Good morning.
Donald Trump is expected to surrender at the Fulton county jail tomorrow evening on racketeering and conspiracy charges over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia, according to two people briefed on the matter.
The former president – seeking to distract from the indignity of the surrender by turning his appearance into a circus – in essence had his lawyers negotiate the booking to take place during the prime viewing hours for the cable news networks.
Trump became a criminal defendant in a fourth case last week when a grand jury handed up a sprawling 41-count indictment that accused him and 18 co-defendants of engaging in a criminal enterprise and committing election fraud in trying to reverse his 2020 defeat.
Why isn’t Trump taking part in tonight’s Republican primary debate? The decision to spurn the debate in favor of a pre-taped interview with Tucker Carlson solves the political question of how to inflict damage on the 2024 field, but it also eliminates concerns his remarks in the high-profile event could increase his legal exposure, Hugo Lowell writes.
Have any of the other co-defendants turned themselves in? The first two defendants in the Georgia election subversion case have been booked in the Fulton county jail. Scott Hall, an Atlanta-area bail bondsman, was booked at the Rice Street jail on Tuesday. John Eastman, a Trump attorney and allegedly one of the main people behind Trump’s plan to halt the certification of Biden’s victory, also voluntarily turned himself in later yesterday morning.
What else is happening? Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, has asked a federal court to block his arrest in an emergency motion, according to court documents filed yesterday. Meadows has requested the case be moved to federal court, saying the charges concern his actions as an officer of the federal government.
In a first, New Orleans priest accused of abusing minors admits wrongdoing
For the first time ever, one of the New Orleans Catholic church’s most strongly suspected abusers has publicly admitted that he sexually abused or harassed several teenagers during his career as a priest. He has said he was remorseful but unsure whether he deserved any criminal consequences.
Lawrence Hecker gave the rare admission when reporters for the Guardian and a local news outlet, WWL-TV, asked him to discuss a statement he gave to New Orleans church leaders in 1999. In the statement, he acknowledged committing “overtly sexual acts” with at least three underage boys in the late 1960s and 1970s and revealed his close relationships with four others stretching into the 1980s.
In recent years, Hecker has given various interviews and repeatedly denied touching children inappropriately. But the Guardian obtained a copy of the 24-year-old statement Hecker gave to church leaders, which prompted the questions posed to Hecker in this latest interview.
Asked if he did the specific sexual acts he laid out in the statement, Hecker twice said, “Yes,” while being recorded on video. He also claimed that society was more permissive of such behavior at the time, even though Louisiana’s age of consent to have sex in the 1960s and 70s was the same as it is now: 17.
What else did he say? By his own admission, he sexually abused or harassed seven teenagers between about 1966 and 1979. Reports of his misconduct led to the 1988 conversation with the city’s archbishop at the time, the late Philip Hannan, to whom he promised to never “be in any such circumstances” again.
What happened after the 1988 conversation? Hecker continued working. It wasn’t until 1999 that persisting reports against Hecker prompted the archdiocese to send him to an out-of-state psychiatric treatment facility which diagnosed him as a pedophile. The facility recommended that the archdiocese prohibit Hecker from working with minors or other “particularly vulnerable” people, according to a secret personnel file obtained by the Guardian and shared with WWL-TV. However, even then, Hecker did not stop working. In 2000, he was assigned to a church with an elementary school attached to it.
Central Moscow building hit by drone in latest attack on Russian capital
A drone hit a building under construction in central Moscow early this morning, the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, has said, in what AFP reported was the sixth night of aerial attacks on Russia’s capital region.
The Russian military downed two other drones over the western part of the Moscow region, the mayor said on his Telegram channel.
A loud explosion was heard in the capital’s central district on Wednesday morning and flights were suspended at the city’s airports, Russia’s RIA news agency reported. The central district is three miles from the Kremlin.
“A loud sound was heard at about 3am Moscow time, a little later smoke rose from the buildings in the same area,” RIA reported. The news agency published video showing a large plume of white smoke rising from the place where the explosion was heard.
