Good morning. We’re covering new virus outbreaks in Asia, why China’s version of freedom is enticing to some and how a Tuscan village is going back to the basics. | |  By Melina Delkic | | | A government worker spraying disinfectant against the coronavirus on a street in Bangkok. Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters | | | Thailand, which had been among the most successful countries in containing the coronavirus, imposed wide-ranging new restrictions on Monday as cases hit a daily high of 745. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha urged people to stay home, and Bangkok ordered schools, bars and entertainment venues to close. | | | In Japan, officials considered a state of emergency for Tokyo — which set a daily case record of 1,337 — the first such declaration since April. The country has closed its borders to foreign travelers after discovering cases of the new variant that first emerged in Britain. | | | And China has imposed “wartime mode” measures in several regions in the north of the country, conducting mass tests, sealing off villages that had confirmed infections and limiting entry into some districts. | | | President Trump at the White House on Dec. 31. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images | | | President Trump’s extraordinary attempt to overturn the presidential election results this weekend has shaken many Europeans — even those who had grown used to his tactics. | | | The president’s threatening phone call to state officials in Georgia, whom he asked to “find” him the votes needed to flip the state, was not just shocking for its disregard of democratic norms, writes our chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe. | | | Many foreign leaders now worry that the Trump effect will last for years, damaging trust in America. | | | Quotable: “A lot of people will just roll their eyes and wait for the clock to run down,” said Leslie Vinjamuri of Chatham House, the British research institution. “But by far the most troubling thing is the number of Republicans who are willing to go along with him, and what it’s doing to the Republican Party, playing out in real time.” | | | Sharing a meal in November in Beijing. Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images | | | Despite a few outbreaks mentioned above, China — where the coronavirus originated — has become one of the safest places in the world. Daily life includes packed restaurants, full hotels, and face-to-face meetings, and the economy is predicted to grow this year, unlike most of its rivals. | | | Beijing’s success is upending ideas about freedom, our New New World columnist writes: Chinese citizens have the freedom to move around and lead a largely normal day-to-day life, provoking envy around the world. But it comes at the cost of nearly every other kind of freedom. People are surveilled, and restrictions are extreme when virus outbreaks emerge. | | | The method: “It’s kind of a one-size-fits-all approach: Just completely take care of the problem,” said an investor who came to Shanghai from San Francisco. “So when it comes to a virus, maybe that’s not too bad a thing. When it comes to certain other problems, maybe not such a good thing.” | | | Octavio Jones for The New York Times | | | Officials in Britain have decided to delay second doses of coronavirus vaccines made by AstraZeneca and Pfizer as a way of more widely distributing the partial protection they offer. Many experts are adamantly against the idea; vaccine makers are also divided. | | | 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 | | | | Julian Assange: A British judge ruled on Monday that the WikiLeaks founder cannot be extradited to the U.S. to face trial on espionage charges, saying he would be at extreme risk of suicide. | | | Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times | | | Snapshot: Above, Castellina in Chianti, Italy. The small community in Tuscany, devoid of tourists amid the pandemic, is clinging to age-old essentials like agriculture and the local pharmacy. | | | What we’re reading: This South China Morning Post article about young employees rebelling against China’s demanding work culture. Young people are saying they won’t give their all to low-paying jobs (they call it “touching fish”), and the trend also hints at a deeper dissatisfaction with China’s economic response to the pandemic. | | | Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times | | | Watch: What started as a TikTok meme became “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical.” And it could have lessons for Broadway, our reviewer writes. The slapdash show is only streaming for a few more hours. | | | Read: “Red Comet,” a new Sylvia Plath biography by Heather Clark, and “Snowdrift,” a Swedish crime novel from Helene Tursten, are on our editors’ 9 Books to Read list this week. | | | Steve Kenny, The Times’s senior editor for nights, keeps the newsroom informed of what happened while many of us were sleeping. Five nights a week, Mr. Kenny sends an email to editors and reporters in New York and all over the world that recaps the news and prepares others for the day ahead. Here are a few of his “late notes” that tell the story of 2020. | | | THURSDAY, JAN. 9, 2020. 2:08 A.M. | | | Sui-Lee Wee and Donald McNeil gave us the breaking news that researchers in China have identified a new virus that is behind a mysterious pneumonialike illness that has caused a panic in the central Chinese region. “There’s no evidence that the virus, a coronavirus, is readily spread by humans, and it has not been tied to any deaths,” they write. “But health officials in China and internationally are watching it carefully.” | | | THURSDAY, MARCH 12. 3:52 A.M. | | | TUESDAY, JUNE 23. 12:40 A.M. | | | The White House trade adviser, Peter Navarro, set off alarms late tonight when he told Fox News that the trade deal with China was “over.” He took it back pretty quickly — or said, rather, that his remarks had been taken “wildly out of context” — but not before stock markets in Asia began to dive. | | | TUESDAY, OCT. 6. 1:58 A.M. | | | We got off to a hectic start, with Trump’s return to the White House and his dramatic maskless salute on the balcony overlooking the South Lawn. Then he released a video recorded at the White House in which he told Americans that Covid-19 was nothing to fear. | | That’s it for this briefing. See you next time. — Melina | | Thank you
To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com. | | | Were you sent this briefing by a friend? Sign up here to get the Morning Briefing. | | |
