July 29, 2020

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By David Leonhardt

Good morning. The attorney general spars with Democrats. Tech C.E.O.s prepare for criticism from Congress. And televised conspiracy theories are helping to spread the virus.

Information contagion

The Sinclair Broadcast Group published an interview highlighting baseless arguments by Dr. Judy Mikovits, a discredited scientist.Zuma Press, via Alamy

Sinclair Broadcast Group recently published an online interview with a conspiracy theorist who claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci created the coronavirus using monkey cells. Sinclair — which operates almost 200 television stations — has also run segments downplaying the severity of the virus.

Fox News has repeatedly run segments promoting ideas that scientists consider false or that question the seriousness of the virus.

Breitbart published a video this week in which a group of doctors claimed that masks were unnecessary and that the drug hydroxychloroquine cured the virus. It received 14 million views in six hours on Facebook, my colleague Kevin Roose reports. (President Trump tweeted a link to it.)

Why is the U.S. enduring a far more severe virus outbreak than any other rich country?

There are multiple causes, but one of them is the size and strength of right-wing media organizations that frequently broadcast falsehoods. The result is confusion among many Americans about scientific facts that are widely accepted, across the political spectrum, in other countries.

Canada, Japan and much of Europe have no equivalent to Sinclair — whose local newscasts reach about 40 percent of Americans — or Fox News. Germany and France have widely read blogs that promote conspiracy theories. “But none of them have the reach and the funding of Fox or Sinclair,” Monika Pronczuk, a Times reporter based in Europe, told me.

Fox is particularly important, because it has also influenced President Trump’s response to the virus, which has been slower and less consistent than that of many other world leaders. “Trump repeatedly failed to act to tame the spread, even though that would have helped him politically,” The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent has written. The headline on Sargent’s opinion column is: “How Fox News may be destroying Trump’s re-election hopes.”

Another factor creating confusion: The lack of an aggressive response to virus misinformation from Facebook and YouTube. Judd Legum, author of the Popular Information newsletter, has identified some of this misinformation, and the two companies have responded by removing the posts he cited. But Legum told me he had pointed out only a small fraction of the false information, and the companies had done relatively little to remove it proactively.

Twitter took a slightly more aggressive step yesterday, putting temporary limits on the account of Donald Trump Jr. after he shared the false Breitbart video.

C.E.O.s in Congress: Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Sundar Pichai of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, will testify today at a House hearing on whether their companies stifle competition. “It has the feeling of tech’s Big Tobacco moment,” one expert said.

The Times’s editorial board has suggested questions lawmakers should ask each executive.

THREE MORE BIG STORIES

1. Barr spars with Congress

Attorney General William Barr testified on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.Pool photo by Matt McClain

Attorney General William Barr clashed with House Democrats in a hostile five-hour hearing.

Barr defended the deployment of federal agents in Portland, Ore., saying that “rioters and anarchists” had “hijacked” peaceful demonstrations. And he denied improperly interfering in criminal cases against Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, two allies of President Trump. Democrats portrayed him as a dangerous political enforcer for the president.

You can watch some of the most contentious exchanges in a Times video.

In other protest developments:

The deputy director of the F.B.I. called protests against police brutality “a national crisis” in a memo in early June. The memo suggested that some top federal law enforcement officials embraced an aggressive response to the demonstrations from the start.
The Minneapolis police believe an umbrella-wielding man who vandalized store windows during a May protest has ties to a white supremacist group and had hoped to foment looting and sow racial unrest.
New York City police officers in plain clothes pulled a protester into an unmarked minivan. Critics said they were adopting tactics similar to those used by federal agents in Portland, Ore.; the police said the protester had damaged police cameras near City Hall.

2. Experts grow wary

My colleague Donald McNeil interviewed 20 public health experts about the coronavirus pandemic and found “a pervasive sense of sadness and exhaustion.”

He writes: “Where once there was defiance, and then a growing sense of dread, now there seems to be sorrow and frustration, a feeling that so many funerals never had to happen and that nothing is going well.”

In other virus news:

More than 1,300 Americans died from the virus yesterday, the highest one-day number since late May.
A recent report, sent to state officials by the White House’s coronavirus task force and obtained by The Times, concluded that 21 states had outbreaks serious enough to justify more restrictions.
Trump falsely claimed that “large portions of the country” were “corona-free.”
A Times analysis found at least 6,300 virus cases tied to about 270 colleges. And the new academic year has not even begun at most schools.

3. A breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research

PET scans of a brain.Zephyr/Science Source

Scientists published a report on a new blood test that has the potential to make diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease simpler, more affordable and widely accessible.

