Your Thursday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here's the latest. |
 | | Scott McIntyre for The New York Times |
|
1. Florida joined a growing list of Republican-led states in making it more difficult to vote. |
The next big move could happen in Texas, where Republicans are brushing aside objections from corporate titans and moving on a vast election bill that would be among the most severe in the nation. |
During a bill-signing ceremony from West Palm Beach broadcast exclusively by Fox News, DeSantis praised the Florida legislation as the "strongest election integrity measures in the country," though there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the presidential election. |
His actions are part of a national effort by Republicans to reverse gains Democrats made in Georgia, Arizona and elsewhere. |
 | | James Estrin/The New York Times |
|
2. The U.S. is "turning the corner" in the pandemic. |
Americans have entered a new, hopeful phase as the outlook has improved across the nation. Cases and deaths from Covid-19 have dipped, and more people are shrugging off masks, venturing into restaurants and returning to prepandemic routines. |
The biggest reason experts are optimistic that the trajectory may last is the vaccination campaign. More than 56 percent of adults have received at least one shot, and more than 30 percent are fully vaccinated. Above, a pop-up vaccine clinic in the Bronx. |
Experts said that while they still expected significant local and regional surges in the coming weeks, they did not think they will be as widespread or reach past peaks. "We're clearly turning the corner," said one expert. |
 | | Kristian Thacker for The New York Times |
|
3. People are rethinking the purpose of nursing homes after the pandemic killed tens of thousands of residents. |
The pandemic has driven occupancy down significantly at nursing homes — not just from the 132,000 deaths but also because of a decline in admissions. For years, health officials and some insurers have tried to encourage more stay-at-home care, and the pandemic has created a sense of urgency. |
"What's happened is a welcome sort of market correction for nursing homes," a lawyer for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform in San Francisco said. Above, Diane Nixon, whose plans to move into a nursing home changed because of the pandemic. |
 | | Leonhard Foeger/Reuters |
|
4. The U.S. could return to the Iran nuclear deal in weeks, an American official said. |
Briefing reporters, the senior official said an agreement could be reached before Iran's presidential elections in mid-June, and potentially earlier, during talks beginning Friday in Vienna. Above, Iran's chief negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. |
It was the Biden administration's most optimistic signal yet that an American return to the accord on curbing Iran's nuclear activities was within reach. The Trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2018. |
 | | Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times |
|
5. A man has been charged with attempted murder after the stabbing of two Asian women in broad daylight in San Francisco. |
Witnesses, like Patricia Lee, above, said the man was wielding a large, military-style knife when he lunged at two women, one of them 84 years old, on Tuesday as they waited for a bus on one of San Francisco's busiest thoroughfares. Five people in the city have been charged with anti-Asian hate crimes this year. |
On the same day, 49 Buddhist leaders gathered in Los Angeles for a ceremony of healing following recent attacks. One organizer called it an effort "to repair the racial karma of this nation." |
 | | Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times |
|
6. The U.S. needs to quickly find new supplies of lithium as carmakers produce more electric vehicles. |
Domestic mines are being built to help address a shortage of the metal, an essential ingredient in electric car batteries and renewable energy, but some have drawn protests, like the one above, from local residents and activists because of environmental concerns. |
Although the U.S. has some of the world's largest reserves, most of the lithium used domestically comes from Latin America or Australia and turned into battery cells in Asia. |
 | | Illustration by Joan Wong; Photographs by Pete Marovich for The New York Times, Tobias Schwarz/AFP — Getty Images |
|
7. Nick Clegg has shaped Facebook's handling of Donald Trump at every turn. |
Clegg played perhaps the biggest behind-the-scenes role in decisions to suspend Trump's account, an unlikely position for a British political veteran in such an important moment for American free speech. |
A former British deputy prime minister, Clegg joined Facebook in 2018 to oversee its policy and public relations team. Friends said Clegg had initially been reluctant to join Facebook, but wanted be back at the center of political and policy debates. |
Our tech columnist writes that the ruling from an Oversight Board, which said Facebook would have to ultimately decide what to do about Trump, sent a clear message to Mark Zuckerberg, the company's chief executive: Mr. Zuckerberg, this problem is yours to fix. |
 | | Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
|
8. Myanmar is returning to the "bad old days." |
Three months after a military coup ended Myanmar's experiment in democracy, a sense of foreboding is back. A new junta is consolidating its grip by resorting, yet again, to a reign of terror. |
Soldiers bang on doors nightly, arresting, abducting and assaulting with slingshots and rifles. Prisons are once again filled with poets, Buddhist monks and politicians. Nightly broadcasts show mug shots of protesters, many with faces bruised during interrogations. |
For all the fear percolating in Myanmar, resistance to the coup has only hardened. It has included a national strike and a civil disobedience movement, which have paralyzed the economy. Banks and hospitals are all but shut. |
 | | Atsushi Nishijima/Amazon Studios |
|
9. "The Underground Railroad" from the director Barrie Jenkins is television's most ambitious take on American slavery since "Roots." |
Adapted from Colson Whitehead's 2016 novel, the 10-episode series, which premieres May 14 on Amazon, is in part an attempt to contextualize modern racial strife with a vivid new origin story. |
For Jenkins, above center, the series was by far the most ambitious and personally challenging undertaking of his career. The story he tells is not about the physical violence of slavery, but something subtler, about the psychic and emotional scourge, and the unfathomable spiritual strength required for any individual — let alone an entire people — to have come out alive. |
 | | Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters |
|
10. And finally, a space-aged wine. |
A dozen bottles of Pétrus, a Bordeaux red wine, were transported to the International Space Station in November 2019 and orbited the Earth for 14 months as part of an experiment on food and agriculture. Now, one of the bottles, from the 2000 vintage, above, is being sold by Christie's. The estimated price: $1 million. |
The purchase will include a "terrestrial" bottle to allow the buyer to compare. Proceeds from the sale will help pay for future space experiments. |
Those who sampled the space wine gave stellar reviews. "From previous experience of this wine," said one connoisseur, "this particular bottle seems more evolved than I would expect from a 21-year-old bottle of Pétrus 2000." |
Have a delectable evening. And sip slowly. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
|
