jtrent238 test blog: Evening Briefing: Assassination of Shinzo Abe shocks Japan

July 8, 2022

By Remy Tumin

Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Friday.

Shinzo Abe, moments after he was shot.Kyodo News, via Associated Press

1. A gunman fatally shot Shinzo Abe, Japan's influential former prime minister, while he was giving a speech at a campaign event in the city of Nara, Japan.

The shocking assassination rattled Japan and its sense of identity as a peaceful country where violent crime is rare.

Police officials said Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, had used a "homemade" gun and confessed that he had intended to kill Abe because he believed the former prime minister had some association with a group against which Yamagami held "a grudge."

Abe was one of Asia's most well-known and widely respected leaders, and he remained the most recognizable Japanese politician even after leaving office in 2020. He sought to revive Japan's stagnant economy and normalize its military. Read his obituary.

Data is seasonally adjusted. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics; The New York Times

2. The U.S. job market is going strong.

The robust pace of hiring continued in June as employers added 372,000 jobs, keeping the country out of recession territory, at least for now. The unemployment rate remained unchanged from May at 3.6 percent, close to a 50-year low.

Continue reading the main story

The job growth in June exceeded economists' forecasts by roughly 100,000. The private sector has now regained the number of jobs it had before the pandemic, while the public sector has 664,000 jobs fewer than what it had in February 2020.

The new data complicates the job of the Fed as it seeks to quell inflation. Between a wage jump and the hiring spree, the numbers are likely to keep central bankers on track for a supersized interest rate hike at their July meeting.

Elon Musk signed a legally binding agreement in April to buy Twitter at $54.20 a share.Dado Ruvic/Reuters

3. Elon Musk plans to terminate his $44 billion blockbuster deal to buy Twitter.

In a regulatory filing, Musk said a disagreement with Twitter over the number of spam accounts on the platform could not be resolved. "Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions" of the deal, Musk's lawyers said in the filing, and the company "appears to have made false and misleading representations."

Twitter has said that less than 5 percent of the accounts on its platform are fake.

The move comes less than four months after Musk, the world's richest man, struck a deal to buy the social media platform, generating concerns over his approach to free speech and content moderators. But soon after, Musk began to change his tune and he expressed dissatisfaction with the agreement.

Continue reading the main story

A technician with a patient at Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, La., on Wednesday.Ted Jackson/Associated Press

4. President Biden issued an executive order aimed at ensuring access to abortion medication and emergency contraception.

But the order is vague about how the president hopes to accomplish those goals, leaving the details largely to Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services. The order directs Becerra to develop a report "identifying potential actions" to protect access to abortion, but does not say what those actions will be.

Biden has faced increased pressure to do more to respond to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and time may be of the essence: A judge in Louisiana allowed the state's laws banning nearly all abortions to take effect, and South Carolina is considering a total ban.

Meanwhile, New York City was a haven for women before Roe v. Wade. A new generation of advocates has vowed that it will remain so.

Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, made an early exit from a Group of 20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia.Pool photo by Willy Kurniawan

5. A gathering of foreign ministers from the Group of 20 industrialized nations ended in discord.

Without a traditional communiqué signed by the meeting's attendees, a consensus among the West, Russia and China over the war in Ukraine seemed impossible. Western officials said the meeting underscored Russia's isolation on the world stage. Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, left the meeting early after accusing the West of "blatant Russophobia."

In other developments, the basketball star Brittney Griner has yet to be sentenced after pleading guilty to illegal drug possession yesterday. Her next court date is on Thursday. Our sports columnist examines the role that Griner's race, gender and sexuality play in her prolonged detention.

Choosing the next resident of 10 Downing Street could take all summer.Alberto Pezzali/Associated Press

6. Boris Johnson has not left 10 Downing Street yet, but the jockeying to replace him has already begun.

The Conservative Party must decide not only who should succeed the scandal-tarred British prime minister, but also when he should go. The process to choose his successor could last through the summer. Among the possible candidates: the foreign secretary, Liz Truss; the chancellor of the Exchequer, Nadhim Zahawi; and two former health secretaries, Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt.

In the meantime, the lame-duck leader is presiding over what is being called a zombie government. Johnson's critics say his blueprint for dealing with a crisis almost never begins, and rarely ends, with simply telling the truth. That approach worked for him for years — until finally it didn't.

Subscribe Today

We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times with this special offer.

A monkeypox vaccination clinic in New York City, where cases are rising.Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

7. The U.S. may be losing the battle against monkeypox, as longstanding weaknesses in the public health system give the virus a chance to become entrenched.

The first cases of monkeypox were reported in May, but tests will not be readily available until sometime this month. Vaccines will be in short supply for many more months. Tracking cases can be difficult, and official case counts are likely a gross underestimate. Experts say it raises troubling questions about the nation's preparedness for pandemic threats.

In coronavirus news, the rapidly spreading Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are driving a summertime surge of infections in Europe. But vaccines are working to prevent severe illness, an official said: Hospitalizations are up, but there has not been an increase in intensive care unit admissions.

Novak Djokovic defeated Cameron Norrie in the semifinals at Wimbledon today.Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

8. Novak Djokovic will get a chance to win a seventh Wimbledon singles title.

Djokovic beat Cameron Norrie of Britain in four sets on Friday afternoon, overcoming some early match inconsistency, blazing heat and a raucous hometown crowd. The men's final will pit Djokovic against Nick Kyrgios of Australia, starting at 9 a.m. ET on Sunday. The women's final, between Ons Jabeur and Elena Rybakina, takes place on Saturday at 9 a.m.

Also on Sunday: The W.N.B.A. All-Star Game. Keep an eye out for Las Vegas Aces guard Jackie Young, who is posting the best offensive numbers of her career and making her first All-Star appearance.

A robot at a marble workshop in Italy carving a replica of a horse head. The original is in the British Museum.Francesca Jones for The New York Times

9. Few cultural disputes inflame British passions more than the disposition of the Parthenon Marbles. A robot sculptor may offer a solution.

Britain has repeatedly rejected requests from Greek campaigners to repatriate the works, which were stripped from the Acropolis of Athens by Thomas Bruce, a Scottish statesman and the seventh earl of Elgin. The Elgin Marbles, as they are sometimes known, have been in the British Museum since 1817.

Roger Michel, an archaeologist at the University of Oxford, has developed a 3-D machining device with the ability to create faithful copies of large historical objects. In his mind, the copies would be made with the "sole purpose" of repatriation of the Elgin Marbles. "When two people both want the same cake, baking a second, identical cake is one obvious solution," he said.

Thousands of anchovies piled up in the Bolinas Lagoon in Marin County, Calif.Ed Mann/National Park Service

10. And finally, when fish fly.

A family in San Francisco recently woke up to a bang so loud, they thought it was an earthquake. It turned out that the noise came from anchovies falling on their roof. Several other residents in the Bay Area have reported similar occurrences.

Apparently birds are to blame, along with a glut of anchovies in the ocean. When birds carry fish back to their nests, they sometimes drop the fish. One expert says gulls also fight one another for food and may drop their fish in a process known as kleptoparasitism: "That's when a bird beats up on another bird for its lunch."

Go, fish.

Marcus Payadue compiled photos for this briefing.

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

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.

Here are today's Mini Crossword, Spelling Bee and Wordle. If you're in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Continue reading the main story