May 18, 2020

Good morning. A fired inspector general was investigating the secretary of state. Shopping malls are in trouble. And we’re about to enter a confusing period with the coronavirus.

How virus data can mislead

Life in New York City felt pretty normal in early March. Children were going to school. Restaurants and theaters were packed. On March 9, I recorded a podcast in front of a few hundred people in Times Square.

In hindsight, we know that the coronavirus was then sweeping across the city. Deaths peaked in early to mid-April. And the typical time from contraction to death is from three to five weeks, according to my colleague Apoorva Mandavilli — which suggests early March was near the peak for transmission.

By The New York Times

Over the next couple of weeks, it’s going to be important to keep this recent history in mind. Without mass testing — and the United States is not doing mass testing — there is a lag before a virus outbreak becomes apparent. Most people who develop symptoms don’t do so for at least five days, and sometimes longer. The worst symptoms usually take almost three weeks to appear.

With more parts of the U.S. starting to reopen, many people will be tempted to look at the data this week and start proclaiming victory over the virus. But this week’s data won’t tell us much. It will instead reflect the reality from early May and late April, when much of the country was still on lockdown.

“The data are always two or three weeks old,” Ezekiel Emanuel of the University of Pennsylvania told me. “And we have a hard time understanding that things are different from what we’re looking at.” Crystal Watson of Johns Hopkins University told The Associated Press that we wouldn’t really know how reopening had affected the virus’s spread for five to six weeks.

It’s possible that the reopenings won’t cause the outbreaks that many epidemiologists fear — because many people will still stay home, or because they will venture out cautiously, or because the virus may spread more slowly in warmer air. But it’s also possible that the country will find itself suffering through a new wave of outbreaks in June.

Either way, I’d encourage you not to leap to premature conclusions.

In other virus developments:

The World Health Organization’s decision-making body will meet starting today and likely discuss whether to investigate China’s response to the outbreak.
As more children survive a mysterious syndrome linked to the virus, their experiences are helping doctors understand what they’re up against. “It was almost like someone injected you with straight-up fire,” said one ninth grader in Queens.
Anna Sauerbrey, a contributing Opinion writer in Berlin, writes about the complications of reopening society, “The way out is much harder than the way in.”

THE MORNING FIVE

1. Scrutiny on Pompeo’s use of taxpayer funds

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in April.Pool photo by Andrew Harnik

Before President Trump announced his firing on Friday, the inspector general of the State Department had begun an inquiry into the agency’s leader, Mike Pompeo. The investigation focused on Pompeo’s possible use of a political appointee to perform personal tasks, such as walking the dog and picking up dry-cleaning.

Trump has taken several steps this year to quash independent voices within the executive branch. “I cannot see how any inspector general will feel in any way safe to do a good job,” Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group, has said.

2. A coming mall apocalypse?

J.C. Penney, which filed for bankruptcy on Friday, is likely to begin closing some of its 800-plus stores soon, which could create major problems for already struggling malls. Department store chains like J.C. Penney account for about 30 percent of the total mall square footage in the U.S., providing rent and increasing foot traffic.

Retail analysts say that some malls are at risk of not surviving the pandemic. They had already been losing sales to online shopping and big-box retailers and now face months of depressed sales. Both J. Crew and Neiman Marcus have also filed for bankruptcy, and Nordstrom plans to shut 16 of its 116 stores.

3. The Republican plan to patrol the vote

The Republican Party is mounting a national effort to shape who votes in November, with plans to recruit as many as 50,000 volunteers to monitor polling places. The program is premised on preventing voter fraud, though the threat of that is virtually nonexistent, researchers say. Democrats say the true aim is to suppress minority voters.

The Times’s Michael Wines explains that the plan was made possible by a 2018 federal court ruling that, for the first time in nearly four decades, allowed Republicans to mount campaigns against purported voter fraud without court approval. Courts had previously banned such campaigns, after finding instances of Republicans intimidating minority voters.

4. A critical eye on a star reporter

Ben Smith, The Times’s media columnist, has published an examination of Ronan Farrow’s reporting, both in The New Yorker and in his book, that found “some shakiness at its foundation.”

“He delivers narratives that are irresistibly cinematic,” Ben writes, “and often omits the complicating facts and inconvenient details that may make them less dramatic.”

