Your Wednesday Briefing

Vladimir Putin, Facebook, White Rhino | View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Wednesday, March 21, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( Asia Edition [Your Wednesday Briefing]( By CHARLES MCDERMID Good morning. The Saudi crown prince’s quest for investment, finding bravery in a Beijing bookstore and sad news for white rhinos. Here’s what you need to know: Natacha Pisarenko/Associated Press • Who will be spared? Steven Mnuchin, the U.S. Treasury secretary, was hounded at the [G-20 meeting in Buenos Aires by countries seeking exemptions]( from President Trump’s stiff steel and aluminum tariffs — which take effect on Friday. U.S. allies like Australia and South Korea argue that they should escape the tariffs, which so far have been justified on the vague grounds of U.S. security. Mr. Mnuchin dismissed the idea that the White House was starting a trade war, but the Trump administration plans at least $30 billion in new tariffs on China this week. _____ Kevin Frayer/Getty Images • “Not one inch of the territory of the great motherland can be carved off.” [President Xi Jinping used the closing of the National People’s Congress]( to deliver an ardently patriotic speech, underscoring his political dominance and warning against challenges to Chinese territorial claims — especially any move to seek independence for Taiwan. [Here are five important takeaways]( from the congress, whose decisions will shape China for years. _____ • As Facebook grapples with outrage over its role in the harvesting of data from 50 million accounts, [the company’s chief data security officer is on the way out](. We were told that the executive, Alex Stamos, had pushed for more transparency but met resistance from other senior leaders. The U.S. [Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether Facebook violated a data privacy agreement]( and Britain’s information watchdog sought a warrant to search the London offices of Cambridge Analytica, the analysis firm involved. _____ Scott Olson/Getty Images • Another U.S. school shooting. A male student opened fire with a handgun in the hallway of a high school in southern Maryland, injuring two students and [exchanging gunfire with a security officer stationed at the school](. The suspect was shot dead. The shooting comes just over a month after a shooting at a Florida high school left 17 dead, adding new urgency to the debate over gun control and raising questions about the role of armed personnel in schools. And the authorities in Texas were trying to determine whether a package that exploded at a [FedEx distribution center near San Antonio]( above, was linked to four recent bombings in Austin. _____ Doug Mills/The New York Times • Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, [Mohammed bin Salman]( began a two-week visit to the U.S., seeking some $35 billion in investment. Arms sales are on his agenda. He met with President Trump at the White House, and plans to travel to New York, Boston, Silicon Valley, Houston and also Los Angeles. That stop is part of his efforts to build a Saudi film industry. Mr. Trump took part of the day to phone his [congratulations to President Vladimir Putin]( on his re-election, and said the two would meet soon. The warmth came just days after the White House imposed sanctions on Russia for election meddling and “malicious cyberattacks,” and joined Britain in blaming Russia for a nerve agent attack r on British soil. [“The Daily” podcast]( gets an illuminating review of Mr. Putin’s trajectory from childhood to one of the most powerful in the world. _____ Thomas Mukoya/Reuters • The world’s last male northern white rhino has died. The loss of the [45-year-old rhino (named Sudan)]( above, leaves behind only his daughter and granddaughter in the subspecies. Neither can carry a pregnancy to term, so conservationists hope to fertilize their eggs in vitro with banked sperm and use southern white rhinos as surrogate mothers. Business Courtesy Tina Kiefer • Picture a leader. Most people will draw a man, not a woman. [Researchers are investigating the reasons]( there’s such a gender gap in the recognition of leadership potential. • More than 400 Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are [forming a Founders for Change coalition to pressure]( the white- and male-dominated world of venture capital to diversify its ranks. • It’s been 10 years since the collapse of Bear Stearns, the first stirrings of the global financial crisis. Many [economists argue that the seeds of the next crisis are being sown today](. • U.S. stocks [were up](. Here’s a snapshot of [global markets](. In the News Sana/Reuters • President Bashar al-Assad’s new propaganda campaign takes viewers on a leisurely drive into the heart of Syria’s civil war. He drives past bombed-out neighborhoods, often with an elbow propped casually out the window. [[The New York Times]( • A former Playboy model who said she had an affair with President Trump sued to be released from a 2016 legal agreement requiring her silence. [[The New York Times]( • The U.S. and South Korea are resuming the annual drills they suspended during the Olympics and Paralympics. [[The New York Times]( • Finland’s foreign minister said that denuclearization would not be on the agenda when delegations from North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. in the Finnish capital. [[Reuters]( • Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France, was questioned in an investigation into whether his 2007 election campaign received funding from Libya in the time of Muammar el-Qaddafi. [[The New York Times]( • In Indonesia, a string of protests led an Islamic university to reverse a week-old ban on niqabs, the face-concealing Muslim headdress. [[The New York Times]( Smarter Living Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life. Todd Detwiler • Renovating? Here’s [some advice](. • Enjoy fine dining on a [fast-food budget](. • Recipe of the day: Get through your Wednesday by planning to make this [no-bake mango dessert](. Noteworthy Bryan Denton for The New York Times • Our Beijing bureau chief explores the All Sages Bookstore: a literary labor of love, run by a onetime Tiananmen Square protester, that has survived both the capital city’s [ferocious property market and the censorship of the Xi Jinping era](. • In memoriam. [Larry Kwong]( 94, the N.H.L.’s first player of Asian descent. He played only one game for the New York Rangers in 1948. (“I didn’t get a real chance to show what I can do,” he said.) • And girl power, 2,000 years before #MeToo. The new telling of “Forty Girls,” which mixes video, songs and traditional and modern music, is a [bold departure for a Muslim country, especially Uzbekistan](. Back Story Barry Batchelor/PA, via Associated Press Each week, The Times’s crossword column, [Wordplay]( highlights the answer to one of the most difficult clues from the previous week’s puzzles. This week’s word: [nene](. If it looks like a goose and honks like a goose, it should just be a goose, right? The nene, however, is special. Not only is it Hawaii’s state bird, the nene, above, is the world’s rarest goose. Its webbed feet have adapted to living on hardened lava, but it is a weak flier. Nenes were once hunted nearly to extinction, but conservation efforts have bolstered their population. Another reason to know your nenes is that, although they may be rare in the wild, they come up quite a bit in crossword puzzles. Nene has been an entry in The Times’s crossword 295 times since 1944. It appeared in [the puzzle on March 12]( with the clue “Hawaiian goose.” The word might also appear in the easier puzzles at the beginning of the week, with the clue “Hawaiian state bird” or “Hawaiian honker.” Later in the week, as the crosswords become more difficult, it might be referred to as “Aloha State bird,” “Endangered state bird,” “Lava geese,” “Bird so-called from its call” or “Gray-brown goose.” You can find out about the nene and other birds that appear regularly in our [Crossword Aviary](. Deb Amlen 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. [Sign up here]( to receive an Evening Briefing on U.S. weeknights. Browse our full range of Times newsletters [here](. What would you like to see here? Contact us at [asiabriefing@nytimes.com](mailto:asiabriefing@nytimes.com?subject=Briefing%20Feedback%20(Asia)). LIKE THIS EMAIL? 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