Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

August 5, 2020

Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

By Victoria Shannon and Marcus Payadue

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

Lawrence Bryant/Reuters

1. The Democratic Party’s left-wing candidates continued their string of victories over establishment figures.

Results released today from Tuesday’s primaries showed a decisive win by Representative Rashida Tlaib in Michigan and an upset victory by Cori Bush, above, over a longtime House incumbent in Missouri.

Mainstream Republicans, meanwhile, cheered the conservative Kris Kobach’s loss in his Senate primary against Representative Roger Marshall, who is seen as a safer general-election candidate.

And former Vice President Joe Biden will not appear at the party convention set for Aug. 17 in Milwaukee, instead accepting the Democratic presidential nomination from his home state, Delaware. In fact, party leaders decided that no national officials will travel from out of state to participate because of coronavirus concerns.

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Samuel Corum for The New York Times

2. Chicago, the nation’s third-largest school district, will conduct classes remotely in September.

In recent days, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston and Washington have also opted to start the school year remote-only. That leaves New York City, which has a low infection rate, as the only major system in the country that will try to offer in-person classes when school starts this fall.

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Some private and parochial schools — like St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Md., above — with smaller class sizes, greater resources and influential supporters — are finding ways to move ahead with reopening plans that are outside the grasp of U.S. public school edicts.

And in Kenya, when officials decided to just start the academic year all over again, one of their goals was to address issues of inequality: Some students had the technology for remote learning when classes were suspended in March, and others didn’t. But researchers say their decision to redo the year might just widen these gaps.

Hussein Malla/Associated Press

3. As Beirut’s death toll climbed, so did Lebanese outrage over the handling of the explosive material that detonated.

The blast on Tuesday killed more than 100 people, but with an untold number still missing, officials expected that figure to rise. Over 4,000 people were injured, and some 300,000 people were displaced from their homes. These images show the scale of the destruction.

Even as the government vowed an investigation, anger swelled in Lebanon over the role long-term government mismanagement might have played in the disaster.

The thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate that officials are blaming for the explosion arrived aboard a Russian-owned ship more than six years ago. Despite numerous requests to have the material moved, “nothing happened,” according to the port’s general manager.

Here’s what we know so far. For those looking for ways to give support, here’s how to help.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

4. Despite some optimistic remarks, negotiators in Washington remained nowhere close to an agreement for a new economic rescue package.

A dispute over funding for the U.S. Postal Service joined expanded unemployment benefits and aid to state and local governments on the list of issues dividing Democratic leaders and the Trump administration. The Senate plans to adjourn for a month on Friday.

In other virus developments:

The Trump administration committed $1 billion to Johnson & Johnson for up to 100 million doses of its experimental coronavirus vaccine. The government’s investment in coronavirus vaccine projects now totals more than $9 billion. Here is our vaccine tracker.
The U.S. government expanded its list of hand sanitizers that consumers should avoid to add products with inadequate levels of alcohol. Here’s the list, which has grown to 115 brands.
The symptoms of coronavirus are many, and unpredictable. We have a guide to help you understand them.

Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

5. New York prosecutors who are seeking President Trump’s tax records subpoenaed Deutsche Bank, his longtime lender.

The move last year by the Manhattan district attorney’s office is another sign that its criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business practices is broader than previously known.

The investigation initially appeared to be focused on hush-money payments made in 2016 to two women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. The subpoena, however, sought documents on various topics related to Mr. Trump and his company, including any materials that might point to possible fraud, according to two people briefed on the subpoena’s contents, and Deutsche Bank complied.

The president has denied wrongdoing and dismissed the investigation led by Cyrus Vance Jr., a Democrat, above, as a politically motivated fishing expedition.

Johnny Milano for The New York Times

6. Millions are still without power in the wake of Tropical Storm Isaias.

The damage was extensive: Con Edison reported that the power outage in New York City and Westchester County was second only to Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and officials said restoration of service could take several days. Above, Middle Village, Queens.

“We’ve had over 16,000 service requests for downed trees, which I think is the most we’ve ever had in the city,” Deanne Criswell, New York’s emergency management commissioner, said.

Damage was reported all along the East Coast. The storm left a trail of floods and fires, with some of its most devastating effects caused by a series of tornadoes. At least four people died in storm-related incidents.

Quoctrung Bui and Emily Badger/The New York Times

7. When the unemployment rate of 11.1 percent looks good.

Job losses at the neighborhood level make June’s national rate pale in comparison: Some urban areas are seeing unemployment of more than 30 percent.

In New York, it would be as if parts of the Bronx were experiencing the Great Depression while the Upper East Side faced only modest drops in employment, analysts said. In Chicago, the rate in some South Side neighborhoods is more than double the city’s 15.6 percent, while some North Side areas had rates of less than 10 percent.

The national labor report for July comes out Friday.

Stephen Dunn/Associated Press

8. UConn canceled its football season because of the coronavirus.

Though not a football powerhouse, Connecticut is the first member of the Football Bowl Subdivision, the top level of football in the N.C.A.A., to decide not to play this fall, following the same path taken by Ivy League schools.

And the Big Ten, in announcing that it intends to begin its football season on Labor Day weekend, noted that it was still prepared to cancel games. Workouts have been halted at six Big Ten schools, including Rutgers, where an outbreak has infected 28 players.

At the same time, the N.C.A.A. canceled its Division II and III fall sports championships.

Angie Wang

9. Twenty-first century composers you can love.

In our Culture section’s constant quest for great music, editors asked five artists to choose the five minutes or so they would play to make their friends fall in love with music from the last 20 years.

Their choices — we’re not talking about pop music here — range from the meditative to the explosive.

The musician Richard Perry selected “In the White Silence” by John Luther Adams because it makes him “feel as though I am sitting in a small rowboat adrift on a lake, with the wind gently pushing me back and forth between small, exquisitely beautiful coves.”

Sascha Steinbach/EPA, via Shutterstock

10. And finally, there must be something about Lamborghinis.

A Texas man this week became the second person in less than two weeks to be accused by federal prosecutors of using Covid-19 relief money to buy the luxury sports car.

He had received more than $1.6 million under the federal Paycheck Protection Program after submitting applications with fraudulent information to numerous banks claiming to employ dozens of people, prosecutors said. The model he bought, a 2019 Urus, like the one above, cost $233,337.60. He, and a like-minded predecessor in Florida, was arrested.

Have a rich evening. Legally.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

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