Republicans want a narrower American Jobs Plan; the US turns more scrutiny on the origins of Covid-19 in China.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Gregory Svivrnovskiy.

TOP NEWS

The GOP makes its case for a skinnier infrastructure plan

• Republicans in the Senate on Thursday unveiled a $928 billion infrastructure proposal, a counteroffer to President Joe Biden’s $1.7 trillion American Jobs Plan. Now closer on the headline number, Republicans and Democrats may try to whittle away at a deal. [NPR / Kelsey Snell]

• Or not. If the two sides can't find common ground, Democrats could push infrastructure reforms through the Senate using budget reconciliation. Doing so would require all 50 Senate Democrats, including Joe Manchin (D-WV), to stay on board. [The Hill / Alexander Bolton]

• The GOP package would tap heavily into unused Covid-19 relief funding, and would spend only $250 billion in new money. That's less than 15 percent of what Biden's revised proposal would dole out. [Associated Press /Lisa Mascaro and Jonathan Lemire]

• Two key issues still separate proposals by Democrats and the GOP. Paying for the plan with corporate taxes is one. Defining infrastructure is another: Democrats want an emphasis on supporting families. [CNBC / Jacob Pramuk]

• “The White House is still bringing their human infrastructure into this package and that’s just a nonstarter for us,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), one of the framers of the GOP package. [CNBC / Jacob Pramuk]

• Biden could spend a lot of money in his efforts to reform American socioeconomics. His first budget request calls for $6 trillion in federal spending. [New York Times / Jim Tankersley]

US investigates origins of Covid-19 in China

• President Biden on Wednesday ordered US intelligence agencies to investigate the origins of Covid-19 in China. [New York Times / Michael D. Shear, Julian E. Barnes, Carl Zimmer, and Benjamin Mueller]

• Experts had long believed the first outbreak was transmitted from animals, perhaps at a wet market in Wuhan, China. But evidence that emerged in recent weeks has health officials calling for a more rigorous investigation. [New York Times]

• Officials now say there is some evidence the virus may have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. An intelligence report found that several researchers at the lab were hospitalized with mysterious illnesses in autumn 2019, months before coronavirus was officially identified by the Chinese government. [Wall Street Journal / Michael R. Gordon, Warren P. Strobel and Drew Hinshaw]

• A WHO investigation earlier this year found that the chances virus spread was the result of a lab accident were "extremely low." Although the WHO investigation was criticized for its limited access to the lab, some officials and epidemiologists say the evidence for the "lab leak" theory is still murky. [CNN / Natasha Bertrand, Kylie Atwood, Katie Bo Williams, and Zachary Cohen]

• China, for its part, is flatly denying the link. "Some people in the United States completely ignore facts and science," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Thursday. [NBC News / Adela Suliman]

MISCELLANEOUS

Nine people were killed by a gunman at a Northern California rail yard, the 232nd mass shooting of the year.

• Belarus’s diverted flight and subsequent arrest of dissident journalist Roman Protasevich has nationals who have fled to different countries in the European continent worried they're next. [Associated Press / Yuras Karmanau]

• New US Covid-19 cases continue to fall, down 20 percent from last week, the fifth-straight week case rates have fallen by double-digit percentage points. [Axios / Andrew Baker and Sam Witherspoon]

• Howard University will name its newly reestablished fine arts school after the late Chadwick Boseman, an alumnus. [NPR / Anastasia Tsioulcas]

VERBATIM

"We have heard all of this support for police, police, police, and then your own police force is battered and bruised and now you drag your feet?"

VERBATIM

The hijacking of Ryanair flight 4978 is a big escalation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s attempts to hold on to power. It might also be his downfall. [Spotify]

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