Primary Elections, Kate Spade, N.B.A. Finals: Your Wednesday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/briefing/primary-elections-kate-spade-nba-finals.html

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Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Gavin Newsom, the Democratic lieutenant governor of California and former mayor of San Francisco, captured one of two spots on the November ballot for governor. He will face John Cox, a Republican businessman backed by President Trump, in a state that Mr. Trump lost by nearly four million votes in 2016.

New Jersey could prove as crucial as California in the contest for the House in November. Democratic leaders are hoping to flip as many as four of the five Republican-held districts in the state, and a former Navy pilot and a pro-gun state senator are among those who secured nominations.

• Eight states held primaries on Tuesday, and results are still coming in. Follow live updates here.

• One possible upshot of any deal that President Trump might strike with Kim Jong-un on June 12 in Singapore: more trade between North Korea and China.

On a trip to the countries’ border, our Beijing bureau chief saw a shadow economy of cash couriers, short-term workers and gray-market traders that has persisted despite years of sanctions against North Korea. She also found excitement about the opportunities that the easing of sanctions could bring.

Separately, Mexico hit the U.S. on Tuesday with tariffs on around $3 billion of American pork, steel, cheese and other goods. The move, a response to the Trump administration’s steel and aluminum levies, came as Washington suggested it wanted separate trade agreements with Mexico and Canada, rather than tweaks to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

• And President Vladimir Putin of Russia is seeking to capitalize on widespread European disillusionment with Mr. Trump by getting the European Union to abandon economic sanctions on his country.

• “The Russian Witch Hunt Hoax continues, all because Jeff Sessions didn’t tell me he was going to recuse himself.”

President Trump’s aggrieved Twitter post about the attorney general on Tuesday hardly came as a surprise, but it explicitly acknowledged that he’s mad at Mr. Sessions over the Russia investigation.

• On Wednesday, Speaker Paul Ryan dismissed Mr. Trump’s charge that there was a spy in his campaign and warned the president not to pardon himself. “No one is above the law,” Mr. Ryan said.

• Kate Spade made handbags you simply Had. To. Have. The purses she designed for her fashion label were status symbols and tokens of adulthood. She was also a savvy businesswoman, building her aesthetic into a $2.4 billion brand.

Ms. Spade, 55, was found dead on Tuesday, in what the police characterized as a suicide. Here’s our obituary, a look at how her designs became a $2.4 billion brand, and a reflection on what her bags meant to a particular set of young women.

• Our chief fashion critic remembers her as a “critical figure in the continuum of women who have defined fashion in the United States.”

• LeBron James, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, has looked utterly alone in the N.B.A. finals as he pursues his fourth championship.

He has scored 80 points in the first two games, both of which his Cleveland Cavaliers have lost to the Golden State Warriors.

• Watching his performance, our N.B.A. columnist writes, “is to behold the tragedy of the super performer wrestling with an age-old dilemma: How much do I need my backup singers?” Game 3 begins tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern.

• Facebook gave Huawei and other Chinese electronics giants access to its data, the social media company said on Tuesday, as part of a wider effort to lure cellphone users.

• The Wall Street Journal appointed Matthew Murray, an insider, as editor in chief. His predecessor, Gerard Baker, presided over a rise in readership but faced accusations from staff members that the paper was too easy on President Trump.

• David Koch, a billionaire industrialist with towering influence over American politics, is stepping away from his political and business interests because of declining health.

• U.S. stocks were mixed on Tuesday. Here’s a snapshot of global markets today.

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

• Seventy-three books to read this summer.

• Mulling a tough decision? Avoid F.O.B.O. — Fear of Better Options.

• Recipe of the day: This banana ice cream has just one ingredient.

• A $646 million divorce

The Luna, a 377-foot yacht with a spa, two heliports and room for 18 guests, is in a dry dock in Dubai, the most fought-over prize in what has been called Britain’s most expensive divorce.

A Russian billionaire who has owned a home in England since the 1990s has refused to hand over a penny — much less the yacht — to his former wife. Our correspondent tells the tale.

• Miss America 2.0

The competition that began in 1921 has long advertised itself as more than a beauty pageant, even though women in bikinis defined its image. In an era of female empowerment, however, the organizers announced on Tuesday that they would scrap the swimsuit and evening gown portions of the competition.

If you’ve participated in Miss America or other pageants, we’d like to hear from you.

• The enduring boss of Le Bernardin

Maguy Le Coze may have retreated from the dining room of the Midtown Manhattan citadel of seafood, but she remains a fast-moving and vigilant force, worrying over every detail.

Here’s more from this week’s Food section.

• Best of late-night TV

Stephen Colbert pressed former President Bill Clinton to explain why he had reacted defensively to a question about Monica Lewinsky during a “Today” show interview.

Mr. Clinton said earlier at a TimesTalk event that the interview “wasn’t my finest hour.”

• Quotation of the day

“So we’ll look at gun violence in schools, but not look at guns? An interesting concept.”

— Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told a Senate hearing that a commission on school safety would not focus on the role guns play in school violence.

• The Times, in other words

Here’s an image of today’s front page, and links to our Opinion content and crossword puzzles.

• What we’re reading

Jonathan Weisman, our deputy Washington editor, recommends the 2016 book “Blood at the Root”: “I just read this, a nonfiction account of ethnic cleansing of Forsyth County in Georgia. It was 1912, not ancient history. The sense that there has been no justice for the African-Americans lynched, jailed and driven from their homes by the white citizens of Forsyth weighs on a reader like me — white, reasonably affluent, and raised with no knowledge whatsoever of what happened just up the road from my childhood home.” (Read The Times review.)

“The most pivotal battle of all time.”

That was how Secretary of State Cordell Hull described D-Day, when more than 150,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy on this day in 1944 to begin liberating Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II.

Airborne forces parachuted across northern France as ground troops landed on five beaches. By day’s end, it was the largest air, naval and land operation in history.

But it was not the first D-Day.

D-Day is a general term used for the start of any military campaign, and is used when the exact date of an operation is secret or not yet known. Similarly, H-Hour is a term used to describe a yet-to-be-determined time. The alliterative phrases go back at least as far as World War I, and helped keep actual mission dates out of enemy hands.

The generic phrases also allowed for advance planning, which in 1944 led to scenes like this:

“The relatively calm water was churned by wave after wave of ships,” according to one Times account from Normandy, “some large enough to cast their eerie shadows in the early morning glow and others darting through like so many water-bugs.”

Remy Tumin wrote today’s Back Story.

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