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Gun Control, Billy Graham, Netanyahu: Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

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

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

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Credit...Tom Brenner/The New York Times

1. A dramatic moment at the White House: A father who lost his daughter in the Parkland, Fla., massacre made an impassioned plea to President Trump to ensure school safety.

“How many schools, how many children have to get shot?” asked Andrew Pollack, above.

The president is facing mounting pressure to take action against gun violence. Mr. Trump said his administration would be “very strong on background checks” of those wishing to purchase guns, and put “a very strong emphasis on the mental health of somebody.”

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Credit...Mark Wallheiser/Associated Press

2. There were also tense moments at the Statehouse in Tallahassee, Fla., where students from Parkland demanded a ban on military-style firearms, like the one used to kill 17 people at their school.

Our political correspondent writes that Florida Republicans are facing unprecedented pressure to pass legislation addressing gun violence. But they appear set on a narrow resolution that stops well short of the clampdown the students are demanding.

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Credit...Billy Graham Center

3. The Rev. Billy Graham died at 99. He was a farmer’s son who became a pastor to presidents and America’s best-known Christian evangelist.

He spread his influence across the U.S. and around the world through a combination of religious conviction, commanding stage presence and shrewd use of radio, television and advanced communication technologies. You can hear his fiery preaching in this video.

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Credit...Raquel Quezada, via Associated Press

4. Border Patrol agents are searching people and property near the border — especially on Greyhound buses and Amtrak trains — more frequently.

They’re using a little-known federal law more widely as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Officers are working without permission on private property and setting up checkpoints up to 100 miles away from the border.

The practice has prompted anger — and legal challenges.

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Credit...Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times

5. Italians are preparing for national elections on March 4, the first in five years. The biggest issues are immigration and the weak economy.

Our reporter went to Castellina in Chianti, the village in Tuscany where she grew up, to see how these forces are playing out. Young Italians like her have moved away in search of work. And families from Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Morocco, Pakistan and Tunisia have moved in.

“Take what has happened in Castellina and multiply it by thousands to understand how Italian towns and villages are changing,” she writes.

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Credit...Amir Cohen/Reuters

6. One of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest and longest-serving aides appears ready to incriminate him.

The aide’s agreement to become a government witness was the latest twist in a spiraling graft scandal dimming Mr. Netanyahu’s legal and political chances of survival, despite his insistence that he has done nothing wrong.

The police are investigating whether Mr. Netanyahu — who is already battling separate bribery allegations — provided official favors to Israel’s largest telecommunications company in exchange for positive coverage in online news.

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Credit...Illustration by Franziska Barczyk

7. As stories of sexual misconduct continue to dominate the news, a debate has erupted over encounters that may not be viewed as sexual assault, but constitute something murkier than a bad date.

We’d like to hear from college students worldwide about the experiences you go back to, and how you handle consent — and apprehension — in intimacy.

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Credit...James Hill for The New York Times

8. The State Department revealed how close Vice President Mike Pence came to sitting down with the high-level delegation of North Koreans at the Winter Olympics.

The North Koreans canceled at the last minute. Ivanka Trump will be at the closing ceremony this weekend. Here’s our full coverage of the Games. Above, Dutch men’s team pursuit skaters.

And we went back to the 1930s for this: Maribel Vinson was The Times’s first female sportswriter and an Olympic figure skater — at the same time.

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Credit...Andrew White for The New York Times

9. “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the eighth — and the only theatrical — installment in the celebrated wizarding saga, begins previews on Broadway next month. It’s been wildly successful in London, with Jamie Parker, above, as Harry.

Still, J.K. Rowling, is pretty nervous about it. “Broadway is a scary place,” the Harry Potter author told us.

Unlike most family-oriented Broadway offerings, “Cursed Child” is a play, not a musical, and it will be competing with Disney’s “Frozen.”

Oh, and it’s on the long side: 5 hours and 15 minutes, to be exact. (It’s staged in two parts, either seen on one day or on different nights.)

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Credit...CBS

10. Finally, Stephen Colbert cheered on the students protesting for gun control in Florida on “The Late Show.”

“The adults aren’t cutting it anymore,” he declared. “I think we need to change the voting age. Until we do something about guns, you can’t vote if you’re over 18.”

Have a great night.

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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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