemic trend but production is constrained both by bottlenecks and by the withdrawal of several million Americans from the labor force.

As an aside, 4 percent inflation isn’t hyperinflation; it isn’t even the double-digit inflation of the 1970s. In fact, whether they know it or not, Americans of a certain age can attest that it’s not so bad. It was, after all, the inflation rate that prevailed for much of the Reagan years — you know, after morning in America:

I, at least, don’t remember the late 1980s as hellish.

Still, the Fed would consider a sustained doubling of the inflation rate a blow to its credibility. So how long will elevated inflation last?

The secret answer (don’t tell anyone) is that we don’t know.

I still think the most likely scenario is a minor-league version of the 1946-48 inflation spike, when pent-up demand after the end of wartime rationing caused an inflationary boom — inflation peaked at around 20 percent — but price stability quickly and more or less painlessly re-emerged once the spending surge was over. I still don’t see any evidence that 1970s-type stagflation, in which everyone kept raising prices because they expected everyone else to keep raising prices, is emerging.

But today’s numbers neither reinforced nor challenged my beliefs. This report was shockingly unsurprising.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/opinion/inflation-economy.html

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Opinion | Revoke the Omicron Travel Ban Against African Countries - The New York Times

Not long after scientists in South Africa discovered the Omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, a number of Western countries — including the United States — imposed travel bans on people traveling from southern African countries. The U.S. ban exempts American citizens and permanent residents.

Notably, Omicron has been identified in many other countries around the world, including the United States. Some data even suggests that it may have been circulating in Europe even before it was identified in southern Africa. Yet the bans remain.

President Biden acknowledged that the American travel ban was unlikely to stop the virus. But he justified it as a way of delaying the arrival of the new variant into the country. Others have justified the ban as a way to act “proactively” — as if there are no undesirable consequences of this policy.

Did the ban delay the arrival and spread of the new variant in the United States? How does it impact the efforts to control Covid-19 in the United States?

The science is nuanced. Even before the pandemic, scientists had studied the utility of travel bans after the emergence of a new respiratory virus. Most of the pre-Covid-19 pandemic research was conducted on potential influenza pandemics. Seasonal and pandemic influenza virus can be devastating, but it is less infectious than SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

Opinion Conversation Questions surrounding the Covid-19 vaccine and its rollout.

To assess the infectiousness of a virus, epidemiologists use a unit of measure they call the basic reproduction number, or R0. It is derived from the average number of individuals a single infected person is statistically likely to infect in an otherwise uninfected and unimmunized population. The virus that caused the 1918 influenza pandemic had an R0 of 1.8, and the R0 for seasonal influenza ranges from 0.9 to 2.1, whereas the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 had an R0 of 2 to 3; the Delta variant has an estimated R0 of 6. While we don’t yet know the R0 for Omicron, it is likely to be substantially higher than influenza’s.

A 2014 review of scientific evidence conducted by a group of British researchers from Public Health England and the University of Nottingham concluded that travel bans can work but only for stalling the arrival of a pandemic influenza virus into a country. To effectively delay virus importation, a ban must shut down almost all travel into a country, the study found. But according to the researchers, even these drastic restrictions may have limited utility if the virus involved is moderately to highly infectious — which is the case with SARS-CoV-2 and its variants.

During the current pandemic, it is true that countries such as New Zealand and Australia have used travel bans to reduce importation of SARS-CoV-2. But their bans have been near-total, early, and paired with effective contact tracing and quarantine systems. Similarly, many small island nations such as the Polynesian country of Tuvalu — population approximately 12,000 — have kept the coronavirus out after severely restricting travel.

So, yes: Travel bans can work under limited conditions. But the Omicron-related southern Africa travel ban imposed by the United States is too selective, focuses on many countries where the variant hasn’t been documented and excludes many more where the variant has been detected.

If there were any doubts about the futility of this ban, reports of the Omicron cases outside southern Africa should put them to rest. In fact, there are substantially more countries with reported cases of Omicron outside southern Africa than in that region.

The travel ban is also not without cost. It could discourage countries from reporting new variants and emerging viruses.

Suppose you are a health minister somewhere in Africa and see some initial data indicating that a new variant is circulating in your country. Announcing the discovery would risk the imposition of capricious travel restrictions on your people. Do you tell the world?

The success of domestic efforts in the United States depends on what happens globally. A new variant or incomplete information about existing ones can undermine efforts to control the virus. It is in America’s interest that scientists, doctors and health officials everywhere do not feel conflicted in reporting relevant information rapidly and completely.

Rather than imposing arbitrary travel restrictions, countries can adopt less intrusive policies to slow the spread of the virus through international travel, including testing passengers before their departure or after arrival. Making proof of vaccination mandatory for international travel also helps limit importation of the virus.

The United States has, of course, already imposed new rules for all inbound travelers — citizens and permanent residents as well as foreign visitors — requiring a negative result of a test taken within a day of departure and proof of immunization. These rules further diminish the need for a blanket travel ban for a few countries.

The long-term solution, however, is to ensure that a high number of people around the world are vaccinated.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Mr. Biden promised to have a science-based pandemic response. But his travel ban on southern African countries is not justifiable by science. Moreover, it makes Americans and others less safe by disincentivizing rapid reporting of new variants. It is time, then, for the United States to revoke the ban.

Saad B. Omer is the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health and a professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine and the Yale School of Public Health.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/opinion/omicron-travel-ban-covid-africa.html

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Opinion | How the Great Resignation Could Help Workers - The New York Times

The Great Resignation — the phenomenon of Americans leaving their jobs at record rates this year — reached a fever pitch in August, with 4.3 million Americans, or nearly 3 percent of the work force, calling it quits. Economic forecasters do not expect the situation to improve substantially anytime soon; some predict continued labor shortages in the coming months, exacerbating supply chain delays.

Why are so many people quitting? In part it may be that they don’t need the money — a consequence of federal stimulus checks, the suspension of student loan payments and months of reduced spending. In part it may be that people are concerned about workplace safety in a country whose population is still less than 60 percent vaccinated.

But it also may be that the Great Resignation is a kind of spontaneous, informal labor strike — a collective demand by workers for substantial raises and other gains after decades of wage stagnancy and suppression. If so, history suggests that the Great Resignation could be the beginning of a meaningful transformation of working conditions in this country.

Consider the situation in France in the first decades of the 20th century. The country experienced labor deficits during World War I because of increased industrial production and a decreased labor supply (a result of mobilizing troops). When the war ended, the influenza pandemic of 1918 further decreased the supply. The labor shortage persisted after the pandemic started to wane in 1920, largely because of the huge wartime and pandemic death tolls and a continually low birthrate.

Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau attempted to address the labor shortage by facilitating immigration to France by mostly male workers and by encouraging Frenchwomen and young people to join or rejoin the work force. This influx of workers allowed many employers to keep wages low despite the overall shortfall, which in turn stoked worker resentment, leading to a period of wildcat and general strikes throughout France between 1917 and the immediate post-pandemic period.

Hundreds of thousands of French workers orchestrated a nationwide series of “big quits” in the form of factory walkouts, assembly line slowdowns, union-organized strikes and other actions designed to put pressure on employers. Voluntary unemployment — deliberately leaving the labor force for extended periods — was also an effective, if less commonly used, strategy.

Eventually, these large-scale acts of protest and work refusal led to meaningful change in labor law and in some cases, higher wages. In 1919, to quell unrest in a period of rapidly rising postwar inflation and to discourage the growing enthusiasm for communism, Mr. Clemenceau enacted an eight-hour workday and a 40-hour workweek — about 20 years before the United States would do the same. This achievement did not solve all labor issues, and it was frequently undermined by employers in the following decade, but French workers had used the labor shortage to their advantage, as both a catalyst and a core bargaining tool for achieving better working conditions and wages.

If the 2021 labor shortage is, as many suspect, in part an expression of widespread worker dissatisfaction, the French example is encouraging. It shows that workers during periods of labor deficits possess considerable leverage to bring about meaningful change in wages, labor law and working conditions.

But unlike the labor shortage in France a century ago, the current shortage may not be temporary. American workers could possess even more leverage in the future, given a rapidly aging work force and the striking drop in birthrates during the coronavirus pandemic.

Will businesses continue to fill vacant jobs by tapping the teenage and senior employment pools and by purchasing labor-saving technology such as A.I. and robots? Or will the United States borrow a page from the playbook of World War I-era France, facilitating increased immigration to relieve long-term labor deficits?

Even if employers are able to mitigate labor shortages, growing anti-work sentiment and widespread voluntary unemployment among members of Generation Z suggest that the character of work will continue to change. During the Great Resignation, employers have managed to retain some blue- and white-collar workers with increased wages, flexible hours and remote work options. In the event of a prolonged labor shortage, more sweeping changes — a minimum-wage hike, more paid vacation days, the formal enactment of a shorter workweek — may be needed to lure workers back.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/opinion/great-resignation-labor-shortage.html

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Opinion | Abortion: Real Stories, Not Abstractions - The New York Times

To the Editor:

I was just out of college when Roe v. Wade was decided. It enabled me, in my 20s, to terminate an unplanned pregnancy though I was on the pill at the time. I was not ready for a child and had grave misgivings about my skills at that age to be a parent. I have never regretted my decision. I was able to go on to graduate school and become a licensed clinical social worker.

A large part of the issue regarding abortion is not even being discussed — the welfare and care of children unwanted and unloved. Do people naïvely believe that once a child is born it will be loved? Why do we not talk about the life of a child born to a mother who does not want the child but won’t put it up for adoption?

The stories I could relate of children burned and physically and sexually abused would stun people. And that’s not even to mention the fact that the world needs fewer people, not more, given the scarcities that climate change will introduce.

JoAnn Ruppert

Santa Fe, N.M.

To the Editor:

Re “The Supreme Court Gaslights Its Way to the End of Roe” (Opinion, Dec. 4):

In response to Linda Greenhouse’s excellent article regarding the oral arguments for the Mississippi abortion case, I would add: Why is there so little discussion of the physical toll pregnancy exacts on women?

I suffered from PTSD for years after the hallucinogenic cocktail given to me during my first son’s surgical birth. The permanent nerve damage surrounding the puckered scar of my abdomen is a daily reminder of that experience.

My best friend nearly bled out on the operating table during the birth of her daughter, which has left her unable to have more children. My former colleague suffered from a fourth-degree tear during the birth of her first child, requiring surgical reconstruction of her vagina and rectum. She lamented to me that her bowel movements have never been the same, even 20 years later.

A young woman I met told me of the abortion she had because her morning sickness was so severe that she had used up all of her annual unpaid sick days in the first month of her pregnancy. Her boss threatened to fire her, so she chose to terminate so she could pay her rent.

I can go on and on with such stories. I know very few women who were left completely unscathed by their pregnancies and births. Every pregnancy has a lasting effect on a woman’s body, some more severe than others. It is not selfish to choose self-preservation.

Shaileen Patton

Charlotte, N.C.

To the Editor:

Re “The Case Against Abortion,” by Ross Douthat (column, Dec. 2):

Thank you for this column. While I’m sure the vast majority of your readers favor abortion rights, the minority of us who are against abortion appreciate anything we can get.

Mr. Douthat succinctly stated the primary argument against abortion, which, in my opinion, is unassailable. Abortion takes a human life for no other reason than that it is burdensome for the mother and/or father.

Pregnancy affects the female of the species in profound ways that cannot be fully understood by us males. But the pressures placed on a woman because of pregnancy cannot be used to justify the killing of the unborn child.

As a Christian, I believe that the obvious answer is to follow the clear teachings of Scripture. Children are a blessing and should be protected.

While you may not like the fact that pregnancy affects only a woman’s life in ways that don’t affect men, you’ll need to take that argument up with God if you believe in Him, or evolution if you don’t.

Paul A. Mattaliano Jr.

Charleston, S.C.

The writer is a retired pastor.

To the Editor:

Ross Douthat is an intelligent man and a skilled and highly effective writer. His columns are often convincing, even when they are based on conclusions that have more to do with ideology and philosophy than with actual living, struggling people.

In his column on abortion, his thinking ignores the reality of what a person facing a difficult choice actually experiences. Emotions and human needs seem not to matter.

One unfortunate example: What kind of life can an unborn and unwanted “person” look forward to? How many are condemned to poverty, how many will be rejected and abused by parents who never wanted them? How many of those who argue on their behalf are willing to grant them the resources that might make the life they are given tolerable?

Leonard Simon

Los Angeles

To the Editor:

Re “‘Her Heart Was Beating Too,’” by Sarah Wildman (Opinion, Dec. 1):

Regarding our vanishing reproductive rights, Ms. Wildman quotes Lynn Paltrow: “It is martyrdom and the visible suffering and death of a visible woman that reminds people of their humanity and their right to life.”

Is this what we’re waiting for? I am a visible woman who suffered a kitchen table abortion in 1956, but luckily didn’t die. I was invisible then, just as the women who are suffering and dying for lack of abortion care are invisible today.

One does not have to look far to find these women. It is tragic that they are invisible because they are mostly poor and powerless. It is obscene that they are being consigned to invisible suffering and possible death by unaffected men and largely privileged women. God help us — if She still can.

Fran Moreland Johns

San Francisco

The writer is the author of “Perilous Times: An Inside Look at Abortion Before — and After — Roe v. Wade.”

To the Editor:

Where are our voices? We are not an anecdotal few. We are not only Savita, Izabela and the woman in Texas with the ectopic pregnancy whom Sarah Wildman writes about. We are millions more. This is also a #MeToo moment. Don’t be afraid. We know your pain. We have been there, too. I have been there.

When I was 26 I had an ectopic pregnancy. I was hemorrhaging, the baby was lost and I was nearly lost, too. Luckily emergency surgery and transfusions saved my life but didn’t wipe away the shame. What had I done wrong? Nothing. But society expects happy mother-and-baby endings, so something I did must have been wrong. I mourned in silence.

I am turning 70 soon and I have a voice. Women, take back your humanity now. Stare down these empty, hateful legislatures and courts and let your voices be heard. These anti-abortion laws are anti-humanity laws. Take back your humanity now. You have a voice. We have a voice together.

Mary E. Slocum

Palo Alto, Calif.

To the Editor:

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, how many young women will be willing to attend college in states that ban abortion?

Bonnie Thompson

Los Osos, Calif.

To the Editor:

Re “Abortion: The Voice of the Ambivalent Majority,” by David Brooks (column, Dec. 3):

I am impressed by Mr. Brooks’s thoughtful analysis of the moral issues involved in abortion. He succinctly brought out how intensely personal and how harrowing are the nature of decisions that are related to the extinction of a human life.

It is sad to see the self-centered callousness with which many progressives frame their arguments in favor of abortion as a right. Those who are not squeamish about reducing abortion to simply a question of “my body, my choice” are certainly guilty of being the most insensitive of all humans.

Nurturing and giving birth to a child are the most sacrosanct of all life processes. Who will take the onerous responsibility of deciding when a fetus is an individual and not just a bundle of cells? Is it possible for any scientist or physician to define the day when one’s individuality and one’s soul become embedded in the fetus?

Let us also keep in mind that 50 percent of the genes of the unborn baby belong to the father. Does he not have any rights in a decision of such great import?

Cyril Alappat

Kochi, India

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/opinion/letters/abortion.html

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Recently, on Twitter, the political scientist Lee Drutman issued a challenge to his followers and readers.

“I’m all for envisioning doomsday scenarios so we can better prepare to avoid them,” he wrote. “But I’d also like to read more scenarios about how American democracy improves, and really specific scenarios, not the hand-wave-y stuff about how Americans put aside their differences.”

Since I am also inclined to think about doomsday scenarios for American democracy, I thought this was a useful exercise. Unfortunately, I came up empty-handed. I have many ideas for how we might improve democracy in the United States, but it is genuinely difficult for me to envision the path from A to B, from the status quo — with its entrenched interests and strong bias against change — to something more equal and inclusive.

With that said, in thinking through Drutman’s question, I reminded myself of a truism that’s worth repeating here: For as much as we might predict and project, the future is, and always will be, an undiscovered country.

We imagine the road ahead of us as a clear path. We seem to forget that, no matter how strong our powers of perception, we can’t actually see every obstacle in our way, predict the detours we’ll have to take or know when events force us on a different route entirely.

Another way to think of this is that no one in 1928 had any inkling of what the next 20 years would bring. In retrospect, of course, we can see the lines leading to depression and war, and the transformation of the world economic and political order. But in the moment, we’re all moving blind.

It is very possible, even likely, that American democracy continues on its present path to something dark and dangerous. That the authoritarian movement around Donald Trump continues to gain strength and that there’s little appetite among rival elites to do anything about it.

Opinion Debate Will the Democrats face a midterm wipeout?

For as much as there are patterns and precedents, for as much as the past can be a guide to the future, it is also true that history turns on a dime, that something might happen — a crisis or a conflict or something else entirely — that sweeps the pieces from the board and begins the game anew.

I do not know how we get from the current morass to a healthy, robust democracy. But whatever force or event that brings us there, I do not think we’ll be able to see it in advance.

What I Wrote

My Tuesday column used the controversy over the term “Latinx” — or rather, the conversation over its impact on the electorate — to make a larger point about the things that actually drive American politics.

The forces that drive politics are material and ideological, and our focus — when trying to understand and explain shifts in the electorate — should be on the social and economic transformations that shape life for most Americans.

My Friday column was a related argument about power within the Democratic Party and who is responsible for the party’s recent (and lackluster) performance.

It is true that some progressives — either Democratic lawmakers or affiliated activists — hold unpopular views or use unpopular language. It is also true that Republicans have amplified this to some electoral success. But missing in this conversation is one inconvenient fact. Progressives are not actually in the driver’s seat of the Democratic Party.

I was on the “You’re Wrong About” podcast giving listeners a brief overview of Reconstruction. And on the latest episode of my podcast, the journalist John Ganz and I discuss the 1987 thriller “No Way Out.”

Now Reading

Helen Christophi on a Justice Department counterterrorism expert with deep ties to organized white supremacists, for The Progressive magazine.

Imani Perry on Rebecca Hall’s adaptation of Nella Larsen’s “Passing” in Harper’s Bazaar.

Charisse Burden-Stelly on “racial capitalism” in The Monthly Review.

Kambole Campbell on the 2010 film “Tron: Legacy” for Polygon.

Robert McCoy on the perils of internet fame for Slate.

Jeremy Gordon on The Beatles for Gawker.

We drove to South Carolina for Thanksgiving, and on the way back, we stopped for lunch and gas at this rest stop. I love scenes with big, bold primary colors and was compelled to take a photo. The blues and reds are very nice, I think.

Now Eating: Seared Salmon With Spinach and Creamy Roasted Peppers

This recipe is from one of the mainstays of my kitchen, Rick Bayless’s “Mexican Everyday.” It’s very simple, very straightforward and very quick — from opening the book to putting dinner on the table was about 45 minutes. If you want a spicier cream sauce, roast two jalapeños along with the poblanos (and be sure to remove the seeds). If you want a richer sauce, you can use half-and-half instead of milk.

Ingredients

- 2 fresh poblano chiles

- 10 ounces spinach, about 10 cups

- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and halved

- 1 to 2 tablespoons masa harina

- 1½ cups whole milk (or half-and-half), plus a little more if needed

- 4 4- to 5-ounce skinless salmon fillets

- salt and ground pepper

Directions

Roast the poblanos over an open flame or 4 inches below a broiler, turning regularly until blistered and blackened all over, about 5 minutes for an open flame, 10 minutes for the broiler. Place in a bowl, cover with a kitchen towel and let cool until handleable.

Place the spinach in a microwaveable bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, poke a few holes in the top and microwave on high (100%) until completely wilted, usually about 2 minutes. Uncover and set aside.

Turn your stove to its lowest setting. Heat the oil in a very large (12-inch) skillet, preferably nonstick, over medium. Add the garlic and cook, stirring regularly, until soft and lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, scoop the garlic into a blender. Set the skillet aside.

Rub the blackened skin off the chiles and pull out the stems and seed pods. Rinse the chiles to remove bits of skin and seeds. Roughly chop and add to the blender, along with the masa harina and milk. Blend until smooth.

Return the skillet to medium-high heat. Sprinkle both sides of the fish liberally with salt and pepper. Lay the fillets in the hot oil and cook until richly browned, about 2 to 3 minutes. Use a spatula to flip the fillets, and cook until the fish barely flakes when pressed firmly with a finger or the back of a spoon (you want it slightly underdone), usually a couple of minutes longer for fish that’s about 1 inch thick. Using the spatula, transfer the fish to an ovenproof plate and set in the oven.

With the skillet still over medium-high heat, pour in the poblano mixture and whisk until it comes to a boil and thickens, about 1 minute. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes to blend the flavors. If the sauce has thickened past the consistency of a cream soup, whisk in a little more milk. Taste and season with salt, usually a generous ½ teaspoon.

Add the spinach to the sauce and stir until it is warm and well coated with sauce. Divide the creamy spinach among four plates. Top each portion with a piece of seared fish. (Or if it seems more appealing to you, spoon the sauce over the fillets.)

Serve without delay.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/opinion/us-democracy-future.html

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Opinion | Why We Need to Address Scam Culture - The New York Times

In my most recent newsletter, I drew our attention to two recent political news items that resonate with my professional interest in scams: reporting on the Direct Sellers Association’s donations to Senator Kyrsten Sinema — a subject of our discussion on presentation as politics — and on Dr. Mehmet Oz’s transition from spokesman to political candidate in Pennsylvania.

Since we last met in these pages, Dr. Oz announced that he is running for U.S. Senate. His campaign is one example of how the stigma usually associated with being involved in scams seems to be waning. At the least, being associated with shady vitamin supplements or questionable network marketing schemes doesn’t preclude running for office. Many of you wrote in that there is nothing new about ethically challenged people running for political office, and you are right. But there is something specific about our current culture that makes scams feel more dangerous than they were in the past.

We would benefit from making the stakes clear. Scams are opportunistic interactions that prey on people’s greed or compassion, replacing cooperation with competition. Scams weaken our trust in social institutions, but their going mainstream — divorced from empathy for the victims or stigma for the perpetrators — means that we have accepted scams as institutions themselves.

That is disastrous for public life. What, for example, happens when the Supreme Court becomes just another scam, a scheme to subject women to conditional personhood for the purpose of political gain? So our discussion of scams is timely. They’re not just about annoying Facebook invites from your college roommate, the one with the bouncy bangs and questionable ethics. Scams are also about the foundation of pluralistic democratic life.

That leads us to an important question: What do we mean by “scam”? Sociologically, scams are about norms and not about legality. Scams are not necessarily illegal. That is one reason being associated with a misleading product or bad business model does not preclude you from being in public life.

In our exploration of scams, this is the definition I will be drawing on: A scam is a strategy or arrangement intentionally designed to benefit a few participants by obscuring the risk or cost for other participants.

Some scam artists often do this by making a fundamental claim about what they’re trying to sell you on (something like “There is an endless supply of new customers”) that implies a natural truth that cannot be violated. In “The Dream,” a podcast about multilevel marketing that I listened to, as promised, one of the co-hosts, Jane Marie, says that in multilevel marketing and pyramid schemes, this claim is called the endless chain — you can never run out of recruits. It is a truth claim that cannot be supported and that someone in the scheme knows to be false. It is a norm violation. And when we realize that this norm has been violated, it makes us feel tainted and maybe a little angry. Every scam plants a small seed of social distrust. That brings me to the reason it is important that we talk about scams now.

So much of everyday life seems rigged against us. That is reflected in studies, like a 2018 Pew Research survey of Americans and social trust, that support the claim that we just do not trust our institutions or one another. There are the big things, like the outsize role that money and influence play in electoral politics. When I do fieldwork at public political events, I hear over and over again from people across the ideological spectrum just how unheard they feel. How is it possible that an elected representative can get away with meeting with lobbyists but rarely, if ever, talking to his or her constituents?

There are also the little things, small-scale but just as important. Increasingly, people sense that the system is designed to take advantage of them. Even if you do not follow electoral politics, you probably feel deliberately misled by a product or a business or a service that used to be easy but suddenly seems so hard. Covid has disrupted a lot of consumer behavior, but even before the pandemic, many consumer interactions had become oddly hostile.

A recent visit to a chain store involved having to tell a clerk, herself surely under undue pressure from management, five times that I did not want to sign up for a store discount card. I met a colleague at a local restaurant last week. We did not have reservations, and there were plenty of available tables. Still, the hostess said we had to leave a cellphone number to be seated. When I asked her why, she said it was in case I left something behind. A few hours after giving it to her, I had five new spam emails from restaurants and two spam texts for weight loss supplements. I suspect the two events are linked. I felt a little scammed.

But at least I do not have any bad debts (anymore — my 20s were fraught), because a Trump-era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ruling went into effect this week that would allow debt collection agencies to contact debtors on social media and by text message. We already cannot use our cellphones as telephones anymore because spam phone calls are running amok, and now this ruling will allow social media to join that party. From buying a gallon of milk to making a dinner reservation, all the way up the chain to electoral malfeasance, so many of our interactions feel weighted away from social connection in favor of extracting every ounce of unfair advantage from every single human activity. Not to overstate it, but a pluralistic democracy simply cannot function when most of its citizens cannot trust that the arrangements that they rely on to meet their basic needs are roughly fair.

Corporations, platforms, politicians, friends and relations have sown so many tiny seeds of distrust that of course we do not trust our social institutions or one another. That is more than a bad investment deal or a shady business practice. That is an indictment of a culture. And that is what we will start talking about in the new year: scam culture. A scam culture is one in which scamming has not only lost its stigma but is also valorized. We rebrand scamming as “hustle,” or the willingness to commodify all social ties, and this is because the “legitimate” economy and the political system simply do not work for millions of Americans.

We will focus on the joy of the holidays for the next couple of weeks. I have a special issue of the newsletter on giving for Christmas and New Year’s meditations for the end of the year. But as 2022 dawns, we will start exploring the nooks and crannies of scam culture. As we ease into the season of slowing down, I hope all of you have a chance to do just that. For my part, I set my out-of-office messages two weeks earlier than I did in years past. Nothing about right now is normal, and it is OK that we admit it. I hope you experience rest and recharging, which are not necessarily the same thing. Rest is what brings you peace, and recharging is whatever builds your resilience. I suspect we will need both peace and resilience in the new year.

Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd) is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, the author of “Thick: And Other Essays” and a 2020 MacArthur fellow.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/opinion/scams-trust-institutions.html

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NYTimes global

- Tornadoes Hit Several States, With at Least 70 Dead in Kentucky

- Deaths Confirmed After Tornado Hits Amazon Warehouse in Illinois

- What to Know About the Deadly Tornado Outbreak

- In Bid for Control of Elections, Trump Loyalists Face Few Obstacles

- PowerPoint Sent to Mark Meadows Is Examined by Jan. 6 Panel

- Inside the Fall of Kabul: An On-the-Ground Account

- As Vaccines Trickle into Africa, Zambia’s Challenges Highlight Other Obstacles

- Omicron Can Weaken Vaccines, but Boosters Show Promise, U.K. Study Says

- Helicopters and High-Speed Chases: Inside Texas’ Push to Arrest Migrants

- Iran’s Nuclear Program Ignites New Tension Between U.S. and Israel

- What Is the Perfect Date to Bring Workers Back to the Office?

- Your Guide to the New Language of the Office

- Can Parties Help Us Heal?

- Silent Films Offer Rare Glimpses of Life in 1920s Ireland

- The Holidays Are for Martinelli’s

- How the United States Can Break Putin’s Hold on Ukraine

- As Omicron Looms, Fear Messaging Isn't Working

- We Can Live Better Lives While Being Smart About Covid

- What Can Schools Do About Disturbed Students?

- The Inflation Suspense Goes On

- Revoke the Omicron Travel Ban Against African Countries

- How the Great Resignation Could Help Workers

- Abortion: Real Stories, Not Abstractions

- I Have a Handle on History. The Future Is a Different Story.

- Why We Need to Address Scam Culture

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At Least 70 Dead After Tornadoes Hit Several States: Live Updates - The New York Times

Image

Mayfield, Ky., on Saturday morning after tornadoes ripped through the state overnight.Credit...Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Dozens of people were feared dead, and communities across the Midwest and South were digging through rubble on Saturday after a string of unseasonably powerful storms and tornadoes swept across five states overnight.

Officials said that there were “confirmed fatalities” after a roof collapsed at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, that three had died in Tennessee and two in Arkansas, one at a nursing home and one at a Dollar General store. Kentucky’s governor said that at least 70 had been killed in a tornado’s path of over 200 miles, and that the state’s death toll could increase to more than 100.

“This has been the most devastating tornado event in our state’s history,” Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said in a news briefing. “The level of devastation is unlike anything I have ever seen.”

The storms — dark and immense funnel clouds that roared across the nighttime landscape — obliterated homes, churches and businesses, set buildings on fire and knocked a train with 28 empty rail cars from its tracks, leaving unearthly scenes of destruction.

In Mayfield, Ky., among the hardest-hit communities, the center of town had been become a perilous maze of downed utility lines, dangling tree limbs and scattered debris. Officials said that around 110 people had been huddled inside a local candle-making factory when a tornado ripped through it. About 40 people were rescued, with the last one found at 3:30 a.m. Mr. Beshear said he believed “dozens” had been killed there.

A student at Western Kentucky University, who had been set to graduate on Saturday, died in his home off campus, the university’s president said.

In Arkansas, one person was killed when a tornado “totally demolished” the Monette Manor nursing home, where 67 people lived in the city of Monette, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said. A person was also killed at a Dollar General store in nearby Leachville, Ark., he said.

“Probably the most remarkable thing is that there’s not a greater loss of life,” Mr. Hutchinson said at a news briefing.

The White House said in a statement that President Biden had been briefed on the deadly tornadoes and that the federal government had pledged its “full support as needed.”

At least five states — Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee — were hit by tornadoes on Friday night, said Bill Bunting, the operations chief at the Storm Prediction Center, part of the National Weather Service.

He said the tornadoes were part of a weather system that was wreaking havoc in many parts of the country, causing substantial snowfall across parts of the upper Midwest and western Great Lakes.

The Edwardsville Police Department in Illinois said early Saturday that the storms had resulted in “catastrophic damage to a significant portion” of an Amazon warehouse. It was not immediately known how many people had died there. A search-and-rescue operation was underway and next of kin were being notified, the police said.

In Tennessee, two people died in Lake County and one in Obion County, in the western part of the state, said Dean Flener, a spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

As of Saturday morning, power had been lost to about 140,000 homes in Tennessee, 92,000 in Kentucky, 23,000 in Arkansas, and nearly 16,000 in Illinois and 10,000 in Missouri, according to reports compiled by PowerOutage.us.

Mr. Beshear said he had spoken to Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who had pledged his support to the state, where shaken local officials said they were struggling to comb through the debris.

Jesse Perry, the judge in Graves County, Ky., his voice wavering, called it “probably the toughest day in my life” and said local officials were “in the trenches, trying to find people.”

“We need your prayers,” he said. “We need your help.”

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/11/us/tornadoes-midwest-south

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Deaths Confirmed After Tornado Hits Amazon Warehouse in Illinois - The New York Times

The police in Edwardsville, Ill., said there were at least two “confirmed fatalities” at an Amazon warehouse after a direct hit from a tornado caused a major portion of the building to collapse on Friday night, leaving “catastrophic damage to a significant portion” of the building.

Three people were rescued from the building, and one of them was taken to a hospital, said Mark Mayfield, a captain with the Edwardsville Fire Department. He did not know the person’s status on Saturday morning but said he believed them to be in “stable condition.”

Thirty workers made it out of the building safely by themselves, the police said. A bus carried several workers to reunite with families in nearby Pontoon Beach, said Michael Fillback, the Edwardsville police chief.

Captain Mayfield said he did not know how many workers were inside the building when the tornado struck around 8:30 p.m., but Chief Fillback told the St. Louis station KDSK-TV on Saturday that the number was not “in the hundreds.” Chief Fillback estimated at a news conference on Saturday morning that about 50 people had been in the building.

Emergency responders received the initial call at 8:38 p.m. and arrived several minutes later, Captain Mayfield said, with about 100 responders on the scene shortly after the building collapsed. More than a dozen area police, fire and emergency medical service departments responded.

On Saturday morning, police blocked off the entrance to the campus, which is about 20 minutes northeast of St. Louis.

The building, which is two years old, is in a distribution hub on the west side of town with about 20 warehouses ranging from about 100,000 to 1.4 million square feet, he said. The tornado caused the collapse of a wall the size of a football field at the warehouse, along with the roof above it, according to The Associated Press.

“About half of it’s missing, it’s gone,” Captain Mayfield said of the building, which is about 400,000 square feet. The other half of the building remained standing on Saturday morning, he said, adding that workers were able to safely evacuate from that area.

“There’s a lot of debris from the concrete; that is predominately a concrete and steel structure,” Chief Fillback said on Saturday morning, adding, “It’s windy outside, so things are unstable.”

On Saturday morning, a steady stream of construction vehicles entered the scene. Workers appeared to be using a crane to clear wreckage from the site. Winds continued to blow at more than 20 mph Saturday morning, causing cars to shake.

Captain Mayfield said that the remaining part of the building would probably have to be demolished. “I don’t see anyway that they can salvage it,” he said.

Heavy machinery was brought in to move the collapsed walls to ensure that there were no other people unaccounted for, and rescue teams were checking inside vehicles that had been crushed by the collapsed walls.

“We’re deeply saddened by the news that members of our Amazon family passed away as a result of the storm in Edwardsville, Ill.,” Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement on Saturday. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their loved ones and everyone impacted by the tornado.”

Amazon opened two warehouses in Edwardsville, about 25 miles east of St. Louis, in 2016, employing about 2,200 people, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in 2017.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/us/amazon-warehouse-deaths-tornado.html

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What to Know About the Deadly Tornado Outbreak - The New York Times

What happened?

A tornado outbreak tore through several states on Friday night. At least five were struck, including Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.

The tornadoes were part of a weather system that was wreaking havoc in many parts of the country, causing substantial snowfall across parts of the upper Midwest and western Great Lakes.

Dozens of people were killed.

Kentucky’s governor said Saturday morning that at least 70 had been killed in a tornado’s path of over 200 miles, and that the state’s death toll could increase to more than 100 in the coming hours.

The storms caused a wall and roof to collapse at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, leaving workers trapped inside. The authorities confirmed people had died, but did not say how many as of Saturday morning.

Officials in Tennessee said three people were killed: two in Lake County and one in Obion County, in the western part of the state.

In Arkansas, at least one person was killed at a nursing home in Monette, and another at a Dollar General store in nearby Leachville, according to Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

The precise number of people killed and injured was not yet known, and search-and-rescue operations were continuing in several places Saturday morning.

What’s the damage like?

Officials across the five-state area were still assessing the extent of the damage on Saturday morning. Local news reports and videos on social media showed crumbled buildings and downed trees across the storm’s path.

As of Saturday morning, about 140,000 homes were without power in Tennessee, 92,000 in Kentucky, 23,000 in Arkansas, nearly 16,000 in Illinois and 10,000 in Missouri, according to reports compiled by PowerOutage.us.

The storms also caused a freight train to derail, although no injuries were reported.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/article/tornado-storms-weekend.html

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In Bid for Control of Elections, Trump Loyalists Face Few Obstacles - The New York Times

“Donald Trump and a lot of folks in his orbit were frankly ahead of the curve when it came to raising funds and organizing behind candidates who backed the big lie,” said Miles Taylor, a former official in Mr. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security who this year helped to start the Renew America Movement, an organization supporting Republican and Democratic candidates running against Trump-backed Republicans.

Mr. Taylor said that while his group was now active in congressional races, it did not yet have the resources to compete against Trump-endorsed candidates in state contests. Nor was the Democratic Party capable of filling the void, he said: “In a lot of these places, Democrats have no hope of winning a statewide election, and all that matters is the primary.”

In other areas, Democrats are disadvantaged by pre-existing political losses. In 23 states, Republicans control both state legislatures and governors’ mansions. Democrats control both in only 15 states.

The legislatures that Republicans now control have in the past year become laboratories for legislation that would remove barriers that stood in the way of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 results. In seven states this year, lawmakers proposed bills that would have given partisan officials the ability to change election results in various ways. Although none passed, Republican-led legislatures in Arizona and in Georgia passed laws that directly removed various election oversight responsibilities from the secretaries of state — legislation that appeared to directly target specific officials who had been vilified by Mr. Trump.

“We’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Wendy Weiser, the vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, who co-wrote a recent report on the new state-level legislation.

Ms. Weiser and other advocates have called for federal legislation to head off such efforts. “We must have that in order to have a comprehensive response,” said Norm Eisen, co-chair of the States United Democracy Center. But with the Democrats most likely to lose one or both houses of Congress in the next two election cycles, the time to pass it is fleeting.

Several election and voting rights reform bills have foundered this year upon unified Republican opposition in a Senate where Democrats hold a one-vote majority. Ten Senate Republicans would need to break ranks in order to overcome the party’s filibuster of the legislation. Only one, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has voted for any of the bills so far.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/us/politics/trust-in-elections-trump-democracy.html

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Mr. Meadows remains in a legal battle with the Jan. 6 committee, which is moving forward with holding him in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for a scheduled deposition or to turn over documents he believes could violate Mr. Trump’s assertions of executive privilege. Mr. Trump has filed suit claiming he still has the power to keep White House documents secret, an assertion several courts have rejected, though the case appears headed for the Supreme Court.

Mr. Meadows has responded by filing suit in an attempt to persuade a federal judge to block the committee’s subpoenas. His lawsuit accuses the committee of issuing “two overly broad and unduly burdensome subpoenas” against him, including one sent to Verizon for his phone and text-message data.

Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, has cited the 38-page PowerPoint as among the reasons he wants to question Mr. Meadows under oath.

Before coming to loggerheads with the panel, Mr. Meadows had provided some useful information to the committee, including a November email that discussed appointing an alternate slate of electors to keep Mr. Trump in power and a Jan. 5 message about putting the National Guard on standby. Mr. Meadows also turned over his text messages with a member of Congress in which the lawmaker acknowledged that a plan to object to Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory would be “highly controversial,” to which Mr. Meadows responded, “I love it.”

The Trump Investigations

Card 1 of 6

Numerous inquiries Since former President Donald Trump left office, there have been many investigations and inquiries into his businesses and personal affairs. Here’s a list of those ongoing:

Investigation into insurance fraud. The Manhattan district attorney’s office and the New York attorney general’s office are investigating whether Mr. Trump or his family business, the Trump Organization, engaged in criminal fraud by intentionally submitting false property values to potential lenders.

But Mr. Meadows also informed the committee that he had turned in the cellphone he used on Jan. 6 to his service provider, and that he was withholding some 1,000 text messages connected with the device.

In December, after Mr. Pulitzer testified before the Georgia State Senate and claimed to have “hacked” the state’s voting system, Georgia’s secretary of state issued a news release calling him a “failed treasure hunter” who had “provided no evidence.”

Mr. Pulitzer did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Waldron was featured in a film by Mike Lindell, the embattled chief executive of MyPillow who helped finance Mr. Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results. In the film, Mr. Waldron pushed the unfounded claim that the Chinese government had access to files and data through voting machines. He also claimed that overseas servers in Germany, Spain and Britain somehow played a role in manipulating results.

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Inside the Fall of Kabul: An On-the-Ground Account - The New York Times

On July 15, I went to the palace to see Mohib. Above the gate tower, a giant tricolor of the republic fluttered against a clear blue sky. After passing through security, I walked across the long, deserted lawn toward the building that held the Office of the National Security Council. I waited in the council’s empty reception room until one of Mohib’s staff members, a young woman who had studied in America, brought me upstairs to his office, where he sat behind his desk. Our conversation was mostly off the record. He seemed exhausted as we spoke about the desperate fighting in Kandahar City, which had been surrounded by the Taliban.

Only a few days before, there had been a farewell ceremony for Gen. Austin S. Miller, the long-serving U.S. commander. The military had completed 90 percent of its withdrawal, well ahead of Biden’s deadline. This rapid pace was intended to reduce the risk of attack during the retreat, but it had a devastating impact on Afghan security forces. The U.S. military had spent billions to train and equip a force in its own image, heavily dependent on foreign contractors and air support. But the Afghan Army’s notoriously corrupt generals stole their men’s ammunition, food and wages; while security forces were supposed to total 300,000, the real number was likely less than a third of that. Out in the districts, the army and the police were crumbling, handing over their arms to the Taliban, who now controlled a quarter of the country.

Ghani had repeatedly insisted that he would stand and fight. “This is my home and my grave,” he thundered in a speech earlier in the spring. His vice president, Amrullah Saleh, and the security council were working on a post-American strategy called Kaf, a Dari word meaning “base” or “floor,” which envisioned garrison cities connected by corridors held by the army and bolstered by militias, similar to how President Mohammad Najibullah clung to power for three years after the Soviet withdrawal. “It was very much the Russian model,” said Bek, who returned to the government as the president’s chief of staff that month. “They had a good plan on paper, but for this to work, you needed to be a military genius.”

Earlier in July, Ghani was warned that only two out of seven army corps were still functional, according to a senior Afghan official. Desperate for forces to protect Kandahar City, the president pleaded with the C.I.A. to use the paramilitary army formerly known as counterterrorism pursuit teams, according to Afghan officials. Trained for night raids and clandestine missions in the borderlands, the units had grown into capable light infantry, thousands strong. They were now officially part of the Afghan intelligence service and were known as Zero Units, after codes that corresponded to provinces: 01 was Kabul, 03 was Kandahar and so forth. But according to the officials, the C.I.A. still paid the salaries of these strike forces and had to consent to Ghani’s request for them to defend Kandahar City that month. (A U.S. official stated that the units were under Afghan control; the C.I.A. declined to comment on details of their deployment.) “They’re very effective units, motivated, cheap,” Mohib told me in his office, saying Kandahar would have fallen without them. “They don’t need all sorts of heavy equipment. I wish we had more like them.”

But the Zero Units had a reputation for ruthlessness in battle; both journalists and Human Rights Watch have referred to them as “death squads” — allegations that the C.I.A. denied, saying they were the result of Taliban propaganda. I had been trying to track these shadowy units for years and was surprised to see them, in their distinctive tiger stripes, given glowing coverage on the government’s social media accounts.

In Kabul, I met with Mohammad, an officer from one of the N.D.S. units that operated around the capital, whom I had known for a few years. Mohammad had worked as an interpreter for the unit’s American advisers and as an instructor for undercover teams that carried out arrests inside the cities. He said morale had plummeted among his men, now that the Americans were leaving. According to Afghan officials, the station on Ariana Square was empty by late July. But Mohammad’s team still received advice from the Americans. He showed me messages that he said were from the C.I.A., urging his unit to patrol areas around Kabul that had been infiltrated by the insurgents. “The airport is still in danger,” one message said.

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NGWERERE, Zambia — Four people turned up at a health clinic tucked in a sprawl of commercial maize farms on a recent morning, looking for Covid-19 vaccines. The staff had vials of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine stashed in the fridge. But the staff members apologetically declined to vaccinate the four and suggested they try another day.

A vial of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine holds five doses, and the staff was under orders not to waste a single one.

Ida Musonda, the nurse who supervises the vaccination effort, suspected that her team might have found more takers if they packed the vials in Styrofoam coolers and headed out to markets and churches. “But we have no fuel for the vehicle to take the vaccines there,” she said.

They did vaccinate 100 people on their last trip to a farm; the records from that trip sat in a paper heap in the clinic because the data manager had no internet connection to access an electronic records system.

For months, the biggest challenge to vaccinating Africans against Covid, and protecting both the continent and the world from the emergence of dangerous variants, has been supply: A continent of about 1.4 billion people has received just 404 million doses of vaccine, and only 7.8 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

But as supply has begun to sputter into something like a more reliable flow, other daunting obstacles are coming into focus. All of them are on view at and around Ngwerere.

Weak health care systems with limited infrastructure and technology, and no experience vaccinating adults, are trying to get shots into the arms of people who have far more pressing priorities. At the same time, the global flow of information, and deliberate misinformation, on social media is generating the same skepticism that has stymied vaccination efforts in the United States and other countries.

Some Zambians are hesitant, but others have an attitude that could better be described as vaccine indifference. This is a poor country where the economy has contracted sharply during the pandemic, and many unvaccinated people are more focused on putting food on the table.

“I’d like to get it but I work Monday to Saturday, and I don’t know if they vaccinate on Sunday,” said Bernadette Kawango, who supports a large extended family with her wages from an auto-parts store in a low-income neighborhood on the edge of Lusaka, the capital. She has heard many rumors: that people who receive the vaccine will die in two years; that the vaccine is part of a plot by Europeans to kill Africans and take their land; that Bill Gates is on a campaign to reduce the world population.

Such stories make her roll her eyes. But Covid is not at the top of her list of health care worries. “It’s cholera season, and people have malaria, and there is H.I.V. and TB,” she said. She does not know anyone who has been diagnosed with Covid.

All these challenges create two major problems. First, the pace of vaccination is far too slow to prevent unnecessary deaths in a fourth wave, which is already beginning in southern Africa, or to prevent the emergence of new variants such as Omicron, which was first identified in South Africa late last month. The vaccines now in stock — many of them donations close to their expiration dates when they arrive — may not be used before they must be destroyed.

Second, the push to vaccinate against Covid is drawing resources from health systems that can hardly spare them, which could lead to disastrous consequences for the fight against other devastating health problems.

At the Ngwerere health clinic, the usual bustle and screeching at the mother-and-child health area, where babies are monitored for signs of malnutrition and given childhood immunizations, was absent because everyone on that staff had been repurposed as Covid vaccinators.

“Every time we have a wave here it really threatens the investments that have been made in H.I.V., maternal and child health, and TB and malaria, and it’s important that we protect those,” said Dr. Simon Agolory, who runs the large Zambia program of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Andrew Silumesii, the director of public health for Zambia’s health ministry, said there was already clear evidence that infant growth monitoring and childhood immunization had declined over the course of the pandemic. He worries that malaria, TB and H.I.V. infections will also increase.

Updated

Dec. 11, 2021, 11:21 a.m. ET

So far, 7 percent of Zambians have been vaccinated against Covid, according to Dr. Silumesii. President Hakainde Hichilema has set a target of vaccinating another two million by Christmas, and 70 percent of the population by the third quarter of 2022, a goal that looks exceedingly ambitious.

Zambia’s vaccines come mostly from Covax, the global vaccine-sharing initiative, with additional donations from China and the African Union. The fact that Zambia is dependent largely on donations means that it must adapt its program to whatever shipments arrive — a bit like making a meal with whatever arrives in a farm subscription box. The country is managing distribution of five different vaccines, each with different dosing regimens, storage requirements and vial volumes.

That has created a huge additional administrative burden for skeleton staffs such as Ms. Musonda’s team. Her staff has no budget for cellphone calls to remind people about second shots, and the effect can be seen in the charts stapled on the vaccination room wall: Of the 840 people who received a first dose of AstraZeneca in April, only 179 came back for a follow-up shot in July.

When Zambia experienced a severe third Covid wave earlier this year, the media coverage of people dying in the parking lots of hospitals that ran out of oxygen rattled a population that had been thinking of the virus as something that affected only white or rich people. There were pre-dawn lineups outside vaccination sites that couldn’t keep shots in stock.

But when the wave abated, so did the demand.

