Your Friday Briefing

Tariffs, Facebook, Joe Biden | View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, March 23, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( Asia Edition [Your Friday Briefing]( By CHARLES MCDERMID Good morning. A threat to "Made in China 2025,” prominent septuagenarians trade schoolyard taunts, and the great Pacific garbage patch may now be the size of Mongolia. Here’s what you need to know: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images • President Trump announced plans to [impose about $60 billion worth of annual tariffs on Chinese imports]( and to exact other penalties from an “economic enemy.” Some 1,300 lines of goods to be affected are to be named within 15 days. The U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, said he was pushing to target products from the advanced industries in Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” plan, including electric vehicles, high-tech shipping and aerospace technology. Our Beijing correspondent looks at [the challenges China’s president, Xi Jinping, must now confront](. _____ Dean Lewins/European Pressphoto Agency • The U.S. move against China comes as steel and aluminum tariffs go into effect. [Washington announced exemptions for many of its allies]( including Australia and South Korea, but not Japan. Above, a steel mill in Wollongong, south of Sydney. Mr. Lighthizer, the trade representative, also said Argentina, Brazil and the European Union would join Canada and Mexico as exempt, at least temporarily. Those countries accounted for more than half of the total volume of steel sold to the U.S. in 2017, so the exemptions could undercut the tariffs’ impact on domestic steel mills. _____  • Before the massacre. Using exclusively obtained surveillance footage, we [pieced together the last days of Stephen Paddock]( the gunman who rained lethal fire on a music festival in Las Vegas last October, killing scores. He plays video poker, laughs with hotel staff — and hauls bag after bag of weapons into his suite. _____ Manu Fernandez/Associated Press • “The most important thing is that we fix this system.” Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, gave an unexpected [interview to two of our reporters about the Cambridge Analytica scandal](. Not everyone was impressed by [Mr. Zuckerberg’s statements]( days after we broke the story that data from over 50 million profiles had been secretly scraped. “He avoided the big issue,” an analyst said, “which is that for many years, Facebook was basically giving away user data like it was handing out candy.” On “[The Daily]( podcast, one of the reporters who interviewed Mr. Zuckerberg described how it went. (Facebook’s outreach was so sudden, they had to ask him to hold the line while they read his just-posted public statement.) _____ Erin Schaff for The New York Times • Septuagenarian schoolyard taunts. [Joe Biden]( started it. T he former vice president — who may be considering a 2020 challenge for the presidency — said that if he were younger (he’s 75), he would “beat the hell” out of President Trump for disrespecting women. [Mr. Trump, 71, countered]( that Mr. Biden “would go down fast and hard” if the two brawled. Separately, [Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer for the special counsel investigation resigned]( after concluding that his advise was being ignored. Business Emily Berl for The New York Times • “Make happy those who are near and those who are far will come”: Peggy and Andrew Cherng spent [45 years building Panda Express into a restaurant empire]( with more than $3 billion in sales last year. • Tencent Holdings, Asia’s most valuable company, [lo]( more than $26 billion of market capitalization]( after it warned that it would be reducing spending on content and technology to pursue sustained growth. • Citigroup is setting restrictions on the sale of firearms by business customers, making it the [first Wall Street bank to take a stance]( in the divisive U.S. gun control debate. • Time magazine, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money [are up for sale](. • U.S. markets [dropped on fears]( of a trade war. Here’s a snapshot of [global markets](. In the News NOAA • The great Pacific garbage patch contains at least 79,000 tons of material spread over 1.6 million square kilometers, according to a new study. That’s about the size of Mongolia or Iran, and as much as 16 times larger than past estimates. [[Science News]( • Lee Myung-bak became South Korea’s fourth former president to be taken into custody after a Seoul court issued a warrant on bribery, embezzlement, tax evasion and other charges. [[Reuters]( • “Breakthrough.” Since Iraq’s Kurdish region voted for independence last fall, relations with Baghdad have been strained. A new agreement signals warmer ties. [[The New York Times]( • The ashes of Stephen Hawking, the renowned cosmologist, will be interred next to the grave of Sir Isaac Newton at Westminster Abbey. [[The New York Times]( • A Malaysian police investigator denied that the case against the two women on trial for the killing of the half brother of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, was scapegoating them for the crimes orchestrated by four North Koreans. [[A.P.]( • Honey Popcorn, a K-pop group made up of Japanese adult video actresses, released its debut mini-album, “Bibidi Babidi Boo.” ([Watch the video.]( The backlash in South Korea has been intense. [[Yonhap]( Smarter Living Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life. Craig Lee for The New York Times • Recipe of the day: End the week with the perfect snack: [chips and creamy queso](. • Considering a “green” funeral? [Here’s what you need to know.]( • Encourage great hotel service by following [these tips](. Noteworthy U.S. National Archives, via Associated Press • The Juneau, a long-lost Navy cruiser blasted apart by a Japanese torpedo in World War II, was [discovered off the coast of the Solomon Islands]( by a team funded by the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen. Among the hundreds of dead were five brothers from one Iowa family. • In praise of Grandma. As [the Overlooked project]( started, we asked readers to suggest women they felt deserved, but didn’t get, obituaries in The Times. [Here are the stories]( you told us about your grandmothers and great-grandmothers. • And a team of scientists spend time in the streets of Tokyo and the shark-filled waters of Asia in “The Rising Sea,” a thriller by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown that’s No. 1 on our [hardcover fiction]( and [combined print and e-book fiction]( lists. Back Story Frank Duenzl/Picture-Alliance, via Associated Press It’s a shortcut used the world over — and even beyond, having been uttered at least once during a space mission. On this day in 1839, The Boston Morning Post published “O.K.” for [the first known time]( using the abbreviation next to the words “all correct.” (It’s not written “okay,” The Times stylebook says.) There have been many theories about its origin, but the most likely is that O.K. was [an abbreviation]( for the deliberately misspelled “orl korrect” (all correct), and the expression gained prominence in the mid-19th century. Allen Walker Read, a longtime English professor at Columbia University, debunked some theories in the 1960s, including that the term had come from Andrew Jackson’s poor spelling, a Native American word or an Army biscuit. Today, O.K. is “an Americanism adopted by virtually every language, and one of the first words spoken on the moon,” [the Times obituary of Mr. Read]( noted in 2002. The professor didn’t “appreciate having ‘O.K.’ overshadow the hundreds of other etymologies he divined,” it continued. He also tracked early uses of Dixie, Podunk and the “almighty dollar.” In the 1920s, Mr. Read hitchhiked through western Iowa hunting down the word blizzard. “A man called Lightnin’ Ellis had first used the word for a snowstorm in 1870,” he learned. “Within 10 years, it had spread throughout the Midwest.” _____ 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? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. 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