Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

William Barr, North Carolina, Fossils View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Wednesday, May 1, 2019 [NYTimes.com »]( [Your Wednesday Evening Briefing]( By REMY TUMIN AND MARCUS PAYADUE Good evening. Here’s the latest. Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times 1. “I’m not in the business of determining when lies are told to the American people. I am in the business of determining when a crime has been committed.” Attorney General William Barr spent much of the day [answering questions]( from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the special counsel’s report on Russian election meddling and possible obstruction of justice. Democrats pressed Mr. Barr on why he had not publicly acknowledged concerns about his original summary and why he said that Mr. Trump had cooperated fully with the investigation when he tried to thwart it. Republicans focused not on Mr. Trump or Mr. Mueller’s report but on Hillary Clinton’s emails and the former F.B.I. officials who opened the Russia investigation. We have [video clips and takeaways]( from the hearing. Hours after Mr. Barr finished testifying, a congressional aide said the attorney general was expected to skip a House hearing Thursday on the Mueller report. He and Democrats have fought over its format. _____ United States Department Of Justice 2. The attorney general spent much of his time defending his four-page summary of the Mueller report. Minutes before Mr. Barr was set to testify, the Justice Department released a letter from March that [showed a deep a rift]( between the special counsel Robert Mueller and Mr. Barr. Mr. Mueller criticized the summary as failing to capture the “context, nature and substance” of the 448-page document. “The letter is a bit snitty, and I think it was probably written by a member of his staff,” Mr. Barr said at Wednesday’s hearing. In our Opinion section, the former F.B.I. director [James Comey offers his take]( on Mr. Barr’s handling of the Mueller report. _____ Keith Srakocic/Associated Press 3. The national firefighters’ union endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. President Trump responded on Twitter. In an early-morning blizzard of 60 tweets and retweets, Mr. Trump [attacked the union’s leadership](. The number is unusual even for Mr. Trump, and it seems a clear sign that Mr. Trump is anxious about the loyalty of the rank-and-file union voters he reached in 2016. Above, Mr. Biden at a campaign event in Pittsburgh on Monday. In other Washington news, the White House asked Congress to [allocate $4.5 billion in emergency funds]( for the southwestern border as federal agencies struggle to address the influx of asylum seekers coming into the U.S. _____ Matias Delacroix/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images 4. The Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó called on civilians to rise up against President Nicolás Maduro for a second day of protests, imploring supporters to [show a mighty May Day presence](. But it was unclear whether the antigovernment demonstrations were a convincing rejoinder to the setback Mr. Guaidó suffered on Tuesday, when he failed to convince the military to switch sides. Separately, French police officers fired tear gas after [violence broke out]( at the May Day labor rally in Paris, with masked vandals mixing with demonstrators, smashing vehicles and throwing rocks. _____ Travis Dove for The New York Times 5. “He took the assailant off his feet,” a police chief in North Carolina said. “Absolutely, Mr. Howell saved lives.” He was speaking of Riley Howell, 21, a student who tackled a gunman at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte on Tuesday evening. He saved many lives, but lost his own. Above, a prayer gathering near the university last night. The authorities have declined to speculate on the motive for the shooting. A 22-year-old suspect has been charged with 12 crimes, including two counts of murder. [Here is what we know]( — and still don’t know — about the attack. _____ Jeff Chiu/Associated Press 6. Heads are still rolling in the college admissions scandal. Prosecutors are pursuing more parents in [the nation’s largest-ever college admissions]( investigation, spreading fear in Southern California’s elite circles. Some have been informed that they are under investigation. Others worry that they will be. “This is the only thing they can think about,” one lawyer said. We also tracked down a Chinese family who [paid $6.5 million]( to try to get their daughter admitted to Stanford University, pictured above, as a recruited athlete. Separately, two fraternities at Swarthmore College said they would disband after the release of more than [100 pages of internal documents]( in which members discussed sexual misconduct and referred to a “rape attic.” _____ Doug Mills/The New York Times 7. Female athletes with elevated male hormones can be barred from track races against other women, [the highest court in sports ruled](. The landmark ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport was a defeat for the South African athlete Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion at 800 meters, who had challenged proposed limits placed on female athletes with naturally elevated levels of testosterone. Above center, Ms. Semenya at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. In a statement, her lawyers said they may appeal the decision, arguing that her “unique genetic gift should be celebrated, not regulated.” In other sports news, C.C. Sabathia of the Yankees became the 17th pitcher, and only the third left-hander, [to reach 3,000 strikeouts.]( _____ Dongju Zhang/Lanzhou University, via Associated Press 8. A fossil found in a Tibetan cave suggests that an ancient human species [once roamed across much of Asia](. Until now, fossils from the species known as Denisovan had been found in just one Siberian cave. The Denisovans are members of a mysterious lineage of Neanderthal-like humans that disappeared about 50,000 years ago. The Tibetan fossil, found by a Buddhist monk in the area pictured above, was a jawbone at least 160,000 years old, making it by far the oldest evidence of humans on the Tibetan plateau. Modern Tibetans have a special genetic inheritance from Denisovans that allows them to live at high elevations. _____ Michael Benanav for The New York Times 9. And now for a stop in the most biodiverse desert in the world. [Our writer drove through the Devil’s Highway]( a 130-mile dirt road in the Sonoran Desert that carries sad reminders of its history. For centuries it has been notorious as a route along which people die. But El Camino del Diablo also offers mesmerizing views of the Arizona desert, and is home to more than 275 animal species and 400 types of plants. Want to try it? Our writer suggests bringing plenty of water and an adventurous spirit. _____ Orgen Ree Wiig/Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries 10. Finally, a spy whale. Fishermen off the coast of Norway came across an unusual sight last week — a beluga whale with a strapped harness that had mounts for GoPro-type cameras. “St. Petersburg equipment” was embossed on the harness clips. Norwegian scientists said they [believed the whale was trained by the Russian Navy](. The use of marine animals for military use isn’t that unusual, explains our reporter, a former Navy officer. Dolphins, whales and sea lions have all been trained to carry out missions — limited to finding and marking things, then exiting the area. “There are no weaponized dolphins,” he writes. Have a whale of a night. _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing. [Sign up here]( to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning. Want to catch up on past briefings? [You can browse them here](. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at [briefing@nytimes.com](mailto:briefing@nytimes.com?subject=Evening%20Briefing%20Feedback). LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. NEED HELP? Review our [newsletter help page]( or [contact us]( for assistance. 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