Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Nicola Slawson

First Thing: Zelenskiy voices doubt on Russian military withdrawals

A food warehouse damaged by shelling in Brovary, Ukraine.
A food warehouse damaged by shelling in Brovary, Ukraine. Photograph: State Emergency Service Of Ukraine/Reuters

Good morning.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dismissed Russia’s pledge to drastically cut back its military activity in northern Ukraine, saying “Ukrainians are not naive people” and vowing to continue defensive military efforts.

Zelenskiy said in a video address early on Wednesday: “Ukrainians have already learned during these 34 days of invasion and over the past eight years of the war in Donbas that only a concrete result can be trusted.”

Russia’s deputy defence minister, Alexander Fomin, said after talks in Istanbul on Tuesday that Moscow wanted to “increase mutual trust, create the right conditions for future negotiations and reach the final aim of signing a peace deal with Ukraine”, and that the Kremlin would “radically reduce military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv”.

Ukraine’s president said that while there had been “positive” signals from the latest talks, “they do not drown out the explosions of Russian shells”.

  • Has Russia halted attacks as promised? The mayor of Chernihiv, Vladyslav Atroshenko, said the Russians had lied and were continuing to indiscriminately attack the encircled city, which is less than 100 miles north of the country’s capital.

  • Why is Abramovich playing peacemaker after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? The emergence of the publicity-shy oligarch at the heart of peace negotiations has surprised many.

  • What else is happening? Here’s what we know on day 35 of the Russian invasion.

Records show long gap in Trump phone logs as January 6 violence unfolded

Donald TrumpFILE - Then-President Donald Trump gestures as he arrives to speak at a rally in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021. The social media platform Gab launched in 2016 and now claims to have 15 million monthly visitors, though that number could not be independently verified. The service says it saw a huge jump in signups following the January 6 riot, which prompted Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to crack down on Trump and others who they said had incited violence. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Panel reportedly investigating ‘possible cover-up’ of records during the January 6 insurrection. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol is reportedly looking at a “possible cover-up” of White House records focusing on Donald Trump’s phone logs from that fateful day, which bear an unexplained gap of seven hours and 37 minutes covering the period when the violence was unfolding.

Documents obtained by the Washington Post and CBS News put flesh on the bones of one of the great mysteries of January 6: why White House phone logs contain holes in the record despite evidence the then president busily made calls at the height of the insurrection.

The documents reveal that Trump’s diary shows an entry at 11.17am when he “talked on a phone call to an unidentified person”. The next entry is not until 6.54pm – 457 minutes later – when Trump asked the White House switchboard to place a call to his communications chief, Dan Scavino.

Between those times Trump addressed a rally on the Ellipse, exhorting supporters to “fight like hell”; hundreds of Trump followers overran police barricades and stormed the Capitol building.

  • What did the Washington Post journalists say? Bob Woodward (of Watergate fame) and Robert Costa reported that the long gap between call logs was of “intense interest” to elements of the January 6 committee. They quoted an unnamed member of the panel who said they were investigating a “possible cover-up”.

Joe Biden signs landmark law making lynching a hate crime

Joe Biden signs the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act in the Rose Garden of the White House.
Joe Biden signs the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act in the Rose Garden of the White House. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The first federal legislation making lynching a hate crime, addressing a history of racist killings in the US, became law yesterday.

The bill, passed by the Senate this month, is named afte Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy who was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955. Joe Biden signed the bill surrounded by Kamala Harris, members of Congress and top justice department officials. He was also joined by a descendant of Ida B Wells, a Black journalist who reported on lynchings, and Rev Wheeler Parker, a cousin of Till.

The bill makes it possible to prosecute as a lynching any conspiracy to commit a hate crime that results in death or serious bodily injury. According to the bill’s champion, the Illinois congressman Bobby Rush, the law lays out a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and fines.

  • Why has it taken this long to bring in? Congress first considered anti-lynching legislation more than 120 years ago. Until March of this year, it had failed to pass such legislation nearly 200 times.

  • What did the vice-president say? “Lynching is not a relic of the past. Racial acts of terror still occur in our nation. And when they do, we must all have the courage to name them and hold the perpetrators to account,” she said.

In other news …

FILE PHOTO: 94th Academy Awards - Vanity Fair - Beverly HillsFILE PHOTO: Jada Pinkett Smith arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar party during the 94th Academy Awards in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., March 27, 2022. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok/File Photo
Jada Pinkett Smith arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar party after the 94th Academy Awards. Photograph: Danny Moloshok/Reuters
  • Jada Pinkett Smith promoted healing in an Instagram post on Tuesday, her first public comment since her husband slapped the comedian Chris Rock at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. In an Instagram post yesterday, Pinkett Smith said: “This is a season for healing. And I’m here for it.”

