Your Tuesday Briefing

Russia, Iran, Winter Olympics | View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Tuesday, February 20, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( Asia Edition [Your Tuesday Briefing]( By CHARLES MCDERMID Good morning. Olympic embarrassment, loyalty tests and “Black Panther” fever. Here’s your Tuesday Briefing: Margaret Cheatham Williams/The New York Times • A wardrobe malfunction in the Olympic ice dancing competition left the costume of a French gold medal contender, above, revealingly open — and set up today’s [showdown between the Canadian and French couples](. Curling, a sport not accustomed to high-profile controversy, has been [rocked by a failed doping test by a Russian medal winner]( and our Pyeongchang team looked at the [German Olympians’ sport drink of choice]( beer, of course (but nonalcoholic). Here’s the full [Olympic medals table, results and schedule](. _____ The Franklin Institute • Geopolitical black eyes: Chinese officials are demanding tough punishment for [an American who stole the thumb of a terra cotta warrior]( on display in Philadelphia. (The 24-year-old sneaked in while attending an ugly-sweater event at the museum.) And Steven Lee Myers, a veteran Times correspondent, traveled with a photographer high into the mountains of the Tibetan plateau to write about holiday traditions. But his topic had to shift. “By detaining us, and ultimately expelling us from the region,” he writes, “the authorities succeeded in preventing that. [So I am writing this instead]( — an account of a 17-hour journey into what was, in this case, the absurdity of Chinese detention. _____ Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle • How did unwitting Americans [get duped by Russian trolls]( The lessons may be useful everywhere. Posing as activists, Russians organized rallies in U.S. cities, like the protest and counterprotest above in Houston, and played on political divisions on social media. Two ex-employees told our Moscow bureau chief about [life inside the troll factory]( of the Internet Research Agency, one of the entities indicted last week over meddling in the 2016 election. The indictments make clear that Russia backed Donald Trump, but [whether that was decisive remains unclear]( — in part, because U.S. political polarization was already so bitter, [our Interpreter columnists write](. _____ Satellite images by Bing • Hopes that the war in Syria might be ending has shifted to concern that Iran is entrenching there. Iran is training thousands of militiamen in Syria and bringing in new technologies like drones, growing its network of proxies to [redraw the strategic map of the Middle East]( — and possibly present a regional united front against Israel. Above, satellite images of Iranian bases in Syria. _____ NocutV • “I feel so ashamed.” That was Lee Youn-taek, above, a prominent South Korean theater producer, publicly apologizing for sexually abusing actresses. It was [a signal moment for the slowly building #MeToo movement]( in a deeply male-dominated society. A fresh reminder of what Korean women have faced came minutes before Mr. Lee’s news conference: Another former actress wrote that she had been subjected to a “witch hunt” after she rebuffed Mr. Lee. _____ Matt Kennedy/Marvel Studios-Disney, via Associated Press • More for the “Black Panther” moment: [Kendrick Lamar’s “Black Panther the Album”]( — songs “from and inspired by” the film — is as densely packed and ambitious as one of the rapper’s own LPs, our critic says. Our Style reporter [looked at how the film’s Afrocentric hair]( punctuates character and plot. (“There was not a pressing comb or relaxer on set.”) And we took some Brooklyn 12-year-olds to see the movie. [Here’s what they said](. Business Cole Wilson for The New York Times • WeWork, the global network of shared office spaces, has an [audacious, possibly delusional plan]( to transform not just the way we work and live, but also the very world we live in. • “The Quad” — Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. — reportedly began considering a regional plan to [balance China’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative](. • Virgin Hyperloop One, Richard Branson’s futuristic start-up, announced plans to [link Mumbai to the city of Pune with nearly supersonic transport]( — as just its first step in India. • Markets were closed in Hong Kong, Shanghai and the U.S. on Monday; Shanghai remains closed through Wednesday. Here’s a snapshot of where [global markets]( stand. In the News Sarianto/Associated Press • Mount Sinabung on the Indonesian island of Sumatra erupted, shooting columns of ash more than three miles high. The volcanic advisory center in Darwin, Australia, issued a “red notice” to airlines. [[A.P.]( • In Australia, people who are from Taiwan or support its independence tell of pressure and firings at businesses run by nationalists from mainland China. [[The New York Times]( • New Zealand is investigating a series of burglaries that targeted an academic who detailed China’s influence campaigns in the country. [[NZ Herald]( • Oxfam, one of the largest British charities, said three employees who were the subject of a 2011 inquiry into sexual misconduct in Haiti physically threatened a witness. [[The New York Times]( • Swastikas were scrawled on the Polish Embassy in Israel, after Poland’s prime minister suggested there were “Jewish perpetrators” of World War II atrocities. [[The New York Times]( • President Rodrigo Duterte plans to attend the funeral of a Filipina worker who was found dead in a freezer in Kuwait. [[ABS-CBN]( • “The level of excessive behavior was unprecedented.” Carnival, the U.S.-British cruise operator, said it was investigating “all aspects” of a days-long brawl on a cruise off the coast of Australia. [[Reuters]( Smarter Living Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life. Ed Alcock for The New York Times • A Paris-style hamburger respects, but [doesn’t replicate,]( tartare](. • What to do with a day off? [Nothing]( is one of our newsletter’s (best!) suggestions. • At any age, [hangovers are]( to tell you something](. Noteworthy [Sunset at Sefton Bivvy.]Jeremy Cronon • “In a hut, you face simple choices.” That’s what one writer discovered while [staying in some of the public huts]( that dot New Zealand’s Tolkienesque backcountry. • Symphonic table tennis: “Ricochet,” a work first performed in Shanghai in 2015, premieres today [at the New York Philharmonic’s Lunar New Year gala](. Check out the Olympic-level Ping-Pong percussion. • Flower power: Adorning ourselves with flora is an impulse as old as civilization. Here, [three floral artists offer new takes]( on the most atavistic — and enduring — of traditions. Back Story Mary Lou Foy/The Miami Herald, via Reuters The Florida high school that was the site of last week’s mass shooting is named for her. But Marjory Stoneman Douglas, pictured above in 1987, has [a much longer legacy in the history of Florida]( and the fight to preserve the Everglades, the tropical wetlands that once covered the southern part of the state. Born in Minnesota in 1890, she graduated from Wellesley College and for a period worked as a newspaper reporter for her father, the editor of The Miami Herald. She was later asked to contribute to a book series about U.S. rivers. In researching the Miami River, she became interested in the Everglades and persuaded her publisher to let her write about them instead. “The Everglades: River of Grass” was published in 1947. An environmental classic, the book changed the way the U.S. viewed its wetlands, as important ecosystems and surge buffers rather than worthless swamps more useful when drained. But despite Mrs. Douglas’s warning that “There are no other Everglades in the world,” development has continued to encroach. The school now in the news [was named in her honor in 1990]( commemorating her 100th birthday. She [died eight years later]( in [the same Miami cottage]( in which she’d lived since 1926. Chris Stanford contributed reporting. _____ This briefing was prepared for the Asian morning. You can also [sign up]( to get the briefing in the Australian, European or American morning, or to receive an Evening Briefing on U.S. weeknights. Browse our full range of Times newsletters [here](. 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