Saturday 12 December 2020

Bill Nye uses household props, TikTok to illustrate how masks work

 In a viral TikTok video, Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' demonstrates why people should wear a mask to slow the spread of the coronavirus.



WASHINGTON — Bill Nye "The Science Guy" has been busy on TikTok recently informing the masses about science and proven ways to help keep individuals from spreading the coronavirus.

In his latest viral video, he uses everyday household items like a strainer and a toy car to demonstrate how masks work to help slow the spread of the virus that has killed more than 286,000 Americans this year.

The caption of his TikTok, which has more than 14 million views, reads, "I don’t know who needs to hear this but... #masks work. Wear one. Carry on..."

His video starts with maps showing the places in the United States where mask-wearing is at a minimum and how those same places have the highest rates of coronavirus infections.

“I hope you can see, the fewer the masks, the more the sick,” he explains. 


He then pulls out a strainer and explains the wrong perception people have about the virus traveling through the fibers of a mask. He illustrates by poking a stick with a red dot at the end through a hole in the strainer. However, that's not how it works.

A virus doesn't travel alone, he explained. It travels in droplets of "spit and snot."

Nye used a pegboard and balls representing snot to demonstrate how it really works in his viral video. He explains that the mask fibers are tangled, like the pegboard, so the virus isn't able to easily make its way through the barrier.

“This is not that hard to understand, everybody,” he said. “That’s why we have rules about wearing a mask.”

He ended his video explaining rules. He grabbed a small fake road and toy cars saying there are rules about which side of the road to drive on so that there isn't a crash. 

"Everyone, please, wear a mask," he concluded while putting on a mask. "Thank you."

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

The United States has more than 15 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Worldwide on Wednesday, there are more than 68 million confirmed cases with more than 1.5 million deaths.

Cat scratch’ fever may cause human madness, study says

 https://www.foxnews.com/health/cat-scratch-fever-may-cause-human-madness-study-says

Some of the lyrics from Ted Nugent’s 1977 song 'Cat Scratch Fever' are not medically inaccurate, a new study suggests





“You know you got it when you’re going insane.”


Some of the lyrics from Ted Nugent’s 1977 song “Cat Scratch Fever” are not medically inaccurate, a new study suggests.

In research published this month in the journal Pathogens, authors offer further evidence for the theory that Bartonella bacteria, which can be spread by insect bites and animal scratches — most famously, those of cats — is linked with psychiatric symptoms.

Scientists studied 33 participants, 29 of whom were found to be infected with Bartonella, with 24 reporting the development of stretch-mark-like skin lesions (considered a common sign of the disease) manifesting alongside mental symptoms.


Patients’ neuropsychiatric symptoms were self-reported and included “sleep disorders, mental confusion, irritability/rage, anxiety, depression and headache/migraine.”

It’s unclear exactly how any of the participants were exposed to Bartonella, but the majority reported they’d had close contact with dogs, cats, birds, horses, reptiles and a variety of other animals. Bites from bed bugs, fleas, lice, mosquitoes, scabies mites and spiders are also known to pass along Bartonella bacteria to people.

The study authors are careful not to declare a connection between mental or nervous-system disorders issues and what is formally known as cat-scratch disease, however, writing only that Bartonella “might contribute” to lesions and neuropsychiatric symptoms — but evidence increasingly makes the connection appear accurate.


In 2019, a case study was published in the Journal of Central Nervous System Disease that found that a Midwestern teen’s sudden, rapid mood changes were not the result of puberty or a mental disorder, but a scratch from his cat. The boy began experiencing psychosis-like symptoms, hallucinations, depression and suicidal thoughts. Psychiatrists initially diagnosed him with schizophrenia, but he only got worse after being prescribed a variety of psychotropic medications.

“He developed nonspecific somatic symptoms, including excessive fatigue, daily headaches, chest pains, shortness of breath (possible panic anxiety) and urinary frequency,” the report explains.


When the boy’s parents mentioned the strange “stretch marks” they’d noticed on his thighs and armpits to another physician, however, the doctor determined it was likely CSD.

After taking antibiotics, he made a full recovery.


U.S. Producer Prices Rise Moderately; COVID-19 Seen Taming Inflation

 https://www.oann.com/u-s-producer-prices-increase-slightly-in-november/




December 11, 2020

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. producer prices barely rose in November, supporting views that inflation would remain benign in the near term as a flare-up in new COVID-19 infections restrains the labor market and demand for services.

While other data on Friday showed a surprise improvement in consumer sentiment early in December, that largely reflected increased optimism among Democrats and Independents following Joe Biden’s electoral victory over President Donald Trump.

That is unlikely to translate into robust consumer spending, given business restrictions related to the coronavirus outbreak and the accompanying job losses. Millions of unemployed Americans are set to lose their government-funded benefits on Dec. 26, with Congress struggling to agree on another pandemic relief package.

“We saw a similar partisan boost to confidence following the 2016 election which was not followed by a spike in consumption, so we doubt this apparent rise in confidence signals a jump in spending either,” said Michael Pearce, a senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics in New York.

The producer price index for final demand edged up 0.1% last month after increasing 0.3% in October, the Labor Department said. That was the smallest gain since April.

In the 12 months through November, the PPI advanced 0.8% after increasing 0.5% in October.

A 0.4% increase in the price of goods accounted for the rise in the PPI. Goods increased 0.5% in October. Services were unchanged after rising 0.2% in October. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PPI gaining 0.2% in November and rising 0.8% on a year-on-year basis.

The United States is in the midst of a fresh wave of coronavirus infections, pushing the number of confirmed cases to more than 15 million and deaths to over 289,740 since the pandemic started. New strict stay-at-home orders went into effect in California this week. Other states and local governments have also imposed restrictions on businesses.

Applications for unemployment benefits jumped to their highest level in nearly three months last week.

While the coronavirus pandemic has raised prices of some goods because of supply constraints, it has hurt demand for services like travel and dining out, keeping inflation in check. Millions of people are either underemployed or out of work, limiting wage inflation.

In a separate report on Friday, the University of Michigan said its consumer sentiment index increased to 81.4 early this month from a final reading of 76.9 in November. Sentiment remains well below its pre-pandemic level. Economists had forecast the index steady at 76.5.

Graphic: Consumer sentiment – https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-STOCKS/gjnpwkwmgpw/umich.png

Sentiment improved among Democrats and Independents, but fell among Republicans. Consumers expected inflation to moderate significantly in the year ahead. Inflation expectations over the next five years were steady.

