Trade War, Thailand, World Cup: Your Friday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/briefing/trade-war-thailand-world-cup.html

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Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The U.S. began imposing tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products just after midnight, escalating a dispute between the world’s two largest economies.

Beijing retaliated quickly, announcing similar-size tariffs on an unspecified group of American goods. No official talks are scheduled, and there’s disagreement in the Trump administration about how to proceed, so a quick resolution seems unlikely.

Until then, expect increased costs for many businesses and consumers, and greater volatility in global stocks.

• Our columnists’ takes: President Trump isn’t acting like the free-trade advocate he has suggested he would. And there’s not a lot the Federal Reserve can do to offset the effects of a trade conflict.

• Scott Pruitt, who began the largest regulatory rollback in the history of the Environmental Protection Agency, stepped down on Thursday in the face of at least 13 federal investigations into his spending and management practices.

Before the resignation was announced, we reported that one of Mr. Pruitt’s aides was fired last year after questioning whether deleting sensitive information from his schedule was legal.

Mr. Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general, is the fifth member of Mr. Trump’s cabinet to be forced out.

• The E.P.A. chief will be replaced at least temporarily by his deputy, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist who shares Mr. Pruitt’s enthusiasm for undoing environmental regulations. Mr. Wheeler is seen as a consummate Washington insider, and friends and critics alike say he could be more adept at the job. Here’s what we know about him.

• A retired navy SEAL taking oxygen tanks to the cave where 12 boys and their soccer coach are trapped ran out of air while underwater, the authorities said today.

Saman Gunan, a 38-year-old volunteer, is the first fatality in the operation to rescue the group, which has been underground for nearly two weeks.

• The air supply, both in the cave and for the divers, who are making risky 12-hour round trips, has become an increasing concern. Find the latest updates here.

• Facing a court-ordered deadline of July 26, federal authorities are calling in volunteers and resorting to DNA tests to match nearly 3,000 children with their parents, from whom they were separated at the southwest border.

On Thursday, officials acknowledged for the first time that about 100 of the detained children are under the age of 5. The reunification deadline for those children is Tuesday.

“I think it’s mission impossible,” said a lawyer in New York who is representing about a dozen parents whose children were taken from them.

• In an opinion column, a civil rights attorney writes about a day representing immigrants in a Texas courtroom.

• A unified currency and open borders were intended to draw the people of the Continent together, but a growing backlash against those policies is adding to a long series of challenges for the bloc.

We spoke to Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s chancellor, on Thursday: “A Europe without internal borders can only exist,” he said, “if it has functioning external borders.”

• Our Interpreter columnist and our Berlin bureau chief explain the political crisis threatening Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and, by extension, the future of the European experiment.

• The U.S. economy added 213,000 jobs in June, the Labor Department reported today, another in a string of encouraging reports. The unemployment rate rose to 4 percent from 3.8 percent in May.

• A new poll shows that financial insecurity is one of the reasons Americans are having fewer children.

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

Tips for a more fulfilling life.

• If you can’t watch the World Cup live, here’s how to keep up.

• What travel insurance doesn’t cover.

• Recipe of the day: Finish the week strong with a peach and raspberry pie.

• Today at the World Cup

The quarterfinals begin, with France playing Uruguay and Belgium facing Brazil. We’ll have live coverage beginning at 10 a.m. Eastern.

Until then, try the next round of our Spot the Ball game.

• The week in good news

Dogs trained to protect honeybees are among seven stories that inspired us.

• Quiz time!

Did you keep up with this week’s news? Test yourself.

• Ready for the weekend

At the movies, we review Marvel’s latest, “Ant-Man and the Wasp”; “Sorry to Bother You,” written and directed by Boots Riley; and “Whitney,” a documentary about the pop star Whitney Houston.

Our chief critics also list their favorite films of the year so far. You can find all of this week’s film reviews here.

On TV, we liked HBO’s “Sharp Objects,” a murder mystery starring Amy Adams and based on a Gillian Flynn novel, and recommend the best new offerings this month on streaming services in the U.S. and Canada.

We suggest nine new books and a slate of cultural events in New York City.

If you’re in the city this weekend, the top thing on your mind will probably be how to stay cool. Our critics suggest 10 great museum exhibitions to help you escape the heat.

Yes, the sun is blazing, but if it’s any relief, know that Earth will reach the outermost point on its orbit today. We’re now three million miles farther from the sun than when we’re closest to it.

• No late-night TV this week

The comedy shows are on hiatus. Our roundup will return next week.

• Quotation of the day

“All humans are acting. You learn when you’re a baby: If I cry, my mother will come over. If I cry, this guy will get a red card. It’s the same thing.”

— Jim Calder, an acting coach at New York University, discussing theatrics on the field during the World Cup.

• 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

Chris Stanford, your Morning Briefing writer, recommends this piece from The Atlantic: “Last year, in a series of 360-degree videos, The Times documented an eight-month project at a volcano in Hawaii that simulated human exploration on Mars. The Atlantic wrote about a subsequent mission that ended prematurely, demonstrating the dangers that humans face in surviving on another planet, even when they’re still on this one.”

Since a boys’ soccer team became trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand on June 23, a sprawling rescue effort has captured the world’s attention.

The effort is the latest chapter in the annals of cave rescues.

The sport of caving was first developed in the late 19th century, and its popularity grew partly as a result of explorations by Édouard-Alfred Martel, a caving pioneer from France. The first clubs were formed in England in the 1920s and ’30s.

Comprehensive data on worldwide cave rescues since then is scarce. But one study found that there were 1,356 documented cases of “cavers requiring rescue” in the U.S. from 1980 to 2008.

And the Cave Rescue Organization, the oldest cave-rescue group in Britain, says it has responded to 2,927 episodes since its founding in 1935. Of those, 745 were in caves; the rest were on mountains and in disused mines or other locations.

The all-volunteer group says the episodes involved 4,193 people and hundreds of animals, including 252 lambs, 226 sheep, 79 dogs, nine cows, nine ducks, one rabbit and one cat.

Mike Ives wrote today’s Back Story.

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