Good morning.
The UN’s refugee agency said it was expecting 270,000 refugees to cross into Chad and South Sudan as airstrikes and reports of renewed fighting around the capital have threatened a delicate three-day truce.
The intense fighting between army units loyal to its military ruler, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, against the Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, has killed 459 civilians and left many short of supplies, medicine and cash. Follow the Sudan liveblog here.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has warned that the fighting is not only putting Sudan’s future at risk, “it is lighting a fuse that could detonate across borders, causing immense suffering for years, and setting development back by decades”.
Those who have escaped the violence in Khartoum are sharing harrowing tales of being forced to hole up in homes for days, bullets flying through kitchen windows and threats from soldiers with guns.
Opening arguments in Trump’s civil assault trial
Yesterday was the opening day of Donald Trump’s civil assault trial. The advice columnist E Jean Carroll has accused the former president of pinning her against the wall of a New York department store and sexually assaulting her nearly 30 years ago.
In a Manhattan federal court, Carroll’s attorney, Shawn Crowley, said his client was “filled with fear and shame” that kept her silent for decades. “In her mind, for many years, she thought what happened to her was her fault,” Crowley told the jury.
Trump’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, told the jury of three women and six men that Carroll filed the lawsuit for political ends, to sell a book and for public attention. Tacopina said the rape accusation was invented by Carroll and two other women who were expected to testify that she told them about the assault shortly afterwards.
This case remains the only one to come to court among more than a dozen allegations of rape, groping and other sexual assaults against Trump.
Inside the other lawsuit involving Fox News and Tucker Carlson
In the aftermath of Tucker Carlson’s abrupt departure from Fox News – a move many US pundits linked to the huge settlement the rightwing channel had just reached with Dominion Voting Systems – another legal case involving Carlson, his show and Fox that is also now gaining attention.
Abby Grossberg, Carlson’s former booker, was fired by Fox News shortly after she filed two lawsuits against the company in March claiming that Fox News, Fox Corp, and employees including Tucker Carlson fostered a workplace riven with abusive behaviors.
Fox News has described Grossberg’s claims as “unmeritorious” and “riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees”.
In other news …
The Washington governor signed into law three bills meant to prevent gun violence yesterday – one banning the sale of certain semi-automatic rifles, one imposing a 10-day waiting period on firearms purchases, and one clearing the way for lawsuits against gun makers or sellers in certain cases.
The supreme court chief justice, John Roberts, has declined to testify at a forthcoming hearing before the Senate judiciary committee that is expected to focus on judicial ethics.
Flooding threat from melting snows has prompted closures of Yosemite valley, the tourist center of the famed national park.
Stat of the day: First Republic Bank shares fall 50%
First Republic Bank’s shares closed down 50% on Tuesday, sparking fears that it could be the third bank to fail after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Follow the business liveblog here for more updates.
Don’t miss this: Fear and frustration in Mexico
Before 43 Ayotzinapa college students were abducted in September 2014 in one of the most horrific and high-profile human rights abuses in Mexico’s recent history, the military received nearly a dozen complaints about cartel activity in the region.
Independent investigators have long alleged that the military had detailed knowledge of criminal activity and collusion between the cartel and police before the attack, as well as real-time knowledge of the situation as it unfolded, and emails and documents leaked last year by a hacker group calling itself Guacamaya support those allegations.
“They monitored the narcos and organized crime,” said Carlos Beristain, a member of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts, which has spent eight years investigating the students’ disappearance. On the night of the attack, however, “the decision was to do nothing”.
… or this: the Cop City protests in Atlanta
For almost two years, protesters in Atlanta have been fighting against the construction of Cop City, a $90m police and fire department training base planned in a forest. In January, police shot and killed activist Manuel Paez Terán, or Tortuguita, catapulting the fight over Cop City into global headlines.
But while the protests continue, the project is making headway and a key stretch of public land nearby is no longer accessible to people seeking to defend the forest. For the first time in nearly two years of opposition, authorities have shut down the public park part of South River forest, allegedly for the public’s safety.
Climate check: can bitcoin ever go green?
Bitcoin is chiefly known as a wild investment vehicle that – along with many other cryptocurrencies – can seemingly make or lose fortunes overnight. But the mining of bitcoin also emits a large amount of carbon. Environmentalists are pushing to reduce the environmental impact of bitcoin by changing the way it is produced.
Last Thing: the Japanese writer stoking China’s feminist underground
Despite strict government censorship and repression, China’s feminist movement is gaining momentum, in part to the Japanese feminist and author Chizuko Ueno. After her 2019 matriculation speech at the University of Tokyo went viral in Japan first, then China, 11 of her books were translated into simplified Chinese. In December, two of her books were among the top 20 foreign nonfiction bestsellers in China.
“We like-like her,” says Shiye Fu, the host of popular the feminist podcast Stochastic Volatility. “In China, we need some sort of feminist role model to lead us and enable us to see how far women can go. She taught us that as a woman, you have to fight every day, and to fight is to survive.”
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