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FedEx, Facebook, Iraq: Your Tuesday 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...Eric Gay/Associated Press

1. Investigators are putting thousands of packages under intense scrutiny across Texas and appealing for help from the public after a string of mysterious bombings in the state.

All five were improvised devices hidden in packages. The latest detonated early Tuesday at a FedEx facility near San Antonio, above, leaving an employee with ringing in the ears. The authorities believe the sender shipped a second suspicious package, which was turned over to law enforcement.

Both packages were addressed to Austin, where the previous blasts — two of them lethal — occurred. Here’s a breakdown of each case.

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Credit...Steve Marcus/Reuters

2. As Facebook grapples with outrage over its role in the harvesting of data from 50 million accounts, the company’s chief data security officer is on the way out.

We’re told the executive, Alex Stamos, above, had pushed for more transparency but met resistance from other senior leaders. The F.T.C. is also investigating whether Facebook violated a data privacy agreement.

And Cambridge Analytica, the data firm involved, has suspended its C.E.O. It worked for both the Trump and Brexit campaigns.

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Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

3. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, began a two-week visit to the U.S., seeking some $35 billion in investment. Arms sales are also on his agenda.

He met with President Trump at the White House, above, and plans to travel to New York, Boston, Silicon Valley, Houston and Los Angeles.

Mr. Trump also phoned his congratulations to President Vladimir Putin of Russia on his re-election and said the two would meet soon. On “The Daily,” our former Moscow correspondent describes the trajectory of Mr. Putin’s life and rise to power.

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Credit...Bennett Raglin/Getty Images

4. Another woman who claims she had an affair with President Trump has sued to be released from a nondisclosure agreement.

Karen McDougal, above, is a former Playboy model and a fitness specialist. She’s suing the company that owns The National Enquirer, which paid her $150,000 in what may have been an effort to “catch and kill” her story.

She says she was misled by her own lawyer and tricked into signing the agreement.

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Credit...Andrew Chung/Reuters

5. The Supreme Court heard arguments in a case about a California law that requires “crisis pregnancy centers” to provide information on abortion.

The centers, which are often affiliated with religious groups, seek to persuade women to choose parenting or put their child up for adoption.

They say a law requiring them to post notices about the option to abort violates their own right to free speech. Above, opponents of the law demonstrated outside the court.

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Credit...Win McNamee/Getty Images

6. Another school shooting, this time in southern Maryland.

A 17-year-old male student appeared in a hallway at a high school in Great Mills, pulled out a handgun and opened fire on a girl he knew, spurring a deputy stationed there to confront him.

The gunman wounded another student and was shot dead after exchanging gunfire with the security officer. Above, parents and guardians escorted children home after the episode.

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Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

7. If the Trump administration gets its way, a new Nafta would include provisions that block the governments of the U.S., Canada and Mexico from requiring warning labels on junk food.

Our reporters saw confidential documents outlining the American position.

Soda and fast food companies are pushing hard for such a measure. Health officials worry that it would impede international efforts to contain a growing obesity crisis. Above, the soda aisle in a supermarket in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico.

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Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

8. On the 15th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq, we are relaunching At War, which began as a blog for our journalists and contributors in Baghdad years ago. You can read more about that here.

One contributor, Matt Ufford, writes about rolling into Iraq on a tank, as a Marine. Above, U.S. troops keeping watch as the Iraqi Ministry of Transportation burned in April 2003.

In our Op-Ed section, the Iraqi-born novelist Sinan Antoon writes about how he opposed the invasion, and he mourns what has happened since.

“The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in the United States as a ‘blunder,’ or even a colossal mistake,’” he writes. “It was a crime.”

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Credit...Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times

9. It’s been six months since Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated much of the Caribbean. Our Travel section checked in on several islands to see how the recovery is going.

On the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico, above, some visitors have returned, but power is spotty and comes mostly from generators. Roads are cleared, but hotels are still closed. Residents share notes about insurance claims, and cautious hope that the tourist industry will rebound.

And here are our dispatches from St. Martin, St. John, Dominica and San Juan, P.R.

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Credit...Caroline Tompkins for The New York Times

10. Finally, a new Netflix biopic tells the story of Roxanne Shante, above, called the first female solo rapper. In the early ’80s in New York City, she struggled in an abusive relationship and was mistreated by men in the music industry, but now she’s getting her due as a little-known pioneer.

On the late-night shows, Stephen Colbert questioned the lack of notification that Cambridge Analytica, the data-analysis firm linked to the Trump campaign and Brexit, had collected information from 50 million accounts.

“The one time I actually would have wanted a Facebook alert,” he joked.

Have a great night.

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

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