Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
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Good morning. Rod Rosenstein’s fate is unclear, the U. N. General Assembly’s yearly meeting kicks off, China steps up religious controls. Here’s what you need to know:
• Rod Rosenstein in limbo.
The deputy attorney general will meet with President Trump on Thursday to discuss reports that he talked about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office.
The Times reported on Friday that Mr. Rosenstein had discussed secretly taping the president and invoking the 25th Amendment. Over the weekend, Mr. Rosenstein told a White House official he was thinking of quitting. On Monday, he met with John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, pictured above.
Mr. Rosenstein oversees the special counsel’s Russia investigation and has often found himself on the receiving end of Mr. Trump’s anger and frustration with the Justice Department. His departure could pave the way for the president to then get rid of Robert Mueller.
Separately, a second woman came forward to accuse Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, of sexual misconduct. Mr. Kavanaugh on Monday called the allegations “smears” and said he “ will not be intimidated into withdrawing .”
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• Hong Kong clamps down on independence.
For the first time in decades, the government outlawed a pro-independence political party, the National Party, founded by Andy Chan, above.
The party has just a handful of members and no elected representatives in office, but it has been under intense scrutiny for its calls for independence from China.
Hong Kong is a part of China but governed by a “one country, two systems” framework that allows the region a high level of autonomy and protections of civil liberties. Human rights advocates said the government’s ban, under a colonial-era rule, curtailed those freedoms.
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• The U. N. General Assembly meeting kicks off.
President Trump will address the General Assembly today and lead a meeting of the Security Council tomorrow.
His advisers are working quietly in the background to ensure he doesn’t undermine their foreign policy efforts by being too enthusiastic about engaging with adversaries.
Mr. Trump will also meet President Moon Jae-in of South Korea this week to discuss developments with North Korea, a country that the president derided in his speech at the U. N. last year.
In Opinion: Kim Jong-un might end up being North Korea’s great economic reformer, argues one historian, putting him in the same league as Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father, or even Deng Xiaoping of China.
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• China aims to control Christianity.
Christianity is the first foreign religion to gain a permanent foothold in China since the arrival of Buddhism two millenniums ago. There are now about 60 million Christians in the country, many of them white-collar professionals in some of China’s most prosperous regions.
That has prompted the Communist Party to try to assert its authority over the religion. The country’s deal with the Vatican last week was part of that broader effort.
With the pope legitimizing bishops appointed by the Chinese government, the party thinking goes, secret underground churches may have no reason to exist.
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• As the U. S.-China trade war intensifies, manufacturers are under pressure to move their factories out of China, to countries like Cambodia, above. But that’s easier said than done: China boasts a reliable work force, top-notch infrastructure and a strong supplier base for components of many products, from zippers to digital chips.
• The student who accused Richard Liu of rape sent WeChat messages to friends that reinforce her story about JD.com’s billionaire founder, according to a report by Reuters .
• Amazon is using Seattle, where it’s headquartered, as a lab for testing new retail and logistics models, from a grocery pickup spot to new ways to return packages.
• Michael Kors, the U. S. fashion group, may buy Versace in a deal valuing that luxury Italian label at around $2 billion.
• U. S. stocks were mixed. Here’s a snapshot of global markets. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is closed today.
• Iran’s Revolutionary Guards vowed to retaliate for an attack on a military parade that killed 25 people. A local Arab separatist group claimed responsibility, but Iran blamed Saudi Arabia, the U. A. E. and the U. S. Above, a funeral for victims of the attack. [ The New York Times]
• The Maldives’ authoritarian president conceded to his opponent after an election loss, easing fears of a crisis and buttressing the islands’ nascent democracy. [ The New York Times]
• An Indonesian teenager survived at sea for 49 days in a fishing hut before he was rescued off the coast of Guam this month. [ The Guardian]
• Buzz off: With a new genetic tool, scientists have moved a step closer to eradicating mosquitoes and the deadly diseases they carry. [ The New York Times]
• Four in five senior academics at Hong Kong’s publicly funded universities are male, according to a new report, prompting calls for more family-friendly policies in academia and training to tackle bias. [ The South China Morning Post]
• The Australian Broadcasting Company fired its managing director, Michelle Guthrie, on Monday. Crikey takes a look back at her short and tumultuous tenure. [This article is paywall free for Times readers]
Tips for a more fulfilling life.
• Recipe of the day: Cacio e pepe gets better and better every time you make it.
• Want to seem more likable? Try this .
• Owning a home means you also need to know how to maintain it .
• And today’s word is “sheeple”: one of the 300 new additions to Scrabble’s dictionary, meaning people who are easily influenced … like sheep.
• Four travel stories, from four writers, reflecting on different forms of love: love from a distance, the shared memories of love, love for siblings, love for children.
• As apartments in major cities continue to shrink, architects are turning to robots. Check out these Transformer-like units that can switch from a living room to a bedroom to a study with the push of a button.
• In memoriam: Charles Kao, the Nobel laureate in physics whose research on fiber optic cables enabled the proliferation of broadband communications. He was 84.
William Faulkner, born on this day in 1897 in New Albany, Miss., won two Pulitzers and the Nobel Prize. His Southern-rooted fiction, heartbreaking, dark and perverse, is often remarked on for its long, winding sentences. His work appears in almost any listing of best American novels.
