Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, August 10th. This is your FT news briefing.

Oil prices are sliding on fears about the spreading delta coronavirus variant,

and a leading player in online sports gambling is betting on growth with a one and a half

billion dollar acquisition. But first, the US Senate is set to approve a one trillion dollar

infrastructure package today. We'll find out how divided lawmakers got to this point.

I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day.

The US Congress is about to put another trillion dollars of fiscal stimulus into the economy.

Today, the Senate is expected to pass President Joe Biden's infrastructure package.

It'll steer billions of dollars towards big projects like roads and bridges,

freight rail and public transportation. After months of debate, the bill is getting off the ground

because a surprising number of Republicans crossed the aisle. I spoke to the FTs

Lauren Fedor about why so many Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues.

There are a couple of reasons for that. The first, I think, is public opinion. These policies,

these investments are very, very popular with the American people. People see crumbling roads

and bridges, airports, trains in their communities, and they want to see them fixed. They want

to see them improved. So I would say that that's the number one thing. But we've also seen that

this is not just a bipartisan vote, but a bipartisan effort. So Republicans have been involved

through many stages of this process. Now, originally, the White House came out with a wish list that

was many times the size of this package. But the winning formula proved to be this small group,

which had five Democrats, five Republicans, they came together, they came up with a deal,

and then those five Republicans brought along several of their colleagues.

I guess it's still surprising, Lauren, because Republicans for so long when discussing this bill

...