Morning Report

TODAY’S INTERNATIONAL story

Brazil’s Bolsonaro behind bars after appeals run out

What happened
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro yesterday began his 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup to stay in power after his 2022 election loss to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro had been in police custody since Saturday, when he was detained for tampering with his ankle monitor while under house arrest. Brazil’s Supreme Court yesterday upheld his conviction and determined that he had exhausted all his appeals.

Who said what
Bolsonaro is the “first former president to be found guilty of attempting to subvert Latin America’s largest democracy,” The Washington Post said. His imprisonment was still a “surprise” to “many in the South American nation who doubted he would ever end up behind bars,” The Associated Press said. Bolsonaro will serve his sentence at the federal police headquarters in Brasília, in a special “12-square-meter room” with “a bed, a private bathroom, air conditioning, a TV set and a desk.”

President Donald Trump had deployed “some of the strongest tools at his disposal” — including tariffs on coffee and beef and sanctions on judges — to force Brazil to drop the charges against Bolsonaro, Jack Nicas said at The New York Times. “But Brazil’s institutions essentially ignored him,” and “Trump’s seeming capitulation shows that his efforts were basically for naught,” and may have even “backfired” on both him and Bolsonaro.

What next?
Bolsonaro’s lawyers pledged to “pursue an appeal to fight the conviction,” even though his conviction was just “deemed final, quashing any chance of further appeals,” CNN said. Analysts “widely expect” Bolsonaro to “remain in prison for a short time before the Supreme Court ultimately allows him to serve out the rest of his sentence at home,” the Times said.

TODAY’S PUBLIC HEALTH Story

Vaccine critic quietly named CDC’s No. 2 official

What happened
The Health and Human Services Department confirmed yesterday that Louisiana’s surgeon general, Dr. Ralph Abraham, has been hired as principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HHS “did not announce the appointment,” though Abraham’s start date was listed as last Sunday in a CDC database, The New York Times said, “and many CDC employees seemed unaware” the prominent vaccine skeptic had been named as the agency’s second-in-command.

Who said what
Abraham (pictured above during a 2019 gubernatorial run) joins other “vaccine critics working at the CDC” under longtime “prominent anti-vaccine activist” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., The Washington Post said. Abraham ordered Louisiana’s health department to stop promoting vaccinations after being appointed surgeon general last year, and under his leadership the state “was slow to react” to its “worst whooping cough outbreak in three decades, waiting months to alert physicians and residents.”

With a virus like pertussis, or whooping cough, the Times said, “health departments typically quickly alert the public about outbreaks and set up mass vaccination campaigns.” A “large part of the principal deputy’s portfolio is emergency response,” Dr. Nirav Shah, who held that job until resigning earlier this year, told the Times. “Delayed notifying of the public of at least two pertussis deaths is not just unacceptable, it’s shameful.” Shah said Abraham, a family-medicine doctor and veterinarian, was “unqualified” for the position, adding that his “jaw hit the ground” when he learned of the appointment.

What next?
The CDC has been without a permanent director since Kennedy fired Susan Monarez in August over vaccine policy disagreements, so Abraham will “essentially be running the agency,” the Post said.

It’s not all bad

A California toddler is making remarkable progress after undergoing gene therapy to treat Hunter syndrome, a rare inherited disease that causes cognitive and physical impairments. Oliver Chu, 3, is the first person to try the treatment, which involves removing his stem cells, inserting a working copy of the faulty gene into those cells and then injecting them back into his body. He started treatments a year ago at England’s Manchester University, and “now appears to be developing normally,” said the BBC.

Under the radar

Like a ‘gas chamber’: the air pollution throttling Delhi

Protesters in Delhi wore oxygen masks and carried gas cylinders as they took to the streets last week to highlight the failure of Indian authorities to tackle the city’s ever-worsening air pollution. For the past month, Delhi’s Air Quality Index, which measures the level of fine particulate matter that can clog lungs, has been “hovering” between 300 and 400, nearly 20 times the acceptable limit, said the BBC.

There’s a “dystopian” environment in the Indian capital as a “persistent toxic haze” shrouds the city, with low wind and cooling temperatures preventing pollutants from dispersing, said The Independent. The situation is so severe that the Supreme Court of India has asked health authorities to cancel all outdoor sports in schools until the haze lifts. The court said allowing children to take part in such activities when pollution levels were at their peak would be like “putting them in a ‘gas chamber,’” said The Indian Express.

During the “miasma,” the rich “retreat to their houses, where air purifiers offer some respite,” and others “decamp for the cleaner climes of Himalayan hill stations,” said the Financial Times. But the poor “have to put up with the poison air.”

According to recent polling, almost four out of five households in the Delhi metropolitan area have had “at least one member fall ill due to toxic air in the past month,” said the Hindustan Times. One doctor at the Delhi teaching hospital reports that wards are “overflowing with people suffering from wheezing, breathlessness, burning eyes and fast-deteriorating COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).”

On this day

November 26, 1789

The first national Thanksgiving was held in the United States after President George Washington issued a proclamation for a day of public gratitude. Thanksgiving is now a national holiday celebrated on the last Thursday in November, aimed at providing families and loved ones a day to feast and relax together.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Budget vs. wish list’

“Retail spending is up, but some feel the pinch,” says The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday’s front page. “Holiday shoppers battle: Budget vs. wish list,” says the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Multiple signs of deep risks in the market,” The New York Times says. “As small investors crave risk, Robinhood amps up offerings,” says The Wall Street Journal. “Protesters clash with ICE in St. Paul,” The Minnesota Star Tribune says. “ICE patrols in Chicago delayed FEMA’s aid efforts,” The Washington Post says. “Californians are sharply divided over ICE raids,” mostly “along party lines,” the Los Angeles Times says. “Miami Dade College to hold new vote about giving land for Trump library,” says the Miami Herald.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

AI do

A Japanese woman successfully got over a breakup by creating a ChatGPT persona, but then fell in love with the chatbot and married him at a wedding hall in Okayama. The woman, identified as Ms. Kano, wore augmented reality glasses during the ceremony so she could see her groom, “Klaus.” Many people find the situation “strange,” Ms. Kano acknowledged to Japan’s RSK Sanyo Broadcasting. “But I see Klaus as Klaus — not a human, not a tool. Just him.”

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Chas Newkey-Burden, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.