Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
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Good morning. Here’s what you need to know:
• Pyongyang freed three American prisoners, removing a bitterly emotional obstacle ahead of a planned summit meeting between President Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
Mr. Trump said the detainees, all U. S. citizens of Korean descent, were on their way back to the U. S. with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, above, offered an olive branch to senior North Korean officials during his short visit. But en route he committed the gaffe of referring to Mr. Kim as “Chairman Un.”
Mr. Trump also announced that the time and location had been set for his meeting with Mr. Kim, giving only one detail: It will not be at the DMZ. The talks may suffer from Mr. Trump’s decision to exit the Iran nuclear accord if, as many analysts think, the takeaway is that the U. S. is an untrustworthy negotiating partner .
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• Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reacted angrily to President Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal and hinted at stepping up the country’s nuclear program, citing the need for electricity. President Hassan Rouhani said, “Everything depends on our national interests.”
Iranians and Iranian-Americans voiced defiance and concern, but for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, the move was both a vindication and a new risk.
Here’s how leaders on the left, the right and around the world reacted. And on “ The Daily ” podcast, our White House correspondent looks back at why President Barack Obama signed the deal in 2015.
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• Gina Haspel President Trump’s nominee to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, faced sharp questioning at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee over her role in the agency’s torture of terrorism suspects.
A 33-year veteran of the C. I. A., Ms. Haspel briefly oversaw a “black site,” or secret prison, in Thailand in 2002. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, an architect of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured by the C. I. A. in 2003 and waterboarded more than 180 times, has asked a military judge at Guantánamo Bay for permission to share with the Senate panel six paragraphs of information about Ms. Haspel.
Separately, Mr. Trump’s lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, is under new scrutiny after our reporters revealed that a shell company he used to pay hush money to the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels received more than $1 million from a firm tied to a Russian oligarch and several corporations with business before the Trump administration.
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• Four members of Australia’s Parliament resigned after it was revealed that they held dual citizenship, including Susan Lamb, above. Fifteen lawmakers have been forced to vacate their seats for this reason in less than a year.
Critics of the law call it archaic in a country where about half of the population has at least one foreign-born parent.
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• India’s Supreme Court denounced the country’s official archaeological conservationists over the state of the Taj Mahal .
Its pearly white marble exterior has been deteriorating for years because of discoloration from millions of tourists’ dirty feet and green slime from insects.
A lawyer for the archaeologists tried to explain the green discoloration in the upper reaches of the building as “algae” that had flown there, and said that clean socks to protect the floors were only given to “the V. I. P.s.”
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• Walmart’s big bet: The retail giant’s $16 billion deal to buy Flipkart, India’s leading e-commerce platform, puts it in direct competition with Amazon’s five-year operation there.
• Disney, one of the world’s largest media companies, reported its strongest quarterly results in two years, driven by the success of “Black Panther.” But its rival Comcast is weighing a hostile bid that could upend Disney’s deal to buy most of 21st Century Fox.
• Facebook has conducted one of its biggest reorganizations. The changes, intended to streamline operations and clarify hierarchies after a long period of growth and acquisitions, were accelerated after criticism over the lack of protections for user data.
• The first casualty of the high-tech cold war between the U. S. and China might be ZTE, one of the most internationally successful Chinese technology suppliers.
• U. S. stocks were up. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.
• Malaysia’s 14th general election was a hard-fought contest between the current prime minister, who is accused of taking hundreds of millions of dollars in government funds, and another former prime minister, who is attempting a comeback at 92. Above, voters outside a polling station in Kuala Lumpur. [ The New York Times]
• The Islamic State claimed its loyalists were holding hostages in a deadly prison riot near Jakarta, Indonesia, that involved terrorism suspects. [ The New York Times]
• Pakistan’s Parliament passed a landmark law guaranteeing basic rights for transgender citizens. [ Al Jazeera]
• The Mormon Church ended its longstanding partnership with the Boy Scouts of America as the church develops global youth programs for its increasingly international members. [ The New York Times]
• The archdiocese of Sydney has been criticized for running ads in its news publication seeking donations for Cardinal George Pell’s legal fees as he prepares to be tried on charges of sexual abuse. [ The Guardian]
• #Keepmytendollars: Australians rejected the new federal budget’s tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners, using social media to drub the government for underfunding social programs. [ Twitter]
Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.
• How to tell an effective, engaging story. It could be cathartic !
• Flying can be stressful. Here’s how to have a good flight.
• Recipe of the day: Slow-roasted citrus salmon is ready faster than you think.
• One of the most expensive Picassos ever: “Fillette à la Corbeille Fleurie” (Young Girl With Basket of Flowers), above, sold for $115 million on the first night of a Rockefeller family art auction. Christie’s is hoping sales will exceed $1 billion by the end of the week.
• A Qatari broadcaster paid hundreds of millions of dollars for exclusive rights to major sporting events, only to see them bootlegged — apparently from Saudi Arabia.
• Childish Gambino’s provocative new music video for “This Is America” is dense with allusions and messages. Here’s what some of them mean.
Today, we’re revisiting The Times’s crossword column, Wordplay, and a word — OED — that was one of the most difficult clues from the previous week’s puzzles.
The Oxford English Dictionary, a.
