Your Tuesday Briefing – The New York Times

Turkey orders new election for Istanbul’s mayor

The electoral authorities ordered a rerun, wiping away what was a crushing defeat for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The opposition party immediately condemned the decision as a capitulation to Mr. Erdogan and a blow to the democratic foundations of the country, which has drifted closer to authoritarianism in his 18 years in power.

The new vote was scheduled for June 23.

Points of contention: The High Election Council’s decision to agree with Mr. Erdogan on a new election reinforced suspicions that the council’s members were beholden to Mr. Erdogan’s party for their jobs and vulnerable to coercion.

Extinction risk is accelerating, report warns

As many as one million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction, posing a dire threat to ecosystems that people depend on, according to a sweeping United Nations assessment.

The 1,500-page report, a summary of which was released on Monday, is the most exhaustive look yet at the decline in biodiversity around the world. As a result of global warming, biodiversity loss is projected to accelerate through 2050, particularly in the tropics, without drastic increases in conservation.

Quotable: “For a long time, people just thought of biodiversity as saving nature for its own sake,” said Robert Watson, chairman of the group that conducted the assessment at the request of national governments. “But this report makes clear the links between biodiversity and nature and things like food security and clean water in both rich and poor countries.”

Debate simmers over Europe’s crackdown on tech

The Continent has been heralded as the toughest watchdog of Silicon Valley giants, clamping down on violent content, hate speech and misinformation online with a series of laws and regulations over the past five years.

But critics say that Europe is going too far and that the rules lead to censorship and potentially provide cover for governments to stifle dissent. “It’s dangerous at the moment to be ironic,” said Jörg Rupp, a political activist in Germany whose Twitter account was banned over a post considered offensive (one that he called satire).

Why it matters: The debate illustrates the difficulties that governments face as they try to regulate material without restricting individual expression.

It’s a boy!

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex — better known as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — welcomed their first child. He’s seventh in line to the British throne and the first multiracial baby in the monarchy in recent history.

His name hasn’t been chosen yet, and it’s unclear if he’ll receive a royal title like his cousins, the children of Prince William and his wife, Catherine: Princess Charlotte, Prince George and Prince Louis.

Prince Harry could barely contain himself. The duchess, he said, was “amazing,” and the birth “amazing,” and the love and support from the public “amazing.”

Go deeper: Royal births, which draw immense public interest, come with a changing slate of customs and rituals, some dating back centuries. Our London-based correspondent Ellen Barry looks back at some, including the introduction of painkillers (once incredibly divisive) and the history of official witnesses to the births.

Still have questions? We updated our F.A.Q.

If you have 25 minutes, this is worth it

Inside gang territory in Honduras

San Pedro Sula is one of the deadliest cities in the world. Times journalists spent weeks there, recording the struggle of a group of young men trying to protect their patch of turf from other gangs, including MS-13.

Their fight to protect the neighborhood encapsulates the violence that both entraps and expels millions of people across Latin America.

Here’s what else is happening

Myanmar: Two prizewinning Reuters journalists were released from prison on Tuesday after more than a year in detention for covering the country’s deadly crackdown on the Rohingya minority group.

Snapshot: The villa of the reclusive Italian collector Francesco Federico Cerruti, above, holds a secret art collection valued at around $600 million. The staircase alone is lined with an astonishing group of paintings by Francis Bacon, Amedeo Modigliani, Paul Klee, Joan Miró and Fernand Léger.

Health: Do you ever find yourself struggling to think in a stuffy conference room? A small body of evidence suggests that when it comes to decision making, indoor air, particularly in small rooms where heat and carbon dioxide can build up, may matter more than we realized.

The Met Gala: Katy Perry wore a chandelier with a 40-pound headpiece to the star-studded event in New York. Asked how she would sit down, she rolled her eyes. “You don’t sit down at the Met,” she said. See our photos from the red carpet.

What we’re reading: This consideration of John Singleton in The Atlantic. Caryn Wilson, a senior editor for politics, recommends its argument that Singleton’s film “Poetic Justice” was an answer to critics who said his portrayal of black women in the Oscar-nominated film “Boyz N the Hood” was one-note and reductive.

Now, a break from the news

Smarter Living: When problem solving, reach for the insight to see beyond the issue at hand. Rather than fighting tooth and nail to find the “correct” solution, sometimes it’s worth asking what the problem arises from — and then just stop doing that. Just know you may have to overcome resistance to quitting, especially if you’ve already invested time and energy in considering “solutions.”

And we have some tips on buying a rug that, as the Big Lebowski would say, really ties the room together.

And now for the Back Story on …

Rubik’s Cube

In May 1980, a new toy hit U.S. markets and set off a worldwide craze.

It was a cube-shaped puzzle that had been designed in 1974 by the Hungarian architect and professor Erno Rubik. It was sold in his country as Magic Cube.

Among the Rubik’s Cube competitions now governed by the World Cube Association are solving cubes for the fastest times with a single hand (6.88 seconds), blindfolded (16.22 seconds) and, to some cubers’ dismay, with feet (16.96 seconds).

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Melina

Thank you
Chris Stanford and Alisha Haridasani Gupta helped compile today’s briefing. Mark Josephson, Eleanor Stanford and Kenneth R. Rosen provided the break from the news. Matthew Sedacca wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at [email protected].

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is the first of a two-part series about China’s surveillance state.
• Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Restaurant booking, slangily (3 letters). You can find all our puzzles here.
• The New York Times is expanding its commitment to audio, and has named Theo Balcomb, who helped launch The New York Times’s most popular podcast, “The Daily,” to lead News for Audio.