Putin, Brexit, Facebook: Your Monday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/briefing/putin-brexit-facebook.html

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Good morning.

Killer clowns, unrepentant extremism in France and a pile of paperwork in Syria. Here’s the news:

• U.N.-backed chemical weapons experts are due to visit Britain today to analyze the nerve agent, Novichok, used in a recent attack on a former Russian double agent and his daughter. Above, police officers at the site.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Britain had evidence that Russia manufactured and stockpiled the compound. (Other notorious assassination tools used by and against spies: spiked toothpaste, ice axes and killer clowns.)

Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain has expelled 23 Russian diplomats, and Russia has retaliated in kind. But, no surprise, Vladimir Putin won a fourth term as president. Below, he addressed a rally celebrating his annexation of Crimea.

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• Brexit woes.

An influential committee of British lawmakers says the country should seek to postpone its exit from the European Union if talks drag on during the next few months.

Meanwhile, Britain’s strained National Health Service is paying French doctors to perform some operations on its behalf. The irony is painfully obvious to those who remember how the Brexit vote was won partly on a misleading promise by politicians that leaving the bloc would free up 350 million pounds (about $490 million) each week to fund the N.H.S.

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• In a Twitter storm, President Trump accused Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, of filling his team with partisans, after Mr. Mueller sought documents related to the Trump Organization’s Russian connections.

It’s another sign that the president may try to fire Mr. Mueller — and that he’s beginning to dismiss his advisers’ guidance in favor of his own instincts.

More evidence: Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer called on the Justice Department to end the investigation, and the president had Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director, fired. (Our reporter was told that Mr. McCabe kept memos about his interactions with Mr. Trump.)

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• Facebook is under fire in Britain and the U.S.

A collaboration between our reporters and The Observer of London showed that a firm specializing in the new field of psychological voter-profiling used private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users, taken without their permission.

The firm and its American arm were players in the campaigns for both Brexit and the presidency of Donald Trump. Above, one of our sources.

Facebook banned the American arm — Cambridge Analytica, financed by the hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer and championed by the now-exiled Trump adviser Stephen Bannon — after we began asking questions.

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• Democracy rising.

Voters across Europe are gravitating toward illiberal populists. But Slovakia appears to be bucking the trend, our correspondent writes.

Protests recently forced the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico, and they have shown little sign of abating as young demonstrators — whose parents lived under Communism — appear determined to safeguard hard-won freedoms.

Watch our video on the public outcry.

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• “The Devil of the Republic.”

That’s the nickname for Jean-Marie Le Pen, above, the patriarch of France’s far right. His unrepentant extremism led his own daughter, Marine, to kick him out of the country’s far-right National Front party.

But his memoir, “Son of the Nation,” is now a best seller.

Our correspondent spent time with Mr. Le Pen, who is nearly 90, at a gloomy old mansion in the Paris suburbs he inherited from a backer.

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• China named Yi Gang, above, an American-educated economist, as its new central bank chief. The move came two days after Xi Jinping began a new term as president.

• Russian money has deep roots in British life, including in the Premier League, one of Britain’s key cultural exports. That could complicate any efforts by the British government to target the London assets of Russian oligarchs.

• The smuggling of U.S. technological secrets is outpacing Cold War levels, American experts and officials say — and China, Iran, North Korea and Russia are behind it.

• Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the heir to Saudi Arabia’s throne, begins a visit to Washington today. He may show off a recent campaign to create (virtually from scratch) a domestic entertainment industry.

• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• In Syria, Turkish-backed rebels seized the mainly Kurdish city of Afrin, dealing a blow to Kurdish aspirations for self-administration there. [The New York Times]

• A North Korean diplomat was heading to Finland for talks with U.S. and South Korean officials, a day after the North Korean and Swedish foreign ministers ended three days of talks in Stockholm. [Reuters]

• At least 16 migrants, including at least five children, drowned after a smuggling boat sank in the Aegean Sea. [The New York Times]

• In South Africa, prosecutors said they would reinstate corruption charges against former President Jacob Zuma, in a case related to a multibillion-dollar arms deal. [The New York Times]

• Terry Gilliam, a former “Monty Python” star, is facing widespread criticism after he compared the #MeToo movement to “mob rule.” [The Guardian]

• A court in Romania rejected a man’s claim that he is alive. His wife had registered him as dead. [Associated Press]

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

• How to stop eating sugar (without sacrificing too much pleasure).

• Being a sober parent doesn’t have to be taboo.

• Recipe of the day: Start your week with this bright, flavorful corn salad with mint and feta.

• Wrestling has long been popular among men in Dagestan, a mostly Muslim region of southern Russia. Now it’s also an alternative to Islamist terrorism.

• Kurdish militias in northern Syria don’t have a functioning state. But, as our correspondent discovered, they already have plenty of bureaucracy.

• That story of the Irish slaves who built America? Historians say it isn’t true.

• Meet Kim Petras, a U.S.-based pop singer who is transgender and grew up in Germany. Her music has more than 16 million streams on Spotify.

• Naomi Osaka won the BNP Paribas Open after defeating Simona Halep and other stars en route to the final.

• In memoriam: Anthony Acevedo, a World War II prisoner whose diary documented Nazi atrocities, died at 93.

In March 1957, when Elvis Presley was 22, he purchased an opulent mansion in Memphis, called Graceland, for just over $100,000.

He was already a star, and at work on his second movie, “Loving You.”

The land had been owned by the S. E. Toof family for generations, and it was named for one of the female relatives, Grace. Grace’s niece and her husband built the mansion in 1939. Above, Mr. Presley with Yvonne Lime at Graceland around 1957.

Mr. Presley installed a pool with a jukebox nearby, hosted friends and relatives and created a “Jungle Room” with green shag carpets and a Polynesian theme.

After struggling with ill health and prescription drug abuse, he died of a heart attack at Graceland on Aug. 16, 1977, and is buried there. He was 42. Read his Times obituary here.

Five years later, Graceland opened to the public and became one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations, drawing visitors from around the globe. Many visit yearly (the address is 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard) to mark the anniversary of his death.

Last year, just before the 40th anniversary, Graceland underwent a $140 million expansion, including a large hotel and entertainment complex. You can take a virtual tour here.

Karen Zraick contributed reporting.

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