From The Times: Your Wednesday Briefing

View in [Browser] | Add [nytdirect@nytimes.com] to your address book. Wednesday, November 23, 2016 [The New York Times] [Morning Briefing] Wednesday, November 23, 2016 [NYTimes.com »] [President Obama presented the comedian Ellen DeGeneres and 20 other people with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday. ] President Obama presented the comedian Ellen DeGeneres and 20 other people with [the Presidential Medal of Freedom] on Tuesday. "These are folks who have helped make me who I am and think about my presidency," Mr. Obama said at the ceremony. Al Drago/The New York Times [Your Wednesday Briefing] By SEAN ALFANO Good morning. Just a reminder, we’re off tomorrow for Thanksgiving and back on Friday. Here’s what you need to know today: • Team Trump’s possible new members. President-elect Donald J. Trump is moving closer to filling more domestic cabinet positions. His Republican primary rival [Ben Carson] is being considered for housing secretary. [Follow the latest developments here.] Two Democrats, Harold Ford Jr., who represented Tennessee in the House, and Michelle A. Rhee, the former chancellor for Washington, D.C., public schools, have surfaced as [contenders to run the transportation and education departments]. • Trump at The Times. [The president-elect retreated from vows] to pull out of the Paris climate accord and to investigate Hillary Clinton during his interview with Times reporters and editors. Mr. Trump also said that he [didn’t “want to energize” white supremacists] and that he had no legal obligation to step away from his business empire. Here are [more highlights] and the [full transcript]. • West Wing vs. left wing. Resistance is building against Representative Keith Ellison’s [bid to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee]. His supporters, who include Senators Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, view Mr. Ellison as a fresh face for the party. But President Obama’s advisers, uneasy with the progressive Minnesota lawmaker, are looking for an alternative, according to some party officials. Some in the president’s inner circle hoped that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. would want the job, but his office said he’s “not interested.” • Global warming news. Exxon Mobil, under fire over its past efforts to undercut climate science, is accusing the Rockefeller family of [masterminding a conspiracy against it]. The descendants of John D. Rockefeller, who founded the company that became Exxon Mobil, have long backed environmental causes. Separately, [the ecology of the Arctic] is being altered on a vast scale because warmer air and less ice has caused algae that form the base of the oceanic food chain to wildly proliferate, according to new research. The changes are likely to have a profound impact on birds, seals, polar bears and whales. • Autocrat’s cuddly makeover. Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the warlord leader of Chechnya, [is appearing on a Russian reality TV show] that echoes “The Apprentice” in an effort to change his brutal reputation. In one episode, Mr. Kadyrov described his motivation: “People believe my image that was created by the liberals, that I am frightening, that I will kill whoever says anything about me, that I will put them in a dungeon and stab them.” Business • A regulation expanding by millions the number of eligible workers for time-and-a-half overtime pay was hit with an injunction by a federal judge in Texas. He ruled that the Obama administration [had exceeded its authority] in raising the salary limit below which workers automatically qualified for overtime pay to $47,476 from $23,660. • Facebook has devised software to suppress posts in [an effort to ga][in access][to China], where it is blocked. The company does not intend to block the posts itself, but it would offer the software to enable a third party to decide whether posts should show up in users’ feeds. • Americans are expected to spend more than $880 billion during the holiday shopping season this year. [But if you’re planning to shop on Black Friday] this week, beware, most deals are duds, our technology writer warns. • U.S. stocks [were up] on Tuesday. Here’s a snapshot of [global markets]. Noteworthy • A twist on Thanksgiving. [Our latest 360 video] looks at a San Francisco restaurant that hosts a holiday meal for its employees and serves Burmese delicacies. • Sound is no barrier. Lee Duck-hee of South Korea is an 18-year-old professional tennis player ranked 143rd in the world. [Lee is also deaf], and no deaf player in the sport’s history has reached these heights. Top players say that hearing the ball is crucial for quick reactions, but Lee is less certain. “It doesn’t really matter,” he said of his impairment. He is concerned, however, about a different physical limitation: Lee is 5 feet 9, and most players ranked in the top 50 are over 6 feet. • Mindful traveling. Flying during the holidays is often stressful. Here are some meditation tips for coping with [long security lines] and [anxiety on the plane]. • Recipe of the day. For a simple dinner, [roast a fish] and pair it with an [aioli]. Finally, we’ve been talking a lot about Thanksgiving dinner, but what do you serve before the meal? Here are some [recipes for appetizers] on the big day. Back Story A handwritten poem scrawled by Anne Frank in a friend’s notebook [is up for sale] in the Netherlands today. [Bubb Kuyper Auctions], based in Haarlem, expects to sell the rare item for between 30,000 and 50,000 euros, or about $32,000 and $53,000. Anne penned the short poem in a notebook belonging to her friend Jacqueline van Maarsen’s older sister, Christiane. The work is dated March 1942, just a few months before Anne, her older sister, her parents and another family went into hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam. Only her father survived the Holocaust. Only a few of her writings aside from the diary she kept while in hiding have emerged. [This spring], a Massachusetts museum bought a copy of Grimm’s fairy tales in which Anne had inscribed her and her sister’s names. In 1989, another short piece of verse written in a friend’s notebook [went on sale at Christie’s]. The poem’s opening features traditional lines of encouragement and can be traced to a 1930s Dutch periodical. The closing verses, which the auction house has not traced, may be Anne’s own. “If others have reproached you/For what you have done wrong,” the poem ends, “Then be sure to amend your mistake/That is the best answer one can make.” Christopher D. Shea contributed reporting. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern and [updated on the web all morning]. What would you like to see here? Contact us at [briefing@nytimes.com]. You can [sign up here] to get the briefing delivered to your inbox. ADVERTISEMENT FOLLOW NYTimes [Facebook] [FACEBOOK] [Twitter] [@nytimes] Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »] | Sign Up for the [Morning Briefing newsletter »] ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's NYT Now newsletter. [Unsubscribe] | [Manage Subscriptions] | [Change Your Email] | [Privacy Policy] | [Contact] | [Advertise] Copyright 2016 The New York Times Company | 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018