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Good morning, I’m Jayakumar Madala, filling in for Sarah Naffa.

In the news today: US President Donald Trump’s relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin takes the spotlight ahead of their Alaska summit; Washington, D.C. residents protest the increased police presence; and how a shrunken piece of bread explains Bolivia’s economic catastrophe. Also, some of North Korea’s metro stations have had a makeover, with a more modern and less Soviet look.

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands at the Presidential Palace in Finland in 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR

Trump’s friendly-to-frustrated relationship with Putin takes the spotlight at the Alaska summit

Donald Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska could be a decisive moment for both the war in Ukraine and the U.S. leader’s anomalous relationship with his Russian counterpart. Read more.

Why this matters:

• Trump has long boasted that he’s gotten along well with Putin and spoken admiringly of him, even praising him as “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine. But in recent months, he’s expressed frustrations with Putin and threatened more sanctions on his country.
  
  

• Trump has offered conflicting messages about his expectations for the summit. He has called it “really a feel-out meeting” to gauge Putin’s openness to a ceasefire but also warned of “very severe consequences” if Putin doesn’t agree to end the war.
  
  

• The White House has dismissed any suggestion that Trump’s agreeing to sit down with Putin is a win for the Russian leader. But critics have suggested that the meeting gives Putin an opportunity to get in Trump’s ear to the detriment of Ukraine, whose leader was excluded from the summit.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• Trump and Putin will meet at an Alaska military base long used to counter Russia

  
  
• Zelenskyy meets with UK’s Starmer as Europe braces for Trump-Putin summit
  
  
• Germany and allies to send major military aid package to Ukraine using new NATO supply line

POLITICS

DC residents protest as White House says federal agents will be on patrol 24/7

Residents in one Washington, D.C., neighborhood lined up Wednesday to protest the increased police presence after the White House said the number of National Guard troops in the nation’s capital would ramp up and federal officers would be on the streets around the clock. Read more.

Recent developments:

• After law enforcement set up a vehicle checkpoint along the busy 14th Street Northwest corridor, hecklers shouted, “Go home, fascists” and “Get off our streets.” Some protesters stood at the intersection before the checkpoint and urged drivers to turn away from it.
  
  

• The city’s Democratic mayor walked a political tightrope, referring to the takeover as an “authoritarian push” at one point and later framing the infusion of officers as a boost to public safety, though one with few specific barometers for success. President Trump has said crime in the city was at emergency levels that only such federal intervention could fix — even as District of Columbia leaders pointed to statistics showing violent crime at a 30-year low after a sharp rise two years ago.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• Trump pledged to move homeless people from Washington. What we know and don’t know about his plans
  
  
• DC Mayor Bowser walks delicate line with Trump, reflecting the city’s precarious position
  
  
• Federal takeover brings confusion over command of DC police
  
  
• New Mexico governor declares state of emergency in rural county afflicted by crime, drug use
  
  
• Jury finds Texas couple guilty of concealing and harboring bakery workers in the US illegally
  
  
• An appeals court lets the Trump administration suspend or end billions in foreign aid
  
  
• Trump administration ordered to restore some withheld grant funding to UCLA
  
  
• Trump administration fires all members of transportation advisory committees
  
  
• Trump rolls back Biden-era antitrust order
  
  
• Federal judge refuses to block Alabama law banning DEI initiatives in public schools
  
  
• CDC shooting marks latest in a string of hostility directed at health workers. Many aren’t surprised
  
  
• Treasury Secretary Bessent calls for a ban on members of Congress trading individual stocks
  
  
• GE Appliances shifts more production to US as part of a $3 billion investment
  
  
• US sanctions Mexican drug cartel associates accused of scamming elderly Americans
  
  
• Brazil’s Lula announces $5.5 billion in credits for exporters hit by US tariffs
  
  
• South Africa dismisses U.S. human rights report as ‘deeply flawed’
  
  
• NY attorney general sues Zelle’s parent company after Trump administration drops similar case
  
  
• 9 people plead not guilty in a Texas elections probe involving ‘vote harvesting’
  
  
• Failed New Mexico candidate gets 80 years for convictions in shootings at officials’ homes
  
  
• Melania Trump demands Hunter Biden retract ‘extremely salacious’ Epstein comments

WORLD NEWS

Ahead of Bolivia’s Sunday election, how a shrunken piece of bread explains the country’s economic catastrophe

For years, you could walk into a government-subsidized bakery anywhere in Bolivia and get a 100-gram roll for 50 centavos (7 U.S. cents), but as a cash crunch cripples flour imports and inflation squeezes budgets, bakers have almost halved the size of their staple bread. Early last year, rolls shrank to 80 grams, then 70, now 60. Read more.

Why this matters:

• The hallowed staple speaks to a state stuck in the past after 20 years under the state-directed economic model of ex-leader Evo Morales, and now struggling to pull itself out of its worst economic crisis in four decades.
  
  

• The right-wing frontrunners, businessman Samuel Doria Medina and former President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, have proposed eliminating the politically combustible subsidies that underwrite Bolivia's social safety net. 

RELATED COVERAGE ➤