Friday Briefing: A Make-or-Break Moment for President Biden

Biden faces a key test in his campaign

President Biden is ending the three-day NATO summit with a high-stakes news conference that could help rejuvenate his presidential campaign or provide more proof for those calling for him to step aside.

Biden’s allies, doubters and enemies will watch for any verbal stumbles, lost trains of thought or blank stares like the ones that millions of people saw during his debate performance. The news conference is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. Eastern. Here’s how to watch it, and you can follow our live coverage here.

Biden has defied growing calls to end his race, even as polls show him falling further behind Donald Trump. Some of his longtime advisers are working on ways to get him to drop out — including by trying to convince him that he can’t beat Trump and that another candidate would have a better chance, those familiar with the plans said. The White House and Biden’s campaign both denied any such internal division.

The Biden campaign is also quietly testing Vice President Kamala Harris’s strength against Trump, in a survey believed to be the first since the debate to measure her viability as a presidential candidate.

A U.S. plan to send missiles to Germany angered Russia

Russia is preparing military countermeasures to a planned American deployment of longer-range missiles in Germany, the Russian deputy foreign minister said yesterday.

The U.S. and Germany announced Wednesday that Washington would begin “episodic deployments” of the missiles in 2026, in preparation for installing the weapons more permanently.

The Russian deputy minister told a state news agency: “Without nerves, without emotions, we will develop a military response, first of all, to this new game.”

Background: The missile deployment has echoes of the Cold War, when Moscow and Washington competed to position missiles in Europe. A 1987 arms treaty put an end to the buildup, but the Trump administration pulled out of the treaty in 2019, citing violations by Russia.

Off the battlefield: 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.

China: NATO accused China of propping up Russia’s war in Ukraine by sending Moscow technology to replenish its military.

Israel cleared a general who oversaw fighting on Oct. 7

An Israeli general was cleared of wrongdoing for authorizing a tank to fire at a house in the Israeli village of Be’eri, 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.

The decision is the beginning of a national reckoning for Israel. This was the first of dozens of investigations into Israel’s errors during Hamas’s devastating assault. In a statement, Israel’s military said it had “failed in its mission” to protect Be’eri, but it praised the general’s actions as “professional and responsible” given the chaotic and challenging battle.

Gaza: Many residents of Gaza City are ignoring an Israeli warning to flee south. “People are being killed wherever we are,” one of them said.

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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 absurd — plans.

Lives lived: Shelley Duvall, the 1970s film star known for starring opposite Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” died at 75.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

ARTS AND IDEAS

25 years of memorable literary moments

The New York Times Book Review looked back on moments that made news in the book world this century. Here’s a selection.

2007: Amazon released its first Kindle. It cost $399 and sold out in five and a half hours.

2013: E L James’s “Fifty Shades of Grey” series, which brought erotica into the mainstream, reached more than 100 million copies sold.

2022: More than 30 years after Iran’s ayatollah called for Salman Rushdie’s death over the novel “The Satanic Verses,” a knife-wielding man stabbed Rushdie at a literary event.

2024: Before he died in 2014, Gabriel García Márquez asked that his final novel, “Until August,” be destroyed. His family decided to publish it anyway.

(Read the full list, and catch up with our ranking of the best books.)

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