Your Monday Briefing – The New York Instances

Europe’s vaccination campaign begins

From nursing homes in France to hospitals in Poland, older Europeans and those who care for them rolled up their sleeves on Sunday to receive vaccination shots of coronavirus.

The campaign to vaccinate more than 450 million people is taking place as many European countries grapple with their worst outbreaks since the pandemic began. The spread of a contagious variant of the virus in the UK has continued to raise concerns.

The payment: More than 350,000 people across the European Union have died of Covid-19 since the first death was recorded in France on February 15. In Poland, November was the deadliest month since the end of World War II.

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In other developments:

• Canada, France, Japan, Spain, Sweden and Norway have all noted a small number of infections involving a new, potentially more transmissible, variant of the coronavirus, mostly associated with travelers from the UK, where it was first discovered.

• A spate of new coronavirus cases in Africa is raising alarms in countries that seem to have fared far better overall than Europe or America.

• In the US, total infections have exceeded 19 million and more than 330,000 people have died.

The Brexit deal is over. What now?

Britain is leaving the European Union for good, but its formal exit with a trade deal on Christmas Eve is only the beginning of a high-level experiment to break trade ties on an integrated continent.

The trade agreement does not give financial firms the biggest advantage of EU membership: the ability to easily provide services across the region from a single base. That loss is particularly painful for the UK, which had a 2019 surplus of £ 18 billion, or $ 24 billion, from trade in financial and other services with the European Union.

Quote: “We have to learn how to do that,” said Shane Brennan, the executive director of a UK group that represents logistics companies. “Let’s hope it gets for the better in the end, but it will be slow, complex and expensive.”

Political impact: While Conservatives have agreed on the trade deal for the time being, Prime Minister Boris Johnson could face challenges from hardliners and corporate groups once more details emerge.

First person: A longtime correspondent for the New York Times remembers a different Europe, currency controls, cumbersome paperwork and annoying cross-border regulations.

A Chinese citizen journalist will be tried over Wuhan videos

During the lockdown in Wuhan, China, Zhang Zhan posted videos of hospital corridors with patients plugged into oxygen tanks and a community health center doing coronavirus tests.

In May she suddenly stopped posting. The police later announced that she had been arrested and charged with telling lies. Her court date on Monday is the first known trial against a chronicler of the Chinese coronavirus crisis.

Ms. Zhang, a 37-year-old former lawyer, personified the Chinese people’s hunger for unfiltered information about the epidemic. Three other citizen journalists have disappeared from Wuhan.

Larger image: The prosecution of Ms. Zhang is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign to rewrite China’s treatment of the outbreak as a result of wise, triumphant government moves.

Clock: in the In one of her final videos before her arrest, she filmed the shops in Wuhan before being confronted by a man who asked her where she lived and if she was a journalist.

If you have 5 minutes it is worth it

A village of widows

Most of the men from Qala-e-Biwaha, a village in western Afghanistan, have disappeared – killed while trying to smuggle opium into neighboring Iran. Their widows have to look after themselves and their children, some of whom also died while transporting drugs across the border.

Our correspondents report on a place so destitute that the governor says men looking for work have only two options: “They can smuggle drugs or join the Taliban.”

The following also happens

Turkey: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan feels angry at home as many Turks struggle to buy groceries in a volatile economy, even when he has aggressive and expensive foreign policies abroad.

US economic agreement: After calling a US $ 900 billion pandemic relief bill “disgraceful”, President Trump abruptly signed it, extending expanded unemployment benefits and an eviction moratorium, and preventing the government from closing.

Spain: Ex-military officers in the country have criticized the government, praising General Francisco Franco, Spain’s ex-military dictator, who has taken official legal action and hit a nerve.

Snapshot: Above is a beloved WWII photo of Martin Adler, an American soldier, in 1944 with the Naldi children Bruno, Mafalda and Giuliana in the northern Italian village of Monterenzio. An internet appeal brought the four back together earlier this month.

David Attenborough: At 94, the beloved British naturalist remains curious and optimistic. He spoke to The Times about his new documentary series “A Perfect Planet” and why the coronavirus could have some positive consequences.

Lived life: Reginald Foster, who died on Christmas Day at the age of 81, was a former Wisconsin apprentice plumber who dressed like a janitor, swore like a sailor, and served as the Vatican’s leading Latin expert.

What we read: This Bloomberg article on how the Brexit deal was done. It is a look behind the scenes of “Brexit noir”, a deal that finally came about at a very unusual time.

Now a break from the news

Cook: Scented with lemon zest and vanilla, these cinnamon crumble cake muffins are about as tender and moist as cake.

Clock: Pixar’s “Soul” breaks new ground with the animation studio’s first black protagonist. “The combination of skill, feeling and inspiration is summed up in the title,” writes our reviewer.

To do: This stressful, uncertain year wasn’t exactly a banner year for intimacy. But that can change with a plan, a novelty, and a change of perspective.

For the final week of 2020, At Home has ideas on what to read, cook, see and do while staying safe at home.

And now for the background story about …

The top stories of 2020

What were the most read stories in the New York Times this year? You won’t be surprised to learn that two topics – the election and the coronavirus pandemic – dominate the list, making up 90 of the top 100 entries. Here you will find a selection as well as a few other topics that have aroused great interest among the readers.

The US election: More than half of the 30 most-read articles in The Times in 2020 were about the elections. The page with the results of the president is at number 1. A couple of items behind: the popular, if somewhat feared, election night pin (number 5).

The pandemic: The second and third most popular stories were our coronavirus trackers, one for the US and one for the world. People also wanted to know how the virus came out (# 48) and where they were standing in line to get a vaccine (# 53). Also noteworthy: this story about a man who had hand sanitizer in store hoping to sell it for a profit came in at number 13.

Black lives count: Another theme in this year’s Top 100 was the racial justice protest movement sparked by the police killings of Breonna Taylor (# 26) and George Floyd (# 51).

Kobe Bryant: Before the pandemic penetrated our everyday consciousness, fans said goodbye to the NBA star, who was killed in a helicopter crash along with his daughter Gianna and seven others in January. The Times story of the crash ranks 36th on the list.

Killer insects: The sightings of the Asian giant hornet raised fears that the malicious insect could settle in the United States and destroy the bee populations. “Murder Hornets” were number 24 on the list.

Other topics that made the list: The US Government’s UFO Unit (No. 96); The Times Inquiry into President Trump’s Taxes (No. 14); the Ukrainian passenger jet that was hit by a missile in Iran (No. 50). And a story from the past turned out to be timeless: the 36 questions that led to love, originally published in 2015, ended at number 62.

That’s it for this briefing. Have a great week.

– Natasha

Many Thanks
To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. Claire Moses wrote today’s backstory. You can reach Natasha and the team at [email protected].

PS
• We hear “The Daily”. Our final episode is at a Brooklyn hospital that we revisited to see how staff are handling the pandemic.
• Here is our mini crossword puzzle and a clue: Big Apple paper, short (three letters). You can find all of our puzzles here.
• The word “vaxxies” – selfies people take to get a coronavirus vaccine – first appeared in The Times yesterday, the Twitter bot @NYT_first_said discovered.
• Photos by two Times photographers featured in Time Magazine’s Top 10 Photos of 2020.