Hurricane Irma, Emmanuel Macron, ‘Brexit’: Your Friday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/briefing/hurricane-irma-macron-greece-brexit.html

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Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, left a path of devastation through the Caribbean. The island of St. Martin, which is part French and part Dutch, was said to be 95 percent destroyed. Residents describe the destruction in this video.

Irma has turned north with South Florida in its cross hairs. “Every Florida family must prepare to evacuate,” said Rick Scott, the state’s governor. There are already shortages of gas, water and sandbags.

Check here for an updated map of the storm’s trajectory. Check here for the latest updates. We also have advice for those evacuating and for those traveling to the affected areas.

It’s been a season of extreme weather around the world. Our correspondents met survivors of torrential floods in northern India. More than 1,200 people have died in South Asia’s monsoon season, and the rains aren’t over yet.

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• “We have lost our ambition.”

That was Emmanuel Macron, the French president, in a speech in Athens on Europe’s many challenges. He said that the E.U. needed to reboot or else it risked “slow disintegration.” (Here’s a video in French.)

Meanwhile in Britain, the government of Prime Minister Theresa May introduced a bill guaranteeing legal continuity after the country’s departure from the E.U. Deep divisions over “Brexit” and infighting in Mrs. May’s party have turned what at first appeared to be a dry, technocratic bill into a political battleground.

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• In Washington, the Republican-led Senate gave its reluctant approval to President Trump’s surprise deal with the Democrats to provide billions in disaster aid, raise the debt limit and fund the government. House Speaker Paul Ryan explained the deal — a day after being blindsided by it — as an effort to create a “bipartisan moment.”

Mr. Trump doubled down on his new partnership. At the Democrats’ request, he tweeted that the 800,000 young immigrants affected by his repeal of an Obama-era program that allowed them to stay in the U.S. had “nothing to worry about.” (Above, the French artist JR’s latest work: a huge mural on the U.S.-Mexico border, viewable only from the northern side.)

Separately, we profiled Canada’s immigration minister, a former Somali refugee. “To me, giving back to Canada is very personal,” he said.

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• Evidence of Russia’s efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election is building. A Times investigation, along with new cybersecurity research, reveals some of the mechanisms by which people suspected of being Russian operators used social media, like the Facebook post above, to spread anti-Hillary Clinton messages.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, told Senate investigators that his concerns about Mrs. Clinton’s “fitness” to be president prompted him to set up a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer he believed had damaging information on her. He denied collusion.

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• In tennis news, Sloane Stephens ousted Venus Williams, and Madison Keys routed CoCo Vandeweghe to reach the U.S. Open final. Tomorrow, Juan Martín del Potro, above, has a daunting task in trying to defeat Rafael Nadal again, and Kevin Anderson of South Africa will try to make noise against Pablo Carreño Busta.

Some top players register their dogs as emotional support animals, vital to surviving life on the road.

The N.F.L. season opened with a big game, the Patriots vs. the Chiefs. Cool fact: Game balls this season will have a tracking chip inside, to record how fast and how high quarterbacks throw and kickers kick.

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• Cities across North America are bidding to host Amazon’s planned second headquarters, which will cost as much as $5 billion to build and run and employ as many as 50,000. Above, construction near its Seattle campus.

• The European Central Bank said that it had pondered how to wind down its enormous stimulus program. Decisions could be announced at its meeting next month.

• A law firm is taking whistle-blower cases from Europe to the U.S., where exposers of wrongdoing are eligible for rewards.

• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• North Korea appears to be preparing for another ICBM launch as soon as tomorrow, its founding day holiday. We look at possible U.S. responses. [The New York Times]

• A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 8 struck off the coast of Mexico early Friday. [The New York Times]

• Syria accused Israel of conducting an airstrike on a military base that analysts say housed chemical weapons and advanced missiles. [The New York Times]

• In Spain, the constitutional court ordered that a referendum on Catalonia’s independence be suspended. Regional officials vowed to defy the decision. [Politico]

• Shimon Peres, the late Israeli leader, completed his memoir in the weeks before his death last year. It was meant to be “a call to dream, to dare, to be optimistic, to transition ourselves into a new era.” [The New York Times]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

• Teens and tweens are glued to their phones. Here’s a primer on some of the apps they might be using and the minefields that come with them.

• The latest leak of private data, which may have affected 143 million people in the U.S., is another reminder that we need to better protect our information online. Here are a few easy steps you can take right now.

• Recipe of the day: Going meatless is easy with coconut red curry with tofu.

• Picturesque but near-empty villages in Italy try to hold on to an endangered way of life — and some of the country’s most important artisanal traditions.

• A younger generation of winemakers is bringing a new era of hope to the Cahors region in southwestern France.

• In Beirut, our correspondent found a rivalry as old as any in the Middle East: brother versus brother, falafel versus falafel.

• Researchers discovered how packs of African wild dogs decide whether to go on a hunt: They sneeze to cast their vote.

Half a century ago, the U.N. recognized the importance of literacy by making Sept. 8, today, International Literacy Day.

It’s a day to remind ourselves what a privilege the skill is. Reading “is a bridge from misery to hope,” Kofi Annan, the former U.N. secretary general, once said.

In line with this year’s theme — “literacy in a digital world” — educators and policy makers will convene at Unesco’s headquarters in Paris to discuss ways to help 750 million illiterate adults (two-thirds of whom are women) catch up in a world where many are communicating online.

The U.N. will also distribute International Literacy Prizes to projects that develop literacy skills, like the Citizens Foundation, which runs more than 1,400 schools in poor slums and villages across Pakistan.

Some are celebrating the day in quirkier ways.

Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, has been requesting thousands of book donations to support its attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the longest line of books.

The donations will be given to children in local Head Start programs, a platform that helps youngsters from low-income families prepare for school.

Sara Aridi contributed reporting.

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