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Weekend Briefing

From Reuters Daily Briefing

By Robert MacMillan, Reuters.com Weekend Editor

It's a holiday weekend for many, but we have plenty of news from around the globe. Thanks for sharing your day with us.

Andrii Povod stands in front of a destroyed barn at his grain farm in Bilozerka, Ukraine, February 20, 2023. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner

On the Ukraine menu, leaks and grains

Military information: Secret documents detailing US and NATO efforts to help Ukraine plan a counter-offensive against Russia's invasion appeared on social media. Some of the information was doctored, officials say. Separately, Russia formally charged Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich with espionage.
Wheatfield under thunderclouds: Russia again put the Black Sea grain-export deal into doubt. Forcing Ukraine to ship its grain over rivers and land likely wouldn't sit well with neighbors Romania and Poland.

Americans divided over criminal charges against Trump

Shocking, right? The prosecution of Donald Trump has evenly divided Americans, and appears to have helped his campaign to be president again, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
A charge and a probe: House Republican Jim Jordan subpoenaed a former prosecutor who led the Manhattan district attorney's investigation of the former president, part of an investigation by Trump's allies into the probe that saw him indicted on criminal charges.

An uneasy week in Israel

Heavy days: Confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinians at the Al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan and on the eve of Passover triggered an exchange of fire in Gaza and on the Lebanese border.
Developments: Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa passed without major incident and firefights eased. Two sisters aged 20 and 16 were killed when their car came under fire near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Hours later, an Italian tourist was killed and five others injured when a car plowed into people on a street in Tel Aviv.

US Judges issue conflicting injunctions over abortion pill

The latest: US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas suspended the two-decade-old approval of mifepristone while a legal challenge proceeds, and federal Judge Thomas Rice in Washington issued a seemingly conflicting injunction that prevented federal regulators from altering access to the drug. The Biden administration has a week to file an emergency appeal against the Texas injunction.
Elsewhere in the US: Wisconsin elected a liberal to its Supreme court as abortion rights hang in the balance, Planned Parenthood sought to block Utah's ban on abortion clinics, and Kansas' governor is expected to veto a bill requiring healthcare providers to tell patients that medication abortions can be reversed once started.

Before I forget...

ChatGPT said an Australian mayor served prison time for bribery. This is false. In India, Rahul Gandhi will appeal his defamation conviction. Xi Jinping showed Emmanuel Macron a fine time in China, while his constituents back in France are preparing a different sort of welcome. Chinese fighter jets crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait as China began drills around Taiwan in anger at President Tsai Ing-wen's meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The US Supreme Court blocked West Virginia from enforcing its transgender-athlete ban while a case in a lower court proceeds, Oklahoma may get its first religious-charter school funded by taxpayer money, and Tennessee expelled two Black House Democrats after they protested against gun violence.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas defended luxury trips financed by his "dearest friends" after a ProPublica report said he failed to report them despite a law requiring the disclosure of such gifts.

Tesla was ordered to pay $3.2 million to a Black former worker, Jes Staley sought a separate trial over links to sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein, and Sweetgreen renamed its "Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowl," calling it the "Chicken + Chipotle Pepper Bowl" after a certain large restaurant chain complained. A judge denied Hawaii Transportation Department's request to toss out a climate-change case file by children as young as 9.

Finally, two Restoration plays: One of two surviving copies of the Declaration of Breda, key to the return of King Charles II to Britain in 1660 after the execution of his father, will be auctioned. And King Charles III supports research into the monarchy's links to slavery.

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