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Asia and Australia Edition

Waffle House, North Korea, Iran: Your Tuesday Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning. A suspect has been detained in the Waffle House shooting, the French president is trying to save the Iran nuclear deal and Britain has a new prince. Here’s what you need to know:

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Credit...Cole Burston/Getty Images

• The Canadian authorities said a van drove onto the sidewalk along Toronto’s main thoroughfare, killing nine people and injuring 16 before the police were able to stop it and take the driver into custody.

Several eyewitnesses said the crash debris included a child’s stroller.

Videos from bystanders appeared to show the arrest of the van driver, a balding middle-aged man standing beside an extensively damaged rental van.

In a video posted on The Toronto Star, the man yells at the police to kill him and says he is armed. They decline to comply.

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• Anything can happen.

As two summit meetings with North Korea approach, one on Friday with the South Korean leader Moon Jae-in and a later one with President Trump, we asked a nuclear historian to imagine the possible outcomes. He found himself, like many experts, at a loss.

And our Interpreter columnist points out that Pyongyang and Washington are already treating the meeting less as the start of a long process, but as the culmination of what each seems to see as its glorious triumph over the other.

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Credit...Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

• President Emmanuel Macron of France arrived in Washington, on a mission to persuade President Trump not to scrap the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Mr. Macron hopes to use his unusual bond with the president to make the case that the world is safer with the deal in place. Mr. Trump faces a May 12 deadline to decide whether to keep or abandon the accord.

Iran’s foreign minister jumped in on Monday, warning that there would be no substitute for the accord if Mr. Trump tears it up.

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How to avoid American tariffs.

Circuitous ocean routes that disguise the origins of cargo, called transshipments, are a popular option.

President Trump has cited the issue in justifying his trade fights.

Transshipments could also take on new relevance should the U.S. and China carry out their threats to levy a total of more than $200 billion in tariffs against each other

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Credit...Nashville Police Department, via Getty Images

• The police in Tennessee said that a more than daylong search by 160 officers had culminated in the arrest of a suspect in the killing of four people at a Waffle House in Nashville, a mass shooting that unnerved one of the largest cities in the American South.

The officials said that the suspect, Travis Reinking, 29, had been nearly naked when he opened fire with an AR-15 rifle. His family had reported him to be delusional, and it was not clear how he had regained possession of weapons confiscated by the authorities.

The authorities said there would have been greater bloodshed had an unarmed man not wrested the rifle away from the gunman.

“I’m not a hero,” said the man, James Shaw Jr. “I’m just a regular person.”

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Credit...Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York Times

• Windmill giants: Come with us inside the engineering marvels that are making clean energy mainstream.

• The resignation of the chief executive of WPP, the world’s largest advertising group, has set off an intense debate about the future of the advertising business.

“A Quiet Place,” the nearly dialogue-free Hollywood horror film, has soared internationally, especially in China. Its box office has hit $283.3 million.

• U.S. stocks were weaker. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

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Credit...Pool photo by John Stillwell

• “Hip hip hooray! It’s a boy, born on St. George’s Day!” Cheers broke out in London on the news that Catherine, the duchess of Cambridge, had given birth to an 8-pound, 7-ounce boy, the third child for her and Prince William. [The New York Times]

• Darwin greeted the largest group of U.S. Marines to ever be stationed there. The contingent training alongside Australian forces has grown to 1,587 from 200 in 2012. Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and other neighboring countries have been invited to take part in and observe 15 training exercises with them in coming months. [ABC]

• Senegal deported two former Guantánamo detainees to Libya, raising fears of a broader collapse of Obama-era resettlement deals under President Trump. [The New York Times]

• One of the many U.S. service members severely injured after stepping on an improvised bomb in Afghanistan or Iraq received an extraordinary transplant: a penis, scrotum and portion of the abdominal wall, taken from a deceased organ donor. [The New York Times]

• President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has overseen the deportation of an Italian political official and the detention of a 71-year-old nun, both of whom vocally opposed his policies. [The New York Times]

• A 12-year-old Sydney boy, frustrated that his mother wouldn’t let him go to Bali, stole his parents’ credit card and flew there anyway. His mother, who flew to retrieve him, said he doesn’t like hearing the word no. [The Guardian]

• And 10-year-old Christian Li of Melbourne is now the youngest winner of the Junior Prize at the “Olympics of the violin” in Geneva. Li won alongside an 11-year-old girl, Chloe Chua, of Singapore. [SBS]

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

• Spot and overcome your hidden weaknesses.

• Protect yourself from scammers who pose as “tech support.”

• Recipe of the day: If you’re into baking, try this rich crumb cake with juicy, tart grapefruit.

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Credit...Alexey Kopchinskiy

Exploding ants: A species in Southeast Asia has a strange way of protecting its nests. An ant under attack will sacrifice itself, rupturing its own abdomen to release a sticky fluid laced with toxins.

• Europe is outsourcing border management to distant countries, stopping many migrants before they cross the Mediterranean. But migration advocates say the moral cost is high.

• With a staggering $68 million budget, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” opened Sunday in New York. Our reviewer said it set “the new gold standard for fantasy franchise entertainment on Broadway.”

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Credit...Lexey Swall for The New York Times

It contains 167 million items, has 838 miles of bookshelves and adds 12,000 articles of history daily.

The U.S. Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world. It was established on this day in 1800 with the same sweep of President John Adams’s pen that moved the federal government from Philadelphia to Washington.

As its name suggests, the library was originally for members of Congress, but its role as the leading research arm of the government has expanded. Anyone 16 and older may get a library card and use the collections on site.

While its main office is in Washington, the library has offices around the world. Its collection includes materials in 470 languages.

The library is home to a Gutenberg Bible and a 1507 world map that is the first known document on which “America” appears (over what is now Brazil).

The Librarian of Congress is a title that has been held by 14 librarians since 1800. Carla Hayden, the current librarian, is the first woman and first African-American to hold the post.

“If you can absorb information yourself and make your own decisions, that’s a freedom,” Dr. Hayden told The Times last year.

Remy Tumin wrote today’s Back Story.

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Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. Sign up here to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning. You can also receive an Evening Briefing on U.S. weeknights.

And our Australia bureau chief offers a weekly letter adding analysis and conversations with readers.

Browse our full range of Times newsletters here.

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