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Tariffs, Delta, Putin: Your Thursday Evening Briefing

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Good evening. Here’s the latest.

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Credit...Alexander Koerner/Getty Images

1. After a morning of tension and chaos at the White House, President Trump announced plans for stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Mr. Trump said he would formally sign the trade measures next week and promised they would be in effect “for a long period of time.” The measures would impose tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

At a White House meeting, Mr. Trump told a group of executives that he did not want any nation to be exempted from the order. Stocks dropped as the announcement rattled markets. Above, a steel furnace in Germany.

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Credit...Andrew Harnik/Associated Press

2. How did Fox News get hold of private texts between Senator Mark Warner, above left, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a lawyer linked to Russia?

The committee has concluded that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee leaked them.

Mr. Warner and his Republican counterpart, Senator Richard Burr, above right, were so perturbed by the leak that they went to House Speaker Paul Ryan and expressed concerns about the direction of the committee under Representative Devin Nunes.

The messages show that Mr. Warner sought to meet with Christopher Steele, the former British spy behind a dossier of salacious claims about President Trump’s connections to Russia.

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Credit...Andrew Spear for The New York Times

3. The school massacre in Parkland, Fla., reignited calls to train and arm teachers, roiling the profession and infuriating gun control advocates.

For all the outcry, though, hundreds of school districts across the country — mostly in smaller, rural towns — are already armed. We went to one such place: Sidney, Ohio, above. Highly trained staff members at local schools there have access to handguns locked in biometric safes.

Separately, Georgia lawmakers punished Delta for distancing itself from the N.R.A. by passing a bill without a proposed tax break that would have benefited the airline, one of the state’s biggest employers.

On “The Daily,” we talk to our White House reporters about President Trump’s change of heart on gun control and the resignation of his communications director, Hope Hicks.

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Credit...Joe Raedle/Getty Images

4. Alberto Carvalho, above, who rose from day laborer to superintendent of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, accepted an offer to become the next New York City schools chancellor.

And the next day, he changed his mind, in a dramatic spectacle broadcast live on TV.

The sudden turnabout led to cheers in a packed meeting room of the Miami school board — and fury and confusion in New York.

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Credit...Tomas Munita for The New York Times

5. The Trump administration is targeting MS-13, the brutal street gang started by Salvadorans in Los Angeles in the ’80s. The authorities say the gang now has 30,000 members, about 10,000 of whom are in the U.S. Above, gang members in a jail in San Salvador.

Few dispute the menace that MS-13 presents; its members are known for wielding machetes and killing with abandon.

But American police and prosecutors in areas where MS-13 is most active said the heightened focus on the gang has come at the expense of fighting more widespread threats, particularly opioids and human trafficking.

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Credit...Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press

6. President Vladimir Putin of Russia used his annual state of the nation speech to threaten Western nations with a new generation of nuclear weapons, including an “invincible” intercontinental cruise missile.

It remains unclear whether that actually exists.

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Credit...Roman Pilipey/European Pressphoto Agency

7. China’s National People’s Congress is set to convene.

Communist Party censors are scouring the internet to suppress criticism of a proposal, expected to pass, allowing President Xi Jinping to remain in power indefinitely.

Among the unlikely targets: the letter N and images of Winnie-the-Pooh (a frequently used Xi avatar). Above, Mr. Xi and Mao seen on trinkets in a souvenir shop.

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Credit...Susan Walsh/Associated Press

8. Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, tried to cancel a $31,000 order for a custom dining room set for his office.

The walkback came a day after the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee announced an investigation into his interior decorating. (His agency is facing $6.8 billion in budget cuts requested by the White House.) Mr. Carson claimed no knowledge of the order.

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Credit...Bryan Derballa for The New York Times

9. The critically acclaimed FX show “Atlanta” begins its second season on Thursday. Our reporter talked to its stars and “brain trust” about fame, race and the Trump presidency.

Darkly retitled “Atlanta Robbin’ Season,” the show “builds on an idiosyncratic foundation,” he writes, “without becoming too predictable in its unpredictability.”

And yes, our critic really wrote this: “Robbin’ Season” is so good, it’s almost criminal.”

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Credit...20th Century Fox

10. Finally, some news from the film world.

Our critic called “Red Sparrow,” in which Jennifer Lawrence plays a Russian ballerina turned murderous spy, “preposterously entertaining.”

“It helps that Ms. Lawrence, like all great stars, can slip into a role as if sliding into another skin, unburdened by hesitation or self-doubt,” Manohla Dargis writes. “She was born to screen stardom, and it’s a blast to see where it’s taking her.”

On Thursday’s episode of “The Daily Show,” Chadwick Boseman, star of “Black Panther,” chats with Trevor Noah. And a friendly reminder: The Oscars are Sunday. Here’s what to expect at the ceremony.

Have a great night.

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Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

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A correction was made on 
March 1, 2018

An earlier version of this briefing wrongly identified a political meeting that is set to convene in China. It’s the National People’s Congress, not the Party Congress.

How we handle corrections

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