Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 38 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Your Monday Briefing

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Aleksei NavalnyNavalny’s Life in OppositionKremlin AnxietyCourt DecisionWhat Will Yulia Navalnaya Do?Putin’s ‘Palace’AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyYour Monday BriefingThe Schengen Area closes up.Feb. 21, 2021, 10:13 p.m. ETGood morning.We’re covering travel restrictions within the E.U., the worst day of violence in Myanmar since the coup and the coming U.S. milestone of 500,000 deaths from Covid-19.[embedded content]A police officer addressing a driver at a checkpoint at the German-Czech border near Bad Gottleuba, Germany. Credit…Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockA fresh blow to Europe’s open bordersAs new variants of the coronavirus are spreading rapidly, European countries such as Germany and Belgium have introduced new border restrictions, flying in the face of the free movement that has long been seen as a fundamental pillar of the European Union.The European Commission, the E.U. executive, has tried to pull countries back from limiting free movement since March, on the grounds that it had disrupted the bloc’s single market. The result has been an ever-shifting patchwork of border rules that has sown chaos and not always successfully limited the virus’s spread.But many countries cannot seem to resist taking back control of their borders. A suggestion by the commission that new restrictions be reversed induced a swift pushback from Germany, even as the new rules triggered supply chain disruptions and long lines of commuters from Austria and the Czech Republic.Background: Countries within the Schengen Area have the explicit right to reintroduce checks at their borders, but they need to clear a few legal hurdles to do so, and they are not meant to retain them over the long term.Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.In other developments:As the American death toll nears 500,000, more Americans have now died of Covid-19 than on the battlefields of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined. No other country has counted as many deaths in the pandemic.To secure the release of an Israeli civilian held in Syria, Israel secretly — and contentiously — agreed to finance a supply of Russian-made Covid-19 vaccines for Damascus.Australia began vaccinating its population against the coronavirus on Sunday, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and 19 others getting their shots. The first to be vaccinated was an 84-year-old woman who lives in a nursing home.Dozens of protesters were injured in Mandalay, Myanmar, on Saturday.Credit…Aso/Associated PressMyanmar security forces open fire on protestersWitnesses said two people were killed and dozens wounded when security forces on Saturday opened fire on protesters in the city of Mandalay, Myanmar. It was the bloodiest day of protests so far against the military’s Feb. 1 coup.The shootings occurred as the authorities were trying to force workers back to their jobs at a local shipyard. The work stoppage there in protest of the ouster of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader, has paralyzed river transport on the Irrawaddy, the country’s most important commercial waterway, according to Radio Free Asia.Details: The authorities used water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas, slingshots and live ammunition to break up the crowd. At least 40 people were wounded, according to medics.Mansour Abbas, center, an Islamist leader hoping to join the next Israeli government, campaigning in Daburiyya, an Arab village in northern Israel.Credit…Dan Balilty for The New York TimesIn the Israeli election, an opportunity for ArabsAccelerated by Israel’s election campaign, two trends are converging: On the one hand, Arab politicians and voters increasingly believe that to improve the lives of Arabs in Israel, they need to seek power within the system instead of exerting pressure from the outside.Separately, mainstream Israeli parties are realizing they need to attract Arab voters to win a very close election — and some are willing to work with Arab parties as potential coalition partners.Both trends are born more of political pragmatism than dogma. But while the moment has the potential to give Arab voters real power, it could backfire and split the Arab vote, ultimately lowering the numbers of Arab lawmakers in the next Parliament.Context: Arab politicians and voters have not shed all their discomfort with Zionism and Israeli policies in the occupied territories. But there is a growing realization that problems the Arab community in Israel faces — gang violence, poverty and discrimination in access to housing and land — will not be solved without Arab politicians shaping policy at the highest level.If you have 7 minutes, this is worth itLibraries to honor women lost to violenceCredit…Kiana Hayeri for The New York TimesNajiba Hussaini, who died in a Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul in 2017, was a determined, highly accomplished scholar, who landed a prestigious job in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.Today, her memory lives on at the Najiba Hussaini Memorial Library, in the Afghan city of Nili, as a symbol of the progress made toward gender equality and access to education in Afghanistan. As of 2018, as many as 3.5 million girls were enrolled in school in the nation and one-third of its teachers were women.But amid negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, many worry that a peace deal could mean that the progress Afghan women have made over the past two decades will be lost.Here’s what else is happeningAleksei Navalny: A Russian court has cleared the way for the possible transfer of the opposition leader to a penal colony, the latest step by the authorities to silence the country’s most vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin.Libya weapons: Erik Prince, the former head of the security firm Blackwater Worldwide and a supporter of former President Donald Trump, violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya by sending weapons to a militia commander who was trying to overthrow the government in Tripoli, according to U.N. investigators. He has denied any wrongdoing.Venezuela: Millions of women in the troubled South American country are no longer able to find or afford birth control. The situation has pushed many into unplanned pregnancies or illegal abortions at a time when they can barely feed the children they have.ISIS: Frenchwomen who joined the Islamic State and are now held in squalid detention camps in Syria have gone on a hunger strike to protest France’s refusal to bring them back.