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Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.
World leaders join D-day veterans to mark 75th anniversary
Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron were among the world leaders gathering in Normandy on Thursday to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-day landings. The allied veterans who joined them there included the British former soldiers John “Jock” Hutton, 94, and 95-year-old Harry Read, both of whom parachuted into France in the early hours of 6 June 1944.
Border talk. The D-day celebrations are the climax of Trump’s European trip. On Wednesday he visited Ireland, where he compared the problem of Brexit and the Northern Irish border to his plan for a wall on the US-Mexico border.
US-Mexico talks continue as tariff deadline looms
Talks between the Mexican government and the Trump administration will resume in Washington on Thursday, with the two sides struggling to reach a deal to stop the president’s threatened tariffs on Mexican imports taking effect next week. The discussions are focused on migration, with the White House demanding Mexico do more to stem the flow of migrants across its border into the US. Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that “both sides recognize the current situation cannot continue”.
Migrant numbers. The number of arrests by US Border Patrol at the border with Mexico hit its highest level since 2007 in May, as officials warned they lacked sufficient resources to care for the surge of parents and children entering the US.
Millions of Asian pigs culled amid swine fever epidemic
South-east Asia is battling to contain what experts say is the world’s biggest ever animal disease outbreak, an epidemic of African swine fever that was discovered in August and has already led to millions of pigs being culled in China and Vietnam. There is no vaccination for the disease, known as “pig Ebola”, which is highly contagious and fatal for pigs, albeit harmless to humans.
Regional crisis. Pig farms in Cambodia have already been devastated by the outbreak, with cases on the rise in Mongolia, North Korea and Hong Kong. Thailand, Asia’s second-biggest pork producer, is on “red alert”.
Toronto urged to abandon Google ‘smart city’ project
Roger McNamee was an early investor in Google and Facebook, and has since grown sceptical of the tech giants over their handling of user privacy concerns. This week, he warned that Google could not be trusted with the data it would collect on residents of the proposed 12-acre Quayside development in Toronto, a controversial so-called “smart city” being built by the city in partnership with Google’s Sidewalk Labs. In a letter to the Toronto city council, McNamee described the project as “surveillance capitalism”.
Facial recognition. Privacy activists have launched a new tool to help travellers avoid flying with airlines that use facial recognition technology in airports, including JetBlue, Delta and American Airlines.
Crib sheet
Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that has become symbolic of the trade war between Beijing and the US, has signed a deal to develop a 5G network in Russia, during a summit between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Moscow.
Police in Detroit believe a serial killer may be targeting sex workers in the city, following the discovery of the decomposed body of a third apparently murdered woman.
The UN has warned that more than 2 million people are at risk of starvation in Somalia this summer unless the international community takes urgent steps to respond to a drought caused by one of the region’s driest rainy seasons in decades.
The US Department of Energy has announced plans to reclassify some of the nation’s most radioactive nuclear waste – found in South Carolina, Idaho and Washington state – by lowering its threat level to save $40bn in cleanup costs.
Must-reads
Why Stacey Abrams isn’t running – yet
Her dramatic run for governor in deep red Georgia last November may have ended in defeat – just – but it earned Stacey Abrams the admiration of Democrats across the country. She tells Lucia Graves why she’s still weighing whether to enter the presidential race.
The evils of bad economics
Inequality is rising in most of the world’s wealthiest countries, and we have been led to believe that it’s inevitable. In fact, explains Jonathan Aldred, it is a direct result of economic arguments that emerged from the US and UK in the 1980s. And the trend will only continue if we fail to make a counterargument.
The best smaller films to see this summer
There are plenty of superhero sequels coming to movie theatres this summer, but look beyond the multiplex and you will find plenty of smaller cinematic gems, says Benjamin Lee, from a Jim Jarmusch zombie comedy to an acclaimed documentary about China’s one-child policy.
Kirk Weddle: the man behind Nirvana’s swimming baby
Kirk Weddle had marketed himself as an underwater photographer, which is why a record label approached him in 1991 about the shoot for its latest album cover: a baby swimming naked towards a dollar on a fishhook. He looks back on the iconic image he captured for Nirvana’s Nevermind.
Opinion
The onus of birth control has always fallen on women, but with access to abortion and even contraception under threat, it’s finally time for men to share that responsibility, says Moira Donegan.
Contraception access, like abortion access, is imperiled. In this new reality, men’s continued indifference and uninvolvement in birth control is no longer merely unfair. It is morally unacceptable.
Sport
Steph Curry scored 47 points, his biggest ever haul in a playoff game, but it was still not enough to stop the Raptors claiming a 123-109 victory at the Warriors’ Oakland home on Wednesday night, giving the Toronto team a 2-1 lead in the NBA finals series.
With the Women’s World Cup set to kick off in Paris on Friday, the Guardian’s sport team has put together a guide to every team in the competition, while Suzanne Wrack selects 10 of the best young players to watch over the next month.
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• This article was amended on 7 June 2019 because the former soldiers who parachuted into France did so in the early hours of 6 June 1944, not 1945 as an earlier version said.
