INSERT INTO `rss_rssfeed` (`uuid`, `title`, `summary`, `description`, `link`, `published`, `image_url`, `feedid_id`, `userid_id`) VALUES
('9daeb6f5b2bb415c905197788835a8b6', '‘I Wouldn’t Have Known That My Mom Had Gone Through Menopause’', 'Night sweats, restless legs, hot flashes, migraines, like, really bad digestion, heartburn, like, brittle nails, dry skin, anxiety, low confidence, things like memory loss, I didn’t realize that was a symptom of the menopause, so I just thought I was getting really shit at my job. And when we lose that, then we feel like we don’t have that anymore. I feel kind of like how I felt when I was, like, 11 or 12, 10 years old before I started getting the hormone changes of puberty where I just felt, like, this is me or you just feel like I know who I am. ', 'I didn’t think for me at any stage that I would suffer as much as I am. And I had no idea. In my family, no one talked about it. The women, the women never spoke. I wouldn’t have known that my mom had gone through menopause. And did she go through menopause? I don’t really know. My aunts, did they? They just soldiered on. I started hot flashes when I was 52. But I didn’t realize that was menopause. I thought my heating was broken. And you know, I honestly thought — I was ready to call British Gas, because I just got a new boiler. So I thought it was that. I was opening the window. I don’t know why. Maybe I was in denial. I just — Yeah. And then one day it clicked. I was like, “Oh, oh!” and I just laughed. They say, oh, well, just hot flashes, they’re just hot flashes. But it’s like you’ve just been sitting normally and suddenly you feel as if your whole body is going into a fever. You know, like you really, your whole body just breaks out into this sweat all over. You can feel it all over your body, in the roots of your hair and your neck and your chest. I can literally feel the hot flash start in my brain. And also I can feel where in the brain it starts. It’s in the front like left-hand side here. And as soon as a hot flash happens — it sounds nuts, my partner laughs at me all the time — I feel like something goes “whoosh,” like it makes that sound too. In my mind it makes that sound, like something gets released, like there’s a spark and it starts there first in the brain. Work was really stressful. We were getting married. We were buying a house. There was just, like, a lot going on. And I ended up with, like, really bad insomnia. And I remember saying to Ross, like, this sounds really silly, but I feel like I flipped my hormones upside down and I don’t know how to get them back again. At that time I must have been 34, 35. And I went to the doctors. They are just, like, based on your results, it looks like you’re going through menopause. And I was just, like, sorry, I don’t understand. So, like, if I’m going through menopause, what does that mean if I want to have children? And the doctor just said, “Oh, yeah, you won’t be able to have your own kids.” Very rapidly my periods got heavier and heavier and heavier. It was the summer. It was a really hot day. And I was in the shower. And I’m having my shower and I’m washing my hair and then I looked down and the floor of the bath, you know, my feet and the base of the bath was just red. It was like someone had just tipped red paint in the bottom of the bath. It was just a sea of red. And I remember, I just stood there looking, thinking, OK, like, what do I do? Do I tell Tony to phone an ambulance? This can’t be normal. The hair started falling out. Concentration levels got worse. My mood got worse. I felt really down. I felt really fat, really huge. You didn’t have to eat a lot. You just take a breath and you’re swollen and bloated. I don’t understand how I can diet and detox for a whole day and wake up in the morning and weigh more. And you know, you can’t take off anymore. You stood there naked on the scales weighing yourself. You weigh more and you’ve been eating celery and lettuce the day before and weeing nonstop. And you weigh more. What is that about? Night sweats, restless legs, hot flashes, migraines, like, really bad digestion, heartburn, like, brittle nails, dry skin, anxiety, low confidence, things like memory loss, I didn’t realize that was a symptom of the menopause, so I just thought I was getting really shit at my job. I had brain fog. I started to forget things. I couldn’t remember anything. And it was quite disconcerting because I had quite a job where I had to remember a lot of things. So I would have anxiety attacks, where I would start to get shortness of breath and burst into tears. Irrational, you become an irrational person. It doesn’t matter this lifetime of learning you’ve had about managing your feelings and being aware, all of that just goes out the window. And it’s just, it’s rage. It’s like, it’s like there’s an injustice, like there’s massive injustice. It’s really deeply unpleasant. In fact, it’s beyond unpleasant it’s scary, because I don’t feel like me and I’m not in control. So there’s something about, like, this stage of life where you just lose all patience. Whereas, when you’re a younger woman you’d be like a people- pleaser and just like, oh, it’s OK, or laid back about things or trying to please people or trying to be seen in a — “Oh, she’s so nice.” And then you just, like, don’t even give a shit after a while with this. You just, like, you can’t even pretend. I think that when you’re going through the menopause, you start to really feel a bit of your mortality, you know. And you kind of know that you’re going into this other phase of life, you know, you’re no longer a fertile woman. I don’t — do I miss periods? I don’t know what to say to that. I suppose the inconvenience down there. I don’t miss that. But for me periods meant — it was part of my femininity. It proved that I was still a woman and that if I wanted to have a child, I could have a child. But when you have that taken away from you, you do feel that you lose some of your womanness. I said one of the hardest things I’ve had to come to terms with is intimacy and sex and not having a desire for myself or with my partner. That’s horrific. It’s like I’m having a conversation with myself going, OK, how can I feel sexy today? How can I feel, like, when I look at my partner, I’m like, oh, my God, I want you inside me, I want to have it, you know, like, really? Like, I did go through a period where I thought that Ross would find me less attractive because I couldn’t give him the one thing that we wanted. And he’s never made me feel like that. But mentally, I just thought, like, my body has failed me, and I have failed, like, us as a family. And that is a really unattractive place to be. Your vagina starts losing its moisture levels and you start to dry up basically. And at the beginning it wasn’t severe, but I had a lot of scar tissue from, first of all, the first birth I had an episiotomy. The second birth I had a bad tear and the skin on my perineum started to thin and dry a bit. And suddenly I had real problems with that scarring, like, it would feel really tight and painful, and sex became quite painful unless I used a lubricant. My libido did go completely. But I was OK with that. I think part of the change is we want to stay the same as we were. And we need to embrace where we’re going. It’s not a bad thing. If your libido goes, it’s not necessarily bad. I remember a phrase that Boy George said. And he said, what did he say? He said, you know, “Sometimes I’d just rather have a cup of tea than have sex.” And that is true. And there’s nothing wrong with that. As women we’re really sold that sexual energy is what is the most important. And when we lose that, then we feel like we don’t have that anymore. It’s not that we’re losing it. It’s changing, it’s shifting into something else. You can start using sexual energy in a different way. I think it gets confusing for women because possibly that submissive receptivity is kind of gone. You know, where you’re like, yeah, just take me, do me or — it almost opens up all of these other avenues. Yeah, I would say that menopause is unpleasant. You know, like, we don’t talk about it in society, but it’s unpleasant. But of course, it’s got its good sides as well, like, you know, it’s wonderful now that I’ve come through the other side, I’m finished my menopause. It’s like owning yourself in a way. I mean, I can’t stress that high enough. I don’t have these mood swings. I feel I’m constant, you know. I feel I understand myself better. All through your fertile years, at times, well, I did sort of question, “Who am I? I seem to be all over the place.” That all kind of disappears. It’s a wonderful relief. There’s a million reasons why you can go through it. I know there’s people younger than me that have gone through it. And no one tells you that. I often, like, want to tell all of my friends about it, you know. And I want them to understand all about their hormones and their ovulation, so that they can feel as empowered as me by that. I feel kind of like how I felt when I was, like, 11 or 12, 10 years old before I started getting the hormone changes of puberty where I just felt, like, this is me or you just feel like I know who I am. You do feel like estrogen was just this weird drug that you were under the influence of, like it was a trip. And now you’re coming out the other end of this trip, and you’re just looking back going like, weird. I feel it’s really important to always speak up because there are still many women who think that menopause is the end of your life. Me, I’m just getting started. I got shit to do. You know, how could this be the end of my life? You know when you were 20 and you think 50 is ancient or when you were 10 and you think 21 is really grown up. No one knows what they’re doing, like no one. So you may as well just live your life at any age, you know, I’m not lying down for it. [LAUGHTER]', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/opinion/menopause-stories-women.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/09/opinion/opdoc-menopause/opdoc-menopause-facebookJumbo.png', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('a2c2a54018f540d4b0f040041139c8ed', 'Why Hong Kong Activist, Nathan Law, Seeks Political Asylum in Britain', 'HONG KONG — The Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law said on Monday that he had applied for political asylum in Britain, a petition that will likely inflame tensions with China if granted. Mr. Law, 27, fled to London in June, just before a new national security law gave Hong Kong sweeping powers to quash dissent after months of fiery anti-government protests. Mr. Law rose to prominence in Hong Kong as a student leader in 2014, calling for freer elections in the semiautonomous Chinese territory through street demonstrations and sit-ins. ', 'HONG KONG — The Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law said on Monday that he had applied for political asylum in Britain, a petition that will likely inflame tensions with China if granted.\n\nMr. Law, 27, fled to London in June, just before a new national security law gave Hong Kong sweeping powers to quash dissent after months of fiery anti-government protests.\n\nMr. Law rose to prominence in Hong Kong as a student leader in 2014, calling for freer elections in the semiautonomous Chinese territory through street demonstrations and sit-ins. Two years later, at age 23, he became the city’s youngest elected lawmaker, though he was disqualified the following year over altering his oath for office.\n\nMr. Law was jailed in 2017 on charges of inciting the street protests three years earlier. His close ally, Joshua Wong, was sentenced to more than a year in prison this month over a protest in 2019 and faces additional charges over his activism.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/world/asia/nathan-law-hong-kong-uk-political-asylum.html', '2020-12-21 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/21/world/21hongkong-photo/21hongkong-photo-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('a4d172d2781d4d3896fbc0479bb2d043', 'Remembering John le Carré: Writer, Spy, Friend', 'One day, he asked if I might be willing to review a draft of his next book; it was a means of peering more deeply into his characters, this time lawyers. I became a different type of reader, immersed in his style and forensic attention to particulars, recognizing how matters of structure and form were harnessed to bring the reader to the heart of a dilemma, as yet another decent human called upon to act with unspeakable duplicity. I wanted to understand how could it possibly be that senior SS officers came to be recruited by the Americans, so soon after the war’s end. ', 'David was uniquely able to draw the connections between the human and historical, the personal and political, pulling on the seamless thread that is the human condition. He adopted language and techniques that appeared simple — often reducing politically significant and complicated matters to a choice faced by an individual — but were actually rather complex. With his words, the dark recesses of our modern world, and the choices we face, touched readers in a manner they — we — felt to be deeply personal.\n\nDavid got his start in the world of espionage; he would later draw on the personal experience of working for the intelligence services in Germany. His third novel, “The Spy Who Came In From the Cold,” was his first best seller. It was a simple tale of a British agent using dubious means to promote supposedly democratic values. “Are you a spy,” another protagonist would be asked two decades later, in “A Perfect Spy,” or “merely a criminal?”\n\nDistrust was a fine thing for us, the lawyer and skeptical former spook. Our friendship soon grew beyond our early gulf war conversations. One day, he asked if I might be willing to review a draft of his next book; it was a means of peering more deeply into his characters, this time lawyers. He wanted a check on fashion and speech. This became a joyful routine, David at my front door, arms thrust forward with the text of a new book.\n\nI became a different type of reader, immersed in his style and forensic attention to particulars, recognizing how matters of structure and form were harnessed to bring the reader to the heart of a dilemma, as yet another decent human called upon to act with unspeakable duplicity. The lens usually had something to do with spies, but not always, and over the years he went back and forth in time. In 2017, he even brought back George Smiley, the most famous of his characters, in “A Legacy of Spies.\" Fifty-six years after his first appearance, Smiley was called upon to address the decline of Britain and the mendacities of Brexit.\n\nOver time, my own writing on the origins of genocide and other international crimes in the years of the Nuremberg trial connected unexpectedly to matters of espionage. Looking into the murky world of the Nazi escape route from Europe to South America, known as the ratline, I turned to my neighbor for insights into the postwar years. I wanted to understand how could it possibly be that senior SS officers came to be recruited by the Americans, so soon after the war’s end.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/opinion/john-le-carre-spy-novelist.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/16/opinion/15sands-01/15sands-01-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('aa128357bc8047ef8b6badffbb39c153', 'Some Republicans Finally Face ‘Their Biggest Fear: Reality,’ Colbert Says', '“But wait, if Putin’s offering a congratulatory handshake to Joe Biden, then what is Trump eating pellets out of?” — JIMMY KIMMEL “‘I am ready for interaction and contacts with you.’ That’s actually what Mike Pence said on his honeymoon.” — JIMMY FALLON “Seriously, guys, what a weird phrase: ‘I am ready for interaction and contacts with you.’ Sounds like Mike Pence getting frisky.” — TREVOR NOAH ', '“This must have been a punch in the McRib. Joe Biden got a congratulatory message from Trump’s KGBFF. Sugar Vladi Putin put out a statement acknowledging Biden’s victory. He said, ‘For my part I’m ready for cooperation and contacts with you,’ which will be easy because Russia just hacked all of our contacts.” — JIMMY KIMMEL\n\n“But wait, if Putin’s offering a congratulatory handshake to Joe Biden, then what is Trump eating pellets out of?” — JIMMY KIMMEL\n\n“‘I am ready for interaction and contacts with you’? Putin doesn’t sound human; he sounds like a self-checkout at CVS: ‘Ready for interaction. Please to place item in the bag.’” — TREVOR NOAH\n\n“And, hey, even Vladimir Putin knows it’s over. And if someone who has had that much Botox can accept reality, you can, too.” — SETH MEYERS\n\n“‘I am ready for interaction and contacts with you.’ That’s actually what Mike Pence said on his honeymoon.” — JIMMY FALLON\n\n“Seriously, guys, what a weird phrase: ‘I am ready for interaction and contacts with you.’ Sounds like Mike Pence getting frisky.” — TREVOR NOAH\n\n“Putin reached out to Biden. He was, like, ‘Send me everyone’s contact info. Oops, I already have. Heh, heh, heh.’ Then he said, ‘Send me everyone’s Netflix passwords. Oops, I already have, too.’” — JIMMY FALLON\n\n“Not a great look for Senate Republicans when the guy who interfered in our election is like [imitating Putin]: ‘Come on, he won. At a certain point, you guys are poisoning democracy, and not in the right way — with poison.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT\n\n“Even Putin recognized Biden’s win. That’s a tough break for Trump. In just a few days, his Supreme Court and his supreme leader went against him.” — JIMMY FALLON\n\n“I think Putin is relieved Trump is out. All day long he’s been singing, ‘Since you’ve been gone, I can breathe for the first time.’” — JIMMY FALLON\n\n“As if the news wasn’t bad enough for Trump, moments later, Rudy Giuliani popped into the Oval Office like, ‘Don’t worry boss, you still got me.’” — JIMMY FALLON', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/arts/television/late-night-election-mitch-mcconnell-joe-biden-bill-barr.html', '2020-12-16 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/16/arts/16latenight/16latenight-facebookJumbo.png', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('aa1474c8f5b345599ae1b33bdbf6ea0e', 'Biden to Name Gina McCarthy, Former E.P.A. Chief, as White House Climate Coordinator', 'WASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is expected to pick Gina McCarthy, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama and the architect of some of his most far-reaching regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions, to serve as senior White House adviser on climate change, according to three people close to the Biden transition team. As White House adviser, Ms. McCarthy will coordinate domestic climate policies across the United States government, playing a central role in helping Mr. Biden make good on his campaign promise of putting the United States on track to reach carbon neutrality before 2050. Mr. Biden also intends to name Ali Zaidi, the deputy secretary for energy and environment for New York State, who helped write Mr. Biden’s climate plan, as Ms. McCarthy’s deputy. ', 'WASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is expected to pick Gina McCarthy, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama and the architect of some of his most far-reaching regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions, to serve as senior White House adviser on climate change, according to three people close to the Biden transition team.\n\nAs White House adviser, Ms. McCarthy will coordinate domestic climate policies across the United States government, playing a central role in helping Mr. Biden make good on his campaign promise of putting the United States on track to reach carbon neutrality before 2050.\n\nMr. Biden also intends to name Ali Zaidi, the deputy secretary for energy and environment for New York State, who helped write Mr. Biden’s climate plan, as Ms. McCarthy’s deputy.\n\nMs. McCarthy, who has served since January as president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, joins the ranks of high-profile former Obama administration officials given top positions in the Biden administration. Advocates for stronger action to fight climate change said her nomination would send a signal that the administration was prepared to bypass Congress and enact measures using executive authority to begin bringing down greenhouse gases.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/climate/gina-mccarthy-biden-climate.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/climate/15CLI-CABINET1/15CLI-CABINET1-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('ab3e376098f54cf39a8e60261269f24b', 'Vertex', '', '', 'https://www.nytimes.com/puzzles/vertex', NULL, 'https://static01.nyt.com/packages/other/crossword/fb-og/purple.png', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('ab7329e4525f4818a15fa50ecd5c6b8a', 'More Than 70 West Point Cadets Are Accused in Cheating Scandal', 'Fifty-five of those who have acknowledged cheating, a violation of the academy’s honor code, have been enrolled in a rehabilitation program that officials introduced several years ago to give cadets who run afoul of West Point’s rules and regulations a second chance rather than simply dismissing them, as had been the practice in the past. The last major cheating scandal at West Point was in 1976, when more than 150 seniors, or firsties, were expelled or resigned for cheating on a final exam in electrical engineering, Colonel Ophardt said. Tim Bakken, a West Point law professor and the author of “The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris and Failure in the U.S. Military,” called the scandal a “crisis” with the potential to do damage far greater than the infractions of several dozen cadets accused of acting unethically. ', 'Fifty-five of those who have acknowledged cheating, a violation of the academy’s honor code, have been enrolled in a rehabilitation program that officials introduced several years ago to give cadets who run afoul of West Point’s rules and regulations a second chance rather than simply dismissing them, as had been the practice in the past. The four other admitted cheaters are still being considered for the program, Colonel Ophardt said.\n\nAs described by Colonel Ophardt, the rehabilitation regimen, known as the Willful Admission Program, is a kind of honor-code boot camp that matches enrollees with mentors who, among other things, steep them in ethical ideas and require them to write about their experiences. Cadets who complete the program remain on probation for the balance of their time at West Point, he said.\n\nThe academy’s website says the purpose of the honor code — “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do” — is “to foster a commitment to moral-ethical excellence and an insight into the more comprehensive military professional ethic.”\n\nThe last major cheating scandal at West Point was in 1976, when more than 150 seniors, or firsties, were expelled or resigned for cheating on a final exam in electrical engineering, Colonel Ophardt said. The lack of advanced technology at the time meant that such a widespread scheme required more planning and a more active role by ringleaders, he added.\n\nNinety-two of those involved in the scandal were later readmitted as cadets and allowed to graduate after accepting a Pentagon amnesty that required them to complete a year of “useful service” away from the academy.\n\nThe 1976 scandal led to a series of reforms intended to “find the remedies” to the “underlying causes,” according to Lt. Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, the superintendent at the time. The changes included a restructuring of West Point’s entire academic program, major changes in military training and a revamping of the cadet honor system.\n\n“Something like the cheating scandal does not happen by accident,” General Goodpaster said then.\n\nTim Bakken, a West Point law professor and the author of “The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris and Failure in the U.S. Military,” called the scandal a “crisis” with the potential to do damage far greater than the infractions of several dozen cadets accused of acting unethically.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/nyregion/west-point-cheating.html', '2020-12-21 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/21/nyregion/21westpointcheat/21westpointcheat-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('ab8ce593b6ac4ba797475a7987e3f7b5', 'The Wild Ways Parents Preserve Their Kids’ Memories', 'I posted in a Facebook parenting group I sometimes loiter in, and asked mothers to share the strangest things they had kept from when their children were young. “I saved my son’s foreskin,” said Casey Revkin, 42, chief financial officer of an immigration nonprofit and a mother of one. “I saved two pieces of paper that my daughter stabbed with a pen about 100 times,” said Ahna Tessler, a 40-something comedian, photographer and mother of twins in Manhattan. ', '“It’s important to understand that there are a bunch of reasons someone might want to save something,” said Jennifer Stoltz Favus, a licensed clinical social worker, psychotherapist and mother based in New York City. Children grow up fast, she said, so attaching memories “to something physical or tangible” — like an umbilical cord stump, perhaps — can help parents better remember and reconnect with the time when their children were young.\n\nImage\n\nThis made sense to me, but I wanted to know more, and I was curious to see if many other moms shared my penchant for preservation. I posted in a Facebook parenting group I sometimes loiter in, and asked mothers to share the strangest things they had kept from when their children were young. I was surprised to find that I was not the sole saver of strange items. In fact, I wasn’t even, in my opinion, the weirdest collector.\n\n“I saved my son’s foreskin,” said Casey Revkin, 42, chief financial officer of an immigration nonprofit and a mother of one. “I don’t know why. They asked me if I wanted it and I said yes. It’s in a container in our freezer.” Revkin said that it’s been challenging for her to throw the foreskin away. But she doesn’t know what else to do with it, besides keep it chilled among the frozen veggies. She’s had it for five years.\n\n“I saved two pieces of paper that my daughter stabbed with a pen about 100 times,” said Ahna Tessler, a 40-something comedian, photographer and mother of twins in Manhattan. Her 2-year-old daughter handed one sheet to her, and one to her husband, while Tessler and her husband were in the middle of a fight. “Our argument so clearly traumatized her and she wanted it to stop but she had no idea how to express that,” she said.\n\nMegan McQuillan, 44, an actor, community organizer and mother of two daughters in Brooklyn, kept her first child’s umbilical cord, which was a gift from her doula. “She shaped it into a spiral, then dried it out and gave it to me a few weeks postpartum,” she said. “It’s so weird and gross, but I can’t throw it out.”', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/parenting/memories-childhood-preserve.html', '2020-12-11 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/11/multimedia/11par-memorialize/11par-memorialize-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('acc9db4439544e5991ee260e05860baf', 'Did the Resistance Defeat Donald Trump?', 'And the liberal belief that Trump was obviously, self-evidently a white supremacist and semi-fascist left liberalism somewhat blindsided by the voters who disagreed: not just the white shy-Trumpers of the suburbs but also the Trump-voting Latinos and African-Americans who helped keep the 2020 race competitive, denying Biden his blowout and the Resistance the full repudiation of Trumpism that it sought. The Resistance may have induced Democrats to take a lot of party-line votes against the president, but if Trump actually pursued his promised infrastructure bill he would have found Democratic takers. So treating Biden the way Trump was treated, opposing him as Trump was opposed, is only a devastating strategy if you assume that Biden and his White House will miss as many opportunities and perform as many face-plants as Trump’s administration did. ', 'Then, too, the gains from the Resistance mentality came with a political price. The anti-Trump closing-of-ranks within elite institutions helped shore up the president’s populist bona fides, his claim to represent outsiders and non-elites, even when his actual policies favored insiders and the rich. The tendency to see an authoritarian depredation behind every policy move, however banal, weakened the credibility of the media, especially putatively neutral outlets like CNN. The pitch of anti-Trumpism bound once-dubious Republicans to his cause, almost matching the mobilization on the Democratic side.\n\nAnd the liberal belief that Trump was obviously, self-evidently a white supremacist and semi-fascist left liberalism somewhat blindsided by the voters who disagreed: not just the white shy-Trumpers of the suburbs but also the Trump-voting Latinos and African-Americans who helped keep the 2020 race competitive, denying Biden his blowout and the Resistance the full repudiation of Trumpism that it sought.\n\nOn the right, meanwhile, the Trumpist conceit that the Mueller investigation or MSNBC hysteria were the main forces preventing a more successful Trump agenda gives that opposition way too much credit — and Trump himself way too little blame. It was not the Resistance but his own indifference that induced Trump to outsource policymaking to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell during the two years when his party actually controlled the government. It was not the Mueller investigation but the attempted Obamacare repeal and a not-very-populist tax plan that drove his polling numbers to their notable lows.\n\nWhen Kayleigh McEnany complained recently that her boss “was never given an orderly transition of power,” she had a point — but the major source of disorder was not Crossfire Hurricane or the Steele dossier but just the Trump team’s own incompetence, notably Jared Kushner’s decision to ditch Chris Christie’s transition plan without having a replacement.\n\nThe Resistance may have induced Democrats to take a lot of party-line votes against the president, but if Trump actually pursued his promised infrastructure bill he would have found Democratic takers. In areas where he had competent people working for him (judicial nominations, above all), the political and media opposition was impotent to stop him. Impeachment was just a segue into his presidency’s peak, a triumphant State of the Union address just before the coronavirus came calling. Even late in 2020, Nancy Pelosi was willing to make a deal with him on a big new round of coronavirus relief, which might have helped save his re-election bid — yet Trump preferred instead to go down tweeting.\n\nSo treating Biden the way Trump was treated, opposing him as Trump was opposed, is only a devastating strategy if you assume that Biden and his White House will miss as many opportunities and perform as many face-plants as Trump’s administration did.\n\nAnd that’s without even getting into the fact that the Republican campaign to delegitimize Biden can’t really emulate the Resistance, since the whole point of the anti-Trump effort was to mobilize a political and cultural establishment from which the populist right is notably excluded. At most a refusal to recognize Biden’s legitimacy could keep congressional Republicans voting in lock step against whatever the new president supports. But most would vote in lock step anyway, and the Republican senators most likely to break ranks, a Mitt Romney or a Susan Collins, are the least likely to be swayed by appeals to Biden’s supposed illegitimacy.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/opinion/trump-election-defeat.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/opinion/15douthatWeb/15douthatWeb-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('accbe27f109948558df000cc935f1b3f', 'Canadian Fashion Mogul Peter Nygard Indicted on Sex-Trafficking Charges', 'Peter Nygard, the Canadian fashion executive, has been charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and other crimes that involved dozens of women and teenage girls as victims in the United States, the Bahamas and Canada, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said on Tuesday. Mr. Nygard, 79, used his company’s influence, its money and its employees to recruit adult and “minor-aged female victims” over a 25-year period for the sexual gratification of him and his associates, according to a nine-count federal indictment. Mr. Nygard sexually assaulted some, it said, while his associates assaulted or drugged others “to ensure their compliance with Nygard’s sexual demands.” ', 'Peter Nygard, the Canadian fashion executive, has been charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and other crimes that involved dozens of women and teenage girls as victims in the United States, the Bahamas and Canada, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said on Tuesday.\n\nMr. Nygard, 79, used his company’s influence, its money and its employees to recruit adult and “minor-aged female victims” over a 25-year period for the sexual gratification of him and his associates, according to a nine-count federal indictment. He was arrested in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on Monday at the request of the United States under an extradition treaty, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan said. He is now being held in a Manitoba jail.\n\nThe indictment accused Mr. Nygard of targeting victims from disadvantaged economic backgrounds and, in some cases, with a history of abuse. Mr. Nygard sexually assaulted some, it said, while his associates assaulted or drugged others “to ensure their compliance with Nygard’s sexual demands.”\n\nJay Prober, the fashion mogul’s lawyer in Winnipeg, denied the charges against his client, saying he expected Mr. Nygard to be vindicated. His lawyer in New York, Elkan Abramowitz, declined to comment.