Super Bowl, Samsung, Maldives: Your Tuesday Briefing
Good morning. Markets are down, but the news isn’t all bad.
Here’s your Tuesday briefing:
• More financial gloomas stocks in the U.S. slipped again.
The U.S. plunge last week set the tone for Monday’s trading in international markets. The Nikkei 225 dropped 2.6 percent, and the Australian stock exchange had its worst day in more than six months.
If the momentary sputter turns into something worse, it could become particularly awkward for President Trump, who has repeatedly claimed credit for a surging economy.
Above, he and Melania Trump leaving the White House Monday — a day dominated by more fighting over classified memos — for a trip to Ohio, where they were to attend separate events.
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• We’re introducing augmented reality to our coverage, just in time for the Winter Olympics. It uses your phone or tablet to create a bridge between the digital and physical.
Try it out: Catch four Olympians mid-action.
A North Korean troupe of 140 musicians, dancers and singers is due to arrive in South Korea today. They will perform near Pyeongchang on Thursday, the eve of the Winter Olympics, and on Sunday in Seoul.
On Thursday, North Korea plans to honor its armed forces, possibly with a military parade, in a bid to upstage the South’s Olympic moment. (Our correspondent recalls the North’s last try, in 1989, as “one of the biggest boondoggles” in its history.)
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• The lie: A Times Documentary profiles a rising white supremacist leader who depicts himself as an American patriot and Iraq war veteran.
Our investigation found that his personal narrative — like much of the messaging that underpins so-called alt-right groups — is built on deception. Here’s how our correspondents uncovered the lie that helped Elliott Klein, who started out as a Twitter troll, carve out a national profile.
(The British provocateur Milo Yiannopolous called his own multicity speaking tour through Australia last year “The Troll Academy.”)
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• #BRINGBACKDUNDEE.
That’s the hashtag that began circulating after Tourism Australia ran a Super Bowl advertisement promoting a fake sequel to “Crocodile Dundee,” the 1986 film about a bushman who shows a New York journalist around the Outback.
The joke trailer features Hugh Jackman, Margot Robbie and other Australian movie stars.
“Stop teasing us and make it happen!” the NT News tabloid in northern Australia said in a #BRINGBACKDUNDEE petition.
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• Firehawks: In Australia’s Northern Territories, rangers who fight fires in the dry season also have to fight flocks of black kites, whistling kites and brown falcons.
A new study demonstrates what locals have long known: that the raptors sometimes pick up burning material to spread a dwindling fire, so they can snap up small animals flushed out by the smoke and sparks.
Business
• Free: Lee Jae-yong, the Samsung heir, left jail after barely a year. One close observer called his successful appeal of a shattering corruption conviction a disappointment for those who hoped the case “would serve to end politics-business collusion.”
• Broadcom raised its takeover bid for rival chip maker Qualcomm to about $121 billion, saying this is its “best and final” offer in would be the biggest-ever takeover in the tech industry.
•The Australian Crime Commission carried out an audacious operation to capture Altaf Khanani, a Pakistani money launderer who ran “the underworld’s equivalent of Goldman Sachs.” A key step: Handing nearly $1 million to a known criminal.
• “Morality is a job for priests,” says a co-founder of Bell Pottinger, the controversial British public relations firm. Our correspondent explains how the company firm slid into oblivion after stoking racial tensions in South Africa.
• Disney reports quarterly earnings today. In December, it reached a deal to buy most of 21st Century Fox, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, in a deal worth more than $52 billion.
•Here’s a snapshot of global markets.
In the News
• A political crisis in the Maldives deepened, as the government declared a state of emergency and sent troops to surround the Supreme Court. [The New York Times]
• Robert Doyle, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, resigned after an investigation into sexual harassment accusations. His lawyer said that Mr. Doyle felt the process “lacked any semblance of natural justice.” [The Age]
• A top American investigator into the illegal ivory and rhino horn trade was found stabbed to death in his home in Nairobi. Esmond Bradley Martin, 75, had conducted undercover investigations of black markets in China, Vietnam and Laos. [BBC]
• The Philadelphia Eagles won their first Super Bowl by beating the New England Patriots. But celebrations in the team’s hometown turned unruly. [The New York Times]
• A machete-wielding man wearing the white robe of a Shiite martyr was shot and wounded as he tried to enter the central offices of the Iranian president. [The New York Times]
• Australia’s defense industry minister warned that the Turnbull government would refer several lawmakers from the opposition Labor Party to the High Court over alleged problems with dual citizenship — unless the party volunteered them. [SBS]
• Harley Windsor, a figure skater from western Sydney, will be the first Indigenous Australian to compete in the Winter Olympics. He said that he and his skating partner hoped for a "top 12 finish.” [ABC]
Smarter Living
Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.
• Celebrate Mardi Gras with these classic recipes, like crawfish étouffée, above.
• This customizablequinoa and white bean soup doesn’t need meat to taste good.
Noteworthy
• Polar bears are fat-burning machines, but global warming forces them to venture farther onto Arctic sea ice to catch seals. Researchers attached video cameras to nine of them, revealing fascinating footage of their increasingly urgent quest for food.
• “Carmen” like you’ve never seen it: The Australian director Barrie Kosky’s production of Bizet’s classic work opens today at the Royal Opera House in London, minus the castanets but with plenty of campy razzle-dazzle.
• And some romance and heartbreak: Our “Modern Love” podcast is 100 episodes old. To mark the occasion, we asked listeners to weigh in.
Back Story
“Oh, what a flight.”
The Times’s headline about the 1988 N.B.A. All-Star festivities said it all. The weekend belonged to Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls, widely considered the greatest basketball player of all time. He cemented his place in slam dunk history 30 years ago today.
In the final round of the slam dunk contest, in which judges award competitors’ creativity, Jordan faced Dominique Wilkins of the Atlanta Hawks.
In one of his final dunks, Jordan dribbled from the far end of the court and leapt from the foul line, 15 feet from the basket. Back arched, legs trailing behind him, Jordan sailed through the air with one hand pushing the ball toward the basket. The judges awarded him a perfect score.
The final score could have easily gone to Wilkins, but Jordan was performing in front of a hometown Chicago crowd, which “surely had some influence on the slam dunk judges, and galvanized his All-Star teammates, to say nothing of their considerable effect on The Flying Machine himself,” The Times reported.
The next day, Jordan would go on to score 40 points in the All-Star Game.
“This was,” Jordan said, “a picture-perfect weekend.”
Remy Tumin contributed reporting.
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Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. Browse past briefings here.
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