Donald Trump, Paris, Wimbledon: Your Friday Evening Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/briefing/donald-trump-paris-wimbledon.html

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Good evening. Here’s the latest.

1. President Trump concluded his two-day visit to France on a high note.

Following celebrations of Bastille Day and the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into World War I, Mr. Trump and President Emmanuel Macron of France warmly shook hands. But they remain in disagreement on climate change, immigration and trade.

On his way to Paris, Mr. Trump offered his first extended account of his closed-door meeting with the Russian leader last week.

Mr. Trump said he’d stopped questioning President Vladimir Putin about interfering in the election after he had denied it. “What do you do? End up in a fistfight?”

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2. The presence of a Russian lobbyist added a new twist to the evolving story about a meeting in June 2016 between Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, and a Kremlin-associated lawyer.

Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist and former veteran of the Soviet army, above, said he participated in the meeting at the request of the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Conservatives in Congress, meanwhile, who spent years venerating President Vladimir Putin, seem to be willing to look the other way regarding evidence of Russian intervention in the 2016 election.

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3. The revised Senate bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act has a new foe: the nation’s governors.

State leaders at the National Governors Association mirrored their congressional counterparts, with conservatives saying it didn’t go far enough and moderates criticizing the bill for being too harsh on the poor.

“I have to be comfortable that those 210,000 lives are going to continue to enjoy the quality of life and health care that they have right now,” Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada, a Republican, said in reference to Nevadans who have gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

He spoke on a panel with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia.

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4. When U.S. Marines left Afghanistan in 2014, they had concluded a sweeping mission to turn over prime Taliban and opium territories to the Afghan government.

In the three years since they left, the country’s largest province has all but returned to the hands of the Taliban.

American Marines are now back in Helmand Province, but without a clear timetable for leaving and no clearly defined strategy to end the war.

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4. Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan will face off once again, at least in effigy.

In the Bible Belt town of Dayton, Tenn., a new statue of Darrow, the agnostic lawyer who lost the famous Scopes “monkey trial” in 1925, is testing tolerance. The $150,000 statue, unveiled at the courthouse where the trial played out, joins one of his sparring partners at the trial, Mr. Bryan, a defender of creationism.

“I rise in opposition to this atheist statue, all right?” a resident said at a county meeting. “This is very serious, folks.”

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5. “My livelihood depends on it.”

Juan Manuel Fleischer crosses the U.S.-Mexico border to buy and sell cattle. To many Americans and politicians, this region represents a country divided. But for those living and working along the border, it is where language, culture, family and business overlap.

Mr. Fleischer’s story is part of our video series, Borderlands, on life along the divide.

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6. If Roger Federer, 35, wins the men’s finals at Wimbledon, he will become the only man to win eight Wimbledon singles titles, and he will add one more to his record of 18 major championships.

He faces Marin Cilic, a 28-year-old Croatian, at Centre Court at 9 a.m. Eastern on Sunday.

But first up: the women. Venus Williams, 37, will play Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain at 9 a.m. Eastern on Saturday in what our sports columnist says could be her most meaningful victory yet.

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7. United is sorry about that time it forcibly removed a passenger who sustained multiple injuries. Delta is sorry about kicking a family off a flight.

The stream of apologies from airlines has soared in recent months thanks to viral videos on social media. Unfortunately, the apologies haven’t eased the obstacle course that air travel has become.

Assuming you made your flight safely, take our quiz to see how well you know the world.

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8. “Anti-flamboyant, interior and complex.”

Our pop music critic calls Kendrick Lamar’s fourth album, “DAMN.,” his most accessible yet. Mr. Lamar kicked off his nationwide tour this week with a show far simpler than those of his peers.

In an arena setting, Mr. Lamar managed to make “the vast room feel tiny and intensely focused.”

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9. Winter is coming. Again.

Here’s a refresher before the HBO hit “Game of Thrones” returns on Sunday. We’re also starting a weekly email newsletter. Sign up here to receive exclusive interviews and explainers.

If you favor the world of base jumpers over Khaleesi, here’s a roundup of the best offbeat sports documentaries on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

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10. Finally, The Times selected six contemporary poems and presented each one to a different photographer. What they produced were intimate visual essays of an American summer. Carolyn van Houten was inspired to take the photo above by these verses from Ada Limón.

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

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