4 years, 1.2 million lives and trillions of dollars later ...

The candidates are the same, but everyone's life is different.

View in Browser 03.13.24     Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Questions? Comments? what.matters@cnn.com   by Zachary B. Wolf : The latest TikTok. The House passed a bill that could ban TikTok in the US unless the app parts ways with its Chinese parent company. The app is used by 170 million Americans and has become a sort of public square, particularly among young people. Free speech and enterprise questions will complicate the debate in the Senate. More. Plus: Addicted to TikTok? Here's what the vote means for you.   Georgia. A judge left most of the Georgia criminal case against Donald Trump intact but dismissed some charges. Still expected to rule this week on whether to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Developing.   RFK Jr. The anti-vaccination independent will announce his vice president pick next week. He's floated the NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura. Could affect election outcome.    Hunter Biden. A June trial date has been set for the president's son on gun charges. Separately, he declined the opportunity to testify on Capitol Hill. Ongoing testimony saga.   Superfood. Children in Brazil are climbing 70-foot trees so you can eat açaí berries. Investigation.   Watch this from the CNN Freedom Project:     Sponsor Content by LendingTree Your best home equity loan rates for March 2024 Home Equity loans unlock ways to get cash for your financial needs. Compare offers for free today. : 4 years, 1.2 million lives and trillions of dollars later ... Americans may feel like they're reliving 2020, with a general election rematch set for 2024. But while the politicians' faces are the same, life is much different.   On March 13, 2020, then-President Donald Trump declared a national emergency for the Covid-19 pandemic.   No one knew at the time exactly how much life was about to change. Reading CNN's coverage from that era, however, is like transporting oneself back to the time that so many people have either forgotten or want to block out. We had no idea what was coming.   But it's equally remarkable, precisely four years later, how Covid-19 has both changed American life and also faded to the background.   Lockdowns, face masks and the question of whether kids should be in the classroom were daily, top-of-mind issues that had very real impacts on how people voted in 2020. The special measures states took to ensure that more people could vote during the pandemic formed the basis of the conspiracy theories by which Trump today refuses to believe he lost back then.   The Covid-19 stats are still unbelievable   Nearly 1.2 million people in the US have died from Covid-19 during the past four years, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While mass outbreaks and hospitalizations appear to be over, there were still at least 500 people who died of Covid-19 per week as of the week ending March 2. In January of this year, more than 2,000 Americans died of Covid-19 each week.   The US government acknowledges spending about $4.4 trillion to address Covid-19, a shocking figure in hindsight that spiked the national debt.   That doesn't count the trillions in extraordinary measures undertaken by the Federal Reserve, which added more than $4 trillion to its balance sheet during the pandemic.   People can debate what role the federal spending had on inflation, but it also helped stabilize the country at a time of unprecedented uncertainty when the US economy essentially shut down. It's remarkable to consider that in exit polls for the 2020 presidential election, 44% of voters said the pandemic caused them no financial hardship at all.   The economy is still adapting   Inflation that spiked after people emerged from lockdown has begun to ease, but Americans still have trouble making ends meet despite better wages.   Higher interest rates make homebuying seem out of reach to many. Empty office buildings and the uncertain state of commercial real estate means the aftereffects of the pandemic are not yet entirely known.   Other countries have a lot more adapting left to do. Read about how many Covid-19 precautions are just being lifted in China, which maintained a draconian zero-Covid policy that locked out the world for years.   Jogging memories   President Joe Biden felt the need to jog people's memories during his State of the Union address that the pandemic first struck when Trump was president.   "Remember the fear. Record job losses. Remember the spike in crime. And the murder rate," Biden said last week, trying to flip the script on complaints about public safety in recent years. He added, "The pandemic no longer controls our lives. The vaccines that saved us from Covid are now being used to help beat cancer. Turning setback into comeback."   Trump, offering live commentary on the speech on his social media platform, wanted credit for Covid-19 vaccines.   "YOU'RE WELCOME, JOE," he wrote, adding that vaccines were developed quickly while he was in office – although presumably any president would have done everything possible to aid the development of vaccines.   The more interesting development from that post was the instant backlash Trump got from some of his normal allies who are vaccine skeptics. One constant in Trump's 2024 stump speeches is his pledge to strip public money from any school district that imposes a vaccine requirement on students. His campaign argues he only means the Covid-19 vaccine, but vaccine skepticism is growing in the US, as are outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles.   