Donald Trump, Russia, Aleppo: Your Friday Evening Briefing
1. President-elect Donald Trump was in Louisiana, above, early Friday to campaign for a Republican seeking a United States Senate seat. He headed to Michigan afterward to continue his victory tour.
Rex Tillerson, the head of Exxon Mobil, appears to be the leading candidatefor secretary of state. Mr. Trump said earlier that Rudolph Giuliani was no longer in the running for the job.
Selections for other top posts keep coming: Gary D. Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, will be named to direct the National Economic Council. And Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a representative from Washington State, may be chosen for secretary of the interior.
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2. President Obama has ordered intelligence agencies to produce a full report on Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election, days after Mr. Trump dismissed the possibility that Russia intervened.
A broader look at cybermischief linked to Russia indicates it has expanded in both range and sophistication, with some dissidents saying hackers have planted child pornography on their computers.
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3. Russia is also coming under fire in sports after a new report laid out mountainous evidence of the broad scale of a state-sponsored doping program.
The investigation implicates more than 1,000 athletes in 30 sports and could affect the outcomes of past Olympics and other competitions.
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4. Hundreds of men have been reported missing in eastern Aleppo as the Syrian Army continues its push to retake the city. Human rights groups are blaming both government forces and some rebel fighters.
In Afghanistan, where the Taliban is threatening major cities and Islamic State affiliates are gaining a foothold, the U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter visited the Bagram Air Base to thank American troops stationed there.
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5. A Dutch politician who is using the campaign slogan “Make the Netherlands Great Again” was convicted of inciting discrimination for saying the country would be safer with fewer Moroccans.
Geert Wilders, above, is a likely contender for prime minister, and the trial seems to have improved his party’s standing among voters.
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6. It is now up to South Korea’s Constitutional Court to decide whether the charges against President Park Geun-hye, above, merit her ouster.
The country’s Parliament voted on Friday to impeach Ms. Park, the nation’s first female leader, following a corruption scandal. She has given no indication she’ll resign.
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7. Our investigation into Chicago’s crisis of violence took our journalists to the city’s 11th police district, where homicides are up 89 percent from a year ago.
Only about 74,000 residents call it home, yet 91 people have been killed there so far in 2016 — more homicides than larger cities like Seattle and Buffalo saw in all of last year.
“It’s about desperation, decadence, depression and rage,” said the Rev. Marshall E. Hatch Sr.
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8. “Did you know that the Nazis took loads of drugs?”
That was the question from a D.J. and fan of mind-altering substances that set a Berlin author, Norman Ohler, above, on a path to years of researching drug use in The Third Reich.
Now, his book chronicling the meth-fueled blitzkrieg of France and Hitler’s addiction to powerful opiates is a best seller in Germany and Britain. It will be published in the U.S. in April.
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9. Taylor Swift surprised fans with the release of a new single — her first new music since the album “1989” came out in the fall of 2014.
The moody track “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” was a collaboration with the former One Direction member Zayn Malik and will be featured in the movie soundtrack “Fifty Shades Darker.”
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10. A volcano straddling the border between China and North Korea remains largely tranquil. But when North Korean scientists recorded a swarm of tiny earthquakes rumbling underground years ago, they reached out to the West for help.
The rare collaboration with scientists from the U.S. and Britain led to a new understanding of the volcano, which unleashed one of the most violent eruptions in recorded human history when Mount Paektu last awoke.
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11. Finally, bundle up. A winter storm has begun making its way across the northern swath of the U.S., bringing plunging temperatures, snow, or in some places, freezing rain.
The weather system is projected to reach the Northeast late Sunday and into Monday. Above, Portland, Ore., on Thursday.
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P.C : http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/briefing/donald-trump-russia-aleppo.html
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