First Run News

Politics plays the leading role in this week’s list of recommendations, starting with Joe Biden’s memoir about his son Beau’s death from brain cancer in 2015 — a revealing look at fulfilling the duties of the vice presidency while caring for, and then mourning, a child. Two new biographies re-evaluate major political figures: “Lioness” examines the life of Golda Meir and her role in Zionism and Israel; and “President McKinley” brings an often overlooked president out of the shadows.

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.) Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, above, President Trump’s former national security adviser, are said to have terminated an information-sharing agreement with the president’s legal team. Mr. Flynn’s lawyers had been sharing information with Mr.

Standing in line is a pain. At the post office. At the box office. At a restaurant. But on Black Friday, it’s an experience. The first spot outside some Best Buy stores is usually claimed weeks in advance, often by a person in a tent. Shoppers at Walmart will print out maps of the store, with circles around their primary targets.

Long before your Thanksgiving dinner has settled, retailers start to lure you in on Black Friday and Cyber Monday with doorbuster sales and in-store discounts. Online stores have already begun “leaking” their big — and now weeklong — Cyber Monday sales. Whether you plan to get in line or shop from home, here are some ways to beat the marketing madness and be a smart shopper. It’s hard not to get caught up in the retail frenzy, even if you don’t want to.

As the holiday shopping seasons begins in earnest over the Thanksgiving weekend, we’re spread out over the United States, capturing what the deal-seeking rush looks like this year. • If you’re suiting up to hit the stores, your best bet for a bargain might be a TV. Our tech columnist Brian Chen tells you what to look for. • A humming economy does not necessarily mean consumers are planning to open their wallets any wider than they did last year. • But that might be the best argument for bargain hunting. When will your favorite stores be open? There’s a list below you can check.

As is the modern way, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was buttressed by blockades of sand-filled sanitation trucks, patrolled by sniffer dogs and guarded by police. The security was “stronger than ever,” said James P. O’Neill, the police commissioner. But as it has been for 90 prior parades, it was also thronged by children, packed with marching bands and dotted overhead with leviathan balloons yawing in blue-sky breeze.

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Robert Mugabe, the longtime leader of Zimbabwe who was ousted in a military intervention last week, will continue to live in the country with his wife, Grace, after a new president takes over, his spokesman said on Thursday. Mr. Mugabe, 93, who has not spoken or appeared in public since resigning as president on Tuesday, does not wish to live anywhere else, his spokesman, George Charamba, said an interview. “He’s Zimbabwean,” Mr. Charamba said. “Where else would he live?” Mr.

BEIJING — The money came from all over China — its wealthy southern and eastern coasts as well as the arid northwest — as thousands of people scrambled to circumvent the country’s strict controls on wealth. In the end, more than 10,000 people had used an underground bank to effectively funnel $3 billion out of the country before the authorities put a stop to it, Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, reported on Thursday. The discovery of the underground bank in Shaoguan, in the southern province of Guangdong, demonstrates the furtive lengths that Chinese citizens go to in order to skirt gover