Good morning. We’re covering coronavirus cases in Indonesia, devastating floods in Europe and the rise of militias in Afghanistan. |
 | | Covid-19 patients in a tent outside a hospital in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times |
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Indonesia is the pandemic’s epicenter |
The highly contagious Delta variant fuels the meteoric rise in infections on the islands of Java and Bali. But even the record case numbers are a vast undercount. Dicky Budiman, an Indonesian epidemiologist at Griffith University in Australia, estimates that the true number is three to six times higher. |
Some hospitals are setting up emergency expansions, housing patients in large tents. But thousands of people are sleeping in hospital hallways, tents and cars, waiting for an open bed. And officials estimate that 10 percent of their health care workers, on average, are in isolation after exposure. |
Scarcity: “If we go to the hospital, we have to bring our own oxygen,” said Nyimas Siti Nadia, 28, who is trying to help her aunt’s family get treatment. At one hospital in the city of Yogyakarta, 33 patients died this month after the central oxygen supply ran out. |
- Britain plans to lift restrictions on Monday, even though cases have surged to more than 50,000 a day. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his top finance official are self-isolating after the health minister tested positive.
- Olympic organizers reported the first cases inside the athletes’ village, with the Games set to begin on Friday.
- Some local governments in China have begun requiring that all students — and their families — be vaccinated before the students can return to school in the fall.
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 | | A man in front of his damaged restaurant in Bad Münstereifel, Germany, on Saturday.Gordon Welters for The New York Times |
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The authorities ordered new evacuations on Saturday, and heavy rains in the southern German region of Bavaria caused still more flooding on Sunday. |
German meteorologists called the flooding the worst in 500 years, if not a millennium. The disaster thrust the issue of climate change to the center of pivotal elections this fall. |
 | | Militiamen and government soldiers near the front line with the Taliban last week.Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times |
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Militias rise in Afghanistan |
“How can I be a shopkeeper with no security?” said Musa Khan Shujayee, 34, a commander of an outpost there, explaining that he would be tending his shop had the Taliban not attacked the city’s outskirts late last month. |
Over the past two decades, militias have carried many names, often under the auspices of government ownership: local police, territorial army, popular uprising forces, pro-government militias and so on. |
But the ragtag regional alliances feel different now. As the country slips into instability, many fear this new mutation is an all-too-close echo of the way Afghanistan fell into civil war in the 1990s. |
 | | Saudi Aramco’s engineers working in eastern Saudi Arabia.Ahmad El Itani/Saudi Aramco, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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- The major oil producers known as OPEC Plus reached a deal on production increases.
- Turkey accused Greece of illegally setting migrants adrift at sea, and invited journalists to witness rescues firsthand.
- In Lebanon, people can’t get their money from banks, the currency has crashed and the central bank chief is facing allegations of fraud.
- The bus explosion in Pakistan that killed 12 people — including nine Chinese workers — was a terrorist attack, officials say.
- The Times investigated how the Ever Given, one of the world’s biggest ships, got stuck in the Suez Canal this spring.
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 | | The Olympic rings at Odaiba Marine Park in Tokyo.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times |
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After bidding scandals, human rights outrages, overburdened host cities and now a pandemic, people are wondering whether the Olympics are more trouble than they’re worth. A recent poll found that only 22 percent of people in Japan think the Tokyo Games should happen. |
Culture will shape New York’s future |
New York City is New York City because of its concentrated creativity. Now, arts and entertainment are at the core of the city’s push to remain vital as shops battle e-commerce, remote work reshapes central business districts and families decamp for the exurbs. But the industry faces a bumpy recovery. |
Broadway hopes to be up and running in a few months, but tourism is lagging. The Metropolitan Opera has planned for September performances, but it needs to negotiate a deal with its musicians. Nightlife is hot, but clubs, comedy cellars and concert venues have struggled to access federal aid. |
These hiccups could stymie the city’s recovery. Arts and entertainment is a major industry: It employed some 93,500 people before the pandemic and paid them $7.4 billion in wages. Culturally, it’s the city’s lifeblood. |
“The way I look at it, there is not going to be a strong recovery for New York City without the performing arts leading the way,” said Eli Dvorkin, editorial and policy director at the Center for an Urban Future. “People gravitate here because of the city’s cultural life.” |
 | | Linda Xiao for The New York Times |
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“Naomi Osaka,” a new three-part mini-series on Netflix, deftly explores the tennis star’s psychology instead of focusing on her technical prowess. |
Our pop critics pulled tracks from Pop Smoke, Xenia Rubinos and Swedish House Mafia for their latest playlist. |
That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — Amelia |
P.S. The new season of “Modern Love” is coming to Prime Video on Friday, Aug. 13. Watch the trailer. |
The latest episode of “The Daily” is on the maltreatment of Indigenous children in Canada. |
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