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North Korea, Russia, ‘A Wrinkle in Time’: Your Friday Briefing

President Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, on a screen in Seoul, South Korea, today.Credit...Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Donald Trump is set to become the first sitting U.S. president to meet with a North Korean leader, after accepting an invitation by Kim Jong-un to discuss the future of Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Mr. Trump’s self-confident approach to international affairs has yielded little so far, our chief White House correspondent writes. But he may find a kindred spirit in the unpredictable Mr. Kim. (They at least share a fondness for name-calling.)

“You have two leaders who believe fundamentally that they are the only people who matter,” a former U.S. diplomat said.

News of the talks, which a South Korean official said would happen by May, was met with wary optimism in Asia.

• By excepting Canada and Mexico from the tariffs he signed on Thursday, President Trump appears to be trying to extract a better deal in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, our chief economics correspondent writes.

The tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, which go into effect in 15 days, upend the consensus on free trade that has largely governed Washington for decades.

Mr. Trump has singled out China as a top offender in an effort to curb what he has called unfair trade practices. We checked some of his claims.

Separately on Thursday, a group of 11 nations signed a slimmed-down version of what used to be known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that the U.S. withdrew from last year.

• More than two years after President Vladimir Putin intervened militarily to prop up the government of President Bashar al-Assad, the Russian leader finds himself stuck.

Our correspondent in Moscow reports: “Mr. Putin can neither withdraw nor push real political change in Syria without risking the collapse of the Assad government, which would jeopardize both the effort to diminish American influence in the region and Mr. Putin’s own prestige.”

For his part, Mr. Assad, who is well aware of his leverage, has resisted efforts toward compromise with the Syrian opposition.

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President Bashar al-Assad’s push for a military victory in Syria has put the Kremlin in a corner.Credit...Syrian Arab News Agency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

• Eleven a.m. on Sunday has been called the most segregated hour in America.

In the last couple of decades, however, there had been modest signs of integration. Black Christians joined white-majority congregations, either called by God to integrate or drawn to a different, shorter worship style.

Then came the 2016 election. Our reporter spoke to black congregants who are no longer sure they belong.

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The congregation at Gateway Church in Dallas is mostly white, but not entirely; the pastors at two of the six satellite campuses are black men.Credit...Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times
The Daily Poster

Listen to ‘The Daily’: Silenced

An elaborate system has developed to silence women who level accusations against powerful men. One is a pornographic actress who said she had an affair with Donald J. Trump.

The U.S. economy added 313,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported today, far exceeding economists’ estimates. The unemployment rate remained at 4.1 percent, the same as January.

Japan, facing a labor shortage, wants more women in fields like construction. Recruitment efforts include … pink toilets.

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Four years into Japan’s push to double the number of female construction engineers and skilled laborers, the total number of women in the industry has risen by less than one-seventh.Credit...Irene C. Herrera for The New York Times

The new Galaxy S9 is essentially a replay of last year’s big Samsung phone, with a few tweaks. Read our tech columnist’s review.

Former President Barack Obama is in talks to produce shows for Netflix. The number of episodes and format have not been decided.

U.S. stocks were up on Thursday. Here’s a snapshot of global markets today.

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

How to visit and enjoy the places your favorite films were made.

Use technology to beat airport lines.

Recipe of the day: A “soufflazy” makes for an elegant, easy breakfast.

The week in good news

Read about a newly discovered supercolony of penguins and six other stories that brightened our week.

Quiz time!

Did you keep up with this week’s news? Test yourself.

Ready for the weekend

At the movies, we review “A Wrinkle in Time,” an adaptation of the children’s classic, starring Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling. Our critic also liked “The Death of Stalin.”

We recommend eight new books and the weekend’s best TV offerings.

What’s new in photography? “Being,” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, explores reality-based portraiture, politics and gender.

And if you’re in New York, here are 30 must-see artists at the Armory Show, a fair for 20th- and 21st-century art.

For its Music Issue, The Times Magazine collected 25 songs that tell us where pop is going.

And a reminder that clocks spring forward an hour on Sunday in the U.S., as daylight saving time begins.

Today’s number: 70

False claims were 70 percent more likely than the truth to be shared on Twitter, according to a new study examining the flow of stories posted from 2006 through 2017.

Best of late-night TV

Stephen Colbert addressed the breaking news about North Korea: “This can only mean one thing. Dennis Rodman is going to get the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Quotation of the day

“If you put tariffs against your allies, one wonders who the enemies are.”

Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank.

The Times, in other words

Here’s an image of today’s front page, and links to our Opinion content and crossword puzzles.

President Trump has recently conducted a series of televised conversations with lawmakers and with regular citizens.

Forty-one years ago, President Jimmy Carter held a similarly unscripted discussion, answering questions from callers during a live radio broadcast from the Oval Office.

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President Jimmy Carter answered calls during a radio broadcast with Walter Cronkite in the Oval Office on March 5, 1977.Credit...Charles Tasnadi/Associated Press

“Ask President Carter,” moderated by the CBS anchor Walter Cronkite, was broadcast on March 5, 1977. (You can read a transcript here.)

Mr. Cronkite invited listeners to call the White House at 900‐242‐1611. According to CBS, more than nine million Americans tried.

Some of the dozens of questions that Mr. Carter answered were distinctively of the late 1970s: about the gas tax, Mr. Carter’s pardoning of draft dodgers in Vietnam, and the early days of the U.S. space shuttle program.

Others — about tax overhaul, drug abuse and relations with Cuba — still resonate.

One caller asked why members of Congress were getting a $12,000 raise while Mr. Carter was proposing that taxpayers receive a rebate of only $50.

“Gerald, that is a hard question for me to answer,” Mr. Carter replied.

“I’m sure it is,” the caller said. “That’s why I thought I would throw it at you.”

The program caught the public’s attention (“Saturday Night Live” ran a spoof the next week), but the real version was never repeated.

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A correction was made on 
March 12, 2018

An earlier version of this briefing mischaracterized the origins of the trade deal that used to be known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Although the U.S. played a major role in the development of the deal, it did not conceive of the idea.

How we handle corrections

Follow Chris Stanford on Twitter: @stanfordc.

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