Plan for Australian Open includes three-week delay, strict coronavirus measures, and fans

After lengthy deliberation and close consultation with health authorities, Australian Open officials are circulating a plan for holding the tennis season’s first Grand Slam beginning Feb. 8 — three weeks later than its planned Jan. 18 start — under strict safety protocols to guard against the spread of the coronavirus. The plan is outlined in a letter that Craig Tiley, chief executive of Tennis Australia and director of the Australian Open, transmitted this week to players for their consideration and feedback. Follow-up discussions were held with player representatives and relevant stakeholders. The tone of the letter, which was reviewed by The Washington Post, is positive. Assuming the government of the Australian state of Victoria signs off and the feedback is equally positive from the top 100 players and their agents — meaning they agree to strict conditions to guard against the spread of the virus — the tournament will proceed as proposed, according to a stakeholder who took part in the discussions. The 2020 Australian Open was the last Grand Slam staged in unfettered fashion with packed grandstands, held in January and early February before the global pandemic wreaked havoc on sports scheduling around the world. In tennis, the men’s and women’s pro tours were halted for five months, starting in March. The French Open was delayed about five months. Wimbledon was canceled for the first time since World War II, and spectators were barred from the U.S. Open. Under the protocols proposed for the 2021 Australian Open, competitors must arrive in the host city of Melbourne between Jan. 15 and Jan. 17 via chartered flights arranged by Tennis Australia. Players must be tested for the coronavirus within 48 hours before boarding the flight and remain quarantined in a designated hotel upon arrival in Melbourne for two weeks, during which time they will be tested five times. During the quarantine, they will be subject to limits on the location and duration of their training and practices, as well as the number of coaches (initially one) and players they may practice with. Those limits gradually increase with subsequent negative tests. After the quarantine period, players would be free to stay and go where they like. Australia has among the strictest quarantine procedures in the world. It went into a lockdown and curfew, with strict limits on travel from home, after a second wave of the virus in the summer. The measures


National Digest: Radio telescope first damaged in August collapses

ranged in age from 17 to more than 60 years old, survived the fire. The boat sank quickly and, by the time Coast Guard rescue teams arrived from the mainland about 20 miles away, much of it rested on the seabed 65 feet below. Boylan and four other crew members survived. — Scott Wilson PUERTO RICO A huge, already damaged radio telescope in Puerto Rico that has played a key role in astronomical discoveries for more than half a century collapsed Tuesday. The telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform and the Gregorian dome — a structure as tall as a four-story building that houses secondary reflectors — fell onto the northern portion of the vast reflector dish more than 400 feet below. The U.S. National Science Foundation had earlier announced that the Arecibo Observatory would be closed. An auxiliary cable snapped in August, causing a 100-foot gash on the 1,000-foot-wide dish and damaging the receiver platform that hung above it. Then a main cable broke in early November. The collapse stunned many scientists who had relied on what was until recently the largest radio telescope in the world. The telescope was built in the 1960s with money from the Defense Department amid a push to develop anti-ballistic missile defenses. It had endured hurricanes, tropical humidity and a recent string of earthquakes. The telescope has been used to track asteroids on a path to Earth, conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize and determine if a planet is potentially habitable. — Associated Press PENNSYLVANIA A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated former Penn State president Graham Spanier’s conviction for child endangerment over his handling of a report that former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky had sexually abused a boy in a team shower. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that a lower-court judge had improperly vacated Spanier’s misdemeanor jury conviction in the 2001 incident. A federal magistrate judge in April 2019 threw out Spanier’s conviction a day before he was to begin serving a two-month jail sentence, followed by two months of house arrest. U.S. Magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick in Scranton, Pa., had agreed with Spanier that he had been improperly charged under a 2007 law for allegations dated from 2001. Prosecutors had argued that the 1995 and 2007 versions of the law criminalized the same conduct. Sandusky is serving a lengthy state prison sentence. — Associated Press


Proposed historic designation for ‘forgotten’ D.C. slaughterhouse may block new halfway house

Ward 5 near the National Arboretum amid public outcry, Core purchased a structure in Ward 7, at 3701 Benning Road NE. Neighborhood opposition followed the contractor to its latest proposed location. The Benning Road property, set off railroad tracks behind a Minnesota Avenue strip mall, is a former home of the D.C. Eagle — which the Washington Blade says is the city’s longest-operating gay bar, operated out of different locations from 1971 until its closure this year. Last month, the Eagle’s trademark and social media accounts were auctioned for more than $32,000 in a bankruptcy proceeding. (The auctioneer said this week he can’t reveal the buyer.) But a National Register of Historic Places application, filed Sept. 25 by an advisory neighborhood commissioner who represents the area, focuses on another incarnation of the building. It states the Benning Road property was constructed about 1915 for the A. Loeffler Provisions Co. and is “the last remnant of the once vibrant industrial meat packing complex” that produced up to 75 percent of the meat produced and packaged in the nation’s capital. Between 1924 and 1928, the application says, the complex annually processed up to 190,000 hogs and 20,000 cattle. The building closed in 1933 for improvements, according to the application, before sustaining damage in a fire and permanently closing as Congress sought to eliminate slaughterhouses in the District. The building was sold in 1941. The application says the “abattoir provided jobs to the men and women living in the adjacent working-class neighborhoods of Northeast Washington” and is “the tangible record of these activities and their importance to our city’s past.” “For Washington’s historical record to be complete, historians must embrace the city’s unpleasant offal — like the city’s nuisance industries — and incorporate it into the rich neighborhood histories being written for academic and popular consideration,” the application said. “This building stands alone to convey a record of this forgotten chapter of Washington’s history.” Tyrell M. Holcomb, the advisory neighborhood commissioner who filed the application, said bestowing the historical designation on the building would honor the neighborhood’s past. The Advisory Neighborhood Commission has approved a plan to “save the property,” according to the minutes of an August meeting, and a petition to block the halfway house has garnered more than 3,600 signatures. “DC’s meat packing industry was destroyed by an overt act of federal intervention without concern for the local citizenry,” he wrote


The Energy 202: In an unusual move, Trump administration will protect a pine tree due to climate change

with Alexandra Ellerbeck In an unexpected decision, the Trump administration announced that a lethal fungus, a rapacious beetle and even a changing climate jeopardize the survival of an iconic tree of the American West. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is set to propose Wednesday listing the whitebark pine as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Granting federal protections to the tree is a “watershed decision," said Diana Tomback, professor of integrative biology at the University of Colorado at Denver who has studied the tree for decades. The whitebark pine's habitat spans over 80 million acres across seven states and Canada. In its official filing, the agency acknowledged that rising temperatures are pushing the high-elevation tree’s habitat up to higher altitudes, hurting the chances of survival for a pine whose nutritious seeds provide sustenance for everything from red squirrels to black bears. “It’s found over the largest geographic area of any other tree listed,” she added. “It tells you how significant and obvious the threat is,” said Rebecca Riley, legal director of the nature program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which first petitioned for the pine to be protected in 2008. The tree is also a key food source for grizzlies that raid pine seeds stored by squirrels when bulking up for winter. Giving threatened status to the pine could complicate efforts to remove grizzly bears around Yellowstone National Park from the endangered species list. In 2017, wildlife officials said the bear had recovered. But a federal judge in Montana reversed that decision the following year. The listing may also have implications for loggers who would have to work around the protected pine on U.S. Forest Service land. About 88 percent of the tree’s range in the United States is on land managed by the federal government. The trees are vulnerable to a foreign fungal infection, which took root in North America a century ago, as well as to native beetles that burrow into the bark of pine trees. And more frequent and ferocious fires — themselves fueled by climate change — are also scorching the pine and its habitat. The result of those many threats, according to a 2018 study by the U.S. Forest Service, is that more than half of all whitebark pines left standing in the United States are already dead. The wildlife officials, however, stopped short of saying which forests are critical to the tree's


The Health 202: Operation Warp Speed chief predicts coronavirus vaccines for all Americans by June

officially identified in China and about a month earlier than public health authorities found the first U.S. case, according to a government study published Monday,” the Wall Street Journal’s Betsy McKay reports. Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they found antibodies specific to the new coronavirus in blood samples donated to the American Red Cross in mid-December. The study, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, found evidence of infection in 106 of 7,389 blood samples collected between Dec. 13 and Jan. 17. Some critics, however, argue that the early “positive” results for the novel coronavirus identified in the study are actually the result of cross-reactivity with other types of common coronaviruses. Trevor Bedford, a professor in the vaccine and infectious-disease division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center: “The policy would hasten the return to normal activities by those deemed to be ‘close contacts’ of those infected with the virus, which has infected more than 13.5 million Americans and killed at least 270,000,” the Associated Press’s Zeke Miller reports. The new guidelines, which were presented Tuesday at a White House coronavirus task force meeting for final approval, reflects a deeper understanding of the incubation period for the virus. Scientists have found that most individuals become infectious and develop symptoms between four and five days after an exposure. “Private EMS services, both in urban and rural centers across the country, collectively received $350 million in Covid-19 relief funds in April, but those companies said that money ran out within weeks. Months later, the need remains great as they face another coronavirus surge,” NBC News’s Phil McCausland reports. Ambulance companies have seen their revenue strained for a number of reasons. Providers have been forced to buy expensive personal protective equipment and have seen less revenue from hospital transfers, as people put off surgeries and other medical procedures. Ambulances are also expected to treat people in place whenever possible during the pandemic, but they often don’t get reimbursed if the patient isn’t actually transported. The end result is that many of the private ambulance companies, which look after about a third of communities in the United States, are on the verge of going under. “[T]he 911 emergency medical system throughout the United States is at a breaking point. Without additional relief, it seems likely to break, even as we enter the third surge of the virus in


Ivory Coast reelected its president. Opposition candidates boycotted the voting.

