Thousands of firefighters, troops and volunteers in France and Spain raced today to contain wildfires that officials are already calling the worst wildfire season in the region’s modern history. The blazes, which have destroyed hundreds of homes, were fueled by parched vegetation after weeks of successive heat waves.

Conditions improved a bit overnight, allowing firefighters to help slow the spread around major cities like Madrid and Bordeaux. But forecasters warned that a dangerous blast of heat and strong winds expected this week could intensify the wildfires.

The heat generated by the wildfires has been so intense that it created its own dangerous weather system: a pyrocumulonimbus, or “fire cloud.” These large, heat-fueled storms, which officials said had never been encountered before in France, appear to have accelerated the spread of the fires in the country’s hardest-hit region, Gironde, in the southwest.

“It’s a real disaster,” said Guillaume Bos, who lives outside Bordeaux. His wife and son are among the more than 300,000 people across the two countries who have fled the fires, but Bos and others have remained to try to fight the flames threatening their homes.

Trump defends his economic policies in a key battleground

President Trump traveled today to a General Motors facility in Milford, Mich., where he delivered a campaign-style speech projecting confidence about the state of the economy. The visit, his advisers said, is part of a broader push by the president to travel the country and defend his handling of the economy ahead of the midterms. Michigan, in particular, has been hit hard by his tariffs.

The state has also begun its early voting period for next week’s closely watched primaries. One of the biggest contests, the Democratic primary for Senate, pits Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive, against Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel moderate.

Congress budgeted billions for transit. Trump isn’t spending it.

For decades, the federal government had used a program to help communities pay for ambitious public transit projects — including subway tracks, train stations and roads. But since Trump returned to office, his administration has not signed a single new agreement under it.

As a result, more than $7 billion that Congress designated for the Capital Investment Grants program has accumulated without any project to spend it on. My colleagues explained which projects had hoped to receive the funding.

In other Trump administration news: The president asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for an executive order to restrict voting by mail.

Should we make daylight saving time permanent?

The House recently passed a bill that would halt the twice-yearly changing of the clocks and extend the evening light by making daylight saving time permanent. It promises an easy fix to the unpopular semiannual ritual. But scientists warn that the move could come with risks for health and the economy.

We broke down the differences among our three imperfect options: permanent daylight saving time, permanent standard time, or the seasonal clock-switching we have now. Afternoon light might encourage socializing and reduce car accidents, but sleep experts say later sunrises could mess with our internal clocks.

More top news

Glimpses of the past are still visible. You just have to look.

Traces of pre-Revolution history are still present in New York City, tucked between the concrete and the glass. To mark the country’s 250th birthday, The Times put together a guide to some of the sites that have been around for all two and a half centuries.

There’s the Bowling Green fence, which patriots damaged in 1776, and the English elm in Washington Square Park, which is one of the few still-living beings to have experienced the American Revolution. Check out the full tour.

‘The Odyssey’ resurrects an ancient instrument

For my colleague Joshua Barone, a classical music critic, one scene of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” stood out. In it, Odysseus has his crew tie him to the ship’s mast so he can hear the fatally alluring sound of the sirens.

But instead of the sirens’ voices, the viewer hears Ludwig Göransson’s soundtrack: a reedy tune of longing and sorrow played on the aulos, an ancient reed instrument that looks like two recorders joined. Listen here.

He’s the Picasso of pointe shoes

For 15 years, Tim Foster has been an unsung hero for New York City Ballet. He is the company’s shoe colorist, tasked with transforming countless shipments of pale pink pointe shoes into shades of powdery blue, vibrant red or, in recent years, the exact flesh tone of each dancer.

It’s a delicate, painstaking art that Foster has perfected in the shadows. He only recently gained broader attention when a documentary filmmaker became interested in his niche. But dance has been a lifetime interest for Foster, who first performed for crowds as a child, when his father was in a country western band.

Have a crafty evening.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow — Matthew

Eli Cohen was our photo editor.

We welcome your feedback. Reach us at evening@nytimes.com.