Hurricane Maria, St. Louis, Sean Spicer: Your Monday Evening Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/briefing/hurricane-maria-st-louis-sean-spicer.html

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Good evening. Here’s the latest.

1. President Trump is expected to stress “sovereignty and accountability” rather than joint action on global crises in his address to the United Nations General Assembly tomorrow morning. He is also expected to focus on the Iran nuclear deal and the nuclear standoff with North Korea. Here’s what we’re watching.

In brief remarks on Monday, Mr. Trump said the U.N. had grown too bureaucratic and ineffective and should overhaul itself, but gave no clue as to whether he would cut U.S. funding.

Here’s a look at how the U.N. has, and hasn’t, lived up to the goal of achieving world peace.

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2. Gary Cohn, the White House economic adviser, told ministers from several major allies that the Trump administration would pull out of the Paris climate deal unless it was revised. But exactly what changes would suffice was unclear.

Some U.S. governors are also in New York this week, to speak directly with U.N. and world leaders about climate change. Above, a coal-fired plant in Georgia.

Our reporter set out to answer the question on many minds: Is climate change responsible for the extreme weather we’ve been seeing? (An example from her findings: Climate change doesn’t cause hurricanes, but it can make them stronger.)

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3. Speaking of hurricanes, one is headed toward some of the same Caribbean islands just devastated by Irma. “I don’t think that anybody is emotionally prepared for it,” one resident said. “But we’ll do our best.”

Maria could be a major hurricane by midweek, when it will approach Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands.

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4. St. Louis entered its fourth day of street protests following the acquittal of a white former police officer who in 2011 shot and killed an African-American man.

Eighty people were arrested on Sunday after some protesters damaged property downtown.

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5. Bill and Melinda Gates are pushing world leaders at the General Assembly to increase efforts on global health with a report card on 18 indicators, including infant mortality, AIDS, vaccine use and smoking rates.

And we created a tournament to judge which of these nations has the best health system: Canada, Britain, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland, France, Australia and the U.S.

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6. A last-ditch push to dismantle the Affordable Care Act could be nearing a showdown vote in the Senate.

The senators leading the latest repeal effort, Lindsey Graham, above right, and Bill Cassidy, say their drive is gaining momentum. Any action would have to take place by the end of next week because of procedural rules.

Separately, a joint Times/ProPublica investigation found insurers may be contributing to the opioid crisis by favoring cheap narcotics over safer, but more expensive, alternatives.

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7. After Sean Spicer poked fun at himself at the Emmys, we asked him if he regretted his briefing on the crowd size at the inauguration. “Of course I do,” he said.

Here are the best and worst moments of a show that dwelled on President Trump and made history in a number of categories, including the first African-American woman to win for comedy series writing: Lena Waithe, above (“Master of None”).

Here are the red carpet highlights, dominated by what our fashion critic calls old Hollywood vavoom.

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8. More than two billion people — about a quarter of the world’s population — use Facebook each month. That’s essentially everybody with internet access, except in China, where it is still blocked.

And as it seeks to add another billion users, Facebook — like the world’s other tech giants — is navigating new scrutiny and restrictions from Vietnam to the U.S. Above, Mark Zuckerberg.

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9. “Sanity was restored through much of the N.F.L. on Sunday,” according to our N.F.L. writer, “with Tom Brady remembering how to throw touchdown passes, Jacksonville falling back down to Earth, and Green Bay’s defense looking like Swiss cheese again.” Here are highlights from Week 2 of the season.

Brady also stepped in to correct the referees not once, but twice, on potentially game-changing plays during the Patriots’ face-off with the Saints. He prevailed, this time without months of appeals.

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10. Finally, Seinfeld is joining TV’s Netflix moment. The first of his two specials for the streaming service, “Jerry Before Seinfeld,” debuts tomorrow.

Our comedy columnist says it’s “quintessential Seinfeld, poking fun at cereal and air travel and prepositions, but his set is looser, intimate and more biographical, a rebrand for the podcast age.”

And he praises Seinfeld’s “gently sarcastic, benignly neurotic skepticism that merges Jewish cadence with WASP restraint. Listen to how he gets a laugh poking fun at La Guardia Airport just by saying it’s nice.”

Have a great night.

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