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Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021.
Featured Article: "13,000 School Districts, 13,000 Approaches to Teaching During Covid" by Kate Taylor : The featured article, and all seven related articles, are available in English and Spanish.
In a series called "Schools in the Pandemic: A Report Card,"The New York Times closely examined seven school districts across the country in an attempt to see how public schools are navigating the pandemic. The featured article is the introduction to that series.

In this lesson, you will learn about what going to public school looks like right now and how it is affecting students. Then you will share your experiences about learning during the Covid-19 crisis and have a chance to read more about one of the seven districts The Times covered.

How well is your school district handling teaching and learning during the coronavirus pandemic?

Create a report card that assesses your school or district's Covid-19 response. What grade would you give it why?
Read the article, then answer the following questions:
If you are in a classroom context, share your grades and reasoning with a small group and discuss what you notice and wonder. How similar are your scores? What criteria appear to be most important to you based on your explanations? Is it how much students are learning? Their mental health status? The school's safety protocols? Equity across different groups?

If you want to change your grade after discussing with your classmates, do that now and explain why you changed your mind.

1. Kate Taylor writes that what it means to go to public school in the United States during a pandemic "looks so different in different parts of the country." What evidence does she use to support that statement?

2. Ms. Taylor lists some figures about students and schools that are not being officially tracked. Which of those data points is most interesting to you? Why do you wish we had more information about that particular figure?

3. Ms. Taylor writes, "The disruption of education, like so much else about the pandemic, has not affected everyone equally." Choose one example from the article that illustrates this point.

4. What resources and services - beyond education - do some students rely on in school? How has the pandemic made it harder for students to access those resources?
Option 1: Tell us about your school's Covid-19 response.
5. What do we know about how the pandemic has affected young people's mental health?

6. According to education experts, what are some of the conditions under which schools can open safely? What does, or what would, make you feel safe going to school?

What type of learning is your school or district using during the pandemic? In-person? Remote? A hybrid? Something else? Do you agree with the decision your district has made about in-person or virtual learning? Why or why not?

What is helping you to learn this year? What is making learning harder?

Have there been cases of Covid-19 in your school or in your community? How has your school responded? How does the response make you feel about the safety of attending school in person?

Do you think students are succeeding - and struggling - equally in your school? Or has this year been harder or easier for certain groups of students?

If you are attending school in person, what safety measures are students and staff members expected to take? Does everyone respect these rules?

Who is making decisions about Covid responses in your school district? Are students, parents, teachers, administrators and district officials all in agreement?

What is one change you would like to see at your school when it comes to teaching and learning during this time?

7. What are some expectations about what might happen to schools in the next several months through the 2021-22 school year? What do you predict will happen?

Imagine The New York Times has contacted you to find out more about what's going on in your school or district for its "Schools in the Pandemic" series. What would you want The Times to know about your experience?
Option 2: Research other school districts around the country.
You can report on anything you want, but if you need ideas, you might consider some of the following questions:

Write a paragraph that highlights what you think are the most important points about your school or district's handling of the pandemic.

Another option? Use these same questions to interview a classmate about his or her learning experience and summarize the main ideas. How similar or different are your experiences to one another? Why do you think that is? What can you learn by talking to other students about what it's like for them to go to school right now?

The featured article was the introductory piece to a longer series about schools during the coronavirus pandemic. Choose one other article from the series to read:

Los Angeles: Teachers and students struggle with "no human contact."

Cherokee County, Ga.: Schools vowed to stay open, until staffing ran out.

Edison, N.J.: The pandemic has brought a new teaching style.

Washington, D.C.: Teachers are going in search of missing students.

Providence, R.I.: Unlike in many cities, most children are in classrooms.

What are three struggles the district is facing?

What are two solutions or strategies that the district has put in place to try to support students and the staff?

What is one quotation that you found particularly meaningful?

What is one connection you can make between the district featured in the article and your own district?

About Lesson of the Day
Wausau, Wis.: Parents revolted after the board voted to keep schools closed.

Lubbock County, Texas: What a tiny district did to keep students from failing.

After reading, answer these questions:

* Find all our Lessons of the Day in this column.
* Teachers, watch our on-demand webinar to learn how to use this feature in your classroom.

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Lesson of the Day: '13,000 School Districts, 13,000 Approaches to Teaching During Covid'

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Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021. Featured Article: " 13,000 School Districts, 13,000 Approaches to Teaching During Covid " by Kate Taylor : The featured article, and all seven related articles, are available in English and Spanish.

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Lesson of the Day: Amanda Gorman and ‘The Hill We Climb’ (Published 2021)

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In this lesson, students learn about the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history and consider her work as part of a tradition of occasional poetry.

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Teaching Resources to Help Students Make Sense of the Rampage at the Capitol (Published 2021)

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Dozens of lesson plan ideas, activities and Times materials for exploring the causes and consequences of this assault on democracy in the United States. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.

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Is the Electoral College a Problem? Does It Need to Be Fixed? (Published 2020)

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Is the way Americans choose the president undemocratic and unfair? Or does the Electoral College work the way it’s supposed to, even if the candidate who wins the most votes loses?

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"W HEN THERE'S a chance to make change, we must be ready to take it," says YahNé Ndgo, a singer and activist with Philadelphia's chapter of Black Lives Matter ( BLM). Events over the past six months, she says, have brought a rare chance to shape national affairs. Protests flared across America after footage spread of the death of George Floyd, an African-American who was choked for nearly nine minutes by a policeman in Minneapolis in May. By one count over 8,500 civil-rights demonstrations have taken place since.

The sight of thousands of marchers, usually young and mostly peaceful, helped to sway public attitudes in ways small and big. Kenya McKnight, who runs a group in Minneapolis educating black women about finance, says she was invigorated, feeling new "validation" for her work. Oluchi Omeoga at Black Visions Collective, a grant-giving body in the same city, is also fired up, saying America has entered "a different phase, one hundred percent". Public support for the BLM movement, founded seven years ago, soared to an unheard-of 67% in June, according to Pew researchers. It has slipped a bit since, but remains high.

Voters, especially Democrats, responded. Joe Biden has concluded that more African-Americans must be seen in prominent jobs. His choice of Kamala Harris, who is part African-American, as his running-mate proved popular. This week he picked Lloyd Austin as defence secretary. If the retired four-star general is confirmed, he would be the first African-American to preside over the Pentagon. That matters, says the incoming president, to "make sure that our armed forces reflect and promote the full diversity of our nation". His cabinet will be home to many non-white faces.

Does this amount to a new wave for the civil-rights movement? BLM looked bereft before the summer. Several activists say the national part of their movement had lost its way. Ms Ndgo, who is critical of national leaders, says it had become "a shambles". Local chapters were passionate, but focused mostly on holding rallies in response to violent incidents by police. BLM boasted of its grass-roots organising and decentralised, leaderless structure. But critics say that proved messy, bureaucratic, slow-moving and ineffective.

Patrisse Cullors (pictured), one of BLM 's three co-founders, bluntly blamed her movement's "half-drawn blueprints and road maps that led to untenable ends", as well as its lack of funds and vision. Black people, she wrote in September, had "paid dearly" for these shortcomings. Better focus and organisation were needed.

Some of that has changed. Start with the great fire-hose of money pointed at BLM groups and sympathisers. The example of Niko Georgiades of Unicorn Riot, a non-profit, left-leaning media firm that posted early footage of protests in Minneapolis, is instructive. Thanks to online donations, within a couple of months his almost-broke outfit went from $8,000 in the bank to nearly $650,000. That's enough to keep operating for another five years, he says joyfully. Ms McKnight saw donations flood in from people in America, Europe, Japan and Brazil. Within a month of the protests, BLM 's national network had to scramble to offer a first round of $6.5m in grants-far more than ever before-to city chapters, gay-rights groups and others.

That was just a start. Vastly larger promises and sums followed as employee and corporate donors, as well as rich individuals, joined the gift-giving. Donations to BLM-related causes since May were $10.6bn. Exact sums received will be known when the central body overseeing BLM spending publishes its finances (confusingly it relies on another entity, a "fiscal sponsor", the Tides Foundation, to oversee its books). A leading figure talks of "incredible financial growth and capacity", and a huge surge in "the number of folks who want to throw down with us", meaning long-term partners.

Another change, the restructuring of BLM, could turn out to be just as significant: power is to be centralised. Ms Cullors has stood up as the boss of BLM 's Global Network Foundation, which she calls the "umbrella organisation" for the whole movement. In taking responsibility, as she says, for the "onus of our successes and failures", she appears to be claiming leadership of the once leaderless movement.

That is because the foundation will control funds, dishing them out to officially recognised BLM city chapters through another new body called BLM Grassroots. The foundation is also moving away from doing mostly on-the-ground work. For example, it is pressing Congress to pass legislation, known as the Breathe Act, that would order a big increase in federal spending on public housing. Leaders of the foundation were hoping to meet members of Mr Biden's transition team this week. In October a BLM political-action committee was launched, to "bring the power of our movement from the streets to the ballot box".

That reflects new ambition, what Ms Cullors has called "a totalising and unprecedented transition" for BLM. It has long focused largely on police violence, mass incarceration and other criminal-justice woes. The idea is to confront the way African-Americans live, not only their repression and deaths.

BLM leaders plan, for example, to campaign for more funding for the Postal Service, a big employer of middle-class African-Americans. Early next year it hopes to launch a bank to push capital to black-owned firms and non-profit groups. That reflects a wish to address problems of race and economic inequality.

