| We’re covering the protests in the U.S. and around the world against racism and police abuses, China’s take on its virus response and the reopening of New York City. | | | Protesters at Times Square on Sunday. Jeenah Moon/Reuters | | | U.S. response: Some U.S. lawmakers are preparing sweeping legislation that would make it easier to prosecute police misconduct and to recover damages from officers found to have violated civil rights. | | | A proposed bill to be released today in Congress would create a national registry to track police misconduct and ban certain chokeholds and other similar tactics used by police officers. | | | Quotable: Attorney General William P. Barr, the nation’s top law-enforcement officer, said on a Sunday morning news show that he believed racism was not a systemic problem in policing because so much progress had been made since the 1960s. | | | But he also said, “I think we have to recognize that for most of our history, our institutions were explicitly racist.” | | | Health workers checked temperatures in a residential area of Jilin, in China’s northeast last month. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images | | | Whether China is pilloried or praised for its handling of the coronavirus crisis could have a big effect on the country’s global standing in the months and years ahead. | | | In a detailed report made public on Sunday, China portrayed its approach to combating the outbreak as a model for the world. Our Shanghai bureau chief deciphers the report, and notes what is missing: a series of government missteps early in the outbreak. | | | New cases: The government on Sunday reported six new cases across China. Five originated abroad, and one was said to have been transmitted locally in the southern island province of Hainan. | | | ■ New York City begins lifting lockdown restrictions today after nearly three months of hardship as an epicenter of the worldwide outbreak. As many as 400,000 workers could begin returning to manufacturing jobs, construction sites and retail stores in Phase 1 of the reopening. | | | ■ Researchers are developing models for more targeted closings (and reopenings) that would curb the spread of infection at a less severe economic cost. France and Spain have adopted a plan that would divide countries into dangerous red and safer green zones, and would allow travel within and between the green areas while strictly curtailing it in the red region. | | | Indian soldiers on patrol in Ladakh last year. Frictions with Chinese troops along the border, which stretches more than 2,100 miles, are frequent. Paula Bronstein/Getty Images | | | China and India agreed to step back from a confrontation along their shared border — the most serious tensions between the two powers in years — after military commanders from both sides met on Saturday near a lake in the Himalayas. | | | Troops from the two countries clashed last month at the lake, Pangong Tso, resulting in numerous injuries. | | | The countries resolved to settle the dispute through diplomatic and military talks, the Indian Foreign Ministry said. China has not yet publicly discussed the meeting. | | | Context: China appeared to step up its activity in the area this spring after the expansion of a road network on the Indian side of the border. India has been trying to strengthen its defenses in the remote, high-altitude region. | | | Victor Moriyama for The New York Times | | | Illegal loggers, miners and land grabbers have cleared vast areas of the Amazon in recent months as the pandemic has hobbled law enforcement efforts in Brazil, which is now reporting the highest daily number of coronavirus deaths in the world. | | | Our reporters take a look at the stepped-up deforestation, fueled by criminal organizations, and the government’s response. “This coronavirus crisis is turning into an environmental crisis, too,” said Ane Alencar, the director of science at Ipam Amazônia, an environmental research organization. | | | 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 | | | | Iranian women’s rights: The decapitation of a 14-year-old girl by her father in a so-called honor killing has shaken Iran, setting off a nationwide debate over the rights of women and children, and the failure of the country’s social, religious and legal systems to protect them. | | | Libya talks: Khalifa Hifter, the Libyan commander backed by Russia whose forces suffered a string of battlefield losses in recent days, declared on Saturday that he was ready to stop fighting and enter talks to end his oil-rich country’s civil war. | | | Taiwan election: People in the port city Kaohsiung voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to remove their China-friendly mayor from office, just months after he lost his bid to unseat President Tsai Ing-wen in national elections. The vote on Saturday appeared to reflect Taiwan’s hardening attitude toward China. | | | In memoriam: Shigeru Yokota, 87. His tireless campaign for the return of his kidnapped daughter and other abductees from North Korea made him a well-known figure in Japan. | | | Emile Ducke for The New York Times | | | Snapshot: Above, soccer practice in Berlin. Children train individually with their own balls at clearly marked locations two meters apart and the goals are disinfected after use, among the many measures imposed in Germany, which has been successful in curbing the pandemic. | | | What we’re reading: This piece in The Atlantic. “Anne Applebaum looks at our current moment in the light of 20th-century history to explore the question of why many prominent Republicans have abandoned their deeply-held principles to stick with President Trump,” Kathleen Flynn, one of our editors, said. | | | Melissa Clark/The New York Times | | | Cook: These chewy, salty butterscotch brownies call for browned butter and an entire 1-pound box of dark brown sugar. | | | Watch: “Momma, I Made It!,” the first comedy special by Yvonne Orji, finds the Nigerian-American comic riffing on life, love, finances and a return trip to Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. | | | Listen: These 12 field recordings featuring chattering animals and roaring weather systems can help satisfy your need for nature, or for whale songs. | | | Erin Schaff/The New York Times | | | Zolan Kanno-Youngs, our Homeland Security correspondent, has been covering the protests against police brutality and racism in Washington. He spoke to Times Insider about what the past weeks have been like. Here’s an excerpt. | | | What strategies do you use while reporting at these protests? | | | You have to be willing to get a bit uncomfortable in pursuit of actually documenting the reality, the truth, of a situation. | | | You’re going to have many people there who are suffering trauma, who are perhaps distrustful of the news media, and I think one thing I needed to accept was getting over that wall of going to someone who didn’t want to speak to me and convincing them to. | | | How has your identity posed challenges as you cover a story that is so intensely driven by issues of racial inequities? | | | Being a black journalist, I’m going to come to the situation with a perspective and a background that other reporters may not have. I think that approaching these situations with that perspective can actually get at one of the more crucial necessities when it comes to this reporting, which is empathy — to have the ability to understand, not just transcribe, where a person who is experiencing the trauma of the situation could be coming from. | | | Why is it so important to cover a story like this so deeply and comprehensively? | | | I have to acknowledge that there have been documented reports of abuses of authority and violent incidents. I think it’s ever more important to be present to this situation in order to document any of those incidents against anybody. | | | But speaking generally, there’s that cliché that reporting is documenting the first draft of history. Protests are the early seeds of a movement that could shape the future of this country, that could determine policy change, that could determine who will be in power. But at the very root of it, it also shows the mind-set and the feelings of the people in this country right now. This really is the root of our reporting. This is a prime example of why we do what we do. | | | That’s it for this briefing. See you next time. | | Thank you
To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the rest of the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com. | | P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode features five U.S. protesters speaking about the moments in their lives that brought them onto the streets.
• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Pay tribute to (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.
• Tara Parker-Pope, our Well editor, hosts a Times Event on smart ways to live your life while staying safe during the pandemic on Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern time ( 1:00 a.m. Tuesday in Hong Kong). | | | Were you sent this briefing by a friend? Sign up here to get the Morning Briefing. | | |