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesSnapshot: Above, Novak Djokovic won his third straight Australian Open title. His victory over the fourth-ranked Daniil Medvedev gave him his 18th career Grand Slam title. Naomi Osaka beat Jennifer Brady for her fourth Grand Slam title.Cephalopod sensing: An octopus’s arms can sense and respond to light — even when the octopus cannot see it with the eyes on its head, according to a study published this month in The Journal of Experimental Biology.Bollywood: Increasingly, new Hindi productions are showing mothers, and women over all, as full and complex human beings — not melodramatic side characters, but outspoken, independent leads who are in charge of their own fates.What we’re reading: The U.S. may experience a wonderful summer this year — even if the pandemic is not yet behind us, writes the health journalist James Hamblin in this long read from The Atlantic.Now, a break from the newsCredit…Con Poulos for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Jerrie-Joy Redman-Lloyd.Cook: This shrimp étouffée draws inspiration from Cajun and Creole cuisines.Listen: Radio drama, especially from its golden age in the 1930s through the ’50s, is now freely available, thanks to the internet. Here are six shows to enjoy.Do: Many mothers have felt obliged to put themselves last during the pandemic. But making time for self-care may give you what you need to keep on going.Restore your sense of self. At Home has our full collection of ideas on what to read, cook, watch, and do while staying safe at home. And now for the Back Story on …Taking stock of 500,000 deathsA graphic on Sunday’s front page of The New York Times depicts the totality of Covid’s devastation in the United States. From afar, the graphic looks like a blur of gray, but up close it shows something much darker: close to 500,000 individual dots, each representing a single life lost to the coronavirus.Credit…The New York TimesThis is not the first time The Times’s designers have used the front page to represent the scale of the pandemic’s toll. When Covid-19 deaths in the United States reached 100,000 last May, the page was filled with names of those lost — nearly a thousand of them, just 1 percent of the country’s deaths then.And as that number approached 200,000, the lead photograph on the page showed the yard of an artist in Texas who had filled his lawn with a small flag for every life lost to the virus in his state.But this is the first time the front page has depicted all the U.S. fatalities. “I think part of this technique, which is good, is that it overwhelms you — because it should,” said Lazaro Gamio, a graphics editor at The Times.That’s it for this briefing. See you on Tuesday.— NatashaThank youTo Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.P.S.• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is on children and Covid.• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: What light travels in (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.• Claire Cain Miller, a reporter who worked on our series on working mothers, “The Primal Scream,” spoke to NPR about the toll of the pandemic on women.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Mitch McConnell Is So Over Trump That He Voted to Absolve Him

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe conversationMitch McConnell Is So Over Trump That He Voted to Absolve HimOn the impeachment front, it was an exciting — if sometimes perplexing — weekend.Gail Collins and Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are opinion columnists. They converse every week.Feb. 15, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Alexander Drago/ReutersBret Stephens: What a wild week, Gail. Should we feel pleased that seven Republican Senators voted to convict Donald Trump of incitement — six more than in the last impeachment — or appalled that the other 43 didn’t?Another way of putting the question is whether the G.O.P.’s cup is 14 percent full or 86 percent empty.Gail Collins: It was certainly an interesting show. It’ll be a long time before I forget Mitch McConnell’s speech about the “outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.”It was, by McConnell standards, very passionate. Of course it’d have been a heck of a lot more moving if he hadn’t just voted against any punishment.Bret: The other day I listened to a Malcolm Gladwell podcast on the Yiddish word “chutzpah.” The word has two distinct connotations. In its American usage, it suggests audacity, as in, “It took a lot of chutzpah for her to walk into her boss’s office back in 1962 and demand a raise, but — guess what? — she got it!” In the Israeli sense, it usually means gall and shamelessness, as in, “First the boy murders his parents. Then he pleads for mercy in court because he’s an orphan.”Anyway, McConnell’s speech was chutzpah in the Israeli sense. He wanted to have his outrage and eat it, too. He wanted to ease whatever conscience he has left by denouncing Trump in a way that had no consequences, while using a legal