The question now is whether the rising level of killings in American cities that began last year, as the pandemic wrought economic and social hardship, will continue to climb.

The F.B.I. does not release full statistics until September, but homicide rates in large cities were up more than 30 percent on average last year, and up another 24 percent for the beginning of this year, according to criminologists.

Guns contributed to the equation as well. “Were it not for the proliferation of firearms through our society and in our big cities, we would not have seen these big jumps in homicide,” said Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri in St. Louis.

In some places, there was less violent crime this Memorial Day weekend than in 2020. In Chicago, there were 27 shootings, 32 people struck and four deaths, according to the Chicago Police Department, compared with 94 shootings, 114 people hit and 33 killed over the holiday weekend in 2020.

Overall crime figures were down during the coronavirus pandemic. Rape, robbery and petty thefts — which constitute the vast bulk of the numbers — tend to be crimes of opportunity, and with people staying home and businesses shuttered, there were far fewer chances.

Homicides in Portland, Ore., rose to 53 from 29, up more than 82 percent; in Minneapolis, they grew to 79 from 46, up almost 72 percent; and in Los Angeles the number increased to 351 from 258, a 36 percent climb, according to statistics analyzed by Jeff Asher, a former crime analyst for the New Orleans Police Department.

“Even though the pandemic is receding, it casts a really long shadow, along with the social unrest related to policing,” said Max Kapustin, an assistant professor of economics and public policy at Cornell University who studies crime.

The year before Mr. Floyd’s death — from May 25, 2019, to May 25, 2020 — there were 2,885 shootings in Chicago that resulted in 521 deaths. From May 25, 2020, to May 25, 2021, there were 818 deaths from 4,562 shootings, an increase of almost 60 percent in both categories, according to Christopher Herrmann, a professor of law and police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“We are basically up but decelerating,” Mr. Asher said. “We are still looking at a horrific increase in violence.”

Concentrations of krypton, argon, neon and xenon — the noble gases that do not react with other elements — may provide hints about how Venus and its atmosphere formed. The measurements might also find signs of whether water has escaped from Venus into space and whether oceans ever covered the surface.

The new mission will be able to provide topographic measurements that are more than 100 times better than what Magellan produced, stitched together into a highly detailed three-dimensional map.

JAMA’s reckoning came after Dr. Edward Livingston, an editor in a podcast discussion, suggested “taking racism out of the conversation” about societal inequities and said that “structural racism is an unfortunate term to describe a very real problem.” Communities of color were held back not by racism, he said, but by socioeconomic factors and a lack of opportunity.

Since his arrival, the journal has added four editors and four editorial board members, and in June, introduced a section of the journal’s website called Race and Medicine. Although the journal does not have self-reported information on race, half of the new additions are people of color, and three — including the new executive editor — are women, he said.That’s a step in the right direction, but journals will also have to learn to address racism more directly in order to improve lives, Dr. Bassett said. As health commissioner of New York City from 2014 to 2018, she made confronting racism a central part of her work.“When you can’t see what’s in front of you, and you can’t talk about it, you obviously can’t solve it,” she said. “That’s just no longer acceptable.”

But under Mr. Trump, who liked to attack the news media as the “enemy of the people,” the practice resurged.

Experts say that the only way to stamp out the virus in these regions — and the world — is to rapidly increase vaccinations, which have raced ahead in the United States and Europe while lagging in many other countries around the world.

In North America, 60 vaccine doses have been administered for every 100 people, compared with 27 in South America and 21 in Asia, according to data from the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. In Africa, the rate is two doses per 100 people.

About 11 billion shots are needed to vaccinate 70 percent of the world’s population, the rough threshold needed for herd immunity, according to researchers at Duke University, but only a fraction of that number has been manufactured so far.

“The ongoing devastation being wreaked by Covid-19 in the global south should be reason enough for the rich countries to want to enable a quick and cheap global vaccine rollout,” Dr. Richmond said. “If it’s not, enlightened self-interest should lead them to the same conclusion.”

Laws prohibiting marijuana "are responsible for more than half a million arrests in the United States every year," according to the Drug Policy Alliance, which also supports decriminalization. In a statement to NPR, the group applauded Amazon's announcement as "a huge step forward." "Drug testing has never provided an accurate indication of a person's ability to perform their job," the group said, "and yet this incredibly invasive practice has locked out millions of people who use drugs — both licit and illicit — from the workplace."

Cross' lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Virginia Circuit Court for Loudon County, claims that the school district retaliated against him for his comments during the public meeting and that his suspension constituted a violation of his rights to freedom of speech and religion.

