Thanksgiving, Iraq, Adam Sandler
Your Wednesday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here’s the latest. |
 | | Joshua Lott for The New York Times |
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1. Severe weather is disrupting one of the busiest travel days of the year. |
Two separate storm systems — one in the Northwest and another moving over the Great Lakes — have choked transportation across the center of the nation, bringing 30 inches of snow in some areas and 106 m.p.h winds in others. Many interstates have closed and hundreds of flights are canceled. Above, O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. |
The National Weather Service expects the storms to weaken Thursday but continue into the weekend. Here’s the latest. |
 | | Florion Goga/Reuters |
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2. Rudy Giuliani was privately pursuing lucrative contracts with Ukrainian officials even as he was urging the Kyiv government to investigate President Trump’s rivals, according to documents reviewed by The Times. |
Mr. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, has repeatedly said he had no business in Ukraine, and none of the deals were finalized. But records portray an evolving effort over the course of several months to sign up officials or their agencies as clients. |
Separately, a review of the Russia investigation will undercut Mr. Trump’s claims that the F.B.I. spied on his campaign, people familiar with it said. |
 | | Haidar Hamdani/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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It was unclear if anyone was in the consulate at the time of the new attack. |
This was the second attempt in a month by protesters to burn the consulate. The demonstrations began as a demand for jobs and better government services but have broadened into a call for a change in government, which the demonstrators see as corrupt and beholden to Iran. |
 | | Christopher Gregory for The New York Times |
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4. Two years after Hurricanes Maria and Irma slammed into Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, records show FEMA’s work on long-term recovery has slowed to a crawl. |
The slowdown has left the islands’ critical infrastructure in squalor — and in limbo. FEMA officials say 190 long-term recovery projects have been funded in Puerto Rico, and about 218 projects in the Virgin Islands. In contrast, about 7,400 projects have been funded in areas in Texas and Florida that are recovering from disasters in the past two years. |
“We are in the same situation as we were in the days after the hurricane,” the mayor of Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, said of his municipality, pictured above. |
 | | Minh Uong/The New York Times |
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5. Real talk: Random gift cards and phone chargers make terrible holiday gifts. |
Our Tech Fix columnist worked with Wirecutter, a Times company that tests products, to round up the worst of the worst and recommend superior alternatives, many of which go on sale on Black Friday. |
 | | Darren Abate/Associated Press |
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6. Tim Duncan is back — this time as a member of Gregg Popovich’s coaching staff in San Antonio. |
Marc Stein, our basketball reporter and a self-described hopeless hoops romantic, hoped Duncan’s return would prompt the spotlight-shy star to open up a bit. No such luck. Duncan’s biggest responsibility as a coaching rookie, he writes, is in the behind-the-scenes support he lends to Popovich. |
And on the Thanksgiving Day football field: The Bears play the Lions (12:30 p.m.), the Bills visit the Cowboys (4:30 p.m.) and the Saints take on the Falcons (8:20 p.m.). Here’s a look at the matchups. |
 | | Emon Hassan for The New York Times |
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7. “I’m here to make sure that these kids are O.K.” |
That’s Toni Veal, the coach of the Jazzy Jumpers, a double Dutch team from Brownsville, Brooklyn. They have competed around the world, but at its core, the team — most of whom are women and girls between the ages of 5 and 24 — provides a safe haven in the neighborhood. |
It’s the latest story from our Neediest Cases Fund, which gives direct assistance to people who need help by supporting seven nonprofit agencies. The Jazzy Jumpers practice in a public housing complex where Brooklyn Community Services, one of The Fund’s beneficiaries, runs a recreation program. |
 | | Photo Illustration by Zachary Scott for The New York Times |
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8. Adam Sandler became America’s most reliable comic star without ever leaving his comfort zone, largely made up of lowbrow comedies. So what’s he doing in this year’s most anxiety-inducing film? |
“It is — and I mean this as the highest compliment — the kind of performance that makes you want to pick your skin,” Jamie Lauren Keiles writes in The Times Magazine about “Uncut Gems,” an indie thriller in which Sandler plays a jeweler to the stars. (This is a rare get: Sandler last sat for a magazine profile in 1996.) |
 | | Richard Drew/Associated Press |
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9. “At every phase in your life, look at your options. Please, do not select boring ones.” |
Barbara Hillary, who shared that bit of advice for New School graduates in 2007, selected anything but boring options. As the first black woman to reach both the North and South poles, Ms. Hillary accomplished both feats in her 70s after deciding as a retired nurse that she wanted a little adventure in her life. She died on Saturday at the age of 88. |
In other notable deaths, Clive James, a fixture in Britain as a literary critic and comic of unusually wide range, has died at 80. “If you don’t know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do,” Mr. James once said. |
 | | Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times |
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10. And finally, turducken, above, is essentially performative cooking. |
We’re off for the holiday weekend. Have a festive end to your week. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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