By German Lopez

Good morning. A drop in murders this year exemplifies the kind of news story that can get relatively little attention.

Good news in 2022

At the start of this year, America's crime trends looked grim: Murders had spiked at a record speed in 2020 and increased further in 2021.

But now that the year is ending, it's clear that the violence has eased.

Murders in large U.S. cities are down more than 5 percent so far in 2022 compared to the same time last year, according to the research firm AH Datalytics. Gun deaths, injuries and mass shootings are also down this year.

What happened? To regular readers of this newsletter, the explanations may be familiar: The causes of the murder spike have receded.

Covid disrupted much of life in 2020 and 2021, including social services that help keep people safe. That applies not just to policing, but also to places like schools and addiction treatment facilities that can help people — especially young men, the more common perpetrators and victims of violent crime — stay out of trouble. As life slowly returns to normal, these programs have reopened and helped suppress murders and shootings.

We also have additional distance from the murder of George Floyd in 2020, an event that not only spawned widespread protests but also strained police-community trust across the U.S.

How did the fallout from the horror of Floyd's death tie into murder trends? Because those police-community tensions may have reduced law enforcement's effectiveness by, for example, making people more skeptical of working with the police and leading officers to be too cautious in fighting crime. And the public's loss of confidence in the police may have led more people to resolve conflicts through their own means, including violence, instead of through the justice system. The passage of time and efforts to repair trust have diminished those effects.

There is also a more abstract explanation: Covid, Floyd's death, the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 attack and other events have made the past few years feel chaotic, damaging social cohesion and trust in institutions. Some experts argue that this kind of anomie can lead to more crime and violence. But at least some of it has lessened along with the pandemic and protests.

Add it all up, and Americans are now a bit safer from murders and shootings than they were last year.

Bad news bias

The drop in murders is genuinely good news — the kind that often goes unreported. Think about how many headlines you have seen about the rise in murders compared to stories about the subsequent decline.

That gap demonstrates another point that regular readers of this newsletter will be familiar with: The news media tends to have a bad news bias. Some of that is driven by journalists' decisions, hence the old cliché that if it bleeds, it leads. Studies also suggest that negativity gets a bigger audience, so journalists are, to some extent, giving readers what they want.

That bias warps people's perceptions of the world. As rates of murders and other crimes plummeted from the 1990s to mid-2010s, news outlets regularly covered shocking individual crimes, and a majority of Americans told Gallup that crime was trending upward. (Most Americans still say crime is up.)

There are still reasons for caution. Data from this year suggested other kinds of crime, besides murders and shootings, might have increased in 2022. Murders are still higher than they were in 2019. And it's possible the trends reported in large cities don't apply to the entire country (although they have in recent years).

But the data we do have suggests the country's murder and shooting rates are heading in the right direction. As the year comes to a close, it's good news you can celebrate.

For more

• Police departments are also trying to rebound from 2020 — by offering bonuses to recruits.
• Congress's latest spending bill increased funding for local police.

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THE LATEST NEWS

• Representative-elect George Santos, under scrutiny after fabricating much of his background, also spent campaign funds on $40,000 of air travel.
• President Biden signed a $1.7 trillion spending bill, keeping the government funded through September.

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed the most right-wing and religiously conservative government in Israel's history.
• In the absence of credible information from China, the severity of the Covid surge there is a scientific guessing game.
• Russians are flocking to a Turkish resort town, turning it into a Moscow on the Mediterranean.

• The blizzard in Buffalo raged for days, dumping four feet of snow and packing winds as high as 70 miles per hour, a catastrophic combination.
• After a nightmare week of cancellations, Southwest Airlines seems set to return to its normal schedule today.

• New York's first legal sale of recreational weed took place in a dispensary in Manhattan yesterday.
• A congressional report faulted the F.D.A. approval process for the Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm and criticized Biogen for its $56,000-a-year cost.
• No janitors, only some toilet paper: Elon Musk has reduced Twitter to a bare-bones operation.
• Pelé, one of soccer's greats and a transformative figure who achieved a rare level of global celebrity, died at 82. He was effectively Brazil's ambassador to the world.
• The designer Vivienne Westwood defined the look of punk, using rock iconography, royalty, art and religion. She died at 81.

David Brooks reflects on George Santos and asks: What would it be like to be so ashamed of your life that you felt compelled to invent a new one?

Republicans should look beyond Representative Kevin McCarthy to find a speaker from outside the House, William S. Cohen and Alton Frye argue.

Enjoy the complete Times experience today.

The New York Times All Access subscription brings you full digital access to news and analysis, plus Cooking, Games, Wirecutter and The Athletic. Subscribe today at this special rate.

MORNING READS

A high-low vibe: MZ Wallace built a handbag brand with an unfussy approach.

"Will you marry me?" The 10 best proposals of the year.

Modern Love: Was it too good to be true?

Dishes, contractors, bills: "Every woman needs a Paul Pelosi."

Ask Well: Why does sleep become worse with age?

Lives Lived: Ian Tyson began his music career as half of the folk-era duo Ian and Sylvia and become a revered figure for his commitment to the culture of Canada's ranch country. Tyson died at 89.

In memoriam: Queen Elizabeth II, Mikhail Gorbachev, Sidney Poitier and others — remembering the notable deaths of 2022.

SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC

Brady-Raiders pairing makes sense: Las Vegas didn't bench quarterback Derek Carr to leave things to chance — the Raiders had a plan. And it makes sense that it would start with Tom Brady, The Athletic's Jeff Howe writes.

Dallas survives Tennessee trap: The Cowboys defeated the Titans, 27-13, last night to secure their second straight season with at least 12 wins. The Tennessee first-time starting quarterback Joshua Dobbs gave the team hope for next week's matchup against the Jaguars.

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ARTS AND IDEAS

A 'Titanic' parody

In the nearly 24 years since the release of the epic blockbuster "Titanic," its appeal has persisted. This year, "Titanique," a 100-minute Off Broadway musical parody set to Celine Dion songs, drew a cult following.

"Titanique" opened in June in New York and mixes improvisation and a strategy of shattering the fourth wall. Through word of mouth and a passionate social media following, the show has consistently sold out, The Times's Sarah Bahr writes. The musical announced its third extension last week.

"People feel like they're part of something special every night," said Constantine Rousouli, a co-creator of the musical who also plays its romantic male lead, Jack.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

Nestle and fluff the ingredients of this sous-chef salad with cooked and raw vegetables.

Don DeLillo's 1985 novel "White Noise," precisely diagnosed the modern condition, the author Dana Spiotta writes.

The musical adaptation of "Matilda" is guaranteed to make you grin.

What to do for 36 hours in Essaouira, Morocco.

Take our year-end news quiz to see how well you followed the headlines in 2022.

The pangram from yesterday's Spelling Bee was logophile. Here is today's puzzle.

Here's today's Mini Crossword, and a clue: Travel headache (five letters).

And here's today's Wordle.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — German

P.S. Two Times podcasts from Serial Productions — "The Trojan Horse Affair" and "We Were Three" — made Vulture's list of the year's best podcasts.

Here's today's front page.

"The Daily" is about Russia's draft.

Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses and Ian Prasad Philbrick contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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