"The Sacklers are paying $4.275 billion and they very much plan and expect to be done with this chapter," said Marshall Huebner, an attorney representing Purdue Pharma, during a hearing last week. One of the firms that would secure protection from future opioid lawsuits under the deal is Luther Strange & Associates, founded by former U.S. Sen. Luther Strange (R-Alabama) who helped Purdue Pharma pitch the bankruptcy plan to Republican state attorneys general.

In the coming weeks, more than 600,000 individuals, companies and governments with claims against Purdue Pharma will vote on the package, described by attorneys involved in the process as one of the most complicated and controversial bankruptcies ever.

The reorganization plan also includes a detailed formula that would be used to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars each year in aid to communities and individuals harmed by opioids.

But critics, including more than 20 mostly Democratic state attorneys general, say the Sacklers are improperly piggybacking on their company's bankruptcy without actually filing for bankruptcy themselves.

Again, the Sacklers have denied any wrongdoing, have never been charged with crimes. As part of their settlement with the DOJ, members of the Sackler family paid $225 million while denying the allegations.

"Raymond Sackler family members have consistently expressed their regret that OxyContin, which continues to help patients suffering from chronic pain, unexpectedly became part of the opioid crisis," the family said in a statement.

The Sacklers maintain they did nothing wrong and acted ethically. If this bankruptcy plan is approved and upheld on appeal, it's unlikely the allegations will ever be tested in court.

The goal of the Paris climate accord is to keep the increase in global temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels, and ideally try to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Those thresholds refer to temperature on Earth over multiple years. Exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming in a single year wouldn't breach the Paris Agreement. But with every passing year of rising greenhouse gas emissions, it becomes more and more likely that humans will cause catastrophic warming. The report estimates there's a 90% chance that one of the next five years will be the warmest year on record.

The oil fueling the ship is another serious cause for concern. The vessel was carrying nearly 350 tons of fuel oil, and salvage teams have prepared for the event of an oil spill.

"These have been released to ocean and are found on beaches to the south of Colombo — as time goes they will keep moving southwards as our model predictions show. They will also go into river systems such as Kelani, lagoons (Negombo) and also into Port city. They are transported by the wind and currents — will remain at the surface until beached and will persist in the marine environment for ever as they are not biodegradable,"

"The ship has dealt a death blow to our lives," Joshua Anthony, head of a region fishing union, told Reuters. "We can't go into the sea which means we can't make a living."

He said critical race theory posits that racism is endemic to American society through history and that, consequently, Americans have to think about institutions like the justice system or schools through the perspective of race and racism.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has introduced the Combating Racist Training in the Military Act, a bill that would prohibit the armed forces and academics at the Defense Department from promoting "anti-American and racist theories," which, according to the bill's text, includes critical race theory.

Bonilla-Silva, whose book Racism Without Racists critiques the notion that America is now "colorblind," says he too shares King's dream, "but in order for us to get to the promised land of colorblindness, we have to go through race. It's the opposite of what these folks are arguing."

The fight over critical race theory will likely continue to be a heated issue ahead of next year's midterm elections. Although November 2022 seems a long way away, Christine Matthews, president of Bellwether Research and a public opinion pollster, says pushback to anti-racism teaching is exactly the kind of issue that could maintain traction among certain voters.

"If Republicans can make [voters] feel threatened and their place in society threatened in terms of white culture and political correctness and cancel culture, that's a visceral and emotional issue, and I do think it could impact turnout."

"We have seen evidence that the Republican base is responding much more to threats on cultural issues, even to some degree more than economic issues," Matthews said.

The binary race norms, when they are used in the testing, assume that Black patients start with worse cognitive function than whites and other non-Blacks. That makes it harder for them to show a deficit and qualify for an award

The awards so far have averaged $516,000 for the 379 players with early-stage dementia and $715,000 for the 207 players with moderate dementia. Retirees can also seek payouts for Alzheimer's disease and a few other diagnoses. The settlement ended thousands of lawsuits that accused the NFL of long hiding what it knew about the link between concussions and traumatic brain injury.

Loyola was in and out of the hospital over the next 10 months, which ultimately resulted in the amputation of his left hand, according to the lawsuit.

The physician said there was a severe blood flow problem and surgery was required. He was then admitted to Ascension St. Vincent's East hospital in Birmingham. When he arrived, Loyola's fingertips were grey and notes from the emergency department said there was "concern for necrosis."

"Deputy Godber handcuffed Plaintiff's wrists so tightly that Plaintiff immediately lost sensation in one hand, and Deputy Godber refused to loosen the handcuffs even after Plaintiff told him that they were too tight and were causing him pain. These actions and inactions constituted unreasonable and excessive force," Loyola's attorneys argued. "As a result of Deputy Godber's actions, Plaintiff suffered injuries including deprivation of liberty, physical injuries including the loss of his hand, pain and suffering and emotional distress, and lost future earning potential."