Good morning.
Senator Lindsey Graham condemned his fellow Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene as “terribly irresponsible” yesterday after the far-right congresswoman defended the air national guardsman charged with leaking Pentagon intelligence documents.
Speaking on ABC’s This Week show, Graham said the leaks had “done a lot of damage to our standing” and criticized “those who are trying to sugarcoat this on the right”.
Taylor Greene, a known conspiracy theorist and election denier who was controversially named to the homeland security committee in January, had suggested on Thursday that Jack Teixeira, an airman in the air national guard who has been charged under the Espionage Act after allegedly leaking hundreds of secret defence documents, had been treated unfairly.
“There are military members serving today from Georgia and other places who are less safe because of what this airman did,” Graham told ABC.
“There is no justification for this, and for any member of Congress to suggest it’s OK to leak classified information because you agree with the cause is terribly irresponsible and puts America in serious danger.”
What did Greene say? “Teixeira is white, male, Christian, and antiwar. That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime. And he told the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more,” Greene, a congresswoman from Georgia, said on Twitter. “Ask yourself who is the real enemy? A young low-level national guardsman? Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-Nato nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?”
Does anyone else agree with her? Yes. Other rightwing figures have also defended Teixeira, with Tucker Carlson, the influential Fox News host, praising him as someone who “told Americans what’s actually happening in Ukraine”.
Judge delays Dominion and Fox News trial amid reports of settlement talks
The trial in the closely watched $1.6bn defamation lawsuit between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox will begin a day later than scheduled, the judge overseeing the case announced yesterday evening, hours before opening arguments were set to begin on Monday and amid reports of settlement talks.
The trial was rescheduled to begin tomorrow. Eric Davis, the Delaware superior court judge overseeing the case, did not say why the trial was being delayed. “The court has decided to continue the start of the trial, including jury selection, until Tuesday 18 April 2023 at 9am. I will make such an announcement tomorrow [Monday] at 9am in courtroom 7E,” he said in a statement released through a court spokesperson.
The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported yesterday that Fox had made a late push to settle the case out of court. Reuters also reported that the delay was due to settlement talks, according to a source familiar with the situation, as did the Washington Post, citing two sources. Spokespeople for Fox and Dominion did not immediately return a request for comment.
The trial has been expected to be a blockbuster, with top Fox executives Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch expected to testify in person, along with the Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro.
What is Dominion hoping to get from the case? Dominion is asking a Delaware jury to award $1.6bn in damages because it says Fox knowingly or recklessly disregarded the truth when it broadcast outlandish lies about its voting equipment. US law sets a very high bar to win a defamation lawsuit and cases rarely go to trial. Dominion’s case, experts say, is unusually strong.
Antony Blinken calls for immediate ceasefire in Sudan
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has called for an immediate ceasefire in Sudan and a return to talks to put the country back on track to a civilian-led government.
At least 97 people have been killed and hundreds wounded as clashes have spread across Sudan since Saturday, when fighting erupted between army units loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s transitional governing Sovereign Council, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is deputy head of the council.
Speaking at the G7 foreign ministers’ summit in Japan, Blinken said: “There is a shared deep concern about the fighting, the violence that is going on in Sudan, the threat that that poses to civilians, that it poses to the Sudanese nation and potentially poses even to the region.
“There’s also a strongly held view across all of our partners on the need for an immediate ceasefire and a return to talks. Talks that were very promising in putting Sudan on a path to a full transition to civilian-led government.
“People in Sudan want the military back in the barracks, they want democracy, they want a civilian-led government. Sudan needs to return to that path.”
What’s happening in Sudan? The violence was sparked by a disagreement over the integration of the RSF into the military as part of a transition towards civilian rule to end the political-economic crisis sparked by a military coup in 2021. As clashes continued, the WHO said hospitals were running short of medical supplies.
In other news …
At least four people were killed, including a high school football player, in a shooting at a birthday party held inside a dance studio in the small town of Dadeville, Alabama, state police and local news media said. Law enforcement officers did not immediately say if a suspect was in custody.
The former US president Bill Clinton, the former taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the former and current UK prime ministers Tony Blair and Rishi Sunak will be in Belfast for a three-day conference on the future of Northern Ireland. Hillary Clinton, who is chancellor of Queen’s University, will kick events off.
A group of toxic PFAS chemicals that industry has claimed is safe to use in food packaging are concerning and present a health threat because they can break off and end up in food and drinks, a peer-reviewed study finds. Researchers say the paper highlights the need to ban the use of PFAS in food packaging.
Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, Sergei Lavrov, is due to arrive in Brasília on Monday for talks with his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, in the latest of a series of bilateral encounters likely to ruffle the US. Lavrov arrives just as Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, returns from a state visit to China
Stat of the day: 2m dimes worth $200,000 stolen from Philadelphia truck, police say
Approximately 2m dimes, or the equivalent of $200,000, were taken from a tractor trailer in a parking lot of the Philadelphia Mills shopping mall complex in north-east Philadelphia on Thursday morning. According to police, the truck driver had picked up $750,000-worth of dimes from the US Mint in Philadelphia and then parked the truck in the mall parking lot on Wednesday evening. The driver had planned on transporting the dimes, which were organized into 15 pallets that contained $50,000 each, to Florida, CBS reports. However, someone broke into the truck overnight using a bolt cutter and stole approximately $200,000-worth of dimes. Police said the driver had gone home to rest and that it remains unclear whether he will face charges. According to authorities, the cleanup took hours as dimes were found scattered throughout the parking lot.
Don’t miss this: In a liberal US state, my life-saving abortion cost $55,000
“On 27 January, I was just under six weeks pregnant but by the afternoon I was in the emergency department and was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy, meaning it had implanted outside the uterus – in my case, near the opening of my right fallopian tube, which burst,” writes Robin Buller. “The pregnancy, as with all ectopic pregnancies, was not viable. It would need to be surgically aborted, and fast, to stop internal bleeding and prevent infection, both of which can be life-threatening. In simpler terms, I was going to have an abortion and it was going to save my life. As I was wheeled off to the OR, I was overwhelmed with relief that I did not live in one of the 13 states that have banned abortion since the US supreme court ruled to overturn Roe v Wade last June but at the end of it all, I was billed over $55,000.”
Climate check: ‘From bad to worse’ – drought puts Kenya’s hospitals under pressure
Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia are experiencing their worst drought in 40 years, with their sixth consecutive failed rainy season. The number of people in Kenya facing severe hunger is expected to rise to 5.4 million this year, particularly in the north of the country, where about 95% of surface water sources have dried up. Garissa County is among the worst-hit regions and hordes of people have moved from the countryside to Garissa town, which sits on the Tana River. Water has always been a problem at Modogashe hospital, which is located along a dusty, windy road. But the situation has got much worse over the past three years as the nearby rivers that provided it with some water have dried up. It is reliant on water being delivered by road – which can be infrequent because there are not enough trucks.
Last Thing: Bruce Springsteen Day – New Jersey honor follows Covid diagnosis
New Jersey will on 23 September celebrate Bruce Springsteen Day for the first time, a move announced by the governor, Phil Murphy, a day after the singer and his wife, Patti Scialfa, tested positive for Covid-19. “Bruce Springsteen is one of the most iconic and influential musicians – and New Jerseyans – of all time,” Murphy, a Democrat, said on Saturday at the American Music Honors, an event at the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University in West Long Branch. The governor added: “It is important we recognise Bruce for all he has done and will continue to do, from giving us the gift of his music to lending his time to the causes close to his heart, including making … a repository that will inspire tomorrow’s songwriters and singers.”
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