Here’s what you need to know about the week’s top stories.
Here are the week’s top stories, and a look ahead. 1. Israel stands on the cusp of a watershed moment. Lawmakers will hold a vote today that would remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power, replacing the country’s longest-serving leader with the head of a fragile alliance formed from eight ideologically diffuse parties. The coalition is united in one goal: ousting Netanyahu. If it wins the vote of confidence in the Knesset, Naftali Bennett, a right-wing former leader of a settler movement, will be Israel’s next prime minister. We’ll have live updates here. In a compromise, Yair Lapid, a leading centrist politician who would become foreign minister in Bennett’s government, will take over as prime minister in 2023. While Bennett would take the stage first, he wouldn’t be leading without Lapid, who coaxed the unlikely alliance into existence. 2. Leaders of the Group of 7 are wrapping up a summit today, having taken on the coronavirus pandemic, climate change and China. President Biden, pictured with President Emmanuel Macron of France, pushed for a more unified approach to combating the pandemic. The leaders are expected to sign a declaration on global health intended to ensure that the pandemic’s toll is never repeated. To counter China’s influence, Biden urged European nations and Japan to offer hundreds of billions in loans to developing nations. While the countries agree that China’s influence is worrisome, how they’ll come together on the next steps is unclear. Biden will head to Brussels for a NATO meeting tomorrow before sitting down with President Vladimir Putin of Russia in Geneva on Wednesday. But the two leaders will not hold a joint news conference — a move designed to deny the Russian leader an international platform. 3. While the U.S. and other wealthy nations are reporting fewer Covid cases and deaths, many other countries are facing worrisome new surges in infections. Russian officials are scrambling to slow the spread of a new wave of the coronavirus, ordering workers in Moscow to take next week off and pleading with residents to make use of widely available vaccines. Above, the Krylatskoye Ice Palace in Moscow was converted to a Covid hospital. The Delta variant is spreading in southeastern China, and doctors say that the infected are getting sicker, and faster. Separately, the F.D.A. said a Baltimore factory that rendered 75 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine useless failed for weeks to seal off a preparation area for vaccine ingredients. 4. Private equity firms have conquered the American tax system. The $4.5 trillion industry has avoided paying billions in taxes and has managed to derail efforts to increase its tax burden, thanks to lobbyists and campaign contributions.