Many people here recall the time when Zambians were dying of AIDS in huge numbers and Western pharmaceutical companies refused to produce affordable lifesaving medications. There is skepticism now that those same companies have come offering free solutions.

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know

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Vaccine mandates in Europe. The latest wave of the pandemic is prompting countries like Germany and Italy to impose restrictions that single out those who are not vaccinated. The measures are rekindling the debate over governments’ right to curtail individual liberties in the name of public health.

The worldwide vaccination campaign. One year into the global vaccine rollout, the gap in vaccination rates between high- and low-income countries is wider than ever. Challenges in Zambia highlight how infrastructure issues and the public’s hesitancy to get vaccinated are proving to be large obstacles.

Vaccine misinformation spreads on TikTok and WhatsApp, and in evangelical churches where pastors warn that the shot “contains the mark of the beast.”

“No matter how educated people are, if their pastor says don’t trust the vaccine, they don’t trust,” said Dr. Morton Zuze, the clinical care coordinator at Chongwe District Hospital, where seven staff members sat idle in an empty vaccination tent.

As in the United States, there are false rumors in Zambia that the vaccine causes female infertility or erectile dysfunction. Zambians have heard AstraZeneca is not being used in many countries because of reports of blood clots in a very small number of people who received that shot. “It’s a global village and everyone can switch on CNN,” Dr. Zuze added.

Zambia normally vaccinates only small children, and it has no primary care practices. An adult goes to a clinic only when pregnant or receiving H.I.V. treatment, or in an emergency.

Dr. Lawrence Mwananyanda, an assistant professor with the Boston University School of Public Health and a special adviser to President Hichilema, said the government must balance between trying to create vaccine demand and not creating too much, when it can’t be sure if it will have the supply to deliver.

“To just walk up — and these health facilities are sometimes very far away, two, five, seven kilometers away and people don’t have cars, you have to be very motivated — sometimes people have gone to a health facility and then there is no vaccine,” he said. “All they are told is, ‘You can only vaccinate if there’s five or six people, so you can’t be vaccinated today’. How likely are you to come back?”

Charity Machika was vaccinated recently at a rural health center in Chongwe District. She went to the clinic for a prenatal checkup and then was encouraged to head to the next building, where the H.I.V. treatment center was repurposed for vaccinations. “I was scared because people say a lot of stories, that I will faint, that I will not be able to walk, that I will die,” she said. “I took the risk to come and protect myself and my baby.”

She is the only vaccinated person in her family. Her husband tried twice but the sites he went to never had vaccines in stock, and it was difficult for him to find the time to make the four-kilometer walk to try again, she said.

Felix Mwanza, a veteran H.I.V. activist in Lusaka, said the government had yet to tap into the vast network of H.I.V. and TB treatment activists in the country. “We seem not to learn from our past,” he said, recalling how testing and treatment for H.I.V. only reached critical mass when care was delivered in bars, at schools and on doorsteps.

“If they don’t use the structures we already have, donors will keep sending the vaccines and they’ll pile up here and expire and then they won’t send us anymore,” he said.

Dr. Mwananyanda said the key strategy for the planned rapid scale-up in vaccination was to do exactly that, taking vaccines to people in malls and at bus stops.

Amid the scramble, no one is thinking about what happens next. “We’re really just addressing the vaccination problems for now — but we don’t have a system for the long run,” said Dr. Agolory with the C.D.C. “And what are we going to do when boosters are needed or if there’s some new variants that escape the vaccine altogether, and we need to start from zero and give people more vaccines?”

Zambia will need help procuring more, and it will need funding to help bring on temporary health care workers to administer vaccines so that existing programs, like the Ngwerere mother-and-child clinic, are not abandoned, Dr. Agolory said.

Even with a huge boost in vaccination rates, the country won’t have enough coverage to blunt the coming wave, or, most likely, the one after it.

“I am hoping that we keep receiving vaccines so that we don’t get into a situation where people need vaccines and they can’t get them,” said Dr. Silumesii of the health ministry. “The flip side, which is something that I would really hate to see happen, is where we have brought in vaccines and we don’t have enough demand and vaccines go to waste. These are vaccines that cost a lot. Definitely that pinch would sting so badly.”

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Covid-19 Live Updates: Omicron Cases, Vaccines and Boosters News - The New York Times

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Lining up to get a Covid-19 vaccine shot in London last week.Credit...Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The first real-world study of how vaccines hold up against the Omicron variant showed a significant drop in protection against symptomatic cases caused by the new and fast-spreading form of the coronavirus.

But the study, published by British government scientists on Friday, also indicated that third vaccine doses provided considerable defense against Omicron.

Government scientists on Friday also offered the most complete look yet at how quickly Omicron was spreading in England’s highly vaccinated population, warning that the variant could overtake Delta by mid-December and, without any precautionary measures, cause Covid-19 cases to soar.

Four months after people received a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the shots were roughly 35 percent effective in preventing symptomatic infections caused by Omicron, a significant drop-off from their performance against the Delta variant, the scientists found.

A third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, though, lifted the figure to roughly 75 percent.

Two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine appeared to offer virtually no protection against symptomatic infection caused by Omicron several months after vaccination. But for those recipients, an additional Pfizer-BioNTech dose paid big dividends, boosting effectiveness against the variant to 71 percent.

Still, the study’s authors said they expected that the vaccines would remain a bulwark against hospitalizations and deaths, if not infections, caused by Omicron. And the researchers cautioned that even in a country tracking the variant as closely as Britain is, it was too early to know precisely how well the vaccines would perform.

That study was released alongside new findings about how easily Omicron is managing to spread. Someone infected with the Omicron variant, for example, is roughly three times as likely as a person infected by the Delta variant to pass the virus to other members of his or her household, Britain’s Health Security Agency reported.

And a close contact of an Omicron case is roughly twice as likely as a close contact of someone infected with Delta to catch the virus.

Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London, said that Omicron’s ability to evade the body’s immune defenses accounted for most of its advantage over previous variants. But modeling work by his research team and other groups in Britain also suggested that Omicron was simply more contagious than Delta, by roughly 25 to 50 percent.

“I think that there’s a significant amount of immune escape,” Dr. Ferguson said, referring to the virus’s ability to dodge the body’s defenses. “But it’s also more intrinsically transmissible than Delta.”

He and other scientists have cautioned that evidence was still coming in, and that better surveillance in places where the Omicron wave is most advanced could affect their findings.

The World Health Organization said this week that some evidence had emerged that Omicron was causing milder illness than Delta, but that it was too early to be certain. Still, scientists have warned that if the variant keeps spreading as quickly as it is in England, where cases are doubling every 2.5 days, health systems around the world may be deluged with patients.

Even if Omicron causes severe illness at only half the rate of the Delta variant, Dr. Ferguson said, computer modeling suggested that 5,000 people could be admitted to hospitals daily in Britain at the peak of its Omicron wave — a figure higher than any seen at any other point in the pandemic.

Scientists said that widespread vaccination in countries like Britain and the United States would keep as many people from dying as have in earlier waves. But the experts also warned that patients with Covid and with other illnesses would suffer if hospitals became too full.

“It only requires a small drop in protection against severe disease for those very large numbers of infections to translate into levels of hospitalization we can’t cope with,” Dr. Ferguson said.

It will take several weeks to understand how the current surge in Omicron infections may translate into people needing hospital care. “I’m concerned that by the time we know about severity,” Dr. Ferguson said, “it may be too late to act.”

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Helicopters and High-Speed Chases: Inside Texas’ Push to Arrest Migrants - The New York Times

BRACKETTVILLE, Texas — Magdaleno Ruiz Jimenez huddled under a waxing moon in the rough brush of a Texas ranch. His journey to the small border community of Brackettville had been long, about 1,300 miles from his home in Mexico. But now a drone was buzzing overhead.

A lone officer, Sgt. Ryan Glenn, emerged from the darkness. He had a flashlight and a screen with coordinates for where Mr. Jimenez and six other men could be found on the cold caliche, blobs of heat visible to an infrared camera on the overhead drone. More officers soon arrived.

“I spent everything to get here,” Mr. Jimenez said after the officers wrested him and the other men from the brush.

The men assumed they had been detained by immigration officers for illegally crossing into the United States. They were wrong. Instead, they were arrested on charges of trespassing on a vast private ranch by highway patrol officers from the Texas state police

For several months now, Texas has been engaged in an effort to repurpose the tools of state law enforcement to stem the sudden increase of people crossing illegally into the country.

To do this, Texas officials led by Gov. Greg Abbott developed a way around the fact that immigration enforcement is a federal government job: State and local police departments partner with the owners of borderland ranches, and use trespassing laws to arrest migrants who cross their land.

“That’s an effective way of sending a message,” Mr. Abbott said, flanked by nine other Republican governors, at a news conference along the border this fall. “If you come into the state of Texas illegally, you have a high likelihood of not getting caught and released, but instead, arrested and jailed.”

The new approach relies on the participation of local officials and, so far, it has been adopted in just two of the state’s 32 border region counties: Kinney, which includes Brackettville, and Val Verde, its neighbor to the west.

State officials could not say what effect, if any, the program has had on reducing illegal crossings, which have surged to at least 1.2 million in Texas so far this year, the highest recorded figure in more than two decades. (It remains unclear how many migrants are trying to cross multiple times.) But the operation has upended life both for the migrants caught up in its ad hoc processes and for the rural residents living under its net.

Perhaps nowhere has that been more acutely felt than the town of Brackettville, a former frontier outpost of 1,700 known for its surrounding hunting and cattle ranches, an old fort that once housed the army’s Black Seminole scouts, and an aging replica of the Alamo built for a John Wayne film.

Lately, it has been flooded with state police.

High speed chases are so frequent that the local school installed rock barriers to protect against crashes. Helicopters patrol the night sky. Ranchers, who are mostly white, lock their doors and carry pistols around their own properties, which many never did before. Town residents, a majority of whom are poor and Hispanic, complain they are routinely followed by officers newly assigned to the area.

“That happens to a lot of people here in Brackett,” said the mayor, Eric Martinez, using the nickname for the town. He said he was followed and then pulled over after leaving a City Council meeting because, the officer told him, his license plate light was not bright enough.

The police push is part of an ongoing clash between Mr. Abbott and the Biden administration over how to handle the sudden increase of arrivals at the border with Mexico. Federal agents have been rapidly expelling migrants under a public health rule, but Mr. Abbott argues that the government has done little to halt the flow of them. He has dedicated $3 billion for a series of measures at the border, including sending state police and troops from the Texas State Guard, creating a border barrier with shipping containers and using the National Guard to construct several miles of fencing along the Rio Grande.

But the arrests of migrants for criminal trespassing has been a more disruptive element of what is known as Operation Lone Star, crowding courts and local jail populations and raising alarm among defense lawyers and advocates for migrants.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to comment on the initiative, and federal agents are not partnering with the state police in making trespassing arrests.

Representative Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, has asked for a federal investigation of the Operation Lone Star, saying in a letter this fall to the Justice Department that the program was “wreaking havoc on Texas’ judicial system” and has “directly led to a violation of state laws and constitutional due process rights.”

The men arrested under the program, some 2,000 so far, have often been held for weeks without access to lawyers. More than 1,000 are currently being held in state prisons that were repurposed to house them. (Women and children have been turned over to federal agents.)

Because the process is new, and taking place in small rural counties, the usual system for assigning criminal defense lawyers has been overwhelmed. Kinney County has also struggled to file arrest paperwork in the time required by law.

After their arrests, migrants are transferred to a single processing center, a large tent in the border town of Del Rio — where a surge of Haitian migrants flooded the community earlier this year — and then transferred to the repurposed state prisons in other counties.

While the state police checks identification documents of those arrested, the men are not turned over to federal authorities until the end of their cases, a process that, so far, has often lasted several months. Among those who have gone before a judge, most have had their cases dismissed or have been released on bond as they await hearing dates, their lawyers said.

And many of those released who have sought asylum have been allowed to stay in the United States to pursue their cases, defense lawyers said, unlike those apprehended at the border by federal authorities, because the public health rule that is used to rapidly expel migrants applies to new arrivals, not those already in the country.

More than 50 Kinney County ranchers have signed up with the Texas Department of Public Safety to allow the state police to patrol on their property and arrest people for trespassing, the agency said.

In interviews, ranchers who signed up for the program described feeling increasingly unsafe on their own land, because of the possibility of running into groups of migrants, though none of the ranchers said they had been assaulted or threatened. They trade information via Facebook and by text message and share stories on the latest “bailout” — a familiar local term for the end of a police chase in which migrants attempt to run from a car or truck, often after it has crashed.

Seated on the oak-shadowed patio of their ranch, a few head of cattle walking slowly nearby, Bill and Carolyn Conoly said the situation this year was the worst they could remember.

“We’re constantly repairing,” Mr. Conoly said, referring to ranch fences that are bent or cut. “We keep the doors locked and I have a gun available.”

Motion-activated cameras on the ranch capture images of passing migrants, information that helps the state police locate them. Earlier that day, cameras had picked up a large group walking through the Conoly family ranch; the police caught up with the migrants at night on an adjacent ranch — 14 men and one woman.

For months, the Conolys have also had constables from Galveston, just south of Houston and about 370 miles away, staying in their white stucco guesthouse.

“If it makes a difference, I don’t know,” said one of the constables, Lt. Paul Edinburgh, who had never been to the border before. “But it’s better than me sitting on the couch reading about it.”

Around 9 p.m. on a recent weeknight, a row of state highway patrol SUVs sat outside the only gas station in town, as two officers, parked nearby, led a woman out of their car and removed her handcuffs.

The woman, an American citizen, had been caught transporting 10 undocumented people in a pickup truck, the officers said, a felony. But because Kinney County did not have a place to hold women, she was given a court date and released.

Not long after, an officer with a drone located a group of men on a nearby ranch. Sergeant Glenn, who was leading a team of seven officers that night, searched for tracks on the ground. It was then that he found Mr. Jimenez, the man who had traveled from Chiapas, Mexico.

A house painter looking for a job, Mr. Jimenez had tried to cross the border once before, in August. After being turned back, he gathered more money and paid to cross again — 150,000 pesos, he said, or about $7,000.

“There’s almost no work. They suffer,” he said of people in Chiapas, a Mexican state along the border with Guatemala. Now, with all his money spent on trying to cross, he would not have enough to return home. (He is currently being held on $2,500 bond.)

As the officers awaited their prisoner transport — rented white vans without official insignia — they received an alert of movement from a camera deep inside another ranch. It was 12:20 a.m.

The police vehicles bumped across overgrown ranch roads. A helicopter hovered over what appeared to be three migrants but was running out of gas.

The officers arrived at a locked gate and decided to cut the lock. When they could go no further by car, they started walking. But after a long march across rough terrain, and a meticulous search in the thorny brush, no one could be found.

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Iran’s Nuclear Program Ignites New Tension Between U.S. and Israel - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Long-running differences over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program have erupted into new tensions between the Biden administration and Israel, with two senior Israeli officials leaving Washington this week concerned that the Americans’ commitment to restoring the 2015 nuclear deal will lead to a flawed agreement allowing Tehran to speed ahead with its nuclear enrichment program.

The strains were evident all week, as the Biden administration sought to bring the alliance with Israel into a united front about how to deal with Iran over the next year.

In an effort to close the gap, American officials let out word this week that two months ago, Mr. Biden asked his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, to review the Pentagon’s revised plan to take military action if the diplomatic effort collapsed. Administration officials also outlined new efforts to tighten, rather than loosen, sanctions on Iran.

Mr. Biden’s focus on military options and sanctions was an effort to signal to Tehran that the United States was running out of patience with Iranian foot-dragging in the nuclear negotiations in Vienna, administration officials said. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said last week that the new Iranian government “does not seem to be serious about doing what’s necessary to return to compliance” with the 2015 nuclear deal.

But the tougher line was also aimed at calming increasingly frustrated Israeli officials. Though they will not criticize the American president in public the way former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did during the Obama administration, Israeli officials in private argue that the Iranians are advancing their nuclear program while betting that the United States, eager to diminish American commitments in the Middle East, will not abandon the Vienna talks for more forceful action.

This article is based on discussions with more than a dozen American and Israeli officials who spoke on the condition they be granted anonymity to discuss both sensitive matters of diplomacy and classified intelligence assessments.

After a tense phone call with Mr. Blinken 10 days ago, the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, dispatched his defense minister, Benny Gantz, and the new head of the Mossad, David Barnea, to Washington this week armed with new intelligence about Iranians’ uranium enrichment and the work of what Israel says is their weapons group. Despite the tougher American talk, Israeli officials left worried that the diplomatic outreach to Iran would continue.

The disagreement over Iran is just one of several issues troubling the Biden-Bennett relationship. The pair started off on a strong footing: Mr. Biden spoke with Mr. Bennett within hours after the Israeli leader took office in June — a signal of support given that Mr. Biden had taken weeks after his inauguration to speak directly with Mr. Bennett’s predecessor, Mr. Netanyahu.

But the two governments have since clashed on whether the U.S. should reopen the American consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which was closed by President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Bennett says such a move would undermine Israel’s sovereignty in its capital city.

There are also disagreements over Israeli plans to expand its settlements in the occupied West Bank, and over the Biden administration’s decision to blacklist two Israeli spyware firms, NSO Group and Candiru, whose products, the U.S. alleges, have been used by authoritarian governments to hack the phones of dissidents and rights activists.

But at the heart of the tensions between Israel and the United States is the fundamental disagreement over how to stop the Iranian program. It is not a new argument: The two allies fought bitterly over the 2015 agreement, which Israel opposed and President Barack Obama signed.

More recently, they have disagreed about the wisdom of Israeli sabotage of Iranian facilities, which Mr. Bennett’s government believes has set back the program, and which some in the United States argue only encourages the Iranians to build back the nuclear enrichment facilities with more efficient, up-to-date equipment.

Israeli officials had been happy with the warm welcome the White House offered Mr. Bennett. The Biden administration had praised his government for being far more transparent with it than Mr. Netanyahu had been. Indeed, the Israelis consulted with the Americans before launching two covert strikes against Iran, one in September against a missile base and one in June against an Iranian factory building nuclear centrifuges, according to people briefed on the actions.

But the call between Mr. Bennett and Mr. Blinken last week was contentious, with the two sides embracing very different opinions about the value of a renewed agreement to check Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. The call left officials in both countries frustrated, according to officials from both countries.

During the phone call, Mr. Bennett said that Iran was trying to blackmail the United States by increasing the enrichment percentage, according to an official familiar with details of the call. Mr. Bennett added that no official, American or Israeli, wants to be the one to report that Iran has reached bomb-grade enrichment, but fears of a nuclear-armed Iran should not lead to surrendering to Iranian demands or signing a reckless agreement.

Some American officials believe those concerns about concessions are misplaced. Israeli officials had complained that the United States was considering offering an interim deal with Tehran that would roll back some sanctions in return for a freeze on some of its nuclear activity. But American officials say such an offer is not actively being considered, at least for now, because of Iran’s unwillingness to engage.

Israeli officials have not been reassured. They are increasingly concerned that the United States will eventually reach a deal with Tehran and then seek to block Israeli intelligence services from carrying out covert sabotage attacks. Israeli leaders say they want a guarantee from the Biden administration that Washington will not seek to restrain their sabotage campaign, even if a renewed nuclear deal is reached.

Disagreements over intelligence assessments about the Iranian nuclear stockpile and bomb-making know-how remain relatively small, mostly focused on how long it would take Iranians to produce a weapon if they get enough bomb-grade nuclear fuel.

But the gulf about the meaning of those assessments is wide. American officials believe that so long as Iran has not moved to develop a bomb it does not have a nuclear military program, since it suspended the existing one after 2003. Israeli officials, on the other hand, believe that Iran has continued a clandestine effort to build a bomb since 2003.

Some Israeli officials believe that the sabotage campaign is having strategic effects and could be one of the reasons Iranians, however tentatively, have returned to Vienna. A senior Israeli intelligence official said the sabotage operations had created crippling paranoia at the top of the Iranian government. The operations, the official said, have caused Tehran to rethink whether it should accelerate the nuclear project.

But even American supporters of the Israeli approach say it is akin to “mowing the grass,” a necessary step to keep Iran in check but not one that will ever fully halt Tehran’s nuclear research. These American officials believe that the only durable way to prevent Iran from developing a weapon is to reach an agreement, like the one in 2015, that requires Iran to ship its nuclear fuel out of the country. And that would require significant sanctions relief in return.

In the meetings this week, Israeli officials tried to persuade Washington not to work toward a diplomatic agreement and to instead tighten sanctions. But Israeli officials say they fear that the U.S. is conducing secret back-channel communication with Iran, and that a new round of talks in Vienna will eventually lead to the signing of a deal.

The meetings came against the backdrop of a recent Iranian attack on American forces in Syria, a senior American official said. The Israelis, the official said, had an aggressive attitude on the Iranian threat, related to both the nuclear program and the risk of missile and other weapon proliferation.

But there is a growing American concern that it is just a matter of time before an American service member is killed or wounded by an Iranian proxy drone strike on Mr. Biden’s watch. With Iran making clear it will retaliate against American personnel in Syria or Iraq if Israel strikes Iran or its proxies, it complicates strike planning.

In an appearance at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council on Monday, William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, raised concerns about the Iranian nuclear work. He said the Iranians were “dragging their feet” on negotiations as they were “making steady advances in their nuclear program, particularly enrichment to 60 percent now as well.” That is the closest the Iranians have ever come to bomb-grade fuel, which is usually defined as 90 percent purity.

But, Mr. Burns added, the United States continues to believe that Iran has not made a decision to weaponize its nuclear program.

Patrick Kingsley contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

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What Is the Perfect Date to Bring Workers Back to the Office? - The New York Times

“We decided as a leadership team, ‘what was magical about these dates?’” Ms. Anas said. “It was extremely liberating saying, ‘We’re going to see how this nets out and we’re not solving for a date.’”

She is unsettled by the possibility that they will still be working from home in March, two years since they first packed up their desks. But with coronavirus infections spiking, Ms. Anas is relieved that the company doesn’t have to weigh the merits of an early 2022 return, leaving workers to wait worriedly for updates.

“If we had kicked the can to January, they’d be fixated on that,” she said. “We keep focused on the work. This is just a distraction.”

For many organizational leaders, addressing the anxieties of their work force has been the only constant in the R.T.O. process.

With the spread of Delta, Jessica Saranich, who runs U.S. operations at the productivity software company Monday.com, got a flurry of notes from colleagues: Will we really go back to the office in August? Last month brought the news of Omicron, with a fresh set of questions: What does this mean for the January off-site gathering, with its promise of free food, partying and a Miami D. J.? Ms. Saranich’s team has delayed its return to office date three times, which has left some employees pleading for more permanence in the company’s policies.

“Sometimes our team will say please just make a decision, pick something, make us come back to the office or make us be remote,” Ms. Saranich said. “But it’s not something that we want to rush. To be able to lean into the discomfort and say we don’t know is a great gift that we can give to our team.”

Still, plenty of organizations aiming for an early 2022 return haven’t budged.

Express Employment Professionals, a staffing provider in Oklahoma City, aims to bring half of its 300 workers back to their newly remodeled headquarters on Jan. 15. The company had originally reopened its office in July in a phased re-entry plan, which was temporarily scaled back in September. Keith McFall, chief operating officer, feels that clear R.T.O. dates serve as a force of stability for workers navigating months of tumult.

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Bookcase credibility

Some have a copy of Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker” on display for video calls. Others opt for something subtler — maybe “Jude the Obscure,” which the actor Paul Rudd chose, or Thomas Piketty’s “Capital,” featured behind Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “Seeing into every person’s home, no matter how well you knew them, felt intrusive,” Ms. Nancherla said. “But it was also bonding in that you’re like, ‘You’re stuck at home like me.’” Stars: They’re quarantined just like us.

Commuter’s delight

When people sit in morning traffic, they owe themselves a treat. Maybe it’s a scone or a smoothie. Maybe it’s one of those egg white wraps from Starbucks that probably dates back to the Paleolithic era. Cameron Parkins, who started a new job during the pandemic as a graduate programs administrator in Richmond, impressed his co-workers by making banana cheesecake for his first day at the office. His team appreciated it, he said, maybe even too much: “They joked around that it was the real reason they hired me.”

Mask-issist

That office colleague who inexplicably lowers his mask when he has to cough, as if he was the only person in the room. At least he filled out his Covid symptom self-scan this morning.

Polywork

Working flexibly means more time away from your day job to sell crafts on Etsy, trade cryptocurrencies or write the 2021 twist on “King Lear.” “When you’re not in the office, it’s a lot easier to switch back and forth between tasks,” said the lexicographer Erin McKean, who noted a recent spike in usage of the word “polywork,” a more official-sounding form of the side hustle.

R.T.O.

Who knew three little letters could contain so much angst? They became ubiquitous this year, as bosses promised a triumphant Return to Office, only to have their plans hijacked by coronavirus variants. Still, better to talk about a return to the office than a return to work, according to Chris Herd, a technology entrepreneur. “People are genuinely offended about being told they’re returning to work,” he said, “when they’ve been working their socks off for the last 18 months.”

Show and tell

When offices disappeared, the boundaries between the professional and domestic went with them. Alexis Gay, a comedian who used to work at Patreon, realized early on in the work-from-home era that the seven employees she managed would become intimately familiar with her kitchen. “It was like, here’s my mug, here’s my plants,” she said. “You were forced to be a little more yourself by nature of the office coming to you.” Hopefully they’ll attest to her interior design skills in year-end reviews.

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Can Parties Help Us Heal? - The New York Times

On the first night of December, the scene at Nowadays, a bar and club in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens, was uncharacteristically tranquil. In place of the usual crowded dance floor, people were lying on blankets in the middle of the club. Instead of bumping beats, the music was calming, and the space was filled with candles. Rather than dancing body to body, guests engaged in gentle forms of touch: caressing, hugging and leaning on each other.

They had gathered for an event called “Under the Tongue: A Hibernation Temple and Ceremony,” organized by Nocturnal Medicine, a nonprofit that hosts parties meant to encourage spiritual healing. Together, the group would work to ease each other’s worries about the seasonal transition to winter — the second since the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic in March 2020.

“We noticed, in ourselves and in our friends and in the people we were speaking to, an uneasiness about winter approaching,” said Michelle Shofet, 33, who founded Nocturnal Medicine with Larissa Belcic, also 33. “There was this kind of discomfort, uncertainty, fear, anxiety of returning to the cold, to this time of being shut in.”

As the pandemic closes in on its second year, people are continuing to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety at a high rate. Many still feel socially isolated and deprived of human touch. Some have tried adopting pets to combat loneliness, or went to therapy. Others have sought relief through nonclinical means: by creating new rituals and immersing themselves in new social settings, where conversation and connection can lead to new realizations.

Though some of Nocturnal Medicine’s events are referred to “raves,” they don’t involve shoulder-to-shoulder dancing or rely on hedonistic drug consumption. Rather, the organization borrows principles from rave culture such as the power of crowds and the sense of release that parties can provide.

That evening’s offerings included a sound bath, a guided meditation, a candle-lighting ritual and an invitation to interact with an art installation in the center of the dance floor.

The installation, which consisted of sculptures made of tree stumps, horseshoe crab bodies, stone and dirt, was meant to serve as a “visual cue for the concepts of cycles and time,” Ms. Shofet said. “The stone is meant to reference geological time scales that are moving much more slowly than us. With horseshoe crabs, which are one of the oldest living species on earth, we wanted to have this sort of ancient creature present.”

Donesh Ferdowsi, 33, an architectural designer who lives in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn, said that engaging with the installation helped him feel more connected to the earth. “Touching the dirt, holding the logs, putting my hand by the fire, it’s sort of this return to the elemental,” he said. “My whole job is all in my head, so you forget that you’re not just a disembodied brain.”

Ambient music helped set the tone. “I was trying to find tracks that can meet different moods,” said Ian Kim Judd, the night’s DJ. “Things that emanated a lot of light, things that also tend to have some darker edges underneath.”

For Mr. Ferdowsi, the fact that the event fell on a Wednesday night, rather than on a weekend, was also significant. “It’s incredible that it’s in the middle of the week because you can’t wait for the right time,” he said. “It’s in the middle of everything, and that’s how winter is. I wanted to be able to drop everything and go to something that touches on sacredness in a universal way.”

Kelsa Trom, 33 who works with writers and lives in Ridgewood, agreed that the gathering was well timed. “Who doesn’t need a hug before another pandemic winter?” she said, as she waited for the sound bath and meditation to begin. “I’ve been to Nowadays as a club. I haven’t been here as a ritual space. It’s calmer, easier to speak and listen in.”

Ms. Shofet said that the decision to host the event at a nightclub — rather than at, say, a meditation center — was intentional. “The dance floor is a space that’s already charged with so much collective energy, it’s already used for this kind of communication with things outside of ourselves like music or other people,” she said. “One of our big underlying goals and desires is to knit together contemporary clubbing and raving with environmental awareness.”

Though attending a healing rave might not solve all of one’s anxieties, the sense of connectedness it may bring about can be beneficial, said Scott Hutson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Kentucky, who has researched the ways raves have helped foster spiritual transformations.

“The therapeutic rave experience comes precisely from being in community, in unity with others,” Mr. Hutson added. “The ability to break down barriers between other people and yourself, to sort of be away from your own anxieties and your own ego, to basically unite and forge bonds with a whole crowd of people.”

Ms. Trom refers to that as a “beautiful anonymous intimacy.” “It’s a feeling that is hard to come by in New York City, and maybe everywhere,” she said after the event. “It felt like a gift.”

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Silent Films Offer Rare Glimpses of Life in 1920s Ireland - The New York Times

DUBLIN — Mícheál Ó Mainnín always wondered whether his grandfather had been telling the truth.

When Mr. Ó Mainnín was growing up on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland, there was no radio or television to pass the time, he said, so people would tell stories. His grandfather had many, but he told one more than others.

In the mid-1920s, an American visited Dingle to study birds and collect specimens. Sometimes Mr. Ó Mainnín’s grandfather would bring the man — his name was Benjamin Gault, though the locals called him “Kaerty” — in his fishing boat to the nearby Blasket Islands. Kaerty always had a hand-cranked camera with him. One day, as he was filming Mr. Ó Mainnín’s grandfather and his friends, the grandfather stuck a pipe in his dog’s mouth as a joke.

“It was a very far-out story,” Mr. Ó Mainnín, 55, a farmer and fisherman in Dingle, said. “You would never think that it was true.”

Long after Mr. Ó Mainnín’s grandfather, also named Mícheál Ó Mainnín, died in 1981, the family wondered whether any of the film shot by the visiting American still existed.

Mr. Ó Mainnín’s curiosity ultimately led to the discovery of a collection of silent film reels depicting life in 1920s Ireland — police officers directing traffic in Cork City, horse-drawn carts piled high with wicker lobster pots, people attending horse races and Mass — all shot in 1925 and 1926, in the early years of Irish independence from Britain.

Footage of Ireland from that time — a period when memories of the First World War were still fresh, and Ireland was recovering from its own civil war — is incredibly rare. Most of the film that does exist is newsreel footage of major events, according to Manus McManus, the film collections and acquisitions manager for the Irish Film Institute.

“This stands out as quite unique in the sense of essentially recording the ordinary daily lives of people,” Kevin Rockett, a retired professor of film studies at Trinity College Dublin, said. “There’s lots of footage of the war, so that was what people would be most familiar with.”

Mr. Ó Mainnín started his search in 2011 with little to go on beyond the American’s name, but he quickly found out that Mr. Gault was an ornithologist from the Chicago area. That led him to the Chicago Academy of Sciences, home to the Gault collection, which includes bird specimens, dried plants and, as he had hoped, old film.

Mr. Gault’s films are not the only reels in the academy’s archives, but they are among the oldest. Dawn Roberts, the academy’s senior director of collections, was trying to raise money to digitize the reels when she received an email from Mr. Ó Mainnín.

The academy did not have the resources to digitize the Gault reels, but Ms. Roberts shared catalog notes with Mr. Ó Mainnín along with scanned journal entries and photographs belonging to Mr. Gault. Mr. Ó Mainnín brought those materials to the Irish Film Institute to see if it could help fund the digitization process.

Mr. McManus had secured some funding from a nonprofit when Rob Byrne, the president of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, caught wind of the story. Mr. Byrne, who lives in Ireland, had been looking for an Irish project, and Mr. Gault’s reels presented a rare opportunity. The Silent Film Festival had a lot of experience with restoring silent films.

“Because the footage was shot by an American in Ireland, it’s fitting that, after nearly 100 years, the U.S.-Ireland connection endures,” Mr. McManus said.

Mr. Gault shot on 35-millimeter nitrate film, which was rare for a hobbyist because it was a very professional and higher-resolution medium, Mr. McManus said. The downside is that nitrate is also unstable and flammable, which makes the film hard to preserve.

“First of all, these are amateur films shot 100 years ago that, fortunately, nobody ever threw out,” Mr. Byrne said. “Films like these are disappearing. They’re a huge, single unique copy on a combustible, flammable, deteriorating film base. Fifty years from now, this film would not exist at all.”

Mr. Gault’s reels were in exceptional condition. After the funding was arranged to have a third-party laboratory digitize the reels, it was up to the Silent Film Festival to restore the footage. That job fell to a senior film restorer, Kathy O’Regan, who also happened to be a native of Gort, County Galway, a rural area in the west of Ireland not unlike the places Mr. Gault shot in Counties Cork and Kerry.

“It was magical to see it,” Ms. O’Regan said. “On a personal level, the first time I watched it was so exciting. There’s this one shot of two farmers who are planting potatoes, and I swear to God, one of the men is the absolute spitting image of one of my next-door neighbors. I know it’s impossible, but it’s wild just to watch.”

The 19 reels of film will amount to about 35 minutes of footage once the frame rate is adjusted. After they are graded and restored, Mr. McManus wants to screen the footage in Dingle. He hopes that if more local people see what Mr. Gault shot, they’ll be able to identify some of the people featured.

For Mr. Ó Mainnín, the film footage offered a chance to see familiar faces in a different light.

“I know all those people that were in the film, but they were older,” he said. “But that’s when they were young and strong and full of life, you know?”

As with the birds he studied, Mr. Gault observed the people of rural Ireland in their natural habitats. His reels show people dancing in the streets, baling hay, walking arm in arm.

And, yes, a dog smoking a pipe.

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The Holidays Are for Martinelli’s - The New York Times

That the sparkling cider is nonalcoholic is a tradition that dates back to Prohibition. The Martinelli family, immigrants from Switzerland, had been making hard cider in Watsonville, Calif., since 1868, but when the sale of alcohol became illegal in 1920, S. Martinelli & Company had to shelve that product. In addition to selling apple juice starting in 1917, the family made money by bottling Coca-Cola at their plant. On the side, they also began making single-serve sparkling juice, said John Martinelli, the chairman of the company, in a recent interview.

Mr. Martinelli, a fourth-generation leader of the business, recently ceded his role as chief executive to Gun Ruder, who introduced himself as the “first nonfamily member to run the family business.” (Still, by most definitions, he is family; Mr. Martinelli’s wife is Mr. Ruder’s sister.)

Both Mr. Martinelli, 64, and Mr. Ruder, 51, are real Martinelli’s dads, with plenty of stories of keeping their families and friends well stocked in “bubble juice,” as Mr. Martinelli’s kids called the sparkling cider when they were little.

Even after stepping down as chief executive, Mr. Martinelli continues to taste every day’s production of apple juice and cider so that he can pick up any flavor variations.

“That’s one of those things that is kind of a family tradition that was passed down,” he said, brightly, adding, “I do believe I have a very perceptive palate, especially as it relates to apple juice and apple juice flavors.”

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Opinion | How the United States Can Break Putin’s Hold on Ukraine - The New York Times

Over the past 30 years, Ukraine has made major strides in its experiment with democracy. Despite worrying instances of government-backed corruption — undeniably, there is still more work to be done — Ukraine has made hard-fought progress on reform in the midst of war. Six presidents, two revolutions and many violent protests later, the people of Ukraine have sent a clear message that reflects the most fundamental of American values: They will fight for basic rights, and against authoritarian repression.

A prosperous Ukraine buttressed by American support makes an authoritarian Russia unviable in the long term. Ukraine’s success would upend Russia’s irredentist aspirations for empire and highlight the Kremlin’s failures, just as West Germany’s achievements once did in comparison to the totalitarian East German state during the Cold War. It may even convince the Russian people — who share a culture, history and religion with Ukrainians — to eventually demand their own framework for democratic transition.

To be sure, this doesn’t happen overnight. A generational investment is necessary to realize such a vision. Nevertheless, the outlines of the stark contrast between a prosperous democratic Ukraine and a repressive and economically stagnant Russia are already evident. This is, in large part, why Mr. Putin needs Ukraine to be a failed state.

U.S. support for Ukraine could also help drive a wedge between China and Russia. Preventing Mr. Putin from invading Ukraine demonstrates the strength of the West’s commitment to opposing autocracy and makes Russia a less potent partner to China in their mutual efforts to undermine the Western rules-based international order.

To that end, the United States should consider an out-of-cycle, division-level military deployment to Eastern Europe to reassure allies and bolster the defenses of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This kind of deployment would signal that Russia’s aggression will result in the sort of NATO security posture Russia most wishes to avoid.

And the United States cannot adequately support Ukraine without significant European involvement. The Kremlin wishes to make NATO membership for Ukraine a central issue of any discussions. That’s a distraction right now because an assurance that Ukraine won’t be a part of NATO is unlikely on its own to stop Russia from still trying to bring Ukraine to heel.

The more important issue to consider is that negotiations with Russia should be dealt with at the level of European security. These talks should devise off ramps that alleviate both European and Russian security concerns: for Russia, NATO encroachment and ballistic missile defense, and for NATO, Russia’s over-militarized western border.

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Opinion | As Omicron Looms, Fear Messaging Isn't Working - The New York Times

Billions of people have been subjected to both of these experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the spring of 2020, we all went through flooding. We were suddenly confronting an invisible, lethal pathogen that was killing thousands across the globe and around us. The media bombarded us with harrowing images of patients struggling to breathe on ventilators.

Each new wave of communication since then has operated as a form of systematic desensitization. People around the world have been through so many alarms — both real and false — that many have been conditioned to stop fearing Covid-19 in the same way. And every trip outside the house that doesn’t result in people getting sick can serve to desensitize them further. At this point, it’s as if we have built up antibodies against fear.

The mood of the year might also be numbing people’s fear response. As the pandemic has dragged on, I’ve highlighted how many people are languishing in a state of emptiness and ennui. When you feel that “blah” or “meh,” your emotional reactions are subdued. The sense of impending doom that plunged you into action last spring feels more like a nagging headache this fall. Many are tired of being afraid — and just plain tired, too. If a Covid-19 variant falls in a community and no one is there to fear it, does it still make a sound?

This isn’t to say scare tactics have no place in public health messages or private conversations. There’s extensive evidence that appealing to fear motivates people to avoid dangers. It can drive them to quit smoking or wear seatbelts. But as intense as fear feels as an emotional state, it’s also fleeting, which can reduce its effectiveness at motivating continuing behavior change. For example, with efforts to reduce the spread of H.I.V., research suggests that while stoking fear initially increases patients’ perceptions of their H.I.V. risk, it actually reduces their condom use. (Counseling and testing programs are more effective in changing behavior.) You can sustain fight, flight or freeze for only so long.

Fear generally works best for motivating one-time acts, especially those that feel risky. Last year, fear was probably an effective way to motivate people to get their first vaccine shot. But it tends to be less effective for driving repeated behaviors such as getting a second dose and a booster.

Of course, the problem isn’t just being oversaturated with fear messages. Safety behaviors have become so politicized that many people are skeptical not only of vaccines and face masks, but also even of the threat that Covid-19 presents. For a fear message to get through and change behaviors, people need to be confident both that there’s a clear and present danger and that taking action will protect them.

Since 2020, scientists have made astonishing strides in learning how to prevent and treat Covid-19. Health authorities should be applying the same scientific discipline to communications about Covid. Some promising approaches include informing people that a shot has been reserved for them, inviting them to do their part in reciprocating the enormous sacrifices of health care workers and inquiring about what would motivate them to consider a vaccine.

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Opinion | We Can Live Better Lives While Being Smart About Covid - The New York Times

Masking in schools is uniquely challenging. No one wants to force young children to wear masks for several hours a day indefinitely, but it would also be foolish to abandon the practice completely. A happy medium may be to require masks for students during surges or when new variants of concern are detected and vaccine escape is still being measured. The rest of the time, evidence so far suggests the requirement could be lifted. Nevada has successfully tied its school masking mandates to community transmission rates, and experts say it’s worth trying the same in other states.

Prepare for surges. No scientist or health official has managed to predict, or even explain after the fact, what constellation of forces causes the pandemic to ebb and flow around the globe the way it does. But it’s clear that there will continue to be periods of substantial uptick in coronavirus cases, and there should be sensible, significantly better policies in place for dealing with them.

Country-specific travel bans are futile: By the time a variant like Omicron is detected in one country, it’s already spread halfway around the globe. Penalizing countries that report new variants — as South Africa did, with Omicron — will only discourage them from sharing that kind of information in the future. Blanket policies — like requiring everyone entering the United States to test negative or possibly quarantine — would be tougher and more expensive to carry out.

It would also have a better chance of actually working. If federal officials are serious about using border control to slow the spread of dangerous pathogens, they will need to establish clear, enforceable test and quarantine protocols, not to mention adequate quarantine facilities, at ports of entry.

Do away with Covid theater. The coronavirus is airborne, and any money spent on deep cleaning would be better put toward improved building ventilation. But instead of upgrading their HVAC systems, too many schools and businesses are still relying on things that won’t work nearly as well. The plastic barriers that have become common in restaurants, nail salons and offices, for example, can actually impede air flow and exacerbate viral spread. Lawmakers and local officials should make a concerted effort to change that. Not only would improved ventilation help thwart coronavirus, it would also curb the spread of other airborne pathogens including the flu and those that cause the common cold.

Keep going on vaccines. Public health powers were once a common feature of American life. When cholera and yellow fever routinely stalked the nation’s major cities, citizens accepted and expected their health departments to issue mandates, quarantine orders and travel restrictions. It’s crucial for officials to shore up those powers now, because scientists say that epidemics and pandemics will only become more common in the years ahead. Mr. Biden’s vaccine mandates have been bold and effective — and administration officials should stay the course no matter how many legal battles they encounter.

In the meantime, government officials and private businesses would do well to stand firm on some basics: Covid vaccines should be required for public employees and in large companies, for health care workers, in schools (for staff as well as students for whom the shots are authorized) and for a range of indoor activities including dining in restaurants and attending concerts. Masks should be worn again in indoor public settings anytime transmission rates are high, vaccination rates are low or new variants of concern are circulating.

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Opinion | What Can Schools Do About Disturbed Students? - The New York Times

Josh McKivigan, a behavioral health therapist who works with middle and high school students, said that the majority of threats that he has encountered do not turn into violence. “It’s usually students acting out, needing some sort of mental health treatment,” McKivigan said. And he said that students are getting better and better at identifying and sounding the alarm to teachers and counselors when their friends are exhibiting worrying behaviors — like not sleeping, not bathing, isolating from people or saying bizarre things.

Still, he said that as a school therapist, he found the Michigan incident chilling because it seemed, based on reports, like the accused student’s parents weren’t willing to work with the school to help monitor their child. McKivigan also said that with Covid, he’s seeing a baseline level of irritability, anger and mistrust among parents and students alike, which he finds worrisome. “It feels like a perfect storm for a crisis happening,” he said.

Despite the absolute terror that mass shootings inspire in just about everyone, it’s worth pointing out that these types of events are relatively rare, and schools remain among the safest places for children. According to the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which monitors youth behaviors every two years, 11.8 percent of students carried a weapon on school property in 1993 in the 30 days before the survey and only 2.8 percent did in 2019. Brock also pointed out to me that violence in schools is prevented all the time; we just don’t often hear about those cases. The Post just ran a story about a grandmother who did contact authorities, potentially averting a tragedy.

Just because students may be relatively physically safe does not mean they feel psychologically safe. There is evidence that they don’t. According to YRBS data, almost twice the percentage of students missed at least one day school because of safety concerns in the 30 days before the survey than was the case years ago — 8.7 percent in 2019, up from 4.4 percent in 1993. Lauren Koong, who won a Times Learning Network essay contest, wrote about how every time she hears the lunch bell ring at her Houston high school, she is reminded of a gang-related shooting that happened her freshman year.

For too many of our kids, we can’t erase these awful memories, and I confess that after reporting this out, I don’t feel optimistic. Not because I don’t think teachers and school counselors aren’t prepared to address potential violence. On the contrary, I think most of them are doing their best to keep students safe. But they aren’t psychic, and in a country where there are, according to one study, 120.5 firearms for every 100 residents, there will always be the potential for a worst-case scenario.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/opinion/schools-students-staff.html

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Opinion | The Inflation Suspense Goes On - The New York Times

Today’s consumer price report came as a huge surprise to almost everyone — because the numbers came in almost exactly in line with expectations, which basically never happens. Analysts whose job is to forecast what official numbers will say a few hours before they come out — a job of dubious usefulness, but whatever — expected the one-year rate of inflation to come in at 6.8 percent; it came in at … 6.8 percent. “Core” inflation that strips out volatile food and energy prices came in right on expectations too.

If there was any information content in today’s release, it was that extreme scenarios in both directions became a bit less likely. There wasn’t anything in the report suggesting that inflation is rapidly spiraling upward; nor was there anything lending comfort to those hoping to see inflation fade away in the next few months. For what it’s worth, financial markets appear to have taken onboard the reduction in risks of really high inflation: “breakeven rates,” which measure market expectations of the inflation rate over the next few years, came down modestly. But nothing major happened.

That said, the headline number is highly likely to come down over the next few months, if only because the big run-up of oil prices from their pandemic lows seems to have gone into reverse:

Some other components may also be coming down — or will at least stop rising rapidly. Hyun Song Shin, head of research for the influential Bank for International Settlements, recently made the case that a lot of recent inflation reflects the “bullwhip effect”: panic or at least precautionary buying of goods that seem to be in short supply, which intensifies the shortage. Remember last year’s toilet paper shortage?

Shin points out, among other things, that shipping costs, while still very high, seem to have peaked:

But even if you try to adjust for special circumstances, underlying inflation appears to be running high by recent standards, maybe around 4 percent instead of the 2 percent that is the Fed’s target and has been the norm since the mid-1990s. This in turn reflects an economy in which spending is more or less back to the prepandemic trend but production is constrained both by bottlenecks and by the withdrawal of several million Americans from the labor force.

As an aside, 4 percent inflation isn’t hyperinflation; it isn’t even the double-digit inflation of the 1970s. In fact, whether they know it or not, Americans of a certain age can attest that it’s not so bad. It was, after all, the inflation rate that prevailed for much of the Reagan years — you know, after morning in America:

I, at least, don’t remember the late 1980s as hellish.

Still, the Fed would consider a sustained doubling of the inflation rate a blow to its credibility. So how long will elevated inflation last?

The secret answer (don’t tell anyone) is that we don’t know.

I still think the most likely scenario is a minor-league version of the 1946-48 inflation spike, when pent-up demand after the end of wartime rationing caused an inflationary boom — inflation peaked at around 20 percent — but price stability quickly and more or less painlessly re-emerged once the spending surge was over. I still don’t see any evidence that 1970s-type stagflation, in which everyone kept raising prices because they expected everyone else to keep raising prices, is emerging.

