Your Wednesday Briefing

Storm Ali, Chemnitz, Trade War | View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Wednesday, September 19, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( Europe Edition [Your Wednesday News Briefing]( By NANCY WARTIK AND ANDREA KANNAPELL Good morning. Another challenge for Angela Merkel, doubts on the Kavanaugh hearing and echoes of Cold War tactics. Here’s the latest: Axel Schmidt/Reuters • Germany’s security director is out. Hans-Georg Maassen, Germany’s chief of domestic intelligence, [was ejected from his post on Tuesday]( after a rift with Chancellor Angela Merkel. He had questioned the authenticity of a video showing an immigrant being chased by far-right protesters in Chemnitz, directly contradicting her and raising concerns that the country’s security apparatus had leaned too far right, impeding its ability to monitor neo-Nazi groups effectively. Mr. Maassen’s removal is another test for the ever-more-embattled chancellor. _____ Doug Mills/The New York Times • Not Duda’s day. President Andrzej Duda of Poland offered a permanent base for U.S. forces in his country during a meeting with President Trump at the White House. [He suggested calling it Fort Trump.]( But the questions at their joint news conference [focused on Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh](. Mr. Trump insisted that a woman’s accusations that Mr. Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her decades ago were part of a Democratic bid to derail his confirmation. A Senate hearing next Monday at which both Judge Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the California psychologist accusing him, have been invited to appear [has been thrown into doubt.]( Dr. Ford has said that she believes some senators doubt her claim and that she wants the F.B.I. to investigate first. In [an Op-Ed]( the university professor Anita Hill urged the Senate Judiciary Panel to “do better” than in 1991, when she was grilled after accusing another Supreme Court nominee, Clarence Thomas, of sexual harassment. _____ Cinemaforpeace, via Reuters • Poisoning cases raise fears. The anti-Kremlin Pussy Riot activist above, who lost his sight, speech and mobility in Moscow, is expected to recover fully, according to the medical team treating him in Berlin. The doctors said [it was “highly plausible” that he had been poisoned](. The case is the latest to inflame concerns about the return of Cold War tactics to silence critics. Last week, two Russians made a much-ridiculed appearance on state television, denying guilt for a nerve-agent attack on the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and saying they were mere tourists in Salisbury, England, at the time. Some analysts say the interview [amounted to a masterpiece of in-your-face defiance]( against the West. _____ Tomas Munita for The New York Times • Myanmar’s “gravest crimes.” The country’s military killed at least 750 people in one village and at least 10,000 in its broader operations in the western state of Rakhine, according to [a U.N. inquiry]( into atrocities against Rohingya Muslims. Above, survivors. The report describes the military’s brutal actions in detail, from throwing infants into a fire to systematically raping women and girls. It called for constitutional changes and an overhaul of the military and named army officials who should stand trial. Business Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images • BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen are being [investigated by the European Commission]( for possible collusion to prevent development of clean emissions technology. The German auto industry, the country’s biggest employer, hasn’t fully recovered from Volkswagen’s diesel deception. • Chinese officials retaliated against President Trump’s vast expansion of tariffs, saying they would [impose a tax on $60 billion in American goods](. Global markets [appeared sanguine](. • Danske Bank will release a report today — eagerly awaited by regulators — on how [billions of euros from Russia and ex-Soviet states]( flowed through its accounts in Estonia. • Tesla shares dropped when the company said [the Justice Department]( asked it for information after Elon Musk tweeted in August that he might take the company private, suggesting an open investigation. • Bigger is definitely better, at least for the newest iPhones, [our columnist writes](. In the News Nikita Shchyukin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images • Friendly fire in Syria: Kremlin officials said that Syrian forces had shot down a Russian military plane like the one pictured above, initially blaming Israeli planes flying behind it for drawing the fire. President Vladimir Putin of Russia eased tensions by blaming not just Israel, but “a chain of tragic accidental circumstances.” [[The New York Times]( • Kim Jong-un will visit South Korea, he said after meeting with the South’s president. It would be the first such trip by a North Korean leader. [[The New York Times]( • A Catholic diocese in New York made one of the largest settlements to individual victims of sex abuse in the church. Four men repeatedly raped as boys by a religion teacher were awarded $27.5 million. [[The New York Times]( • France’s interior minister, Gérard Collomb, said he would step down to run for mayor of Lyon in 2020, adding to concerns over the stability of the Macron government. [[L’Express]( • Reading this in a windstorm? You may be in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland, where high winds and rain from Storm Ali were predicted for today. [[The Guardian]( • Hurricane Florence: In North Carolina, rivers continued to rise in the wake of the storm’s record rainfall. [[The New York Times]( • Let him eat steak? The Turkish steakhouse chef known as Salt Bae served a meal to Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, during his visit to Istanbul. Social media erupted with fury, pointing to malnutrition in Venezuela. [[The New York Times]( • Ireland officially repealed its constitutional ban on abortion. [[The Journal.ie]( • Fortnite, the wildly popular video game, has been cited in at least 200 divorce filings in England this year. [[GQ]( Smarter Living Tips for a more fulfilling life. Evan Sung for The New York Times • Recipe of the day: Don’t give in to the weeknight cooking slump. Make a [simple pasta with pantry staples](. • On a tight schedule? [Try a shorter, harder workout.]( • Interlinked short stories provide continuity [while allowing you to take a pause](. Noteworthy Jada Yuan/The New York Times • People as nice as the views: Our 52 Places traveler reports [from Lucerne, Switzerland](. • Ready for their close-up: The British film director Steve McQueen [will take photos of 115,000 London schoolchildren]( for a Tate Britain exhibition next year. • Robert Galbraith, a mystery writer better known by another name, has released “Lethal White,” the fourth book in the [Cormoran Strike detective series](. • “Captain Marvel,” the first solo female-superhero vehicle in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, [released its new trailer today](. Back Story  “We believe that a very large number of women do not desire to vote. They shrink from having to go to the polling booths on election days. They would much prefer staying at home and attending to their household duties.” So said The [Press]( in Christchurch, New Zealand, after the country [became the world’s first to give women the right to vote]( on this day in 1893. When women cast ballots later that year, The Press grudgingly admitted it happened without “any very remarkably disastrous consequences having become apparent.” The victory (which [enfranchised Maori women]( too) was hard won. New Zealand men liked their liquor. The leading causes of death were said to be “drink, drowning, and drowning while drunk.” With alcoholism taking a toll on family life, the [Women’s Christian Temperance Union]( — fiercely opposed by the liquor industry — spearheaded the suffrage effort, hoping that enfranchised women could get alcohol banned. (They could not.) [Kate Sheppard]( New Zealand’s most famous suffragist, above, noted wryly when the [Electoral Act passed]( that “it does not seem a great thing to be thankful for” that the government has “declared us to be ‘persons.’” Other countries gradually followed suit: [the U.S. in 1920]( India in 1947, Switzerland in 1971. The latest country to enfranchise women? [Saudi Arabia in 2011](. Nancy Wartik 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)). ADVERTISEMENT LIKE THIS EMAIL? 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