Bédié won in 1995 with 96 percent of the vote. Before the 2000 presidential election, Bédié was overthrown in a coup that brought Gen.l Robert Guéï to power, and a newly FPI-dominated National Assembly adopted a constitution that enshrined the Ivoirité rule, blocking Ouattara and others from the ballot. After an unsuccessful attempt by Guéï to declare victory, Gbagbo won the presidency and extended Ivoirité to new policy areas, including procurement of any identification document, sparking a civil war between north and south in 2002. Amid the ongoing war, Gbagbo canceled the 2005 election. A negotiated agreement in 2007 brought the war to an end, and Ouattara, Gbagbo and Bédié faced off for the first time in the 2010 election. After no candidate captured a majority in the first round, confusion reigned in the runoff results. The independent electoral commission declared Ouattara the election winner while the Constitutional Court called it for Gbagbo. A second civil war broke out, ending with Gbagbo’s capture and transfer to the International Criminal Court for trial on crimes against humanity charges (he was acquitted and released in 2019), and Ouattara became president. A peaceful, democratizing interlude After presiding over a second economic miracle, marked by three years of rapid growth, Ouattara led his multiparty coalition, the Rassemblement des Houphouëtistes pour la démocratie et la paix (RHDP), to win reelection in 2015. Despite less competition and lower voter participation than in 2010, the lack of party bans or boycotts, and a broadly accepted outcome without a coup, civil war or mass protests signaled a step forward toward democratic consolidation. The run-up to the 2020 presidential election appeared to promise further democratic progress, as continued economic prosperity laid the groundwork for stability. A new constitution adopted via a 2016 referendum removed the Ivoirité restriction and included a presidential two-term limit. In March, Ouattara made good on his promise not to seek a third term by designating Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly as the RHDP coalition’s presidential candidate. But the positive trajectory did not last Despite economic growth, inequality persisted in Ivory Coast. And security forces used tear gas to disperse protesters opposed to the 2016 referendum for the new constitution, which included eliminating age limits that would have prevented Ouattara (who was 74 at the time) from running again. Bédié, after withdrawing his party from Ouattara’s coalition, announced his candidacy for president in June. When Gon


California Democrats urged people to stay home — and then did the opposite at restaurants and holiday parties

As the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors debated last week whether to ban outdoor dining, Democrat Sheila Kuehl was quick to speak up in favor of restrictions. It was “a bit of magical thinking,” the county supervisor said, to believe restaurant staffers could safely wait on unmasked diners amid a surge in coronavirus infections. “This is a serious health emergency, and we must take it seriously,” she said, casting one of three votes that would again prohibit the practice across the county of more than 10 million people. Hours later, according to KTTV, she was spotted dining alfresco at an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica, Calif. Kuehl is one of at least four high-profile California Democrats who have landed in hot water in recent days for failing to abide by their own public health recommendations. Despite pleading with residents to stay home to slow the spread of coronavirus — which has killed at least 269,000 people in the United States — those very same lawmakers have ignored state and local rules, attending large holiday gatherings or indoor birthday celebrations. In one case, two politicians’ dinners took place on consecutive nights at the same pricey restaurant in Napa Valley. Their transgressions come as infections are climbing and hospital beds are filling up fast in California, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. More than 81,000 new cases have been reported statewide in the past week, with about 9,000 patients currently hospitalized — a 36 percent increase from last week. Barbara Osborn, a spokeswoman for Kuehl, confirmed to The Washington Post that the supervisor had dinner at Il Forno in Santa Monica on Nov. 24, the last day outdoor dining was permitted in Los Angeles County. “She loves Il Forno, has been saddened to see it, like so many restaurants, suffer from a decline in revenue,” Osborn said in a statement. “She ate there, taking appropriate precautions, and will not dine there again until our Public Health Orders permit.” Four hundred miles and three Michelin stars away, the lure of fine dining also created public-relations headaches for two of California’s most prominent politicians. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D) both traveled to Napa Valley for birthday dinners last month at the French Laundry, a venerable eatery where reservations are famously hard-won, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The parties took place on Nov. 6 and 7,


The Daily 202: Trump’s threat to veto NDAA follows pattern of tenuously invoking ‘National Security’

the initial inoculations should be given to an estimated 21 million health-care workers and 3 million residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities. "These groups were deemed the highest priority by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, because the vaccine will initially be in extremely short supply after it is cleared by federal regulators,” Lena Sun and Isaac Stanley-Becker report."Residents and employees of long-term-care facilities were prioritized because they account for nearly 40 percent of deaths from covid-19 … The recommendations for the highest-priority groups, known as Phase 1a, will be sent to CDC Director Robert Redfield, who also informs Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. If the recommendations are approved, they will become official CDC recommendations on immunization in the United States and provide guidance to state officials, who are scrambling to meet a Friday deadline for vaccine distribution planning. “The committee voted 13 to 1 to prioritize the two groups. Helen Keipp Talbot, an associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University, was the sole dissenting vote. Unease over the recommendations centered on the inclusion of long-term-care residents, with several panel members saying there was insufficient vaccine safety and efficacy data to support immunizing them right away. … What the committee will probably recommend may differ from what some Trump administration officials want, according to three federal health officials.” “An influx of new covid-19 patients could lead to hard decisions in the worst-hit hospitals about how to allocate medical resources and care,” Ariana Eunjung Cha, Lenny Bernstein, Sun and Jose Del Real report.“Tom Moore, an infectious-disease doctor in Wichita, said cases had been rising steadily throughout the summer because of outbreaks at meatpacking plants. But over the past few days, the number of positive cases has reached shocking levels. … Moore described a nurse in the intensive care unit breaking down crying … Sixteen states and Puerto Rico reported record numbers of hospitalizations on Tuesday, and four states tied with their highest days. Arizona, California, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and West Virginia each reported more than a 25 percent increase in the average number of hospitalizations compared with one week ago." Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) moved to increase hospital staff capacity. The state has 1,583 people in hospitals being treated for the virus, the most since early May. “The move reflects the agency’s recognition that the two-week quarantine rule is onerous for many people


The Technology 202: ACLU sues DHS over purchase of cellphone location data used to track immigrants

who want to appeal content decisions. The pieces of content removed by Facebook for hate speech that will be reviewed include: The other three cases involve questions about content Facebook determined violated its adult nudity; dangerous individuals; and violence and incitement policies. All but one case was referred for review by users. Facebook referred a video in a group “claiming hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin is a cure for COVID-19 and criticizing the French government’s response to COVID-19.” The independent board has received 20,000 cases since opening for requests in October, according to a news release. Hate speech made up “the most significant proportion of appeals," Facebook told Reuters. All of the cases will be open to public comment. The board has another big question to answer: What do horses have to do with all of this? If you have an answer, please let us know! The ruling is a win for the tech industry, which largely spoke out against the restrictions. Twitter and more than two dozen other tech companies and organizations filed an amicus brief on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's legal challenge last month, arguing that shutting out foreign talent would hurt U.S. companies. A California federal judge says the administration ignored key procedural steps including allowing affected parties to weigh in before enacting the rule. “High-skilled work visas are vital to American businesses’ continued efforts to battle the COVID-19 pandemic and rebuild our economy, Salesforce plans to combine the popular chat interface with its existing enterprise software, Heather Kelly reports. Slack CEO Steward Butterfield will stay on to lead Slack within Salesforce. Slack is Salesforce's largest acquisition in the company's 21-year existence. The technology would give Salesforce a stake in the growing workplace communications technology market, which includes Microsoft Teams, Google and Zoom. The company's leaders, including chief executive Ben Silbermann, and members of the company's board “personally engaged in, facilitated or knowingly ignored the discrimination and retaliation against those who spoke up and challenged the Company's White, male leadership clique,” the shareholders allege in the complaint. The investors say that the misconduct harmed the company's financial position and reputation with users. The lawsuit brought by the Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island also accuses Silbermann of “abdicating his fiduciary duties” by allegedly ignoring discrimination. “He repeatedly placed himself before the Company, surrounding himself with yes-men and marginalizing women who dared to challenge Pinterest’s White, male


Black households were saving more. Then came covid-19.

