Monday, Feb 24, 2020 | View in browser

Good morning.

We’re covering the latest in the coronavirus epidemic, Trump’s visit to India and the return of “Friends.”

By Melina Delkic

Workers spraying disinfectant as a precaution against the coronavirus in a Daegu, South Korea, market on Sunday. Lim Hwa-Young/Yonhap, via Associated Press

Coronavirus is a ‘crisis and a big test,’ Xi says

We tracked a lot of developments in the spread of the virus this weekend. Here are the main points:

■ President Moon Jae-in put South Korea on high alert, a move that empowers the government to lock down cities, after more than 600 cases of the virus were confirmed. Many of them were traced to a secretive religious sect.

■ Italy locked down the Lombardy region, closed schools, and canceled trade fairs, opera performances, soccer matches and its famed Venice carnival, after a spike in infections — to 132 — made it the country with the most coronavirus cases in Europe. The fear could even be felt at Milan Fashion Week.

■ The third death linked to the Diamond Princess cruise ship long quarantined in Japan was reported, as the number of confirmed cases reached 634. (Here’s how a luxury vacation with filet mignon, art auctions and packed theaters turned into an epidemiological nightmare.)

■ Several countries closed their borders with Iran, which has reported the highest number of deaths outside China — eight people, according to state media. Several public events, like concerts, were canceled.

■ The World Health Organization told African leaders they needed to prepare, noting that 13 African countries were at high risk because of their direct links to China.

Here’s the latest, maps of where the virus has spread and tips for travelers.

A spread ‘much faster than I expected’

Amid all of those developments, it seemed like a good time to get a little perspective. We sat down with our infectious diseases reporter, Donald G. McNeil Jr., who has covered pandemics for nearly two decades.

What worries you about this virus?

It’s more deadly than flu, and it’s spreading like flu. Maybe not quite as fast, but these cases where hundreds of people all get infected in one church or aboard the Diamond Princess — that was scary. That was much faster than I expected.

Why are conspiracy theories gaining traction? We’ve reported on the belief in unfounded claims about the origins of the virus — with some saying it came from a lab in Wuhan, and others, spread by Russian actors, alleging the U.S. is behind the outbreak.

Conspiracies are the first thing some people go to when they face something new and scary. This happened with Zika; people rejected the truth that the virus caused microcephaly and blamed pesticides or genetically modified mosquitoes. But in medical school they teach you: If you hear footsteps behind you, first assume it’s horses, not zebras. That is: try the obvious diagnosis first.

The obvious origin is the same as we saw in SARS and MERS: that it’s a bat virus that passed through another animal into people.

If you have 6 minutes, this is worth it

Few are immune from India’s housing slump

Rebecca Conway for The New York Times

When Donald J. Trump ran for president, Indian real estate magnates bet that licensing his name would sell apartments. Now, India has more Trump-branded projects than any other country outside the U.S. Above, construction at the Trump Towers complex in Gurugram this month.

But as President Trump lands in the country to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi today, the country’s worst economic slumps in years looms over the talks — one that the Trump brand, along with countless others there, is struggling to surmount.

Here’s what else is happening

U.S. presidential race: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont won big in the Nevada caucuses this weekend. He now has more momentum than all of his rivals and more money than all but the two self-funding billionaires. Here’s more on what the results mean for the rest of the Democratic primary.

Iran earthquake: A magnitude-5.7 quake struck near the Turkish border, killing at least nine people in Turkey and injuring more than 30, Turkish officials said. Some people remained trapped under rubble.

‘Friends’ forever: More than 15 years after audiences last saw Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe and Joey on network television, the cast of “Friends” is reuniting for an HBO special. (Oh. My. God.)

Michael Spear for The New York Times

Snapshot: Above, knitters working on scarves in which each row matches the color — from fiery red to icy blue — of the daily temperature recorded by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. What began as a way to preserve data about climate change has gone global.

What we’re reading: This essay on Medium. Our interpreter columnist Amanda Taub says, “This beautifully written piece uses the idea of ‘the sentences that stick with you’ to frame six autobiographical vignettes.”

Now, a break from the news

Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Cook: Weeknight vegetarian chili with Cheddar is made in a skillet, because the pan’s short sides encourage more evaporation and faster thickening.

Watch: Can a show about gentrification be funny? The Netflix comedy series “Gentefied” follows a Hispanic family in Los Angeles whose livelihood is threatened.

Read: Isabel Allende’s new novel, which revisits the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, is among 11 new books we recommend.

Smarter Living: Plenty of devices claim to stop snoring. Wirecutter, a product review site owned by The Times, found a few that actually work.

And now for the Back Story on …

Covering Kobe Bryant

The memorial for the basketball star Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, 13, takes place today in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. Pacific time (5 a.m. Tuesday in Australia, to be live streamed by The Lakers). Bryant and his daughter were killed, along with seven others, in a helicopter crash last month that sent the basketball star’s friends, family, fellow players and fans into mourning.

Our basketball writer Marc Stein reflects on covering Bryant’s career for Times Insider. Here is a condensed, edited version of his thoughts.

Bryant was 17 when he joined the Lakers in July 1996. I was the 27-year-old Lakers beat writer for the Los Angeles Daily News. I had been on the N.B.A. beat for only two and a half years. You can safely conclude that the supremely confident, deeply ambitious, me-against-the-world Bryant was the first player I ever covered who was 10 years younger than me.

I wound up moving away before Bryant’s first N.B.A. playoff game when a job offer from The Dallas Morning News proved too good to pass up. But shadowing Bryant almost every day for his first nine months in Los Angeles managed to keep me on his radar for the next two decades.

Kobe Bryant with his daughter Gianna at the W.N.B.A. All Star game in Las Vegas in July. USA Today Sports, via Reuters

He never told me so, but I was convinced it was because I had been there from the rocky start, when Shaquille O’Neal could be regularly heard singing “I believe that Showboat is our future,” changing the words to the first line of Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All.”

“Showboat” was Shaq’s snarky nickname for Bryant, who initially struggled to fit in on a team full of veterans — and who had even less patience than acceptance.

We developed a ritual on his visits to play in Dallas. I would hover near the loading dock at American Airlines Center to intercept him as soon as he got off the team bus. It gave me the chance to walk with him to the visitors’ locker room before the usual pack of reporters swarmed.

But it’s Bryant’s youth when we met that I’ve kept coming back to since Jan. 26, when his helicopter crashed into a hillside near Calabasas, Calif., killing Bryant, Gianna and the seven others on board.

I can’t shake how Bryant’s beloved “Gigi,” just like her father when he became a Laker, was a mere teenager.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Melina

Thank you
To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

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