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Asia Pacific Edition

Xi Jinping, Hillary Clinton, Syria: Your Friday Briefing

Good morning.

We’re trying something new for our readers in Asia and Australia: a morning briefing to jump-start your day.

What do you like? What do you want to see here? Email us with your feedback at asiabriefing@nytimes.com.

Here’s what you need to know:

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Credit...Andy Wong/Associated Press

The future of China’s power structure took shape after the ruling Communist Party elevated President Xi Jinping to the status of “core” leader, a title reserved for the revered leaders such as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

The move set in motion plans for a party congress next year virtually certain to confirm Mr. Xi as leader for five more years and allow him a free hand in reshaping the party’s top ranks next year.

The party’s four-day meeting also underscored how underrepresented women are in the party’s highest echelons.

• In the U.S. presidential race, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama made their first campaign appearance together.

Mrs. Clinton basked in the popularity of Mrs. Obama as the nation’s first black first lady sought to help Mrs. Clinton become its first female president.

Supporters of Donald J. Trump have begun grappling with what will happen if their candidate loses. Some worry that their concerns and frustrations will be forgotten. Others believe the nation may be headed for violent conflict.

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Credit...Ye Aung Thu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

• Myanmar is being urged to lift a military lockdown put in place after sectarian violence killed dozens of people in Rakhine State.

Rights groups say Muslims trapped in their communities have reported rapes, looting and religious persecution.

• U.S. prosecutors charged dozens of people in an international crime ring that relied on Indian call centers to bilk thousands of Americans out of more than $300 million.

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Credit...Omar Haj Kadour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

• Russia denied responsibility for a wave of airstrikes on a school in northern Syria that killed 22 children and six teachers, while Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary general, said the attack might amount to a war crime.

“When will the world’s revulsion at such barbarity be matched by insistence that this must stop?” said a U.N. official.

A landmark deal has led to the creation in the Antarctic Ocean of the world’s largest marine park.

After five years of talks, 24 countries and the European Union agreed to ban fishing in an area about the size of France and Spain combined.

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Credit...Thomas Peter/Reuters

• Shares of China’s ZTO fell 15 percent on the first day of trading, after the largest initial public offering in the U.S. this year.

• Qualcomm, the U.S.-based chip maker, announced a $38.5 billion deal to acquire NXP Semiconductors, which makes the type of chips used in the growing market of wired cars and gadgets.

• Japan releases data for September today on household spending, unemployment and consumer price inflation.

• Apple’s high-end laptop, the MacBook Pro, is getting an overhaul with features adapted from the iPhone.

• A sharp exchange between the Fox News host Megyn Kelly and the former House speaker Newt Gingrich represents a deepening split at Fox — and alternative possible futures for the network, our media columnist writes.

• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

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Credit...Bay Ismoyo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

• New privacy rules in the United States require broadband providers to get permission to collect data on a subscriber’s web browsing, app use, location and financial information. [The New York Times]

• A woman was convicted on live television in the cyanide poisoning of a friend in a Jakarta cafe, a case known as “the coffee murder.” [The New York Times]

• Secretly made recordings of Kim Jong-il, the leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011, are featured in a new documentary, “The Lovers and the Despot.” [Los Angeles Times]

• The handling of an investigative article about the Fukushima nuclear disaster by Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s second-largest daily, raises fresh doubts about whether watchdog journalism is possible in the country’s big national news media. [Columbia Journalism Review]

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Credit...U.S. Coast Guard/Air Station Barbers Point, via Associated Press

• The U.S. Coast Guard called off the search for a Chinese sailor who went missing while trying to sail from San Francisco to Shanghai in 20 days. [The New York Times]

• Alibaba will spend $100 million to popularize rugby in China, starting a mass participation program that includes 10,000 universities and schools and aims to attract one million new players in five years. [The South China Morning Post]

• Donald J. Trump, hoping to appeal to Indian-American voters, is running campaign ads featuring a Hindi election slogan — “Ab Ki Baar, Trump Sarkar” means “This time, Trump government” — borrowed from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. [Times of India]

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Credit...Pool photo by Kazuhiro Nogi

• The oldest member of Japan’s imperial family, Prince Mikasa, died of heart failure. He was 100.

The uncle of Emperor Akihito and the youngest brother of Hirohito, the prince used a pseudonym to serve as an officer in China and later criticized Japan’s aggression there.

• When the British government announced a pardon last week for thousands of gay men convicted under an outdated law, George Montague, 93, asked for something else: an apology.

• Two young Yazidi women from Iraq who escaped sexual slavery by the Islamic State and became advocates for women, were honored with the Sakharov Prize, the European Union’s top rights award.

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Credit...Patrick Pleul/DPA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The trees are losing their leaves. There is a chill in the air, pumpkins on porches and fake spider webs hung as decorations. All signs indicate that fall is in full swing … or is it autumn?

The season with two names is among the many differences in British and American English. It hasn’t always been so.

Harvest was used before autumn, by some accounts in the 12th or 13th century. Autumn had joined it by the 16th century, which is also about the time that the terms “spring of the leaf” and “fall of the leaf” appeared. They were shortened to spring and fall.

But it was later that the divergence of who used what happened. The settlers who colonized North America preferred fall to autumn.

Over the years, letter writers to The Times have cited British literature in our pages as a reminder of fall’s roots.

“A honey tongue / A heart of gall / Is fancies’ spring / But sorrows’ fall,” was part of a 1599 poem by Sir Walter Raleigh brought to our attention by a reader in October 1942.

So whichever side of the pond you’re on, take a moment to enjoy the colors (or colours) of fall — er, autumn — this weekend.

Karen Workman contributed reporting.

Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings.

What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes.com.

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