according to the Federal Reserve’s 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances. CFA notes that the Fed data found many Black households negatively impacted by the Great Recession had begun to make a slow but steady recovery. Although only 35 percent of Black households had retirement accounts, the median assets in those accounts increased 67 percent to $35,000 in 2019 from $20,900 in 2013. “Black households were better prepared than years earlier to cope with an accompanying recession in which many were fired, furloughed, or had work hours cut,” write Barany and Stephen Brobeck, a senior fellow at CFA. With Congress stalled on another stimulus package, people are left to figure out how to meet their expenses without additional government support in an economy still struggling for a comeback. Having some savings — even a small amount — can help in a crisis. You may not have enough to pay the rent, but you can buy a bag of groceries perhaps. The problem is that only 42 percent of Blacks have a traditional savings account and/or a money market deposit account. “It’s not easy for people with lower incomes to save, but the current crisis demonstrates how important it is to make it a top priority,” Brobeck said. America Saves has partnered with the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education (AFCPE), utilizing the Yellow Ribbon Network. This online platform normally serves veterans, active military and their families but has expanded to connect anyone impacted by the pandemic with certified financial counselors and coaches at no cost. To sign up for a virtual session, go to yellowribbonnetwork.org/afcpecovid19. The best way to save is to do it automatically. Set up direct deposits to a savings account when you get paid. Keep your savings away from your regular household account. I don’t carry the debit card connected to my emergency fund. “We encourage people, even if it’s $5 per paycheck or $10 per paycheck, to set up an automatic system, because it’s the system that’s key,” Barany said. Maybe you truly don’t have the ability to save now, and there’s no shame in that. But for those who can, do it now. The pandemic is a harsh reminder for all Americans — but especially Black households — that having an emergency fund is critical in a financial crisis. — Readers can write to Michelle Singletary c/o The Washington Post, 1301 K St., N.W., Washington,


The struggle to document covid-19 for future generations

In the era of Instagram, how do we build a visual archive of the multiple forms of human suffering wrought by the covid-19 pandemic? As countless individuals across the world document the impact of covid-19 on their own lives, universities, museums and other nonprofits actively solicit materials to build future collective archives of the pandemic. In some instances, like that of the Bentley Library at the University of Michigan, the focus of the collected materials remains resolutely local, in this case documenting the campus experience. Other projects, like Arizona State University’s “A Journal of the Plague Year,” adopt a much broader aim in their invitation to collaborators to serve “not just as historians, but as chroniclers, recorders, memoirists, as image collectors” in sharing “how the pandemic has affected our lives, from the mundane to the extraordinary.” Although this call to document our current moment stresses the active role played by potential participants, it reduces the work of visualizing the pandemic to assembling images. Yet historians of the present do not merely collect images but also make deliberate selections and, in some instances, may even generate those images. As Susan Sontag noted nearly a half century ago, taking a photo “is to be in complicity with whatever makes a subject interesting, worth photographing” — including, sometimes, the subject’s “pain or misfortune.” Writing in the aftermath of shocking images from the Vietnam War and the famine in Biafra, Sontag recognized the power of such visuals but also the danger of becoming inured to them. The histories of what Sontag called the “photographed images of suffering” offer us both tools and cautionary tales as to how we curate images of the contemporary moment. The strategic use of images to highlight suffering and to mobilize for humanitarian action dates to photography’s beginnings in the 1830s and 1840s. Abolitionists in the United States and Britain, for example, quickly adopted the new technology, using photographs to depict both the horrors of slavery and the humanity of its victims. Similarly, at the turn of the 20th century, the outrage over the atrocities committed in the Belgian Congo and King Leopold’s decision to give up his private landholdings there owed as much to the traveling lantern slide shows depicting mutilated bodies as it did to Sir Roger Casement’s report exposing systemic abuses in the colony. Despite the absence of technologies like the Internet, such images spread with surprising


There is no reason to wait. Cancel your holiday travel plans now.

invite families from other homes to join us each night on Zoom.” And, of course, President Trump and President-elect Joe Biden have major roles to play. Trump can help make up for his poor messaging to date by keeping quiet and not contradicting public health experts. Biden delivered an inspiring Thanksgiving message that emphasized how Americans must unite to get through this difficult period; now, he can ask Americans to commit to the same shared sacrifice for Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas. He can guide families through difficult conversations by sharing the hope of vaccines and reiterating why we must hold off seeing one another for a few more months. Many governors are already imposing restrictions on high-risk activities to avoid overwhelming hospitals. They can go further by implementing mandatory quarantines for out-of-state visitors and returning residents. In the absence of statewide mandates, local officials can issue orders of their own: Santa Clara County in Northern California is requiring quarantine for those traveling from more than 150 miles away. Officials should prohibit indoor gatherings for those in different households. Enforcement will be challenging, of course, but the presence of these restrictions alone will help convey the gravity of the crisis. Congressional leadership matters, too. People will not heed public health guidance to stay home if their jobs are at risk. It’s long past time for Congress to pass a package to assist workers and small businesses. In addition, local and state health departments urgently need funding to implement the vaccination programs that are essential to ending the pandemic. Other entities — including schools — must take aggressive action, as well, such as requiring quarantine and testing after the holidays before returning to in-person instruction. Americans still have a small window of opportunity to avoid the total collapse of our health-care system. We need to wait just a little longer to be with our loved ones. Let’s plan for quiet celebrations in our own homes this winter. Spring is not far away. Read more Michael Gerson: The Trump era could have been even worse J.J. McCullough: Canada’s covid-19 second wave is a humbling moment after a summer of bragging Megan McArdle: What changes after covid-19? I’m betting on everything. Lizette Alvarez: In managing covid-19, colleges must tend to students’ minds as much as their bodies Fareed Zakaria: The pandemic upended the present. But it’s given us a chance to remake the future.


Could a travel bubble between New York and London be on the horizon?

Several months into the coronavirus pandemic, few travel bubbles have successfully allowed passengers to fly internationally without quarantining. Many international destinations still do not allow Americans to visit for nonessential reasons, or they require Americans to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. But in recent months, trial programs for preflight coronavirus tests have emerged for Americans traveling abroad — most notably for flights to London via Newark on United and American Airlines routes shared with British Airways. British Airways and American Airlines aim to use the testing data from such programs to aid the British government’s decision-making on covid-19 measures, the Guardian has reported. Now, emerging from a nationwide lockdown on Dec. 2, England has announced it will shorten its required 14-day quarantine for travelers from high-risk countries to five days if they acquire a negative coronavirus test. (Americans can enter the United Kingdom without a coronavirus test in hand but must quarantine on arrival or face penalties, according to the U.S. Embassy in London.) The testing programs might signal a travel bubble to come, as officials say they are in talks about a New York-London travel bubble. But doctors say rigorous testing and some degree of quarantine would still be required for opening up work travel between New York and London, especially if a projected rise in coronavirus cases this winter doesn’t ultimately derail the effort. “Conversations are ongoing between the Federal government, international partners, and industry stakeholders on these matters,” a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation said of the New York-London travel bubble in an email. “The Department stands ready to support the safe resumption of international flights to and from the U.S.” A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security also told The Washington Post that it is “in close collaboration with our interagency and international partners and industry to safely reopen and encourage transatlantic travel while mitigating public health risks.” Officials in the United Kingdom and United States have been in discussions about a London-New York travel corridor since October, at one point with hopes of an opening in time for Christmas, according to the Wall Street Journal. While quarantine-free travel between the United States and London has not materialized with one month left in the year, shortened quarantines will begin for U.K. arrivals on Dec. 15. Visitors who acquire a negative coronavirus test five days after their arrival will not be required to


In high-profile #MeToo case, an intern takes on a celebrity TV host in China

has denied the accusation and has sued Zhou, who is seeking a publicly apology and $7,600 in damages, for defamation. While the #MeToo movement swept around the world in recent years, Zhou's allegations broke ground in China. She presented records of a contemporaneous police complaint she filed in 2016 and her case gained traction online because she moved ahead with a lawsuit even though a deluge of other allegations against famous men in the nonprofit, academic and business worlds — and even a prominent Buddhist monk — fizzled out, were settled out of court or suppressed by censors. Zhou's lawsuit was always a long shot. She said police discouraged her from filing a complaint in 2018. Chinese sexual harassment lawsuits were rarely heard of before Zhou's, and judges have sided with the accuser only once: Last year, a social worker in Sichuan province successfully sued her nonprofit employer. In June, China passed a law that specified what constitutes sexual harassment. On Wednesday, government censors took down posts about the case on the popular forum Douban and WeChat, while Zhou's supporters flooded the platforms hoping their sheer volume would overcome the algorithms. Outside the courthouse, plainclothes police milled among the crowd. Uniformed officials hustled away foreign news crews and asked the young demonstrators to stop holding signs or filming videos to share on social media, according to people present. The atmosphere was less tense than some of China's politically sensitive cases — and at times fun, Li said. By nightfall, the crowd had grown to 100 people, and Zhou's online supporters nationwide — including a core group of about 2,500 members in five chat groups — used apps to deliver milk tea and hamburgers to supporters holding vigil. One group of supporters arrived from Guangzhou in southern China; some flew out the same night. "The case was 99 percent likely to end in defeat, but because everybody was watching and persisting outside the courthouse, the judges at least delayed the result so we get another shot at that 1 percent," said a woman who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she organizes online support for Zhou, which can be politically sensitive. "It's difficult to get a fair, open trial in China, but Xianzi showed you can choose the legal route. You at least have a chance, even if it's not big." In a statement on social media early Thursday, Zhou


Austin’s mayor told people to stay home. He was vacationing in Cabo after hosting his daughter’s wedding.