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/world/canada/peter-nygard-sex-trafficking-charges.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/world/15nygard/15nygard-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('ad4f8e8cda944515a9d243b83a4beb9e', 'Was Merkel Right to Compromise With the Populists?', 'How might the great moral philosopher judge Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany based on the compromise she reached with the Prime Ministers Viktor Orban of Hungary and Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland in last week’s European summit? Was this a compromise or a rotten compromise? In the weeks leading up to the European Council summit, the governments of Poland and Hungary threatened to veto the agreed-upon European Union budget and 1.8 trillion euro recovery fund if the European Commission does not withdraw its plan to condition budgetary disbursement on adhering to the rule of law norms and principles. ', 'VIENNA — The philosopher Avishai Margalit was born in 1939, at the onset of World War II, and has lived most of his life in Israel, a country that has always existed between war and peace. That the value of political compromise has always occupied Professor Margalit’s thinking should come as no surprise. He is haunted by how political compromise becomes an act of political maturity and moral responsibility, and under what conditions it becomes morally unacceptable.\n\nIt was Mr. Margalit’s conviction that in a liberal society “compromise” cannot be a dirty word. But, he has written, a “rotten compromise” can destroy a liberal society. “We should be judged by our compromises more than by our ideals and norms,” he wrote once. “Ideals may tell us something important about what we like to be. But compromises tell us who we are.”\n\nHow might the great moral philosopher judge Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany based on the compromise she reached with the Prime Ministers Viktor Orban of Hungary and Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland in last week’s European summit? Was this a compromise or a rotten compromise?\n\nIn the weeks leading up to the European Council summit, the governments of Poland and Hungary threatened to veto the agreed-upon European Union budget and 1.8 trillion euro recovery fund if the European Commission does not withdraw its plan to condition budgetary disbursement on adhering to the rule of law norms and principles.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/opinion/merkel-orban-morawiecki.html', '2020-12-16 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/16/opinion/16krastev-01/16krastev-01-facebookJumbo-v2.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('b05f67d5e2d040d3baa6e3315036de9f', 'The Mystery of the Disappearing Manuscripts', 'Two days later, Mr. Hannaham got an email from Mr. George, asking him to send the latest draft of his manuscript. The email came to an address on Mr. Hannaham’s website that he rarely uses, so he opened up his usual account, attached the document, typed in Mr. George’s email address and a little note, and hit send. Mr. Hannaham was just one of countless targets in a mysterious international phishing scam that has been tricking writers, editors, agents and anyone in their orbit into sharing unpublished book manuscripts. ', 'Earlier this month, the book industry website Publishers Marketplace announced that Little, Brown would be publishing “Re-Entry,” a novel by James Hannaham about a transgender woman paroled from a men’s prison. The book would be edited by Ben George.\n\nTwo days later, Mr. Hannaham got an email from Mr. George, asking him to send the latest draft of his manuscript. The email came to an address on Mr. Hannaham’s website that he rarely uses, so he opened up his usual account, attached the document, typed in Mr. George’s email address and a little note, and hit send.\n\n“Then Ben called me,” Mr. Hannaham said, “to say, ‘That wasn’t me.’”\n\nMr. Hannaham was just one of countless targets in a mysterious international phishing scam that has been tricking writers, editors, agents and anyone in their orbit into sharing unpublished book manuscripts. It isn’t clear who the thief or thieves are, or even how they might profit from the scheme. High-profile authors like Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan have been targeted, along with celebrities like Ethan Hawke. But short story collections and works by little-known debut writers have been attacked as well, even though they would have no obvious value on the black market.\n\nIn fact, the manuscripts do not appear to wind up on the black market at all, or anywhere on the dark web, and no ransoms have been demanded. When copies of the manuscripts get out, they just seem to vanish. So why is this happening?', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/books/publishing-manuscripts-phishing-scam.html', '2020-12-21 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/14/books/00book_phishing1/00book_phishing1-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('b14c57665e744a6b971f7413d70cc954', 'Things To Do At Home', 'In the interactive class, instructors will teach children ages 6 to 12 how to make the delicious chocolate and coconut confections, and introduce skills like following a recipe and measuring ingredients. Tickets are $25 per household, and registration closes at midnight on Dec. 20. Start your Christmas week on a strong note with the Oratorio Society of New York’s stream of Handel’s “Messiah.” It’s a distinctly pandemic-era presentation: filmed in upstate New York in October with a smaller number of musicians and singers who practiced social distancing and wore masks. ', 'Here is a sampling of the week’s events and how to tune in (all times are Eastern). Note that events are subject to change after publication.\n\nMonday\n\nGrab an apron and learn to make winter snowball truffles in a kid-friendly cooking workshop from Tiny Chefs. In the interactive class, instructors will teach children ages 6 to 12 how to make the delicious chocolate and coconut confections, and introduce skills like following a recipe and measuring ingredients. Tickets are $25 per household, and registration closes at midnight on Dec. 20. Participants will be sent a recipe in advance.\n\nWhen 6 p.m.\n\nWhere tinychefs.com/event/homemade-holiday-winter-snowball-truffles/\n\nStart your Christmas week on a strong note with the Oratorio Society of New York’s stream of Handel’s “Messiah.” It’s a distinctly pandemic-era presentation: filmed in upstate New York in October with a smaller number of musicians and singers who practiced social distancing and wore masks. But it promises to be no less powerful. The performance is free and will be available until Jan. 10.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/at-home/things-to-do-this-week.html', '2020-12-19 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/20/multimedia/20ah-CALENDARKWANZACOLOR/20ah-CALENDARKWANZACOLOR-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('b31415f47c0945dea8c15a703e196c9f', 'The Post-Trump Future of Literature', 'James Baldwin wrote in 1953 that this “world is white no longer, and it will never be white again,” but a publishing industry whose editorial staff is 85 percent white, and whose fiction list is 95 percent white, is still quite white. But so much of immigrant literature, despite bringing attention to the racial, cultural and economic difficulties that immigrants face, also ultimately affirms an American dream that is sometimes lofty and aspirational, and at other times a mask for the structural inequities of a settler colonial state. It was simply normative, and most white writers (and white people) never questioned the normativity of whiteness. ', 'It’s easier to give Charles Yu a National Book Award for “Interior Chinatown,” a hilarious and scathing critique of Hollywood’s racist representations of Asian-Americans, than it is to actually transform Hollywood. It’s also easier for the publishing industry to give marginalized writers awards than to change its hiring practices. James Baldwin wrote in 1953 that this “world is white no longer, and it will never be white again,” but a publishing industry whose editorial staff is 85 percent white, and whose fiction list is 95 percent white, is still quite white.\n\nIn the Biden era, will the publishing industry do more than feel bad about that and commit to hiring a diverse group of editors and interns and building a pipeline for future diverse leadership?\n\n“Diversity” itself, unless it occurs at every level of an industry, and unless it meaningfully changes an aesthetic practice, is a fairly empty form of politics. This is one of the big critiques of the Obama presidency. For all that one can blame Republican intransigence, Mr. Obama was fairly moderate, someone who tinkered with the military-industrial complex rather than transformed it.\n\nThat much of the literary world was willing to give Mr. Obama’s drone strike and deportation policies a pass, partly because he was such a literary, empathetic president, indicates some of the hollowness of liberalism and multiculturalism. Empathy, their emotional signature, is perfectly compatible with killing people overseas — many of them innocent — and backing up a police and carceral system that disproportionately harms Black, Indigenous and other people of color and the poor. It turns out that a president can have a taste for both drone strikes and annual reading lists heavy on multicultural literature.\n\nAnd here, marginalized writers who tell stories about marginalized populations do not get a pass. Take immigrant literature. During the xenophobic Trump years, when immigrants and refugees were demonized, simply standing up for immigrants became a politically worthwhile cause. But so much of immigrant literature, despite bringing attention to the racial, cultural and economic difficulties that immigrants face, also ultimately affirms an American dream that is sometimes lofty and aspirational, and at other times a mask for the structural inequities of a settler colonial state. Most Americans have never heard of settler colonialism, much less used it to describe their country. That’s because Americans prefer to call settler colonialism the American dream.\n\nToo much of immigrant and multicultural literature fails to rip off that mask. Yet the politicization of these populations does pose a threat to the white nation that Mr. Trump represents. White identity politics has always been the dominant politics of this country, but so long as it was ascendant and unthreatened, it was never explicitly white. It was simply normative, and most white writers (and white people) never questioned the normativity of whiteness. But the long, incomplete march toward racial equality from 1865 to the present has slowly eroded white dominance, with the most significant rupture occurring during the war in Vietnam.\n\nWriters not only marched against the war, they wrote against it. Among white American writers, poets like Robert Lowell were the first to protest, along with prose writers like Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/opinion/fiction-poetry-trump.html', '2020-12-22 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/27/opinion/sunday/2021Nguyen/2021Nguyen-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('b5eb8c0a7c80492bbebdb0bbac0af3c0', 'Moderna Vaccine Is Highly Protective and Prevents Severe Covid, Data Show', 'Moderna’s vaccine effort stands in contrast to two other high-profile projects that the United States had hoped would build up its supply: one from the pharmaceutical companies Sanofi of France and GlaxoSmithKline of Britain, and another from the British-Swedish drug maker AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. For people 65 and older, the trial provided an estimated efficacy of 86.4 percent, lower than the overall estimate of 94.1 percent. So far, two potential differences between the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have emerged in the F.D.A.’s reviews, but the findings may reflect a shortage of data rather than genuine distinctions. ', 'Moderna’s vaccine has become a symbol of the triumphs of government scientists during the pandemic. After China released the genetic sequence of the new virus in early January, scientists at Moderna and the National Institutes of Health were able to zero in on the design for a vaccine in just two days. Unlike Pfizer, Moderna has worked closely with Operation Warp Speed, the federal program aimed at accelerating vaccine development. Nearly $2.5 billion in federal funds helped Moderna buy raw materials, expand its factory and enlarge its work force by 50 percent.\n\nModerna’s vaccine effort stands in contrast to two other high-profile projects that the United States had hoped would build up its supply: one from the pharmaceutical companies Sanofi of France and GlaxoSmithKline of Britain, and another from the British-Swedish drug maker AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.\n\nAstraZeneca and Oxford ended up using two different doses in clinical trials in Britain and Brazil. At one level, the efficacy was 62 percent, and at the other it was 90 percent. The muddled results have left it unclear when AstraZeneca will have enough data to secure an emergency authorization.\n\nSeparately, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline had disappointing results in early clinical trials. While their vaccine produced a promising immune response in volunteers under 50, it failed to do so in older ones. The companies are planning a new set of trials with a different version, making it unlikely they can produce a vaccine before the end of 2021.\n\nModerna’s vaccine has had much smoother sailing. The F.D.A. review showed that it worked equally well in white, Black and Hispanic volunteers, men and women, healthy participants and those at risk of severe Covid-19 with conditions like obesity and diabetes. For people 65 and older, the trial provided an estimated efficacy of 86.4 percent, lower than the overall estimate of 94.1 percent. But the apparent difference was not statistically significant. And 86.4 percent is still very high.\n\nSo far, two potential differences between the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have emerged in the F.D.A.’s reviews, but the findings may reflect a shortage of data rather than genuine distinctions.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/health/covid-moderna-vaccine.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/science/15VIRUS-VACCINE-MODERNA1/15VIRUS-VACCINE-MODERNA1-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb');
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('b6bfe015f4f4418aad7013496cc60b05', 'Covid Guide: How to Get Through the Pandemic', 'This summer, 47 percent of Americans said they had formed a “pod” or social “bubble” that includes two or more households committed to strict precautions so the group can safely socialize indoors. Whether your bubble is just your immediate household — or you’ve formed a bubble with others — take some time to check in with everyone and seal the leaks. A study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington estimated that 130,000 lives could be saved by February if mask use became universal in the United States immediately. ', 'Close your leaky bubble.\n\nHere’s the harsh reality of virus transmission: If someone in your family gets sick, the infection probably came from you, another family member or someone they know. The main way coronavirus is transmitted is through close contact with an infected person in an enclosed space.\n\n“One of the challenges we have is that familiarity is seen as being a virus protector,” said Michael Osterholm, a member of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s coronavirus advisory group and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “More likely than not, knowing someone is the risk factor for getting infected.”\n\nThis summer, 47 percent of Americans said they had formed a “pod” or social “bubble” that includes two or more households committed to strict precautions so the group can safely socialize indoors. But sometimes your bubble is leakier than you realize. Farhad Manjoo, an opinion columnist for The Times, had initially assumed his bubble was pretty small, but it turned out that he was having direct or indirect contact with more than 100 people.\n\nWhether your bubble is just your immediate household — or you’ve formed a bubble with others — take some time to check in with everyone and seal the leaks. This requires everyone to be honest about the precautions they’re taking (or not taking). Dr. Osterholm said that convincing people that their friends might infect them has been one of the biggest challenges of the pandemic. He told the story of a man and a woman who both contracted Covid-19 after attending a wedding.\n\n“He told me, ‘We didn’t fly. I knew everybody there,’” said Dr. Osterholm. “He somehow had the mistaken belief that by knowing the person, you won’t get infected from them. We’ve got to break through that concept.”\n\nMask up. You’re going to need it for a while.\n\nA study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington estimated that 130,000 lives could be saved by February if mask use became universal in the United States immediately.\n\nVarious studies have used machines puffing fine mists to show that high-quality masks can significantly reduce the spread of pathogens between people in conversation. And the common-sense evidence that masks work has become overwhelming. One well-known C.D.C. study showed that, even in a Springfield, Mo., hair salon where two stylists were infected, not one of the 139 customers whose hair they cut over the course of 10 days caught the disease. A city health order had required that both the stylists and the customers be masked.\n\nChoose a mask with two or three layers that fits well and covers your face from the bridge of your nose to under your chin. “Something is better than nothing,” said Linsey Marr, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech and one of the world’s leading aerosol scientists. “Even the simplest cloth mask of one layer of material blocks half or more of aerosols we think are important to transmission.”', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/well/live/getting-through-covid-guide.html', '2020-12-18 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/18/well/00well-virus-helper-promo/00well-virus-helper-promo-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('b8e2fcbbc33a492189b068e289993acc', 'America’s First Coronavirus Vaccinations', 'Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher In North Dakota, health care workers lifted a bag of dry ice covering one of the state’s first shipments of the coronavirus vaccine and a cloud filled the room. While these health care workers were excited that the vaccine had finally arrived, the mood was tempered by a bleak fact: The battle against the coronavirus is not yet over. ', 'Listen and subscribe to The Daily\n\nApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher\n\nIt was like a scene from a movie. In North Dakota, health care workers lifted a bag of dry ice covering one of the state’s first shipments of the coronavirus vaccine and a cloud filled the room. The strict guidelines governing the vaccine’s storage make even opening the box a complex and time-sensitive process.\n\nIn New Orleans, an inpatient pharmacist became the first person in Louisiana to administer the vaccine — a career highlight.\n\nWhile these health care workers were excited that the vaccine had finally arrived, the mood was tempered by a bleak fact: The battle against the coronavirus is not yet over.\n\nOn today’s episode, we hear from health care workers in two hard-hit states about their hopes and fears for the coming months.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/podcasts/the-daily/coronavirus-vaccinations-united-states.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/world/15daily/15daily-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('bb75dd8baab84edd87ee909d569c8476', 'Fruit Flies Are Essential to Science. So Are the Workers Who Keep Them Alive.', 'The rooms that make up the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center at Indiana University are lined wall to wall with identical shelves. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, workers across industries have held the world together, taking on great personal risk to care for sick patients, maintain supply chains and keep people fed. At the Stock Center dozens of employees have come to work each day, through a lockdown and afterward, to minister to the flies that underpin scientific research. ', 'The rooms that make up the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center at Indiana University are lined wall to wall with identical shelves. Each shelf is filled with uniform racks, and each rack with indistinguishable glass vials.\n\nThe tens of thousands of fruit fly types within the vials, though, are each magnificently different. Some have eyes that fluoresce pink. Some jump when you shine a red light on them. Some have short bodies and iridescent curly wings, and look “like little ballerinas,” said Carol Sylvester, who helps care for them. Each variety doubles as a unique research tool, and it has taken decades to introduce the traits that make them useful. If left unattended, the flies would die in a matter of weeks, marooning entire scientific disciplines.\n\nThroughout the Covid-19 pandemic, workers across industries have held the world together, taking on great personal risk to care for sick patients, maintain supply chains and keep people fed. But other essential jobs are less well-known. At the Stock Center dozens of employees have come to work each day, through a lockdown and afterward, to minister to the flies that underpin scientific research.\n\nTiny Bug, Huge Impact\n\nTo most casual observers, fruit flies are little dots with wings that hang out near old bananas. But over the course of the last century, researchers have turned the insect — known to science as Drosophila melanogaster — into a sort of genetic switchboard. Biologists regularly develop new “strains” of flies, in which particular genes are turned on or off.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/science/fruit-flies-covid.html', '2020-12-14 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/science/15SCI-FRUITFLIES1/15SCI-FRUITFLIES1-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('bbebfeece1ac40f8bd8161d5516a6060', 'Coronavirus Deal Would Give Small Businesses a Shot at Second PPP Loan', 'According to outlines of the bill circulating among congressional officials on Monday, hotels and food-service businesses would be eligible for bigger loans this time, up to 3.5 times their average monthly payroll. Publicly traded companies would be ineligible for the new loans, eliminating a provision that provoked a public outcry as deep-pocketed restaurant chains, software companies and drug makers, among others, collected taxpayer-funded loans. Businesses could now use the money to buy supplies from their vendors, buy protective equipment for their staff or fix property damage “due to public disturbances,” according to a House Small Business Committee summary — a reference to this year’s protests over police brutality and systematic racism. ', 'A Small Business Administration spokesman said the agency was “committed to ensuring that the next round of P.P.P. is launched as quickly as possible.”\n\nAccording to outlines of the bill circulating among congressional officials on Monday, hotels and food-service businesses would be eligible for bigger loans this time, up to 3.5 times their average monthly payroll. Other borrowers would again be limited to 2.5 times their payroll.\n\nPublicly traded companies would be ineligible for the new loans, eliminating a provision that provoked a public outcry as deep-pocketed restaurant chains, software companies and drug makers, among others, collected taxpayer-funded loans.\n\nThe new bill would also expand the list of expenses that a loan could be used to pay, which previously were limited mostly to payroll, rent and utilities. Businesses could now use the money to buy supplies from their vendors, buy protective equipment for their staff or fix property damage “due to public disturbances,” according to a House Small Business Committee summary — a reference to this year’s protests over police brutality and systematic racism.\n\nBut the biggest change would reopen the program to some businesses that had already received help.\n\nWhen the Paycheck Protection Program expired in August, about $138 billion had not been spent. Many business owners who had received money said they would gladly take another loan, but the program’s rules prevented them from getting a second helping. The new relief bill offers a second cash infusion for those who meet stricter terms: Borrowers with fewer than 300 employees that had a 25 percent drop in sales from a year earlier in at least one quarter could qualify for an additional loan of up to $2 million.\n\n“We are absolutely applying,” said Dana Sanford, the office manager for A&J Transportation, a trucking company in Oklahoma. A&J recently completed the process of having its initial $699,000 loan in the program forgiven, which Ms. Sanford said had gone smoothly.\n\n“I am very excited about the second round of P.P.P.,” she said. “It really helps the businesses pay their people.”', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/business/stimulus-paycheck-protection-program.html', '2020-12-21 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/22/business/21JPStimulus-ppp-print/21JPStimulus-ppp-print-facebookJumbo-v2.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('bd4638a304bb48e3ae0da586893ab8e9', 'Why Young New Yorkers Are Facing a Tougher Job Crisis', 'My colleague Winnie Hu spoke with experts who warned that the consequences of losing a job as a young worker — including lower wages, fewer prospects and long-term hardship — may reverberate for years. “On top of that, the economy is going to suffer,” said Stephanie Aaronson, a vice president and director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution. But the challenges have been so vast that some social service agencies and community groups are choosing to hire young people themselves, instead of steering them elsewhere. ', 'Young adults were especially vulnerable: Before the pandemic they held 15 percent of the jobs in the service industries that would be hardest hit.\n\nThe disparities\n\nThe setbacks have especially hurt young adults who are Black, Hispanic or do not have a college degree; those workers have even higher rates of unemployment than younger people as a whole, a recent report found. They are also more likely to be struggling because their families lack resources to support them.\n\nThe consequences\n\nMy colleague Winnie Hu spoke with experts who warned that the consequences of losing a job as a young worker — including lower wages, fewer prospects and long-term hardship — may reverberate for years.\n\n“On top of that, the economy is going to suffer,” said Stephanie Aaronson, a vice president and director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution. “It holds back economic growth.”\n\nThe outlook\n\nState and city officials are working to help through existing job programs. But the challenges have been so vast that some social service agencies and community groups are choosing to hire young people themselves, instead of steering them elsewhere.\n\nKnowledge Westbrooks, 23, was hired by a community group in Brooklyn after he was laid off from a warehouse job. “I wasn’t able to pay for food and stuff so I had to try to figure out another opportunity,” he told Ms. Hu.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/nyregion/young-adults-unemployed.html', '2020-12-22 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/22/nyregion/22nytoday/merlin_179913804_34620564-562b-4ce6-89b1-8770bb5a2224-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('c3b282e56650488cb637ad8e6e10461d', 'Best Comedy of 2020', 'Not only did the pandemic shut down comedy institutions, but New York clubs like Dangerfield’s, which was half a century old, and the stalwart The Creek & the Cave closed for good, as did the city’s branches of the improv powerhouse, the Upright Citizens Brigade. An overlooked master of the form, he’s perfected a persona of the silly grump that makes anything funny. Smart comedy that aims for the gut, his new special (available on Amazon Prime) is titled “For the Masses,” but he jokes that is by necessity, in one of several insults of his audience: “I would be doing jokes about Dostoyevsky if it wasn’t for you.” ', 'The comedy boom finally busted. Not only did the pandemic shut down comedy institutions, but New York clubs like Dangerfield’s, which was half a century old, and the stalwart The Creek & the Cave closed for good, as did the city’s branches of the improv powerhouse, the Upright Citizens Brigade. At the same time, comedians adjusted to the new abnormal, transitioning to Zoom and Instagram Live, and to shows in parks and on rooftops. It was a period of experimentation and stagnancy, contraction and accessibility, despair and occasional joy. In a low year, here were the highlights:\n\nFunniest Special\n\nDo you find an angry blue-collar guy yelling about being high on molly funny? Does the phrase “Stalin on Spotify” amuse you? Do pivots from ragingly unhinged roars to an NPR voice make you lose your breath in laughter? No? Not to worry: Eddie Pepitone will still delight. An overlooked master of the form, he’s perfected a persona of the silly grump that makes anything funny. Smart comedy that aims for the gut, his new special (available on Amazon Prime) is titled “For the Masses,” but he jokes that is by necessity, in one of several insults of his audience: “I would be doing jokes about Dostoyevsky if it wasn’t for you.”', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/arts/best-comedy.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/arts/best-comedy-2020-topart/best-comedy-2020-topart-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('c4dccc5f59524873b2c43ef54e835106', 'Would You Like to Come Over for Dinner … in 10 Years?', 'In retrospect, this was the night where I was really starting to comprehend not only that no one was coming over for dinner for a long, long time, but that something huge and terrible was about to happen, with no end in sight. And so then there were many weeks when basically no one came by at all, and if people came over they stood on a piece of tape on the stairs indicating where we were comfortable having them stand while wearing a mask while we stood in the doorway wearing a mask. It’s because one night a friend of ours came over with his girlfriend and my boyfriend went out to meet them and stood in the doorway and I thought they were too close and I screamed at him, “I am not going to die just because you’re too nice to ask anyone to stand on the lower stair,” and then we screamed at each other and didn’t speak for several days. ', 'In retrospect, this was the night where I was really starting to comprehend not only that no one was coming over for dinner for a long, long time, but that something huge and terrible was about to happen, with no end in sight. I put all this sadness and terror into the ruined pork, which, in retrospect, was not the worst place for it.\n\nI cried while both men just stared at me with that expression — you know the one! — that says both, “I truly feel sorry for you” and “If I stare at you long enough, will you just stop crying? That would be amazing.”\n\nAnd so then there were many weeks when basically no one came by at all, and if people came over they stood on a piece of tape on the stairs indicating where we were comfortable having them stand while wearing a mask while we stood in the doorway wearing a mask.\n\n(Yes, there was a piece of tape on our stairs. It’s because one night a friend of ours came over with his girlfriend and my boyfriend went out to meet them and stood in the doorway and I thought they were too close and I screamed at him, “I am not going to die just because you’re too nice to ask anyone to stand on the lower stair,” and then we screamed at each other and didn’t speak for several days. The tape was there to ensure that this incident would just be a one-off.)\n\nI knew the facts: that my chances of dying from Covid-19 were statistically low. But when I heard the news about overflowing waiting rooms in Spain and Italy, and patients not much older than me (I’m 50) left untreated because of lack of resources, along with the news, more staggering every day, that the United States was wholly unprepared for all this, I went into an unceasing, weekslong panic.\n\nMeanwhile, cases in our rural mostly white county of about 100,000 were hovering near 40, with one death. I was forced to admit the terror I felt for my own safety was perhaps overblown and even selfish. The people getting sick were, for the most part, people who had to go to their jobs, or were in nursing homes, or were in jails and prisons and did not have the luxury of cowering in their bedrooms like me. Obviously I was at risk of getting Covid-19. We all are. But I couldn’t go on like this.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/style/coronavirus-backyard-entertaining.html', '2020-07-09 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/07/12/fashion/04FirstPerson-Entertaining-art/04FirstPerson-Entertaining-art-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('c7b70a07fb564ae8b65db6ac2d32dcd8', 'A Raging Pandemic Inspires Poetry With Little Bite', 'Wild is the wind, in Rigoberto González’s poem “Desert Lily.” He writes: “The wind arrives not because it’s called / but because it’s forgotten.” This arrives on Page 46, which is about the place where many readers will gently set this book aside, hitch a mask up over the ears and leap out the window. As if trampling this book’s egregious flower poems, Chapman looks down and thinks: Diane Seuss, in her poem “Pandemicon,” thinks that the virus — “a little spiked red ball of death”— resembles a dog’s chew toy. ', 'Jane Hirshfield writes about rescuing an ant. Stephanie Burt’s washing machine breaks down. Elizabeth J. Coleman, in the kitchen, posts this update on her internal Slack channel: “I hadn’t thought about how an orange is a miniature / replica of our planet until that afternoon.” Because both are round.