Donald Trump Faces Possible Jan. 6 Indictment

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Donald Trump has received a letter informing him that he is a target of the special counsel’s investigation into his role in the events surrounding the chaos at the Capitol. The letter is a sign that Trump is likely to face federal criminal charges related to his attempts to retain power after the 2020 election.

It’s unclear what charges prosecutors are considering or when indictments might come. But when the special counsel, Jack Smith, sent a similar letter last month related to Trump’s handling of national defense material, the former president was indicted on 37 criminal counts within days. .

If Trump is indicted again, my colleague Glenn Thrush told me, it could be even more significant than the last time: The documents case is relatively easy to prove, but in many people’s minds it is relatively peripheral, says Glenn. In the case of January 6, the bar for evidence is higher, and the stakes for the country and the consequences for the republic are almost incalculable.

When Smith was hired in November to review Trump’s actions around the election and Jan. 6, among other topics, he promised to move quickly. His office focused on a wide range of schemes, including a plan to create false records of pro-Trump electors in key states that Biden won. Prosecutors also sought information about Trump’s post-election fundraising.

The reaction from Trumps main GOP rivals, whom he leads by a significant margin, has been notably muted. As my colleague Maggie Haberman reports, Trumps advisers say they view winning the election as a defense against possible prison time.

Glenn says we shouldn’t expect an indictment this week, and it’s more likely to come in early August. Still, he said, federal prosecutors likely want a chance to question witnesses before a district attorney in Georgia, who is also weighing indictments related to the 2020 election.

In related news, Michigan announced felony charges against 16 people in connection with a fraudulent voter scheme to defeat Trump in the 2020 election.

The world is warming

Punishing heat waves grip much of the Northern Hemisphere: In the US, Phoenix broke a 49-year-old record with 19 consecutive days of temperatures above 110 degrees. In Europe, where temperatures have made conditions dangerous for low-income workers, news outlets are calling the heat wave Caronte, after the ferryman in Dante Alighieri’s poem Inferno. And in Iran, the heat index hit a life-threatening 152 degrees.

Protesters rally in Israel against judicial overhaul

Thousands of Israelis demonstrated at major train stations, blocked highways and rallied outside the homes of government ministers to strongly oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to end a law next year. week that will limit the power of the Supreme Court. They say they fear the proposed law would harm democracy by reducing judicial oversight of the cabinet.

In the US, President Biden met with President Isaac Herzog of Israel this afternoon at the White House. The diplomatic overture was meant to signal strong American support for Israel despite tensions between the Biden and Netanyahu administrations.

Meta takes a different tack with its AI

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, said today that he plans to provide the code behind the company’s latest and most advanced artificial-intelligence technology to developers and software enthusiasts around the world, free of charge.

The move will allow Meta to capitalize on improvements made by programmers from outside the company, potentially allowing it to better compete with the likes of Google and Microsoft. But it also flies in the face of warnings from the industry’s biggest names that advanced AI technology may need to be limited to people who will use it responsibly.

50 years of hip-hop

Over the past 50 years, hip-hop has grown from a fledgling art form to a superpower that defines culture, influencing and inspiring television, film, fashion, advertising, literature, politics and countless others. corner of American life.

No one can tell that story. As our critic writes, hip-hop is vast and prolific, fascinating and polyglot, the source of an endless fountain of narratives. People don’t always agree.

So we turned to 50 titans of the genre from DJ Hollywood to LL Cool J, Lil Wayne to Ice Spice. Here’s what they said.

Flying taxis are about to become a reality

The concept of a flying taxi might remind you of a futuristic world like The Jetsons. Or maybe you’ve seen companies like Uber hype their aircraft technology just to push it into the future.

But now, federal regulators have made the prospect seem even more real. They released a plan and announced a target arrival date: 2028.

Flying taxis look like small planes or helicopters and can take off and land vertically, allowing them to operate from the heart of cities, taking people to airports or vacation destinations like the Hamptons in New York or Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

A man-bites-dog story from the age of the dinosaurs

Paleontologists have unearthed a fossil in northeastern China that appears to have been frozen during an unexpected battle from 125 million years ago. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the fossil depicts a badger-like mammal biting a much larger dinosaur.

The researchers, who published their findings today, say it takes a good bit of luck (or bad luck, from the animals’ point of view) to preserve their bodies mid-fight. It appears that both the mammal and the dinosaur were caught in a mudslide, freezing them in place until they were discovered a decade ago.

Have an amazing night.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. Matthew

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