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Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about US nuclear submarines with an Australian billionaire, Anthony Pratt, three months after leaving office, according to a new report.
Citing a source with knowledge of the Australian’s account to investigators for the special counsel Jack Smith, the US news outlet ABC News reported an “excited” Trump allegedly discussed “the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads [US submarines] routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected”.
Smith has charged Trump with 40 criminal counts related to his retention of classified information after leaving office. The former president also faces 17 criminal counts regarding election subversion (four federal, from Smith, and 13 in Georgia) and 34 concerning hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels.
Despite Trump’s predicament – also including civil trials for fraud and defamation – he leads Republican presidential polling by wide margins and is the overwhelming favorite to face Joe Biden in the 2024 race for the White House.
When did the conversation happen? ABC said Trump spoke to Pratt at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in April 2021.
Did Pratt share the information? Pratt then allegedly shared the information about submarines “within minutes”, shocking a Trump employee who heard him. Pratt, the ABC report alleged, went on to share the information with at least 45 people, including his own employees, journalists, foreign and Australian officials “and three former Australian prime ministers”.
Jailed Iranian women’s rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel peace prize
Photograph: Narges Mohammadi Foundation/AFP/Getty Images
The winner of the Nobel peace prize 2023 is Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.
The committee had 351 candidates to choose from (259 individuals and 92 organisations). Among those tipped to be contenders were the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, the Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate and the broadcaster David Attenborough.
“Woman, life, freedom”, said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, arriving at the lectern, repeating the slogan of Iranian protesters. “Her brave struggle has come with tremendous personal cost. Altogether the regime has arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. Ms Mohammadi is still in prison as I speak,” Reiss-Andersen said.
What does Mohammad win? She will be awarded a gold medal, a diploma and 11m Swedish krona.
Why is Iran in the news again? Iranian opposition figures have demanded the release of complete CCTV footage of an incident in which a 16-year-old girl, now in a coma, collapsed after allegedly encountering hijab police on the Tehran metro. Armita Geravand is still in hospital after the incident on Sunday.
Extreme weather displaced 43 million children in past six years, Unicef reports
At least 43 million children have been displaced in the past six years by events linked to extreme weather, the equivalent of 20,000 children forced to abandon their homes and school every day, new research has found.
Floods and storms accounted for 95% of recorded child displacement between 2016 and 2021, according to Unicef and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), in the first analysis of its kind. The remaining children – more than 2 million – were displaced by wildfires and drought.
Displacement is traumatic and frightening at any age, but for children the consequences can be especially disruptive and damaging as they may miss out on education, life-saving vaccines and social networks.
“It is terrifying for any child when a ferocious wildfire, storm or flood barrels into their community,” the Unicef executive director, Catherine Russell, said. “For those forced to flee, the fear and impact can be especially devastating, with worry of whether they will return home, resume school or be forced to move again.”
Which countries have had the most child displacements? In absolute terms, China, the Philippines and India dominate, with 22.3 million child displacements, just over half the total number. But the greatest proportion of child displacements was in small island states – many which are facing existential threats from the climate emergency – and in the Horn of Africa, where conflict, extreme weather, poor governance and resource exploitation overlap.
In other news …
The White House has condemned as “horrifying” the attack on a cafe and grocery store in Hroza village in Ukraine that killed 51 people, while the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said the strike “demonstrated the depths of depravity Russian forces are willing to sink to”.
A rescue team from Parks Canada found two people and their dog, who had been killed in Banff national park on Saturday – the first fatal encounter with a grizzly bear in the park in nearly half a century. Doug Inglis and Jenny Gusse managed to send a final message saying “Bear attack bad” on a satellite device.
Biden faced intense criticism from environmental advocates, political opponents and his fellow Democrats after his administration waived 26 federal laws to allow border wall construction in south Texas, its first use of a sweeping executive power often employed under Trump.
At a memorial for Dianne Feinstein yesterday, Biden praised the late senator as a dear friend and a woman of deep integrity who fought to protect what was important to the US: freedom, civil liberties, security and the constitution. About 1,500 invited guests were at the private service.
South Sudan is suppressing journalists and rights activists by intimidation, surveillance and data harvesting, according to a new report from the UN, which said the clampdown on freedoms could hamper the country’s ability to conduct credible elections in 2024.
Stat of the day: Elon Musk under investigation by US agency for $44bn takeover of Twitter
Elon Musk is under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over his $44bn takeover of Twitter, it was revealed yesterday. The investigation concerns whether Musk broke federal securities laws in 2022 when he bought stock in Twitter, which he later renamed X, as well as statements and SEC filings he made about the deal.
In March 2022, Musk bought a 9.2% stake in Twitter and became the company’s majority shareholder. The purchase was not disclosed in an SEC filing until the next month. Twitter shareholders sued over the late filing shortly afterwards but their suit was dismissed. Faced with a trial that sought to compel him to complete the deal, Musk bought Twitter’s remaining stock in a $44bn deal and took over the company in October 2022.
Don’t miss this: ‘The internet is vicious and toxic, but I’d never go back to the 90s’ – Taylor Lorenz talks to Monica Lewinsky
Occasionally, during an otherwise impassioned conversation about mental health, social media and the perils of being online while female, Taylor Lorenz and Monica Lewinsky start laughing, writes Hannah Marriott. It is usually Lewinsky who lightens the mood, as when Lorenz says: “The biggest mistake of my career was going on MSNBC and trusting a reporter,” to which Lewinsky replies: “Not mine!”, then starts chuckling.
The pair are convening on Zoom with the Guardian for the release of Lorenz’s new book, Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence and Power On the Internet. The millennial tech journalist is speaking to the activist about surviving merciless harassment, the media’s double standards on gender, and why they still have hope.
Last Thing: ‘I pray nothing followed me back’ – US influencers fear bedbug invasion from Paris fashion week
Paris has been hit by a bedbug outbreak that just happened to correspond with Paris fashion week, with thousands of fashion workers and influencers potentially being exposed to the blood-feasting insect. Parisians’ social media feeds flooded with clips showing bedbugs crawling over seats on the metro. Others posted clips zooming in on the red bumps popping up on their skin, which they reportedly received after visiting chain cinemas.
“We are freaking out about ‘la puce’,” said Alfredo Mineo, an American writer who lives in Paris. “There are mattresses lining up on my street with little signs telling people not to touch them. I’m like, ‘Great, now I have to live with ratatouille and la puce.” (The French also call bedbugs punaises de lit.)
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