June 19, Monday, 2023

1. The leaders of Japan, the US and South Korea are expected to meet in the United States shortly to discuss their response to North Korea’s repeated missile launches.
2. Ukraine’s deputy defense minister says the country’s forces have liberated eight communities in the past two weeks of their counteroffensive operations. Hanna Maliar wrote on social media on Monday that the village of Piatykhatky in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia is among those recaptured. 3. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior officials in Beijing. The two-day visit, which began on Sunday, is the first to the country by one of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet. It comes after a planned meeting in February was canceled amid allegations of China’s deploying spy balloons in the United States.