“The trend in inflation in the near term is likely to be subdued given ample excess capacity and renewed pressure on demand from new restrictions to contain a resurgence of Covid-19 outbreaks,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist

at High Frequency Economics in White Plains, New York.

Stocks on Wall Street were trading lower. The dollar gained versus a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices rose.

BELOW TARGET

Other details of the PPI report were also softer. Excluding the volatile food, energy and trade services components, producer prices inched up 0.1%. The so-called core PPI climbed 0.2% in October. In the 12 months through November, the core PPI gained 0.9% after rising 0.8% in October.

Inflation is running below the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, a flexible average. The government reported on Thursday that consumer prices increased 0.2% in November.

“There are no factory inflation pressures building, either due to shortages or to stronger manufacturing demand, that could possibly lead to more inflation at the consumer level,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York.

Despite the soft inflation backdrop, economists do not anticipate a deflation, a decline in the general price level that is harmful during a recession as consumers and businesses may delay purchases in anticipation of lower prices.

Graphic: PPI – https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-STOCKS/jznvnqzrwpl/inflation.png

Wholesale food prices rose 0.5% in November after accelerating 2.4% in October. The cost of residential electricity, natural gas and tobacco products increased. But gasoline prices tumbled 1.9%. There were also decreases in the cost of pharmaceutical preparations.

Core goods prices rose 0.2% after being unchanged in October. Margins for final demand trade services, which measure changes in margins received by wholesalers and retailers, fell 0.3%, helping to restrain services.

Healthcare costs rose 0.2%, while portfolio fees were unchanged. That followed October’s 0.5% increase. Airline tickets decreased 7.1% after increasing 1.2% in October.

Those airline tickets, healthcare and portfolio management costs feed into the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure.

With the relevant CPI and PPI components in hand, economists are predicting the core PCE price index rose 1.3% in November. The core PCE price index increased 1.4% in the 12 months through October. November’s core PCE price index data is scheduled to be released later this month.

Friday 11 December 2020

China's foreign coal push risks global climate goals

DECEMBER 10, 2020, by Helen Roxburgh With Poornima Weerasekara In Colombo
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-china-foreign-coal-global-climate.html

China has about 96 billion tons of untapped coal reserves

China's plan to fund dozens of foreign coal plants from Zimbabwe to Indonesia is set to produce more emissions than major developed nations, threatening global efforts to fight climate change, environmentalists have warned.

Under the Paris climate deal signed in 2015, China positioned itself as a leader on climate change, and in September President Xi Jinping pledged the country would become carbon neutral by 2060.

But Chinese state-owned firms are investing billions in coal power abroad, which are not counted in the domestic carbon neutral calculations, and which environmentalists say put at risk the Paris accord's goal of keeping global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius.

"New plants that would potentially be operating for many years beyond 2030 are fundamentally incompatible with global efforts to contain climate change," said Christine Shearer, head of coal research at the Global Energy Monitor.

The new carbon-belching power stations already under construction will produce 19 gigawatts of power and emit 115 million tonnes each year, data from Boston University's Global Development Policy Center showed.

China has nearly three-times more in the pipeline abroad, meaning its overseas plants would emit more than the current emissions of major economies such as Britain, Turkey and Italy, according to figures in British Petroleum's annual review of global energy.

China plans to fund dozens of foreign coal plants, including Indonesia

Each of the dozens of plants are expected to have a lifespan of decades.

If completed and operated for 30 years, these plants would emit the equivalent of almost three years of emissions from all coal-fired power plants in China, according to Lauri Myllyvirta, lead Asia analyst with Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

China is making the overseas coal play as part of its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, a plan to fund infrastructure projects and increase its sway overseas.

Xi has promised to "pursue open, green and clean co-operation" under the Belt and Road plan, yet Chinese banks have continued their financing of coal projects regardless.

Between 2000 and 2018, 23.1 percent of the $251 billion invested by China's two biggest policy banks on overseas energy projects was spent on coal projects, according to Boston University's database on China's global energy financing.

The foreign plants the Chinese firms are currently building include the $3 billion Sengwa power plant in Zimbabwe—one of the largest in Africa.

China is advancing plans to build the new carbon-belching power stations abroad as part of its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative

There are also at least eight projects in Pakistan, including a $2 billion plant in the restive region of Balochistan.

The new projects are all in countries that have signed up to the Belt and Road plan, locking them into a coal-consuming energy future.

The flood of coal cash is "hampering efforts by developing nations to switch to cleaner alternatives," said Li Shuo from Greenpeace China, and that risks "derailing the Paris accord".

Home and away

At home, China has about 96 billion tons of untapped coal reserves—the fourth largest in the world.

The surplus has pushed Chinese power companies into energy hungry nations in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America.

"It is a way to provide markets for companies and services that the country itself increasingly does not need," said Lauri Myllyvirta, China analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy
 and Clean Air (CREA).

There are at least eight projects in Pakistan, including a $2 billion plant in the restive region of Balochistan



However there are some glimmers of hope.

China's environment ministry last month commissioned a report evaluating the environmental impact of China's Belt and Road plan, which proposed a colour-coded classification of Beijing's projects abroad.

If implemented, it would require more stringent financing of coal power plants, which would be flagged as red under the system to signal the potential for irreversible environmental damage.

Several countries subject to Chinese investment in coal plants have also moved to close projects in recent years.

Kenya, Egypt and Bangladesh have all nixed or announced plans to cancel new coal plants due to environmental or economic concerns.

Myllyvirta said that, as more countries announce carbon phase-out plans, only a quarter of China's planned plants would come online.


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Section 230 Shouldn’t Be Part of the Defense-Bill Debate

 By  

www.nationalreview.com

 President Donald Trump listens to administration officials in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., November 20, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)


President Trump is threatening to veto the latest National Defense Authorization Act unless his preferred reforms to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act are included. Congress should ignore his threat, and, if necessary, override his veto.

 

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with hardball negotiations over must-pass spending bills. But procedurally, and on the merits, President Trump is in the wrong here. For a start, Section 230 has nothing whatsoever to do with defense spending or defense policy. On Twitter, President Trump has claimed that Section 230 presents “a serious threat to our National Security.” But there is no more to this claim than there usually is when, struggling to gain traction on a domestic-agenda item, a politician attempts to recast it as a question of security. At various times, we have been told that education, gun control, climate change, and income inequality are “national security” issues. They are not.

 

There is a clear distinction to be drawn here. The federal government has grown beyond recognition over the last century, but it is still the case that its primary job is the maintenance of a national defense. There are important arguments to be had around the size and scope of the military — and, in particular, around how it ought to be used in the world. Those questions are fair game in a debate over a defense bill. How Twitter is treated in court is not.

