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Good morning.
Investigations rattle Washington, some clarity on North Korea and a special note to Australian readers. Here\u2019s what you need to know:
\u2022 Two major investigations grabbed U. S. headlines.
A Justice Department report concluded that James Comey, the former F. B. I. director, was \u201cinsubordinate\u201d in his unorthodox handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.
Mr. Comey, in an Op-Ed, disputed some of the report\u2019s conclusions, but embraced its existence as \u201cgood for the F. B. I.\u201d Above, he spoke in Canada last week, warning leaders about to take part in the G-7 meetings not to trust President Trump .
The New York State attorney general\u2019s office filed a scathingly worded lawsuit against Mr. Trump\u2019s charitable foundation, accusing it and the Trump family of sweeping violations of campaign finance laws, self-dealing and illegal coordination with the presidential campaign.
Mr. Trump reacted with vitriol, characterizing the civil suit as an attempt by the \u201csleazy New York Democrats\u201d to damage him. Here are the basics of the case.
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\u2022 The U. S. clarified its policy on North Korea.
Only after \u201ccomplete denuclearization\u201d would North Korea get \u201crelief from sanctions,\u201d Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, while on a tour of Asian nations.
Mr. Pompeo\u2019s tough stance was intended to reassure Japan and South Korea, and to deny reports in North Korea\u2019s state media that the U. S. had agreed to ease the sanctions at the summit meeting in Singapore.
They were also a clear appeal for cooperation from Beijing, where Mr. Pompeo met with President Xi Jinping on Thursday.
And our Tehran correspondent reported on the Iranian reaction to the Trump-Kim meeting: Many are asking, why won\u2019t Mr. Trump talk to us?
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\u2022 Malaysia\u2019s new prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, has his hands full.
\u201cThe more we look into the previous administration,\u201d he said, \u201cthe more bad things we find.\u201d
The 92-year-old, who previously served as prime minister from 1981 to 2003, has discovered that the country is in far worse financial shape than feared. The national debt, tallied at $170 billion by the previous administration, has been reassessed at $250 billion \u2014 80 percent of Malaysia\u2019s gross domestic product.
The fiscal housecleaning has reached Goldman Sachs. The U. S. investment bank made $600 million selling bonds for 1MDB, the scandal-hit state investment fund. Now Malaysia wants some of it back.
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\u2022 In Yemen, the city of Al Hudaydah came under intense attack for the second day, in the largest battle of the country\u2019s yearslong civil war.
A Saudi-led coalition pounded the city, trying to capture the port from Houthi rebels. And Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, an architect of years of war, was watching his Saudi team lose to Russia in the opening match of the World Cup in Moscow.
The United Nations is trying to avert disruptions at the port, the main channel for food aid. Some 8.4 million people could face starvation, potentially the world\u2019s worst famine for generations.
Our explainer untangles the complex war, and we have a video about the blockade starving the country .
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\u2022 Soccer, and beyond.
Our team is following every game, and every angle of the World Cup as it unfolds in Russia.
As our columnist writes, the tournament is about Russia \u201cproving to its people as much as to its rivals that it can deliver the world\u2019s most-watched sporting spectacle.\u201d
In recent weeks, Russia tried to tame its habitual xenophobia in anticipation of the 500,000 foreign soccer fans descending on the country. (It even organized a class on how to smile.)
Not everyone got the memo. One member of Parliament warned Russian women against sleeping with foreign men. Another cautioned even against hugging visitors from other continents \u2014 diseases, you know.
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\u2022 Special note to Australian readers.
For both the U. S. and Australia, the past, present and future continue to be shaped by how the dynamics of race and equality are discussed and handled.
Our Australia bureau chief, Damien Cave, shares what he\u2019s been reading to prepare to moderate coming conversations with Nikole Hannah-Jones, an award-winning New York Times reporter who has covered race and segregation for most of her career.
She\u2019ll be joined by the actress Shareena Clanton at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne on Sunday ( discount code: NGVNYtimes) and by Prof. Megan Davis, the Aboriginal scholar and activist, at the University of New South Wales in Sydney on Monday ( tickets are free).