All that is appealing if the movement is to be more effective than just a protest outfit. But the changes have upset radicals, such as those who prefer the idea of abolishing capitalism over making banks work better, or who reject electoral politics as intrinsically ineffective. On November 30th representatives of ten city chapters, including large ones from Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia and Washington, said they rejected the recent changes as an undemocratic, secretive power-grab done without the backing of most BLM members.

One opponent, Vanessa Green, a BLM organiser in Hudson Valley, New York, says nobody was consulted about launching the political-action committee. Earlier complaints from smaller groups like hers about the centralisation of power were brushed aside in the rush to change. "You have to include every damn body," she says. "To be ignored, it feels like a slap in the face." She sees BLM as an offspring of the radical Black Power activism of the 1960s, but fears it is instead becoming "vanilla", ineffective and co-opted by those who resist change.

Ms Ndgo is also upset at secrecy. She warns that Ms Cullors, if she does emerge as the main BLM leader, may be out of touch because "she is not on the streets, not grass-roots organising". She complains that the foundation has been woefully opaque about its money.

The schism between the two camps is unlikely to end, but it is also doubtful that the disgruntled ten chapters can lure more to their camp. Nobody owns the BLM trademark. Nor can anyone say convincingly what counts as an official chapter of the movement. That means both camps are free to go on operating. Much will depend on who has more resources to help activists or mount bigger campaigns. If the money keeps flowing to the foundation that Ms Cullors runs, then her more-organised vision for BLM may emerge stronger. ■

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "The George Floyd effect"

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Six months after mass protests began, what is the future of BLM?

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"W HEN THERE'S a chance to make change, we must be ready to take it," says YahNé Ndgo, a singer and activist with Philadelphia's chapter of Black Lives Matter ( BLM). Events over the past six months, she says, have brought a rare chance to shape national affairs.

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6. How strong is the legal case against Facebook? Do you think the company has engaged in anticompetitive behavior? Who do you think will prevail in the courts: Facebook or the government?
Option 1: Share Your Thoughts and Experiences

Are you a Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp user? What kinds of activities do you tend to engage in on these platforms? How much time do you typically spend on these sites? Would you ever consider deleting your Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp accounts?

If you are not a Facebook user, why not? What social media sites and apps do you use instead?

How concerned are you about your digital privacy? Should Facebook and other Big Tech companies do a better job to protect its users' data? Or do you think it is the responsibility of users to decide what to share? Why?

What role does Big Tech play in your life? In what ways does it make your life better? In what ways does it perhaps diminish it? How would your life be different without it?

How do you think the case against Facebook might affect you?

Option 2: Research Past Antitrust Cases
The antitrust cases against Facebook and Google are nothing new. The U.S. government has challenged corporate power and monopolies since the landmark Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890. Along with the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Act - both passed in 1914 - these three core federal antitrust laws have sought to curb concentrations of power that interfere with trade and reduce economic competition.

Choose an antitrust case from U.S. history to research, and compare and contrast it to the current lawsuits against Facebook.

You can also find a comprehensive list of antitrust cases on the U.S. Department of Justice website.

How are the Facebook lawsuits similar to or different from the past antitrust case you researched? What did you learn about competition, the free market and the government's role in the economy from your research? What does the past example you explored suggest about the outcome of the Facebook case?
Option 3: Should the Power of Big Tech Be Curbed?
On Oct. 20, The Times reported:

Two weeks ago, House lawmakers concluded a 16-month investigation into Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook and called for sweeping changes to curb their market power. The lawmakers' verdict: Traditional antitrust laws aren't up to the challenge, and the laws need their biggest overhaul in more than 40 years.

How concerned do you think we should be about Big Tech's role and power in society? Or will government intervention hurt innovation, consumers and a free market?

To help you argue the case for or against the tech giants, you might start by looking at The Times's Technology topic page, the individual topic pages for Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple, or these recent articles:

Beyond The Times, you might also look at these resources:

After conducting your research, consider having a classroom debate or mock trial on Big Tech. Or, if you have strong personal views, you might try writing your ideas in the form of an editorial, and then submitting your final draft to our Eighth Annual Student Editorial Contest that will run from Feb 23 to April 13, 2021.
About Lesson of the Day
* Find all our Lessons of the Day in this column.
* Teachers, watch our on-demand webinar to learn how to use this feature in your classroom.

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Lesson of the Day: 'U.S. and States Say Facebook Illegally Crushed Competition'

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6. How strong is the legal case against Facebook? Do you think the company has engaged in anticompetitive behavior? Who do you think will prevail in the courts: Facebook or the government? Option 1: Share Your Thoughts and Experiences Are you a Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp user?

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3. What does it mean to be "neurodivergent"? Why are tone indicators popular with people who are neurodivergent, according to the article?

4. Why are some people opposed to the use or overuse of tone indicators? Do you find those arguments persuasive?

5. Mr. Marcus writes that the history of tone indication is much older than the internet. Which example from the article do you find most fascinating or instructive? How did the smiley face emoticon ":-)" come into being? What does that story tell us about the evolution of communication?

6. What is your reaction to the article? Do you think tone indicators would have prevented the miscommunication you described in the warm-up activity? Which tone indicators do you think are most helpful? Which are less so? Do you think you will use them in the future?

7. The author notes that many past efforts to invent punctuation like the upside-down exclamation mark to indicate sarcasm and irony failed to catch on. Do you think tone indicators will catch on? Do you think they will make the internet a better place?
Option 1: Share Your Thoughts
Choose one or more of the following writing prompts:

Communication: What method of communication for speaking or writing do you prefer - by phone, text, video call or face-to-face? How is communicating in-person different from having digital conversations? What are the advantages and drawbacks of each?

Miscommunication: How big a problem is miscommunication for you? How often do you find yourself being misunderstood or confused as to another person's intent? What strategies have you used to better ensure clear communication? How successful have they been?

Tone Indicators: One Times reader, Chris from San Francisco, commented:

Tone indicators are a pretense claiming to be a fact.

They pretend that perfect clarity is possible when it never has been and never will be. In-person dialogue with an intimate loved one requires clarifying questions if you're really paying attention, and even talking to ourselves or journaling usually requires a few iterations to get at what's under the surface. We express to discover what we mean, not pre-determine it. Exploring meaning is what connects and nourishes, not clipped declarations of intent.

Instead of tone indicators, I'd suggest we ensure the reader feels free to ask for clarification in a way that deepens connection, not abbreviates it.

Do you agree? Do you believe that tone indicators abbreviate connection and true intimacy? Or do you find them helpful to avoid misunderstanding and a good step for inclusiveness?
Option 2: Create Your Own Tone Indicator Videos
Create your own tone videos using the ones featured in the article as an inspiration and guide.

Your videos can illustrate existing tone indicators or you can create your own new ones - drawing from the list of common communication problems you created in the warm-up activity.

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Lesson of the Day: 'Tone Is Hard to Grasp Online. Can Tone Indicators Help?'

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3. What does it mean to be "neurodivergent"? Why are tone indicators popular with people who are neurodivergent, according to the article? 4. Why are some people opposed to the use or overuse of tone indicators? Do you find those arguments persuasive? 5.

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In this lesson plan, students use statistics, probability and math to understand how big a breakthrough the new coronavirus vaccine is and what it might mean for the pandemic.

Experts say it's easy to misconstrue early results because the language that vaccine researchers use to talk about their trials can be hard for outsiders to understand. Credit... EPA, via Shutterstock

Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021.
Featured article: "2 Companies Say Their Vaccines Are 95% Effective. What Does That Mean? Note to Teachers: This lesson plan is available as a PDF for students

Dr. Fauci says that vaccines have "crushed" previous outbreaks of diseases like smallpox, polio and measles. You probably received one or more of those vaccines when you were young. Did you know what those vaccines were when you received them? Did you know those diseases had deadly outbreaks before vaccines were introduced?

. " by Carl Zimmer
Last week, after a trial showed that Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine had an efficacy rate of 95 percent, the Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine. What is "efficacy," and how is it calculated? In this lesson, you will analyze the data from Pfizer's successful vaccine study to get a practical sense of how the vaccine performed. (Spoiler: It did well.) Then, you will analyze what factors could make or break the vaccine's success as it becomes widely available.

Watch this video, from 0:56 to 3:00, of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, speaking about the efficacy of new vaccines at a briefing of the White House's coronavirus task force on Nov. 19. Respond to the following questions in writing or in class discussion:

Read the featured article. Then, proceed through the following sections to break down the Pfizer study and its data.

Study Design: Answer the following questions:

What is a placebo? Why do you think Pfizer and other drug companies use placebos in their studies?

The Pfizer study enrolled 43,661 people. Why so many people? Would the company's results be as convincing if it enrolled, for example, just 100 people?

Half of the subjects (the study volunteers) were given a placebo. The other half were given the vaccine. This created two groups: the placebo group and the vaccine group. The study used a random process to choose which subjects were assigned to each group. Why would subjects be randomly assigned to the groups?

Covid-19 Vaccines ›

Words to Know About Vaccines

Adverse event: A health problem that crops up in volunteers in a clinical trial of a vaccine or a drug. An adverse event isn't always caused by the treatment tested in the trial.

Antibody: A protein produced by the immune system that can attach to a pathogen such as the coronavirus and stop it from infecting cells.

Approval, licensure and emergency use authorization: Drugs, vaccines and medical devices cannot be sold in the United States without gaining approval from the Food and Drug Administration, also known as licensure. After a company submits the results of clinical trials to the F.D.A. for consideration, the agency decides whether the product is safe and effective, a process that generally takes many months. If the country is facing an emergency - like a pandemic - a company may apply instead for an emergency use authorization, which can be granted considerably faster.

Background rate: How often a health problem, known as an adverse event, arises in the general population. To determine if a vaccine or a drug is safe, researchers compare the rate of adverse events in a trial to the background rate.

