Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Wednesday. |
- Debt deal heads for final vote
- Uninsurable climate risks
- Plus, early drafts of "Bohemian Rhapsody"
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 | | Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the Capitol today.Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times |
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The House will vote tonight on a bipartisan plan to suspend the nation's debt ceiling for two years and limit spending as lawmakers race to act before a looming default. |
The legislation is a product of intense negotiations between President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who demanded concessions from Democrats in exchange for suspending the borrowing limit. |
To push the bill through with a 218-vote majority, McCarthy will need to cobble together a coalition of Republicans willing to back it and enough Democrats to make up for what was shaping up to be a substantial number of G.O.P. defections. McCarthy predicted that he would have the necessary votes by around 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, when the final vote is expected. (We are covering it live.) |
My colleague Catie Edmondson told me that the bill was likely to pass, but that "something could always blow up." The vote comes just days ahead of a June 5 deadline, when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the U.S. will run out of cash to pay all of its bills on time. |
Final passage of the debt deal — which is also expected to pass in the Senate in the coming days — would be seen by leaders of both parties as a success. Biden will have avoided a potentially catastrophic default while limiting the impact of the budget cuts. And McCarthy will have managed to cut federal spending by $1.5 trillion over a decade, a key conservative priority. |
 | | A firefighter tried to save a home in Meyers, Calif., in 2021.Max Whittaker for The New York Times |
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Parts of the U.S. are becoming uninsurable |
Insurance companies, tired of losing money, are raising rates, restricting coverage or pulling out of some areas altogether — making it more expensive for people to live in their homes. |
In California, the largest homeowner insurance company, State Farm, announced this month that it would stop selling coverage to homeowners throughout the entire state. In parts of eastern Kentucky, the price of flood insurance is set to quadruple, and most big insurers have already pulled out of Florida. The trend demonstrates that the climate crisis is becoming a financial crisis. |
 | | It is rare for a North Korean projectile to fly to the south.Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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A 'false alarm' shook Seoul |
Around 6:30 a.m. today, residents of South Korea's capital received cellphone alerts from the government that urged them to "prepare to evacuate" — children and the elderly and weak first. Panic quickly spread across the city of 10 million as news spread that North Korea had fired a rocket. After about 30 minutes, the government said it was a "false alarm." |
 | | Officials have sought to clean up 54 million gallons of radioactive waste from a site in Washington State.Mason Trinca for The New York Times |
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The U.S. is stumped by its radioactive waste problem |
After the Cold War, the Energy Department was tasked with cleaning up tens of millions of gallons of highly radioactive sludge left over from the production of nuclear bombs in states like South Carolina, Washington, Ohio and Idaho. But its original plan — to embed the waste in glass and deposit it in a repository such as the mountains of the Nevada desert — ran into a number of hurdles. |
- Economy: Job openings in the U.S. rose last month, reversing the trend after three consecutive months of declines.
- International: Sudan's army said it had pulled out of talks aimed at achieving a full cease-fire, raising the specter of escalating clashes.
- Safety: The U.S. will require all new cars to have automatic braking systems.
- Climate: The E.U. is trying to assemble the building blocks to produce electric cars, but subsidies are luring companies to the U.S.
- Sanctions: Using cutting-edge technology, three tankers carrying Russian oil hid their locations — likely causing a breach of sanctions, a Times investigation found.
- The Arctic: Russia may be having major difficulties in Ukraine, but it remains a vast power in the northern part of the globe.
- Court: Danny Masterson, who is known for his role in "That '70s Show," was found guilty of two counts of rape after a second trial.
- Obama: A new oral history project on Barack Obama's presidency, which includes 470 interviews of Obama administration officials, explores the former president's impact and the trade-offs he made.
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Enjoy all of The New York Times in one subscription — the original reporting and analysis, plus puzzles from Games, recipes from Cooking, product reviews from Wirecutter and sports journalism from The Athletic. Experience it all with a New York Times All Access subscription. |
 | | Lauren Fleishman for The New York Times |
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A 'Bohemian Rhapsody' secret |
You probably know the song: a six-minute radio hit that starts out as a piano ballad, becomes a high-pitched opera, then tumbles into a headbanger's anthem — redefining what pop music could be. But it's possible that Queen's 1975 hit "Bohemian Rhapsody" almost didn't exist — at least in name. |
An early draft of the song by Freddie Mercury, Queen's frontman, suggests that he once considered giving the anthem a different title. On that draft, Mercury wrote "Mongolian Rhapsody" near the top, then crossed out the first word and added "Bohemian" above it. The pages, and thousands of Mercury's belongings, are being auctioned off later this year. |
 | | The 2017 James Beard awards ceremony.Mark Von Holden/Invision for James Beard Foundation/AP Images |
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They award chefs, and now investigate them |
The James Beard awards, which are considered the most prestigious culinary honors in the U.S., have been overhauled in recent years following a number of high-profile revelations of workplace abuse in the restaurant world. When the awards are handed out next week, the group behind them will have attempted to weed out chefs with troubling histories. |
That process involves investigating award finalists and looking into anonymous tips. However, some early subjects of scrutiny have called the new process "an interrogation" and believe it has troubles of its own. |
 | | James Ransom for The New York Times |
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 | | Calla Kessler for The New York Times |
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Meet Penny the firehouse pig |
You may have heard of a firehouse Dalmatian, or perhaps even a cat, but at Engine Company 239 in New York City, the firefighters have a different sort of mascot: a pig named Penny. |
The small pink pig — whose owner, the firefighter Darren Harris, takes her to work with him — has become a minor celebrity: She headlined a benefit at a yoga studio in May and flew to Hollywood for the taping of a television program. Aside from changing the company's menu (they no longer eat pork), Penny mostly lays low — as long as the firefighters keep an ample supply of Cheerios. |
Have an adorable evening. |
Thanks for reading. I'll be back tomorrow. — Matthew |
 | Writer: Matthew Cullen Editorial Director: Adam Pasick Editors: Carole Landry, Whet Moser, Justin Porter, Jonathan Wolfe Photo Editor: Brent Lewis |
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