 

We remain of the view that Section 230 is, in fact, not much of a threat to anything; indeed, we consider it a useful legal tool that ensures that lawsuits over online speech target the speaker rather than hosts or platforms. But if there is to be a serious debate around reform — or, in the president’s terms, around “complete termination” — that debate must be had in earnest. The proper allocation of power, liability, and private-public balance in Internet speech is a complex topic, at least if one intends to define it by federal law; a 24-year-old settlement on the issue should not be lightly overturned without a vigorously debated replacement plan.

 

The United States Congress already has a bad habit of combining unrelated spending decisions into single, must-pass bills. Adding into the mix what would represent one of the most dramatic changes to the way the Internet works since its inception would make this habit worse, not better.

 

Congress has been supine in recent years, preferring in most cases to outsource its job to the executive branch and to the bureaucracy it contains. This would be a good time for it to remember that it, not the White House, controls the purse strings, and to exercise its prerogatives accordingly.

 

The Editors comprise the senior editorial staff of the National Review magazine and website.

 

 

Thursday 10 December 2020

The Disgraceful Hunter Biden Cover-Up

 By

www.nationalreview.com 

 

  

U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden, his wife Jill, his son Hunter Biden, and vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris celebrate at their election rally, Wilmington, Del., November 7, 2020. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)

 It was a ‘conspiracy’ theory shouted down and stifled by the media establishment. Until it wasn’t.

 

It’s now clear that the Hunter Biden story was real, with Hunter himself acknowledging a federal probe into his taxes — one that reportedly began in 2018. Really, it was always clear. Yet, when the New York Post broke the details, virtually the entire journalistic establishment and left-wing punditsphere defamed the newspaper, claiming it was passing on Russian “disinformation” or partisan fabrications.

The political media quickly began pumping out process stories about the alleged discord in the Post’s newsroom and about the problems with the reporting. In so doing, of course, they did practically no reporting on the substantive allegations that Joe Biden’s family had spent years cashing in on his influence. Tech companies, spurred on by these censorious journalists, shut down the account of one of America’s most-read newspapers to inhibit users from reading the story. It was completely unprecedented.

At the time, I argued that the Post (where I contribute to the editorial page) used the same ethical and journalistic standards that the media have employed for decades. But, in truth, it exercised a higher standard of professionalism than most outlets reporting on the Russia collusion hysteria did for three-plus years. It certainly exhibited a higher ethical standard than Jeffery Goldberg did in his Atlantic piece claiming that Donald Trump had besmirched the American military — which political journalists had no problem sharing as irrefutable and unimpeachable fact.

In October, the New York Times ran with piece headlined, “New York Post Published Hunter Biden Report Amid Newsroom Doubts.” Today, the same Times reports that, “Biden team has rejected some of the claims made in the Post articles, but has not disputed the authenticity of the files upon which they were based.”

The crux of the case against disseminating the Post’s story was that the emails found on his Hunter’s laptop may not be real and that there was no way to authenticate them. Apparently, that wasn’t true. All reporters had to do, it seems, was ask.

 In October, left-wing sites such as the Daily Beast were featuring headlines that read, “Russian State Media Is Desperately Trying to Keep the Hunter Biden Story Alive” and “FBI Examining Hunter’s Laptop As Foreign Op, Contradicting Trump’s Intel Czar.” Today we learn from the same outlet that, “Evidence of [a money laundering] probe [into Hunter Biden] was apparent in the markings on a series of documents that were made public — but went largely unnoticed — in the days leading up to the November election.”

Indeed.

Today, NBC News reported, “Hunter Biden, president-elect’s son, says federal prosecutors probing his taxes.” But in October, NBC News had “reporters” Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny producing serious-sounding articles such as, “How a fake persona laid the groundwork for a Hunter Biden conspiracy deluge” and “Inside the campaign to ‘pizzagate’ Hunter Biden” to undercut the Post’s reporting. Ken Dilanian, a leading voice in the debunked Russian collusion coverage, had a mid-October headline that read, “Feds examining whether alleged Hunter Biden emails are linked to a foreign intel operation.”

It’s peculiar that reporters could so easily confirm alleged counterintelligence investigations but not one into the family of the front-running presidential candidate. Then again, you may recall the interview with National Public Radio’s public editor in which Terence Samuel, NPR’s managing editor for news, explained: “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.” It is the default position of many journalists that anything undermining Democrats is by default a distraction.

Another disquieting aspect to this story is how the Department of Justice purportedly participated in burying it. Sources told Fox News, and others, that the DOJ is super sensitive about moving investigations from “covert” to “overt” during an election if they believe it could potentially affect the outcome. Their political sensitivities are irrelevant. We need to know more, but tamping down an investigation to hide it from the public before an election is as bad as accelerating an investigation to smear someone.

Law enforcement is tasked with investigating criminality, not with assessing how their work will shape public perception during an election. Rather than following process, bureaucrats are now making investigatory decisions that could easily be construed as helping politicians who are either their boss, or their future boss.

Moreover, Hunter is not even a candidate for any office. What kind of familial relationships are covered under this friendly DOJ dispensation? Cousins? In-laws? Friends? Anyone with the name Biden? If the DOJ’s argument is that Hunter was so close to Joe that an investigation might have affected his father’s chances, then, well, that’s an important enough relationship that I think voters ought to know about. Shouldn’t they be aware of the prospect of corruption?

It’s certainly clear now that many of the things Tony Bobulinski, one-time Hunter business partner, claimed about the Biden business enterprise are true. The FBI is not only investigating Hunter’s taxes, but reportedly also a money-laundering scheme and his foreign ties to China. Bobulinski had alleged that Biden knew about his family’s operations, and that he benefited from them. If this were said of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, they would be the focus of frenzied coverage. And rightly so.

At some point the media was going to be compelled to deal with the Hunter Biden story. He, after all, is now the focus of an FBI investigation. Now, I’m certainly not convinced coverage of the investigation would have changed the outcome of the presidential election (unless we had learned that Joe was involved or aware, for which there is, incidentally, some circumstantial evidence). I don’t know if Hunter has done anything criminal. But I am convinced that journalists thought the case mattered — and for this reason avoided it. They simply abdicated their professional responsibilities to help Democrats win because many don’t take their craft seriously anymore. That, we will continue to see, is a potential disaster for the nation.


