Syria, Poland, Winter Olympics: Your Wednesday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/briefing/syria-poland-winter-olympics.html

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Good morning.

Syria’s ever-more-brutal war, Poland’s fight over the future of Europe and the latest from the Olympics. Here’s the news:

• The Syrian government, with its Russian and Iranian allies, is fighting to regain control of western Syria, whatever the cost.

Violence that has been escalating over weeks hit a sudden peak. Syrian and Russian planes struck eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held enclave near Damascus, in one of the worst bombardments in years. At least 200 people, many of them children, were reported killed.

And Turkish jets and artillery attacked pro-government militias for a second day to keep them from reaching the northwestern city of Afrin to reinforce Kurdish militias.

The Syrian government’s support for the Kurds threatens to unravel months of diplomatic maneuvering by Russia and Iran.

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• Poland broke international law by drastically increasing logging in the Bialowieza Forest, one of Europe’s last primeval woodlands, an advocate general of the European Court of Justice said. The court usually follows such conclusions in its rulings.

The fight over the forest, a new law about the Holocaust and changes to the judiciary are some examples of how the Polish government has defied Brussels, portraying itself to voters as a defender of national interests.

For the European Union, the stakes of this clash are higher than Brexit, our correspondents write. “The bloc faces a painful reckoning over whether, despite its efforts at discipline, it has enabled the antidemocratic drift, and what to do about it.”

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• In Washington, President Trump ordered the Justice Department to propose regulations to ban so-called bump stocks, which can convert a semiautomatic gun into an automatic weapon.

There was another, smaller-scale indictment in the inquiry on Russian election interference: A Dutch lawyer who had worked with a former Trump campaign aide in Ukraine pleaded guilty to lying to investigators.

Nearly a dozen special elections are being held around the U.S. this year to fill seats suddenly left open by the #MeToo reckoning.

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• In Israel, the mushrooming corruption scandal plaguing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took a new turn.

One of his closest advisers was accused of trying to bribe a judge to drop a criminal investigation involving Mr. Netanyahu’s wife. The police arrested several of Mr. Netanyahu’s friends and confidants. Mr. Netanyahu could face charges of obstructing justice. (Here’s a more detailed rundown.)

Mr. Netanyahu called the accusations “hallucinatory” and “baseless.”

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• At the Winter Olympics, Sofia Goggia is the first Italian to win gold in women’s downhill, followed by Ragnhild Mowinckel of Norway and Lindsey Vonn, the American skiing superstar.

Many snowboarders listen to music to boost their mood during competition. We asked some top athletes for their favorite tracks.

The unified Korean women’s hockey team closed out its Olympic run without a single win. For many, including our photographer Chang Lee, whose own life has been shaped by the division in Korea, that wasn’t the point. Check out his images of the Games.)

Here’s our full coverage, plus the medals table, results and schedule.

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• In Italy, the electoral campaign slogans that warn against an “invasion” of migrants ignore the fact that the country’s social fabric has long been changing.

Our reporter returned to the Tuscan town where she grew up to see these changes in a place she knows all too well. In search of better lives, her classmates have moved away, and migrants have moved in.

(Meanwhile in France, the government is set to propose tougher immigration and asylum laws today.)

• Critics say Google is squelching competition before it begins. We examined the arguments about whether governments should intervene.

• The building blocks of artificial intelligence are becoming more affordable and easier to work with. A new report explains why that opens the door to additional risks.

• Venezuela launched its own virtual currency backed by its petroleum reserves. It hopes to spur food and medicine imports and, perhaps, give investors a way of skirting U.S. sanctions.

• “Equilibrium will soon be restored.” That was KFC, the fast-food chain, in Britain pledging to remedy shortages of chicken in its supply chain that disrupted one of its biggest markets.

• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, addressed the U.N. Security Council in a heated session that appeared to do little but reinforce the intractable divisions between Israelis and Palestinians. [The New York Times]

• In Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents using night-vision goggles — a technology that once gave the U.S. an edge in the conflict — overran three checkpoints, killing about 20 police officers before melting back into nearby villages. [The New York Times]

• Cape Town’s sharp restrictions on water use have helped push back to July the day when taps may run dry, but the South African city remains in a water crisis. [The New York Times]

• “History is not exactly repeating itself, but it certainly is rhyming.” The struggle between Kenya’s president and the opposition leader is rooted in their fathers’ rivalry. [The New York Times]

• In Spain, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a rapper who argued that freedom of expression allowed for lyrics that praise terrorist groups. [Associated Press]

• An American research project that would have investigated dark energy — the force that’s speeding up the expansion of the universe — has been cut from NASA’s proposed budget. The space agency is shifting its focus to the moon. [The New York Times]

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

• Stylists share some practical tips for salvaging dry winter hair. (Treat it like cashmere.)

• New science shows that counting calories is not the key to weight loss.

• An easy weeknight fish chowder still carries the spirit of the sea.

• Beyond BFF. Many women are coining and co-opting new titles for their closest companions, the author of a new book on friendship writes.

• In America, “these days, identifying as Muslim is more tricky than identifying as queer.” That’s Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, grandson and namesake of the Pakistani statesman, whose art explores his sexuality and religion.

• Scientists are racing to understand why immunotherapy drugs have worked for a few ovarian cancer patients when the medicines should have had no effect.

• An odd little museum exhibition in London traces the curious, double-edged life of scissors.

Gerald Holtom, the Briton who designed the peace symbol, was in “deep despair” when he created it on this day in 1958.

“I drew myself,” wrote Mr. Holtom, a World War II conscientious objector who was alarmed by the nuclear arms race. “The representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outward and downward in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad.”

The symbol also combined the semaphores, or flag-signaling codes, for the letters “N” and “D,” or “Nuclear Disarmament.” The circle around it represented the earth.

Later that spring, the symbol appeared on buttons and signs in an antinuclear march to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, a warhead factory in Aldermaston, England. (The march became an annual event.)

The symbol, which isn’t trademarked, was embraced by the broader antiwar movement and disparaged by critics as anti-Christian.

Mr. Holtom is said to have later expressed a desire that the symbol be inverted so that it resembled hands reaching to the sky. Such a symbol, in addition to being more celebratory of peace, would also evoke the semaphore for the letter “U” — as in “Unilateral Disarmament.”

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which still uses the symbol as its logo, is taking it on an anniversary tour around Britain this year.

Jennifer Jett contributed reporting.

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