Your Thursday Evening Briefing

Facebook, John Dowd, Syria | View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Thursday, March 22, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( [Your Thursday Evening Briefing]( By KAREN ZRAICK AND MERRILL D. OLIVER Good evening. Here’s the latest. Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press 1. “The most important thing is that we fix this system.” Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, above, gave an unexpected [interview to two of our reporters about the Cambridge Analytica scandal](. Not everyone has been impressed by [Mr. Zuckerberg’s response]( to revelations that data from over 50 million Facebook profiles had been secretly scraped and mined for voter insights. On “[The Daily]( 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 while they read his just-posted public statement.) ____ Doug Mills/The New York Times 2. President Trump’s national security adviser is out. [H. R. McMaster, above, will be replaced by John R. Bolton]( a hard-line former U.S. ambassador. Earlier Thursday, Mr. Trump’s [lead lawyer for the special counsel investigation]( John Dowd, resigned after concluding that the president was increasingly ignoring his advice. And there’s a septuagenarian rumble brewing — on Twitter, at least. Earlier this week, former Vice President Joe Biden — who, at 75, may be considering a presidential bid — said that if he were younger, he would “beat the hell” out of President Trump for disrespecting women. On Thursday, [Mr. Trump, 71, countered]( that Mr. Biden “would go down fast and hard” if the two brawled. ____ Doug Mills/The New York Times 3. President Trump announced plans to [impose about $60 billion worth of annual tariffs on Chinese imports]( in punishment for what the White House says is China’s pattern of co-opting American tech and trade secrets. The administration said the targets — 1,300 lines of goods from shoes and clothing to electronics — would be named within 15 days. Global markets shuddered as investors began to take [the prospect of a trade war]( seriously. The measure came as the White House listed the many American allies to be exempted [from steel and aluminum tariffs]( that go into effect on Friday. Japan wasn’t on the list. ____ Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times 4. The Turkish government arranged a rare visit for The New York Times [to a city in northern Syria under its control.]( Turkish officials see the town of Jarabulus as a blueprint for Afrin, which Turkish forces and their Syrian allies captured last weekend. There are functioning schools and a hospital (above, displaying the image of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey). And the Turkish presence has deterred the Syrian government from bombing the area. The victory in Afrin has emboldened Mr. Erdogan, who has vowed to continue his military campaign across northern Syria. ____ FBI 5. Investigators are combing through mounds of evidence in Austin, Tex., trying to piece together [what sent a 23-year-old white man on a bombing spree]( that killed two people and terrorized the state capital. [Both people killed by the bombings]( belonged to prominent African-American families in the city, raising the specter that the violence was racially motivated. Anthony Stephan House, 39, above left, was a father and finance professional. Draylen Mason, 17, right, was a promising classical musician who died as he protected his mother from the explosion. ____ MGM Resorts, via Associated Press 6. Using exclusively obtained surveillance footage, we pieced together the last days of Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas gunman who rained lethal fire on a music festival last October, killing scores. He plays video poker, laughs with hotel staff members — and hauls bag after bag of weapons into his suite. [Watch the video here.]( ____ Julia Gillard for The New York Times 7. New York City’s population reached a record high: 8,622,698. The number comes from [an analysis of new Census Bureau population estimates]( for last year, and it’s the culmination of an average annual gain not seen since the first half of the 20th century. Above, a crowded subway station. “It’s a remarkable growth story,” the city’s chief demographer said. (And while we’re talking population statistics, did you see our recent [canine census]( ____ Paul G. Allen, via Associated Press 8. 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 who went down with the ship were the five Sullivan brothers of Waterloo, Iowa. The exact location of the wreckage was revealed to the Navy but not to the public. “These are war graves, and we want to make sure that they are not harmed,” said the head of Mr. Allen’s maritime operations. ____ Jim Wilson/The New York Times 9. The latest obituary in our Overlooked series: the woman who invented the chocolate chip cookie. [Ruth Wakefield’s creation]( was known originally as the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie, after the popular Massachusetts restaurant she ran with her husband in the 1930s. Legend has it that she was trying a variation on a butterscotch dessert when she decided to let the chocolate chips fall where they may. 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. ____ Fox Searchlight/20th Century Fox 10. Finally, our film critic says [Wes Anderson’s new animated movie “Isle of Dogs”]( — set in a fantasy version of Japan where cat-fancying villains conspire to eradicate dogs — can be easier to admire than to flat-out love. But Mr. Anderson is “especially inventive,” and Manohla Dargis writes that she could watch hours of the noble canines. [On the late-night shows]( Trevor Noah poked fun at Mark Zuckerberg: “Things are so bad for him right now that Facebook is showing him ads for Xanax.” Have a great night. ____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing. [Sign up here]( to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning. Want to catch up on past briefings? [You can browse them here](. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at [briefing@nytimes.com](mailto:briefing@nytimes.com?subject=Evening%20Briefing%20Feedback). LIKE THIS EMAIL? 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