Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Wednesday. |
 | | Activists demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday.Kenny Holston for The New York Times |
|
1. The Supreme Court seemed poised to uphold Mississippi's abortion law, but the court's conservatives appeared split about whether to overturn Roe v. Wade entirely. |
The court heard arguments in the most important abortion case in decades. The justices engaged in sometimes tense exchanges about the state law, which bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. A decision is expected in late June. |
Upholding the state law would be flatly at odds with the central holding of Roe, which established a constitutional right to abortion and prohibited states from banning the procedure before fetal viability, or around 23 weeks. Moving that line to 15 weeks would discard a half-century of precedent. |
Should Roe be overturned, at least 20 states will make all abortions unlawful. |
Several members of the court's six-member conservative majority appeared ready to go further and overrule Roe entirely, letting states decide whether and when to ban abortions. The court's three liberal members said that overruling Roe soon after a change in the court's membership would damage the court's legitimacy. |
 | | San Francisco Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax speaks about the first Omicron case.Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times |
|
2. The first case of the Omicron variant was detected in the U.S. More than 20 countries have detected the mutated form of the coronavirus so far. |
The Omicron variant has become by far the most prevalent in South Africa, replacing the fading Delta variant, health officials said. |
 | | Mourners at a makeshift memorial outside of Oxford High School in suburban Detroit on Wednesday.Nick Hagen for The New York Times |
|
3. A 15-year-old boy was charged with terrorism and first-degree murder in connection with a shooting that killed four of his classmates in Michigan. |
The boy, Ethan Crumbley, was charged as an adult, said Karen McDonald, the Oakland County prosecutor. She said she was also considering charges against Crumbley's parents, and described the rampage as "absolutely premeditated." The authorities said that a handgun used in the shooting had been bought four days earlier by the suspect's father. |
The announcement came just hours after a fourth student died. Those killed, all students at Oxford High School, were identified as Justin Shilling, 17; Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; and Tate Myre, 16. After reviewing video footage of the attack, the authorities said that Crumbley had emerged from a bathroom and started firing at students in the hallway. His targets "appeared random," Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said. |
 | | Senator Mitch McConnell, center, has said the government will not shut down this week.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times |
|
4. Republican senators are threatening to delay action on a spending bill over President Biden's vaccine mandate for big companies. Federal funding is set to lapse on Friday. |
 | | Peng Shuai during a qualifying match in New York in 2019.Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times |
|
5. The women's professional tennis tour suspended all tournaments in China in response to the disappearance of the tennis star Peng Shuai. |
Peng, a Grand Slam doubles champion and three-time Olympian, disappeared for two weeks after claiming on her social media channels that she had been sexually assaulted by a top member of the Chinese government. The decision marks a major turning point in how sports leagues have dealt with China, a vast market that provides huge opportunity. |
 | | Stacey Abrams in April.Diwang Valdez for The New York Times |
|
6. Stacey Abrams said she would run again for governor of Georgia in 2022. |
The prominent Democrat and voting rights activist has come to embody the state's changing racial and political makeup and was previously considered to be President Biden's potential running mate. The move sets up a likely rematch with Gov. Brian Kemp, the Republican who narrowly defeated her in 2018. |
If her campaign is successful, Abrams would become the first Black governor of Georgia and the first Black woman to serve as governor of any state. |
 | | A school bus for the Central Bucks School District in Doylestown, Pa.Michelle Gustafson for The New York Times |
|
7. While politics consume school board meetings across the country, a very different crisis is festering. |
In nearly two dozen interviews, school workers in one of the wealthiest districts in Pennsylvania described shortages everywhere, including bus drivers, substitute teachers, support staff and even milk. |
After more than a year of deep-cleaning classrooms, custodians are now cleaning up broken sinks and disgusting messes after students enact viral dares on social media. With the ranks of classroom support staff worryingly thin, everyone talks of a crisis in student mental health. Behavioral problems have mushroomed, and there have been suicides and attempted suicides. "We are in triage mode," one teacher said. |
 | | Meryl Streep plays a U.S. president very focused on her approval ratings in "Don't Look Up."Niko Tavernise/Netflix |
|
8. Our awards season columnist has seen nearly all of this year's major Oscar players. He's ready to make some predictions. |
This year's pack of Oscar contenders is gratifyingly varied, writes Kyle Buchanan, "featuring big-studio blockbusters, intimate international dramas and an end-of-the-world comedy with a tramp-stamped Meryl Streep as the president." Here are his projections for the best-picture contenders, as well as a clutch of other worthy films. |
One of them is Steven Spielberg's remake of "West Side Story." We asked three critics, a playwright and a theater historian to weigh in on whether the musical — beloved for its book and choreography and criticized for its portrayal of race and violence — deserves a new hearing. |
 | | A cookie a day keeps the sweet tooth at bay.Anna Williams for The New York Times |
|
9. It's December — and officially cookie season. |
And with several nights left of Hanukkah, Melissa Clark suggests skipping the fried food frenzy for one of these desserts. |
 | | An artist's reconstruction of a new species of armored dinosaur discovered in southern Chile.Luis Pérez López |
|
10. And finally, an armed and dangerous dinosaur. |
In 2018, a dig revealed an unusually complete specimen: 80 percent of a skeleton, including a largely articulated back half, as well as vertebrae, shoulders, forelimbs and scraps of skull. A blow from the tail would have been like being "whacked in the shins by a battle ax," one researcher said. The tail weapon seems to have evolved independently of other ankylosaurs, and offers new clues about where these tank-like dinosaurs came from. |
Have an impactful evening. |
| Eve Edelheit compiled photos for this briefing. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
|