and state leaders have been caught flouting their own coronavirus warnings by dining out and attending parties after issuing guidance discouraging the public from doing those same activities. Texas broke the nationwide record for new coronavirus cases reported in a day about two weeks after Adler posted the Nov. 9 video, when it reported 16,100 new cases on Nov. 25, about 1,000 more than the previous record. (California reported 18,350 new cases that same day, also breaking the previous record.) Some areas of the Lone Star State have been hit harder than others. Near the border with Mexico and New Mexico, El Paso has resorted to airlifting patients to other cities as its hospitals have been overwhelmed with critically ill people. The state paid prisoners to move hundreds of bodies to mobile morgues in the city, then it deployed Texas National Guardsmen to help. As of early Thursday, more than 9,000 people are hospitalized with covid-19 in Texas. Yet even as the numbers mount, officials in the state have been inconsistent in enacting and enforcing coronavirus restrictions. El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, a Democrat, ordered a shutdown of the hard-hit city, but El Paso Mayor Dee Margo and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, both Republicans, challenged the legality of those restrictions. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) declared last month that he would not institute a statewide shutdown, even as cases spiked. He has issued a statewide executive order allowing restaurants to reopen at 75 percent capacity and allowed bars to partially resume business with permission from local county leaders. Even where bars have been ordered closed by county officials, many have kept their doors open under a loophole that allows them to be classified as restaurants if they serve food and if alcohol sales account for less than half of their revenue, the Texas Tribune reported. Although Adler defied his own advice to stay home when he took a family vacation in Cabo last month, the Democrat has asked Austin residents to stay home, practice social distancing and wear masks. The Austin mayor said neither the wedding nor the trip to Mexico violated local or statewide coronavirus guidelines in place at the time. He told the American-Statesman that the wedding guests had taken rapid coronavirus tests before the event and said masks were provided for the attendees to wear at Hotel St. Cecilia. He noted Wednesday that he took


PM Update: Seasonable and increasingly cloudy, with showers possible late Friday

Highs in the low to mid-50s are actually a bit on the warm side for this date, believe it or not. With clouds slowly increasing, the first signs of the next storm system to affect the area are making themselves known. We should stay dry for about another 24 hours, then it’s another deluge. Listen to our daily D.C. forecasts: Apple Podcasts | Amazon Echo | More options Through Tonight: View the Tomorrow (Friday): See David Streit’s forecast through the beginning of next week. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Gridlock. Rain watch: Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email inbox?


Maryland crime report

Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, •Destruction to a vehicle •Destruction of property/vandalism •Theft from a vehicle •Thefts of vehicle parts and accessories •Tampering with a vehicle •Attempted vehicle theft •Credit or debit card theft •Identify theft •Lost property •Telephone misuse •Trespassing The following were among incidents reported by Anne Arundel County police. For information, call 410-222-8050. Brooklyn Park Area Wasena Ave., Crofton Area Freemont Ct., Wilkshire Dr., Fillmore Ct., Angus Ct., Carry Pl., Walleye Dr. and Farmington Ct., Glen Burnie Area Hiddenbrook Dr. and Mystic View Turn, Hospital Dr. and Fox Spring Dr., Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, Dogwood Rd., City Gate Lane, Conduit St., Hillsmere Dr., Hilltop Lane, Lafayette Ave., Main St., Riverview Ave., W. Washington St., Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, Columbia Area Symphony Way, Cloudleap Ct., Little Patuxent Pkwy., Harpers Farm Rd., Murray Hill Rd., Red Branch Rd., Rushlight Path, Woodside Ct., Gerwig Lane, Elkridge Area Bonnie View Lane, Pirch Way, Ellicott City Area Centennial Lane, Old Annapolis Rd., N. Ridge Rd., Marriottsville Area Mount View Rd., Savage Area Lincoln St.,


Are layovers riskier than long-haul flights during the pandemic? Here’s what doctors say.

As coronavirus cases rise across the United States this winter, completing any air travel will be full of fraught decisions — which airlines still have social-distancing protocols, whether to lounge in the airport, and when (if ever) it’s safe to take off your mask. But longer flights and those that require a layover at another airport will be perhaps the most anxiety-inducing, as they prolong your window of risk for picking up the virus. Recent studies on in-flight transmission of the coronavirus make clear that longer flights have been superspreader events; the longer a group of people is gathered, the higher the risk of the virus becoming airborne. But health experts have also warned travelers that airports and public transportation can facilitate the spread of the coronavirus, as well. “The problem is not only the plane — it’s the airport, the transit before the airport, anywhere that gets crowded, really,” says Carlos Acuña-Villaorduña, an epidemiologist at Boston Medical Center with expertise in modeling the projected spread of viruses. “This is a respiratory virus, and it only needs close proximity to spread.” So what is a traveler to do if the options are either boarding a long, potentially crowded flight or breaking up the journey with a precautionary layover? Doctors say it depends but that one option will typically be better than the other. Here’s what to think about before a long flight during the coronavirus pandemic. Consider if you’re taking a flight that’s several or more hours long, similar to the seven-hour journey Irish researchers said this summer was linked to 59 cases in the country. Is it wise to reduce your time in a single air cabin by including a stopover at an intermediary airport, or is there greater risk in introducing another ground stop? David Freedman, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who frequently reviews travel-related covid-19 studies, says the risky boarding and deboarding process almost always outweighs the benefits of breaking up the journey. “If you change planes, you’re hitting one more airport. And there is a huge amount of risk in the airport, but boarding and deplaning is the riskiest part of that,” Freedman says. “So doing that process an extra time really increases the risk. … The only advantage of breaking it up would be that, if you’re sitting next to somebody on your flight who is infected, it would cut


The Trump administration is putting more fresh fruit and vegetables in the hands of low-income Americans

adjacent to the hardware store. The number of vendors has been cut in half to accommodate social distancing, and live music and food trucks “came to a screeching halt,” Linda Cottin said, but there’s been an uptick in SNAP usage. “We’ve seen some new customers,” she said. “They have said an outdoor market is a safer place to shop than a grocery store, and it could also be that people have more time because they are working at home. It ran from 4 to 6 p.m., so for people working at the office that was hard for them.” SNAP and Pandemic EBT recipients come into the hardware store, run their card and receive tokens to spend with the market vendors — and a regional grant doubles their money. Many small farmers did not qualify for Paycheck Protection Program loans, because small farms tend to have few employees. Nor did they get the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program payments, because the program largely leaves out those who rely on direct-to-consumer sales or wholesale accounts. The uptick in SNAP use provides a welcome new revenue stream for many farmers. Kim and Chad Spangler grow and sell sweet corn, tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, summer and winter squash, melons and some berries at a farm stand in Yorktown, Ind. They have six or seven families regularly using their food assistance benefits but have also seen a small uptick in newcomers. Ryan and Alycia Salvas of Radical Roots Farm in Canterbury, Conn., have seen a more dramatic change. They raise American mulefoot hogs, shipping their pork across the country and selling it right off the farm. They have a subscription service — like a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) produce program — for their pork: 10 pounds is a half-share for $100; a full share, a 20-pound box, is $180. Having a SNAP and Pandemic EBT card reader has transformed their business. “It’s dramatically increased our sales over the past year,” Alycia said. “It went from 10 people over last winter to 56 customers” using SNAP. “Sales have quadrupled in the past six months,” Ryan added. “With supermarkets being so low on inventory and with price gouging, we’ve seen customers who have never gone to the market.” Online ordering options, Ryan said, has removed one more barrier. “People on food stamps would come to the market and be ashamed,” Ryan said. “This removes the whole stigma behind it.”


The Washington Post joins other news organization in new Forbidden Stories investigation

The Washington Post today announced its participation in “The Cartel Project,” a collaborative investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, an international network of investigative journalists whose mission is to continue the work of other journalists facing threats, imprisonment or murder. The investigation involves 25 organizations in 18 countries and will include five stories, the first of which will be published by The Post. The Post’s investigation focuses on Regina Martinez, a journalist who was murdered in 2012 in the Mexican state of Veracruz. Her killing was part of a wave of violence against journalists in Mexico, where more than 90 percent of press freedom cases go unpunished. Since her death, more than 20 journalists have been murdered in Veracruz, which is now considered the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. “As journalists, we have a responsibility to inform readers about what we learn through reporting. That is being challenged in many corners of the world and journalists are increasingly at risk for doing this important work,” said Jeff Leen, investigative editor at The Washington Post. “At this critical time for press freedom, we are pleased to be the United States partner for an important investigation that brings to light vital information about the dangerous task of being a journalist in Mexico.” “The Cartel Project” will publish Dec. 6 at 12pm ET.