\u2022 Beijing has been scrambling to break China\u2019s addiction to ever-rising debt, but its crackdown on easy money is starting to hit growth in the world\u2019s second-biggest economy.
\u2022 Didi Chuxing, China\u2019s ride-hailing giant, resumed late-night car pooling with a new safety rule: Men can\u2019t pick up female passengers, a problem in a place where most drivers are male.
\u2022 Comcast\u2019s offer: Our DealBook team broke down the $65 billion bid for a large portion of 21st Century Fox.
\u2022 Apple plans to close a loophole that let the authorities hack into iPhones, adding to debates over security versus privacy.
\u2022 U. S. stocks were up. Here\u2019s a snapshot of global markets.
\u2022 Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull condemned a 2007 photo showing an Australian army vehicle flying a swastika flag in Afghanistan. Australia\u2019s conduct there has been under new scrutiny. [ BBC]
\u2022 Syed Shujaat Bukhari, a leading journalist in Indian-administered Kashmir, was fatally shot by unidentified gunmen. [ BBC]
\u2022 The U. N. human rights office called for an investigation into abuses by India and Pakistan in the disputed region of Kashmir, criticizing the Indian security forces in particular for inflicting mass civilian casualties. [ The New York Times]
\u2022 A Vietnamese-American was among those detained in Vietnam for protesting a cybersecurity law and proposed special economic zones that raised fears of Chinese encroachment. [ The New York Times]
\u2022 \u201cYou monster!\u201d The family of a 19-year-old Chinese student confronted the woman convicted of killing her in a road rage incident in Arizona. The judge in the case accepted a plea deal that will impose a mandatory 25-year prison sentence. [ A. P.]
\u2022 A former Walmart in Texas has become the largest migrant children\u2019s shelter in the country \u2014 a warehouse for more than 1,500 boys, aged 10 to 17, who were caught illegally crossing the border. [ The New York Times]
\u2022 Albert Einstein\u2019s travel diaries, kept during visits to Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Japan, India and Palestine, expose some unpleasant stereotyping. [ The New York Times]
Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.
\u2022 The dangers of belly fat may be more harmful than you know .
\u2022 The Mediterranean diet can cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes \u2014 a conclusion that was confirmed after the initial landmark study of its benefits was retracted and reanalyzed.
\u2022 Recipe of the day: Lemon sweet rolls are a perfect project for the weekend.
\u2022 From Cairo to Kolkata: Traces of a Jewish past can be found across the Middle East and North Africa and in Central and South Asia. As this Travel piece points out: \u201cIt\u2019s in synagogues and cemeteries, in the facades of old buildings, in language, food and the memories of those who left. You just need to know where to look.\u201d
\u2022 The U. S. Open has brought all of the big names \u2014 yes, that means Tiger Woods \u2014 to Shinnecock Hills in Southampton, N.Y. Our live leader board shows that the old-school course had many players struggling through the first day.
\u2022 And a best seller returns after 18 years. \u201cKitchen Confidential,\u201d a memoir by Anthony Bourdain, is No. 1 on both our paperback nonfiction best-seller list and our combined print and e-book nonfiction one. Find all our best-seller lists here.
\u201cMan, woman or child, Ella is the greatest,\u201d Bing Crosby once said.
Ella Fitzgerald, who died on this day in 1996, began her journey to stardom by winning a talent contest as a teenager.
She had originally intended to dance, but stage fright made her decide to sing instead.
The \u201cFirst Lady of Song\u201d spent more than 60 years in the limelight, working with more musical legends than we can count. She won 13 Grammy Awards and received a National Medal of Arts.
With a range of nearly three octaves, she relished big band, jazz, bebop, scat and swing. She is perhaps best known for her Song Books of the \u201950s and \u201960s: eight albums, each dedicated to the likes of Duke Ellington, Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hart.
But her young life was filled with hardship.
Her mother died when she was 15 years old. She ran away from an abusive stepfather and had a spell in a reformatory where beatings were common. She was living hand-to-mouth in 1934 when she won that crucial amateur competition.
As she received an honorary doctorate at Yale, she said: \u201cNot bad for someone who only studied music to get that half-credit in high school.\u201d
Anna Schaverien wrote today\u2019s Back Story
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