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Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Wednesday.
The House dealt TikTok a blow, but a ban is a long way offA huge bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives voted today to pass a bill that would force TikTok's Chinese owner either to sell the popular video app or face a ban in the U.S. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have argued that it is too great a national security risk to allow a Chinese company to own a platform that collects data from and delivers information to roughly 170 million Americans — an especially potent topic in an election year. TikTok and its owner ByteDance have downplayed or denied they pose such a risk. If the House bill becomes law, ByteDance would have roughly six months to sell TikTok to non-Chinese owners. If the company can't meet the deadline — or if Beijing blocks a sale, as it has suggested it might — it would become unlawful for app stores and web hosting companies to distribute or update TikTok in the U.S. The app could still remain on American smartphones, but the restrictions would probably degrade users' access to it. However, my colleague Sapna Maheshwari, who covers TikTok, told me that users can expect to have access to TikTok for a while longer. "We are well away from a ban, which would only occur if this bill passes in the Senate and is signed into law, and then ByteDance cannot find a buyer," she said. "Even then, we could be looking at court challenges." While President Biden has committed to signing the bill, the Senate has yet to agree to vote on it. For more, Sapna and our tech policy reporter, David McCabe, answered questions about the bill.
A Georgia judge quashed a few charges against TrumpA judge dismissed six of the 41 charges against Donald Trump and his allies in the Georgia election interference case, saying they were not specific enough. The surprise ruling was a setback for prosecutors, but it did not weaken the core of their case, which argues that Trump participated in a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. Trump still faces 10 charges in the case, and it's possible that the prosecutors could file the dismissed ones again, with more clarity. In related news, the judge who delivered the ruling, Scott McAfee, is expected to decide whether to disqualify the lead prosecutor, Fani Willis, by Friday.
Biden campaigned in Wisconsin, where energy is highPresident Biden traveled to Milwaukee this afternoon for the latest stop on his post-State of the Union tour of battleground states. Biden faces lagging energy in many key states, but not in Wisconsin. Democrats in the state, who had spent eight years boxed out of power by Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans in state government, are fired up. It helps Biden that two issues at the heart of his campaign — abortion rights and democracy — have been at the center of Wisconsin's political discussion in recent years.
Why college admissions are so chaotic this seasonA haphazard and glitchy rollout of a new FAFSA form, designed to simplify the federal student aid process, has delayed aid offers for months and has left millions of college applicants in limbo. Students have had to postpone decisions, and schools have had to push back their enrollment deadlines as budgets and wait lists are thrown into chaos. My colleagues Erica Green and Zach Montague looked into what went wrong, finding, among many other issues, that the Education Department just last week discovered 70,000 unread emails containing critical information. More top news
The Whitney Biennial is set to openThe Whitney Biennial — New York's most prominent showcase of new American art — opens to the public next week. It's small this year, with just 44 artists and collectives, along with films that will screen at the Whitney Museum and on its website. But it's the kind of exhibition that gets the art world talking: Is it a good reflection of the current state of art? Should it be? We sent three critics to explore the highs and lows of the exhibition that everyone will have an opinion about. Here's what they had to say.
Will she make the next Birkin?Priscila Alexandre Spring has a daunting job. She is in charge of leather goods at Hermès, whose bags often sell for more than $10,000. Her challenge: to make the next icon — the next Birkin. We spent time with Alexandre Spring at a Hermès leather workshop and asked about her next project, but she demurred. However, in the corner we spotted a decades-old doctor bag and, elsewhere, coils of ropes. "We're trying a new thing with ropes, but we don't know if it's going to work," she said. "Everything is a work in progress."
Dinner table topics
Cook: This version of chicken Marbella is a speedy take on a rich, but time-consuming, dish. Read: The Oakland novelist Leila Mottley shares books that best paint a picture of the San Francisco Bay Area. Travel: These five getaways let you reconnect with nature while also giving back. Listen: Brittany Howard, formerly of Alabama Shakes, reads an essay about the journey back to love. Mend: Experts offered tips for getting rid of hangnails. Play: Here are today's Spelling Bee, Wordle and Mini Crossword. Find all our games here.
Wood that dancesInside a garage in northern Italy, a shrimp plays the banjo, a frog rides a unicycle and a skeleton conducts an orchestra. And they all dance. These wooden creatures are the work of Amedeo Capelli, a self-taught carpenter who has become popular for making hand-operated automatons, or moving devices. Capelli sells his pieces for about $250 to $1,000, but some of his more complex ones, like the Macabra Orchestra, with its skeletal musicians, can go for several thousand dollars. "The best part of my work," he said, "is to see a piece of wood that comes to life." Have an animated evening. Thanks for reading. I'll be back tomorrow. — Matthew We welcome your feedback. Write to us at evening@nytimes.com.
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