G20, Supreme Court, Fireworks: Your Weekend Briefing

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Here are the week’s top stories, and a look ahead.

2. The Supreme Court’s term ended with a gravitational shift to the right.

Even so, our court reporter said, the court’s more liberal justices held their own. Two decisions on the last day of the term — barring judicial review of claims of partisan gerrymandering but blocking the Trump administration’s plan to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 census — neatly captured this dynamic.

But the trend went deeper. We broke down each decision, and the new ideological makeup of the justices.

3. Liberals dominated the first 2020 Democratic debates, and it’s making moderates anxious.

Vowing to eliminate private health insurance and to decriminalize illegal immigration, the strongest voices in the debates made few overtures to centrist Democrats. The sprint to the left has deeply unnerved establishment Democrats, who are fearful it won’t be an effective approach to defeat President Trump.

The biggest moment of the debates may have belonged to Senator Kamala Harris, who confronted former Vice President Joe Biden in an intensely personal exchange on race. Here are other key moments from the past week in the 2020 presidential race.

And this week on “The Weekly,” our reporters examine how President Trump’s inauguration cost $107 million, and why the receipts matter. Watch on FX Sunday at 10 p.m. and Hulu beginning on Monday.

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4. Tear gassed, beaten and dragged. A Times analysis on hundreds of videos and photos posted online by witnesses shows how protesters were treated by the Hong Kong police during a mass demonstration in June.

Dozens of people said they were injured by the police during the demonstration against a contentious bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China. “They treated me like a dead object,” one protester told us. “They have lost their sanity.”

We also found the family of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter, Angie Valeria, whose deaths during an attempt to cross the Rio Grande from Mexico to the U.S. were captured in a searing photograph published this past week.

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5. Indonesia has promised to stop clearing jungle plantations. So why are endangered apes still on the front lines of the conservation battle?

We look at the struggle through the story of one orangutan mother, named Hope by her rescuers, who was shot 74 times. Blinded by villagers, she now lives in an enclosure.

The palms there provide essential income for struggling farmers, and the global appetite for palm oil is voracious as ever. But as jungle and swamp are cleared for palm oil plantations, orangutans are losing the very habitat that gives them their identity.

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6. The U.S. women’s team gave an advanced class in cool when it beat France 2-1 to advance to the World Cup semifinals.

The team’s midfielder Megan Rapinoe, above right, who scored both goals in the game, has emerged as “the representative athlete of our times,” our columnist writes, “wearing the jersey of a nation that is divided, playing for a team that is not.”

The U.S. plays England on Tuesday. The Netherlands and Sweden are also advancing to the semifinals.

From the soccer field to the tennis courts: Wimbledon begins Monday. Here are some rising talents who could create surprises.

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7. There were flags, there were floats and there was Lady Gaga: Celebrations at the Stonewall Inn this past weekend looked far different from the way they did 50 years ago.

Crowds paid tribute to the pioneers of gay rights in a rousing rally outside the New York bar where the L.G.B.T.Q. movement was born, with celebrations continuing today at the annual parade. Donatella Versace will be there as an official Stonewall Ambassador.

But still, division within the movement endures. As one activist said at a recent rally in the Bronx: “Everybody ain’t surfing this rainbow wave.” Our reporters talk about continuing disagreements over corporate and police presence at Pride on a special episode of “The Daily.”

8. It was a place that saw the highest highs and the lowest lows of the moon race: Now NASA has restored the Apollo Mission Control Center where the Apollo 11 moon landing was guided 50 years ago this summer.

The restored room is a museum piece, and yet it is alive, as though engineers stepped out briefly but would be right back — thick mission books, RC Cola cans, Winston cigarettes packs and rotary dial phones at the ready. Tours begin July 1.

“It was dazzling,” a former NASA flight director said. “You couldn’t believe this. All of a sudden you were 50 years younger and you wanted to work in there. I wanted back in that room to work.”

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9. Love fireworks, hate crowds? So does the Texas town of Addison, nicknamed Kaboom Town.

Addison, just north of Dallas, incorporates more than 300 shells into its Fourth of July festivities and boasts a finale that’s twice as long as the industry standard. That’s all to say that powerful pyrotechnic displays aren’t only found in major cities. Here are eight small towns that celebrate big.

Speaking of the Fourth of July: Here are our best recipes for the holiday, including fried chicken, veggie burgers, coleslaw, potato salad with Dijon vinaigrette, an ice box flag cake and of course — pie.

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10. And finally, check out our Best Weekend Reads.

This past week, we rounded up the 10 essential Nigerian recipes developed by Yewande Komolafe, above, talked with Phish’s frontman Trey Anastasio and explored a family portrait of one sperm donor.

For more suggestions on what to read, watch and listen to, may we suggest these 12 new books our editors liked, a glance at the latest small-screen recommendations from Watching and our music critics’ latest playlist.

Have a celebratory week.

Your Weekend Briefing is published Sundays at 6 a.m. Eastern time.

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