Go for the gold: Your Weekend Briefing

June 28, 2020

Welcome to the Weekend Briefing. We’re covering the silent spread of Covid-19, the present mood of Americans and the conclusion of Pride Month.

Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

1. The number of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. is surging to levels not ever seen in the course of the pandemic.

Infections nationwide have risen 65 percent over the past two weeks, including in several states that were among the first to reopen. By Saturday evening, more than 41,000 cases of the coronavirus had been announced across the U.S., including single-day records in Nevada, South Carolina and Florida; above Miami on Friday.

Here’s the latest map and case count.

Leaders are urgently rethinking their strategies for curbing the spread, which the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said were “not working.”

“The result is a realization for many Americans that however much they have yearned for a return to normalcy, their leaders have failed to control the coronavirus pandemic,” our reporters write in an analysis. “And there is little clarity on what comes next.”

Some Mississippi intensive care units are at capacity and residents of Texas’s largest county, which includes Houston, received an emergency alert of the highest level, urging residents to remain at home.
The number of infections is more than 10 times higher than the counted number of cases in six regions of the U.S., according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s what to do if you feel sick and are worried it may be the coronavirus.

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.

Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times

2. Covid-19 can spread without symptoms, but for months health officials minimized that risk and pushed misleading messages despite mounting evidence.

Interviews with doctors and public health officials in more than a dozen countries show that a two-month delay was a product of faulty scientific assumptions, academic rivalries and, perhaps most important, a reluctance to accept that containing the virus would take drastic measures.

Models suggest that earlier, aggressive action might have saved tens of thousands of lives. Dr. Camilla Rothe’s team in Munich, above, was among the first to warn about asymptomatic transmission

3. How do Americans feel about the country right now? Anxious. Hopeful. Exhausted. Angry.

Nevertheless, many voters remain optimistic about the future, a Times/Siena College poll shows, viewing this moment as a chance for progress — one they can help shape at the voting booth.

The poll also found that a majority of American voters support demonstrations against police brutality and that many see President Trump as out of touch with the concept of racial justice.

We spoke to a group of teenage girls about youth activism, leading protests and what they hope for in the future. “As teens, we feel like we cannot make a difference in this world, but we must,” said Zee Thomas, 15.

Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

4. Mississippi, home to the last state banner in the country with an overt Confederate symbol, is on the verge of lowering the flag for good.

Lawmakers there voted to push ahead with legislation that would remove the 126-year-old flag and lay the framework for replacing it. Mississippi has grappled over the flag for decades, but in the wake of broader convulsions over racial history, lawmakers faced renewed pressure from those who say that the time has come.

And in New Jersey, Princeton University said it would remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from campus buildings and programs, citing the former president’s “racist thinking and policies.”

This Op-Ed from Caroline Randall Williams, about the legacy of Confederate monuments told through the story of her family’s enslaved past, is one of our most read stories this weekend.

Eve Edelheit for The New York Times

5. “We live from tourists.”

The pandemic decimated Central Florida’s once-booming leisure and hospitality industry, shutting down Walt Disney World, SeaWorld, Universal Orlando and a plethora of smaller attractions.

But just as Disney World and other destinations begin to reopen, infections in the state are surging, worrying workers, who are already struggling to get by, that going back to their jobs will lead to infection.

The pandemic is also testing the Affordable Care Act as never before as millions lose jobs and medical coverage. How it performs as a safety net may decide its future as it heads to the Supreme Court, where it is likely to be argued during the closing stages of a bitter presidential election.

Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

6. Afghan and American officials say the long-running war has entered a complicated period of uncertainty.

Targeted killings and widespread attacks across Afghanistan have sapped the brief optimism created by peace talks, which have since stalled. Above, Kabul last month.

And in a sign of the complexity of the war zone, U.S. intelligence officials recently concluded that a Russian spy unit secretly offered bounties to militants in Afghanistan for killing American troops. The rewards were offered even as the Taliban negotiated peace with the U.S.

The Trump administration has been deliberating since late March about what, if anything, to do about the explosive intelligence assessment.

Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

7. Fifty-one years ago today, transgender women of color led the uprising at the Stonewall Inn in New York City.

What followed was a dramatic shift in L.G.B.T.Q. activism for generations to come. But at no point have black transgender people been put at the center of the movement they helped start.

That may finally be changing. The convergence of the Black Lives Matter and L.G.B.T.Q. movements right now is a moment activists say is long overdue, and one they are determined not to let slip away. Above, protesters in New York this month.

Pride Month events around the world continue through out the day, many virtually. For some, that means missing out on an important moment of visibility and acceptance: their first Pride.

Schmidt Ocean Institute

8. The region beyond Australia’s Great Barrier Reef was mostly unexplored — until now.

A recent expedition into the inky depths of the Coral Sea revealed an unknown world of creatures and geological features. They included a thriving population of chambered nautili, a living fossil whose ancestors go back a half-billion years.

The expedition mapped more than 13,000 square miles of seabed and discovered submarine canyons, dune fields, submerged reefs and massive landslides. And in an apparent global first, the expedition was conducted remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Andrew Purcell for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Carrie Purcell.

9. Barbecuing together, apart.

Depending on where you live and your comfort level, you might be able to gather together. Our food columnist Melissa Clark set out to do just that and found that it’s possible but that it involves a lot of planning and some potentially awkward conversations (including a bathroom strategy).

Here’s how she did it with a minimal fuss menu. And try adding a batch of these refreshing, sophisticated mocktails.

If the weather cooperates, many of us will be outdoors as much as possible this summer. Here are some ways to help you stay out in your backyard comfortably.

Chester Higgins

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

The case for reparations from Nikole Hannah-Jones (above, a civil rights rally in 1973), the radical quilting of Rosie Lee Tompkins and the benching of a beloved summer staple (ballpark peanuts) top this week’s roundup of great journalism.

For more ideas on what to read, watch and listen to, may we suggest these 9 new books our editors liked, a glance at the latest small-screen recommendations from Watching, and our music critics’ latest playlist.

Happy Pride, happy Sunday. Have a happy week.

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

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