Kim Jong-nam, Uber, Donald Trump: Your Friday Evening Briefing

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/briefing/kim-jong-nam-uber-donald-trump.html

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Good evening. Here’s the latest.

1. President Trump unleashed more venom at the news media at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, soaking up applause and clearly enjoying sporadic chants of “Trump” from a conservative crowd that once wanted little to do with him.

Here is the full transcript of Mr. Trump’s speech.

Just hours later, journalists from The New York Times and several other news organizations were prohibited from attending a briefing by Mr. Trump’s press secretary, a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps.

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2. “Sanctuary cities” face the risk of shaming.

Mr. Trump’s new immigration policies include efforts to cast a harsh spotlight on cities that release undocumented immigrants who go on to be accused of serious crimes. The threat of public censure has sharply increased the legal and political risks for local law enforcement officials.

Yet the president’s populist style, complete with the bombast, is setting off a wave of “mini-Trumps” in Central Europe. Consider, for example, Veselin Mareshki, a self-promoting tycoon who emblazons his name on pharmacies across Bulgaria.

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3. Enter Gavin Grimm.

The 17-year-old Mr. Grimm is the lead plaintiff in a case in which the Supreme Court could rule on Mr. Trump’s decision this week to rescind protections for transgender students that allowed them to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity. The case could greatly expand transgender rights — or roll them back.

The transgender activist Caitlyn Jenner, a lifelong Republican and an early Trump supporter, blasted the president’s decision. “See you in court,” she posted on Twitter.

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4. The police in Malaysia said that Kim Jong-nam, the North Korean leader’s half brother, was killed with VX nerve agent in the brazen assassination last week at a Kuala Lumpur airport.

The disclosure that a banned weapon was used in such a high-profile killing raises the stakes over how Malaysia and the international community will respond.

Separately, several experts walked us through a propaganda photo of Mr. Kim unveiling what he claimed was a new nuclear device. The image, from March 2016, may show more than Mr. Kim intended.

Finally, tensions are at a boil between North Korea and its only ally, China, particularly after Beijing cut off coal imports.

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5. A shooting in Kansas sparked outrage in India.

The authorities in the United States, including F.B.I. agents, are investigating a shooting at a bar, which left one Indian engineer dead and another injured, amid fears that the attack was motivated by bias and hate.

A witness said that the gunman yelled “get out of my country” before opening fire.

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6. The number of adolescents in the U.S. who are severely obese — heavy enough to qualify for bariatric surgery — has nearly doubled from 1999 to 2014.

As a result, more and more doctors and parents are facing a difficult question: Should very heavy teenagers undergo such a radical operation, even if it is the only treatment proven to produce lasting weight loss in severely obese people?

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7. It was a rocky week for Uber.

The ride-hailing company, still reeling from an incendiary blog post written by a former employee, has now been accused of using stolen technology.

Waymo, the self-driving-car business spun out of Google’s parent company, claimed in a federal lawsuit that a former employee took thousands of secret files on the design of self-driving cars when he left Google to start his own company, which was later sold to Uber.

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8. How much can the U.S. economy grow? That’s the question for the Trump administration, the Federal Reserve Board and every American who wants a bigger paycheck.

If there is more room to grow beyond the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of “potential G.D.P.,” an economic boom remains possible.

If there isn’t, higher growth will translate into inflation, not higher output and incomes.

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9. And the winner is...

Nine films are nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards. We take a look at where in the country each contender was the most popular.

Check out our predictions, and try our Oscars quiz. (It’s not easy.)

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10. Finally, Henry David Thoreau’s classic “Walden” has inspired what some are calling the world’s most improbable video game. It’s six hours long, for one thing, and its lead developer says it aims for “a kind of stillness at its core.”

Have a great weekend, still or otherwise.

Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help.

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