Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
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Good morning. China flexes, Comey talks and world leaders head to Washington. Here’s what you need to know:
• The U. S.-led strikes against Syria over the weekend took out the “heart” of President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons program, according to U. S. defense officials.
But some officials noted there were no known casualties at the sites — chemical weapons storage and research facilities — and no reports of chemical-agent leakage, raising questions about whether they were still central to Syria’s program .
Russia called the strikes, carried out with Britain and France, a violation of international law. But our Moscow bureau chief reports a sense of relief among Russian officials that the operation had not escalated into a direct confrontation with their forces in Syria.
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• Taiwan has become the new meeting ground for dissidents and rights groups who no longer feel free to operate in Hong Kong.
And Beijing is delivering some strong messages to the island and the world, including live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday .
The surprise announcement came last week, just hours after President Xi Jinping reviewed the biggest naval parade in the country’s history, above. More than 10,000 troops took part, along with 76 aircraft and 48 warships, including submarines and the aircraft carrier Liaoning.
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• “I am gay, not a pervert.”
Tens of thousands of people in China are protesting Sina Weibo .
The social media giant is deleting posts related to gay culture as part of a three-month “cleanup” effort. Its goal: a “clear and harmonious” online environment in line with President Xi’s new cybersecurity laws.
Incensed protesters say the campaign is yet another sign of discrimination more than 20 years after China decriminalized homosexuality.
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• James Comey’s war.
The former F. B. I. director, fired last May by President Trump, will be featured in a wide-ranging interview with ABC News set to air on Sunday at 10 p.m. Eastern (noon Monday in Sydney). Above, Mr. Comey and Mr. Trump in January 2017.
His memoir, “A Higher Loyalty,” comes out on Tuesday. Our former chief book critic, Michiko Kakutani, returned to review the book, which portrays Mr. Trump as unethical and dishonest.
For days, Mr. Trump has waged a ferocious counterattack against Mr. Comey, calling him a liar and a “slime ball.”
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• “Yes, there is still radiation here.”
That’s Robin Matthews, Australia’s only nuclear tour guide, at the deserted military installation of Maralinga. (The name means “thunder” in an extinct Aboriginal language.)
The Australian and British governments dropped seven bombs there between 1956 and 1963. Hundreds of human guinea pigs were placed in the test zones, and suffered devastating doses of radiation.
A multimillion-dollar cleanup left little remaining danger, Mr. Matthews said, unless tourists choose to “eat mouthfuls of dust.”
• One hammer and sickle at a time: China’s newly empowered Communist Party has gained direct decision-making power over some of the international firms doing business in the country .
• Australia’s waste industry is pushing for a new national focus on domestic recycling, given that China stopped accepting waste and recycling imports .
• Facebook isn’t the only tech company under congressional scrutiny in the U. S. Google and Twitter have until April 25 to answer a senator’s questions about how they handle data collection and privacy, and other companies expect similar challenges soon.
• “Rampage,” a PG-13 cheesefest involving mutant animals marketed squarely around the actor Dwayne Johnson, led the weekend box office with a global take of $174.5 million .
• World leaders are heading to Washington for meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, meets with President Trump at his Florida resort on Tuesday. Here are other headlines to watch for this week.
• Here’s a snapshot of global markets .
• A bushfire in southwest Sydney was downgraded to watch-and-act status. The fire burned 2,430 hectares and damaged homes in the suburbs of Holsworthy and Menai. [ ABC]
• No freak wave, no accidental fall. The Brisbane police said the mother of three who went overboard from a cruise ship hundreds of miles at sea deliberately propelled herself off the deck. [ Brisbane Times]
• M ending fences with Beijing: Kim Jong-un of North Korea offered a warm welcome to the same senior Chinese envoy whom he had snubbed five months earlier. [ The New York Times]
• Rohingya supporters and human rights groups cast doubt on the announcement by Myanmar that it had repatriated the first Rohingya family from Bangladesh. “This is a deception,” said the Rohingya Blogger website. [ Al Jazeera]
• In India, national outrage over the rape and killing of an 8-year-old girl is creating a crisis for the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. [ The New York Times]
• An Air China flight from Hunan Province made an emergency landing en route to Beijing after a passenger described as mentally ill held a flight attendant hostage with a fountain pen. [ South China Morning Post]
• The N. B. A. playoffs are underway, and our sports reporters had some bold predictions about who will prevail. (If Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors win, does that cement them as a dynasty?) [ The New York Times]
Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.
• Five cheap(ish) things you need in your bedroom
• Here are three steps to avoid giving biased, unfair feedback .
• Recipe of the day: Start the week strong, and make pasta with mint, basil and fresh mozzarella .
• In Indonesia, the 20 million people who follow traditional beliefs, or aliran kepercayaan, are still waiting for an end to decades of unofficial discrimination, despite a major court ruling in their favor in November.
• In memoriam. Milos Forman, 86, the Czech-born, Oscar-winning director of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Amadeus”; Rev. Daniel J. Berrigan, 94, a Jesuit priest and poet whose defiant protests against the Vietnam War landed him in prison.
• And meet Oussouby Sacko, who is believed to be the first African-born president of a Japanese university .
Hollywood has the Oscars, journalism has the Pulitzers.
There will be no red carpet or ball gowns, but newsrooms around the U. S. will gather this afternoon for the announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes, which honor the best journalism and arts of the previous year.
Established in 1917, the prizes are given in 21 categories, which include breaking news photography, fiction and editorial writing.
