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Asia and Australia Edition

Japan, Amazon, Brett Kavanaugh: Your Wednesday News Briefing

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

Good morning. Typhoon Jebi hits Japan, pollution is outsourced and Amazon lands in the trillion-dollar club.

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Credit...Kyodo, via Reuters

The strongest typhoon in 25 years.

At least nine deaths were reported as Typhoon Jebi made landfall in southern Japan early Tuesday afternoon. The typhoon, with winds up to 130 miles (209 kilometers) per hour, prompted officials to urge the evacuation of more than a million people.

The typhoon comes during a summer plagued with weather issues, including lethal floods and landslides and deadly heat waves.

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Credit...Thomas Peter/Reuters

Outsourced jobs, sure. But outsourced pollution?

Wealthy countries have been “outsourcing” a big chunk of their carbon emissions abroad. They’ve done this by importing more steel, cement and goods from factories in China and other countries, rather than producing them domestically.

A new report on the global carbon trade estimates that 25 percent of the world’s total emissions are now being outsourced this way. About 13 percent of China’s emissions in 2015, for example, came from making products for other countries.

But there’s a growing push to close this loophole, and policymakers are looking for a solution.

Want to see how your hometown has warmed over the years? Plug your birthday in here to find out.

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Credit...Mahmud Turkia/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Facebook as a weapon.

When fighting between rival militias broke out in the Libyan capital in recent days, some combatants picked up rocket launchers. Others headed to Facebook.

“Keyboard warriors,” as Facebook partisans are known in Libya, issued boasts, taunts and chilling threats online as their counterparts attacked from the ground. Some Facebook users even provided direct coordinates for targeted attacks.

Facebook insists it is policing its Libyan platform, but illegal activity is rife.

“So many times over the past seven years,” one researcher said, “I heard people say that if we could just shut down Facebook for a day, half of the country’s problems would be solved.”

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Credit...Amazon

• The newest $1,000,000,000,000 company.

Amazon followed in the footsteps of Apple to become the second American company to cross the trillion dollar value. We take a look at how the company’s relentless ambition landed it in this once-unimaginable club.

On the same day of its valuation announcement, Amazon said it would offer a Hindi-language option in India, hoping to tap into a vast market of half a billion Hindi speakers. Amazon offers a similar Spanish option in the U.S.

Amazon’s expansion into Hindi is vital to the company’s plan to make India its next big market.

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Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Abortion, guns and presidential power.

The U.S. Senate began confirmation hearings for Judge Brett. M. Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court. The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing began with a bang, as Democrats moved angrily to adjourn to consider documents newly released the night before the hearing.

Opening statements from Republicans and Democrats set up some of the key issues in the nomination fight — guns, abortion and executive privilege.

One takeway: Two portraits of Judge Kavanaugh, now a Washington federal appeals court judge, are beginning to emerge, one is a champion for women; the other a threat to women’s rights.

The hearings continue through the week.

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Credit...Colin Kaepernick, via Twitter

• Colin Kaepernick, the former N.F.L. quarterback who protested during the national anthem, is a new face of Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign. Nike, one of the league’s most valued partners, begins a campaign with an athlete who is seen as a hero to some, a pariah to others.

• Facebook, Twitter and Google executives testify before Congress in Washington today about foreign influence campaigns and disinformation. Can you spot the deceptive Facebook post? Take our quiz.

• Argentina took emergency measures to shore up the peso amid concerns about the country’s solvency. The move came days after the central bank intervened with a drastic increase in interest rates.

• Steve Bannon was disinvited from The New Yorker Festival after celebrities dropped out in protest. President Trump’s former chief strategist called The New Yorker’s editor “gutless.” [The New York Times]

• Global shares mostly fell Tuesday. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

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Credit...Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

• The Nepalese government and trekking insurance companies say a wave of false claims and unneeded evacuations from Mount Everest are part of an elaborate fraud that has cost insurance companies millions of dollars. [The New York Times]

• President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the arrest of a Philippine senator who is one of his top critics. [The New York Times]

• President Xi Jinping of China will send a top official to North Korea this weekend to attend major national celebrations there, scotching speculation that he might attend the celebrations himself. [The New York Times]

• For the first time, the Taliban have confirmed the death of Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Cold War ally who later turned his weapons against the United States. Afghan officials believe he died four years ago. [The New York Times]

• Syria and Russia carried out dozens of airstrikes on Syria’s last rebel-held province, Idlib, raising concerns about a large offensive against the densely populated area. [The New York Times]

• He was late to the forehand; shaky on his serve; brittle under pressure. Roger Federer, it turns out, is only human. He found himself in an unfamiliar position — out of the U.S. Open in the fourth round. [The New York Times]

• 182 meters. The world’s tallest statue is nearing completion in India. The bronze-clad statue is a tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the first deputy prime minister of independent India. [BBC]

• (Almost) just a click of the heels: Dorothy’s ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” were stolen 13 years ago from a Minnesota museum. Now, the F.B.I. has found them. [The New York Times]

Tips for a more fulfilling life.

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Credit...Anna Godeassi

• How to be a millionaire before you’re 30. Then retire.

• Scared to be a parent? There are books and consultants who can help.

• Recipe of the day: Miso provides caramelization in this recipe for baked cod in buttery bread crumbs.

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Credit...Kevin Winter/Getty Images

• They’ve done it again: For the second time in six months, BTS, the first K-pop act to lead the Billboard 200, is atop the charts. The boy band’s “Love Yourself: Answer” is the No. 1 album in the United States.

• 20 minutes. That’s how long it took for one rapper to make the first defining song of his career. From an upload to SoundCloud to performing alongside Drake, this is how a rap anthem can catch fire in 2018.

• What are the biggest problems facing us in the 21st century? The historian Yuval Noah Harari takes on the question in what the reviewer Bill Gates calls “a fascinating new book.” Also, a review of the memoir of Lisa Brennan-Jobs, the first child of Steve Jobs.

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Credit...Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, via Getty Images

One hundred years ago, the world was in the throes of World War I.

The war weighed heavily on America, even on its favorite pastime: baseball. A “work or fight” order for men in nonessential jobs was issued in July 1918, and the baseball season was cut short. On this day that year, the World Series began in Chicago.

It was the earliest calendar date in the history of the series. And the game, between the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, served another first.

As the small crowd stood for the seventh-inning stretch, the military band began to play “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Red Sox third baseman Fred Thomas, playing while on furlough from the Navy, stood at attention with a military salute.

“First the song was taken up by a few, then others joined, and when the final notes came, a great volume of melody rolled across the field,” said a spirited Times report.

The song was “an outburst of patriotism which caused every mother’s son in the stands to forget all about baseball.”

It was the first time the anthem was sung at a major American sporting event.

The song was played for the rest of the series, and many more games to come.

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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.

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