Good morning.
A federal judge has named Raymond Dearie, a senior US district judge with experience handling US national security matters, as an independent arbiter to vet records seized by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Florida estate in an ongoing criminal investigation.
The Florida-based US district judge Aileen Cannon yesterday appointed Dearie to serve as a special master in the legal fight between Trump and the Department of Justice over government documents the former president kept at his Florida resort.
Dearie was one of two candidates for the post proposed by the former president, and the US justice department had said it would not oppose his appointment.
In her order, Cannon also rejected the justice department’s demand that prosecutors be allowed to continue their review of the seized records while the dispute was ongoing, and their assertion that the investigation was urgent due to the highly classified and sensitive material in the records.
What does Dearie have to do? He is tasked with deciding whether any of the documents seized by the FBI during the August search are privileged – either due to attorney-client confidentiality or through a legal principle called executive privilege – and should be off-limits to federal investigators.
Is there a deadline? Yes. Dearie has until 30 November – after the midterms – to finish the review. Trump will be required to pay costs associated with the special master.
Ukraine mass burial site with 440 bodies discovered in Izium, says police chief
Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused Russia of “leaving death everywhere” after Ukrainian authorities said they had found a mass grave in a forest in the north-eastern city of Izium containing more than 440 bodies.
Ukraine’s president likened the find, in an area recaptured this week from Russian forces, to the previous mass killings of civilians in the cities of Bucha, outside Kyiv, and Mariupol.
Speaking in a video address on Thursday night, Zelenskiy called on the world to “hold Russia to real account for this war”.
“Russia leaves death everywhere and it must be held responsible for that,” he said. “The necessary procedures have already begun [in Izium]”.
More “clear, verifiable information” should be available later on Friday, he said, inviting the international media to visit the scene.
How did they die? The exact circumstances of how residents died have yet to be determined. In February and March, Russian troops killed more than 1,400 people in the Kyiv region, including in the suburb of Bucha, during their failed attempt to seize the Ukrainian capital. Ukrainian soldiers are also buried there.
Columbia whistleblower on exposing college rankings: ‘They are worthless’
The Columbia University academic whose exposure of false data caused the prestigious institution to plunge in US college rankings has accused its administration of deception and a whitewash over the affair.
Michael Thaddeus, a mathematics professor, said that by submitting rigged numbers to drive the university up the influential US News & World Report rankings, Columbia put its financial priorities ahead of students’ education in order to fund a ballooning and secretive bureaucracy.
“I find it very difficult to believe the errors were honest and inadvertent at this point,” Thaddeus told the Guardian.
He said: “The response that the university made was not the forthright, direct, complete response of a university that really wanted to clear the air and really wanted to inform the public. They address certain issues but then they completely ignored or whitewashed other ones.”
What happened to Columbia’s ranking? On Monday, US News relegated Columbia from second to 18th in the latest rankings after the college admitted to “outdated and/or incorrect methodologies” in some of its previous claims about the quality of the education the university provides.
In other news …
Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, created an “urgent humanitarian situation” in Massachusetts, authorities said, by deporting about 50 undocumented migrants to Martha’s Vineyard with no apparent notice. The group, which includes children, are mostly from Venezuela and Colombia.
Joe Biden vowed to combat the “venom and violence” of white supremacy in America and decried Donald Trump’s reluctance to condemn the rightwing racism on display in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, which spurred Biden to run against him for the presidency.
The US complained to the Soviet Union for more than a decade about microwave radiation directed at its embassy in Moscow, but kept concerns secret from embassy staff for nine years, according to newly declassified documents. US officials were unsure of the potential health effects.
Cardi B has pleaded guilty to assault charges related to a fight at a New York strip club in 2018. The rapper was due to go to trial this week but accepted a plea deal that avoids prison time. It results in her being charged with third-degree assault and second-degree reckless endangerment.
A teenage girl at a Hollywood high school died on Tuesday and another was hospitalized, after taking what police believe were counterfeit pills filled with fentanyl. Police have arrested two teenage boys in connection with the apparent overdose.
Stat of the day: Pakistan floods ‘made up to 50% worse by global heating’
The intense rainfall that has caused devastating floods across Pakistan was made worse by global heating, which has also made future floods more likely, scientists have found. Climate breakdown could have increased the most intense rainfall over a short period in the worst-affected areas by about 50%, according to a study by an international team of climate scientists. The floods were a one-in-100-year event, but similar events were likely to become more frequent in future as global temperatures continued to rise, the scientists said.
Don’t miss this: ‘It struck me like a thunderbolt’: how to survive empty-nest syndrome – and come out smiling
Many parents say they are left with overwhelming feelings of grief when their children leave home. Why does this “predictable event in the family life cycle”, as family therapist and Association for Family Therapy member Dr Ged Smith calls it, ambush us? There’s a good chance, Smith says, that a “perfect storm of crises” phenomenon is at play. “It will coincide with other things – you’ll probably be at an age when you’re also questioning your relationship, your job, your career – your life, really. Thinking: ‘What now?’” As more teenagers head off to university, what can be done to cope, and even thrive, when you get the house back to yourself?
Climate check: Republicans plan legal assault on climate disclosure rules for public companies
Republican officials and corporate lobby groups are teeing up a multi-pronged legal assault on the Biden administration’s effort to help investors hold public corporations accountable for their carbon emissions and other climate change risks. The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed new climate disclosure rules would require public companies to report the climate-related impact. The regulator has since received more than 14,500 comments. Submissions from 24 Republican state attorneys general as well as powerful industry associations suggest that these groups are preparing a series of legal challenges
Last Thing: Fireball over Scotland and NI no longer thought to be Elon Musk ‘space junk’
A fireball seen over Scotland and Northern Ireland is no longer believed to have been space junk from Elon Musk’s satellite programme, according to astronomers examining it. The UK Meteor Network said the fireball was visible for 20 seconds just after 10pm on Wednesday night. It received almost 800 reports from Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England. Videos appeared to show an object breaking up over the night sky as it headed north-west. One showed it over Paisley, west of Glasgow. The network says it “cannot find any known space junk or satellite de-orbit” to explain the object.
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