Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

Primaries, White House, Kate Spade | View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Wednesday, June 6, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( [Your Wednesday Evening Briefing]( By CHARLES MCDERMID, JOUMANA KHATIB AND DAVID SCULL Good evening. Here’s the latest. Hilary Swift for The New York Times 1. Primary Day shakeout: Democrats [enhanced their prospects]( of taking control of the House in midterm elections. They skirted calamity in California and lined up likely gains in New Jersey. But Republicans also avoided a nightmare, securing a spot in the California governor’s race. [Follow our election updates here](. Elections in the Midwest and the South underscored President Trump’s power in the Republican Party and the different ways Democrats hope to loosen his hold on red-state America. [Here are some of our takeaways](. And voters in San Francisco resoundingly supported [a ban on sales of flavored tobacco products]( including some vaping products and menthol cigarettes. ____ Tom Brenner/The New York Times 2. “No one is above the law.” That was Speaker Paul Ryan, warning Mr. Trump against any move to pardon himself. Mr. Ryan also [contradict]( Mr.]( assertions]( of a broad conspiracy by federal law enforcement, agreeing that the F.B.I. did nothing wrong by using a confidential informant to contact members of the Trump campaign as it investigated the campaign’s ties to Russia. Separately, [Mr. Trump commuted the sentence]( of a 63-year-old woman serving life in prison for a nonviolent drug conviction after her case was brought to his attention by the reality television star Kim Kardashian West. Above, Ms. Kardashian West at the White House on May 30. ____ Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press 3. Facebook shared data [with at least four Chinese companies]( including Huawei, a telecommunications giant that has been flagged by U.S. intelligence officials as a national security threat, as well as to Lenovo, Oppo and TCL. Banned in China since 2009, Facebook in recent years has quietly sought to re-establish itself there. The agreements, which date to at least 2010, gave private access to some user data as part of a wider effort to lure cellphone users. The four partnerships remain in effect, but Facebook officials said the company would wind down the Huawei deal by the end of the week. ____ Saul Martinez for The New York Times 4. “First we were students. Then survivors. Now family.” Today was the last day of school at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. [Our reporter listened as students in one of the classes]( hit hardest in the Feb. 14 massacre recalled the day. Two of their number were killed, and four injured. Samantha Grady, above, was grazed by a bullet. Another student remembered thinking: “Is he coming back to finish us off? Will I bleed to death?” ____ Angela Pham/BFA, via Shutterstock 5. Kate Spade’s husband, Andy Spade, [publicly addressed her suicide]( for the first time. “There was no indication and no warning that she would do this,” he said in a statement, but he noted that she had suffered from depression and anxiety for years. The couple had been living separately for the past 10 months, and their daughter split her time between them, he said, but there was no plan to divorce. ([Read his complete statement.]( _____ Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times 6. A crisis over a mysterious ailment sickening American diplomats and their families — first reported in Cuba — is widening. The State Department has [evacuated several Americans who fell ill]( in Guangzhou, China, after hearing strange noises at their apartment complexes, officials said. One of the residences is pictured above. Those stricken have reported headaches, nausea, hearing loss, cognitive issues and other problems. Last month, one worker was reported to have brain trauma. Others are being tested. The new episode has prompted American officials to focus suspicion beyond Cuba, to perhaps China or Russia. ____ Glenn Harvey 7. Our tech columnist wanted to hate electric scooters and the craze that has sprung up around them. (“Tech hubris on wheels,” he writes, “what’s not to loathe?) [But then, this happened]( “I used shared e-scooters as my primary mode of transportation. I rode them to meetings, ran errands across town, and went for long joy rides on the Venice Beach boardwalk.” Here’s his verdict: “Scooters look and feel kind of dorky, but they aren’t an urban blight, or a harbinger of the apocalypse. In fact — sigh — they’re pretty great.” ____ Ali Balli/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images 8. 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](. ____ Ken Schles/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images 9. Twenty years ago, HBO broadcast the first episode of “Sex and the City,” introducing millions of viewers to Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha — and inspiring a generation of new New Yorkers to pursue their dreams. Our reporter talked to the series’s creator, Candace Bushnell, above, and her friends to [get the back story](. But we couldn’t help but wonder: What did our [readers have to say]( And, in a timely accident, The Times Magazine unveiled an issue dedicated to [one day of love in New York City](. ____ Scott Kowalchyk/CBS, via Associated Press 10. Finally, “The Late Show” got tense last night when the host, Stephen Colbert, [pressed former President Bill Clinton on his remarks about #MeToo](. “It seemed tone-deaf to me,” Mr. Colbert said, because “your behavior was the most famous example of a powerful man sexually misbehaving in the workplace of my lifetime.” Have you been keeping up with pop culture and the news? [Try your hand at trivia]( with the columnist Frank Bruni and a guest host for the Opinion section’s monthly game. Good luck, and have a great evening. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing. [Sign up here]( to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning. Want to catch up on past briefings? [You can browse them here](. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at [briefing@nytimes.com](mailto:briefing@nytimes.com?subject=Evening%20Briefing%20Feedback). LIKE THIS EMAIL? 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