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Vaccine, TikTok, SpaceX: Your Monday Briefing

Here’s what you need to know.

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Good morning.

We’re covering a bid by Indian billionaires to mass-produce a coronavirus vaccine, a threat by President Trump to ban TikTok and the return of SpaceX astronauts to Earth.


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A vaccine assembly line at the Serum Institute in Pune, Maharshtra, India.Credit...Atul Loke for The New York Times

The world’s largest vaccine maker, the Serum Institute, which is controlled by a small and very rich Indian family, has teamed up with scientists from the University of Oxford, who are developing a promising coronavirus vaccine.

The company plans to mass-produce hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine, which is still in clinical trials and might not even work. But if it does, Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive of Serum, will have on hand what everyone wants — and possibly in huge quantities — before anyone else.

Mr. Poonawalla says that he will split the vaccine doses he produces 50-50 between India and the rest of the world, with a focus on poorer countries. The Serum Institute is steered by only two men: Mr. Poonawalla and his father, Cyrus, a horse breeder who became a billionaire.

Leapfrogging: Vaccines take time not just to perfect but to manufacture. More than one project is conducting these two processes simultaneously and starting production now, while the vaccines are still in trials. That way, if and when a vaccine is approved — at best within the next six months, though no one really knows — doses will be on hand.

The global race: U.S. and European governments have sealed billions of dollars in deals with pharmaceutical giants like Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Sanofi and AstraZeneca to speed up the development and production of select vaccine candidates in exchange for hundreds of millions of doses.

Here are the latest updates and maps tracking the pandemic.

In other developments:

  • Australian officials announced stricter restrictions in Melbourne in an effort to stem an outbreak that is raging despite a lockdown that began four weeks ago. On Sunday, there were 671 new cases reported in the state of Victoria, suggesting that the virus is more widespread than previously thought.

  • Millions of dollars of American taxpayer money have flowed to China from a $660 billion program that was created to be a lifeline for struggling small businesses in the U.S.

  • The U.S. recorded more than 1.9 million new infections in July, more than double the number recorded in any other month, according to a Times database.

  • India’s biggest film star, Amitabh Bachchan, was discharged from the hospital on Sunday after recovering from Covid-19, while the country’s home minister, Amit Shah, tested positive for the virus.


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Credit...Dado Ruvic/Reuters

The popular app is known for its videos of teenagers and celebrities, often dancing or lip-syncing to audio clips. It all seems fun and even silly.

But in recent days, President Trump has talked of banning TikTok from the U.S. White House officials have said the app may pose a national security threat because of its Chinese ownership.

ByteDance, the Chinese internet giant that owns TikTok, has offered to sell all of the app’s U.S. operations as a way to save the business from being banned by the Trump administration.

What’s next: It’s not clear whether the Trump administration would accept the divestment as a response to its concerns. Microsoft and other companies have been in talks to buy TikTok, but no deal has been reached.


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Illegal logging in the Amazon rainforestCredit...Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

European governments and foreign investors have been cranking up pressure on the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, to stop deforestation in the Amazon.

And it seems to be working. The man who insisted “The Amazon is ours” a year ago has banned intentional forest fires used for clearing — though environmentalists, experts and foreign officials who have pressed Brazil on conservation matters worry that the actions amount to little more than damage control at a time when the economy is in deep trouble.

Points of leverage: Brazil’s poor environmental reputation has put two important foreign policy goals in jeopardy. One is a trade deal with the E.U., and the other is joining the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Both require Brazil to meet labor and environmental standards.

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A military accessory shop in Germany whose owner was part of the Northern Cross group of far-right extremists. Credit...Gordon Welters for The New York Times

Germany has begun dealing with far-right networks that officials say are far more extensive than they had understood.

Our correspondent takes a look at the Northern Cross group, which had planned for “Day X,” a mythical moment when committed far-right extremists would round up and kill political enemies and those defending migrants and refugees. The group, which included former police officers and soldiers, was uncovered more than three years ago but only recently brought to trial.

Afghan attack: Militants detonated a car bomb and waged a gun battle against guards at a major prison in eastern Afghanistan for hours on Sunday. Dozens of inmates managed to escape. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq news agency.

