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Florida Shooting, Jacob Zuma, Chris Rock: Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

Zach Johnk and

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

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Credit...WPLG-TV, via Associated Press

1. Law enforcement officers descended on a high school in Parkland, Fla., where a shooting near dismissal time left at least 17 people dead.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” one student yelled over and over in a video circulating on social media, as more than 40 gunshots boomed in the background.

A suspect, Nikolas Cruz, 19, who previously attended the school before he was expelled, was arrested about an hour after fleeing the scene, the authorities said.

People who knew Mr. Cruz described him as a “troubled kid” who enjoyed showing off his firearms and whose mother would resort to calling the police to have them come to their home to try to talk some sense into him.

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Credit...Tom Brenner/The New York Times

2. A bipartisan group of senators reached an immigration agreement that would increase border security and resolve the fate of the young immigrants known as Dreamers.

But President Trump suggested he would veto any plan that does not adhere to his harder-line approach.

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Credit...Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

3. President Trump said he was “totally opposed to domestic violence,” in his first condemnation of the alleged conduct behind a scandal involving Rob Porter, the aide who resigned last week. Here’s our video profile of Mr. Porter, above right.

John Kelly, above left, the president’s chief of staff, is facing new questions about his handling of the case, including why Mr. Porter worked without a permanent high-level security clearance for more than a year. Read our timeline of the scandal.

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Credit...Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

4. Jacob Zuma stepped down as South Africa’s president, ending a nine-year, scandal-plagued tenure after his own party repudiated him.

It was a humiliating end for Mr. Zuma, a charismatic anti-apartheid hero who was imprisoned with Nelson Mandela. He initially inspired hope among South Africa’s poorest before coming to symbolize corruption.

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Credit...Abir Sultan/European Pressphoto Agency

5. Also facing swirling accusations of corruption: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister.

He defiantly called a damning case against him “full of holes, like Swiss cheese,” and vowed to serve to the end of his term in late 2019. A police investigation found he should be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

This is not the first time Mr. Netanyahu, above, has struggled with graft inquiries — nor is he the first Israeli leader to do so.

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Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

6. Mikaela Shiffrin, above, is set to — finally — make her debut at the Pyeongchang Olympics (high winds had forced delays in several Alpine skiing events). She’s a favorite in her first event, the giant slalom, but the compressed race schedule may take a toll.

We also caught up with Lindsey Jacobellis, the snowboarder whose blunder at the 2006 Olympics cost her a gold medal. She has moved on quite spectacularly, our reporter John Branch writes, and is preparing to try again for that elusive gold.

Sam Manchester, a Times sports editor, is on the ground in South Korea and sending messages to readers about what it’s like. Sign up here. You can find all of our coverage here.

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Credit...Field Museum of Chicago

7. “One of the last great intact forests” in the world may stay that way.

Peru will protect millions of acres of roadless wilderness, creating a new national park. Above, a beaked toad.

Angry about moves at the other end of the environmental spectrum in the U.S., and terrified of climate change, five activists are pushing the boundaries of civil disobedience. Read our story in The Times Magazine.

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Credit...Associated Press

8. The healthy food movement has been absorbed into the mainstream.

But even as capitalism has ingeniously integrated the hippie culinary ideals of the 1960s, the big countercultural idea about food — that our eating has moral, ethical and political implications — remains potent, Michael Pollan writes in his review of “Hippie Food,” a book by Jonathan Kauffman.

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Credit...Netflix

9. Chris Rock’s first new filmed hour in a decade, “Tamborine,” is now streaming on Netflix. Our reviewer calls it “triumphant.”

“He has honed this material, beefing up jokes and cutting out fat,” the review says. “His comedy has become tighter, funnier if also slicker, shifting from a story of a comic struggling with demons to one describing how he once was lost and now he’s found.”

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Credit...George Etheredge for The New York Times

10. We’re popping the question: Just how powerful is love?

Readers across the political spectrum told us how they’ve bridged the ever-widening partisan divide in their romantic lives.

And whatever your relationship status, we invite you to check out our favorite Times coverage of love. The headline says it all: “Roses Are Red. That’s a Cliché. Here Is Your Guide to Valentine’s Day.”

Have a great evening.

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

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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.

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