One new voice gaining attention in presidential politics is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine skeptic who rivals Trump in his embrace of conspiracy theories and is trading on his famous name to run as an independent candidate. Kennedy draws 15% of the vote in some polls. Kennedy and the super PAC that supports him are targeting swing states as they gather signatures to appear on the presidential ballot.   Fewer Americans are up to date on vaccines   A recent Pew Research Center survey shows a decline in concern among Americans. According to CDC data, less than 23% of US adults reported getting the most recent, recommended dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.   Only a little more than a quarter of adults (28%) said they were up to date on the latest Covid-19 vaccine.   There is an expected partisan divide in those figures: 42% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are up to date compared with 15% of Republicans and GOP leaners.   On the other hand, the partisan gap in concern about the coronavirus has shrunk. Most people in both parties do not see Covid-19 as a major public health threat. The official US public health emergency ended in the US in May 2023.   Now part of life   The physical threat of the disease has diminished, which led the CDC to recently drop recommendations that people who contract it isolate for multiple days. Now the government suggestions are in line with those of other respiratory infections. People who get Covid-19 should stay home only until they have been fever-free without medication for at least 24 hours and had improving symptoms for 24 hours.   In changing the guidelines, CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said most of the US population has some immunity against Covid and that large waves of infections have given way to smaller and more predictable bumps in the summer and winter. Read more from CNN's Brenda Goodman.   Long Covid affects millions of Americans   Covid is still a challenging disease for many. In addition to the predictable seasonal bumps, studies suggest large numbers of Americans are dealing with long Covid.   More than 9% of women who contracted Covid during pregnancy reported having symptoms six months or more after they were infected, according to one study. Pregnant women might actually get long Covid at lower rates than the general population.   Another study looked at the effect on children, up to 6 million of whom have developed long Covid. Children may not get over the physical symptoms of long Covid for more than a year, but there may be compounding effects if they miss out on a year or more of experience while they recuperate. A survey from late last year found that nearly 1 million US children and nearly 18 million US adults reported symptoms of long Covid. Read more from CNN's Jen Christensen.   About the kids …   Every child who was alive during the Covid era will have been affected by that formative experience.   A New York Times review of testing data earlier this year suggested there was a rebound in 2023 from Covid learning loss, the well-documented drop in test scores after so many students spent so long away from the physical classroom.   But the rebound is far from complete, and it is more pronounced in richer school districts – evidence for the obvious takeaway that the pandemic will have driven financial inequality particularly for children.   One controversial move Democrats made when they doubled down on Covid relief without Republicans in the early days of the Biden administration was to create a temporary, new benefit that put money in the pockets of low-income parents by expanding the child tax credit and making it "refundable." The payments temporarily raised millions of American kids out of poverty.   But inflation spiked and public sentiment turned on public safety net expansions, and the tax credit expansion expired. Democrats could not marshal the votes to extend it. Biden made the pitch to bring the expanded tax credit back (paid for by raising taxes on the wealthy) in his State of the Union address. The House recently passed a bill to expand the credit – along with sweeteners for businesses – but it's not clear if the Senate will act.   Where did the virus come from? We still don't completely know   We still do not know exactly how the coronavirus developed. There is a remarkable amount of circumstantial evidence that points to some kind of lab leak in Wuhan, China.   But serious questions remain about when and how researchers in China first discovered the existence of the coronavirus. The lack of transparency by the Chinese government has fed the so-called lab leak theory.   The scientific mystery remains. And the national security mystery remains too. In June, CNN reported the US Intelligence committee is still split over whether the virus developed in a lab or in the wild, and no one trusts China to share all of the information.   That kind of mistrust is a problem, according to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization. He told CNN's Becky Anderson in February in Dubai that the world is not ready for "Disease X," the unknown pathogen that could bring the next pandemic.   "We're not prepared because still many of the problems we have seen during the pandemic are still there," he said, calling on countries to do more to share information and technology. : What did you think of today's newsletter? Send your feedback to what.matters@cnn.com.   You are receiving this newsletter because you signed up for What Matters. To stop receiving this newsletter, unsubscribe or sign up to manage your CNN account   Learn more about the CNN app |  Get CNN web alerts  |  Sign up for a free CNN account   ® © 2024 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved. 1050 Techwood Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30318

The Evening: What’s next for TikTok

Also, this college admission season has been a disaster.