Army museums have tens of thousands of artifacts. They’re looking to downsize.

said. Some have already begun the process. The Yuma Proving Ground Heritage Center, at the Army weapons testing range in Yuma, Ariz., is one, according to the project schedule. The center has among other things a rare 1950s-era atomic cannon. “We are not moving the atomic cannon,” Rohal said. Artifacts that are deemed excess will be further reviewed by subject experts. Items then marked for “divestiture” would be made available through federal disbursement programs to groups such as the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service, as well as state museums, nonprofit museums, municipalities and educational institutions, Rohal said. “That’s really our hope and goal, is that it gets to another museum or educational institution,” he said. And private individuals and collectors? “That’s one thing we’re still trying to work through,” he said. “There’s further rules and restrictions particularly on anything that has an offensive or defensive capability,” Rohal said. “Small arms, or knives, things of that nature, can’t get out to the general public other than through controlled programs.” As for “macro” artifacts, “tanks, vehicles, howitzers, cannons,” the Army Museum Enterprise is tracking about 7,000 items like that, and checking for duplicates. But the Army’s Tank-automotive and Armaments Command would handle any donations, Rohal said. “They have a screening process for those specific types of assets,” he said. “There are institutions that [can make] requests through that program.” But a donated tank, for example, can’t move under its own power and must have the gun barrel filled with concrete and the hatches welded shut, according to the command’s website. Available items that go unclaimed could be destroyed or recycled, or put up for auction or sale, via a contractor. One day last week, Rohal, along with Paul M. Miller, chief of the artifact collection, and Lindsey M. Davis, the artifact registrar, showed examples of excess items at the Museum Support Center, where the project is being tested. The things the Army has the most of are insignia, Miller said. “Shoulder sleeve insignia, distinctive unit insignia,” he said. “It’s a huge segment.” The center has drawers full of them, some famous, some not so famous. One drawer held several copies of the eagle and arrow patch of the 734th Regional Support Group, an Iowa Army National Guard outfit. There are also thousands of rifles, especially the legendary M1 Garand from World War II. “Simply because of how many were produced,”


8 facts about the coronavirus to combat common misinformation

Living through a pandemic in the Internet age means misinformation can sometimes spread more rapidly than facts. Faced with a deluge of claims about the coronavirus and the illness it causes, covid-19, you may be wondering whether gargling with saltwater is a cure or if the pathogen was man-made in a Chinese laboratory. (Spoiler: Saltwater doesn’t work, and scientists believe the virus occurs in nature.) To help you out, we rounded up eight facts about the coronavirus to keep in mind if you see claims to the contrary. Several studies Part of the confusion about face coverings seems to have come from President Trump’s false claim in October that 85 percent of people diagnosed with covid-19 wore masks — a mischaracterization of a CDC study. As The Washington Post’s Fact Checker explained, that study compared groups of people who had tested positive and negative for the coronavirus and found that a much higher percentage of the positive cases had had close contact with someone known to have covid-19. The people in the positive group were also more likely to recently have eaten at a restaurant. In the 14 days before they got sick, the study says, 71 percent of positive cases and 74 percent of the negatives reported “always” wearing a mask in public. Those numbers are almost the same, with the main difference between the groups being that a higher percentage of the positive cases had contact with an infected person. Masks, of course, work only when you’re wearing them. It matters what you do when you take them off. Someone can say they “almost always” wore a mask and still could have had instances when they needed to take it off in a public setting — say, while dining out. While a cure for covid-19 would be more than welcome, no drug or other treatment has been found to eliminate the illness. Since the coronavirus emerged in China late last year, myriad false rumors have circulated about potential cures, ranging from drinking bleach to snorting cocaine. The Food and Drug Administration has issued nearly 150 warning letters to companies fraudulently promising a cure, treatment, prevention method or diagnostic tool. In reality, “the pharmaceutical toolbox for physicians to treat covid-19 is seriously restricted,” as The Post’s Christopher Rowland put it in September. The FDA so far has authorized only two drugs for the illness: remdesivir, for in-hospital use, and


consider the patient’s infection, response to treatment and medical history. They also look at whether underlying conditions, which exist in most people who die of covid-19, contributed to the death. Covid-19 is usually listed as a contributing cause of death, with the primary cause being a problem precipitated by the illness, like pneumonia. The official coronavirus death toll includes those fatalities because covid-19 spurred the other health issues that killed the patient. Two vaccine candidates on the table for FDA approval — one from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech, and another from biotechnology company Moderna — are examples of a new technology that uses a piece of genetic material called messenger RNA. That mRNA teaches the body’s cells to build the protein on the surface of the coronavirus, therefore making the immune system recognize and block the true virus. This groundbreaking technology stands in contrast to traditional vaccines, which introduce into the immune system an inactivated or weakened version of a virus. But despite allegations suggesting otherwise, the coronavirus vaccine candidates using mRNA do not “affect or interact with” a person’s DNA, according to the CDC. Additionally, reputable news and fact-checking sources, including the Associated Press, the BBC, PolitiFact and Poynter, have confirmed with various scientists that mRNA vaccines do not change DNA. “That’s just a myth, one often spread intentionally by anti-vaccination activists to deliberately generate confusion and mistrust,” Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at Cornell University’s Alliance for Science group, told Reuters. “Genetic modification would involve the deliberate insertion of foreign DNA into the nucleus of a human cell, and vaccines simply don’t do that.” None of those behaviors, which are recommended for preventing the spread of the coronavirus, pose a risk to our immune systems, despite claims that they do. The incorrect notion that limiting time with people outside our households could damage our ability to fight diseases may stem from the “hygiene hypothesis,” or the idea that young children who are exposed to germs are less likely to develop allergies and autoimmune conditions. But this concept does not apply to adults, whose immune systems have already been strengthened by exposure to bacteria, according to MIT Medical, a clinic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While the hygiene hypothesis is probably also the cause of the false assumption that hand sanitizer and hand-washing weaken our immune systems, scientists at the Cleveland Clinic say there


In Armenia and Azerbaijan, desperate families search for news of the Nagorno-Karabakh war dead

plastic bottles of homemade vodka or brandy. A man sobbed upon learning that his son had been killed. In Azerbaijan, families of the missing face secrecy from authorities and conflicting accounts. Khadija Ismayilova, a well-known investigative journalist who was jailed by authorities in 2014 after reporting on corruption, had to search for her missing nephew in a morgue in Yevlakh, about 150 miles west of Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital. The remains of many soldiers there were burned beyond recognition. “It’s a devastating process that we’ve been through,” she said. “Nobody wants to believe,” she said referring to people’s fears that their loved ones were killed. “The families are still looking. Most of them have to go through the pain of looking for their siblings among corpses,” she said. “But most of these search efforts are useless. Basically, it’s happening because we don’t want to believe.” Her brother’s son, Rovshan Ismayilov, 21, was drafted after graduating in June from the Azerbaijan University of Cooperation in Baku,where he studied finance. After fighting broke out Sept. 27, he was sent to the front where some of the toughest fighting occurred. His last call home was Oct. 12. It was not until late last month that official confirmation came and Ismayilov’s body was returned and buried in the Alley of Martyrs in his local area. Ismayilova said the family was told he died with a group advancing ahead of the main body of Azerbaijani soldiers. “He wanted to be a hero, and he died a hero,” she said. Ismayilova said that there was little government information on war casualties, but that relatives and civil society groups had set up WhatsApp channels with information on where to provide DNA to help identify the casualties. In Stepanakert, the trips from the restaurant to the morgue cannot even bring clarity. Some soldiers’ bodies are unrecognizable. “Yesterday, they told us they had brought 20 bodies, so we went to the morgue to see if we could identify them,” said a man who spoke anonymously because he was sensitive about discussing grief. “We are sitting there being tortured, and when they call out the names, you are hoping your son’s name is not on the list.” Vaniskhian does not go to the morgue. He keeps a distance from the other men — out of respect for their pain, he said. “The difference between them and me is that I know


BibleGateway searches trend toward politics and, unsurprisingly, the pandemic

In the midst of a strange and stressful year, people turned to the same place they have for decades in their search for answers. The Internet. But once online, many looked to a much older source: the Bible. The website BibleGateway.com, which allows users to read and search the text of multiple translations of the Bible, saw unusual spikes in related searches around the first covid stay-at-home orders in the spring, the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the protests that followed in the summer, and the U.S. presidential election this fall, according to Bible Gateway’s Year in Review. Users searched for Bible verses related to politics, social issues, the end times and — perhaps not surprisingly — pandemics at least 10 times more this year than they did in 2019, according to the website. It’s not unusual to see current events reflected in the website’s search results, according to Bible Gateway content manager Jonathan Petersen. “People are trying to find answers in situations that are difficult to see the answers. They do tend to turn to the Bible for whatever answers they can find,” Petersen said. Searches for terms such as “racism,” “justice,” “equality” and “oppression” multiplied by more than 100 after Floyd’s death. Search results for those terms include such verses as Proverbs 21:15: “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers,” and Isaiah 1:17: “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” “Pandemic” was the second major search theme Bible Gateway identified this year, including searches for what the Bible has to say about such topics as disease, pestilence and plague. Those searches spiked sharply in March, according to the website, when many places across the United States enacted measures to slow the spread of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The site also saw a surge in searches related to politics — such as praying for government and obeying government authority — that came around the U.S. presidential election in early November. Some things, even amid uncertainty, never change, though. The most-read verses on Bible Gateway have remained the same for years: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16) and


Marijuana decriminalization just took a big step forward in Congress

we seen this kind of wholesale shift in the public’s thinking in recent years. Look at how steadily support has increased in Gallup polls: In 2000, 31 percent of Americans thought “the use of marijuana should be made legal.” By 2010, the number was 46 percent. And in October 2020, it was 68 percent. Majorities in every age and income group now support legalization; even 48 percent of Republicans support it. There are a number of factors contributing to this change, all interacting with each other. The first is generational replacement: Very few of those older than baby boomers had any exposure to cannabis in their youth. That means that not only haven’t they tried it themselves (and survived), but they also didn’t have friends and family who used it and so were more likely to believe propaganda about the drug’s effects, like this terrifying 1952 episode of “Dragnet” in which Los Angeles is overrun with senseless violence and mayhem committed by teens in the grip of the vile weed. As the older generations die off and are replaced by those who grew up with very different ideas, public opinion shifts. Add in popular culture and change in state laws, and you have an environment in which prohibition advocates inevitably find support for their position shrinking more and more. You can see it most clearly at the state level. This November, voters passed laws legalizing marijuana in New Jersey, Arizona, South Dakota and Montana; in Mississippi, a medical marijuana initiative passed. The latter three states were all won easily by President Trump. There are now 15 states (plus D.C.) that have approved recreational use, and 36 states that allow medical use. What about the incoming president? Joe Biden — who, by the time the kids gathered at Woodstock, was already a parent working as a lawyer and planning his political career — has displayed a reticence to go too far on the issue of cannabis. But, as in many other areas, he has been pulled left by the evolution of the public and his party. During the campaign, he supported the kind of decriminalization embodied in the More Act, even as many of his opponents advocated outright legalization (you may remember this amusing exchange between him and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, an advocate of legalization, during a primary debate). And while Harris has acknowledged getting high in her youth


