A surprising figure emerged: a young foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, who lied to the F.B.I. about seeking to be a conduit for Russian “dirt” to the Trump campaign. Mr. Trump dismissed him as a “low level volunteer” who has “proven to be a liar,” a few hours before attending a meeting on tax reform at the White House, above.
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• More than 600 refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island stockpiled supplies and dug in after Australia cut off access to food, water and electricity to the offshore detention center on Tuesday. Control reverts to Papua New Guinea today.
“We are begging for our freedom in a safe nation after more than four years of imprisonment, waiting, feeling lost and drifting in this concentration camp,” said a Rohingya migrant from Myanmar.
Photographs posted online showed the detainees barricading the center with wire, in part to secure themselves from locals. The country’s ABC news organization is reporting from inside the camp.
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• Our Interpreter columnists re-examine the legacy of Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy icon now under international fire for her inaction on the Myanmar military’s brutal treatment of Rohingya Muslims.
“If Suu Kyi had so far to fall,” one analyst told them, “it is because the international community raised her so high.”
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• Executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google, above, began two days of grilling in Washington by lawmakers investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, including how the online platforms were used to spread misinformation and propaganda.
Prepared remarks obtained by The Times show the reach of the Russian interference: 126 million users on Facebook, 131,000 messages on Twitter and 1,000 videos on Google’s YouTube.
We asked technologists, academics, politicians and journalists how to fix Facebook. And our behavioral science reporter recently explained the psychological factors that make us so vulnerable to misinformation on social media.
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• Grisly crimes are rare in Japan, which has one of the lowest murder rates in the world.
That’s one reason this case has stunned the country: A police search for a missing woman who had sought a suicide partner turned up a self-confessed serial killer.
Explaining his possession of mutilated bodies and coolers containing severed heads, he said he had killed nine people since moving into his apartment in the townhouse above in August, and dismembered them in his bathtub.
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• President Xi Jinping has staked his legacy on an ambitious plan to eradicate rural poverty in China by 2020.
The plan targets the more than 43 million people, like Li Chao, above, who still live on less than 95 cents a day, the poverty line set by the Chinese government. Five years ago, about 100 million people lived below that line. Even so, achieving Mr. Xi’s lofty vision will be no easy task.
Business
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• A rare proxy fight between a Chinese internet company — Sina, which controls the Weibo social media platform — and one of its U.S. investors underscores the corporate governance issues that surround many U.S.-traded Chinese firms.
• Samsung appointed three new top executives to bring stability to its rocky leadership. The South Korean tech giant also reported record-high profits for the second consecutive quarter.
• Airbus, already embroiled in a European corruption investigation, said that it may have violated U.S. rules on arms exports.
• Unitree, a Chinese start-up, made a four-legged robot called Laikago. A video of the doglike machine has gone viral.
• U.S. stocks were up. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.
In the News
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• Catalonia’s former leader, Carles Puigdemont, said he was in Brussels to put Spain’s conflict “in the institutional heart of Europe,” not to seek political asylum. [The New York Times]
• As many as 200 North Koreans may have been killed in a tunnel collapse at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, a Japanese news outlet reported, without specifying a time frame. [Yonhap]
• Netflix halted production on the final season of “House of Cards” following an accusation that Kevin Spacey, the show’s star, accosted a 14-year-old boy in the 1980s. [The New York Times]
• Japan’s Parliament convenes in a special session to re-elect Shinzo Abe prime minister. [Japan Today]
• John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, was roasted after he said “the lack of an ability to compromise” led to the American Civil War. [The New York Times]
• China is planning a 1,000-kilometer tunnel to divert water from one of India’s largest rivers, the Brahmaputra, to the arid Xinjiang region. [Quartz]
• A Cambodian radio station airs a popular call-in show on a topic that permeates Khmer culture: ghosts. “Even if you don’t believe in them,” the host said, “please do not insult them.” [Phnom Penh Post]
Smarter Living
Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.
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• Recipe of the day: Spicy molten blue cheese dip is the ultimate snack.
• The solution for skin ailments may be right under your nose.
• A new study of reality TV contestants found the secret to keeping weight off: Exercise. Lots of it.
Noteworthy
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• Our new video series, “Internetting with Amanda Hess,” examines all the weird, wrong and totally sad aspects of online culture. Episode 1 is “The Dark Art of Political Memes.” To hear about new episodes, sign up here.
• In Germany, controversy broke out over plans to honor Anne Frank, the teenage diarist who died in the Holocaust, by naming a train after her.
• And the West tends to view Japanese art though clichéd binaries, like the ascetic Zen of a rock garden versus the gleeful kitsch of Hello Kitty. Two Japanese exhibitions in Metz, France, offer correctives.
Back Story
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Have you ever gotten a job without the qualifications?
It happened to Michelangelo, a sculptor by trade, when he painted the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, first made visible to the public on this day in 1512.
Commissioned by Pope Julius II, Michelangelo took four years to paint the ceiling, which is about 130 feet long and 45 feet wide. (You can take a virtual tour here.)
Believing he was being set up to fail, Michelangelo was paranoid at the beginning and a physical wreck by the end, writing a poem that began:
“I’ve already grown a goiter from this torture
hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy
(or anywhere else where the stagnant water’s poison).”
The centerpiece of the ceiling is the Creation of Adam, one of nine scenes from the biblical book of Genesis.
The frescoes have required only one restoration in the modern era, in the 1980s and ’90s, but the effect of more than five million visitors a year is the cause of some concern.
Its popularity is understandable. As the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe noted: “Without having seen the Sistine Chapel one can form no appreciable idea of what one man is capable of achieving.”
Thomas Furse contributed reporting.
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