dodge to advance his political interests in the way that really matters. Just pathetic.Gail: Maybe we can call it the McConnell Two-Step.Bret: Or maybe the “Mitch Macarena.” Where is Ted Sorensen when you need him to ghostwrite “Profiles of Invertebrates?” It’s the story of today’s Republican Party and conservative establishment, minus Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Lisa Murkowski and the other brave ones.Gail: But about the G.O.P’s cup — I ought to ask you. Where do you see your party going from here? Engineering a post-Trump turnaround or just sticking to the same brain-dead script that’ll probably force you to vote Democratic again in 2024?Bret: Gail, it isn’t my party any longer, and you’re obviously delighting in the thought of my being forced to vote for Democratic presidential candidates for three election cycles in a row. It might suggest a pattern.Right now I’m working on a longish piece making the case that America needs a Liberal Party, albeit in the European sense of the term. I mean parties that are for free markets, civil liberties and small government, without being hostile to immigration and cultural change.Gail: If that means a three-party system, we’re going to have a lot to fight about.Bret: We should fight more. As for the G.O.P., it’s probably a lost cause. My guess is that Trump’s luster will fade in the party because a lot of Republicans know he’s crazy and are ashamed of what happened on Jan. 6. But Trumpism as the politics of nativism, rage and conspiracy theory is going to be a dominant strain in the G.O.P., especially if Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton or one of the Trump kids is the next nominee.Gail: Eric for president!Credit…Jessica Mcgowan/Getty ImagesBret: To return to Yiddish: Oy vey. Of course there’s Nikki Haley. But after reading Tim Alberta’s long profile of her in Politico, I can’t decide whether she’s crazy like a fox or too clever by half.Gail: What do you think her slogan would be: Served the Trump administration loyally except secretly she always hated him?Bret: From a political standpoint, she’s played her cards pretty astutely. She might be the only potential G.O.P. candidate who can unite the party. She’s smart, charismatic, has a great personal story, did the right thing as governor of South Carolina by getting rid of the Confederate flag from the State House soon after the Charleston church slaughter, and was effective as U.N. ambassador. If she wins the nomination she’d be a formidable challenger to the Democratic nominee, whoever that winds up being.Gail: Wow, Kamala vs. Nikki.Bret: Interesting that Kamala ’24 already seems like a foregone conclusion. Shades of Hillary ’08?Back to Haley. Her dodges and maneuvers are a bit too transparent. And her brand of mainstream Republican conservatism is just out of step for a party that is increasingly out of its mind.Gail: Still, you’ve got me obsessing about an all-female presidential race.Bret: About time.Gail: But back for a minute to the Senate. Do you think they should have called witnesses so the country could have listened to a description of Trump ignoring the real physical danger to Mike Pence and other top Republicans, and defending the rioters when he was begged to call them off?Bret: Not really, no. What more does the country need to know than the evidence the House managers presented? Calling witnesses would have dragged out the trial for weeks on end, forcing us all to watch those despicable Trump lawyers. And we both know it wouldn’t have changed the result.Gail: Yeah, and we really need to get on to Biden’s agenda. There’s a rumor about some kind of pandemic …Bret: Also, the trial introduced the country to some new Democratic stars. Stacey Plaskett deserves an immediate promotion to a big administration job. And Jamie Raskin should be a future contender for attorney general. That he was able to perform with so much grace under pressure, after a terrible family tragedy, made him that much more admirable.Gail: Agreed.Bret: So it’s time for the country to move on. Since I’m grooving on Jewish tropes today, let’s just say, “Trump Came, He Tried to Destroy Us, We Won, Let’s Eat.”Let me switch subjects on you this time. Should Andrew Cuomo be impeached for being, er, highly parsimonious with the truth about the nursing home Covid deaths?Gail: This is Andrew Cuomo. Punishment would be not letting him run for a fourth term in 2022. But New York definitely needs a new crop of executives. Try mentioning Bill de Blasio to a socially distanced friend and watch eyes glaze over from six feet away.Bret: Or, in my case, head exploding. De Blasio is to managerial competence what Yogi Berra was to the syllogism. He’s the guy who redeems the memory of Abe Beame. He makes Trump’s handling of the coronavirus situation seem relatively competent. He’s the nation’s unintentional uniter, bringing everyone from Cuomo to Ted Cruz together into shared contempt.Gail: I thought I was good at complaining about de Blasio, but you win the medal.Bret: I’m keeping fingers crossed that Andrew Yang or some other reasonably competent character can bring the city back from moving further toward 1970s-style insolvency, disorder, crime and decay.Gail: Here’s my last question, Bret. In a couple of weeks it’ll be March. Which won’t change much, pandemic-wise. But as it starts to get warmer, do you think we’ll all start to feel more optimistic? Walking through parks, picnics on the terrace? Our last Trumpian chapter over?Bret: I’m enjoying this continual blanket of snow and wouldn’t mind if it stretched into April. Maybe it will help everyone chill out and calm down. And it’s an excellent excuse for doing as little exercise as possible and binge-watching this French spy thriller, “The Bureau,” that an old friend of mine just got me into.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Can We Put Fox News on Trial With Trump?

