First Run News

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ON HIGHWAY E-5, Turkey — Next to a busy road in an uncelebrated part of northern Anatolia, Aykut Erdogdu, a Turkish lawmaker, nursed his bandaged, blistered foot.

Owls’ are spherical, hummingbirds’ are elliptical and sandpipers’ are pointy. All bird eggs have the same function — to protect and nourish a growing chick. But they come in a brilliant array of shapes. This variety has puzzled biologists for centuries.

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.) Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • President Trump is returning to Europe later this week for a visit to Poland and a G-20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany. Antiglobalization protests began peacefully over the weekend.

Wimbledon, the third Grand Slam tournament of the year, is set to begin on Monday. Serena Williams, the defending women’s champion, is pregnant and will not play. Andy Murray, the defending men’s champion, is in a midyear slump. New contenders could emerge. Here are a few players who have been in good form ahead of the tournament. When Barty won the Wimbledon junior title in 2011 at 15, she was hailed as the future of Australian tennis. Those high expectations took the joy out of the game, and she took a break in 2014 and ’15, playing professional cricket instead.

Only two women playing in the Wimbledon singles tournament this year have won the singles title. Neither of them is Serena Williams, which makes for quite a career opportunity. “When Serena is not around, the field is definitely wide open,” said Martina Navratilova, the nine-time Wimbledon singles champion who once was even more dominant than the seven-time champion Williams at the All England Club. With Williams pregnant and out until at least next season, the two former champions in the draw are Petra Kvitova and Williams’s older sister,

LONDON — After just two tournaments back on tour after a knife attack that damaged her primary playing hand, Petra Kvitova has completed an improbable transition from sentimental favorite to oddsmakers’ choice. The third event of her comeback will be Wimbledon, where she won her two Grand Slam singles titles, in 2011 and 2014. Kvitova, a 27-year-old left-hander, is the No.

Tradition is as much a part of the Wimbledon experience as the grass itself, from the predominantly white clothing rule to the strawberries and cream sold around the grounds of the All England Club. But when Wimbledon begins this week, mixed in with the cheers will be one thing the world’s leading tennis players do not appreciate quite so much: the Wimbledon groan. Urrrr.

TEHRAN — The French energy giant Total has agreed to invest $1 billion in Iran to develop a huge offshore gas field, Iranian news media reported on Sunday. The agreement, the largest by a Western energy company in Iran since the 2015 deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear program, had been delayed in February as Total waited to see how the Trump administration’s po

AYN ISSA, Syria — Forces backed by the United States have nearly sealed off the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, trying to trap as many as 2,500 hard-core Islamic State militants defending the capital of their self-proclaimed caliphate. The fighters, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, are made up of Syrian Kurds and Arabs, and they have received crucial support from the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The coalition has already destroyed the two bridges that lead south from Raqqa, which is on the northern bank of the Euphrates River.