Go for the gold: Your Weekend Briefing

February 14, 2021

By Remy Tumin and Jeremiah M. Bogert, Jr.

Welcome to the Weekend Briefing. We’re covering the conclusion of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, new guidelines for reopening schools and Valentine’s Day — for lovers and haters.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

1. Donald Trump was acquitted of inciting the Capitol Hill riot despite the strongest bipartisan support for conviction in U.S. history.

On the trial’s fifth and final day, seven Republican senators joined all 50 Democrats in finding Mr. Trump guilty of the House’s single charge of “incitement of insurrection.” But the vote fell short of the two-thirds needed to convict him and allow the Senate to move to disqualify him from holding future office.

Here’s how each senator voted, and key takeaways from Day 5 of the trial.

In a statement, Mr. Trump called the proceeding “yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country,” offered no remorse for his actions and strongly suggested that he planned to continue to be a force in politics for a long time to come.

Minutes after voting to acquit Mr. Trump, Senator Mitch McConnell harshly berated the former president in language that could have come from the prosecution, holding him “practically and morally responsible” for the Capitol riot. But he said the Senate should not have tried a former president. Watch his remarks.

Pete Marovich for The New York Times

2. Defeated by Joe Biden, stripped of his social media megaphone and twice impeached — still Donald Trump remains the dominant force in right-wing politics.

“The determination of so many Republican lawmakers to discard the mountain of evidence against Mr. Trump,” The Times’s Alex Burns writes in an analysis, “reflects how thoroughly the party has come to be defined by one man, and how divorced it now appears to be from any deeper set of policy aspirations and ethical or social principles.”

Even with the acquittal, the trial will hardly be the last word on Mr. Trump’s level of culpability. Using evidence that emerged in the impeachment trial, our reporters stitched together the most comprehensive account to date of Mr. Trump’s actions during the hours in which the Capitol was being ransacked.

And the Justice Department’s criminal investigations related to the attack may ultimately provide a clearer portrait of Mr. Trump’s role.

Taylor Glascock for The New York Times

3. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that schools should open as soon as possible, particularly for young children.

The agency released long-awaited guidelines for how to reopen schools quickly, drawing from scientific evidence on adequate precautions. Vaccinating teachers, the C.D.C. said, is not a precondition for reopening. Here are the basics.

New York City was the first big school district to reopen when it brought back elementary schools last fall. Now, as the city prepares to bring 62,000 middle school students back to classrooms in coming weeks, it offers the clearest preview in the U.S. of what other big city districts can expect after almost a year of remote learning.

Amr Alfiky/The New York Times

4. Good Shepherd Nursing Home in Wheeling, W.Va., offers a glimpse of what the far side of the pandemic might look like.

After nearly a year in lockdown, residents have had coronavirus vaccinations and the hallways are slowly beginning to reawaken. The ordinariness of their first day back — small talk over coffee and a penny auction, above, brought joy and relief.

Vaccinations are picking up across the U.S. The average number administered daily has been increasing steadily since late December. Adding to supply, the Food and Drug Administration told the drugmaker Moderna that it could put four additional doses of the vaccine into each vial.

But logistical hurdles most likely mean that many Americans will still not have been vaccinated by the end of the summer, putting the country in a race against time — and against more contagious coronavirus variants. Scientists said that the variant first detected in Britain, which is spreading rapidly in the U.S., is “likely” to be more deadly.

Jun Hirata/Kyodo News, via Associated Press

5. A large earthquake shook a broad area across eastern Japan, leaving nearly a million households without power. More than 100 people were injured.

The quake’s epicenter was off the coast of Fukushima, near where three nuclear reactors melted down after a quake and tsunami almost exactly 10 years ago. The company that is still cleaning up that nuclear complex said it had detected “no major abnormalities.”

Japan’s meteorological service reported the quake’s magnitude as 7.3 but said there was no danger of a tsunami. Rattled residents braced for aftershocks. One expert said a quake of this size could be followed by another of similar scale within two or three days.

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Simonovsky District Court, via Reuters

6. A closer look into two of the world’s most prominent opposition leaders.

Aleksei Navalny, 44, has spent almost half his life trying to unseat President Vladimir Putin of Russia. He has persisted while other opposition activists retreated, emigrated, switched sides, went to prison or were killed. Mr. Navalny, now behind bars again, has seized the moment and become an international symbol of resistance to Mr. Putin and the Kremlin elite. Above, Mr. Navalny during the announcement of a court verdict earlier this month.

“He is prepared to lose everything,” one economist said. “That makes him different from everyone else.”

And two years ago in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó became a national hero by posing the most serious threat to date to the deeply unpopular president, Nicolás Maduro. Today, the adoring crowds are gone, but Mr. Guaidó is not giving up. “This has been a great sacrifice, but I’d repeat it a thousand times,” he insisted in an interview.

Akasha Rabut for The New York Times

7. Bars are closed. Parades are canceled. But Mardi Gras in New Orleans will still be festive, despite the pandemic: Artists are turning houses into elaborate floats.

Floats have paraded through the city on the last Tuesday before Lent since 1857. With the help of local organizations, artists are finding a way to keep the celebration going. Take a tour for yourself (beads not included).

“It’s so New Orleans to take a bad situation and turn into a positive,” one homeowner said. “This speaks to the resiliency of the people in the city.”

Chris Graythen/Getty Images

8. The basketball great Michael Jordan is turning his attention to NASCAR.

Darrell Wallace Jr., above, known as Bubba, is making his debut in today’s Daytona 500 with 23XI Racing, the team owned by Jordan and the driver Denny Hamlin. By supporting Wallace, the only Black full-time driver at NASCAR’s top level, Jordan told us he hopes to help diversify the sport, business opportunities and fans.

“We don’t know where this is going to go, but we know that we’re trying to make it better for all people,” Jordan said. (Just don’t ask the 6-foot-6 star to get in a racecar: “I don’t even fit.”)

Ashleigh Corrin

9. Perhaps you’ve vetoed Valentine’s Day. Or maybe you’re looking for inspiration. We have movies for the lovers — and the haters.

Here are five films about the power and resilience of romance, and five more about its misfortunes. Make your cinematic choices wisely.

What makes a great love story? The pages of the Book Review over the last 125 years reveal nine key ingredients, including passion. Do you remember the first book that turned you on? For the cartoonist Roz Chast, it was Webster’s dictionary.

We also have lessons in love from astronauts, cockroaches and Emily Morse, a sex educator and podcast host. Also our Food editor, Sam Sifton, has ideas for what to cook this weekend.

Marilyn Sargent/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California

10. And finally, some great journalism.

The new look for spring break. Cracking the code of einsteinium. The many lives of Steven Yeun. These stories and more top the latest edition of The Weekender.

Our editors also suggest these 11 new books, a new reality show where contestants have to build an 850-foot floating bridge, Taylor Swift’s rerecorded back catalog and more.

Did you follow the news this week? 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.

Have a heartfelt week.

Your Weekend Briefing is published Sundays at 6:30 a.m. Eastern.

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