\n\nImage Alice Quinn, the editor of “Together in a Sudden Strangeness: America’s Poets Respond to the Pandemic.” Credit... Cameron Blaylock\n\nWild is the wind, in Rigoberto González’s poem “Desert Lily.” He writes: “The wind arrives not because it’s called / but because it’s forgotten.” This arrives on Page 46, which is about the place where many readers will gently set this book aside, hitch a mask up over the ears and leap out the window.\n\nThe pandemic has taken a toll on everyone, writers included; malaise is widespread, omnidirectional, multilayered. But because one’s body is not as free as it was, does it follow that the mind should be so fettered as well? The best poems in “Together in a Sudden Strangeness” speak from unusual promontories.\n\nDanielle Chapman’s “The New Nice” beautifully scatters this book’s peaceful, easy feeling. Her poem is double-distilled, and composed as if from ice shavings and incivilities. “No longer must I be nice to anyone / except the people in this house,” she writes. “Niceness, it is obvious to me now, / lets out what should be hemmed.”\n\nMean people are not always good to know in real life. But they are wonderful to meet on the page. As if trampling this book’s egregious flower poems, Chapman looks down and thinks:\n\nBut this is my property. I’ve decided\n\nthese daffodils or tulips are mine to keep or kill.\n\nPerennials rage up every May along this edge —\n\nan edge I would prefer you keep your doggy off.\n\nDiane Seuss, in her poem “Pandemicon,” thinks that the virus — “a little spiked red ball of death”— resembles a dog’s chew toy. Tomás Q. Morín, in “Vallejo,” thinks it looks like a pineapple upside-down cake. Both these poets are supremely talented.\n\nSo is Catherine Cohen, whose frazzled “Poem I wrote after I asked you if cereal can expire” contains piles of twigs like “I put the wrong kind of gas in the car and hate being alone” and “my children will type before they can walk.”\n\nMore good things: Jericho Brown wants to paint a mole near the dimple under his mask, so he feels more jaunty. George Green finds himself watching old biblical epics on television, to excellent effect. (“Rip Torn’s troubled Judas, a pathetic mook!”) Gail Mazur’s poem about unleavened bread, cosmic mistakes and cremation would be a keeper in any season.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/books/review-together-in-sudden-strangeness-pandemic-poetry-alice-quinn.html', '2020-12-14 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/14/books/review/14BOOKQUINN1/14BOOKQUINN1-facebookJumbo.png', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('ca5ce4d436c0442c873342f2ca00b6c0', 'Stimulus Payments May Start Arriving as Soon as Next Week', 'Credit Credit... Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times Hundreds of dollars in direct payments may start going to American households as soon as next week after Congress overwhelmingly passed a $900 billion stimulus package sending billions of dollars to individuals and businesses grappling with the economic and health toll of the coronavirus pandemic. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, will be vaccinated at 10 a.m. on Tuesday at what the National Institutes of Health is billing as a “kick off” event showcasing Moderna’s vaccine, which received emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on Friday. Credit... Devin Leith-Yessian/Record-Journal, via Associated Press President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is expected to nominate Miguel A. Cardona, Connecticut’s education commissioner, to serve as his education secretary, tapping a Latino to be the nation’s highest education policymaker, according to two officials familiar with his plans. ', 'Live Updated Dec. 22, 2020, 9:29 a.m. ET Dec. 22, 2020, 9:29 a.m. ET Live Updates: Stimulus Payments May Start Arriving as Soon as Next Week President-elect Joe Biden has insisted that the bill Congress passed Monday night is only the beginning, and that more relief will be coming after his inauguration next month. Mr. Biden is said to have chosen his education secretary.\n\nCongress passes the long-awaited stimulus deal. Video Hundreds of dollars in direct payments may start going to American households as soon as next week after Congress overwhelmingly passed a $900 billion stimulus package. Credit Credit... Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times Hundreds of dollars in direct payments may start going to American households as soon as next week after Congress overwhelmingly passed a $900 billion stimulus package sending billions of dollars to individuals and businesses grappling with the economic and health toll of the coronavirus pandemic. The long-sought relief package was part of a $2.3 trillion catchall package that included $1.4 trillion to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. It included the extension of routine tax provisions, a tax deduction for corporate meals, the establishment of two Smithsonian museums, a ban on surprise medical bills and a restoration of Pell grants for incarcerated students, among hundreds of other measures. Though the $900 billion stimulus package is half the size of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law passed in March that provided the core of its legislative provisions, it remains one of the largest relief packages in modern American history. It will revive a supplemental unemployment benefit for millions of unemployed Americans at $300 a week for 11 weeks and provide for another round of $600 direct payments to adults and children. “I expect we’ll get the money out by the beginning of next week — $2,400 for a family of four — so much needed relief just in time for the holidays,” Mr. Mnuchin said on CNBC. “I think this will take us through the recovery.” President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who received a coronavirus vaccine on Monday with television cameras rolling, has insisted that this bill is only the beginning, and that more relief, especially to state and local governments, will be coming after his inauguration next month. Lawmakers hustled on Monday to pass the bill, nearly 5,600 pages long, less than 24 hours after its completion and before virtually anyone had read it. At one point, aides struggled simply to put the measure online because of a corrupted computer file. The legislative text is likely to be one of the longest ever, and it became available only a few hours before both chambers approved the bill. In the Senate, the bill passed 92 to 6. It will now go to President Trump for his signature. Emily Cochrane and\n\nDr. Anthony Fauci is set to receive the coronavirus vaccine today. Dr. Jerome Adams, the surgeon general, left, talks with Dr. Anthony Fauci before Dr. Adams received a vaccine on Friday. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, will be vaccinated at 10 a.m. on Tuesday at what the National Institutes of Health is billing as a “kick off” event showcasing Moderna’s vaccine, which received emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on Friday. Dr. Fauci’s vaccination has been long-awaited by public figures and health experts. Former President Barack Obama recently said that if Dr. Fauci, who will also be serving as the chief medical adviser to Vice-President Elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., endorses a coronavirus vaccine, that will be a signal to him that it is safe. Joining Dr. Fauci will be Dr. Francis S. Collins, the N.I.H. director, Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary, and frontline workers at the N.I.H. Clinical Center. The Moderna vaccine, which has received billions of dollars of support from the federal government, has become a triumphant symbol of the administration’s efforts to develop and distribute a vaccine. It was designed by scientists at N.I.H. and the company within two days of China’s releasing the genetic sequence of the coronavirus. On Monday, Mr. Biden received the coronavirus vaccine on live television at the Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., to send a message to Americans across the country that the vaccine was safe to take. “Left’s good,” he told the nurse practitioner who administered the vaccine, rolling up the sleeve of his black long-sleeve turtleneck and exposing his left arm. “You just go ahead anytime you’re ready.” He credited the Trump administration for its work on Operation Warp Speed, which helped to deliver a quick vaccine. “The administration deserves some credit getting this off the ground,” he said. “I’m doing this to demonstrate that people should be prepared when it’s available to take the vaccine.” Mr. Biden, however, warned Americans that vigilance in the coming months was still necessary. “It’s going to take time,” he said, encouraging people to continue to wear masks and socially distance. “If you don’t have to travel, don’t travel,” he said. “It’s really important.” He thanked health care workers, calling them heroes, and ended with an awkward elbow bump with Tabe Mase, the nurse practitioner who administered to him the first course of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, received the vaccine privately earlier in the day on Monday, according to a spokesman, and joined him at the hospital. Since March, Mr. Biden’s team has been taking public health guidelines about social distancing and masks seriously, as President Trump and his aides have willfully disregarded them. But even Mr. Biden’s more careful circle has been infiltrated by the virus. Representative Cedric L. Richmond, Democrat of Louisiana and one of Mr. Biden’s closest advisers, tested positive for the coronavirus last week, the transition team announced. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is expected to receive her vaccine after Christmas, a spokeswoman said, following advice from doctors who recommended Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris stagger their first shots rather than receive them together. Annie Karni and\n\nAdvertisement Continue reading the main story\n\nBiden is expected to name Connecticut’s schools chief as his education secretary. Miguel A. Cardona, Connecticut’s education commissioner, speaking with students at Berlin High School while on a tour of the school in January. Credit... Devin Leith-Yessian/Record-Journal, via Associated Press President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is expected to nominate Miguel A. Cardona, Connecticut’s education commissioner, to serve as his education secretary, tapping a Latino to be the nation’s highest education policymaker, according to two officials familiar with his plans. Dr. Cardona, if confirmed by the Senate, would be tasked with bringing the elementary, secondary and higher education systems back from the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic and repairing the considerable damage done. School districts, colleges and universities have hemorrhaged money as they struggled with distance learning, retrofitted buildings to make them somewhat safer, and lost students, especially foreign university students who had been paying full tuition. The pandemic has also widened the achievement gap between affluent students and poorer pupils who fell behind as they suffered through deficient internet access and difficult home-learning conditions. The selection of Dr. Cardona would fulfill Mr. Biden’s campaign promise to appoint a diverse cabinet and a secretary of education with public school experience — a blunt juxtaposition to President Trump’s billionaire private-school champion Betsy DeVos. The official announcement is expected as soon as Tuesday. Dr. Cardona was appointed Connecticut’s first Latino commissioner of education in 2019 after two decades of experience as a public school educator, starting in a Meriden, Conn., elementary school classroom, according to his official biography. He also served as a principal for a decade, among the youngest in the state, and as assistant superintendent and adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Cardona emerged as a front-runner for the position in recent days, beating out teachers union leaders, higher education academics, and superintendents of large, urban school districts. He garnered the endorsements of important stakeholders in the Biden campaign, including congressional leaders, teachers unions, community groups and one of Mr. Biden’s early preferred candidates, Linda Darling-Hammond, who headed the campaign’s education transition team but took herself out of the running.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/22/us/joe-biden-trump/', '2020-12-22 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/21/us/politics/21transition-briefing-pelosi/21transition-briefing-pelosi-facebookJumbo-v2.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('cc488772ba23463ebc52298136254d04', 'In Mexico, Midwives Step in as Covid Overshadows Childbirth', 'She believes that low-risk births should occur outside hospitals, in homes or in dedicated birth centers, where women can choose how they want to give birth. María de Jesús Maroquín Hernández contracted Covid when she was 36 weeks pregnant, and was hospitalized for five days at Acapulco General Hospital, four hours from her home near Ometepec, Guerrero, Mexico. Ms. Balderas had expected a hospital birth, but after the pandemic began, the couple decided to try for a home birth to avoid the coronavirus. ', 'Doctors released Alejandra Guevarra Villegas, 19, from the operating room after delivering her baby girl by emergency C-section in San Luis Acatlán, a small town in the Costa Chica zone in the Mexican state of Guerrero.Credit...\n\nMidwives and doctors struggle to help women give birth safely during the grim days of the pandemic.\n\nDoctors released Alejandra Guevarra Villegas, 19, from the operating room after delivering her baby girl by emergency C-section in San Luis Acatlán, a small town in the Costa Chica zone in the Mexican state of Guerrero.\n\nRafaela López Juárez was determined that if she ever had another child, she would try to give birth at home with a trusted midwife, surrounded by family. Her first birth at a hospital had been a traumatic ordeal, and her perspective changed drastically afterward, when she trained to become a professional midwife. “What women want is a birth experience centered on respect and dignity,” she said. She believes that low-risk births should occur outside hospitals, in homes or in dedicated birth centers, where women can choose how they want to give birth. In late February, Ms. López and her family were anticipating the arrival of her second child at their home in Xalapa, Mexico, while following the ominous news of the encroaching coronavirus pandemic. She gave birth to Joshua, a healthy baby boy, on Feb. 28, the same day that Mexico confirmed its first case of Covid-19. Ms. López wondered how the pandemic would affect her profession.\n\nRafaela López and her partner, José Hernández, awaiting the birth of their baby, with Rafaela’s daughter, Johana, 11, nearby. Accompanied by midwife Pilar Victoria Rosique, Rafaela López Juárez tried to manage intensifying contractions when her labor started inside her home. Her partner José recorded the timing of the contractions. Rafaela López examined Jessica Garcia Pérez, 32, while Ms. Garcia’s son took a photo during a prenatal home visit in Xalapa, Veracruz.\n\nAbout 96 percent of births in Mexico take place in hospitals that are often overcrowded and ill-equipped, where many women describe receiving poor or disrespectful treatment. The onset of the pandemic prompted concern that pregnant women might be exposed to the virus in hospitals, and women’s health advocates in Mexico and globally expressed hope that the crisis might become a catalyst for lasting changes to the system. A national movement has made determined but uneven progress toward integrating midwifery into Mexico’s public health system. Some authorities argue that well-trained midwives would be of great value, especially in rural areas but also in small nonsurgical clinics throughout the country. But so far, there has been insufficient political will to provide the regulation, infrastructure and budgets needed to employ enough midwives to make a significant difference. During the first few months of the pandemic, anecdotal evidence suggested that midwifery was gaining traction in the country. Midwives all over Mexico were inundated with requests for home births. The government encouraged state authorities to set up alternative health centers that could exclusively focus on births and be staffed by nurses and midwives. As Covid outbreaks spread, health authorities around the country started to see sharp declines in prenatal consultations and births in hospitals. At the Acapulco General Hospital in Mexico’s Guerrero state, Dr. Juan Carlos Luna, the maternal health director, noted a 50 percent decline in births. With skeletal staffs at times working double shifts, doctors and nurses pushed through under dire conditions. “Nearly everyone on my team has tested positive for the virus at some point,” Dr. Luna said.\n\nFuneral workers remove the body of a patient who died from Covid-19 at the General Hospital in Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico. Employees of a German company, Sanieren, based in Mexico City, sanitized the Covid triage area of the Acapulco General Hospital. Medical personnel assisted María de Jesús Maroquín Hernández, preparing her for discharge from the Covid-19 intensive care unit at the Acapulco General Hospital. María de Jesús Maroquín Hernández contracted Covid when she was 36 weeks pregnant, and was hospitalized for five days at Acapulco General Hospital, four hours from her home near Ometepec, Guerrero, Mexico. Later, she gave birth to a baby girl, who she and her husband named Milagro, Spanish for miracle.\n\nInside the Covid-19 intensive care unit at Acapulco General, doctors treated María de Jesús Maroquín Hernández. She had developed breathing problems at 36 weeks pregnant, prompting her family to drive her four hours to the hospital. Doctors isolated Ms. Maroquín while her family waited outside, watching funeral workers carry away the dead Covid patients and worrying that she would be next. She was discharged after five days and soon gave birth, via emergency cesarean section, in a hospital near her home. She and her husband decided to name their baby girl Milagro — miracle.\n\nA central hub for dozens of mostly indigenous communities, San Luis Acatlán, a small town in the Costa Chica area of Mexico’s Guerrero state, became a “zone of high contagion” during the pandemic. Signs warned residents to wear masks. Soldiers guard the Ometepec General Hospital in Mexico’s Guerrero state. As the Covid pandemic intensified, the public sometimes stormed hospitals and threatened doctors. Ometepec General Hospital was nearly empty at times, as the public shunned hospitals in fear. State health authorities had ordered the reconfiguration of many public hospitals to create separate Covid and non-Covid sections.\n\nIn Mexico’s Indigenous communities, women have long relied on traditional midwives, who have become even more important today. In Guerrero, some women have given birth with midwives at dedicated Indigenous women’s centers called CAMIs (Casas de la Mujer Indígena o Afromexicana), where women can also seek help for domestic violence, which CAMI workers say has increased. But austerity measures related to the pandemic have deprived the centers of essential funding from the federal government. Other women have chosen to quarantine in their communities, seeking help from midwives like Isabel Vicario Natividad, 57, who keeps working though her own health conditions make her vulnerable to the virus.\n\nSalustria Leonídez Constancia and her daughter in-law, Citlali Salvador de Jesús, examining Juliana Toribio Teodoro, 27, in Yoloxóchitl, a small Mixteco community located near San Luis Acatlán in Mexico’s Guerrero state. Midwife Alma Delia Felipe Hidalgo attending a birth at Casa de la Mujer Indígena Nellys Palomo Sánchez, in San Luis Acatlán, a small town in the Costa Chica zone of Guerrero state. In the remote community of Pueblo Hidalgo, in the Southern mountains of Guerrero state, Isabel Vicario Natividad, a midwife, approached the home of one of her clients, Guillermina Francisco Flores, 38, pregnant with her fifth child.\n\nMs. Vicario performing a prenatal check on Ms. Flores. Melquiades Villegas Feliciano, 23, supporting his wife, Luisa Ortega Cantu, while Ms. Vicario helped the couple prepare for the birth of Ms. Ortega’s third child. Luisa Ortega Cantu’s newborn was kept attached to the umbilical cord and placenta for several minutes after delivery, a practice of traditional midwives. Isabel Vicario with Ms. Ortega’s baby.\n\nIn the capital city of Chilpancingo, many women discovered the Alameda Midwifery Center, which opened in December 2017. During the initial phase of the pandemic, the center’s birth numbers doubled. In October, Anayeli Rojas Esteban, 27, traveled two hours to the center after her local hospital could not accommodate her. She was pleasantly surprised to find a place with midwives who actually allowed her to give birth accompanied by her husband, José Luis Morales. “We are especially grateful that they did not cut her, like they did during her first hospital birth,” Mr. Morales said, referring to an episiotomy, a surgical procedure that is routine in hospital settings but increasingly seen as unnecessary.\n\nHoping to avoid the coronavirus, many women in Mexico sought maternity care at places like the Alameda Midwifery Center in Chilpancingo in Guerrero. During the initial months of the pandemic, the center’s birth numbers doubled. Members of the Maternal Health Unit of the Guerrero health care sector teaching local midwives about Covid protection measures and breast cancer detection methods. Midwives who took part in the course by the Maternal Health Unit received a set of P.P.E. Anayeli Rojas Esteban, 27, tries giving birth in a standing position at the Alameda Midwifery Center.\n\nWhile Mexico’s state health authorities struggled to contain the virus, the situation in the nation’s capital further illustrated the dangers and frustrations that women felt. In the spring, health authorities in Iztapalapa, the most densely populated neighborhood of Mexico City, scrambled as the area became a center of the country’s coronavirus outbreak. The city government converted several large public hospitals in Iztapalapa into treatment facilities for Covid-19 patients, which left thousands of pregnant women desperate to find alternatives. Many sought refuge in maternity clinics such as Cimigen, where the number of births doubled and the number of prenatal visits quadrupled, according to the clinic’s executive director, Marisol del Campo Martínez. Other expectant mothers joined the growing ranks of women seeking a home birth experience, for safety reasons and to avoid a potentially unnecessary cesarean section. In Mexico, roughly 50 percent of babies are delivered via C-section, and pregnant women face pressure from peers, family members and doctors to have the procedure.\n\nIn July, Nayeli Balderas, 30, who lived close to Iztapalapa, reached out to Guadalupe Hernández Ramírez, an experienced perinatal nurse and the president of the Association of Professional Midwives in Mexico. “When I started to research about humanized birth, breastfeeding, et cetera, a whole new world opened for me,” Ms. Balderas said. “But when we told our gynecologist about our plan, her whole face changed, and she tried to instill fear in us.” Undaunted, Ms. Balderas proceeded with her home birth plan. Her labor, when it came, was long and increasingly difficult. After 12 hours, Ms. Balderas and her husband conferred with Ms. Hernández and decided to activate their Plan B. At 3 a.m., they rushed to the private clinic of Dr. Fernando Jiménez, an obstetrician-gynecologist and a colleague of Ms. Hernández, where it was decided that a C-section was needed.\n\nJanet Jarman Juan Luis de la Torre Islas joined dozens of other parents waiting to receive vaccinations for their children at Cimigen, a small maternity hospital in Iztapalapa, Mexico City’s most populous and most densely populated delegation, that had become the epicenter of the virus. Nayeli Balderas, 30, in labor, with her husband, Javier Basilio Lara, 31, in their Mexico City apartment, where they hoped she would give birth. Ms. Balderas had expected a hospital birth, but after the pandemic began, the couple decided to try for a home birth to avoid the coronavirus. After hours of labor, Ms. Balderas’s baby still had not rotated into the right position for birth. The nurse midwives advised different birthing positions, but the infant still would not budge. Twelve hours later, the midwives took her to a small, private clinic for a cesarean birth. Ms. Balderas with her son, born by cesarean section in a small private clinic at 4 a.m. Maira Itzel Reyes Ferrer, 26 and her husband, Hugo Alberto Albarran Jarquin, 33, attended a class offered by an obstetric nurse and a 92-year-old traditional midwife who together blend traditional practices and modern medicine. Ms. Reyes had her first child a week later. Elva Carolina Díaz Ruiz, the obstetric nurse, massaged Ms. Ferrer as her contractions begin to intensify. Pilar, her midwife, right, was in attendance.\n\nIn September, on the other side of Mexico City, Maira Itzel Reyes Ferrer, 26, had also been researching home births and found María Del Pilar Grajeda Mejía, a 92-year-old government-certified traditional midwife who works with her granddaughter, Elva Carolina Díaz Ruiz, 37, a licensed obstetric nurse. They guided Ms. Reyes through a successful home birth. “My family admitted that they were sometimes worried during the birth,” Ms. Reyes said. “But in the end, they loved the experience — so much so that my sister is now taking a midwifery course. She already paid and started!” As winter begins, Mexico is confronting a devastating second wave of the coronavirus. Hospitals in Mexico City are quickly running out of space. The much-discussed government midwifery birth centers have not yet come to fruition, and medical workers at prestigious hospitals like the National Institute of Perinatology, or INPer, are working around the clock. Early on in the pandemic, INPer personnel discovered that roughly one-quarter of all women admitted to the hospital were testing positive for the coronavirus. Administrators set up a separate Covid-19 ward, and Dr. Isabel Villegas Mota, the hospital’s head of epidemiology and infectious disease, succeeded in securing adequate personal protective equipment for the staff. Not all frontline workers in Mexico have been this lucky; the Covid-19 fatality rate for medical personnel in Mexico is among the highest in the world.\n\nGrecia Denise Espinosa tested positive for the coronavirus at the National Institute for Perinatology in Mexico City, and was admitted to the Covid unit where she gave birth by cesarean. Minutes after the births, Ms. Espinosa’s twins were examined and tested for the virus. Because Ms. Espinosa and her babies were in good condition, doctors encouraged her to breastfeed, provided that she wore a mask and face shield.\n\nWhen Grecia Denise Espinosa learned she was pregnant with twins, she made plans to give birth at a well-known private clinic. But she was shocked by the high cost and decided to consult doctors at INPer instead. To her surprise, when she entered the hospital in November, she tested positive for the virus and was sent to the Covid-19 unit, where doctors performed a C-section. Maternal health advocates have long said that Mexico’s obstetric model must change to center on women. If ever there were a moment for health authorities to fully embrace midwifery, now is the time, they say, arguing that the thousands of midwives throughout the country could help alleviate pressure on an overburdened and often distrusted health care system while providing quality care to women. “The model that we have in Mexico is an obsolete model,” said Dr. David Meléndez, the technical director of Safe Motherhood Committee Mexico, a nonprofit organization. “It’s a model in which we all lose. The women lose, the country loses, and the health system and medical personnel lose. We are stuck with a bad model at the worst moment, in the middle of a global pandemic.”\n\nImage Sunset over the Casa de la Mujer Indígena Nellys Palomo Sánchez in San Luis Acatlán, Guerrero.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/health/covid-mexico-childbirth-midwives.html', '2020-12-22 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/22/science/21VIRUS-MEXICOBIRTHS28/21VIRUS-MEXICOBIRTHS28-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb');
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('cd4086ec9ecd43ee9a9bb1c1c1e03c6e', 'Family of U.S. Student Jailed for Quarantine Violation Pleads for Her Release', 'To elude the restrictions, Ms. Mack, after receiving a negative coronavirus test, slipped an electronic monitoring bracelet from her wrist and escaped to a beach on Grand Cayman’s South Sound, where she saw Mr. Ramgeet win first place. “This was as flagrant a breach as could be imagined,” Justice Roger Chapple said in court during the sentencing, according to the Cayman Compass, a news website in the Cayman Islands. Only people who have been preauthorized to enter the Cayman Islands can travel there, and they must quarantine for 14 days in a government facility or at home, if approved, according to the British government. ', 'When she arrived, however, there was a problem.\n\nShe got there on a Friday; the championship was on Sunday. And per the country’s laws, she was required to remain in her hotel room for 14 days before going anywhere else on the islands.\n\nTo elude the restrictions, Ms. Mack, after receiving a negative coronavirus test, slipped an electronic monitoring bracelet from her wrist and escaped to a beach on Grand Cayman’s South Sound, where she saw Mr. Ramgeet win first place.\n\nBut the event organizers were notified that Ms. Mack may have been in breach of the rules and the police were called, her lawyer said. Ms. Mack was charged with leaving her home during the quarantine period, and Mr. Ramgeet was charged with aiding and abetting her. They were sentenced to four months in prison for the quarantine breach.\n\n“This was as flagrant a breach as could be imagined,” Justice Roger Chapple said in court during the sentencing, according to the Cayman Compass, a news website in the Cayman Islands. “It was born of selfishness and arrogance.”\n\nThe islands, a British territory of nearly 65,000 residents, have reported 316 infections and two deaths, as of Monday. Only people who have been preauthorized to enter the Cayman Islands can travel there, and they must quarantine for 14 days in a government facility or at home, if approved, according to the British government.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/world/americas/skylar-mack-cayman-islands-covid.html', '2020-12-22 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/22/us/oakImage-1608637681482/oakImage-1608637681482-facebookJumbo-v2.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('cd9ae1fab4534164bb06b62ec1de8dee', 'Why ‘Pivot Counties’ That Stuck With Trump May Be a Warning for Democrats', 'Some of the 25 pivot counties that Mr. Biden did flip back reflect gains he made in suburbs across the country — the key to his election — or are in states like Pennsylvania, where his campaign poured in resources for advertising and voter outreach. Unlike in 2016, when complacency, lack of enthusiasm for the Democratic nominee and third-party candidates all cut into votes for Mrs. Clinton, this year there was a surge of Democratic turnout in the state, which Mr. Biden won by 7.1 points, compared with Mrs. Clinton’s 1.5-point margin in 2016. In Clay County, one of the four pivot counties in Minnesota that Mr. Biden wrangled back from Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden won 3,500 more votes than Mrs. Clinton did in 2016. ', 'It is a region of small, postindustrial cities that have suffered manufacturing losses, where largely white voters, after years of voting for Democrats, embraced Mr. Trump’s nationalism and culturally backward-gazing message.\n\n“You can look at the part of the country where I live and where I serve, there is a feeling they have been left behind and we haven’t delivered,” said Representative Cheri Bustos, a Democrat whose northwest Illinois district includes nine Obama-Trump counties. All of them stayed with Mr. Trump this year.\n\nMs. Bustos, who was chair of the Democrats’ House campaign committee, barely won re-election herself. She said Democrats needed to bring concrete benefits to farmers in the same way Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered rural electrification.\n\nDespite expectations that Mr. Biden, with his Everyday Joe persona, would win back many blue-collar voters, he appears to have done worse with them than Hillary Clinton or Mr. Obama in both of his elections.\n\nSuburbia and beyond: Pivot counties that flipped to Biden\n\nSome of the 25 pivot counties that Mr. Biden did flip back reflect gains he made in suburbs across the country — the key to his election — or are in states like Pennsylvania, where his campaign poured in resources for advertising and voter outreach.\n\nFour of these “boomerang” counties, to use the term favored by Ballotpedia, were in Minnesota. Each has a small or medium-size city that is an island of blue voters in a sea of red ones. Unlike in 2016, when complacency, lack of enthusiasm for the Democratic nominee and third-party candidates all cut into votes for Mrs. Clinton, this year there was a surge of Democratic turnout in the state, which Mr. Biden won by 7.1 points, compared with Mrs. Clinton’s 1.5-point margin in 2016.