World Cup, ICE, Migrants: Your Weekend Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/briefing/world-cup-ice-migrants.html

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Here are the week’s top stories, and a look ahead.

1. The Democratic Party is having an identity crisis.

The primary upsets of establishment politicians — including the victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a newcomer, over a longtime incumbent in New York — have thrown the future of the party into question.

And a Supreme Court ruling weakened labor unions, a backbone of the party, while another upheld President Trump’s travel ban.

Last week’s decisions were the latest in a run of victories for a conservative agenda that has increasingly been built on the foundation of free speech. And Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement leaves the possibility for Mr. Trump to cement a conservative majority in the Supreme Court.

Democrats are split on how far to go to try and thwart Mr. Trump’s agenda. And many voters are funneling fear and anger into activism — including during nationwide marches on Saturday protesting the treatment of migrants, above — raising questions about how far left the party’s politics will drift.

Have you been keeping up with the headlines? Test your knowledge with our news quiz. And here’s the front page of our Sunday paper, and our crossword puzzles.

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2. “In that moment, I thought I was going to die.”

When the first shots went rang out in the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Md., journalists struggled to grasp what was happening.

Five employees were killed, and a suspect, Jarrod Ramos, has been charged with five counts of murder. Mr. Ramos had a history of making threats against the paper. Above, a memorial outside the newsroom on Friday.

Thursday’s attack rattled newspapers across the country. Disgruntled readers are hardly a new phenomenon. But in a time when President Trump regularly inveighs against the news media, journalists are on higher alert.

“I think we all know this person, or some variation of him,” Robyn Tomlin, the executive editor of The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., said of Mr. Ramos.

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3. Publicly, Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, has shown no hint that he had second thoughts about his role in the firing of James Comey, the former director of the F.B.I.

But privately, sources say, Mr. Rosenstein appeared “frantic, nervous, upset and emotionally disregulated,” expressing anger about how the Trump administration used him to rationalize Mr. Comey’s firing.

And on Thursday, a long-simmering conflict between House Republicans and Mr. Rosenstein broke into an ugly public fight.

Republicans voted to give the Justice Department seven days to hand over documents related to the Russia inquiry and the F.B.I.’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of private email.

The measure put Mr. Rosenstein on notice that lawmakers were willing to take punitive action if their demands were not met.

For more from Washington, check out our roundup of the week’s biggest stories in American politics.

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4. We followed the harrowing journey of a Salvadoran migrant fleeing to the U.S.

It took thousands of dollars, bribes, shakedowns and days in hiding, but “there’s no other option,” the man said. “The first thought I had was, ‘I just need to get out of here at whatever cost.’”

Separately, a House vote on immigration failed this past week, and over 2,000 children remain separated from their families, with no clear path to reunification.

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5. Mexicans head to the polls on Sunday, in what may be the nation’s biggest general election ever. The lead-up may also have been the most violent.

Organized crime groups have all but determined the outcome of certain local elections, threatening and even killing candidates. Above, a funeral for a slain candidate.

But one presidential front-runner is pledging to bring down what he calls Mexico’s “mafia of power” and to battle the country’s entrenched inequality.

If polling numbers bear out, Andrés Manuel López Obrador — a three-time presidential candidate — stands to win by a landslide. His victory would install a leftist leader in Latin America’s second-largest country for the first time in decades.

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6. It had all the trappings of a beautiful friendship: Fox News loved the ratings spike it got from Donald J. Trump, and he saw the network as safe space free of criticism or pushback.

Since his election, the relationship between Fox News and President Trump has only deepened, and both are reaping the benefits.

“Fox & Friends,” whose talking points frequently pop up in the president’s Twitter feed, can resemble a Trump cheerleading rally one morning and a counseling session the next.

Without a flagship executive like the network’s late founder, Roger Ailes, Fox employees say producers and hosts have adjusted their shows after intuiting that their audiences strongly support Mr. Trump.

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7. Did Russia help promote Brexit?

Arron Banks, center, the biggest donor to the Brexit campaign, has long bragged about a lengthy lunch he had with the Russian ambassador months before the vote. But leaked messages suggest he and a close adviser had a more engaged relationship with Russian diplomats than he has disclosed.

Britain is now grappling with whether Moscow used ties to British citizens to bring about an exit from the E.U.

There are parallels in the U.S.: Investigators for the special counsel and Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have also obtained records of Mr. Banks’s communications, including some with Russian diplomats and about Russian business deals.

They have taken a special interest in ties Mr. Banks and other Brexit leaders built to the Trump campaign.

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8. The war in Afghanistan claimed his father, his uncle and his eyes. But the hardest loss may have been his longtime sweetheart.

Zaheer Ahmad Zindani, one of the founders of the march for peace in Afghanistan, lost his eyes in a Taliban attack. Mr. Zindani, above, knew it dealt a blow to his hopes to marry his love, whose father had always been skeptical of the relationship. Blind and unable to provide for a family, his hopes were dashed.

“If I had lost my eyes and had her hand, I would still be happy,” he said. “But now I neither have eyes, nor her.”

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9. It was a stunning end to Argentina’s World Cup run.

France overtook them 4-3, in what may be Lionel Messi’s last World Cup appearance.

France’s star, Kylian Mbappé, right, scored twice in four minutes to help propel his team to victory.

Later, Uruguay beat Portugal 2-1, advancing to face off against France in the quarterfinals.

Follow our live coverage of World Cup games here.

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10. Finally, a journey into the wilds with Kanye West, our analysis of the chemical attack in Syria and life after sharing #MeToo stories, above. We have those stories and more in this roundup of our best weekend reads.

For more suggestions on what to read, watch and listen to, may we suggest a glance at The Times’s best-seller list, new TV and streaming recommendations from Watching, or our music critics’ latest playlist.

Have a great week.

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