Welcome to the Weekend Briefing. We're covering the possible ouster of Israel's long-time prime minister, the last day of the G7 summit and the French Open finals. |
 | | Ammar Awad/Reuters |
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1. Israel stands on the cusp of a watershed moment. |
The coalition is united in one goal: ousting Netanyahu. If it wins the vote of confidence in the Knesset, Naftali Bennett, a right-wing former leader of a settler movement, will be Israel's next prime minister. We'll have live updates here. |
In a compromise, Yair Lapid, a leading centrist politician who would become foreign minister in Bennett's government, will take over as prime minister in 2023. While Bennett would take the stage first, he wouldn't be leading without Lapid, who coaxed the unlikely alliance into existence. |
 | | Doug Mills/The New York Times |
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2. Leaders of the Group of 7 are wrapping up a summit today, having taken on the coronavirus pandemic, climate change and China. |
President Biden, pictured with President Emmanuel Macron of France, pushed for a more unified approach to combating the pandemic. The leaders are expected to sign a declaration on global health intended to ensure that the pandemic's toll is never repeated. |
Biden will head to Brussels for a NATO meeting tomorrow before sitting down with President Vladimir Putin of Russia in Geneva on Wednesday. But the two leaders will not hold a joint news conference — a move designed to deny the Russian leader an international platform. |
 | | Denis Grishkin/Moscow News Agency, via Reuters |
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3. While the U.S. and other wealthy nations are reporting fewer Covid cases and deaths, many other countries are facing worrisome new surges in infections. |
Russian officials are scrambling to slow the spread of a new wave of the coronavirus, ordering workers in Moscow to take next week off and pleading with residents to make use of widely available vaccines. Above, the Krylatskoye Ice Palace in Moscow was converted to a Covid hospital. The Delta variant is spreading in southeastern China, and doctors say that the infected are getting sicker, and faster. |
 | | Andrew Kelly/Reuters |
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4. Private equity firms have conquered the American tax system. |
The $4.5 trillion industry has avoided paying billions in taxes and has managed to derail efforts to increase its tax burden, thanks to lobbyists and campaign contributions. Firms are rarely audited despite whistle-blowers' claims of tax dodges. |
Private equity's ability to vanquish the I.R.S. and Congress goes a long way toward explaining the deep inequities in the U.S. tax system. |
 | | Tom Brenner for The New York Times |
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5. Recent disclosures about the Trump administration's seizure of data from House Democrats and reporters have left more questions than answers. |
But Biden's sweeping vow to ban a practice he called "simply, simply wrong" left crucial questions unanswered. Among them: How broad are the new protections? And could they be changed by future administrations? The unresolved details are expected to be a focus of a meeting tomorrow between Attorney General Merrick Garland and leaders of The Times, The Post and CNN. |
 | | Alejandro Cegarra for The New York Times |
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6. A Times investigation shows the serious construction flaws that led to the collapse of a Mexico City metro viaduct in May, killing 26 people. |
We took thousands of photographs of the crash site and shared the evidence with several leading engineers, who reached the same conclusion: The steel studs that were vital to the strength of the overpass appeared to have failed because of bad welds. Thousands of pages of internal government and corporate documents showed more than a decade of warnings and concerns about safety before the fatal crash. |
The disaster has spiraled into a political crisis for two of Mexico's most prominent figures: the president's foreign secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, who was mayor of Mexico City when the new metro line was built; and Carlos Slim, one of the world's wealthiest businessmen, whose construction company built the portion of the line that collapsed. |
 | | Jim Wells/Associated Press |
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7. "Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement" |
Fifty years ago today, that headline ran on the front page of The Times as the newspaper published a bombshell scoop that exposed the lies behind the Vietnam War: the Pentagon Papers. The Times knew the government would sue, but as the newspaper's general counsel at the time said, "the fate of journalism" was on the line. |
The Times won the Pulitzer Prize for public service when it published the Pentagon Papers. The newspaper won that prize again on Friday for its coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Here's the full list of winners. |
 | | Benoit Tessier/Reuters |
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8. A busy weekend of competition, and not just for humans. |
In soccer, the UEFA European Championship is underway in 11 countries. Fans witnessed a frightening moment when Denmark midfielder Christian Eriksen collapsed during a match, but he was later said to to be OK. Today's games include England vs. Croatia and Netherlands vs. Ukraine. |
 | | Hannah Yoon for The New York Times |
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9. A year ago, oyster growers in New York and New Jersey were fighting for survival. This summer is a very different story. |
As coronavirus restrictions lift and restaurant orders are back, oyster farmers in the region are ready for a "bonkers" summer, as one put it. The turnaround stems in part from two conservation buyback programs (millions of oysters, which are great natural filters, were purchased and placed on coastal reefs) as farmers were hustling to find new places to sell their shellfish. |
That same demand has exacerbated a New England seafood tradition in a different way: Up and down the coast of New England, the price of lobster is at historic highs. Would you pay $34 for a lobster roll? |
 | | Sam Youkilis for The New York Times |
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10. And finally, at your leisure. |
Your Weekend Briefing is published Sundays at 6:30 a.m. Eastern. |
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