The Morning: Climate bankruptcy

Plus: Heavy flooding in the New York City region

View in browser|nytimes.com September 2, 2021 By David Leonhardt Good morning. Remnants of Hurricane Ida barreled into the New York City region, killing at least eight people. And what happens when climate change comes to a small Southern town. First, a note to readers: It's been more than a year since I began writing this newsletter, highlighting the day's most important stories and helping people make sense of them. My colleagues and I are able to do this only because of the unmatched breadth and depth of The New York Times's reporting, produced by a newsroom of 1,700 journalists. And that reporting is possible only because of the support of our subscribers. I hope you'll consider becoming one. You can subscribe here. Damage in downtown Fair Bluff. Climate bankruptcy Fair Bluff is a small North Carolina town in an idyllic setting, amid cornfields and tobacco fields and alongside the verdant Lumber River. But Fair Bluff's setting may also be dooming the town. Like much of eastern North Carolina, it sits on a coastal plain, one that is increasingly vulnerable to flooding because of the rise in extreme rainfall and severe hurricanes spurred by climate change. Almost five years ago, Hurricane Matthew flooded downtown Fair Bluff with four feet of water, buckling roads and destroying buildings. Three years ago, Hurricane Florence brought more flooding. This summer, my colleague Christopher Flavelle traveled to Fair Bluff to see how it was recovering, and the answer is: not well. The high school, the grocery store and other shops never reopened after Matthew. Downtown storefronts sit vacant, with trash strewn about. The only local factory closed, too. The population, about 1,000, fell by half. Al Leonard, a town official, says the town may soon eliminate the police department — as well as his job. "What started as a physical crisis has become an existential one," Christopher writes. Fair Bluff offers a worrisome glimpse into the future. The increasing frequency of extreme weather has left countless towns, in the U.S. and around the world, vulnerable to both physical devastation and economic insolvency. Fair Bluff's old Y.M.C.A. In California, wildfires have destroyed much of several towns, including Greenville and Paradise. In Florida, a 2018 hurricane wrecked more than 80 percent of the homes in Mexico Beach. In Colorado, Boulder County has sued Exxon Mobil and another oil company over a devastating 2010 fire, saying that they should "use their vast profits to pay their fair share of what it will cost a community to deal with the problem the companies created." And in Louisiana, North Carolina and other states, flood-prone towns like Fair Bluff are withering. "Their gradual collapse means more than just the loss of identity, history and community," Christopher explains. "The damage can haunt those who leave, since they often can't sell their old homes at a price that allows them to buy something comparable in a safer place." What to do? Many towns try to start again, often with help from government money. Fair Bluff is among them, with town officials hoping to rebuild downtown in a less flood-prone area and attract new businesses. Yet some residents have understandably decided to leave, also with help from government money. Rebuilding isn't just expensive; it also often involves investing in a place at obvious risk of future destruction. As the journalist Alexandra Tempus recently wrote for Times Opinion: We are now at the dawn of America's Great Climate Migration Era. For now, it is piecemeal, and moves are often temporary. … But permanent relocations, by individuals and eventually whole communities, are increasingly becoming unavoidable. Some of the destruction from climate change is now unavoidable. The Earth has already warmed too much and will continue warming in the years ahead because of greenhouse gases. But there is still a very wide range of outcomes, from unpleasant if often manageable to truly horrific. The House and Senate are putting together legislation meant to slow climate change, partly by subsidizing the use of clean energy and penalizing the use of dirty energy. To pass, the bill will need nearly unanimous Democratic support; congressional Republicans have signaled that they are likely to oppose it universally. Climate experts believe the bill could have a significant impact on greenhouse-gas emissions, especially in the electricity sector. Cleaning up Fair Bluff's old downtown will cost an estimated $10 million, which the town cannot afford. For some places, though, it may already be too late to avoid a bad outcome. One of them is Seven Springs, N.C., a town about 100 miles northeast of Fair Bluff that Christopher also visited this summer. After each major flood in recent years, more people have left, and the tax base has shrunk further. Today, the town's population is down to about 55. Stephen Potter, the mayor, is hoping to replace some of the lost property tax by turning an empty lot into an overflow parking lot for some of the R.V.s that visit a nearby state park. "I really don't want to be the mayor that presides over the death of Seven Springs," Potter said. For more photos from Seven Springs and Fair Bluff — as well as reporting from Princeville, N.C., the first town in America chartered by freed slaves, which is also threatened — click here. The latest on extreme weather: Flooding on Queens Boulevard. