We’re masking document new day by day infections in India, and China’s cringe-worthy Xinjiang propaganda musical.
India crosses the 100,000-case threshold for day by day infections
India recorded its highest tally of new coronavirus infections on Monday as officers within the hardest-hit state reimposed lockdowns and warned that hospitals even in smaller cities have been operating out of beds.
More than half of the brand new infections have been traced to the western state of Maharashtra, which incorporates Mumbai, India’s monetary capital. It got here at the same time as India continues to vaccinate greater than three million folks day by day, one of many largest efforts on this planet.
State officers ordered all retailers, film theaters, markets and eating places to shut beginning Monday night and imposed a nighttime curfew. Critics say Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities has despatched combined alerts, encouraging folks to attend celebrations for Holi, a significant spiritual competition the place tons of of recent circumstances have been traced to, and marketing campaign rallies.
Background: India’s vaccination drive has been a shiny spot at dwelling, however curbing exports of vaccines has set again poorer international locations that have been relying on India for his or her doses.
Details: Officials introduced Monday morning that that they had recorded 103,558 new circumstances in 24 hours. After a number of months of declines, day by day infections have surged tenfold since mid-February.
Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.
In different developments:
Netanyahu divides Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in a Jerusalem court docket on Monday for the opening of the important thing, evidentiary part of his corruption trial. Just two miles throughout city, representatives of his occasion have been entreating the nation’s president to process him with forming Israel’s subsequent authorities.
For many, the episode illustrated the worsening political and constitutional malaise afflicting the nation, which is drawing nearer to political disaster.
Political gridlock: Neither the pro-Netanyahu bloc of events nor the grouping opposing Mr. Netanyahu look as if they will muster a coalition with a viable parliamentary majority. The sheer variety of events is an indication that “Israeli cohesion is unraveling,” Yedidia Stern, president of the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem, advised The Times.
Netanyahu’s path: Analysts say his greatest wager for overcoming his authorized troubles is to stay in energy and acquire some form of immunity. With greater than 330 witnesses anticipated to seem, his trial may go on for years. Critics of the method stated it was an try to unseat him, however many Israelis see it as a triumph for the rule of legislation.
China’s newest Xinjiang propaganda? A musical.
“The Wings of Songs,” a state-sponsored musical movie, presents an alternate, feel-good actuality by which Uyghur Muslims and different minorities are singing and dancing fortunately in colourful costume, a flashy tackle a drained Chinese stereotype in regards to the area’s minorities.
The venture is the latest addition to China’s propaganda campaign to defend its policies in the region, the place the authorities keep tight management utilizing a community of surveillance cameras and police posts, and have detained many Uyghurs and different Muslims in mass internment camps and prisons.
Quotable: Anne-Marie Brady, a professor of Chinese politics on the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, known as the worldwide marketing campaign the largest she had seen on a single subject. “It’s shrill and dogmatic, it’s increasingly aggressive,” she stated in an e-mail to The Times. “And it will keep going, whether it is effective or not.”
Details: The musical takes its narrative of peaceable interethnic concord to a cringe-inducing degree. It tells the story of three younger males — a Uyghur, a Kazakh and a Han Chinese — who come collectively to pursue their musical goals. There aren’t any markers of their religions, like headscarves.
THE LATEST NEWS
In Israel’s new post-pandemic period, a Green Pass permits the vaccinated to go to live shows, eating places and sporting occasions. But the experiment leaves many questions unanswered, writes our correspondent, who resides by means of it.
ARTS AND IDEAS
The very important vaccine selfie
The vaccine selfie has gone viral, writes Vanessa Friedman, The Times’s chief vogue critic. This is an edited excerpt.
Log in to any social platform, and the image — a smiling particular person, one sleeve rolled up virtually to the collarbone, with a medical employee poised to jab a needle into their higher arm — is nearly not possible to overlook.
“I started seeing vaccine selfies almost as soon as the vaccines were available,” stated David Broniatowski, an affiliate professor at George Washington University. “It was an almost immediate meme.”
It appears solely to be selecting up steam. For so long as there have been inoculations, there have been acutely aware efforts by public well being authorities to advertise them.
One of essentially the most well-known is a 1956 shot of Elvis Presley, then solely 21, wanting dreamy along with his sweater pulled as much as get his polio jab. The yr earlier than that, a lineup of French fashions have been caught poised to obtain their smallpox vaccine, grinning and flashing a little bit of shoulder.
At a time when social networks have change into certainly one of our main technique of communication, the pictures are vital, not simply to get the information out but in addition to normalize the expertise and develop it — to successfully pay it ahead.
PLAY, WATCH, EAT
What to Cook
The secret ingredient on this creamy pasta is miso.
What to Listen to
C. Tangana was a provocative star of entice music. Now, after reinventing himself as a scion of Spanish pop, his songs are performed in supermarkets and praised by 50- and 60-somethings on YouTube.
What to Watch
The Korean star Yuh-Jung Youn has had a thriving profession for 5 many years. Now, at 73, she’s up for an Oscar for her position in “Minari.” She spoke with The Times about her career.
Now Time to Play
Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Pan-fry (5 letters).
You can find all our puzzles here.
That’s it for in the present day’s briefing. See you subsequent time. — Melina
P.S. The Times named Jim Dao, an editor who has labored in a variety of roles on the paper since 1992, as its new metropolitan editor.
The newest episode of “The Daily” is on the Myanmar army’s brutal practices.
Sanam Yar contributed. You can attain Melina and the workforce at briefing@nytimes.com.