Your Wednesday Briefing

View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Wednesday, March 29, 2017 [NYTimes.com »]( Europe Edition [Your Wednesday Briefing]( By PATRICK BOEHLER Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: Christopher Furlong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images • Dear Mr. Tusk. The expected delivery of a letter from Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, will start the clock on two years of talks to end Britain’s membership in the European Union. Mrs. May is set to deliver a speech promising the negotiations will “represent every person in the whole United Kingdom,” including E.U. citizens who have made Britain their home. By a vote of 69 to 59, the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh [endorsed plans to request]( a second referendum on Scotland’s independence. _____ Stephen Crowley/The New York Times • In Washington, President Trump signed an executive order [to dismantle President Barack Obama’s climate change policies](. Our [fact-check]( found some of Mr. Trump’s claims of economic benefits to be misleading. His order pushes American commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement [further out of reach](. The European Commission pledged to [“defend” the pact](. _____ Yasin Akgul/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images • German officials [said they had rebuffed]( the Turkish government’s request to spy on its opponents in Germany. Instead, the authorities warned some Turkish residents that Ankara had set its sights on them. Separately, a Berlin court [convicted a Pakistani man]( for seeking out possible Jewish targets for attacks in Germany and France on Iran’s behalf. _____ Ivor Prickett for The New York Times • An American airstrike most likely led to the collapse of a building in Mosul that may have killed more than 100 civilians earlier this month, [the senior U.S. commander in Iraq said](. Around a half-million people are still thought to be trapped in shrinking parts of the city controlled by an estimated 2,000 remaining Islamic State fighters. Our correspondent on the scene [des]( the horror and anguish]( a cacophony of gunfire, the dull thud of mortar rounds, the deafening roar of car bombs and airstrikes. _____ Sian Davey for The New York Times • And Maajid Nawaz, a British former Islamist, [has made a name for himself as an indefatigable anti-extremist activist](. But critics have dismissed him as an opportunist cashing in on anti-Muslim bias. Mr. Nawaz argues that Islamism is cool to some in the same ways that punk rock and gangsta rap are perennially seductive. As a result, countering it will have to mean finding ways to, as he puts it, “make it cool to be a liberal Muslim.” _____ Business Bara Kristinsdottir for The New York Times • Iceland became the first country to introduce legislation requiring employers to [prove they are paying men and women equally](. “History has shown that if you want progress, you need to enforce it,” one government minister said. • Uber’s newly released diversity report [shows that the company’s employees]( are overwhelmingly white and male. • For every robot per thousand workers, up to six U.S. manufacturing workers lost their jobs, [a study suggests](. • U.S. regulators approved a first drug to treat [severe multiple sclerosis](. • Samsung aims to restore consumer confidence with [today’s unveiling of the Galaxy S8 smartphone](. • Here’s a snapshot of [global markets](. In the News Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images • Protests continued in Paris [overnight]( over the killing of a Chinese man at his home by a police officer on Sunday. [[The New York Times]( • An inquiry into Russian meddling in the U.S. election is under scrutiny after it emerged that the Republican congressman leading the investigation was [shown secret intelligence reports at the White House](. He rebuffed calls for his resignation. [[The New York Times]( • The bodies of two U.N. researchers — an American and a Swede — were found in a shallow grave in eastern Congo. Four Congolese nationals who had accompanied them remain missing. [[The New York Times]( • The terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal received his third life sentence for a 1974 attack on a Paris drugstore that killed two people and wounded 34. [[The New York Times]( • French prosecutors began a formal investigation into the past employment of François Fillon’s wife as his aide, further dimming the chances of Mr. Fillon’s bid for the presidency. [[Reuters]( Smarter Living Jim Wilson/The New York Times • Paula Wolfert, above, a pioneering cookbook author, has Alzheimer’s disease and no longer cooks much. But a special diet and persistence [keep her as kinetic as ever](. • Ever wonder why you even need to sleep? New studies suggest it’s so your [brain can edit itself](. • Let spring cleaning take over your fridge, too: This recipe for [whatever you want soup]( provides a perfect canvas for whatever it is you find. Noteworthy Christophe Ena/Associated Press • Soccer: Spain, above, beat France 2-0 ([with]( of video replay]( and the Dutch [risk not qualifying for next year’s World Cup]( after losing to Italy 2-1. • A new breed of surreal television shows [fits right in with the current environment]( of fake news, gaslighting and contested objectivity. • In memoriam: Christine Kaufmann, the Austrian-born actress who won a [Golden Globe]( for her role in the 1962 film “Town Without Pity,” [died at 72](. • And chunky hipster glasses are on the wane. Trendsetters are [now taking up 1980s-style aviators](. Back Story Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times As Scotland debates whether to attempt to leave the United Kingdom, it might be worth recalling the precedent of another European state that peacefully broke apart: Czechoslovakia, or Czecho-Slovakia. That separation, in 1993, was preceded by the so-called Hyphen War, a fierce-yet-bloodless dispute over what the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, which had just emerged from Soviet control, would call itself. The government initially proposed just dropping “Socialist,” but the Slovaks, accounting for one third of the country’s population of about 15 million, sought to be treated as equals in the newly democratic state. A hyphen, they said, would go a long way. “When you are abroad, you always hear Czech, Czech, Czech,” a Slovak lawmaker [told The Times in 1990](. “Slovakia is always left out.” Vaclav Havel, the country’s first president after Communist rule, offered the hyphenated Czecho-Slovakia, but that angered the Czechs. Advertisers, meanwhile, tried to please everyone: [IBM billboards]( that read “Good luck, Czechoslovakia” in Prague said “Good luck, Czecho-Slovakia” in Bratislava. The Hyphen War ultimately ended in the so-called Velvet Divorce, when the Czech Republic and Slovakia [split into two countries]( 1993](. But the process wasn’t easy after decades of unity. One village’s residents discovered that their train station was now located abroad and a ski chalet found that its slopes were in the other country. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. Read the [latest edition of the U.S. briefing here]( and the [latest for Asia and Australia here](. What would you like to see here? Contact us at [europebriefing@nytimes.com](mailto:europebriefing@nytimes.com?subject=Briefing%20Feedback%20(Europe)). FOLLOW NYT [Facebook] [FACEBOOK]( [Twitter] [@nytimes]( Prefer a different send time? 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