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency in New York City for the first time.Dakota Santiago for The New York Times Remnants of Hurricane Ida barreled into the New York City region, halting rail service and flights, and raising a tornado warning in the Bronx. At least eight people have died. Buses turned into amphibious vehicles and subway stations roared with water: Here are the scenes from New York. Fuel shortages are compounding the misery in Louisiana, which endured its third day of power outages after Ida. Has climate change altered your life? Share your story with The Times. THE LATEST NEWS Texas Abortion Law A protest at the Texas State Capitol in Austin yesterday.Montinique Monroe for The New York Times The Supreme Court decided not to block a Texas law prohibiting most abortions after six weeks, less than a day after it went into effect. The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court's three liberal members in dissent. The law bans virtually all abortions without exception for pregnancies resulting after incest or rape, making it the most restrictive in the nation. It also lets private citizens sue anyone who "aids and abets" an abortion, including drivers who take a patient to a clinic. Afghanistan The Taliban plan to appoint their most prominent religious figure as Afghanistan's supreme authority, a role similar to supreme leader in Iran. The U.N.'s emergency food supply in Afghanistan will run out by Sept. 30, officials said. Much of the foreign policy establishment supports military intervention. President Biden is a rare dissenting voice. The Virus New York State extended protections against evictions to January. Doug Ducey, Arizona's Republican governor, banned mask mandates in schools. Now some students are sick, and parents are angry. The podcaster Joe Rogan, who has been critical of vaccination, tested positive. He said he had taken ivermectin, a veterinary deworming drug that experts consider unsafe. Other Big Stories A judge approved a plan to dissolve Purdue Pharma and require the Sackler family to pay $4.5 billion to settle opioid claims. A Colorado grand jury charged three police officers and two paramedics in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a Black man whom police restrained using a chokehold. Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, threatened to retaliate against technology companies that comply with the inquiry into the Capitol attack. The collapsed condo building in Surfside, Fla., was flawed and failing. Here's a look inside. Opinions Vaccine mandates bolster civil liberties, rather than compromise them, the A.C.L.U.'s David Cole and Daniel Mach argue. Advances in L.G.B.T.Q. rights. Better home entertainment. Reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown lists 40 improvements in American life over the past 20 years. MORNING READS Monica Lewinsky is a producer on the new FX series "Impeachment."Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times "That woman": Monica Lewinsky wants to reframe her story. A fight for light: New office towers could dwarf a 320-year-old synagogue. Art: Was that Basquiat actually inspired by Tiffany? "I helped destroy people": The story of a disillusioned F.B.I. agent. A Times classic: Stop yelling at your kids. Lives Lived: At around 50, Carolyn Shoemaker offered to help her husband gather data at a California observatory. She became, without scientific training, the world's foremost detector of comets and asteroids. She died at 92. ARTS AND IDEAS Ice boxes of the rich and famous In the kitchens of the ultrawealthy in the United States, fridges are not meant to be seen. "I don't think I've had a client that's wanted to reveal their fridge for a very long time," an interior designer whose firm has worked with Cher, Tommy Hilfiger and Kylie Jenner, said. Designers cover the fridges with custom wood that blends in with a kitchen's cabinetry. They resemble "the imaginary dragons of childhood fantasy in that they are both invisible and enormous," Caity Weaver writes in The Times. Cabinets, too, are becoming refrigerators. Often located in kitchen islands, small built-in drawers store wine, drinks and fresh produce. "They like to have lots of beverages," said Shannon Wollack, the founder of an interior design firm whose clients include many people in the entertainment industry. "A lot of it is beverages." Wealthy people want to hide their appliances, designers said, because kitchens are rooms for casual congregation. As a result, they furnish them like living rooms, with art and expensive lighting. "Kitchens used to be concealed," Wollack said, adding, "It was like the work space. And now, kitchens are more of a lifestyle." — Sanam Yar, a Morning writer PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Pappas. Make this simple recipe: A holy-grail, one-pot roast chicken. What to Watch The superhero movie "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" offers "a protagonist who can't compete with the more fascinating characters around him," Maya Phillips writes in a review. What to Read "Intellectual 20-somethings discussing their vexed feelings for one another is a road made mostly of potholes," John Williams writes in a review of Sally Rooney's new novel. "Rooney avoids almost all of them." Green Thumb Do your spring planting in the fall. Now Time to Play The pangrams from yesterday's Spelling Bee were demonize and demonized. Here is today's puzzle — or you can play online. Here's today's Mini Crossword, and a clue: Chin dimple (five letters). If you're in the mood to play more, find all our games here. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David P.S. The Times's main Twitter account, @nytimes, surpassed 50 million followers. Here's today's print front page. "The Daily" is about the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. On "Sway," Julie Cordua and Ashton Kutcher discuss fighting child sexual exploitation. Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Continue reading the main story Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for The Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018

The Morning: Has Delta peaked?

