Good morning. We’re covering the lifting of the last coronavirus restrictions in New Zealand, the revelation that a North Korean diplomat defected to South Korea and a U.S. vice-presidential debate like no other. | |  By Carole Landry | | | Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a walkabout in Lyttelton, New Zealand, on Tuesday. Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images | | | On Wednesday, New Zealand moved to lift the last of its restrictions in Auckland. People are no longer required to wear masks in public but must continue to keep records of locations they visit, maintain good hygiene and, if unwell, stay at home and get tested for the virus. The border remains closed to almost all foreign travelers. | | | Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who is facing an election next week, said that there was a 95 percent probability that the country had eliminated local transmission of the virus. | | | The strategy: Ms. Ardern called it the “go hard and go early” approach, combining lockdown measures with a blitz of testing, contact tracing and quarantining. | | | In other virus developments: | | ■ President Trump told the White House medical staff he was feeling “great.” He is symptom-free and has required no supplemental oxygen, according to a statement released Wednesday by his physician. There were no further details on his treatment for Covid-19. ■ With virus cases surging in Malaysia to their highest levels since the pandemic began, the prime minister has placed himself in quarantine and acknowledged that a recent election campaign was one of the causes of the spike. ■ The Italian government announced a new order making masks mandatory, including in outdoor areas when social distancing cannot be maintained. ■ The World Bank warned on Wednesday that the pandemic could push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty this year, elevating the global poverty rate for the first time in more than two decades. | | | Jo Song-gil at a cultural event in northern Italy in March 2018. Aldo-Cietto/Farra di Soligo Parish, via Associated Press | | | Jo Song-gil was North Korea’s acting ambassador to Rome in November 2018, when he disappeared from Italy with his wife days before he was scheduled to return home to Pyongyang. | | | Impact: The revelation could further worsen North-South relations, which have been in a downward spiral for months. And such diplomatic defections raise the possibility that the South Korean authorities could glean information about smuggling and other ways in which North Korean diplomats help the regime get foreign currency. | | | Family fears: Mr. Jo and his wife had lived with their daughter in Rome. But when they disappeared, their daughter was not with them. Italy said that she had been required to return home by the North Korean authorities. There are worries that the disclosure of Mr. Jo’s whereabouts may further jeopardize her. | | | Plastic waste in the sea at the Fuerte San Gil beach in the Dominican Republic last month. Orlando Barría/EPA, via Shutterstock | | | The researchers say 9.25 million to 15.87 million tons of microplastics — fragments measuring between five millimeters and one micrometer — are embedded in the sea floor. That is far more than on the ocean’s surface. | | | Microplastics can be ingested by smaller plankton and fish on the seabed and end up in the human food chain. | | | How they did it: Using a robotic submarine, the scientists collected 51 deepwater samples of sand and sediment in the Great Australian Bight, hundreds of miles from the shore, and determined the global estimate based on the average number and size of the particles. The scientists said they made conservative estimates to take into account the full range of samples. | | | Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times | | | Years of gross mismanagement and American sanctions have brought Venezuela’s colossal oil sector to a near halt. Above, the state-owned El Palito refinery, which sacrificed basic maintenance to keep production going and recently had a large oil spill. | | | PAID POST: A MESSAGE FROM CAMPAIGN MONITOR | | TEST: Email Marketing 101: Never Sacrifice Beauty for Simplicity | | A drag-and-drop email builder, a gallery of templates and turnkey designs, personalized customer journeys, and engagement segments. It's everything you need to create stunning, results-driven email campaigns in minutes. And with Campaign Monitor, you have access to it all, along with award-winning support around the clock. It's beautiful email marketing done simply. | | | Learn More | | | | Nobel: The prize in chemistry was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for their work on the development of the Crispr tool, a method of altering the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms. It was the first time that a science Nobel has been awarded to two women. | | | Orestis Panagiotou/EPA, via Shutterstock | | | Snapshot: Above, Greek riot police clash with protesters in Athens on Wednesday after a court found the neo-fascist party Golden Dawn guilty of running a criminal organization during the financial crisis, systematically targeting migrants and left-wing critics. | | | What we’re reading: This Anchorage Daily News article on the 2020 winner of the Fat Bear contest. His name is 747 and your briefing writer was rooting for him all along. | | | Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Hadas Smirnoff | | | It’s easier to get caught up with all the latest trends with our At Home collection of ideas on what to read, cook, watch and do while staying safe at home. | | | “The vice presidency is not worth a bucket of warm spit”: That’s how John Nance Garner, who served as vice president from 1933 to 1941, once memorably summed up the job. But in this year’s election, the role of the vice president is rapidly changing. A debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris a few hours from this writing promises to be the most watched ever. | | | The Constitution gives the vice president the role of presiding over the Senate, and voting in the Senate if there is a tie. The vice president’s only other formal responsibility is taking over the presidency if the president dies or is incapacitated. He or she is basically a president in waiting. | | | Vice President Mike Pence will be under pressure to make the most of Wednesday’s debate against Senator Kamala Harris. Mark Makela for The New York Times | | | Given that President Trump is ill with the coronavirus, Mr. Pence and Ms. Harris are under pressure to use the debate to reassure anxious Americans that they are qualified to step in as president. Mr. Trump’s infection — and the fact that he is 74 and his rival, Joe Biden, is 77 — is a reminder that either running mate could end up being president. | | | It’s happened in recent decades. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Dick Cheney held the title of “acting president” for a few hours when George W. Bush was sedated in 2002 and 2007 for routine medical procedures. And Ronald Reagan transferred power to George H.W. Bush for roughly eight hours in 1985 when he underwent colon surgery. | | | Here’s what to watch for in the debate, which starts at 9 p.m. Eastern time. (That’s 9 a.m. in Hong Kong.) The Times will livestream the event, accompanied by analysis and fact-checking from our reporters. | | That’s it for this briefing. See you next time. — Carole | | Correction
Wednesday’s briefing misstated the location of Touba, a city in Senegal that is holding one of the world’s largest religious gatherings. Touba is 120 miles east of the capital, Dakar, not west. | | Thank you
To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com. | | P.S.
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• Genevieve Ko, the Los Angeles Times cooking editor, is joining The New York Times Food department and NYT Cooking team as a senior editor. | | | Were you sent this briefing by a friend? Sign up here to get the Morning Briefing. | | |
