BBC
Donald Trump's top lawman worried that the his boss became "detached from reality" after the 2020 election, a congressional panel has heard.
Testimony from Bill Barr played at the 6 January Capitol riot inquiry revealed deep division at the Trump campaign over his claims of election fraud.
Two camps emerged - a "Team Normal" that accepted Mr Trump's loss, and loyalists who did not.
The panel aims to lay out Mr Trump's role in the riot.
The second of a series of public hearings, Monday's session was preceded by the announcement that a star witness - Mr Trump's former campaign manager Bill Stepien - would not be appearing because his wife had gone into labour.
Instead, his lawyer gave a statement on his behalf and Mr Stepien's previous private testimony was publicly played by the Democratic-led US House of Representatives select committee.
The Guardian
Rudy Giuliani was “apparently inebriated” on election night in November 2020 when he urged Donald Trump to declare prematurely and wrongly that he had beaten Democrat Joe Biden for the presidency.
Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice-chair of the congressional select committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 by extremist Trump supporters, declared as much during her opening remarks on Monday in the committee’s second public hearing of six in Washington DC. The first hearing was last Thursday.
“You will also hear testimony that Donald Trump rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night and instead followed the course recommended by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani to just claim he won and insist that the vote counting stop, to falsely claim that everything was fraudulent,” Cheney said.
Al Jazeera
In the second of several hearings aiming to present the findings of a congressional panel investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, lawmakers and witnesses stressed that former President Donald Trump knew that his election fraud allegations were false.
The committee featured on Monday testimonies from former Trump advisers and Justice Department officials who said they explicitly relayed to the ex-president that there was no election corruption.
Yet, Trump pressed on with his allegations that the election was stolen – accusations that lawmakers on the panel say were behind the Capitol riots, when Trump’s supporters stormed the building in an effort to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
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BBC
The UK government has published plans to get rid of parts of the post-Brexit deal it agreed with the EU in 2019.
It wants to change the Northern Ireland Protocol to make it easier for some goods to flow from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
But the EU opposes the move, saying that going back on the deal breaches international law.
The government said there is "no other way" of safeguarding essential interests of the UK.
It argues the term "necessity" is used in international law to justify situations where "the only way a state can safeguard an essential interest" is by disapplying - or breaking - another international obligation.
It adds that action taken must not "seriously impair" essential interests of other states.
Deutsche Welle
Zelenskyy says the cost of the fighting has been 'very high'
"The price of this battle for us is very high. It’s just scary," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address on Monday that was published on the presidential website.
His message, marking the 110th day of the war, pointed to the victories that Ukrainian forces have had over Russian troops, but warned of their firepower in the east and in the Black Sea.
Zelenskyy pledged to "free our entire territory" and to "drive out the occupiers of all our regions."
"And although now the width of our front is already more than 2.5 thousand kilometers, it is felt that the strategic initiative is still ours."
He also promised to take back Crimea — the Ukrainian peninsula that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. "Of course, we will liberate our Crimea as well," he said.
Zelenskyy urges Germany against 'balancing act' between Ukraine and Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said although Germany's support for Ukraine has solidified in recent weeks, Chancellor Olaf Scholz needs to take concrete steps rather than rhetoric.
Deutsche Welle
The foundation that owns Wikipedia announced Monday that it had filed an appeal against a Moscow court's ruling fining it five million rubles ($88,000, €83,260) for refusing to remove information related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The Wikimedia Foundation's appeal argues that people have a right to truthful information about the conflict.
The Moscow court said the fine pertains to what it incorrectly terms "disinformation" in Russian-language articles focused on what Moscow acknowledges as a "special military operation."
Why did the Moscow court fine Wikipedia?
The Wikipedia articles deemed questionable by the court focus on such sensitive topics in Russia as war crimes carried out by Russian forces in Bucha and beyond, as well as the invasion itself, which Russia terms a "special military operation."
The Guardian, International Division
Gunmen killed at least 55 people over the weekend in northern Burkina Faso, in the latest attack in the west African country, which is seeing mounting violence blamed on Islamic extremists.
Suspected militants targeted civilians in Seytenga in Séno province, government spokesman Wendkouni Joel Lionel Bilgo said at a news conference. While the government put the official toll at 55, others put the figure far higher, with some saying as many as 100 had died.
Attacks linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group are soaring in Burkina Faso, particularly in the north. Jihadists killed at least 160 people in an attack in Solhan town last July.
In January, mutinous soldiers ousted the democratically elected president promising to secure the nation but violence has only increased. The government is asking people to remain united in the fight against the insurgents.
The Guardian, International Division
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has said he believes “something wicked” was done to the missing British journalist Dom Phillips and the Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, amid unconfirmed claims their bodies had been found in the Amazon.
“He didn’t describe the location and just said it was in the rainforest and he said they were tied to a tree and they hadn’t been identified yet,” said Phillips’s brother-in-law, Paul Sherwood.
However, the federal police later denied the claims that two bodies had been found. Indigenous activists involved in the search effort also said they had no information about such a discovery but do believe the men’s remains will soon be found in an area of flooded forest where their search teams found some of the men’s belongings on Saturday.
The Guardian, Australian Edition
Australia’s Sky News channel has become a central source for climate science misinformation around the world, gaining high traction among conservative social media influencers and networks, according to a report.
An analysis of a global network of climate science deniers and “delayers” and the content they shared found the News Corp Australia-owned channel was a key “content hub” for “influencers, sceptics and outlets”.
The Guardian, Australian Edition
The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has vowed to take every opportunity to demand the Chinese government scrap “unjustified trade strikes” after Beijing ended a diplomatic freeze lasting more than two years.
