Trade, Boeing, Gen X: Your Tuesday Evening Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/briefing/trade-boeing-gen-x.html

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Good evening. Here’s the latest.

1. “We’re in a very strong position.”

That was President Trump today, saying that the 25 percent tariffs he imposed on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods would hurt China, not the U.S. He also said he was considering additional levies on nearly every imported product and referred to the trade dispute as “a little squabble.”

The U.S. now has the highest tariff rate among developed countries, outranking Canada, Germany and France, as well as China, Russia and Turkey. The trade war could be long and painful, our economics correspondent writes, as both sides dig into their positions. Above, a food innovation exhibition in Shanghai today.

Stocks jumped on Tuesday, recovering some ground from their biggest loss in more than four months on Monday.

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2. Boeing executives resisted the idea of grounding its 737 Max jets in the weeks after a crash that killed 189 people in Indonesia. Four months later, a 737 Max crashed in Ethiopia, killing 157.

The pushback was documented in an audio recording reviewed by The Times. In a tense November meeting, American Airlines pilots pressed Boeing for an urgent fix, and even suggested taking a more aggressive approach that would most likely have led to the grounding of the model. Above, a grounded 737 Max in March.

Mike Sinnett, a Boeing vice president, acknowledged to the pilots that the manufacturer was assessing potential design flaws but balked at grounding the 737 Max. A flawed anti-stall system played a role in both disasters.

On Wednesday, lawmakers will grill federal regulators about how the Max was certified.

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3. Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels attacked a Saudi oil facility today, a day after Saudi Arabia said two of its oil tankers, like the one above, were sabotaged.

It was unclear whether the attacks were related to increasing tensions between Iran and the U.S. and its allies in the Persian Gulf, but suspicions centered on Iran after the Trump administration’s warning of planned aggression by Iran.

President Trump said today there were no plans to deploy more troops, and during a visit to Russia, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran.”

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4. A House panel is investigating whether lawyers tied to President Trump and his family helped Michael Cohen lie under oath.

The inquiry stems from claims by Mr. Cohen, the president’s former personal lawyer, who told Congress this year, above, that the lawyers in question helped edit false testimony he gave in 2017. Mr. Cohen said they also dangled a potential pardon to try to ensure his loyalty.

Separately, the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and the Senate Intelligence Committee reached a deal for him to sit for a private interview with senators in the coming weeks.

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5. A vote in the Alabama Senate is expected tonight on legislation that would essentially ban abortion.

The bill would criminalize the procedure and is intended to be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to end a pregnancy. Above, protesters in April.

The legislation, which would still need approval by the governor, is the latest attempt at the state level to restrict abortion. Last week, Georgia banned the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

The bill has also opened a vigorous debate about whether women who miscarry could be questioned or even prosecuted.

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6. Attention, Amazon shoppers: Google wants some of your spending money.

Google unveiled a series of e-commerce products to help it compete with Amazon for online shoppers. The features are meant to help it become a destination for shoppers as well as marketers hoping to reach these consumers.

The move puts Google and Amazon on an online shopping collision course.

Separately, have you updated WhatsApp recently? The company is urging users to do so after the messaging app rushed to fix a flaw exposed in the hacking of a human rights lawyer’s phone.

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7. Gen X is cool, exclusive — and getting older.

As “Reality Bites” celebrates its 25th anniversary, as groups like Bikini Kill, Wu-Tang Clan and Hootie & the Blowfish reunite for tours, and as the first real Gen X candidates make a run for president, the generation born between 1965 and 1980 is of the moment. Above, Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet, Gen X boundary shakers.

Turn on that Walkman: We’re looking back at what we loved and what we hated.

Are you an X-er who’s secretly a millennial? “Xennials” live on the cusp between Gen X and millennial. We can sort you out with this quiz.

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8. “You may attend school in America, but when you come home, you’re in Iran.”

That’s what Samin Nosrat’s mother told her and her brothers when they were growing up in San Diego. Here, the author of “Salt Fat Acid Heat” and star of the related Netflix show chooses the dishes that define Persian food for her.

Ms. Nosrat interviewed her mother, surveyed two dozen Iranian and Iranian-American cooks and compared ingredients and techniques from Persian cookbooks to share the taste of her childhood, “which is to say the taste of an Iranian kitchen in America,” she says.

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9. We’ve had months to prepare: Two of TV’s biggest shows are ending this week.

The long send-offs for “Big Bang Theory,” above, “Game of Thrones” and other series signal an era in which fans have plenty of time to mourn, our TV critic says. It now feels standard for shows to get a chance to wrap themselves up and for fans to be aware of that process.

We want to see your last “Game of Thrones” watch parties. Will there be costumes, themed nibbles, a homemade Iron Throne during the series finale? Let us know.

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10. Finally, righting — or rewriting — history.

It’s been 150 years since the forming of the first Transcontinental Railroad, a seminal moment in American history that 15,000 Chinese railroad workers were largely written out of. Now they’re getting their due.

At a golden-spike ceremony and other events held in Utah last week, historians, scholars, descendants of workers and thousands of others gathered to recognize Chinese railroad workers’ pivotal role in the railroad’s construction.

Have a celebratory evening.

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