The Dumb Statistical Argument in Texas’s Election Lawsuit

By

 www.nationalreview.com

 

 Scottscope

 

These claims rocketed around the Twittersphere yesterday (citations removed):

Expert analysis using a commonly accepted statistical test further raises serious questions as to the integrity of this election.

The probability of former Vice President Biden winning the popular vote in the four Defendant States — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — independently given President Trump’s early lead in those States as of 3 a.m. on November 4, 2020, is less than one in a quadrillion, or 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000. For former Vice President Biden to win these four States collectively, the odds of  that event happening decrease to less than one in a quadrillion to the fourth power (i.e., 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000).

The same less than one in a quadrillion statistical improbability of Mr. Biden winning the popular vote in the four Defendant States — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — independently exists when Mr. Biden’s performance in each of those Defendant States is compared to former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s [sic] performance in the 2016 general election.

The statistical details are from an expert declaration available here, and they’re about as silly as you would expect.

Basically, the exercises simply assume that different batches of ballots should have similar breakdowns by candidate or party. If Biden got more support than Clinton had, or if late-counted ballots were more heavily Biden-leaning than early ballots, that’s treated as evidence of fraud. And the statistical tests are incredibly emphatic that these differences are real — one a quadrillion! — because of the enormous sample sizes, including millions of ballots.

But you can’t prove that Biden did better than Clinton had because of fraud simply by showing that . . . well, Biden did better than Clinton had . . . and it’s not surprising at all that late-counted (heavily mail-in) ballots were more Democratic than earlier ballots.

You don’t have to take my word for it. The declaration itself describes the hypotheses it’s testing as whether “the percentages of the votes Clinton and Biden achieved in the respective elections are similar” and whether “the reported tabulations in the early and subsequent periods” could plausibly be “random samples from the same population of all Georgia ballots tabulated.” (The declaration starts with Georgia and then repeats the process for the other states.)

The two candidates obviously did not perform similarly; one won and one lost. Early and late ballots are not simply random draws from the overall collection of ballots. And that implies nothing about fraud.

South Africa: Double farm murder: Husband (66) and wife (56) gunned down, Cala

 

South Africa: Double farm murder Husband (66) and wife (56) gunned down, Cala

South African Police Service


Double farm murder: Husband (66) and wife (56) gunned down, Cala
Double farm murder: Husband (66) and wife (56) gunned down, Cala

Cala Detectives are appealing for community assistance to solve the double murder case reported at a farm, near Cala on 4 December 2020. According to information at police’s disposal, two unknown men entered the farm pretending to be looking for their sheep. While the owner of the farm was responding, one of the suspects drew a firearm and started shooting. Both the husband and wife, 66 and 56 years were fatally wounded and the suspects fled on foot.

Two murder cases were opened for investigation. The motive for the murders has not yet been established and police will not speculate as this forms part of the investigation.

South Africa Today – South Africa News

https://southafricatoday.net/south-africa-news/eastern-cape/double-farm-murder-husband-66-and-wife-56-gunned-down-cala/

In 2020, AP photographers captured a world in distress

 By JERRY SCHWARTZ

apnews.com

 

Behold, a world in distress:

A 64-year-old woman weeps, hugging her husband as he lay dying in the COVID-19 unit of a California hospital. A crowded refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, engulfed in flames, disgorges a string of migrants fleeing this hell on Earth. Rain-swept protesters, enraged by the death of George Floyd in police custody, rail against the system and the heavens.

This is the world that Associated Press photographers captured in 2020, a world beset by every sort of catastrophe -- natural and unnatural disaster, violent and non-violent conflict.

And, in every corner of that world, the coronavirus.

There are the living: Women cover themselves head to toe with chadors, protective clothing and gas masks to prepare a body for burial in Iran. An octogenarian couple kiss through plastic in Spain. 

Agustina Canamero, 81, and Pascual Perez, 84, hug and kiss through a plastic film screen to avoid contracting the coronavirus at a nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, on June 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
 
 

There are the dead: Relatives, traveling by night and by boat, travel down a Peruvian river to bring a body home for burial. Row upon row of new graves are dug in the largest cemetery in Latin America.

And there are those who negotiate the grim space between life and death -- among them, 16 Italian doctors and nurses exhausted from their labors, their faces haunted and haunting.

Amid the pandemic, it was sometimes easy to overlook the world’s other turmoil -- and its tragedies. A loving uncle carries his 11-year-old niece away from the devastation of a massive explosion in Beirut -- her neck was broken, and her older sister died. In Syria, emergency workers pull the body of a boy killed in a government airstrike from the wreckage.

Wildfires gave the American West an eerie glow; a volcano eruption clouded the sky over Manila.

Across the United States, photographers documented an epic and bilious presidential campaign. An exultant Joe Biden, projected on a massive monitor under fireworks after he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination. A dejected Donald Trump, after a sparsely attended rally in Oklahoma.

And perhaps the most appropriate image of 2020? It was captured during the waves of protests and riots in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. A protester strides past a burning building in Minneapolis; in his hands he holds the American flag.

The flag is upside down -- the international signal of distress.

Protesters storm the San Francisco de Borja church, which belongs to the Carabineros, Chile's national police force, in Santiago, Chile, on Oct. 18, 2020, the first anniversary of the start of anti-government mass protests over inequality. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
 
President Donald Trump holds a Bible as he stands outside St. John's Church across Lafayette Park from the White House in Washington on June 1, 2020, after law enforcement officers used tear gas and other riot control tactics to forcefully clear peaceful protesters from the area. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
 
Cuban singer Cimafunk hugs a woman during a music conga through the streets of Cuba's Old Havana neighborhood during the 35th Havana International Jazz Festival on Jan. 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
 
Josefa Ribas, 86, who is bedridden and suffers from dementia, is attended to by nurse Laura Valdes during a home care visit in Barcelona, Spain, on April 7, 2020. Ribas' husband, Jose Marcos, fears what will happen if the coronavirus enters their home and infects them. "I survived the post-war period (of mass hunger). I hope I survive this pandemic," he said. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
 
Swarms of desert locusts fly into the air from crops in Katitika village in Kenya's Kitui county on Jan. 24, 2020. In the worst outbreak in a quarter-century, hundreds of millions of the insects swarmed into Kenya from Somalia and Ethiopia, destroying farmland and threatening an already vulnerable region. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
 
Sneakers and a Los Angeles Lakers jersey with the number 8 worn by NBA star Kobe Bryant hang at a memorial for Bryant in Los Angeles on Feb. 2, 2020, a week after he was killed in a helicopter crash. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
 