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story March 13, 2024 By Matthew Cullen Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Wednesday. A House bill targeting TikTok A mess over student aid Plus, a showcase of American art Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican, is among the lawmakers leading the bill. Kent Nishimura for The New York Times The House dealt TikTok a blow, but a ban is a long way off A huge bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives voted today to pass a bill that would force TikTok's Chinese owner either to sell the popular video app or face a ban in the U.S. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have argued that it is too great a national security risk to allow a Chinese company to own a platform that collects data from and delivers information to roughly 170 million Americans — an especially potent topic in an election year. TikTok and its owner ByteDance have downplayed or denied they pose such a risk. If the House bill becomes law, ByteDance would have roughly six months to sell TikTok to non-Chinese owners. If the company can't meet the deadline — or if Beijing blocks a sale, as it has suggested it might — it would become unlawful for app stores and web hosting companies to distribute or update TikTok in the U.S. The app could still remain on American smartphones, but the restrictions would probably degrade users' access to it. However, my colleague Sapna Maheshwari, who covers TikTok, told me that users can expect to have access to TikTok for a while longer. "We are well away from a ban, which would only occur if this bill passes in the Senate and is signed into law, and then ByteDance cannot find a buyer," she said. "Even then, we could be looking at court challenges." While President Biden has committed to signing the bill, the Senate has yet to agree to vote on it. For more, Sapna and our tech policy reporter, David McCabe, answered questions about the bill. Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee. Alex Slitz/Associated Press A Georgia judge quashed a few charges against Trump A judge dismissed six of the 41 charges against Donald Trump and his allies in the Georgia election interference case, saying they were not specific enough. The surprise ruling was a setback for prosecutors, but it did not weaken the core of their case, which argues that Trump participated in a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. Trump still faces 10 charges in the case, and it's possible that the prosecutors could file the dismissed ones again, with more clarity. In related news, the judge who delivered the ruling, Scott McAfee, is expected to decide whether to disqualify the lead prosecutor, Fani Willis, by Friday. President Biden visited Milwaukee today for the opening of his campaign's Wisconsin headquarters. Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times Biden campaigned in Wisconsin, where energy is high President Biden traveled to Milwaukee this afternoon for the latest stop on his post-State of the Union tour of battleground states. Biden faces lagging energy in many key states, but not in Wisconsin. Democrats in the state, who had spent eight years boxed out of power by Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans in state government, are fired up. It helps Biden that two issues at the heart of his campaign — abortion rights and democracy — have been at the center of Wisconsin's political discussion in recent years. For many students, the FAFSA estimate is the first sign of hope that college is within reach. Rachel Woolf for The New York Times Why college admissions are so chaotic this season A haphazard and glitchy rollout of a new FAFSA form, designed to simplify the federal student aid process, has delayed aid offers for months and has left millions of college applicants in limbo. Students have had to postpone decisions, and schools have had to push back their enrollment deadlines as budgets and wait lists are thrown into chaos. My colleagues Erica Green and Zach Montague looked into what went wrong, finding, among many other issues, that the Education Department just last week discovered 70,000 unread emails containing critical information. More top news Middle East: The president of the Palestinian Authority is expected to appoint Muhammad Mustafa, a close adviser, as prime minister in the coming days. Congress: A bipartisan bill to expand the child tax credit and reinstate a set of business tax breaks has stalled in the Senate. Business: Family Dollar said it would close nearly 1,000 