But today’s numbers neither reinforced nor challenged my beliefs. This report was shockingly unsurprising.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/opinion/inflation-economy.html

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Opinion | Revoke the Omicron Travel Ban Against African Countries - The New York Times

Not long after scientists in South Africa discovered the Omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, a number of Western countries — including the United States — imposed travel bans on people traveling from southern African countries. The U.S. ban exempts American citizens and permanent residents.

Notably, Omicron has been identified in many other countries around the world, including the United States. Some data even suggests that it may have been circulating in Europe even before it was identified in southern Africa. Yet the bans remain.

President Biden acknowledged that the American travel ban was unlikely to stop the virus. But he justified it as a way of delaying the arrival of the new variant into the country. Others have justified the ban as a way to act “proactively” — as if there are no undesirable consequences of this policy.

Did the ban delay the arrival and spread of the new variant in the United States? How does it impact the efforts to control Covid-19 in the United States?

The science is nuanced. Even before the pandemic, scientists had studied the utility of travel bans after the emergence of a new respiratory virus. Most of the pre-Covid-19 pandemic research was conducted on potential influenza pandemics. Seasonal and pandemic influenza virus can be devastating, but it is less infectious than SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

Opinion Conversation Questions surrounding the Covid-19 vaccine and its rollout.

To assess the infectiousness of a virus, epidemiologists use a unit of measure they call the basic reproduction number, or R0. It is derived from the average number of individuals a single infected person is statistically likely to infect in an otherwise uninfected and unimmunized population. The virus that caused the 1918 influenza pandemic had an R0 of 1.8, and the R0 for seasonal influenza ranges from 0.9 to 2.1, whereas the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 had an R0 of 2 to 3; the Delta variant has an estimated R0 of 6. While we don’t yet know the R0 for Omicron, it is likely to be substantially higher than influenza’s.

A 2014 review of scientific evidence conducted by a group of British researchers from Public Health England and the University of Nottingham concluded that travel bans can work but only for stalling the arrival of a pandemic influenza virus into a country. To effectively delay virus importation, a ban must shut down almost all travel into a country, the study found. But according to the researchers, even these drastic restrictions may have limited utility if the virus involved is moderately to highly infectious — which is the case with SARS-CoV-2 and its variants.

During the current pandemic, it is true that countries such as New Zealand and Australia have used travel bans to reduce importation of SARS-CoV-2. But their bans have been near-total, early, and paired with effective contact tracing and quarantine systems. Similarly, many small island nations such as the Polynesian country of Tuvalu — population approximately 12,000 — have kept the coronavirus out after severely restricting travel.

So, yes: Travel bans can work under limited conditions. But the Omicron-related southern Africa travel ban imposed by the United States is too selective, focuses on many countries where the variant hasn’t been documented and excludes many more where the variant has been detected.

If there were any doubts about the futility of this ban, reports of the Omicron cases outside southern Africa should put them to rest. In fact, there are substantially more countries with reported cases of Omicron outside southern Africa than in that region.

The travel ban is also not without cost. It could discourage countries from reporting new variants and emerging viruses.

Suppose you are a health minister somewhere in Africa and see some initial data indicating that a new variant is circulating in your country. Announcing the discovery would risk the imposition of capricious travel restrictions on your people. Do you tell the world?

The success of domestic efforts in the United States depends on what happens globally. A new variant or incomplete information about existing ones can undermine efforts to control the virus. It is in America’s interest that scientists, doctors and health officials everywhere do not feel conflicted in reporting relevant information rapidly and completely.

Rather than imposing arbitrary travel restrictions, countries can adopt less intrusive policies to slow the spread of the virus through international travel, including testing passengers before their departure or after arrival. Making proof of vaccination mandatory for international travel also helps limit importation of the virus.

The United States has, of course, already imposed new rules for all inbound travelers — citizens and permanent residents as well as foreign visitors — requiring a negative result of a test taken within a day of departure and proof of immunization. These rules further diminish the need for a blanket travel ban for a few countries.

The long-term solution, however, is to ensure that a high number of people around the world are vaccinated.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Mr. Biden promised to have a science-based pandemic response. But his travel ban on southern African countries is not justifiable by science. Moreover, it makes Americans and others less safe by disincentivizing rapid reporting of new variants. It is time, then, for the United States to revoke the ban.

Saad B. Omer is the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health and a professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine and the Yale School of Public Health.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/opinion/omicron-travel-ban-covid-africa.html

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Opinion | How the Great Resignation Could Help Workers - The New York Times

The Great Resignation — the phenomenon of Americans leaving their jobs at record rates this year — reached a fever pitch in August, with 4.3 million Americans, or nearly 3 percent of the work force, calling it quits. Economic forecasters do not expect the situation to improve substantially anytime soon; some predict continued labor shortages in the coming months, exacerbating supply chain delays.

Why are so many people quitting? In part it may be that they don’t need the money — a consequence of federal stimulus checks, the suspension of student loan payments and months of reduced spending. In part it may be that people are concerned about workplace safety in a country whose population is still less than 60 percent vaccinated.

But it also may be that the Great Resignation is a kind of spontaneous, informal labor strike — a collective demand by workers for substantial raises and other gains after decades of wage stagnancy and suppression. If so, history suggests that the Great Resignation could be the beginning of a meaningful transformation of working conditions in this country.

Consider the situation in France in the first decades of the 20th century. The country experienced labor deficits during World War I because of increased industrial production and a decreased labor supply (a result of mobilizing troops). When the war ended, the influenza pandemic of 1918 further decreased the supply. The labor shortage persisted after the pandemic started to wane in 1920, largely because of the huge wartime and pandemic death tolls and a continually low birthrate.

Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau attempted to address the labor shortage by facilitating immigration to France by mostly male workers and by encouraging Frenchwomen and young people to join or rejoin the work force. This influx of workers allowed many employers to keep wages low despite the overall shortfall, which in turn stoked worker resentment, leading to a period of wildcat and general strikes throughout France between 1917 and the immediate post-pandemic period.

Hundreds of thousands of French workers orchestrated a nationwide series of “big quits” in the form of factory walkouts, assembly line slowdowns, union-organized strikes and other actions designed to put pressure on employers. Voluntary unemployment — deliberately leaving the labor force for extended periods — was also an effective, if less commonly used, strategy.

Eventually, these large-scale acts of protest and work refusal led to meaningful change in labor law and in some cases, higher wages. In 1919, to quell unrest in a period of rapidly rising postwar inflation and to discourage the growing enthusiasm for communism, Mr. Clemenceau enacted an eight-hour workday and a 40-hour workweek — about 20 years before the United States would do the same. This achievement did not solve all labor issues, and it was frequently undermined by employers in the following decade, but French workers had used the labor shortage to their advantage, as both a catalyst and a core bargaining tool for achieving better working conditions and wages.

If the 2021 labor shortage is, as many suspect, in part an expression of widespread worker dissatisfaction, the French example is encouraging. It shows that workers during periods of labor deficits possess considerable leverage to bring about meaningful change in wages, labor law and working conditions.

But unlike the labor shortage in France a century ago, the current shortage may not be temporary. American workers could possess even more leverage in the future, given a rapidly aging work force and the striking drop in birthrates during the coronavirus pandemic.

Will businesses continue to fill vacant jobs by tapping the teenage and senior employment pools and by purchasing labor-saving technology such as A.I. and robots? Or will the United States borrow a page from the playbook of World War I-era France, facilitating increased immigration to relieve long-term labor deficits?

Even if employers are able to mitigate labor shortages, growing anti-work sentiment and widespread voluntary unemployment among members of Generation Z suggest that the character of work will continue to change. During the Great Resignation, employers have managed to retain some blue- and white-collar workers with increased wages, flexible hours and remote work options. In the event of a prolonged labor shortage, more sweeping changes — a minimum-wage hike, more paid vacation days, the formal enactment of a shorter workweek — may be needed to lure workers back.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/opinion/great-resignation-labor-shortage.html

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Opinion | Abortion: Real Stories, Not Abstractions - The New York Times

To the Editor:

I was just out of college when Roe v. Wade was decided. It enabled me, in my 20s, to terminate an unplanned pregnancy though I was on the pill at the time. I was not ready for a child and had grave misgivings about my skills at that age to be a parent. I have never regretted my decision. I was able to go on to graduate school and become a licensed clinical social worker.

A large part of the issue regarding abortion is not even being discussed — the welfare and care of children unwanted and unloved. Do people naïvely believe that once a child is born it will be loved? Why do we not talk about the life of a child born to a mother who does not want the child but won’t put it up for adoption?

The stories I could relate of children burned and physically and sexually abused would stun people. And that’s not even to mention the fact that the world needs fewer people, not more, given the scarcities that climate change will introduce.

JoAnn Ruppert

Santa Fe, N.M.

To the Editor:

Re “The Supreme Court Gaslights Its Way to the End of Roe” (Opinion, Dec. 4):

In response to Linda Greenhouse’s excellent article regarding the oral arguments for the Mississippi abortion case, I would add: Why is there so little discussion of the physical toll pregnancy exacts on women?

I suffered from PTSD for years after the hallucinogenic cocktail given to me during my first son’s surgical birth. The permanent nerve damage surrounding the puckered scar of my abdomen is a daily reminder of that experience.

My best friend nearly bled out on the operating table during the birth of her daughter, which has left her unable to have more children. My former colleague suffered from a fourth-degree tear during the birth of her first child, requiring surgical reconstruction of her vagina and rectum. She lamented to me that her bowel movements have never been the same, even 20 years later.

A young woman I met told me of the abortion she had because her morning sickness was so severe that she had used up all of her annual unpaid sick days in the first month of her pregnancy. Her boss threatened to fire her, so she chose to terminate so she could pay her rent.

I can go on and on with such stories. I know very few women who were left completely unscathed by their pregnancies and births. Every pregnancy has a lasting effect on a woman’s body, some more severe than others. It is not selfish to choose self-preservation.

Shaileen Patton

Charlotte, N.C.

To the Editor:

Re “The Case Against Abortion,” by Ross Douthat (column, Dec. 2):

Thank you for this column. While I’m sure the vast majority of your readers favor abortion rights, the minority of us who are against abortion appreciate anything we can get.

Mr. Douthat succinctly stated the primary argument against abortion, which, in my opinion, is unassailable. Abortion takes a human life for no other reason than that it is burdensome for the mother and/or father.

Pregnancy affects the female of the species in profound ways that cannot be fully understood by us males. But the pressures placed on a woman because of pregnancy cannot be used to justify the killing of the unborn child.

As a Christian, I believe that the obvious answer is to follow the clear teachings of Scripture. Children are a blessing and should be protected.

While you may not like the fact that pregnancy affects only a woman’s life in ways that don’t affect men, you’ll need to take that argument up with God if you believe in Him, or evolution if you don’t.

Paul A. Mattaliano Jr.

Charleston, S.C.

The writer is a retired pastor.

To the Editor:

Ross Douthat is an intelligent man and a skilled and highly effective writer. His columns are often convincing, even when they are based on conclusions that have more to do with ideology and philosophy than with actual living, struggling people.

In his column on abortion, his thinking ignores the reality of what a person facing a difficult choice actually experiences. Emotions and human needs seem not to matter.

One unfortunate example: What kind of life can an unborn and unwanted “person” look forward to? How many are condemned to poverty, how many will be rejected and abused by parents who never wanted them? How many of those who argue on their behalf are willing to grant them the resources that might make the life they are given tolerable?

Leonard Simon

Los Angeles

To the Editor:

Re “‘Her Heart Was Beating Too,’” by Sarah Wildman (Opinion, Dec. 1):

Regarding our vanishing reproductive rights, Ms. Wildman quotes Lynn Paltrow: “It is martyrdom and the visible suffering and death of a visible woman that reminds people of their humanity and their right to life.”

Is this what we’re waiting for? I am a visible woman who suffered a kitchen table abortion in 1956, but luckily didn’t die. I was invisible then, just as the women who are suffering and dying for lack of abortion care are invisible today.

One does not have to look far to find these women. It is tragic that they are invisible because they are mostly poor and powerless. It is obscene that they are being consigned to invisible suffering and possible death by unaffected men and largely privileged women. God help us — if She still can.

Fran Moreland Johns

San Francisco

The writer is the author of “Perilous Times: An Inside Look at Abortion Before — and After — Roe v. Wade.”

To the Editor:

Where are our voices? We are not an anecdotal few. We are not only Savita, Izabela and the woman in Texas with the ectopic pregnancy whom Sarah Wildman writes about. We are millions more. This is also a #MeToo moment. Don’t be afraid. We know your pain. We have been there, too. I have been there.

When I was 26 I had an ectopic pregnancy. I was hemorrhaging, the baby was lost and I was nearly lost, too. Luckily emergency surgery and transfusions saved my life but didn’t wipe away the shame. What had I done wrong? Nothing. But society expects happy mother-and-baby endings, so something I did must have been wrong. I mourned in silence.

I am turning 70 soon and I have a voice. Women, take back your humanity now. Stare down these empty, hateful legislatures and courts and let your voices be heard. These anti-abortion laws are anti-humanity laws. Take back your humanity now. You have a voice. We have a voice together.

Mary E. Slocum

Palo Alto, Calif.

To the Editor:

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, how many young women will be willing to attend college in states that ban abortion?

Bonnie Thompson

Los Osos, Calif.

To the Editor:

Re “Abortion: The Voice of the Ambivalent Majority,” by David Brooks (column, Dec. 3):

I am impressed by Mr. Brooks’s thoughtful analysis of the moral issues involved in abortion. He succinctly brought out how intensely personal and how harrowing are the nature of decisions that are related to the extinction of a human life.

It is sad to see the self-centered callousness with which many progressives frame their arguments in favor of abortion as a right. Those who are not squeamish about reducing abortion to simply a question of “my body, my choice” are certainly guilty of being the most insensitive of all humans.

Nurturing and giving birth to a child are the most sacrosanct of all life processes. Who will take the onerous responsibility of deciding when a fetus is an individual and not just a bundle of cells? Is it possible for any scientist or physician to define the day when one’s individuality and one’s soul become embedded in the fetus?

Let us also keep in mind that 50 percent of the genes of the unborn baby belong to the father. Does he not have any rights in a decision of such great import?

Cyril Alappat

Kochi, India

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/opinion/letters/abortion.html

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Recently, on Twitter, the political scientist Lee Drutman issued a challenge to his followers and readers.

“I’m all for envisioning doomsday scenarios so we can better prepare to avoid them,” he wrote. “But I’d also like to read more scenarios about how American democracy improves, and really specific scenarios, not the hand-wave-y stuff about how Americans put aside their differences.”

Since I am also inclined to think about doomsday scenarios for American democracy, I thought this was a useful exercise. Unfortunately, I came up empty-handed. I have many ideas for how we might improve democracy in the United States, but it is genuinely difficult for me to envision the path from A to B, from the status quo — with its entrenched interests and strong bias against change — to something more equal and inclusive.

With that said, in thinking through Drutman’s question, I reminded myself of a truism that’s worth repeating here: For as much as we might predict and project, the future is, and always will be, an undiscovered country.

We imagine the road ahead of us as a clear path. We seem to forget that, no matter how strong our powers of perception, we can’t actually see every obstacle in our way, predict the detours we’ll have to take or know when events force us on a different route entirely.

Another way to think of this is that no one in 1928 had any inkling of what the next 20 years would bring. In retrospect, of course, we can see the lines leading to depression and war, and the transformation of the world economic and political order. But in the moment, we’re all moving blind.

It is very possible, even likely, that American democracy continues on its present path to something dark and dangerous. That the authoritarian movement around Donald Trump continues to gain strength and that there’s little appetite among rival elites to do anything about it.

Opinion Debate Will the Democrats face a midterm wipeout?

For as much as there are patterns and precedents, for as much as the past can be a guide to the future, it is also true that history turns on a dime, that something might happen — a crisis or a conflict or something else entirely — that sweeps the pieces from the board and begins the game anew.

I do not know how we get from the current morass to a healthy, robust democracy. But whatever force or event that brings us there, I do not think we’ll be able to see it in advance.

What I Wrote

My Tuesday column used the controversy over the term “Latinx” — or rather, the conversation over its impact on the electorate — to make a larger point about the things that actually drive American politics.

The forces that drive politics are material and ideological, and our focus — when trying to understand and explain shifts in the electorate — should be on the social and economic transformations that shape life for most Americans.

My Friday column was a related argument about power within the Democratic Party and who is responsible for the party’s recent (and lackluster) performance.

It is true that some progressives — either Democratic lawmakers or affiliated activists — hold unpopular views or use unpopular language. It is also true that Republicans have amplified this to some electoral success. But missing in this conversation is one inconvenient fact. Progressives are not actually in the driver’s seat of the Democratic Party.

I was on the “You’re Wrong About” podcast giving listeners a brief overview of Reconstruction. And on the latest episode of my podcast, the journalist John Ganz and I discuss the 1987 thriller “No Way Out.”

Now Reading

Helen Christophi on a Justice Department counterterrorism expert with deep ties to organized white supremacists, for The Progressive magazine.

Imani Perry on Rebecca Hall’s adaptation of Nella Larsen’s “Passing” in Harper’s Bazaar.

Charisse Burden-Stelly on “racial capitalism” in The Monthly Review.

Kambole Campbell on the 2010 film “Tron: Legacy” for Polygon.

Robert McCoy on the perils of internet fame for Slate.

Jeremy Gordon on The Beatles for Gawker.

We drove to South Carolina for Thanksgiving, and on the way back, we stopped for lunch and gas at this rest stop. I love scenes with big, bold primary colors and was compelled to take a photo. The blues and reds are very nice, I think.

Now Eating: Seared Salmon With Spinach and Creamy Roasted Peppers

This recipe is from one of the mainstays of my kitchen, Rick Bayless’s “Mexican Everyday.” It’s very simple, very straightforward and very quick — from opening the book to putting dinner on the table was about 45 minutes. If you want a spicier cream sauce, roast two jalapeños along with the poblanos (and be sure to remove the seeds). If you want a richer sauce, you can use half-and-half instead of milk.

Ingredients

- 2 fresh poblano chiles

- 10 ounces spinach, about 10 cups

- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and halved

- 1 to 2 tablespoons masa harina

- 1½ cups whole milk (or half-and-half), plus a little more if needed

- 4 4- to 5-ounce skinless salmon fillets

- salt and ground pepper

Directions

Roast the poblanos over an open flame or 4 inches below a broiler, turning regularly until blistered and blackened all over, about 5 minutes for an open flame, 10 minutes for the broiler. Place in a bowl, cover with a kitchen towel and let cool until handleable.

Place the spinach in a microwaveable bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, poke a few holes in the top and microwave on high (100%) until completely wilted, usually about 2 minutes. Uncover and set aside.

Turn your stove to its lowest setting. Heat the oil in a very large (12-inch) skillet, preferably nonstick, over medium. Add the garlic and cook, stirring regularly, until soft and lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, scoop the garlic into a blender. Set the skillet aside.

Rub the blackened skin off the chiles and pull out the stems and seed pods. Rinse the chiles to remove bits of skin and seeds. Roughly chop and add to the blender, along with the masa harina and milk. Blend until smooth.

Return the skillet to medium-high heat. Sprinkle both sides of the fish liberally with salt and pepper. Lay the fillets in the hot oil and cook until richly browned, about 2 to 3 minutes. Use a spatula to flip the fillets, and cook until the fish barely flakes when pressed firmly with a finger or the back of a spoon (you want it slightly underdone), usually a couple of minutes longer for fish that’s about 1 inch thick. Using the spatula, transfer the fish to an ovenproof plate and set in the oven.

With the skillet still over medium-high heat, pour in the poblano mixture and whisk until it comes to a boil and thickens, about 1 minute. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes to blend the flavors. If the sauce has thickened past the consistency of a cream soup, whisk in a little more milk. Taste and season with salt, usually a generous ½ teaspoon.

Add the spinach to the sauce and stir until it is warm and well coated with sauce. Divide the creamy spinach among four plates. Top each portion with a piece of seared fish. (Or if it seems more appealing to you, spoon the sauce over the fillets.)

Serve without delay.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/opinion/us-democracy-future.html

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Opinion | Why We Need to Address Scam Culture - The New York Times

In my most recent newsletter, I drew our attention to two recent political news items that resonate with my professional interest in scams: reporting on the Direct Sellers Association’s donations to Senator Kyrsten Sinema — a subject of our discussion on presentation as politics — and on Dr. Mehmet Oz’s transition from spokesman to political candidate in Pennsylvania.

Since we last met in these pages, Dr. Oz announced that he is running for U.S. Senate. His campaign is one example of how the stigma usually associated with being involved in scams seems to be waning. At the least, being associated with shady vitamin supplements or questionable network marketing schemes doesn’t preclude running for office. Many of you wrote in that there is nothing new about ethically challenged people running for political office, and you are right. But there is something specific about our current culture that makes scams feel more dangerous than they were in the past.

We would benefit from making the stakes clear. Scams are opportunistic interactions that prey on people’s greed or compassion, replacing cooperation with competition. Scams weaken our trust in social institutions, but their going mainstream — divorced from empathy for the victims or stigma for the perpetrators — means that we have accepted scams as institutions themselves.

That is disastrous for public life. What, for example, happens when the Supreme Court becomes just another scam, a scheme to subject women to conditional personhood for the purpose of political gain? So our discussion of scams is timely. They’re not just about annoying Facebook invites from your college roommate, the one with the bouncy bangs and questionable ethics. Scams are also about the foundation of pluralistic democratic life.

That leads us to an important question: What do we mean by “scam”? Sociologically, scams are about norms and not about legality. Scams are not necessarily illegal. That is one reason being associated with a misleading product or bad business model does not preclude you from being in public life.

In our exploration of scams, this is the definition I will be drawing on: A scam is a strategy or arrangement intentionally designed to benefit a few participants by obscuring the risk or cost for other participants.

Some scam artists often do this by making a fundamental claim about what they’re trying to sell you on (something like “There is an endless supply of new customers”) that implies a natural truth that cannot be violated. In “The Dream,” a podcast about multilevel marketing that I listened to, as promised, one of the co-hosts, Jane Marie, says that in multilevel marketing and pyramid schemes, this claim is called the endless chain — you can never run out of recruits. It is a truth claim that cannot be supported and that someone in the scheme knows to be false. It is a norm violation. And when we realize that this norm has been violated, it makes us feel tainted and maybe a little angry. Every scam plants a small seed of social distrust. That brings me to the reason it is important that we talk about scams now.

So much of everyday life seems rigged against us. That is reflected in studies, like a 2018 Pew Research survey of Americans and social trust, that support the claim that we just do not trust our institutions or one another. There are the big things, like the outsize role that money and influence play in electoral politics. When I do fieldwork at public political events, I hear over and over again from people across the ideological spectrum just how unheard they feel. How is it possible that an elected representative can get away with meeting with lobbyists but rarely, if ever, talking to his or her constituents?

There are also the little things, small-scale but just as important. Increasingly, people sense that the system is designed to take advantage of them. Even if you do not follow electoral politics, you probably feel deliberately misled by a product or a business or a service that used to be easy but suddenly seems so hard. Covid has disrupted a lot of consumer behavior, but even before the pandemic, many consumer interactions had become oddly hostile.

A recent visit to a chain store involved having to tell a clerk, herself surely under undue pressure from management, five times that I did not want to sign up for a store discount card. I met a colleague at a local restaurant last week. We did not have reservations, and there were plenty of available tables. Still, the hostess said we had to leave a cellphone number to be seated. When I asked her why, she said it was in case I left something behind. A few hours after giving it to her, I had five new spam emails from restaurants and two spam texts for weight loss supplements. I suspect the two events are linked. I felt a little scammed.

But at least I do not have any bad debts (anymore — my 20s were fraught), because a Trump-era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ruling went into effect this week that would allow debt collection agencies to contact debtors on social media and by text message. We already cannot use our cellphones as telephones anymore because spam phone calls are running amok, and now this ruling will allow social media to join that party. From buying a gallon of milk to making a dinner reservation, all the way up the chain to electoral malfeasance, so many of our interactions feel weighted away from social connection in favor of extracting every ounce of unfair advantage from every single human activity. Not to overstate it, but a pluralistic democracy simply cannot function when most of its citizens cannot trust that the arrangements that they rely on to meet their basic needs are roughly fair.

Corporations, platforms, politicians, friends and relations have sown so many tiny seeds of distrust that of course we do not trust our social institutions or one another. That is more than a bad investment deal or a shady business practice. That is an indictment of a culture. And that is what we will start talking about in the new year: scam culture. A scam culture is one in which scamming has not only lost its stigma but is also valorized. We rebrand scamming as “hustle,” or the willingness to commodify all social ties, and this is because the “legitimate” economy and the political system simply do not work for millions of Americans.

We will focus on the joy of the holidays for the next couple of weeks. I have a special issue of the newsletter on giving for Christmas and New Year’s meditations for the end of the year. But as 2022 dawns, we will start exploring the nooks and crannies of scam culture. As we ease into the season of slowing down, I hope all of you have a chance to do just that. For my part, I set my out-of-office messages two weeks earlier than I did in years past. Nothing about right now is normal, and it is OK that we admit it. I hope you experience rest and recharging, which are not necessarily the same thing. Rest is what brings you peace, and recharging is whatever builds your resilience. I suspect we will need both peace and resilience in the new year.

Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd) is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, the author of “Thick: And Other Essays” and a 2020 MacArthur fellow.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/opinion/scams-trust-institutions.html

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World

- First Fires, Then Floods: Climate Extremes Batter Australia

- Russia-Ukraine Sea Encounter Highlights Jittery Nerves in the Region

- Omicron is speeding through Britain, and boosters help provide protection, U.K. scientists say.

- Migrant Truck Crash in Mexico Kills More Than 50

- ‘Social Detonator’: In Artist’s Work, and Life, Different Classes Collide

- Macron and Scholz Meet and Call for More ‘European Sovereignty’

- Modernization of Notre-Dame Interior Gets Green Light

- Tigray Rebels Executed Dozens of Civilians, Report Says

- The Other, Seemingly Endless, State of Emergency in British Columbia

- Secretary of State Antony Blinken Releases 16-Track Spotify Playlist

- U.K. Court Rules Julian Assange Can Be Extradited to U.S.

- Less Mange, More Frills: Rome’s New Mayor Bets on His Christmas Tree

- Echoes of Trump at Zemmour’s Rally in France

- Should Police Investigate Residential Schools Cases in Canada?

- Silent Films Offer Rare Glimpses of Life in 1920s Ireland

- As Vaccines Trickle into Africa, Zambia’s Challenges Highlight Other Obstacles

- Ex-Panama President’s Sons Are Extradited to U.S. After Multicountry Chase

- Inside the Fall of Kabul: An On-the-Ground Account

- Nobel-Winning Journalists Denounce War Talk and Online ‘Toxic Sludge’

- Despite Austria’s virus surge, Salzburg Festival announces a program for next summer.

- Germany joins the list of nations mandating vaccination for health workers.

- Al Unser, Four-Time Winner of the Indy 500, Dies at 82

- Taiwan Loses Nicaragua as Ally as Tensions With China Rise

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First Fires, Then Floods: Climate Extremes Batter Australia - The New York Times

WEE WAA, Australia — Two years ago, the fields outside Christina Southwell’s family home near the cotton capital of Australia looked like a dusty, brown desert as drought-fueled wildfires burned to the north and south.

Last week, after record-breaking rains, muddy floodwaters surrounded her, along with the stench of rotting crops. She had been trapped for days with just her cat, and still didn’t know when the sludge would recede.

“It seems to take for bloody ever to go away,” she said, watching a boat carry food into the town of Wee Waa. “All it leaves behind is this stink, and it’s just going to get worse.”

Life on the land has always been hard in Australia, but the past few years have delivered one extreme after another, demanding new levels of resilience and pointing to the rising costs of a warming planet. For many Australians, moderate weather — a pleasant summer, a year without a state of emergency — increasingly feels like a luxury.

The Black Summer bush fires of 2019 and 2020 were the worst in Australia’s recorded history. This year, many of the same areas that suffered through those epic blazes endured the wettest, coldest November since at least 1900. Hundreds of people, across several states, have been forced to evacuate. Many more, like Ms. Southwell, are stranded on floodplain islands with no way to leave except by boat or helicopter, possibly until after Christmas.

And with a second year of the weather phenomenon known as La Niña in full swing, meteorologists are predicting even more flooding for Australia’s east coast, adding to the stress from the pandemic, not to mention from a recent rural mouse plague of biblical proportions.

“It feels constant,” said Brett Dickinson, 58, a wheat farmer who lives not far from Ms. Southwell in northwest New South Wales, about a six-hour drive from Sydney. “We’re constantly battling all the elements — and the animals too.”

There’s a tendency to think of such extremes as “natural disasters” or “acts of God” that come and go with news reports. But Australia’s nightmares of nature ebb and flow. Its droughts and floods, though weather opposites, are driven by the same forces — some of them timeless, others newer and caused by humans.

Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Center of Excellence for Climate Extremes at the University of New South Wales, said the ups and downs of weather had been severe for millenniums on the Australian landmass, which is as large as the continental United States and surrounded by powerful climate-driving oceans, from the tropical South Pacific to the colder Southern Ocean off Antarctica.

As a consequence, the El Niño and La Niña patterns tend to hit Australia harder than they do other places, with harsh droughts that end with major floods. Some scientists even suggest that the way marsupials reproduce, with the ability to put active pregnancies on pause, shows that the El Niño-La Niña cycle has been around long enough for flora and fauna to adapt.

On top of that already-intense variability, Professor Pitman said, are now two additional complicating factors: “climate change and human decisions around building things.”

Both make fires and floods more damaging.

“A small change in climate coupled with a small change in landscapes can have a large impact on flood characteristics,” Professor Pitman said.

The results are already visible in government budgets. The cost of climate disasters in Australia has more than doubled since the 1970s.

Ron Campbell, the mayor of Narrabri Shire, which includes Wee Waa, said his area was still waiting for government payments to offset damage from past catastrophes. He wondered when governments would stop paying for infrastructure repairs after every emergency.

“The costs are just enormous, not just here but at all the other places in similar circumstances,” he said.

More viscerally, the impact of a “supercharged climate” is drawn on the land itself. Across the vast tracts of farmland and small towns between Melbourne and Sydney where much of the country’s food, cattle, wine — and coal — are produced, the effects of fire, drought and flood coexist.

Even in areas that did not burst into flames, the heat waves and lack of rainfall that preceded the bush fires killed as much as 60 percent of the trees in some places. Cattle farmers culled so much of their herds during the drought that beef prices have risen more than 50 percent as they rush to restock paddocks nourished (nearly to death) by heavy rain.

Bryce Guest, a helicopter pilot in Narrabri, once watched the dust bowls grow from above. Then came “just a monstrous amount of rain,” he said, and new kind of job: flights to mechanical pumps pushing water from fields to irrigation dams in a last-ditch effort to preserve crops that had been heading for a record harvest.

On one recent flight, he pointed to mountains of stored grain — worth six figures, at least — that were ruined by the rains, with heavy equipment trapped and rusting next to it. Further inland, a home surrounded by levees had become a small island accessible only by boat or copter.

“Australia is all about water — everything revolves around it,” he said. “Where you put your home, your stock. Everything.”

The flood plains in what is known as the Murray-Darling basin stretch out for hundreds of miles, not unlike the land at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The territory is so flat that towns can be cut off with roads flooded by less than an inch of additional rain.

That happened a few weeks ago in Bedgerabong, a few hundred miles south of Narrabri. On a recent afternoon, a couple of teachers were being driven out of town in a hulking fire truck — equipment for one disaster often serves another. Across a flooded road behind them, three other teachers had decided to camp out so they could provide some consistency for children who had already been kept out of school for months by pandemic lockdowns.

Paul Faulkner, 55, the principal of the school (total enrollment: 42), said that many parents craved social connection for their children. The Red Cross has sent in booklets for those struggling with stress and anxiety.

“Covid has kept everyone from their families,” he said. “This just isolates them even more.”

He admitted that there were a few things they did not discuss; Santa, for one. The town is expected to be cut off until after the holidays as the waters that rose with surging rains over a few days take weeks to drain and fade.

In Wee Waa, where the water has started to recede, supplies and people flowed in and out last week by helicopter and in a small boat piloted by volunteers.

Still, there were shortages everywhere — mostly of people. In a community of around 2,000 people, half of the teachers at the local public school couldn’t make it to work.

At the town’s only pharmacy, Tien On, the owner, struggled with a short-handed staff to keep up with requests. He was especially concerned about delayed drug deliveries by helicopter for patients with mental health medications.

Ms. Southwell, 69, was better prepared than most. She spent 25 years volunteering with emergency services and has been teaching first aid for decades. After a quick trip into Wee Waa by boat, she returned to her home with groceries and patience, checking a shed for the stray cats she feeds and discovering that only one of her chickens appeared to have drowned.

She said she wasn’t sure how much climate change could be blamed for the floods; her father had put their house on higher stilts because they knew the waters would rise on occasion.

All she knew was that more extreme weather and severe challenges to the community would be coming their way.

“The worst part of it is the waiting,” she said. “And the cleanup.”

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/world/australia/flooding-fire-climate-australia.html

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KYIV, Ukraine — It is a sign of the heightened tensions between Russia and Ukraine that for a few hours this week, а meandering, half-century-old Ukrainian naval ship seemed as if it could spark a worrisome military escalation.

The ship, according to Ukrainian officials, was unarmed and involved in a simple training exercise on Thursday in a small but strategic waterway bordered by Ukraine to the west and Russia to the east. It seemed to be primarily an example of the Ukrainian navy’s decrepitude, though it’s possible that Ukraine, too, could have been trying to push the boundaries and provoke Russia.

Either way, the Russian security services and state news media quickly seized on the encounter, portraying it as an imminent threat.

Russia’s domestic spy service, the F.S.B., announced late in the evening that it had intercepted the ship for failing to obey orders. That set off the Kremlin’s propagandists, who played up the move as a prelude to war. RT, a Russian government television station, began livestreaming coverage on YouTube under the headline “UKRAINIAN PROVOCATION,” with a military analyst suggesting the ship should be blown out of the water.

“This is the provocation everyone has been waiting for,” Andrei Medvedev, an RT contributor, wrote.

In the end, it was not, as the vessel returned to port without incident.

A lumbering ship may not yet be enough to provoke a full-on Russian assault. But with Moscow having amassed nearly 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders, along with tanks, fighter aircraft and ballistic missiles, people on all sides of the conflict are jumpy.

The brief flare-up not only underscores the dangers inherent in the conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists, but also suggests that the situation remains volatile even after a video call this week between President Biden and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia aimed at ratcheting down tensions.

Mr. Putin’s rhetoric on Ukraine has become increasingly ominous. And Ukrainian troops are arrayed along a 250-mile barricade of trenches and fortifications that regularly erupts in machine gun and artillery fire as they face off against the separatists in the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine.

Much is riding on diplomatic efforts in the next days and weeks, experts said.

“I think that it’s obviously tense, but it’s not like we’re ready to roll,” said Eugene Rumer, the director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Mr. Rumer raised the possibility that, once Russia made a decision to invade, it could use a minor incident as justification.

“If Putin realizes this conversation with Biden is not going anywhere, that he’s not getting what he wants, that this is hopeless, then I can imagine that a drone incident or a shell that somebody lobs could provide the pretext to pull the trigger,” he said.

Indeed, the decision by the F.S.B. to intercept a seemingly harmless ship, combined with the furious reaction from the Kremlin’s propagandists, has unnerved both Ukrainian and Western officials, who fear that it serves as a model for how the Kremlin could use a contrived excuse to invade.

Ukrainian observers said they found the timing of the F.S.B.’s announcement suspicious. It came out around the time the government released the details of a telephone call between Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and President Biden.

In a statement on Twitter, the United States Embassy in Kyiv delivered an unusually pointed response, saying that the Ukrainian ship did nothing illegal and accusing the Russian government of intentionally ginning up a controversy.

“Russia’s false allegations are part of its ongoing campaign to distract from its latest aggressive, provocative action,” the embassy wrote.

The ship — named Donbas, after the heart of the separatist territory — was intercepted in the Sea of Azov near the Kerch Strait, a narrow passage near Russian-occupied Crimea over which Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly clashed. In 2018, Russian forces opened fire on several Ukrainian naval vessels and arrested a number of sailors, who they accused of straying into territorial waters that the Kremlin claimed as its own after the annexation of Crimea.

The F.S.B. said the Donbas had refused to obey orders to divert from a course leading to the Kerch Strait. “These actions represent a threat to the safety of navigation,” its statement said.

Understand the Escalating Tensions Over Ukraine

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Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.

The Kremlin’s position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscow’s military buildup was a response to Ukraine’s deepening partnership with the alliance.

According to Ukrainian officials, the ship never came closer than 18 nautical miles from the disputed waterway.

Ukrainian and Western officials say that the Russian authorities, including Mr. Putin himself, seem to be previewing their rationalizations for an invasion. This month, Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, warned that Russia had “intensified disinformation to paint Ukraine as the aggressor to justify pre-planned military action.”

These efforts appeared to continue even after the video call between Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden.

In defiance of all evidence to the contrary, Mr. Putin on Thursday accused the Ukrainian authorities of carrying out “a genocide” against the residents of the Donbas. Though civilians in the separatist territories live under the protection of Russian-backed military forces, Margarita Simonyan, the editor in chief of RT and one of the Kremlin’s chief propagandists, immediately amplified the claims, suggesting she hoped Russia would come to the residents’ rescue.

“Mother Russia has more than once saved millions from different forms of genocide,” she wrote on Telegram.

“I don’t know if he had that in mind,” she said of Mr. Putin, “but I certainly hope he did.”

The bellicose statements come against the backdrop of continuing violence along the so-called line of control separating Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists. On Thursday, two Ukrainian service members were wounded in attacks on front line positions, the country’s military’s press service reported.

Meanwhile, the buildup of Russian troops on the border shows no sign of abating. Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that tank divisions from the western military district had practiced taking out anti-tank rockets similar to the Javelins provided by the United States and now deployed by Ukrainian forces in the country’s east. The exercises were held at training grounds in the Voronezh region, less than 200 miles from the Russia-Ukraine border.

Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian general staff, warned in remarks to military attachés on Thursday that worsening tensions in the region could force Russia to respond. In his statement he specifically mentioned Russia’s opposition to the Javelins, which Ukrainian forces have not yet used on the battlefield, as well as Turkish-made Bayraktar drones, which have been used to attack separatists’ positions.

“Any provocation by the Ukrainian authorities to solve the problems of Donbas using force will be suppressed,” he said.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-naval-vessel.html

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Covid Live Updates: C.D.C. Reports 43 Cases, No Deaths, in First Window on Omicron in U.S. - The New York Times

Lining up to get a Covid-19 vaccine shot in London last week.Credit...Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The first real-world study of how vaccines hold up against the Omicron variant showed a significant drop in protection against symptomatic cases caused by the new and fast-spreading form of the coronavirus.

But the study, published by British government scientists on Friday, also indicated that third vaccine doses provided considerable defense against Omicron.

Government scientists on Friday also offered the most complete look yet at how quickly Omicron was spreading in England’s highly vaccinated population, warning that the variant could overtake Delta by mid-December and, without any precautionary measures, cause Covid-19 cases to soar.

Four months after people received a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the shots were roughly 35 percent effective in preventing symptomatic infections caused by Omicron, a significant drop-off from their performance against the Delta variant, the scientists found.

A third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, though, lifted the figure to roughly 75 percent.

Two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine appeared to offer virtually no protection against symptomatic infection caused by Omicron several months after vaccination. But for those recipients, an additional Pfizer-BioNTech dose paid big dividends, boosting effectiveness against the variant to 71 percent.

Still, the study’s authors said they expected that the vaccines would remain a bulwark against hospitalizations and deaths, if not infections, caused by Omicron. And the researchers cautioned that even in a country tracking the variant as closely as Britain is, it was too early to know precisely how well the vaccines would perform.

That study was released alongside new findings about how easily Omicron is managing to spread. Someone infected with the Omicron variant, for example, is roughly three times as likely as a person infected by the Delta variant to pass the virus to other members of his or her household, Britain’s Health Security Agency reported.

And a close contact of an Omicron case is roughly twice as likely as a close contact of someone infected with Delta to catch the virus.

Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London, said that Omicron’s ability to evade the body’s immune defenses accounted for most of its advantage over previous variants. But modeling work by his research team and other groups in Britain also suggested that Omicron was simply more contagious than Delta, by roughly 25 to 50 percent.

“I think that there’s a significant amount of immune escape,” Dr. Ferguson said, referring to the virus’s ability to dodge the body’s defenses. “But it’s also more intrinsically transmissible than Delta.”

He and other scientists have cautioned that evidence was still coming in, and that better surveillance in places where the Omicron wave is most advanced could affect their findings.

The World Health Organization said this week that some evidence had emerged that Omicron was causing milder illness than Delta, but that it was too early to be certain. Still, scientists have warned that if the variant keeps spreading as quickly as it is in England, where cases are doubling every 2.5 days, health systems around the world may be deluged with patients.

Even if Omicron causes severe illness at only half the rate of the Delta variant, Dr. Ferguson said, computer modeling suggested that 5,000 people could be admitted to hospitals daily in Britain at the peak of its Omicron wave — a figure higher than any seen at any other point in the pandemic.

Scientists said that widespread vaccination in countries like Britain and the United States would keep as many people from dying as have in earlier waves. But the experts also warned that patients with Covid and with other illnesses would suffer if hospitals became too full.

“It only requires a small drop in protection against severe disease for those very large numbers of infections to translate into levels of hospitalization we can’t cope with,” Dr. Ferguson said.

It will take several weeks to understand how the current surge in Omicron infections may translate into people needing hospital care. “I’m concerned that by the time we know about severity,” Dr. Ferguson said, “it may be too late to act.”

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/10/world/covid-omicron-vaccines/britain-omicron

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Migrant Truck Crash in Mexico Kills More Than 50 - The New York Times

TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ, Mexico — The Guatemalan teenager had been packed with more than 150 fellow migrants for hours, he said, jammed in rows of six, some sitting, some standing, some choking on the southern Mexico heat.

Then the speeding tractor-trailer started to fishtail uncontrollably, said the teenager, Esvin Chipel Tzoy. Within seconds the vehicle flipped and crashed, the deadliest single-day disaster in many years to befall Central American migrants who attempt the perilous route through Mexico to the United States.

Mexico officials said at least 55 people had been killed and 106 hospitalized in the Thursday crash. They attributed the disaster to excessive speed and said the driver, who may have passed undetected through immigration checkpoints, escaped after the crash.

Interviews on Friday with survivors, witnesses and one of the first medics who rushed to the crash depicted a scene of mangled metal, vomit, puddles of blood and dust coating the bodies of migrants piled atop one another in the highway and what remained of the tractor-trailer.

Mr. Chipel said the tractor-trailer began to lurch from side to side and then he heard a loud boom, as if the brakes had failed, followed by the screech of metal as the trailer tipped. Then came the screams from fellow passengers, including children.

Not far behind, Melody Ramírez Moreno, 17, was perched behind her husband on a motorcycle when they saw the tractor-trailer sway precariously. Her husband hit the brakes but the bike’s front wheel started to twist, she said, as her foot became trapped and mangled in the back wheel.

“The only thing I could hear were the screams, the laments, the cries of the people on the truck,” she said. “Everything happened in the blink of an eye.”

The trailer overturned, slammed into a pedestrian bridge, split apart and scattered a mass of bodies across the highway, including Mr. Chipel himself.

“I couldn’t breathe,” Mr. Chipel said, recalling how his nostrils filled with blood and dust. “I thought I was dying.”

Mr. Chipel was among the luckier ones, with only a broken wrist and some cuts and scrapes.

The injured migrants, mostly from Guatemala like Mr. Chipel, were being treated at hospitals around Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the state capital, on Friday.

Mr. Chipel said he had left his hometown in Guatemala on Sunday and had been trying to get to the United States in hopes of getting work and supporting his aging parents, who disapproved of his decision to leave.

“In Guatemala, you can’t get ahead,” he said. “I wanted to go for that American dream.”

A paramedic who was among the first to arrive at the accident, Luis Eduardo Hernández Trejo, 21, said he could immediately tell many victims were lifeless, especially those still trapped inside the wreckage.

“They were all cadavers,” he said.

Realizing the severity, Mr. Hernández said he called for backup and sought to identify the wounded who needed the most urgent help.

The total number of occupants in the tractor-trailer remained unclear. Some survivors, bleeding and limping, fled the scene to avoid possible arrest by the immigration police in Chiapas, which borders Guatemala.

The accident revealed in graphic clarity the increasingly perilous journey that people from across Latin America endure to reach the United States border, risking ruthless criminal cartels, corrupt police officers and hostile terrain for the chance at a better life.

After helping with the triage, Mr. Hernández said he was called over by an immigration official to treat a migrant who had tried to flee into a nearby house but had begun feeling ill.

Two other young migrants had tried to flee the scene toward a nearby river, one of them with a cut on his head.

“He was scared,” Mr. Hernández said. “He thought we were with the government.”

He also recalled seeing a young mother with her infant son sitting by the roadside, blood streaming from a head wound. The baby, who survived, was the only infant on the truck, according to Mr. Hernández.

Nearby residents offered support, he said, bringing supplies like cotton balls and alcohol to help the paramedics treat the wounded.

“It was a tragic incident,” Mr. Hernández said. “The people were trying to get to the United States for a better life.”

Heavily armed National Guard troops surrounded the crash site, the twisted debris from the upturned truck and the bodies of victims long removed. The only telltale signs of the previous day were red streaks of dried blood on the road and a makeshift memorial of candles and fruit.

“It’s a feeling of deep sadness just to think of how many families were destroyed, torn apart,” said Giovanni Lepri, representative of the United Nations refugee agency in Mexico. At the same time, he said, “it’s horrifying to think that 54 people or more had to unfortunately die to give this much visibility to something that is happening every day.”

The crash caused the worst known single-day death toll for migrants in Mexico since the 2010 massacre of 72 migrants by the Zetas drug cartel in the northern state of Tamaulipas.

The severity may have political implications, underscoring the desperate and dangerous measures migrants are taking, even as governments in both Mexico and the United States attempt to stop the flow northward.

The U.S. government has in recent years implemented a series of policies taking a harsher approach to deterring migrants. Officials in the Biden administration have repeatedly and explicitly told them not to come.

“I am saddened to see the tragic loss of life and injuries of migrants traveling in Chiapas,” said U.S. ambassador Ken Salazar on Twitter on Thursday night. “Human smugglers disregard human life for their own profit. Please don’t risk your lives to migrate irregularly.”

Under former President Donald J. Trump, Washington began immediately returning many detained migrants under an obscure health code known as Title 42, while also forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their cases to be decided in U.S. courts, a program known as Remain in Mexico. Both policies have been continued under the Biden administration.

The U.S. government also has increasingly relied on Mexico to detain and deport migrants. As of October, the Mexican authorities had detained more than 220,000 undocumented migrants this year, the highest number on record.

The efforts from both sides of the border have had some impact: apprehensions at Mexico’s northern border, which reached a record high earlier this year, have begun tapering off.

However, as governments ramp up deterrence efforts, migrants have sought out increasingly dangerous means to evade the checkpoints set up by Mexican officials, paying smugglers steep prices to be crammed inside trucks and trailers and gain a greater possibility of avoiding detection.