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyCan We Put Fox News on Trial With Trump?Even if we can’t impeach media companies, we can do more to hold them accountable for sowing sedition.Opinion ColumnistFeb. 10, 2021Credit…Ryan Jenq for The New York Times More

    • 50 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Clemency for Older Prisoners

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storylettersClemency for Older Prisoners“It is time for immediate action,” a law professor writes. Also: Angry Democrats; better ways to declutter.Feb. 4, 2021, 2:48 p.m. ETMore from our inbox:Enraged DemocratsNew Homes for Clutter, Not the Trash Can Credit…Seth Wenig/APTo the Editor:“Hard-Hit by Virus, Inmates Struggle to Find Place in Vaccine Line” (front page, Jan. 26) is an insight into the state’s failure to care for this highly vulnerable population. But it does not mention one simple option: clemency for older prisoners.Releasing the many long-serving prisoners over 65 who are not a danger to society would reduce crowding and the need for vaccination in prisons, while safeguarding the lives and health of these most vulnerable inmates. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has the power to do this right now (with appropriate quarantine). In many cases, he has clemency petitions on his desk.Governor Cuomo has promised rolling clemencies. When the new and highly transmissible Covid variants inevitably appear in prisons and their surrounding communities, vulnerable prisoners will face a death sentence, and all New Yorkers will be at risk from these hot spot facilities. It is time for immediate action.Cynthia Grant BowmanIthaca, N.Y.The writer, a law professor at Cornell, helped draft a clemency petition on behalf of one aged prisoner and filed amicus briefs in several New York State cases seeking release for others.Enraged Democrats Credit…Audra Melton for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump’s Base Nurses Anger Over Election” (front page, Jan. 19):Trump supporters are not the only ones enraged by the 2020 election. Many Democrats are enraged by the uphill battle necessary to overcome Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression targeting minorities. Many Democrats are enraged by being falsely accused of fraud and election interference by the Republicans who themselves undermined and attempted to overturn the election.Many moderates and progressives are angry at the far-right groups, including major media, that accuse the left of inciting the violent riot by the Trump mob at the Capitol. And many of us are furious at Donald Trump and his supporters for making public health measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and save lives into a political issue.The overwhelming majority that voted against Donald Trump have every reason to be angry at Mr. Trump and his supporters who feel so entitled that they are willing to bring down our democracy after they lost an election.Michael E. MahlerLos AngelesNew Homes for Clutter, Not the Trash Can Credit…Trisha KraussTo the Editor:Re “How to Declutter Quickly” (Here to Help, Jan. 27):I wish Melissa Kirsch had pointed out that the result of impulsively throwing things into the garbage is overflowing landfills that are a big problem for municipalities and the planet. The cake-decorating tips that she left at the curb might have been donated to a thrift store and then, for a dollar, might have provided a child being driven crazy by Zoom school with a fun activity. Clothing that was annoying Ms. Kirsch could have been donated to a local charity.It’s liberating to throw something into the garbage and be done with it, but it’s more considerate to try to find a new home for something we have purchased improvidently or no longer use.Diane S. GreenbergPalo Alto, Calif.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Mario Draghi Is Asked to Form Government in Italy

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMario Draghi Gets Nod to Form New Government and Guide Italy Out of CrisisThe sudden ascent of the man credited with helping save the euro was a pipe dream for Italians frustrated with a coalition paralyzed by ideological schisms and incompetence.Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, knows well the machinery of government at both the European and Italian level. Credit…Andrew Medichini/Associated PressFeb. 3, 2021Updated 8:43 a.m. ETROME — Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank who is largely credited with helping to save the euro, accepted a mandate from Italy’s president on Wednesday to try and form a new unity government that would guide the country out of the pandemic and through economic recovery.