Your Monday News Briefing: Kavanaugh, Brexit, Sky

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/briefing/europe-monday-news-briefing.html

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Good morning. Kavanaugh’s accuser agrees to testify, pressure mounts for a second Brexit referendum and Comcast outbids Disney for Sky.

Here’s the latest:

• Christine Blasey Ford agrees to testify.

Dr. Blasey, who accused the Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, above, of sexual assault, reached a final agreement over the weekend to testify before a Senate committee on Thursday, although some details need to be finalized.

It is likely to be an explosive episode that could complicate Mr. Kavanaugh’s confirmation as well as midterm elections by potentially rousing female voters and independents who otherwise might have cared little about the confirmation fight. The judge’s prospects were further clouded on Sunday when The New Yorker reported on a new allegation of sexual impropriety.

Separately, the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, suggested secretly recording President Trump last year to expose the chaos inside the White House and even discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.

P.S.: The 25th Amendment was added to the Constitution after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, outlining what to do if the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

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• Britain’s opposition Labour Party began its annual weeklong meeting on Sunday, and this year, the big question is whether Britons should vote again on Brexit.

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has shown reluctance to call a second referendum. But with trade union leaders and party representatives warming up to the idea and negotiations with the E.U. at an “impasse,” Mr. Corbyn is facing increasing pressure on the issue. Above, demonstrators call for a “people’s vote” on the final outcome of the government’s Brexit negotiations.

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• At the U.N. General Assembly this week, President Trump’s advisers worry he will be overly enthusiastic about engaging with adversaries like Iran and North Korea, given his conviction that he can outmaneuver any leader or strike any deal.

They are quietly working to keep Mr. Trump from having a direct encounter with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran or making concessions in a meeting with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea that they fear could undermine efforts to denuclearize North Korea.

Meanwhile, with Mr. Trump upending seven decades of U.S. foreign policy, especially toward Europe, thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic are grappling with questions about America’s role in the world, and what a frazzled Europe can and should do for itself.

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• President Emmanuel Macron of France, above, commands respect on the world stage, but at home he has fallen very far, very fast, with an approval rating of only 19 percent.

Our reporter visited a rural area of central France that took a chance on Mr. Macron when he ran for president last year. Now, the overwhelming feeling is that Mr. Macron’s pro-market reforms have so far not improved the lives of ordinary French people.

“In the beginning I thought, ‘Yes, he’s young, he’s dynamic,’” a waitress in Montmorillon said. “But really, now, I see he’s just doing it his way, without even asking us.”

Mr. Macron’s sputtering descent may hold broader dangers for liberal democracy in Europe.

• Comcast and its chief executive, Brian Roberts, above, have wrested control of Sky, one of Europe’s top television companies, from Rupert Murdoch and the Walt Disney Company, which is buying most of Mr. Murdoch’s company, 21st Century Fox. But the acquisition came at a steep price.

• Banks without physical branches in Europe are luring young people with slick apps and low fees.

• Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, denied that the company manipulates search results for political purposes, responding to a report that employees discussed including pro-immigration content in search results after President Trump enacted a travel ban last year.

• Coming this week: The U.S. will resume trade talks with the E.U., and the Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates.

• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• Jan Fabre, the renowned Belgian artist who has pushed dance in new directions since the 1980s, has been accused by several women of sexual harassment and bullying. Above, a production of Mr. Fabre’s “Prometheus-Landscape II.” [The New York Times]

• Gunmen attacked a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens more. Both the Islamic State and a separatist group, Al Ahwaz, claimed responsibility. [The New York Times]

• Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition in Germany resolved a standoff over the intelligence chief, who was accused of being too sympathetic to the far right. [The Associated Press]

• In Greece, a wildfire raged near a camp for refugees and migrants on the island of Lesbos, the latest challenge for the thousands living in squalor there. [The New York Times]

• A tiny device inserted into the heart to clip together damaged valves reduced death rates in patients with severe heart failure, researchers said. [The New York Times]

• Pope Francis, during his trip to Lithuania, paid tribute to Jews killed by Nazis and warned against historic revisionism and the resurgence of anti-Semitism. [Reuters]

Tips for a more fulfilling life.

• Recipe of the day: Take a break from meat with a sheet-pan recipe for tostadas with black beans and peppers.

• Too busy to exercise? Try express weight training.

• Flight canceled or delayed? Know your rights.

• At Wolfgang Frühauf’s bookstore, above, in Bad Sooden-Allendorf, Germany, organic tomatoes and cucumbers vie with crime novels for table space.

• When was the last time you heard a place? The New York Times Magazine compiled a sonic journey around the world, bringing you sights and sounds from a volcano in Hawaii, mountain villages in northern Italy and a desert in Chile.

• At Station Nord, a small Danish military and scientific outpost in Greenland, soldiers, scientists and two very sturdy dogs are the only residents. As at any remote outpost, there are quirky rules and rituals.

Rhinos have been popping up in London.

To celebrate World Rhino Day, which was Saturday, almost two dozen fiberglass rhinos were scattered around the city, decorated by artists like Marc Quinn and the Chapman Brothers (and Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones).

And you can have one: Christie’s is auctioning them in October for the wildlife charity Tusk Trust, which organized the so-called Tusk Trail.

Prices are expected to go far higher than $15,000 — the amount paid in 1998 to a Swiss artist who designed the fiberglass cows that set off a worldwide trend.

“I gave them character. I gave them feelings,” that artist, Roland Muller, told The Times in 2000. “I wanted people to react to them.”

His cows were mass produced, decorated by local artists and then put in Zurich’s streets.

Few expected his cow parade to be anything more than a quirky local event. But it was such a tourist draw that cows were soon arriving — and being tipped — all over the place.

Not everyone was pleased. Roberta Smith, our art critic, wrote at the time that the cows made outdoor sculptures “a near inescapable condition” after appearing in New York. But they remain popular. There have been parades of everything from pigs to bears, horses, elephants and lions.

Alex Marshall wrote today’s Back Story.

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