Biden meets with Asian leaders ahead of G-7

The G-7 summit will start on Friday, with AI, Ukraine and the US debt ceiling on the agenda. [Forward to a friend]( | [Subscribe]( | [View in your browser]( [Top of The World]( --------------------------------------------------------------- What The World is following Biden meets with Asian leaders ahead of G-7 [President Joe Biden shakes hands with Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ahead of a bilateral meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, May 18, 2023, before the start of the G-7 Summit.] Credit: Susan Walsh/AP G-7 President Joe Biden has arrived in Japan and is meeting with Asian leaders ahead of the [G-7 summit]( set to take place in Hiroshima on Friday. He is hoping to bolster regional allies amid China’s growing military and economic influence. G-7 leaders are planning to discuss concerns over rapid artificial intelligence advancements, the war in Ukraine and worries over the possibility of the [US defaulting on its debt](, which could potentially lead to global instability. Brazil Brazil’s environmental protection agency, Ibama, has [rejected a license]( for a controversial offshore oil drilling project near the mouth of the Amazon River. The agency’s president, Rodrigo Agostinho, defended the move by highlighting the social and environmental sensitivity of the biologically diverse region. It’s a win for activists who have been warning of potential damage to the area — and a blow to Petrobras, which was hoping to drill its first well at an [offshore oil frontier]( known as the Equatorial Margin. Germany Deutsche Bank has [agreed to pay $75 million]( to sexual abuse victims in the Jeffrey Epstein case to settle a lawsuit filed last year in Manhattan. The class-action suit was filed by an unnamed woman who accused the banking giant of [continuing to do business]( with Epstein, despite knowing that his accounts were used to facilitate abuses. The settlement needs to be approved by a federal judge. --------------------------------------------------------------- From The World [In Mumbai, waste pickers do the heavy lifting of recycling]( [Trucks, many of them carrying recyclables, crowd the narrow streets of Dharavi, an informal settlement in Mumbai, India.]( Credit: Justin Nisly/The World Waste pickers in Mumbai, India, collect and send garbage to Dharavi, an informal settlement where thousands of recyclers live and work. They sort through the piles, and clean and separate the different types of materials destined for a second or third life. Without them, much of the city's trash would end up in [incinerators or dumped in landfills](. [The hacker Bassterlord in his own words: Portrait of an access broker as a young man]( [Illustration]( Credit: Courtsey of Megan J. Goff He started off doing simple phishing attacks. But the Russian, who is known as Bassterlord, soon graduated to [planting ransomware in emails](, holding companies' data hostage. And he quickly became one of the best. In her exclusive interview with the hacker, Dina Temple-Raston of the "Click Here" podcast delves into the ransomware underworld. --------------------------------------------------------------- Bright spot Remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic widened learning gaps in many classrooms around the world. Some teachers, like Richard Evans at Hyde Park Elementary School in New York state, have been [adopting new systems]( to help children get back on track. Evans uses pluses, minuses and numbers on charts to track each child’s comprehension and fluency, and gives them individual attention to help them all read well enough to succeed in the grades ahead. 📚 [Richard Evans, a teacher at Hyde Park Elementary School, helps Ke'Arrah Jessie sound out a word during a reading circle in class, Oct. 20, 2022.] Credit: Joshua Bessex/AP/File photo In case you missed it on The World --------------------------------------------------------------- Don't forget to subscribe to The World's Latest Edition podcast using your favorite podcast player: [RadioPublic](, [Apple Podcasts](, [Stitcher](, [Soundcloud](, [RSS]( [The World logo]( [The World on Facebook]( [The World's Twitter account]( [Donate]( | [Forward to a friend]( | [Subscribe]( | [Edit your subscription]( | [Unsubscribe]( | [View in your browser]( Top of the World is written weekday mornings by the team at [The World](. [The World]( is produced by [PRX]( and [GBH](.