\n\nIn Clay County, one of the four pivot counties in Minnesota that Mr. Biden wrangled back from Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden won 3,500 more votes than Mrs. Clinton did in 2016. Mr. Trump increased his total by a more modest 1,500.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/us/politics/trump-voters-swing-counties.html', '2020-12-22 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/22/us/politics/22pivot-counties1/22pivot-counties1-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('d277e677126b4e3bb55ba810961cf40b', 'A Stimulus Deal That\'s Too Little, Too Late', 'We now know that millions of unemployed workers won’t be kicked off unemployment insurance (for at least 11 weeks) and will now get $300 every week in addition to their current state benefit; a vast majority of Americans will receive $600 direct payments from the government; and small businesses will have access to a modest new tranche of forgivable government loans. After about six months of dire warnings from economists, business owners and the Federal Reserve that the economy was going to need a follow-up coronavirus relief package, Congress finally struck a last-minute $900 billion compromise over the weekend. The stock market is hitting record highs, and a couple of vaccines that promised to be startlingly effective are already being distributed. ', 'We now know that millions of unemployed workers won’t be kicked off unemployment insurance (for at least 11 weeks) and will now get $300 every week in addition to their current state benefit; a vast majority of Americans will receive $600 direct payments from the government; and small businesses will have access to a modest new tranche of forgivable government loans.\n\nAfter about six months of dire warnings from economists, business owners and the Federal Reserve that the economy was going to need a follow-up coronavirus relief package, Congress finally struck a last-minute $900 billion compromise over the weekend.\n\nIf this bill, which also includes new public health funding, were in response to a normal recession, its measures would be seen as a gargantuan effort. But in these times, several voices are reasonably arguing that it’s not enough, that it came too late and that it was driven by unsavory politics as much as it was by the needs of the population.\n\nFor a long while, many Republican senators in particular insisted that another large dose of aid either wasn’t needed, was too expensive — or that any further relief had to be paired with a broad “liability shield” for businesses. After all, they reasoned, the unemployment rate has been more than halved since the darkest days of April and is roughly what it was in late 2013. The Atlanta Federal Reserve recently estimated that G.D.P. growth, right now, could be as high as 11 percent at an annualized rate. The stock market is hitting record highs, and a couple of vaccines that promised to be startlingly effective are already being distributed.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/opinion/stimulus-checks-deal-congress.html', '2020-12-21 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/21/opinion/21zeitlin-01/merlin_181543014_f286d27d-2dd0-445b-918d-fcad92121ad5-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('d8223517157f4808a1cecefe9fbfab5b', 'Leaders in Congress Meet in Search of Stimulus and Spending Deals', 'The four congressional leaders have agreed that any additional pandemic aid should be wrapped into the year-end spending measure, and that Congress should not adjourn without approving some pandemic relief as Covid-19 cases continue to rise across the country and the government works to distribute the vaccine to essential workers and others. Even if Congress were to pass a bill this week, it may not be in time to prevent millions of Americans from going weeks with no source of income, given that many state unemployment offices have already programmed their systems to cut off benefits after next week, when the current pandemic programs expire. There are still hurdles to a final agreement, particularly without a bipartisan consensus on the two thorniest policy impediments: a Democratic demand for additional aid to support state and local governments and a Republican push for sweeping liability protections for businesses, hospitals, schools and other institutions open during the pandemic. ', 'The four congressional leaders have agreed that any additional pandemic aid should be wrapped into the year-end spending measure, and that Congress should not adjourn without approving some pandemic relief as Covid-19 cases continue to rise across the country and the government works to distribute the vaccine to essential workers and others. “We’re going to get an agreement as soon as we can agree,” Mr. McConnell told reporters after the first meeting.\n\nAides involved in the discussion said they were nearing agreement on a catchall spending package, and the text could be released as early as Wednesday. But it remained unclear what congressional leaders would agree to for pandemic relief, as well as what additional legislative items may be merged with the broader spending package.\n\nEven if Congress were to pass a bill this week, it may not be in time to prevent millions of Americans from going weeks with no source of income, given that many state unemployment offices have already programmed their systems to cut off benefits after next week, when the current pandemic programs expire.\n\nReinstating the benefits in those states will take time, especially because the plan being considered by Congress would make several technical changes to the programs, which the Labor Department must then incorporate into formal regulations, said Elizabeth Pancotti, a policy adviser for Employ America, an advocacy group. The Christmas and New Year’s holidays, when state offices are shut, will add further delays, she warned, though workers would eventually receive back pay for the weeks where their benefits lapsed.\n\nThere are still hurdles to a final agreement, particularly without a bipartisan consensus on the two thorniest policy impediments: a Democratic demand for additional aid to support state and local governments and a Republican push for sweeping liability protections for businesses, hospitals, schools and other institutions open during the pandemic.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/us/politics/congress-stimulus-spending-deals.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/us/politics/15dc-stimulus-sub1/merlin_181305513_d9953ee3-76aa-49ce-a6ec-844e3f2d5656-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb');
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('d89dc68779794a1e895e88ce5170888e', 'No, There Aren’t ‘Alternate Electors’ Who Can Vote for Trump', 'defends his firm’s voting machines to Michigan lawmakers, denouncing a ‘reckless disinformation campaign.’ A demonstration in Atlanta of a Dominion Voting Systems machine in 2019. Credit... John Bazemore/Associated Press A day after Michigan’s 16 electoral votes formally went to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., a voting machine manufacturer told state senators that he stood by his company’s work, and shot down unfounded allegations that the results may have been manipulated. Credit... Spencer Platt/Getty Images Facebook said on Tuesday that it would allow some advertisers to run political issue and candidacy ads in Georgia, a change from its recent ban on political ads in the United States and just weeks before a major runoff election in the state could decide the future of the Senate. “They saw the exact same things the rest of us see, and they chose to mislead state senators and the public about what was on that video.” On false claims that workers had fed the same ballot multiple times into voting machines on Election Day, Mr. Sterling also said that that could not happen because “it would have shown up in the hand count.” Georgia election officials undertook a complete hand recount of the results after the election ended because of the closeness of the race. ', 'Daily Distortions Tracking Viral Misinformation Every day, Times reporters will chronicle and debunk false and misleading information that is going viral online.\n\nDec. 15, 2020, 6:28 p.m. ET Dec. 15, 2020, 6:28 p.m. ET Dominion’s C.E.O. defends his firm’s voting machines to Michigan lawmakers, denouncing a ‘reckless disinformation campaign.’ A demonstration in Atlanta of a Dominion Voting Systems machine in 2019. Credit... John Bazemore/Associated Press A day after Michigan’s 16 electoral votes formally went to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., a voting machine manufacturer told state senators that he stood by his company’s work, and shot down unfounded allegations that the results may have been manipulated. Dominion Voting Systems is the victim of “a dangerous and reckless disinformation campaign aimed at sowing doubt and confusion over the 2020 presidential election,” John Poulos, the company’s chief executive, told the State Senate Oversight Committee. The company has come under fire from supporters and lawyers for President Trump, who have claimed without evidence that the company’s voting machines switched votes from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden. Mr. Poulos assured the committee that his company had no connections to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, or George Soros, the billionaire financier who is a subject of conspiracy theories on the right. “The comments about our company being started in Venezuela with Cuban money with the intent to steal elections are beyond bizarre and are complete lies,” Mr. Poulos added. “My company started in my basement, which happened to be in Toronto.” State Senators, who are conducting an investigation into alleged reports of irregularities in the 2020 election, continually returned to tiny Antrim County in northern Michigan, where human error in the local clerk’s office related to updating the software in some vote tabulators caused votes for Mr. Trump to be inadvertently counted for Mr. Biden. The mistake was caught and corrected before the results of the vote were certified. Supporters of Mr. Trump have pointed to the error as proof of widespread fraud in the election. “If all of the tabulators had been updated per our procedure, there wouldn’t have been any error in the unofficial report,” Mr. Poulos said. “Human mistakes happen, especially in busy election years when election officials work tirelessly through weekends and holidays for months on end.” He dismissed as seriously flawed a report from a self-proclaimed election fraud expert on the Antrim County situation that has been cited by Trump allies. Lawmakers also repeatedly asked about various other unfounded allegations, including that Dominion tabulators were connected to the internet, and consequently susceptible to hacking; and that the machines employed ranked-choice voting in Michigan. “Would it be impossible for anything to be manipulated,” asked State Senator Michael MacDonald, a Republican. “I don’t think so, but if it was possible, it would certainly be detectable,” Mr. Poulos responded, pointing to Michigan’s use of paper ballots. “If there was any manipulation of the system, those paper ballots would not match the machine totals.” Although there is nothing the committee can do to alter the results, it plans to continue to investigate the election, with plans to subpoena the city clerks of Detroit and Livonia, two cities in Wayne County that drew national attention last month after Republicans on the county’s board of canvassers initially opposed certifying the election results because of minor irregularities. Read more\n\nDec. 15, 2020, 4:55 p.m. ET Dec. 15, 2020, 4:55 p.m. ET Could Congress overturn Biden’s Electoral College win? Possibly. Will it? No. Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, at the Capitol last year. He has vowed to challenge the presidential election results when Congress meets to ratify them next month. Credit... Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock Even after the Electoral College certified President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the winner of the election on Monday, some of President Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress refused to accept his loss, vowing that they could still reverse the results on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. Mr. Trump amplified their claims, recirculating an article on Tuesday about the efforts led by Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, to challenge Mr. Biden’s victory when the House and Senate meet to formally ratify it on Jan. 6. But while the Constitution gives Congress the final say in the election, there is no chance that it will agree to overturn the results and keep Mr. Trump in office. Every four years, the House and Senate come together to formally tabulate the electoral votes and raise any final concerns about the results. Normally, it is a perfunctory confirmation of the Electoral College vote. But this year, Mr. Brooks has threatened to transform it into a messy last stand by objecting. He is all but certain to fail, but not before a potentially divisive spectacle on the House floor that could thrust Vice President Mike Pence into the politically perilous position of confirming that Mr. Trump lost. The process is designed to be arduous. Mr. Brooks would first have to find a willing Republican senator to partner with him in the challenge, which federal law says must be co-signed by at least one member of each chamber. No Republican senator has yet come forward to back the effort, and on Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, appealed privately to Republicans in his chamber not to join it. Even if one did, there would not be enough support to sustain the objection. In the event of a challenge by a member of the House and Senate, the joint session would pause and lawmakers would go back to their respective chambers to debate for up to two hours. They would then vote on whether to toss out the electoral results of the state in question. Both chambers would have to agree to reject the votes, something that has not happened since the Reconstruction era. Democrats control the House, so there is no chance that that chamber would vote to overturn the results. While Republicans lead the Senate, several members of the party there have recognized Mr. Biden as the winner of the election, and Mr. McConnell made it clear in a call with his colleagues on Tuesday that the effort would not have his support either. Read more\n\nAdvertisement Continue reading the main story\n\nDec. 15, 2020, 4:35 p.m. ET Dec. 15, 2020, 4:35 p.m. ET Nick Corasaniti and No, there aren’t ‘alternate electors’ who can vote for President Trump. Georgia’s actual members of the Electoral College cast their ballots for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Atlanta on Monday. Credit... Nicole Craine for The New York Times Once the Electoral College has met and every state’s election has been certified, there is no constitutional provision for an “alternate slate” of electors. A group of people who gather in a room and claim they are electors, as state-party-backed Republicans did in a few states on Monday, have no more authority than if the people reading this article decided that they, too, wanted to be members of the Electoral College. So while Republicans in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Michigan followed the White House’s lead, making or discussing moves to form their own competing slates of pro-Trump electors, it was a theatrical effort with no legal pathway. Electoral College slates are tied to the winner of the popular vote in each state, and all five of those states have certified their results in favor of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. The most the Republicans could do was claim a symbolic moment, saying that the people who showed up would have been the slates of electors had President Trump won those states. But since he lost them, and numerous state and federal courts have rejected his and his allies’ baseless claims of voting fraud, these groups have no actual significance. Mr. Trump’s supporters have also seized upon some superficial murkiness in the Constitution and federal law as to whether a state legislature could appoint its own slate of electors. Since the Electoral Count Act was enacted in 1887, a situation akin to “dueling electors” has happened only once, when Hawaii was in the throes of a close recount in 1960. The governor of Hawaii signed off on a Republican slate of electors for Richard M. Nixon before the recount was completed; when it was finished and showed John F. Kennedy ahead, the governor had to send a new Democratic slate to Congress. The Democratic slate was accepted. The Constitution stipulates that states select their electors “in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” In modern times the states have done that by holding popular elections that determine to whom their electors will be pledged. Various constitutionally enshrined rights and laws would preclude state legislatures from changing the rules and nullifying the popular will after the fact in pursuit of a different outcome. Regardless, no state legislatures have seriously explored overturning the results, despite Mr. Trump’s entreaties to state Republican leaders. It is up to Congress to accept the Electoral College results, which will happen on Jan. 6. Even if a state legislature were to send to Congress ballots from its own appointed slate of electors, many legal scholars have said that Congress would have to give preference to the slate sent by the governor. In any event, both chambers would have to agree to block the pro-Biden electors. It is inconceivable that the Democrats who control the House of Representatives would consider any such move by Republicans. While some Trump loyalists in the House, like Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, have claimed that they will try to challenge the results, many Republican senators conceded on Monday that Mr. Biden had been affirmed as the president-elect. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, appeared to close off any possibility that he would give much berth to a challenge when he congratulated Mr. Biden from the floor of the Senate on Tuesday. Read more\n\nDec. 15, 2020, 3:29 p.m. ET Dec. 15, 2020, 3:29 p.m. ET Facebook lifts ban on political ads for Georgia runoff elections. Political signs in a yard in Columbus, Ga. The results of two runoff elections will decide which party controls the Senate. Credit... Spencer Platt/Getty Images Facebook said on Tuesday that it would allow some advertisers to run political issue and candidacy ads in Georgia, a change from its recent ban on political ads in the United States and just weeks before a major runoff election in the state could decide the future of the Senate. Beginning Wednesday morning, Facebook said it would allow authorized advertisers to buy and run political ads targeted to people within Georgia. Only those previously authorized to run such ads on the platform will be permitted, a process that involves identity verification and other safety measures. Facebook’s ban on political ads will otherwise remain in effect for the remaining 49 states. Georgia is the home to two consequential Senate runoff elections. Two Democratic candidates, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, are fighting two Republican incumbents, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The results will determine which party will control the Senate when President-elect Joseph R. Biden takes office next year. “In recent weeks we’ve heard feedback from experts and advertisers across the political spectrum about the importance of expressing voice and using our tools to reach voters ahead of Georgia’s runoff elections,” Sarah Schiff, a Facebook product manager in charge of political advertising, said in a company blog post about the change. “We agree that our ad tools are an important way for people to get information about these elections.” The move follows months of contentiousness around political advertising on Facebook, which critics have said helps misinformation spread. For the past few years, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has said he wishes to maintain a largely hands-off stance toward speech on the site unless it poses an immediate harm to the public or individuals, saying that he “does not want to be the arbiter of truth.” But before the Nov. 3 presidential election, Facebook took some steps to rein in misinformation. That included halting new ad purchases in the week before Election Day, and pausing all political advertising in the United States after the polls closed. The company has said the political ads ban is temporary, but it has not said when such ads will be allowed to resume. Facebook said it planned to ramp up the ads program slowly in Georgia, beginning with those running political campaigns in the state, as well as state and local elections officials and state and national political parties. The company added that it would reject political advertising that is targeted outside Georgia or that does not concern the coming runoff election. Google, which paused more than five million ads that referred to the presidential election after the polls closed, said last week that it was changing that policy and would permit advertisers to begin running election-related ads again “as long as they comply with our global advertising policies.”\n\nRead more\n\nAdvertisement Continue reading the main story\n\nDec. 11, 2020, 3:22 p.m. ET Dec. 11, 2020, 3:22 p.m. ET Here’s what went viral online this week. Video Here at Daily Distortions, we try to debunk false and misleading information that has gone viral. We also want to give you a sense of how popular that misinformation is, in the context of what is being discussed on social media. With the help of NewsWhip, a firm that compiles social media performance data, we made a list of the 10 most-engaged stories of the week in the United States. (NewsWhip tracks the number of reactions, shares and comments each URL receives on Facebook, as well as shares on Pinterest and by a group of influential users on Twitter.) This was the worst week of the Covid-19 pandemic yet. All over the country, news about rising case counts, overcrowded I.C.U.s and new lockdown rules were making headlines. But on social media, the most-engaged stories of the week were much more scattershot. At the top of that list, by a wide margin, was a TMZ story about the death of Tommy “Tiny” Lister, a character actor best known for playing Deebo in the hit “Friday” movie franchise. Mr. Lister, who was 62, experienced Covid symptoms in the days leading up to his death, according to TMZ. Second was a viral video, posted on the “free speech” video platform Rumble, of a restaurant owner in Los Angeles attacking the city’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, for restrictions that prevented her from offering outdoor dining while a nearby film production was allowed to operate. The clip was shared by right-wing personalities including Dan Bongino, and it received more than a million interactions. Rounding out the top three was a story about BTS, the Korean pop supergroup, being named Time magazine’s “entertainer of the year.” Here’s the full top-10 list: 1 TMZ: ‘Friday’ Star Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister Dead at 62 (2,052,405 interactions) 2. Rumble.com: Restaurant Owner Exposes LA Mayor in Video All of America Needs to See NOW (1,080,965 interactions) 3. Time: BTS Is TIME’s 2020 Entertainer of the Year (906,731 interactions) 4. Breitbart: Texas Sues Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin at Supreme Court over Election Rules (859,606 interactions) 5. CBS News: Judge orders restoration of DACA, opening immigration program to new applicants for first time since 2017 (799,667 interactions) 6. Washington Post: Federal judge restores DACA, orders DHS to accept first-time applications from immigrants (574,917 interactions) 7. CNBC: 17 states tell Supreme Court they support Texas bid to reverse Biden win (573,568 interactions) 8. ComicBook.com: Star Wars: Hayden Christensen Returning to Play Darth Vader in Obi-Wan Series (556,980 interactions) 9. Vice: The House Just Voted to Decriminalize Weed (544,189 interactions) 10. Rumble.com: Dan Crenshaw Ends Nancy Pelosi’s Whole Career In SAVAGE Speech (534,894 interactions) Read more\n\nDec. 10, 2020, 8:10 p.m. ET Dec. 10, 2020, 8:10 p.m. ET Jeremy W. Peters, David Montgomery, Linda Qiu and Two reasons the Texas election case is faulty: flawed legal theory and statistical fallacy. Texas filed its election challenge directly to the Supreme Court, an unusual move. Credit... Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has asked the Supreme Court to do something it has never done before: disenfranchise millions of voters in four states and reverse the results of the presidential election. The case is highly problematic from a legal perspective and is riddled with procedural and substantive shortcomings, election law experts said. And for its argument to succeed — an outcome that is highly unlikely, according to legal scholars — a majority of the nine justices would have to overlook a debunked claim that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s chances of victory were “less than one in a quadrillion.” Mr. Paxton is a compromised figure, under indictment in a securities fraud case and facing separate accusations, by several former employees, of abusing his office to aid a political donor. Here are some reasons this case is probably not “the big one” like President Trump has called it. The suit’s legal argument is deeply flawed, legal experts said. Texas appears to have no claim to pursue the case, which would extend Monday’s deadline for certification of presidential electors in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It relies on a novel theory that Texas can dictate how other states run their elections because voting irregularities elsewhere harm the rights of Texans. The Paxton case fails to establish why Texas has a right to interfere with the process through which other states award their votes in the Electoral College, said Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University and director of its election law program. The authority to manage elections falls to the states individually, not in any sort of collective sense that the Paxton suit implies. “They all do what they do,” Mr. Foley said. “For Texas to try to complain about what Georgia, Pennsylvania and these other states have done would be a lot like Massachusetts complaining about how Texas elects its senators.” Typically state attorneys general are protective of their rights and wary of Supreme Court intervention, which Mr. Foley said makes this case unusual. “This is just the opposite,” he said. “It would be an unprecedented intrusion into state sovereignty.” The four states named in the suit denounced it on Thursday and urged the court to reject it. The attorney general of Michigan, Dana Nessel, accused Mr. Paxton and other Trump allies of running “a disinformation campaign baselessly attacking the integrity of our election system.” The remedy the lawsuit seeks — the disenfranchisement of millions of voters — would be without precedent in the nation’s history. Even if the suit were proper, it was almost surely filed too late, as the procedures Texas objects to were in place before the election. A Supreme Court brief opposing Texas’ requests by prominent Republicans, including former Senator John Danforth of Missouri and former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, said Texas’ filings “make a mockery of federalism and separation of powers.” “It would violate the most fundamental constitutional principles for this court,” the brief said, “to serve as the trial court for presidential election disputes.” Mr. Trump and his supporters have often pointed to Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court case that decided the 2000 election, as a hopeful historical precedent for their side. But unlike Bush v. Gore, there is not an obvious constitutional question at issue. “It looks like an inherently political suit,” Mr. Foley said. The suit uses statistical arguments that experts called ‘comical.’ Mr. Paxton’s filing repeatedly cites an analysis by an economist in California that statisticians have said is nonsensical. Mr. Biden’s chances of winning the four battleground states in question, the analysis says, were “less than one in a quadrillion.” The economist, Charles J. Cicchetti, who donated to Mr. Trump’s campaign in 2016, arrived at the minuscule probability by purporting to use the results of the 2016 election as a backstop. His flawed reasoning was this: If Mr. Biden had received the same number of votes as Hillary Clinton did in 2016, he wrote, a victory would have been all but impossible. But Mr. Biden, of course, did not receive the same number of votes as Mrs. Clinton; he received over 15 million more. Nor would any candidate be expected to receive the same number of votes as a previous candidate. That one-in-a-quadrillion figure has echoed across social media and was promoted by the White House press secretary. But an array of experts have said that the figure and Mr. Cicchetti’s analysis are easily refutable. Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard University who runs its election data archive, called this analysis “comical.” The analysis omitted a number of obvious, relevant facts, he said: “the context of the elections are different, that a Covid pandemic is going on, that people reach different conclusions about the administration, that Biden and Clinton are different candidates.” By the same logic and formula, if Mr. Trump had received an equal number of votes in 2020 as he did in 2016, there is also a one in a quadrillion chance that Mr. Trump in 2020 would outperform his totals in 2016, said Stephen C. Preston, a professor of mathematics at Brooklyn College. “But that doesn’t prove Trump cheated, it just shows that the numbers are different,” he said. “It’s like finding a low probability that 2 equals 3.” Mr. Cicchetti also wrote that votes counted earlier in the process and votes counted later favored different candidates, and that there was “a one in many more quadrillions chance” that votes counted in the two time periods were coming from the same groups of voters. But that is exactly what was expected to happen: Democrats tended to prefer voting by mail, and those ballots were counted later in the four battleground states, while Republicans tended to prefer voting in person on Election Day, and those ballots were counted earlier. “The order and tempo of vote counting was unlike previous elections,” said Amel Ahmed, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. What Mr. Cicchetti wrote was not especially revelatory, experts agreed. “The model is silly,” said Philip Stark, a professor of statistics at the University of California at Berkeley. “This is not science or statistics. It’s not even a good cartoon of elections.” Texas’ attorney general is caught up in scandal. Though the legal reasoning of Mr. Paxton’s case may be novel, the impulse behind it is not. It was just the latest example of a Trump loyalist using the power of public office to come to the aid of a president whose base of support remains deeply attached to him and overwhelmingly says the election was unfair, according to polls. Mr. Paxton, 57, has been under a cloud of scandal since October, when seven of his senior staff attorneys accused their boss of bribery, misuse of his office and other wrongdoing. Their allegations, which Mr. Paxton has denied, involve a wealthy developer and political donor, Nate Paul, whose home and offices were raided by federal agents in August. The aides accused Mr. Paxton of “potential criminal offenses,” including assisting in Mr. Paul’s defense and intervening in the developer’s efforts to get a favorable judgment in a legal battle between his properties and a nonprofit. First elected in 2014, Mr. Paxton has served much of his term under a still-unresolved securities fraud indictment stemming from events that took place before he took office. The indictment accuses Mr. Paxton of selling technology shares to investors in 2011 without disclosing that he received 100,000 shares of stock as compensation, and of failing to register with securities regulators. Mr. Paxton has nevertheless maintained a high national profile — and the affection of conservatives — with his relentless efforts to dismantle policies of the Obama era and shoulder the Trump administration’s causes. Read more\n\nDec. 10, 2020, 1:25 p.m. ET Dec. 10, 2020, 1:25 p.m. ET No, there isn’t evidence that Pfizer’s vaccine causes infertility. On Wednesday, Erin Lilly, who works at a retirement home, became one of the first people in Cornwall, England, to receive the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccination. Credit... Hugh Hastings/Getty Images Social media platforms were flooded this week with concerns about an alarming headline purporting that the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which is expected to be cleared for emergency use this week, could cause infertility in women. But experts say these claims are baseless. “It’s a myth, it’s inaccurate — there’s no evidence to support their perception,” said Saad Omer, a vaccine expert at Yale University. Expert agencies that oversee the clearance of vaccines for use in people, he added, “have a rigorous process” to weed out products that might cause such disastrous effects. “And when things happens, action is taken,” Dr. Omer said. This week, the Food and Drug Administration reiterated its confidence in data showing that the vaccine can protect people against developing Covid-19 without causing serious side effects. Pfizer’s vaccine has been given green lights in Britain and Canada. The rumors about infertility were fueled by an article published by a blog called Health and Money News, which falsely claimed that Pfizer’s vaccine contained ingredients capable of “training the female body to attack” a protein that plays a crucial role in the development of the placenta. The unfounded claims were drawn from a petition co-written by Dr. Michael Yeadon, a retired British doctor and former Pfizer employee who has previously been criticized for his misleading views on the coronavirus. Dr. Yeadon has downplayed the severity of the pandemic in Britain and publicly aired his grievances about the futility of investing in vaccines. But experts say there is no evidence to back up the infertility claim. The key ingredient in Pfizer’s vaccine (as well as a similar vaccine made by Moderna that is also rapidly on its way to emergency clearance) is genetic material that instructs human cells to make a coronavirus protein called spike. The production of this protein teaches the body to fight off the coronavirus. There are no placental proteins, or genetic material that instructs the manufacture of placental proteins, in Pfizer’s vaccine, said a company spokeswoman, Jerica Pitts. The misleading blog piece drew a comparison between coronavirus spike and a type of placental protein. The similarities were strong enough, it contended, that a vaccine could dupe the immune system into confusing the two proteins and attacking the placenta. But Stephanie Langel, an immunologist and expert in maternal and neonatal immunity at Duke University, pointed out that coronavirus spike and the placental protein in question have almost nothing in common, making the vaccine highly unlikely to trigger a reaction to these delicate tissues. The two proteins share only a minuscule stretch of material; mixing them up would be akin to mistaking a rhinoceros for a jaguar because they are wearing the same collar. Dr. Langel also pointed out that the human body has evolved to quash immune reactions that might harm its own tissues. “If we didn’t have that, we wouldn’t even make it past Day 1 of life,” she said. Pfizer pointed to a recent study that found the coronavirus did not seem to raise the risk for pregnancy-related problems. “There are no data to suggest that the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine candidate causes infertility,” the company said in an emailed statement. Dr. Langel and Dr. Omer both noted that researchers would continue to monitor the well-being of vaccinated people as Pfizer’s products and others are rolled out around the world. There remains a dearth of data in people who are pregnant, Dr. Langel said. But baseless discussions about how vaccines could cause infertility, she added, were “particularly damaging” to the scientifically backed efforts to protect people with vaccines. Read more\n\nAdvertisement Continue reading the main story\n\nDec. 9, 2020, 12:25 p.m. ET Dec. 9, 2020, 12:25 p.m. ET YouTube is forbidding videos claiming widespread election fraud. YouTube’s announcement is a reversal of a much-criticized company policy on election videos. Credit... Dado Ruvic/Reuters YouTube on Wednesday announced changes to how it handles videos about the 2020 presidential election, saying it would remove new videos that mislead people by claiming that widespread fraud or errors influenced the outcome of the election. The company said it was making the change because Tuesday was the so-called safe harbor deadline — the date by which all state-level election challenges, such as recounts and audits, are supposed to be completed. YouTube said that enough states have certified their election results to determine that Joseph R. Biden Jr. is the president-elect. YouTube’s announcement is a reversal of a much-criticized company policy on election videos. Throughout the election cycle, YouTube, which is owned by Google, has allowed videos spreading false claims of widespread election fraud under a policy that permits videos that comment on the outcome of an election. Under the new policy, videos about the election uploaded before the safe harbor deadline would remain on the platform, with YouTube appending an information panel linking to the Office of the Federal Register’s election results certification notice. In a blog post on Wednesday, YouTube pushed back on the idea that it had allowed harmful and misleading elections-related videos to spread unfettered on its site. The company said that since September, it had shut down over 8,000 channels and “thousands” of election videos that violated its policies. Since Election Day, the company said, it had also shown fact-check panels over 200,000 times above relevant election-related search results on voter fraud narratives such as “Dominion voting machines” and “Michigan recount.”