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Kim and Putin pose before two days of talks at Russia’s Far Eastern State University.
Kim and Putin pose before two days of talks at Russia’s Far Eastern State University. Photograph: ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/POOL/EPA
Kim and Putin pose before two days of talks at Russia’s Far Eastern State University. Photograph: ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/POOL/EPA

US briefing: Kim meets Putin, Facebook fines and measles outbreaks

This article is more than 4 years old

Thursday’s top story: North Korean and Russian leaders meet for the first time in Vladivostok. Plus, how hand dryers took on paper towels for public toilet primacy

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Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.

Putin offers help to break North Korea nuclear deadlock

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has expressed support for the normalising of relations between the US and North Korea, after meeting the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, face to face for the first time. The two men arrived on Thursday for a two-day summit in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, where Putin offered Russia’s help to break the international deadlock over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.

  • Russian position. Russia opposes sanctions on North Korea, but would nevertheless like to see Pyongyang roll back its nuclear programme.

  • Foreign workers. Pyongyang has reportedly asked Russia to keep employing about 10,000 North Korean labourers in Russia who are due to leave the country by the end of 2019 under sanctions.

Anti-vaxxer movement blamed for 25-year measles high

A sign warns people of measles in the Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg, NYC. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Almost 700 cases of measles have been reported in 22 states across the US in 2019, making this the worst year for the disease since 1994 – with eight months still to go. About three-quarters of those cases were in New York state, and specifically in two Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Rockland county. Most cases have been in unvaccinated people, and the rise of anti-vaccination misinformation is believed to be largely to blame for the widespread outbreaks.

  • Unvaccinated children. Almost 170 million children under the age of 10 are thought to be unvaccinated against measles worldwide, according to new figures from Unicef. That includes 2.5 million children in the US alone.

Facebook expecting $5bn FTC fine over privacy

The Facebook boss, Mark Zuckerberg, claims his firm is transforming into a “privacy-focused” platform. Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

Facebook is expecting to pay a fine of as much as $5bn to the US Federal Trade Commission over the agency’s investigation into the firm’s privacy practices, which was launched last year following the Cambridge Analytica revelations. The number emerged in Facebook’s first quarter financial reports, which recorded a $3bn legal expense “in connection with the inquiry of the FTC”. The investigation is yet to conclude, the firm said, adding: “We estimate that the range of loss in this matter is $3.0bn to $5.0bn.”

  • Continued growth. Fine aside, the financial report showed Facebook’s continued revenue growth to more than $15bn for the first three months of the year.

  • Tesla troubles. Tesla has posted larger-than-expected losses in its first quarter earnings report, after the company was forced to raise the prices of some of its cars.

Millions of hectares of tropical rainforest lost in 2018

An area deforested by illegal gold mining in the Madre de Dios province of Peru. Photograph: Rodrigo Abd/AP

The clearcutting of forests by loggers and cattle ranchers in Brazil was the largest contributor to the destruction of vast areas of environmentally critical rainforest in 2018, with chocolate and palm oil also major factors. Though satellite analysis showed that fewer hectares of rainforest were lost in 2018 than in 2016 or 2017, when dry conditions led to large fires, researchers said it was the third-worst year since such records began in 2002, and continued the upward trend in deforestation.

  • Drilling boom. More than half of the world’s new oil and gas pipelines are located in North America, a new report has found, amid a US drilling boom that will dent efforts to allay climate change.

Crib sheet

  • Foreign security agencies warned the authorities in Sri Lanka of the threat of attacks by a network of violent Islamic extremists at least four months before the wave of bombings on Easter Sunday, in which more than 350 people were killed.

  • A lawyer for the Sackler family, which controls the OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma, has said they want to settle the more than 2,000 lawsuits blaming the painkiller for its role in the opioids crisis, while still claiming the litigation is legally dubious and factually misleading.

  • Two runaway Saudi sisters have called on Apple and Google to remove the Saudi government’s Absher app, which allows men to monitor and control their female relatives’ travel, including sending SMS alerts if their passports are used.

  • Climate change activists have glued themselves to the London Stock Exchange, the final act in a week of protests during which members of the group Extinction Rebellion have occupied several high-profile sites across the British capital.

Must-reads

‘It’s almost like the cola wars. You have Pepsi v Coke, and you have hand dryers v paper towels.’ Illustration: Leon Edler

The dirty fight for the right to dry your hands

For most of the 20th century, the paper towel dominated the hand drying business. But a new generation of electric dryers led by Dyson has set off a battle for bathroom supremacy. Which is more costly, which more eco-friendly – and which one spreads more germs? Samanth Subramanian finds out.

The anti-abortion campaigner hoping to test Roe v Wade

Janet Porter just successfully lobbied the Ohio legislature to pass the strictest anti-abortion law in the nation. She says gay marriage caused Noah’s floods and subscribed to the Barack Obama “birther” conspiracy theory – and she tells Jessica Glenza the new law is still not tough enough.

‘Extreme extrovert’ Adam Bobrow, ping pong evangelist

Adam Bobrow parlayed a lifelong obsession with table tennis – and his unabashed exuberance – into YouTube fame, and then got hired as the official commentator for the International Table Tennis Federation. “If your work is something that you love, that doesn’t feel like work,” he tells Shelby Pope.

After Sri Lanka: the best books on modern terrorism

Forty percent of all those killed by suicide bombs have died in the last five years. Iain Overton, the author of The Price of Paradise: How the Suicide Bomber Shaped the Modern Age, selects the books that best explain terrorism in the age of Isis.

Opinion

In the popular imagination, the Mexican border is a fixed perimeter. But the borderland of South Texas has always been shaped by a multitude of cultures and races. Michelle García says Trump’s wall is seen by many in the region as an aggressive expression of white nationalism.

America’s racist legacy is manifest in the government’s latest effort to seize family-owned land to construct a wall that has yet to be proven effective.

Sport

Nick Bosa, the projected No2 overall pick at this week’s NFL draft, has been scrubbing his social media clean of conservative views: praise for Trump, criticism of Colin Kaepernick and likes for racist and homophobic Instagram posts. But even in liberal San Francisco, where Bosa expects to end up, winning could prove more valuable than politics, says Oliver Connolly.

The Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, has said the Premier League title “is in our hands” after his team’s 2-0 win over Man United at Old Trafford on Wednesday.

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