Widening 270 and 495 is a bad plan on many fronts

The Nov. 29 Metro article “Md. toll lane plan may face lawsuits” explained that the Maryland Department of Transportation and Gov. Larry Hogan (R) are pushing forward with their plan to widen Interstates 270 and 495 by using a public-private partnership to build and operate private toll lanes despite strong opposition. This plan would likely cost taxpayers a great deal of money, destroy fragile parkland and increase traffic congestion. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments says the toll from Frederick to Rockville could be nearly $50 each way. The plan would adversely affect six national park sites and dozens of local parks, 1,500 acres of forest canopy, 30 miles of streams and 50 acres of wetlands. The plan to widen the highways could increase greenhouse gases. In the draft environmental impact statement, a chart shows that afternoon northbound traffic on 270’s regular lanes will be slower if the toll lanes are built. The plan to widen 495 and 270 makes absolutely no sense and should be stopped. Rebecca Batt The Nov. 29 Commuter A future of highway expansions serving giant fleets of electric cars won’t sufficiently reduce greenhouse gas emissions — or improve roadway safety, help working-class households afford multiple cars to access jobs and services, or keep us from spending our days sitting in traffic. The good news is building walkable, inclusive, transit-oriented communities and addressing the east-west jobs imbalance will not only lower emissions; they will also offer equity, livability and many other co-benefits — and people want this, unlike an expanded Beltway and more traffic. Bill Pugh The writer is a senior policy fellow with the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Read more letters to the editor.


The people of Belarus are still marching against dictatorship. The U.S. can help.

I was forced to temporarily relocate to neighboring Lithuania, where I remain safe and ready to stand in a new round of elections that should be conducted under the watchful eye of the international community. My friend and fellow fighter for free Belarus Maria Kolesnikova remains imprisoned without trial or conviction, along with many others. It is our duty to keep fighting in her name and the names of others facing similar fates. I demand her release and the release of the thousands of activists, journalists and ordinary people who were detained without cause. We remain grateful to the European Union and the United States for their vigorous moral and technical support. We appreciate the efforts of the current American administration, which has recently expanded sanctions on Belarusian officials responsible for undermining democratic processes in our country. I am personally thankful to Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun for meeting with me and expressing his commitment to help Belarus’s democracy movement. Yet we cannot stop there. We need more help from the United States, even in this complex transitional period. I appeal to the U.S. Congress to swiftly pass the Belarus Democracy, Human Rights, and Sovereignty Act of 2020. This bill will expand the scope of those who can be sanctioned under U.S. law for their complicity in the repressions. At the same time it will provide support to independent media and technology for circumventing state censorship. Access to information is the strongest weapon in our possession. Lukashenko’s efforts to stifle the free flow of information and hide his violent crackdown cannot go unanswered. I hope the House and Senate can reach agreement before the end of the year. Time is of the essence. The regime is brittle and in dire need of financial support. Under Lukashenko, the Belarusian economy has not grown for the past decade. The economy has entered a financial crisis; the exchange rate has plummeted by 20 percent this year. The United States is not the only country watching. As of last month, the European Union approved sanctions on 59 individuals while at the same time introducing personal sanctions against Lukashenko. But as Belarusian people continue to flood the streets despite appalling weather conditions and escalating violence from the state, we need the international community to intensify its support. Congressional action in Washington would have the additional effect of encouraging Brussels to issue its own robust


A military victory is cause for cautious optimism in Ethiopia

Regarding the Nov. 29 news article “In defiant Tigray region, Ethiopia says its military now controls the capital”: The victory of Ethiopia’s federal defense forces in the Tigray region is a milestone. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his government took a decisive action that is as commendable as it was necessary. Ethiopians, however, should be cautiously optimistic about the defeat and eventual demise of the criminal group in Tigray. Mr. Abiy’s administration must resolve many issues to secure the well-being of the country. Repeated mass murders in the Oromia region during the past two years have been well-documented. The gruesome attacks targeted Amhara and Orthodox Christians. Many churches have been burned down and priests killed. The government’s response to the horrific crimes has been very disappointing, at minimum. Those who perpetrated the evil acts have not been held accountable. Hundreds of victims and their families are still denied justice. The number of people displaced by the attacks is staggering. The victory in Tigray will remain meaningless unless the government and its defense forces have the resolve to deal with such issues and prevent ethnic violence in all regions of the country. Let’s hope the victory in Tigray will open a new chapter of stability, national unity and rule of law in Ethiopia. Tewodros Abebe Read more letters to the editor.


House votes to decriminalize marijuana as GOP resists national shift

Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), a longtime liberalization advocate. “We need to catch up with the rest of the American people.” Top Republicans — including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) — made derisive public comments about the bill this week, painting the measure as a frivolous diversion from the task of funding the federal government and delivering a new round of emergency coronavirus aid to Americans. One headline from McConnell: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decides to “puff, puff, pass” on emergency coronavirus relief. “It’s just unbelievable how tone-deaf they are to these small businesses and the jobs, the families that are tied to them,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said in a Fox News Channel interview Thursday, slamming Democratic leaders for holding the vote. But some are warning that Republicans risk finding themselves out of step with their own voters, who are increasingly embracing the loosening of marijuana restrictions — including outright legalization. On Election Day in South Dakota, for instance, 54 percent of voters opted to legalize marijuana, while only 36 percent of voters chose the Democratic presidential ticket. In Montana, the 57 percent who voted to legalize marijuana nearly matched the number who voted to reelect Trump. And Mississippi became the first state in the Deep South to legalize marijuana for medical use, with 62 percent of voters approving a ballot measure in a state where Trump won 58 percent of the vote. Fifteen states have legalized recreational cannabis to some degree, and 36 states have approved medical marijuana programs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level would not end the vast majority of cannabis-use prosecutions, which occur in state courts. But it would end troublesome conflicts between state and federal law for those states that have loosened pot restrictions and would greatly ease commerce for the multibillion-dollar cannabis industry. Public opinion appears to be in line with the state-level electoral trend. In October, Gallup found that 68 percent of Americans said the use of marijuana should be legal, the highest support for marijuana legalization since the polling organization first asked in 1969. Only 8 percent of Americans say marijuana should be completely illegal While overwhelming proportions of Democrats and independents supported legalization, Republicans were split: 52 percent for legalization and 48 percent against — figures that have changed only slightly in recent


How my online mom group sent me down a rabbit hole of direct-sales supplements for kids

have funds for it. "So what I hear you saying is that I haven't shown you how to make this work in your budget and get products paid for?" I never responded after that, and decided to look into other methods to help my kid with his gut. Finding other products wasn’t hard. There are so many kid-targeted vitamins on the market right now, from brands such as the Honest Co., Zarbee’s Natural, Natural Vitality Calm, Smarty Pants, Culturelle, Garden of Life, L’il Critters, Feel Great Vitamin Co., Nordic Naturals and dozens more. Yes, Bayer’s Flintstones vitamins are still an option, as they have been since 1968. Though now customers can choose from nine varieties in chewable and gummy versions. In general, both Rothman and Gebbia suggest knowing what’s inside the items you’re buying. Also, find out from your pediatrician what your little one needs, be that more iron, vitamin D, calcium, protein and so on. Before purchasing, look at the labels to check how much sugar the supplement has in it (gummy vitamins are often mainly corn syrup). And when in doubt, ask your child’s doctor what he or she recommends. “With social media, we are buying a lot of products from friends versus going to the store; it’s changing the landscape of what we are doing,” said Rothman, noting that multivitamins and supplements aren’t regulated to the extent that pharmaceuticals are. “I always want to make sure parents are buying a reputable brand and that it contains what the package says it contains.” So how did I get my kid to poop? In the end I went with a the most recommended remedy from moms who weren’t trying to sell me anything, a mix of old and new: prunes in a fruit shake and a side of gummy magnesium supplements. I’m not making any extra cash for the family through these grocery store purchases, but our lives were certainly changed to run smoother. Linnea Covington lives in Denver with her partner and two little kids. She has been writing about food, drink, travel and the glories of life in general for more than 15 years and doesn’t plan to stop. Join our More reading: Experts are worried about covid-19′s effect on childhood obesity. Here’s what we can do. Four things to keep in mind when posting about your kids online Kids and protein powder: What you should know


The lights are on, and the performances go on at Madrid’s Teatro Real, with a few changes

