SEPTEMBER 29, 2019

Your Weekend Briefing

By remy tumin and lance booth

It's been quite a week. We'll break it down for you, and take a look ahead.

1. For the fourth time in American history, an impeachment inquiry into a sitting president has begun. This time, the focus is whether President Trump courted foreign interference to hurt a leading political rival.

A whistle-blower complaint and phone call transcript show Mr. Trump repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate people and issues of political concern to Mr. Trump, including former Vice President Joe Biden. Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky met this week at the United Nations, above.

But it goes much deeper than that. New reporting shows that Mr. Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani ran what amounted to a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine that unfolded against the backdrop of elections in both countries. Here's a timeline of events since January.

On Friday, House Democrats issued their first subpoena in the inquiry, requesting documents from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And Mr. Trump's special envoy for Ukraine resigned. He is expected to be interviewed in connection to the House's impeachment inquiry next week.

We're starting a newsletter with the latest developments in the House impeachment inquiry. Sign up here.

Elizabeth Frantz for The New York Times

2. All 19 Democratic presidential candidates support the impeachment inquiry, but they're hoping it won't dominate the 2020 election.

There is broad recognition at every level of the Democratic Party, our Politics team writes, that impeachment could complicate efforts to explain Democrats' policy ideas to the country and persuade voters that they have a vision beyond ousting President Trump.

In other presidential campaign news, Elizabeth Warren overtook Joe Biden in several polls, Bernie Sanders released two major policy plans, and more. Here are six things that shaped the race this week.

Have you been keeping up with the headlines? Test your knowledge with our news quiz. And here's the front page of our Sunday paper, the Sunday Review from Opinion and our crossword puzzles.

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

3. Presidents and prime ministers gathered at the United Nations General Assembly this past week, but it was a 16-year-old young woman who stood out.

Greta Thunberg, above, excoriated world leaders for their "business-as-usual" approach to climate change. Her speech came as a major U.N. report warned that climate change is severely straining the world's oceans, creating profound risks for coastal cities and food supplies.

Also out of the General Assembly: The presidents of the United States and Iran offered contradictory narratives about why the two countries did not meet.

Will Oliver/EPA, via Shutterstock

4. In other international news:

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, above, was dealt a stunning blow when Britain's highest court ruled that he had acted unlawfully when he suspended Parliament in his unyielding push for Brexit. Mr. Johnson could face a possible no-confidence vote next week.

In Israel, a week after an election appeared to jeopardize his career, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was tapped to form a government. Israelis are wondering how it happened.

And Afghans began voting to choose a president in one of the most violent periods in the country's history, with the Taliban threatening all-out war on the democratic process.

Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

5. With tanks, missiles and enormous flower arrangements, the People's Republic of China is preparing to celebrate its 70th birthday and its leader, Xi Jinping.

On Tuesday, the country's National Day, Mr. Xi will preside over a military parade through Tiananmen Square, choreographed with such pomp and pageantry that its main focus has become highlighting Mr. Xi's power in the face of rising challenges.

The celebrations come as a counternarrative persists in Hong Kong, the semiautonomous territory. Tens of thousands of protesters there took to the streets over the weekend, above, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement.

Kenneth Chang/The New York Times

6. Congratulations, you survived Black Hole Week.

That's NASA talk, of course, complete with its own hashtag. The space agency described various black holes behaving badly: eating stars, or whole gangs of them; burping energy from the centers of galaxies; banging together in universe-shaking events.

Here are three cosmic events you may have missed and that fortunately missed you.

Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX, also gave an update on Starship, above, his next major rocket. Here's the latest.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

7. When the Washington Mystics, above, and Connecticut Sun meet in Game 1 of the W.N.B.A. championships on Sunday, they'll do so with a common goal — a championship — and a power source to get there: unabashed confidence.

"They're similar to us in that they'd been together for a few years, so they have that experience of knowing each other on and off the court which I think adds to it," Mystics point guard Natasha Cloud said. Tip off is at 3 p.m. Eastern. We'll have live updates at nytimes.com.

In this weekend's N.F.L. matchups, the Cowboys face the Saints, the Bills confront their biggest fear and the Browns try to get back on track. Here is a look at N.F.L. Week 4.

Erin Lubin for The New York Times

8. "I didn't know I had a talent, I didn't know I had a palate."

When Cecilia Chiang opened the Mandarin in San Francisco, she changed the way Americans regarded Chinese cuisine. In lieu of thickly sauced stir-fries served in pseudo-exotic settings, Ms. Chiang built her reputation exalting regional Chinese cuisine. She made that work seem effortless. It wasn't.

At 99, the great restaurateur spoke to our California restaurant critic about her life, then and now.

Our Food team is starting a new monthly column. David Tanis will provide you with simple, cohesive menus for dinner parties — all mouthwatering, none difficult. Here's his first.

Niko Tavernise/Netflix, via Associated Press

9. The gang is back together.

In "The Irishman," Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci star in Martin Scorsese's monumental, elegiac tale of violence, betrayal, memory and loss, our film critic writes. "To watch this movie, especially in its long, graceful final movement, is to feel a circle closing," he writes.

We also reviewed "Judy," in which Renée Zellweger plays Judy Garland near the end of her life, when she grasped onto one more comeback and one last chance. "Mostly," our critic writes, "'Judy' offers the familiar spectacle of one star playing another."

And "Saturday Night Live" returned last night with Woody Harrelson as its host. Here's what you missed.

Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times

10. And finally, check out one of our Best Weekend Reads.

We spoke to Eddie Murphy on his return to standup, looked at how the anti-vaccine movement took hold in the U.S., and visited with 18 families around the world as they prepared their weeknight dinners.

For more ideas on what to read, watch and listen to, may we suggest these 11 new books our editors liked, a glance at the latest small-screen recommendations from Watching, and our music critics' latest playlist. Looking ahead, here are 18 new books to watch for in October and a fall cooking bucket list.

Savor those last days of September, and enjoy your week.

Your Weekend Briefing is published Sundays at 6 a.m. Eastern.

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