Your Tuesday Evening Briefing

Your nightly rundown of the day's top stories delivered straight to your inbox. View in [Browser] | Add [nytdirect@nytimes.com] to your address book. Tuesday, December 20, 2016 [The New York Times] [NYTimes.com »] [Evening Briefing] Tuesday, December 20, 2016 [Your Tuesday Evening Briefing] By KAREN ZRAICK AND SANDRA STEVENSON Good evening. Here’s the latest. Markus Schreiber/Associated Press 1. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for [the truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin] that killed 12, injured many more and shocked the country. Investigators started a nationwide search for the attacker after finding no evidence that their initial suspect, a 23-year-old Pakistani asylum seeker, was involved. In an omen of a bitter election next year, far-right politicians in Germany pinned the blame for the deadly attack squarely on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration policies. _____ Erhan Ortac/Getty Images 2. Turkey and Russia vowed that the assassination of Russia’s ambassador in Ankara would not derail [their yearlong reconciliation]. And along with Iran, they are beginning talks in Moscow on Syria’s future — without the West. The assassin, a 22-year-old off-duty policeman, was killed by fellow officers. Six people, including his parents, [were detained after the attack], but no immediate links emerged to terror groups. And a gunman who [opened fire at an Islamic center in Zurich] on Monday, wounding three people, was found dead, apparently after committing suicide. _____ Daniella Beccaria/seattlepi.com, via Associated Press 3. President Obama [announced a permanent ban on new offshore drilling] in areas off the Atlantic coast and in the Arctic Ocean. He invoked a provision of a 1953 law that will make the ban far more difficult to reverse than an executive action. _____ Stephen Crowley/The New York Times 4. President-elect Donald Trump [took to Twitter to respond to disparaging comments] made by Bill Clinton. In a weekly paper published near the Clintons’ home in Chappaqua, N.Y., Mr. Clinton said Mr. Trump “doesn’t know much,” adding, “One thing he does know is how to get angry, white men to vote for him.” Mr. Trump responded that it was Mr. Clinton who didn’t “know much,“ taunting him about Hillary Clinton’s loss and the failure to get out the vote “in the vital swing states (and more). They focused on wrong states.” _____ U.S. Navy, via Reuters 5. China returned the submersible drone it seized from the U.S. Navy last week to the Navy. The seizure, in international waters, had prompted [tense exchanges between Mr. Trump and China’s media], which sees the American presence in the South China Sea as a provocation. “The undersea battleground, especially in the South China Sea, will become a new domain of Chinese-American rivalry,” a Chinese naval official wrote. _____ Travis Dove for The New York Times 6. Officials in Flint, Mich., announced [felony charges against two former state-appointed emergency managers] in the investigation into the city’s water crisis. The attorney general said “a fixation on finances and balance sheets” over safeguarding residents’ safety was the root of the problem. _____ Justin Cook for The New York Times 7. Immigrants’ rights groups are pleading with Mr. Obama to [shield 200,000 legal immigrants] with minor criminal records from deportation. More than 100 organizations argued in a letter that he is constitutionally empowered to protect some green card holders by exercising his pardon power — a novel application. A White House spokesman said it did not comment on pardon requests. _____ Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty Images 8. Pearl Jam, Journey and Tupac Shakur will join the [Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s class of 2017], along with Joan Baez, Electric Light Orchestra and Yes. The ceremony will be held at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on April 7, with excerpts to be broadcast eventually by HBO. The hall has been criticized for admitting few female members. Janet Jackson and Chaka Khan are among the 13 nominees who did not make the cut this year. _____ Kevin Hagen for The New York Times 9. You’ve heard of fake news. How about fake websites? A Russian cyberforgery ring created half a million fake internet users and impersonated popular websites [to trick advertisers into paying for video ads] that are never watched. “Our adversaries are bringing whole new levels of innovation to ad fraud,” an analyst said. _____ Karen Ballard/CBS Films/Lionsgate 10. [“Patriots Day,” a film about the Boston Marathon bombing], is the third collaboration between the director Peter Berg and the actor Mark Wahlberg dramatizing a real-life calamity. (The previous films took on a Navy SEAL mission in Afghanistan and the Deepwater Horizon oil rig collapse.) Our critic says he has some reservations about that practice. But the movie, which focuses on the community the bombings intended to tear apart, works so well on a dramatic level that his qualms “were silenced almost entirely from the start.” _____  11. Finally, a note on Santa Claus. A black woman who wanted to show her 3-year-old son, whose father is white, that [Santas can come in varied hues] found it an uphill battle. At the flagship Macy’s in New York, she had to ask the elves to guide her to the sole black Santa. Her son was not thrilled, but at least he didn’t cry. White Santa got a similar reaction the next day. “He may never want to go see Santa again, but he has photographic evidence that Santa can reflect the skin tones of both sides of his family. And that’s, well, pretty magical,” she wrote. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing [this version of the briefing] should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a.m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s [last night’s briefing]. What did you like? What do you want to see here? 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