Teatro Real opera house is open for business, and the show is going on. Spain trails the United States significantly in the number of confirmed coronavirus infections and deaths attributed to covid-19, the illness caused by the virus. As of this writing, according to Johns Hopkins University, Spain has recorded more than 1 million cases and some 45,000 deaths, while the United States has had 13 million cases and more than 279,000 deaths. According to the Associated Press, the Teatro Real was closed during a national lockdown from March to May but has reopened while taking measures to keep audience members and performers safe. In addition to the venue seating smaller audiences, the Associated Press reports, “Everyone entering the theater has their temperature taken automatically by machines. Hand sanitizers abound and surgical masks are supplied to all. There are ultra-violet lamps to disinfect the main theater, dressing rooms and clothing, and the air conditioning has been adapted to ensure a healthier air flow and temperature.” The performers and musicians are tested regularly and, when they are not onstage, mask-wearing is strictly enforced. Associated Press photographer Bernat Armangue takes us into the inner workings of the Teatro Real. His photos show us how the opera house has changed some of its operations, including masked performers in backstage rehearsals, and new cleaning and testing protocols. With vaccines on the way, the world can hopefully get back to functioning much as it did before the pandemic. To be sure, there will be indelible changes. And, of course, we’re not sure what all of the changes will be. But maybe we’ll all be able to get out of our apartments and houses to enjoy each other’s company and maybe even take in a performance or two. It has been a long, hard, depressing and tragic year under the thumb of the covid-19 pandemic. In Sight is The Washington Post’s photography blog for visual narrative. This platform showcases compelling and diverse imagery from staff members and freelance photographers, news agencies and archives. If you are interested in submitting a story to In Sight, please complete this form. More on In Sight: These photos are a stark reminder of how we leave traces of ourselves even after we’re long gone Despite being ravaged by the coronavirus, life goes on in the North Caucasus These photos show how the coronavirus has changed how Peruvians commemorate the dead


Vaccines offer hope for end to pandemic, but brutal months lie ahead

well.” Biden also said that on the day of his inauguration he will ask Americans to wear masks for 100 days. “Just 100 days to mask — not forever, just 100 days. And I think we’ll see a significant reduction” in infections, Biden said. On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced that regions in the state where intensive care unit capacity fell below 15 percent would be put on strict stay-at-home orders for three weeks. As of Thursday afternoon, about 18,600 new covid-19 cases were counted in the state, the second-highest single-day record, which was set Wednesday. About 9,700 people in California are hospitalized with covid-19. The mayor of the city of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, has forcefully urged the city’s residents to stay at home except for essential activities like buying food. “My message couldn’t be simpler. It’s time to hunker down. It’s time to cancel everything. And if it isn’t essential, don’t do it,” Garcetti said during a news conference. “Don’t meet up with others outside your household, don’t host a gathering, don’t attend a gathering.” Even if vaccines roll out quickly, daily death tolls may not peak in the United States until mid- to late January, Murray said. Emily Allen, a registered nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., said the intensive care unit where she works the night shift has become a “revolving door” of increasingly sick covid-19 patients. If the trajectory of the pandemic was grim in the spring, she said, it has reached an altogether new low in recent weeks. “We cannot get beds cleaned fast enough by the time we have another patient coming in. On the night shift we have two doctors for 50 ventilated patients. We can have three patients crashing at the same,” she said. “It’s every single shift that is overwhelming. It doesn’t shut off.” Patients are now sometimes held in the emergency room because beds are not readily available, she said. Others are sent to rural hospitals. There is often not enough space to readily accept transfer patients who need specialized care. She described the exhausting process of correctly handling a covid patient with severe lung problems who must be placed carefully on his or her stomach. “We just took a patient from a facility 15 minutes from us and right away we were proning, which takes 11 or 12 people do safely. The patient


Africans are embracing digital media, but they’re wary of the downsides

Editors’ note: Our biweekly Afrobarometer Friday series explores Africans’ views on democracy, governance, quality of life and other critical topics. In Nigeria, thousands have taken to the streets in recent weeks, calling for the abolition of the police’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and other police reforms. On social media, #EndSARS has been a rallying cry for those protesting how the unit has extorted, harassed, illegally detained, tortured and even killed with impunity for decades. This social movement has demonstrated how disenfranchised groups, in this case youths and women, can harness the power of digital media to fight endemic problems like police corruption and brutality. Earlier this year, Ethiopians took to social media after the killing of singer Hachalu Hundessa. While many shared expressions of sadness, others spread speculation and rumors. Some asserted that government agents killed Hachalu as retaliation for his activism on behalf of displaced ethnic Oromo. Others blamed the government of Egypt, reasoning that the country was trying to sow chaos as Ethiopia proceeded with plans to construct a controversial dam on the Nile. Riots followed, leaving as many as 230 dead. These examples highlight the promise and peril of social media in Africa. WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook are providing new platforms for social mobilization. But they are also making it easier to spread disinformation, rumors and hate speech, sometimes with deadly consequences. New data from Afrobarometer show that the use of digital media (news from the Internet and social media) is growing fast across Africa. But access is uneven, and many Africans are well aware of the pitfalls of getting their information online. Africa has a large digital divide The past decade has seen significant growth in Africans’ use of digital media. Surveys by Afrobarometer, an independent African research network, offer a way to track this growth. On average across 16 countries surveyed in both 2014/2015 and 2019/2020, the proportion of people who said they used either the Internet or social media to get their news at least a few times a week nearly doubled over five years, from 22 percent to 38 percent. But are groups benefiting equally from the spread of digital media? Survey responses show that some traditionally disadvantaged groups — such as rural residents, women and those with primary education or less — are seeing big gains in their regular use of digital media (see Figure 1). But so are already-privileged groups. Between


As the pandemic tears through California, some counties begin shutdowns

new rules are not as strict as the March order. But the need for another round of severe restrictions this long into the pandemic has left many residents angry and frustrated, especially after recent missteps by the governor and other prominent political leaders up and down the state. Newsom (D) was widely criticized last month after it was revealed that he dined in a partially enclosed room at a restaurant in Napa Valley, which cut against the social distancing guidelines he has implored the state’s residents to follow. That he broke those guidelines to take a meal at a famously upscale French restaurant further galled many who have lost paychecks and made sacrifices because of the pandemic. The governor later apologized, calling it a “bad mistake.” This week, photos from October surfaced of Breed, the San Francisco mayor, dining at the same restaurant on a different night. “This criticism is fair. It doesn’t matter whether something is technically allowed or not--I need to hold myself to a higher standard and I will do better,” she tweeted. In Los Angeles, county supervisor Sheila Kuehl was spotted last week dining outdoors in Santa Monica hours after voting to put a temporary ban on the practice. “The spirit of what I’m preaching all the time was contradicted, and I’ve got to own that, and so I’m going to apologize to you because I need to preach and practice, not just preach and not practice,” Newsom said in a news conference. “I’ve done my best to do that. We’re all human. We all fall short sometimes.” Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Irvine, is among the Californians dismayed by Newsom’s decision to share a meal with people from outside his household last month at the French Laundry, a posh Michelin three-star restaurant. “I’ve been cooking my own meals for nine months. So I do think it takes away some of his moral authority to issue strict new public health orders,” Noymer said. But Noymer also pointed out that many people simply refuse to believe the pandemic is a serious public health crisis and are ignoring the mandates on wearing masks and social distancing. “There’s a lot of people who are actively defying the public health orders. They think it’s a hoax,” Noymer said. “There’s a part of the country that’s treating the pandemic as though it’s a conspiracy theory foisted


Ethiopia’s war in Tigray shows no signs of abating, despite government’s victory claims

NAIROBI — Clashes continued across Ethiopia's Tigray region and humanitarian aid remained paused at its border Friday, despite government claims that military operations had ceased and pledges to allow U.N. agencies access to hundreds of thousands of people who rely on them for food. The conflict exploded a month ago between Ethiopia’s new leader, Abiy Ahmed, a young and reform-minded ex-soldier who won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, and the country’s old ruling faction: the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a powerful regional political party that dominated Ethiopian affairs for 27 years until Abiy’s rise. Abiy had begun to dismantle the TPLF’s grip on state institutions, deepening their political rivalry. It spilled into warfare over control of vast amounts of federal military equipment stationed in Tigray, and the TPLF’s decision to go ahead with regional elections despite a government ban amid the pandemic. Abiy has so far rejected international attempts to mediate. Diplomats, aid workers and analysts said in interviews that the war in Tigray, Ethiopia’s northernmost region, was far from over even with government troops in effective control of the region’s main city, Mekele. The fighting has shifted to Tigray’s many craggy mountain ranges — difficult terrain where TPLF leaders and militia hold the advantage of familiarity and have been able to regroup. “We have reports of fighting still going on in many parts of Tigray,” said Saviano Abreu, spokesman for the United Nations’ humanitarian coordination office, adding that security concerns were preventing aid missions from crossing into the region. “We have not, indeed, been able to send personnel or relief items to Tigray [yet].” The TPLF’s leadership remains largely intact despite abandoning Mekele last week. On Thursday, in a message aired on a regional television network, one prominent leader called on supporters to “rise and deploy to battle in tens of thousands.” TPLF officials did not respond to requests for comment and have kept their whereabouts secret. The fighting has prevented a full assessment of what is almost certainly a dire humanitarian crisis. “Those displaced by this conflict are living on borrowed time,” said Nigel Tricks, regional director for the Norwegian Refugee Council. Agencies such as the NRC, International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders were not granted access to Tigray in the Wednesday agreement between Addis Ababa and the United Nations. But hundreds of workers from non-U. N. relief groups have been stranded there since