Efficacy: The benefit that a vaccine provides compared to a placebo, as measured in a clinical trial. To test a coronavirus vaccine, for instance, researchers compare how many people in the vaccinated and placebo groups get Covid-19. Effectiveness, by contrast, is the benefit that a vaccine or a drug provides out in the real world. A vaccine's effectiveness may turn out to be lower or higher than its efficacy.

Phase 1, 2, and 3 trials: Clinical trials typically take place in three stages. Phase 1 trials usually involve a few dozen people and are designed to observe whether a vaccine or drug is safe. Phase 2 trials, involving hundreds of people, allow researchers to try out different doses and gather more measurements about the vaccine's effects on the immune system. Phase 3 trials, involving thousands or tens of thousands of volunteers, determine the safety and efficacy of the vaccine or drug by waiting to see how many people are protected from the disease it's designed to fight.

Placebo: A substance that has no therapeutic effect, often used in a clinical trial. To see if a vaccine can prevent Covid-19, for example, researchers may inject the vaccine into half of their volunteers, while the other half get a placebo of salt water. They can then compare how many people in each group get infected.

Post-market surveillance: The monitoring that takes place after a vaccine or drug has been approved and is regularly prescribed by doctors. This surveillance typically confirms that the treatment is safe. On rare occasions, it detects side effects in certain groups of people that were missed during clinical trials.

Preclinical research: Studies that take place before the start of a clinical trial, typically involving experiments where a treatment is tested on cells or in animals.

Viral vector vaccines: A type of vaccine that uses a harmless virus to chauffeur immune-system-stimulating ingredients into the human body. Viral vectors are used in several experimental Covid-19 vaccines, including those developed by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Both of these companies are using a common cold virus called an adenovirus as their vector. The adenovirus carries coronavirus genes.

Trial protocol: A series of procedures to be carried out during a clinical trial.

Infection Risk: The 43,661 subjects were split evenly between the placebo and vaccine groups (about 21,830 subjects per group). In the placebo group - the group that got a "fake" vaccine - 162 became infected with the coronavirus and showed symptoms. In the vaccine group - the group that got the real vaccine - that number was only eight. On a separate sheet of paper, draw the following table to store these numbers and our calculations:

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Answer the following questions (and fill in the corresponding table cells):

What percentage of the placebo subjects became infected? Hint: Divide the number infected by the total group size, then multiply by 100.

What percentage of the vaccine subjects became infected?

These numbers are each group's "infection risk." Put these numbers in the appropriate places of the "infection risk" column.

Check your work:

Answer the following questions:

Scale Up: It can be hard to see a vaccine's impact in terms of percentages. Let's answer the same questions as above after calculating what the infection risks indicated by Pfizer's study would look like if applied to the entire population of the United States.

Answer the following questions (and fill in the corresponding table cells):

About 328 million (328,000,000) people live in the United States. Assume all of these people had the same infection risk as those in the placebo group during the months of this study. How many people in the country would you expect to contract the coronavirus? Hint: Multiply the U.S. population by the infection risk (before multiplying, write the infection risk as a decimal: 0.74% = 0.0074).

Assume the U.S. population had the same infection risk as the vaccine group. How many people would you expect to become infected?

Put these numbers in the appropriate places of the table's final column.

Check your work:

Answer the same questions about the infection risk that you answered before. This time, use the numbers you just calculated to help inform your response:

Efficacy: Now that we've analyzed infection risks, let's calculate the efficacy. First, find the difference between the risks in both groups.

Check your work: 0.74% - 0.04% = 0.7%

So, the vaccine reduced the infection risk by 0.7 percentage points (less than 1 percentage point). This seems small. However, as we know from our earlier analysis, small differences in infection risks can mean big differences in the number of people that become infected.

How can we capture that difference in impact? Let's scale the percentage point difference in risks by the original infection risk. To do this, divide the difference (0.7%) by the infection risk of the placebo group (0.74%).

Check your work:

You just did the same calculations that were performed by the scientists at Pfizer. The number you got, 95 percent, is known as the efficacy rate. This tells you that, under the same conditions as the study, the vaccine reduces the risk of infection by 95 percent.
Part I: Threats to Effectiveness
Read the following excerpt from the article:

Vaccines don't protect only the people who get them. Because they slow the spread of the virus, they can, over time, also drive down new infection rates and protect society as a whole.

Scientists call this broad form of effectiveness a vaccine's impact. The smallpox vaccine had the greatest impact of all, driving the virus into oblivion in the 1970s. But even a vaccine with extremely high efficacy in clinical trials will have a small impact if only a few people end up getting it.

Answer the following questions:

Because vaccines prevent new infections, they also prevent further spread. Why would this effect be diminished if few people agreed to get the vaccine?

Even impressive vaccines, like Pfizer's, show a nonzero infection rate among the vaccinated group. Why does this fact make the widespread adoption of vaccines so important?

If effective vaccines are taken by enough people, a population can develop "herd immunity" to a disease. What do you think that term means? Do you think the United States will eventually develop herd immunity to the coronavirus? Why or why not?

Part II: Your Own Decision-Making
A vaccine against Covid-19 is now being distributed in the United States and elsewhere. Do you plan on being vaccinated? Do you want your loved ones and friends to be vaccinated, too? We invite you to share your opinions in the comments of our related Student Opinion question.

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What Does 95% Effective Mean? Teaching the Math of Vaccine Efficacy

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In this lesson plan, students use statistics, probability and math to understand how big a breakthrough the new coronavirus vaccine is and what it might mean for the pandemic. Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021.

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The legislation would extend two pandemic unemployment programs and provide the jobless with a $300 weekly federal boost through mid-March. It would send direct payments of up $600 per person. It would reopen the Paycheck Protection Program so that some of the hardest-hit small businesses can apply for a second loan.

The package, which would be the second-largest relief deal after the $2 trillion CARES Act that Congress approved in March, also would extend eviction protection and enhance food stamp benefits.

Here's what's at risk if the bill isn't signed:

Expanded unemployment benefits

More than 12 million laid-off Americans could lose their unemployment benefits after this weekend if Trump doesn't sign the bill. And even if he does, they would likely suffer a break in payments of several weeks.

As part of the historic broadening of jobless benefits under the CARES Act, lawmakers created three programs to help out-of-work Americans. While the $600 payment enhancement lasted only through July, the other two expire just after Christmas.

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program allows independent contractors, the self-employed and gig workers to qualify for payments. It also opens up the program to those who can't work because of the pandemic, including if they or family members are ill or quarantining or if their children's schools are closed.

Some 9.3 million people filed claims under this program in early December, according to the latest Department of Labor data.

Also, Congress created the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which provides an additional 13 weeks of federally paid benefits to those who run out of state payments, which typically last 26 weeks. Nearly 4.8 million long-term unemployed workers were in this program earlier this month, according to the Department of Labor.

If these two key programs lapse, payments would end for more than 12 million Americans, according to an analysis by The Century Foundation.

But even if Trump signs the legislation, it would still take a few weeks for state unemployment agencies to reprogram their computers to continue these two programs and to add the new $300 weekly federal boost, said Michele Evermore, senior policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project. They first would have to receive guidance from the Department of Labor with the new rules.

While the benefits would be retroactive, the jobless would be left without any payments until their states are ready.

Eviction protection

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention order that went into effect in September temporarily halted evictions through the end of the year. The order, which was spurred by an executive measure Trump signed over the summer, applies to renters who meet certain income requirements, have experienced significant losses of income and have made their best efforts to find rental assistance and pay their rent.

Since the order does not cancel or freeze rent, all of a tenant's back rent will be due January 1 if the moratorium is allowed to expire. Without rent relief or an extension of the protection, many struggling renters will again face eviction.

An estimated 9.2 million renters who have lost employment income during the pandemic are behind on rent, or 23% of such renters, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The relief package would extend the eviction protection to January 31 and provide $25 billion in rental assistance for those who lost their sources of income during the pandemic.

Coronavirus relief funds for states

Congress provided $150 billion to state and local governments to help them cover coronavirus-related expenses. But states have to use those funds by December 30.

States are on track to expend all the funds by the deadline, according to a National Governors Association survey of 42 states and territories. Most of the money has been used for health-related expenses, economic relief, education and child care, and government expenses.

The package would give states and localities an additional year to spend the money.

CNN's Katie Lobosco contributed to this story.

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Here’s what happens if Trump doesn’t sign the $900 billion relief package | CNN Politics

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Though Congress has passed a $900 billion Covid relief package, millions of Americans are in danger of losing important benefits just after the holidays if President Donald Trump continues to refuse to sign the bill.

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Will you get a text from your doctor? Will you read about it online? Or will you have to check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website to know when it's your turn in line?

As COVID-19 vaccines roll out to limited groups of people across the United States, how people learn they are eligible to get their shots won't be as clear while supplies remain limited, according to public health and policy experts and state vaccination plans.

"I think it's going to be a little bit murky," said Katie Greene, a visiting policy associate at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy.

"I wouldn't be surprised if thousands of individuals get left out because of the information gap," added Tinglong Dai, a Johns Hopkins Carey Business School professor who studies operations management and business analytics in health care.

Vaccine rollout has largely been left to the states, and with an "isolated and decentralized health system" in the U.S., as Dai put it, people may not know when they're eligible to get their vaccine. And they may have to be proactive in finding where they can get one and in proving that they meet the criteria to be next in line.

In Phase 1a of the vaccine rollout, health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities are prioritized, easy groups to reach because they're in distinct locations, Greene said.

During the next phase, people 75 and older and front-line essential workers should be prioritized, according to recommendations from the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. After that, Phase 1c will include people 65 to 74 and people 16 to 64 who have high-risk medical conditions, along with other essential workers.

