Your Tuesday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here’s the latest. |
 | | Michael Reynolds/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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1. The postmaster general suspended cuts to the Postal Service until after the election following criticism that they could derail mail-in voting. |
The measures introduced by Louis DeJoy — including eliminating overtime for mail carriers, reducing post office hours and removing postal boxes — had prompted accusations that the Trump administration was trying to disenfranchise voters ahead of the November election. Above, a mail carrier in Washington on Tuesday. |
“To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded,” Mr. DeJoy said. It was unclear, however, whether the agency would reverse measures that had already been put in place across the country, or just prevent additional changes from going forward. |
The announcement came as a coalition of 22 state attorneys general announced that they would sue the Trump administration over the Postal Service changes and seek to reverse them. Mr. DeJoy is expected testify before the House and the Senate in the coming days. |
 | | Erin Schaff/The New York Times |
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2. A Republican-led Senate report on Russia’s 2016 election interference lays out an extensive web of contacts between Trump aides and Russian officials. |
The report provided a bipartisan endorsement for an extraordinary set of facts: The Russian government undertook an extensive campaign to try to sabotage the election to help President Trump win, and some of Mr. Trump’s advisers were open to the help from an American adversary. Above, President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Trump in 2019. |
 | | Democratic National Convention/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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3. The most unusual convention in American history is fully underway. |
After Michelle Obama kicked things off last night with an impassioned appeal to vote for Joe Biden, Jill Biden, the presumptive nominee’s wife and an educator, and former President Bill Clinton will make their case for Mr. Biden during the second night of the Democratic National Convention. |
The event will run from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time, and we’ll have live coverage and analysis from our reporters. Need to catch up on last night? Here are four moments that mattered. |
 | | Source: Refinitiv • By The New York Times |
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4. The S&P 500 hit a record, surpassing its February high despite economic devastation and unemployment. |
The recovery has been fueled by trillions of dollars pumped into financial markets by the Federal Reserve, enormous government relief packages and a run-up in big tech shares, which hold sway over the entire market. |
Put together, these factors drove an upturn that was so quick that the bear market — defined as a drop of more than 20 percent — that began earlier this year turned out to be the shortest ever. |
Separately, Walmart had a big second quarter: Sales rose 9.3 percent, including a 97 percent bump in e-commerce business, more than double what the company had been averaging. |
 | | Lindsey Wasson/Reuters |
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5. Universities are struggling with how to prevent tightly packed sorority and fraternity houses from turning into coronavirus hot spots. |
The Times has identified at least 251 cases of the virus tied to Greek life, including the University of Washington’s Seattle campus, above. Fraternities and sororities have been especially challenging for universities to regulate — though they dominate social life on many campuses, their houses are often not owned or governed by the universities. |
More than 13,000 students, faculty members and staff members at colleges have been infected with the virus, according to a Times database. The University of Notre Dame said it would move to online instruction for at least the next two weeks to try to control a growing coronavirus outbreak. |
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 | | Malik Konate/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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6. Mali’s military staged a coup after weeks of unrest in the West African nation. |
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and his prime minister, Boubou Cissé, were arrested along with other government officials, according to Moussa Faki, chairman of the African Union Commission, who called for them to be freed immediately. |
Protests have been fueled by accusations that President Keïta stole a parliamentary election in March and installed his own candidates, and by anger at the government’s failure to address corruption and bloodshed that has plagued the country for eight years. |
 | | New York Public Library; State Archives of Florida; National Archives; Library of Congress |
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7. A century ago today, the U.S. ratified the 19th Amendment, enshrining a woman’s right to vote in the Constitution. But the decades-long struggle didn’t end there. |
“Many historians talk about the suffrage movement continuing at least until 1965,” when the Voting Rights Act passed, said Veronica Chambers, the lead editor on a Times project commemorating the anniversary. “The timeline of how long women in the U.S. have had political power and independence is not as long as we tend to think it is.” |
 | | YouTube |
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8. Dr. Jen Gunter, who writes a column on women’s health for Styles, is thrilled about Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s new song, “WAP.” |
The song is almost certainly the most graphic and explicit song ever to reach the top of the Billboard charts, opening at No. 1 on the Hot 100 singles charts with 93 million streams in the U.S., the most for any track in its debut week. |
 | | Library of Congress |
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9. America is about to lose a foot. |
For decades, U.S. metrologists — who study the science of measurement — have juggled two conflicting measurements for the foot. The first is the old U.S. survey foot from 1893. The second is the newer, shorter and slightly more exact international foot from 1959, used by nearly everybody except surveyors in some states. |
 | | Antonio Chicaia for The New York Times |
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10. And finally, the calming power of plants. |
Marcus Bridgewater, known to his TikTok followers as Garden Marcus, has built a following for his soothing videos about plant care. He began learning about plants in the garden of his adopted grandmother in Florida, but it wasn’t until adulthood that he really put his green thumb to work. |
“I saw this kind of reciprocation,” Mr. Bridgewater, who lives in Spring, Texas, said. “I found myself finding peace in my garden.” |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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