Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Friday. |
 | | Grocery shopping in Los Angeles this week.Philip Cheung for The New York Times |
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1. Inflation is rising at the fastest pace in nearly 40 years. |
The question is what happens next. The Fed, which has laid out a plan to begin cutting back on pandemic economic aid, is expected to discuss speeding up that process at a meeting next week. |
President Biden has struggled to sell strong growth and job gains to a public that appears more concerned about rising prices and the pandemic. While the president has acknowledged the sticker shock that families have experienced, he maintains that the overall economic picture is brighter than consumer surveys suggest. |
 | | Demonstrators protesting the Texas law outside the Supreme Court in November.Tom Brenner for The New York Times |
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2. The Supreme Court ruled that abortion providers could challenge a Texas law banning abortion after six weeks, but it kept the law in effect for now. |
The decision allows providers to sue at least some state officials in federal court despite the fact that the law was drafted to evade federal review. Supporters of abortion rights had hoped that the justices would reverse course from a Sept. 1 ruling that allowed the law, the most restrictive in the country, to go into effect. |
 | | The New York Times |
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3. The C.D.C. identified 43 infections with the Omicron variant in 22 states during the first week of December. |
The numbers offer the first glimpse of the coronavirus variant's course in the U.S. One individual, who was vaccinated, required a brief hospital stay, and there were no deaths. The actual number of Omicron cases is almost certainly higher, but to what extent is uncertain. |
The sudden threat of the new variant is pushing some European countries to reimpose restrictions. The tougher requirements have inspired pushback from angry citizens and rekindled debate over how much individual liberties should be curtailed in the name of public health. |
 | | Mexican National Guard officers patrolled the scene in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Mexico.Alfredo Pacheco/Getty Images |
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4. At least 54 migrants were killed and more than 100 were injured in a horrific truck crash in southern Mexico. |
The migrants, mostly from Guatemala and apparently heading for the U.S., were crammed into a tractor-trailer that overturned on a highway in Chiapas state and slammed into a pedestrian bridge yesterday afternoon. The accident is one of the deadliest involving migrants in decades. "They were all cadavers," a paramedic at the scene said. |
 | | Julian Assange in 2016 in London.Peter Nicholls/Reuters |
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5. A British court ruled that Julian Assange could be extradited to the U.S. to face espionage charges. The WikiLeaks founder plans to appeal the verdict. |
The ruling, a reversal from a lower-court decision, was a victory for the Biden administration, which has pursued an effort to prosecute Assange that was started during the Trump administration. The complex case centers on his 2010 publication of diplomatic and military files leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst. |
The Justice Department's decision to charge Assange under the Espionage Act has raised novel First Amendment issues and alarmed advocates of media freedom. But because he has been fighting extradition, those questions have not been litigated, and his transfer to the U.S. could set off a momentous constitutional battle. |
 | | State Representative Matt Krause of Texas has questioned 850 books.Eric Gay/Associated Press |
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6. What began as a debate over critical race studies in Texas has become something far broader: an effort to curtail and even ban books. |
In June, and again in recent weeks, Texas legislators passed a law shaping how teachers approach instruction on race and gender. A state politician drew up a list of 850 books that might "make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish" because of race or sex, including books about gay teenagers and book banning. Gov. Greg Abbott has also taken aim at school library shelves. |
Teachers and librarians are frustrated and bewildered, as much with the sheer ambiguity of the new law and the list of books as with the practical effect. "A lot of our teachers are petrified," one school trustee in Southlake, Texas, said. |
 | | Workers installed oyster habitats in the waters off TriBeCa last month.Dieu-Nalio Chéry for The New York Times |
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7. Eleven million new oysters are now in New York Harbor. No, you can't eat them. |
The addition of the bivalves is part of ongoing efforts to rehabilitate the polluted waterways around the city, where they help filter the water and create habitats for other marine life. The waters are still too polluted to eat the oysters — it may be another 100 years before they can be eaten safely — but the water quality is steadily improving, thanks in large part to the oysters. |
In other environmental news, Earth is getting its own black box. In a remote part of Australia, a steel box about the size of a school bus will record data for future generations should humanity be destroyed by climate change. |
 | | Janelle Reiring, left, and Helene Winer at Metro Pictures in Manhattan. Tonje Thilesen for The New York Times |
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8. Cindy Sherman. Louise Lawler. Robert Longo. Richard Prince. |
These artists got their introductions to the art world through Janelle Reiring and Helene Winer, who opened the pioneering Manhattan art gallery Metro Pictures in 1980. The founders' singularly forged vision helped define a movement ultimately known as the Pictures Generation. Tomorrow, the gallery is closing after 41 years. We spoke to Reiring and Winer ahead of the closing about their legacy. |
"We just wanted to show good art and our view of good art happened to be a little narrower, and then it expanded," Winer said. "That was what was exciting." |
 | | A golden-skinned roast duck is an impressive main course for a special meal.Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. |
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9. It's time to start planning your festive holiday menu. |
 | | Fossilized ammonites with chiral shells.French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) |
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10. And finally, how a stressed out critter got its shell. |
Scientists have long wondered how ammonites, mollusks that died out about 66 million years ago, got their distinctive spiral shells. |
So they developed a mathematical model to explain just that. They learned that if the ammonites' bodies grew faster than their shells, they would be too big for their shell houses. That would generate mechanical stress and cause the body to twist inside the shell, resulting in an asymmetric form. The model also explains how other snails develop their characteristic spiraling shells, the researchers said. |
Hope you find something to twist and shout about this weekend. |
| Bryan Denton compiled photos for this briefing. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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