Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Tuesday. |
 | | President Biden addressed the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.Doug Mills/The New York Times |
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1. "Government by and for the people is still the best way to deliver for all of our people." |
President Biden delivered his first address to the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. in New York amid doubts about his ability to restore U.S. leadership in the world after the Trump administration's isolationism. |
Biden called for unity among allies in confronting the coronavirus pandemic and autocratic nations such as China and Russia. China's leader, Xi Jinping, chastised the U.S., saying "democracy is not a special right reserved to an individual country." Iran's new president also rebuked the U.S. and showed little sign of flexibility on nuclear talks. |
The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, warned that nations needed to work together on war, climate change and the pandemic — "the greatest cascade of crises in our lifetimes." And although he did not refer to the countries by name, he expressed fears about competition between China and the U.S., calling it "far less predictable than the Cold War." |
 | | Getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the Bronx in July.James Estrin/The New York Times |
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2. A second dose of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine substantially increases its protection against Covid-19, the company said. |
In a clinical trial, the second dose delivered 94 percent efficacy against mild to severe Covid-19 in the U.S., up from the 74 percent efficacy conferred with a single shot, the company reported. The data has been submitted to U.S. drug regulators. |
 | | A Haitian deportee, Nicodeme Vyles, at his sister's house in Port-au-Prince on Monday.Federico Rios for The New York Times |
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3. Some Haitians left their country long ago and built lives abroad. But when they tried to reach the U.S., they were stunned to find themselves deported back to a country in crisis. |
About 300 Haitians landed on Sunday, among about 14,000 migrants whom the authorities in Haiti expect to arrive over the next three weeks. They had been detained in the small border town of Del Rio, Texas, and were, without warning, deported to Haiti in a head-spinning sequence that left them feeling mistreated and betrayed. |
 | | Abortion rights activists rallied at the Texas Capitol this month.Jordan Vonderhaar/Getty Images |
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4. The two challengers of the country's most restrictive abortion law caught anti-abortion leaders in Texas off guard. |
The Texas law allows private citizens to sue doctors or anyone who "aids and abets" an illegal abortion. But anti-abortion leaders in the state said that they had never expected many people to actually file lawsuits and that the law — which bans nearly all abortions in the state — was instead expected to be a deterrent. |
The new lawsuits, filed in state courts by disbarred lawyers who live in other states, may be the most promising legal vehicles for a definitive resolution of the constitutionality of the law, legal experts said. Two more sweeping challenges filed in federal court, brought by abortion providers and the Justice Department, by contrast, raise difficult procedural questions. |
 | | Sidney Powell, a lawyer allied with Donald Trump's campaign, in November 2020.Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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5. Donald Trump's campaign knew days after the 2020 election that wild claims about voting machine tampering were not true, court filings show. |
Trump's team prepared an internal memo on the claims about the company that made the machines, Dominion Voting Systems, and a separate software company, Smartmatic, and determined that those allegations were untrue. But lawyers allied with Trump continued to lay out bizarre conspiracy theories and filed four federal lawsuits accusing Dominion of rigging the election. |
In other political news, the House is expected to pass legislation today that would keep the government funded through early December, lift the debt limit and provide about $35 billion in emergency money for Afghan refugees and natural disaster recovery, setting up a clash with Republicans who oppose the measure. |
 | | The Caldor fire burned in the Eldorado National Forest near Pollock Pines, Calif., in August.Max Whittaker for The New York Times |
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6. Wildfires in California this summer emitted twice as much carbon dioxide compared to last summer — and far more than any other summer in nearly two decades. |
The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, an E.U.-backed group, said that blazes in California released more than 75 million tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide between June and August. Overall, fires in the West released 130 million tons of CO2 this summer, according to the agency's estimates. That includes about 17 million tons in Oregon, more than 10 times the amount released last year. |
Fires in the Sakha Republic in northeastern Siberia contributed 750 million tons, also double that of the year before. But it's a small amount compared with the annual worldwide carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, which are expected to total about 33 billion tons this year. |
 | | Google will buy a sprawling Manhattan office building on the Hudson River in New York City.Brittainy Newman for The New York Times |
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7. Google will spend $2.1 billion to buy a sprawling Manhattan office building, one of the largest transactions for a building in the U.S. in recent years. |
The building on the Hudson River waterfront further cements the tech giant's rapidly expanding presence in the city and provides a jolt of optimism for a city hit hard by the pandemic and the shift to remote work. The company has 12,000 corporate employees in New York City and said it planned to hire another 2,000 workers in the city in the coming years. |
 | | Anthony Gose in his pitching debut for the Cleveland Indians on Monday.Ron Schwane/Getty Images |
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8. For nearly a decade, Anthony Gose made his career as an outfielder. On Monday night, he clocked 100 miles per hour in his pitching debut for Cleveland — eight times. |
Gose is one of the few players to play as hitters and transition to the mound, or vice versa. After five seasons with Toronto and Detroit, his career never quite took off. So in 2017, when it was clear his batting days were over, he decided to give pitching another try and returned to the minors. |
"I love the game," Gose said. "I love to play. I guess I'm too stupid to quit." |
 | | Make sumac roasted fish in 15 minutes or less.David Malosh for The New York Times |
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9. Twenty-four recipes that deliver deliciousness — fast. |
Put down the peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner and consider one of these alternatives that can be on the table in 30 minutes or less, once the ingredients are prepped (and even that work is kept to a minimum). |
In her new monthly column, Genevieve Ko will share easy, streamlined recipes. First up: apple crisp and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, no mixer required. |
 | | A team of scientists say they have pinpointed the genetic mutation that may have erased our tails.Ted Kinsman/Science Source |
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10. And finally, how humans lost their tails. |
For half a billion years or so, our ancestors sprouted tails. As fish, they used their tails to swim, and when they evolved into primates, their tails balanced them as they swung from branch to branch. Roughly 25 million years ago, the tails disappeared. How and why has remained a mystery — until now. |
"This question — where's my tail? — has been in my head since I was a kid," said Bo Xia, a graduate student at N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine. |
A new study led by Xia suggests that a single genetic mutation is the answer. When the scientists made this genetic tweak in mice, the animals didn't grow tails. Xia and his team suggest that this mutation randomly struck an ape some 20 million years ago, and became the norm in living apes and humans. |
| Angela Jimenez compiled photos for this briefing. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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