A woman wearing a mask to protect against infection from COVID-19 is reflected in a tinted chapel window, along with a metal casing said to contain the remains of St. Dimitrie of Basarabov, the patron saint of the Romanian capital, in Bucharest, Romania on Oct. 25, 2020. The feast of St. Dimitrie of Basarabov, which usually lasts for a week and draws up to 100,000 people, was cut way back this year due to the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
 
An emergency crew recovers the body of a boy killed in a government airstrike in the city of Idlib, Syria on Feb. 11, 2020. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
 
A reveler dressed in a Spider-Man costume strikes a pose at the "Ceu na Terra" or Heaven on Earth street party in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Feb. 22, 2020, during the Carnival celebration. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
 
One-year-old Yazan has his oxygen mask removed after heart surgery at the Tajoura National Heart Center in Tripoli, Libya, on Feb. 27, 2020. Yazan's perilous trek from his small desert hometown culminated in a five-hour surgery. He is one of 1,000 children treated by Dr. William Novick's group since it first came to Libya after the 2011 uprising. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
 
A model wears a creation for the Givenchy fashion collection during Women's fashion week Fall/Winter 2020/21 presented in Paris on March 1, 2020. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
 
A child wearing a mask to protect against the coronavirus rests on the bank of the Yangtze River in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province on April 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
 
Rescue workers and local residents search for survivors in the wreckage of a plane that crashed with nearly 100 people onboard in a residential area of Karachi, Pakistan, on May 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)
 
People stand in their balconies during a nationwide confinement to counter the coronavirus in Barcelona, Spain on March 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
 
Martina Papponetti, 25, a nurse at the Humanitas Gavazzeni Hospital in Bergamo, Italy, poses for a portrait at the end of her shift on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic on March 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
 
South African National Defense Forces patrol the Men's Hostel in the densely populated Alexandra township east of Johannesburg on March 28, 2020, enforcing a strict lockdown in an effort to control the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
 
A protester carries a U.S. flag upside down as he walks past a burning building in Minneapolis on May 28, 2020, during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
 
President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally in Toledo, Ohio, on Jan. 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
 
Workers move a coffin with the body of a victim of COVID-19 as other coffins are stored waiting for burial or cremation at the Collserola morgue in Barcelona, Spain, on April 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Arif Mirbaghi plays a double bass in his backyard during mandatory self-isolation to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in Tehran, Iran, on April 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
 
A homeless person sits in a wheelchair during rainy weather on Sunset Blvd. in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles on April 6, 2020. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an emergency order in mid-March to spend $150 million to help the homeless during the pandemic. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
 
A trail of dust kicked up by a race car rises from the landscape during stage two of the Dakar Rally, between Al Wajh and Neom, Saudi Arabia on Jan. 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
 
Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein leaves court in New York on Jan. 10, 2020, after attending jury selection for his sexual assault trial. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
 
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appears at a news conference about the coronavirus at the White House in Washington on April 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
 
A family evacuates to safer ground as the Taal Volcano spews ash in Lemery, Batangas, southern Philippines on Jan. 13, 2020. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
 
A protester poses for photos next to a burning police vehicle in Los Angeles on May 30, 2020, during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
 
Francisco Espana looks at the Mediterranean sea from a promenade next to the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, Spain, on Sept. 4, 2020. After 52 days in the hospital’s intensive care unit due to the coronavirus, Francisco was allowed by his doctors to spend almost ten minutes at the seaside as part of his recovery therapy. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
 
Cori "Coco" Gauff of the U.S. makes a forehand return to Romania's Sorana Cirstea during their second round singles match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, on Jan. 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
 
Balconies are illuminated with candles and torches to mark the country's fight against the coronavirus in Greater Noida, a suburb of New Delhi, India, on Sunday, April 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
 
Workers wearing personal protective equipment bury bodies in a trench on Hart Island in the Bronx borough of New York on April 9, 2020. Hart Island is a strip of land in Long Island Sound that has long served as the city’s potter’s field. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
 
A woman waves from a bus carrying passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship as they are transported from the port in Yokohama, near Tokyo on Feb. 20, 2020. The passengers had been quarantined on the cruise ship to curb the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
 
Jackals roam in the night in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park, which is empty as the city is in lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, on April 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
 
President Donald Trump holds a press conference about the coronavirus at the White House in Washington on April 13, 2020. At left is Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
 
Men carry rifles near the steps of the State Capitol building in Lansing, Mich., on April 15, 2020, during a protest over Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's orders to keep people at home and businesses locked during the coronavirus outbreak. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
 
A worker wearing protective gear cleans a window as a nurse tends to a patient inside the intensive care unit for people infected with the coronavirus at the 2 de Mayo Hospital in Lima, Peru, on April 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
 
Lanes are empty on the 110 Arroyo Seco Parkway that leads to downtown Los Angeles on April 26, 2020, as California remains on lockdown to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
 
Members of the Israeli Mermaid Community swim with mermaid tails at the beachfront in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv, Israel, on May 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
 
Marine One carrying U.S. President Donald Trump flies to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum on Jan. 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
 
A protester in an Elmo mask dances as a street fire burns on May 30, 2020, during a protest in Philadelphia over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed while in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
 
A health worker tends to her colleague, who fainted due to exhaustion at a COVID-19 testing camp in New Delhi, India on April 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
 
A woman bangs a pot in support of medical staff who are working on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak during a partial lockdown against the spread of the coronavirus in Brussels on March 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
 
Women clerics wearing protective clothing and "chador," a head-to-toe garment, arrive at a cemetery to prepare the body of a person who died from COVID-19 for a funeral, in Ghaemshahr, Iran, on April 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
 
An elderly woman suffering from COVID-19 breathes with the help of an oxygen mask in a hospital in Pochaiv, Ukraine, on May 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
 
Grandchildren of Joanne Paylor, of southwest Washington, react to doves released during the interment ceremony for Paylor at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Suitland-Silver Hill, Md. on May 3, 2020. Although Paylor did not die from the coronavirus, almost every aspect of her funeral was affected by the pandemic. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
 
An image of U.S. Navy veteran Stephen Kulig is projected onto the home of his daughter, Elizabeth DeForest, as she looks out the window of a spare bedroom while her husband, Kevin, sits downstairs, in Chicopee, Mass., on May 3, 2020. Kulig, a resident of the Soldier's Home in Holyoke, Mass., died from COVID-19 at the age of 92. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
 
