Here’s what you need to know at the end of the day.
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Good evening. Here’s the latest.
1. “We acknowledge the threat. It is real. It is continuing.”
That was Dan Coats, above, the director of national intelligence, describing Russia’s attempts to influence U. S. elections. He and other top national security officials pledged to help ward off those efforts ahead of the midterms, using far blunter language about the threat than the president has.
And as Facebook works to delete fake accounts that it says are part of a political influence campaign, many activists are feeling the pinch .
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2. A corporate milestone:
Apple’s shares closed at $207.39, making it the first public U. S. company worth more than $1 trillion .
Its outlook wasn’t always so sunny: In 1997, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Now, it has vaulted to a level prior giants — G. E., Exxon Mobil and AT&T — could never have dreamed of.
Hard to envision what kind of footprint Apple has? Our graphics team took care of that .
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3. Pope Francis said that executions are wrong in all cases, calling them “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
Abolishing the death penalty has long been a top concern of Francis’, along with the plight of refugees and saving the environment. The change is already in the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, the book of doctrine that is taught to Catholic children worldwide.
The pope’s decree is likely to hit particularly hard in the U. S., where a majority of Catholics support the death penalty, and Catholic political energy is focused on ending abortion.
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4. The Trump administration revealed its plan to ease rules on auto fuel efficiency, which would unravel one of President Barack Obama’s signature policies to fight greenhouse gas emissions.
What happens next? Opponents — an unusual mix of environmentalists, automakers, consumer groups and state governments — are racing to temper the plan before it is finalized this year.
And President Trump has announced his pick for science adviser: Kelvin Droegemeier, a respected meteorologist. His views on climate change, however, are not widely known.
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5. President Trump has urged his lawyers to allow him to be interviewed by the special counsel, several people briefed on the matter told our reporters.
He’s told advisers he is eager to clear his name, but his lawyers have cautioned against talking with investigators — or even answering written questions.
And the tax and money-laundering trial of Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is shining a light on a lucrative Washington sideline: that of American consultants doing the bidding of foreign clients.
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6. There’ll be an F. D. A. showdown on Friday, on the handling of a class of high-powered pain drugs .
Researchers with Johns Hopkins will be testifying at an F. D. A. advisory committee meeting, drawing on the data they gleaned from about 5,000 documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Those documents show that for years, doctors prescribed powerful, fast-acting fentanyl drugs — meant to treat cancer patients who had developed opioid tolerances — for lesser conditions, despite the deadly danger of overdoses.
The documents also show that the F. D. A. knew, but entrusted enforcement of an oversight program to a group of pharmaceutical companies that make and sell the drugs.
“They had the fox guarding the henhouse,” an opioid policy expert said. “And the F. D. A. sat by and watched this happen.”
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7. “No, I do not feel that the media is the enemy of the people.”
Ivanka Trump broke step with her father, President Trump, over his repeated condemnations of the press on Thursday.
Her comments stand in contrast with other administration officials, particularly the press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who earlier Thursday refused to say whether she shared the president’s view.
Ms. Trump also condemned the White House’s policy of separating migrant families at the border, calling it a “low point.”
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8. “It can happen even to guys.”
More than 100 men, all former Ohio State wrestlers, have come forward to say they were molested by Richard Strauss, a team doctor there from the late 1970s to the 1990s.
Having built their identities around traditional notions of toughness and stoicism, many of these men are struggling with a new identity — #UsToo.
That’s not Ohio State’s only scandal. Urban Meyer, above, its football coach, has been placed on leave pending an investigation into whether he knew a longtime former assistant coach had been accused of domestic abuse in 2015.
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9. Overlooked no more: Clara Lemlich Shavelson, a Ukrainian immigrant, galvanized garment workers in New York in the early 1900s and went on to fight for suffrage and tenants’ rights.
Her activism helped the Uprising of the 20,000 in 1909, a landmark point in a swelling labor movement that helped make workplaces safer, workdays shorter and wages higher.
As one newspaper put it: “These young, inexperienced girls have proved that women can strike, and strike successfully.”
Want to keep up with all our gender coverage? Find this week’s Gender Letter here .
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10. Finally: Hemingway fans, we have good news for you.
In 1956, a few years before he committed suicide, he wrote five short stories about World War II, saying they could be published after he died. But only one had been — until now.
The Strand Magazine, a literary quarterly, printed “A Room on the Garden Side,” which takes place in Paris shortly after the liberation.
If you don’t want to spring for a copy, our story about the story covers the basics.
Have a wonderful evening.
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