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Senate, North Korea, Uber: Your Tuesday Evening Briefing

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Good evening. Here’s the latest.

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Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

1. Senate Republicans are making progress in their push to pass a tax bill by Friday.

The Senate Budget Committee passed the bill along party lines, allowing it to proceed to the floor. The leadership is scrambling to corral uncommitted senators and jump through procedural hoops. Here’s the latest.

President Trump was on Capitol Hill for a lunch with Republican senators, above. He escalated the threat of a government shutdown, which would occur if lawmakers cannot agree on a separate spending measure.

We modeled what the Senate bill would look like for 25,000 middle-class families. Just as with health care, its fate could rest with Senator John McCain.

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Credit...Joshua Roberts/Reuters

2. The courts are still deciding who will lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the nation’s top consumer watchdog.

But they ruled that while they decide, Mick Mulvaney, above, President Trump’s pick as acting director, can stay in office. We look at the messy fight for control — and the deregulatory pressures the agency faces — on our “The Daily” podcast.

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Credit...Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters

3. A Libyan militia leader became the first person successfully prosecuted in the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi in 2012, seen above.

Ahmed Abu Khattala was convicted on four counts, including conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism, in a federal court in Washington.

In a surprise, he was acquitted of murder. Still, he faces up to 60 years in prison.

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Credit...KCNA, via Associated Press

4. North Korea conducted its first missile test in more than two months. Within minutes, South Korea fired a missile to demonstrate its ability to strike the North’s launch sites.

The exchange came after a senior South Korean official warned that the North was working on being able to launch nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles as early as next year.

No wonder Hawaii is bringing back its Cold War-era nuclear warning system. Above, the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, with scientists in September.

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Credit...Vincenzo Pinto/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

5. In Myanmar, Pope Francis met with the country’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, above.

But in a closely watched speech, he avoided directly addressing the situation of the persecuted Rohingya minority, or even mentioning the term.

He is scheduled to say Mass in Yangon tomorrow before an expected crowd of 200,000 and to meet with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh later in the week.

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Credit...Caitlin O'Hara for The New York Times

6. Just a day before jury selection was to start, a federal judge delayed a trade secrets trial between Uber and Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car unit.

He based the decision on a letter written by a lawyer for a former Uber employee. The letter not only contradicted statements from the company’s lawyers, it also asserted that Uber had a secret team dedicated to corporate spying and impeding legal cases against it.

“I can no longer trust the words of the lawyers for Uber in this case,” the judge said. “If even half of what is in that letter is true, it would be an injustice for Waymo to go to trial.”

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Credit...Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images

7. Jay-Z, above, and Kendrick Lamar led the nominees for the 60th annual Grammy Awards, coming Jan. 28.

The list was heavy on hip-hop and R&B, and shut out some pop stars from the major categories (Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” one of the year’s biggest hits, fell into best pop solo).

Competing for album of the year are Jay-Z and Mr. Lamar; Bruno Mars, Childish Gambino and Lorde. Here are the nominees in the top 20 categories.

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Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

8. The International Olympic Committee’s decision next week on how to punish Russia for doping will be informed by the diaries of a complicit Russian chemist. We got an exclusive look.

Grigory Rodchenkov spent years helping Russia’s athletes gain an edge by using banned substances. His diaries from 2014 and 2015 — his final years as Russia’s antidoping lab chief before he fled to the U.S. — provide new details about the elaborate cheating at the last Winter Games in Sochi.

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Credit...Christopher Griffith for The New York Times

9. This week’s Times Magazine cover story is a profile of Sean Hannity, the Fox News host Stephen Bannon called “the single most important voice for the ‘deplorables.’”

He’s become the face of the network in the post-O’Reilly era. With more than 13 million nightly viewers, he is also one of President Trump’s most public defenders.

After the article published, Mr. Hannity tweeted some criticism of our choice of cover photograph, above.

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Credit...Matt Dunham/Associated Press

10. Finally, can Meghan Markle save the monarchy?

The novelist Irenosen Okojie wrote in an Op-Ed that Ms. Markle’s relationship with Prince Harry “made me, a black British woman, see the royals slightly differently.”

“Not since Diana, Princess of Wales, has there been this kind of interest from young people in a member of the royal family,” she added.

The late-night hosts celebrated the news of their engagement, too. But Trevor Noah thought “diversity” was getting too much attention: “It’s 2017, people. It shouldn’t matter that one of them is a ginger.” (Harry is, of course, a redhead.)

Have a great night.

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

And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a.m. Sundays.

Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.

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What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

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