Biden vows to stay in the race
In a nearly hourlong news conference last night, President Biden gave no indication that he would consider ending his bid for re-election, even as he faces calls to step back from within his party and as his high-dollar fund-raising has cratered. Asked why he was not passing the baton to a younger generation, Biden, 81, argued that the “gravity of the situation” called for experience. Read updates from the speech.
After initially reading from a teleprompter, Biden tried to defuse some questions about his age and fitness for office. His answers included cogent responses as well as a few flubs, including when he said “Vice President Trump” when he meant to refer to Kamala Harris. Hours earlier, he had introduced Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as “President Putin” at a NATO meeting.
But Biden also dove deep on some complex foreign policy answers, spending more time at the lectern than in his last two solo news conferences. He boasted about his accomplishments on the world stage, noted the decline in inflation in the U.S. and said he was optimistic that Hamas and Israel can complete an agreement to bring an end to the war in Gaza.
By the numbers: The president has held only 14 solo news conferences — the fewest of any president since Ronald Reagan — and it was his first since November.
Political outreach: The Biden campaign dispatched staff members to meet with Democratic lawmakers in an effort to calm their nerves, even as five more members of the House called on the president to step aside. At the same time, some Biden aides have become convinced that abandoning his campaign for re-election is painful but inevitable.
Concerns: Democratic voters have for years expressed doubts about his verbal stumbles, dated references and uneven, halting speaking style. Those anxieties have only deepened throughout his presidency.
Pentagon will shut down an aid pier in Gaza
The Biden administration will dismantle the $230 million temporary pier that the U.S. military had built to rush humanitarian aid to Gaza, and the pier, support vessels and other equipment will return to port in Ashdod, Israel, until further notice, U.S. officials said. An effort to reattach the pier to the beach in Gaza had failed this week.
Humanitarian groups said that the pier had largely failed in its mission. In the nearly two months since it was first attached to the shoreline, the pier has been in service only about 20 days, military officials said. The rest of the time, it was being repaired after rough seas broke it apart, detached to avoid further damage or unused because of security concerns.
In Israel: An Israeli general was cleared of wrongdoing for authorizing a tank to fire at an Israeli home where Hamas fighters were holding hostages during the Oct. 7 attack. The strike is likely to have killed at least one captive and wounded another.
In Gaza: Many residents of Gaza City are ignoring an Israeli warning to flee south. “People are being killed wherever we are,” one said.
In Egypt: Some of the tens of thousands of Gazans who fled to Cairo said that they had few prospects for a future there.
France’s far right is at a crossroads
After a series of controversies marred the far-right National Rally’s campaign in France’s snap parliamentary elections, Jordan Bardella, the party’s president, has urged its newly elected lawmakers to “underline the credibility of our project” and “to be absolutely irreproachable in the field and with the media.”
The National Rally has spent recent years vigorously trying to sanitize its public image and take out the stain of anti-immigrant bigotry and Nazi nostalgia that have undermined its efforts to portray respectability. Its third-place finish in the elections, even as its number of seats increased by nearly 40, showed that it had not convinced enough voters that it had done so.
Analysis: The biggest winner in France and Britain’s elections was tactical voting, Amanda Taub writes in The Interpreter.
MORE TOP NEWS
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Heat: June was the 13th hottest consecutive month to break a global heat record. Experts warned that recent intense heat waves were “the new normal.”
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Russia: The U.S. and Germany announced deployments of longer-range American missiles in Germany starting in 2026. Moscow vowed a “military response.”
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War in Ukraine: U.S. intelligence agencies uncovered a Russian plan to kill the head of a German weapons maker in order to hurt Ukraine’s war effort, Western officials said.
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Kenya: President William Ruto fired his cabinet after weeks of antigovernment protests in which at least 41 people died.
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Yulia Navalnaya: Russia has placed the widow of the opposition campaigner Aleksei Navalny on its official terrorist and extremist list.
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Trump: The former president is expected to meet with Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, in Florida.
Science & Technology
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Apple: The technology giant settled a long-running E.U. antitrust investigation by allowing outside developers to use the technology behind Apple Pay.
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Europe: Germany said it reached an agreement to cut components made by Chinese companies from its 5G mobile infrastructure in five years.
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Artificial intelligence: A complex, A.I.-driven technology was used to find a vast copper deposit in Zambia that could give the U.S. an edge in its tech rivalry with China.
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Research: A “fossil chromosome” preserves the structure of a woolly mammoth’s genome and offers a better grasp of how it once worked.
SPORTS NEWS
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At Wimbledon: Jasmine Paolini beat Donna Vekic and Barbora Krejcikova beat Elena Rybakina to reach the final. Read more from Day 11.
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Women’s track and field: Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit and husband of Serena Williams, is betting on the future of the sport.
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Copa América: How a semifinal between Uruguay and Colombia descended into chaos.
MORNING READ
Elon Musk’s dream of colonizing Mars has propelled most of his businesses. SpaceX has built a reusable rocket to reach Mars, he has asked employees to design a domed Martian city and he has volunteered his sperm to help sire a colony.
Here’s a look inside his ambitious — some say absurdist — plans.
Lives lived: Shelley Duvall, the 1970s film star known for starring opposite Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” died at 75.
CONVERSATION STARTERS
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A painful mystery: A young woman vomited every time she ate or drank. Was a minor car accident to blame?
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Young, confident and conservative: America’s newly ordained Catholic priests overwhelmingly lean to the political right in their theology, practices and politics.
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Decades in prison: Flawed science helped convict a man more than 20 years ago. The district attorney’s office now says it got it wrong. Why is he still behind bars?
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London Symphony Orchestra x Cypress Hill: What was originally an unlikely musical collaboration featured in an episode of “The Simpsons” turned from a joke into a one-night-only concert.
ARTS AND IDEAS
At the box office
Pixar’s newest animated feature, “Inside Out 2,” passed the $1.25 billion mark this week, making it the studio’s highest-grossing film. The movie continues the story of Riley, 13, as she grapples with puberty and her bevy of personified emotions, which now include anxiety and ennui.
Since last year’s “Barbenheimer” phenomenon — when “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” both opened on July 21 — the box office has been sluggish. But today, studio executives and Hollywood marketers are taking a risk by giving “Fly Me to the Moon,” a period piece about the Apollo 11 moon landing that was originally destined only for streaming, a wide release in theaters.
In the end, it was one executive — Tom Rothman of Sony — who made the difference. “I wanted this movie for a simple reason: I enjoyed the hell out of it,” he said. Read more about the movie.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Cook: For an easy weekend dinner, turn rotisserie chicken into tacos.
Watch: A new documentary about Brian Eno is a different film every time you watch it. Here’s how.
Travel: Spend 36 hours in Izmir, Turkey.
Warm up: Here’s what to do before any workout.
Refresh: Cool down a hot car with these tips.
Play the Spelling Bee. And here are today’s Mini Crossword and Wordle. You can find all our puzzles here.
That’s it for today’s briefing. Have a great weekend. — Natasha
Reach Natasha and the team at [email protected].
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