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Your Wednesday Briefing

A bank employee in Athens distributed numbers today to retirees waiting to receive pension payments.Credit...Yannis Kolesidis/European Pressphoto Agency

Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

• A new day, a new deal?

The Greek prime minister is unexpectedly prepared to accept strict terms for a bailout by his country’s creditors, with some conditions, officials said today.

Stock markets soared on the news. We are following developments.

Further negotiations are unlikely until Greece holds its referendum on Sunday on a previous offer. Greece is effectively in default after missing its $1.8 billion payment to the I.M.F. on Tuesday.

• Foreign policy milestone.

The presidents of the United States and Cuba today announced plans to formally restore diplomatic relations more than a half-century after they ended.

President Obama said Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Havana to reopen the U.S. embassy next month, and he urged Congress to end the economic embargo of the island.

• What’s next for health care.

President Obama visits Tennessee today to speak about progress made under the Affordable Care Act and about what lies ahead after last week’s Supreme Court ruling that upheld health insurance tax subsidies.

While Mr. Obama is away, the White House fence will get sharp metal spikes as part of security enhancements.

• Wave of attacks in Egypt.

Militants killed at least 18 Egyptian soldiers and police officers in the northern Sinai Peninsula today, according to state news media. A group affiliated with the so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility.

It was another blow to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has struggled to put down an insurgency over the past two years. On Monday, militants assassinated Egypt’s top prosecutor in the capital.

• A new front against ISIS.

A Europewide police unit begins its work today to track and block social media accounts linked to the Islamic State.

The unit is part of the European response to the terrorist attacks on the office of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January.

• Strict measure for students.

California is now the largest state in the country to require schoolchildren to receive vaccinations unless there are medical reasons not to do so, after Gov. Jerry Brown signed the legislation.

And recreational marijuana is legal in Oregon as of today.

• Church burnings.

An African-American church in South Carolina that was burned down by the Ku Klux Klan in 1995 caught fire again Tuesday night. No one was believed to be inside at the time.

Federal authorities are investigating several blazes at predominantly black churches since last month’s church shooting in Charleston, S.C.

MARKETS

• On Wall Street, the S.&P. 500 index opened the second half of the year today up just 0.2 percent since Jan. 1, its smallest gain on record for the first six months of the year.

The Dow Jones industrial average started today about 1.1 percent lower, while the Nasdaq was up 5.3 percent for the year.

China’s stock markets plunged again today despite a series of government measures to prop up share prices.

• The average sale price of a Manhattan apartment hit a new high of $1.87 million in the second quarter, up 11 percent from a year ago, bolstered by a strong local economy, high demand and low supply.

Nationally, a 20-city home price index rose 4.9 percent in April, with double-digit jumps in Denver and San Francisco.

Donna Karan, the 66-year-old founder of the fashion house that bears her name, is stepping down to spend more time on her Urban Zen line of wellness and artisanal goods.

NOTEWORTHY

• U.S. in Women’s World Cup final.

Carli Lloyd scored on a penalty kick and assisted on Kelley O’Hara’s goal 15 minutes later as the Americans topped the favored Germans, 2-0, on Tuesday night.

On Sunday, the U.S. will play the winner of today’s semifinal between Japan, the defending champion, and England (7 p.m. Eastern, Fox Sports 1).

• “Ah-nold” returns.

In “Terminator Genisys,” opening in movie theaters today, the 67-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger reprises his role as a cyborg and goes back in time to fight a digital version of his younger self.

Two more sequels are planned.

• What’s on TV.

Extant,” a sci-fi series, starts a second summer season with a new cast.

But it keeps Halle Berry, who plays an astronaut who escapes from a psychiatric hospital to investigate strange deaths (10 p.m. Eastern, CBS).

• On the grass courts.

Novak Djokovic, Stan Wawrinka, and the Americans John Isner, Steve Johnson and Denis Kudla play in second-round action at Wimbledon in England.

Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova are among the high seeds playing today (7 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Eastern, ESPN).

• Going long on Twitter?

Public tweets still have a 140-character limit, but the direct message service — for private messages that only the intended recipient sees — now accommodates up to 10,000 characters.

BACK STORY

Eli Whitney’s cotton gin and Thomas Edison’s light bulb are very American inventions.

But so is Ralph H. Baer’s home video game; if you’ve ever played one, you have him to thank for your fun.

Image
Ralph H. Baer, a model of American ingenuity.Credit...via Associated Press

A replica of his studio is the main feature of “American Enterprise,” a major exhibition opening today at the National Museum of American History in Washington.

The exhibit follows early merchants from the 1700s to Steve Jobs’s technological innovations and everything in between.

Mr. Baer is the one who transformed TV sets you merely watched into screens that you could interact with and control.

His system was licensed to Magnavox, which began selling it as Odyssey in the summer of 1972, as the first home video game console. In 1973, he was granted Patent No. 3,728,480.

And from that came the PlayStation, the Xbox, the Wii and a video game industry that has about $100 billion in annual sales.

Victoria Shannon contributed reporting.

Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern and updated on the web all morning.

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