It’s a significant step forward: The test identifies signs of the degenerative disease up to 20 years before memory and thinking problems are expected. Researchers estimate that such tests could become available in two to three years. The tests could speed up the hunt for treatments by screening participants for clinical trials more efficiently than is now possible.

“It’s not a cure, it’s not a treatment, but you can’t treat the disease without being able to diagnose it,” one expert said about the blood test.

Here’s what else is happening

Netflix secured the most Emmy nominations ever, and more than a third of the acting nominees are Black.
Universal Pictures and AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest movie chain, have reached a deal to shorten the window between U.S. theaters and streaming services to just 17 days — down from 90. The deal will probably change the way that Hollywood does business.
The Times’s Nate Cohn examined claims that recent polls are failing to interview Trump supporters. Cohn writes: “There are many reasons the polls might ultimately be wrong in November, as many state polls were four years ago, but there’s no serious evidence that the polls are systematically missing Republican voters.”
Lives Lived: He was a familiar face on “Falcon Crest”; battled Bruce Lee in “Enter the Dragon”; and arm-wrestled Marlon Brando, to whom he was sometimes compared, in “The Appaloosa.” John Saxon, who accumulated almost 200 film and TV credits in a career that began in the 1950s, died at 83.

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PAID POST: A MESSAGE FROM MOEN

Demand Congress suspend water shutoffs during a global pandemic.

Right now, millions of Americans are experiencing water shutoffs during a global pandemic, making handwashing impossible. Add your name at FoodAndWaterAction.org to demand Congress place a national moratorium on water shutoffs for the nearly 40 percent of Americans still at risk. Congress is expected to vote in the next week, and right now you have the chance to make your voice heard and #UnlockWaterForAll.

ACT NOW

IDEA OF THE DAY: ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM

Black Americans are more exposed to air pollution than white Americans. And researchers believe that air pollution causes higher rates of lung disease, asthma, heart disease and death from Covid-19.

In The Times Magazine, Linda Villarosa tells the story of Grays Ferry, a South Philadelphia neighborhood where most residents are Black. Created through a combination of redlining and public housing, the neighborhood sits across a highway from an aging oil refinery that produced most of the city’s toxic emissions.

Villarosa describes how Grays Ferry residents fought an effort to build a new natural-gas facility — and how that may offer a template for the future of environmental justice activism.

The racial wealth gap: Joe Biden released an economic plan focused on racial equity yesterday. The proposal would help business owners of color get loans, create a housing tax credit for lower-income Americans and direct clean-energy spending to disadvantaged communities.

Subscribers help make Times journalism possible. To support our efforts, please consider subscribing today.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT, PAINT

A go-to vegetarian dinner

Bryan Gardner for The New York Times

For an easy weeknight dinner, try Yasmin Fahr’s eye-catching recipe for baked feta with broccolini, tomatoes and lemon. Baking the tangy cheese lends it an almost creamy texture. Serve it with orzo to turn it into a filling meal.

People still love Bob Ross

Photo illustration by The New York Times

The painter Bob Ross grew up in Florida, where he once attempted to heal an injured baby gator in his family’s bathtub. He was in the Air Force for 20 years — including 12 in Alaska, where he learned to paint. To save money on haircuts, he got a perm, the hairstyle that would become his signature.

Twenty-five years after his death, the painter with the gentle demeanor is still as popular as ever, providing comfort to fans who may not have even been alive when his TV show originally aired. In The Atlantic, the writer Michael J. Mooney wrote a tribute to the painter and his enduring appeal.

One of the internet’s favorite mysteries: Where are Ross’s landscape paintings now? The Times found them .

Timely horror movies

A scene from “Relic.”Jackson Finter/IFC Midnight

Horror movies thrive on isolation. Cabins in the woods, sparsely populated small towns, empty motels — these are all places where no one can hear you scream.

If you’re itching for some fresh horror films to check out, the critic Jason Zinoman rounded up three new works, all directed by women, that are equal parts thrilling and thoughtful. The through-line that connects them is “a sensitivity to the punishing nature of loneliness and the sinister aspects of solitude,” he writes.

Diversions

Turn your desktop into a calming portal to somewhere else.
The late-night hosts discussed the misleading video about hydroxychloroquine that the president and his son retweeted.

Games

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Dog trick with a paw (five letters).

You can find all of our puzzles here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. I’ll be interviewing Ai-jen Poo, an advocate for low-wage workers, and Robert Reich, a former labor secretary, about how to create an economy with more good-paying jobs — tomorrow at 5 p.m. Eastern.

You can see today’s print front page here.

Today’s episode of “The Daily” is about the changing relationship between the U.S. and China.

We’d like your feedback! Please fill out this short form.

Ian Prasad Philbrick and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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