\n\nDec. 8, 2020, 5:58 p.m. ET Dec. 8, 2020, 5:58 p.m. ET A Senate hearing promoted unproven drugs and dubious claims about the coronavirus Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, at the Capitol last week, has embraced the role of the Senate’s leading contrarian on the coronavirus. Credit... Al Drago for The New York Times Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, spent much of this year promoting investigations into Hunter Biden, trying fruitlessly to show corruption on the part of Joseph R. Biden Jr. Now Mr. Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is more focused on another narrative sympathetic to President Trump if not to established science: that the reaction to the coronavirus pandemic has been overblown and that public health officials have been too quick to come to conclusions about the best ways to deal with it. So on Tuesday, for not the first time, Mr. Johnson lent his committee’s platform to the promotion of unproven drugs and dubious claims about stemming the spread of the coronavirus while giving prominence to a vaccine skeptic. In a move that led even most members of his own party on the committee to avoid the hearing, Mr. Johnson called witnesses who promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. The National Institutes of Health guidelines recommend against using either drug to treat coronavirus patients except in clinical trials. Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial drug that President Trump has heavily promoted but has shown disappointing results in many clinical trials. Ivermectin is used to treat parasites in humans as well as to prevent heartworms in dogs; research on its effectiveness in treating the coronavirus has been mixed. Despite the regulatory warnings and the lack of substantial scientific evidence for their efficacy, Mr. Johnson claimed that “discouraging and in some cases prohibiting the research and use of drugs that have been safely used for decades has cost tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people their lives.” Just three other senators on the 14-member committee attended Tuesday’s session — “such low participation,” Mr. Johnson acknowledged at one point. Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the committee, criticized the hearing in opening remarks but left before asking questions. On the Republican side, only Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Josh Hawley of Missouri made appearances. For about two and a half hours, the participants continuously challenged public health consensus, sometimes advancing inaccurate and previously debunked claims. One witness, Dr. Ramin Oskoui, a cardiologist in Washington, argued that “masks do not work” and “social distancing doesn’t work” by citing a recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The study tracked virus transmission among Marine Corps recruits who underwent quarantine. But two of the study’s authors refuted Dr. Oskoui’s interpretation. Rather, they said, the study showed that nonpharmaceutical interventions like masks and social distancing cannot be relied on alone to eliminate transmission. “For me, drawing the conclusion from our study that masking is not effective is like claiming that car brakes are not effective in preventing crashes because accidents still occur when they are used,” said Dr. Stuart C. Sealfon, the senior author of the study and a professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “This is either a mistaken or a deliberately misleading interpretation of the results of the study.” Dr. Sealfon added: “In view of the preponderance of evidence in the scientific literature supporting the benefits of mask wearing in reducing the transmission of SARS-COV-2, no reasonable scientist would conclude that these measures are ineffective. They are very effective, but they are not foolproof.” Throughout the hearing, Dr. Oskoui also promoted prescribing zinc and vitamin D. He said that the United States should follow the example of Britain and distribute vitamin D supplements to older people. The N.I.H. also recommends against using zinc to treat the coronavirus except in clinical trials. The British government has offered 2.5 million people free vitamin D to keep bones and muscle healthy, especially as more people stayed indoors, but the National Health Service has noted that “there is currently not enough evidence to support taking vitamin D to prevent or treat coronavirus.” Dr. Jane M. Orient, a prominent skeptic of vaccines, also cast doubt on mask wearing, suggesting that “maybe instead of putting masks on everybody, we should be putting lids on the toilet or putting Clorox into it before you flush it.” While there is some evidence that toilet bowls can be infectious, the virus is most commonly distributed through close contact with others, and masks do offer some protection. Dr. Orient also cited “192 studies compiled on hydroxychloroquine with all showing some benefit when used early.” That appeared to be an exaggerated reference to a database of studies gathered by an anonymous group. Of those studies, about 40 were categorized as researching use of hydroxychloroquine as an early treatment, and about two dozen of those concluding that the drug demonstrated “positive” effects. Mr. Hawley criticized lockdowns as harmful to mental health, accurately citing a government survey showing that a quarter of young adults seriously thought about suicide in June. He then repeated an inaccurate claim from Mr. Trump that the World Health Organization no longer recommends lockdowns. Mr. Johnson himself echoed praise for hydroxychloroquine, claiming that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also “talked” about the drug. While it is true that Dr. Fauci has discussed hydroxychloroquine in the pandemic, he has warned against its use. As the hearing drew to a close, the senator offered his opinion of the severity of the pandemic. “It’s certainly worse than the flu, but is it that much worse to cause that much economic devastation with that severe of a human toll?” Mr. Johnson asked. That prompted almost immediate pushback from one of his own witnesses, Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya of Stanford University School of Medicine, who told the senator: “It is worse than the flu.” Correction : Dec. 9, 2020 An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the drug ivermectin. It is used both to treat parasites in humans and to prevent heartworms in dogs. Read more\n\nDec. 8, 2020, 1:10 p.m. ET Dec. 8, 2020, 1:10 p.m. ET Why can’t the social networks stop fake accounts? Credit... Raphaelle Macaron Every few months, social media companies say they removed another billion fake accounts. So how did a 21-year-old delivery driver in Pennsylvania impersonate Trump family members on Twitter for nearly a year, eventually fooling the president? The answer has to do with the enormity of the social networks, the complexity of catching fakes, and the business incentives of the companies that run the sites. The bot problem Facebook said it blocked 4.5 billion accounts in the first nine months of the year, and that it caught more than 99 percent of those accounts before users could flag them. That number of accounts — equivalent to nearly 60 percent of the world’s population — is mind-boggling. It’s also inflated. The vast majority of those accounts were so-called bots, or automated accounts that are often created en masse by software programs. Bots have been used for years to artificially amplify certain posts or topics so they are seen by more people. In recent years, Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies have gotten much better at catching bots. They use software that spots and blocks them, often during the registration process, by looking for digital evidence that suggests the accounts are automated. As Facebook has caught more bots, it has also reported increasingly colossal statistics on how many fake accounts it takes down. Those numbers have brought the company plenty of positive headlines, but “they’re actually not used internally that much,” said Alex Stamos, Facebook’s former chief information security officer, who left the company in 2018. “One person can blow out the stats, because there’s no cost to do an attempt.” In other words, one person can create a software program that attempts to create millions of Facebook accounts, and when Facebook’s software blocks those bots, its tally of deleted fakes swells. Facebook has admitted that these statistics are not that helpful. “The number for fake accounts actioned is very skewed by simplistic attacks,” Alex Schultz, Facebook’s vice president of analytics, said last year. The prevalence of fake accounts is a more telling metric, he said. And it shows the company still has a big problem. Despite removing billions of accounts, Facebook estimates that 5 percent of its profiles are fake, or more than 90 million accounts, a figure that hasn’t budged for more than a year. Handmade fakes The social media companies have a much harder time with fake accounts that are created manually — that is, by a person sitting at a computer or tapping away on a phone. Such fakes don’t carry the same telltale digital signs of a bot. Instead, the companies’ software has to look for other clues, like an account sending multiple strangers the same message. But that approach is imperfect and works better for certain kinds of fakes. That in part explains why Josh Hall, the Pennsylvania delivery driver, was able to repeatedly impersonate President Trump’s relatives on Twitter and attract tens of thousands of followers before the company took notice. Manual fakes can be more pernicious than bots because they look more believable. Political operatives use such fakes to spread disinformation and conspiracy theories, while scammers use them to defraud people. Criminals have posed as celebrities, soldiers and even Mark Zuckerberg on social media to trick people into handing over money. Twitter’s effort to catch impostor accounts is complicated by its policy allowing parody accounts. The company requires parody accounts to be clearly labeled. Facebook also still struggles with accounts that pose as those belonging to public figures, but periodic reviews by The New York Times suggest the company has gotten better at removing them. Instagram, which Facebook owns, has not made as much progress. Asking users to help One way to combat the fakes is to require more documentation to create an account. The companies have begun to often require a phone number, but they are loath to make it more difficult for people to join their sites. Their businesses are predicated on adding more users so they can sell more ads to show them. Plus, Twitter in particular prizes its users’ anonymity; the company said it enables dissidents to speak out against authoritarian governments. So to whittle down the number of questionable accounts they should review, the companies rely on users to flag them. The strategy is far more efficient and cost-effective for the companies. It also means that as a fake account gains more attention, the more likely that it will be flagged for a closer look. Yet it still sometimes takes a while for the companies to act. Mr. Hall gained 77,000 followers posing as President Trump’s brother and 34,000 followers as the president’s 14-year-old son before Twitter took down the accounts, which Mr. Hall had used to spread conspiracy theories. And from 2015 to 2017, people working for the Russian government posed as the Tennessee Republican Party on Twitter, attracting 150,000 followers, including senior members of the Trump administration, while posting racist and xenophobic messages, according to a federal investigation. A Twitter spokesman said in a statement, “We’re working hard to ensure that violations of our rules against impersonation, particularly when people are attempting to spread misinformation, are addressed quickly and consistently.” Still, most fakes fail to attract many followers. Mr. Stamos argued that impostor accounts that few people notice don’t have much of an impact. “It gets pretty Zen but: If nobody follows a fake account, does the fake account exist?” he said. Mr. Stamos said that tech companies face so many threats, they must make difficult decisions on what issues to work on, and sometimes, the tricky work of rooting out each fake account isn’t worth it. “The companies are usually putting effort behind the things that they can show are the worst, not just the things that look bad,” he said. “How do you apply the always finite resources that you have to the problems that are actually causing harm?” Read more\n\nAdvertisement Continue reading the main story\n\nDec. 8, 2020, 7:00 a.m. ET Dec. 8, 2020, 7:00 a.m. ET No, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine development has not been ‘reckless.’ A volunteer receiving Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine in August. A doctor who has voiced concerns about coronavirus vaccines is scheduled to testify at a Senate hearing on Tuesday. Credit... Ford Health System, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Dr. Jane M. Orient, an Arizona internist who will testify before Congress on Tuesday, has raised concerns about the new scientific methods that the drug companies Moderna and Pfizer are using to develop coronavirus vaccines, and about continued calls for widespread vaccination. “It seems to me reckless to be pushing people to take risks when you don’t know what the risks are,” Dr. Orient said this week in an interview with The New York Times. “People’s rights should be respected. Where is ‘my body, my choice’ when it comes to this?” Pfizer and Moderna are indeed relying on new scientific methods for their vaccines, building them around a molecule called messenger RNA, or mRNA, a natural genetic material that instructs the manufacture of proteins in human cells. But the concerns raised by Dr. Orient, who leads the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and was previously criticized for promoting anti-vaccine sentiment, aren’t backed by the wealth of scientific evidence to date. Although neither experimental vaccine has yet been given a green light by the Food and Drug Administration for widespread use, both products have been heavily and carefully tested in clinical trials. Early data suggests they are about 95 percent effective at protecting people from developing Covid-19, and neither has shown serious side effects. Both Pfizer and Moderna have applied for emergency use authorization for their vaccines from the F.D.A. On Thursday, the agency will review Pfizer’s case, and many experts expect the product to win approval. On Tuesday, the F.D.A. released documents reaffirming the Pfizer vaccine’s safety and effectiveness in a wide range of volunteers, across age, weight and race. Emergency authorization for Moderna’s vaccine will probably follow next week. The approvals would kick-start a series of vaccination campaigns that are expected to stretch far into 2021. Mass vaccination, which will curb the pandemic’s death toll and most likely slow the spread of disease, is an important step in the fight against the coronavirus. “Getting vaccinated protects you, but it also protects the people around you,” said Padmini Pillai, a vaccine researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “And based on data, the virus kills, but the vaccine doesn’t.” The mRNA in these vaccines contains the blueprint for a protein found on the surface of the coronavirus. Once produced by cells, this protein acts like a molecular mug shot that teaches the immune system about the coronavirus’s most memorable features. This prepares the body to fight the real virus off, should it ever come to call. The process more or less mimics what happens when a virus infects a cell: It, too, must unload its genetic cargo, and force the cell to churn out proteins. But unlike a virus, the mRNA is not infectious and cannot prompt cells to produce active, disease-causing viruses. The molecules are also fragile and do not linger long in cells after they are “read” to make proteins. Researchers have no reason to believe they leave a lasting mark on the human body, apart from bolstering its defenses against infection. Pfizer’s vaccine has already been granted emergency approval in Britain. It and Moderna’s product are on track to be the world’s first fully licensed mRNA vaccines, though similar vaccines have been in development for decades. Neither vaccine has caused serious side effects in clinical trial volunteers. While many recipients have experienced mild symptoms after being injected, including headaches, mild fevers, fatigue and aches, “that just means the immune system is working,” Dr. Pillai said. “Tens of thousands of people have received the vaccine safely.” The F.D.A. and equivalent agencies in other countries take safety seriously when considering whether to give vaccines their stamps of approval. Researchers will also continue to be on the lookout for any unexpected side effects as more people are vaccinated. So far, Dr. Orient’s skepticism appears unfounded. Dr. Orient has also attracted criticism for her stalwart defense of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19 despite overwhelming evidence that the drug has little benefit and may harm the people who receive it. She will appear on Tuesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in a hearing focused on at-home treatment for Covid-19. She told The Times this week that doctors were too often sending patients home to ride out their disease. Read more\n\nDec. 7, 2020, 1:56 p.m. ET Dec. 7, 2020, 1:56 p.m. ET No, Kelly Loeffler didn’t wear a wire during a debate. Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia Republican, speaking during a debate with Democratic challenger the Rev. Raphael Warnock in Atlanta on Sunday. Credit... Pool photo by Ben Gray On Sunday, Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican in one of the runoff elections in Georgia next month, fielded questions and sparred with her Democratic opponent, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, in a televised debate. But on the internet, some Democrats saw evidence of foul play — a light-colored strand on Ms. Loeffler’s head that they claimed, without evidence, proved that she was being fed answers onstage. Ms. Loeffler was not wearing a wire, and the mysterious filament was likely just a strand of hair that caught the light. The Atlanta Press Club, which hosted the debate, tweeted on Monday that Ms. Loeffler and Mr. Warnock “had no audio assistance from their campaigns.” A spokesman for Ms. Loeffler’s campaign sent a link to the Atlanta Press Club’s tweet debunking the rumor when asked for comment. The candidates in last night\'s @atlpressclub debates had no audio assistance from their campaigns. — Atlanta Press Club (@atlpressclub) December 7, 2020 The claim has not been shared by many prominent Democrats. But it was shared by some liberals on Twitter, including Ben Meiselas, a lawyer with 100,000 followers who has previously shared other baseless theories, including suggesting that Ms. Loeffler might be “Q,” the central figure in QAnon. Here\'s a founder of the liberal SuperPAC Meidas Touch (\"Because Truth Is Golden\") spreading disinfo about Kelly Loeffler \"wearing a wire\" at last night\'s debate. pic.twitter.com/Sr2sDYlGtS — Craig Silverman (@CraigSilverman) December 7, 2020 Conspiracy theories about politicians wearing hidden wires and earpieces during debates are decades old. They date to the 2000 presidential election, when the right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh advanced the false theory that Al Gore had gotten hidden help from his campaign during a debate with George W. Bush. In the two decades since, Democrats and Republicans have advanced similar theories. This year, some Republicans speculated, falsely, that Joseph R. Biden Jr. was receiving assistance through an earpiece, a claim that was quickly debunked. Read more\n\nDec. 7, 2020, 1:36 p.m. ET Dec. 7, 2020, 1:36 p.m. ET Top Georgia election official debunks ‘ridiculous’ claims about election fraud. Gabriel Sterling, the voting implementation manager in the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, speaking to reporters in Atlanta. Credit... Erik S. Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock Late on Nov. 3, election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, heard that they would be allowed to go home for the night. So they packed uncounted ballots into suitcases and prepared to lock up for the evening. When word came that they couldn’t leave yet, they dragged the suitcases back out and began counting the ballots again. That singular scene — of workers taking out suitcases of votes — was then selectively edited and shared by allies of President Trump as a conspiracy theory that election workers had dragged out fraudulent ballots under the cover of night. According to the theory, those suitcases helped swing Georgia’s Electoral College votes to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. But on Monday, Georgia’s secretary of state office dedicated part of a morning news conference to debunking that falsehood and many others, in what was called “Disinformation Monday.” Gabriel Sterling, the voting implementation manager in Georgia and a Republican, said in the news conference that watching the entire surveillance footage of Election Day showed that workers had first packed the suitcases with valid, uncounted ballots and then later unpacked those same ballots. They had not taken out suitcases full of fake ballots, he said. “The reason they were packed away is because they were under the misbegotten impression that they were getting to go home, which, if you notice when you go back to see the videos on this, they were packing these things up 10, 10:30 at night,” Mr. Sterling said. He ran through a list of other pieces of misinformation being spread about the Georgia elections and rebuked the baseless claims. Conspiracy theories have been running rampant in the state, which also will hold runoff elections for its two Senate seats on Jan. 5. About the rumor that a “water main break” had damaged ballots and the tally in Fulton County on Election Day, Mr. Sterling said, “There was no water main break.” He cited surveillance footage that showed that there was simply a water leak and that it did not affect any ballots. “You’ll see when they walk in, and they see the obvious water leak on the floor,” he said. “You will see when they move all the stuff out of the way. You will see the Zamboni, little carpet-dryer thingy driving around. I mean, you can see all the things happen, you can see the table get put in place.” Mr. Sterling criticized Mr. Trump and his allies for sharing a clip of the water leak incident and making it appear to show something else that was false and deceptive. “What’s really frustrating is the president’s attorneys had this same videotape,” he said. “They saw the exact same things the rest of us see, and they chose to mislead state senators and the public about what was on that video.” On false claims that workers had fed the same ballot multiple times into voting machines on Election Day, Mr. Sterling also said that that could not happen because “it would have shown up in the hand count.” Georgia election officials undertook a complete hand recount of the results after the election ended because of the closeness of the race. When the recount showed no change in results, the Trump campaign requested a machine-based recount. That, too, showed no meaningful change. On false claims of hand-count irregularities and how an algorithm was used in the voting machines to swing ballots against Mr. Trump, Mr. Sterling was unequivocal. “There is no algorithm proof,” he said, adding it was “irresponsible” for people to spread the baseless rumors. Finally, Mr. Sterling addressed a claim that Georgia Democratic state senators went to Pennsylvania to count ballots as part of some conspiracy to help Mr. Biden in that state, saying it was not true. He made his exasperation clear. “It’s ridiculous,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m standing here and saying these things.” Read more\n\nAdvertisement Continue reading the main story', 'https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/2020-election-misinformation-distortions#fake-dueling-slates-of-electors', '2020-09-16 00:03:57+00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/us/politics/15transition-briefing-dominion/merlin_164336979_05c65efa-9f8b-456f-9beb-a2b43679d892-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb');
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('daaf1f23251c457d930867aa9a37a771', 'What Country Music Asked of Charley Pride', 'It is likely impossible to know whether Pride contracted the virus traveling from Texas to Nashville, or at the CMAs, but many, including the country stars Maren Morris and Mickey Guyton, expressed reasonable concern on Twitter that Pride’s appearance on the show might have led to his exposure. (The CMA released a joint statement with Pride’s representatives after his death noting that Pride had tested negative for the coronavirus before, during and after attending the awards.) His 1994 memoir, “Pride: The Charley Pride Story,” details a litany of microaggressions and macroaggressions he experienced in his career. ', 'If you believed what you were watching, you might think that the country music business was a tolerant one, encouraging of Black performers and willing to acknowledge the genre’s debt to Black music. And you might believe that it was possible for a gaggle of superstars (and the behind-the-scenes people who help them navigate the world) to keep the pandemic at bay.\n\nThe optics were pretty much seamless, the reality less so. Five of the show’s planned performers pulled out because they tested positive for the coronavirus, or were exposed to someone who did. And most cruel was the news that this past Saturday, a month after the awards, Pride died, at 86, of complications of Covid-19. It is likely impossible to know whether Pride contracted the virus traveling from Texas to Nashville, or at the CMAs, but many, including the country stars Maren Morris and Mickey Guyton, expressed reasonable concern on Twitter that Pride’s appearance on the show might have led to his exposure. (The CMA released a joint statement with Pride’s representatives after his death noting that Pride had tested negative for the coronavirus before, during and after attending the awards.)\n\nIt would not have been the first time Pride risked his well-being and safety in the name of country music’s embrace. His 1994 memoir, “Pride: The Charley Pride Story,” details a litany of microaggressions and macroaggressions he experienced in his career. To be a Black performer in country, especially in the throes of the civil rights era, when Pride was getting his footing, was to put yourself on the line. Opening for Willie Nelson in Dallas in 1967, Pride was warned the crowd was potentially hostile. Not to worry, the promoter told him, because they were prepared to rapidly pull him offstage if the situation turned dire.\n\n“My mouth went so dry it felt like it was stuffed with cotton,” Pride wrote. “He’s not talking about name calling. He thinks something really bad might happen in a room with ten thousand people, and he only has two guys to get me out?” (The show went smoothly.)', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/arts/music/charley-pride-country-race-covid-19.html', '2020-12-14 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/arts/15pride-notebook3/14pride-notebook3-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('de2f2d79ab6a4344adf8009db8acfc16', 'A Wolf Pup Mummy From the Ancient Arctic', 'More than 50,000 years ago, a den in sandy soil collapsed on a wolf pup and killed her, sealing her away from air and moisture so the pup’s body mummified in the cold. She stayed buried in permafrost until four years ago, when the work of global warming and the explorations of a gold miner uncovered her in Canada’s Yukon Territory near Dawson City. The puppy is so well preserved that it is easy to tell from visual observation that she is female. ', 'More than 50,000 years ago, a den in sandy soil collapsed on a wolf pup and killed her, sealing her away from air and moisture so the pup’s body mummified in the cold.\n\nShe stayed buried in permafrost until four years ago, when the work of global warming and the explorations of a gold miner uncovered her in Canada’s Yukon Territory near Dawson City.\n\nHe wanted a precious metal; what he found was paleontological gold.\n\nThat mummy is now on display at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center in Whitehorse — body and fur intact, lips shrunken back so her teeth are visible in what looks a bit like a snarl. The puppy is so well preserved that it is easy to tell from visual observation that she is female.\n\nShe also has a name, Zhur (meaning wolf) in the language of the Tr?ondëk Hwëch?in people, in whose ancestral land the wolf was buried.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/science/wolf-puppy-mummy.html', '2020-12-21 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/21/science/21TB-WOLFPUP1/21TB-WOLFPUP1-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('e4d10c82c70e4ebdb5d221c511e7e939', 'Comfort Eating for Parents During the Pandemic', 'But let’s be clear that car sushi, or coffee mug cake, or any other such covert indulgence is not a sign of disordered eating, according to the experts I consulted. It’s also important to consider whether your secret food is a food you would eat at other times (and just happen to enjoy most when you’re alone), or if you otherwise see it as forbidden. “If you’re only allowing yourself to eat this food in secret, then it’s an unhelpful coping mechanism because you don’t have full permission to eat that food whenever you want,” Johnson said. ', 'Candace Jackson, mom to a 4-year-old and 17-month-old in Oakland, Calif., waits until her kids have gone to bed and then makes a small chocolate cake using her microwave and a coffee mug. “I always make it in the same black Powell’s bookstore coffee mug,” she said. “As soon as I pull that mug out, my husband just looks at me like, ‘Rough day?’” And Jennifer Toone, a mom of six in Elk Grove, Calif., said she keeps a stash of dark chocolate peanut butter cups in her top dresser drawer so she can tell her family she’s going upstairs to “use the bathroom” and then sit on her bed with her treats “for as long as I can get away with it.”