"These are groups that are much harder to reach," Greene said.

Dai expects there to be some confusion and inefficiency as distribution continues in late winter and early spring, when supply is still growing and more, but not all, people are eligible to get a vaccine.

"It's going to be a very complicated triage process," he said, adding that it won't be consistent across health care providers.
USA TODAY vaccine panel: The US has nailed the science behind the COVID vaccine. Next up: logistics and trust.
Federal officials with Operation Warp Speed hope that around 50 million people will have received their first of two shots of a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of January, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said earlier this week.

Two vaccines, one produced by Pfizer and BioNTech and another by Moderna, have already received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A Phase 3 clinical trial for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has completed enrollment, and another vaccine candidate from AstraZeneca and Oxford University is expected to follow a few weeks later.

Azar has said the government should have enough supply so that every American who wants a vaccine can get it by summer 2021.

In the middle stages of rollout, state and local public health officials will have a lot of work to do to clearly define and communicate who is eligible, said John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital.

"At the state level, there are going to be important nuances in terms of eligibility," Brownstein said.

"Everyone wants to know their place in line. I think people will be tuned in."

Preregistration, eligibility websites and emails

The federal government has left it up to states to implement mass vaccination programs. Like many other policy decisions in the pandemic - from testing protocols to restrictions - states will have to tailor their vaccine rollouts to their specific needs, including how they communicate eligibility, Greene said.

State vaccine distribution plans submitted to the CDC earlier this year broadly cover how states will communicate with their residents, and the plans vary on how eligible people will be informed.

Right now, health care workers getting vaccinated find out through their employer, the facilities that are providing the vaccine. CVS and Walgreens are planning to go into tens of thousands of long-term care facilities to provide initial doses to residents and staff.

Many states' plans say they will rely on traditional media campaigns and mention press conferences from governors, outreach to community groups, and text and email campaigns.

As vaccine becomes more available, New York's plan says its residents will also be to check a website for a "vaccine eligibility screening tool and a vaccine administration site locator."

The health department websites in Colorado and Virginia have trackers that show they're still in Phase 1a of rollout.

In Maryland, residents will be able preregister for the vaccine through the state's existing immunization information system, the state plan says. The department of health will send targeted texts and emails to preregistered individuals who have not yet received their vaccine.

Greene said Maryland's preregistration plan is "a pretty innovative approach" but will rely on how many people can use the system.

Online systems for informing people of eligibility are only as good as the buy in, Dai said. For example, a hospital may be using a record system, like MyChart, to send alerts to people that they are eligible. But if a patient never set up their MyChart, they may not find out unless they reach out.
Side effects, differences and immunity: What to know about the COVID-19 vaccines in the US
"The central problem is we do not have a national waiting list for vaccination, and we do not even have that for individual states or counties," Dai said, comparing it to the national registry for organ donations.

As rollout expands, the CDC's playbook on vaccine distribution says it will also develop a screening tool for people to determine their own eligibility. That tool will then point them to VaccineFinder.org, an existing platform that connects the public to information about where they can get seasonal flu vaccines, vaccines for travel and other routinely recommendation vaccines.

Brownstein, who led the development of VaccineFinder.org, said the tool will play an important role in helping people find a vaccine once they learn they're eligible. He expects COVID-19 vaccine information will be available on the website starting in early 2021.

In November, the Department of Health and Human Services also announced that it would partner with pharmacy chains around the U.S. to provide vaccine as supplies become more available. That partnership is expected to cover 60% of pharmacies throughout the U.S., HHS said.
More: COVID-19 immunizations are going 'slower' than expected, officials say
CVS said in a statement that the public will be able to make appointments to get the vaccine at their pharmacies online or via an 800 number once the vaccine is more widely available.

"We will be promoting availability and raising awareness through multiple channels as we get closer to the timeframe, and dates and prioritization are determined," Mike DeAngelis, senior director for corporate communications at CVSHealth, told USA TODAY in an email.

'It's stuff we're going to have to figure out in a hurry'

As rollout enters the next phases, some states, however, may lag behind others, complicating the picture of who is eligible at a given time.

Vaccines are allocated according to the number of adults in each state, but that doesn't mean it will correlate with the number of high-risk people there.

A USA TODAY analysis published this week found which states fair best because they have fewer residents in high-risk categories and which states may lag, still vaccinating health care workers as others move forward to a wider population.
Tips How to persuade someone to take the COVID-19 vaccine
Greene and Brownstein said it'll be on the state and local public health officials to define who falls into each phase to lessen confusion.

"There will be some gray areas and professions where it's not clear what group you fit into," Brownstein said.

Having employers facilitate the process will make those gray areas more straightforward, Greene said, but challenges may persist, especially in smaller work settings with less outreach.

Similar issues could arise as it relates to underlying conditions and comorbidities. Someone's age is easily verifiable for pharmacies and vaccination clinics, but an underlying condition that puts someone at increased risk for COVID-19 complications may not be, Greene said.

Dai described a scenario where someone has received care in hospital system for an underlying condition but has since moved and plans to get their vaccine from another hospital. If those hospitals use different online records that don't easily communicate with each other, it could be on the individual to do their own outreach.

"There's going to have to be some level of expectation of some people not jumping the line," Brownstein added.

Whether someone would need a doctor's note to verify their condition would be a requirement that the vaccine provider would have to establish, but Greene said there would be a risk of increasing barriers and accessibility for people who may not have access to a primary care doctor.

"It's stuff we're going to have to figure out in a hurry," she said.

First responders such as firefighters, police

Teachers, support staff, day care workers

Food and agriculture workers

Manufacturing workers

Correction workers

U.S. Postal Service workers

Public transit workers

Grocery store workers

Who gets the vaccine first? Here's who the CDC recommends.

Obesity

Type 2 diabetes

COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Heart condition

Chronic kidney disease

Immunocompromised state from solid organ transplant

Sickle cell disease

Pregnancy

Smoker (current or with a history of smoking)

The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has recommended that phased vaccine rollout go to the following groups first:

Public health workers

Transportation and logistics workers

Food service workers

Construction workers

Finance workers

IT & Communications workers

Energy workers

Media workers

Legal workers

Public safety engineers

Water and wastewater workers

Contributing: Elizabeth Weise, Dennis Wagner, Donovan Slack and Aleszu Bajak Follow USA TODAY's Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller
Phase 1a: Front-line health care workers and people in long-term care facilities.

Phase 1b: People 75 and older and front-line essential workers, in the following categories:

Phase 1c: People 65 to 74, people 16 to 64 who have high-risk medical conditions, and other essential workers. The medical conditions listed are:

Workers in this category include:

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How will you be told when it's your turn for a COVID-19 vaccine? It's complicated.

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Will you get a text from your doctor? Will you read about it online? Or will you have to check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website to know when it's your turn in line?

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ohio coronavirus: teachers and school employees will be in the next round of people to get a vaccine - cnn

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Teachers and school employees will be in the next round of people to get a Covid-19 vaccine in Ohio

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The next group of people to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in Ohio will be the state's teachers and school staff.

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CLEVELAND (WOIO) - Ohio's largest teachers union is calling on all schools in the state to immediately suspend all in-person learning until Jan 11.

The Ohio Education Association's (OEA) urging comes amid what they called an "alarming explosion in community spread of coronavirus in recent weeks."

The Jan. 11 date allows students and staff to quarantine for 14 days after Christmas, when it's predicted family gatherings will cause yet another surge of coronavirus cases.

In order to return to in-person instruction on Jan 11, the OEA is urging that local Boards of Health sign off on the plans put forward by each school district.

OEA President Scott DiMauro said that approval from public health officials is necessary.

"Public health experts, not the elected politicians that serve on local school boards, should make the determination about whether schools are safe for students and staff to gather in person," DiMauro said. "The state has thus far failed to provide true leadership or firm statewide policies. We therefore must depend on local boards of health to make difficult decisions and accept accountability when they approve any educational plans."

In a briefing Monday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine didn't say whether he supports the measures recommended by the OEA.

Back in October, DeWine said in a Tweet, "It should concern all Ohioans that so many of our kids are going to school remotely... [s]ome of our poorest children who thrive in an in-person learning environment do not do nearly as well online."

Last week, the Ohio Department of Education released numbers which revealed that 29% of Ohio students are attending classes in-person full time. 45% of students in the state are taking classes on a fully remote basis.

In the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, which has been remote for the entire school year, 20% of students had grades of "incomplete" for the first grading period.

Copyright 2020 WOIO. All rights reserved.

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Ohio Education Association urges schools to 'reset,' go to remote learning until Jan. 11

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CLEVELAND (WOIO) - Ohio's largest teachers union is calling on all schools in the state to immediately suspend all in-person learning until Jan 11. The Ohio Education Association's (OEA) urging comes amid what they called an "alarming explosion in community spread of coronavirus in recent weeks." The Jan.

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President-elect Joe Biden announced a broad but vague plan to combat the coronavirus pandemic during his first 100 days in office, including a national mask rule, distributing 100 million COVID-19 vaccinations and a push to return children to the nation's classrooms.

At a press conference in Wilmington, Del., on Tuesday where he unveiled his health team, Biden said the plan had been developed in consultation with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who will also serve on his COVID-19 team.

"I'm absolutely convinced that in 100 days we can change the course of the disease and change life in America for the better," Biden said, while also warning of vaccine shortages and a "dark winter."

"In my first 100 days, I'm going to ask for a masking plan, asking everyone for the first 100 days of my administration to wear a mask," the president-elect said.

Biden said he would sign an order "on day one" mandating mask-wearing in federal buildings and for "interstate travel" on planes, trains and buses.

