First Thing: Kremlin papers appear to show Putin plot to put Trump in power
Putin #Putin
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During a closed session of Russia’s national security council, Vladimir Putin personally authorized a secret, multi-agency spy operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election, leaked Kremlin documents appear to show.
The Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers agreed in January 2016 that the “social turmoil” of a Trump White House would help secure Moscow’s strategic objectives.
The papers include a brief psychological assessment of Trump, who is described as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex”.
Independent experts say these papers appear to be genuine, while the Kremlin denied all allegations.
Joe Biden made an appearance on Capitol Hill yesterday for a key meeting with Senate Democrats to bolster their $3.5tn “human infrastructure” plan.
Posing with the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, they made matching gestures of air-punching resolution, as Biden said: “We’re going to get this done.”
The $3.5tn deal covers environmental measures and social services, including a Medicare expansion for older Americans. It has drawn comparisons with the New Deal in the 1930s.
Democrats hope to pass the plan alongside a $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure deal to rebuild US roads and bridges, but many Republicans object to the bundling of the two plans. Biden had to previously walk back statements pairing the two together.
Republicans have had issues with the overall size of the human infrastructure deal, as did at least one moderate Democrat.
Most Americans want the kind of infrastructure improvements that are included in the Biden plan, according to an Ipsos poll conducted this month for Reuters.
Evacuation of Afghans who aided US forces to begin this month
The US will this month begin evacuating Afghans whose lives are at risk because they worked for the US government as translators and in other roles, the White House said on Wednesday.
Operation Allies Refuge is scheduled to start during the last week of July with special immigration visa applicants. Joe Biden has set a formal end to the US military mission in Afghanistan for 31 August.
Britney Spears to be allowed her own attorney as she says her father should be charged with ‘conservatorship abuse’
In a hearing in the Los Angeles superior court, Britney Spears said she wanted an investigation into her father, Jamie Spears, and a restraining order issued against him: “I was always extremely scared of my dad.”
Spears can now select her own attorney to represent her in the controversial arrangement that has controlled her life for 13 years.
Mathew S Rosengart, a powerful Hollywood attorney, is representing her, in a move that could accelerate her push to get out of the conservatorship.
FBI badly handled Larry Nassar USA Gymnastics case, DoJ watchdog says
The FBI did not treat the sexual abuse case against the former USA Gymnastics national team doctor Larry Nassar with “utmost seriousness”, the justice department’s inspector general said yesterday.
While the FBI was aware of other sexual abuse allegations involving Nassar over a 14-month period in 2015 and 2016, at least 40 girls and women said they were molested.
Nassar is serving decades in prison after hundreds of girls and women said he sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment when he worked for Michigan state and Indiana-based USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians.
In other news …
Wildfires continue to burn across the American west, ripping through 1m acres and being fought by 16,000 firefighters and workers.
Gen Mark Milley told aides the US was facing a “Reichstag moment” because Donald Trump was preaching “the gospel of the Führer”. According to an excerpt from an upcoming book, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said this shortly before the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.
The Milwaukee Bucks advance in the NBA finals, levelling with the Phoenix Suns to two games apiece with a win in Game 4.
Texas Republicans are veering further right, doubling down on issues such as immigration, voting rights, transgender rights and abortion even as the state’s demographics shift.
Seventeen million gallons of untreated sewage were discharged into California’s Santa Monica Bay this weekend, prompting beach closures throughout Los Angeles county.
Stat of the day: only about 10% of the $17tn in pandemic bailouts provided by governments was spent on reducing greenhouse gas emissions or restoring nature
Governments around the world have failed to fulfil promises of a “green recovery” from the pandemic, according to an analysis by Vivid Economics, with about $3tn spent in ways that would actually increase greenhouse emissions and harm the natural world, thus outweighing the $1.8tn spent globally on green projects.
Don’t miss this: the spectacular life of the world’s most powerful crossword editor
Will Shortz, the New York Times’s crossword editor of almost three decades, has been described as “the Errol Flynn of crossword-puzzling”.
Last Thing: blocked and loaded
Lego had to send a Utah company a cease-and-desist letter for selling kits that encased Glock handguns in Lego blocks. “We wanted the second amendment to simply be too painful to tread on, so there was only one logical solution,” Culper Precision advertised on its Instagram.
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