Your Thursday Briefing

Genoa, Turkey, Elon Musk View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Thursday, August 16, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( Europe Edition [Your Thursday Briefing]( By ALISHA HARIDASANI GUPTA Good morning. A state of emergency in Italy, political breakthroughs in the U.S. and a lifeline for Turkey. Here’s the latest: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images • A yearlong state of emergency in Italy. The death toll from a bridge collapse in the city of Genoa rose to 39, prompting Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to allocate government aid for the region and name a commissioner who would streamline reconstruction efforts. But as rescue workers searched through piles of rubble and as people gathered at the city’s morgue to hear of the fate of missing family members and friends, it became increasingly clear that while the collapse was horrific, [it wasn’t surprising.]( Experts had long raised alarms about the deteriorating condition of the bridge that opened in 1967 and, for years, was carrying more traffic than it was designed for. _____ Mark Vancleave/Star Tribune, via Associated Press • A night of breakthroughs in the U.S. Democrats [delivered remarkable victories]( in Tuesday’s primaries for a transgender woman in Vermont, an African-American woman in Connecticut and a Muslim woman in Minnesota, above, furthering their image as the party of diversity. Meanwhile, a Republican nominee for governor in Minnesota who has been a vocal critic of President Trump lost to a candidate who embraced the polarizing president, reflecting Mr. Trump’s strong grip on the Republican Party. Here are more [takeaways from the primaries.]( Separately, more than 200 newspapers across the U.S. — from large metro-area dailies to small local weeklies — are standing up against President Trump’s repeated verbal attacks on the news media. Here’s [The New York Times’s editorial.]( _____ Reuters • Turkey gets a lifeline from Qatar. Qatar pledged to [invest $15 billion to help Turkey]( shore up its faltering economy. The news came on the same day that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan further strained relations with the U.S. by rejecting a second appeal to release the American pastor Andrew Brunson, above, and raising tariffs on American goods. The widening U.S.-Turkey dispute has been partly responsible for the lira’s sharp tumble and an exodus of foreign capital in the past week. _____ Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press • Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary tried for years to build closer relations with the U.S. Those efforts were mostly in vain under President Barack Obama, who criticized Mr. Orban’s gradual erosion of democracy and his increasingly populist rhetoric. But with the Trump administration, Mr. Orban, above right with the president, is getting what he wants. President Trump’s [pivot toward friendlier relations]( with a NATO ally is worrying other European Union officials. Business Justin Sullivan/Getty Images • Federal securities regulators have [subpoenaed Tesla]( over the recent actions of its chief executive, Elon Musk, just days after he announced in a tweet that he was considering taking his company private. Mr. Musk’s unpredictable behavior is also starting to [unnerve Tesla’s board.]( • The Chinese internet giant Tencent [missed earnings targets and reported a slowdown in profit growth]( for the first time in a decade, reflecting Beijing’s increasing control of the fortunes of private companies. • More than a year after Dara Khosrowshahi took over as chief executive of Uber, the company’s [financials have barely changed]( with losses hovering near where they were last year. • Here’s a snapshot of [global markets](. In the News Al Drago/The New York Times • President Trump cited “erratic behavior” while revoking the security clearance of John Brennan, above, the former C.I.A. director under President Barack Obama who has been an outspoken critic of the president. [[The New York Times]( • A 29-year-old Sudanese-born British man was the driver who struck three pedestrians and crashed outside London’s Parliament, the police said. His motive is still unclear. [[The New York Times]( • A group of Berliners on a walk discovered a 20-meter slab of concrete sprayed with graffiti and shrouded by vines. It turned out to be part of the Berlin Wall. [[The New York Times]( • An airstrike in Yemen by a Saudi-led coalition killed 44 children who were headed to a school field trip, reviving questions about the U.S. support of the military campaign. [[The New York Times]( • A 12th-century bronze statue of Buddha that was stolen from India nearly 60 years ago will be returned to the country after it was spotted at a trade fair in Britain. [[The Guardian]( • New Zealand’s Parliament barred most foreigners from buying houses in the country, in a bid to cool a property market that has been flooded by foreigners in recent years. [[BBC]( Smarter Living Tips for a more fulfilling life. Carol Sachs for The New York Times • Recipe of the day: A [tomato-and-pomegranate salad]( harnesses the best flavors of summer. • Man’s best friends are also one of the messiest. Here are some tips on how to clean the most common [dog messes](. • How to be an [ace salary negotiator](. Noteworthy Felipe Trueba/European Pressphoto Agency • Madonna turns 60 today. For the Queen of Pop’s birthday, our writers look back at all the ways she changed culture from [popularizing yoga to making disco cool again](. • “Jokes are not real,” the [comedian Jerry Seinfeld]( said ahead of the release of the 10th season of “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” in which he does, well, exactly that. He also told our reporter why he hates Twitter and the one joke he’d put on a golden record for space. • In Paris, new public urinals — red-top bulky bins that sit in plain sight and can grow plants and flowers — have [drawn the public’s ire.]( “They could have hidden it,” one resident said. Back Story Associated Press Charles Bukowski, [the prolific poet and novelist]( whose work has been called [“aggressively vulgar and clandestinely sensitive,”]( offered plenty of musings on [drinking]( [love and cats](. But the best advice from the “[King of the Underground]( who was born in Germany on this day in 1920, might be “Don’t try.” Those words appear on [Mr. Bukowski’s tombstone]( and some fans feel they align with advice from the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu: “The world is won by those who let it go! But when you try and try, the world is then beyond the winning.” With that philosophy, however, it would be difficult to produce as much as Mr. Bukowski did. Abel Debritto, who has written extensively about him, said Mr. Bukowski wrote about 5,000 poems. He also left his publisher a trove of unpublished work after he died in 1994, and it has been steadily released posthumously. Mr. Debritto said the poet’s earliest written reference to the motto is in a letter from 1963: “You don’t try. That’s very important,” Mr.Bukowski said in explaining the creative process. “It’s like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it.” Robb Todd wrote today’s Back Story. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. [Check out this page]( to find a Morning Briefing for your region. (In addition to our European edition, we have Australian, Asian and U.S. editions.) [Sign up here]( to receive an Evening Briefing on U.S. weeknights, and [here’s our full range of free newsletters](. What would you like to see here? Contact us at [europebriefing@nytimes.com](mailto:europebriefing@nytimes.com?subject=Briefing%20Feedback%20(Europe)).s ADVERTISEMENT LIKE THIS EMAIL? 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