Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Thursday. |
 | | Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, on Capitol Hill.J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press |
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1. Democrats are pushing to fulfill President Biden's economic ambitions — and the clock is ticking. |
Passage of the budget outline remains far from assured, with a series of difficult hurdles in the coming months. But if its central components become law, it would be the capstone achievement that Democrats promised when they won narrow control of Congress. |
 | | F.B.I. agents examined the gate of President Jovenel Moïse's residence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Thursday.Joseph Odelyn/Associated Press |
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2. The head of palace security for Haiti's president, who was assassinated last week, was taken into police custody. |
The security chief, Dimitri Hérard, was detained as questions remained over how attackers managed to enter the heavily guarded home of President Jovenel Moïse. Investigators are focusing on the possibility that Haitian insiders eased the killers' path. |
 | | People waited to fill empty oxygen canisters outside a factory in Mandalay, Myanmar.Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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3. First, the Myanmar military stole power from the country's elected leaders. Now, doctors say, the generals have taken oxygen from coronavirus patients. |
As the Delta variant rampages through Myanmar, the junta, which seized power in a February coup, has ordered that lifesaving oxygen be denied to private clinics, which are staffed largely by doctors who oppose the army's takeover and refuse to work in state hospitals. |
This week, soldiers in the city of Yangon went so far as to fire into a crowd of people lined up to buy oxygen tanks, witnesses said. |
 | | Floodwaters engulfed homes in Erdorf, Germany.Harald Tittel/DPA, via Associated Press |
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4. At least 45 people are dead in Germany and Belgium after strong rains sent water surging from rivers and sewage systems into streets and homes. |
Hundreds of firefighters, emergency responders and soldiers worked to save people from upper floors and rooftops of their homes. Dozens of people remain unaccounted for. The flooding in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate was some of the worst in decades, after several days of steady rain deposited more water than could be absorbed by the ground and sewage systems. The storms also battered parts of Switzerland and the Netherlands. |
 | | Andrea Chronopoulos |
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5. In showrooms across the country, Americans are buying cars almost as fast as they can be made or resold. |
The frenzy for new and used vehicles is being fed by two related forces: Automakers are struggling to keep up, hindered by a computer chip shortage; and a strong economic recovery has boosted demand. The combination has left dealers and shoppers struggling to get their hands on vehicles. Used car prices are up about 45 percent over the past year, and new car and truck prices are up about 5 percent over the past year. |
Such price increases have fueled debate in Washington about whether President Biden's policies are responsible for the sharp rise in inflation. Speaking to senators, Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, acknowledged that inflation was uncomfortably high. |
 | | A vigil for employees of The Capital Gazette.Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press |
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6. A jury found that the gunman who killed five people in a Maryland newsroom in 2018 was criminally responsible for his actions. |
The finding means that the man, Jarrod Ramos, will be sentenced to life in prison for the shooting at The Capital Gazette newspaper offices in Annapolis, one of the deadliest attacks targeting U.S. journalists. Ramos, 41, pleaded guilty to 23 charges, including five counts of first-degree murder. |
In another attack on a journalist, Peter R. de Vries, a Dutch crime reporter who was shot in a brazen attack in Amsterdam last week as he was leaving a television studio, died of his wounds. European leaders have condemned the shooting, which also raised questions about safety for journalists. |
 | | Traffic is back in the Bay Area.Cayce Clifford for The New York Times |
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Bumper-to-bumper traffic has returned to the region's bridges and freeways. Tech commuter buses are reappearing on the roads. Rents are spiking. On Monday, Twitter reopened its office, becoming one of the first big tech companies to welcome more than skeleton crews of employees back to the workplace. With a healthy local rate of coronavirus vaccinations, many companies look likely to set fall dates for a return to the office. |
 | | In 2020, Melanie Newman became the first woman to call the play-by-play action in a regular-season baseball game.Julio Cortez/Associated Press |
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8. Next week's game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Baltimore Orioles will have a unique perspective. |
For the first time, an all-women team will handle the entire broadcast for a major league game. Melanie Newman, the Orioles' radio play-by-play announcer, will call the action for the MLB Game of the Week Live on YouTube. Sarah Langs, a popular baseball analyst and writer for MLB.com, will be the analyst in the booth. Alanna Rizzo will handle the on-field reporting, and Heidi Watney and Lauren Gardner will anchor the pre- and postgame shows on Tuesday. |
"It can't help but feel different," Rizzo said. |
Last night, Team W.N.B.A. beat Team U.S.A. in the league's All-Star Game. The 93-85 loss served as "a good reminder that everybody is always going to want to take us down," said Skylar Diggins-Smith, a first-time Olympian who is heading to Tokyo. |
 | | A moviegoer was glued to the small screen at El Capitan theater in Los Angeles.Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times, via Getty Images |
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9. The pandemic-accelerated fear that streaming would kill moviegoing has been proved wrong, our film critic argues. But that doesn't mean things haven't changed. |
As we go back to the movies, it's not about "whether we go to back to the movies," A.O. Scott writes, "but how we take the movies back." The culture of movies feels more than usually unstable, more uncertain, more charged with peril and possibility. |
 | | Anibal Amador installing a new basketball net at Hell's Kitchen Park in Manhattan.Jeenah Moon for The New York Times |
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10. And finally, he puts the swish back in playground basketball. |
The muted hush of a ball drifting through a netless rim turns even the perfect shot into an air ball. But in New York City, where there are more than 2,100 rims in city parks, it is not feasible to keep nets on all the rims in all the parks, so the city doesn't even try. Enter Anibal Amador, a 55-year-old former real estate agent, who regularly uses his own money to buy brand-new nets for playground rims. |
"Without the nets, it is just not good," Amador said. "No one prefers to play that way." |
Amador mostly focuses on the nets in his Manhattan neighborhood, and he carries a stepladder with him. He says he enjoys providing the service simply because he loves basketball. As for a nickname, "I was thinking maybe the Net Changer," he said. |
Hope you nail the shot tonight. |
| David Poller compiled photos for this briefing. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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