| We’re covering the twin crises in the U.S. of police violence and the pandemic, China’s pressure campaign on Hong Kong business and SpaceX’s (so far) successful mission. | | | Protesters in Los Angeles on Saturday. Bryan Denton for The New York Times | | | Hundreds of people were arrested as the police clashed with demonstrators angry over the death, a week ago today, of George Floyd, a black man who was handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a white police officer in Minneapolis. | | | A first in decades: At least 75 American cities have seen protests in recent days, and mayors in more than two dozen have imposed curfews. It was the first time since 1968, after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that so many local leaders have issued such orders in the face of civic unrest. | | | Analysis: While other presidents would seek to cool the situation in tinderbox moments like this, President Trump is playing with matches and whipping up tensions, writes our chief White House correspondent. Mr. Trump said the U.S. government will designate the anti-fascist group Antifa, which he blames for some of the protest violence, as a terrorist organization. | | | Hong Kong TV news reports China’s decision to impose new security legislation. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times | | | Lawyers, bankers, professors and other professionals interviewed by The Times described a growing culture of fear in offices across Hong Kong. Employees face pressure to support pro-Beijing candidates in local elections and echo the Chinese government’s official line. Those who speak out can be punished or even forced out. | | | Uncertainty: Hong Kong’s success as a global financial hub stems from its status as a bridge between China’s economy and the rest of the world. Now that balance is looking increasingly precarious. | | | Quotable: “This looks like a new Cold War, and Hong Kong is being made a new Berlin,” said Claudia Mo, a lawmaker in the city’s pro-democracy camp. | | | Outside a hospital treating Covid-19 patients in Nicaragua. Inti Ocon for The New York Times | | | An Indian officer on patrol in the Ladakh region, also known as Little Tibet, in northwestern India. Paula Bronstein/Getty Images | | | Indian and Chinese troops fought with rocks, clubs and fists in recent episodes along their disputed border in the Himalayas. No shots were fired and no one thinks the two giants are about to go to war, but the escalation is troubling. | | | Our reporters looked into the border brawls and what might lie behind them: a new assertiveness from China and perhaps roads built by India near Tibet. | | | PAID POST: A MESSAGE FROM CAMPAIGN MONITOR | | TEST: Email Marketing 101: Never Sacrifice Beauty for Simplicity | | A drag-and-drop email builder, a gallery of templates and turnkey designs, personalized customer journeys, and engagement segments. It's everything you need to create stunning, results-driven email campaigns in minutes. And with Campaign Monitor, you have access to it all, along with award-winning support around the clock. It's beautiful email marketing done simply. | | | Learn More | | | | SpaceX docking: The capsule carrying two NASA astronauts docked at the International Space Station on Sunday, less than a day after a launch that marked the first time humans had ever traveled to orbit in a spacecraft built and operated by a private company. | | | G7 postponed: President Trump pushed back a Group of 7 meeting in the U.S. to September from next month after Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said she would not attend in person over concerns about the coronavirus. Mr. Trump said he wanted to include Russia, Australia, South Korea and India to discuss the future of China. | | | Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times | | | What we’re reading: This essay in The Harvard Review. Lynda Richardson, a story editor, writes: “In a meditation on contact and distance in this age of quarantines, an eloquent writer finally comes to terms with a brutal attack in New York City many years ago.” | | | Melissa Clark/The New York Times | | | Watch: Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s martial-arts movie “The Assassin” played widely, but here’s a look at some lesser-known works by Taiwan’s greatest filmmaker. | | | Listen: Money is a stressful subject at the best of times, and only more so in these worst of times. These seven podcasts will help you weather the financial storm. | | | Check out our At Home collection for more ideas on what to read, cook, watch, and do while staying safe at home. | | | Mike Hale, a Times television critic, has spent 10 years working at home, binge-watching the newest television series. So when the pandemic hit, not that much changed for him. In fact, he discovered, other lives were becoming more like his. | | | This sense of sameness was buttressed by the ability of the TV industry, relatively speaking, to maintain some semblance of business as usual. Colleagues who covered arts that depended on the physical proximity of audiences — theater, dance, live music, art museums and galleries, even movies, which is to say just about all of them — suddenly found themselves scrambling to find things to write about. On TV, meanwhile, new shows kept coming out. | | | But the truth, of course, is that everything is changing, and change is quickly catching up to TV. The absence of live sports has been the most obvious effect of the pandemic, but the near-total shutdown of production on most non-news programming is already rejiggering schedules and playing havoc with the fall season (if that designation even means anything now). | | | Creators are just beginning to explore new and safe methods of making shows. (A leading-edge example, the dramatic anthology “Isolation Stories,” made it on the air this month in Britain and comes to BritBox in America in June.) The next time we do a TV preview, it will probably look a lot different. | | | And while TV critics have had it easier than just about anyone during this troubling and sometimes terrifying period, we haven’t been untouched. No matter how well-practiced you are at sitting on a couch and staring at a screen, you’re not doing it with the same level of comfort that you had before. | | | The urge to check the news is stronger. Any susceptibility you might have to feelings of general uselessness is doubled. Worst of all, everyone else in your building is now home during the day too, and instead of watching TV, they’re doing dance aerobics or practicing the cello. | | | That’s it for this briefing. See you next time. | | Thank you
To Melissa Clark for the recipe, and to Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the rest of the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com. | | | Were you sent this briefing by a friend? Sign up here to get the Morning Briefing. | | |