"Wear a mask for the first 100 days. It's the easiest thing to do to reduce COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Help yourself, your family and your community," he said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks on screen after President-elect Joe Biden announced his team tasked with dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic at The Queen in Wilmington, Del.

AFP via Getty Images

Biden also announced his White House would ensure that there would be "100 million shots into the arms of the American people in the first 100 days" in what he called the "most efficient mass vaccination plan in US history."

Earlier Tuesday, scientists at the Food and Drug Administration found Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective and eligible for emergency use - meaning the first Americans could receive a shot in the coming days.

Biden also called on Congress to pass more funding for vaccines.

The third pillar of Biden's plan is a push to reopen as many schools as possible after the pandemic robbed the nation's children of nearly an entire in-person school year.

The 78-year-old also unveiled his health team, who have largely been announced already and will inherit a public health crisis which has so far infected 15 million Americans and killed 284,000.

Xavier Becerra, California's attorney general, was a surprise choice to run the Health and Human Services Department given his lack of public health expertise.

If confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate, Becerra will have the difficult task of leading the enormous department as the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen and infection and hospitalization rates rise.

The former congressman, who would be the first Latino to hold the position, reportedly was chosen for the cabinet job given his role at the forefront of the fight to protect the Affordable Care Act in California.

Biden also tapped Rochelle Walensky, the chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, to lead his Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Walensky's experience in fighting devastating diseases such as HIV/AIDS would make her an ideal candidate to head the CDC amid the coronavirus pandemic, but some critics raised concerns over her lack of experience managing a large public health agency.

Both Walensky and Becerra will be in charge of managing the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine, which could be administered to the first Americans within days after Food and Drug Administration scientists Tuesday confirmed Pfizer's drug was safe and effective and eligible for emergency use.

Vivek Murthy will return to the job of surgeon general, a role in which he served previously under President Barack Obama.

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Biden touts 100-day COVID-19 masking mandate as linchpin of pandemic plan

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President-elect Joe Biden announced a broad but vague plan to combat the coronavirus pandemic during his first 100 days in office, including a national mask rule, distributing 100 million COVID-19 vaccinations and a push to return children to the nation's classrooms.

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How George Floyd Died, and What Happened Next

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Mr. Floyd, a Black man, died in May 2020 after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by Minneapolis police officers in an episode that was captured on video, touching off nationwide protests.

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3.

Her mother chose Kamala's name as a nod both to her Indian roots-Kamala means "lotus" and is another name for the Hindu goddess Lakshmi-and the empowerment of women.

"A culture that worships goddesses produces strong women," Gopalan the Los Angeles Times in 2004.

4.

5.

6.

7.

She visited India as a child and was heavily influenced by her grandfather, a high-ranking government official who fought for Indian independence, andgrandmother, an activist who traveled the countryside teaching impoverished women about birth control.

8.

9.

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11.

While attending law school in San Francisco, Harris lived with her sister, Maya, and helped potty-train Maya's daughter.

"I'm dealing with this brutal stuff, dog-eat-dog in school, and then I would come home and we would all stand by the toilet and wave bye to a piece of shit," Harris recalled in 2018. "It will put this place in perspective."

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Harris would be shunned by police unions for the next decade.

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She was under scrutiny during her tenure as San Francisco district attorney when atechnician cocaine from the DA's crime lab and mishandled evidence. Harris, trying to keep things under wraps, failed to inform defense attorneys. As a result, about a thousand drug-related cases had to be thrown out.

25.

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28.

The race was so tight that on election night, Cooley made a victory speech and the San Francisco Chronicle declared him the winner. Three weeks later, all ballots having been counted, Harris was declared the victor by 0.8 percentage points.

29.

30.

31.

Harris, however, declined to prosecute the bank or its then-CEO Steven Mnuchin, who now serves as Treasury secretary.

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She's an enthusiastic cook who bookmarks recipes from the New York Times' cooking section and has tried almost all the recipes from Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food. Her go-to dinner entree is a simple roast chicken.

47.

She collects Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers, which are her go-to travel shoes.

48.

include Native Son by Richard Wright, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

49.

50.

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If elected in November, she will be the first woman, first African American and first Asian American vice president in the history of the United States.

55.

Sources: Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, POLITICO, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, NPR, USA Today, The Washington Post, The New York Times, GovTrack, The Guardian, Vox, The Intercept, Smart Voter, Book Riot, SF Gate, Mercury News, The Cut, The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris.

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55 Things You Need to Know About Kamala Harris

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3. Her mother chose Kamala's name as a nod both to her Indian roots-Kamala means "lotus" and is another name for the Hindu goddess Lakshmi-and the empowerment of women. "A culture that worships goddesses produces strong women," Gopalan the Los Angeles Times in 2004. 4. 5. 6. 7.

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In this lesson, students will learn about the longer-term effects of President Trump's refusal to accept the election outcome and the future of the democratic process in the United States.

Democratic electors in Georgia gathered on Monday at the State Capitol in Atlanta to cast their Electoral College votes. Credit... Nicole Craine for The New York Times

Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021.
Featured Article: "4 Takeaways From Biden's Electoral College Victory" by Shane Goldmacher and Adam Nagourney
On Dec. 14, the Electoral College formally cast its votes to officially affirm Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the victor of the 2020 election. The vote follows six weeks of unprecedented efforts by President Trump to intervene in the electoral process and change the outcome of an election he lost by about seven million votes. He was joined by many Republicans who supported his unfounded claims of voter fraud, including 126House members and 18 state attorneys general who supported a case before the Supreme Court that legal experts said had no merit. The court rejected the case on Dec. 11.

"Joe Biden was confirmed as the winner of the election, but President Trump's war on the results is likely to have lasting effects for the country," write Shane Goldmacher and Adam Nagourney.

In this lesson, you will learn about the paradoxically anticlimactic but historic vote in the Electoral College and the longer-term effects of Mr. Trump's refusal to accept the outcome. In a Going Further activity, you will consider ways to safeguard future elections.

Teachers: If you're looking for an introduction to the Electoral College, you can pair this lesson with our Lesson of the Day "How Does the Electoral College Work and Why Does It Matter?"

What is your reaction to the video? What did you learn about the Electoral College and its vote?

Do you agree with Mr. Biden's statement after the vote that "the integrity of our elections remains intact"?

What questions do you still have about the 2020 election and the Electoral College vote?

How closely have you followed the political news since Mr. Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election on Nov. 7? What have you seen, heard or read about President Trump's efforts to challenge the election results? Did you receive any stories, memes or claims about election fraud on social media? Did you share any?

What is your reaction to these challenges? Do you think they will have a lasting impact on our democratic norms and institutions?

Despite these challenges, the Electoral College gathered on Dec. 14 and officially designated Mr. Biden as the president-elect and Kamala Harris as the vice president-elect. Watch the two-minute video below by CNBC and respond to these prompts:

Read the featured article, then answer the following questions:
1. The article begins: "Some electors received police escorts. Some cast their votes in an undisclosed location. Some drew a nationwide audience for what is usually a procedural and obscure constitutional undertaking." How do the opening paragraphs paint a vivid picture of the 2020 Electoral College vote? Which details stand out and why?

2. Mr. Goldmacher and Mr. Nagourney write of the Electoral College vote: "The outcome itself was unsurprising." Why then was it big news?

3. What were Americans able to see and learn about the Electoral College voting process that would receive little coverage in normal times, according to the authors? What did you find most memorable, fascinating or surprising?

4. How have Republicans responded to the Electoral College vote? How have some Republicans, like Representative Paul Mitchell of Michigan, dissented from the party's support for Mr. Trump's efforts to overturn the election results?

5. According to the authors, "democracy prevailed, but at a great price." What evidence do they provide to support their claim? Do you agree that "democracy is fragile, and built upon public trust"?

6. How are some Republicans still resisting the election results - and "reality" - according to the authors? What's next in their efforts to contest the results? Do they have any chance of succeeding?

7. After the Electoral College vote, Mr. Biden said: "Now it is time to turn the page." Do you agree? Do you think it is possible to fully turn the page and put the election behind us? What do you believe will be the long-term impact of Mr. Trump and his allies' actions on our democratic institutions and norms?

Choose one or more of the following writing prompts:

What's your reaction to the Electoral College vote? What are your own takeaways? Do you think that President Trump and his surrogates' actions since the election were a legitimate attempt to ensure a free and fair election or a dangerous attempt to subvert democracy? For many of you, this is the first presidential election you have followed: What is your takeaway about the process? About our political leaders? How will you remember the 2020 election?

The system worked - or did it? In the Debatable newsletter " Where Does American Democracy Go From Here?," Spencer Bokat-Lindell looks at what the failed efforts of Mr. Trump and his Republican allies portend for our future:

As The Times editorial board writes, the electoral system itself has proved remarkably resilient despite the stresses placed on it, including a pandemic and the largest turnout ever recorded. "The votes were counted, sometimes more than once," the board notes. "The results were certified. In the states that have attracted the particular ire of Mr. Trump and his allies, most officials, including most Republican officials, defended the integrity of the results."

That includes judicial officials, too, as Daniel Drezner points out in The Washington Post. "For all the fears about the Federalist Society and conservative court-packing," he writes, "Politico's Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein reported last week that 'several of the most devastating opinions, both Friday and in recent weeks, have come from conservative judges and, in some federal cases, Trump appointees.'" Perhaps the most decisive defeat for Mr. Trump came from the Supreme Court's ruling on the Texas lawsuit, which all three of Mr. Trump's appointees voted to shut down last week.

