Your Tuesday Briefing: Turkey backs Sweden’s NATO bid

By Justin Porter

Good morning. We’re covering Turkey’s decision to let Sweden join NATO and the devastating flash floods in northern India.

Turkey backs Sweden’s NATO entry

In a sudden reversal, Turkey agreed yesterday to clear the way for Sweden to join NATO. NATO’s secretary general announced the decision in Vilnius, Lithuania, where the alliance was preparing to open its annual summit today.Hours earlier, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said that the E.U. should first advance Turkey’s bid to join the European bloc before Sweden could join the alliance.

Sweden’s bid to join the alliance had been held up by Turkey’s demands that Sweden crack down on dissidents whom Turkey considers to be terrorists, including pro-Kurdish activists and members of a religious group that Turkey has accused of planning a coup attempt in 2016.

The breakthrough was announced after Erdogan met with Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, to discuss efforts to counter terrorism. A NATO statement said that Sweden and Turkey had agreed that “counterterrorism cooperation is a long-term effort, which will continue beyond Sweden’s accession to NATO.”

President Biden, whose administration had pushed hard for NATO expansion, said in a statement that he welcomed Erdogan’s commitment to submit Sweden’s bid for “swift ratification” by the Turkish Parliament. Turkey was seeking to buy $20 billion worth of F-16 fighter jets and other equipment from the U.S., but White House officials rejected the idea that this would be used to pressure Erdogan to support Sweden in joining the alliance.

Analysis: Sweden’s entry into the alliance, which would come after Finland joined, would be a significant blow to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, who has sought to halt NATO’s expansion.

Developments about the war in Ukraine:

• Putin held a lengthy meeting with Yevgeny Prigozhin just five days after his Wagner private military company launched a brief mutiny, a Kremlin spokesman said yesterday.
• President Biden met with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain yesterday in London on the way to the NATO summit, where leaders are expected to focus on supporting Ukraine.

Floods and landslides batter India

The effects of climate change have rarely seemed so stark as this weekend, when unusually heavy rains and flooding left destruction across large swaths of northern India, killing at least 23 people.

Most of the deaths appear to have been in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, which received more than 10 times its average rainfall for this time of year. But some of the heaviest rainfall in decades also struck the Delhi region, which received 153 millimeters of rain, about 6 inches, on Sunday, the highest precipitation in a single day in July in 40 years.

Quotable: Jagat Singh Negi, the horticulture minister in Himachal Pradesh, said that the level of damage caused by the rainfall in some areas of his state was terrifying. “It is very scary,” he said in a phone call. “But we are trying everything to keep people safe.”

In the U.S.: Torrential rainfall caused flooding across western New England and parts of New York State yesterday, washing away roads as people were stranded in their homes and vehicles. At least one person died.

In Europe: A new study found that the heat waves last year killed more than 61,000 people. The findings suggest that two decades of efforts in Europe have failed to keep up with the pace of global warming.

Why China’s young people aren’t marrying

It has been a brutal three years for China’s young adults. Unemployment is soaring, the economy is struggling and though draconian Covid restrictions are over, there remains a sense of uncertainty about the future. For many, that turmoil been a reason to postpone major life decisions like getting married and starting a family.

In 2022, only about 6.8 million couples registered for marriage, the lowest number since record-keeping began in 1986, according to government data released last month. Since it is extremely rare in China for an unmarried couple or a single person to have children, the decline is tied to a falling birthrate. Last year, China’s population shrank for the first time since the early 1960s, when there was a widespread famine.

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THE LATEST NEWS

• Six people were killed in a knife attack at a preschool in China’s southern Guangdong Province.
• Australia signed a deal with Germany to manufacture and export 100 armed carriers to the country’s military, Reuters reported.

• Israel’s parliament was to hold the first of three votes on limiting judicial powers as mass protests were planned by those who say the plan will weaken the country’s democracy.
• Lawrence Nassar, the doctor convicted in the U.S. of sexually abusing young female gymnasts, was stabbed multiple times in prison, according to two people.
• Spain rescued more than 80 migrants aboard a boat in the Atlantic, after an aid group reported that several vessels had been missing for two weeks.
• Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the Netherlands’s long-serving prime minister, said he would step aside, after his governing coalition had collapsed.

• A deal to ensure that data from Meta, Google and other companies will continue flowing between the U.S. and the E.U. was completed yesterday.
• Madonna has postponed the entire North American leg of her Celebration Tour, which will now open in Europe in October.

It has been a long time since Robert Downey Jr. has shown up in a big movie playing a major part that wasn’t Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man) or other would-be franchise material.

Now he’s starring opposite Cillian Murphy in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” which opens on July 21 in theaters in much of the world. We spoke to him about his post-Marvel balancing act, and why this summer is “the battle for the soul of cinema.”

ARTS AND IDEAS

The art of translation

Literature can be beautifully precise, but it can also be wonderfully vague and open to interpretation. Translating a book from one language to another is often difficult, occasionally all-consuming and not without its pleasures, some of which are akin to those of the daily crossword.

“When it comes to literature, there is rarely ever just one solution,” writes the professional translator Sophie Hughes. “My job is to test as many as possible.”

Watch, line by line, as she practices her craft on the Mexican writer Fernanda Melchor’s 2017 novel, “Hurricane Season.”

Finally: The novel “Counterweight,” about a multinational conglomerate pitted against life on earth, is the first full-length work to appear in English by the pseudonymous South Korean science fiction writer Djuna.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

This no-cook silken tofu with spicy soy dressing is a handy dish to have up your sleeve.

Jason Zinoman reviewed the horror movie “Insidious: The Red Door.”

Our pop critics’ latest playlist includes a revised version of Taylor Swift’s “Better Than Revenge.”

Does sugar actually feed cancer? Get the facts about sugar’s role in cancer risk.

Play the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Right away (four letters).

Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — Justin

P.S. The Times is disbanding its sports department.

“The Daily” is on whether Threads will kill Twitter.

We welcome your feedback. You can reach us at briefing@nytimes.com.

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