Your Monday Briefing: The end of Roe

June 27, 2022

By Amelia Nierenberg

Writer, Briefings

Good morning. We're covering the end of Roe v. Wade, a G7 summit on Ukraine and an investigation into China's surveillance state.

Pro-choice protestors and anti-abortion protestors argued outside the Supreme Court on Saturday.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

The end of Roe v. Wade

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday, ending the constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years. The decision, expected after a draft opinion leaked in May, sent a seismic social and political shock through American life.

Roe's fall immediately triggered abortion bans; nine states now ban the procedure in most cases. More than 20 states appear set to outlaw all or nearly all abortions. More liberal states responded by seeking to protect the procedure for their residents and out-of-state patients.

Cities around the U.S. erupted in protest — and celebration. Almost immediately, abortion providers began canceling appointments out of fear of prosecution. Demand for medical abortion pills quickly soared, and will likely become the next frontier of the fight.

Resources: Here are live updates and an explainer.

Background: The decision is the culmination of a generational conservative campaign. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, had laid out a methodical strategy decades ago to overturn the landmark ruling.

Outcome: Roe's fall will likely reduce abortion access most for lower-income women and Black and Hispanic women who lack resources to travel to obtain one.

A 7-year-old girl was rescued from rubble in Kyiv, the authorities said. Her father was killed. Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

As G7 begins, Russia fires on Kyiv

Russia unleashed a new round of missiles at Kyiv yesterday, the first attack on the Ukrainian capital in weeks. At least one person was killed. The barrage came one day after Russian forces fired missiles across Ukraine — some of which came from Belarus — in one of their most widespread aerial assaults in weeks.

Moscow's apparent show of defiance came as leaders of the Group of 7 nations, the world's wealthiest democracies, began a two-day summit meeting in Germany with new steps to isolate Moscow. Here are live updates.

President Biden said the countries would ban imports of Russian gold. Leaders are also expected to discuss possible attempts to tighten sanctions on Russian oil.

Energy: The scramble to replace Russian fossil fuels may jeopardize hard-won climate targets. E.U. leaders are scrambling to prepare for a winter of fuel shortages.

Fighting: Ukrainian forces will retreat from the key eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, where about 90 percent of the city's buildings have been destroyed. And the mayor of Mykolaiv, an embattled southern city that has embodied Ukraine's never-say-die spirit, urged residents to leave.

Diplomacy: The G7 leaders detailed a new plan designed to counter China's expanding influence from its Belt-and-Road Initiative. They also invited five nonmember nations to attend, an effort to bolster relationships with countries that they fear could drift into China's and Russia's orbits.

Analysts estimate that more than half of the world's nearly one billion surveillance cameras are in China.China Daily, via Reuters

China's surveillance state expands

My colleagues have taken a deep dive into China's surveillance state to reveal the country's technological road map to ensure the longevity of its authoritarian rule.

For over a year, they analyzed over 100,000 government bidding documents, which detail the surveillance technology and software and explain the strategic thinking behind the purchases.

The reporters found that China's ambition to collect a staggering amount of digital and biological data from its citizens is more expansive and invasive than previously known. Here are four takeaways from the investigation, and a 14-minute video.

Cameras: These are the foundation of China's surveillance state, feeding data to analytical software that can tell someone's race, gender and whether they are wearing glasses or masks. All of this data is stored on government servers.

Phones: Authorities use phone trackers to link people's digital lives to their identity and physical movements.

Profiles: DNA, iris scan samples and voice prints are collected indiscriminately from people with no connection to crime in order to build comprehensive profiles for citizens.

Artificial intelligence: The latest technology promises to predict or detect crimes, such as signaling officers when a person with a history of mental illness gets near a school, or alerting authorities if a marriage is suspicious.

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THE LATEST NEWS

Asia Pacific

"We are past the phase of asking if each of these extreme weather events is due to climate change," a climate scientist said.Mamun Hossain/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Climate change has worsened the annual monsoon season in Bangladesh: At least 68 people have died from flood-related causes and more than 4,000 have been infected with waterborne diseases since May.
An Indian activist who campaigned to hold officials responsible for riots in Gujarat in 2002 faces charges of fabricating evidence against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At least one person died when a ferry in the Philippines caught fire yesterday, the BBC reports.
Aid has streamed into Afghanistan after the devastating earthquake. "We have nothing," one survivor said.
Sri Lanka has almost no fuel left, The Guardian reports.
Australia's new center-left government has made tentative overtures to Beijing.

World News

Twenty-one teenagers were found dead in a tavern in the coastal city of East London, South Africa, the police said.
A gunman opened fire near a gay nightclub in Oslo, Norway, on Saturday, killing two and seriously wounding at least 10.
At least 23 migrants died in a mass effort to cross into Melilla, a Spanish enclave in North Africa.
Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally won a record number of seats in France's parliament.

What Else Is Happening

Mr. Happy Face requires a diaper, struggles to stand upright or walk, and holds his head askew.Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Chihuahua mix named Mr. Happy Face won the 2022 World's Ugliest Dog contest.
The F.B.I. seized 25 paintings from a Basquiat exhibit at a Florida museum.
After more than a year of silence, the mysterious figure behind the QAnon conspiracy theory reappeared with three posts on Friday night.

A Morning Read

For those in the know, this lake in the center of Beijing is an oasis.Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

Beijing is not known for its natural refuges — or its rule-bending. But "wild swimming" in the city's lakes and waterways has continued to attract stubborn bathers, despite attempts by authorities to restrict the practice. During the pandemic, interest only grew.

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ARTS AND IDEAS

In "Belle," a teenager expresses grief and anger even as her alter-ego is a cyberworld pop star.Studio Chizu/GKids

Japan's complex heroines

At a time of widespread debate over the depiction of women in film, top Japanese animators work in a long tradition of complex and layered heroines.

Working on smaller budgets than their American counterparts, directors like Mamoru Hosoda offer personal visions. His film "Belle," available on major platforms, draws inspiration from "Beauty and the Beast," but its heroine writes deep, complex music about her grief at losing her mother. The protagonist of the Disney version never mentions her mother. Nor does Jasmine in "Aladdin."

The auteur Makoto Shinkai broke box office records in Japan in 2016 with "Your Name," which begins as a body-swapping teen rom-com but develops into a meditation on the trauma many Japanese still suffer after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and the fear of displacement those tragedies brought.

And Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" — perhaps Japan's most famous animated film — grew out of his dissatisfaction with the superficial entertainment offered to adolescent girls. "I wanted the main character to be a typical girl in whom a 10-year-old could recognize herself," Miyazaki said.

"She shouldn't be someone extraordinary, but an everyday, real person — even though this kind of character is more difficult to create," he continued, through a translator. "It wouldn't be a story in which the character grows up, but a story in which she draws on something already inside her that is brought out by the particular circumstances."