This year has already been the deadliest for migrants at the U.S. border since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration, which said this week that 650 people had died trying to cross so far in 2021 — the highest toll since the I.O.M. began keeping records.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/world/americas/mexico-truck-crash.html

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‘Social Detonator’: In Artist’s Work, and Life, Different Classes Collide - The New York Times

LONDON — When he was a boy, Oscar Murillo told his best friend he was moving to London, but his buddy refused to take him seriously: Their tight-knit community in southwestern Colombia was the sort of place families stayed for generations, where almost everybody worked at the candy factory that dominated the town’s economy.

The news, however, was true. In the 1990s, the 11-year-old Oscar left La Paila, Colombia, and arrived in East London, where his parents took jobs as office cleaners.

Speaking little English and having been displaced, he took refuge in drawing. These early scribblings pointed Mr. Murillo to painting, which in turn led to a multimedia art practice and, in 2019, to his winning the Turner Prize, one of the art world’s most prestigious honors.

But the memories of La Paila, and of the succor he found in those early doodles, still inform his work, which now hangs in major museums around the world. His canvases, multilayered patchworks of color that can also include glued grime and supersize Spanish words, now fetch $300,000 or more at auction.

“My work is a social detonator,” said the soft-spoken Mr. Murillo, a way for the son of working-class immigrant parents to blast through the barriers surrounding a social class that typically denies entry to people like him. “It’s a way to infiltrate the system.”

While some might see a contradiction or even hypocrisy in an artist earning so much to send a socially conscious message, critics see it differently.

“Yes, his work is relatively expensive, but it is also anchored to the exploitation of labor in global markets,” said Linda Yablonsky, a noted art writer. “It calls attention to it through his materials and his working process.”

As an example, in his first significant solo exhibition in New York in 2014, he reconfigured the gallery into a working replica of the chocolate factory of his childhood, as a way to highlight social inequities and post-colonial economies.

His enormous studio in industrial North London, where he not only paints but also works in sculptural installations, video and other mediums, has a more conventional look, filled with stacks of canvases. But the unexpected twist is that many hundreds of these paintings were not created by Mr. Murillo — but by children from around the world.

In 2013, he sent blank canvases to La Paila so the children there would have something to express themselves on. Next, he sent canvases to schools in Zambia, then Kenya.

Mr. Murillo has since made available more than 40,000 canvases whose empty spaces have been filled with the creative efforts of children in 34 countries.

As Mr. Murillo strode around his studio on a crisp November day, he stopped before some of the canvases and brought out ones from children in Mumbai, whose use of color he particularly admired.

“The idea is to let these kids explore in the intimate reality of the school desk, to make marks of their own desires,” he said, adding that he sees the canvases as “recording devices” absorbing the children’s thoughts. “The truth of a society comes out naturally.”

The canvases, which are collected after acquiring months’ of patina in students’ classrooms, have been exhibited at major art venues and triennials on three continents, and are being digitized.

It is important to Mr. Murillo that the canvases “weren’t treated paternalistically as children’s drawing,” said Clara Dublanc, a co-director of Frequencies Institute, as the nonprofit project, a work in progress, is known.

While Mr. Murillo, 35, left Colombia a quarter-century ago, his studio can feel like an extension of his homeland. Some studio assistants are from La Paila. Chitchat is about Colombian soccer scores.

If he had grown up in La Paila, Mr. Murillo imagines he would have wound up either as a “factory worker or ‘sicario,’” a hit man.

His childhood friend Yeison Murillo (not a relation) spent 12 years as an adult pouring chocolate powder into a machine until he was fired and immigrated to Seattle.

On the phone from the United States, he said he remembered when Mr. Murillo returned at 17 for a visit to La Paila.

“Oscar came back with big hair and big ideas,” said Yeison, who added that he did not pay much attention to the lofty conversation because his friend “still wanted to play soccer without shoes.”

But Mr. Murillo’s artistic ambitions were serious, and he earned an M.F.A. at the Royal College of Art, helping pay for his tuition by working as a cleaner.

An advanced degree, however, was no guarantee of success in London’s crowded art world, where he was just another graduate struggling to find a gallery. He often hung out at exhibition openings.

“There was something different about him,” recalled Tom Cole, a gallerist who met him in those lean years. “Chatty. Forthcoming.”

Curious, Mr. Cole asked for a studio visit; Mr. Murillo invited him to a home-cooked dinner as well.

“He was very engaging with very strong opinions about what art should be,” said Mr. Cole, now a co-owner of the Sunday Painter gallery in London. “How important it was for art to have a social and political role and how art was lacking that.”

Adding a communal element to his art helped him land his first shows, and a collaborative approach has been a signature part of his practice ever since: Mr. Murillo proposed to Mr. Cole that he cook at his gallery the same arepas and tamales that he had just made for him.

“The show brought a big crowd and was fun,” Mr. Cole said of the 2011 exhibition. “He was really interested in the communal aspect of bringing people together.”

Mr. Murillo was also interested in colliding together worlds that otherwise would probably never intersect: like art-world insiders and Colombian-born cleaners.

These were the early signs of what Mr. Murillo calls his “infiltrations,” like, he said, when “a collector in the United States sees the word ‘tamales’” floating on his wall in a six-figure painting in an expensively styled home.

Mr. Murillo soon grabbed the attention of the blue-chip David Zwirner gallery, which added him to its roster and still represents him.

“He had a meteoric ascent, a justified ascent,” Mr. Cole said, adding that Mr. Murillo had achieved both commercial and critical appeal. “Few artists manage that,” Mr. Cole said. “Murillo does both.”

One thing Mr. Murillo does not do, in his own words, is American-style identity politics.

“The only experience that counts seems to be the American one, and that is not my experience,” Mr. Murillo said. “The world is a broader landscape. Where is Brazil? Where is Colombia in the race conversation? I prefer not to enter that conversation as it stands today. I find it ultimately divisive.”

That’s not to say Mr. Murillo does not consider his art politically charged. But he views his preoccupations through that most English of lenses: “I prefer to talk about class,” he said, which he considers a more universal struggle.

While exhibiting from Paris to Tokyo, there was one place he remained largely unknown: Colombia.

For the past seven years, María Belén Saéz de Ibarra, a Colombian curator, has been working to change that, planning a Murillo exhibition at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá. The show, “Conditions Yet Not Known,” finally opened in October.

Ms. Saéz de Ibarra remembers his arrival: “He opened his suitcase and out came a black cloth,” she said, referring to one of the unstretched canvases that Mr. Murillo is known to hang like drooping flags in art pavilions. “He is a planetary nomad carrying his pain around the world.”

When the time came to install the show, sometimes violent street protests over inequality and police abuses were rocking Colombia. Mr. Murillo invited student leaders from the protests to help set up the exhibition. “They were in danger. It was my way to get engaged,” he said.

While there, Mr. Murillo saw some of the discrimination that the millions of displaced Venezuelans who have arrived there are experiencing, even in La Paila.

“Ironically, in Colombia, I’m most sympathetic with the Venezuelan,” he said. “As a migrant, I understand what they are going through.”

The struggles he faced growing up have stuck with him and influenced his politics and art, but he has become leery of dividing the world too neatly.

“I knew the oppressor and I romanticized the oppressed people,” he said. “But the oppressed can become monsters, too.”

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Macron and Scholz Meet and Call for More ‘European Sovereignty’ - The New York Times

The euro was introduced almost two decades ago.

Healing the pandemic-battered economy will be central to any European leap forward. Both leaders intimated on Friday that they are prepared to build on the European Union’s groundbreaking $750 billion recovery fund, created 18 months ago to fight the ravages of the coronavirus.

The deal broke with longstanding German economic orthodoxy by backing collective European debt, indicating a new willingness in Berlin to embrace greater fiscal flexibility.

“The recovery and reconstruction fund is a formidable example of what we can accomplish,” Mr. Scholz said. “At the same time we must work on the solidity of our finances. This is not contradictory in my view.”

Mr. Macron, as is his inclination, was bolder. He said Europe must adopt new rules, or find new flexibility, to ensure that the union moves toward full employment and “builds the channels of innovation and industry that will allow Europe to have a greener, more digital, and more sovereign economy, all of which implies massive investments.”

On Thursday, before meeting Mr. Scholz, the French president argued that the European Union’s stringent ceiling on annual budget deficits — 3 percent of a country’s gross domestic product — should not stand in the way of ambitious investment strategies.

“We have to leave old taboos and old fetishes behind,” Mr. Macron said.

Germany, whose perennial specters include the hyperinflation of the 1920s, would tend to regard fiscal discipline as a useful fetish.

In general, while French proposals for a more powerful Europe tend toward soaring rhetoric, Germany is focused on the practical.

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Modernization of Notre-Dame Interior Gets Green Light - The New York Times

PARIS — The latest in a series of controversies that have surrounded the renovation of Notre-Dame unfolded on Thursday, when a commission of heritage experts gave the green light to a revamp of the interior of the fire-stricken cathedral.

France’s National Heritage and Architecture Commission approved proposals by the diocese of Paris to bring a more modern look to Notre-Dame before its planned reopening in 2024, including the installation of contemporary artworks and new lighting effects. Opponents say the changes will debase the 850-year-old cathedral and disturb the harmony of its Gothic design.

The heritage commission also authorized cathedral administrators to rearrange the tabernacle and other items to create more room for visitors. Msgr. Patrick Chauvet, Notre-Dame’s rector, said the proposals would allow for an easier and more pleasant visit to the religious monument and create “a dialogue” between Notre-Dame’s medieval architecture and new, more modern features.

Artworks from the 20th and 21st centuries could be placed next to old master paintings from the cathedral’s collection, such as Mathieu Le Nain’s “Nativity of the Virgin Mary,” Chauvet said.

He added that the diocese was also considering light projections on the walls of some chapels that would display short text excerpts from the Bible.

Most of the confessionals would be moved to the first floor in the rearrangement of the cathedral’s 2,000 or so furniture items, Chauvet said, and Notre-Dame’s more than 12 million annual visitors would now enter through the central portal instead of via a side door.

“The idea is that the faithful, or visitors, are first struck by the grandeur, by the beauty of Notre-Dame,” Chauvet said.

Yet the addition of modern touches threatens to disfigure the cathedral, according to dozens of cultural figures and intellectuals who have stood up against the proposals.

Notre-Dame has already gone through more than two years of careful restoration efforts, after a blaze tore through it in April 2019, destroying the spire and most of the roof. The building has now been secured enough to start the rebuilding process, which is expected to be completed just in time for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

French authorities initially contemplated seizing the opportunity to significantly rework the cathedral’s architecture. Heritage experts eventually recommended that the monument be restored to its prior state and, last year, President Emmanuel Macron dropped the idea to replace the 19th-century spire with something more contemporary.

On Tuesday, about 100 public figures in France signed their names to an open letter in the conservative newspaper Le Figaro titled “Notre-Dame de Paris: What the fire spared, the diocese wants to destroy.”

The signatories, who include Alain Finkielkraut and Pierre Nora from the prestigious Académie Française, said some proposals recalled “‘immersive’ cultural projects where, often, inanity vies with kitsch.”

Le Monde newspaper said the proposals had led to a fierce battle within the French Catholic Church between “advocates of modernity and ecumenism and the guardians of a nostalgic conservatism.”

Some conservative British newspapers seized on passages in the redevelopment plan about creating “emotional spaces” and “a discovery tour.” A headline in The Daily Telegraph said that Notre-Dame faced a “woke Disney revamp.”

Didier Rykner, the editor in chief of the art magazine La Tribune de l’Art and one of the signatories of the open letter in Le Figaro, said that criticism in the British press was based on caricatures, but that he agreed with their general thrust.

“The church is 2,000 years old — it is an old lady,” he said. “It has a history that we must respect, that today’s people cannot erase with a stroke of the pen.”

The heritage commission may have heard some of the criticism. It did not accept the proposal put before it by the diocese in full, and rejected or questioned some elements. The committee denied a request, for instance, to remove statues of saints from several chapels. It also asked for a review of a design for removable benches that were proposed as a replacement for the cathedral’s traditional wooden chairs, according to a statement issued Thursday by the minister of culture.

Chauvet said that the changes to Notre-Dame’s interior were not revolutionary and would only “bring a little more sense to the visitors.”

“Don’t think we’re going to make Disneyland,” he said.

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NAIROBI, Kenya — The Tigrayan rebels fighting Ethiopia’s government carried out dozens of executions against civilians in two towns they controlled in August and September, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Friday, adding to the list of alleged violations committed by the forces since the civil war in Ethiopia began 14 months ago.

The fighters “summarily executed” 49 people in the village of Chenna and the town of Kobo in the northern Amhara region between Aug. 31 and Sept. 9, the rights group said.

In Chenna, over the span of five days, Tigrayan rebels killed 26 civilians on 15 separate occasions before leaving the village on Sept. 4, the report found. Those killed included farmers, grandparents and residents who had declined to slaughter livestock for the fighters, it said.

Residents also told Human Rights Watch they were forced to stay in their homes alongside the Tigrayan forces, even as the rebels shot at and received return fire from Ethiopian troops posted in nearby hills. The human rights group said such actions could amount to “human shielding,” which is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

In Kobo, the rebels executed 23 people, including farmers returning home and men relaxing at a social joint, the report said.

The report adds to the mounting violations committed by the warring parties since the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region began in November 2020. The Ethiopian defense forces and their Eritrean counterparts, along with Amhara regional forces and Amhara militias, have all been accused of carrying out transgressions including extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and attacks on refugees.

Getachew Reda, a spokesman for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the party in control of the rebels, did not immediately respond to questions about the latest violations.

Much of northern Ethiopia has been hard to access since the conflict began, and a communication blackout has made it hard to verify information or reach victims and their families. Human Rights Watch’s latest report was based on remote interviews with 36 people, as well as obtained documents.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch called for the United Nations Human Rights Council to establish an investigative body to probe the crimes against civilians committed by both sides.

“Unfortunately the abuses we have uncovered by all sides to the conflict are likely just the tip of the iceberg,” Gerry Simpson, associate director for crisis and conflict at the rights group, said in a phone interview from Geneva.

The report comes a month after Amnesty International released a report accusing the Tigrayan forces of raping women, robbing them at gunpoint and looting health facilities in the town of Nifas Mewcha in the Amhara region in August.

Tigrayan forces scored battlefield victories against government forces beginning in June, retaking major towns and expanding the war into the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions.

In late October, they took over two towns on a critical highway connecting the landlocked nation to the ports of neighboring Djibouti and began to advance on the capital, Addis Ababa. That pushed Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to declare a state of emergency and then go to the front line to lead the troops.

Since then, the Tigrayan forces have sustained losses on the battlefield, including the strategic towns of Dessie and Kombolcha, according to the government.

Billene Seyoum, the spokeswoman in the prime minister’s office, accused the rebels on Tuesday of destroying hospitals, hotels and commercial banks, and of ransacking the airport in the historic city of Lalibela, which they had captured in August but lost earlier this month.

Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for Secretary General António Guterres, on Wednesday said the World Food Program had suspended food distribution in both Dessie and Kombolcha after staff members were held at gunpoint and food supplies were looted.

Understand the Conflict in Ethiopia

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A year of war. On Nov. 4, 2020, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed began a military campaign in the country’s northern Tigray region, hoping to vanquish the Tigray People’s Liberation Front — his most troublesome political foe.

Rebels turned the tide. Despite Mr. Abiy’s promise of a swift campaign, the Ethiopian military suffered a major defeat in June when it was forced to withdraw from Tigray. Now the fighting is rapidly moving south.

Tigrayan forces close in. In late October, Tigrayan rebels captured two towns near Addis Ababa, the nation’s capital. The government declared a state of emergency and called on citizens to arm themselves.

No end in sight. President Biden has threatened to impose sanctions on the country to coax the sides to the negotiating table, but the war’s current trajectory could cause the collapse of Ethiopia.

“The small-scale theft of food escalated into mass looting of warehouses across Kombolcha in recent days, reportedly by elements of the Tigrayan forces and some members of the local population,” Mr. Dujarric said in a briefing with reporters.

In a statement released Friday, the Tigrayan forces denied looting the warehouses in Kombolcha.

The plundering of food supplies threatens to worsen malnutrition in Ethiopia, where the United Nations estimates that at least 9.4 million people are suffering from food insecurity.

Aid delivery continues to face challenges because of the conflict, Mr. Dujarric said on Thursday, with the number of aid trucks that reached Mekelle, the Tigray regional capital, falling to 44 between Dec. 1 and 7, compared with 157 a week earlier. The United Nations has said that a minimum of 100 food trucks a day must arrive in Tigray to ease the hunger crisis.

After claiming major advances on the battlefield, Mr. Abiy returned to the capital, his office said this week. But his government continues to face criticism over its handling of the war, for continuing to carry out a detention campaign targeting ethnic Tigrayans and for its treatment of the media.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists listed Ethiopia as the third jailer of journalists in Africa behind Egypt and Eritrea.

Muthoki Mumo, the committee’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, said the media environment in Ethiopia has grown hostile since the war began. Authorities, she said, have detained reporters without formal charges and policed language and terminology used in stories, while many journalists have faced vicious harassment online for their coverage.

“The situation remains really stark,” Ms. Mumo said in an interview.

Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.

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Five years later, things are only worse. This week, British Columbia announced a grim record. Lisa Lapointe, the province’s chief coroner, said that 201 people had died from overdoses in October, the most ever in a single month. And the cumulative total of 1,782 overdose deaths for 2021 is already the highest number in one year, with two more months of data to come.

Ms. Lapointe called it a “heart-rending milestone.”

British Columbia is not alone in overdose-related grief. Because of fentanyl, in large part, opioid deaths and overdoses have worsened across much of the country, urban and rural, with Alberta and Ontario also particularly afflicted.

When Ms. Lapointe announced British Columbia’s latest terrible numbers, she also called on provincial governments to give the drug crisis the same sort of urgent attention and resources that have been brought to bear against the pandemic, particularly with vaccination.

“This is not an issue that’s going to go away without intensive change and involvement of a variety of levels of government,” she told a news conference.

Among politicians and public health officials, there’s general agreement about what perhaps is obvious: The current system of laws surrounding drugs isn’t working when it comes to preventing drug-related deaths and overdoses. But exactly what will work and what’s possible politically are less clear.

The city of Vancouver and the province of British Columbia have asked the federal government for permission to decriminalize possession of up to 4.5 grams of illegal substances within the province. This week, Toronto’s board of health authorized Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s chief medical officer, to also seek the same exemption from Health Canada.

It’s a proposal that many police forces support.

“Over the years, we realized that we cannot arrest and charge our way out of this crisis — the opioid crisis,” Chief Gary Conn, of the Chatham-Kent police service and president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, told the CBC, adding: “What we’ve got to do is examine the underlying issues surrounding drug addictions.”

So far, the federal government said that it would carefully consider all decriminalization requests. This week, it also introduced a bill ending minimum mandatory sentences for some drug offenses.

But this week 21 organizations — a mix of public health, drug policy and drug users’ groups — published a joint plan that urged the government to go much further. It calls for full decriminalization of drugs for personal use, as well as the sharing and selling of drugs for “subsistence, to support personal drug use costs, or to provide a safe supply.” The groups are also asking that funds allocated to the police for enforcing drug laws be redirected to “non-coercive, voluntary policies, programs, and services” for drug users, including housing, social services, education and health services.

“The war on drugs has been a colossal failure,” Sandra Ka Hon Chu, the co-executive director of the HIV Legal Network, one of the groups behind the document, said in a statement. “Under a regime of criminalization, people who use drugs are vilified, subject to routine human rights abuses, and denied access to lifesaving health care.”

It’s an open question whether there’s the political will in Canada to go as far as the plan recommends. But Ms. Lapointe urged a swift expansion of a program in British Columbia for doctors to prescribe safe drugs to users to prevent overdoses and deaths — an idea few physicians have embraced.

“We don’t have time to wait months and years to continue to look for evidence that safe supply will work,” Ms. Lapointe said. “We know from studies it does work.”

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A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken Releases 16-Track Spotify Playlist - The New York Times

LIVERPOOL, England — The long and winding road around the world can sometimes feel a little deadbeat without some music — especially for a diplomat who describes himself as an amateur guitarist.

So Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken used the Beatles’ hometown of Liverpool, England, on Friday to introduce a road trip playlist — tunes that resonate with pit stops on his official travels.

The first lineup is a 16-song sampling of mostly feel-good music from England, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand — all destinations Mr. Blinken will visit over the next week to discuss concerns about Russia, China, the coronavirus and other weighty matters of diplomacy.

He is in Liverpool for a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of 7, close allies and major trading partners that account for about half of the global economy, who will get their fill of music history over dinner on Saturday at the Beatles Story museum.

On his first trip as secretary of state in March, as his Air Force jet was rumbling down the runway and headed to Tokyo, Mr. Blinken welcomed his entourage with a few blasts from “Rockin’ All Over the World” by Status Quo. (“All aboard and we’re hittin’ the road/Here we go,” the lyrics say.)

“The thread that runs throughout my life is probably music,” Mr. Blinken said in an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this year.

The new travel playlist, which will be updated throughout his future trips abroad, provide a glimpse of Mr. Blinken’s personality beyond the business suit. It ranges from the Wombats, an indie rock band from Liverpool, to a sugary groove by the Indonesian pop artist Chrisye, to reflective piano solos by the late Bruce Gaston, an American who lived in Thailand.

There are also a few of Mr. Blinken’s own tracks on Spotify, although not on the road trip selection. They were uploaded over the last three years, between gigs at the State Department, where he had served as deputy secretary during the Obama administration. They feature Mr. Blinken not just on the guitar but also on the mic — an unabashedly personal exhibition for someone in a profession that is usually so buttoned up.

In the Rolling Stone interview, Mr. Blinken, 59, waxed about his reverence for Eric Clapton, whose music influenced him to get serious about playing the guitar. The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was the first album that Mr. Blinken owned, he said in the interview, and it was expected that he would stop in at some of the Fab Four’s old haunts while in Liverpool this weekend.

Mr. Blinken is not the only musician among the pantheon of secretaries of state. Condoleezza Rice, who led the State Department for President George W. Bush, is a trained classical pianist. John Kerry, who was the secretary of state at the end of the Obama administration, played the bass in a garage band during the 1960s.

But Mr. Blinken may be among the few who listened to post-punk new wave British bands. “Bring on the dancing horses/Wherever they may roam” Echo and the Bunnymen, which got its start in Liverpool, sang in 1985.

They made the cut on his playlist.

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LONDON — A British court ruled on Friday that Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States to face charges that could result in decades of jail time, reversing a lower-court decision in the long-running case against the embattled WikiLeaks founder.

The ruling was a victory, at least for now, for the Biden administration, which has pursued an effort to prosecute Mr. Assange begun under the Trump administration. Mr. Assange will seek to appeal the decision to Britain’s Supreme Court, according to his legal team.

The Justice Department’s decision to charge Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act in connection with obtaining and publishing secret government documents has raised novel First Amendment issues and alarmed advocates of media freedom. But because he has been fighting extradition, those questions have not been litigated and his transfer to the United States could set off a momentous constitutional battle.

The extradition case in Britain has not turned on whether the charges against Mr. Assange are legitimate — a lower-court judge ruled they were — but on whether prison conditions in the United States are too harsh for his mental health.

In ruling that Mr. Assange can be extradited, the High Court in London said that it was satisfied by the Biden administration’s assurances that it would not hold him at the highest security facility in the United States — which houses the nation’s worst criminals — and that, if he were convicted, it would let him serve his sentence in his native Australia if he requested it. The United States also said Mr. Assange would receive any necessary psychological treatment.

In January, the lower court judge had rejected the extradition request on the grounds that Mr. Assange might be driven to suicide by American prison conditions.

Several doctors have said Mr. Assange suffers from depression and memory loss and could attempt suicide if he were extradited.

Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said the government was “pleased by the ruling” and would have no further comment. But an American lawyer for Mr. Assange, Barry J. Pollack, called it “disturbing” that the British court had accepted the American government’s “vague assurances” of humane treatment.

“The U.K. court reached this decision without considering whether extradition is appropriate when the United States is pursuing charges against him that could result in decades in prison, based on his having reported truthful information about newsworthy issues such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said.

Mr. Assange fled to the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in 2012 when he was facing an investigation on accusations of sexual assault in Sweden, which was eventually dropped. He said he feared his human rights would be violated if he were extradited in that case.

He remained in the embassy for seven years until he was ejected in 2019. The United States unsealed an indictment against him on hacking charges on the day of his expulsion, and charged him under the Espionage Act weeks later. He has been detained in London’s Belmarsh prison since 2019.

The case against Mr. Assange centers on his 2010 publication of diplomatic and military files leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst — not on his publication during the 2016 election of Democratic emails stolen by Russia.

Over the course of three indictments developed during the Trump administration, prosecutors have made two sets of accusations.

The first is that Mr. Assange participated in a criminal hacking conspiracy, both by offering to help Ms. Manning mask her tracks on a secure computer network and by engaging in a broader effort to encourage hackers to obtain secret material and send it to WikiLeaks. The other is that his solicitation and publication of information the government deemed secret violated the Espionage Act.

Hacking is not a journalistic act. But the second set of charges could establish a precedent that journalistic-style activities like seeking and publishing information the government considers classified may be treated as a crime in the United States — a separate question from whether Mr. Assange himself is considered a journalist.

Mr. Assange’s fiancé, Stella Moris, in a statement called Friday’s decision a “grave miscarriage of justice.” Ms. Moris and Mr. Assange have two children, conceived while he was in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

The Case Against Julian Assange

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What are the criminal charges brought on by the U.S.? After his expulsion from the embassy, the U.S. unsealed an indictment against Mr. Assange and sought his extradition. Prosecutors have accused him of violating the Espionage Act for his role in the 2010 disclosures and of participating in a hacking conspiracy. (He is not charged for the publication of the D.N.C. emails in 2016.)

Why does his case raise media freedom issues? The solicitation and publication of government secrets is a journalistic-style activity, whether or not Mr. Assange counts as a journalist. That raises novel First Amendment issues and could establish a precedent constraining investigative journalism about military, intelligence and diplomatic matters.

Where is Mr. Assange now? After he was expelled from the embassy, he was sentenced to 50 weeks in jail in London for for breaching bail conditions related to the rape inquiry; he has remained in prison while the U.S. extradition case is pending.

Can the U.S. extradite him? In January, a court rejected the U.S. extradition request on the grounds that Mr. Assange might be driven to suicide by American prison conditions. The Trump administration appealed, and the Biden administration later made assurances of humane treatment. On Dec. 10, a higher court ruled that Mr. Assange can be extradited. His lawyer said they will seek to appeal.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, warned that Mr. Assange’s life “is once more under grave threat, and so is the right of journalists to publish material that governments and corporations find inconvenient.”

He added, “This is about the right of a free press to publish without being threatened by a bullying superpower.”

Activists who gathered outside the courthouse in central London erupted in protest after the news of the decision filtered outside. And rights groups quickly condemned it.

Christophe Deloire, the head of Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement that “we defend this case because of its dangerous implications for the future of journalism and press freedom around the world.”

Jameel Jaffer, the executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, who testified in the extradition proceeding, reiterated “profound concerns” about the case in a statement.

The indictment, he said, focused in large part on activities that investigative journalists engage in routinely.

“The message of the indictment is that these activities are not just unprotected by the First Amendment but criminal under the Espionage Act,” he said. “The Trump administration should never have filed this indictment, and we call on the Biden administration again to withdraw it.”

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Less Mange, More Frills: Rome’s New Mayor Bets on His Christmas Tree - The New York Times

ROME — Romans have never held back when it comes to blaming their mayors for the city’s multiple shortcomings: tire-swallowing potholes, open-air neighborhood garbage dumps, marauding wildlife.

But in recent years, city leaders have also had to contend with their constituents’ jitters ahead of the annual Dec. 8 Christmas tree lighting ceremony in the central Piazza Venezia.

At least they have since 2017, when Mayor Virginia Raggi set off a social media maelstrom after she installed a tree so pitiful that it was nicknamed Spelacchio, or Mangy.

On Wednesday, it was her successor’s turn: At a news conference that evening, Mayor Roberto Gualtieri, who was elected in October, presented his “bellissimo Christmas tree.”

The tree ticked all of the right boxes: big, bright, bushy and, at least at first, a crowd pleaser.

“It gives a great sense of joy; it reminds me of when I was a child,” said Assunta Barbano, who attended the lighting ceremony to cheer herself up, adding, “It hasn’t been the best of times.”

But Mr. Gualtieri was less worried about the reactions from those at the ceremony.

Online, the grumbling has begun, with many social media users appalled by the price tag: 169,000 euros, or about $191,000, which includes the transportation, installation and removal of the tree, more or less in line with the cost of the one put up last year.

Some supporters of Ms. Raggi, who is now part of the opposition on the City Council, began to denounce the new tree even before the ceremony — it is an overly lit “kick in the stomach,” one wrote — but after the Spelacchio debacle, Ms. Raggi also sought to dazzle Romans. She hoisted up bigger and brighter Christmas trees, one year even partnering with Netflix as a sponsor.

Mr. Gualtieri has spent his first weeks in office trying to distinguish himself from Ms. Raggi, who was, rightly or wrongly, blamed for a host of the city’s ills. He has shown a can-do spirit in a city known as being eternal, a reference — some snidely suggest — to the amount of time it takes to do anything here.

He promised that, by Christmas, he would clean up the city’s streets and remove the mounds of garbage that periodically smother Roman trash bins. (Empirical evidence suggests that he has so far missed this mark.)

And last week, he announced that a landmark bridge that had burned down shortly before the elections on Oct. 4 — a metaphor of Rome burning that was not lost on Ms. Raggi’s critics — would reopen on Sunday.

But the city has gone to town on the tree.

Compared with Spelacchio, the 2021 tree is taller — 75 feet to Mangy’s 72 — and it is considerably fuller and much brighter. “It’s very luminous,” said Francesco Bernardi, who is training to be a lawyer in Rome. He gave the tree a thumbs up, but questioned the city’s decision to “use so much energy to light” it, given the global concern with “going green.”

He need not have worried: All of the bulbs on the tree are energy-efficient LEDs, a spokesman for the energy utility Acea said.

Apart from the glittering lights — and there are plenty of those — for his first tree, Mr. Gualtieri has joined with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, which is based in Rome, to reflect a different Christmas spirit.

The tree, the mayor said, is “part of an awareness-raising campaign about the United Nations’ sustainable development goals,” ambitious targets aimed at improving lives and covering areas like world hunger, climate change, the environment, education and justice.

“There is no better moment or place than the Christmas tree to present these extraordinary objectives and enrich the message of Christmas,” Mr. Gualtieri said.

Seventeen festively wrapped boxes, each representing a goal, are arranged around the tree. And each one is marked with a QR code that people can scan to read about how to make Rome more sustainable. (Advice to fulfill Goal No. 12: “Support brands that are socially responsible and ethical, donate old clothes to charity and buy secondhand.”)

To illustrate the sustainable development goals around Rome, Acea installed light-covered wire Christmas trees atop colorful stands in 14 neighborhoods.

These are “a road map for how each of us can take simple actions to be part of the change,” Qu Dongyu, the director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, said in a statement. He invited everyone to “learn more about the sustainable actions that each of us can do in our daily life.”

Enrico Giovannini, Italy’s minister of sustainable infrastructure and mobility, who was also at the tree lighting ceremony news conference on Wednesday, said the European Union and Italy had put the goals “at the center” of the continent’s economic recovery amid the coronavirus pandemic. “The goals have come down to policies,” he said.

“It’s a great initiative,” said Simona Marcolli, who had come to see the tree with her preteen daughter, adding: “We already speak of these issues at home. It’s important.”

And the tree? “It’s great,” she said.

Romans have also been keeping an eye this year on a crosstown rival — the Vatican — after a Nativity scene last year that they excoriated as being too untraditional.

This year, the Nativity scene was a gift from the Chopcca Nation, in Peru. It displays 35 life-size figurines dressed in typical Andean costumes. “It’s more classic, more traditional,” said Angela Schinnea, a tour guide in Rome.

Her friend Marisa Maiorana, who works for an import-export company, said she liked the Vatican Christmas tree — a 92-foot, eight-ton red fir from northern Italy. But she said she appreciated the Piazza Venezia tree as well, though she noted that Romans had begun to call it “bottiglione” because they joked that it resembled an oversize bottle.

“It’s true” that Romans complain about everything, said Simone Livulpi, who just graduated from college with a communications degree.

“It’s a way of being,” he said. “We tend to be whiny about everything. Even if there’s no reason to.”

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Echoes of Trump at Zemmour’s Rally in France - The New York Times

VILLEPINTE, France — The speech, riddled with attacks on the news media, elites and immigrants, with a fiery orator whipping up thousands of flag-waving supporters, was reminiscent of a Donald J. Trump campaign stop from years past.

But the scene was in France, last weekend, where Éric Zemmour, the polarizing far-right polemicist who has scrambled French politics, launched his presidential campaign with a rally in front of thousands of ardent supporters.

“On est chez nous!” — “This is our home!” — they chanted in a cavernous convention center filled with spotlights, speakers and giant screens in Villepinte, a suburb northeast of Paris.

At one point during he rally, antiracism activists were attacked in the sort of brawl rarely seen at French political events. Earlier in the day, fans booed a television news crew, forcing it to be temporarily evacuated, and several journalists reported being insulted and beaten.

The outcome of Mr. Zemmour’s campaign remains unclear four months ahead of France’s presidential election, with President Emmanuel Macron still ahead in the polls, and fierce competition emerging from the right. But the rally offered a glimpse of where the election could head, and which Trumpian tones it could take.

Unlike Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the traditional far right, who has long sought success by softening her party’s far-right views, Mr. Zemmour has bet that a full-on promotion of his reactionary ideas can fuel his rise.

He has done so by mastering the codes of social and news media, and by appealing to a somewhat wealthier and more educated base than the traditional far right. Recent polls suggest this approach has worked; about 15 percent of French voters say they intend to vote for him in the first round of voting.

“He’s the one who breaks a dam,” said Vincent Martigny, a professor of political science at the University of Nice. Voters who once balked at supporting Ms. Le Pen have now embraced his more extremist ideas, he said.

But this quest to stake out a position on the extreme right may also backfire, as shown at Sunday’s rally, when dozens of his supporters attacked antiracism activists. The violent brawl could stain his image and undermine his attempts to broaden his electoral base, according to political analysts.

Still, as with Mr. Trump, no scandal to date has done any lasting damage to Mr. Zemmour’s political ambitions as he taps into widespread fears that French identity is being whittled away by immigration. Those fears have been heightened by a number of terrorist attacks in recent years, some committed by the children of immigrants.

The crowd of about 12,000 people that gathered in the Villepinte convention center, reflected some of the forces that have fueled the candidate’s meteoric rise — upper middle-class voters and some segments of an educated, affluent youth.

Men close to retirement age in hunting jackets and loafers waved French flags and cheered alongside young people dressed in crisp polo shirts; many displayed Roman Catholic crosses around their necks.

“Zemmour is someone who can actually make our ideas triumph and save France,” said Marc Perreti, a 19-year-old student from Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy suburb of Paris.

In contrast with the affluent voters seen at Mr. Zemmour’s rally, Ms. Le Pen’s support comes mainly from the working class. A recent study showed Mr. Zemmour scoring well among the upper middle class, at 16 percent compared to 6 percent for Ms. Le Pen.

There was widespread nodding at the rally when Mr. Zemmour talked of France’s “great downgrading, with the impoverishment of the French, the decline of our power and the collapse of our school.” And there were loud cheers when he mentioned “the great replacement, with the Islamization of France, mass immigration and constant insecurity.”

The so-called great replacement, a contentious theory that claims the West’s population is being replaced by immigrants, has been cited by white supremacists in mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Tex.

But Sophie Michel, a former history teacher and a mother of nine, said she believed the theory, pointing to the growing number of immigrant families living in her apartment building in western Paris.

“We’re the last white people there,” she said, “this is for real.”

The name of Mr. Zemmour’s new party, “Reconquest,” evokes the centuries-long period known as the Reconquista, when Christian forces drove Muslim rulers from the Iberian Peninsula.

Two of Ms. Michel’s children also attended the rally, along with hundreds of young people. Hortense Bergerault, 17, said she followed Mr. Zemmour on Instagram, where he has nearly 150,000 followers, ranking only behind Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen among the presidential candidates. “I have many friends who are really into it,” she said.

Mr. Martigny, the political scientist, said that Mr. Zemmour was the product of “culture wars” that had gradually spread far-right ideas across society, especially through Fox-style news networks, clearing “a space for a Trumpian player in the French political life.”

“They have understood that there is no lasting political victory without a prior cultural victory,” Mr. Martigny said of Mr. Zemmour’s team.

This cultural win was evident in Villepinte, where many supporters referred to Mr. Zemmour’s books and TV appearances as eye-opening experiences. Some wore baseball caps reading “Ben voyons!” — a rejoinder that Mr. Zemmour often uses to dismiss criticism, and which roughly translates to “Oh, come on!” The crowd even chanted the phrase when Mr. Zemmour, speaking from his lectern, mocked those accusing him of being a fascist.

Antoine Diers, a spokesman for Mr. Zemmour’s campaign, said that although France and the United States were two different countries, they had “obviously” looked at Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential run “because it was a success.”

Raphaël Llorca, a French communication expert and member of the Fondation Jean-Jaurès research institute, said Mr. Zemmour had successfully waged a “battle of the cool” designed to popularize his extreme ideas and “reduce the cost of adherence” to the far right.

His YouTube campaign-launching video, riddled with cultural references, has drawn nearly 3 million viewers — evidence of his command of pop culture codes, Mr. Llorca said.

“The cool is a way to defuse and neutralize otherwise extremely violent” ideas, he added.

In October, Mr. Zemmour said his success would depend on his ability to appeal to both the conservative, bourgeois electorate and that of the Yellow Vests, the mostly working-class movement that protested against economic injustice that Ms. Le Pen has long courted.

Whether he can achieve that balancing act is far from clear, as shown by the attendance at the rally. The main economic proposal he outlined last weekend — slashing business taxes — is unlikely to speak to working-class voters.

Mr. Zemmour’s theatrical entrance into the convention center, to the sound of dramatic music, also did little to eclipse the fact that he has so far failed to garner support from any major political figure, or party. This remains a major difference from Mr. Trump, who could count on the powerful Republican Party and solid financial backing.

Mr. Zemmour said he was the target of the media and the elites. He praised the crowd before him for standing up to these attacks. “The political phenomenon of these rallies, it’s not me, it’s you!” he shouted.

But some of his supporters might also prove to be his greatest liability.

Midway through his speech, dozens of sturdy militants threw punches at several activists from SOS Racisme, an antiracism organization, who had stood on chairs at the rally and revealed T-shirts spelling out the phrase “NO TO RACISM.”

Prosecutors have opened an investigations into the violence, including one against a man who lunged at and grabbed Mr. Zemmour as he walked toward the stage.

Mr. Diers, the spokesman, said the antiracism activists had acted provocatively and that he had called on supporters “not to use force unreasonably.”

Mr. Llorca, the communications expert, said that with such a polarizing campaign, Mr. Zemmour risked “being overwhelmed” by the extremism of his own supporters.

The French news media later reported that some of those who had attacked the antiracism activists were neo-Nazi militants. As they chased down the activists toward the entrance hall, wearing black mufflers that hid their faces, they were stopped by a security staff member.

“Thank you for being there,” he told them. “You did the job!”

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Should Police Investigate Residential Schools Cases in Canada? - The New York Times

SIX NATIONS OF THE GRAND RIVER, Ontario — The police officers and members of the Mohawk community worked together — pushing two ground-penetrating radar devices resembling electric lawn mowers as they searched for human remains at the site of a former Indigenous boarding school.

Roland Martin, 84 — who had been forced to attend the school, the Mohawk Institute, in 1947 — was watching, and remembering. He recalled that food was so scarce that he and classmates scavenged at a nearby dump for scraps. “Sometimes you have to wonder how we made it through,” he said. “How many people actually did die here?”

Searches for the remains of Indigenous children who died while at Canada’s notorious residential schools have been taking place throughout the country since May. That was when radar scans of the Kamloops Indian Residential School grounds in British Columbia found evidence of 215 human remains buried in unmarked graves, many of them children.

But this search was different.

While most Indigenous communities have been reluctant to work with the police because of a deep distrust of law enforcement, the Mohawk have entered a delicate collaboration with two police forces. Their hope is that by involving law enforcement, they can preserve the option of a formal criminal investigation into any unmarked grave sites — and to obtain justice, as well as to find out the truth of what happened.

The joint work could become a model for police involvement in future searches

“We recognized that we had to be very cautious because of those trust issues with police,” said Chief Mark B. Hill of the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve, a portion of which contains the school grounds. “Survivors are very on edge about everything, right?”

From the 1880s through the 1990s, the Canadian government forcibly removed at least 150,000 Indigenous children from their homes and sent them to residential schools to assimilate them into Western ways. Their languages, religious and cultural practices were banned. In 2015, a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission called the system “cultural genocide.”

At the schools, which were mostly run for the government by Christian churches, sexual, physical and emotional abuse and violence were commonplace. Thousands of children went missing.

Many Indigenous leaders say the remains being discovered across Canada are the manifestation of criminal activity at the schools ranging from improper burial to neglect and murder.

The national commission found records indicating that at least 54 students died at the Mohawk Institute, which was one of the oldest and longest running schools in the system when it finally closed in 1970.

Still, they have been wary of allowing police officers to investigate the deaths because, as RoseAnne Archibald, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, and other leaders, say, they were an integral part of the system. Officers tore Indigenous children from their homes, and delivered them to the schools. They also tracked down runaways from the schools and brought them back.

“There must be an examination to determine if some of our children were murdered,” Chief Archibald said last month at Kamloops when she called on the United Nations to appoint an independent investigator. “Canada must be held accountable for their genocidal laws and policies. Canada must not be allowed to investigate itself.”

Compounding this sense of distrust is a documented history of racist abuse of Indigenous people by police officers, particularly from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as a tendency among police officers to overlook or downplay crimes against them.

So the decision to involve law enforcement in the search for remains at the Mohawk Institute was not an easy one for the Mohawk community to make.

Like many reserves in Ontario and Quebec, Six Nations has its own police force. While that force is one of the few staffed entirely by Indigenous officers — most of whom have relatives who attended the school — it lacks the personnel, forensic skills, budgets and other resources to carry out the search, and any criminal investigation, on its own.

“We need the assistance,” Chief Hill said. “We are already under capacity, underfunded at Six Nations Police.”

Chief Hill said that after the findings at the Kamloops school, he met with former institute students, or survivors as they prefer to be known, for guidance on whether their community should involve the Ontario Provincial Police, and if so, how.

That force had recently been locked in a sometimes tense standoff with several Mohawks from Six Nations who were trying to halt a construction project on land deeded to them by Britain in 1784.

And in 2007, an inquiry criticized the provincial police for shooting and killing Dudley George, a 38-year-old Ojibwa man during a protest over the ownership of land that had been seized from his community and eventually turned into a park.

But many survivors said it was important to determine how the students died and who was responsible, if anyone, even if it is likely that any perpetrators have died or are no longer mentally fit to stand trial under Canadian law.

“They said, ‘If these were white kids, there would be police on the ground immediately,’” Kimberly R. Murray, a lawyer and the former executive director of the national commission, recalled of her initial conversations with the institute’s survivors.

The survivors also said the students who died deserved at least the dignity of having their graves located.

So the Mohawks determined to seek the help of the provincial police, as well as of the police department in Brantford, Ontario, the city that surrounds the former school and that neighbors the main part of the Six Nations’ land.

But to address the community’s mistrust of the provincial police and other government bodies, Six Nations’ band council established a “survivors’ secretariat” run by Ms. Murray, a member of the Kanesatake Mohawk Nation near Montreal. That group has the final say over all matters related to the grounds search.

The provincial police called the collaboration a “community-led search for grave sites” in a statement to The New York Times and said it would offer their support by “laying out a grid pattern for the area and conducting aerial photography” and assigning a case manager to assist.

The two systems are “working together: traditional knowledge and colonial tools,” Ms. Murray said on the morning the search began. “Community search teams have the knowledge, they have the skills. Police just need to know how to work with them.”

One of Ms. Murray’s first actions was to appoint Beverly Jacobs, a Mohawk and law school professor, to oversee the police work from a human rights perspective, and other monitors to ensure that the search and investigation comply with cultural practices.

Ms. Murray said that any criminal prosecutions to come out of the search would likely be years in the future. The search itself could take years, since the institute also operated a 500-acre farm and the school’s complete records have been hard to obtain.

Another issue is whether the Six Nations will decide to exhume remains to identify them through D.N.A. tests and determine cause of death — a prelude to holding anyone accountable in court. The question of whether to exhume remains has been divisive in many Indigenous communities.

The only other Indigenous community where the police are known to be investigating missing residential school children is in Manitoba, where an R.C.M.P. investigation that began in 2010 has yet to produce any charges.

The day that Mr. Martin watched the police search the grounds, Geronimo Henry, another survivor, walked the property and found where he’d scratched his nickname, Fish, into one of its red bricks. Mr. Henry spent 11 years at the school after arriving as a 6-year-old in 1942.

“With the radar, searching for unmarked graves, it’s part of the truth and reconciliation,” he said. “The natives are telling the truth. Now it’s up to the government to try to reconcile with all the wrongs.”

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Silent Films Offer Rare Glimpses of Life in 1920s Ireland - The New York Times

DUBLIN — Mícheál Ó Mainnín always wondered whether his grandfather had been telling the truth.

When Mr. Ó Mainnín was growing up on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland, there was no radio or television to pass the time, he said, so people would tell stories. His grandfather had many, but he told one more than others.

In the mid-1920s, an American visited Dingle to study birds and collect specimens. Sometimes Mr. Ó Mainnín’s grandfather would bring the man — his name was Benjamin Gault, though the locals called him “Kaerty” — in his fishing boat to the nearby Blasket Islands. Kaerty always had a hand-cranked camera with him. One day, as he was filming Mr. Ó Mainnín’s grandfather and his friends, the grandfather stuck a pipe in his dog’s mouth as a joke.

“It was a very far-out story,” Mr. Ó Mainnín, 55, a farmer and fisherman in Dingle, said. “You would never think that it was true.”

Long after Mr. Ó Mainnín’s grandfather, also named Mícheál Ó Mainnín, died in 1981, the family wondered whether any of the film shot by the visiting American still existed.

Mr. Ó Mainnín’s curiosity ultimately led to the discovery of a collection of silent film reels depicting life in 1920s Ireland — police officers directing traffic in Cork City, horse-drawn carts piled high with wicker lobster pots, people attending horse races and Mass — all shot in 1925 and 1926, in the early years of Irish independence from Britain.

Footage of Ireland from that time — a period when memories of the First World War were still fresh, and Ireland was recovering from its own civil war — is incredibly rare. Most of the film that does exist is newsreel footage of major events, according to Manus McManus, the film collections and acquisitions manager for the Irish Film Institute.

“This stands out as quite unique in the sense of essentially recording the ordinary daily lives of people,” Kevin Rockett, a retired professor of film studies at Trinity College Dublin, said. “There’s lots of footage of the war, so that was what people would be most familiar with.”

