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Good evening. Here’s the latest.
1. Well, here’s that memo everyone’s talking about. We annotated it for you.
The document, released by House Republicans after a political firestorm, contends that F.B.I. officials abused their authority and favored Democrats in the early stages of the Russia inquiry. Above, Devin Nunes, the head of the House Intelligence Committee.
The F.B.I. and House Democrats have both said the memo is misleading because it contains omissions and inaccuracies. Our reporters say it falls short of what some Republicans had promised: to cast doubt on the origins of the Russia investigation. Here’s their full analysis.
This video explains the uproar — and why there’s a competing Democratic memo that still hasn’t been released.
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2. U.S. stocks ended their worst week in two years.
The catalyst appeared to be a jobs report that showed the strong economy might finally be translating into rising wages for American workers. Above, a job fair in Flint, Mich.
While rising pay is good for workers, it can be a sign that inflation is coming. And investors worried that it could prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.
Market Snapshot View Full Overview
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3. At least five migrants were shot this week during a huge brawl in the northern French city of Calais, above.
Continue reading the main storyThe area is a magnet for migrants from many countries because it serves as a gateway to England, and local officials are worried that tensions could spin further out of control.
Separately, 90 people were feared drowned after a migrant smuggler’s boat capsized off the coast of Libya. Most of the victims appear to have been from Pakistan.
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4. Fidel Ángel Castro Díaz-Balart, a nuclear physicist who was the oldest son of the former Cuban President Fidel Castro, died at 68.
He had been treated for depression in recent months and committed suicide, according to a report in the newspaper Granma.
Bearing a close physical resemblance to his father, Mr. Castro Díaz-Balart, known as Fidelito, was the only son of the president and his first wife, Mirta Díaz-Balart.
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5. The worst flu season in nearly a decade has filled emergency rooms and strained resources at medical centers.
Above, a hospital near Allentown, Pa., that set up a “surge tent” as a holding area for walk-in patients who need monitoring.
The 22-year-old patient pictured hadn’t gotten a flu shot, in part because of misguided fears about its side effects. Her boss sent her home because of a hacking cough.
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6. A distraught father lunged at Larry Nassar, the former doctor for U.S.A. Gymnastics convicted of sex abuse, during a sentencing hearing in Michigan.
Three of Randall Margraves’s daughters had given victim impact statements by the time he asked for “five minutes in a locked room” with Dr. Nassar.
When the judge declined, Mr. Margraves rushed across the room, but was intercepted by law enforcement officials. He was later released without being charged.
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7. The Super Bowl is Sunday. In our Op-Ed pages, Emily Kelly, the wife of Rob Kelly, a former safety for the Saints and the Patriots, details how her once-loving husband turned into a ghost because of brain trauma.
“These men chose football, but they didn’t choose brain damage,” she wrote.
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8. With one week to go before the opening ceremony, organizers are putting the finishing touches on the event sites for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
We’ll be sending our own team to Pyeongchang, South Korea, including reporters, videographers, graphics editors and others. Our sports reporter Andrew Keh, who was among the first to arrive, scoped out the town for us.
We’ll be rolling out full coverage in the days ahead, and some of it will feature augmented reality segments that you can see on an iPhone. Try it out here.
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9. Our weekly roundup of good news is meant to send you into the weekend with a lighter heart, because it isn’t all bad out there.
Among this week’s subjects: a special police force in the Netherlands that helps animals in trouble, a popular course about happiness at Yale, and the girls aiming to become Jamaica’s first Olympic synchronized swimmers, above.
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10. Finally, did the groundhog see its shadow?
Depends which one you ask. Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil, above, did, which means six more weeks of winter. But his rival Staten Island Chuck did not.
And so we turned to data, as we do these days, to parse the mixed messages from two of the country’s most well-known groundhogs.
Turns out Chuck boasts an 80 percent success rate. Phil, by comparison, is right only 39 percent of the time. So let’s just go with the notion that spring is coming early. Fingers crossed.
Have a great weekend.
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