Wednesday, Aug 28, 2019 | View in browser

Good morning.

We’re covering an underground network of pro-Beijing activists in Hong Kong, efforts to provide refuge for widows in India and a flurry of unusual photos of the Thai king and his consort.

By Alisha Haridasani Gupta

An aerial view of the Congo River Basin in 2016. Bryan Denton for The New York Times

The Amazon isn’t the only place on fire

While the images of the fires in the Amazon region have drawn international attention and alarm, Central Africa and parts of Southern Africa are also in flames.

The blaze in Africa seems normal, at the moment, for this time of year and is incinerating savanna and scrubbier land. But the flames are licking at the edges of the Congo Basin rain forest — the world’s second largest after the Amazon — and some experts worry it could grow out of control.

Brazil: The government of President Jair Bolsonaro at first angrily turned down more than $22 million in aid to help combat the Amazon fires. Then, on Tuesday, Mr. Bolsonaro changed his tune and offered possible terms for accepting the aid package.

Go deeper: Some local farmers in the Amazon region are indignant at what they see as outsiders trying to decide how Brazilians should steward their land. They say that they need fire and deforestation to maintain beef and soy exports and that the damage done to the rain forest is modest and normal.

A rally in support of the police and government in Hong Kong last month. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

The network of pro-Beijing activists in Hong Kong

The Communist Party doesn’t officially exist in Hong Kong, but from the shadows, it is driving a group of activists in what it calls a “life and death” struggle against the pro-democracy demonstrations that are now in their 12th week.

The Central Liaison Office, which formally represents the Chinese government in Hong Kong, covertly coordinates the activities of the United Front, a loosely connected group of those who have rallied to the Communist Party’s side. The group has at times also included gangsters, who attacked protesters with metal bars at Yuen Long station last month.

That the party has remained in the background in Hong Kong reflects Beijing’s struggle to navigate the “one country, two systems” formula under which the city returned to Chinese rule.

Another angle: A Times photograph of an unarmed protester confronting a Hong Kong police officer who had his pistol drawn has evoked memories of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

On the ground: Despite the vast protests, life in most of Hong Kong has proceeded with little disruption.

Separately: Western intelligence officials say Chinese agents have been using social media, particularly LinkedIn, to gather assets and recruit foreign spies, including former government officials from countries around the world.

American farmers are reeling from the trade war

Losing China, the world’s most populous country, as a customer has been a major blow to many American farmers: Farm bankruptcy filings in the year through June were up 13 percent from 2018, and loan delinquency rates are also on the rise, according to the American Farm Bureau.

As the trade fight gets uglier, some farmers are beginning to panic, despite the Trump administration’s $28 billion in aid. An increasing number say they are losing patience with the president’s approach and suggest it will not take much to lose their votes as well.

News analysis: Mr. Trump appears caught between his desire for a new relationship with China and his need for economic growth. But, our chief White House correspondent writes, he can’t have both.

If you have 5 minutes, this is worth it

A refuge for India’s widows

Rebecca Conway for The New York Times

In India, Hindu brides are often expected to live with their husbands’ families, weakening ties with their own. When their husbands die, a small portion of the country’s 40 million widows are exiled from their homes each year.

Many of the castaways wind up in Vrindavan, a holy city where for centuries they have been reduced to begging for survival. But their lives have improved considerably of late, thanks to public petitions, court rulings — and a new government shelter.

Here’s what else is happening

Jeffrey Epstein: At a court hearing in New York on Tuesday, some of the financier’s accusers who were denied the chance to face him at trial because of his suicide two weeks ago spoke through tears about how they had been coerced at a young age into having sex with him. “Justice has never been served in this case,” one victim told the court.

Iran: After President Trump said he would be open to meeting with President Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian leader said that he wouldn’t consider such a prospect until Washington lifted sanctions.

