Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
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Good morning. A memory stick for Kim Jong-un, bombings in Indonesia and an Australian town in mourning. Here’s what you need to know:
• “A very smart and gracious gesture.”
That was President Trump on Twitter, praising North Korea’s vow to demolish its nuclear test site this month. (Some analysts say the site, in a mountain, above, is too unstable for another test anyway.)
Mr. Trump also exulted in the release of three Americans from North Korea last week. They join more than a dozen other former prisoners, who told us how freedom brought its own problems.
As Mr. Trump prepares to meet North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, on June 12, China may hold the cards. It has the most leverage on the North, and wants to reward it for each step toward nuclear disarmament — an approach the White House rejects.
South Korea appears to favor the Chinese vision, and last month its president, Moon Jae-in, handed Mr. Kim a USB flash drive laying out a road map for economic growth.
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• For years, Iran proved adept at exploiting upheaval in the Middle East to deter enemies and spread its influence.
Now it faces a reckoning with the U. S. decision to pull out of the nuclear deal and reimpose onerous sanctions. So far, Iran has said it intends to still abide by the agreement.
But if the U. S. and its Saudi and Israeli allies are committed more than ever to challenging Iran, their abilities are limited while Iran supports a network of powerful militias, such as Hezbollah, above, in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and, especially, Syria, where Israel and Iran are locked in a shadow war that analysts fear could become a conflagration .
There are divisions even in the White House over how to confront Iran, with the hard-line new national security adviser, John Bolton, prevailing so far.
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• Suicide bombings at three churches in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, left at least 13 people dead .
The perpetrators were all members of one family, the authorities said: a man, his wife (who took their two younger children) and two teenage sons. The police said the couple and their four children died in the explosions.
Though offering no evidence, the Islamic State claimed responsibility. The group has been making its presence felt in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority nation proud of its tolerance and diversity. ISIS also claimed responsibility for a deadly prison riot there last month.
And it took responsibility on Saturday for a knife attack in Paris that left one person dead .
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• “This kind of thing doesn’t happen here.”
The tiny Australian town of Margaret River, so tight-knit that farms are marked with the owners’ first names, was plunged into mourning after the country’s worst mass shooting in decades .
The police identified the killer as Peter Miles, and said the shootings were a murder-suicide. His wife, their daughter and four grandchildren were found dead. The father of the children said he believed Mr. Miles had been planning the attack for a while.
“I’ve lost everything in my life,” he said .
Three of Mr. Miles’s rifles were found at the scene. Australia instituted strict gun control after a mass shooting in 1996, but experts say the laws have slowly softened.
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• It’s a cave big enough to hold four American football fields. Inside is a village.
The Zhong cave, in remote southwestern China, is home to some of the world’s last cave dwellers, Miao villagers who live in bamboo or wooden homes built along the walls.
They rent out rooms to tourists, who arrive by the only link to the outside — a mountain path. We paid them a visit.
The county government insists the cave is unsuited to habitation. But only a handful of families have taken up the government’s offer of $9,500 to move into new housing. Eighteen families are standing their ground.
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• In a surprise move, President Trump vowed to work with China to prevent the collapse of the electronics giant ZTE after the U. S. put severe sanctions on the company last month.
• Ng Lap Seng, a billionaire real estate developer from Macau, was sentenced to four years in prison after a Manhattan federal court convicted him of bribing two diplomats.
• The head of AT&T said hiring Michael Cohen, President Trump’s fixer, as a political consultant was a “big mistake.”
• Bullying, racism and threats of violence: We found signs of a toxic work culture at the tech world’s charity of choice, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
• Here’s a snapshot of global markets .
• China’s first home-built aircraft carrier started sea trials, a milestone for the country’s expanding navy. China has one other carrier; the U. S. has 11. [ The New York Times]
• Malaysia’s new prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, imposed a flight ban on his predecessor, and pardoned a former rival. [ The New York Times]
• The Chinese government detained a pastor and blocked a memorial service on the 10th anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake that killed 70,000. [ The New York Times]
• A Burmese insurgent group killed at least 19 people, mostly civilians, in an attack near the border with China. [ The New York Times]
• Pakistan barred a U. S. diplomat involved in a fatal traffic accident from leaving the country as a diplomatic dispute festered. [ The New York Times]
• China plans to deploy the world’s largest weather machine, to increase rain over the Tibetan Plateau. [ Forbes]
• A Canadian humanitarian worker who worked with poor children in Nepal for years was arrested and charged with raping two young boys. [ The New York Times]
• The Philippines’ highest court voted to remove its chief justice, a staunch opponent of President Rodrigo Duterte’s increasingly autocratic rule. [ The New York Times]
Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.
• Does everyone seem angry with you? They probably aren’t .
• Stressless cooking is about your state of mind .
• Recipe of the day: Take a break from meat with a spicy, vegetarian version of mapo tofu .
• Troye Sivan, an Australian singer climbing the charts in the U. S., is a new kind of star: here, queer and used to it.
• For years a deadly fungus has been decimating frog populations. Scientists think they have finally found its origin, on the Korean Peninsula.
• In memoriam: Doreen Simmons, a British woman who found her true calling as a sumo expert and commentator on Japanese TV. She was 85.
It’s one of the most enduring symbols in rock ’n’ roll: the “Hot Lips” logo of the Rolling Stones.
The red lips and protruding tongue debuted on the 1971 album “Sticky Fingers,” and have appeared somewhere on every album since .