  • Israeli paramedics have said at least five people were killed in a shooting attack in a Tel Aviv suburb, the third such incident in less than a week. Amateur video broadcast on Israeli television stations showed a man dressed in black and pointing an assault rifle walking down a street in Bnei Brak.

  • California’s first-in-the-nation taskforce on reparations for African Americans has voted to direct state compensation to the descendants of enslaved and free Black people who were in the US in the 19th century. Basing compensation on lineage would have the best change of surviving a legal challenge, they said.

  • Police in Canada have laid a new charge against a “devil priest” hiding in France amid allegations he sexually abused multiple Inuit children. The case against Johannes Rivoire received renewed focus this week when Canada’s Inuit leader requested the pope personally intervene during a visit to the Vatican.

Stat of the day: Cathay Pacific plans world’s longest passenger flight covering more than 16,600km and avoiding Russia

HONG KONG-AIRLINES-COMPANY-EARNINGS-CATHAYIn this picture taken on August 10, 2014, a Cathay Pacific passenger plane prepares to land at Hong Kong’s international airport. Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific announced a first-half net profit of 44.77 million USD on August 13, 2014 helped by increasing passenger revenue and strong demand for long-haul flights. AFP PHOTO / DALE DE LA REY (Photo by Dale DE LA REY / AFP) (Photo by DALE DE LA REY/AFP via Getty Images)
Airline could set distance record by rerouting its New York to Hong Kong service over the Atlantic instead of the Pacific. Photograph: Dale de la Rey/AFP/Getty Images

Cathay Pacific is planning the world’s longest passenger flight by rerouting its New York to Hong Kong service over the Atlantic instead of the Pacific, the airline has said, in a new path that steers clear of Russia. The flight path will cover “just under 9,000 nautical miles” (16,668km, or 10,357 miles) in 16 to 17 hours, Cathay said in a statement to Agence France-Presse. The airline declined to be drawn on the reasons for its flight path giving a wide berth to Russia’s airspace, according to Bloomberg.

Don’t miss this: How we lost our sensory connection with food – and how to restore it

Composite image of different foodstuffs
One of the most striking things about eating in the modern world is that we do so much of it as if we were sense-blind. Composite: Getty Images / Alamy

No human activity is more multi-sensory than eating, but to eat in the modern world is often to eat in a state of profound sensory disconnect, writes Bee Wilson. We order groceries on a computer, or takeaways on a phone, and they arrive wrapped in plastic. Vegetables are sold pre-chopped and almost all salad is pre-washed. Any hint of the soil the food grew in has been erased. We judge the goodness of food by the words on the packet rather than by our own senses. It shouldn’t have to be this way.

Or this: How the pandemic created a new generation of stoners

Illustration of woman smoking weed
Americans who rarely, if ever, smoked marijuana before the pandemic now say they’re turning to weed to help them cope. Illustration: Ulises Mendicutty/The Guardian

The Covid-19 pandemic sparked a number of shake-ups to the social order – a burgeoning anti-work movement, a sharp economic swoon, and tiresome new polarities in the culture war. But as lockdown orders marched on, many weed agnostics dived in to the community with gusto, forming a new cohort of pandemic-era stoners. According to the data analytics firm Headset, legal marijuana sales increased by 120% in 2020, and 61% in 2021.

Climate check: US transition to electric vehicles would save more than 100,000 lives by 2050 – study

Shares For Companies In Electric Vehicle Sector Rise As Oil Prices SoarSAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 09: An electric vehicle recharges its battery at the East Crissy Field charge station on March 09, 2022 in San Francisco, California. With oil prices continuing to soar, shares for companies in the electric vehicle sector are rising as consumers look to trade their gas powered cars in for electric vehicles. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Swapping gas for zero-emission vehicles would lead to 2.8m fewer asthma attacks and avoid 13.4m sick days. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A speedy nationwide transition to electric vehicles powered by renewable energy would save more than 100,000 American lives and $1.2tn in public health costs over the next three decades, according to a report. Analysis by the American Lung Association highlights the public health damage caused by the world’s dependence on dirty fossil fuels, and provides a glimpse into a greener, healthier future – should political leaders decide to act.

Sign up

First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.

Get in touch

If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.