Your Wednesday Briefing

View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Wednesday, April 5, 2017 [NYTimes.com »]( Europe Edition [Your Wednesday Briefing]( By PATRICK BOEHLER Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: Mohamed Al-Bakour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images • Syria’s deadliest chemical attack in years. Dozens of people were killed, including women and children. Witnesses [described traumatic scenes](. Graphic photographs and videos posted online showed people [struggling to breathe](. The U.S. and European powers [have blamed President Bashar al-Assad’s government]( which denied responsibility, and are expected to seek condemnation from the U.N. Security Council. A White House spokesman [dismissed regime change as impractical](. _____ Michel Euler/Associated Press • A Spanish judge [ordered the seizure of properties]( controlled by Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of the Syrian president. The order came out of a money laundering investigation, carried out jointly by France and Spain, that has traced his wealth to Syrian state coffers. Mr. Assad is known as the Butcher of Hama, a reference to his possible role in the suppression of an uprising in that Syrian city in 1982. _____ Dmitri Lovetsky/Associated Press • A 22-year-old man from Kyrgyzstan who had a Russian passport [was responsible for the deadly subway blast in St. Petersburg]( the authorities said, as the toll from the attack rose to 14 dead and more than 60 wounded. Investigators were seeking a young man and woman from Central Asia, according to some news reports, but there was no official confirmation. _____ James Hill for The New York Times • Russia’s Supreme Court is [scheduled to consider today whether to ban]( Jehovah’s Witnesses. The pacifist denomination has more than 170,000 members in the country, and has been targeted in a growing government campaign to banish religious groups that compete with the Russian Orthodox Church. _____ Zoltan Balogh/European Pressphoto Agency • Hungary’s Parliament approved a law that [appeared to be written to force the closing]( of a university founded by George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist. In Budapest, [thousands protested the law]( as yet more restraint on free expression. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German president, denounced the move. “Europe should not remain silent,” he said. _____ Tyler Hicks/The New York Times • Meet Duop. He is one of [10,000-plus boys, some as young as 10, who have been forced to fight in South Sudan](. Duop is 16 now, give or take, and what he has experienced seems to have robbed him of the ability to speak. Our correspondent went with him to see his mother for the first time in six years. _____ Business Philip Montgomery for The New York Times • TV news giants: We explore how [CNN has become central to the American national conversation]( largely thanks to a presidency it helped create. • BMW and Mercedes-Benz are among a wave of companies that [pulled advertising from Fox News]( in response to sexual harassment allegations against Bill O’Reilly, the network’s top-rated host. • Boeing said its tentative agreement to sell up to 60 737s to an Iranian airline [would create 18,000 American jobs]( but it still requires U.S. government approval. • Here’s a snapshot of [global markets](. In the News Lionel Bonaventure/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images • In France, a snap poll suggested that Emmanuel Macron, a centrist presidential candidate, performed better than Marine Le Pen, his far-right rival, in the second presidential debate. [[Reuters]( • After years of quiet seas, Somali pirates have waylaid four ships in the past month, raising fears that the pirate menace has returned to the Indian Ocean. [[The New York Times]( • Russian spies tried in 2013 to recruit a businessman who is now a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign — and part of the F.B.I. investigation into Russia’s interference into the U.S. election. [[The New York Times]( • The Dutch Supreme Court has approved the extradition to Canada of a convicted cyberbully who faces charges in the case of a Canadian teen who killed herself after being bullied online. [[Associated Press]( • The Trump administration axed U.S. funding of the U.N. Population Fund, the world’s leading provider of family planning services, including contraception. [[The New York Times]( • North Korea tested a missile only a day before President Xi Jinping of China was set to arrive in the U.S. for talks with President Trump. [[The New York Times]( • “It’s impossible to know what to get Your Holiness!” — That was Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, speaking to Pope Francis in Rome as he handed the pontiff a picnic basket full of tea and chocolate. [[Associated Press]( Smarter Living Golden Cosmos • The best way to get more done may be to [spend more time doing less.]( • Beginning a new [exercise regimen, but gaining weight]( Starting to exercise often means we eat more and move less than we did before. • This recipe for [flounder with mustard greens]( puts bold tastes front and center. Noteworthy Andrei Pungovschi for The New York Times • A dispute between Gigi Becali, above, a shepherd-turned-tycoon, and Romania’s ministry of defense threatens to destroy the country’s most successful soccer team, [Steaua Bucharest](. • The ur-Brexit: Hundreds of thousands years ago, a cataclysmic flood [destroyed Britain’s last physical link]( a land bridge, with the European continent, according to a new study. • The hippies have won: In what may seem like a 1970s throwback, products surrounding healthy eating and wellness [have gone mainstream](. • Researchers say it is more efficient if nobody walks on escalators. [Good luck persuading people as pressed as your Briefing reporter](. Back Story Mika Gröndahl/The New York Times Even a schoolchild can tell you that matter can exist as a solid, a liquid or a gas. But humanity’s hope for near-limitless, clean energy may hinge on a fourth state: plasma. [A giant plant]( now under construction in the south of France will be the testing ground, if the project’s partners — which include the European Union, the U.S., Russia and China — stay on course for billions of dollars of investment and a couple of decades of painstaking work. The kind of plasma we’re talking about was named by an American scientist, Irving Langmuir, who saw a resemblance to blood plasma. It emerges when energy is added to gas, leaving a cloud of positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons zipping around. That’s what makes up the sun and other stars. Under the right conditions, some superheated ions can fuse. And as they join, they shed a tiny amount of mass that translates into vast amounts of energy. Hence all that heat and light from the sun. The French plant aims to create the right conditions by using magnetic fields to contain the plasma and radio waves and microwaves to make it unimaginably hot — and then see if human-created fusion will work. Andrea Kannapell contributed reporting. _____ This briefing was prepared for the European morning. We also have briefings timed for the [Australian]( [Asian]( and [American]( mornings. You can sign up for these and other Times newsletters [here](. Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. 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? Sign up for the [Americas]( or [A]( and Australia]( editions. | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps for just $0.99. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Morning Briefing: Europe newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Manage Subscriptions]( | [Change Your Email]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Contact]( | [Advertise]( Copyright 2017 The New York Times Company 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018