Australian analysts welcomed the opening of lines of communication with China after the defence ministers met in Singapore on Sunday, but cautioned against any expectations of a substantial “reset” as big differences remain.
Chinese state media suggested on Monday that Australia should walk away from groupings such as Aukus and the Quad “to repair ties with China” – policy shifts that the Albanese government has ruled out.
Wong said the Australian government believed dialogue was “in the interests of both countries” but indicated the substantive positions had not changed.
The Guardian, UK Edition
Britain’s biggest chain of GP surgeries has been accused of putting profits before proper care by getting staff who are not fully qualified family doctors to assess patients.
An investigation by the BBC’s Panorama programme found that Operose Health was using physician associates to undertake appointments because they are cheaper to employ than GPs.
An undercover Panorama reporter also disclosed that at the Operose GP practice in London where she worked as a receptionist there was a severe shortage of GPs and a backlog of clinical correspondence – medical reports, test results and hospital letters – that had not been read for up to six months.
The revelations led one of the NHS’s most senior GPs, Prof Sir Sam Everington, to voice concern about the “massive risk” to patients’ safety and accuse the US-owned firm of profiteering.
The Guardian, UK Edition
Two last-ditch legal challenges that attempted to halt the inaugural flight carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda have been rejected by judges.
The court of appeal upheld a previous decision to reject an injunction blocking the first flight, which was due to take off for the east African state on Tuesday.
Separately, the high court refused to grant a second urgent general injunction application.
But Home Office sources have admitted there was a risk that the flight could be cancelled anyway after individual legal challenges meant that fewer than 10 people were expected to board the plane. One charity, Care4Calais, said on Monday afternoon there were fewer than eight.
“I think it could be cancelled,” said a government source. “This is due to individual cases rather than a blanket challenge.”
The Guardian, US Edition
Fears about a possible recession pounded stock markets worldwide on Monday, and Wall Street’s S&P 500 tumbled into the maw of what’s known as a bear market after sinking more than 20% below its record set early this year.
The S&P 500 dropped 3.9% to a new low for the year as investors resumed trading after the weekend and reflected on Friday’s stunning news that inflation is getting worse, not better.
The Dow Jones was down more than 875 points, or 2.8%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite crumpled 4.7% as investors continued to sour on once high-flying tech stocks.
The center of Wall Street’s focus was again on the Federal Reserve, which is scrambling to get inflation under control. Its main method is to raise interest rates in order to slow the economy, a blunt tool that risks a recession if used too aggressively.
Al Jazeera
Indigenous groups have set up roadblocks on highways in Ecuador in protest of rising gasoline prices and the economic policies of right-wing President Guillermo Lasso.
The protesters were blocking roads with burning tires, stones, trees and mounds of earth in at least 10 of the country’s 24 provinces, including Pichincha, home to the capital Quito, authorities said on Monday.
They are calling on Lasso’s government to freeze gasoline costs at a lower price, stop plans to expand oil and mining development, and extend deadlines for small farmers to pay off debts with banks.
“We have had to resort to resistance in view of the national government putting in place more and more policies of death, which don’t allow us to sustain our small economies,” Leonidas Iza, head of the CONAIE Indigenous organisation, told reporters.
Reuters
BRUSSELS, June 13 (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc unit Google (GOOGL.O), Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc(TWTR.N) and other tech companies will have to take measures to counter deepfakes and fake accounts on their platforms or risk hefty fines under an updated European Union code of practice, according to an EU document seen by Reuters.
The European Commission is expected to publish the updated code of practice on disinformation on Thursday as part of its crackdown against fake news.
Bangkok Times
Crime Suppression Division police on Monday launched multiple raids on the illegal gun trading network allegedly run by Danupol "Bell" Samaesarn, with operations in Bangkok, Chon Buri, Kanchanaburi, Udon Thani and Chiang Mai provinces.
Officers from the CSD's Hanuman special operations unit armed with 16 court warrants searched premises at 21 locations in the five provinces, Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop Bhuridej, the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) commissioner, said.
C/NET
Google suspended an engineer last week for publicly revealing details of a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence in violation of the search giant's confidentiality policies, a move that marks the latest disruption of the company's AI department.
Blake Lemoine, a senior software engineer in Google's Responsible Artificial Intelligence group, was put on paid administrative leave after he took his concern that the chatbot, known as LaMDA, or Language Model for Dialogue Applications, had achieved sentience. Lemoine revealed his suspension in a June 6 Medium post and subsequently discussed his concerns about LaMDA's sentience with The Washington Post in a story published over the weekend.
C/NET
Cheddar, brie and other cheese products made by Paris Brothers were recalled across nine states earlier this month due to concerns over potential contamination from listeria monocytogenes. The recalled cheeses were sold at Price Chopper, Super Saver, Fareway and other grocery chains.
Listeria infections can cause serious or fatal infections in young children, elderly people and others with weakened immune systems, including pregnant women, the Food and Drug Administration said in the recall notice posted June 1.
The FDA found the presence of listeria in the cheeses during a routine sampling. No illnesses have been reported in connection with the contamination.
The cheeses were produced on May 4, 5 and 6, 2022, and were sold in grocery stores across Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska, South Dakota, Mississippi and Florida.
NPR
HELENA, Mont. — Major flooding swept away at least one bridge, washed away roads and set off mudslides in Yellowstone National Park on Monday, prompting officials to close the entrances to the popular tourist attraction and evacuate visitors.
The flooding hit after recent "unprecedented rains," park officials said on Facebook.
"Our first priority has been to evacuate the northern section of the park where we have multiple road and bridge failures, mudslides and others issues," superintendent Cam Sholly said in a statement.
The community of Gardiner, Mont., just north of the park, was isolated because the roads going in and out of town are impassable, officials said. The power is out in some areas of the park.
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.