Angela Merkel, Donald Trump, Andy Murray: Your Monday Briefing

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/briefing/europe-briefing.html

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Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

• President-elect Donald J. Trump is continuing to build his cabinet. Members of his transition effort’s economic and domestic policy teams are expected to begin meeting with agency officials today.

He has hinted strongly that James N. Mattis, a retired general who helped lead the 2003 invasion of Iraq, will be defense secretary. Here are the latest transition details.

Mr. Trump’s meetings with business leaders since his election, including three Indian real estate executives last week, have raised questions over his conflicts of interests as president.

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• Mr. Trump used Twitter to rail at his satirists and critics in the entertainment industry.

But Vice President-elect Mike Pence said he was not offended when the cast of the Broadway smash “Hamilton” appealed to him from the stage to uphold the rights of a “diverse America.”

Our theater critic argues that airing dissent is part of the purpose of art.

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• Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, widely seen as one of the last pillars of Western liberalism, will run for a fourth term next fall.

Ms. Merkel, 62, faces strong challenges on the right and left, under the stresses of war in Syria, the arrival of large numbers of migrants and the euro crisis.

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• François Fillon took a surprise lead in the first round of voting in the conservative primary for president in France, knocking former President Nicolas Sarkozy out of the race.

Mr. Fillon, a former premier, will face Alain Juppé, who supporters see as a measured answer to the resurgent far right, in a second round next Sunday. The winner is likely to face the far-right populist Marine Le Pen in the presidential election in April.

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• World leaders are discussing trade and the incoming administration of Mr. Trump at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting in Lima, Peru.

The death of the Trans-Pacific Partnership would be a triumph for China, which is embracing the possibility of an Asia-Pacific trade deal with Russia.

On the meeting’s sidelines, President Obama spoke with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, about Syria, where the last few hospitals in the rebel-held area of Aleppo have been forced to stop providing care.

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• Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, speaks to the European Parliament today. Questions about how the Trump presidency will affect the eurozone are expected to dominate.

• Italy’s banks are starving a weak economy of capital, which may keep the rest of Europe from recovering.

• A Chinese company is setting up a rare showdown with the U.S. government over its deal to buy a German semiconductor firm.

• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• Estonia’s president is expected to confirm Juri Ratas, a former mayor of Tallinn, the capital, as the country’s next prime minister. His Center Party had been shut out of power for its links to Russia’s ruling party. [The New York Times]

• Poland’s right-wing populists are celebrating Mr. Trump as a natural ally but are wary of his fondness for Russia. [The New York Times]

• Ukrainian prosecutors said they would question Viktor F. Yanukovych, the exiled former president, in Russia this week over his role in the death of more than 100 protesters during the 2014 revolution that ousted him. [Kyiv Post]

• A British patrol boat fired flares at a Spanish research vessel to expel it from Gibraltar’s territorial waters. [Gibraltar Chronicle]

• An annual conference in Washington gathered many white nationalists of the so-called alt-right movement. They celebrated Mr. Trump’s election with the salute “Heil Victory.” [The New York Times]

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is facing questions over a billion-dollar deal with Germany for the acquisition of three submarines in which his personal lawyer was involved. [The New York Times]

• South Korea’s political crisis escalated after prosecutors named the president a “criminal suspect,” saying she acted as an accomplice to her longtime adviser in extorting tens of millions of dollars. [The New York Times]

• The gangs that make El Salvador the murder capital of the world are not sophisticated global cartels but mafias of the poor. [The New York Times]

• Our Daily 360: Goat yoga is a thing. More than 600 people signed up to a waiting list before the first classes in near Portland, Ore., even started.

• Andy Murray’s first victory at the ATP World Tour Finals ensured that he would end 2016 holding the top tennis ranking for the first time.

• A stunning finish to the Macau Grand Prix: A Belgian driver, Laurens Vanthoor, emerged unscathed from a fiery, soaring wreck to find he had won the race upside down.

• The Times asked 15 American families to show us the Thanksgiving holiday dishes that speak most eloquently about their heritage and traditions. Among them: Filipino bibingka, Dudhi kofta curry and Cantonese turkey.

• And here is a look at how Beyoncé and Rihanna influenced hair styles in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Let’s start the week traveling the world using sports team nicknames as our passport.

The N.F.L.’s Detroit Lions will continue their long tradition of playing on Thanksgiving. Regal cats aren’t native to the Motor City, but the name was meant to inspire the team to be “the monarch of the league.”

Dreams that the Midwest might one day be tropical may have inspired the team’s use of the Honolulu Blue shade for its jerseys.

A more fitting nod to weather can be found at the University of Hawaii, where the teams are sometimes called the Rainbow Warriors. The colorful phenomenon supposedly appeared after a big football victory in 1923.

Battle imagery is also popular, and the names aren’t always menacing. The Nippon-Ham Fighters honor the meatpacking company that owns the Japanese baseball club.

In West Africa, Elephants (Ivory Coast), Sparrowhawks (Togo) and Squirrels (Benin) are some of the animal-theme nicknames that have been used to represent national soccer teams.

Back in Asia, Bhutan’s underdog squad has a fearsome moniker: the Dragon Boys. The mythical beast also appears on the national jersey for Wales.

As for whales, they’re rarely used in sports. But 100 years ago a baseball team called itself the Whales. Their home, like lions in Detroit, was also unlikely: Chicago.

Sean Alfano contributed reporting.

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Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings.

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