Evening Briefing: A fourth heat wave scorches the West

July 19, 2021

By Victoria Shannon

Briefings, Newsdesk

Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Monday.

Scorched ground from a recent fire in Missoula, Mont., on Sunday.Lido Vizzutti for The New York Times

1. The fourth major heat wave since early June is afflicting parts of the West, bringing dangerously hot temperatures and worsening droughts and wildfires.

A rapidly spreading wildfire just south of Lake Tahoe in California prompted evacuations of several communities, and windy and dry conditions are fueling the growth of the Bootleg fire — roughly the size of Los Angeles — in Oregon.

Wildfire smoke delayed hundreds of flights out of Denver, and dry thunderstorms, which produce little or no precipitation on the ground and help to ignite fires, are forecast in Montana. Wildfire experts see the signature of climate change in the dryness and high heat.

In other extreme weather news, Britain issued its first-ever extreme heat warning, the death toll in recent European flooding is rising, and record amounts of rain have fallen in parts of New England.

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Pedestrians in Canary Wharf in London on Monday.Tom Jamieson for The New York Times

2. England dropped most coronavirus restrictions, even as its prime minister quarantined and nearly 40,000 new virus cases were reported.

Boris Johnson defended the decision to reopen from his country residence, where he has been quarantining after coming into contact with his health secretary, who had mild Covid-19 symptoms. "We have to ask ourselves the question, 'If not now, when?'" he said.

France, too, was rife with incongruities: angry protests, rising infections and record vaccinations.

In the U.S., economic protections put in place for the pandemic will soon start to expire. Our personal finance columnists look at how to cope.

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(And in the perennial dogs vs. cats debate, it appears both can contract the coronavirus — but cats are more susceptible to infection, a study suggests.)

The New York Stock Exchange in New York on Monday.Peter Foley/EPA, via Shutterstock

3. The S&P 500 fell 1.6 percent on concerns about economic growth and the potential for new restrictions on travel and tourism.

The fast-spreading outbreak of the Delta variant of the coronavirus fueled the broad sell-off, the index's sharpest daily decline since mid-May. Still, even after today's decline, the index has gained around 13 percent this year.

Oil prices also tumbled. While some analysts say that an OPEC agreement to increase production will help ease prices, they also expect oil markets will remain tight in the coming months. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. is now $3.17, about a dollar more than a year ago, according to AAA.

Claude Joseph, Haiti's interim prime minister, is stepping down, the elections minister said.Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters

4. Haitian officials announced a new prime minister in an attempt to resolve a caustic leadership struggle.

With foreign powers weighing in, Claude Joseph is stepping down in favor of Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon who had been appointed to the position but was yet to be sworn in when President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated.

The president of Haiti's Senate said that pressure from American diplomats was a major factor in the reshuffling. "Haiti has become a baseball being thrown between foreign diplomats," he said.

The political maneuvering by Haitian officials and international power brokers was met with anger by Haitian activists, who said it did not consider what the people wanted.

Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg

5. The Biden administration formally accused China of breaching Microsoft email systems used by many of the world's largest companies, governments and military contractors.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that China's Ministry of State Security "has fostered an ecosystem of criminal contract hackers who carry out both state-sponsored activities and cybercrime for their own financial gain."

The U.S. was joined by a broad group of allies, including all NATO members, to condemn Beijing for cyberattacks around the world. But the announcement lacked sanctions similar to ones that the White House imposed on Russia in April, when it blamed the country for the SolarWinds attack.

Over the past decade, China reorganized its hacking operations, turning into a sophisticated and mature adversary.

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Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

6. An outbreak of coronavirus cases threatens to overshadow Friday's opening ceremony for the Tokyo Olympics.

About 20,000 athletes, coaches, referees and other officials have poured into Japan in recent days. More than two dozen of them have tested positive for the virus, including three cases within the Olympic Village.

Tokyo is under a state of emergency, and daily case counts in Japan have exceeded 1,000 for several days for the first time since mid-May. Toyota, a prime corporate sponsor, pulled its Olympic-themed television advertisements in Japan, a symbolic vote of no confidence.

The Games begin at 9 a.m. Tokyo time on Wednesday (8 p.m. Eastern tomorrow) when Australia and Japan play the first game of a softball tripleheader. The Summer Olympics are expected to be the hottest on record.

On a lighter note, the Olympic Village's unusual cardboard bed frames have led some to suggest they are aimed at avoiding intimacy among athletes. But the plan for the 18,000 recyclable beds was announced before the pandemic started.

Cargo containers stacked at Yantian port in Shenzhen in China's southern Guangdong province in June.Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

7. Democrats in Congress proposed a tax on imports from China and other countries that are not significantly reducing the planet-warming pollution that they produce.

But experts said a border carbon tax would almost certainly provoke America's trading partners and could create serious diplomatic challenges ahead of U.N. climate negotiations set for November in Glasgow.

As outlined, the tax could raise as much as $16 billion a year and would be levied regardless of whether Congress passed new laws to reduce emissions created by the U.S.

It comes a week after the E.U. proposed its own carbon border tax on imports from countries with lax pollution controls.

Paul Hodgkins stood in the Senate on Jan. 6. He was sentenced today to eight months in prison.U.S. Capitol Police, via Associated Press

8. The first person to have pleaded guilty to storming the Capitol was sentenced.

Paul Hodgkins, who pleaded guilty last month to a single felony count — obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress — was given eight months in prison in what could serve as an indicator for scores of similar cases.

He admitted to breaching the Senate floor with a Trump flag and items like goggles, rope and a pair of latex gloves on Jan. 6 with the intention of stopping the certification of the Electoral College vote.

Judge Randolph Moss said there needed to be "severe consequences" for the attack, but also noted that Mr. Hodgkins, a 38-year-old Florida crane operator, was a first-time offender. The government had asked for an 18-month sentence.

Lab technicians creating fecal microbiota transplantation product in the OpenBiome manufacturing lab in Somerville, Mass., in 2019.Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times

9. Can you cleanse your colon with ancestral microbes?

"Rewilding" your microbiome is a recent trend and a rising area of study, with big money at stake. The theory is that you can protect against chronic and autoimmune diseases that plague people in the West by replenishing your gut — often by fecal transplant — with microbes from people who live in nonindustrial societies.

But the idea that ancient diets and lifestyles are healthier has spawned ethical and scientific debates. The movement has gone too far on minimal evidence, said Rachel Carmody, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard.

And our personal health columnist explains how serious food allergies can develop at any age.

Wally Funk in 2019.Elizabeth Culliford/Reuters

10. And finally, defying gravity and 60 years of exclusion from space.

When Wally Funk blasts off tomorrow in a rocket built by Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos's company, she will be, at 82, the oldest person ever to go into space. But that is not what makes her so special.

In 1961, three years before Mr. Bezos was born, Ms. Funk excelled in a series of tests to see if women would be good candidates for space travel. But the U.S. government shut down the program, and she has spent the past 60 years trying to find another way into space.

Now she's found it.

Have a blast this evening.

Lance Booth compiled photos for this briefing.

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