\n\nThat secret “getting away with it” part is essential. I see all of you out-in-the-open foodies, with your performative sourdough baking. And I respect the strategy: You survive by becoming immersed in a complicated kitchen task that can be executed only if you’re ignoring everyone around you. But that kind of ritual requires messing up the kitchen and demands a level of energy I cannot summon right now. I need the exquisite hidden stillness of car sushi; the reliability of those tidy plastic containers and the ability to throw all the evidence in the trash as soon as I’m done. Nobody needs to know. They can just appreciate that I come home in a better mood.\n\nBut let’s be clear that car sushi, or coffee mug cake, or any other such covert indulgence is not a sign of disordered eating, according to the experts I consulted. “You’re aware that you are overwhelmed and you’re actively taking care of yourself,” explained Christyna Johnson, a dietitian who specializes in eating disorder treatment in Dallas. “You might be eating and using that time to process your feelings.” Which doesn’t mean you solve anything, or even stop feeling angry or sad. “Maybe this is a temporary place holder — something that lets you release a little steam, and sit with tough emotions just enough so that you can keep functioning,” Johnson said.\n\nThis is quite different from the self-destructive sort of secret eating that is the hallmark of a more disordered relationship with food. “If you’re not aware of your emotional experience while eating or even afterwards find that you cannot tap into your feelings, then that’s not helpful,” Johnson said.\n\nIt’s also important to consider whether your secret food is a food you would eat at other times (and just happen to enjoy most when you’re alone), or if you otherwise see it as forbidden. “If you’re only allowing yourself to eat this food in secret, then it’s an unhelpful coping mechanism because you don’t have full permission to eat that food whenever you want,” Johnson said. “The euphoria you’re feeling from eating it is clouding your nervous system’s ability to calm down. And it’s likely to be replaced by shame afterwards.”', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/parenting/pandemic-comfort-eating.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/14/multimedia/14par-carsushi/14par-carsushi-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('e6b852b5137b46d3b439ba6e3dfd0933', 'The Cost of an Unfocused Stimulus', 'Nine million fewer people are employed than a year ago. The $900 billion stimulus bill that Congress passed last night will provide a lot of help to the economy. A central part of the stimulus are one-time checks that the government will mail to people. ', 'For many Americans, the coronavirus recession has done almost no damage to their finances. They still have their jobs, and their expenses have gone down while they’ve been stuck mostly at home. Their homes have not lost value, unlike during the financial crisis of 2007-9. If they are fortunate enough to own stocks, their portfolio is probably worth more than a year ago.\n\nOf course, millions of other Americans are struggling mightily. Nine million fewer people are employed than a year ago. Others are coping with big medical bills. Many small businesses have closed or may soon. State and local governments are planning deep cuts.\n\nThe $900 billion stimulus bill that Congress passed last night will provide a lot of help to the economy. But many economists believe that it also has major flaws. Among them: It isn’t especially targeted at the parts of the economy that need help.\n\nA central part of the stimulus are one-time checks that the government will mail to people. Any household with income below $150,000 will likely receive at least $1,200. Families with children will receive more.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/briefing/westpoint-cadet-lockerbie-william-barr.html', '2020-12-22 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/22/us/22AMBRIEFING-promo/22AMBRIEFING-lede-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('e98921a775534c01979e790c9503b7fe', 'Myon Burrell Has Life Sentence Commuted by Minnesota', '“I can’t for a minute imagine what that must have felt like for him,” said the lawyer, Perry Moriearty, who was with Mr. Burrell when he left the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater in Bayport, Minn. “He looks forward to going home to his family and just living — it’s been an awfully long time.” Mr. Burrell had twice been convicted of killing Tyesha Edwards, who was in sixth grade when she was fatally shot while doing homework and watching TV at her family’s South Minneapolis home. Tim Walz, who recommended Mr. Burrell’s commutation, told her family during Tuesday’s hearing that “there is nothing I can do to ease your pain, and it will not be made better,” according to The Associated Press. ', '“I can’t for a minute imagine what that must have felt like for him,” said the lawyer, Perry Moriearty, who was with Mr. Burrell when he left the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater in Bayport, Minn. “He looks forward to going home to his family and just living — it’s been an awfully long time.”\n\nWhile before the pardons board, according to The Associated Press, Mr. Burrell spoke about his time in prison: “I started going in and extracting medicine out of the poison. The trials and tribulations I was going through, I tried to get something out of it.”\n\nMr. Burrell had twice been convicted of killing Tyesha Edwards, who was in sixth grade when she was fatally shot while doing homework and watching TV at her family’s South Minneapolis home. Gov. Tim Walz, who recommended Mr. Burrell’s commutation, told her family during Tuesday’s hearing that “there is nothing I can do to ease your pain, and it will not be made better,” according to The Associated Press.\n\n“But we must act today to recognize the law in this area has changed,” he told the family. “Justice is not served by incarcerating a child for his entire lifetime for a horrible mistake committed many years ago.”\n\nMs. Edwards’s father and brother told The Associated Press that they opposed the release of Mr. Burrell. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office declined to comment, and Ms. Klobuchar did not respond to a request for comment.\n\nMs. Klobuchar, who embraced a tough-on-crime message while trying to appeal to moderate voters in the Democratic presidential primary, was criticized by civil rights advocates and Black community leaders after The Associated Press’s investigation.\n\nShe was the Hennepin County attorney for eight years, including during the office’s first conviction of Mr. Burrell, in 2003. That conviction was later overturned by the Minnesota Supreme Court, which said an inadmissible statement by Mr. Burrell had been used at trial.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/us/myon-burrell-released-commuted.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/us/15minnesota-release/15minnesota-release-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('edc587a7d94244f39876aafed3c5ad95', 'Children Love Snow Days. The Pandemic May End Them Forever.', 'Such calculations can have particularly harsh consequences for school leaders who make the wrong call, as flawed snow day decisions are among the top reasons that superintendents are fired, said Daniel A. Domenech, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. This year, several districts in New York, including Buffalo’s, Pennsylvania and Vermont plan to opt for traditional days off for snow. School officials in Mahwah, a medium-size district in Bergen County, said in a letter to parents that winter weather offered an opportunity for “memory-making,” and that remote classes would not be held if school would otherwise be canceled. ', 'But she said she expected attendance to be lighter than normal, given that many of the school’s parents have told her they have similar plans for letting their children have a one-day vacation.\n\nSnow days were a thorny issue even before the pandemic. In New York City, only 11 snow days were called from 1978 to 2013, decisions that parents alternately praised and criticized. Mr. de Blasio was chided last year for calling school off seven times in his first five years in office.\n\nSuch calculations can have particularly harsh consequences for school leaders who make the wrong call, as flawed snow day decisions are among the top reasons that superintendents are fired, said Daniel A. Domenech, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators.\n\nWith complicated logistical and political factors to consider, officials in some areas were already looking for ways to eliminate the potential for school cancellations because of the weather. And this year, many education experts say that keeping students in class is especially vital.\n\n“Particularly because kids have already lost so much learning time, adding to that for no good reason just seems bizarre,” said Joshua Goodman, an associate professor of education and economics at Boston University. “We’re literally in a world in which it’d be super easy to cancel school for an hour of play or give them a break in the middle of the day.”\n\nThis year, several districts in New York, including Buffalo’s, Pennsylvania and Vermont plan to opt for traditional days off for snow. In Westchester County, one district will proceed with snow days as usual, noting that negotiations with teachers’ unions would be needed to make a change. Some New Jersey districts that are mixing in-person and remote classes will wait to see how severe a snowstorm is before making a decision.\n\nSchool officials in Mahwah, a medium-size district in Bergen County, said in a letter to parents that winter weather offered an opportunity for “memory-making,” and that remote classes would not be held if school would otherwise be canceled.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/nyregion/nyc-schools-snow-days.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/nyregion/15nyvirus-snowdays1/15nyvirus-snowdays1-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('ef094c739e7b4211a7f988110cb6fb3f', 'Patty Jenkins on ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ and the Future of Theaters', 'And don’t we know better than that now in this world? I don’t have to fight for it now, but I have had to fight for it in my career and I always will. There were plenty of people at the studio who didn’t quite understand or were not very confident in the film: “It’s too funny.” “Is she too soft?” But then on the night of the premiere, everything changed on a dime, and watching people freak out and react to the things I wanted them to react to was amazing. ', 'And don’t we know better than that now in this world?\n\nDo we, though?\n\nWe could go bomb any country in the world, and it’s not going to stop the clock that’s coming at us in about 40 years. That’s exactly the point.\n\nHave you had to fight for those moments of sincerity?\n\nI don’t have to fight for it now, but I have had to fight for it in my career and I always will. There’s definitely an attachment to irony and pessimism in our world, which I get, but I don’t believe it’s very courageous. I think if you really have ever experienced tragedy or ever experienced love, they’re neither of those things. And so, since the beginning of my career, I made a promise to myself because I was with the cool kids who were at the inception of some of that stuff, and I was like, “I’m not going to do it. You may be embarrassed along the way to learn how to do emotion and sincerity, but I’m not going to stop doing it until I figure out how to.”\n\nWas it easy to smuggle all of that into the first “Wonder Woman”?\n\nThere were plenty of people at the studio who didn’t quite understand or were not very confident in the film: “It’s too funny.” “Is she too soft?” But then on the night of the premiere, everything changed on a dime, and watching people freak out and react to the things I wanted them to react to was amazing. I’m so sad I’m not getting that this time. It’s such a bummer.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/movies/patty-jenkins-on-wonder-woman-1984.html', '2020-12-21 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/22/arts/21patty-jenkins1/21patty-jenkins1-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('ef97340d0d974cb7a040acae8a53d082', 'The Rise of Incense', 'In the realm of spirituality, incense is a tool used for cleansing the energy in a space, according to Lala Lopez, the owner of Mothball Memoirs. “It’s about not just the ritual of lighting incense, but it’s the whole sensory experience,” said Ms. Lopez, who views goods like Teomati and Espiritus del Ande as tools that should be treated with great reverence. Health concerns arise when incense is made out of synthetic ingredients because it pollutes the air when burned and inhaling these toxins is bad for the respiratory system according to Dr. Allen Dozor, a professor of clinical public health and chief of the Pulmonology, Allergy and Sleep Medicine division at New York Medical College. ', 'In the realm of spirituality, incense is a tool used for cleansing the energy in a space, according to Lala Lopez, the owner of Mothball Memoirs. Within some cultures, it plays a significant role in ceremonies and traditions. For example, burning incense in tombs to worship the gods was fundamental in ancient Egypt. Greeks and Romans used it to repel demons and evil spirits. Eastern religions often use it as a way of honoring ancestors. Ms. Park points out that incense was “historically used as a measurement of time.”\n\n“It’s about not just the ritual of lighting incense, but it’s the whole sensory experience,” said Ms. Lopez, who views goods like Teomati and Espiritus del Ande as tools that should be treated with great reverence. Plant-based incense, which contains dried woods, herbs, spices, resins, and barks, is a fundamental part of her lifestyle. She said she uses it to “clear the energy” in her home, on new items that she buys online, when she gets back from seeing people and even when she wants to change her own negative feelings.\n\nMothball Memoirs’ sales tripled when quarantine started in mid-March through the end of June, based on the same time period last year. Ms. Lopez believes this has something to do with the psychology behind the buying and the need for balance, peace, and comfort in her customer’s homes. Many of her customers have also requested care packages with handwritten notes, sometimes even to themselves.\n\n“You’ve had the spike of the ideas of spirituality becoming mainstream and sexy, and all of these things becoming commodified into big business,” Ms. Lopez said. “When you strip back all of those layers, what’s really there is people wanting to take care of themselves and paying more attention to how they’re doing all the things.”\n\nIs incense good for us?\n\nHealth concerns arise when incense is made out of synthetic ingredients because it pollutes the air when burned and inhaling these toxins is bad for the respiratory system according to Dr. Allen Dozor, a professor of clinical public health and chief of the Pulmonology, Allergy and Sleep Medicine division at New York Medical College.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/style/self-care/incense-pandemic.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/17/fashion/15INCENSE-11/15INCENSE-11-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('f20e476c85324bc1b686fa05003620bc', 'Ann Reinking: Playful, Refined and With Legs for Days', 'Legs in heels. Ms. Reinking, who died in her sleep at 71 while visiting family in Seattle over the weekend, was one of Bob Fosse’s most important dancers and, for a time, his lover. But really, it comes down to those legs. ', 'When I think of Ann Reinking, I see legs. Legs in shimmering black tights. Legs in heels. Legs that extend effortlessly to a 6 o’clock extension. They weren’t the only thing that made her dancing so resplendent, but they were the anchor to her daring. Aside from their shape, they had a strength that rooted her body, giving her pelvic isolations a silky sort of groove and her precision a natural, teasing sensuality. Even stretched out on a bed, her legs could tell a story.\n\nMs. Reinking, who died in her sleep at 71 while visiting family in Seattle over the weekend, was one of Bob Fosse’s most important dancers and, for a time, his lover. That bed comes into play in a non-dancing scene from Fosse’s semi-autobiographical film “All That Jazz,” in which Ms. Reinking plays a thinly veiled version of herself. In that moment, all she wants is for Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, in the role based on Fosse) to stop sleeping around.\n\nThe dialogue is funny, but her legs steal the scene: Leaning back, she drapes them, bare, across the mattress. Her power is enhanced by her piercing blue eyes and long, glossy dark hair, parted in the middle to ’70s perfection. (Is there anything cooler than a 1970s dancer?) But really, it comes down to those legs.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/arts/dance/ann-reinking-appraisal.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/16/arts/15REINKING-TRIPTYCH/15REINKING-TRIPTYCH-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('f5369604f3fd480485d2897dde9fa147', 'Late Night in 2020: The Show Must Go Home', 'Leading up to the November election, hosts tried to expand their focus to other candidates, but when it came to staying topical, Trump continued to dominate the news, especially once the coronavirus forced the country to more actively consider its leadership (or lack thereof) during the crisis. As the world shut down, late-night hosts offered not just levity during a troublesome and anxious time, but also a (mostly) comic counterbalance to the administration’s outpouring of misinformation. Then, as a wave of Black Lives Matter protests this summer drew more attention to the persistent and urgent matter of racial injustice in America, late-night shows became a forum for difficult but necessary conversations — and, in some cases, apologies. ', 'Late-night television has been dominated by the foibles of President Trump for the last four years, but 2020 was perhaps the most daunting of all. Leading up to the November election, hosts tried to expand their focus to other candidates, but when it came to staying topical, Trump continued to dominate the news, especially once the coronavirus forced the country to more actively consider its leadership (or lack thereof) during the crisis.\n\nAs the world shut down, late-night hosts offered not just levity during a troublesome and anxious time, but also a (mostly) comic counterbalance to the administration’s outpouring of misinformation. Then, as a wave of Black Lives Matter protests this summer drew more attention to the persistent and urgent matter of racial injustice in America, late-night shows became a forum for difficult but necessary conversations — and, in some cases, apologies.\n\nElection Rejection', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/arts/television/best-of-late-night.html', '2020-12-22 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/20/arts/best-latenight-2020-topart/best-latenight-2020-topart-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('f5dca45246e747d49f49b2db224f86ac', 'If the Republican Party Doesn’t Shape Up, We Will Challenge It', 'More alarming is the long list of state and national Republican leaders cravenly falling in line behind his desperate efforts to topple American democracy. Yet more than 60 percent of House Republicans signed a supporting brief, joining 18 Republican attorneys general who filed their own and embraced entirely the unreality of Trumpism by lending their names to undoing an election that put them in office. Even though Mr. Trump has been defeated, there is still no home for Republicans committed to representative government, truth and the rule of law, nor is one likely to emerge anytime soon. ', 'Donald Trump’s refusal to accept his electoral defeat is alarming, but unsurprising. It is Mr. Trump’s character to reject even reality itself when it conflicts with his ego. More alarming is the long list of state and national Republican leaders cravenly falling in line behind his desperate efforts to topple American democracy.\n\nOn Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a Texas lawsuit to overturn the election, a legal challenge that was as frivolous as it was anti-constitutional. Yet more than 60 percent of House Republicans signed a supporting brief, joining 18 Republican attorneys general who filed their own and embraced entirely the unreality of Trumpism by lending their names to undoing an election that put them in office.\n\nThese were not just fringe elements. The minority leader Kevin McCarthy and the whip Steve Scalise signed their names, as did the incoming ranking member for the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Some, such as Kevin Brady, Bill Flores and Ann Wagner, were Republicans who the NeverTrump movement once hoped would break with the president once we made him an electoral loser.\n\nThat they instead clung to his mad king strategy, like sailors lashed to the mast of a sinking ship, proves that the majority of the party has, at least for the foreseeable future, forsaken democracy. Even though Mr. Trump has been defeated, there is still no home for Republicans committed to representative government, truth and the rule of law, nor is one likely to emerge anytime soon.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/opinion/politics/never-trump-republican-party.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/opinion/15mcmullin-01/15mcmullin-01-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('f828d6aca02d4a29ac7dfc4650bb9b7d', 'Use It or Lose It: Tenant Aid Effort Nears a Federal Cutoff', 'But through rounds of rejiggering and three phases of funding — each with its own maze of rules and requirements — Mr. Heller’s group built a team to distribute aid, whittled down the processes that delayed it and ultimately concluded that the best way to help was the most straightforward: Give the money directly to renters. In response, more than 400 state and local governments have used money from the federal CARES Act to set up funds to cover at least $4.3 billion in rental assistance — money that has helped tenants pay their bills and landlords stay current on their mortgages, according to a database set up by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a policy group. Each layer was ostensibly created to improve programs — preventing fraud, making sure the money went to the neediest tenants — but added numerous hurdles for both tenants and landlords, and in the end cost time. ', '“I get calls all day, every day,” he said. “I’ve basically joined the help desk.”\n\nPhiladelphia is a case study in the simple-but-not-easy task of helping tenants with the rent. Social programs are often a partnership in which cities provide funding and lay out rules but delegate the execution to quasi-governmental nonprofit organizations like Mr. Heller’s. Like most places, Philadelphia isn’t close to satisfying the need for help. But through rounds of rejiggering and three phases of funding — each with its own maze of rules and requirements — Mr. Heller’s group built a team to distribute aid, whittled down the processes that delayed it and ultimately concluded that the best way to help was the most straightforward: Give the money directly to renters.\n\n“There’s a societal belief that poor people can’t spend money the right way, and I think it’s important to start questioning that assumption,” Mr. Heller said.\n\nAlmost from the moment the pandemic spread across the United States, advocacy groups have warned that the economic fallout could cause mass displacement of low-income tenants. In response, more than 400 state and local governments have used money from the federal CARES Act to set up funds to cover at least $4.3 billion in rental assistance — money that has helped tenants pay their bills and landlords stay current on their mortgages, according to a database set up by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a policy group.\n\nBut now many jurisdictions are reporting trouble spending it, and with barely two weeks left in the year, they are on pace to have more than $300 million left over, according to the coalition’s database. In a pattern that predated the pandemic, the programs have been complicated by bureaucratic hurdles, competing budget demands and a reluctance among landlords to take part.\n\nThere was shifting federal guidance on how CARES Act money could be spent. States passed legislation that piled local rules on top of the federal rules. Each layer was ostensibly created to improve programs — preventing fraud, making sure the money went to the neediest tenants — but added numerous hurdles for both tenants and landlords, and in the end cost time.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/business/economy/rental-aid.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/07/us/00rental-aid01/00rental-aid01-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('f9a816ceafad4b7880ab3c32672ca6aa', 'Facebook lifts ban on political ads for Georgia runoff elections.', 'Facebook said on Tuesday that it would allow some advertisers to run political issue and candidacy ads in Georgia, a change from its recent ban on political ads in the United States and just weeks before a major runoff election in the state could decide the future of the Senate. Beginning Wednesday morning, Facebook said it would allow authorized advertisers to buy and run political ads targeted to people within Georgia. “In recent weeks we’ve heard feedback from experts and advertisers across the political spectrum about the importance of expressing voice and using our tools to reach voters ahead of Georgia’s runoff elections,” Sarah Schiff, a Facebook product manager in charge of political advertising, said in a company blog post about the change. ', 'Facebook said on Tuesday that it would allow some advertisers to run political issue and candidacy ads in Georgia, a change from its recent ban on political ads in the United States and just weeks before a major runoff election in the state could decide the future of the Senate.\n\nBeginning Wednesday morning, Facebook said it would allow authorized advertisers to buy and run political ads targeted to people within Georgia. Only those previously authorized to run such ads on the platform will be permitted, a process that involves identity verification and other safety measures. Facebook’s ban on political ads will otherwise remain in effect for the remaining 49 states.\n\nGeorgia is the home to two consequential Senate runoff elections. Two Democratic candidates, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, are fighting two Republican incumbents, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The results will determine which party will control the Senate when President-elect Joseph R. Biden takes office next year.\n\n“In recent weeks we’ve heard feedback from experts and advertisers across the political spectrum about the importance of expressing voice and using our tools to reach voters ahead of Georgia’s runoff elections,” Sarah Schiff, a Facebook product manager in charge of political advertising, said in a company blog post about the change. “We agree that our ad tools are an important way for people to get information about these elections.”', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/technology/facebook-lifts-ban-on-political-ads-for-georgia-runoff-elections.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/15/us/15distortions-facebookads1/15distortions-facebookads1-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('fd309b688d5c45daa3f92288ebc4594b', 'Biden to Face a Confrontational Russia in a World Changed From His Time in Office', '“I don’t think the Biden administration wants to embark on a costly arms race when it has so many other priorities,” said Angela E. Stent, the director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University. Russia was also a party to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated under the Obama administration, which Mr. Trump withdrew from in 2018 and Mr. Biden says he wants to rejoin. While the Obama administration engaged with Russia on a range of other issues, such as short-lived cease-fires in Syria and a negotiated settlement in Ukraine, others have emerged or gained new urgency over the past four years, including the climate crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, putting new pressure on Moscow to cooperate. ', '“I don’t think the Biden administration wants to embark on a costly arms race when it has so many other priorities,” said Angela E. Stent, the director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University. “Once that is done, I would anticipate they will engage in new arms negotiations. That whole cluster has been ignored for years. That could lead to more stable communication with the Russian government.”\n\nRussia was also a party to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated under the Obama administration, which Mr. Trump withdrew from in 2018 and Mr. Biden says he wants to rejoin.\n\nBut doing so is likely to require more negotiations with Tehran — and with Moscow, which accepted tons of low-enriched uranium from Iran under the last agreement and may be asked to do the same again.\n\nWhile the Obama administration engaged with Russia on a range of other issues, such as short-lived cease-fires in Syria and a negotiated settlement in Ukraine, others have emerged or gained new urgency over the past four years, including the climate crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, putting new pressure on Moscow to cooperate.\n\n“I think over time, Russia is going to have to change the way they do things not because of our pressure but the sheer weight of the shifts in climate change,” Ms. Hill said, noting that thaws in the polar ice cap have led to competition for Arctic shipping lanes near Alaska that never existed before. “There has got to be fresh thinking on these issues.”\n\nTo that end, Mr. Biden will have a special envoy for climate: John Kerry, a former secretary of state who spent countless hours working with Kremlin officials on Iran, Syria, Ukraine and other matters. Ms. Hill said Russia might also be needed for a global vaccination program to squelch the coronavirus.\n\nWhile Mr. Biden has been harshly critical of Mr. Putin’s political repression, a subject Mr. Trump largely ignored, a purely punitive approach may not achieve much.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/us/politics/biden-russia-trump-putin.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/07/us/politics/13DC-BIDEN-RUSSIA/00DC-BIDEN-RUSSIA-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb'),
('ff00bb175ae449e8b2460a343f13ac4e', 'Cold Storage, Key to Coronavirus Vaccine, Lures Investors', 'So it called PCI Pharma Services, a Philadelphia company that specializes in packaging and shipping drugs around the world. As countries prepare to distribute hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccines — some of which require storage as cold as the South Pole in winter and meticulous handling — the highly specialized operations of companies like PCI Pharma are in heavy demand. Investors were already snapping up shares of vaccine makers like Moderna and Pfizer, whose vaccine, developed with BioNTech, was introduced in the United States on Monday and requires an exceptionally low storage temperature of negative 70 Celsius. ', 'The situation was dire. As the pandemic raged in March, some Covid-19 patients in Milan were going into septic shock and their blood pressure was perilously low.\n\nA California drug company wanted to ship emergency medication to those patients, but commercial flights to Italy had been drastically scaled back. So it called PCI Pharma Services, a Philadelphia company that specializes in packaging and shipping drugs around the world. It took nearly a week, but PCI secured permits and arranged for courier jets, drivers and trains to deliver the drugs to Milan.\n\n“That day when the drug arrived, six people were saved,” said Salim Haffar, PCI’s chief executive.\n\nAs countries prepare to distribute hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccines — some of which require storage as cold as the South Pole in winter and meticulous handling — the highly specialized operations of companies like PCI Pharma are in heavy demand. And Wall Street, which likes nothing better than a hot trade with the potential for big profits, is rushing to grab a piece of the action.\n\nInvestors were already snapping up shares of vaccine makers like Moderna and Pfizer, whose vaccine, developed with BioNTech, was introduced in the United States on Monday and requires an exceptionally low storage temperature of negative 70 Celsius. FedEx and UPS, whose shares have already risen this year as the pandemic forced millions to rely on online shopping, could benefit further from their roles in vaccine delivery.', 'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/business/cold-storage-covid-vaccine.html', '2020-12-15 00:00:00', 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/10/business/00coldstorage-virus-01/merlin_180217971_91b30930-2464-4612-9c8b-a3b7b4ee7595-facebookJumbo.jpg', 'd177c8c941214a59a3ebf90f81986d7c', '6c108d2b77ed466093d437e07e5a6bcb');

