Good morning. We’re covering growing anger at Lebanon’s government after the Beirut explosion, a surge in virus cases in France and Germany and the pain inflicted by extreme heat from climate change. | | | President Emmanuel Macron of France visiting the Gemmayzeh neighborhood of Beirut on Thursday. Bilal Hussein/Associated Press | | | International rescue teams arrived in Beirut on Thursday, as the nation entered a period of official mourning over the huge explosion that has brought the Lebanese capital to its knees. | | | Public anger is growing over evidence that government negligence allowed more than 2,000 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate seized from a ship to be stored in the port for years. The port, a crucial economic hub, has been destroyed, and with it, the nation’s grain supply, raising concerns about food security in a country of 6.8 million people. | | | President Emmanuel Macron of France, but no major Lebanese politicians, visited the area. In the Gemmayzeh neighborhood, which was especially hard hit, he was surrounded by a crowd that denounced the government. | | | There were calls for protests, and volunteers cleaning up the streets chanted, “The people demand the fall of the regime.” The death toll rose to 137, with more than 5,000 injured and 250,000 displaced. | | | Quotable: “The Lebanese are in the streets, showing great solidarity, and the authorities are just absent,” said Rima Tarabay, a Beirut resident. “It’s impressive on the one hand, desolating on the other.” | | | Caught on video: Israa Seblani was posing for her wedding video when the camera captured the instant a deadly blast tore through the city. | | | Security and police officers enforce mask requirements on board a train in Berlin this week. Annette Riedl/DPA, via Associated Press | | | France reported 1,695 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, and Germany on Thursday reported more than 1,000 — higher numbers than either had seen in months. Other Western European countries, including Spain and Belgium, are also facing surges. | | | Some health experts said Germans were becoming lax about upholding the social-distancing and mask-wearing requirements, and a French scientific panel warned that a second wave of infections by the fall was “highly possible,” urging cities to prepare for new lockdowns. | | | Still, the European surges are not on the level of U.S. spikes. | | | People attended the annual Tiananmen vigil in Hong Kong on June 4, despite an official ban. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times | | | Two dozen democracy advocates in Hong Kong were charged on Thursday for taking part in the annual June 4 vigil for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which was banned for the first time this year, officially because of the coronavirus. It’s the latest sign of China’s aggressive clampdown on dissent in the territory. | | | Among those charged were Lee Cheuk-yan, a veteran organizer of the vigils; Joshua Wong, a prominent activist; and Gwyneth Ho, a former journalist. They were accused of “knowingly taking part in an unauthorized assembly.” Mr. Lee, a former lawmaker, faced an additional charge of “holding an unauthorized assembly” after he and several other leaders urged others to join the commemoration. | | | Mr. Wong and Ms. Ho were among a dozen pro-democracy candidates, including sitting lawmakers, who had been disqualified from running in legislative elections recently moved from September to next year. | | | Quotable: “I feel the pressure. I am overloaded with charges,” Mr. Lee said in an interview. “Even if you’re peaceful and nonviolent, they’d still want to stifle and suppress peaceful assemblies.” | | | Brett Gundlock for The New York Times | | | Setsuko Thurlow was 13 years old and in Hiroshima when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb there. She has fought for the abolition of nuclear weapons ever since, sharing a Nobel Peace Prize for the work in 2017. But Japan and other countries that have not signed onto a treaty banning the weapons have generally disregarded her, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has given her the cold shoulder. | | | Our Tokyo bureau chief’s profile of Ms. Thurlow, now 88, is part of The Times’s coverage of the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, and serves as a reminder of the urgency of hearing the stories of a dwindling number of survivors. | | | 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 | | | | Saudi-China nuclear collaboration: U.S. intelligence agencies are scrutinizing Saudi Arabia’s work with China to build up the kingdom’s ability to produce nuclear fuel for signs that the Saudis’ real hope is to process uranium and move toward developing a nuclear weapon. | | | Trump misinformation: In a first, Facebook took down a video posted by President Trump’s campaign in which he claimed children were “virtually immune” to the coronavirus, a violation of the social network’s rules against virus misinformation. Twitter froze the president’s campaign account until it removed a post linking to the video. | | | Chinese justice: A court in the eastern province of Jiangxi has exonerated a man who spent more than 26 years in prison for the murder of two boys. The case has grabbed headlines and highlighted new, if halting, efforts at reform — but also the deep flaws in the country’s criminal justice system. | | | Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters | | | Snapshot: Above, Giuseppe Paternò, 96, fulfilling his lifelong dream of getting a university degree at the University of Palermo after being sidetracked by poverty, World War II and family commitments. | | | What we’re reading: This article from The Los Angeles Times on the story of Bruce’s Beach. “This look at what happened to a beach popular with Black residents back in the day — in one of the whitest towns in Los Angeles — tells so much about the struggle for Black people to even enjoy themselves,” writes Randy Archibold, our Sports editor. | | | Blueberry Bundt cake. Melissa Clark/The New York Times | | | Cook: Lift your family’s spirits with this blueberry Bundt cake, a showstopping treat adorned with a jewel-toned glaze. | | | Listen: We asked artists including Ivo van Hove, Justin Peck, Du Yun and others to share their favorite works from music of the past 20 years. Here are their picks from 21st-century composers. | | | Nearly everywhere, heat waves are more frequent and last longer than they did 70 years ago. And it’s worse for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. | | | How did you select which cities or countries to spotlight? | | | Somini: I have seen over the last couple of years the impact of what is truly a global problem. Global warming is not equal — the problem of warming and extreme heat is really felt by people who are already the most vulnerable, not just because it gets super hot where they live but because they’re already vulnerable in other ways: They may be in poor health, they may be farmers who depend entirely on the rains and so a little change in rainfall or extremely hot dry periods affect them, and because they may not be able to afford the most basic luxury to cope with the heat, like having enough water or electricity around the clock so they can turn on a fan, let alone having access to air-conditioning. | | | I wanted to show what’s happening now. It’s certainly projected to get worse in the future, but people are dealing with unbearably hot and humid conditions right now. | | | Faith, 32, poured water on her head to cool down while working on a cassava farm land in Nigeria. KC Nwakalor for The New York Times | | | Was there any research that really stuck out? | | | One study said episodes of extreme heat and levels the human body cannot tolerate have more than doubled in frequency since 1979. South Asia and the southeastern coast of the U.S. have been hardest hit by this already. | | | People can often look at climate news and feel helpless. What sort of actionable things were experts saying could be done? | | | Draw down the combustion of fossil fuels. The world is capable of getting off coal in many instances, capable of vastly reducing the burning of oil and gas. The world also has to adjust to the extreme heat we’re seeing already. | | | It means expanding access to ways to cool down, whether that’s access to air-conditioners or fans or more trees to bring down temperatures in the city, access to water. It could also mean adjusting things you might not immediately think of, like labor laws so people don’t have to work for hours under the blistering sun, agricultural changes in farming methods, or what is grown in what place to adapt to higher temperatures and longer dry seasons. | | | In short, it requires doing everything pretty differently. | | That’s it for this briefing. See you next time. — Carole | | Thank you
To Melissa Clark for the recipe, and to Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the rest of the break from the news. Sanam Yar wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com. | | P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is a conversation with one of our correspondents in Beirut, who was injured in the huge explosion at the city’s port on Tuesday.
• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: “The Fox and the Grapes” storyteller (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.
• “Dominic Fike, at First,” a new Times documentary on the making of a pop star, premieres today on FX and Hulu. | | | Were you sent this briefing by a friend? Sign up here to get the Morning Briefing. | | |
