Our picksBoth COVID-19 & Disinformation Spreading | Nuclear Terrorism | The Dutch & the Sea, and more

Coronavirus Vaccine Test Opens with 1st Doses (Lauran Neergaard and Carla K. Johnson, AP)
U.S. researchers gave the first shot to the first person in a test of an experimental coronavirus vaccine Monday—leading off a worldwide hunt for protection even as the pandemic surges.
With a careful jab in a healthy volunteer’s arm, scientists at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute in Seattle begin an anxiously awaited first-stage study of a potential COVID-19 vaccine developed in record time after the new virus exploded from China and fanned across the globe.

U.S. Internet Well-Equipped to Handle Work from Home Surge (Frank Bajak, AP)
The U.S. internet won’t get overloaded by spikes in traffic from the millions of Americans now working from home to discourage the spread of the new coronavirus, experts say. But connections could stumble for many if too many family members try to videoconference at the same time.
Some may have to settle for audio, which is much less demanding of bandwidth.

During a Fast-Moving Pandemic, Disinformation Is Spreading Just As Quickly (Craig Timberg, Ellen Nakashima, and Tony Room, Washington Post)
Over the weekend, misleading text messages claiming that President Trump was going to announce a national quarantine underscored how often false claims are being disseminated on multiple platforms.

On Fox News, Suddenly a Very Different Tune about the Coronavirus (Paul Farhi and Sarah Ellison, Washington Post)
For weeks, some of Fox News’s most popular hosts downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, characterizing it as a conspiracy by media organizations and Democrats to undermine President Trump.
Fox News personalities such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham accused the news media of whipping up “mass hysteria” and being “panic pushers.” Fox Business host Trish Regan called the alleged media-Democratic alliance “yet another attempt to impeach the president.”
But that was then.
With Trump’s declaration on Friday that the virus constitutes a national emergency, the tone on Fox News has quickly shifted.
Laura Ingraham, for example, in late February called Democrats the “pandemic party” anddisplayed photos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) alongside enlarged images of coronavirus molecules. “How sick that these people seem almost happiest when Americans are hurting,” she said.
By Wednesday, after Trump announced a travel ban on people from the European Union, Ingraham had started calling the pandemic “this dangerous health crisis.” She characterized warnings issued by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Anthony S. Fauci about the potential spread of the disease as “sobering and scary to hear.”

U.S. Officials: Foreign Disinformation Is Stoking Virus Fears (Zeke Miller and Colleen Long, AP/ABC News)
The Trump administration is alleging that a foreign disinformation campaign is underway aiming to stoke fear amid the coronavirus pandemic

How a Small Nuclear War Would Transform the Entire Planet (Alexandra Witze, Nature)
As geopolitical tensions rise in nuclear-armed states, scientists are modelling the global impact of nuclear war.

Former U.S. Attorney: Rand Paul and Mike Lee Trying to “Hoodwink” Trump into Killing Anti-Terrorism FISA Powers (Jerry Dunleavy, Washington Examiner)
Former U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy argued Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee are trying to “hoodwink” President Trump into killing three Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act powers unrelated to the Trump-Russia FISA abuses of 2016.
“Senators Paul and Lee may be wrong about counterterrorism, but they’re not dumb. They realized that if they could persuade the president that ‘FISA reform’ was really about holding the FBI accountable for the Trump–Russia collusion shenanigans, they could achieve a major roll-back of post-9/11 counterterrorism policy,” McCarthy wrote in a National Review column over the weekend. “Senators Paul and Lee, their progressive allies, and the Trump supporters they’ve hoodwinked would make us vulnerable to terrorists without fixing FISA.”

Japan Shuts Nuclear Reactor over Anti-Terrorism Shortfalls (Kotaro Fukuoka, Nikkei)
Over half of current generation capacity faces closure in 2020

The Dutch Have Some New Ideas for Living with Water, and Still Have Plenty to Teach Louisiana (The Advocate)
Dating back to even before Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana has gazed across the Atlantic for guidance from the Netherlands, an early adopter of large-scale interventions to prevent flooding.
So it’s not really surprising that, with the conversation shifting from just keeping water out to also living with the water that gets in, the Dutch are once more ahead of the game. We may be talking about enlisting nature to help rebuild lost barriers and ecosystems along the coast, and capturing rather than draining rainwater in urban areas, but they’ve been talking about it longer and putting that talk into action.