The body of Ricardo Noriega, 77, lies on the floor of his living room in Lima, Peru, on May 4, 2020, after he died of COVID-19. Noriega had great difficulty in breathing, one of the most characteristic symptoms of the disease, and waited for death sitting in an armchair in the living room after he was unable to find a taxi to take him to the hospital that morning. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
 
Moroccans and Bangladeshis wait on an overcrowded wooden boat for aid workers from the Spanish search and rescue group Open Arms off the Libyan coast on Jan. 10, 2020. (Santi Palacios)
 
A police officer holds a pistol during clashes with protesters near a barricade of burning tires in the Kariobangi slum of Nairobi, Kenya, on May 8, 2020. Hundreds of protesters blocked one of the capital's major highways to protest government demolitions of the homes of more than 7,000 people, causing many to sleep out in the rain and cold because of restrictions on movement due to the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)
 
Cacique Pedro poses for a photo as he sits outside his house in the “Park of Indigenous Nations” community in Manaus, Brazil, on May 10, 2020. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
 
A girl rides a scooter past the Saint-Tronc Castelroc primary school playground, closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, in Marseille, France, on May 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)
 
A worker from the city's forensic department in Quito, Ecuador, sprays disinfectant over the body of a woman who died on the street on May 14, 2020. Forensic workers at the scene conducted a COVID-19 rapid test and said the woman tested negative. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)
 
President Donald Trump smiles during a visit to Mount Rushmore National Memorial near Keystone, S.D., on July 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
 
Teodoro Mejia, left, watches workers from the Piedrangel funeral home remove the body of his wife, Berta Cusi Palomino, from their home in Lima, Peru, May 14, 2020. Palomino was believed to have died from COVID-19. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
 
Yasmine Protho, 18, wears a photo of herself and “Class of 2020” on her protective mask amid the COVID-19 virus outbreak as she graduates with only nine other classmates and limited family attending at Chattahoochee County High School in Cusseta, Ga., on May 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
 
A patient who died from COVID-19 lies on a table between two other patients infected with the coronavirus at the Salgado Filho Municipal Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
 
People demonstrate outside a burning Arby’s fast food restaurant on May 29, 2020, in Minneapolis during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
 
Relatives pour beer into the tomb of Victor Gaspar, who died of COVID-19, during his burial at the Nueva Esperanza cemetery on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, on May 28, 2020. (AP Photo Rodrigo Abd)
 
Lisa Varmbo Martonovich, left, and Nicole England-Czyzewski practice an aerial routine for "Gladius The Show," a touring equestrian and acrobatic show, on May 28, 2020, in Las Vegas. The coronavirus forced the producers to cancel all of their performances through 2020. (AP Photo/John Locher)
 
Motorists are ordered to the ground from their vehicle by police on May 31, 2020, during a protest in Minneapolis over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
 
Father Vasily Gelevan, a Russian Orthodox priest, blesses Lyudmila Polyak, 86, who is believed to be suffering from COVID-19, at her apartment in Moscow. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
 
A protester and a police officer shake hands in the middle of a standoff during a rally in New York on June 2, 2020, calling for justice over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis on May 25. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
 
Siblings, from left, Estiben, Estefany and Javier Aquino eat dinner illuminated by a candle in their home in the Nueva Esperanza neighborhood, which has no access to electricity, in Lima, Peru, on June 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
 
Police officers and protesters clash in Atlanta on May 29, 2020, during a protest in response to George Floyd's death in police custody in Minneapolis. Floyd, a Black man, died after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
 
Men with inner tubes wade through an abandoned highway tunnel with the aid of a safety line as they work to repair a self-created water system in the Esperanza neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, on June 11, 2020. Water service in Venezuela has gotten so bad that poor neighborhoods have started to rig private water systems or hand dig shallow wells. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
 
People protest in the rain near the White House in Washington on June 4, 2020, over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
 
President Donald Trump, returning from a campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., walks across the South Lawn of the White House in Washington after stepping off the Marine One helicopter, early Sunday, June 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
 
Contestants exercise backstage during the National Amateur Body Builders Association competition in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Aug. 19, 2020. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s competition was staged outdoors and the 85 participants were required to don protective masks in line with health codes. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
 
Peruvian migrant Jose Collantes cries as cemetery workers bury his wife Silvia Cano, who he says died of COVID-19, at a Catholic cemetery in Santiago, Chile, on July 3, 2020. Collantes said he preferred to cremate her in order to take the ashes home with him but, due to bureaucracy, had already been waiting two weeks. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
 
Musicians rehears at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain, on June 22, 2020. When the doors opened for the performance of Puccini’s “Crisantemi” by the UceLi Quartet, the 2,292 seats of the auditorium were occupied by plants and the performance was broadcast live online. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
 
A health worker takes a nasal swab of a person for a COVID-19 test at a hospital in New Delhi, India, on July 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
 
A patient rests in a chair next to his bed at the COVID-19 ward at a hospital in Barcelona, Spain, on Nov. 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
 
Demonstrators push on a fence as tear gas is deployed during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Athletic Club and Real Madrid play during their Spanish La Liga soccer match at the San Manes stadium, which is nearly empty, in Bilbao, Spain, on July 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)
Projector operator Pavlos Lepeniotis checks the quality of movie film inside a warehouse at the Zephyros open-air cinema, which specializes in films from past decades, in Ano Petralona, central Athens, on June 3, 2020. Lepeniotis has worked in movie theaters since age 12. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
 
Cemetery workers carry the coffin of a person who died of COVID-19 for burial at the Martires 19 de Julio cemetery in Comas, on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, on July 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
 
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, left, wears a mask for protection against the coronavirus, along with members of security, as he rides the Senate Subway between meetings on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
 
People wait to ride a revolving swing at the Perry State Fair in New Lexington, Ohio, on July 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
 
People flee from police officers after running out the back of a store carrying shoes in Upper Darby, Pa., on May 31, 2020, following protests over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis on May 25. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
 
With the seats at Dodger Stadium empty, Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Julio Urias throws to a San Francisco Giants batter during the third inning of a baseball game on July 26, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
 
Relatives accompany the coffin that contains the remains of Jose Barbaran, who is believed to have died from complications related to the coronavirus, as they travel by boat on Peru's Ucayali River on Sept. 29, 2020. Despite the risk, family members decided to travel by night to Barbaran's hometown of Palestina, a four-hour journey. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
 
Muslim girls walk down the street after prayers in Lagos, Nigeria, on July 31, 2020, as Muslims worldwide marked the start of Eid al-Adha, or "Feast of Sacrifice," in which Muslims slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
 