However, Mr. Bokat-Lindell continues:

The incompetence of Mr. Trump's attempt to subvert the election is not a reason to discount its seriousness,Zeynep Tufekci argues in The Atlantic. The end he seeks may be out of reach, but the means - a mobilization of executive, judicial and legislative power to contest election results, implicitly and explicitly endorsed by one of the country's two major parties - will now be available to more competent successors.

Consider that of the 249 Republicans in the House and Senate, 220, or 88 percent, refused in a recent survey to acknowledge that Mr. Biden had won the presidency. (Two said that Mr. Trump had won.) And when the Supreme Court handed down its ruling on the Texas lawsuit, the head of the state's Republican Party suggested that "law-abiding states" secede from the union.

"The next attempt to steal an election may involve a closer election and smarter lawsuits," she writes. "Imagine the same playbook executed with better decorum, a president exerting pressure that is less crass and issuing tweets that are more polite. If most Republican officials are failing to police this ham-handed attempt at a power grab, how many would resist a smoother, less grossly embarrassing effort?"

How worried do you think we should be about the health and resiliency of our democracy? Does the Electoral College vote show that our system works? Or does the election and the last six weeks reveal its grave vulnerability and weaknesses? What dangers do the 2020 election portend for the next close and contested one?

Both democracy optimists and pessimists can draw the conclusions they want to see from this example. Optimists can say that our election system faced the 2020 test admirably, and those who run it will be better prepared for future efforts to undermine their work. Pessimists can say that Mr. Trump's attacks will leave lasting scars. Next time, election officials might give in to political pressure. Or the damage might be invisible, like a tree's weakened root system, deterring people from running for office or working at the polls ...

There are already many reform proposals that could help rebuild democratic resilience. Many are focused on what can be reformed: institutions and the rules that govern them. For example, the nonpartisan Election Reformers Network's proposal to reduce conflicts of interest among secretaries of state, based on successful models in other countries, and other proposals to rectify Mr. Trump's attacks on checks and balances across the government.

But a healthy, resilient democracy also requires sufficient citizen support for democracy across the political spectrum. And that, in turn, depends on both parties embracing a commitment to democratic principles - a tall order given the Republican Party's recent behavior.

What do you think can be done to protect the integrity of our elections? Do you agree that "healthy, resilient democracy also requires sufficient citizen support for democracy"? How can ordinary citizens, like you, help?

About Lesson of the Day
* Find all our Lessons of the Day in this column.
* Teachers, watch our on-demand webinar to learn how to use this feature in your classroom.

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Lesson of the Day: '4 Takeaways From Biden's Electoral College Victory'

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In this lesson, students will learn about the longer-term effects of President Trump's refusal to accept the election outcome and the future of the democratic process in the United States. Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021.

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How Black Lives Matter went from a hashtag to a global rallying cry | CNN

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It began as a love letter to Black people in the wake of an unexpected verdict.

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Trump's official POTUS Twitter account will be archived on Jan. 20. But what about @realdonaldtrump - Trump's (personal) account that has 88 million followers?

Trump and his allies have even turned on once-staunch supporters who have declined to indulge the president's baseless claims of election fraud - eviscerating everyone from Attorney General Bill Barr to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to the Supreme Court justices Trump appointed. Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, lamented the "Republican turncoats" and "Republican quislings" who he accused of failing to stand up against pressure to move past the election.

And Trump lit into the Senate's second-ranking Republican Tuesday evening for discouraging his colleagues from challenging Biden's victory, with Trump vowing to end his career and warning all Senate Republicans to remember his political influence.

Meanwhile, Trump participated in more than an hour of meetings Monday with hardline GOP House members - including QAnon-boosting Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene - to map out a strategy for one final crack at challenging Biden's victory.

"This will be the new cause of the right," said one Trump-allied GOP operative, who predicted Trump would leave office on Jan. 20 but keep animating his base with a slow drip of information to fuel election-fraud theories he's pushing. "Joe Biden will take the oath of office and then his problems begin."

Trump has made no secret of his plans to remain a political force after he leaves office. His closest campaign advisers have relaunched a consulting firm that aims to keep Trump's hold on Republican politics in 2022 and beyond - with a particular focus on primary challenges to Republicans Trump has clashed with in recent months.

But the president is not done yet with his quixotic attempts to cling to power.

Over the last few days, Trump has flirted with increasingly drastic maneuvers to stave off his unceremonious exit from the White House. He huddled with advisers over the weekend to discuss a proposal to forcibly seize voting machines used in swing states where Biden won. And on Friday and several times since, he hosted Sidney Powell, a firebrand attorney promoting false voter-fraud theories in a series of lawsuits, to discuss that plan.

Also at the Friday meeting were former national security adviser Michael Flynn - who has pitched the possibility of deploying the military to redo the election - and Patrick Bryne, the former CEO of Overstock.com, who has become an increasingly prominent Trump adviser. U.S. Army officials have rejected the notion that the military would have any role in the election process.

Late on Monday, Powell amplified a suggestion that an executive order had been drafted empowering her to probe the election as a special counsel, including through the forceful seizure of voting machines - and that all Trump has to do is sign it. But the White House has given no indication that Trump intends to do this, and by late Tuesday, there had been no developments.

Powell, said a Trump campaign official, "represents one of the last hopes that he and the campaign has for any legal remedies. We're getting down to the point where there aren't a lot of options left and we've exhausted a lot of legal remedies so far. She represents that last grasp of hope for what he's trying to do."

That Friday meeting was the first time anyone in Trump's inner circle had heard about the possibility of an executive order, according to three sources familiar with the meeting. Giuliani raised the idea in response to a Trump query: What options do I have left to stay in office?

When White House counsel Pat Cipollone and chief of staff Mark Meadows said the executive order was unconstitutional, Powell and Byrne sharply pushed back. Trump remained open to the possibility.

"He was in classic CEO mode, wanting to keep all options open until they close," said a person briefed on the meeting.

Tracking the appointments, the people and the power centers of the next administration.

The discussion about appointing Powell special counsel was brief, according to two people familiar with the meeting, lasting only about five minutes.

The meeting reflected Trump's increasing gravitation to those who are willing to offer him extreme ideas that are being dismissed by his day-to-day aides. For instance, Byrne's sudden presence in the meeting confounded some current Trump advisers.

"No one seems to know where he came from," said a person familiar with the matter, who noted that Byrne's tweets after the meeting attacking Trump's aides rankled the West Wing.

"He's close with Rudy and that's why he was able to get into that Oval Office meeting," the person added, "but it's not clear what role he has in all of this besides that."

Plans for an executive order to empower Powell have stalled in recent days, though, according to those around Trump, as the president homes in on the effort to disrupt the Jan. 6 proceedings.

On Saturday, Trump spoke to Greene for 30 minutes, which resulted in the decision to schedule a Monday meeting with a broader group of Republican hardliners prepared to protest on Jan. 6. Trump also indicated in a radio interview that he spoke to Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) about a congressional challenge.

The broader group of House members that visited the Oval Office on Monday included Greene and Reps. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and others. The group discussed a strategy for the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, where a single House member, in concert with a single senator, can lodge challenges to any set of presidential electors, forcing debate and votes.

After the White House session, which included breakouts with Giuliani and Vice President Mike Pence - who is set to preside over the Jan. 6 meeting - the lawmakers emerged increasingly optimistic they will be able to force multiple votes on the matter over as many as 18 hours.

Though the participants insist this is a genuine effort to salvage Trump's presidency, the likelier effect is to force most Republicans in both chambers to vote against Trump - something they've been loath to do for four years.

That's one reason McConnell has urged his caucus to refrain from supporting challenges, a plea that looks increasingly unlikely to succeed. Tuberville has signaled he's likely to endorse a challenge. And Brooks, one of the leaders of the House effort, indicated that multiple GOP senators are expected to sign on.

Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) on Tuesday sent a letter to Texas Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn urging them to join him in challenging Biden's electors, saying it would be a "disservice to our nation to turn a blind eye" to the Trump-fueled allegations of fraud, none of which have been substantiated.

But top GOP senators say they won't get behind an ultimately futile effort. Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) told Capitol Hill reporters Monday that any challenge to Biden's win is "going down like a shot dog" and that he hoped his colleagues wouldn't force a vote on the issue.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) agreed that the outcome isn't in doubt, so a challenge would be fruitless.

"I just think it creates a situation where some of the people who would like to overturn the electoral result would be frustrated like it's some kind of lack of loyalty," Tillis said. "But it's just a procedural reality."

Trump lashed out at Thune in a Tuesday evening tweet, claiming credit for saving eight Republican Senate seats and urging the caucus - in which Thune is popular - to remember his power. "RINO John Thune, 'Mitch's boy,' should just let it play out," he said. "South Dakota doesn't like weakness. He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!"

That fear of Trump fracturing the GOP coalition is even more pronounced in GOP circles outside of Capitol Hill, where operatives fear Republicans who accept Biden's win will suffer politically.

"It certainly does put Republicans in a position of appearing as though they are actively opposing President Trump when most of them have done pretty much everything they can do to support his presidency," said a veteran GOP operative. "It obviously sets you off into a 2022 cycle where the president and his supporters are going to play a big role in continuing to shape the party and you want to keep everybody under the tent."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been among the most prominent, vocal supporters of Trump's efforts to challenge the election results, framed the Jan. 6 protest differently. He described Congress' role in finalizing the presidential election as a safety valve granted by the framers of the Constitution to prevent a "stolen" result.

"This is not a game. This is the presidency of the United States and whether or not it's basically been stolen," Gingrich said in an interview. He added that if indisputable evidence of such fraud doesn't materialize between now and Jan. 6, he said there would be "no basis" for a challenge.

Some Republicans aligned with Trump say the president is likely to be the last person to realize when his efforts to stay in power have failed.

