Echo Huang, Tripti Lahiri

In Chinese history, the late politician Deng Xiaoping is widely recognized as the “father” of the reforms that opened up the country’s economy starting in the late 1970s, eventually turning China into an economic powerhouse. His political life was marked by reversals of fortune. Now, his memory is being displaced on museum walls by the Chinese Communist Party’s most powerful leader in decades.

It has a massage room, a sauna, a helicopter landing pad, a cinema, and gold-leaf fittings. Its name is Equanimity and it’s a $250 million souvenir of a quickly unraveling multibillion-dollar Malaysian corruption scandal. Now, the 300-foot super-luxury yacht has sailed back to Malaysia, docking at the country’s Port Klang Tuesday (August 7).

In its latest China overture, search giant Google announced Wednesday (July 18) on its Chinese blog (link in Chinese) it launched an applet called Caihua Xiaoge (猜画小歌) in China. But it’s not on Google Play—which isn’t even available in China.

In April 1989, Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic and comparative literature professor, was a visiting scholar in New York City when he heard of the student protests in Tiananmen Square. He hurried back to Beijing and spent weeks among them—eventually saving many lives with his negotiations with the military as the June 4 deadly crackdown approached. Two days after the massacre, he was detained and jailed for the first time. When he was freed in 1991, he resumed his public demands for greater freedoms in China over the next two decades.

Expressing annoyance over China’s decision to retaliate against $34 billion in US tariffs—rather than contritely mend its ways—the US is moving forward with plans to put duties on another $200 billion in goods.

Ahead of Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi’s debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange Monday (July 9), founder Lei Jun wrote an open letter over the weekend about the significance of the listing—not just for the company he founded less than a decade ago, but for China’s technology sector. On Chinese social media, he also circulated (link in Chinese) part of a couplet that the 17th-century writer Pu Songling wrote after repeatedly failing the notoriously difficult Qing Dynasty-era civil service exam: “Heaven won’t fail the dedicated heart. Sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall, 3,000 Yue soldiers at long last can defeat the Wu.”

More than 90 people have died and millions were told to leave their homes to escape flooding after rainfall over a two-day period in parts of western and central Japan exceeded a 50-year-old record (paywall). Nearly 60 people are missing.

Paul the octopus, a resident of Germany, gained global attention after correctly guessing the outcome of eight 2010 World Cup games involving his home country. He died shortly after, having earned the ire of German soccer fans by predicting Spain’s 2010 win over Germany, leaving a gaping hole in the field of animal clairvoyancy.

Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal on Wednesday (July 4) issued a historic ruling that paves the way for immigration authorities to issue dependant visas to legally recognized gay couples the same way they do for married heterosexual couples.

Less than a year ago, then Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak seemed secure in his hold on power, even enjoying a welcome at the White House. Today, Najib was arrested (paywall) at his mansion in Kuala Lumpur in connection with an investigation into embezzlement at a state fund, less than two months after his party was unseated from power in an historic election upset. He is expected to be charged tomorrow.

The US finally has an ambassador for South Korea.

Donald Trump opened a new manufacturing facility in Wisconsin with a golden shovel on Thursday, flanked by state governor Scott Walker, congressman Paul Ryan, and Foxconn chairman Terry Gou.

On Tuesday (June 26), California district judge Dana Sabraw issued a nationwide preliminary injunction in response to a class-action suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union to bar the practice of having border-patrol agents separate parents from their children when families are intercepted illegally crossing into the US. Seventeen states are also challenging the practice.

The Chinese island province of Hainan has big dreams of being a major free trade port and tourist hub. That is to say, president Xi Jinping has big dreams for Hainan.

A Renaissance mansion in the heart of Rome oozes Old World charm, but it’s going on sale this week in a very modern way.

Foxconn Technology chairman Terry Gou on Friday reiterated a pledge that the world’s biggest assembler of iPhones has made many times: that in a matter of years, human workers will be in a minority at the company.

In recent years a small handful of private US universities began accepting gaokao scores for college admissions—a sign of the growing overseas recognition for one of China’s toughest exams. Now, for the first time, a US state university will too.

China’s surveillance state already tracks people’s faces. Now it’s also going to track their cars, the Wall Street Journal has reported (paywall).

There were many startling moments in Donald Trump’s press conference that followed his half-day summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore—such as the announcement that the US would suspend war games with South Korea as part of negotiations to get the North Korean leader to denuclearize. That’s a huge give from the US.

After shaking hands, meeting one-on-one and in a group, and breaking bread—or rather stuffed cucumbers—over a working lunch, US president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a mysterious agreement that Trump said was “very comprehensive” and would lead to a relationship with North Korea that is “very different than it has been in the past.”

The Chinese technology hub of Shenzhen already has an all-electric bus fleet. Soon it’s going to have an all-electric ride-hailing car fleet as well.

At the April 27 summit between the two Koreas, some observers commented on the unusual sight of members of North Korea’s top military brass saluting South Korean president Moon Jae-in. Now, just days ahead of the much-anticipated summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US president Donald Trump, the men who made that striking gesture are no longer in their jobs.

Since Donald Trump announced in a bizarrely worded letter addressed to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that he didn’t think it was a good idea to meet on June 12 in Singapore after all—even if the commemorative coins had already been minted—reporters have tried to pinpoint how things unraveled.

During the love fest—er, summit—between South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last week, the two bantered many times about differences between the two nations, and how they could overcome them. The ultimate dream is to achieve a lasting peace—and perhaps even reunite one day.