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Good evening. Here’s the latest.


1. President-elect Joe Biden announced a Covid-19 vaccination blitz that is intended to expand access while emphasizing equity in distribution.
His administration plans to open federal mass vaccination sites and reimburse states for the use of National Guard troops to administer vaccines. It will also set up mobile vaccination clinics to boost access to the vaccine in underserved urban and rural communities. Above, a vaccine line in Dallas this week.
But his plan is colliding with a sobering reality: Supplies will be scarce for the next several months. Trump administration officials clarified that the existing stockpile would go only toward giving second doses to people who had already received the vaccine, and not to new groups of people.


“The honest truth is this, things will get worse before they get better,” Mr. Biden said. “And the policy changes we are going to be making, they’re going to take time to show up in the Covid statistics.”
The shortage is already bearing down on New York City, once the center of the epidemic. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city would run out of doses by next week.


2. The Biden announcement came on the heels of a drastic global milestone: two million coronavirus-related deaths.


It took more than nine months for the world to reach one million coronavirus related deaths in late September. Three months later, the virus has claimed another million lives, just over a year after the virus was first detected in China. Above, a funeral in Indonesia on Monday.
It is the same virus, but several variants that are believed to be more contagious are now circulating around the world. One of the variants is stretching Britain’s hospital system to the brink, and the death toll there is soaring.
That same variant is projected to become the dominant source of infection in the U.S. by March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Only 76 cases of the variant have been identified so far in the U.S., but the actual number is believed to be much higher and it is expected to spiral upward in the next few weeks, officials said.


3. Law enforcement officials have opened multiple investigations into the riot last week on Capitol Hill.


4. Vice President Mike Pence called Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to congratulate her and offer his belated assistance ahead of next week’s swearing-in.


His move fills a leadership role all but abdicated by President Trump, who is planning to fly out of the capital shortly before Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris are sworn in on Wednesday. The conversation was described as gracious and pleasant, and it was the first time Mr. Pence and Ms. Harris had spoken since they debated each other last fall.
While plans are in flux, Mr. Trump, who has kept a low profile since a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, hopes to depart to the blare of a military band, with a red carpet and military honors, those briefed on the planning said.


5. The National Rifle Association is declaring bankruptcy and plans to reincorporate in Texas instead of New York, where it is under investigation.
The plan immediately raised questions from Letitia James, the New York attorney general, who is seeking to dissolve the N.R.A. She has been conducting an investigation into corruption within the gun group since 2019. The N.R.A. is a chartered nonprofit in New York and such groups are typically prohibited from relocating amid an investigation.
Ms. James said her office would not let the N.R.A. “use this or any other tactic to evade accountability.”


6. Ugandan security forces broke into the compound of Bobi Wine, the country’s leading opposition candidate, a day after a contentious general election.
“We are under siege,” said Mr. Wine, above, a musician-turned-lawmaker whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi. He described the election as marred by “fraud and violence.”
The incident took place as the country’s electoral commission released partial results of the general election that showed the incumbent president of 35 years, Yoweri Museveni, in the lead. Mr. Wine’s lawyer said the siege effectively constituted house arrest.


7. The International Olympic Committee is facing the very real possibility of completely canceling the Games for the first time since World War II.
Organizers postponed the Tokyo Olympic Games for one year last March. But as coronavirus cases rise throughout Japan and around the world, officials both in Tokyo and with the I.O.C. have begun to acknowledge that holding a safe Games might not be possible.
Devastated by the pandemic, the tourism industry has become part of an ad hoc relief effort. In California, Disneyland is now a vaccination site and the Monterey Bay Aquarium lent one of its ultracold freezers to a nearby hospital for vaccine storage. More than a dozen U.S. airports now double as virus testing sites.


8. Get out the crystal ball: A raven is down.
Merlina, one of the resident birds at the Tower of London, is feared to have died. A legend dating from the time of King Charles II in the 17th century says at least six of the birds must be kept there, or the nation will fall.
The entanglement of the ravens’ destinies with the nation’s dual crises — the pandemic and Brexit — might have been foreseen last August when the Tower of London closed to visitors, leaving the ravens restless without human contact (or snacks).


10. And finally, the comfort of rituals.
Frank Miller, a retired civil engineer, needed to play catch. A former baseball player in high school and college, he wandered his house in Dallas practicing the grips for a slider, curve and cutter after reading a book about pitching. So his wife, Alice, put out a call on social media: Does anybody want to play catch with my 74-year-old husband?
The response showed them they’d tapped into something bigger than baseball. Players and strangers of all ages and talents turned out at a neighborhood park, ready to let the turbulence of recent weeks fade into the background and toss the ball around.
“Isn’t baseball beautiful?” Mr. Miller said at the end of the session. “It’s a piece of art, really.”
Have a harmonious weekend.
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Source: New York Times

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