During the pandemic holidays, be aware of the limits of what the coronavirus tests can do

accurate [negative] result,” said Lauren Kucirka, a resident physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital and lead author of the study. The analysis does have some limitations, with wide confidence intervals that mean the percentages mentioned in the study can vary quite a bit in real life. The study also didn’t look at false negatives among those who never developed symptoms. If you haven’t developed symptoms, it can be particularly difficult to rule out infection. That’s because the tests are designed for symptomatic people, and without symptoms, it’s hard to know how long you’ve had the virus — which means you might be tested too soon or too late after exposure to get an accurate negative. This is particularly important because nearly half of people never develop symptoms, yet they are responsible for the majority of transmissions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said recently. What’s more, Muge Cevik, a clinical lecturer in infectious diseases and medical virology at the University of St. Andrews, said, “We don’t yet understand exactly when a person who’s infected will start testing positive for the virus. So there are situations when a person could test negative, but they could still be contagious.” Usually, it takes about four to five days after exposure for the viral load to peak and for symptoms to set in, and the viral load is highest for the next five days — which tracks with Kucirka’s finding that this period is the most accurate time for tests. But the most important finding of that study is “there’s never a time that you can rely on it 100 percent” to know whether you’re negative, Kucirka said. Alex Zorach had several common covid-19 symptoms in March — an elevated temperature just shy of a fever, a slight cough, shortness of breath, chest pain. After two days of intense breathing difficulties, Alex drove to the nearest emergency room in Christiana, Del. In the ER, though, a nasopharyngeal swab was negative. The ER doctor said the test result should be treated as a false negative, because all of the symptoms pointed to covid-19. Zorach isolated at home and successfully avoided spreading the virus to colleagues and friends. After months of debilitating symptoms even after a relatively mild illness, Zorach had a simple message: “Be warned, people. If you get a negative test, it doesn’t mean you don’t have it.” Another testing option, antigen tests, which


In politics, as in sports, if the final score isn’t accepted, the whole game is lost

fixing scandal (exposed quickly) nearly killed baseball, the sport has obsessed on preventing fixes — a team trying to lose a World Series, something vastly easier than finding a way to cheat to win one. Pete Rose, the hit king, was banned for life for gambling on the team he managed — to win. That was enough. Integrity of the game is the third rail. If it’s incredibly hard to throw a title series or cheat to win one, if a face-of-the-sport star can’t get away with gambling on his team to win because so many eyes and so many people’s jobs and interests are aligned with keeping the game clean, then how unfathomably hard, with a massive number of culprits, would it be to orchestrate cheating on a massive scale in a presidential election? Yet the human mind operates in curious ways. We are reasonably good analysts of events that happen in the scale of our own lives — for example, cheating in a game. We can imagine how it might be attempted. But as knowledgeable sports fans, we also know how many levels of cops are built into the fabric of the institution. But human imagination also has limits — different limits for different people. Some subjects seem too vast for many people to believe they can grasp them on their own. They are paralyzed by size and stop trusting their own judgment, just when they should be relying on that common sense most. Yes, a World Series and a presidential election are similar — except in size and importance. America’s whole political system is just as dependent for its viability, for its very life as a democracy, on the credibility of the final score of its elections as sporting events are on the integrity of their final scores. And everyone in politics, just like everyone in sports, knows it. So from inside and outside the system, they are watching and have been watching since the maturation of our modern political enterprise — to spot cheating and fraud, to catch dead voters and duplicate voters, to check and cross-check the accuracy of any machines that might be tampered with. This isn’t new. Each generation improves the methods to watch and catch the other side if it tries to play outside the lines. This isn’t about tactics — some legal, some not — such as voter suppression and redistricting.


A nurse and her entire family contracted covid-19 under one roof. It started with a ‘selfless’ car ride.

a mother and her three sons in New Orleans. In New Jersey, a 73-year-old mother, three of her 11 children and her sister died of covid-19 complications, according to the New York Times. Burke, who treated covid patients through the first wave of the pandemic in New Jersey, told WPIX that both Matias and her mother’s friend wore masks inside her car, which had the windows down for extra ventilation. But shortly after that car ride, Burke’s mother began exhibiting symptoms. She quarantined in her room with her son, Burke told NorthJersey.com, but both contracted the virus. “We tried to wear masks in the house and did everything we could to keep my father safe,” Burke told the local paper. But one after another, every member of her house fell ill. “This virus is so transmissible,” her husband, Brian, 43, told the paper. “There’s almost no way to stop from spreading it.” Burke’s husband was fortunate enough to suffer a mild case of the virus, with symptoms including fever and fatigue. Mild symptoms were also exhibited by her 29-year-old brother, 20-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son. But not everyone was that lucky. Burke’s mother spent six days at the hospital and is now at home recovering with supplemental oxygen. The same day Matias was discharged, her father’s condition worsened. Bowless was admitted to the hospital after experiencing shortness of breath. He died Nov. 23 after being on a ventilator for a week, NorthJersey.com reported. Burke’s 2-year-old daughter, Elena, who suffers from diabetes, was also taken to the emergency room because of a recurring fever, but she was not admitted. Soon thereafter, Burke was admitted to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with pneumonia and given a mask to increase her oxygen levels. Burke told the local paper that she expects to remain in the hospital for several more days as she is still unable to breathe on her own. Every time she removes her mask, her oxygen levels dip below 80 or 70, she told WPIX. “Right now I feel like everything has been swept from under my feet literally," Burke told CNN’s Lemon on Wednesday. “Something so simple as breathing has become so difficult.” The nurse said her message for those people defying coronavirus restrictions and pushing for businesses to reopen is that you can’t put a price on the lives of loved ones. “Wouldn’t you want to walk away


The difference in how the pandemic has affected the U.S. and South Korea remains staggering

that drop with a dotted line.) While both the United States and South Korea detected their first cases on Jan. 20, South Korea moved much more quickly to expand testing. You can see it on the chart above, with that little blip in early March. The United States’ slow expansion of testing was in part a function of production problems that contaminated early efforts. We’ve never really caught up to the number of tests conducted by South Korea as a function of cases. In March and November, South Korea conducted about 48 tests for every detected case, the lowest monthly figures the country saw. In the United States, we’ve never conducted more than 22 tests for each confirmed case, according to this data. South Korea has other advantages, too. Its only land border is with North Korea, which is among the most strictly controlled borders in the world. South Korea also had recent experience with a highly contagious respiratory disease, MERS, which helped boost cultural familiarity with wearing face coverings to protect against infections. Part of it, too, has been the response. The government’s effort to track and contain outbreaks has been effective, in part leveraging personal data, which might raise privacy objections in the United States. Its research, though, has offered repeated insights into the nature of the virus. Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci on Friday highlighted a remarkable study from the country that demonstrates how central that airflow is to the likelihood of infections. (You are strongly encouraged to read the full article, incidentally, given its disconcerting revelations about the risks of indoor spaces.) Reading the study, she writes, “is an exercise in what it means to do a study really, really well, with the resources of a government that’s committed to generating useful information.” The consistent link between new coronavirus cases in this country and covid-19-related deaths has meant that the death toll has risen and fallen in sync with new infections. The last time the United States saw fewer recorded covid-19 deaths in one day than did South Korea was Nov. 8. Since April 1, the United States has recorded more deaths in a single day than South Korea has over the course of the pandemic 204 times. Since Jan. 20, 515 Americans have died from covid-19 for every South Korean who has. The population of the United States is less than seven times that of South Korea.


How athletes built a voter-turnout machine for 2020 and beyond

the faces of those franchises were ready to voice their frustration with the inequality they had witnessed or encountered before and after they reached celebrity status. The groundwork had been laid three years before, when sports executives and voting rights advocates started working toward using athletes and arenas to increase Black turnout. Then a tumultuous 2020 brought a perfect storm of events to initiate change — a president who ignited culture wars to deride athletes and sports leagues; a deadly virus that would require bigger, safer polling places; and a police killing that energized marginalized communities that often approach elections with apathy. The outcome was an election that saw record voter turnout and yet was still decided by close ballot counts in a handful of critical states. Athletes chose not to sit this one out, then witnessed how their competitiveness could translate beyond the field or court — in 2020 and for years to come. “I think people are going to look back on this election as one of those tipping points where players became engaged and, I think, changed the course of events in our country for the better,” said Detroit Pistons vice chairman Arn Tellem, whose franchise used its training facility as a voting place and receiving board for ballots. “I don’t think it’s going to stop here.” The concept of turning massive sporting facilities, many of which are funded with public money, into vehicles to promote democracy goes back to a conversation in the summer of 2017 between former NFL executive Scott Pioli and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Pioli and Benson were working together with the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality, a coalition of pro teams and college programs set up by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross to encourage athlete advocacy. Among their shared interests: expanding voting access. As chief executive of the initiative, Benson said she created RISE to Vote to get more athletes to “roll up their sleeves and get more involved in the actual support of elections.” Pioli, then the assistant general manager of the Atlanta Falcons, presented the sports-facilities-as-polling-sites idea during a board meeting, arguing that franchises and universities had a moral obligation to help people who face obstacles to voting, who are more often poor and racial minorities. It wasn’t until a few years later that the concept began to become a necessary strategy. With the Democratic primaries in