Your Tuesday Briefing – The New York Times

Mass shooting at a Colorado grocery store

A gunman opened fire at a grocery story in Boulder, Colo., on Monday afternoon, killing at least 10 people, including a police officer, the authorities in Boulder said. A suspect, who was injured during the shooting, is in custody. Here’s the latest.

As officers secured the building, more than a dozen people were led out of the supermarket, a King Soopers in a residential area a couple of miles south of the campus of the University of Colorado. The grocery store usually draws a mix of families and college students.

“This is a tragedy and a nightmare for Boulder County,” said the Boulder County district attorney, Michael Dougherty.

Repercussions: Colorado has been the scene of a number of multiple fatal shootings in recent years. These have often been followed by a partisan divide, in which Republicans have generally resisted new calls for tighter gun laws, while Democrats have said these moments underscore the need for new and stricter gun laws.

Police and protesters clash across Europe

In Britain, frustration over recent police encounters has swelled into a national debate over policing that carries echoes of the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. At the same time, sweeping new legislation that would empower the police to sharply restrict demonstrations on a permanent basis has provoked further clashes.

Across Europe, protesters on both the left and the right demonstrating against strict coronavirus restrictions have drawn harsh police responses, prompting questions about the legitimacy of the police and tactics used by officers.

With much of Europe facing a third wave of infections that might keep lockdowns in place for weeks or even months longer, analysts warn that tensions on the streets are likely to escalate.

Quote: “What we’re seeing is a growing level of discontent among members of our society who see a fundamental illegitimacy in law enforcement under the pandemic,” said Clifford Stott, a professor of social psychology at Keele University in England.

Explainer: Here’s what you need to know about Britain’s policing bill and the protests demanding it be shelved.

Biden’s $3 trillion spending plan

President Biden’s economic team plans to spend as much as $3 trillion to reinvigorate the U.S. economy.

Though administration officials caution that details of the spending programs remain in flux, a giant infrastructure plan would include nearly $1 trillion for construction of roads, bridges, rail lines, ports and electric vehicle charging stations, along with improvements to the electric grid.

A second package would include free community college, universal prekindergarten, a national paid leave program and tax credits to reduce child care costs, according to people familiar with the plans and documents obtained by The New York Times.

But whether Democrats can push the programs through Congress, given their narrow majorities in both chambers, depends in part on how the bills are funded. Officials have discussed offsetting some or all of the infrastructure spending by raising taxes on corporations, a move that would be unpopular with Republicans.

Related: More than 200,000 Americans signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act during the first two weeks of an open enrollment period created by Mr. Biden. Even conservative states like Alabama and Wyoming are considering the law’s Medicaid expansion.

THE LATEST NEWS

Virus News

News From the Middle East

The closing of beloved Gibert Jeune bookstores in Paris’s Latin Quarter, home to countless writers, philosophers, artists, revolutionaries and students, is the latest in a series of blows to the neighborhood’s cultural vibrancy, a long decline accelerated by the pandemic.

“It is this bookstore that best embodied the spirit of the Latin Quarter,” said Éric Anceau, a historian teaching at the Sorbonne. “It’s culture, accessible to all! We will lose that spirit when we lose Gibert.”

ARTS AND IDEAS

Trauma and the pandemic

With serious illness and suffering, Covid-19 has traumatized the U.S. Dr. Diane Meier, the director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care in New York, discussed what is needed to heal with our Talk columnist. Here’s an excerpt.

Has the pandemic affected our collective attitude toward grief?

There are many shadow pandemics. One is the trauma to the entire health profession during this last year. The other trauma is the roughly 10 people for every person who has died from Covid who are grieving. That’s over five million people. That is a shadow pandemic that will be with us long after we get the virus under control.

Our current president has worked hard to begin to address that through the ritual ceremonies to remember the dead and honor them, and he has talked a lot about his own losses, to normalize talking about losses and how they’re with you every day. That’s important. We need other people to do it, too.

Are there aspects of the human experience of chronic illness or pain that used to be mysterious to you that you now understand?

My perspective on trauma has a bigger scale than it used to — a species-level and tribal-level scale. And as I read the news, I don’t know whether we’re going to evolve our way out of this. The need to hate and kill the other is a determinative human characteristic, and it informs so many aspects of our society.

I also don’t see a disconnect between what has happened to the practice of medicine and that reality, because what’s happened to medicine is being driven by a societal commitment to profit above all else. And what is that? It’s trauma.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT, DREAM

What to Cook

What to Watch

The stand-up special “Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999,” from the comedian James Acaster, is an outstanding show about the worst year in his life, our critic writes.