Mr. Ó Mainnín started his search in 2011 with little to go on beyond the American’s name, but he quickly found out that Mr. Gault was an ornithologist from the Chicago area. That led him to the Chicago Academy of Sciences, home to the Gault collection, which includes bird specimens, dried plants and, as he had hoped, old film.

Mr. Gault’s films are not the only reels in the academy’s archives, but they are among the oldest. Dawn Roberts, the academy’s senior director of collections, was trying to raise money to digitize the reels when she received an email from Mr. Ó Mainnín.

The academy did not have the resources to digitize the Gault reels, but Ms. Roberts shared catalog notes with Mr. Ó Mainnín along with scanned journal entries and photographs belonging to Mr. Gault. Mr. Ó Mainnín brought those materials to the Irish Film Institute to see if it could help fund the digitization process.

Mr. McManus had secured some funding from a nonprofit when Rob Byrne, the president of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, caught wind of the story. Mr. Byrne, who lives in Ireland, had been looking for an Irish project, and Mr. Gault’s reels presented a rare opportunity. The Silent Film Festival had a lot of experience with restoring silent films.

“Because the footage was shot by an American in Ireland, it’s fitting that, after nearly 100 years, the U.S.-Ireland connection endures,” Mr. McManus said.

Mr. Gault shot on 35-millimeter nitrate film, which was rare for a hobbyist because it was a very professional and higher-resolution medium, Mr. McManus said. The downside is that nitrate is also unstable and flammable, which makes the film hard to preserve.

“First of all, these are amateur films shot 100 years ago that, fortunately, nobody ever threw out,” Mr. Byrne said. “Films like these are disappearing. They’re a huge, single unique copy on a combustible, flammable, deteriorating film base. Fifty years from now, this film would not exist at all.”

Mr. Gault’s reels were in exceptional condition. After the funding was arranged to have a third-party laboratory digitize the reels, it was up to the Silent Film Festival to restore the footage. That job fell to a senior film restorer, Kathy O’Regan, who also happened to be a native of Gort, County Galway, a rural area in the west of Ireland not unlike the places Mr. Gault shot in Counties Cork and Kerry.

“It was magical to see it,” Ms. O’Regan said. “On a personal level, the first time I watched it was so exciting. There’s this one shot of two farmers who are planting potatoes, and I swear to God, one of the men is the absolute spitting image of one of my next-door neighbors. I know it’s impossible, but it’s wild just to watch.”

The 19 reels of film will amount to about 35 minutes of footage once the frame rate is adjusted. After they are graded and restored, Mr. McManus wants to screen the footage in Dingle. He hopes that if more local people see what Mr. Gault shot, they’ll be able to identify some of the people featured.

For Mr. Ó Mainnín, the film footage offered a chance to see familiar faces in a different light.

“I know all those people that were in the film, but they were older,” he said. “But that’s when they were young and strong and full of life, you know?”

As with the birds he studied, Mr. Gault observed the people of rural Ireland in their natural habitats. His reels show people dancing in the streets, baling hay, walking arm in arm.

And, yes, a dog smoking a pipe.

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NGWERERE, Zambia — Four people turned up at a health clinic tucked in a sprawl of commercial maize farms on a recent morning, looking for Covid-19 vaccines. The staff had vials of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine stashed in the fridge. But the staff members apologetically declined to vaccinate the four and suggested they try another day.

A vial of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine holds five doses, and the staff was under orders not to waste a single one.

Ida Musonda, the nurse who supervises the vaccination effort, suspected that her team might have found more takers if they packed the vials in Styrofoam coolers and headed out to markets and churches. “But we have no fuel for the vehicle to take the vaccines there,” she said.

They did vaccinate 100 people on their last trip to a farm; the records from that trip sat in a paper heap in the clinic because the data manager had no internet connection to access an electronic records system.

For months, the biggest challenge to vaccinating Africans against Covid, and protecting both the continent and the world from the emergence of dangerous variants, has been supply: A continent of about 1.4 billion people has received just 404 million doses of vaccine, and only 7.8 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

But as supply has begun to sputter into something like a more reliable flow, other daunting obstacles are coming into focus. All of them are on view at and around Ngwerere.

Weak health care systems with limited infrastructure and technology, and no experience vaccinating adults, are trying to get shots into the arms of people who have far more pressing priorities. At the same time, the global flow of information, and deliberate misinformation, on social media is generating the same skepticism that has stymied vaccination efforts in the United States and other countries.

Some Zambians are hesitant, but others have an attitude that could better be described as vaccine indifference. This is a poor country where the economy has contracted sharply during the pandemic, and many unvaccinated people are more focused on putting food on the table.

“I’d like to get it but I work Monday to Saturday, and I don’t know if they vaccinate on Sunday,” said Bernadette Kawango, who supports a large extended family with her wages from an auto-parts store in a low-income neighborhood on the edge of Lusaka, the capital. She has heard many rumors: that people who receive the vaccine will die in two years; that the vaccine is part of a plot by Europeans to kill Africans and take their land; that Bill Gates is on a campaign to reduce the world population.

Such stories make her roll her eyes. But Covid is not at the top of her list of health care worries. “It’s cholera season, and people have malaria, and there is H.I.V. and TB,” she said. She does not know anyone who has been diagnosed with Covid.

All these challenges create two major problems. First, the pace of vaccination is far too slow to prevent unnecessary deaths in a fourth wave, which is already beginning in southern Africa, or to prevent the emergence of new variants such as Omicron, which was first identified in South Africa late last month. The vaccines now in stock — many of them donations close to their expiration dates when they arrive — may not be used before they must be destroyed.

Second, the push to vaccinate against Covid is drawing resources from health systems that can hardly spare them, which could lead to disastrous consequences for the fight against other devastating health problems.

At the Ngwerere health clinic, the usual bustle and screeching at the mother-and-child health area, where babies are monitored for signs of malnutrition and given childhood immunizations, was absent because everyone on that staff had been repurposed as Covid vaccinators.

“Every time we have a wave here it really threatens the investments that have been made in H.I.V., maternal and child health, and TB and malaria, and it’s important that we protect those,” said Dr. Simon Agolory, who runs the large Zambia program of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Andrew Silumesii, the director of public health for Zambia’s health ministry, said there was already clear evidence that infant growth monitoring and childhood immunization had declined over the course of the pandemic. He worries that malaria, TB and H.I.V. infections will also increase.

Updated

Dec. 11, 2021, 11:21 a.m. ET

So far, 7 percent of Zambians have been vaccinated against Covid, according to Dr. Silumesii. President Hakainde Hichilema has set a target of vaccinating another two million by Christmas, and 70 percent of the population by the third quarter of 2022, a goal that looks exceedingly ambitious.

Zambia’s vaccines come mostly from Covax, the global vaccine-sharing initiative, with additional donations from China and the African Union. The fact that Zambia is dependent largely on donations means that it must adapt its program to whatever shipments arrive — a bit like making a meal with whatever arrives in a farm subscription box. The country is managing distribution of five different vaccines, each with different dosing regimens, storage requirements and vial volumes.

That has created a huge additional administrative burden for skeleton staffs such as Ms. Musonda’s team. Her staff has no budget for cellphone calls to remind people about second shots, and the effect can be seen in the charts stapled on the vaccination room wall: Of the 840 people who received a first dose of AstraZeneca in April, only 179 came back for a follow-up shot in July.

When Zambia experienced a severe third Covid wave earlier this year, the media coverage of people dying in the parking lots of hospitals that ran out of oxygen rattled a population that had been thinking of the virus as something that affected only white or rich people. There were pre-dawn lineups outside vaccination sites that couldn’t keep shots in stock.

But when the wave abated, so did the demand.

Many people here recall the time when Zambians were dying of AIDS in huge numbers and Western pharmaceutical companies refused to produce affordable lifesaving medications. There is skepticism now that those same companies have come offering free solutions.

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know

Card 1 of 5

Vaccine mandates in Europe. The latest wave of the pandemic is prompting countries like Germany and Italy to impose restrictions that single out those who are not vaccinated. The measures are rekindling the debate over governments’ right to curtail individual liberties in the name of public health.

The worldwide vaccination campaign. One year into the global vaccine rollout, the gap in vaccination rates between high- and low-income countries is wider than ever. Challenges in Zambia highlight how infrastructure issues and the public’s hesitancy to get vaccinated are proving to be large obstacles.

Vaccine misinformation spreads on TikTok and WhatsApp, and in evangelical churches where pastors warn that the shot “contains the mark of the beast.”

“No matter how educated people are, if their pastor says don’t trust the vaccine, they don’t trust,” said Dr. Morton Zuze, the clinical care coordinator at Chongwe District Hospital, where seven staff members sat idle in an empty vaccination tent.

As in the United States, there are false rumors in Zambia that the vaccine causes female infertility or erectile dysfunction. Zambians have heard AstraZeneca is not being used in many countries because of reports of blood clots in a very small number of people who received that shot. “It’s a global village and everyone can switch on CNN,” Dr. Zuze added.

Zambia normally vaccinates only small children, and it has no primary care practices. An adult goes to a clinic only when pregnant or receiving H.I.V. treatment, or in an emergency.

Dr. Lawrence Mwananyanda, an assistant professor with the Boston University School of Public Health and a special adviser to President Hichilema, said the government must balance between trying to create vaccine demand and not creating too much, when it can’t be sure if it will have the supply to deliver.

“To just walk up — and these health facilities are sometimes very far away, two, five, seven kilometers away and people don’t have cars, you have to be very motivated — sometimes people have gone to a health facility and then there is no vaccine,” he said. “All they are told is, ‘You can only vaccinate if there’s five or six people, so you can’t be vaccinated today’. How likely are you to come back?”

Charity Machika was vaccinated recently at a rural health center in Chongwe District. She went to the clinic for a prenatal checkup and then was encouraged to head to the next building, where the H.I.V. treatment center was repurposed for vaccinations. “I was scared because people say a lot of stories, that I will faint, that I will not be able to walk, that I will die,” she said. “I took the risk to come and protect myself and my baby.”

She is the only vaccinated person in her family. Her husband tried twice but the sites he went to never had vaccines in stock, and it was difficult for him to find the time to make the four-kilometer walk to try again, she said.

Felix Mwanza, a veteran H.I.V. activist in Lusaka, said the government had yet to tap into the vast network of H.I.V. and TB treatment activists in the country. “We seem not to learn from our past,” he said, recalling how testing and treatment for H.I.V. only reached critical mass when care was delivered in bars, at schools and on doorsteps.

“If they don’t use the structures we already have, donors will keep sending the vaccines and they’ll pile up here and expire and then they won’t send us anymore,” he said.

Dr. Mwananyanda said the key strategy for the planned rapid scale-up in vaccination was to do exactly that, taking vaccines to people in malls and at bus stops.

Amid the scramble, no one is thinking about what happens next. “We’re really just addressing the vaccination problems for now — but we don’t have a system for the long run,” said Dr. Agolory with the C.D.C. “And what are we going to do when boosters are needed or if there’s some new variants that escape the vaccine altogether, and we need to start from zero and give people more vaccines?”

Zambia will need help procuring more, and it will need funding to help bring on temporary health care workers to administer vaccines so that existing programs, like the Ngwerere mother-and-child clinic, are not abandoned, Dr. Agolory said.

Even with a huge boost in vaccination rates, the country won’t have enough coverage to blunt the coming wave, or, most likely, the one after it.

“I am hoping that we keep receiving vaccines so that we don’t get into a situation where people need vaccines and they can’t get them,” said Dr. Silumesii of the health ministry. “The flip side, which is something that I would really hate to see happen, is where we have brought in vaccines and we don’t have enough demand and vaccines go to waste. These are vaccines that cost a lot. Definitely that pinch would sting so badly.”

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Ex-Panama President’s Sons Are Extradited to U.S. After Multicountry Chase - The New York Times

In the Bahamas, the brothers, along with Mr. Luis Martinelli Linares’s wife and children, boarded a private plane and flew to Panama, prosecutors said. But the aircraft was turned away because of pandemic-related travel restrictions, so they flew on to Costa Rica and then El Salvador — just as the federal Eastern District court was issuing warrants for their arrest.

The brothers then traveled by Uber from El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador, to the Guatemala border, prosecutors said. At the time, Guatemala was not allowing visitors, but the brothers were able to slip in by falsely representing themselves as officials of the Central American Parliament.

The brothers later obtained emergency humanitarian authorization from Panama’s health minister to enter the country, prosecutors said. But on or around July 6, they were arrested at an airport in Guatemala City as they attempted to board the family’s private jet and fly to Panama.

Representatives for the Martinelli brothers could not be reached for comment late Friday.

Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares, who was extradited to the United States last month and pleaded guilty on money laundering charges last week, is in detention while he awaits sentencing in May 2022, prosecutors say.

In their letter on Friday to Judge Robert M. Levy, a team of prosecutors led by Breon S. Peace, the U.S. attorney for Eastern District of New York, described Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares as “a substantial and proven flight risk.”

“Given Ricardo Martinelli Linares’s actions over the past several years, it is clear that he will do anything to avoid prosecution in the United States and return to Panama, even despite the separate criminal charges pending against him in that country,” the prosecutors said.

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Inside the Fall of Kabul: An On-the-Ground Account - The New York Times

On July 15, I went to the palace to see Mohib. Above the gate tower, a giant tricolor of the republic fluttered against a clear blue sky. After passing through security, I walked across the long, deserted lawn toward the building that held the Office of the National Security Council. I waited in the council’s empty reception room until one of Mohib’s staff members, a young woman who had studied in America, brought me upstairs to his office, where he sat behind his desk. Our conversation was mostly off the record. He seemed exhausted as we spoke about the desperate fighting in Kandahar City, which had been surrounded by the Taliban.

Only a few days before, there had been a farewell ceremony for Gen. Austin S. Miller, the long-serving U.S. commander. The military had completed 90 percent of its withdrawal, well ahead of Biden’s deadline. This rapid pace was intended to reduce the risk of attack during the retreat, but it had a devastating impact on Afghan security forces. The U.S. military had spent billions to train and equip a force in its own image, heavily dependent on foreign contractors and air support. But the Afghan Army’s notoriously corrupt generals stole their men’s ammunition, food and wages; while security forces were supposed to total 300,000, the real number was likely less than a third of that. Out in the districts, the army and the police were crumbling, handing over their arms to the Taliban, who now controlled a quarter of the country.

Ghani had repeatedly insisted that he would stand and fight. “This is my home and my grave,” he thundered in a speech earlier in the spring. His vice president, Amrullah Saleh, and the security council were working on a post-American strategy called Kaf, a Dari word meaning “base” or “floor,” which envisioned garrison cities connected by corridors held by the army and bolstered by militias, similar to how President Mohammad Najibullah clung to power for three years after the Soviet withdrawal. “It was very much the Russian model,” said Bek, who returned to the government as the president’s chief of staff that month. “They had a good plan on paper, but for this to work, you needed to be a military genius.”

Earlier in July, Ghani was warned that only two out of seven army corps were still functional, according to a senior Afghan official. Desperate for forces to protect Kandahar City, the president pleaded with the C.I.A. to use the paramilitary army formerly known as counterterrorism pursuit teams, according to Afghan officials. Trained for night raids and clandestine missions in the borderlands, the units had grown into capable light infantry, thousands strong. They were now officially part of the Afghan intelligence service and were known as Zero Units, after codes that corresponded to provinces: 01 was Kabul, 03 was Kandahar and so forth. But according to the officials, the C.I.A. still paid the salaries of these strike forces and had to consent to Ghani’s request for them to defend Kandahar City that month. (A U.S. official stated that the units were under Afghan control; the C.I.A. declined to comment on details of their deployment.) “They’re very effective units, motivated, cheap,” Mohib told me in his office, saying Kandahar would have fallen without them. “They don’t need all sorts of heavy equipment. I wish we had more like them.”

But the Zero Units had a reputation for ruthlessness in battle; both journalists and Human Rights Watch have referred to them as “death squads” — allegations that the C.I.A. denied, saying they were the result of Taliban propaganda. I had been trying to track these shadowy units for years and was surprised to see them, in their distinctive tiger stripes, given glowing coverage on the government’s social media accounts.

In Kabul, I met with Mohammad, an officer from one of the N.D.S. units that operated around the capital, whom I had known for a few years. Mohammad had worked as an interpreter for the unit’s American advisers and as an instructor for undercover teams that carried out arrests inside the cities. He said morale had plummeted among his men, now that the Americans were leaving. According to Afghan officials, the station on Ariana Square was empty by late July. But Mohammad’s team still received advice from the Americans. He showed me messages that he said were from the C.I.A., urging his unit to patrol areas around Kabul that had been infiltrated by the insurgents. “The airport is still in danger,” one message said.

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Nobel-Winning Journalists Denounce War Talk and Online ‘Toxic Sludge’ - The New York Times

“The powerful actively promote the idea of war,” he said. “Aggressive marketing of war affects people and they start thinking that war is acceptable.”

At the same time, he said, the ideas of liberal democracy are under threat.

“The world has fallen out of love with democracy,” Mr. Muratov lamented in his speech. “The world has become disappointed with the elites in power. The world has begun to turn to dictatorship.”

Ms. Ressa has long been an outspoken critic of the authoritarian leader in her homeland, Mr. Duterte, whose government has filed seven criminal charges against her, including for cyber libel and tax evasion. She has been an outspoken critic of social networks for spreading disinformation and hatred.

“Our greatest need today is to transform that hate and violence, the toxic sludge that’s coursing through our information ecosystem, prioritized by American internet companies that make more money by spreading that hate and triggering the worst in us,” Ms. Ressa said in her speech.

Since it started in January 2012, Rappler has become one of the Philippines’ most popular and influential media platforms, mixing reporting with calls for social activism. Rappler’s reporters, most of whom are in their 20s, have investigated Mr. Duterte’s extrajudicial campaign to kill people suspected of dealing or using drugs, documented the spread of government disinformation on Facebook, and reported on malfeasance among his top advisers.

Mr. Muratov has dedicated the prize to his slain colleagues at Novaya Gazeta. Six of the paper’s journalists or contributors died under his watch, including Anna Politkovskaya, whose 2006 murder in the elevator of her apartment block has never been solved. When the award was announced, he also said that opposition politician Aleksei A. Navalny, who was poisoned last year and has been in jail since January, deserved to have received it.

Mr. Muratov is the third Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize, after the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the physicist and dissident Andrei D. Sakharov, who won in 1975 for his human rights advocacy.

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Despite Austria’s virus surge, Salzburg Festival announces a program for next summer. - The New York Times

Austria went into lockdown recently to counter a record number of coronavirus cases. But in Salzburg, where the surge has been sharp, there are plans for a brighter future.

On Friday the Salzburg Festival, classical music and opera’s most storied annual event, announced its 2022 summer season — back to prepandemic scale, with more than 200 events over six weeks beginning July 18.

There is a rich lineup of opera, spoken drama, orchestra concerts — many featuring the festival’s house band, the Vienna Philharmonic — and recitals, including the usual enviable array of pianists.

Buoyed by government subsidies and sponsorship deals, Salzburg has been able to weather the pandemic, putting on a fairly robust season in 2020 for limited audiences and returning to something akin to normal in 2021. The commemoration of the centennial of the festival, which was established in 1920, ended up being spread over the past two years.

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Germany joins the list of nations mandating vaccination for health workers. - The New York Times

German lawmakers voted on Friday to make coronavirus vaccines obligatory for health care workers — a significant move in a nation where protests against pandemic restrictions have been widespread.

The mandate, which will go into effect in mid-March, comes after the country last week announced a lockdown on those who are unvaccinated, and as nations across Europe have reintroduced measures meant to control the spread of the coronavirus. The efforts have taken on added urgency as scientists race to understand the risks posed by the recently detected Omicron variant.

Although initial reports suggest Omicron spreads faster than previous variants, there are some early signs that it may cause mostly mild illness, but that observation was based mainly on cases in South Africa among younger people, who are generally less likely to become severely ill from Covid. There are also early indications that at least some vaccines will continue to work, though possibly at diminished levels.

Germany joins a number of European nations in mandating vaccination for health care workers, including France and Italy, which were among the first.

In November, the British government announced that all frontline health workers in England must be vaccinated against Covid-19 by the spring to keep their jobs.

The Biden administration issued three mandates in September — one for federal contractors, another for health care workers and a third for companies with more than 100 employees. But the broad vaccine mandates affecting the private sector have been delayed by courts.

Austria has gone the furthest of any Western democracy, requiring Covid vaccinations for all adults.

More than 69 percent of the German population is fully vaccinated, but the rate of daily vaccinations has recently increased to levels not seen since the early summer.

Elsewhere in Europe on Friday:

- In a sign of the rising concern in Italy, another region — the third in recent weeks — will toughen coronavirus restrictions next week. Face masks will be required outdoors and restaurants will have to limit the number of guests eating at the same table in the southern region of Calabria, as well as in Friuli Venezia Giulia in the far northeast and the northern province of Bolzano — bordering Austria and Switzerland, where 70 percent of the population is German-speaking. Bolzano has the country’s lowest vaccination rate.

- The Associated Press reported that the Dutch government cleared the way on Friday for children ages 5 to 11 years old to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, extending its inoculation program to an age group that had the highest rate of infections in a recent surge. The program is set to begin in mid-January, the health ministry said.

- The police in northern Greece made 11 arrests on Friday after a high school principal was handcuffed by people who are accused of being members of a vigilante group that opposes pandemic restrictions, according to The Associated Press. The episode occurred near the city of Katerini, 270 miles north of Athens. The suspects are accused of grabbing and handcuffing the principal, 61, ahead of a daily health check of students waiting to enter the school, forcing him into a vehicle and driving him to a nearby precinct where they asked the police to charge him. Instead, the police promptly detained them instead.

Raphael Minder and Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.

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Al Unser, Four-Time Winner of the Indy 500, Dies at 82 - The New York Times

Al Unser Sr., one of only four drivers to win the Indianapolis 500 four times and a stalwart of one of auto racing’s most accomplished families, died on Thursday at his home in Chama, N.M. He was 82.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced the death and said Unser had had cancer for the past 17 years.

Quiet, at times gruff, Unser was considered one of the smartest drivers on the track, a man with endless reservoirs of patience and a savvy sense for when to hold back and when to barrel ahead.

“The way I assess a great driver is someone who you have to deal with, race in and race out, and Al is one of those,” Mario Andretti, who raced against Unser for decades, said in an interview.

In all, more than a dozen members of the Unser family have worked in auto racing, including Al Unser’s older brothers, Jerry and Bobby. Bobby Unser, who himself won the Indianapolis 500 three times, called the 1987 race, which Al won, for a national television audience.

Unser was 47 at the time and already considered over the hill for an elite driver, and he wasn’t even supposed to compete. His team, sponsored by Penske, had left him out of its three-car lineup. But after one of those drivers, Danny Ongais, injured himself, Unser was called up.

For most of the race, he trailed Andretti and another driver, Roberto Guerrero. But late in the race a fuel meter in Andretti’s car malfunctioned, forcing him to slow down, and Guerrero’s car stalled coming out of the pit. Unser pulled into the lead and came in first, making him the oldest driver to win the premier auto race in the United States.

His son, Al Unser Jr., finished fourth that year and would himself go on to become one of the world’s premier drivers, twice winning the Indianapolis 500. Father and son shared the track several times, and the elder Unser assumed the nickname Big Al after his son, nicknamed Little Al, established himself in racing.

The Unsers’ competitive relationship came into national focus in 1985, when they were both considered favorites to win that year’s series of races sanctioned by Championship Auto Racing Teams. If he were to win, Unser Sr. would be the oldest driver to capture the season; Unser Jr. would be the youngest.

At the Beatrice Indy Challenge in 1985, which its promoters called “one of the most dramatic showdowns in sports history,” Unser Sr. pulled up next to his son toward the end of the race. They briefly looked directly at each other and gave each other a wave before the elder Unser pulled ahead and won the race, The Associated Press reported.

“I’ve really got mixed emotions,” he said after the race. “I’d like to have seen Al win. Championships are hard to come by.”

But, he added: “Still, I’m a racer and I have to race. I said yesterday, if he wins it, he’s going to have to earn it.”

He beat his son for the season title by one point.

Alfred Unser was born in Albuquerque on May 29, 1939, to Jerry and Mary Unser. His father, who owned a gas station, was an occasional racer and car builder who set him and his brothers on the path to racing royalty.

The family got its start racing in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, a grueling uphill race in Colorado. Al himself took part in it twice, early in his career.

His brother Bobby said in 2009 that he and Al did not fight and were “the closest of friends.”

Al Unser passed on his love of racing to his son, helping the younger Al with a kart he began racing when he was 9. But he also insisted that his son stay out of competitive racing until he graduated from high school, something Al Unser Sr. hadn’t done.

Unser was at least the third member of the family to die this year. Bobby died in May at 87, and his son Bobby Unser Jr. died in June at 65.

Unser is survived by his son and his wife, Susan. Two daughters, Mary and Deborah, died before him.

Al Unser first competed in the Indianapolis 500 in 1965, running the race 27 times, the third-most in history. Along with his 1987 win, he won the race in 1970, 1971 and 1978. He led for 644 laps over his career, which remains a record.

During his career he also raced NASCAR and sprint cars and on dirt tracks. That versatility gave him an unmatched confidence among his peers.

“His quiet and humble approach outside of the car, combined with his fierce competitive spirit and fearless talent behind the wheel, made Al a fan favorite,” J. Douglas Boles, president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, said in a statement.

Unser’s total of four wins at the Indianapolis 500 is a record shared by A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears and Helio Castroneves, who won this year’s race. And he is the only driver to win Indy Car’s triple crown — 500-mile races at Indianapolis, the Poconos and Ontario, Calif. — in a single season.

Unser retired in 1994. He lived in Albuquerque and in Chama, a small mountain town in the northwestern corner of New Mexico.

The Unser family is rivaled only by the Andrettis for its dynastic claim over American motor sports — a fact that didn’t keep Unser and Andretti from becoming close, if still competitive, friends off the track.

Andretti would bring his family to Chama, where they would race snowmobiles, and the Unsers would travel to Andretti’s lakeside home in Pennsylvania, where they would race jet skis.

“We all became one big family after a while,” Andretti said.

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Now, only 13 nations and the Vatican still recognize Taiwan, down from 21 in all at the beginning of 2017. Since then, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Burkina Faso, El Salvador, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and now Nicaragua have switched their recognition to the People’s Republic of China. China has sought to keep Taiwan isolated, even barring it from participating in international forums like the World Health Assembly, in hopes of forcing it to accept unification with the mainland as an inevitability.

“While this will be disappointing for Taiwan, it’s important to keep it in perspective,” said Natasha Kassam, a former Australian diplomat in Beijing who is now with the Lowy Institute, an independent research organization in Sydney. “In recent years, Taiwan has been growing its ties with unofficial large partners like Japan and the United States, and those are much more important for Taiwan’s place in the world than its smaller diplomatic partners.”

Within minutes of Nicaragua’s announcement, Chinese state media reported that a delegation of Nicaraguan officials were in Tianjin, the port city where China has been holding diplomatic meetings during the coronavirus pandemic. Their presence indicated coordination between the two nations over the timing of the decision.

Understand U.S.-China Relations

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A tense era in U.S.-China ties. The two powers are profoundly at odds as they jockey for influence beyond their own shores, compete in technology and maneuver for military advantages. Here’s what to know about the main fronts in U.S.-China relations:

Pacific dominance. As China has built up its military presence, the U.S. has sought to widen its alliances in the region. A major potential flash point is Taiwan, the democratic island that the Communist Party regards as Chinese territory. Should the U.S. intervene there, it could reshape the regional order.

Trade. The trade war started by the Trump administration is technically on pause. But the Biden administration has continued to protest China’s economic policies and impose tariffs on Chinese goods, signaling no thaw in trade relations.

Technology. Internet giants have mostly been shut out of China, but plenty of U.S. tech companies still do big business there, raising cybersecurity concerns in Washington. Mr. Xi has said China needs to achieve technological “self-reliance.”

Nicaragua ended diplomatic relations once before, in 1985, after Mr. Ortega first came to power, but reversed that decision five years later, under President Violeta Chamorro.

The latest switch came a month after Mr. Ortega was re-elected for a fourth consecutive term as president after a vote that was widely criticized for consolidating his increasingly authoritarian rule.

The United States criticized the diplomatic switch.

“Without the mandate that comes with a free and fair election, Ortega’s actions cannot reflect the will of the Nicaraguan people, who continue to struggle for democracy and the ability to exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms,” the State Department’s spokesman, Ned Price, said in a statement that reflected American criticism of the recent election.

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U.S.

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HOUSTON — Within the span of a few hours, a Texas judge and the U.S. Supreme Court appeared to undercut Texas’ six-week abortion ban, ruling in separate opinions late Thursday and early Friday that aspects of the law were unconstitutional under state law and that federal challenges could go forward.

But the victories for abortion rights supporters were largely hollow, and providers in Texas were not cheering on Friday.

Neither decision altered the reality on the ground in the state. Both left in place the new abortion law, the most restrictive in the country, which effectively bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

“Today, because the court once again failed to protect our most basic human rights, more people will continue to suffer as this case winds its way through the legal system,” said Dr. Bhavik Kumar, an abortion provider in San Antonio, in a call with reporters hosted by the American Civil Liberties Union.

State Senator Bryan Hughes, the lead sponsor of the law in the Texas Senate, called Friday’s ruling “a total victory for life.”

The Supreme Court is expected to rule next summer on the constitutionality of abortion in a separate case from Mississippi challenging the central holdings of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a right to abortion.

In the meantime, for Texas women, the new normal will continue. Clinics that have been forced to turn away women will continue to do so. A surge in travel to out-of-state providers for abortions is unlikely to abate. And desperation is likely to deepen among women seeking abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy. In some cases, clinic staff members have reported women begging them to meet after hours in the parking lot to give them abortion pills.

So many women have been seeking assistance to get abortions outside of Texas that one group that helps with travel, Fund Texas Choice, tripled the size of its small staff and still found itself overwhelmed trying to keep up with the demand. From a few dozen calls a month, it now receives about 300, said Anna Rupani, the executive director of the fund.

“We’re servicing 50 to 60 percent of the calls that we get,” she said. The fund has had to spend more money on each woman — about $1,000 on average now — because women have had to travel much further to access abortions outside of Texas since the law took effect on Sept 1. Most round trips are about 1,100 miles, she said.

The abortion ban relies on an usual enforcement mechanism: Private citizens are tasked with enforcing its provisions, and state officials are barred from doing so. It was designed to deny abortion rights groups a state official to bring a case against, and was successful in preventing the groups from stopping the law from taking effect.

On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that a challenge to the law could proceed against certain state officials, but not others.

Significantly, the court did not allow abortion providers to name state court clerks or judges as defendants — a blow to abortion providers in their attempt to halt legal actions brought against them by private citizens under the law.

The court allowed cases to go forward against members of state medical licensing boards, arguing that those state officials could potentially take enforcement action against abortion providers for violating the law.

But even if those officials were later ordered not to take enforcement action, it would not remove the teeth from the law — the threat of lawsuits by private citizens.

“It doesn’t alleviate that burden that has been in place, which is the potential legal liability to abortion providers,” said Aimee Arrambide, the executive director of Avow Texas, an abortion rights group.

And the potential burden is not just on providers or clinics, but on nurses, staff members, abortion funds, and even family and friends who help facilitate the abortion.

The decision followed one issued late Thursday by a state district court judge in Texas, who found that the enforcement mechanism represented an “unlawful delegation of enforcement power to a private person” and unconstitutionally granted standing to those who were not injured, and that the law violated due process under the federal Constitution.

But the state court opinion did not include an injunction, and left the law in place. Abortion providers said they would not change their behavior until a final decision had been reached at the Texas Supreme Court. The anti-abortion group behind the law, Texas Right to Life, immediately appealed the decision.

The twin rulings were a disappointment to abortion rights advocates and a validation of the unique legal gambit employed by abortion opponents.

“At the end of the day, we’re celebrating,” said John Seago, the legislative director for Texas Right to Life, which lobbied for the law. “The reality is the law is still having its effect. The law is still forcing the abortion industry to stop abortion after a heartbeat is present.”

Understand the Texas Abortion Law

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The most restrictive in the country. The Texas abortion law, known as Senate Bill 8, amounts to a nearly complete ban on abortion in the state. It prohibits most abortions after about six weeks and makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape. The law has been in place since Sept. 1.

The Texas law, known as Senate Bill 8, bans abortions once cardiac activity can be detected in the embryo, usually at around six weeks, before many women are even aware they are pregnant. At this stage of development, there is no heartbeat, only electrical activity in developing cells.

The law flouts the standard set out in Roe v. Wade, the decision that prevented states from banning abortions before fetal viability, the point at which fetuses can sustain life outside the womb, or about 23 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy.

But it has evaded legal challenge because of its unique structure. And with the law in effect, the threat of potentially limitless and costly legal actions has ensured that Texas abortion providers have been following the law.

The decisions arrived just over 100 days since the abortion ban took effect in Texas, but did little to alleviate the fog of suits, countersuits and overlapping court rulings that have left clinics and women in the state reeling.

“I’m remarkably disappointed by the decision today,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, the president and chief executive officer of Whole Woman’s Health, which operates four clinics in the state, on Friday. “Officially on the books it’s considered a win, but the win is so narrow.”

Ms. Hagstrom Miller said her clinics have been open and compliant with the law since it went into effect. They are seeing about 25 percent of their usual patient load, who are receiving abortions before six weeks, and turning away the rest.

The severe restrictions on abortion in Texas have forced women to find clinics in nearby states — New Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma are top destinations — inundating them with calls and patients.

At Trust Women, a clinic with locations in Oklahoma City and Wichita, Kan., the Texas law has pressed resources to the breaking point. In Oklahoma, about 60 percents of patients are now from Texas. The Kansas clinic is receiving patients from Oklahoma who can’t get appointments because of the influx from Texas.

“We’re turning away patients every single day,” said Rebecca Tong, Trust Women’s acting co-executive director.

The backlog has meant women have to wait until later in their pregnancies to see providers, Ms. Tong said, leading to more surgical abortions rather than medication abortions.

That demand has been so sustained that the clinics are planning to license more physicians, add staff, and double the number of days per week that abortion-care clients are seen.

But among abortion providers and advocates, concern has grown with each court argument and decision that abortion rights may soon be curtailed more broadly. That could make assisting Texas women with access to abortion much more difficult.

“This paves the way for other states to pass laws like this, because they know the Supreme Court is not going to act,” said Ms. Rupani of Fund Texas Choice, adding that in the future abortion could be banned in most or all Southern states. “We can’t move Texans across the entire nation. That’s not sustainable.”

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Helicopters and High-Speed Chases: Inside Texas’ Push to Arrest Migrants - The New York Times

BRACKETTVILLE, Texas — Magdaleno Ruiz Jimenez huddled under a waxing moon in the rough brush of a Texas ranch. His journey to the small border community of Brackettville had been long, about 1,300 miles from his home in Mexico. But now a drone was buzzing overhead.

A lone officer, Sgt. Ryan Glenn, emerged from the darkness. He had a flashlight and a screen with coordinates for where Mr. Jimenez and six other men could be found on the cold caliche, blobs of heat visible to an infrared camera on the overhead drone. More officers soon arrived.

“I spent everything to get here,” Mr. Jimenez said after the officers wrested him and the other men from the brush.

The men assumed they had been detained by immigration officers for illegally crossing into the United States. They were wrong. Instead, they were arrested on charges of trespassing on a vast private ranch by highway patrol officers from the Texas state police

For several months now, Texas has been engaged in an effort to repurpose the tools of state law enforcement to stem the sudden increase of people crossing illegally into the country.

To do this, Texas officials led by Gov. Greg Abbott developed a way around the fact that immigration enforcement is a federal government job: State and local police departments partner with the owners of borderland ranches, and use trespassing laws to arrest migrants who cross their land.

“That’s an effective way of sending a message,” Mr. Abbott said, flanked by nine other Republican governors, at a news conference along the border this fall. “If you come into the state of Texas illegally, you have a high likelihood of not getting caught and released, but instead, arrested and jailed.”

The new approach relies on the participation of local officials and, so far, it has been adopted in just two of the state’s 32 border region counties: Kinney, which includes Brackettville, and Val Verde, its neighbor to the west.

State officials could not say what effect, if any, the program has had on reducing illegal crossings, which have surged to at least 1.2 million in Texas so far this year, the highest recorded figure in more than two decades. (It remains unclear how many migrants are trying to cross multiple times.) But the operation has upended life both for the migrants caught up in its ad hoc processes and for the rural residents living under its net.

Perhaps nowhere has that been more acutely felt than the town of Brackettville, a former frontier outpost of 1,700 known for its surrounding hunting and cattle ranches, an old fort that once housed the army’s Black Seminole scouts, and an aging replica of the Alamo built for a John Wayne film.

Lately, it has been flooded with state police.

High speed chases are so frequent that the local school installed rock barriers to protect against crashes. Helicopters patrol the night sky. Ranchers, who are mostly white, lock their doors and carry pistols around their own properties, which many never did before. Town residents, a majority of whom are poor and Hispanic, complain they are routinely followed by officers newly assigned to the area.

“That happens to a lot of people here in Brackett,” said the mayor, Eric Martinez, using the nickname for the town. He said he was followed and then pulled over after leaving a City Council meeting because, the officer told him, his license plate light was not bright enough.

The police push is part of an ongoing clash between Mr. Abbott and the Biden administration over how to handle the sudden increase of arrivals at the border with Mexico. Federal agents have been rapidly expelling migrants under a public health rule, but Mr. Abbott argues that the government has done little to halt the flow of them. He has dedicated $3 billion for a series of measures at the border, including sending state police and troops from the Texas State Guard, creating a border barrier with shipping containers and using the National Guard to construct several miles of fencing along the Rio Grande.

But the arrests of migrants for criminal trespassing has been a more disruptive element of what is known as Operation Lone Star, crowding courts and local jail populations and raising alarm among defense lawyers and advocates for migrants.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to comment on the initiative, and federal agents are not partnering with the state police in making trespassing arrests.

Representative Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, has asked for a federal investigation of the Operation Lone Star, saying in a letter this fall to the Justice Department that the program was “wreaking havoc on Texas’ judicial system” and has “directly led to a violation of state laws and constitutional due process rights.”

The men arrested under the program, some 2,000 so far, have often been held for weeks without access to lawyers. More than 1,000 are currently being held in state prisons that were repurposed to house them. (Women and children have been turned over to federal agents.)

Because the process is new, and taking place in small rural counties, the usual system for assigning criminal defense lawyers has been overwhelmed. Kinney County has also struggled to file arrest paperwork in the time required by law.

After their arrests, migrants are transferred to a single processing center, a large tent in the border town of Del Rio — where a surge of Haitian migrants flooded the community earlier this year — and then transferred to the repurposed state prisons in other counties.

While the state police checks identification documents of those arrested, the men are not turned over to federal authorities until the end of their cases, a process that, so far, has often lasted several months. Among those who have gone before a judge, most have had their cases dismissed or have been released on bond as they await hearing dates, their lawyers said.

And many of those released who have sought asylum have been allowed to stay in the United States to pursue their cases, defense lawyers said, unlike those apprehended at the border by federal authorities, because the public health rule that is used to rapidly expel migrants applies to new arrivals, not those already in the country.

More than 50 Kinney County ranchers have signed up with the Texas Department of Public Safety to allow the state police to patrol on their property and arrest people for trespassing, the agency said.

In interviews, ranchers who signed up for the program described feeling increasingly unsafe on their own land, because of the possibility of running into groups of migrants, though none of the ranchers said they had been assaulted or threatened. They trade information via Facebook and by text message and share stories on the latest “bailout” — a familiar local term for the end of a police chase in which migrants attempt to run from a car or truck, often after it has crashed.

Seated on the oak-shadowed patio of their ranch, a few head of cattle walking slowly nearby, Bill and Carolyn Conoly said the situation this year was the worst they could remember.

“We’re constantly repairing,” Mr. Conoly said, referring to ranch fences that are bent or cut. “We keep the doors locked and I have a gun available.”

Motion-activated cameras on the ranch capture images of passing migrants, information that helps the state police locate them. Earlier that day, cameras had picked up a large group walking through the Conoly family ranch; the police caught up with the migrants at night on an adjacent ranch — 14 men and one woman.

For months, the Conolys have also had constables from Galveston, just south of Houston and about 370 miles away, staying in their white stucco guesthouse.

“If it makes a difference, I don’t know,” said one of the constables, Lt. Paul Edinburgh, who had never been to the border before. “But it’s better than me sitting on the couch reading about it.”

Around 9 p.m. on a recent weeknight, a row of state highway patrol SUVs sat outside the only gas station in town, as two officers, parked nearby, led a woman out of their car and removed her handcuffs.

The woman, an American citizen, had been caught transporting 10 undocumented people in a pickup truck, the officers said, a felony. But because Kinney County did not have a place to hold women, she was given a court date and released.

Not long after, an officer with a drone located a group of men on a nearby ranch. Sergeant Glenn, who was leading a team of seven officers that night, searched for tracks on the ground. It was then that he found Mr. Jimenez, the man who had traveled from Chiapas, Mexico.

A house painter looking for a job, Mr. Jimenez had tried to cross the border once before, in August. After being turned back, he gathered more money and paid to cross again — 150,000 pesos, he said, or about $7,000.

“There’s almost no work. They suffer,” he said of people in Chiapas, a Mexican state along the border with Guatemala. Now, with all his money spent on trying to cross, he would not have enough to return home. (He is currently being held on $2,500 bond.)

As the officers awaited their prisoner transport — rented white vans without official insignia — they received an alert of movement from a camera deep inside another ranch. It was 12:20 a.m.

The police vehicles bumped across overgrown ranch roads. A helicopter hovered over what appeared to be three migrants but was running out of gas.

The officers arrived at a locked gate and decided to cut the lock. When they could go no further by car, they started walking. But after a long march across rough terrain, and a meticulous search in the thorny brush, no one could be found.

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In Texas, Panic Over Critical Race Theory Extends to Bookshelves - The New York Times

A curriculum official went so far as to suggest teachers should seek “opposing” perspectives if students read a book on the Holocaust, according to a recording acquired by NBC News. The superintendent apologized. “We recognize,” he stated, “there are not two sides to the Holocaust.”

Sheri Mills, a Southlake school trustee, heard herself denounced as a Marxist and heckled at her teenage daughter’s athletic events.

“A lot of our teachers are petrified,” Ms. Mills said. “The really good teachers, if they are near retirement, they are leaving.”

In Alief, a diverse district on the western edge of Houston, three English teachers at Kerr High School sat together and spoke of this uncertain world.

Safraz Ali, who spent his early boyhood in Guyana and had taught for 17 years, said he had grown weary of the uncertainty. He called the state education department and asked officials to define critical race theory. He received no answer.

“It’s like you’re walking into a dark room,” he said.

The teachers pointed in particular to the clause that says a teacher must not inculcate the idea that students should feel “responsibility, blame or guilt” because of their race or sex. Mr. Krause, the state representative, had gone a step further, suggesting that a teacher might overstep simply by assigning a book that troubles a student.

These teachers all but slapped foreheads in frustration. To teach Shakespeare and Toni Morrison, to read Gabriel García Márquez or Frederick Douglass, is to elicit swells of emotions, they said, out of which can arise introspection and self-recognition, sorrow and joy. The challenge is no different for a social studies teacher talking of Cherokee dying along the Trail of Tears or white gangs lynching Black and Mexican people.

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In the Michigan School Shooting, the Prosecutor Asks, What About the Parents? - The New York Times

PONTIAC, Mich. — It was a gut judgment, one made quickly, the prosecutor Karen D. McDonald said of her decision to charge Ethan Crumbley’s parents with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting deaths of four students at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit.

“I just instinctually knew there was just absolutely no way I was not going to prosecute them when I heard all the evidence,” Ms. McDonald said in an interview.

Ms. McDonald pointed to what she said is the chilling lead-up to the Nov. 30 massacre: how James and Jennifer Crumbley bought their son a 9-millimeter handgun as an early Christmas present, then failed to tell school officials about it, even after they called the parents to a meeting because a teacher saw their son’s drawing of a gun, a victim and the plea, “The thoughts won’t stop. Please help me.”

Her decision came despite pushback from some members of her staff at the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office, she said. They cited significant legal hurdles and suggested that she hold off, fearing a defeat in court.

But, Ms. McDonald said, she is not afraid to lose.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she said. “And if the jury decides that they aren’t criminally culpable, I can live with that.” The couple’s defense lawyers have said that a fuller picture, one that absolves the parents, will emerge.

Ms. McDonald said she did not set out to break new legal ground — charging parents of a minor in a mass shooting is highly unusual — but she now views the case as potentially part of something bigger, a new frontline effort to promote responsible gun ownership. She calls it “a brand-new way of approaching school shootings,” one that she hopes can help course correct the system’s past failures in deterring the killings.

The Oxford case has catapulted Ms. McDonald, 51, from an obscure prosecutor in her first year on the job to a national figure, one who appears frequently on news programs making her case for tougher gun control.

Her decision to prosecute the Crumbleys resonates with victims, including Michele Gay, who lost her youngest daughter, Josephine, in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that killed 26 children and adults.

“We do have to put it all out on the table every time, as painful as it is, and look at every possibility that would have mitigated this, stopped this,” said Ms. Gay, who founded the organization Safe and Sound Schools after her daughter’s death in 2012.

Ms. McDonald could well emerge as a political force in Michigan, according to Richard Czuba, a political pollster in Lansing, Mich.

“Certainly she’s a name,” said Mr. Czuba, who said her response to the shootings “strikes a chord in households with children.”

He envisions Ms. McDonald as a potential successor to Dana Nessel, the state attorney general, when Ms. Nessel’s second term ends at the end of 2026.

But that’s a lifetime or two in politics years, and first Ms. McDonald must prove her legal strategies can work, including her unusual decision to charge Ethan Crumbley with not only first-degree murder, but also terrorism causing death.

During the interview at the sprawling county government complex in Oakland County, Mich., the state’s second largest county, Ms. McDonald said she intends to be in court as part of the county’s prosecution team when the couple goes to trial. Both the Crumbleys, who would each face a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted, and their son, who faces life in prison, have pleaded not guilty.

Earlier in the day, one in which a funeral was held for the youngest victim, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, Ms. McDonald toured the crime scene at Oxford High School.

The scene, Ms. McDonald said, revealed “calculated horrific behavior,” describing how one of the four victims was killed in a bathroom. Seven other people were injured, including a teacher.

The case against the parents will depend on whether prosecutors can show that the parents were “aware not just generally that their son was troubled but aware that he would or could do this — shoot up that school,” said Eve Brensike Primus, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Law. “That requires a level of mental culpability that is more challenging for a prosecutor to prove.”

While parents have been charged before with involuntary manslaughter in connection with shooting by children, the cases generally involve very young children who pick up a parent’s unsecured gun and accidentally kill someone.

Ms. McDonald said she was not aware of such a case against the parents of a mass shooter, even though guns used in school shootings frequently come from family members.

Ms. McDonald, a Democrat, said she has received support for her decision even from Republican gun owners, some of whom have written her letters.

“Lots of gun owners say, ‘Absolutely — if you’re not going to store your weapon safely, if you’re not going to be responsible with it, you should be held accountable,’” she said. “I think this just goes so far beyond politics, if we are parents.”

