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In a surprise move, the justice department has been ordered to redact the affidavit used to obtain the warrant to search Donald Trump’s resort in Florida in such a way as not to jeopardize the investigation in case it is decided next week that the document can be unsealed.
The order from the federal judge Bruce Reinhart charted a middle ground between the justice department’s motion to oppose unsealing any part of the affidavit, and motions from a coalition of media outlets – and calls from the former president – to release the highly sensitive document.
Ruling from the bench, the judge gave the department a week to propose redactions to the affidavit, which contains the probable cause used to justify the extraordinary search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort over his unauthorized retention of top secret and classified documents.
“I’m not prepared to find that the affidavit should be fully sealed,” Reinhart said at a hearing in West Palm Beach.
Why doesn’t the justice department want to release the affidavit? Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence section, opposed the release of a redacted affidavit since, given it contains significant grand jury information and investigative techniques, the redactions would be so extensive that it would show “nothing of substance”.
What else is happening? Liz Cheney has released a recording of the call she made to her Trump-backed opponent who claimed she did not concede in the Wyoming US House primary.
Police call for Bolsonaro to be charged for spreading Covid misinformation
Brazilian federal police have called for President Jair Bolsonaro to be charged with spreading fake information about Covid, which has killed more than 680,000 of his citizens, including bogus claims of a link between Aids and Covid vaccines.
Bolsonaro’s anti-scientific response to a disease he called “a bit of a cold” has been internationally condemned and the subject of a congressional inquiry in which the far-right populist was accused of deliberately delaying vaccine purchases and promoting quack “cures” such as hydroxychloroquine.
On Wednesday night a senior federal police investigator was reported to have written to the supreme court asking for Bolsonaro to be questioned and charged with the crime of incitement, where someone encourages another person to commit an offense.
That alleged crime, which is punishable with up to six months in prison, relates to a notorious social media broadcast in October 2021 which was subsequently removed by YouTube and Facebook.
What does the report say? In her report, the federal police investigator Lorena Lima Nascimento said that untrue claim could generate public “alarm over a nonexistent danger” and constituted a misdemeanor.
Los Angeles strippers move to unionize with actors group
Dancers at a Los Angeles strip club have filed to unionize with the Actors’ Equity Association, a move that would make them the first group of strippers to join the national union that represents theater actors.
Performers at Star Garden in North Hollywood submitted a petition on Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board seeking a union election. The initiative comes after months of staging protests outside the venue to raise concerns about workplace safety and labor rights. Actors’ Equity – which represents Broadway actors, stage managers, Disney World performers and other regional theater actors – said it was supporting the effort and that if it was successful, the Star Garden workers would become the only strippers in the US currently represented by a union.
“We like what we do,” said Velveeta, a Star Garden dancer who goes by a stage name, in a statement. “We would like our jobs even more if we had basic worker protections. We’re like so many other workers who have learned that it’s not a choice between suffering abuse or quitting. With a union, together, we can make needed improvements to our workplace.”
What made the dancers first think of unionizing? They first launched the unionization campaign in March in response to the club security guards’ repeated failures to protect the dancers from abuse and threats, Actors’ Equity said in a statement.
What are they hoping to achieve? In a petition to management that month, 15 out of 23 dancers called for workplace safety improvements, including enforcing policies barring customers from filming them and lingering after the club closes for the night and urging the bar to stop serving customers who become belligerent.
In other news …
Three men, including a mafia hitman, have been charged in the 2018 prison killing of the notorious Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger. Bulger’s death raised questions about why the known “snitch” was placed in the West Virginia prison’s general population instead of in more protective quarters.
Los Angeles Unified, America’s second largest school district, is facing a civil rights lawsuit from a Black parent who says her daughter’s school taught students about slavery by having them pick cotton. Rashunda Pitts said the incident humiliated her daughter and left her with extreme emotional distress.
The disappearance of 43 Mexican students after they were ambushed by police officers in 2014 was a state-sponsored crime involving federal and state authorities at the highest levels of government, according to the final report of a government truth commission.
A Utah high school athletics association secretly investigated a female athlete – without telling her or her parents – after receiving complaints from the parents of two girls she had defeated in competition questioning whether the girl was transgender.
Stat of the day: Florida officials arrest and charge 20 people with illegal voting, DeSantis says
Florida officials have arrested and charged 20 people with felony convictions and charged them with illegal voting, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, said on Thursday, a move designed to show the muscle of a new office tasked with policing voting in the state. The governor released few other details about the charges, and indictments and warrants were not immediately available. That lack of detail is significant. The rules around voting with a felony are incredibly complex around the country, Florida included, and many people with felonies can be confused about their eligibility.
Don’t miss this: American dream of owning a home out of reach for many in tight markets
Across the US, many people are facing roadblocks to their dream of owning their own home. Prices popped as a confluence of forces suppressed supply and inflated demand, leaving many middle- and lower-income buyers with a dwindling number of housing options, or forcing them into rentership. Now, with interest rates rising and the housing market cooling, things are supposed to be different. So far, they are not. Nationally, house prices hit an all-time high in June of $416,000, up 13.4% from a year ago.
Climate check: new method to break down ‘forever chemicals’ shows promise, study says
A new method for decomposing some PFAS compounds may represent a major breakthrough in addressing widespread environmental contamination across the world, according to research published on Thursday. PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down. Because PFAS do not degrade, they steadily cycle through and accumulate in the environment, and the toxic chemicals are thought to be contaminating drinking water supplies for more than 200 million Americans.
Last Thing: seal breaks into New Zealand home, traumatises cat and hangs out on couch
Photograph: supplied
A curious young seal has been returned to the sea after breaking into a New Zealand home, harassing the resident cat, hanging out for a couple of hours and miraculously ruining nothing. The Ross family of Mount Maunganui were more than a little surprised to find the New Zealand fur seal in their home, which is about 150 metres from the shore. The seal managed to make its way through two catflaps to get into the home. The seal spent time in the spare room and on the couch before the family managed to usher it out the front door.
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