Critics say the actions would do little to blunt China’s influence and could ultimately hurt the U.S. and others.

“The United States has very few options that would help Hong Kong resist Beijing’s efforts to curtail its autonomy,” said Jessica Chen Weiss, a government professor at Cornell University.

Inside the company, one faction wanted Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief, to take a hard line against the president’s tweets while another urged him to remain hands-off.

“It really is about whether or not Twitter blinks,” said James Grimmelmann, a law professor at Cornell University. “You really have to stick to your guns and ensure you do it right.”

Allen Carlson, an Einaudi faculty member, writes:

The moves are seen as a challenge to China’s trade relationship with Taiwan, a democracy that the Chinese Communist Party claims is a renegade province, as well as a show of support for Taiwan’s independence.

The Trump administration appears determined to be “hitting at targets that are both economically and politically sensitive for Beijing,” Eswar Prasad, a professor at Cornell University, told The Times.

Apple and Google announced a significant new step in their collaboration to help public health authorities track and trace COVID-19 exposures using smartphones. The companies say they’re ready to send out an application programming interface (API) that could let health agencies enlist the help of millions of smartphones in tracking the spread of COVID-19 from person to person.

“Potentially problematic but probably surmountable is the amount of misunderstanding about the technology,” says Sarah Kreps, professor of government.

“Farmworkers are essential to our health in good times and even more so during a crisis like this,” said Mary Jo Dudley, director of the Cornell Farmworker Program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ (CALS) Department of Global Development. “By working together with our local and statewide network, we have a chance to slow the spread of this pandemic in rural New York and protect our most vulnerable populations.”

Mary Jo Dudley, MRP ’96, an expert in farmworker issues, talks about how the pandemic has underlined the importance of farmworkers, who are crucial to maintaining the country’s food supply. Farmworkers are essential workers, and are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 as they live and work in close quarters, she says.

For ecologist and conservation biologist Amanda Rodewald, migratory birds are emblematic of a world on the move. In one year, a single warbler may spend 80 days in boreal forests in Canada, 30 days in the United States resting and refueling during migration, and more than 200 days in Central America.

Experts on Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America discuss government responses to the pandemic and their implications for democratic rule.