--
-- Indexes for dumped tables
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-- Indexes for table `auth_group`
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ALTER TABLE `auth_group`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  ADD UNIQUE KEY `name` (`name`);

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-- Indexes for table `auth_group_permissions`
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ALTER TABLE `auth_group_permissions`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  ADD UNIQUE KEY `auth_group_permissions_group_id_permission_id_0cd325b0_uniq` (`group_id`,`permission_id`),
  ADD KEY `auth_group_permissio_permission_id_84c5c92e_fk_auth_perm` (`permission_id`);

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-- Indexes for table `auth_permission`
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ALTER TABLE `auth_permission`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  ADD UNIQUE KEY `auth_permission_content_type_id_codename_01ab375a_uniq` (`content_type_id`,`codename`);

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-- Indexes for table `django_admin_log`
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ALTER TABLE `django_admin_log`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  ADD KEY `django_admin_log_content_type_id_c4bce8eb_fk_django_co` (`content_type_id`),
  ADD KEY `django_admin_log_user_id_c564eba6_fk_main_user_uuid` (`user_id`);

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-- Indexes for table `django_content_type`
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ALTER TABLE `django_content_type`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  ADD UNIQUE KEY `django_content_type_app_label_model_76bd3d3b_uniq` (`app_label`,`model`);

