Since Nov. 3, political conversations dominating social media platforms have centered on voting irregularities and possible fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Many Republicans’ perception of widespread election fraud has undermined confidence in the election results, which have not yet been officially certified but by all current counts appear to be in former Vice President Joe Biden’s favor. 

Need some happy news during this hard year? The pandemic lockdown has spurred new love globally for chess. Millions have tuned in to online tournaments among the world’s best players in recent months after the pandemic postponed most in-person professional competitions.

A New York moment: 

Last year I reported on the measles outbreak in New York. Measles is much more contagious than the coronavirus, but a high level of vaccination stops community spread.

The outbreak of the measles virus came in communities with lower levels of vaccination: some Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Rockland County, some Christian homeschool co-ops, and liberal, hippie pockets of the vaccine-skeptical. But media attention centered on the Hasidic communities where measles was spreading.

Pastor Gil Monrose heard a ruckus as he knocked on a door around the corner from where a 41-year-old man had been murdered in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, the day before. A fight had broken out at the murder site, someone had broken a car window, and tensions were escalating.

Warning: This report contains graphic accusations about sexual activity.

New, graphic accusations of sexual misconduct have emerged against recently deceased Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias, who died in May after decades as a globally renowned Christian speaker and writer.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, died Friday of metastatic pancreatic cancer after 27 years on the U.S. Supreme Court and several bouts with cancer during her life. 

Only the second woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, she shaped her legacy as a lawyer, then judge, as an advocate of women’s rights—which in her mind included no restrictions on government-funded abortion. She described herself as a “flaming feminist.”

A New York moment: Late last week I was on a corner in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, where a man had just been shot and killed. Someone had washed the man’s trail of blood off the sidewalk. The family wept, while neighbors came by to light candles and offer condolences to the man’s mother. She sat stricken on a beat-up office chair on the sidewalk next to the candles. Police sat in a patrol car on the corner, keeping a distance.