“To overcome the pandemic, to complete the vaccine campaign, to offer answers to the daily problems of the citizens, to relaunch the country are the challenges we face,” Mr. Draghi said after meeting with President Sergio Mattarella for more than an hour at the Quirinal Palace. Italy, he said, faced a “difficult moment.” And he said he had accepted Mr. Mattarella’s appeal because the emergency “requires an answer equal to the seriousness of the situation.”Until as recently as Tuesday, the idea of Mr. Draghi replacing Giuseppe Conte as prime minister remained a pipe dream for the many Italians frustrated with a governing coalition that seemed paralyzed by ideological schisms and incompetence, especially as the coronavirus pandemic raged and economic devastation set in.But on Tuesday evening, Mr. Mattarella summoned Mr. Draghi and appealed to “all the political forces in the Parliament” to support a “high profile government” to meet the historic moment.He made it clear Mr. Conte’s tenure was over and the new players, potentially political leaders proposed by the parties supporting Mr. Draghi or an all-star cast of politically unaffiliated economists, judges and scientists, was ready to take the stage.Italy’s stock market rallied on Wednesday in response to the news that Mr. Draghi had been lined up to lead the Italian government. He immediately began consultations with party leaders that will continue in the coming days in an effort to form a new Italian government.“I am confident that from the exchange with the parties and the groups in the Parliament and from the dialogue with the social forces,” Mr. Draghi said on Wednesday, “there will emerge unity and the capacity to give a responsible answer to the president’s appeal.”Mr. Draghi is himself no political novice. He has served in past Italian governments, was a director of Italy’s treasury and knows well the machinery of government at both the European and Italian level.His name has been mentioned for years as a potential candidate to replace Mr. Mattarella as Italy’s head of state in 2022. But now Mr. Mattarella himself has called on Mr. Draghi, whom he has publicly praised in the past, and brought him directly into the fray.“Now everyone of good will must heed the call of President Mattarella and support the government of Mario Draghi,” Matteo Renzi, the wily former prime minister who engineered the collapse of Mr. Conte’s government by pulling his small party’s support in Parliament. “Now is the time for sobriety.”A former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, triggered the previous government’s collapse.Credit…Pool photo by Alessandro SerranoParty leaders on the right and left quickly expressed support for Mr. Draghi after it became clear that Mr. Mattarella would ask him to form a government.Among them were leaders who had made great shows of their loyalty to Mr. Conte. Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of the Democratic Party that Mr. Renzi once led, released a statement that on the one hand referred to the government crisis as a “disaster provoked by the irresponsible choice” of Mr. Renzi, but he then welcomed Mr. Mattarella’s decision. “We will stand ready to discuss the common good for the country.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Andrew Yang Says He Has Tested Positive for the Coronavirus

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceA Look at the Race5 Takeaways From the DebateAndrew Yang’s CandidacyWho’s Running?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAndrew Yang Says He Has Tested Positive for the CoronavirusMr. Yang, a New York mayoral candidate who had suspended in-person events after a campaign staff member had tested positive, said he was experiencing mild symptoms.“After testing negative as recently as this weekend, today I took a Covid rapid test and received a positive result,” Andrew Yang said in a statement on Tuesday.Credit…Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesFeb. 2, 2021Updated 8:14 p.m. ETAndrew Yang, a leading New York mayoral candidate who has pursued extensive in-person campaigning amid the pandemic, announced on Tuesday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.“After testing negative as recently as this weekend, today I took a Covid rapid test and received a positive result,” Mr. Yang said in a statement. “I am experiencing mild symptoms, but am otherwise feeling well and in good spirits. I will quarantine in accordance with public health guidelines and follow the advice of my doctor.”Perhaps more than any other candidate in this year’s race, Mr. Yang has sought to forge an in-person campaign trail, holding multiple events outdoors since declaring his candidacy last month.His approach has generated enthusiasm on the ground and attention in the news media, but even before Mr. Yang tested positive, the risks were clear: A staff member tested positive less than a week after he announced for mayor, forcing the candidate to quarantine.But Mr. Yang had since returned to a robust in-person schedule. He said his campaign had begun the contact-tracing process.“During this time, I will continue to attend as many virtual events as possible, in addition to working with our incredible campaign team to continue our mission of getting New York City back on its feet,” Mr. Yang, 46, said in the statement. “When the time is right, I look forward to once again hitting the campaign trail and advancing a positive vision for our city’s future.”In addition to the health considerations, the developments offer a vivid illustration of the campaigning challenges facing the mayoral candidates as they scramble to stand out before June’s Democratic primary. Many worry about their ability to connect over livestreams and wonder about how many voters they are truly reaching with virtual events. But the health risks — to the candidates, their staffs and their supporters — remain real.Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller whose mother died of complications from Covid-19, and Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, have both had to quarantine recently, though they have generally been far more cautious about in-person campaigning.Pursuing a vigorous in-person schedule also may carry some political risk, especially in a Democratic primary.Throughout the presidential campaign, the Democrats drew sharp contrasts with their Republican rivals over the matter of taking the virus seriously. President Biden’s staff members argued that by pursuing a lighter in-person campaign schedule, they were respecting scientific and medical recommendations and offering a glimpse of how Mr. Biden would lead the country through the pandemic — contrasting with President Donald J. Trump’s large in-person rallies.None of the Democratic mayoral hopefuls are holding large rallies, though Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, has faced criticism for fund-raising indoors. But they do face the challenge of breaking out of a crowded field while also signaling that they take seriously a pandemic that has devastated the city.In an interview, Mr. Stringer wished Mr. Yang a quick recovery, but he also cast the development as a “wake-up call” to the mayoral field — a sign that some of the candidates are increasingly willing to draw mild contrasts with one another, and in particular with Mr. Yang.“This is a dangerous business now, as long as this virus is raging, and we do have a special obligation to keep our people safe,” Mr. Stringer said.“Nobody wants to see, you know, a colleague get sick,” he added. “But you don’t want to be the one to expose people. So, you know, whether it’s indoor fund-raising or up-close campaigning, we have to write new rules to keep people safe while we inoculate as many people as possible.”A spokesman for Mr. Adams declined to comment on the reference to indoor fund-raising. In a statement, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign manager, Sasha Ahuja, said that the team’s strategy is informed by public health guidance.“We hope every other campaign does the same and does as much or as little as they are comfortable with,” the statement said.On Twitter, Mr. Yang used the moment to suggest a balm to speed his recovery.“In all seriousness if you want me to feel better donate to my campaign!” he wrote. “Then I can relax.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 75 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Fact-Checking Biden’s First Week in Office

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The New WashingtonliveLatest UpdatesExpanding Health CoverageBiden’s CabinetPandemic ResponseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFact CheckFact-Checking Biden’s First Week in OfficeAll but three of 20 claims the president made were accurate, demonstrating his regard for basic facts and his proclivity to err when speaking off the cuff.In the past week, President Biden used the presidential podium mostly to promote his policy priorities.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesJan. 30, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETPresident Biden, in his first week in office, typically stuck to vetted scripts and verified facts — a departure from his predecessor’s freewheeling and fact-free rhetorical style.Over all, Mr. Biden used the presidential podium to promote his policy priorities. His remarks were aspirational and light on empirical assertions. Of 20 factual claims The New York Times analyzed from Jan. 20 to Jan. 26, all but three were largely if not completely accurate. One claim was an overly optimistic projection, another falsely criticized former President Donald J. Trump and a third Mr. Biden corrected almost immediately.Here’s a review.The president got basic facts right on the toll and racial disparities of the pandemic.Mr. Biden most often used statistics from government agencies and think tanks to emphasize the severity of the coronavirus pandemic.His assertions that 900,000 Americans filed for unemployment the week before his inauguration, and that almost 16 million continued to claim unemployment benefits, that almost 10 percent of Black Americans and just over 9 percent of Hispanic Americans are unemployed, and that 600,000 workers in local education have lost their jobs are all backed by the latest Labor Department reports.His claims that one in seven households and more than one in five Black and Latino households “don’t have enough food to eat” come from a Census Bureau survey from December. (A day after Mr. Biden made those assertions while signing executive orders meant to promote racial equity, the Census Bureau released a more recent survey showing that the situation had improved slightly in January; one in 10 households and one in six Black and Latino households reported food insecurity.)He was also right that Black and Latino Americans are dying from and being hospitalized because of the coronavirus at rates almost three times that of white Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Research from the left-leaning think tanks the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Center