Your Wednesday Briefing

France and Germany tussle over life after Trump

After years of hostility towards Europe, President Trump is leaving. However the prospect of his departure has reopened previous fissures between key European allies over their relationships with america, with appreciable doubts about what simply months in the past regarded like a decided flip towards better European ambition and integration.

France and Germany particularly are at loggerheads over the way forward for European protection and strategic autonomy, displaying the totally different anxieties of two nations central to the functioning of the European Union.

Evaluation: NATO and the E.U. are basic to Germany in a means they aren’t to France, which maintains its personal nuclear arsenal, defined Jana Puglierin of the European Council on International Relations. “Take them away from Germany and we really feel bare,” she stated.

Presidential transition: President-elect Joe Biden launched six members of his nationwide safety group, saying that collectively they’d reinstate the U.S. as a world chief countering terrorism, extremism, the local weather disaster and nuclear proliferation. “America is again,” he stated.

Britain plans for a much less restricted Christmas

Britons from as much as three households will be capable to come collectively and have fun between Dec. 23 and 27, below plans introduced on Tuesday for a quick rest of the foundations designed to curb the unfold of the coronavirus. Regular restrictions will nonetheless apply in pubs and eating places.

The choice, agreed upon by political leaders in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Eire, implies that individuals will be capable to transfer freely round the UK between these dates, no matter no matter native restrictions are in pressure. There will likely be a further day at each ends for these going to or from Northern Eire.

Public well being specialists have warned that lifting restrictions may result in a resurgence of circumstances in January and February.

Outcry as French police clear migrant camp

The police violently cleared out a brief migrant camp in central Paris, forcing individuals out of tents, chasing them within the streets and firing tear gasoline. Whereas the police often clear such camps, the violent evacuation of principally Afghan migrants on Monday struck a nerve, fueling rising outrage over the federal government’s safety insurance policies.

The momentary camp, which comprised about 450 blue tents on the Place de la République, was in protest of the authorities’ failure to offer housing for as many as 1,000 migrants who have been left to roam the streets after 3,000 individuals have been cleared final week from a camp in Saint-Denis, a suburb north of Paris.

Official remarks: Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, expressed shock in a letter to the French inside minister, accusing the police of a “brutal and disproportionate use of pressure.” It got here as Parliament voted on a invoice on Tuesday that may make it tougher for reporters or bystanders to movie cases of police brutality.

The coronavirus pandemic has difficult a ceremony of passage for Korean adoptees who have been introduced up abroad: reuniting with their delivery dad and mom. Many adoptees canceled long-planned pilgrimages again to South Korea after the federal government’s quarantine guidelines for overseas guests made the journeys too expensive and time-consuming.

Some, like Mallory Man, second from left within the picture above, nonetheless discovered a technique to make the journey. The Instances spoke to adoptees and delivery dad and mom about pandemic-era homecomings.

Right here’s what else is occurring

Shamima Begum: Attorneys representing the previous London schoolgirl who went to Syria in 2015 to hitch the Islamic State referred to as on Britain’s Supreme Court docket to let her return to her dwelling nation to mount her protection. The courtroom mustn’t assume she poses a critical risk, they stated on Tuesday.

Curbing “interval poverty”: In a world first, the Scottish Parliament voted unanimously to make sanitary merchandise obtainable to anybody who wants them, introducing a authorized proper of free entry to tampons and sanitary pads in colleges, faculties, universities and all different public buildings.

Wall Road: Shares rallied to document highs. The S&P 500 rose 1.6 p.c, passing a excessive reached earlier within the month. The Dow Jones industrial common topped the 30,000 mark for the primary time.

Uighurs in China: Pope Francis calls the ethnic group a “persecuted” individuals in his upcoming ebook. Chinese language officers swiftly denied it, regardless of a wealth of proof of Beijing’s crackdown on the Muslim minority group.

Snapshot: Above, a third-floor hall on the Vilina Vlas resort in Visegrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The forest well being resort promotes its therapeutic waters and nice eating, however employees members bristle with anger at any point out of its grotesque previous, when it was a rape and homicide camp run by a gang of Serb nationalists through the Balkan wars of the early Nineteen Nineties.

Lives lived: Girl Elizabeth Anson, an indefatigable get together planner to “the very wealthy, the very idle, the very busy and those who merely haven’t a clue what to do,” as she put it, together with rock stars and royals, died earlier this month at 79.

What we’re studying: The Economist’s bundle of articles explaining the ability competitors between China and the U.S. — and making a case for a way the Biden administration ought to strategy it. “It’s a superb overview of one of many world’s most vital tales,” says David Leonhardt, who writes The Morning.

Now, a break from the information

Allow us to assist you to uncover one thing new. At House has concepts on what to learn, prepare dinner, watch and do whereas staying protected at dwelling.

And now for the Again Story on …

The AstraZeneca vaccine

Preliminary evaluation of the vaccine produced by the British-Swedish drugmaker and the College of Oxford confirmed it was 90 p.c efficient when the primary dose was reduce in half. In distinction, the mixture of two full-dose photographs led to simply 62 p.c efficacy. Our science reporters clarify what’s behind these head-scratching outcomes.

Why would that mixture be more practical?

Nobody is aware of. The researchers speculated that the decrease first dose did a greater job of mimicking the expertise of an an infection, selling a stronger immune response. However different elements, like the dimensions and make-up of the teams that received totally different doses, may be at play.

Why did the researchers check two totally different doses?

It was a fortunate mistake. Researchers in Britain had been that means to provide volunteers the preliminary dose at full energy, however they made a miscalculation and by chance gave it at half energy, Reuters reported. After discovering the error, the researchers gave every affected participant the full-strength booster shot as deliberate a few month later.

Fewer than 2,800 volunteers received the half-strength preliminary dose, out of the greater than 23,000 members whose outcomes have been reported on Monday. That’s a fairly small variety of members on which to base the spectacular efficacy outcomes — far fewer than in Pfizer’s and Moderna’s trials.

That’s it for this briefing. Be a part of me tomorrow for extra information.

— Natasha

Thanks
Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh offered the break from the information. You may attain Natasha and the group at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Every day.” Our newest episode is about President Trump’s failed try to overturn the election.
• Right here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Issues made out of date by iPods (three letters). You’ll find all our puzzles right here.
• We requested an A.I. system to have a go at writing a Fashionable Love column. It wrote dozens; like all romances, some turned out higher than others.
• Our Beijing reporter Sui-Lee Wee spoke to Nieman Storyboard in regards to the challenges of sourcing and reporting in China.