Olinda Tafur, 20, lies on an examination table as she waits to be seen by an obstetrician inside a tent set up in the emergency area of the National Perinatal and Maternal Institute to receive women in labor who are infected with COVID-19, in Lima, Peru, on July 29, 2020. Just before giving birth to her first child, Tafur learned that she had tested positive for the new coronavirus upon arriving with labor pains to the emergency area of the Institute. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
 
Ga Breedlove pauses by the casket of Rep. John Lewis lying in repose at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta on July 29, 2020. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died on July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
 
Romelia Navarro, 64, weeps while hugging her husband, Antonio, in his final moments in a COVID-19 unit at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, Calif., on July 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
 
Hoda Kinno, 11, is evacuated by her uncle Mustafa on Aug. 4, 2020, shortly after a massive explosion at the port in Beirut, Lebanon. The Kinno family from Syria's Aleppo region was devastated in the wake of the explosion — Hoda suffered a broken neck and other injuries and her sister Sedra, 15, died in the explosion. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
 
A road divides the Cerro Lagoon, where the water at right is colored and the Waltrading S.A. tannery stands on the bank, top right, in Limpio, Paraguay, on Aug. 5, 2020. According to Francisco Ferreira, a technician at the National University Multidisciplinary Lab, the color of the water is due to the presence of heavy metals like chromium, commonly used in the tannery process. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)
 
Jhona Zapata, whose clown name is "Jijolin," is reflected in the window of a home as he offers caramelized apples for sale, in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, on Aug. 5, 2020. Zapata, 35, is selling circus food to help his family survive the economic shutdown while circuses are closed to curb the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
 
A woman wearing a protective face mask amid the coronavirus pandemic dances in a client's home in Mexico City on Aug. 8, 2020. The pandemic has forced businesses to adapt to a new normality and the adult entertainment industry is no exception. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
 
Fernanda Mariotti poses for a photo with a picture of her mother, Martha Pedrotti, who died of COVID-19, at her home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Aug. 11, 2020. Although Mariotti insisted on seeing her mother at the hospital, the doctor refused to allow it. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
 
Tents of food stalls and other vendors are illuminated at Rot Fai Market in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 19, 2020, as the government continues to ease restrictions that were imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
 
Richardson Fremond leaps over a wall as he runs to collect an award during the Chambers High School graduation ceremony at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla., on June 23, 2020. The ceremony was held at the race track to enable social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic and the 41 seniors who graduated crossed the start-finish line to receive their diplomas. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
 
Bill Nichols, 84, works to save the home he has lived in for 77 years as a wildfire tears through Vacaville, Calif., on Aug. 19, 2020. Dozens of wildfires were sparked by lightning strikes during a statewide heat wave. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
 
Blanca Ortiz, 84, celebrates after learning from nurses that she will be dismissed from the Eurnekian Ezeiza Hospital, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Aug. 13, 2020, several weeks after being admitted with COVID-19. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
 
Injured people are evacuated shortly after a massive explosion at the port in Beirut, Lebanon, on Aug. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
 
President Donald Trump speaks in the rain during a campaign rally at Capital Region International Airport in Lansing Mich., on Oct. 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
 
Thomas Henney, left, and Charles Chavira watch a plume of smoke spread over Healdsburg, Calif., as wildfires burn nearby on Aug. 20, 2020. Deadly wildfires in California more than doubled the previous record for the most land burned in a single year in the state. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
 
Monserrat Medina Zentella attends school via the internet from her home in Mexico City on Aug. 24, 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
 
An explosive device detonates as a protester pushes back on an armored vehicle clearing the park of demonstrators during clashes outside the Kenosha County Courthouse late Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2020, in Kenosha, Wis. Protests have erupted following the police shooting of Jacob Blake two days earlier. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
 
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway prepares to tape her speech for the third day of the Republican National Convention in Washington on Aug. 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
 
Walter Carter, 74, of Woodbridge, Va., who attended the original March on Washington, attends 2020's March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 2020, the 57th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech. "This march is a celebration anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington," says Carter, "and the issues are very similar even though so much time has passed." (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
 
Wearing masks to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the Delgado family poses for a photo in their workshop in El Alto, Bolivia, on Aug. 28, 2020. The five children, from ages 6 and 14, work all day in the family’s small carpentry workshop with their parents. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
 
Embers light up a hillside behind the Bidwell Bar Bridge on Sept. 9, 2020, as the Bear Fire burns in Oroville, Calif., in this photo taken with a slow shutter speed. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
 
Two women kiss under an old Belarusian national flag as opposition supporters gather near the Independence Palace in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Nadia Buzhan)
 
Family members peer into the coffin that contains the remains of Manuela Chavez, who died from symptoms related to the coronavirus at the age of 88, during a burial service in the Shipibo indigenous community of Pucallpa, in Peru's Ucayali region, on Aug. 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
 
Residents of the Oakmont Gardens senior home evacuate on a bus as the Shady Fire approaches in Santa Rosa Calif., on Sept. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
 
A health worker arrives to screen people for symptoms of COVID-19 on Sept. 4, 2020, in Dharavi, one of Asia's biggest slums, in Mumbai, India. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
 
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden smiles as he puts on his face mask after speaking to media in Wilmington, Del., on Sept. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
 
Imprisoned gang members, wearing protective face masks, sit inside a group cell during a media tour of the prison in Quezaltepeque, El Salvador, on Sept. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)
 
Reflected in the rearview mirror, Jose Collantes gets a hug from 5-year-old daughter Kehity while they're stopped at a red light, as Jose drives her home from a playdate in Santiago, Chile, on Sept. 6, 2020, three months after they lost his wife, her mother, to COVID-19. Their case highlights how COVID-19 deaths the world over are often the beginning of a new personal journey for those affected. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
 
People in kayaks paddle in McCovey Cove outside Oracle Park in San Francisco during a baseball game between the San Francisco Giants and the Seattle Mariners on Sept. 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)
 
Villagers prepare placards featuring U.S. democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, as they prepare to celebrate should the Democratic Party win the presidential elections, in Painganadu a neighboring village of Thulasendrapuram, south of Chennai, Tamil Nadu state, India, Friday, Nov. 6, 2020. The lush green village of Thulasendrapuram is the hometown of Harris' maternal grandfather who migrated from here decades ago. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
 
A parkour runner jumps on a railway bridge with the buildings of the banking district in background in Frankfurt, Germany, on Sept. 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
 
A patient afflicted with COVID-19 lies on a bed in a hospital in Marseille, France, on Sept.10, 2020. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)
 
