Rex Tillerson, Aleppo, Golden Globe Awards: Your Tuesday Briefing
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Good morning.
Here’s what you need to know:
• Search for top cabinet post is over.
President-elect Donald J. Trump formally announced today his selection of the Exxon Mobil chief executive Rex W. Tillerson for secretary of state. The decision ends weeks of speculation over the position, for which there were at least three other candidates.
Mr. Tillerson may be headed for a difficult confirmation hearing in the Senate as bipartisan criticism grows over his stake in Russia’s energy industry.
We look at some of the scrutiny Mr. Trump’s other cabinet picks may face from senators.
• Role of the C.I.A.
Mr. Trump’s recent criticism of intelligence officials and their assessment that Russia sought to influence the election in his favor echoes positions held by Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, his choice for national security adviser.
Mr. Flynn has questioned the C.I.A.’s decision to kill Osama bin Laden, saying the agency could have captured the Qaeda leader instead.
As congressional leaders call for an investigation into possible Russian cyberattacks, we wrote a guide to separate fact from misconception about Moscow’s interference.
• Aleppo siege is ending.
The forces backing President Bashar al-Assad of Syria are close to retaking the last corners of the country’s largest city, where thousands of civilians are said to be trapped.
Capturing it would be a turning point in the civil war, reasserting government rule in all major cities and forcing the opposition to question whether its armed rebellion has failed.
• Inside the justice system.
Pretrial diversion is an alternative to court in the U.S. intended to spare first-time or low-risk offenders the consequences of a criminal record, freeing prosecutors to pursue dangerous criminals.
A recent Times investigation found that the way a prosecutor’s office in Alabama uses diversion “resembles a dismissal-for-sale scheme, available only to those with money and, in some cases, favor.”
• Sexual abuse in soccer.
Andrew Woodward recently became the first professional player in Britain to go public with his story of sexual abuse. At least 20 other former players have followed.
The chairman of soccer’s governing body in England has called the episode “one of the biggest crises” in the sport’s history.
Business
• Leading technology titans like Bill Gates of Microsoft and Jack Ma of Alibaba are helping to start a fund that would invest more than $1 billion in energy technologies to combat climate change.
And investors who control more than $5 trillion in assets have agreed to drop some or all of their fossil fuel stocks. The divestment movement has doubled in size in 15 months.
• We visited a start-up in Massachusetts that seeks to build a better and safer smartphone battery.
Improving battery technology has challenged scientists for more than a century.
• Don’t view retirement as a light at the end of a career tunnel, our personal finance writer warns.
He offers a few tips to rearrange your work life, such as: “If you realize that you aren’t going to retire, then maybe you don’t have to keep working at a job that’s slowly driving you insane.”
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Noteworthy
• Taking a stroll with Ai Weiwei.
Click and drag your mouse to explore.
Stroll in the Park With Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei, the acclaimed Chinese artist, takes us on a walk through his old stomping ground in Tompkins Square Park. Four exhibitions of his work are currently in New York.
By TONY CENICOLA, TIM CHAFFEE and SAMANTHA QUICK on December 11, 2016. Photo by Tony Cenicola/The New York Times. Technology by Samsung.. Watch in Times Video »
The Chinese artist takes us on a walk through Tompkins Square Park, his old stomping ground in New York, in one of our recent 360 videos.
• Golden Globe nominations.
“La La Land” garnered seven nods, with “Moonlight” and “Manchester by the Sea” not far behind.
Our critics sought out some of the nominees. “I just woke up to, like, a thousand messages. It’s a good way of finding out,” Donald Glover, the creator and star of the TV show “Atlanta” said of his two nominations.
• Science roundup.
A new project uses satellite images to illustrate how the world’s lakes and rivers have been altered over the past three decades by drought and warming temperatures.
And scientists recently reported that monkeys have vocal tracts that would allow them to talk, but that their brains aren’t wired for intelligible speech.
Finally, researchers offer some advice on gift-giving: Recipients often don’t care how much thought went into the present. In other words, don’t try so hard.
• Recipe of the day.
Try farro and bean soup. Add pancetta to give the dish even more flavor.
Back Story
Basketball celebrates its 125th birthday this month. Its inventor, Dr. James Naismith, intended the sport to keep athletes vigorous through the winter.
He might be surprised at the game’s popularity worldwide nowadays: especially in China, where at least 300 million people play.
Y.M.C.A. missionaries introduced the game in Tianjin in 1895 and, using a Chinese translation of Naismith’s rule book, spread it widely.
Yao Ming lifted basketball’s profile in China after becoming the top pick in the 2002 N.B.A. draft, but earlier factors helped.
First, the Communist Party embraced it. Games maintained soldiers’ morale during the Long March, when Mao Zedong led the Red Army on a yearlong retreat.
And while Mao declared war against almost all Western imports during the Cultural Revolution, “he never wavered in support of basketball,” The Atlantic reported in 2012.
In 1979, a few years after President Richard M. Nixon’s historic visit, the N.B.A.’s Washington Bullets (now Wizards) visited to play China’s national team.
“Everywhere you went and there was open space, you saw a basketball hoop,” the Washington coach said. “It was just a matter of time before they developed it.”
Indeed, the N.B.A. later opened offices there, and it has succeeded where companies like Google and Facebook have struggled.
Charles McDermid contributed reporting.
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P.C : http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/briefing/us-briefing-rex-tillerson-aleppo-golden-globe-awards.html
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