Covid's mysterious two-month cycle, explained.

View in browser|nytimes.com September 1, 2021 By David Leonhardt and Ashley Wu Good morning. We investigate Covid's mysterious two-month cycle. A testing site in Auburndale, Fla., last month.Octavio Jones for The New York Times Almost like clockwork Has the Delta-fueled Covid-19 surge in the U.S. finally peaked? The number of new daily U.S. cases has risen less over the past week than at any point since June, as you can see in this chart: The New York Times There is obviously no guarantee that the trend will continue. But there is one big reason to think that it may and that caseloads may even soon decline. Since the pandemic began, Covid has often followed a regular — if mysterious — cycle. In one country after another, the number of new cases has often surged for roughly two months before starting to fall. The Delta variant, despite its intense contagiousness, has followed this pattern. After Delta took hold last winter in India, caseloads there rose sharply for slightly more than two months before plummeting at a nearly identical rate. In Britain, caseloads rose for almost exactly two months before peaking in July. In Indonesia, Thailand, France, Spain and several other countries, the Delta surge also lasted somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 months. * Between February and July 2021, depending on the country.The New York Times And in the U.S. states where Delta first caused caseloads to rise, the cycle already appears to be on its downside. Case numbers in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri peaked in early or mid-August and have since been falling: The New York Times Two possible stories We have asked experts about these two-month cycles, and they acknowledged that they could not explain it. "We still are really in the cave ages in terms of understanding how viruses emerge, how they spread, how they start and stop, why they do what they do," Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, said. But two broad categories of explanation seem plausible, the experts say. One involves the virus itself. Rather than spreading until it has reached every last person, perhaps it spreads in waves that happen to follow a similar timeline. How so? Some people may be especially susceptible to a variant like Delta, and once many of them have been exposed to it, the virus starts to recede — until a new variant causes the cycle to begin again (or until a population approaches herd immunity). The second plausible explanation involves human behavior. People don't circulate randomly through the world. They live in social clusters, Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist, points out. Perhaps the virus needs about two months to circulate through a typically sized cluster, infecting the most susceptible — and a new wave starts when people break out of their clusters, such as during a holiday. Alternately, people may follow cycles of taking more and then fewer Covid precautions, depending on their level of concern. Whatever the reasons, the two-month cycle predated Delta. It has repeated itself several times in the U.S., including both last year and early this year, with the Alpha variant, which was centered in the upper Midwest: The New York Times What now? We want to emphasize that cases are not guaranteed to decline in coming weeks. There have been plenty of exceptions to the two-month cycle around the world. In Brazil, caseloads have followed no evident pattern. In Britain, cases did decline about two months after the Delta peak — but only for a couple of weeks. Since early August, cases there have been rising again, with the end of behavior restrictions likely playing a role. (If you haven't yet read this Times dispatch about Britain's willingness to accept rising caseloads, we recommend it.) In the U.S., the start of the school year could similarly spark outbreaks this month. The country will need to wait a few more weeks to know. In the meantime, one strategy continues to be more effective than any other in beating back the pandemic: "Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine," as Osterholm says. Or as Nuzzo puts it, "Our top goal has to be first shots in arms." The vaccine is so powerful because it keeps deaths and hospitalizations rare even during surges in caseloads. In Britain, the recent death count has been less than one-tenth what it was in January. In a few countries, vaccination rates have apparently risen high enough to break Covid's usual two-month cycle: The virus evidently cannot find enough new people to infect. In both Malta and Singapore, this summer's surge lasted only about two weeks before receding. More on the virus: Two top F.D.A. vaccine regulators — upset by President Biden's announcement that adults should get coronavirus vaccine boosters — will leave the agency. A New Jersey woman who used the Instagram handle @AntiVaxMomma was charged with selling fake vaccine cards. Tom Wolf, Pennsylvania's Democratic governor, will require mask-wearing in schools. THE LATEST NEWS Afghanistan President Biden yesterday defended the decision to end America's 20-year war in Afghanistan.Doug Mills/The New York Times Biden, in a forceful speech, said "the real choice" in Afghanistan was "between leaving or escalating" and called the evacuation a success. (Read the transcript.) The U.S. will help vulnerable Afghans escape, Biden said. The Taliban said it would let Afghans with passports and visas leave. This is how the C.I.A. left