Ms. McDonald said she is not thinking about higher office, but there has already been some criticism of her televised appearances.

Michael Bouchard, the Oakland County sheriff, suggested that Ms. McDonald acted prematurely in publicizing the charges against the Crumbleys — before his office was even notified — giving the parents time to flee. The F.B.I. and U.S. Marshals fugitive team were called in and apprehended the couple early the next morning in a Detroit warehouse.

Ms. McDonald, who said she gave the sheriff’s office adequate warning of the charges, said that she has patched things up with Mr. Bouchard, the only Republican holding a major elective office in Oakland County, where Democrats have dominated in recent years.

In a statement on Friday, Mr. Bouchard cited a “disconnect” between senior prosecutors and investigators that has been resolved. But Rocky Raczkowski, the Oakland County Republican chairman, said that by announcing charges against the parents before their arrest, Ms. McDonald had created confusion.

“It’s becoming a soap opera, parents’ flight risk,” Mr. Raczkowski said, “instead of run properly like a well-oiled machine. It took away from the story of the grief, it cost money, it took away police resources, but also most important, it took away from the focus, what went wrong, what went right.”

A Michigan native and former schoolteacher who became a lawyer and then an assistant prosecutor before being elected as a judge presiding over juvenile cases, Ms. McDonald now heads up an office of more than 150 employees — all wearing black lapel ribbons in honor of the dead and injured.

As a parent, Ms. McDonald said she takes gun violence personally. She and her husband of 11 years, Jeffrey Weiss, a lawyer who prefers to remain behind the scenes, have a blended family of five children. The youngest is a sophomore in college.

Her decisions in the Crumbley case suggest a tough approach to law enforcement, but during her campaign for prosecutor, she emphasized prosecutorial reform, riding the progressive wave after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Her list of endorsers included Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

After defeating a longtime Democratic incumbent, Jessica Cooper, by a wide margin, and taking office in January, Ms. McDonald had spent much of the year implementing changes in the office, including embracing alternatives to incarceration and beginning data collection to detect racial disparities in prosecution.

And though she charged Ethan Crumbley as an adult, she had pushed in her campaign for treating “children like children,” holding them “accountable without unnecessary incarceration.” In office, she reviewed 27 cases of juveniles sentenced to life without parole and gave 22 of them the chance to be resentenced, leaving them eventually eligible for parole.

Perhaps her most highly publicized undertaking, until the recent carnage, involved an internal review of a 20-year-old arson case in which five children were killed.

Ms. McDonald reopened the case at the urging of the University of Michigan Law School’s Innocence Clinic.

Imran J. Syed, co-director of the clinic, said his office had been working to prove the defendant’s innocence for more than a decade but that Ms. McDonald’s predecessor had not been interested in reviewing the circumstances.

Ms. McDonald “discovered a mountain of evidence of internal misconduct,” Mr. Syed said.

Her review found that jailhouse informants who testified against the defendant were given significant benefits in return — a fact that was not disclosed to defense lawyers at the time. Her office also uncovered a video of a child witness implicating another person in the crime, evidence that also had not been revealed.

As a result of the work, Juwan Deering, 50, was released this year after 15 years behind bars. Ms. McDonald is planning a review of other old prosecutions, she said.

Criminal justice officials must abandon a “win at all cost” mentality, she said, adding, “It’s difficult, but it’s still the right thing to do.”

Giulia Heyward contributed reporting.

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At least 65 percent of evangelical Christians believe that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, according to the AP VoteCast data, compared with 29 percent of nonevangelical voters. That 36-point gap is far larger than the 21-point gap between evangelical and nonevangelical support for Joseph R. Biden in the 2020 election.

As a result, the conflicted voters tend to be relatively religious Democrats and less religious Republicans, including Black evangelical Democrats who oppose abortion or relatively secular white working-class Trump voters who support abortion rights.

The importance of religion brings a clear regional dimension to the political stakes of the issue. Evangelical and religious voters are disproportionately concentrated in the South. That includes conflicted Democrats: Only 59 percent of Southern Democratic-leaning voters say most abortions should be legal, according to Pew Research. Conflicted Republicans, meanwhile, are likeliest to live in the North and especially the Northeast.

For Republicans, the electoral risk might be most pronounced in these Northern battleground states, where a sizable share of their voters believe abortion should be legal. About 37 percent of Donald J. Trump’s supporters in Pennsylvania and Michigan believe that abortion should be mostly legal, according to the AP VoteCast data. It’s a large enough number to create a plausible electoral vulnerability for Republicans advocating abortion restrictions, but it’s a small enough number that the party would most likely support new abortion restrictions if the Supreme Court allowed it.

There’s nothing new about these cultural issues holding Republicans back in the Midwest.

Republicans struggled to break through in the region for a generation, as the religious right helped the party in the South but not in the less evangelical Northern battleground states. It was Mr. Trump’s new brand of incendiary politics, focused on issues like immigration and crime, that helped Republicans gain an advantage in the region by polarizing American politics along educational rather than religious lines.

Understand the Supreme Court’s Momentous Term

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Mississippi abortion law. The court heard arguments in a challenge to a Mississippi law that bars most abortions after 15 weeks. The case could lead to the end of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.

New York gun law. The justices will consider the constitutionality of a longstanding New York law that imposes strict limits on carrying guns in public. The court has not issued a major Second Amendment ruling in more than a decade.

A drop in public support. Chief Justice Roberts now leads a court increasingly associated with partisanship. Recent polls show the court is suffering a distinct drop in public support following a spate of unusual late-night summer rulings in politically charged cases.

Although renewed attention on abortion might cut against some Trump-era trends, it could tend to reinforce others, like deteriorating Democratic strength among nonwhite voters. Much like white voters, Black and Hispanic voters are largely divided on abortion, even though they are far more likely to vote Democratic.

Of course, just because voters are conflicted on an issue doesn’t mean they are bound to break to the other party. Many of these voters are partisans, despite their views on abortion, precisely because they care more about other issues.

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Tornado Batters Mayfield, Ky., but One Resident Says, 'We'll Be OK' - The New York Times

MAYFIELD, Ky. — The grid of narrow streets in the heart of Mayfield, Ky., had become a perilous maze of downed utility lines, dangling tree limbs and scattered debris. Yet residents were out on Saturday morning, struggling to maneuver around it all, anguished by the aftermath of the tornado that had shredded their community.

As the sun rose in Mayfield, a town of 10,000 people in the western corner of Kentucky, residents could see for the first time the destruction they had heard the night before as the storm descended in the darkness with its howling winds and the crunching and groaning of homes and businesses being torn apart.

Some of the largest buildings in town had been leveled or were close to it. Mayfield First United Methodist Church, a cavernous sanctuary with a stone facade, had almost entirely collapsed. Other buildings had been reduced to piles of red bricks.

The rolling pastures and quiet woods that surround Mayfield had been left muddy and with a dusting of leaves but were otherwise intact. But on the two-line highways snaking into town, the tornado’s wrath announced itself with the vistas of homes that had their brick exteriors shaved off, churches with roofs peeled away and seemingly sturdy trees that had been snapped at their trunks like twigs.

D.J. Swant hurried into her cellar at around 9 p.m. on Friday. The local authorities had stressed just how bad the storm could be.

“We took them at their word, and thank God we did,” she said.

Her bed had been showered with limbs and glass from broken windows. The balcony was gone. Chimneys crumbled. A towering column had been shifted out of place.

Ms. Swant, a retired health-care administrator from the Milwaukee area, moved with her husband to Mayfield six years ago, fleeing the bitter cold of Wisconsin but more than anything lured by the grand old house, built in 1890. It had the balcony, seven fire places and some 6,000 square feet. Her neighbors called it Dr. Jackson’s house, named after a longtime resident.

After they moved in, people in the town stopped by and talked to her and her husband. They wanted to see the improvements the Swants had made to the house and thank them for putting in the effort to bring back an historic house that had sat empty for years.

On Saturday, neighbors were pulling up yet again, this time to see how she was doing.

“Our church is totally gone,” one neighbor who pulled up in a truck told Ms. Swant. “Nothing was salvageable except for the communion table.”

“That’s one of the reasons I love this place,” Ms. Swant said after the truck pulled away. “We’ll be OK,” she added. “We’ll be OK. It’ll take a while. But we’ll be OK.”

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Video Shows Tornado Destruction at Amazon Warehouse in Illinois - The New York Times

new video loaded: Video Shows Tornado Destruction at Amazon Warehouse in Illinois

Recent episodes in Extreme Weather

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Deaths Confirmed After Tornado Hits Amazon Warehouse in Illinois - The New York Times

The police in Edwardsville, Ill., said there were at least two “confirmed fatalities” at an Amazon warehouse after a direct hit from a tornado caused a major portion of the building to collapse on Friday night, leaving “catastrophic damage to a significant portion” of the building.

Three people were rescued from the building, and one of them was taken to a hospital, said Mark Mayfield, a captain with the Edwardsville Fire Department. He did not know the person’s status on Saturday morning but said he believed them to be in “stable condition.”

Thirty workers made it out of the building safely by themselves, the police said. A bus carried several workers to reunite with families in nearby Pontoon Beach, said Michael Fillback, the Edwardsville police chief.

Captain Mayfield said he did not know how many workers were inside the building when the tornado struck around 8:30 p.m., but Chief Fillback told the St. Louis station KDSK-TV on Saturday that the number was not “in the hundreds.” Chief Fillback estimated at a news conference on Saturday morning that about 50 people had been in the building.

Emergency responders received the initial call at 8:38 p.m. and arrived several minutes later, Captain Mayfield said, with about 100 responders on the scene shortly after the building collapsed. More than a dozen area police, fire and emergency medical service departments responded.

On Saturday morning, police blocked off the entrance to the campus, which is about 20 minutes northeast of St. Louis.

The building, which is two years old, is in a distribution hub on the west side of town with about 20 warehouses ranging from about 100,000 to 1.4 million square feet, he said. The tornado caused the collapse of a wall the size of a football field at the warehouse, along with the roof above it, according to The Associated Press.

“About half of it’s missing, it’s gone,” Captain Mayfield said of the building, which is about 400,000 square feet. The other half of the building remained standing on Saturday morning, he said, adding that workers were able to safely evacuate from that area.

“There’s a lot of debris from the concrete; that is predominately a concrete and steel structure,” Chief Fillback said on Saturday morning, adding, “It’s windy outside, so things are unstable.”

On Saturday morning, a steady stream of construction vehicles entered the scene. Workers appeared to be using a crane to clear wreckage from the site. Winds continued to blow at more than 20 mph Saturday morning, causing cars to shake.

Captain Mayfield said that the remaining part of the building would probably have to be demolished. “I don’t see anyway that they can salvage it,” he said.

Heavy machinery was brought in to move the collapsed walls to ensure that there were no other people unaccounted for, and rescue teams were checking inside vehicles that had been crushed by the collapsed walls.

“We’re deeply saddened by the news that members of our Amazon family passed away as a result of the storm in Edwardsville, Ill.,” Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement on Saturday. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their loved ones and everyone impacted by the tornado.”

Amazon opened two warehouses in Edwardsville, about 25 miles east of St. Louis, in 2016, employing about 2,200 people, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in 2017.

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What to Know About the Deadly Tornado Outbreak - The New York Times

What happened?

A tornado outbreak tore through several states on Friday night. At least five were struck, including Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.

The tornadoes were part of a weather system that was wreaking havoc in many parts of the country, causing substantial snowfall across parts of the upper Midwest and western Great Lakes.

Dozens of people were killed.

Kentucky’s governor said Saturday morning that at least 70 had been killed in a tornado’s path of over 200 miles, and that the state’s death toll could increase to more than 100 in the coming hours.

The storms caused a wall and roof to collapse at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, leaving workers trapped inside. The authorities confirmed people had died, but did not say how many as of Saturday morning.

Officials in Tennessee said three people were killed: two in Lake County and one in Obion County, in the western part of the state.

In Arkansas, at least one person was killed at a nursing home in Monette, and another at a Dollar General store in nearby Leachville, according to Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

The precise number of people killed and injured was not yet known, and search-and-rescue operations were continuing in several places Saturday morning.

What’s the damage like?

Officials across the five-state area were still assessing the extent of the damage on Saturday morning. Local news reports and videos on social media showed crumbled buildings and downed trees across the storm’s path.

As of Saturday morning, about 140,000 homes were without power in Tennessee, 92,000 in Kentucky, 23,000 in Arkansas, nearly 16,000 in Illinois and 10,000 in Missouri, according to reports compiled by PowerOutage.us.

The storms also caused a freight train to derail, although no injuries were reported.

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In Bid for Control of Elections, Trump Loyalists Face Few Obstacles - The New York Times

“Donald Trump and a lot of folks in his orbit were frankly ahead of the curve when it came to raising funds and organizing behind candidates who backed the big lie,” said Miles Taylor, a former official in Mr. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security who this year helped to start the Renew America Movement, an organization supporting Republican and Democratic candidates running against Trump-backed Republicans.

Mr. Taylor said that while his group was now active in congressional races, it did not yet have the resources to compete against Trump-endorsed candidates in state contests. Nor was the Democratic Party capable of filling the void, he said: “In a lot of these places, Democrats have no hope of winning a statewide election, and all that matters is the primary.”

In other areas, Democrats are disadvantaged by pre-existing political losses. In 23 states, Republicans control both state legislatures and governors’ mansions. Democrats control both in only 15 states.

The legislatures that Republicans now control have in the past year become laboratories for legislation that would remove barriers that stood in the way of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 results. In seven states this year, lawmakers proposed bills that would have given partisan officials the ability to change election results in various ways. Although none passed, Republican-led legislatures in Arizona and in Georgia passed laws that directly removed various election oversight responsibilities from the secretaries of state — legislation that appeared to directly target specific officials who had been vilified by Mr. Trump.

“We’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Wendy Weiser, the vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, who co-wrote a recent report on the new state-level legislation.

Ms. Weiser and other advocates have called for federal legislation to head off such efforts. “We must have that in order to have a comprehensive response,” said Norm Eisen, co-chair of the States United Democracy Center. But with the Democrats most likely to lose one or both houses of Congress in the next two election cycles, the time to pass it is fleeting.

Several election and voting rights reform bills have foundered this year upon unified Republican opposition in a Senate where Democrats hold a one-vote majority. Ten Senate Republicans would need to break ranks in order to overcome the party’s filibuster of the legislation. Only one, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has voted for any of the bills so far.

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Forecasters Predict More Weekend Storms - The New York Times

As residents in at least five U.S. states assessed the damage on Saturday from a spree of powerful storms and tornadoes, forecasters warned of more inclement weather looming across the country.

Severe storms, tornadoes and damaging wind gusts were likely to occur from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Ohio Valley into Saturday, the National Weather Service said in an advisory at 3 a.m. Eastern time. It said the system would also produce heavy snow over the Upper Great Lakes and rain over parts of the Northeast.

At least five states were swept by tornadoes on Friday, including Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.

On Friday night, the Weather Service issued tornado warnings for several counties in eastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri. Forecasters said they expected that system to move into Ohio, eastern Kentucky and eastern Tennessee.

The National Weather Service office in Nashville said early Saturday that tornado warnings were in effect for several Tennessee counties, and that a “large and extremely dangerous tornado” was moving northeast at 60 miles per hour near over Kingston Springs, about 30 miles west of Nashville.

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Kentucky Declares State of Emergency Over Tornadoes - The New York Times

Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky declared a state of emergency on Friday as tornadoes unleashed death and destruction along a path extending more than 200 miles, a disaster that officials expect to emerge as one of the most devastating in the state’s history.

In the early hours of Saturday, Mr. Beshear said that at least 50 people were killed, and that the death toll was likely to increase to upward of 70 in the coming hours as the sun rises and the authorities across the state begin to get a firmer sense of the storms’ wrath.

“Daybreak is going to bring more tough news,” Mr. Beshear said at a briefing.

Already, rescuers in counties across the state had mobilized, contending with darkness, powerful wind and driving rain to try to find people trapped in collapsed houses and buildings.

Some of the worst destruction was centered in Mayfield, a town of nearly 10,000 people in the state’s western corner. At least 110 people were huddled inside a candle factory in the area when a tornado ripped through.

“We believe we’ll lose at least dozens of those individuals,” Mr. Beshear said.

About 60,000 people in the state were without power as of Saturday morning, according to PowerOutage.us, and officials said the storms’ devastation was likely to become some of the worst the state has endured.

The storms also caused a freight train to derail, although no injuries were reported.

The freight railroad company CSX said that initial reports, including from a police department in the city of Madisonville in western Kentucky, indicated that several rail cars on one of its trains had derailed after the train was stopped amid severe weather.

“There are no reported injuries to the crew,” Cindy Schild, a CSX spokeswoman, said in a statement after midnight. “CSX personnel are on route to the scene and will coordinate with local emergency responders to assess the situation.”

Michael E. Dossett, the director of the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management, said the number of storms could surpass the 1974 super outbreak of tornadoes. He also said that the length of one tornado’s track could rival that of the 1925 tornado outbreak that killed hundreds as it cut a path through Southern and Midwestern states.

“It is a significant, massive disaster event,” Mr. Dossett said.

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Biden Talks Vaccines and Bob Dole in Interview With Jimmy Fallon - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Biden made his first late-night show appearance since taking office on Friday, condemning partisanship in Congress and endorsing a song featuring the rapper Megan Thee Stallion to encourage Americans to get the Covid vaccine.

“Not a joke,” he said on “The Tonight Show” with the comedian Jimmy Fallon.

For Mr. Biden, who appeared virtually in the taped interview, his third appearance on the show amounted to a break from criticism over his declining poll numbers and a spike in inflation that last month accelerated at its fastest pace in 40 years. The president used the opportunity to celebrate the passage of his bipartisan infrastructure package, emphasize the importance of voting rights and encourage Americans to get their shots.

“The bottom line is that the way to avoid the virus is to get two shots and then get the booster shot,” Mr. Biden told Mr. Fallon. He added that if more people listened to the song that Mr. Fallon created with the singer Ariana Grande and Megan Thee Stallion, “It was a … Masked Christmas,” it would help combat vaccine hesitancy.

Mr. Biden shared a link to the song on Twitter earlier on Friday with the message, “’Tis the season (to get boosted).”

“It is really important,” Mr. Biden said of the booster shots, noting that teenagers and young people were now eligible to be vaccinated. “We’re moving, we’re moving.”

Mr. Biden also took the opportunity to take a slight shot at the partisan divisions that have become the norm in Congress, after Mr. Fallon said that he saw Democrats and Republicans cordially socializing at the 44th Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday.

“I saw Republicans and Democrats in the crowd — everyone’s laughing at jokes and listening to great music, and everyone seemed cordial and nice and I go, This seems like it should be much easier to get along with everybody,” Mr. Fallon said.

Mr. Biden then noted a reason he was tardy for his taped interview was because he was at the funeral of former Senator Bob Dole, a former Republican presidential nominee who the president eulogized earlier in the day as a blunt leader willing to work across the aisle.

“He asked me on his deathbed whether I would do his eulogy,” Mr. Biden said. “We’re friends. We disagree, but we’re friends. We used to have an awful lot of that relationship and it still exists.”

The president then said the extremist views displayed by some members of the Republican Party had eroded some of that bipartisanship.

Mr. Biden has appeared on Mr. Fallon’s show twice before, both in September 2016, toward the end of his time as vice president and again in 2020, in an interview that took on a much more serious tone during the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Biden, who as president will often add emphasis during his speeches or interviews with mentions of “That’s not hyperbole” and “It’s not a joke,” has shown a willingness to joke around a bit on late-night shows.

Mr. Biden told Mr. Fallon how his family was not used to having every meal made for them in the White House and that he reached an agreement with “the guys who run the kitchen” that the first family would make breakfast for themselves.

“You make your own eggs?” Mr. Fallon asked.

“Well, I don’t — Jill does,” Mr. Biden said, referring to the first lady of the United States.

Mr. Biden also foreshadowed some of his forthcoming goals during the appearance on the show. When asked what he hoped he would be talking about this time next year, he said he hoped he would be celebrating his administration getting the pandemic under control, even as the rise of the Delta variant this summer factored into his dwindling approval ratings. He added that he was focused on putting in effect more measures to combat climate change.

And Mr. Biden said that he hoped to pass legislation that would preserve the right to vote, something he acknowledged during a CNN town hall in October that had not received his full attention while he tried to secure enough votes to pass his infrastructure and social spending packages.

Mr. Biden said the Republican attempts to restrict voting rights in more than a dozen states was “literally un-American.”

Mr. Fallon has issued playful jabs at Mr. Biden on his show as recently as last week, when the host played a clip of the president delivering the jobs report through a hoarse voice.

“There he is, President Groot,” Mr. Fallon told his audience, referencing the beloved extraterrestrial tree alien from the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films.

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Republicans in Texas County, in Unusual Move, Upend Primary System - The New York Times

Mr. Rogers, when asked if the election results nationally were valid, responded, “I don’t have any idea and that’s the problem — I don’t know if it was accurate or not.”

Under state law, the county elections board will still be responsible for absentee and early voting, which a majority of voters in Texas use to cast their ballots. But the two systems, experts said, could complicate the process and make it easier for voters to cast ballots twice.

“It opens the door wide to fraud,” Dr. Jones said. “It doesn’t close the door to fraud.”

The legal office of the Texas secretary of state, who oversees elections in the state and who was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, raised several concerns about the move.

“Any time that a party conducts their own election rather than contracting with a county, it is more confusing to voters,” said Sam Taylor, the assistant secretary of state for communications. Still, he added that “ultimately it’s their decision to go at it alone.”

One risk, Mr. Taylor said, is that candidates in contested races could file election challenges to prompt a court to order a new primary election. “It’s not unprecedented,” he said. “But county parties usually do not invite that opportunity upon themselves.”

“They have every legal right to do so,” he added. “We can’t really intervene.”

Melynn Huntley, the Potter County elections administrator, said that she had been taken aback by Mr. Rogers’s decision and that she was most worried about the potential to make it easier to vote twice.

“The biggest worry I have is that those two systems will not talk with each other,” Ms. Huntley said. “His desire is to eliminate fraud, but there is a vulnerability in the plan. I am concerned whether this can function with high integrity.”

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Mr. Meadows remains in a legal battle with the Jan. 6 committee, which is moving forward with holding him in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for a scheduled deposition or to turn over documents he believes could violate Mr. Trump’s assertions of executive privilege. Mr. Trump has filed suit claiming he still has the power to keep White House documents secret, an assertion several courts have rejected, though the case appears headed for the Supreme Court.

Mr. Meadows has responded by filing suit in an attempt to persuade a federal judge to block the committee’s subpoenas. His lawsuit accuses the committee of issuing “two overly broad and unduly burdensome subpoenas” against him, including one sent to Verizon for his phone and text-message data.

Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, has cited the 38-page PowerPoint as among the reasons he wants to question Mr. Meadows under oath.

Before coming to loggerheads with the panel, Mr. Meadows had provided some useful information to the committee, including a November email that discussed appointing an alternate slate of electors to keep Mr. Trump in power and a Jan. 5 message about putting the National Guard on standby. Mr. Meadows also turned over his text messages with a member of Congress in which the lawmaker acknowledged that a plan to object to Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory would be “highly controversial,” to which Mr. Meadows responded, “I love it.”

The Trump Investigations

Card 1 of 6

Numerous inquiries Since former President Donald Trump left office, there have been many investigations and inquiries into his businesses and personal affairs. Here’s a list of those ongoing:

Investigation into insurance fraud. The Manhattan district attorney’s office and the New York attorney general’s office are investigating whether Mr. Trump or his family business, the Trump Organization, engaged in criminal fraud by intentionally submitting false property values to potential lenders.

But Mr. Meadows also informed the committee that he had turned in the cellphone he used on Jan. 6 to his service provider, and that he was withholding some 1,000 text messages connected with the device.

In December, after Mr. Pulitzer testified before the Georgia State Senate and claimed to have “hacked” the state’s voting system, Georgia’s secretary of state issued a news release calling him a “failed treasure hunter” who had “provided no evidence.”

Mr. Pulitzer did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Waldron was featured in a film by Mike Lindell, the embattled chief executive of MyPillow who helped finance Mr. Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results. In the film, Mr. Waldron pushed the unfounded claim that the Chinese government had access to files and data through voting machines. He also claimed that overseas servers in Germany, Spain and Britain somehow played a role in manipulating results.

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Iran’s Nuclear Program Ignites New Tension Between U.S. and Israel - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Long-running differences over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program have erupted into new tensions between the Biden administration and Israel, with two senior Israeli officials leaving Washington this week concerned that the Americans’ commitment to restoring the 2015 nuclear deal will lead to a flawed agreement allowing Tehran to speed ahead with its nuclear enrichment program.

The strains were evident all week, as the Biden administration sought to bring the alliance with Israel into a united front about how to deal with Iran over the next year.

In an effort to close the gap, American officials let out word this week that two months ago, Mr. Biden asked his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, to review the Pentagon’s revised plan to take military action if the diplomatic effort collapsed. Administration officials also outlined new efforts to tighten, rather than loosen, sanctions on Iran.

Mr. Biden’s focus on military options and sanctions was an effort to signal to Tehran that the United States was running out of patience with Iranian foot-dragging in the nuclear negotiations in Vienna, administration officials said. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said last week that the new Iranian government “does not seem to be serious about doing what’s necessary to return to compliance” with the 2015 nuclear deal.

But the tougher line was also aimed at calming increasingly frustrated Israeli officials. Though they will not criticize the American president in public the way former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did during the Obama administration, Israeli officials in private argue that the Iranians are advancing their nuclear program while betting that the United States, eager to diminish American commitments in the Middle East, will not abandon the Vienna talks for more forceful action.

This article is based on discussions with more than a dozen American and Israeli officials who spoke on the condition they be granted anonymity to discuss both sensitive matters of diplomacy and classified intelligence assessments.

After a tense phone call with Mr. Blinken 10 days ago, the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, dispatched his defense minister, Benny Gantz, and the new head of the Mossad, David Barnea, to Washington this week armed with new intelligence about Iranians’ uranium enrichment and the work of what Israel says is their weapons group. Despite the tougher American talk, Israeli officials left worried that the diplomatic outreach to Iran would continue.

The disagreement over Iran is just one of several issues troubling the Biden-Bennett relationship. The pair started off on a strong footing: Mr. Biden spoke with Mr. Bennett within hours after the Israeli leader took office in June — a signal of support given that Mr. Biden had taken weeks after his inauguration to speak directly with Mr. Bennett’s predecessor, Mr. Netanyahu.

But the two governments have since clashed on whether the U.S. should reopen the American consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which was closed by President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Bennett says such a move would undermine Israel’s sovereignty in its capital city.

There are also disagreements over Israeli plans to expand its settlements in the occupied West Bank, and over the Biden administration’s decision to blacklist two Israeli spyware firms, NSO Group and Candiru, whose products, the U.S. alleges, have been used by authoritarian governments to hack the phones of dissidents and rights activists.

But at the heart of the tensions between Israel and the United States is the fundamental disagreement over how to stop the Iranian program. It is not a new argument: The two allies fought bitterly over the 2015 agreement, which Israel opposed and President Barack Obama signed.

More recently, they have disagreed about the wisdom of Israeli sabotage of Iranian facilities, which Mr. Bennett’s government believes has set back the program, and which some in the United States argue only encourages the Iranians to build back the nuclear enrichment facilities with more efficient, up-to-date equipment.

Israeli officials had been happy with the warm welcome the White House offered Mr. Bennett. The Biden administration had praised his government for being far more transparent with it than Mr. Netanyahu had been. Indeed, the Israelis consulted with the Americans before launching two covert strikes against Iran, one in September against a missile base and one in June against an Iranian factory building nuclear centrifuges, according to people briefed on the actions.

But the call between Mr. Bennett and Mr. Blinken last week was contentious, with the two sides embracing very different opinions about the value of a renewed agreement to check Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. The call left officials in both countries frustrated, according to officials from both countries.

During the phone call, Mr. Bennett said that Iran was trying to blackmail the United States by increasing the enrichment percentage, according to an official familiar with details of the call. Mr. Bennett added that no official, American or Israeli, wants to be the one to report that Iran has reached bomb-grade enrichment, but fears of a nuclear-armed Iran should not lead to surrendering to Iranian demands or signing a reckless agreement.

Some American officials believe those concerns about concessions are misplaced. Israeli officials had complained that the United States was considering offering an interim deal with Tehran that would roll back some sanctions in return for a freeze on some of its nuclear activity. But American officials say such an offer is not actively being considered, at least for now, because of Iran’s unwillingness to engage.

Israeli officials have not been reassured. They are increasingly concerned that the United States will eventually reach a deal with Tehran and then seek to block Israeli intelligence services from carrying out covert sabotage attacks. Israeli leaders say they want a guarantee from the Biden administration that Washington will not seek to restrain their sabotage campaign, even if a renewed nuclear deal is reached.

Disagreements over intelligence assessments about the Iranian nuclear stockpile and bomb-making know-how remain relatively small, mostly focused on how long it would take Iranians to produce a weapon if they get enough bomb-grade nuclear fuel.

But the gulf about the meaning of those assessments is wide. American officials believe that so long as Iran has not moved to develop a bomb it does not have a nuclear military program, since it suspended the existing one after 2003. Israeli officials, on the other hand, believe that Iran has continued a clandestine effort to build a bomb since 2003.

Some Israeli officials believe that the sabotage campaign is having strategic effects and could be one of the reasons Iranians, however tentatively, have returned to Vienna. A senior Israeli intelligence official said the sabotage operations had created crippling paranoia at the top of the Iranian government. The operations, the official said, have caused Tehran to rethink whether it should accelerate the nuclear project.

But even American supporters of the Israeli approach say it is akin to “mowing the grass,” a necessary step to keep Iran in check but not one that will ever fully halt Tehran’s nuclear research. These American officials believe that the only durable way to prevent Iran from developing a weapon is to reach an agreement, like the one in 2015, that requires Iran to ship its nuclear fuel out of the country. And that would require significant sanctions relief in return.

In the meetings this week, Israeli officials tried to persuade Washington not to work toward a diplomatic agreement and to instead tighten sanctions. But Israeli officials say they fear that the U.S. is conducing secret back-channel communication with Iran, and that a new round of talks in Vienna will eventually lead to the signing of a deal.

The meetings came against the backdrop of a recent Iranian attack on American forces in Syria, a senior American official said. The Israelis, the official said, had an aggressive attitude on the Iranian threat, related to both the nuclear program and the risk of missile and other weapon proliferation.

But there is a growing American concern that it is just a matter of time before an American service member is killed or wounded by an Iranian proxy drone strike on Mr. Biden’s watch. With Iran making clear it will retaliate against American personnel in Syria or Iraq if Israel strikes Iran or its proxies, it complicates strike planning.

In an appearance at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council on Monday, William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, raised concerns about the Iranian nuclear work. He said the Iranians were “dragging their feet” on negotiations as they were “making steady advances in their nuclear program, particularly enrichment to 60 percent now as well.” That is the closest the Iranians have ever come to bomb-grade fuel, which is usually defined as 90 percent purity.

But, Mr. Burns added, the United States continues to believe that Iran has not made a decision to weaponize its nuclear program.

Patrick Kingsley contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

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Self-Proclaimed Proud Boys Member Gets 10 Years for Violence at Portland Protests - The New York Times

A self-professed member of the Proud Boys from Texas who traveled to Portland, Ore., to confront protesters there last year was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison for shooting a man in the eye with a paintball gun, spraying people in the face with bear mace and aiming a loaded handgun at a crowd, prosecutors said.

The Texas man, Alan Swinney, 51, was a “white nationalist vigilante cowboy,” who went to Portland to engage in political violence during protests there in the summer of 2020, prosecutors said.

In social media posts, he made threats against “the left” and “antifa,” prosecutors said, and he tried to recruit people to form a militia to fight in what he believed was a civil war.

Mr. Swinney, who appeared at several demonstrations in the Northwest, became a “known entity” in Portland, as he instigated and committed violent acts under the banner of free speech and pro-police sentiments, prosecutors said.

On two days — Aug. 15, 2020, and Aug. 22, 2020 — he led a small group of like-minded people and engaged in multiple acts of violence during demonstrations stemming from the murder of George Floyd, prosecutors said.

Mr. Swinney caused a serious eye injury by shooting a man in the face with a paintball gun, and he discharged bear mace on multiple occasions — spraying some people directly in the face — and aimed a loaded Ruger .357 magnum handgun at a crowd, prosecutors said. He also shot people with paintballs, prosecutors said.

In October, after a six-day trial, a Multnomah County jury found Mr. Swinney guilty of 11 criminal charges, including second-degree assault, fourth-degree assault and unlawful use of a weapon with a firearm, prosecutors said.

Mr. Swinney’s lawyer, Joseph Westover, did not immediately respond on Friday to phone and email messages seeking comment.

During the trial, Mr. Westover argued that Mr. Swinney had been defending himself against “agitators” who were harassing him and that he saw himself as a “protector” who came to Portland to stand between demonstrators clad in black causing mayhem and “Back the Blue” protesters, The Oregonian reported.

In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors argued that letters, social media statements and testimony from Mr. Swinney showed that he had “no remorse for his actions, no desire to change and every intention of engaging in future acts of violence.”

“During the trial, he quickly labeled all of the people that opposed him as terrorists, he expressed joy for those that were hurt, bragged about his actions, and strongly asserted that he would do it all over again if given the chance,” prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors included in the memorandum a letter that Mr. Swinney had written to Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was sentenced in June to 22 and a half years in prison for murdering Mr. Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes as he pleaded for air.

“Our country has too many George Floyds in it,” Mr. Swinney wrote. “It’s time to clean house.”

Prosecutors said that Mr. Swinney had called himself a “patriot” and that he was a self-professed member of the Proud Boys, the far-right group notorious for engaging in brawls.

The group has come under scrutiny as federal agents try to determine to what extent its leaders planned the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters temporarily disrupted the certification of the presidential election results.

In August, the group’s leader, Enrique Tarrio, was sentenced to five months in jail for possessing high-capacity rifle magazines a few days before the siege and for burning a stolen Black Lives Matter banner in Washington, D.C., after a Trump rally descended into violence in December 2020.

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Echoing Trump, David Perdue Sues Over Baseless Election Claims - The New York Times

Former Senator David Perdue of Georgia, a Republican who is running for governor with the backing of former President Donald J. Trump, filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking the inspection of absentee ballots in the 2020 election, reviving long-debunked claims in the latest sign that Mr. Trump’s election grievances will be central to his candidacy.

The lawsuit draws on Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud in Georgia and across the country, which culminated in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. In the months since, many Republican elected officials have pivoted from rebuking election conspiracy theories to embracing them vocally in an effort to win the affections of Mr. Trump and his supporters.

Mr. Perdue, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump soon after announcing his candidacy on Monday, is running against Gov. Brian Kemp, a fellow Republican who is a staunch conservative but has come under withering attacks from the former president and his allies over Mr. Kemp’s unwillingness to help them overturn President Biden’s victory in Georgia. Mr. Perdue told news outlets this week that he would not have certified the results if he had been governor instead of Mr. Kemp.

Republicans in states across the country have continued to cast doubt on the 2020 election’s legitimacy by trying to carry out partisan reviews of the results, which they often misleadingly label “audits” to lend them a greater sense of authority. G.O.P. lawmakers in at least five states are pursuing reviews, and Republicans in states including Oklahoma, Tennessee and Florida have introduced bills to begin new ones next year.

Mr. Perdue’s suit, which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier reported and which was filed in the Superior Court of Fulton County, argues that through unlawful “acts and omissions,” election officials in Fulton, the state’s most populous county and a major source of Democratic votes, “circumvented the majority vote of the people of the State of Georgia and thereby affected the outcome of the statewide General Election on Nov. 3, 2020 in several races.”

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In the complaint, Mr. Perdue names a county election official and workers underneath him, claiming that they “negligently, grossly negligently or intentionally engaged in and/or permitted multiple unlawful election acts.”

“David Perdue wants to use his position and legal standing to shine light on what he knows were serious violations of Georgia law in the Fulton absentee ballot tabulation,” Bob Cheeley, a lawyer for the candidate, told The Journal-Constitution.

Georgia election officials have reviewed the 2020 results three times and have come to the same conclusion: Mr. Biden won the state, narrowly but decisively.

Mr. Perdue lost his re-election bid in January to Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat.

The legal effort by Mr. Perdue follows a similar lawsuit this year by a group of voters led by a known conspiracy theorist. That case, which sought to inspect all 147,000 absentee ballots in Fulton County, was thrown out after Judge Brian Amero of Henry County Superior Court ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing and could not show any specific injury or harm.

Mr. Perdue’s lawsuit could work around at least part of Judge Amero’s ruling, because he was a candidate in the 2020 elections.

Several Republicans in Georgia criticized the suit.

“David Perdue is so concerned about election fraud that he waited a year to file a lawsuit that conveniently coincided with his disastrous campaign launch,” Cody Hall, a spokesman for Governor Kemp’s campaign, said. “Keep in mind that lawsuit after lawsuit regarding the 2020 election was dismissed in part because Perdue declined to be listed as a plaintiff.”

Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state — who, like Mr. Kemp, has come under attack from fellow Republicans for resisting Mr. Trump’s election pressure — said in a statement: “Fake Trumpers like Perdue are trying to curry favor with the Trump base by pushing election conspiracy theories that everyone — including the voters they are hoping to attract — knows they don’t really believe.”

Georgia continues to be a hub of litigation and national attention over elections and voting rights. Two election workers in the state filed a defamation lawsuit last week against Gateway Pundit, a right-wing news outlet that falsely claimed they had manipulated ballots. On Friday, Reuters reported that one of the workers said she had been pressured by a publicist for Kanye West, the rapper who ran for president and previously supported Mr. Trump, to acknowledge manipulating votes.

The Georgia Democratic Party, whose likely nominee for governor, Stacey Abrams, announced her campaign last week, reveled in the high-profile clash of Republicans and sought to lump them together.

“It is reprehensible that David Perdue is peddling those same dangerous lies in a sad ploy for attention,” the party said in a statement. “From David Perdue’s frivolous lawsuit to Brian Kemp’s voter suppression laws — both based on the same fabricated lies — nobody who sows distrust in our free and fair elections deserves to lead our state.”

Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.

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Vaccines, year two

On Dec. 14., 2020, a nurse in New York City became the first person in the U.S. to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. This week, the country crossed another important milestone: More than 200 million Americans are now fully inoculated. Today, a year into the vaccine campaign, I’ll take a look at how it’s going.

The U.S. made significant strides in 2021, even as it dealt with misinformation, deep-rooted skepticism and powerful new variants. Overall, about 60 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated. Among people 65 and older, the most vulnerable population, that figure is more than 87 percent.

“Those are really good things,” my colleague Danielle Ivory, an investigative reporter for The Times who has tracked the vaccine rollout, said. “Remember that last year around this time, when the vaccine first became available, there was such a small supply that only a small number of people in the country were eligible.”

These days, providers are administering about 1.92 million doses per day on average, including booster shots. The daily rate had been steadily climbing since the government widened eligibility, and it has jumped since Thanksgiving, when the Omicron variant was discovered.

But the pace of vaccinations varies wildly across the country, and there are a number of counties, many in the South and West, where less than 30 percent of the population is fully inoculated. The U.S. also lags behind 50 other countries, many of which have inoculated over 80 percent of their populations.

There are lots of reasons people are not getting shots. Surveys indicate that some are adamant in their refusal of the vaccines, while others are open to immunization but have been putting it off, or want to wait and see before making a decision.

The first group tends to be disproportionately white, rural, evangelical Christian and politically conservative. The second group tends to be more diverse, including many younger people, Black and Latino Americans, and Democrats. Health officials have made progress in inoculating that group, but surveys suggest that it accounts for less than half of all unvaccinated adults in the U.S.

As the country comes to terms with the size of the anti-vaccine population, the goal posts are also moving. At the start of the pandemic, experts estimated that to reach the threshold of herd immunity, 60 to 70 percent of the population would need to be fully vaccinated. But with stronger variants emerging, experts now put that number at 90 percent or higher.

Will the U.S. ever get there? A number of factors will determine the country’s success, including the pace of new vaccinations and how many people are granted immunity based on an infection.

The projection below, based on the current rate of newly vaccinated people, provides a rough indication of when the virus’s spread could begin to stall.

Many epidemiologists aren’t sure that achieving such a high rate is possible.

“Unfortunately, I think herd immunity is a pretty elusive goal,” Danielle said. “So, short of that, as new variants emerge, policymakers may need to think beyond vaccination and consider other ways of trying to mitigate the virus.”

Omicron is also a wild card. If new variants lower the effectiveness of vaccines, boosters may be necessary to control the pandemic. The U.S. is averaging over 120,000 cases per day, with more than 55,000 patients hospitalized nationwide as we head into the colder months, when transmission is supercharged.

Exemption skepticism: A new survey found that about 60 percent of Americans were critical of religious exemptions to Covid vaccines.

The U.K.’s Omicron wave

Britain has been a bellwether for other wealthy Western countries during the pandemic, and the same may be true for its experience with the new variant.

Cases of Omicron are doubling there every three days, and as my colleague Megan Specia reports, the country is bracing for a new coronavirus surge. So far, officials are unsure if it will be a relatively minor event or a return to the dark days of earlier pandemic waves.

Britain has one of the world’s most robust systems for sequencing viral genomes, so it can identify and track new variants earlier and more thoroughly than other countries can. The country’s Health Security Agency released new data on Wednesday that it said “suggests that Omicron is displaying a significant growth advantage over Delta.” The agency warned that if the recent growth rate continues, the country expects “to see at least 50 percent of Covid-19 cases to be caused by the Omicron variant in the next two to four weeks.”

Worryingly, the data also showed increased household transmission risk, a key indicator of how fast the variant can spread.

In response to Omicron, Britain reversed course on some restrictions this week, urging people to work from home when possible, introducing new mask rules and requiring people to show vaccine passports at some venues.

Restriction reservations: The variant is bringing new worries to British businesses.

Answers to your Omicron questions

Today’s question was answered by Heather Murphy, who covers travel for The Times. (If you have a question, you can fill out this form.)

I am triple-vaccinated and don’t have underlying health conditions. With the new variant, should I cancel my strictly-for-fun international holiday travel plans? — Allison, California

It depends where you’re going and what you have planned for the first couple weeks after you’re scheduled to return. You need to be aware that you’ll have to show a negative coronavirus test to fly back to the U.S. Even if you’re careful, there’s always the chance that you end up infected. Particularly in areas with low vaccination or high infection rates, you’ll want to be cautious about indoor gatherings. Because even if you don’t have any symptoms, if you test positive you won’t be able to fly home right away. In some countries you’ll be required to quarantine for more than a week in a government-approved facility. In others, you’ll just need to isolate at a location of your choosing until you get a negative test. Either way, you may want to buy travel insurance and bring your laptop if you’re allowed to work remotely.

Traveling abroad? Here is the essential paperwork you need to have in your bag.

What else we’re following

What you’re doing

When the governor of New Mexico first shut us down in March 2020, people kept calling me and asking if I was OK. “I’m fine,” I said, “I am an anxious, antisocial, agoraphobic widow. This is my life.” I bought myself some very elegant pajamas and sat on my couch with my two dogs and watched movies. Heaven. This summer things began to open up, and life is beautiful here. I am vaccinated and have had a third shot as I take immunosuppressive drugs. I go wherever I want, do whatever I want and wear a mask.

— Georgellen Burnett, Santa Fe

Let us know how you’re dealing with the pandemic. Send us a response here, and we may feature it in an upcoming newsletter.

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Email your thoughts to briefing@nytimes.com.

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WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued six new subpoenas on Friday, digging deeper into the rallies that preceded the mob violence and organizers’ meetings with President Donald J. Trump.

Those issued subpoenas Friday included Robert “Bobby” Peede Jr., a former director of the White House advance team and Max Miller, a former Trump White House aide, who both met with Mr. Trump in his private dining room by the Oval Office on Jan. 4 to discuss the rally planned for two days later at the Ellipse, a park just south of the White House; and Brian Jack, Mr. Trump’s former political affairs director who reached out to several members of Congress to ask them to speak at the Jan. 6 rally. (Mr. Jack is currently the political director for Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader.)

Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, accepted Mr. Jack’s invitation, the committee said. At the rally, Mr. Brooks wore body armor onstage as he told the crowd to “start taking down names and kicking ass.”

“Some of the witnesses we subpoenaed today apparently worked to stage the rallies on Jan. 5 and 6, and some appeared to have had direct communication with the former president regarding the rally at the Ellipse directly preceding the attack on the U.S. Capitol,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, said in a statement. “The select committee expects these witnesses to join the hundreds of individuals who have already cooperated with our investigation as we work to provide the American people with answers about what happened on Jan. 6 and ensure nothing like that day ever happens again.”

The committee also issued subpoenas for Bryan Lewis, who obtained a permit for a rally outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 to “urge Congress to nullify electoral votes from states that made illegal changes to voting rules during their elections”; and Ed Martin, an organizer of the Stop the Steal movement who the committee said was involved in the planning and financing of the rally immediately before the attack.

Understand the U.S. Capitol Riot

On Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.

The committee said Mr. Martin worked closely with Ali Alexander, a prominent organizer of Stop the Steal rallies around the country who has ties to far-right members of Congress. Mr. Alexander is cooperating with committee, delivering a trove of documents that could shed light on the activities preceding the attack. At Stop the Steal events in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, he repeatedly referred to the possible use of violence to achieve his organization’s goals, including leading a crowd in Washington on Jan. 5 in a chant of “victory or death.” He claimed to have been in communication with the White House and members of Congress about events planned to undermine Congress’s official count of the Electoral College results.

The panel also issued a subpoena to Kimberly Fletcher and her organization, Moms for America, which helped organize a Jan. 5 rally at Freedom Plaza and the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse supporting Mr. Trump’s false allegations of election fraud.

The subpoenas call for the witnesses to produce documents this month and to sit for depositions in January.

Mr. Miller, who is now running for Congress in Ohio, said he would accept the subpoena, but that he would vote to disband the committee if he was elected next year.

“Upon taking office, I will make sure one of my first votes is to disband this partisan committee that has weaponized its powers against innocent Americans. Ohioans are tired of watching D.C.’s witch hunts and political theater while the country burns,” he wrote on Twitter. “Sadly, it’s the only card the Democrats can play, because their policies are destroying our nation.”

Understand the Claim of Executive Privilege in the Jan. 6. Inquiry

Card 1 of 8

A key issue yet untested. Donald Trump’s power as former president to keep information from his White House secret has become a central issue in the House’s investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Amid an attempt by Mr. Trump to keep personal records secret and the indictment of Stephen K. Bannon for contempt of Congress, here’s a breakdown of executive privilege:

What is executive privilege? It is a power claimed by presidents under the Constitution to prevent the other two branches of government from gaining access to certain internal executive branch information, especially confidential communications involving the president or among his top aides.

What is Trump’s claim? Former President Trump has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the disclosure of White House files related to his actions and communications surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. He argues that these matters must remain a secret as a matter of executive privilege.

Is Trump’s privilege claim valid? The constitutional line between a president’s secrecy powers and Congress’s investigative authority is hazy. Though a judge rejected Mr. Trump’s bid to keep his papers secret, it is likely that the case will ultimately be resolved by the Supreme Court.