New Middle East nuclear power: On Saturday, the United Arab Emirates became the first Arab country to open a nuclear power plant, raising concerns about introducing more nuclear programs to the Middle East. Israel and Iran also have nuclear capacities.

Ivanka Trump: The president’s eldest daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, reported income of at least $36 million in 2019, according to financial disclosure reports. The couple’s investments, mostly in real estate, were worth at least $204 million and as much as $783 million.

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Credit...Getty Images

Snapshot: Above, the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday. The capsule carrying the astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley was the first crewed water landing by NASA since 1975.

Speaking out: Prince Manvendra of India is one of the few gay-rights activists in the world with high-level royal ties. His journey from a lonely childhood to global advocacy included death threats and a disinheritance.

What we’re reading: This BBC exploration of England’s fascination with pineapples, which involves novelty, scarcity and money. “Human nature doesn’t change very much,” says Steven Erlanger, our chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe.

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Credit...Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini.

Cook: This highly textured salad gets its bite from farro, its crunch from spiced chickpeas and its sweetness from roasted corn and slivered fennel.

Listen and watch: Beyoncé’s “Black Is King,” released on Friday, is a visual album connected to Disney’s remake last year of “The Lion King.” A handful of our critics reviewed it from different angles, including Vanessa Friedman, who described the amount of fashion on display as “overwhelming.”

Taste: Our wine critic has a selection of verdicchios on offer. These white wines from the Marche region, on Italy’s Adriatic coast, offer simple refreshment while also carrying hints of complex aromas and flavors.

At Home has our full collection of ideas on what to read, cook, watch and do.

Like father, like daughter: Alexandra Stevenson, a Times correspondent who covers China’s economy from Hong Kong, took a look back at the reporting her father, William Stevenson, did for The Toronto Star and The Star Weekly in the 1950s as one of the first foreign journalists to work in China after the Communist takeover.

Here’s an excerpt from an article she wrote about how much of what he described is still recognizable.

My father left behind written notes and newspaper clippings, stacks of passports with visas, photos and transcripts from his first and subsequent trips to China. They have allowed me to imagine conversations that we might have had in the six years since he died. Conversations about how the country he saw back then — brimming with hope and enthusiasm yet also tightly controlled — is in some ways the same today.

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William StevensonCredit...Richard Harrington, via Stephen Bulger Gallery

His first trip to China spanned two months and thousands of miles. He met Mao Zedong (whom he tapped on the shoulder from behind his camera, mistaking the chairman for a “humble courtier” blocking his shot) and Zhou Enlai, the premier and foreign minister at the time. But he also talked with factory workers, actors, newspaper editors and shop owners.

He described being filled with hope for the human spirit he witnessed. But he also felt despair because a government-provided handler was never too far away, ready to silence anyone who veered too far from the Communist Party line.

China defied any broad-brush statement. “And yet,” he wrote in one notebook, “under the current leadership, the way in which the government silences alternative points of view makes it hard not to.”

A version of this exists today. I have a long list of names of people who wouldn’t talk to me because I work for The New York Times, portrayed in Chinese state media as the source of “smears and lies.” Sources I’ve interviewed privately are later threatened by the local police, while stridently nationalist rhetoric dominates the state media.

Several months after I returned to Hong Kong, the Chinese government in March expelled my American colleagues as part of a diplomatic dispute with the United States. In the past month, Beijing has tightened its grip over Hong Kong with a new national security law, threatening free speech and other civil liberties in the city.


That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Carole


Thank you
To Melissa Clark for the recipe, and to Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the rest of the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about the killing of a female soldier that has prompted a #MeToo moment in the military.
• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Fancy tie (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.
Caitlin Roper, a senior editor at The Times Magazine, will become executive producer for scripted projects, working alongside Hollywood producers using our stories for fictional projects inspired by our reporting.

Carole Landry is a writer and editor for the Briefings Team at The New York Times. Before coming to The Times, she covered the United Nations in New York for Agence France-Presse. She has reported on diplomacy, wars, politics and culture on three continents from postings in Moscow, Washington, Johannesburg and Paris, where she was based for 15 years and raised her family. She speaks French, Russian and Spanish. More about Carole Landry

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