Your Friday Evening Briefing

Rod Rosenstein, Brett Kavanaugh, Trump | View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, September 21, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( [Your Friday Evening Briefing]( By JOUMANA KHATIB AND VIRGINIA LOZANO Good evening. Here’s the latest. T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times 1. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed the special counsel and is overseeing his Russia investigation, [discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to oust President Trump]( last year. In the days after the firing of the F.B.I. director at the time, James Comey, Mr. Rosenstein also proposed secretly recording his conversations with the president, The Times has learned. The extreme suggestions show Mr. Rosenstein’s state of mind during those disorienting days. Mr. Rosenstein made the remarks about secretly recording Mr. Trump and about the 25th Amendment in meetings and conversations with other Justice Department and F.B.I. officials. He has disputed The Times’s account. _____ Erin Schaff for The New York Times 2. President Trump on Friday [challenged the account of Christine Blasey Ford]( the woman who has accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, ending days of relative restraint. If the episode “was as bad as she says,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, she or her parents would have filed charges. But many voters [we spoke with believed Dr. Blasey, even if some questioned her motive]( in coming forward now. And for people across the country, the controversy is a reminder of Anita Hill’s testimony in 1991, [our gender columnist writes](. _____ Hilary Swift for The New York Times 3. Homeowners and businesses rebuilding after Hurricane Florence will have to [pay more for lumber, steel, aluminum and other materials]( because of President Trump’s trade policy. “The people that will get hurt the worst are the ones who are least able to afford rebuilding,” a contractor in North Carolina said. “They’re blue collar, and they tend to live in lower-lying areas, and are less likely to have insurance. It breaks your heart.” A Times reporter and photographer accompanied one crew of Coast Guard helicopters during a search-and-rescue mission. [Here’s what they saw](. _____  4. One of our most popular stories: How did a brothel empire seem to stay one step ahead of the law? It turns out it was headed up by a former New York detective. Ludwig Paz, according to prosecutors, represents an unusual breed: a vice detective who kept a clean record until he retired, only to pivot hard and use his law-enforcement background to become the very strain of crime lord that he once was supposed to stamp out. His years wearing a badge in Brooklyn, the police said, would prove to be on-the-job training for a second career as a purveyor of prostitutes and protector of pimps. Read [our full investigation](. _____ Adam Dean for The New York Times 5. Our reporter made a rare trip on a U.S. Navy surveillance flight over the South China Sea, which pointed out how profoundly [China has reshaped the security picture across the region](. The plane — flying in internationally recognized airspace, but near an island that Beijing has filled out and turned into a military base — was challenged by the Chinese for violating what they say is its sovereign territory. Roughly one-third of global maritime trade flows through the sea. One American admiral put it bluntly: “China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.” _____ Stephen Msengi 6. At least 131 people were killed after a [Tanzanian ferry capsized on Lake Victoria](. Officials warned that the death toll could rise, and said that the ferry appears to have been overloaded. The ferry had been traveling between two islands — Ukara and Ukerewe — when it capsized Thursday afternoon. The government said the search for survivors was at an end. _____ Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times 7. “Made in Italy” conjures images of highly skilled artisans. But Italian garment labels, facing global competition, are using [low-paid home workers]( earning as little as €1 (or just over $1) an hour. Thousands of such workers create luxury garments without contracts or insurance. Italy does not have a national minimum wage, and many industry observers believe that that has made it easier for many home workers to be paid a pittance. As one seamstress put it: “It is what it is. This is Italy.” _____ Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press 8. The deadline to preserve Nafta is coming, and the two negotiators trying to save it are looking for common ground amid the [rockiest relations between the United States and Canada in decades](. They also must overcome their vastly different backgrounds, approaches and priorities. For more than a year, Canada’s foreign minister (Chrystia Freeland, left) and the United States’ trade representative (Robert Lighthizer, center) have been locked in intense negotiations to rewrite the trade pact before Sept. 30. _____ The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC, via Galerie Lelong & Co. 9. Overlooked no more: Ana Mendieta, a Cuban artist whose [work pushed ethnic, sexual, moral, religious and political boundaries](. Her art, sometimes violent, often unapologetically feminist and usually raw, left an indelible mark before her life was cut short: She was never fully recognized before she died, at age 36. As our critic Holland Cotter wrote, Ms. Mendieta “used fear well, transmuting a profound sense of psychological and cultural displacement into an experience of merging with the natural world and its history through art.” _____ Birgit Krippner for The New York Times 10. Finally, this is your periodic reminder that it’s not all bad news out there. This is [The Week in Good News]( featuring stories about the revival of the Maori language (above, Ella Henry, a Maori studies lecturer at Auckland University of Technology, outside a Maori meeting house on the university campus); a new world record at the Berlin marathon; and, at long last, pizza for U.S. troops. Have a wonderful weekend. _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing. 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