Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
Good morning.
Here’s what you need to know:
• The Chinese authorities are searching for the cause of a huge explosion outside a kindergarten in eastern China that killed at least seven people and injured nearly 70 others.
Images of dazed and injured people outside the school on the outskirts of Xuzhou, a city in Jiangsu Province, circulated on social media. One video showed what appeared to be doctors trying to revive a toddler covered in blood.
It remains uncertain whether any of the dead or injured were students or teachers. “According to an initial check, the kindergarten was in class, ” the authorities said.
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• The father of Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old American university student who was released from North Korea in a coma, said at a news conference that his son was “brutalized and terrorized” during 18 months of captivity.
The statement comes hours after the North said it had freed him on “humanitarian grounds .”
Dennis Rodman, the ex-N. B. A. star who is presently in North Korea, presented a copy of President Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal” as a gift for the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, The Associated Press reported.
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• I n Washington, President Trump taunted federal investigators for making up a “phony collusion with the Russians story” amid new reports that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, is looking into whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct justice in the case.
And new details emerged about James Hodgkinson, the man who police say opened fire on a crowd of congressional Republicans at a baseball practice.
President Trump called for unity after the shooting, the latest example in a grim trend .
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• In this dispatch from Tehran, a New York Times reporter passed commandos armed with Kalashnikovs as he entered the gold-domed mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini .
The shrine was attacked last week by Islamic State fighters — the first successful assault in Iran by the terror group. Nobody wanted to admit it, he found, but things had changed.
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• In the waterlogged Netherlands, the Dutch don’ t see climate change as a hypothetical or even as a drag on the economy. Instead, it’s an opportunity, and they have advice for those coping with rising seas around the world.
Above, Dutch children practicing to swim with clothes on.
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• Australia’s prime minister was caught impersonating President Trump in a leaked recording — and he seemed to be enjoying it. “We are winning so much. We are winning like we have never won before, ” he said in a parody of Mr. Trump’s bluster.
In this week’s newsletter, our bureau chief ponders Australia’s relationship with culture — suggesting that demand is greater than the supply.
• The oil conundrum. What to make of the current volatility and the future of an industry experiencing its deepest downturn since at least the 1990s.
• The Fed undershot its target for inflation yet again, a move that our senior economics correspondent suggests could define the tenure of its chief, Janet Yellen .
• “Fair and Balanced” no more. Fox News has replaced its longtime motto with “Most Watched, Most Trusted.”
• No more soy “milk.” The European Court of Justice ruled that the term could be used only for dairy products sold in the E. U.
• And our technology columnist makes the case that only customers can hold Uber accountable as it tries to repair its image.
• U. S. stocks were weak. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.
• Prime Minister Theresa May ordered an inquiry into the fire at a London apartment tower as the death toll rose to 17 and concerns intensified over fire safety and construction materials in high-rise buildings. [The New York Times]
• U. S.-led airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians in the Islamic State’s stronghold in Syria, a U. N. panel said. [The New York Times]
• Nearly 86 percent of the plastic debris running through rivers to the world’s oceans comes from Asia, according to a new study. [Quartz]
• A Texas woman who was raped in India by her Uber driver is suing the company and three current and former executives. [The New York Times]
• “I had to stand up to a bully.” Rebel Wilson, the Australian actress, has won her defamation case over a series of articles that had depicted her as a serial liar. [ABC]
• “Imagine, ” John Lennon’s 1971 ballad for a utopian future is getting a co-writer: Lennon’s widow and collaborator, Yoko Ono. [The New York Times]
• Recipe of the day: Take advantage of the outdoors and grill up some chicken for a Caesar salad .
• The offhand comment (good and bad) has a remarkable shelf life. Use them wisely.
• Want more Smarter Living? Sign up for the weekly newsletter here .
• Women, interrupted. An Uber board member’s claim that female directors talk too much and the cutting short of a congresswoman at a Senate hearing illustrate an experience that academic studies confirm.
• For sale: a $7 million Wild West town. In today’s 360 video, step inside an amusement park, as the family that has owned it for 43 years ponders its future.
• And a migrant crisis Catch-22. Our review of Mediterranean rescues since 2014 shows that migrants have been saved ever closer to the Libyan coast. Critics say this introduced a deadly incentive for more boats to depart.
Today is Bloomsday, a special day on the literary calendar.
James Joyce, the groundbreaking Irish novelist, above, chose to immortalize June 16,1904, in his novel “Ulysses” because it was the date of his first outing with his future wife, Nora Barnacle.
The day is named after Leopold Bloom, the book’s unlucky main character who embarks on a daylong picaresque voyage through Dublin, Joyce’s hometown. More than a century later, Bloom’s “odyssey” is celebrated around the world with readings, re-enactments and, in some cases, heavy drinking.
“Ulysses, ” for all its artistic accolades, is no easy summer read. A review when it was published in 1922 compared the prose to the “productions of the Ouija board.”
But help is a tap away.
There are now apps, including one that uses a touch screen to untangle the book’s tough sentences, and a podcast with hundreds of episodes breaking down its arcane composition. A group of Boston College students is developing a “Ulysses” virtual reality game — Joycestick.
