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Haiti, Charlie Rose, Net Neutrality: Your Tuesday Briefing

Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Monday. The German leader said she remained hopeful about forming a majority coalition but would prefer to go through new elections rather than try to lead a minority government.Credit...Christian Bruna/European Pressphoto Agency

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Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

• That’s the top antitrust regulator at the Justice Department, which sued on Monday to block AT&T’s $85.4 billion bid for Time Warner.

AT&T, which has a long history of run-ins with the government, defended the deal, arguing that the companies aren’t direct competitors and that the government hasn’t challenged a similar kind of merger in decades.

If allowed, the deal would create a media and telecommunications behemoth. AT&T is one of the largest internet and telephone providers in the U.S., and Time Warner’s properties include HBO, Warner Bros. and Turner Broadcasting, which includes CNN.

• About 59,000 people who arrived in the U.S. after an earthquake in Haiti in 2010 will be expected to leave by July 2019 or face deportation, Homeland Security officials said on Monday.

Separately, President Trump announced that the U.S. would impose the “highest level of sanctions” against North Korea beginning today. He returned the country to a list of state sponsors of terrorism to try to pressure Pyongyang to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

And the Republican effort to overhaul the tax code now rests in the hands of a few fence-sitting senators with disparate concerns. We introduce them.

• Charlie Rose was suspended by CBS, and PBS announced that it would no longer distribute his nightly interview show, after the longtime TV host was accused of making crude sexual advances toward multiple women.

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Charlie Rose in New York in 2014. In a statement on Monday, he apologized for his actions but said he did not believe all the allegations against him were accurate.Credit...Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Also on Monday, a second woman accused Senator Al Franken of groping her in 2010. Mr. Franken said that he did not remember the episode.

And The Times suspended one of its White House reporters, Glenn Thrush, while it investigates allegations from four female journalists that he acted inappropriately.

We have a running list of prominent men who have recently been accused of sexual misconduct.

• The German chancellor is facing the biggest crisis of her career after talks to form a new government collapsed, raising the prospect of fresh elections less than two months after the last vote.

Ms. Merkel has been Europe’s dominant political figure for the past decade.

Our correspondents in Berlin report: “At a time when the European Union is facing a host of pressing problems, from Brexit negotiations with Britain, to the rise of right-wing populism, to separatism in Spain’s Catalonia region, the possibility of political instability in a normally reliable Germany sent tremors through the Continent.”

• After President Trump put a sudden halt to a government ruling that would have allowed hunters to bring “trophy” elephants into the U.S., the question has been why.

White House aides said the reason for the president’s surprise intervention isn’t complicated: He simply likes elephants.

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A presidential decision that fans of elephants will never forget.Credit...Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters

Listen on a computer, an iOS device or an Android device.

The F.C.C. is set to propose a full repeal of net neutrality rules today. The regulations, created during the Obama administration, require internet service providers to give consumers equal access to all online content.

Regulators in Nebraska approved construction of the Keystone XL pipeline but rejected the builder’s preferred route.

Starbucks is being criticized for its holiday cups. Again.

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The interlinked hands on the 2017 Starbucks holiday cups have some suggesting a “gay agenda.”
Credit...Joshua Trujillo/Starbucks, via Associated Press

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

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

How to rent a car abroad.

If you’re sick, you should stay home. If you can’t, here’s what doctors advise.

Recipe of the day: Salmon roasted in butter is astonishingly easy.

A treehouse protest.

In today’s 360 video, visit activists in Germany who have been protesting the expansion of coal mining by living in treehouses. A court ruling may soon change that.

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For years, activists have been protesting the expansion of coal mining in the Hambach Forest in Germany by living in treehouses. A court ruling may soon change that.CreditCredit...Sam Wolson for The New York Times. Technology by Samsung.

Partisan writing you shouldn’t miss.

Writers from across the political spectrum discuss the Republican tax plans.

23 years for a murder he didn’t commit.

Two men were shot dead in broad daylight in Kansas City, Kan., on April 15, 1994.

Here’s how an innocent 17-year-old was convicted and sentenced to life.

In memoriam.

Della Reese segued from a successful recording career to a longtime role on the prime-time CBS show “Touched by an Angel.” She was 86.

Earle Hyman broke racial stereotypes on Broadway and in Scandinavia performing in works by Shakespeare and Ibsen. He was better known to millions of Americans as Bill Cosby’s father on “The Cosby Show.” He was 91.

The science of Thanksgiving.

Biology. Chemistry. Physics. It’s all there on your plate. Take a moment to appreciate it before you dig in.

Prefer myths? Most everything you learned about Thursday’s holiday is wrong.

Best of late-night TV.

Jimmy Fallon on Monday: “Tomorrow, President Trump will pardon a turkey at the White House. Then he’ll spend the next week criticizing it for not thanking him enough.”

Quotation of the day.

“I see the value, especially in an atypical market like New York. But I think we make our best decisions when it’s not nationally known what we’re trying to do.”

Mike Rizzo, general manager of the Washington Nationals, on the New York Yankees’ practice of publicizing their managerial candidates and placing each one on a conference call with reporters.

Our recent story about a reunion between Vietnamese refugees and their rescuers at sea prompted an Australian reader to point us to another rescue — one that bears on our coverage of Australia’s offshore detention facilities.

On Aug. 26, 2001, a Norwegian cargo ship received a distress call in the Indian Ocean. The engine of an Indonesian fishing boat packed with asylum seekers had failed en route to Christmas Island. Capt. Arne Rinnan diverted course to save the 438 people aboard.

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A reunion in New Zealand in 2006 between Capt. Arne Rinnan of Norway, left, and some of the Indonesian sailors he rescued after their fishing boat failed in the Indian Ocean in 2001.Credit...Ross Land/Getty Images

The Australian authorities, trying to deter human traffickers, directed him to an Indonesian port 12 hours away.

Instead, the captain plunged ahead. So a navy ship intercepted him and transferred the refugees to the island nation of Nauru — creating Australia’s first offshore processing center.

A year later, about half had been resettled in New Zealand. They welcomed Captain Rinnan on a visit to Auckland with flowers and letters.

But other refugees were stuck on Nauru for years. Interviewed a decade later, the captain told of receiving a haunting letter detailing conditions so bad that the writer wished he had died.

“And that is a terrible thing to tell people, that you should have just let them drown,” Captain Rinnan said.

Isabella Kwai contributed reporting.

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Follow Chris Stanford on Twitter: @stanfordc.

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