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-- Indexes for table `django_migrations`
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ALTER TABLE `django_migrations`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`id`);

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-- Indexes for table `django_session`
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ALTER TABLE `django_session`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`session_key`),
  ADD KEY `django_session_expire_date_a5c62663` (`expire_date`);

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-- Indexes for table `main_apikeylist`
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ALTER TABLE `main_apikeylist`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`api_key`),
  ADD KEY `main_apikeylist_userid_id_73833104_fk_main_user_uuid` (`userid_id`);

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-- Indexes for table `main_feedlist`
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ALTER TABLE `main_feedlist`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`uuid`),
  ADD KEY `main_feedlist_userid_id_c860534e_fk_main_user_uuid` (`userid_id`);

--
-- Indexes for table `main_refcode`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_refcode`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`uuid`);

--
-- Indexes for table `main_urllist`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_urllist`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`uuid`),
  ADD KEY `main_urllist_feedid_id_30b9a5d4_fk_main_feedlist_uuid` (`feedid_id`);

--
-- Indexes for table `main_user`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_user`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`uuid`),
  ADD UNIQUE KEY `username` (`username`);

--
-- Indexes for table `main_user_groups`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_user_groups`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  ADD UNIQUE KEY `main_user_groups_user_id_group_id_ae195797_uniq` (`user_id`,`group_id`),
  ADD KEY `main_user_groups_group_id_a337ba62_fk_auth_group_id` (`group_id`);

--
-- Indexes for table `main_user_user_permissions`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_user_user_permissions`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  ADD UNIQUE KEY `main_user_user_permissions_user_id_permission_id_96b9fadf_uniq` (`user_id`,`permission_id`),
  ADD KEY `main_user_user_permi_permission_id_cd2b56a3_fk_auth_perm` (`permission_id`);

--
-- Indexes for table `rss_rssfeed`
--
ALTER TABLE `rss_rssfeed`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`uuid`),
  ADD KEY `rss_rssfeed_feedid_id_c681765d_fk_main_feedlist_uuid` (`feedid_id`),
  ADD KEY `rss_rssfeed_userid_id_088b5577_fk_main_user_uuid` (`userid_id`);

--
-- AUTO_INCREMENT for dumped tables
--

--
-- AUTO_INCREMENT for table `auth_group`
--
ALTER TABLE `auth_group`
  MODIFY `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;

--
-- AUTO_INCREMENT for table `auth_group_permissions`
--
ALTER TABLE `auth_group_permissions`
  MODIFY `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;

--
-- AUTO_INCREMENT for table `auth_permission`
--
ALTER TABLE `auth_permission`
  MODIFY `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, AUTO_INCREMENT=51;

--
-- AUTO_INCREMENT for table `django_admin_log`
--
ALTER TABLE `django_admin_log`
  MODIFY `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;

--
-- AUTO_INCREMENT for table `django_content_type`
--
ALTER TABLE `django_content_type`
  MODIFY `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, AUTO_INCREMENT=12;

--
-- AUTO_INCREMENT for table `django_migrations`
--
ALTER TABLE `django_migrations`
  MODIFY `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, AUTO_INCREMENT=28;

--
-- AUTO_INCREMENT for table `main_user_groups`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_user_groups`
  MODIFY `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;

--
-- AUTO_INCREMENT for table `main_user_user_permissions`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_user_user_permissions`
  MODIFY `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;

--
-- Constraints for dumped tables
--

--
-- Constraints for table `auth_group_permissions`
--
ALTER TABLE `auth_group_permissions`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `auth_group_permissio_permission_id_84c5c92e_fk_auth_perm` FOREIGN KEY (`permission_id`) REFERENCES `auth_permission` (`id`),
  ADD CONSTRAINT `auth_group_permissions_group_id_b120cbf9_fk_auth_group_id` FOREIGN KEY (`group_id`) REFERENCES `auth_group` (`id`);

--
-- Constraints for table `auth_permission`
--
ALTER TABLE `auth_permission`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `auth_permission_content_type_id_2f476e4b_fk_django_co` FOREIGN KEY (`content_type_id`) REFERENCES `django_content_type` (`id`);

--
-- Constraints for table `django_admin_log`
--
ALTER TABLE `django_admin_log`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `django_admin_log_content_type_id_c4bce8eb_fk_django_co` FOREIGN KEY (`content_type_id`) REFERENCES `django_content_type` (`id`),
  ADD CONSTRAINT `django_admin_log_user_id_c564eba6_fk_main_user_uuid` FOREIGN KEY (`user_id`) REFERENCES `main_user` (`uuid`);

--
-- Constraints for table `main_apikeylist`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_apikeylist`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `main_apikeylist_userid_id_73833104_fk_main_user_uuid` FOREIGN KEY (`userid_id`) REFERENCES `main_user` (`uuid`);

--
-- Constraints for table `main_feedlist`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_feedlist`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `main_feedlist_userid_id_c860534e_fk_main_user_uuid` FOREIGN KEY (`userid_id`) REFERENCES `main_user` (`uuid`);

--
-- Constraints for table `main_urllist`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_urllist`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `main_urllist_feedid_id_30b9a5d4_fk_main_feedlist_uuid` FOREIGN KEY (`feedid_id`) REFERENCES `main_feedlist` (`uuid`);

--
-- Constraints for table `main_user_groups`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_user_groups`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `main_user_groups_group_id_a337ba62_fk_auth_group_id` FOREIGN KEY (`group_id`) REFERENCES `auth_group` (`id`),
  ADD CONSTRAINT `main_user_groups_user_id_df502602_fk_main_user_uuid` FOREIGN KEY (`user_id`) REFERENCES `main_user` (`uuid`);

--
-- Constraints for table `main_user_user_permissions`
--
ALTER TABLE `main_user_user_permissions`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `main_user_user_permi_permission_id_cd2b56a3_fk_auth_perm` FOREIGN KEY (`permission_id`) REFERENCES `auth_permission` (`id`),
  ADD CONSTRAINT `main_user_user_permissions_user_id_451ce57f_fk_main_user_uuid` FOREIGN KEY (`user_id`) REFERENCES `main_user` (`uuid`);

--
-- Constraints for table `rss_rssfeed`
--
ALTER TABLE `rss_rssfeed`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `rss_rssfeed_feedid_id_c681765d_fk_main_feedlist_uuid` FOREIGN KEY (`feedid_id`) REFERENCES `main_feedlist` (`uuid`),
  ADD CONSTRAINT `rss_rssfeed_userid_id_088b5577_fk_main_user_uuid` FOREIGN KEY (`userid_id`) REFERENCES `main_user` (`uuid`);
COMMIT;


