First Thing: Special counsel files revised indictment against Trump

Filing does not substantially change case after immunity ruling. Plus, France to trial ban on mobile phones at schools

Good morning.

The US Department of Justice filed a revised indictment against Donald Trump yesterday over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The filing does not substantially change the criminal case against him but rather aims to protect it after a supreme court ruling in July saying Trump and other presidents have immunity for official acts.

The document retains the same four criminal charges but portions are rewritten to emphasize that Trump was not acting in an official capacity when he tried to overturn the election .

After the supreme court ruled that Trump was “absolutely immune from prosecution” over his discussion with DoJ officials, the new indictment removes mention of a former official who aided his attempt.

What did Trump have to say? In response to the DoJ filing, Trump railed against those responsible on Truth Social, declaring that the indictment should be “dismissed immediately” and that “no Presidential Candidate, or Candidate for any Office, has ever had to put up with all of this Lawfare and Weaponization directly out of the Office of a Political Opponent”.

Harris and Walz to give first sit-down interview as Democratic ticket on CNN

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will sit for their first interview as the Democratic ticket tomorrow, after weeks of demands from Republicans and the media to open themselves up to questions. Despite a whirlwind of media coverage of the Harris campaign and a surge of support in the six weeks since Joe Biden ended his re-election bid and endorsed her, the vice-president has yet to do a formal interview or hold a press conference.

The interview, which will be conducted by the CNN anchor Dana Bash from the battleground state of Georgia, is scheduled for a primetime spot at 9pm eastern time. “There are a lot of questions that have been lingering out there for her to answer as we go into this fall campaign,” said David Chalian, CNN’s political director. “This is the first time she is going to take questions.”

What are Harris’ policies? The vice-president has promised a middle-class tax cut at home and a proposal for $25,000 down-payment support programs for first-time homebuyers. She has also called for a crackdown on price-gouging companies, but there still isn’t a dedicated policy page on her official campaign website.

Mark Zuckerberg says White House ‘pressured’ Facebook to censor Covid-19 content

The chief executive of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, has said he regretted bowing to what he claimed was pressure from the US government to “censor” posts about Covid on Facebook and Instagram during the pandemic.

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain Covid-19 content, including humour and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” he said in a letter to Jim Jordan, the Republican head of the House judiciary committee. “I believe the government pressure was wrong.”

What did Facebook do? During the pandemic, the social media network added misinformation alerts to users when they commented on posts that were judged to contain false information about coronavirus. The company also deleted posts criticizing Covid vaccines, and suggestions the virus was developed in a Chinese laboratory.

In other news …

Hit Chinese video game Black Myth: Wukong has sparked controversy after gaming influencers who were given early access were told not to mention news and politics, Covid-19, or “feminist propaganda” while publicly discussing the game.

Ukraine has captured 594 Russian soldiers during its three-week military operation in the Kursk region and has seized 100 settlements inside Russia, with Moscow redeploying 30,000 troops to the border region, Kyiv’s commander-in-chief said.

South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has ordered a crackdown on an epidemic of digital sex crimes targeting women and girls who become the unwitting victims of deepfake pornography.

France is to trial a ban on mobile phones at school for pupils under 15, as it seeks to give children a “digital pause” that, if judged successful, could be rolled out nationwide from January.

Stat of the day: Heat-related deaths have ‘increased by 117% in the US since 1999’

As record-breaking heatwaves continue across parts of the US, a report showedthat heat-related deaths in the country rose by 117% between 1999 and 2023, with more than 21,500 recorded during that period. The researchers used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found that 1,069 deaths were heat-related in 1999, compared with 2,325 in 2023.

Don’t miss this: Is ‘no tax on tips’ a distraction from the fight to end sub-minimum wages?

Today, 72% of US adults say tipping is expected in more places today than it was in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a Pew survey. Vying for working-class voters in the 2024 election, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have put tips at the center of their election campaign and pledged to ban taxes on tips for service workers. However, for some critics the “no tax on tips” proposal is most worrisome because the debate detracts from the fight to eliminate sub-minimum wages.

… or this: Colombia’s struggling farmers tempted by growing illegal coca

The lives of farmers working in the illegal coca trade in Colombia were supposed to change for the better when they stopped cultivation of the plants and joined a government crop substitution initiative from 2017. However, not everything went according to plan. The area used for coca growing has increased and farmers are disgruntled with the government.

Climate check: What is degrowth and can it save the planet?

In the run-up to the UK general election, the Labour party leader, Keir Starmer, repeatedly said “ensuring economic growth” would be fundamental. To the dismay of ecological economists and climate experts, there has been almost no debate about what sort of growth it should be, who it would benefit – or even whether the aim of perpetual growth on a planet with finite resources is either possible or desirable.

Last Thing: TikTok creator faces a legal battle over her own ‘demure’ catchphrase

The creator behind TikTok’s “demure” catchphrase has become more mindful of US trademark law. Jools Lebron, an influencer with more than 2 million followers on the app, became an overnight sensation after advising on how to be “demure”, “mindful” and “cutesy”. But Lebron has lamented that she “didn’t trademark fast enough”. According to TMZ, a man in Washington state named Jefferson Bates filed to trademark “Very Demure .. Very Mindful ...” in an apparent attempt to cash in on her success.

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