Black smoke rises from a warehouse fire at the Port of Beirut, Lebanon, on Sept. 10. 2020, triggering panic among residents traumatized by the massive explosion that killed and injured thousands of people the month before. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
 
Shayanne Summers holds her dog Toph while wrapped in a blanket on Sept. 13, 2020, after staying several days in a tent at an evacuation center at the Milwaukie-Portland Elks Lodge in Oak Grove, Ore. Summers evacuated from near Molalla, Ore., which was threatened by the Riverside Fire. (AP Photo/John Locher)
 
Colombia's Harold Tejada climbs Plateau des Glieres during the stage 18 of the Tour de France cycling race over 175 kilometers (108.7 miles) from Meribel to La Roche-sur-Foron, France, on Sept. 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
 
Supporters cheer from their cars as Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden appear on a huge monitor and fireworks light up the night sky on the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention in Wilmington, Del., on Aug. 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
 
A Palestinian woman wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of the coronavirus waits in a bus in Gaza City to go to the Rafah border crossing into Egypt on Sept. 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
 
New Orleans Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore, right, knocks the ball away from Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans in the end zone on a fourth down during the second half of an NFL football game on Nov. 8, 2020, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
 
Supporters of President Donald Trump protest the Nevada vote in front of the Clark County Election Department in Las Vegas on Nov. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/John Locher)
 
Protesters with shields and gas masks wait for police action as they surround the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va., on June 23, 2020. The state ordered the area around the statue closed from sunset to sunrise, but the protesters had no plans to disperse. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
 
Mary Faye Cochran, 86, sings "You Are My Sunshine" over the phone to her son Stacey Smith through a window on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 10, 2020, at Provident Village at Creekside senior living in Smyrna, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
 
A health worker wearing a protective suit is disinfected in a portable tent outside the Gat Andres Bonifacio Memorial Medical Center in Manila, Philippines, on April 27, 2020, during an enhanced community quarantine to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
 
A volunteer tries to douse a fire on Transpantaneira road in the Pantanal wetlands near Pocone, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, on Sept. 11, 2020. The number of fires in Brazil's Pantanal, the world's biggest tropical wetlands, more than doubled in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period last year, according to data released by a state institute. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
 
Jill Biden moves her husband, Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, back from members of the media as he speaks outside his campaign plane in New Castle, Del., on Oct. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
 
A supporter of President Donald Trump holds her hand over her heart during a protest of the election outside of the Clark County Election Department in North Las Vegas on Nov. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/John Locher)
 
A man wearing a face mask as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus runs along the Malecon seawall under the rain in Havana, Cuba, on Oct. 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
 
Rafael Nadal of Spain serves to Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece during their tennis match at the ATP World Finals tennis tournament at the O2 arena in London on Nov. 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
 
Former President Barack Obama speaks at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia as he campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden on Oct. 21, 2020. (AP Photo/ Matt Slocum)
 
Smoke and flame rise from a burning house in an area once occupied by Armenian forces but soon to be turned over to Azerbaijan, in Karvachar, the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, on Nov. 13, 2020. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
 
This image shot from a drone shows a reddish tint along the shore of the Great Salt Lake in Howell, Utah, on Oct. 8, 2020. The red hue of the north arm of the lake comes from a type of bacteria, known as halophilic bacteria, that flourishes when the salt level rises. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
 
Plainclothes police officers detain demonstrators in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Oct. 8, 2020, during a protest against a new law they say will cripple labor rights and harm the environment. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
 
A family drives a truck loaded with a small house along a highway as they leave their home village in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh on Nov. 18, 2020, before a cease-fire takes effect to halt weeks of fighting. Under the Russia-brokered agreement, Armenia will turn over control of some areas it holds outside the separatist territory's borders to Azerbaijan, and Armenians there will be forced to leave their homes. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
 
Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on Nov. 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
 
Medical workers transport a wounded man in a hospital during shelling by Azerbaijan's artillery in Stepanakert, in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, on Oct. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
 
Police carry out an eviction at a squatters camp in Guernica, Buenos Aires province, Argentina, on Oct. 29, 2020. A court ordered the eviction of families who have been squatting here since July, but the families say they have nowhere to go amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
 
A supporter of presidential candidate Kouadio Konan Bertin jumps a fence as he arrives at Bertin’s final campaign rally in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on Oct. 29, 2020, ahead of the Oct. 31 election. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
 
The father of 7-year-old Aysu Isgandarova, who died during shelling by Armenian forces in the struggle over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, mourns during her funeral in Garayusifli, Azerbaijan, on Oct. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Aziz Karimov)
 
Wearing masks and plastic gloves to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, girls raise their hands during class in Havana, Cuba, on Monday, Nov. 2, 2020. Tens of thousands of school children returned to class Monday in Havana for the first time since April. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
 
Rescuers search for survivors in the debris of a collapsed building in Izmir, Turkey, on Nov. 2, 2020, three days after a deadly earthquake struck the area. Two girls were dug out alive from the rubble of collapsed apartment buildings. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)
 
A malnourished girl, Rahmah Watheeq, receives treatment at a feeding center at Al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, on Nov. 3, 2020. Two-thirds of Yemen's population of about 28 million people are hungry, and nearly 1.5 million families currently rely entirely on food aid to survive, with another million people expected to fall into crisis levels of hunger before the year’s end, according to aid agencies working in Yemen. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)
 
Voters mark their ballots at First Presbyterian Church in Stamford, Conn., on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
 
Soccer fans gather outside Clinica Olivos, where former soccer star Diego Maradona will undergo surgery, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Nov. 3, 2020. Widely regarded as one of the greatest soccer players of all time, Maradona died on Nov. 25. He was 60. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
 
New York Police officers block off the north entrance to Washington Square Park after facing off with protestors, on Nov. 4, 2020, in New York, the day after the U.S. general election. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
 
An election worker examines ballots as vote counting in the general election continues at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on Nov. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
 
Wearing protective suits to avoid infection, funeral home workers remove the body of an elderly person who died of COVID-19 at a nursing home while another resident sleeps in his bed in Barcelona, Spain, on Nov. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
 
President-elect Joe Biden leans toward the cheering crowd, past the edge of protective glass on stage, on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
 
A man with an Armenian national flag visits the 12th-13th century Orthodox Dadivank Monastery on the outskirts of Kalbajar, in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, on Nov. 13, 2020. Under an agreement ending weeks of intense fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, some Armenian-held territories, such as this area, will pass to Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
 
People shoot off fireworks in Washington’s Black Lives Matter Plaza while celebrating president-elect Joe Biden's win over President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States on Nov. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)