Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia are already at odds
Even as former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case turned themselves in this past week, their lawyers began working to change how the case will play out. They disagree over when and where they will have their day in court. Should enough of them succeed, the case could split into several smaller cases, perhaps overseen by different judges in different courtrooms, running on different timelines. Five defendants have sought to move the state case to federal court, citing ties to the federal government. Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff during the 2020 election, will make the argument for removal Monday in Atlanta.
Tiny forests with big benefits
The tiny forest lives atop an old landfill in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Just 2 years old, its aspens are growing at twice the speed normally expected, with sumac and tulip trees racing to catch up. It has absorbed stormwater without washing out, suppressed weeds and stayed lush throughout last year’s drought. The forest is part of a movement transforming highway shoulders, parking lots and other expanses worldwide. Tiny forests have been planted across Europe, in Africa, throughout Asia and in South America, Russia and the Middle East. Now tiny forests are slowly appearing in the United States. Healthy woodlands absorb carbon dioxide, clean the air and provide for wildlife.
More than 111 million people in the U.S. face extreme heat
More than 57 million people in the South and Southwest were under excessive heat warnings Saturday — the most severe category for heat conditions — as temperatures across the Gulf Coast and parts of the Southwest soared to record-breaking levels and were expected to remain high through early next week. Warnings reached as far north as southern Illinois and the region surrounding St. Louis. An additional 54 million people were under a heat advisory Saturday, including in the Southeast and Pacific Northwest. Forecasters reminded residents of health risks of extreme heat, which can result in serious illness or death.
Doctor sentenced to 18 years for trying to join Islamic State group
A doctor from Pakistan who said he wanted to “fight on the front line” for the Islamic State group was sentenced Friday to 18 years in a U.S. prison, federal prosecutors said. Muhammad Masood, 31, of Rochester, Minnesota, pleaded guilty last year in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minnesota, to attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization. Prosecutors said Masood had expressed a desire to government informants to conduct “lone-wolf attacks” in the United States. Masood’s lawyer called the sentence “extremely harsh” given his client’s history of mental illness.
Judge allows Missouri’s ban on youth gender medicine to take effect
A state judge in Missouri on Friday denied a request to temporarily block a state law passed this year that restricts gender-related medical treatments for minors. The ruling was issued by Missouri Circuit Court Judge Steven Ohmer three days before the ban is set to go into effect. A legal challenge brought by civil rights groups is ongoing. Under Missouri’s law, clinicians will not be allowed to treat any minor who is not already receiving gender transition care, which includes drugs that suppress puberty; hormone treatments with estrogen or testosterone; and, in rare cases, surgeries. Minors currently receiving care can continue.
In Iowa, a voter asks DeSantis: Why should I choose you over Trump?
Iowa voter Ethan Masters on Friday asked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a question: Why would he make a better president than Donald Trump? Masters, 21, went for Trump in 2020 but is open to another candidate. “I think I’m much more likely to actually get elected …,” DeSantis answered. “He’d be a lame duck on Day One even if he could get elected. I have a track record of appointing really good people to office. I think he appointed a lot of duds to office, and it really hurt his ability to get his agenda done. I also think I’m more likely to follow through on doing what I said I would do.”
Ukraine is still grappling with the battlefield Prigozhin left behind
As the Russian military reeled on the battlefield in Ukraine last autumn, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a foul-mouthed ex-convict with a personal connection to President Vladimir Putin, stepped out of the shadows to help, touting the Wagner mercenary group and personally recruiting an army of convicts to aid a flailing Russian war operation starved for personnel. Prigozhin led the brutal fight in Bakhmut, Ukraine, through the winter and into spring, relying on the recruitment of prison inmates to bolster Russia’s badly depleted front-line forces. The battle, one of the bloodiest of the war, sapped Ukraine of trained soldiers before the counteroffensive, while Russia lost personnel Moscow saw as largely expendable.
In push to modernize Cairo, cultural gems and green spaces razed
Ancient tombs have been shattered. Gardens have vanished, and with them, many of Cairo’s trees. A growing number of historic but shabby working-class neighborhoods have all but disappeared, too, handed over to developers to build concrete high-rises while families who have lived there for generations are pushed to the fringes of the sprawling Egyptian capital. Few cities live and breathe antiquity like Cairo, a sun-strafed, traffic-choked desert metropolis jammed with roughly 22 million people. But President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is modernizing this superannuated city, fast. So the old stone and brick must go, paved over by concrete.
Labeled climate culprits, European farmers rebel over new standards
To meet climate goals, some European countries are asking farmers to reduce livestock, relocate or shut down — and an angry backlash has begun reshaping the political landscape before national elections in autumn. This summer, scores of farmers descended on the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, to protest against new European Union rules aimed at restoring natural areas and cutting emissions that contribute to climate change. The discontent has underscored a widening divide on a continent that is committed to acting on climate change but often deeply divided about how to do it and who should pay for it.
He fled China’s repression. But China’s long arm got him in another country.
As a lawyer in China, Lu Siwei belonged to an increasingly besieged group willing to take on sensitive cases to defend rights activists and political pariahs. To stop him, authorities put him under surveillance and banned him from practice, depriving him of his livelihood. As he was preparing to board a train in Laos to Thailand recently, he was arrested and is being held in Laotian custody while facing the threat of deportation. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, Chinese authorities have opened police outposts in foreign countries, offered bounties for critics who have fled, pressured the Chinese diaspora to become informants, and secured the detention or deportation of exiles abroad.
How a judge’s ruling on torture imperils a Guantánamo prosecution strategy
In a wide-ranging ruling, Col. Lanny Acosta Jr. threw out a confession that federal agents at Guantánamo Bay obtained in 2007 from a Saudi prisoner who is accused of plotting the suicide bombing of the USS Cole on Oct. 12, 2000. Although the ruling does not set a precedent and prosecutors are already appealing it, the decision has shaken a foundation on which prosecutors built their cases against men accused of plotting al-Qaida attacks. Now defense lawyers in the 9/11 case are similarly calling witnesses to argue that confessions, much like the Saudi prisoner’s in the USS Cole case, were tainted by CIA torture.
At this movie, their phones won’t bother you. Their barking might.
London is a paradise for pooches, which are regularly found at the feet of their owners at restaurants, pubs, on trains and in many other public places. Movie theaters may be next to welcome dogs, thanks in part to the pandemic. Recently, Curzon Cinemas, a chain with 16 locations in Britain, began allowing dogs to attend select movie screenings with their owners. The new screenings are part of a larger program designed to let customers watch films in ways that best suit them, such as screenings for infants that feature reduced volume and increased lighting.
By wire sources