Welcome to the Weekend Briefing. We're covering the vaccine-hesitant, the end of an eviction moratorium and the latest from the Olympics. |
 | | Steven Harris says he believes the antibodies he has from already getting Covid-19 will protect him.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times |
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1. As coronavirus cases rise rapidly again, the fight against the pandemic is focused on an estimated 93 million people who are unvaccinated. |
They largely fall into two groups: those who are vehemently opposed to the idea, and a second group that is still deciding, according to surveys. Health officials are making progress in inoculating this second group, but those who are firmly opposed to the vaccines outnumber them by two-to-one. Understanding what might persuade them to change their minds will be crucial to fighting the highly contagious Delta variant. |
 | | Migreldi Lara applied for rental assistance three times but hasn't received anything.Caroline Gutman for The New York Times |
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2. A nationwide moratorium on evictions expired on Saturday, putting hundreds of thousands of tenants at risk of losing shelter. |
The expiration was a setback for President Biden, whose team has tried for months to fix an emergency rent relief program to help struggling renters and landlords. The administration had made a last-ditch appeal to extend the moratorium to buy more time for states to distribute the tens of billions of dollars in untapped federal aid. |
The eviction freeze reduced by about half the number of cases that normally would have been filed since last fall, according to one analysis. Now, many tenants are packing up and facing an uncertain future. "If the federal government doesn't help us, we are going to collapse," said Migreldi Lara, a mother of three. |
 | | House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy with members of the House Republican caucus this week.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times |
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3. No longer content to absolve Donald Trump for his part in the Capitol riot, Republicans are trying to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, our reporters write in an analysis. |
In the days after the insurrection, rattled Republican lawmakers vowed to break from Trump's divisive tactics. But this past week, amid the emotional testimony of police officers at the first hearing of a House select committee, Republicans concocted a new counternarrative, blaming Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the violence. Some experts saw it as a dangerous new sign in American politics. |
 | | Hundreds wait in long lines at the passport department in Kabul each morning.Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times |
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4. A mass exodus is unfolding across Afghanistan as the Taliban press on with a military campaign and the U.S. withdraws. |
At least 30,000 Afghans are leaving each week and many more have been displaced. The Taliban have captured more than half the country's 400-odd districts, according to some assessments, sparking fears of a harsh return to extremist rule or a civil war. The sudden flight is an early sign of a looming refugee crisis, aid agencies warn. |
In recent days, residents of Lashkar Gar, the capital of Helmand Province, began fleeing their homes as the key city appeared to be in danger of falling. The latest example of the Taliban's brutal tactics came this week when officials said that the body of Danish Siddiqui, a Reuters photojournalist who was killed this month, was badly mutilated in the custody of the Taliban. |
 | | Elaine Thompson-Herah averaged more than 21 miles per hour to win the women's 100 meters.Doug Mills/The New York Times |
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5. Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica is still the fastest woman in the world. |
Thompson-Herah ran 100 meters in 10.61 seconds in Tokyo, breaking Florence Griffith-Joyner's record set 33 years ago by 12-hundredths of a second. It was a Jamaican sweep of the medals: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce took silver with a time of 10.74 seconds, and Shericka Jackson won bronze. |
 | | Illegally harvested wild succulents were seized in the desert near Steinkopf, South Africa.Tommy Trenchard for The New York Times |
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6. South Africa is home to around a third of all succulent species, but poachers are posing a severe threat to biodiversity. |
Conophytum, a type of flowering plant that consists of over 100 species — several listed as endangered — is the latest victim of a global wave of succulent poaching driven by surging demand from collectors and enthusiasts around the world, but especially in China and South Korea. Many of these species "could be collected to extinction in a couple of visits by poachers," one expert said. |
The Namib Desert, straddling southern Angola and northern Namibia, is home to some of the largest specimens of Welwitschia. These plants grow only two leaves — and continuously — in a lifetime that can last millenniums. A new study reveals some of its genetic secrets. |
 | | Snoop Dogg picks projects with a guide: "It's got to be fun. And it's going to make funds."Maggie Shannon for The New York Times |
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7. The new Addams Family movie. A Corona commercial. A show with Martha Stewart. |
Nearly 30 years after emerging as a rapper from Long Beach, Calif., Snoop Dogg has transcended his hip-hop roots and become culturally ubiquitous. Celebrities who cross genres can risk diluting their brand, but Snoop has remained relentlessly on message, all while still releasing new music. He spoke to us about going from shy musician to a multiplatform entrepreneur with new ventures in the cannabis industry. |
"Companies that get down with me know how I get down," he said while smoking a large blunt. "That's the way I branded myself, to where when you get Snoop Dogg, you get all of it. It's just, what version did you pay for?" |
 | | Sharing a summer read on the Great Lawn in Central Park.Justin Gilliland/The New York Times |
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8. "Here is this delicious book and the whole day, both yours." |
The true pleasure of summer reading lies not so much in the novel itself, the writer Hildegarde Hawthorne explained in 1907, but in the choice to devote oneself to it. Summer reading as we now know it emerged in the U.S. in the mid-1800s, buoyed by an emerging middle class and the birth of another cultural tradition: the summer vacation. |
A look at this week's best-seller list reminds us that good writing runs in families, that wet T-shirts attract attention and that you can't hide from your past. |
 | | Vegetable curry and melon salad, a riot of summer flavors.David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. |
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9. Put your farmers market haul to work. |
Height-of-season summer produce is seductive, with tantalizing shapes and colors and the kind of sweetness that comes from being freshly picked, our Food writer David Tanis says. He channeled this summer moment into a three-course vegetarian dinner. |
If you're grilling, consider "pregnant shrimp." Camarones embarazados gets its name from a play on words: "En vara" means on a stick, and "asado" means roasted, which sounds like "embarazados," the Spanish word for "pregnant." In Puerto Vallarta, the shrimp have been part of the culture since forever. Here's a recipe. |
 | | Alexis Nikole Nelson, known to her 1.7 million Twitter followers as the Black Forager.Adraint Bereal for The New York Times |
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10. And finally, it's time to enjoy. |
Why beekeeping is booming in New York. How Black foragers find freedom in the natural world. The unappreciated importance of cats (to medical science). These stories and more are in the latest edition of The Weekender. |
Happy August, happy weekend. |
David Poller compiled photos for this briefing. |
Your Weekend Briefing is published Sundays at 6:30 a.m. Eastern. |
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