Trump and longtime aide plead not guilty to new charges in documents case
Former President Donald Trump and a longtime aide, Walt Nauta, pleaded not guilty Thursday to additional criminal charges in the case accusing Trump of illegally holding on to secret national security documents after leaving office and conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve them. The plea for Trump, who did not appear at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, was entered by one of his lawyers. Nauta stood next to his lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., as Woodward entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager of Mar-a-Lago, also appeared at the hearing, but his arraignment was delayed.
Judge strikes down FDA rule regulating premium cigars
A federal judge struck down the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate premium, hand-rolled cigars Wednesday. The cigar industry has been fighting the FDA’s efforts at regulation in court since 2016. The FDA effort to regulate these cigars stems from the Tobacco Control Act of 2009, which gave the agency broad authority over cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. In 2014, the FDA began a process to regulate cigars. The plaintiff, Cigar Rights of America, contended that most users were adults outside the age and scope of the population needing the protections provided by Congress.
Jury acquits Michigan trooper who used dog to subdue a man
A state trooper in Michigan has been acquitted by a jury after being charged with felonious assault for using a police dog to subdue an unarmed, injured man in 2020, prosecutors said. The encounter occurred Nov. 13, 2020, in Lansing, Michigan, when Parker Surbrook tried to pull over a vehicle whose driver, Robert Gilliam, and passenger were suspected of being armed. Gilliam sped off, prompting a chase that ended in a crash. Gilliam got out of the car and fell to the ground with a fractured hip, according to the investigation report. Surbrook instructed his dog to subdue Gilliam.
Supreme Court pauses opioid settlement with Sacklers pending review
The Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a bankruptcy deal for Purdue Pharma that would have shielded members of the billionaire Sackler family, which once controlled the company, from additional civil lawsuits over the opioid epidemic and that capped the Sacklers’ personal liability at $6 billion. The order is likely to delay any payments to the thousands of plaintiffs who have sued the Sacklers and Purdue, the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, which is widely blamed for igniting the opioid crisis. Under the deal, the Sacklers had agreed to pay billions to plaintiffs in exchange for full immunity from all civil legal disputes.
Four charged with assault after Alabama riverfront brawl
Four people have turned themselves in to police and have been charged with assault in connection with a brawl that broke out along the waterfront in Montgomery, Alabama, last weekend, officials said, as the investigation into the racially charged melee continues. The arrests came days after a group of white boaters attacked a Black riverboat cruise captain Saturday. The four accused, all of whom are white, are scheduled for arraignment Sept. 1. Montgomery police said Thursday that no other charges had been levied, but more could come. While the fight appeared to be largely down racial lines, police would not pursue hate crime charges, they said.
Florida schools try to adapt to new rules on gender,
bathrooms and pronouns
As a new school year begins in Florida this week, regulations enacted amid Gov. Ron DeSantis’ push for “parental rights” in education have set up a bureaucratic tangle. Several counties have sent parents forms that must be filled out in order for their child to be addressed by a new name or even a simple nickname. Other forms will allow a child to check certain books out of the library. Still others are for opting in or out of health services, including counseling as well as basic nursing care, such as temperature checks.
‘Standby force’ activated to respond to Niger coup
West African leaders said Thursday that they had ordered the immediate deployment of a “standby force” ready to intervene against a coup in Niger, amid reports that coup leaders told a U.S. diplomat this week that they would kill the elected president in response to any such intervention. Mutinous generals have been holding the president of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, and his family hostage in their residence for more than two weeks. They have shunned mediation efforts and ignored an ultimatum by the West African leaders to relinquish power. The threat to kill Bazoum was made to the acting U.S. deputy secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, during a surprise trip to Niger on Monday.
Ecuador, reeling from a candidate’s assassination, is forever changed
The 12 shots fired Wednesday evening, killing an Ecuadorian presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, as he exited a campaign event, marked a dramatic turning point for a nation that a few years ago seemed an island of security in a violent region. And for many Ecuadorians, those shots echoed with a bleak message: Their nation was forever changed. “I feel that it represents a total loss of control for the government,” said Ingrid Ríos, a political scientist in the city of Guayaquil, “and for the citizens, as well.” Hours after the candidate’s killing, President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency.
Israel’s Supreme Court prepares to rule on its own fate
For the first time in Israel’s history, all 15 of its Supreme Court justices will crowd onto the bench on Sept. 12 to hear a case together. The reason: This one is so momentous that it could not only decide the powers of the court itself but also kindle a constitutional crisis. The 15-member court includes secular liberals, religiously observant Jews and conservative residents of Jewish settlements. One justice is an Arab Israeli; six are women, including the court’s president. The justices will hear an appeal against the first part of a judicial overhaul that the government pushed through parliament in July, stoking street protests across the country.
Nearly 50 years after its
last journey, Russia
launches toward the Moon
For the first time in nearly half a century, Russia has launched a spacecraft that is headed to the moon. On Friday morning at a spaceport in the far eastern part of Russia, a rocket lifted Luna-25, a robotic lander of moderate size, to Earth orbit. It will try to land in the moon’s south polar region, where the presence of water ice has attracted the attention of numerous space programs, and make a year’s worth of scientific observations. The mission is occurring at a moment when President Vladimir Putin is looking to space as one way to signal Russia’s return to great-power status.
Typhoon turns deadly
in South Korea
As Typhoon Khanun continued to pummel South Korea, the floods it has caused left one person dead and cut off power to 40,000 households Thursday, adding to the toll of an abnormally wet and deadly storm season in the region. The storm, advancing north over the Korean Peninsula, flooded highways, grounded hundreds of flights and forced some 14,000 people to evacuate. A day earlier, it had dropped up to 23 inches of rain in Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s main islands, injuring at least 14 people. By Thursday evening, Khanun had dumped up to 15 inches of rain on parts of South Korea.
Russia is replicating Iranian drones and using them
to attack Ukraine
Russia has begun making copies of attack drones it acquired from Iran last year and is using them in combat against Ukrainian forces despite sanctions imposed to cripple the country’s weapons production, according to a report issued Thursday by a weapons research group. The researchers traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine, in late July and inspected the wreckage of two attack drones that were used in combat in southeastern Ukraine. Both appeared to be Iranian Shahed-136s, but they contained electronic modules that match components previously recovered from Russian surveillance drones, according to the report. The investigation was conducted by Conflict Armament Research, an independent group based in Britain.
By wire sources