What has Russia said about the attack? The Russian defence ministry said the drone had been “suppressed by electronic warfare” before losing control and colliding with the building.
What else is happening? Russia attacked grain facilities in Odesa and the Danube River region overnight, causing fires in grain facilities, Ukrainian military and local authorities said today. “The enemy hit grain storage facilities and a production and transshipment complex in Danube region. A fire broke out in the warehouses and was quickly contained. Firefighters continue to work,” military said on Telegram.
In other news …
Newly released video shows the 98-year-old mother of a Kansas newspaper publisher confronting police officers as they raided her home in a case that has drawn national scrutiny, at one point demanding: “Get out of my house!” Joan Meyer died a day later. Her son believes that the stress contributed to her death.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, unexpectedly skipped a scheduled speech at a key multilateral business forum in South Africa yesterday. Rumours are swirling about why. Some China watchers speculated whether something was “amiss” or if Xi was temporarily ill. An explanation is unlikely to be given.
Thailand’s imprisoned former leader Thaksin Shinawatra was moved to a hospital in the early hours of this morning, a day after he returned from exile, due to concerns over his health, police said. Thaksin, 74, was transferred to hospital at 1am during his first night in prison.
While in federal custody, the disgraced cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried has been living off “bread and water” because he’s not being provided with the vegan diet he requested, his attorney told a judge yesterday. He’s also not being given the Adderall he needs to manage his ADHD.
The US will impose visa sanctions on Chinese officials pursuing “forced assimilation” of children in Tibet, where UN experts say 1 million children have been separated from their families. The secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US would restrict visas to Chinese officials behind the policy.
India is preparing for its second attempted moon landing, a historic moment for the world’s most populous country. Chandrayaan-3, which means “mooncraft” in Sanskrit, is due to put down its Vikram lander today near the little-explored lunar south pole in what would be a world first for any space programme.
Stat of the day: G20 poured more than $1tn into fossil fuel subsidies despite Cop26 pledges – report
The G20 poured record levels of public money into fossil fuels last year despite having promised to reduce some of it, a report has found. The amount of public money flowing into coal, oil and gas in 20 of the world’s biggest economies reached a record $1.4tn (£1.1tn) in 2022, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) thinktank, even though world leaders agreed to phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow two years ago. The report comes ahead of a meeting of G20 countries in Delhi next month that could set the tone for the next big climate conference, which takes place in the United Arab Emirates in November.
Don’t miss this: The key to depression, obesity, alcoholism – and more? Why the vagus nerve is so exciting to scientists
I’ve made a cup of coffee, written my to-do list and now I’m wiring up my ear to a device that will send an electrical message to my brainstem. If the testimonials are to believed, incorporating this stimulating habit into my daily routine could help to reduce stress and anxiety, curb inflammation and digestive issues, and perhaps improve my sleep and concentration by tapping into the “electrical superhighway” that is the vagus nerve. From plunging your face into icy water, to piercing the small flap of cartilage in front of your ear, the internet is awash with tips for hacking this system that carries signals between the brain and chest and abdominal organs. Manufacturers and retailers are also increasingly cashing in on this trend, with Amazon alone offering hundreds of vagus nerve products, ranging from books and vibrating pendants to electrical stimulators similar to the one I’ve been testing. So, what exactly is the vagus nerve, and is all this hype warranted?
Climate check: Volcanoes and wildfires offset 20% of global heating over eight years
Explosive volcanic eruptions and wildfires have offset global heating by about a fifth over the last eight years, a study shows. In particular, the eruption of Calbuco in southern Chile in 2015 and the 2019-20 Australian wildfires injected vast amounts of smoke and gas into the high atmosphere, which helped to cool the planet by absorbing heat leaving the Earth and reflecting sunlight back to space. Pengfei Yu, from Jinan University in China, and his colleagues used data gathered by high altitude balloons over the Tibetan plateau and the US to model the cooling impact of stratospheric volcanic eruptions – those that inject ash into the high atmosphere – and wildfires.
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