for Economic and Policy Research buttress Mr. Biden’s claims that 14 million people are behind on rent and 40 percent of frontline workers are Black and Latino.And it was true, as he first claimed during his inauguration, that more Americans have died from the coronavirus (406,194 on Jan. 20) than in all of World War II (405,399, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs). He often accurately cited positive analyses of his plans, and sometimes omitted the less flattering.When promoting his policy priorities, Mr. Biden was armed with favorable citations.He accurately quoted Kevin Hassett, a former top economic adviser to Mr. Trump, as “absolutely” in favor of the Biden administration’s proposed $1.9 trillion fiscal rescue package.It would lift 12 million Americans out of poverty, Mr. Biden said, referring to a study by Columbia University. And he referred to estimates from Moody’s Analytics that the package would create 7.5 million jobs this year, and that his broader economic plan would create about 18.6 million over four years if enacted in full.Mr. Biden, unsurprisingly, did not mention other analyses of his economic plan that projected a smaller effect on employment. The research institution Oxford Economics, which is based in England, estimated that it would create two million more jobs in four years. Nor did the president cite Mr. Hassett’s October paper, written with another economist for the conservative Hoover Institution, estimating that it would result in 4.9 million fewer jobs over a decade.The plan’s call for a $15 minimum wage, Mr. Biden said, would lift people out of poverty. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2019 that a $15 minimum wage would bring 1.3 million people above the poverty line — and also put 1.3 million people out of work.The president also repeatedly urged masking up, twice claiming that “wearing masks from just now until April would save 50,000 lives.” That is in line with a study that found about 130,000 lives could be saved if 95 percent of people wore masks in the 160 days from Sept. 22, 2020, to Feb. 28, 2021, equivalent to about 52,000 lives saved in 70 days.The New WashingtonLive UpdatesUpdated Jan. 29, 2021, 9:45 p.m. ETThe retired general in charge of the Air Force Academy alumni association refuses to condemn Jan. 6 riot, angering its members.Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer who died from injuries at the Capitol riot, will lie in honor in the Rotunda.Biden intelligence briefings to be led by veteran C.I.A. officer, who previously briefed George W. Bush.He strayed from the facts when selling his own policies and critiquing his predecessor.During the 2020 Democratic primary and general election races, Mr. Biden was more prone to factual errors when speaking off the cuff, particularly in attacks on political opponents or as he defended or embellished his own record. The three inaccurate claims of his first week in office demonstrated those tendencies.While signing an executive order on strengthening domestic manufacturing, Mr. Biden suggested on Monday that his predecessor paid only lip service to supporting American businesses but “didn’t take it seriously enough.”“Under the previous administration, the federal government contracts awarded directly to foreign companies went up 30 percent,” Mr. Biden said.That was false. A White House spokesman said that Mr. Biden was referring to contract obligations that rose from 2017 to 2019. But a database of government contracts shows that the value awarded to foreign companies rose from about $11.9 million in the 2017 fiscal year to about $13.2 million in the 2019 fiscal year (an increase of 11 percent) and to about $12.9 million in the 2020 fiscal year (an increase of about 8.4 percent).Moreover, raw dollars do not take into account increased government spending or inflation. The same database shows that the share of foreign contracts actually decreased under Mr. Trump to 1.9 percent of all contracts in the 2020 fiscal year from about 2.3 percent in the 2017 fiscal year.At that same event, Mr. Biden overhyped the effect of one of his clean energy policies when he claimed that replacing all of the cars and trucks owned by the federal government with electric vehicles would create “a million autoworker jobs in clean energy.”It is dubious that electrifying the federal fleet of 645,000 cars and trucks would create one million auto jobs, even by the rosiest projections. After all, the entire auto sector employs just under three million people in manufacturing and dealership jobs, while 15 million to 20 million cars are sold a year.Existing research also shows a far more moderate influence on employment than Mr. Biden claims. For example, a 2010 study estimated 1.9 million jobs created if 123 million vehicles are powered by electricity, while a 2009 paper projected 129,000 to 351,000 jobs added if two-thirds of vehicles sold by 2030 are electric.The president also took aim at some critics of his goal to deliver 100 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine in 100 days.