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, defended Farrow’s reporting and said the magazine was “proud to publish him.” Farrow said he brought “caution, rigor, and nuance” to each of his stories.

5. Police killings surge in Rio

Hundreds of friends and relatives look up as the coffin of Kelvin Gomes Calvalcante, 17, is placed inside a newly built part of Iraja Cemetery in Rio de Janeiro. The teenager was killed during a shootout at Pedro Para slum.Dado Galdieri for The New York Times

Killings by the Rio de Janeiro police surged to more than 1,800 last year, a record high. A Times analysis of 48 such killings indicated routine police brutality and a culture of impunity set by President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.

One quarter of the cases in the analysis involved an officer who had previously been charged with murder. The trend — which has coincided with a drop in crime in the city — is consistent with campaign promises from Bolsonaro, whose policies on crime resemble those of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines.

Here’s what else is happening

A Canadian Air Force jet crashed in British Columbia, killing one person on board, during a flyover that was intended as a tribute to workers fighting the coronavirus.
Two Kansas City, Mo., police officers have been indicted on assault charges after they were caught on video using excessive force to arrest a transgender woman last year.

BACK STORY: WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Amelia Earhart prior to take-off, in Lae, New Guinea in July 1937.National Archives, via European Pressphoto Agency

The New York Times article heralding Amelia Earhart as the first woman to fly a solo, uninterrupted trip across the Atlantic Ocean referred to her as “Mrs. Putnam,” because she was married to George Palmer Putnam. Only after she wrote a letter to the publisher at the time, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, did The Times begin using her “professional name.”

After Veronica Chambers and Amisha Padnani, two editors here, came across that story, they decided to dig into the paper’s history of calling women by their husbands’ names — like “Mrs. Diego Rivera” (Frida Kahlo) and “Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr.” (Coretta Scott King).

The result is the Mrs. Files project, which includes essays, photos and poetry. And you can see Earhart’s letter to Sulzberger here.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT, LISTEN

Ode to joy

Andrew Purcell for The New York Times

If you need a burst of joy on this Monday morning, here are 14 essays on all the weird ways that people are finding happiness now, despite … everything.

There’s Taffy Brodesser-Akner on the joy of plans canceling themselves, Caity Weaver on her passion for deleting mediocre photos off her phone, and Jenna Wortham on the simple pleasures of watching her scallions grow.

Speaking of scallions: This comforting chicken and rice dish, served with a tangy scallion-ginger sauce, also sparks joy.

Cello concert for one, please

Louisa Marie Summer for The New York Times

Lucky residents of Germany have been attending a series of one-on-one, 10-minute performances. Organized by local orchestras, the recitals offer attendees their first taste of live music since the country went under lockdown in March.

One concert moved an onlooker to tears: “I didn’t know if she was sad, maybe thinking of someone she had lost, or she was happy because of the music,” a bassoonist said.

‘Last Dance’ finale

The final episodes of “The Last Dance,” ESPN’s hit documentary about Michael Jordan and the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, aired last night. So it’s a good time to put Jordan in some historical perspective.

That 1997-98 season capped the most successful stretch that any athlete in the three biggest American pro sports leagues has had over the past half-century. Jordan and his co-star Scottie Pippen won six championships in eight seasons (one of which Jordan took off).

By comparison, Tom Brady won six titles over an 18-year span in football, while Derek Jeter won five titles in 14 years in baseball. Here are some of the other great runs since 1970:

By The New York Times

For more on Jordan: The Ringer’s Julian Kimble explains why hip-hop music is so important to the documentary. And Spotify has created a “Last Dance” playlist.

Diversions

In the cutthroat world of botanical sculptures, only one team of amateur horticulturists can be crowned “best in bloom,” per Netflix’s new show.
Members of one family found a creative workaround to hug their grandmother while social distancing.

Games

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Latest fashion (five letters).

You can find all our puzzles here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. The word “unweaponized” appeared for the first time in The Times this weekend, in a review of the new young adult sci-fi novel “BLOOM” (as noted by the Twitter bot @NYT_first_said).

You can see today’s print front page here.

Today’s episode of “The Daily” is about the cost of restarting the economy.

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Lauren Leatherby, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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