Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

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October 30, 2019

Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

By remy tumin and marcus payadue

Good evening. Here's the latest.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

1. Dangerous Santa Ana winds are whipping Southern California, and a new wildfire is threatening the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

That blaze, the Easy fire, tripled in size in two hours, leading local officials to order evacuations for parts of two communities. Here's the latest.

In Northern California, firefighters made inroads on the Kincade fire, above. The 76,000-acre blaze is now 30 percent contained, and forecasters are cautiously optimistic that winds in the area are dying down.

Our Opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo has sometimes called himself a California nationalist. But in the fires, he's seeing the outcome of something also visible in problems like homelessness: the state's failure to live sustainably.

Tom Brenner/The New York Times

2. House Democrats have summoned John Bolton, the former national security adviser, to testify in the impeachment inquiry. It is unclear if he will comply.

Letters to three people who were or still are members of President Trump's national security staff, including Mr. Bolton, took the form of voluntary requests, rather than subpoenas.

There may be no one in Washington that investigators want to question more than Mr. Bolton, our chief White House correspondent wrote last week. His name has come up repeatedly in testimony that has depicted him resisting Mr. Trump's Ukraine pressure campaign.

Meanwhile, a former Republican lawmaker turned lobbyist repeatedly contacted a White House official to criticize the American ambassador to Ukraine, the official told impeachment investigators.

The New York Times

3. As the U.S. military retreated, Russia, Turkey and Bashar al-Assad carved up northern Syria. We mapped out how power is reordering in the region.

Four American adversaries are making gains.

Mr. al-Assad, the Syrian president, is expanding his control; Iran gets a supply route to Hezbollah, its proxy in Lebanon; Russia cements its foothold in Syria; and the Islamic State has an opening to regroup.

Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

4. Two out of three of the nation's children did not meet reading proficiency levels on the federally administered exam, new Education Department data shows.

The dismal results were part of what's known as the "nation's report card." The test assesses a sample of fourth- and eighth-grade public school students in reading and math every other year. Compared to 2017, average eighth-grade reading scores declined in more than half of the states.

Math results were better, but Education Secretary Betsy DeVos warned of a "student achievement crisis."

Stanford Internet Observatory

5. Russia's disinformation efforts are evolving, an enormous new African campaign on Facebook shows, with implications for the 2020 U.S. election.

Facebook said it removed three Russian-backed influence networks aimed at countries including Mozambique, Cameroon, Sudan and Libya. The networks were linked to a Russian oligarch, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was indicted by the U.S. and accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

Separately, Twitter plans to ban all political advertising, its C.E.O. said, a stark contrast to Facebook's policy to allow free rein to candidates' ads.

The New York Times; Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis

6. Two economic indicators show continued signs of cooling.

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the third time this year, reducing rates by another quarter point. Also for the third time, the vote wasn't unanimous, and the central bank signaled that it might pause before adjusting rates again to weigh incoming data.

The Commerce Department released preliminary data that found that U.S. economic growth dipped slightly over the summer. Gross domestic product — the broadest measure of goods and services produced in the economy — grew at a 1.9 percent annual rate for the third quarter.

Matt Slocum/Associated Press

7. It's winner-take-all in Game 7 of the World Series tonight. First pitch is just after 8 p.m. Eastern, and we'll have live coverage here.

Either the Houston Astros will finish what they began as the best team in the regular season, or the Washington Nationals will complete their turnaround from their season's miserable start. Here's our recap of Game 6, which at one point came to a halt over a debate over interference, above.

And this is new: So far, the road team has won every time. Is this going to be the first World Series where no one wins at home?

via Christie's

8. Christie's auctioned this $40 million diamond. Was it stolen?

The diamond, known as the Princie, was bought by a member of the Qatari royal family, but the descendants of an Italian politician say it belongs to them. They have sued the auction house and its client, a gems dealer.

The history of the 34.65-carat diamond, mined in India several centuries ago, is sprinkled with royalty and rich people.

We recently published a special section on watches. Here are 10 timepieces that have shaped what's on your wrist.

Nicole Rifkin

9. Our film critic says "Parasite" is the film of the year.

The movie — part horror film, part satire and part tragedy — conveys a sharp lesson about class struggle in South Korea and just about everywhere else, writes A.O. Scott. Bong Joon Ho, the director, "combines showmanship with social awareness in a way that re-energizes the faded but nonetheless durable democratic promise of movies."

On the small screen, a bygone tradition has quietly made a comeback: Local TV stations have begun playing the national anthem in the wee hours.

And for fans of HBO's "Succession," this essay explores the feelings you might be having after the second-season finale (and what the chicken scene was really about).

Sarah Anne Ward for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Amy Elise Wilson.

10. And finally, ending on a sweet note.

When Dorie Greenspan, who writes about desserts for The Times Magazine, got pickpocketed while on vacation in Lisbon, there was only one thing that helped: a piece of chocolate cake, topped with chocolate cream and covered with a thick layer of cocoa.

She went back for seconds. Once back home, she recreated the recipe. "Each forkful is a complete composition," she writes. "The textures go from firm to feathery, the flavors building in intensity."

Have a decadent night.

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