Miss America, North Korea, U.S. Primaries: Your Wednesday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/briefing/miss-america-north-korea-us-primaries.html

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Good morning. Spying for China? A major voting day in the U.S. And a big change for Miss America. Here’s what you need to know.

• The venue is set: The meeting in Singapore next week between President Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea will be held at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island, above, according to a tweet by the White House press secretary.

And excitement is growing along China’s border with North Korea about the economic opportunities that could open up if sanctions are eased.

China is ready to extend its dominance over the North’s decrepit economy, where signs of an emerging market system are also strengthening Beijing’s hand.

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• Accused: An American intelligence case officer was arrested in Seattle and charged with attempted espionage, in what appears to be a high-profile mole hunt by F.B.I. investigators intent on uncovering Chinese spying.

The officer, Ron Rockwell Hansen, 58, is a fluent Mandarin speaker who first visited China in 1981. He has allegedly received at least $800,000 in “funds originating from China” since May 2013.

Among the items that U.S. agents found in Mr. Hansen’s luggage over the years: documents listing locations of U.S. Cyber Command outposts and a thumb drive hidden in the toe of a shoe.

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• Eight U.S. states are holding primaries: Alabama, California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. It’s the busiest Primary Day of the year so far, as voters choose the candidates who will face off for congressional seats (and a handful of governor’s posts) on Nov. 6.

The primaries are a big deal for women, win or lose: They represent 24.3 percent of all major party candidates. Above, Deb Haaland campaigning in New Mexico.

In California, Democrats hope to flip seven House seats. Here are the basics in the other seven states in play.

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• In Washington, President Trump substituted a “celebrate America” event for the long-planned honors for the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles.

Nearly all the team’s players and coaches had planned to boycott the visit, in part because of Mr. Trump’s repeated demands that N.F.L. players stop kneeling during the national anthem at games, a gesture meant to protest racism and police violence

Separately, a Times correspondent looks at Mr. Trump’s aggressive moves to assert control over federal law enforcement.

And a secret memo we obtained includes his lawyers’ stark private acknowledgment of something his team publicly, repeatedly denied: that Mr. Trump had dictated a misleading statement about his son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer.

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• “We are not going to judge you on your outward appearance.”

That was Gretchen Carlson, the chairwoman of the Miss America Organization and one of the sparks for the #MeToo movement, announcing the end of the pageant’s swimsuit competition.

“We are moving it forward and evolving it in this cultural revolution,” said Ms. Carlson, who was Miss America in 1989.

The announcement came on the day that the disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty to sexual assault charges. His next appearance is set for Sept. 20.

• Britain will allow 21st Century Fox to bid for the satellite broadcaster Sky — in some ways setting up a bigger battle: one between Comcast and Walt Disney over control of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

• Apple’s not sorry. At the company’s annual developer conference, executives danced around the recent tech backlash, our columnist writes. Here’s a rundown of some of the software features that have been announced.

• Groans erupted at the annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Sydney when the head of Qatar Airways said that his airline “has to be led by a man, because it is a very challenging position.”

• New South Wales unveiled a range of restrictions on Airbnb, including an 180-day limit on rentals in Sydney and a two-strike violation policy.

• Howard Schultz, the outspoken executive chairman of Starbucks, is stepping down. That’s raising speculation that he might run for president in 2020. (Few business titans have reached the White House.)

• The so-called Faang tech stocks (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google/Alphabet) surged. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• “We saw bodies totally, totally buried, like you saw in Pompeii.” That was a firefighter in Guatemala after the eruption of Volcán del Fuego. The death toll is now at least 65 people and expected to rise. [The New York Times]

• Iran said that it had completed a new centrifuge assembly center at the Natanz nuclear site, in a first step to increasing its enrichment capacity. [The New York Times]

• Kate Spade, the American designer, was found dead at her Park Avenue apartment. Ms. Spade, 55, had hanged herself. She left a note, but the police did not reveal what it said. [The New York Times]

• The wife of Najib Razak, Malaysia’s former prime minister, was questioned by anti-corruption investigators over the 1MDB state investment fund scandal. [A.P.]

• A woman in Queensland reportedly rode a horse through the drive-through section of a liquor store with a blood-alcohol level more than four times the legal limit. She was charged with riding a horse under the influence of alcohol. [The Guardian]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

• Mulling over a tough decision? Avoid F.O.B.O. — Fear of Better Options.

• How to clean your stinky workout clothing.

• Recipe of the day: Everyone at the table can enjoy one-ingredient banana ice cream.

• The LeBron James one-man show: Rarely has an N.B.A. star chased a championship with less help and more athleticism. Will his thrilling performances prove futile? Game 3 is at 11 a.m. Sydney time on Thursday.

• In his memoir, “Reporter,” the veteran journalist Seymour Hersh revisits his coverage of Vietnam, Nixon and Osama bin Laden. “I will happily permit history to be the judge of my recent work,” he said.

• And 30 years after “M. Butterfly,” BD Wong returns to the New York stage as another charismatic Chinese national with a secret in “The Great Leap.” Read our review.

The invasion of Europe from the West has begun.

That was how The Times introduced “the most pivotal battle of all time,” which took place on this day in 1944. We’re, of course, speaking of D-Day, when more than 150,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy to begin liberating Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II.

Code-named “Operation Overlord,” D-Day saw airborne forces parachute across northern France as ground troops landed on five beaches. By day’s end, it was the largest air, naval and land operation in history.

But it was not the first D-Day.

D-Day is a general term used for the start of any military campaign, and is used when the exact date of an operation is secret or not yet known. Similarly, H-Hour is a term used to describe a yet to be determined time. These alliterative phrases go back at least as far as World War I, and helped keep actual mission dates out of enemy hands.

The generic phrases also allowed for advance planning, and for scenes like this to come to fruition:

“The relatively calm water was churned by wave after wave of ships,” according to one Times account from Normandy, “some large enough to cast their eerie shadows in the early morning glow and others darting through like so many water-bugs.”

Remy Tumin wrote today’s Back Story.

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