Is executive privilege an absolute power? No. Even a legitimate claim of executive privilege may not always prevail in court. During the Watergate scandal in 1974, the Supreme Court upheld an order requiring President Richard M. Nixon to turn over his Oval Office tapes.

May ex-presidents invoke executive privilege? Yes, but courts may view their claims with less deference than those of current presidents. In 1977, the Supreme Court said Nixon could make a claim of executive privilege even though he was out of office, though the court ultimately ruled against him in the case.

Is Steve Bannon covered by executive privilege? This is unclear. Mr. Bannon’s case could raise the novel legal question of whether or how far a claim of executive privilege may extend to communications between a president and an informal adviser outside of the government.

What is contempt of Congress? It is a sanction imposed on people who defy congressional subpoenas. Congress can refer contempt citations to the Justice Department and ask for criminal charges. Mr. Bannon has been indicted on contempt charges for refusing to comply with a subpoena that seeks documents and testimony.

The committee has already interviewed nearly 300 witnesses, including four on Thursday, but has voted twice to find uncooperative allies of the former president in contempt. This week, the panel announced it would vote on Monday to recommend Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former chief of staff, be found in criminal contempt of Congress for defying its subpoena.

Among the witnesses interviewed on Thursday in a nondescript federal office building in Washington were Mr. Alexander, who has sought to shift the blame for the mob violence onto others; and Kash Patel, a former Pentagon chief of staff who was involved in discussions about Capitol security and in constant contact with Mr. Meadows the day of the assault.

“We’ve provided the committee with thousands of records,” Mr. Alexander said. “I’m going to go in there and cooperate where I can. Where I can’t, I’ll invoke my constitutional rights. But we’ve got tons of evidence for them.”

He claimed the evidence he was providing to the committee “exonerates” himself, members of Congress and Mr. Trump of playing any role in the violence.

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Biden Eulogizes Dole as ‘Genuine Hero’ Who ‘Lived by a Code of Honor’ - The New York Times

“We disagreed, but we were never disagreeable with one another,” said Mr. Biden, who came to the Senate in 1973, four years after Mr. Dole arrived, and served with him for 23 years. “I found Bob to be a man of principle, pragmatism and enormous integrity,” Mr. Biden said. “He came into the arena with certain guiding principles to begin with: devotion to country, to fair play, to decency, to dignity, to honor, to literally attempting to find the common good.”

But Mr. Dole was also a Republican to the core, and fiercely partisan at times. He was the only living former Republican presidential nominee who publicly supported Donald Trump in his general election campaign.

While Mr. Dole retired from the Senate after 27 years in 1996, the year he became his party’s presidential nominee, he has remained a presence across a broad cross-section of cultural spaces. This included his enthusiastic — and lucrative — willingness to serve as a pitchman for products such as Visa, Dunkin’ Donuts and, most notably, Viagra, the erectile dysfunction drug, which invited a fair share of squeamishness at the time.

“Any second thoughts I may have entertained,” Mr. Dole wrote in a 2012 Washington Post opinion piece, briefly addressing his Viagra association, “were put to rest by a couple of wives who approached me in airports to say, simply, ‘Thank you, Senator.’”

In his remarks, Mr. Biden recalled traveling to Normandy with Mr. Dole for the 50th anniversary of D-Day. He told the audience a story of Mr. Dole helping a “fallen comrade” as they took on gunfire.

“There’s something that connects that past and present,” Mr. Biden said. “Wartime and peace. Then and now. The courage, the grit, the goodness and the grace of a second lieutenant named Bob Dole who became Congressman Dole, Senator Dole; a statesman, husband, father, friend.”

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Scuba-Diving YouTuber Finds Car Linked to Teens Missing Since 2000 - The New York Times

A YouTuber who uses underwater sonar equipment to investigate missing persons cases found a car belonging to two Tennessee teenagers who have been missing for 21 years, potentially bringing an end to the cold case.

It is at least the fourth time since late October that people who investigate cold cases on YouTube have dived and found a submerged vehicle belonging to a missing person.

The teenagers, Erin Foster and Jeremy Bechtel, both of Sparta, Tenn., were last seen on April 3, 2000, leaving Erin’s home in her 1988 Pontiac Grand Am.

Late last month, Jeremy Sides, 42, who runs the YouTube account Exploring With Nug, searched nearby lakes for a few days before turning his attention to Calfkiller River. Shortly before nightfall on Nov. 30, his sonar device showed that his boat was floating above a car-shaped object. He spent the night in his van, then dived to identify the car’s make and license plate number first thing the next morning. It was a match for Erin’s missing Pontiac.

Mr. Sides documented the discovery in a 20-minute YouTube video that includes his phone call to Steve Page, the sheriff of White County, to report the findings. In the video, the sheriff meets Mr. Sides at the site and expresses his thanks: “You just became White County’s hero.”

In a brief telephone interview, the sheriff said that divers recovered human remains on Thursday but that they had not been positively identified. “We do believe it’s them,” Sheriff Page said on Friday. “We found articles that came out of the car and was in the water that leads us to believe it’s them.”

Jeremy Bechtel’s father, Ron Bechtel, said that although the investigation was continuing, the authorities told him that they now thought Jeremy and Erin, who were 17 and 18, had been in a car accident.

“It was like losing him all over again,” Mr. Bechtel said in an interview on Thursday. “We kind of had just had a thin bit of hope that he was still alive.”

Mr. Bechtel, 57, said his son was a well-mannered teenager who loved rap music and “had a kind soul and a big heart.” Jeremy’s mother, Rhonda Ledbetter, died three years ago from cancer.

After the car was discovered, friends of Jeremy’s and Erin’s families created online fund-raisers to help cover funeral costs.

A Facebook page dedicated to the search for the teenagers included photos of the riverbank near where the car was discovered with a fresh bouquet of flowers and a plaque reading “E & J Gone Home.”

Mr. Sides said that the number of divers investigating cold cases was growing and that over the past two months there had been a particularly high rate of discoveries.

Earlier in November, Mr. Sides found a car associated with a woman who had been missing since 2005, an hour away from Sparta, in Oakridge, Tenn. Also in November, a YouTube group called Chaos Divers reportedly found a car belonging to a couple from Ohio who had been missing for three and a half years.

In late October, another YouTube group, Adventures With Purpose, found a body in a submerged vehicle in Texas. Mr. Sides assisted on that search.

Mr. Sides, who dives full time, said that money from YouTube, merchandise sales and donations paid for his expeditions, which require a boat, portable sonar equipment and diving gear. Diving in rivers and lakes is substantially different from ocean diving, he said.

“It’s fun, but it’s definitely a claustrophobic feeling, because you can’t really see much more than two to three feet in front of your face,” Mr. Sides said. “It freaks some people out pretty good.”

Mr. Sides’s investigations begin on the Charley Project, an online database of missing persons cases. He reads through postings on the site and looks for cases in which a missing person was last seen in a car in an area with large bodies of water. He also looks up online memorials for more clues and potential contacts.

Mr. Sides said “he was a mixture of all the emotions you can think of” when he found Erin’s car.

“I was sad, then overwhelmed,” Mr. Sides said. “At the end of the day I was joyful that I could bring closure to so many.”

Michelle Jeanis, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette whose research focuses on missing persons, said that grass-roots search efforts had always played an “integral role” in resolving such cases. This is in part because police agencies often lack the resources or are unwilling to dedicate resources to older cold cases, she added.

“Generally, people are frustrated with the lack of progress police make, and so we get these organizations as a result of that,” Dr. Jeanis said.

She said the risk is that “armchair detectives” get caught up in the case and sensationalize it, which could harm the investigation by, for instance, overwhelming the police with tips that they start to ignore. She also said that inexperienced divers exploring rivers and lakes to investigate a case could be putting themselves in danger.

Michael Alcazar, a retired detective with the New York Police Department, said he was concerned that amateur sleuths could tamper with important evidence, but in a cold case such as the Tennessee disappearances, it could be helpful to have outsiders assist.

“Sometimes these agencies, especially the smaller agencies, they just don’t have the manpower, and maybe the cases have gone cold and they can’t continue the investigation,” Mr. Alcazar said. “Especially something as old as this case, it’s probably just sitting in a file cabinet.”

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Business

- What Is the Perfect Date to Bring Workers Back to the Office?

- Your Guide to the New Language of the Office

- Congress, Far From ‘a Series of Tubes,’ Is Still Nowhere Near Reining In Tech

- You’re Going to Work a Long Time. Here’s How to Build in Breaks.

- The Game Awards Returns With Glitz and an Industry Asserting Its Muscle

- How Bank Regulators Are Trying to Oust a Trump Holdover

- Elon Musk’s Latest Innovation: Troll Philanthropy

- On Opioids, Why Are Lawyers Doing the Work of Lawmakers?

- GM’s EV Efforts Reportedly Include a Bigger Michigan Presence

- Jeff Bezos Is Getting Astronaut Wings. But Soon, the F.A.A. Won’t Award Them.

- Biden Assails Kellogg’s Plan to Replace Striking Workers

- Analysis: Biden Sees Booming Economy, but Many Americans Don't

- Here's How Philadelphia's Covid Mandate for Health Workers Worked

- U.S. and Others Pledge Export Controls Tied to Human Rights

- November 2021 CPI: Inflation Rose at Fastest Pace Since 1982

- How Nursing Homes’ Worst Offenses Are Hidden From the Public

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What Is the Perfect Date to Bring Workers Back to the Office? - The New York Times

“We decided as a leadership team, ‘what was magical about these dates?’” Ms. Anas said. “It was extremely liberating saying, ‘We’re going to see how this nets out and we’re not solving for a date.’”

She is unsettled by the possibility that they will still be working from home in March, two years since they first packed up their desks. But with coronavirus infections spiking, Ms. Anas is relieved that the company doesn’t have to weigh the merits of an early 2022 return, leaving workers to wait worriedly for updates.

“If we had kicked the can to January, they’d be fixated on that,” she said. “We keep focused on the work. This is just a distraction.”

For many organizational leaders, addressing the anxieties of their work force has been the only constant in the R.T.O. process.

With the spread of Delta, Jessica Saranich, who runs U.S. operations at the productivity software company Monday.com, got a flurry of notes from colleagues: Will we really go back to the office in August? Last month brought the news of Omicron, with a fresh set of questions: What does this mean for the January off-site gathering, with its promise of free food, partying and a Miami D. J.? Ms. Saranich’s team has delayed its return to office date three times, which has left some employees pleading for more permanence in the company’s policies.

“Sometimes our team will say please just make a decision, pick something, make us come back to the office or make us be remote,” Ms. Saranich said. “But it’s not something that we want to rush. To be able to lean into the discomfort and say we don’t know is a great gift that we can give to our team.”

Still, plenty of organizations aiming for an early 2022 return haven’t budged.

Express Employment Professionals, a staffing provider in Oklahoma City, aims to bring half of its 300 workers back to their newly remodeled headquarters on Jan. 15. The company had originally reopened its office in July in a phased re-entry plan, which was temporarily scaled back in September. Keith McFall, chief operating officer, feels that clear R.T.O. dates serve as a force of stability for workers navigating months of tumult.

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Bookcase credibility

Some have a copy of Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker” on display for video calls. Others opt for something subtler — maybe “Jude the Obscure,” which the actor Paul Rudd chose, or Thomas Piketty’s “Capital,” featured behind Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “Seeing into every person’s home, no matter how well you knew them, felt intrusive,” Ms. Nancherla said. “But it was also bonding in that you’re like, ‘You’re stuck at home like me.’” Stars: They’re quarantined just like us.

Commuter’s delight

When people sit in morning traffic, they owe themselves a treat. Maybe it’s a scone or a smoothie. Maybe it’s one of those egg white wraps from Starbucks that probably dates back to the Paleolithic era. Cameron Parkins, who started a new job during the pandemic as a graduate programs administrator in Richmond, impressed his co-workers by making banana cheesecake for his first day at the office. His team appreciated it, he said, maybe even too much: “They joked around that it was the real reason they hired me.”

Mask-issist

That office colleague who inexplicably lowers his mask when he has to cough, as if he was the only person in the room. At least he filled out his Covid symptom self-scan this morning.

Polywork

Working flexibly means more time away from your day job to sell crafts on Etsy, trade cryptocurrencies or write the 2021 twist on “King Lear.” “When you’re not in the office, it’s a lot easier to switch back and forth between tasks,” said the lexicographer Erin McKean, who noted a recent spike in usage of the word “polywork,” a more official-sounding form of the side hustle.

R.T.O.

Who knew three little letters could contain so much angst? They became ubiquitous this year, as bosses promised a triumphant Return to Office, only to have their plans hijacked by coronavirus variants. Still, better to talk about a return to the office than a return to work, according to Chris Herd, a technology entrepreneur. “People are genuinely offended about being told they’re returning to work,” he said, “when they’ve been working their socks off for the last 18 months.”

Show and tell

When offices disappeared, the boundaries between the professional and domestic went with them. Alexis Gay, a comedian who used to work at Patreon, realized early on in the work-from-home era that the seven employees she managed would become intimately familiar with her kitchen. “It was like, here’s my mug, here’s my plants,” she said. “You were forced to be a little more yourself by nature of the office coming to you.” Hopefully they’ll attest to her interior design skills in year-end reviews.

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Congress, Far From ‘a Series of Tubes,’ Is Still Nowhere Near Reining In Tech - The New York Times

“It’s not a trick question,” Mr. Poe blustered. “You know, you make $100 million a year, you ought to be able to answer that question.”

Updated

Dec. 10, 2021, 8:09 p.m. ET

It wasn’t entirely a confused question: Google maps and other services are available on iPhones, and location tracking by Google services is a serious concern for privacy advocates. But on social media and in some media reports, Mr. Poe was ridiculed for his apparent confusion over Apple and Google technologies.

The fumbles were bipartisan, with Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, describing Google as an “apparatus” and suggesting Mr. Pichai create an online school for users to understand the search engine where they can be assigned a Google representative. But not like the phone customer service at Comcast, he added, where you get put on hold for 30 minutes and “find somebody who you can’t understand.”

Another example of boomer Luddite lawmakers stumbling their way around technology, viewers quipped.

The belly flops from the hearing room dais helped take the spotlight off the company’s market dominance and data collection. Since then, criticisms toward tech giants have only intensified. But despite bipartisan agreement that tech companies have run roughshod and deserve more oversight, none of the bills discussed in those hearings four years ago have been passed.

Turns out, holding a hearing that humbles the most powerful business executives in the world is much easier than legislating. Very bright lines of partisan disagreements appear when writing rules that restrict how much data can be collected by platforms, whether consumers can sue sites for defamation, and whether regulators can slow the march of dominance of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook.

“Hyperpartisanship is the most powerful force supporting the status quo, and the big tech platforms work hard to fan the flames,” said David Chavern, the president of the News Media Alliance, a media lobbying group that has pushed for stronger antitrust laws aimed at tech platforms.

Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, has said it supports regulations. All six cryptocurrency executives who testified recently also said they also support some government oversight of their businesses.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/business/congress-tech-regulation.html

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You’re Going to Work a Long Time. Here’s How to Build in Breaks. - The New York Times

The primary person in on the decision should be your spouse, if you have one. After all, if you need that person in order to maintain health insurance and a regular stream of income, it puts pressure on them. This is not the type of situation where asking forgiveness is preferable to asking permission.

Then, consider what your life would look like. Your spouse and children, if you have either, may not want you around so much. And if you’re single, silence may be rejuvenating for only so long.

Michael Kay, 67, is selling his shares of Financial Life Focus, a planning firm in Livingston, N.J. He doesn’t intend to stop working anytime soon, but many of his clients already have.

Some of them fail to reckon with how they will spend their time in a way that is still connected to something — and whom they will be connected to when they inevitably want some of that again. “If all my besties are still working, where do I find social interaction with peer groups when they are still working 9 to 5?” he said.

Only after the self-examination come the financial practicalities.

In an ideal world, you have savings that you can use without any restrictions or tax implications — or some kind of passive income, such as from a rental property. Perhaps there is equity in your home that you can extract, or an inheritance.

But if you don’t reside in a world of such privilege, there are workarounds. For instance, some people can draw on their 401(k) or 403(b) money without penalty as early as the year they turn 55. Public safety employees can do so starting at 50.

Did you start a Roth I.R.A. when it first came into being a couple of decades ago, and do you lack other savings to draw on? You can pull contributions (but not earnings) out tax- and penalty-free.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/your-money/work-time-out-career-longevity.html

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The Game Awards Returns With Glitz and an Industry Asserting Its Muscle - The New York Times

LOS ANGELES — Wearing blazers and bedazzled dresses, downing cocktails, swapping industry gossip, and hobnobbing with some of Hollywood’s biggest names, the stars of America’s video game industry assembled on Thursday night for a long-delayed reunion at the Game Awards.

The lavish event was a victory lap of sorts for the video game community. While the movie industry has fretted over ticket sales and cannibalization by streaming services like Netflix, the video game industry has enjoyed tremendous growth during the pandemic. An estimated 2.9 billion people — more than one out of every three people on the planet — have played a video game this year, according to the video game analytics firm Newzoo.

Thursday’s awards were also a welcome opportunity for the industry to gather under the same roof, since last year’s event was held online because of the pandemic. Gaming luminaries arrived on the red carpet at the vast Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles, joined by celebrities better known for their work in other entertainment industries.

Sting, the rock music icon, was backed by an orchestra as he opened the show with a performance of the haunting song “What Could Have Been” from the Netflix series “Arcane,” which is based on the video game hit “League of Legends.” The hit band Imagine Dragons performed “Enemy,” another song featured in “Arcane.”

The rapper and comedian Lil Dicky told some jokes in a video spot. Paul George, a basketball star who plays for the local Clippers, towered above the crowd. And there were appearances — some in person and some via video — by the television and film stars Will Arnett, Ming-Na Wen, Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves.

If you were picking up on a crossover theme, you would have been correct. And if you had the feeling that the Game Awards were a bit like some other very elaborate Los Angeles entertainment award events, you would also have been on the nose.

At the center of the gaming industry’s answer to the Oscars was Geoff Keighley, the video game and television personality who created and hosts the annual event and who tried, with seemingly endless reserves of energy and enthusiasm, to steer an increasingly antsy audience through more than three hours of awards presentations and trailers for upcoming games, interspersed with music from the orchestra.

The show began in 2014 and has attracted millions more eyeballs each year on YouTube and Twitch. Last year’s fully remote version garnered 83 million live streams, according to organizers, and Mr. Keighley said after Thursday’s show that he expected more people to have watched live this year, though preliminary numbers were not yet available.

The glee so evident on Mr. Keighley’s face stemmed from a simple reason: Finally, after nearly two years of Zoom calls and virtual hangouts, the industry was back together in the same room. “I missed it,” he said in an interview after the show.

Many among the mask-wearing, invitation-only crowd said they could not believe the event was really happening.

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Dec. 10, 2021, 8:09 p.m. ET

“It’s great, but a little overwhelming,” Hannah Kennedy, a Twitch streamer who goes by bnans, said in the crowded lobby after the show. “We’ve been in quarantine for so long, but it’s really nice to actually get to hang out with everyone again and see each other after two years.”

More than two dozen awards were handed out in categories like best action game and best art direction. The most prestigious title, game of the year, went to “It Takes Two,” a two-player puzzle adventure game developed by Hazelight Studios about a married couple navigating a divorce and journeying through a fantastical world.

Microsoft’s gaming division brought home a number of awards, with “Age of Empires IV” winning best strategy game, “Halo Infinite” winning a fan award called players’ voice, and “Forza Horizon 5,” a car-racing game, taking home three honors. “Deathloop,” a first-person shooting game developed by Arkane Studios, also won multiple awards.

The winners were determined by a vote of industry insiders and the general public.

For many watching, though, the awards were just a sideshow. The Game Awards is also used by the industry to introduce new game announcements and debut trailers for upcoming titles. If audience reaction is any indication, the fantasy game “Elden Ring” continues to be one of next year’s most hotly anticipated titles.

There has been an explosion in sales since the last time the video game world gathered. New game consoles from Microsoft and Sony have been in high demand and short supply. Game publishers like Electronic Arts and Riot Games have reported record revenues. And Roblox, an online game world popular with children, debuted on the stock exchange, topping a $45 billion valuation on its first day of trading.

The increased mainstream interest in online worlds has also been a validation for industry insiders and gamers that were using the term “metaverse” years before Mark Zuckerberg decided that Facebook was going to change its name to Meta. Even Mr. Carrey, appearing at the awards show on a prerecorded video, joked about it.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there with you, but I look forward to meeting all of your avatars in the metaverse, where we can really get to know each other,” he said.

As the industry has grown, it has faced increasing challenges, none more pressing Thursday night than the treatment of its employees. A shadow was cast over the event by the scandal trailing Activision Blizzard — the game publisher that has been under fire for months following a lawsuit from California accusing it of fostering a workplace environment in which mistreatment and harassment of women was commonplace.

A handful of protesters stood with signs supporting Activision employees outside the theater Thursday evening, and Mr. Keighley faced pressure in the lead-up to the event to condemn the company.

He tweeted last week that Activision would not be a part of the awards show, and he opened the event by saying that “game creators need to be supported by the companies that employ them.”

“We should not, and will not, tolerate any abuse, harassment and predatory practices,” Mr. Keighley said, though he did not mention Activision by name. Rob Kostich, the president of Activision, is on the board of advisers for the Game Awards.

Before the event, Mr. Keighley said in an interview that he wanted to strike a balance between using his platform for good and maintaining the upbeat vibe of an awards show.

“Are we going to use our platform to take companies to task publicly inside the show? It’s always something worth thinking about,” he said, “but it’s not a referendum on the industry.”

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How Bank Regulators Are Trying to Oust a Trump Holdover - The New York Times

Then came the fireworks. The FDIC’s public affairs office, which Ms. McWilliams controls, released a statement:

“Earlier today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) posted on its website a document, purportedly approved by the FDIC, requesting comment on bank mergers,” the statement, which was not attributed to any person, said. “No such document has been approved by the FDIC.”

For several weeks, Ms. McWilliams and her staff had been privately trying to counteract Mr. Chopra and Mr. Gruenberg, according to two people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly. After learning of the effort to create a bank mergers public information request, Ms. McWilliams proposed an alternative text for the document, the people said, which the other board members quickly rejected.

When the voting process for the proposal began in late November, Ms. McWilliams did not vote, claiming that the process had violated procedure and no vote would be valid, the people said.

On Thursday, senior FDIC officials said they would not complete the process needed to make the information request official. They said the move by the two Democrats did not follow proper procedure and was therefore invalid.

Mr. Gruenberg disagreed.

“It is clear under the statute that the majority of the FDIC board of directors has authority to place items on the agenda for Board meetings and, alternatively, to circulate and act on notational votes, to implement actions of the board,” he said in a statement emailed to journalists on Thursday. “No individual member of the Board may override the authority of the majority.”

An O.C.C. spokeswoman declined to speak directly about the vote, saying only that Mr. Hsu wanted to “work collaboratively with other regulators” on bank merger issues.

The two people familiar with the matter said that Mr. Chopra and Mr. Gruenberg would most likely have to sue Ms. McWilliams if they want to advance the matter further.

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Elon Musk’s Latest Innovation: Troll Philanthropy - The New York Times

Mr. Musk did not respond to an email asking him to discuss his philanthropic giving.

The notion that rich people have a moral obligation to give is an ancient one. Mr. Soskis, a historian of philanthropy, notes that wealthy citizens in ancient Rome tried to outdo one another paying for public baths and theaters. The inscriptions on those edifices could count as a form of early donor lists.

The idea that the richest might need charity to improve their public relations is also longstanding, driven home in the Gilded Age by the 1882 outburst by railway magnate William Henry Vanderbilt, “The public be damned!” that shadowed him to the end of his days.

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Dec. 10, 2021, 8:09 p.m. ET

Efforts to track the charitable giving of the very wealthy in the United States date to the late 19th century, when the ranks of millionaires exploded. Before long, newspapers were running front-page lists of who had made the biggest gifts. The original duo to capture public attention were John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, whose feelings on publicizing philanthropy were diametrically opposed.

Cartoons from the era showed Mr. Carnegie, often dressed in a kilt to reference his Scottish origin, showering coins from enormous bags of money. “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced,” Mr. Carnegie wrote in “The Gospel of Wealth,” his treatise on giving. Mr. Rockefeller preferred to keep his giving more private and had to be convinced to announce his gifts.

To those who think the trolling started on Twitter, philanthropy was never quite as polite as we imagine today. George Eastman, one of the founders of Eastman Kodak, called those who did not give their money away during their lifetimes “pie-faced mutts.” Julius Rosenwald, the chairman of Sears, Roebuck and Company and a major philanthropist in his day, insisted that the accumulation of wealth had nothing to do with smarts, adding, “Some very rich men who made their own fortunes have been among the stupidest men I have ever met in my life.”

But the idea that giving helps the reputation is at best only partially true. Givers are celebrated at times but just as often the higher profile means their motives and choices are picked apart. The Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and the Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are each worth over $120 billion, per Forbes, but none of them receives the level of scrutiny that Mr. Gates does, for instance.

“If you put your head above the philanthropic parapet and say, ‘I’m interested in the environment,’ or whatever cause area, people can start to question it,” said Beth Breeze, author of the recent book “In Defence of Philanthropy.” Ms. Breeze has pushed back against the recent trend of criticizing philanthropists, who, she says, are regularly described as “tax dodging, egotistical, irritating” — criticism they may earn, but not comments that she views as useful to the greater good.

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On Opioids, Why Are Lawyers Doing the Work of Lawmakers? - The New York Times

At this stage of the litigation, it is impossible to know whether the nation’s courts will ultimately agree to expand the definition of public nuisance to include opioid addiction, or whether they will turn their thumbs down, allowing the companies to walk away. There is a decent chance the question will have to be resolved by the Supreme Court, which, given the makeup of the court, would not bode well for the plaintiffs.

Updated

Dec. 10, 2021, 8:09 p.m. ET

For aficionados of high-stakes litigation, this legal 3-D chess can be pretty exciting. But how should others think about these kinds of lawsuits? Plaintiffs’ lawyers say that they step in to redress wrongs because, far too often, the government won’t — and because there is no other way to get compensation to victims. But critics contend that using class action suits is far from an ideal way to obtain justice. For one thing, they say, the potential multimillion-dollar fee is too often the main motivation for the lawyers. For another, the results are often uneven; one victim may reap millions from a court victory, while another gets nothing when a different court comes to a different conclusion. Sometimes companies that have done bad things get off the hook. Other times, companies pay tens of millions of dollars in damages even though the evidence of wrongdoing is exceedingly thin.

“Class-action suits are not useful instruments for redistributing income,” said Ted Marmor, a retired professor of public policy at Yale who has served as an expert witness for both plaintiffs and defendants. “A lot of times, these are regulatory failures more than corporate failures.”

Some examples: Few would dispute that BP’s $20 billion settlement with the Justice Department for its role in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was warranted. But what about the 2007 Vioxx case, in which Merck paid close to $5 billion to settle lawsuits alleging that the pain medication Vioxx, a so-called Cox-2 inhibitor, had caused heart attacks in tens of thousands of users? Yet Pfizer, which marketed a Cox-2 inhibitor called Celebrex, continued to sell the drug, though the Food and Drug Administration had the company include a warning label that the drug “may cause an increased risk” of heart failure. (Years later, a clinical trial concluded that Celebrex was no riskier than either ibuprofen or naproxen.)

Then, there are the tobacco lawsuits of the mid-1990s. In those cases, plaintiffs’ lawyers hired by the states sued the big tobacco companies for having hidden the dangers of smoking and for contributing to health problems the states had to pay for. In 1998, the tobacco companies settled for an astonishing sum of money — at least $246 billion over 25 years. The result? The money, which was supposed to be used for anti-tobacco programs, is instead being used by most states to fill unrelated budget gaps. Meanwhile, the tobacco companies still make a product that kills some 480,000 Americans each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the plaintiffs’ lawyers who brought the case on behalf of the states got exceptionally rich; in Mississippi, Richard Scruggs’s firm alone was awarded $340 million as a fee.

Critics of the opioid litigation say it exemplifies all the problems that come with using lawsuits to fix big social issues. First, the reliance on a novel legal theory means there is no guarantee that plaintiffs will get a penny, much less millions. Second, even if the companies wind up paying billions, they will remain relatively unscathed. And opioids will continue to be legally prescribed drugs. On the other hand, if the plaintiffs lose, all this time and effort and money will have been for naught.

There is no question that bad actions had to take place to create the opioid crisis. Manufacturers like Purdue Pharma had to play down the addictive property of OxyContin. Distributors like Cardinal Health and McKesson had to flood communities with pills. Pharmacies had to sell the medication to addicts. But the government also played an important role by approving opioids and then looking the other way as they were being overprescribed and abused.

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GM’s EV Efforts Reportedly Include a Bigger Michigan Presence - The New York Times

General Motors intends to spend several billion dollars to set up production of batteries and electric pickup trucks at two locations in Michigan, giving the company’s home state an economic boost, a person with knowledge of the plans said Friday.

The automaker has started sketching out proposals to convert an electric car plant in Orion Township to produce electric pickups and to build a new battery plant with a partner, LG Electronics, near the existing Lansing Delta Township plant, this person said.

The company, which has laid out ambitious goals for a shift to electric vehicles, was more circumspect about its plans in a statement issued Friday. “G.M. is developing business cases for potential future investments in Michigan,” it said. “As part of developing a competitive business case, we are having discussions with the appropriate local officials on available incentives.”

G.M.’s prospective development of the Michigan sites was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

The total investment is likely to be more than $4 billion. G.M. previously spent $2 billion to convert a Detroit plant to electric vehicle production. Incentive applications filed to the City of Lansing on Friday showed that G.M. and LG envision investing $2.5 billion in the battery plant and creating 1,700 jobs there.

Production of a high-volume pickup truck could significantly increase employment at the Orion Township plant, which has been used to make the Chevrolet Bolt, an electric compact car. Bolt output has been limited and is currently suspended because of a recall of the battery packs used in the car. When in operation, the factory has 1,100 workers on a single shift, and E.V. production would probably increase production to two or even three shifts.

The investment would be a victory for Michigan as automakers race to begin making battery packs and electric vehicles in high volumes. Several factories are planned for Southern states. Toyota said this week that it would build a battery plant in North Carolina that is supposed to employ 1,750 people.

Ford Motor is spending $11.4 billion to build two battery plants in Kentucky and a third battery plant and a new electric truck plant in Tennessee. G.M. has battery plants under construction in Ohio and Tennessee, and it plans to add others in Ontario and Mexico.

The spate of investments and job commitments has caused concern among some economic development officials in Michigan that the state was not winning a significant portion of the jobs being created by the auto industry’s conversion to electric vehicles.

G.M., Ford, Toyota and other traditional automakers are trying to catch up to Tesla, which leads in global sales of electric vehicles by a wide margin and has captured the imagination of investors. Tesla has a market value of about $1 trillion — more than G.M., Ford, Toyota and several other automakers combined.

G.M. plans to introduce 20 electric vehicles in the United States by 2025. The first few include the GMC Hummer electric pickup and sport-utility models, and the Cadillac Lyriq, a luxury S.U.V. Those will be built at a plant in Detroit that G.M. now calls “Factory Zero.” A variety of other E.V.s are supposed to follow, including an electric version of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup that is supposed to go into production in early 2023.

These models will use modular battery packs — produced in a joint venture with LG — that G.M. is counting on to help reduce the cost of electric vehicles.

Ford is slightly ahead of G.M. in electric vehicles. It began selling the electric Mustang Mach-E S.U.V. nearly a year ago, and it plans to start making an electric pickup, the F-150 Lightning, in early 2022.

Ford’s chief executive, Jim Farley, told CNBC on Thursday that his company had 200,000 reservations from customers for the truck and that it was scrambling to increase production capacity to meet demand.

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Jeff Bezos Is Getting Astronaut Wings. But Soon, the F.A.A. Won’t Award Them. - The New York Times

Jeff Bezos is officially an astronaut. Really — just ask the federal government.

The Federal Aviation Administration said on Friday that it was ending a program that awarded small gold pins called “Commercial Space Astronaut Wings” to certain people who flew to space on private spacecraft.

But before the program officially retires in January, all who applied for the gold wings after flying to space this year will still receive them, the agency said. That means Mr. Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon who rode a rocket with his space company, Blue Origin, to the edge of space in July, will be considered a commercial astronaut.

So will Richard Branson, the founder of the space tourism firm Virgin Galactic who flew his own company’s rocket plane to space in the same month. William Shatner, the Star Trek star who flew with Blue Origin to the edge of space in October, will also receive astronaut wings to go with his Starfleet paraphernalia. Twelve other people were also added to the federal agency’s list of wing recipients on Friday.

The changes will help the F.A.A. avoid the potentially awkward position of proclaiming that some space tourists are only passengers, not astronauts.

The Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program was created by Patti Grace Smith, the first chief of the F.A.A.’s commercial space office, to promote the private development of human spaceflight — a mandate from a 1984 law that aimed to accelerate innovation of space vehicles. The program began handing out pins to qualified individuals in 2004, when Mike Melvill, a test pilot who flew the Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne plane, became its first recipient.

To qualify for the commercial astronaut wings under the original guidelines, a person had to reach an altitude of at least 50 miles, the marker of space recognized by NASA and the U.S. Air Force, and be a member of the spacecraft’s “flight crew.”

Recognizing a surge in spaceflight activity, the F.A.A. narrowed its criteria in July, a day after Mr. Bezos launched to space. The updated version, outlined in a five-page order, required crew members to have “demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety,” a tweak that aligned the program “more directly to the F.A.A.’s role to protect public safety during commercial space operations,” the agency said at the time. It also gave the head of the agency’s commercial space flight office the discretion to grant wings to people who “demonstrated extraordinary contribution or beneficial service to the commercial human space flight industry.”

The advent of space tourism, and especially the F.A.A.’s new rules, sparked debate over who can be called an astronaut.

NASA picks its astronauts through an exhaustive selection process, and astronaut candidates endure years of safety and technical training before their first flights to space. By contrast, passengers and paying tourists aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket train for a few days, before launching to the edge of space and back in a fully autonomous mission that lasts roughly 10 minutes. Virgin Galactic, Mr. Branson’s space tourism firm, offers a similar experience on a space plane that launches midair off a carrier plane.

Companies could nominate the private passengers on their rockets to be awarded commercial astronaut wings by the F.A.A. Blue Origin had nominated the passengers aboard all of its New Shepard flights by sending applications to the agency, but the company hadn’t received a response for months. It was unclear whether Mr. Bezos would meet the criteria for demonstrating “activities during flight that were essential to public safety.”

But the F.A.A. settled the uncertainty on Friday by tossing out its criteria from July and awarding the wings to everyone who flew to space on private spacecraft this year. The new criteria was outlined in the agency’s statement: “Any individual who is on an F.A.A.-licensed or permitted launch and reaches 50 statute miles above the surface of the Earth.”

SpaceX’s first four private passengers, who spent three days in orbit aboard its Crew Dragon spacecraft in September, were also named as wing recipients.

Any private spaceflight passenger who flies to space before the year’s end will also be eligible. That will include Saturday’s scheduled flight of six passengers by Blue Origin, including Michael Strahan, the TV host and former Giants defensive end.

Although no one will receive the little gold pins after 2021, those who fly above 50 miles on an F.A.A.-licensed rocket will be honored in the agency’s online database.

But future space tourists should not despair a lack of post-flight flair. Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX have each presented paying and guest passengers with custom-designed wings.

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Biden Assails Kellogg’s Plan to Replace Striking Workers - The New York Times

President Biden on Friday waded into a strike involving 1,400 employees at four Kellogg plants, whom the company said it planned to permanently replace after workers voted down a proposed contract this week.

“I am deeply troubled by reports of Kellogg’s plans to permanently replace striking workers,” Mr. Biden said in a statement, adding that “permanently replacing striking workers is an existential attack on the union and its members’ jobs and livelihoods.”

The strike began on Oct. 5 and has largely focused on the company’s two-tier compensation system, in which employees hired after 2015 typically receive lower wages and less generous benefits than veteran workers. Many veteran Kellogg workers, who the company says earn about $35 per hour on average, believe that adding lower-paid workers puts downward pressure on their wages.

Kellogg raised the possibility of hiring permanent replacements in November. The company and the union last week reached a tentative agreement in which the company would lift a cap on the number of workers in the lower tier, which was 30 percent under the previous contract. In exchange, the company agreed to move all workers with four or more years experience into the veteran tier, as well as an amount equivalent to 3 percent of workers at its plants in each of the five years of the contract.

On Tuesday, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, which represents the workers, said its members had “overwhelmingly voted” against the deal. In response to the result, Kellogg said that it would “hire permanent replacement employees in positions vacated by striking workers.”

A Kellogg spokeswoman, Kris Bahner, said Friday that the company had posted job listings for permanent replacement roles in each of its four locations and that its hiring process was “fully operational.” The statement added: “Interest in the roles has been strong at all four plants, as expected. We expect some of the new hires to start with the company very soon.”

After Mr. Biden’s statement, Ms. Bahner said that the company was “ready, willing and able to negotiate with the union” and that it agreed with the president “that this needs to be solved at the bargaining table.” Ms. Bahner indicated that the company had moved ahead with permanent replacements out of an obligation to consumers and other employees.

Permanently replacing workers who are striking over economic issues like wages and benefits is legal, but Democrats, including Mr. Biden, have sought to outlaw the practice through the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act. The House approved the bill in March but it has stalled in the Senate.

“I have long opposed permanent striker replacements and I strongly support legislation that would ban that practice,” Mr. Biden said in his statement Friday. “Such action undermines the critical role collective bargaining plays in providing workers a voice and the opportunity to improve their lives.”

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Analysis: Biden Sees Booming Economy, but Many Americans Don't - The New York Times

The president has in recent weeks painted a bifurcated picture of the economy in speeches and news releases. He promotes what he calls historic progress on several measures. But he quickly turns to acknowledging the sticker shock that families have experienced at the grocery store, the gasoline pump and a variety of online shopping sites.

“Economic growth is stronger here than virtually any other nation,” Mr. Biden said on Friday. “Americans have more money in their pockets than this time last year — $100 more each month than last year — even after accounting for price increases. But we have to get prices and costs down before consumers will feel confident in that recovery. That is a top goal of my administration.”

While Mr. Biden’s comments are aimed broadly at voters, they have a singular intended audience in Congress: Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a centrist Democrat, who has cited inflation as a reason not to back a $2.2 trillion collection of spending programs and tax cuts that Mr. Biden is attempting to pass through Congress by year's end, jeopardizing the bill’s prospects.

Mr. Biden will need every Democrat in the Senate to support the measure for it to pass. Mr. Manchin has in recent days repeated his fear that the spending in the bill, which includes initiatives to fight climate change and invest in children, parents and workers, could further exacerbate price increases — a claim that administration officials and Mr. Biden say is unfounded. Mr. Biden said Friday that he would meet with Mr. Manchin next week.

Republicans have used inflation as a club against the bill and Mr. Biden’s popularity. “There would never be a good time to pass the Democrats’ reckless tax-and-spending spree,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, said on Friday, “but these inflation numbers indicate that now is the absolute worst time for Democrats to do just that.”

Many liberal groups fear that messaging is hampering Mr. Biden’s agenda, which would deliver on a wide range of longstanding progressive priorities. Those groups have urged Mr. Biden to pin the blame for rising costs not on his policies, but on large corporations that they say are leveraging their market power to hike prices and pad profits. Democratic lawmakers including Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have begun trying to make that case.

The American economy gives large companies the power “to jack up prices on the backs of workers and consumers,” said Rakeen Mabud, the managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive advocacy group in Washington. “That’s exactly what we’re seeing now. And that’s exactly why this fear-mongering around inflation is proving so effective.”

Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.

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Here's How Philadelphia's Covid Mandate for Health Workers Worked - The New York Times

Citing the widespread staffing shortages in his industry, Mr. Parkinson said his group would continue to pursue a testing alternative to prevent workers from leaving for other jobs.

In Philadelphia, hospitals are the largest employer, with some 57,000 workers, according to an estimate from Philadelphia Works, a nonprofit.

The city’s experience also underscored the work necessary to persuade all employees, particularly those of color, to get vaccinated, according to the hospital executives.

At the University of Pennsylvania Health System, the adoption of its mandate on Sept. 1 initially widened the gap between the vaccination rates for white and Black staff. In speaking with employees of color, doctors and administrators said they were explicit about the role race and racism played in decision-making and made a point to feature workers of color, including doctors, pharmacists and security guards, in their campaign. The system’s vaccination rate rose to nearly 100 percent from 70 percent.

While executives had been told that holding town halls was not effective, Dr. Florencia Greer Polite, an obstetrician, said she thought the issue was frequently the “all white” makeup of the panels.

“You have to have the right messenger,” agreed Michael Young, the chief executive of Temple University Health System, which worked with its union and community members. Main Line Health, another local hospital group, said it relied on “vaccine ambassadors” to talk to employees in departments like food service and housekeeping.

In Philadelphia, Ms. Brooks-LaSure said it was clear that hospital and nursing home executives had focused on addressing the concerns of the workers who were unsure about the safety of the vaccine. Women worried about the effect of the vaccine want to hear, “This is going to be OK for my baby, this is going to be OK for me,” she said.

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U.S. and Others Pledge Export Controls Tied to Human Rights - The New York Times

The government’s use of export controls, especially against China, greatly ramped up during the Trump administration, which imposed restrictions on ZTE, Huawei and other Chinese technology firms to prevent Beijing from gaining access to sensitive technologies like quantum computing, advanced semiconductor chips and artificial intelligence that could give its military an advantage or build up the Chinese surveillance state.

Updated

Dec. 10, 2021, 8:09 p.m. ET

But critics say those measures, by focusing only on American exports, fell short of their goals. While companies that manufacture products in the United States no longer ship certain goods to China, competitors in Japan, Europe and elsewhere have continued to make sales. That has encouraged some high-tech companies to devote more spending on research and development outside the United States, to maintain access to the lucrative Chinese market.

American-developed technology has also been used by authoritarian governments for more nefarious purposes, like monitoring and censoring their citizens.

In a joint statement issued Friday, Australia, Denmark, Norway and the United States said that “authoritarian governments increasingly are using surveillance tools and other related technologies in connection with serious human rights abuses, both within their countries and across international borders, including in acts of transnational repression to censor political opposition and track dissidents.”

They added, “Such use risks defeating the benefits that advanced technologies may bring to the world’s nations and peoples.”

The work at this week’s summit included exploring how best to strengthen domestic legal frameworks, share information on threats and risks, and share and develop best practices for controlling technology exports, a White House statement said.

In the coming year, the countries are expected to consult with academics and industries on their efforts. Any decisions on controls of specific technologies will be voluntary and left up to individual countries to carry out.

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November 2021 CPI: Inflation Rose at Fastest Pace Since 1982 - The New York Times

But Republicans have put the blame on Mr. Biden and Democrats, a development that threatens to imperil the president’s bigger agenda, including the $2.2 trillion climate and social policy bill that he is attempting to pass along party lines. Centrist Democrats have begun questioning the wisdom of pouring more money into the economy at a time when demand and prices are hot.

“The unknown we’re facing today is much greater than the need that people believe in this aspirational bill that we’re looking at, and we’ve got to make sure we get this right,” Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat from West Virginia, said earlier this week. Mr. Biden will need the support of every Senate Democrat to pass the legislation, making Mr. Manchin’s vote critical.

Inflation is also a political liability for the White House among voters, because it is making day-to-day life more difficult for many Americans, especially those who rely on savings held in relatively low-risk investments like savings accounts or certificates of deposit. Those people are seeing the value of their holdings decrease.

Retirees living on Social Security will see their benefits increase — the cost of living adjustment for 70 million Americans will be 5.9 percent in 2022 — but they are already feeling the brunt of higher consumer prices.

Diana Madoshi, a retired nurse in Placer County, Calif., who relies on Social Security benefits, said higher prices at the grocery store have started to burden her budget. A carton of eggs, which cost about $2.80 before the pandemic, is now nearly $4, she said.

She has been taking fewer Uber rides to doctor appointments and has cut back on buying clothing to offset the costs.

“This is just another harsh reality of what we’re going through right now,” said Ms. Madoshi, 75. “And there’s nothing I can do about that.”

— Madeleine Ngo contributed reporting.

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People checking Care Compare never found out that a resident was arrested at the Voorhees Care and Rehabilitation Center in New Jersey after being spotted placing heroin in another resident’s purse, and that a third resident died of an overdose.

The public never found out that inspectors cited another New Jersey nursing home, Rehab at River’s Edge, for failing to protect a fragile resident who fell seven separate times, at one point fracturing her foot.

And the public never found out that a resident at the Golden Living Center nursing home in Morgantown, W.Va., crashed to the ground and died after staff mistakenly removed the safety rails from his bed.

In all three of those cases, the state inspectors’ findings were upheld by a federal judge.

Mr. Blum, the C.M.S. official, didn’t say why such citations had never appeared on Care Compare. He said the agency was working to fix the problem. (The three homes declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests for comment. Golden Living is under new management.)

Dr. David Gifford, the chief medical officer of the American Health Care Association, which represents the nursing home industry, said the group’s members believed the appeals process should be faster and more transparent. He said Medicare should not post the results of inspections that are in dispute.

Found on the Pavement

On paper, Hilltop Rehabilitation, a sprawling ranch-style nursing home in Weatherford, Texas, seems like a place where little ever goes wrong. On Medicare’s rating website, the facility has won the highest scores on its health inspections for four years straight, not incurring a single serious infraction.

What’s missing from that picture, though, is what happened to Alan Hart’s mother, Laverne.

In 2014, he placed the 87-year-old retired children’s book author, who had dementia, at Hilltop because he was having trouble caring for her on his own.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/business/nursing-home-abuse-inspection.html

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Sports

- NYCFC Played the Long Game to Reach MLS Cup

- Oliveira Will Face Poirier and Nunes Will Fight Peña in U.F.C. Bouts

- Magnus Carlsen Wins World Chess Championship

- Demaryius Thomas, Ex-Denver Broncos Wide Receiver, Is Found Dead

- Al Unser, Four-Time Winner of the Indy 500, Dies at 82

- What Do We Mean by Good Soccer?

- Giants’ Risk-Averse Offense Contributes to 4-8 Record

- N.C.A.A. Follows Familiar Pattern in Punishment for Auburn

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NYCFC Played the Long Game to Reach MLS Cup - The New York Times

PORTLAND, Ore. — The road, New York City Football Club executives said as far back as 2015, was always supposed to lead here, to big moments, to finals, to trophies. That, they said, was always the plan.

Those who haven’t paid close attention to New York City F.C.’s roster evolution the past few years might not have seen the plan quite so clearly, and so they might be surprised to scan the Manchester City-backed team’s roster ahead of the M.L.S. Cup final on Saturday against the Portland Timbers. There are no longer any Andrea Pirlos, no Frank Lampards, no David Villas in N.Y.C.F.C.’s squad — the kind of boldfaced European imports that once gave the team a flash of star power in its early years of existence.

Instead, the team’s run to its first berth in Major League Soccer’s championship game this year has been led by two comparatively unheralded Argentine players: Maxi Moralez, a 34-year-old midfielder who once won a youth World Cup alongside brighter lights like Sergio Agüero and Ángel Di María, and forward Valentín Castellanos, the leading scorer in M.L.S. this season. They, and a supporting cast of teammates with plenty of talent but little name recognition, have delivered N.Y.C.F.C. to the brink of its first title.

