 | | A woman making mud bricks near Jammu, India. Earth Day today promotes sustainable practices. Channi Anand/Associated Press | Your Wednesday Briefing By VICTORIA SHANNON |
| Good morning. |
| Here's what you need to know: |
| • A pause in Yemen. |
| A suspension of Saudi aerial attacks would give Yemen a chance for a political deal and relief to cities like Sana, the capital, that have endured airstrikes almost daily. |
| But signs indicated the bombing was continuing today. Weeks of fighting in Yemen, whose government has collapsed, have left nearly 1,000 people dead and provided an opening for Al Qaeda's affiliate there to expand the territory it controls. |
| • Five months and counting. |
| The Senate scheduled a long-delayed vote on Thursday on the nomination of Loretta E. Lynch as attorney general. |
| The path to replace Eric H. Holder Jr. was finally cleared after a compromise between Republicans and Democrats over an unrelated bill on sex trafficking. Legislators debate that bill today. |
| • Oklahoma's earthquakes. |
| The state government embraced a scientific consensus that earthquakes there are largely caused by the underground disposal of wastewater from oil and gas wells. |
| Officials had long played down a connection to the oil and gas industry, which is the state's economic linchpin. |
| • Cyberattack action. |
| The House could pass legislation today that would provide liability protections for companies that share cyberthreat information with one another or with the government. |
| The measure, years in the making, received tempered support from the White House on Tuesday. It is the most aggressive response by Congress to a burst of high-profile computer attacks. |
| • Next up for drug agency |
| The retirement of the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration could start a battle among Democrats over her successor. |
| Michele M. Leonhart will leave after reports that D.E.A. agents in Colombia had participated in sex parties with prostitutes paid for by drug cartels. But she also opposed the Obama administration on legalizing marijuana, and liberals are likely to promote someone who backs easing restrictions. |
| • Hong Kong election plan. |
| The government of Hong Kong today offered only minor changes to an election overhaul plan that set off months of pro-democracy demonstrations last year. |
| Pro-democracy lawmakers condemned the proposal as a betrayal of Hong Kong's democratic hopes. |
| • Energy efficiency. |
| President Obama is expected to sign into law a modest bill that improves energy efficiency in buildings and water heaters, after Congress broke a longstanding partisan gridlock on Tuesday. |
| MARKETS |
| • Wall Street stock futures are moderately lower. European shares are heading south, while Asian indexes closed mostly higher. |
| • The European Union today charged the Russian energy giant Gazprom with abusing its dominance in natural gas markets, a move amounting to a direct challenge to the authorities in Moscow. |
| Russia supplies about one-third of Europe's gas. |
| • A trader accused of contributing to the 2010 "flash crash," 15 minutes of chaos that shook the world's biggest markets, appears in court in London today. |
| The authorities say the 36-year-old man manipulated markets from his home outside London, prompting the Dow Jones industrial average to lose 600 points in a matter of minutes. |
| • David Boies delivers closing arguments today for Maurice Greenberg in a case against the federal government over the 2008 bailout of American International Group. |
| NOTEWORTHY |
| • Earth Day. |
| In China, hikers are cleaning up part of the Great Wall. An environmental group in Singapore is tidying up the island's coasts. Tree-planting projects are underway in Cameroon and Uganda. |
| Organizers say a billion people will take action to protect the planet today, the 45th annual Earth Day. |
| • No more smoky bars. |
| Today is the first for smoke-free bars, casinos and other public places in New Orleans, home to more than 500 bars. |
| The prohibition, which went into effect just after midnight, also bans smoking e-cigarettes indoors in public places. |
| • As if there weren't enough stats. |
| Major League Baseball is starting to use Statcast, radar and optical tracking technology with ultrahigh-resolution cameras, at all 30 ballparks. |
| The system quantifies almost every on-field movement: perceived pitch velocity; spin rate; the launch rate of a home run; and projected home run distance, for instance. |
| • Soccer matchups. |
| The last two quarterfinals of Europe's top soccer competition, the Champions League, will be held today with Real Madrid playing Atlético Madrid, and Monaco facing Juventus. |
| Bayern Munich overpowered the Portuguese club Porto and Barcelona beat Paris St.-Germain on Tuesday, to become the first two semifinalists. |
| BACK STORY |
| Is this the beginning of the end for FM radio? |
| Norway said last week that it would be the first country to completely shut down its national FM channels, switching them to a digital standard called Digital Audio Broadcasting by the end of 2017. |
| Abandoning FM radio is also on the radar for Britain, Denmark and Sweden, among others. |
| But not all countries will follow suit anytime soon. In the U.S., a complete shift to digital radio would take an act of Congress, just as the digital television switch in 2009 did. |
| DAB, which originated in Europe, offers more channel capacity, lower transmission costs and less signal noise than FM technology. At certain compression levels, the sound quality is equal or superior to FM. |
| But FM is far more widely established around the world than DAB, and DAB is not compatible with existing FM radio sets. |
| Norway is a relatively easy place to switch over. |
| It has only five nationally broadcast FM channels to begin with. It was the first country to start DAB broadcasting, back in 1995. And about 55 percent of households there already have digital receivers. |
| Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern and updated on the web all morning. |
| What would you like to see here? Contact us at briefing@nytimes.com. |
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