Your Tuesday Evening Briefing

North Korea, Time Warner, World Cup | View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Tuesday, June 12, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( [Your Tuesday Evening Briefing]( By KAREN ZRAICK AND HIROKO MASUIKE Good evening. Here’s the latest. Doug Mills/The New York Times 1. The historic handshake between President Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea has raised many questions, starting with: What really changed? And what comes next? The biggest concrete development: [Mr. Trump’s suspension of war games]( on the Korean Peninsula, which surprised South Korea and the Pentagon. Here are the day’s [biggest moments]( (including a hyperbolic movie-trailer-style montage of images that Mr. Trump showed Mr. Kim), our analysis of [Mr. Trump’s “huge gamble”]( and [10 major takeaways](. ____ The New York Times 2. A federal judge approved an $85.4 billion [merger between AT&T and Time Warner]( rebuffing the government’s effort to block the deal. The blockbuster merger would create a media and telecommunications powerhouse, reshaping the landscape of those industries. The combined company would have a library that includes HBO’s hit “Game of Thrones” and channels like CNN, along with vast distribution reach through wireless and satellite TV services across the country. The ruling is a major setback for the Justice Department, and it’s expected to unleash a wave of takeovers in corporate America. ____ Marian Carrasquero/The New York Times 3. “We fled a war zone dominated by gangs, walked across the desert, ran out of money. I have no idea what to do now but wait.” That was Carolina Cortez, above, a Salvadoran mother seeking to enter the U.S., in Nogales, Mexico. At an array of points along the U.S.-Mexico border, [Central American asylum seekers are camped out]( waiting to be allowed to apply for entry to the U.S. Their presence points to a resurgent exodus of people fleeing gang violence, cartels and poverty — and to shifting policies making it harder for them to seek asylum in the U.S. ____ Erin Schaff for The New York Times 4. Voting is wrapping up in primaries in five states: Nevada, Virginia, Maine, South Carolina and North Dakota. [Here’s what you need to know]( about key races in each of them. (And some more [about Virginia]( which is having what appears to be its busiest federal Primary Day in modern history.) And a political committee [formed by former President Barack Obama]( is gearing up to push Democratic-leaning turnout in the midterms. The group, called Organizing for Action, is targeting more than two dozen congressional races and several key state elections. ____ Doug Mills/The New York Times 5. Larry Kudlow, the director of President Trump’s National Economic Council, is [recovering from a mild heart attack]( that landed him in the hospital on Monday. The 70-year-old former Wall Street economist, seen above in April, is expected to return to work. And [Peter Navarro, one of Mr. Trump’s top trade advisers]( said it was a mistake to have suggested that “there is a special place in hell” for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. Mr. Navarro made the remark as he backed up Mr. Trump’s rage at Mr. Trudeau after the G-7 meeting. ____ David Proeber/The Pantagraph, via Associated Press 6. A proposal to allow faculty to carry guns is making the rounds in school board meetings in Illinois, one of 40 states that currently prohibit concealed weapons on school campuses. Across the state, [firearms facilities are offering free classes to teachers]( and school staff. Teachers there are turning out in droves for firearms training. “None of us ever want to have to use our guns,” a third-grade teacher explained. “All of us want to protect our kids.” ____ John Taggart for The New York Times 7. She’s been called an evil genius. But in a good way. [Meet Sarah Masoni, a food designer]( who works in a lab to help companies create delicious products. Her sense of taste is so keen that one client, an ice cream maker, says she has “the million-dollar palate.” Her recent projects include writing tasting notes for cheese curds from a new creamery; helping a Japanese company produce fruit flavors of a fermented egg-white drink; developing a cookbook for Oregon’s specialty crops; and visiting supermarkets to help companies come up with new uses for seaweed and dehydrated vegetable powders. You won’t find her name on any food packaging. She says she likes to be the “wizard of Oz behind the curtain.” ____ Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters 8. Soccer officials from around the world vote Wednesday on where the 2026 World Cup will be played. A joint bid by the U.S., Canada and Mexico is a strong contender. But many soccer officials had reservations about the Trump administration’s restrictive travel policies. So President Trump gave U.S. soccer officials letters to FIFA’s president, vowing that players and fans from all competing countries would get visas. We got [an exclusive look at those letters](. This year’s games start Thursday in Russia. (Above, FIFA-themed decorations in Moscow.) For updates and analysis delivered to your inbox twice a week, [sign up for our newsletter, Offsides](. ____ Matthieu Bourel 9. Our critic at large says the new movie [“Ocean’s 8” is the latest example of a supposedly feminist Hollywood trend]( that’s selling women short. Lots of studios are doing remakes of lucrative films with all-female casts. (See “Ghostbusters.”) But the template requires women “to relive men’s stories instead of fashioning their own,” Amanda Hess argues. “And they’re subtly expected to fix these old films, to neutralize their sexism and infuse them with feminism, to rebuild them into good movies with good politics,” Ms. Hess writes. “They have to do everything the men did, except backwards and with ideals.” ____ Lalo de Almeida for The New York Times 10. Finally, our magazine writer set out to solve a mystery. Two decades ago, a renowned professor promised to create a flawless version of “Ulysses,” one of the 20th century’s most celebrated (and, thanks to botched and corrupted production, least perfectly published) novels. Then he disappeared. Our writer went looking for that professor, John Kidd, who once ran a Boston University research center entirely dedicated to the study of “Ulysses.” Supposedly, he had died “under sordid circumstances in 2010, buried in debt, detested, insulted, alone.” [Here is the story of finding him very much alive]( — and in Brazil, above — and of what may be the most-obsessed-over novel of the 20th century. Have a great night. ____ 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? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. 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