Netanyahu, Stormy Daniels, N.B.A.: Your Monday Evening Briefing

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The move strengthened President Trump’s case for pulling out of the 2015 nuclear deal.

Suspicion also fell on Israel for strikes on Sunday on two military bases in Syria used by Iran and its proxy militias.

And in South Korea, President Moon Jae-in floated the idea of a Nobel Prize for Mr. Trump for helping start the unexpected peace process with North Korea.

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Johannes Eisele/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

3. The Trump administration delayed a decision about whether to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union, Canada and Mexico for another 30 days.

And China says it will refuse to discuss President Trump’s two toughest trade demands when U.S. officials arrive in Beijing this week.

Those are a mandatory cut in America’s trade deficit and curbs on Beijing’s plan to bankroll the country’s move into advanced technologies. Above, shipping containers in Shanghai.

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Rahmat Gul/Associated Press

4. Twin bombings in Afghanistan’s capital killed at least 25 people, including nine journalists.

The attack was one of the most lethal assaults on journalists ever worldwide, a watchdog group said. A 10th journalist was shot and killed in a separate attack.

One of the journalists, Shah Marai, was well known to our reporting team. He went from driver to Agence France-Presse’s chief photographer in Kabul, and supported three blind brothers and two blind children. Above, Mr. Marai’s coffin was carried in his village.

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Zack Wittman for The New York Times

5. A man who lived through the Las Vegas shooting told us about an increasingly common part of the aftermath of such attacks: intense pressure to sign contracts for legal representation.

“We’ve all gotten a thousand phone calls from lawyers,” the man said.

“They were relentless,” said a woman who was at the scene in Las Vegas. Above, Orlando Torres, a survivor of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Florida.

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Justin Lane/EPA, via Shutterstock

6. If the T-Mobile and Sprint merger passes regulatory scrutiny, the nation will have only three major cellphone carriers.

One big question: How would the loss of competition affect consumers’ phone bills?

As a former antitrust official at the Justice Department noted, “These two companies are each other’s biggest competitors for serving middle-income, budget-constrained wireless customers.” Above, John Legere, left, the chief executive of T-Mobile, and Marcelo Claure, his counterpart at Sprint.

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Robert Rausch for The New York Times

7. “Good things happen in the light, and bad things happen in the dark.”

That was a housing lawyer on limited liability companies, which can shield the identities of even relatively small-scale landlords.

Owning real estate in L.L.C.s, as The Guardian reported that the Fox News host Sean Hannity does, is legal and increasingly popular. But the secrecy has also helped enable behavior like laundering money or being a bad landlord. Above, downtown Memphis.

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Tracie Van Auken/EPA, via Shutterstock

8. A Cosby juror has spoken.

The most damning evidence in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial was not the victim’s testimony or other women’s statements that he had attacked them, the juror, Harrison Snyder, told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” It was Mr. Cosby’s remarks in a 2005 deposition that he had given sedatives to women he wanted to have sex with.

Mr. Cosby’s conviction last week on three counts of aggravated indecent assault was widely seen as a key moment in the #MeToo movement. But Mr. Snyder said it wasn’t a factor during deliberations — he didn’t know about the movement until after the trial.

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Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters

9. Was Michelle Wolf’s scathing comedy routine at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner vicious? “Absolutely,” our TV critic writes.

“But was it gratuitous? Not at all,” he continues. “It drove mercilessly toward its themes: that this administration lies; that its female members are covering for a sexist president; and that journalists have enabled it all with breathless coverage.”

Ms. Wolf’s set drew criticism from the Trump administration, journalists and even the president of the correspondents’ association. An Op-Ed piece offered an “official response from America’s comics: If you don’t want comedy, don’t hire us.”

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Randy L. Rasmussen/Associated Press

10. Finally, N.B.A. referees are used to getting sworn at.

But in an increasingly international league, where Spanish, Serbian, Portuguese and other languages abound, they have the difficult job of deciphering exactly what players are saying and whether they are cursing. Above, Jusuf Nurkic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a center for the Portland Trail Blazers.

A former ref said that he tried to distinguish between pejorative adjectives (generally permitted) and nouns (not so much). And he wanted the players to understand him despite his own thick accent.

“I’m from New Jersey,” he said.

Have a great night.

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Source : Nytimes