stores. Guns: After public uproar, Michigan will no longer allow guns marked for destruction to be sold online as parts. Climate: Brazil's state-owned Petrobras could soon be the world's third-biggest oil producer, despite the country's promises to fight climate change. World Bank: The financial institution is facing scrutiny as it considers how to compensate victims of abuse at Kenyan schools that it was financing. Health: Covid was declared a national emergency four years ago today. Its effects still linger. Sports: The U.F.C. legend Mark Coleman has been hospitalized after saving his parents from a house fire. Music: Neil Young said his music would return to Spotify, ending his two-year protest of Joe Rogan's podcast. TIME TO UNWIND Lotus L. Kang's "In Cascades" at the Biennial. Charlie Rubin for The New York Times The Whitney Biennial is set to open The Whitney Biennial — New York's most prominent showcase of new American art — opens to the public next week. It's small this year, with just 44 artists and collectives, along with films that will screen at the Whitney Museum and on its website. But it's the kind of exhibition that gets the art world talking: Is it a good reflection of the current state of art? Should it be? We sent three critics to explore the highs and lows of the exhibition that everyone will have an opinion about. Here's what they had to say. Priscila Alexandre Spring, the bag designer at Hermès. Maxime La for The New York Times Will she make the next Birkin? Priscila Alexandre Spring has a daunting job. She is in charge of leather goods at Hermès, whose bags often sell for more than $10,000. Her challenge: to make the next icon — the next Birkin. We spent time with Alexandre Spring at a Hermès leather workshop and asked about her next project, but she demurred. However, in the corner we spotted a decades-old doctor bag and, elsewhere, coils of ropes. "We're trying a new thing with ropes, but we don't know if it's going to work," she said. "Everything is a work in progress." A gold leaf heated over a flame. Matteo de Mayda for The New York Times Dinner table topics A vanishing craft: In the 1700s, there were about 300 artisans making gold leaf in Venice. Now, there is just Marino Menegazzo. Breathing room: Our phones are noisier than ever. But they've had a feature built into them for years to give you a break. Colorblindness: In our magazine, Nikole Hannah-Jones explains how a civil rights ideal was hijacked. Now trending: The brooch is making a comeback as a must-have accessory for guys. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT WHAT TO DO TONIGHT David Malosh for The New York Times Cook: This version of chicken Marbella is a speedy take on a rich, but time-consuming, dish. Read: The Oakland novelist Leila Mottley shares books that best paint a picture of the San Francisco Bay Area. Travel: These five getaways let you reconnect with nature while also giving back. Listen: Brittany Howard, formerly of Alabama Shakes, reads an essay about the journey back to love. Mend: Experts offered tips for getting rid of hangnails. Play: Here are today's Spelling Bee, Wordle and Mini Crossword. Find all our games here. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT ONE LAST THING Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times Wood that dances Inside a garage in northern Italy, a shrimp plays the banjo, a frog rides a unicycle and a skeleton conducts an orchestra. And they all dance. These wooden creatures are the work of Amedeo Capelli, a self-taught carpenter who has become popular for making hand-operated automatons, or moving devices. Capelli sells his pieces for about $250 to $1,000, but some of his more complex ones, like the Macabra Orchestra, with its skeletal musicians, can go for several thousand dollars. "The best part of my work," he said, "is to see a piece of wood that comes to life." Have an animated evening. Thanks for reading. I'll be back tomorrow. — Matthew We welcome your feedback. Write to us at evening@nytimes.com. Continue reading the main story Writer: Matthew Cullen Editorial Director: Adam Pasick Editors: Carole Landry, Whet Moser, Justin Porter, Jonathan Wolfe Photo Editor: Brent Lewis Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for The Evening from The New York Times. To stop receiving The Evening, unsubscribe. To opt out of other promotional emails from The Times, including those regarding The Athletic, manage your email settings. To opt out of updates and offers sent from The Athletic, submit a request. 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