its last base in Afghanistan. And The Times's Tyler Hicks photographed Afghanistan before the fall. The Taliban must now govern a poor country facing food insecurity, and the U.S. must decide how much to help. An Afghan interpreter helped then-Senator Biden in Afghanistan 13 years ago. Now he's asking Biden to save him and his family, The Wall Street Journal reports. Climate The Caldor fire is threatening tens of thousands of homes and hotels that ring Lake Tahoe.Max Whittaker for The New York Times Despite the efforts of thousands of firefighters, the Caldor fire is quickly advancing toward Lake Tahoe. With stifling heat forecast, Louisiana officials urged those who fled Hurricane Ida to stay away. Parts of greater New Orleans could see power restored tonight. Hundreds of thousands of people are still without water. Politics Texas' near-ban on abortion went into effect after the Supreme Court didn't take action on a request to block the law. And Texas Republicans passed a bill to restrict mail voting and empower partisan poll watchers. Gov. Greg Abbott said he would sign it. A lawyer defending people charged in the Capitol riot has stopped showing up in court. Officials don't know where he is. Other Big Stories Germany's election campaign — to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel after 16 years — is in its final month. The two leading candidates are anything but exciting. A string of fatal overdoses reflects a dangerous trend: cocaine laced with fentanyl. Mike Richards is out as the executive producer of "Jeopardy!" after several scandals during his brief tenure. After 20 years, investigators in Florida say they have identified the killer of three women. The Patriots cut the quarterback Cam Newton. He missed practices last week after a mix-up over health protocols. Opinions "I thought my service alongside the Americans meant I would be saved when they left," Rasheed, an Afghan, writes in The Times. This was supposed to be a "Summer of Freedom." It was not, Jennifer Finney Boylan says. Subscribe Today Subscriber support allows us to go wherever the story is, no matter the hardship or cost. Subscribe to The Times today. MORNING READS The sisters Maritza and Reyna Vazquez started Veracruz with a food truck on Austin's East Side.Jessica Attie for The New York Times Migas: Are these Austin's best breakfast tacos? Profit and pain: The silent partner cleaning up Facebook for $500 million a year. Fermi problems: How to solve any problem using common sense. Advice from Wirecutter: Eyeing an air fryer? Try a convection toaster oven instead. Lives Lived: Lee (Scratch) Perry was an influential reggae artist and a mentor to Bob Marley. With a four-track tape recorder in his Jamaican home studio, Perry opened sonic vistas and cultivated the image of a mad genius. He died at 85. ARTS AND IDEAS Fake Schieles at the Kallir Research Institute in New York City.Kallir Research Institute; Jeenah Moon for The New York Times The many lives of fake art What happens to works of art that turn out to be fake? In many cases, they re-enter the market: One art dealer has been offered the same fake Egon Schiele painting 10 times by 10 different collectors. Since what determines a fake is often nothing more than an expert's opinion, owners who have paid a lot for a work are not always ready to believe that they have been duped. Many of the works are recycled to unsuspecting buyers, as Milton Esterow reports in The Times. Some universities also have fakes in their collections that they use as study tools. "We have about 1,000 objects that were donated as fakes by dealers, collectors and auction houses," Margaret Ellis, a professor emerita at New York University, said, adding, "These help students know what they are looking at and can be extremely educational when you put them side by side with the real work." Perhaps the most interesting fate for an art fake is to become set dressing in F.B.I. stings. The agency keeps thousands of fakes in storage — and once used six in a case that involved five bikini-clad undercover agents, a yacht off the coast of Florida and two very real French mobsters. Read more. — Sanam Yar, a Morning writer PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Hadas Smirnoff. Ripe figs lend their subtle sweetness to this chunky jam. You can also try these methods to make preserves out of summer fruit. What to Listen to Five minutes that will make you love the trumpet. What to Read In his latest novel, "The Magician," Colm Toibin imagines the life of Thomas Mann, the Nobel Prize-winning author. What to Watch A boxing film from India, a breezy French romantic comedy and a charming Tunisian indie are worth streaming. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday's Spelling Bee was weighty. Here is today's puzzle — or you can play online. Here's today's Mini Crossword, and a clue: Fit for a king (five letters). If you're in the mood to play more, find all our games here. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David P.S. "War began at 5 o'clock this morning," The Times reported on the front page 82 years ago, after Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Here's today's print front page. "The Daily" is about education in the pandemic. On "The Argument," a debate about the death penalty. Lalena Fisher, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Continue reading the main story Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for The Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018