“I found it fascinating — yesterday the press asked the question: Is, you know, 100 million enough? A week before, they were saying, ‘Biden, are you crazy? You can’t do 100 million in a hundred days,’” he said last week. “Well, we’re going to, God willing, not only do 100 million, we’re going to do more than that.”Mr. Biden has a point that some were skeptical that the administration could meet that benchmark when he first made the pledge in early December, a few days before the Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer vaccine. Experts told The Times at the time that the goal was achievable, but optimistic. Mr. Biden himself noted in late December — when the country was administering about 200,000 vaccine doses daily — that it would take the United States years to adequately vaccinate the public.But by the week before he took office, the number of shots administered daily reached almost one million. That is the pace required to reach the 100 million doses goal, leading to some criticism that such a goal is now no longer ambitious enough.The president acknowledged in remarks this week that the 100 million number was a floor, not a ceiling.“I’m quite confident that we will be in a position, within the next three weeks or so, to be vaccinating people at the range of a million a day or in excess of that,” he said. “I think we may be able to get that to 1.5 million a day, rather than one million a day. But we have to meet that goal of a million a day.”After a reporter pointed out that the country had already crossed the threshold of one million, Mr. Biden readily corrected himself, using two words his predecessor virtually never uttered: “I misspoke.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 50 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      The First Post-Reagan Presidency

      by

      Credit…Timo LenzenSkip to contentSkip to site indexOpinionThe First Post-Reagan PresidencySo far, Joe Biden has been surprisingly progressive.Credit…Timo LenzenSupported byContinue reading the main storyOpinion ColumnistJan. 28, 2021, 8:50 p.m. ETDuring Donald Trump’s presidency, I sometimes took comfort in the Yale political scientist Stephen Skowronek’s concept of “political time.”In Skowronek’s formulation, presidential history moves in 40- to 60-year cycles, or “regimes.” Each is inaugurated by transformative, “reconstructive” leaders who define the boundaries of political possibility for their successors.Franklin Delano Roosevelt was such a figure. For decades following his presidency, Republicans and Democrats alike accepted many of the basic assumptions of the New Deal. Ronald Reagan was another. After him, even Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama feared deficit spending, inflation and anything that smacked of “big government.”I found Skowronek’s schema reassuring because of where Trump seemed to fit into it. Skowronek thought Trump was a “late regime affiliate” — a category that includes Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover. Such figures, he’s written, are outsiders from the party of a dominant but decrepit regime.They use the “internal disarray and festering weakness of the establishment” to “seize the initiative.” Promising to save a faltering political order, they end up imploding and bringing the old regime down with them. No such leader, he wrote, has ever been re-elected.During Trump’s reign, Skowronek’s ideas gained some popular currency, offering a way to make sense of a presidency that seemed anomalous and bizarre. “We are still in the middle of Trump’s rendition of the type,” he wrote in an updated edition of his book “Presidential Leadership in Political Time,” “but we have seen this movie before, and it has always ended the same way.”Skowronek doesn’t present his theory as a skeleton key to history. It’s a way of understanding historical dynamics, not predicting the future. Still, if Trump represented the last gasps of Reaganism instead of the birth of something new, then after him, Skowronek suggests, a fresh regime could begin.When Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee, it seemed that the coming of a new era had been delayed. Reconstructive leaders, in Skowronek’s formulation, repudiate the doctrines of an establishment that no longer has answers for the existential challenges the country faces. Biden, Skowronek told me, is “a guy who’s made his way up through establishment Democratic politics.” Nothing about him seemed trailblazing.Yet as Biden’s administration begins, there are signs that a new politics is coalescing. When, in his inauguration speech, Biden touted “unity,” he framed it as a national rejection of the dark forces unleashed by his discredited predecessor, not stale Gang of Eight bipartisanship. He takes power at a time when what was once conventional wisdom about deficits, inflation and the proper size of government has fallen apart. That means Biden, who has been in national office since before Reagan’s presidency, has the potential to be our first truly post-Reagan president.“Biden has a huge opportunity to finally get our nation past the Reagan narrative that has still lingered,” said Representative Ro Khanna, who was a national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. “And the opportunity is to show that government, by getting the shots in every person’s arm of the vaccines, and building infrastructure, and helping working families, is going to be a force for good.” More