The shift in roster strategy since the team’s inaugural season in 2015 — an overhaul that parallels the league’s own recent transformation toward developing young talents instead of importing established stars — was not the result of sudden enlightenment, however.

It was, a top team executive said on Friday, the plan all along.

“We are here for the long term,” said Ferran Soriano, the chief executive of City Football Group, whose growing network of soccer clubs around the world includes not only Manchester City of the Premier League and N.Y.C.F.C. but also nine other teams in 11 countries. “And the long term is not five years. It’s not 10. It’s 50.”

That this year’s version of N.Y.C.F.C. reached the final, then, represents less a long-awaited breakthrough for the team’s ownership group and more of an expected step on a long, well-plotted path.

“Being at this club for five years and understanding the standards this club has, to put ourselves in position to win M.L.S. Cup means everything,” goalkeeper Sean Johnson said.

Said Soriano: “We’re very happy to be in the final — very happy. It’s a symbol to what we have achieved. But in reality, the work has been steady year after year.”

That was not always apparent in the results. Despite making the playoffs in five of its first six seasons, N.Y.C.F.C. won only a single playoff round in those trips. It has won more postseason matches in 2021 (three) than in its first six seasons combined (two).

Soriano acknowledged that the early N.Y.C.F.C. teams were hampered on the field by their top-heavy constructions, which saw cheaper players fill out the rosters alongside multimillion-dollar stars like Villa, Lampard and Pirlo. That led to regular disappointments, as regular-season successes were frequently followed by quick postseason exits.

Soon, though, team executives worked within M.L.S.’s thicket of roster and salary rules to make smart signings like Moralez and to bring City Football Group’s resources to bear in more positive, more productive ways.

The 23-year-old Castellanos, for example, joined as a teenager in 2018 on loan from the Uruguayan club Torque, which is also owned by City Football Group, and later signed a permanent deal to stay in New York. For Castellanos, the move represented a step up the C.F.G. ladder — an actual ranking of leagues that the group created using data and analytics. (The Premier League is at the top, Soriano said, with M.L.S. somewhere in the middle, “a bit higher than Japan.”)

The system of linked clubs is not without conflict. Castellanos’s manager at Torque resisted the transfer, Soriano said, and the Uruguayan team struggled after his departure — a fate that could come to N.Y.C.F.C., too, if and when ownership decides it is time for their newest star to move on.

But the system also requires patience from a fan base that has not always understood the need for popular, and vital, players like Jack Harrison, now at Leeds United; Yangel Herrera, who left New York for La Liga in Spain; and others to move on to a higher level of development than M.L.S.

“This is a long game for the City Football Group,” M.L.S. Commissioner Don Garber said. “They’re thinking about their investment in Major League Soccer over a generational time frame.”

At the beginning, that meant spending for star power that might attract attention to the newest City-owned club. But it also meant investments in an academy that helped groom stars like Gio Reyna and Joe Scally, and in the belief that a constant churn of talents will yield a more talented roster year after year.

“The way we measure the work that we do every day is what we do in the regular season,” Soriano said. “That’s a good measure of what we do. Then we go to the playoffs and maybe you can be lucky. But if you go to the playoffs regularly, one day you will win.”

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Oliveira Will Face Poirier and Nunes Will Fight Peña in U.F.C. Bouts - The New York Times

Two blue-collar men with mutual respect.

The greatest female mixed martial artist of all time looking to add a win against a chattering rival.

A promoter happy with those differences.

Those draws on Saturday, when the Ultimate Fighting Championship will hold its last pay-per-view card of the year, don’t generate the instant mainstream recognition of Conor McGregor, Israel Adesanya or Jon Jones. But the matchups offer a diverse showing of fighters whom the company has leaned on for several years, a circumstance that was evident on Thursday as the fighters stared each other down after a news conference.

The U.F.C.’s president, Dana White, said he appreciated the fighters’ different approaches. The lightweight champion, Charles Oliveira (31-8-0), and the No. 1 contender, Dustin Poirier (28-6 -0), who will headline U.F.C. 269, looked each other in the eyes intently, but briefly talked.

Amanda Nunes (21-4-0), who will defend her bantamweight belt, wore a Gucci bucket hat while she bickered with her challenger, Julianna Peña (11-4-0). White said each card had a unique dynamic regardless of the common spotlight.

“Fans respect these types of fights,” White said in a telephone interview.

These fights conclude a year that heavily featured Poirier, who will be competing for the lightweight title for the second time in his career. In July, he fought McGregor, the brash Irish star, in the U.F.C.’s most heavily marketed event of 2021. He defeated McGregor by technical knockout in the first round of what was their third fight since 2014. McGregor landed awkwardly after a blow and fractured his left tibia, a surprise conclusion to a week of hostility as McGregor repeatedly insulted Poirier and Poirier’s wife, Jolie.

Beyond money and elevated stardom, the fight was risky. Poirier, who entered the U.F.C. in 2011, had won six of his last seven fights — the loss coming against the former champion Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2019 — and could have argued instead for a title shot with Oliveira. He jeopardized an essentially guaranteed championship fight and risked having to climb up the ranks again if he lost. But he bet on himself and is now in position to potentially end the year with gold and leather.

“These lessons I’ve learned, I’m very grateful for,” Poirier told reporters. “Being the world champion is forever — 25 minutes until eternity. That’s what’s going through my head every night when I go to sleep.”

Oliveira became the champion in May when he defeated Michael Chandler by technical knockout in the second round. Nurmagomedov (29-0-0) retired in 2020 with an unblemished record and when he competed, he essentially held the division hostage. This will be Oliveira’s first title defense, and an interesting matchup for him as a jiu-jitsu specialist against a well-rounded fighter like Poirier. The parity at the top of the lightweight division for the first time since 2018 excites White.

“You never know who is going to win, and there’s going to be some exciting fights,” White said. “Khabib was incredible and dominating everybody, and now you don’t know who could possibly be the champion.”

Nunes, similar to Nurmagomedov, has cemented herself as one of the best athletes in the sport. She entered the U.F.C. in 2013 and has lost just once in the company. Women’s mixed martial arts grew through fighters such as Ronda Rousey, Holly Holm, Miesha Tate and Cris Justino, known as Cyborg.

Nunes defeated Tate to become bantamweight champion in 2016 and easily dispatched the rest afterward, showing versatility in all of her fights with strong punches, head kicks and submissions. Her knockout of Justino in 2018 for the featherweight belt made her the first woman in U.F.C. history to be a simultaneous champion in two weight classes.

Nunes, who is a lesbian, and her partner became parents last year, and Nunes has been open about motherhood and her sexuality. In a bloody, male-dominated sport like mixed martial arts, White said her identities are important for representation.

“She touches so many different types of people and that’s awesome for reaching them and converting them to fans,” White said. “But above all that and everything she is, she’s an awesome human being and I love working with her.”

Nunes contracted the coronavirus in July, canceling an earlier scheduled fight with Peña in August. The delay frustrated Peña, and she has mentioned it frequently during media tours. Peña has for years said she felt Nunes was avoiding her. Now, the matchup is set.

“No matter what she does Saturday, I will finish her,” Nunes said. “This belt isn’t going anywhere.”

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Magnus Carlsen Wins World Chess Championship - The New York Times

Magnus Carlsen of Norway retained his world championship on Friday in Dubai after his challenger, the Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi, committed the last of a series of blunders that turned their once-taut match into a relatively easy victory.

Carlsen’s victory came in the 11th game of an event that had been scheduled to last 14 games. The final score was 7.5 to 3.5 points, with each victory worth one point and draws worth half a point.

The loss in the final game by Nepomniachtchi completed one of the worst collapses in a title match in chess history. After the first five games ended in draws, Nepomniachtchi lost four of the last six games. His last three defeats were mostly the result of self-inflicted wounds, as Nepomniachtchi made critical and relatively simple errors in each of them.

In the final game, the players’ chances were equal until Nepomniachtchi made a rash decision to advance the pawns in front of his king to attack one of Carlsen’s rooks, exposing him to a counterattack. Carlsen actually missed the best continuation, which would have forced Nepomniachtchi to give up his queen to avoid being checkmated, but still steered his way to a rook-and-pawn ending where he had a considerable advantage.

Carlsen eventually promoted one of his pawns to a queen and Nepomniachtchi resigned soon afterward.

The turning point in the match was Game 6, an epic struggle of 136 moves won by Carlsen that lasted 7 hours 45 minutes. It was the longest game in world championship history and clearly took a physical and psychological toll on both players, though it was harder on Nepomniachtchi.

After retaining his title, Carlsen pointed to Game 6 as the critical moment. “That sort of laid the foundation,” he said. “The final score was probably a bit more lopsided than it could have been.”

Nepomniachtchi acknowledged his collapse was unprecedented. “OK, I have lost some stupid games, but never so many in such a short time,” he said, adding that he did not know what had gone wrong. “If I knew, I would do something about it.”

Carlsen collected $1.2 million for his victory and Nepomniachtchi took home $800,000.

Carlsen compared his victory this year to 2013, when he beat Viswanathan Anand of India to become the world champion. The winning margin for that match, a best-of-12, was similar, 6.5 to 3.5.

This was Carlsen’s fifth victory in a world championship match. He has now held the title for eight years, longer than his predecessor, Anand, who was champion from 2007 to 2013, but only a bit more than half the time of Garry Kasparov, the modern record-holder, who held the title from 1985 to 2000.

Carlsen seemed drained and not overly elated after winning the last game. He said, “It is hard to feel that great joy when the situation was so comfortable to begin with.”

As the runner-up in the title match, Nepomniachtchi is already seeded into the next candidates tournament, which will have eight players, to select the next challenger for the world championship. Asked if his experience in the title match would help him, he said he hoped it would, before adding, “Experience is never easy.”

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Demaryius Thomas, Ex-Denver Broncos Wide Receiver, Is Found Dead - The New York Times

Demaryius Thomas, a former star wide receiver for the Denver Broncos who played for the National Football League for 10 seasons before retiring in June, died at his home in Roswell, Ga., on Thursday. He was 33.

His death was confirmed by a spokesman for the Roswell Police Department, who said in an email, “Preliminary information is that his death stems from a medical issue.”

The N.F.L. described Mr. Thomas as a “standout” player. He played with the league for a decade, primarily with the Broncos, where he was a five-time Pro Bowler. In 2016, Mr. Thomas helped lead the Broncos to an unexpected victory against the Carolina Panthers in the 50th Super Bowl. In a statement, the Broncos said he “established himself as a dominant record-setting wide receiver who was an instrumental part of two championship runs and our victory in Super Bowl 50.”

Mr. Thomas was selected among the Top 100 N.F.L. players four times and was the Broncos’ second-leading receiver. He was traded to the Houston Texans during the 2018 season and later moved to the New York Jets before ending his career. By then, he had caught 724 passes for 9,763 yards and 63 touchdowns.

Mr. Thomas was born on Dec. 25, 1987, in Montrose, Ga., to Bobby Thomas and Katina Stuckey Smith.

According to a biography of Mr. Thomas on the Denver Broncos’ website, his mother and his grandmother Minnie Pearl Thomas were arrested on drug-distribution charges when he was 11. His father was serving in the Army in Kuwait at the time, according to local news reports. His mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison and his grandmother to life without parole.

In 2015, President Barack Obama commuted his mother’s sentence. She later wrote about expressing regret for the crime and seeking freedom for her mother, who was still in prison. “Because I refused to testify against my mother,” she wrote, “I received a 20-year mandatory sentence because I did not give ‘substantial assistance’ to the prosecution.”

The following year, Mr. Thomas met the president at the White House, according to the Broncos’ website. “We talked for a quick second,” he said. “I told him, ‘Thank you for what you’ve done for my family,’ for giving my mother clemency.”

In 2016, Mr. Obama commuted the sentence for Mr. Thomas’s grandmother, after she had spent 16 years in federal prison. Mr. Thomas said at the time: “This was a blindside shot, but I’m happy. I’m excited. The past two years, I got my grandmother and my mother out. And a lot of other people got their family members out that didn’t do crazy crimes, so it’s a blessing.”

A cousin, Latonya Bonseigneur, said Mr. Thomas is survived by his parents; two brothers, DeAndre and Brayden; and four sisters, Trenice Thomas, Tonecia Hightower, Tyeshia Smith and Wynter Rose Thomas.

Jeff Clayton, who coached Mr. Thomas when he was a student at West Laurens High School in Dexter, Ga., said in an interview that as a teenager, Mr. Thomas had showed talent both as a football and a basketball player, but that he “didn’t want to be in the spotlight.”

Later in his career, Mr. Thomas would return to the high school to visit students, Mr. Clayton said. “Everybody would gravitate towards him,” he recalled. But “he never really changed from that humble little kid,” he added.

Mr. Thomas attended Georgia Tech, where he was drafted by the Broncos as the 22nd pick.

In June, when he announced his retirement in a video posted on the Broncos’ Twitter feed, he said: “I’m going to retire a Denver Bronco. I’m honored; I’m grateful; I’m appreciative.”

In the video, Mr. Thomas recalled his first touchdown with the N.F.L.

“Every time I see it, every time I watch it, I still get the chills,” he said, adding, “I’m just happy to say I’m done and it did me well.”

Johnny Diaz contributed reporting.

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Al Unser, Four-Time Winner of the Indy 500, Dies at 82 - The New York Times

Al Unser Sr., one of only four drivers to win the Indianapolis 500 four times and a stalwart of one of auto racing’s most accomplished families, died on Thursday at his home in Chama, N.M. He was 82.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced the death and said Unser had had cancer for the past 17 years.

Quiet, at times gruff, Unser was considered one of the smartest drivers on the track, a man with endless reservoirs of patience and a savvy sense for when to hold back and when to barrel ahead.

“The way I assess a great driver is someone who you have to deal with, race in and race out, and Al is one of those,” Mario Andretti, who raced against Unser for decades, said in an interview.

In all, more than a dozen members of the Unser family have worked in auto racing, including Al Unser’s older brothers, Jerry and Bobby. Bobby Unser, who himself won the Indianapolis 500 three times, called the 1987 race, which Al won, for a national television audience.

Unser was 47 at the time and already considered over the hill for an elite driver, and he wasn’t even supposed to compete. His team, sponsored by Penske, had left him out of its three-car lineup. But after one of those drivers, Danny Ongais, injured himself, Unser was called up.

For most of the race, he trailed Andretti and another driver, Roberto Guerrero. But late in the race a fuel meter in Andretti’s car malfunctioned, forcing him to slow down, and Guerrero’s car stalled coming out of the pit. Unser pulled into the lead and came in first, making him the oldest driver to win the premier auto race in the United States.

His son, Al Unser Jr., finished fourth that year and would himself go on to become one of the world’s premier drivers, twice winning the Indianapolis 500. Father and son shared the track several times, and the elder Unser assumed the nickname Big Al after his son, nicknamed Little Al, established himself in racing.

The Unsers’ competitive relationship came into national focus in 1985, when they were both considered favorites to win that year’s series of races sanctioned by Championship Auto Racing Teams. If he were to win, Unser Sr. would be the oldest driver to capture the season; Unser Jr. would be the youngest.

At the Beatrice Indy Challenge in 1985, which its promoters called “one of the most dramatic showdowns in sports history,” Unser Sr. pulled up next to his son toward the end of the race. They briefly looked directly at each other and gave each other a wave before the elder Unser pulled ahead and won the race, The Associated Press reported.

“I’ve really got mixed emotions,” he said after the race. “I’d like to have seen Al win. Championships are hard to come by.”

But, he added: “Still, I’m a racer and I have to race. I said yesterday, if he wins it, he’s going to have to earn it.”

He beat his son for the season title by one point.

Alfred Unser was born in Albuquerque on May 29, 1939, to Jerry and Mary Unser. His father, who owned a gas station, was an occasional racer and car builder who set him and his brothers on the path to racing royalty.

The family got its start racing in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, a grueling uphill race in Colorado. Al himself took part in it twice, early in his career.

His brother Bobby said in 2009 that he and Al did not fight and were “the closest of friends.”

Al Unser passed on his love of racing to his son, helping the younger Al with a kart he began racing when he was 9. But he also insisted that his son stay out of competitive racing until he graduated from high school, something Al Unser Sr. hadn’t done.

Unser was at least the third member of the family to die this year. Bobby died in May at 87, and his son Bobby Unser Jr. died in June at 65.

Unser is survived by his son and his wife, Susan. Two daughters, Mary and Deborah, died before him.

Al Unser first competed in the Indianapolis 500 in 1965, running the race 27 times, the third-most in history. Along with his 1987 win, he won the race in 1970, 1971 and 1978. He led for 644 laps over his career, which remains a record.

During his career he also raced NASCAR and sprint cars and on dirt tracks. That versatility gave him an unmatched confidence among his peers.

“His quiet and humble approach outside of the car, combined with his fierce competitive spirit and fearless talent behind the wheel, made Al a fan favorite,” J. Douglas Boles, president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, said in a statement.

Unser’s total of four wins at the Indianapolis 500 is a record shared by A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears and Helio Castroneves, who won this year’s race. And he is the only driver to win Indy Car’s triple crown — 500-mile races at Indianapolis, the Poconos and Ontario, Calif. — in a single season.

Unser retired in 1994. He lived in Albuquerque and in Chama, a small mountain town in the northwestern corner of New Mexico.

The Unser family is rivaled only by the Andrettis for its dynastic claim over American motor sports — a fact that didn’t keep Unser and Andretti from becoming close, if still competitive, friends off the track.

Andretti would bring his family to Chama, where they would race snowmobiles, and the Unsers would travel to Andretti’s lakeside home in Pennsylvania, where they would race jet skis.

“We all became one big family after a while,” Andretti said.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/sports/autoracing/al-unser-dead.html

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Liverpool’s second team can include a $45 million defender like Ibrahima Konaté, and a $50 million midfielder like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. A.C. Milan, on the other hand, had the chance to sign Bernardo Silva from Manchester City this summer but simply could not come close to his $8 million-a-year salary.

The nature of the Champions League — the vagaries of the draw, the immediacy of the format, the outsize influence of injury in a knockout competition — means it cannot be guaranteed that a Premier League team will win it this season. But there are, now, only one or two continental sides that might realistically match the English contingent.

The financial gulf is now so great that the trend should only grow stronger over the next few years. Of course, continental Europe’s clubs could spend their money more wisely, they could recruit better, and they could play smarter (Italian and Spanish teams, for one, need to adopt a higher tempo to compete). But the imbalance is such, now, that it is hard to see how it is corrected.

Correspondence

There was, it turns out, a glaring inaccuracy in last week’s newsletter. This is unacceptable, of course, and I will be duly censured for it — though my attempts to secure myself the traditional soccer punishment, a weeklong suspension on full pay, have been unsuccessful — but I think you may understand: apparently, Juventus is not the only club in the world to have its own font.

Bea Reiter points to the Kansas City Current, of the N.W.S.L., which boasts a hand-drawn effort to “reflect the power and movement of the brand.” Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew can make the same claim, Harmon Vredeveld informs us: It has a bespoke font, too, called NineSix, a nod to the year of the club’s founding. Every day, as they say, is a school day.

Apologies are also owed to Ben Myers and Naomi Farley, who were equally offended that I forgot to add Weston McKennie in my list of young players Juventus might, if it were so minded, try to build a revitalized team around. He warranted a mention, certainly, though I fear he may yet prove a victim of the club’s short-termism.

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Giants’ Risk-Averse Offense Contributes to 4-8 Record - The New York Times

By contrast, the Giants’ next opponent ranks first in the N.F.L. at making high-leverage fourth-down decisions, according to the Critical Call Index. The Los Angeles Chargers have attempted 21 fourth-down conversions, very few of them in hopeless, end-of-game circumstances. Brandon Staley, the team’s first-year head coach, went for it on fourth-and-9 from the Chiefs’ 35-yard line with the score tied and 48 seconds left in regulation in Week 3; the Chargers picked up a first down on a penalty and drove to score a touchdown to secure a 30-24 upset.

Conversions on fourth-and-7 and fourth-and-8 when the Chargers were in field-goal range led to much-needed touchdowns in a 47-42 victory over the Cleveland Browns. The Giants’ special teams unit would probably have trotted onto the field unbidden in such situations.

The mathematics of fourth-down decisions run counter to conventional wisdom, which in turn runs counter to common sense. Old-school coaches attempt field goals on fourth-and-2 from the 5-yard line because they do not trust their offense to gain 2 yards, never realizing that an offense incapable of gaining 2 critical yards is also unlikely to reach the 5-yard line again, making a touchdown an even greater priority. The same outdated illogic applies to midfield punts: What’s the point of “trusting the defense” to get the ball back after a punt if the offense cannot be trusted to gain a necessary yard or two?

The fact that the Giants are not a good team in the first place is baked into all of these calculations, as is the reliability of kicker Graham Gano. The “spreadsheets” do not assume that a team with Glennon at quarterback will have the same probability of success as a team led by Tom Brady, the Chargers’ rising star Justin Herbert or even the Giants’ usual starter, Daniel Jones. In fact, the models would penalize Judge’s decisions even more harshly if the Giants’ offense was more effective. Judge is being graded on a curve based on his own team’s shortcomings, yet still failing.

A third-string quarterback, Jake Fromm, is likely to start for the Giants on Sunday because of injuries to Jones and Glennon. Judge may be tempted to become even more conservative with Fromm under center, which could trap the Giants in a failure spiral in which they give up on whatever drives Fromm musters and offer Herbert additional opportunities to beat them. That’s what happens when a team is philosophically predisposed to surrender.

Judge rose through the New England Patriots ranks as a special teams coordinator, and his infatuation with the kicking game would be perceived as a charming traditionalist quirk if the Giants were showing other signs of progress. Unfortunately, the franchise is approaching yet another crossroads. General Manager Dave Gettleman is reportedly mulling retirement, decisions loom about Jones and other key players, and Jason Garrett has already been dismissed as offensive coordinator.

All the punts and field-goal attempts do not only impede victory, but they also make Giants games dreary to watch as 4-point deficits seem insurmountable. Quantitatively incorrect fourth-down decisions, which cannot be blamed on injuries, faulty headsets or anything else, reflect poorly on Judge as the Giants organization enters yet another period of transition.

That’s the trouble with scoffing at probability: By definition, the odds are always against you.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/sports/football/giants-joe-judge-punts.html

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N.C.A.A. Follows Familiar Pattern in Punishment for Auburn - The New York Times

Bruce Pearl, the coach of Auburn men’s basketball, was suspended for two games on Friday and the N.C.A.A. accepted a series of the school’s self-imposed bans over the last several years as punishment for a former assistant coach, Chuck Person, funneling cash to players.

The case is among nearly a dozen that are tied to a federal corruption investigation targeting college basketball more than four years ago. Pearl escaped virtually unscathed even though the N.C.A.A. categorized the violations as its most serious (Level 1) and cited him for failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance. He had previously been hit with a three-year show-cause penalty after lying to N.C.A.A. investigators while at Tennessee.

The infraction committee’s report also outlined a case involving another former assistant coach, Harris Adler, who was accused of sending money to a grass-roots basketball coach to pay the tuition of a walk-on. The infractions committee ultimately said the allegations could not be corroborated even though the youth coach had provided copies of money orders he said came from Adler.

The resolution of Auburn’s case follows a similar pattern. For all the bluster from federal prosecutors when the indictments were announced — “We have your playbook,” the F.B.I.’s William Sweeney said — and all the tough talk of cracking down from a commission organized by the N.C.A.A., there have been few repercussions for the richly rewarded head coaches who run the programs.

Only Rick Pitino, who was fired at Louisville, directly lost his job over the case.

Sean Miller coached until his contract expired last season at Arizona. Louisiana State Coach Will Wade was suspended for the final five games of the 2018-19 season before being reinstated. Andy Enfield at Southern California was not sanctioned. Neither was Kansas Coach Bill Self — at least not by the school, which has a case still winding its way through the N.C.A.A. enforcement process.

In Auburn’s case, Person — the former Auburn star player and longtime N.B.A. forward — was hit with a 10-year show-cause penalty for accepting $91,500 in bribes from a financial adviser in exchange for influencing players to sign with the adviser when they began their pro careers. Person delivered some of that money to two players, Austin Wiley and Danjel Purifoy, who were each suspended for the 2017-18 season. Each returned the following season to help Auburn reach the Final Four for the first time.

Adler, who left Auburn after the 2017-18 season while the school was being investigated, received a one-year show-cause penalty.

(Adler was replaced on the Auburn staff by Ira Bowman, who was suspended for nearly three months while Auburn investigated his involvement in a scheme at the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, Bowman had been an assistant to Jerome Allen, who pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe to help an applicant get into the school as a basketball player even though he never played at the school. Allen testified that Bowman knew what was happening. Bowman remains an assistant at Auburn.)

Auburn and Pearl said in a statement that they accepted the N.C.A.A. penalties. Pearl will not coach his team, 7-1 and ranked 18th, on Saturday against Nebraska in Atlanta or against North Alabama at home on Tuesday.

While the N.C.A.A.’s Rice Commission, headed by Condoleezza Rice, recommended stiffer penalties for serious and repeat offenders — five-year tournament bans for programs and lifetime bans for head coaches — the infractions committee essentially looked at the penalties that Auburn had already imposed and said they were good enough.

The Tigers, just before the start of last season — at a time when the coronavirus pandemic made the prospect of an N.C.A.A. tournament uncertain — announced that it would forgo playing the tournament as penance for its transgressions. (Auburn, which was picked eighth in the Southeastern Conference, finished 13-14 last season.)

The school had also docked itself one scholarship, reduced its recruiting visits to 20 during a two-year span, banned unofficial recruiting visits and recruiting phone calls for almost five months and did not recruit in person for 82 days.

The only penalties the N.C.A.A. heaped on top were four years of probation and a fine of $5,000 plus 3 percent of the men’s basketball budget.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/sports/ncaabasketball/ncaa-auburn-infractions-penalties.html

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Technology

- The Game Awards Returns With Glitz and an Industry Asserting Its Muscle

- Elon Musk’s Latest Innovation: Troll Philanthropy

- Getting Married in the Metaverse

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The Game Awards Returns With Glitz and an Industry Asserting Its Muscle - The New York Times

LOS ANGELES — Wearing blazers and bedazzled dresses, downing cocktails, swapping industry gossip, and hobnobbing with some of Hollywood’s biggest names, the stars of America’s video game industry assembled on Thursday night for a long-delayed reunion at the Game Awards.

The lavish event was a victory lap of sorts for the video game community. While the movie industry has fretted over ticket sales and cannibalization by streaming services like Netflix, the video game industry has enjoyed tremendous growth during the pandemic. An estimated 2.9 billion people — more than one out of every three people on the planet — have played a video game this year, according to the video game analytics firm Newzoo.

Thursday’s awards were also a welcome opportunity for the industry to gather under the same roof, since last year’s event was held online because of the pandemic. Gaming luminaries arrived on the red carpet at the vast Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles, joined by celebrities better known for their work in other entertainment industries.

Sting, the rock music icon, was backed by an orchestra as he opened the show with a performance of the haunting song “What Could Have Been” from the Netflix series “Arcane,” which is based on the video game hit “League of Legends.” The hit band Imagine Dragons performed “Enemy,” another song featured in “Arcane.”

The rapper and comedian Lil Dicky told some jokes in a video spot. Paul George, a basketball star who plays for the local Clippers, towered above the crowd. And there were appearances — some in person and some via video — by the television and film stars Will Arnett, Ming-Na Wen, Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves.

If you were picking up on a crossover theme, you would have been correct. And if you had the feeling that the Game Awards were a bit like some other very elaborate Los Angeles entertainment award events, you would also have been on the nose.

At the center of the gaming industry’s answer to the Oscars was Geoff Keighley, the video game and television personality who created and hosts the annual event and who tried, with seemingly endless reserves of energy and enthusiasm, to steer an increasingly antsy audience through more than three hours of awards presentations and trailers for upcoming games, interspersed with music from the orchestra.

The show began in 2014 and has attracted millions more eyeballs each year on YouTube and Twitch. Last year’s fully remote version garnered 83 million live streams, according to organizers, and Mr. Keighley said after Thursday’s show that he expected more people to have watched live this year, though preliminary numbers were not yet available.

The glee so evident on Mr. Keighley’s face stemmed from a simple reason: Finally, after nearly two years of Zoom calls and virtual hangouts, the industry was back together in the same room. “I missed it,” he said in an interview after the show.

Many among the mask-wearing, invitation-only crowd said they could not believe the event was really happening.

Updated

Dec. 10, 2021, 8:09 p.m. ET

“It’s great, but a little overwhelming,” Hannah Kennedy, a Twitch streamer who goes by bnans, said in the crowded lobby after the show. “We’ve been in quarantine for so long, but it’s really nice to actually get to hang out with everyone again and see each other after two years.”

More than two dozen awards were handed out in categories like best action game and best art direction. The most prestigious title, game of the year, went to “It Takes Two,” a two-player puzzle adventure game developed by Hazelight Studios about a married couple navigating a divorce and journeying through a fantastical world.

Microsoft’s gaming division brought home a number of awards, with “Age of Empires IV” winning best strategy game, “Halo Infinite” winning a fan award called players’ voice, and “Forza Horizon 5,” a car-racing game, taking home three honors. “Deathloop,” a first-person shooting game developed by Arkane Studios, also won multiple awards.

The winners were determined by a vote of industry insiders and the general public.

For many watching, though, the awards were just a sideshow. The Game Awards is also used by the industry to introduce new game announcements and debut trailers for upcoming titles. If audience reaction is any indication, the fantasy game “Elden Ring” continues to be one of next year’s most hotly anticipated titles.

There has been an explosion in sales since the last time the video game world gathered. New game consoles from Microsoft and Sony have been in high demand and short supply. Game publishers like Electronic Arts and Riot Games have reported record revenues. And Roblox, an online game world popular with children, debuted on the stock exchange, topping a $45 billion valuation on its first day of trading.

The increased mainstream interest in online worlds has also been a validation for industry insiders and gamers that were using the term “metaverse” years before Mark Zuckerberg decided that Facebook was going to change its name to Meta. Even Mr. Carrey, appearing at the awards show on a prerecorded video, joked about it.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there with you, but I look forward to meeting all of your avatars in the metaverse, where we can really get to know each other,” he said.

As the industry has grown, it has faced increasing challenges, none more pressing Thursday night than the treatment of its employees. A shadow was cast over the event by the scandal trailing Activision Blizzard — the game publisher that has been under fire for months following a lawsuit from California accusing it of fostering a workplace environment in which mistreatment and harassment of women was commonplace.

A handful of protesters stood with signs supporting Activision employees outside the theater Thursday evening, and Mr. Keighley faced pressure in the lead-up to the event to condemn the company.

He tweeted last week that Activision would not be a part of the awards show, and he opened the event by saying that “game creators need to be supported by the companies that employ them.”

“We should not, and will not, tolerate any abuse, harassment and predatory practices,” Mr. Keighley said, though he did not mention Activision by name. Rob Kostich, the president of Activision, is on the board of advisers for the Game Awards.

Before the event, Mr. Keighley said in an interview that he wanted to strike a balance between using his platform for good and maintaining the upbeat vibe of an awards show.

“Are we going to use our platform to take companies to task publicly inside the show? It’s always something worth thinking about,” he said, “but it’s not a referendum on the industry.”

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/business/the-game-awards.html

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Elon Musk’s Latest Innovation: Troll Philanthropy - The New York Times

Mr. Musk did not respond to an email asking him to discuss his philanthropic giving.

The notion that rich people have a moral obligation to give is an ancient one. Mr. Soskis, a historian of philanthropy, notes that wealthy citizens in ancient Rome tried to outdo one another paying for public baths and theaters. The inscriptions on those edifices could count as a form of early donor lists.

The idea that the richest might need charity to improve their public relations is also longstanding, driven home in the Gilded Age by the 1882 outburst by railway magnate William Henry Vanderbilt, “The public be damned!” that shadowed him to the end of his days.

Updated

Dec. 10, 2021, 8:09 p.m. ET

Efforts to track the charitable giving of the very wealthy in the United States date to the late 19th century, when the ranks of millionaires exploded. Before long, newspapers were running front-page lists of who had made the biggest gifts. The original duo to capture public attention were John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, whose feelings on publicizing philanthropy were diametrically opposed.

Cartoons from the era showed Mr. Carnegie, often dressed in a kilt to reference his Scottish origin, showering coins from enormous bags of money. “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced,” Mr. Carnegie wrote in “The Gospel of Wealth,” his treatise on giving. Mr. Rockefeller preferred to keep his giving more private and had to be convinced to announce his gifts.

To those who think the trolling started on Twitter, philanthropy was never quite as polite as we imagine today. George Eastman, one of the founders of Eastman Kodak, called those who did not give their money away during their lifetimes “pie-faced mutts.” Julius Rosenwald, the chairman of Sears, Roebuck and Company and a major philanthropist in his day, insisted that the accumulation of wealth had nothing to do with smarts, adding, “Some very rich men who made their own fortunes have been among the stupidest men I have ever met in my life.”

But the idea that giving helps the reputation is at best only partially true. Givers are celebrated at times but just as often the higher profile means their motives and choices are picked apart. The Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and the Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are each worth over $120 billion, per Forbes, but none of them receives the level of scrutiny that Mr. Gates does, for instance.

“If you put your head above the philanthropic parapet and say, ‘I’m interested in the environment,’ or whatever cause area, people can start to question it,” said Beth Breeze, author of the recent book “In Defence of Philanthropy.” Ms. Breeze has pushed back against the recent trend of criticizing philanthropists, who, she says, are regularly described as “tax dodging, egotistical, irritating” — criticism they may earn, but not comments that she views as useful to the greater good.

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/business/elon-musk-philanthropy.html

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Getting Married in the Metaverse - The New York Times

To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Traci and Dave Gagnon met in the cloud, so it only made sense that their wedding took place in it. On Labor Day weekend, the couple — or rather, their digital avatars — held a ceremony staged by Virbela, a company that builds virtual environments for work, learning and events.

Ms. Gagnon’s avatar was walked down the aisle by the avatar of her close friend. Mr. Gagnon’s avatar watched as his buddy’s avatar ambled up to the stage and delivered a toast. And 7-year-old twin avatars (the ring bearer and flower girl) danced at the reception.

How the immersive virtual world known as the metaverse, which few of us understand, will change the traditional wedding is, at the moment, anyone’s guess. But the possibilities of having an event unfettered by the bounds of reality are interesting enough to consider.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, technology is already being incorporated into ceremonies more than ever. Zoom weddings have taken place, and some in-person ceremonies now feature a livestream component for guests who cannot be there. Last year, a couple whose wedding was canceled because of the pandemic staged a (nonlegal) ceremony within Animal Crossing, a popular video game.

Like a ceremony within a video game, though, it is important to note that any weddings that occur solely in the metaverse are currently not legal. (Even virtual weddings by videoconference, which many states allowed during the height of the pandemic shutdowns, have since been outlawed in New York State and elsewhere.) Still, the metaverse will take these virtual celebrations much, much further, experts say, and offer almost boundless possibilities to couples.

“There’s no limitations,” said Sandy Hammer, a founder of Allseated, which creates digital planning tools for weddings. The company is investing in the metaverse by creating virtual versions of real-world event spaces like the Plaza Hotel in New York. “If you really want to do something different, in the metaverse you might as well let your creativity go wild.”

Think guest lists that number in the thousands. Gift registries that feature NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. Maybe even destination weddings in space.

“They’re going to take their friends on a space rocket,” Ms. Hammer said, adding that she envisions wedding parties globe-trotting virtually. “A bride can transport her guests into the metaverse: ‘I want my morning session to be in Italy, my evening session to be in Paris.’”

Nathalie Cadet-James, a wedding planner and designer based in Miami, is approaching the metaverse with “a beginner’s mind of excitement,” and trying to anticipate how her role will change. “I think my role might be more like a producer or film director,” Ms. Cadet-James said. “I could create a set that I’ve enhanced. Flowers might come out of the ground as you’re walking into the space. I would add whimsy and fantasy to it — because we could.”

Of course, this would require the skills of a software engineer, a role not in any typical wedding budget at the moment.

The Gagnons had a hybrid wedding of sorts. The couple were married in person Sept. 4 at Atkinson Resort & Country Club in New Hampshire, where they live, in a ceremony officiated by David Oleary, a friend and colleague of theirs ordained by the Universal Life Church, while simultaneously hosting a virtual ceremony in Virbela.

They live-streamed their nuptials for those who could not be there in person. Guests of the virtual ceremony attended via a computer, which required downloading software and then creating an avatar.

[Sign up for Love Letter and always get the latest in Modern Love, weddings, and relationships in the news by email.]

Both Ms. Gagnon, 52, and Mr. Gagnon, 60, work as agents at eXp Realty. The brokerage has embraced virtual work and the metaverse and is part of eXp World Holdings, which also owns Virbela.

Before the couple met in person, their avatars met at a company event in Las Vegas in 2015. And when they announced their engagement in 2019, their co-workers offered to remake Virbela’s cloud campus into a wedding venue, free of charge. (Ms. Gagnon estimated that it would have cost around $30,000 had they paid for it; representatives for Virbela declined to disclose a price for the event.)

The Gagnons sent pictures of themselves and their wedding décor to Virbela’s events team and software engineers, who incorporated personalized details like bird of paradise flowers and images of their in-person venue into the virtual ceremony.

“They were able to take my wedding dress and customize it, and take a little flower halo and put it on my hair,” Ms. Gagnon said.

Patrick Perry, the director of event sales and partnerships for Virbela, said the cost of holding an event in the metaverse “depends on what you want,” adding, “if there’s an engineer building out an MGM ballroom or something of that nature, then the cost goes up,” ranging from a few thousand dollars to well over $10,000.

But, Mr. Perry said, as the metaverse gets built out, “there’s going to be more plug and play assets.” Wedding couples will be able to select from predesigned venues, flowers, tablescapes, dresses, musical entertainment and other elements.

Virbela was designed to be an immersive platform for organizations to host events and build a sense of community in the metaverse. But users have asked the company to host graduations, bar mitzvahs, weddings and other celebrations. Lately, Mr. Perry said, Virbela has started to explore the wedding market and is in the planning stages with a few couples.

Ms. Hammer said Allseated has not yet worked with a couple interested in having a wedding that only takes place in the metaverse. In addition to the legality of such a ceremony, a hybrid event like the Gagnons’ is “much more in-demand and realistic,” she said, “because couples want both in-person and virtual experiences.”

For Ms. Gagnon, who hired two videographers, one to capture the in-person event and another to simulcast the ceremony to the cloud, the whole point of the metaverse element was the connection it offered.

Her maid of honor, who is ill, was still able to walk her down the aisle, if virtually. And Mr. Gagnon’s friend, who was unable to attend because his wife has pre-existing health conditions, could deliver his toast. The experience of moving through a virtual world as an avatar — a kind of idealized version of yourself — creates a more immersive, emotionally satisfying experience than Zoom, said Ms. Gagnon.

“There is a different level of connection,” with the metaverse, she said.

Being a metaverse bride had other benefits, too. “I’m always a size 4, even in January,” Ms. Gagnon said, laughing. “And I never have a bad hair day.”

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/fashion/metaverse-virtual-wedding.html

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Table of Contents

NY Times Global [Sun, 12 Dec 2021]

NYTimes

Tornadoes Hit Several States, With at Least 70 Dead in Kentucky

Deaths Confirmed After Tornado Hits Amazon Warehouse in Illinois

What to Know About the Deadly Tornado Outbreak

In Bid for Control of Elections, Trump Loyalists Face Few Obstacles

PowerPoint Sent to Mark Meadows Is Examined by Jan. 6 Panel

Inside the Fall of Kabul: An On-the-Ground Account

As Vaccines Trickle into Africa, Zambia’s Challenges Highlight Other Obstacles

Omicron Can Weaken Vaccines, but Boosters Show Promise, U.K. Study Says

Helicopters and High-Speed Chases: Inside Texas’ Push to Arrest Migrants

Iran’s Nuclear Program Ignites New Tension Between U.S. and Israel

What Is the Perfect Date to Bring Workers Back to the Office?

Your Guide to the New Language of the Office

Can Parties Help Us Heal?

Silent Films Offer Rare Glimpses of Life in 1920s Ireland

The Holidays Are for Martinelli’s

How the United States Can Break Putin’s Hold on Ukraine

As Omicron Looms, Fear Messaging Isn't Working

We Can Live Better Lives While Being Smart About Covid

What Can Schools Do About Disturbed Students?

The Inflation Suspense Goes On

Revoke the Omicron Travel Ban Against African Countries

How the Great Resignation Could Help Workers

Abortion: Real Stories, Not Abstractions

I Have a Handle on History. The Future Is a Different Story.

Why We Need to Address Scam Culture

NYTimes global

Tornadoes Hit Several States, With at Least 70 Dead in Kentucky

Deaths Confirmed After Tornado Hits Amazon Warehouse in Illinois

What to Know About the Deadly Tornado Outbreak

In Bid for Control of Elections, Trump Loyalists Face Few Obstacles

PowerPoint Sent to Mark Meadows Is Examined by Jan. 6 Panel

Inside the Fall of Kabul: An On-the-Ground Account

As Vaccines Trickle into Africa, Zambia’s Challenges Highlight Other Obstacles

Omicron Can Weaken Vaccines, but Boosters Show Promise, U.K. Study Says

Helicopters and High-Speed Chases: Inside Texas’ Push to Arrest Migrants

Iran’s Nuclear Program Ignites New Tension Between U.S. and Israel

What Is the Perfect Date to Bring Workers Back to the Office?

Your Guide to the New Language of the Office

Can Parties Help Us Heal?

Silent Films Offer Rare Glimpses of Life in 1920s Ireland

The Holidays Are for Martinelli’s

How the United States Can Break Putin’s Hold on Ukraine

As Omicron Looms, Fear Messaging Isn't Working

We Can Live Better Lives While Being Smart About Covid

What Can Schools Do About Disturbed Students?

The Inflation Suspense Goes On

Revoke the Omicron Travel Ban Against African Countries

How the Great Resignation Could Help Workers

Abortion: Real Stories, Not Abstractions

I Have a Handle on History. The Future Is a Different Story.

Why We Need to Address Scam Culture

World

First Fires, Then Floods: Climate Extremes Batter Australia

Russia-Ukraine Sea Encounter Highlights Jittery Nerves in the Region

Omicron is speeding through Britain, and boosters help provide protection, U.K. scientists say.

Migrant Truck Crash in Mexico Kills More Than 50

‘Social Detonator’: In Artist’s Work, and Life, Different Classes Collide

Macron and Scholz Meet and Call for More ‘European Sovereignty’

Modernization of Notre-Dame Interior Gets Green Light

Tigray Rebels Executed Dozens of Civilians, Report Says

The Other, Seemingly Endless, State of Emergency in British Columbia

Secretary of State Antony Blinken Releases 16-Track Spotify Playlist

U.K. Court Rules Julian Assange Can Be Extradited to U.S.

Less Mange, More Frills: Rome’s New Mayor Bets on His Christmas Tree

Echoes of Trump at Zemmour’s Rally in France

Should Police Investigate Residential Schools Cases in Canada?

Silent Films Offer Rare Glimpses of Life in 1920s Ireland

As Vaccines Trickle into Africa, Zambia’s Challenges Highlight Other Obstacles

Ex-Panama President’s Sons Are Extradited to U.S. After Multicountry Chase

Inside the Fall of Kabul: An On-the-Ground Account

Nobel-Winning Journalists Denounce War Talk and Online ‘Toxic Sludge’

Despite Austria’s virus surge, Salzburg Festival announces a program for next summer.

Germany joins the list of nations mandating vaccination for health workers.

Al Unser, Four-Time Winner of the Indy 500, Dies at 82

Taiwan Loses Nicaragua as Ally as Tensions With China Rise

U.S.

Small Court Victories Change Nothing for Women Seeking Abortions in Texas

Helicopters and High-Speed Chases: Inside Texas’ Push to Arrest Migrants

In Texas, a Battle Over What Can Be Taught, and What Books Can Be Read

In the Michigan School Shooting, the Prosecutor Asks, What About the Parents?

Some Voters Are at Odds With Their Party on Abortion

Tornado Batters Mayfield, Ky., but One Resident Says, 'We'll Be OK'

Video Shows Tornado Destruction at Amazon Warehouse in Illinois

Deaths Confirmed After Tornado Hits Amazon Warehouse in Illinois

What to Know About the Deadly Tornado Outbreak

In Bid for Control of Elections, Trump Loyalists Face Few Obstacles

Forecasters Predict More Weekend Storms

Kentucky Declares State of Emergency Over Tornadoes

Biden Talks Vaccines and Bob Dole in Interview With Jimmy Fallon

Republicans in Texas County, in Unusual Move, Upend Primary System

PowerPoint Sent to Mark Meadows Is Examined by Jan. 6 Panel

Iran’s Nuclear Program Ignites New Tension Between U.S. and Israel

Self-Proclaimed Proud Boys Member Gets 10 Years for Violence at Portland Protests

Echoing Trump, David Perdue Sues Over Baseless Election Claims

Coronavirus Briefing: Vaccines, year two

6 More Subpoenas Issued in House Panel’s Jan. 6 Investigation

Biden Eulogizes Dole as ‘Genuine Hero’ Who ‘Lived by a Code of Honor’

Scuba-Diving YouTuber Finds Car Linked to Teens Missing Since 2000

Business

What Is the Perfect Date to Bring Workers Back to the Office?

Your Guide to the New Language of the Office

Congress, Far From ‘a Series of Tubes,’ Is Still Nowhere Near Reining In Tech

You’re Going to Work a Long Time. Here’s How to Build in Breaks.

The Game Awards Returns With Glitz and an Industry Asserting Its Muscle

How Bank Regulators Are Trying to Oust a Trump Holdover

Elon Musk’s Latest Innovation: Troll Philanthropy

On Opioids, Why Are Lawyers Doing the Work of Lawmakers?

GM’s EV Efforts Reportedly Include a Bigger Michigan Presence

Jeff Bezos Is Getting Astronaut Wings. But Soon, the F.A.A. Won’t Award Them.

Biden Assails Kellogg’s Plan to Replace Striking Workers

Analysis: Biden Sees Booming Economy, but Many Americans Don't

Here's How Philadelphia's Covid Mandate for Health Workers Worked

U.S. and Others Pledge Export Controls Tied to Human Rights

November 2021 CPI: Inflation Rose at Fastest Pace Since 1982

How Nursing Homes’ Worst Offenses Are Hidden From the Public

Sports

NYCFC Played the Long Game to Reach MLS Cup

Oliveira Will Face Poirier and Nunes Will Fight Peña in U.F.C. Bouts

Magnus Carlsen Wins World Chess Championship

Demaryius Thomas, Ex-Denver Broncos Wide Receiver, Is Found Dead

Al Unser, Four-Time Winner of the Indy 500, Dies at 82

What Do We Mean by Good Soccer?

Giants’ Risk-Averse Offense Contributes to 4-8 Record

N.C.A.A. Follows Familiar Pattern in Punishment for Auburn

Technology

The Game Awards Returns With Glitz and an Industry Asserting Its Muscle

Elon Musk’s Latest Innovation: Troll Philanthropy

Getting Married in the Metaverse