Go for the gold: Your Weekend Briefing:

June 7, 2020

By Remy Tumin and Elijah Walker

Welcome to the Weekend Briefing. We’re covering nationwide protests over police brutality, the pandemic’s detrimental impact on the Amazon and the life of a transgender trailblazer.

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

1. Nationwide protests incited by the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing outrage over police brutality continue to swell from coast to coast.

Thousands demonstrated in large cities including New York, above, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis, where Mr. Floyd died, and to small rural towns like Alpine, Texas. Around the world, tens of thousands demonstrated in support of the U.S. protests while also denouncing racism in their own countries. More demonstrations are expected today.

A crisis that began with a video of police violence has generated countless others. But 12 days after daily demonstrations began over Mr. Floyd’s killing, the rallies have quickly become a nationwide movement against systemic racism, marked by organization and determination.

The gatherings on Saturday came as people lined up for hours before a viewing and memorial service for Mr. Floyd in a small North Carolina town, not far from where he was born.

Have you been keeping up with the headlines? Test your knowledge with our news quiz. And here’s the front page of our Sunday paper, the Sunday Review from Opinion and our crossword puzzles.

David Dee Delgado for The New York Times

2. George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. David McAtee.

Their names have become rallying cries in recent days at demonstrations around the country in protest of police brutality. But as demands for reform have mounted in recent years, police unions have emerged as one of the most significant roadblocks to change.

Minneapolis banned the use of chokeholds and other neck restraints by the police, a response to the killing of Mr. Floyd after a police officer knelt on his neck until he lost consciousness.

Congressional Democrats plan to unveil expansive legislation on Monday to address police brutality and racial bias. It would be the most aggressive intervention into policing by Congress in recent memory.

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

3. “A pandemic within a pandemic.”

That was the assessment of Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California, on the painful intersection that black Americans find themselves in today, bearing the brunt of three crises: police violence, crushing unemployment and the most deadly infectious disease threat in a century.

The current civil unrest is deeply connected to the racial disparities exposed by the coronavirus crisis. George Floyd is a case in point. He died with coronavirus antibodies in his blood, surviving infection only to die in police custody. The mass incarceration of black people has only worsened the pandemic’s heavy toll on minorities.

“I’m just as likely to die from a cop as I am from Covid,” one organizer said.

Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

4. Some parts of the U.S. are facing financial ruin but have few coronavirus cases.

A Times analysis highlights the sharp disconnect between extreme economic pain and limited health impact from the virus in many parts of the country, and helps explain why some see reopening their communities as long overdue. Above, a food bank in Corpus Christi, Texas, where unemployment has shot up, even as the number of coronavirus cases has remained low.

And despite an encouraging jobs report on Friday, there are still clear signs that the collapse of economic activity has set in motion problems that will play out over many months or years, our economics correspondent writes.

The pandemic is by no means over. While some hot spots wane, new ones are popping up around the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. Here is the latest case count.

Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times

5. “The whole point of the sacrament is a reminder that we are not alone.”

The country is facing a deeply personal crisis of spirit, not only one of health or economics, forcing many to reckon with questions about how we live and how we die.

More than 100,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus, and they often die alone. But Boston is one of the few places in the country where hospitals have allowed priests to visit during the pandemic. We were with some of them as they offered last rites to coronavirus patients.

In Europe, the virus has hastened the departure of witnesses to the wrenching conflicts of the past century, allowing rising political forces to recast history.

Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

6. The coronavirus is accelerating the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

Illegal loggers, miners and land grabbers have cleared vast areas of the Brazilian rainforest with impunity in recent months as law enforcement efforts were hobbled by the pandemic.

The slashing of about 465 square miles of tree cover — an area roughly 20 times the size of Manhattan — increases the risk of fires even more destructive than those that drew global outrage last year, above.

In other parts of the world, the lockdowns have given nature a breather. Elephants, long endangered by tourists, are reclaiming Thailand’s oldest nature preserve.

Al Drago for The New York Times

7. A growing number of prominent Republicans are debating whether to reveal that they won’t back President Trump’s re-election campaign — and some may even vote for Joe Biden.

They’re feeling a fresh urgency because of Mr. Trump’s incendiary response to the protests over police brutality as well as his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to insiders.

Former President George W. Bush and Senator Mitt Romney of Utah won’t support Mr. Trump’s re-election; Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, above last month, said she was “struggling” with her vote. Retired military leaders, including former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, are increasingly voicing their unease of the president’s leadership.

PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo

8. Roberta Cowell became famous as the first woman known to have undergone sex reassignment surgery in Britain in the 1950s. By the time of her death in 2011, she was all but forgotten.

But Cowell was more than a transgender trailblazer: She also crash-landed her stricken warplane and was taken prisoner by the Germans. Twice she tried to escape, and twice she failed. Her obituary is the latest addition to our Overlooked series and a part of our upcoming Pride Month coverage.

Our Styles team will also be looking at the role of American identity and politics in the coming months. First up: A photographer and a writer explore black boyhood and the summer season.

Melissa Clark/The New York Times

9. Cheers to summer food and drink.

“Drinking rosé this year does not feel like the usual sort of blithe summer pastime,” Eric Asimov, our wine columnist, writes. But good wine is still good wine. And yes, it’s pink, but that’s not its only redeeming quality.

In his monthly Wine School column, he compares three rosés that differ radically from one another. Here are the bottles he suggests.

Summer picnics call for brownies. Chewy, salty and run through with brown butter, these treats are ideal dessert material. And if you’re thinking of having friends over, here’s how to entertain safely.

Ryan Lowry for The New York Times

10. And finally, dig into one of our Best Weekend Reads.

This week, we tag along with our journalists as they explore the reopening of Europe, talk to the “S.N.L.” star Pete Davidson, above, and consider the benefits of living in New York City.

For more ideas on what to read, watch and listen to, may we suggest these 11 new books our editors liked, a glance at the latest small-screen recommendations from Watching and five minutes of music that will make you love the cello.

Have a harmonious week.

Your Weekend Briefing is published Sundays at 6 a.m. Eastern.

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