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Asia and Australia Edition

Wall Street, Saudi Arabia, Sydney: Your Friday Briefing

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Good morning. The U.S. splits over Saudi Arabia, Wall Street stays in the red, 18-year-olds show us their world. Here’s what you need to know:

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Credit...Ozan Kose/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The U.S. government splits on Saudi Arabia.

Republicans in Congress pushed for a formal investigation into the suspected murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident journalist who disappeared in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week. Above, protestors in Turkey.

But President Trump maintained that relations with Saudi Arabia were “excellent,” underlining an increasingly tense division between the White House and lawmakers.

The pressure from Congress could force a change to Mr. Trump’s friendly foreign policy — including major arms sales and support for Saudi military efforts in the region.

It also presents a conundrum for Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Mr. Kushner put Saudi Arabia at the center of his Middle East policy and made a big bet on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose liberal reformer sheen is starting to wear.

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Credit...Eric Thayer for The New York Times

• How does a hurricane grow?

Hurricane Michael barreled into the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday, with winds topping 155 miles per hour and a terrifying storm surge. At least two people have died.

The storm intensified into a ferocious hurricane in just two days, leaving little time to prepare. That can be blamed partly on Michael’s unusually low air pressure. Above, an apartment building battered by Michael.

In eastern India, Cyclone Titli made landfall, cutting off electricity, crumbling mud houses and killing at least eight people. It is expected to weaken by the end of today.

And here’s a look at the aftermath of the tsunami that lashed Indonesia last month, killing more than 2,000 people and leaving an estimated 5,000 missing.

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Credit...Brendan Esposito/Australian Associated Press

High drama at the Sydney Opera House.

Thousands of Australians protested a six-minute video projected on the landmark’s white sails, pictured above, to promote a horse race.

The head of the racing organization, backed by the prime minister, said the projection would promote tourism.

But critics said it was commodifying the city’s World Heritage site, the equivalent of turning the Statue of Liberty into a billboard — opening a debate over national identity, culture and politics.

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Credit...Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

Wall Street keeps sliding.

Major U.S. indexes were sharply down, continuing a major sell-off around the world. Increased borrowing costs as well as the U.S.-China trade spat spooked investors.

And Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the I.M.F., warned that if trade tensions continued to escalate, “the global economy would take a significant hit.”

The global fall of tech stocks has hurt many companies, but the Chinese gaming giant Tencent stands out: It has lost $230 billion of market value from its peak in January.

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Credit...Akhtar Soomro/Reuters

• Pakistan is asking the I.M.F. for a bailout of up to $12 billion, while the prime minister Imran Khan, pictured above, is promising to spend more on social welfare. The mixed message added to concerns about the economy.

• Britain is considering rules requiring companies to report pay gaps among ethnicities, a year after it made reporting gender pay gaps mandatory.

• Fake news on social media mostly came from Russian state-backed operatives during the 2016 presidential election. But ahead of the U.S. midterms in November, more of the online disinformation is now made in America.

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Credit...Kimimasa Mayama/EPA, via Shutterstock

• The chief priest of the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan, pictured above, which is controversial for honoring war criminals along with other World War II dead, will quit after his private remarks criticizing Emperor Akihito for not visiting were published. [The Japan Times]

• Archaeologists in Pompeii uncovered an ancient shrine surrounded by paintings of plants, snakes and peacocks, their colors preserved by volcanic ash from the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. [The New York Times]

• Malaysia announced it would repeal the death penalty and the colonial-era Sedition Act used to silence critics of the government, following outrage over a death sentence given to a man for selling medicinal cannabis. [The New York Times]

• Doctors in Britain will be able to legally prescribe medicinal cannabis beginning Nov. 1. “Heartbreaking cases involving sick children” prompted the move, the home secretary said. [The New York Times]

• Stephen Hawking’s final scientific paper was published. Completed in the days before he died in March, it explores what happens to information when objects fall into black holes. [The Guardian]

• A failed launch of a Russian rocket forced two astronauts — an American and a Russian — to parachute out and make a safe emergency landing. [The New York Times]

• And today’s word is astronaut: In Russia, they’re cosmonauts and in China, taikonauts. India, which plans to send a person to space in 2022, may use vyomanauts. The suffix “naut” comes from the Greek word for sailor; the first parts of the words allude to “space” or “star” in different languages.

Tips for a more fulfilling life.

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Credit...Romulo Yanes for The New York Times

• Recipe of the day: End the week with a surprisingly simple dinner: seared chicken breast with baby potatoes and capers.

• Handwritten cards and letters might be what the world needs right now. Here’s why.

• Following your passions is good for you. Here’s how to get started.

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• What does 18 look, feel and sound like for a girl? We asked young female photographers around the world to give us a peek at the crucial age. We’d also like you to share a picture of yourself at 18, along with the advice you’d give to your younger self.

• Haruki Murakami really likes jogging and “The Great Gatsby.” He likes ironing too. He claims not to have many dreams. And he doesn’t know how he got the idea for his latest surreal novel, “Killing Commendatore.”

• Athens doesn’t float by on its past glories — it keeps pushing forward, rebounding anew. Here’s a fresh guide to the Greek capital’s new monuments and changing neighborhoods.

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Quite a few readers wrote us last week to take issue with this sentence at the end of a briefing: “His whereabouts is unknown.”

Surely, they wrote, it should be “whereabouts are.”

Well, yes and no.

Times editors consult an in-house style guide for grammar and spelling questions like this. And the entry for “whereabouts” tells us to “construe it as a singular.”

But why?

While “whereabouts” is commonly used as a noun, it began as an adverb (“Whereabouts are you from?”). That means the “s” at the end is an adverbial suffix — think of “always” or “besides” — and not an indicator of a plural noun.

Historically, “whereabouts” has been considered both singular and plural when used as a noun, though in recent years the plural has been winning out.

Philip Corbett, our top editor for standards, said that in cases of two acceptable usages, the Times stylebook often specifies one, sometimes the more traditional one.

“At some point,” he said, “we may have to consider whether to change our stylebook guidance, if only to avoid distracting readers who may believe that the singular usage is wrong.”

Interested in grammar and usage questions? Check out our copy editing quizzes.

Jennifer Jett wrote today’s Back Story.

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