Thursday, Sep 19, 2019 | View in browser

Good morning.

We’re decoding Israeli election results and taking a closer look at China’s Twitter trolls. We’ve also got a story about a chef who turns dim sum dough into art.

By Alisha Haridasani Gupta

U.S. calls Saudi attack an ‘act of war’

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used the strongest terms yet from an American official to describe the strikes on Saudi oil facilities, and said that the U.S. was working to build a coalition to deter further attacks.

He made the remarks after arriving in Saudi Arabia for an emergency meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Saudi Arabia, for its part, showed what it described as debris from the site of the attack, which it attributed to Iran, but didn’t specify how it plans to respond.

President Trump played down the possibility of another American military engagement in the Middle East. He instead ordered new sanctions, but gave no details.

Related: Mr. Trump selected Robert O’Brien, the State Department’s chief hostage negotiator, to replace John Bolton as his national security adviser. Mr. O’Brien has previously worked for Mr. Bolton and has cited his hawkish views.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the Likud party campaign headquarters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Disappointing results for Israel’s leader

The country’s election remained too close to call on Wednesday, according to partial results and exit polls.

The center-left Blue and White party, led by the former army chief Benny Gantz, seemed to come out just ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. And the Joint List of Arab parties performed better than expected.

The murky outcome itself represents a setback for Mr. Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving leader, who had failed to form a government after elections in April. Here are other takeaways from the election.

What’s next: In a few days, President Reuven Rivlin will give the mandate to form a government to the candidate with the best chance of forming a viable coalition. If projections hold, that opportunity could fall to Mr. Gantz.

Tracing China’s anti-protest Twitter trolls

Last month, the company took down nearly 1,000 accounts that it said were part of a Chinese disinformation campaign to undermine the antigovernment demonstrations in Hong Kong.

It was the first time that an American technology giant had attributed such an effort to the Chinese government. The Times worked with several researchers to analyze how the campaign worked and found that it lacked the sophistication of Russia’s disinformation efforts during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Details: Many of the accounts posted messages that matched, word for word, others that Twitter had deleted, or posted messages at exactly 12 and 42 minutes past the hour, indicating an automated effort.

Perspective: While social media has made it easier to build mass movements, like the one in Hong Kong, it has made it harder to translate the sentiment into real change, argues our columnist Thomas Friedman. “These modern movements are crowdsourced but also crowd-enforced,” he writes, “and that’s intimidating for anyone who wants to make a deal.”

Fed cuts interest rates again

The U.S. Federal Reserve cut rates by a quarter percentage point, the second time since late July, and suggested it was prepared to do more if the economy showed continued signs of weakness.

But the rate cut did little to appease President Trump, who has been pushing the central bank to take a bigger step and cut rates to zero, or even into negative territory.

A growing number of officials expect one more reduction in the coming months, based on economic projections released on Wednesday.

Another angle: Oil shocks, autoworkers on strike, political pressure on the Fed — at first glance, this economic era seems similar to one in the 1970s. But there are a few big differences that are crucial to understanding the world economy in 2019.

Global perspective: The Fed’s decision echoes those of central banks around the world that have also been cutting borrowing costs.

If you have 6 minutes, this is worth it

The taboos of Japan’s wartime past

Ahn Young-joon/Associated Press

A filmmaker, Miki Dizaki, set out to examine why a small group of conservatives continues to deny the country’s wartime atrocities, particularly the sexual enslavement of so-called comfort women, pictured above. The people he interviewed have reaches at the highest levels of the Japanese government, shaping the country’s cultural, political and social narrative.

Now, five of them are suing Mr. Dizaki for defamation.

Here’s what else is happening

The Philippines: President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to admit in a speech this week that he ordered an assassination attempt on a politician last year. A spokesman said he had misspoken.

Myanmar: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s civilian leader and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, could face prosecution for crimes against humanity stemming from the military’s brutal oppression of Rohingya Muslims.

Climate: The Trump administration is expected to revoke California’s authority to set auto emissions rules that are stricter than federal standards, part of a broader effort to weaken regulations that address climate change.

Dominik Tarabanski

Snapshot: Above, a miniature scene from ancient China created by chef Joe Ng out of dim sum dough. The dough is steamed, plunged into boiling water, tinted with artist’s paint and left overnight to dry. Then Mr. Ng, considered one of the best Chinese chefs in the West, begins assembling his figurines, pressing one layer of dough at a time around a toothpick base.

Social grammar police: In Southeast Asia, watchdog accounts on social media call out misspelled and otherwise muddled English-language captions.

In memoriam: William Chang, a Hawaiian-born journalist who founded an English-language newspaper aimed at Chinese-Americans, giving the community a voice and identity. He died last week at age 103.

What we’re reading: This Vice piece about a cooking legend. Our food writer Tejal Rao writes: “Cecilia Chiang immigrated to San Francisco in the 1960s and opened a restaurant that expanded the American understanding of Chinese cuisine with the super sophisticated dishes of her youth. I love that her big life lessons, at the age of 99, include drinking Champagne at lunch.”

Now, a break from the news

Mark Weinberg for The New York Times

Cook: Comfort is a cup of tea and a slice of apple skillet cake with salted caramel frosting.

Watch: “Midnight Traveler” documents a refugee family’s search for safety. At its best, our film critic writes, it reminds you that those of us with homes make choices every day that affect the lives of others.

Read: In “Red at the Bone,” a new novel from Jacqueline Woodson, an unplanned pregnancy ripples through three generations of a Brooklyn family.

Listen: “Trapcorridos” — tales of love, bandits, heroes and gangsters — are a sensation in California and Mexico.

Smarter Living: Medical emergencies on airplanes are rare, but they do happen. If you’re taking the kids on a flight, pediatricians have some advice: Keep children’s medications in your carry-on, and don’t seat them on the aisle, where heavy bags could fall.

And many day care centers have guidelines for pink eye that don’t follow the latest medical advice. Here’s what parents should know.

And now for the Back Story on …

School backpacks

Pack heavy items close to your back. Use both shoulder straps. And carry no more than 10 percent of your weight.

These are some of the ABC’s of school backpacks from the American Occupational Therapy Association, which declared yesterday to be National School Backpack Awareness Day.

Kindergarten student backpacks in Los Angeles. Jessica Pons for The New York Times

(Don’t laugh — the group also has ergonomic advice for toting purses, briefcases and suitcases.)

The first lightweight nylon backpacks appeared around 1967, designed by JanSport and Gerry Outdoors for use by hikers and, uh, backpackers. Soon, college kids started to adopt them. By the 1980s, backpack companies were making them specifically for textbooks.

The packs filtered down through the grades and around the world, replacing the book straps, satchels and schoolbags of earlier eras as an indelible part of a student’s identity.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Alisha

Thank you
To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. Victoria Shannon, on the briefings team, wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is the first of a two-part series about a new book about Harvey Weinstein by two Times reporters.
• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Claus subordinates (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.
• The Times’s Travel section has introduced a new column, “Tripped Up,” that offers advice on how to resolve travel disasters.