Google: Anthony Levandowski, a former Google employee who worked on the company’s self-driving cars project and then joined rival Uber, was charged by U.S. prosecutors with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets. The charges open a new chapter in the high-stakes contest over autonomous vehicles.

Indonesia: Cleanup has belatedly begun on a mid-July oil spill by the state-owned energy giant Pertamina off the island of Java, the scope of which is still unknown. The company said the leak would not be plugged until at least the end of September.

China: The government said it would reduce the penalties for the sale and import of unapproved drugs, effectively giving poor and critically ill patients access to cheaper generic versions from other countries.

Australia: The writer and democracy activist Yang Hengjun, an Australian citizen who has been detained in China since January, has been formally charged by the Chinese with spying, officials in Sydney and Beijing said.

Great Barrier Reef: Scientists hope that a raft of pumice rocks, released from an underwater volcanic eruption near Tonga this month and floating toward Australia, is teeming with corals that might help replenish the reef.

Spain: Emergency services were working on Tuesday to clear roads, tunnels and houses that were inundated overnight after severe rain and hail pummeled the region around Madrid and flooded some areas.

Thailand Royal Office

Snapshot: Above, King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun of Thailand and his official consort, Maj. Gen. Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi. The photograph was one of dozens of unusual images that were published on the Royal Household Bureau’s website on Monday before it abruptly went down. It was back up Tuesday evening.

U.S. Open: The defending champion, Naomi Osaka, won her first-round match in the second day of the tournament at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York. Roger Federer, Simona Halep and the 15-year-old breakout star at Wimbledon, Coco Gauff, were also on the schedule.

What we’re reading: Michael Wines, a national correspondent, recommends this article from Medium. “Barely two years ago, potentially the worst aviation disaster in history was averted by maybe 10 feet and fewer seconds,” he writes. “Read this dry but riveting — and terrifying — account of what almost went disastrously wrong at San Francisco International Airport.”

Now, a break from the news

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Cook: Baking fish and chips is easier and less messy than frying.

Read: “A Door in the Earth,” a novel set in Afghanistan by the veteran Times journalist Amy Waldman, erodes the myth of the good occupier.

Watch: The comedian Margaret Cho impersonates her tattoo-averse mother for the “Tell T a Joke” feature of The Times’s style magazine.

Listen: “Anak Ko,” the title song of Jay Som’s second album, is at once flinty and vulnerable and dreamlike, our critic writes.

Smarter Living: One of the worst things you can do with your passwords is also very common: Use the same one on multiple sites. If even one account is compromised in a data breach, hackers will be able to get into the others. To keep yourself safe online, use two-factor authentication, keep your operating system and browser up-to-date, and use a password manager.

And a pediatrician looks at the debate about that Weight Watchers app aimed at children.

And now for the Back Story on …

How the Amazon came to be

You have to go way back to find the source of the Amazon.

By many geological accounts, about 180 million years ago, an enormous land mass broke across the middle. After 40 million more years, the southern part — now South America and Africa — also split.

The Amazon's pink river dolphin evolved from a marine species. Sylvain Cordier/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images

Many scientists believe that a river system that had stretched across the two also broke, eventually becoming Africa’s Congo River and South America’s Amazon River.

The collision of tectonic plates that raised the Andes roughly 15 million years ago may have helped block the Amazon’s flow (west then, the opposite of today’s direction), creating a vast inland sea — and a new evolutionary challenge for former saltwater inhabitants.

The Amazon basin drained when the Ice Age reduced global water levels, leaving pockets of water and flora — and more opportunities for species to subdivide.

The flood-drain cycle appeared to occur again about 6,000 years ago.

The result: one of the richest areas for plant and animal life in the world, a source of innumerable medicinal compounds and a rain forest the world is now watching burn.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Alisha

Thank you
To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. Andrea Kannapell, the briefings editor, wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about the U.S.-China trade war.
• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Back talk (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here.
• A photographer spent two years at the New York Times plant in College Point, Queens, capturing the process of printing as many as 80,000 papers an hour.