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Good evening. Here’s the latest.
2. At the G-20 meeting, the stakes are high.
President Trump lands in Buenos Aires this evening for the Group of 20 industrialized nations summit meeting, where he plans to meet President Xi Jinping over dinner this weekend. Above, departing from the White House.
Hanging over the encounter is the escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Both Beijing and Washington have lobbed tariffs at each other, on everything from soybeans to Christmas lights.
One core grievance for the U.S. is Chinese cyberespionage, which has accelerated sharply over the past year.
3. Across battle-scarred Yemen, beggars congregate outside supermarkets filled with goods. Restaurants serve lavish meals a few hundred yards from hunger wards.
The problem isn’t a lack of food, our correspondent writes; it’s that after years of war, few people can afford it.
He writes reflects on a dilemma that reporters face in such situations. “Journalists travel with bundles of hard currency,” he writes, adding: “A small fraction of that cash might go a long way for a starving family. Should I pause, put down my notebook and offer to help?” Above, parents taking a malnourished child to a clinic.
Separately, the Senate voted to consider ending military support for the Saudi-led conflict in Yemen, a rebuke to the Trump administration and its response to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey.
4. Overdose deaths set a record last year.
Drug overdoses killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2017, a record, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That’s more than died from H.I.V., car crashes or gun violence at their peaks. Overdoses are now the leading cause of death for adults under 55, the data show.
The trends in overdose deaths vary widely across the U.S. The epidemic has been strongest in Northeast, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic States. In the West, where heroin is much less likely to be mixed with synthetic opioids known as fentanyls, overdose rates are far lower. Above, testing for fentanyl.
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5. The devastating Camp Fire that reduced much of Paradise, Calif., to ash, has been contained. But it could be weeks or months before some residents can return.
The blaze left behind vast amounts of toxic residue from the heavy metals, chemicals and biological contaminants it burned. A massive cleanup is needed before Paradise, above, and nearby towns are safe.
A Red Cross spokesman said the organization had been asked not to hand out the free tool kits — a shovel, gloves, a dust mask — they typically give to fire victims to dig through the ruins.
“There is still too much risk to go looking for your wedding ring.”
Separately, a search of 18,000 fire-ravaged structures is complete, but nearly 200 names remain on the list of people unaccounted for. The Camp Fire death toll is at 88.
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6. Senator Elizabeth Warren gave a major foreign policy speech, citing the need to rein in “unsustainable and ill-advised military commitments” across the world.
In doing so, Ms. Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, inched closer to a likely presidential run.
The speech had several policy proposals that are sure to reverberate among other 2020 presidential hopefuls, our national political reporter pointed out. She called for an end to the war in Afghanistan, a rethinking of U.S. troop deployment abroad, and a commitment to a new nuclear posture including increased arms control and a no-first-use policy.
“I wanted to come here today because there’s a lot at stake,” Ms. Warren, above, said at American University in Washington, adding: “Democracy is running headlong into the ideologies of nationalism, authoritarianism and corruption.”
7. Does your closet make a statement — about your politics?
Preferences in clothing and music are the leading indicators of political leaning, according to Christopher Wylie, above, a founder of the voter-profiling company Cambridge Analytica. For example, he said, a taste for Wrangler jeans and LL Bean indicates someone is likely a conservative.
Fashion profiling played a bigger role in the 2016 American presidential election than anyone realized, he said, with candidates harvesting data from their own online stores.
For example, if an individual bought an infant onesie from Hillary Clinton’s campaign website, that was a clue the person might be influenced by emails about maternal health.
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8. “I was doing it for my image.”
The story of the Brooklyn rapper Daniel Hernandez, who goes by the name 6ix9ine, is a cautionary tale for hip-hop, our reporters write, as the industry scours the internet for its next stars.
For some rappers, gang life is a means of survival, and music offers a way out. For Mr. Hernandez, above, that formula was reversed: Gang connections seemed to give street cred to the persona he built on sensational social media postings, rather than raw talent.
Now, charges that he participated in drug trafficking, shootings and violent robberies — some of which he live-streamed on Instagram, where he has 15 million followers — could end his career.
9. A deeply affecting novel about surviving senseless loss and our efforts to overcome it.
The story of a bond between a white slave master’s brother and a young black slave.
An exposé of brutal conditions in for-profit prisons. A definitive portrait of Frederick Douglass.
These are some of the 10 best books of the year, both fiction and nonfiction, chosen by our Book Review editors.
They’ve also rounded up great gift books for book lovers, including the year’s notable kids books.
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10. Finally, what is that plastic grass divider doing in your takeout sushi?
It’s a nod to a Japanese tradition of using intricately-cut bamboo leaves, which separate flavors and have antimicrobial properties.
Our new business columnist explains in pictures.
Have a piquant evening.
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