Your Monday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here's the latest. |
 | | Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times |
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1. The trial of the former police officer accused of murdering George Floyd began in Minneapolis. |
Opening statements from lawyers suggested that the cause of death would be crucial. Prosecutors began making the case that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxia, while the defense lawyer said that Mr. Floyd had numerous medical issues and that his death was caused by multiple factors, including "the adrenaline flowing through his body." |
A bystander video from the May 2020 episode showed the accused, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Mr. Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes. The death — of a Black man being subdued by a white officer — set off nationwide protests against police brutality and racism. Above, a protester today outside the Hennepin County Government Center. |
The trial, which continues on Tuesday, can be watched on nytimes.com via a livestream from Court TV, which is operating the only live feed from inside the courtroom. |
 | | Philip Cheung for The New York Times |
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2. As vice president, Joe Biden oversaw a "green jobs" package that produced notable failures. |
This time will be different, Democrats say. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the clean energy loan program that is part of President Biden's infrastructure plan would be "retooled" and "invigorated" for its second round. Above, an electric-car charging station in California. |
Today, the administration announced it would designate an area of the Atlantic Ocean between Long Island and New Jersey as a priority offshore zone for wind turbines. Officials also announced $3 billion in loan guarantees for offshore wind projects. |
 | | Go Nakamura for The New York Times |
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3. The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective in real-world conditions, the U.S. reported. |
Eligibility for the vaccines continues to expand. New York State will begin vaccinating people 30 and older on Tuesday and make all residents 16 and over eligible on April 6. |
But Hispanic people across the U.S. continue to be especially underrepresented among those vaccinated, according to a Times analysis of state-reported race and ethnicity information. |
 | | Doug Mills/The New York Times |
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4. The director of the C.D.C. issued an impassioned warning about a possible fourth surge of the coronavirus, and President Biden, above, called on governors and mayors to maintain or reinstate mask-wearing orders. |
A report on the origins of the coronavirus by the World Health Organization said that China — where the virus was first detected in late 2019 — still did not have the data or research to indicate how or when the virus began spreading. Some skeptics outside the country say that China may have more information than it admits. |
 | | EPA, via Shutterstock |
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5. Aided by the moon, the tides and human salvage teams, the giant ship blocking the Suez Canal was freed today. |
Horns blared in celebration. But with hundreds of other ships backed up on either side of the canal, it could still be days before operations return to normal. The Ever Given had blocked the vital trade route for six days. Shipping analysts estimated the traffic jam was holding up nearly $10 billion in trade every day. |
 | | Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters |
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6. The fallout from a series of defaults at a New York hedge fund reverberated through markets. |
Shares in Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank, dropped 11.5 percent on Monday, and the Japanese bank Nomura closed 14 percent lower, after the banks said they could face significant losses because of defaults by Archegos Capital Management. Other global banks tried to size up their exposure to the firm's string of bad bets. |
Archegos manages the wealth of Bill Hwang, a former hedge fund manager at Tiger Asia Management who was found guilty of wire fraud in 2012. The firm was forced into stock sales worth about $20 billion after bets the fund made moved the wrong way, Bloomberg News reported. |
U.S. stocks recovered from early losses, with broad indexes almost even by day's end. |
 | | Getty Images |
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7. Teenage brains may be especially vulnerable to marijuana and other drugs. |
Dr. Nora Volkow, a senior author of the new study, cautioned parents not to dismiss marijuana use in teenagers and adolescents as harmless. "It's a learning process when you become addicted," she said. "That occurs much faster in an adolescent brain." |
 | | Justin Casterline/Getty Images |
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8. The Elite Eight in the N.C.A.A. men's basketball tournament gets underway tonight, with Baylor, one of the top seeds, meeting Arkansas and Oregon State playing Houston. Above, U.S.C.'s victory over Oregon on Sunday. |
In the women's tournament, tonight's Elite Eight games are Connecticut-Baylor — a showdown of first- and second-seeded teams — and Indiana-Arizona. |
In soccer, a new-look Champions League is set to be approved by the leaders of European soccer's governing body as soon as this week. The competition will expand to 36 teams from 32 and dispense with a group-stage format in favor of a single league table. |
 | | Laurence Barton |
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9. An oboe maker who toiled along the Hudson River produced so few of his instruments that customers might have to wait a decade for one. They say it was worth the wait. |
The craftsman, Paul Laubin, above, who learned his trade from his father, died at age 88 on March 1 at his Peekskill, N.Y., workshop, a dusty place lined with machines built as long ago as 1881. |
"There is something that strikes a chord deep in your body when you play a Laubin," said an oboist with the New York Philharmonic. "You get addicted to making that kind of a sound and nothing else will do." |
 | | Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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10. And finally, the cicadas are coming. Billions of them. |
The timing varies by location. In the Mid-Atlantic region, the soil is usually warm enough by about the third week of May. |
Cicadas can injure small trees from their munching but cause no harm to humans — except for their annoying mating calls, which can be deafening. |
Matt Kasson, a professor of forest pathology at West Virginia University, said we should consider ourselves lucky to witness the phenomenon. "It's really something to marvel at," he said. |
Have an awe-inspiring evening. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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