The White House Vowed a Vast Crackdown on Liberal Groups

Briefing|The White House Vowed a Vast Crackdown on Liberal Groups

Vice President JD Vance invited television cameras into his official White House office this afternoon for an episode of Charlie Kirk’s podcast. He said he was guest-hosting the show to honor Kirk, the right-wing activist who was assassinated last week.

During the show, Vance invited some of the highest-ranking members of the Trump administration to praise Kirk and to lay out their plans in response to his killing. Making broad and unsubstantiated claims about their political opponents, the officials said they would bring the weight of the federal government down on what they claimed was a network of left-wing groups that incited violence.

Separately, two senior administration officials told The Times that cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives. One official said the Trump administration would look for links between liberal groups and episodes such as the recent burning of Teslas and assaults against immigration agents.

In Utah, investigators were still working to identify a motive in Kirk’s killing. The state’s governor has said that the suspect had a “leftist ideology” and that he acted alone. The director of the F.B.I. said today that the authorities had found physical evidence connecting the suspect in custody with the shooting of Kirk, including a note that was destroyed but later reconstructed.

U.S. officials said China agreed to a TikTok sale

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said today that the U.S. and China had agreed to a “framework” for an agreement that would shift TikTok into U.S.-controlled ownership. Bessent said that President Trump would talk on Friday with Xi Jinping, China’s leader, to finalize the deal.

Trump had set a deadline of this Wednesday to enforce or delay a law requiring the video app to be separated from its Chinese owner or face a ban in the U.S. A bipartisan majority of Congress had passed the ban because of concerns that TikTok’s ties to China made it a national security threat, but Trump delayed its enforcement for months.

The U.A.E. got A.I. chips. Trump’s family got crypto riches.

Trump’s inner circle struck two major deals this year with a top Emirati royal. One involved the sale of valuable computer chips to the United Arab Emirates; the other was a $2 billion crypto deal that would financially benefit the president’s family.

There is no evidence that one was explicitly offered in return for the other. But an investigation by my colleagues, which David Yaffe-Bellany explains in the video above, found that they were being negotiated at the same time and by some of the same people — and that they were intertwined in ways that have not been previously reported. Here are our takeaways.

More top news

• Middle East: During a visit to Israel, Secretary of State Marco Rubio cast doubt on the chances of negotiating the surrender of Hamas.

• Sudan: In El Fasher, the worst battleground in the country’s civil war, children are eating cattle feed as paramilitaries try to starve 260,000 people into submission.

• D.O.J.: Maurene Comey, a longtime federal prosecutor in Manhattan and the daughter of the former F.B.I. director James Comey, sued Trump over her firing.

• Belarus: U.S. officials attended joint exercises that the country held with the Russian army.

• Economy: Long-term unemployment has a new face: college graduates.

• Health: Followers of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement have revolted against the Republican plan on pesticides.

• Politics: Nancy Pelosi, the former house speaker and a mentor to California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, helped shape the state’s redistricting fight behind the scenes.

• South Asia: Indian cricket players refused to shake hands with their Pakistani opponents at the teams’ first meeting since the two countries exchanged hostilities this year.

• Literature: Arthur Sze, a National Book Award winner whose observational poetry is grounded in nature, will be the next U.S. poet laureate.

• Nature: Researchers discovered that Mediterranean ants were having babies belonging to a different species. “It’s crazy,” one said. “Sci-fi material.”

TIME TO UNWIND

It was a big year for first-time winners at the Emmys

At last night’s Emmys ceremony, Jean Smart won her seventh acting award. But she was the outlier. This year, the acting categories were dominated by first-time winners.

Ralph Nader was unhappy with his erasers. We tried to help.

Ralph Nader, the renowned consumer advocate, told Annemarie Conte, a Wirecutter advice columnist, that he believed pencil erasers were getting worse. He asked for help. And if Nader needs help finding a good eraser, maybe you do, too. So Annemarie began investigating.

She asked the experts — more than 100 elementary school kids — to offer their honest assessments of the erasers on some of the best reviewed pencils. Annemarie also talked to people whose job it is to think about pencils. After 12 weeks of testing, she has advice. One tip: Product maintenance can be just as important as product choice.

Do you remember when cereal boxes could play a tune?

For decades, beginning in the 1950s, breakfast cereal makers would use a thin plastic film to stamp records onto their boxes. The cheap prize offered children a chance to listen to artists as big as the Monkees and the Jackson 5 whenever they wanted.

The disposable records had terrible audio quality, so most of them were thrown out. But some survived, and today a small community of collectors continues to hunt down and preserve these forgotten treasures.

Have a memorable evening.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Matthew

Philip Pacheco was our photo editor.

We welcome your feedback. Write to us at evening@nytimes.com.