"You would be hard pressed to find someone besides the president who thinks Jan. 6 is going to stop Biden from taking office," said a Republican close to the White House.

Still, the person added, making a public display of challenging the results may help assuage the Trump supporters who have bought into false claims of a fraudulent election.

"That's not going to be enough for the president to just move on," the Republican said, "but it gives the party a way out without totally infuriating him."
Melanie Zanona and James Arkin contributed to this report.

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Trump orchestrates final loyalty test in dying bid to subvert election

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Trump's official POTUS Twitter account will be archived on Jan. 20. But what about @realdonaldtrump - Trump's (personal) account that has 88 million followers? Trump and his allies have even turned on once-staunch supporters who have declined to indulge the president's baseless claims of election fraud - eviscerating everyone from Attorney General Bill Barr to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to the Supreme Court justices Trump appointed.

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The Presidential Transition

In his victory speech, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said of Black voters: "You've always had my back, and I'll have yours." Many of those voters are watching to see what he does in office.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. with his wife and granddaughter at Royal Missionary Baptist Church in North Charleston, S.C., in February. He won the state's primary later that month. Credit... Hilary Swift for The New York Times

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. - Joseph R. Biden Jr. went to the Royal Missionary Baptist Church in South Carolina in late February, before the state's presidential primary, and listened as the Rev. Isaac J. Holt Jr. delivered a message of encouragement.

"You're going to win," Mr. Holt said he told Mr. Biden privately, a political prophecy that was fulfilled in the coming days.

Now Mr. Holt, the pastor of one of Charleston's largest Black congregations, has another message for Mr. Biden as he plans for his incoming administration: "Biden owes us. And we have not forgotten."

Black voters have a political marriage of convenience with the Democratic Party. They are at once the party's most solid voting demographic and deeply frustrated by the lack of systemic change its politicians have delivered for them.

In South Carolina, the state that helped propel Mr. Biden to the Democratic nomination and where about half of the Democratic electorate is Black, voters complain of receiving campaign promises from politicians while they are running but not being prioritized once they are elected.

There are similar grievances among voters in cities like Milwaukee, Detroit and Philadelphia, hubs of general-election campaigning in key swing states, who have grown used to the silence that follows presidential election years.

In their telling, attention quickly shifts to midterm races in gerrymandered, Republican-leaning congressional districts, and the Black voters who helped Democrats ascend to the White House are sometimes discarded. Their issues are too divisive. Their needs are too great.

Mr. Biden has insisted that this time will be different, and people like Mr. Holt are taking him at his word. Last month, in his victory speech after becoming president-elect, Mr. Biden cited Black voters specifically, alluding to those who rallied around him in South Carolina after his primary campaign flopped in other early-voting states.

"Especially at those moments when this campaign was at its lowest ebb, the African-American community stood up again for me," Mr. Biden said. "You've always had my back, and I'll have yours."

But who defines political priorities for Black voters, and what does it mean to have their back?

Leading Black politicians, civil rights leaders, activists and many of the same South Carolina church leaders Mr. Biden leaned on to turn his campaign around all said in interviews that it was important to address the coronavirus pandemic. But they also raised issues that ran the gamut of liberal policy initiatives, from investing in small businesses and historically Black colleges and universities to tackling student debt and climate change.

Many also pushed back against the singular focus on racial representation that has dominated debates over Mr. Biden's transition team and cabinet picks. Having a cabinet that reflects the racial diversity of America is good, they said. But they added that Mr. Biden's legacy on race would be judged on his willingness to pursue policy changes that address systemic racism - a standard he has set for himself.

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Mr. Biden has sought to build a diverse cabinet with selections like Representative Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio for housing secretary. But many civil rights leaders said action was more important than representation. Credit... Hilary Swift for The New York Times

"What he's got to do, in my opinion, is to depart from the tradition," said Representative James E. Clyburn, the powerful South Carolina Democrat who is the highest ranking Black member of the House. "What is getting us in trouble in the past is when people get into office, they abandon the platform they ran on" in favor of appeasing Republicans, he said.

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, cited a commitment Mr. Biden had made during a public forum to prioritize eliminating poverty and addressing the concerns of poor people.

Live up to that, he said, and a cross-racial section of marginalized Americans, including Black people, will have their lives transformed.

"We certainly want to see a cabinet that looks like America. But more important, we want to see a cabinet that works for America," Dr. Barber said. "And not just the middle class. And not just the so-called working class. But from the bottom up."

In effect, they are asking President Biden to take a cue from candidate Biden. During the primary and general election, and under pressure from activists who cast Mr. Biden as an artifact of the political past, his team embraced a plan for Black Americans called "Lift Every Voice," which would seek to close the Black-white income gap, expand educational opportunities, invest $70 billion in H.B.C.U.s and reimagine the criminal justice system and policing.

Mr. Biden's selection of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, the first Black woman on a major party ticket, was - with the campaign's encouragement - taken as a symbolic affirmation of these commitments. Former President Barack Obama, the country's first Black president, had to assure white America he would be a president for all races. But Mr. Biden repeatedly asserted that Black communities would get special attention in his administration.

Black political leaders believe that the biggest barrier to Mr. Biden's commitment to address systemic racism is his own instinct for compromise, bipartisanship and deference to the idea of Washington civility. Mr. Biden has consistently restated his belief that congressional Republicans will work with his administration in due time, though some of them continue to cast doubt on the legitimacy of his victory and President Trump shows no signs of loosening his grip on the party's base.

"Bipartisanship is how the president-elect and vice president-elect plan to get things done from Day 1," said Ramzey Smith, a spokesman for Mr. Biden's transition team. "They've made it abundantly clear that in order to combat the systemic inequities that Black Americans have faced for generations, it is imperative to work across the aisle and engage with all groups to reach a consensus that doesn't compromise our principles or priorities."

Some Black leaders who have met with Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris during the transition have been frustrated by this sentiment, according to several people familiar with the discussions. Mr. Biden, the leader of the Democratic Party, is one of the few Democrats left who believes that the Republicans who reflexively opposed Mr. Obama's every action and have been slow to acknowledge Mr. Biden's legitimacy are simply an aberration.

Leaders are asking him to consider unilateral action like executive orders to enact his agenda, claiming that Washington horse-trading has rarely prioritized the needs of Black communities. Mr. Biden has been steadfast: Republicans will come around.

"We will see if he's right, and we'll see very shortly," said Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., who has met with the Biden transition team. "If he's not, we'll also see it very shortly."

She added: "It's perfectly fine to be hopeful. But certainly you should be fully prepared to pivot and to be effective."

Even vocal allies of Mr. Biden say his ability to rise to the standards he set for himself, particularly when it comes to racial equity and a Black agenda, may rely on his willingness to see Republicans as obstructionists to be overcome, not negotiators to be met at a midpoint.

Representative James E. Clyburn's endorsement of Mr. Biden ahead of the South Carolina primary was viewed as key to his decisive victory in the contest. Credit... Travis Dove for The New York Times

Mr. Clyburn, whose well-timed endorsement of Mr. Biden in South Carolina helped ensure his dominance in the state, said Mr. Biden must learn from the mistakes made by previous Democratic leaders, including Mr. Obama.

He cited Mr. Obama's Supreme Court nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland, whom Republicans refused to even grant a hearing, as an example.

Republicans "lied to him and told him that if he put up a moderate, they will approve him for the Supreme Court," Mr. Clyburn said. "They never did it and they never planned to do it."

"I told them at the time that you will be better off putting up an African-American woman for the Supreme Court," he added. "If you put up a Black woman, she would have an immediate constituency. Make them turn her down. He would have redefined politics in this country, and frankly I think Hillary Clinton would have been elected president."

The Rev. Joseph A. Darby Jr., the senior pastor at Nichols Chapel A.M.E. Church in Charleston and a former leader of the local N.A.A.C.P., said he had been heartened by Mr. Biden's cabinet choices, including that of retired Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, who would be the first Black man to lead the Defense Department.

"Just having new folks at the table is helpful," Mr. Darby said. "But it's that plus the substance."

The stakes could not be higher. Black people sit at the intersection of the year's biggest policy priorities: access to health care, criminal justice and the climate change crisis. Black Americans have been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, dying, being hospitalized and facing economic devastation at disproportionate rates.

In Mr. Darby's congregation, a mother and her child both died from the virus. Mr. Holt's congregation hasn't been able to convene since March, just weeks after Mr. Biden spoke from the pulpit as a candidate.

Last week, in an interview at his church, Mr. Holt made another of his patented political predictions: If Mr. Biden does not follow through on his promises to Black people - does not make eroding systemic racism a priority in deed, not just words - Republicans will make gains with Black voters.

He cited the modest shift toward Mr. Trump in November's election among some Black voters and the increasingly nonpartisan nature of younger Black people. Those are warning signs, he said.

"The party system is not something that fits the Black community as a whole," Mr. Holt said. "We're tired of Democrats and we're tired of the two-party system."

Some of Mr. Holt's congregants, at a socially distant gathering in the sanctuary they hadn't visited in months, echoed their pastor's urgency. Though they expressed confidence in Mr. Biden and said they all voted for him in the primary and general elections, they framed their choice as a call for action rather than a blank check of trust.

"He can't get stuck on healing hearts," said Shakeima Chatman, 46, a real estate agent. "But he can institute policies and regulation."

What gave them hope: that Mr. Biden was comfortable among Black voters on the campaign trail and the loyalty he showed to Mr. Obama as his vice president.

What worried them: that he favorably invoked segregationists in the name of bipartisanship, that he said Black people who did not support him "ain't Black," and that he told wealthy donors at a fund-raiser that "nothing would fundamentally change" if he was elected.

