Go for the gold: Your Weekend Briefing

November 7, 2021

By Remy Tumin

Welcome to the Weekend Briefing. We're covering the infrastructure bill, climate protests in Glasgow and the New York City Marathon.

"We did something that is long overdue," President Biden said on Saturday.Kenny Holston for The New York Times

1. A $1 trillion infrastructure bill is heading to President Biden's desk to be signed into law.

With nearly $600 billion in new federal aid to improve highways, bridges, dams, public transit, rail, ports, airports, water quality and broadband over 10 years, the legislation is a once-in-a-generation chance to overhaul the nation's public works system. This is where the states want billions spent.

The bill also designates $47 billion for climate resilience, the largest amount of money ever spent by the U.S. to prepare the nation to withstand the effects of climate change.

But still in limbo on Capitol Hill is a second, larger bill — the $1.85 trillion social welfare and climate change legislation. A deal finally materialized on Friday when the Congressional Black Caucus proposed passing the infrastructure bill immediately and holding a separate vote on the social bill in mid-November. Here's who crossed party lines.

Biden cast the victory as critical to putting Americans to work on long-neglected projects and central to his strategy for competing with China.

Climate activists marching through central Glasgow.Andrew Testa for The New York Times

2. Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in Glasgow to call for urgent climate action.

According to organizers, more than 100,000 people poured into the streets of the host city of the climate talks, which are heading into their second and final week. The protests brought into focus the gender and generation gap at the Glasgow talks: Those with the power to make decisions are mostly old and male. Those who are angriest about the pace of climate action are mostly young and female.

What makes the climate movement's generational divide so pointed is that world leaders have been meeting and talking about the need to address climate change since before most of the protesters were born, with few results.

A federal appeals panel issued a temporary stay on President Biden's vaccine mandate for large employers.Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

3. A federal appeals court in Louisiana temporarily blocked the Biden administration's Covid vaccine mandate for large companies.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted a temporary stay to a group of businesses, religious groups and several states who argued that the administration had overstepped its authority when it directed big businesses to require their employees to be vaccinated by January. The judges cited "grave statutory and constitutional issues with the mandate."

Despite signs that the economy is improving and the virus is waning, many Americans seem stuck in a pandemic hangover of pessimism. The malaise helped fuel a backlash against Democrats at the polls last week.

Starting tomorrow, foreign travelers will be allowed to enter the U.S., as long as they are vaccinated, for the first time in 18 months. Here's what visitors need to know and how to prepare for the holiday travel season.

Day 2 of the Astroworld music festival was canceled after eight people died on Friday night.Annie Mulligan for The New York Times

4. Officials in Houston are investigating what led to a crowd surge at a music festival that left eight people dead on Friday night.

Hundreds were injured when the crowd began pushing toward the front of the stage during a performance by the rapper Travis Scott. Panic and then desperation spread through the crowd of 50,000 mostly young people. The eight people who died ranged in ages from 14 to 27, according to city officials.

The crush of the crowd was so intense that it left no room to move, those who attended the Astroworld music festival said. "It was like hell," a 17-year-old concertgoer said. "Everybody was just in the back, trying to rush to the front."

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Former President Donald Trump in early January.Pete Marovich for The New York Times

5. An Atlanta district attorney's criminal investigation into election interference by Donald Trump and his allies is heating up.

The prosecutor, Fani Willis of Fulton County, is said to be moving toward convening a special grand jury. Willis opened her inquiry in February and her office has been consulting with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. But her progress has been slowed in part by the delays in the panel's fact gathering.

Her inquiry is seen by legal experts as potentially perilous for the former president. In January, Trump asked Georgia's secretary of state to reverse the state's election result.

Separately, the F.B.I. searched the home of the Project Veritas's founder as part of a continuing inquiry into the theft of a diary from President Biden's daughter.

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Police officers shot Cedric Mifflin during a stop in 2017 after they pulled him over for not wearing a seatbelt.Kenny Holston for The New York Times

6. A seatbelt ticket. A cracked taillight. A broken headlight.

These minor offenses resulted in the deaths of unarmed motorists at the hands of police officers. In a Times investigation of traffic stops that left more than 400 people dead over the past five years, the police justified the shootings by arguing that the vehicle was a weapon.

In about 250 cases, The Times found that police officers had fired into vehicles that they claimed posed a threat. Relative to the population, Black motorists were overrepresented among those killed.

Over the past five years, nine officers have been fatally run over, pinned or dragged by drivers in vehicles. But in many instances, local police officers, state troopers and sheriff's deputies put themselves at risk. Some officers who fatally shot motorists didn't appear to be in any jeopardy at all, The Times investigation showed.

Runners cross the Verrazano Narrows Bridge during the 2019 marathon.Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

7. Runners — all 30,000 of you — take your marks.

The 50th running of the New York City Marathon gets underway this morning, a year after the competition was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The 26.2-mile race begins on Staten Island and loops through Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx before ending in Central Park in Manhattan. The first competitors start racing at 8 a.m. Here's our guide and live coverage.

Among the star runners will be Kenenisa Bekele, arguably the greatest distance runner ever, and Molly Seidel, an Olympic bronze medalist and crowd favorite.

Many runners break up this endeavor into a series of more digestible chunks. This is how one of our reporters does it in 13 parts. If you're in New York City, here are the best places to watch.

An artist's concept of one of the kinds of planets that is orbiting the star HD 3167.NASA

8. Star systems come in all shapes and sizes, but a particularly unusual system about 150 light-years away has scientists scratching their heads.

Astronomers have observed planets orbiting around a star's poles instead of its Equator like Earth orbits the sun. But the peculiar system of the star HD 3167 has planets orbiting perpendicular in both the star's poles and the Equator. It may be the first star system of its kind ever found.

In other news from the cosmos, American astronomers called for investment in "extremely large" multibillion-dollar telescopes, bigger than any on Earth or in space, in an effort to search for life beyond Earth. And the International Dark-Sky Association designated five new places for top-notch stargazing.

Food and wine experts sipping their way to perfect pairing recommendations for Thanksgiving.Evan Sung for The New York Times

9. With less than three weeks to go until Thanksgiving, why not start planning with the easiest part of the meal: the wine.

Since 2004, our wine critic, Eric Asimov, and fellow Food staff members have gathered to test which wines go best with a meal. A few of their guiding principles: Plan to have equal numbers of both reds and whites, and figure one bottle per drinking person (you won't run out, and that's the most important thing). Here's this year's guide.

For dinner tonight, try this homemade version of Stouffer's mac and cheese. Our Food columnist Eric Kim describes the dish as "the platonic ideal" of a household staple.

The brothers Alex and Zach Frankel behind the counter at Frankel's in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 2016.Caitlin Ochs for The New York Times

10. And finally, relax with a great read.

The Manhattan "madam" who hobnobbed with the city's elite. How Benedict Cumberbatch transformed into a seething cowboy. The rise of the designer deli. Catch up on all of these stories in The Weekender.

Our editors also suggest these 13 new books, new music from Post Malone and the Weeknd, and "Cake" on Hulu. Daylight saving time ends today and we have a few suggestions on what to do with your "extra hour."

Did you follow the news this week? Test your knowledge. And here's the front page of our Sunday paper, the Sunday Review from Opinion and today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. If you're in the mood to play more, find all of our games here.

Have a delicious week.

Shaminder Dulai compiled photos for this briefing.

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

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