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Good morning,

Welcome again to our redesigned Morning Briefing. Please let us know what you think. Many of you have asked where the mini crossword can be found: There’s a link at the bottom of each day’s briefing. Read our explanation for the changes, including suggestions from readers like you.

We start today with a look ahead at the G-20 meeting that begins on Friday, a good day on Wall Street and a Senate vote in defiance of President Trump.

High stakes at the G-20 meeting

Buenos Aires will be an armored city when world leaders arrive for a meeting of the Group of 20 industrialized nations that begins on Friday. President Trump is leaving for Argentina today.

Mr. Trump is scheduled to meet President Xi Jinping of China on Saturday. A core American grievance is Chinese cyberespionage against the U.S., which has accelerated sharply over the past year, intelligence officials and analysts say. Trade conflicts and other tensions have also strained relations between the world’s two largest economies.

News analysis: Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian ships has complicated Mr. Trump’s plan to meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia this weekend.

Two little words send U.S. markets rising

The Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, said on Wednesday that the central bank’s benchmark interest rate was “just below” the neutral level, raising investors’ hopes that the Fed might soon end its push to drive up rates.

The announcement sent stocks up 2.3 percent, erasing this month’s losses. Analysts, however, warned that investors were overreacting and that there was little evidence in the rest of Mr. Powell’s speech that indicated a change in plans.

Another angle: The bond market has signaled that concerns about inflation are waning, another argument against raising interest rates.

Senators spurn President Trump over Yemen

Furious over having been denied a C.I.A. briefing on the killing of a Saudi dissident, senators from both parties defied the Trump administration and voted 63 to 37 to consider ending American military support for the Saudi-backed war in Yemen.

Why it matters: The vote on Wednesday was the strongest signal yet of disagreement with the administration’s reaction to the death of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, and with its defense of the Saudi crown prince.

Watch: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the vote would undermine the chances of a cease-fire agreement with Saudi Arabia.

How Les Moonves tried to silence an accuser

The chief executive of CBS was pushed out in September after 12 women said he had sexually harassed or assaulted them. But those accusations didn’t directly cause his fall.

A Times investigation details a plan by Mr. Moonves and a Hollywood manager to bury reports that he had sexually assaulted the actress Bobbie Phillips in 1995. Mr. Moonves later tried to find her a job, a move that is now under investigation by lawyers for CBS.

How we know: The Times reviewed hundreds of text messages. They could determine whether CBS pays Mr. Moonves an exit package of $120 million — or nothing at all.

The response: “I strongly believe that the sexual encounter with Ms. Phillips more than 20 years ago was consensual,” Mr. Moonves said in a statement to The Times.

If you have half an hour, this is worth it

The insect apocalypse is here

Because insects are legion, the fear that their numbers might be diminishing has been more felt than documented. “The windshield phenomenon” — the absence of smashed bugs after a drive in the country — became a telling approximation.

Without them, what happens to the cycle of life?

Here’s what else is happening

Deutsche Bank raid: The company’s headquarters in Frankfurt and five other sites were searched today as part of a money-laundering investigation involving hundreds of millions of euros, prosecutors said.

Picking a House leader: Representative Nancy Pelosi overwhelmingly won the Democratic nomination for House speaker. However, 32 Democrats voted against her, suggesting that she could still face a fight to win a floor vote as the party assumes control in January.

Hope for Paul Manafort: President Trump said a presidential pardon for his former campaign chairman was “not off the table,” and that Mr. Manafort had been poorly treated by prosecutors for the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

Record drug deaths: More than 70,000 Americans died of a drug overdose in 2017, contributing to a reduction in the average life expectancy in the U.S. The numbers were released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gun control: The Trump administration is preparing to officially ban bump stocks on guns, a move that would end sales of the attachments that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire faster.

Chess marathon: It took three weeks, 12 straight draws and a day of tiebreakers for the reigning world champion, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, to beat Fabiano Caruana, an American.

Snapshot: Above, rows of parked cars at a shopping center in Moscow were covered by the season’s first snowfall.

Some parting advice: In his final State of the Art column, Farhad Manjoo reflects on the tech industry’s changes and offers a guide for navigating the future. (He’ll still be writing for The Times, but in the Opinion section.)

Sequel for “The Handmaid’s Tale”: Margaret Atwood announced that “The Testaments,” a sequel to her dystopian classic, would be published in September 2019.

Late-night comedy: Stephen Colbert is keeping track of the special counsel’s moves and said that Mueller Claus was coming to town. “He sees you when you’re tweeting,” the “Late Show” host sang. “He knows when you’ve been bad or bad, ’cause you’re bad for goodness’ sake!”

What we’re reading: Michael Roston, an editor on our science desk, recommends this piece from BuzzFeed News: “The season of shopping is upon us, and that means a lot of e-commerce. We're all likely to buy things on Amazon, and Katie Notopoulos does an amusing job of deconstructing how its website sometimes lets us down.”

Now, a break from the news

Cook: A beef and basil stir-fry gets dinner on the table fast.

Read: The 26th book in the Alex Cross series by James Patterson debuts at No. 2 on both our hardcover fiction and combined print and e-book fiction best-seller lists.

Listen: The young Brooklyn performer 6ix9ine (pronounced six-nine) has become one of the emblematic rappers of the SoundCloud generation, Jon Caramanica writes in his review of the artist’s second album, “Dummy Boy.” Here’s the Apple Music preview.

Watch: These films and TV shows reflect the shift toward female empowerment inspired by the #MeToo movement.

Smarter Living: There are long flights and there are really long flights. Whether you’re on a plane for almost 19 hours between Newark and Singapore or something far shorter, two things can help: comfort and distraction. Dress in layers, bring noise-canceling headphones and make sure you’ve downloaded interesting things to read and watch.

And for those staying home, we have ideas to make a tiny kitchen feel bigger.

And now for the Back Story on …

The creator of Mary Poppins

“Mary Poppins Returns” will glide into Los Angeles tonight for its red carpet premiere. Emily Blunt, playing the title character, hopes to fill the large shoes left by Julie Andrews in the 1964 film.

But Mary Poppins existed before either of those two British actresses was born: She flew into the world in 1934 on the pen of the author P.L. Travers.

Travers was born Helen Lyndon Goff in Queensland, Australia, in 1899. As a teenager, she was a Shakespearean actress, a dancer, a journalist and a poet.

She moved to England in 1924 and soon dreamed up a governess who slid up banisters and imparted cheeky life lessons. A decade later, “Mary Poppins” was published in London to critical acclaim. Travers would continue to write stories about Poppins over the next half-century. She died in 1996.

“I think the idea of Mary Poppins has been blowing in and out of me, like a curtain at a window, all my life,” she said in 1964.

That’s it for this briefing. Please share your thoughts on the new format.

See you next time.

— Chris

Thank you
To Eleanor Stanford and Chris Harcum for books, movie and music recommendations, and to Kenneth R. Rosen for his Smarter Living tips. Andrew Chow wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at [email protected].

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Today’s episode is on Nancy Pelosi’s fight to lead the House.
• Here’s a clue from today’s mini crossword: Gang rival of the Bloods (5 letters).
• Ask us your questions about climate change.

Chris Stanford is based in London and writes the U.S. version of the Morning Briefing. He also compiles a weekly news quiz. He was previously a producer for the desktop home page and mobile site, helping to present The New York Times’s news report to readers. Before joining The Times in 2013, he was an editor and designer at The Washington Post and other news organizations. @stanfordc

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