For Black communities, it must.

"Policies created these disparities," said Cleo Scott Brown, who is 66. "Policy has to fix it."

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What Does Joe Biden Owe to Black Communities?

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The Presidential Transition In his victory speech, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said of Black voters: "You've always had my back, and I'll have yours." Many of those voters are watching to see what he does in office. NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. - Joseph R. Biden Jr.

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What to Know About Breonna Taylor’s Death

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Fury over her killing by the police in Louisville, Ky., fueled protests, and questions persist about how the botched raid unfolded.

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On Nov. 22, 2014, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black child, was shot and killed by a white police officer while playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in Cleveland, Ohio. Surveillance video of the shooting garnered worldwide attention, which led to Rice becoming a symbol for the Black Lives Matter movement. Both officers involved were cleared of criminal charges, though one was terminated in 2017 after it was revealed that he had previously been dismissed from another police department. This information was not disclosed on his job application with the Cleveland Police Department. The police union is appealing a decision upholding the termination. After her son's death, Rice's mother, Samaria, launched The Tamir Rice Foundation, which aims to enrich children through after-school programs in arts and culture. The organization also seeks police reform by advocating to change laws and implementing new policies. Samaria Rice was one of seven mothers who sat down with ABC News' Deborah Roberts for "Good Morning America" to share the stories of the children they lost and their journeys as Black mothers in America. In her own words, Samaria recounts her emotional journey and shares her opinions that have been shaped by her life-changing loss.
People used to joke and say my son was going to be with me until he was 35 years old. They probably would have been right. He was mommy's baby.

Tamir had just turned 12 years old and was transitioning from playing with Legos to playing video games and becoming a teen.

As a single parent and his dad not really being around, Tamir was very attached to me. He would give me hugs and kisses. He was able to keep the family laughing and basically kept us glued together.

He went from one activity to the next. He really enjoyed soccer. He enjoyed football. He enjoyed basketball as well. He liked to draw, too. He was part of the art program. He liked his school, for the most part. I would say he liked science and reading. I was able to expose him to the things that I wasn't exposed to. I put him in mentoring and tutoring. I really tried to keep him out of trouble by keeping him busy.

He was loving and caring but he was a jokester -- definitely a ladies' man.

If Tamir was alive, he'd probably be doing something with sports. That little boy was so athletic at an early age. I'm not sure what kind of athlete he would have been. We didn't really have a chance to have a lot of those conversations. He would be 18 and have graduated high school by now.

That day Tamir was murdered I received a knock at the door and it was a neighborhood kid saying my son had been shot by police. I said, "What are you talking about?" I was in denial and shock.

No parent should have to endure something like this.

As I arrived on the scene, my 14-year-old was in the back of a police car. Tamir was laying on the pavement in a gazebo with police surrounding him. My 16-year-old was surrounded by police officers as well. Basically, police told me to calm down or else they were going to put me in the back of a police car. They gave me an ultimatum to stay at the scene of the crime, or to go with Tamir in the ambulance.

The day was very horrific for me. I was enraged by the way he was killed, murdered, assassinated, lynched, whatever they may call it. Nobody bothered to look at this man's record before he became a Cleveland police officer. He had a horrible report. Nobody in Cleveland did their job, and that's why I have a dead son today.

I have a lot of confusion about why this has happened. But at the end of the day, God is using me in a way that's much bigger than all of us.

God is using me in a way that's much bigger than all of us.

Being a Black mother in America is stressful. I'm nervous and scared all the time. What America had done by killing our children, a lot of us walk around angry. I have taken my anger and created something positive.

No parent should have to endure something like this. Before, I was just living a normal life, trying to take care of my kids.

Now, I'm not allowed to be normal because of what America has done to my family.

Tamir is in high demand and I'm his voice, so that keeps me really busy in wanting to give back to the community with his foundation, and things that I'm doing with the platform that I have -- the platform that America has provided me. They provided it for me because they murdered my son. I'm still being a mom, a grandmother and I'm always going to be fighting for police reform, dismantling the whole system.

When I hear there's a new victim of police brutality or a hate crime, it's just this numbing feeling. It makes me feel like there's no hope, and makes me feel that America does not care about us as Black and brown people. My son was assassinated. With that being seen all over the world, I think it deserves an indictment, a conviction on a federal level.

I've connected with a whole bunch of moms and I'm not happy to be among this group. The group I do want to be a part of, is the group that treats all Americans equally.

When I hear there's a new victim of police brutality or a hate crime, it's just this numbing feeling.

With all the protests across the country, I do see a united rainbow out there. I'm actually happy, but I don't want the message to get lost with the vandalism and the burnings. They need to have a clear agenda on why they're out there marching. Congress, Supreme Court and the governor-that's where everything should be addressed to. Nobody in America should be comfortable sleeping at night with what's going on in this country.

As Americans, we come in all shades of colors. I'm sure that's what Tamir would say. He had friends from all shades of colors --Arab to Asian to white to Puerto Rican, Latino. So, he probably would want to see everybody be treated fairly in America.

Being Tamir's mother I want to be able to represent the people and represent my son in the most honorable way. He was 12 years old. You can't diminish a 12-year-old's character. You cannot. It's time for a change.

I just wish my baby was here. I miss his smile, his hug, his touch.

If the death of Tamir has made people have a change of heart, or has affected their lives in some way, for the better, I guess I'm okay with that. But, I would rather have my son back. I would rather have him back home with us, as a family.
The views and opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of ABC News.

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My 12-year-old son, Tamir Rice, was killed by police. I'm not allowed to be normal.

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On Nov. 22, 2014, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black child, was shot and killed by a white police officer while playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in Cleveland, Ohio. Surveillance video of the shooting garnered worldwide attention, which led to Rice becoming a symbol for the Black Lives Matter movement.

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Ms. Moore took a break from basketball to help free Jonathan Irons. His conviction on burglary and assault charges was overturned in March.

A journey for justice turned into a love story when Maya Moore, one of the W.N.B.A.'s brightest stars, married the man she helped free from prison.

The man, Jonathan Irons, walked out of a Missouri prison on July 1 - more than 20 years after he was convicted on charges of burglary and assault. Mr. Irons, who pleaded not guilty, has insisted that he was not at the scene of the crime and had been misidentified.

Ms. Moore's family met Mr. Irons through prison ministry in 2007. She visited shortly before her freshman year at the University of Connecticut, where she became one of the most heralded women's basketball players in collegiate history.

"We wanted to announce today that we are super excited to continue the work that we've been doing together, but doing it as a married couple," Ms. Moore, seated beside Mr. Irons, said on Wednesday on "Good Morning America."

The couple said they planned to continue to educate people about voting and to help others who had been wrongfully convicted. "We're doing our part," Mr. Irons said.

Ms. Moore added that sometime in the spring she would have a "next step moving forward" concerning her basketball career, which she put on hold last year to answer what she said was a call from God.

When Mr. Irons first met Ms. Moore in prison, he was skeptical. He said he thought that Ms. Moore, 18 at the time, was at the prison for a token visit. But she wanted to hear his story.

She told him, "I'm here because I care," she recalled in an interview last year with The New York Times.

In an interview last year, Mr. Irons called Ms. Moore a lifesaver who gave him hope. "She is light," he said. "Pure light."

During college, Ms. Moore said, she began to consider Mr. Irons as she would a sibling. It was challenging to go to Missouri for visits, but they kept in touch.She sent him books by her favorite spiritual writers, and sometimes before her big games, they spoke on the phone.

It wasn't until 2016 that Ms. Moore spoke publicly about the friendship between her and Mr. Irons, when she began championing changes in law enforcement and the legal system after a series of police shootings of unarmed Black men.

She became a strong voice for prosecutorial changes. She stunned the sports world when she announced in February 2019 that she would step away from her career in women's basketball, in part so she could help Mr. Irons in what they thought would be his final appeal.

In March, Mr. Irons's conviction was overturned by a state judge in Jefferson City, Mo. Mr. Irons was 16 when the crime for which he was convicted occurred. He was prosecuted for burglarizing a home in a St. Louis suburb and assaulting the homeowner with a gun.

But there were no corroborating witnesses, fingerprints, DNA or blood evidence connecting Mr. Irons to the crime.

Prosecutors claimed that Mr. Irons admitted to breaking into the victim's home, but Mr. Irons and his lawyers denied that. The officer who interrogated Mr. Irons did so alone and failed to record the conversation. Mr. Irons, who is African-American, was tried as an adult and found guilty by an all-white jury.

The judge's decision hinged on fingerprint evidence that had not been divulged by prosecutors in Mr. Irons's initial trial. Kent Gipson, Mr. Irons's lawyer, argued that the state withheld that evidence, which could have shown someone else was responsible for the crime.

Mr. Irons was released from prison in July, nearly four months after his conviction was overturned. Ms. Moore sunk to her knees when he walked out. Soon after, they married.

A few years ago, when Ms. Moore came to visit Mr. Irons in prison, they both admitted they had strong feelings for each other. He said he wanted to marry her, but he said he also felt a need to protect her "because being in a relationship with a man in prison is extremely difficult and painful."

In their hotel room after his release, Mr. Irons said, he knelt down and asked Ms. Moore to marry him.

She said yes.

"Over time, it was pretty clear what the Lord was doing in our hearts," Ms. Moore said, "and now we're sitting here today, starting a whole new chapter together."

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Maya Moore, W.N.B.A. Star, Marries Man She Helped Free From Prison

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Ms. Moore took a break from basketball to help free Jonathan Irons. His conviction on burglary and assault charges was overturned in March. A journey for justice turned into a love story when Maya Moore, one of the W.N.B.A.'s brightest stars, married the man she helped free from prison.