Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s headlines. If you’d like to receive this briefing by email, sign up here.
Top story: President’s rhetoric fuels hatred, experts warn
Donald Trump plans to visit Pittsburgh on Tuesday following the mass shooting of 11 Jews at the city’s Tree of Life synagogue, against the wishes of Jewish groups as experts warn that the president’s own rhetoric has fuelled antisemitism and racial hatred. Bill Peduto, the mayor of Pittsburgh, had urged Trump not to visit until after the funerals for the victims, which are due to begin on Tuesday.
White rage: The alleged gunman, Robert Bowers, was active in online white supremacist groups, and appears to subscribe to a conspiracy theory that demographic and social changes in the US are part of a coordinated plot to destroy the white race.
Trump sends 5,200 troops to border, stoking immigration fears
The American Civil Liberties Union has condemned White House plans to send 5,200 troops to the US-Mexican border as an opportunistic abuse of the military, designed solely to further Donald Trump’s “anti-immigrant agenda of fear and division”. The announcement comes just days before the midterm elections, with Trump building an incendiary anti-immigration message around a migrant caravan travelling through Central America.
Climate refugees: Migrants in the caravan say they left Honduras to escape violence and poverty. Experts, however, say there is another, unseen driver of migration from Central America: climate change.
Bolsonaro pledges to relax gun laws to fight crime
Brazil’s president-elect, the far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro, has suggested he will seek to relax firearms laws in a bid to combat a homicide epidemic that claimed close to 64,000 lives last year. In another early indicator of what life might be like in Latin America’s largest nation under its new leader, a state politician from Bolsonaro’s Social Liberal party called on students to denounce any “indoctrinator teachers” who expressed negative opinions about his victory.
Excellent call: Donald Trump tweeted enthusiastically about his first conversation with the newly elected Bolsonaro, saying the US and Brazil would “work closely together on Trade, Military and everything else!”
Annihilation of wildlife threatens civilisation, WWF says
Humans have wiped out 60% of animal life since 1970, according to a World Wildlife Fund report, which says the scale of the annihilation is a dire threat to human civilisation, and that our rampant consumption is shattering the natural order on which we depend for clean air, water and other vital resources. “This is far more than just being about losing the wonders of nature,” said Mike Barrett, WWF’s executive director of science and conservation. “Nature is not a ‘nice to have’. It is our life-support system.”
Thin ice: Scientists in Canada have said vast glaciers in the Yukon territory are shrinking faster than expected, “causing a complete reorganisation of the environment”.
Crib sheet
The Lion Air plane that crashed in Indonesia on Monday had flown erratically during another flight the previous evening after experiencing technical problems.
Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has called on western leaders not to allow Saudi Arabia to escape responsibility for his death.
The actor Eryn Jean Norvill’s co-star Geoffrey Rush touched her breast on stage during a 2015 production of King Lear, Norvill told a court in Sydney during a defamation trial over her claims. Rush denies the allegations.
Administrators of a popular garden in Tokyo realised they had lost at least 25m yen ($220,000) in potential revenue after an attendant admitted he had failed to collect admission fees from foreign visitors for more than two years for fear of being yshouted at.
Must-reads
Can young people reclaim Wisconsin from Scott Walker?
Governor Scott Walker has turned traditionally progressive Wisconsin into a testbed for the hard-right policy goals of his billionaire patrons. As the midterms approach, young voters are hoping to drag the state back to the left, Dominic Rushe finds.
Butter nonsense: the rise of the cholesterol deniers
A small but noisy group of dissenting scientists has been singing the praises of saturated fat, saying we should all go back to eating cheese, meat and butter with impunity. That’s not just bad science, finds Sarah Boseley, it’s life-threatening.
Season of the witch: how Sabrina and co cast a spell on screens
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, starring Mad Men’s Kiernan Shipka, looks like a hit for Netflix. According to Charlotte Richardson Andrews, Sabrina is just one of a defiantly feminist coven of contemporary witches working their magic on screen.
A viral rap song tests Thailand’s military dictatorship
The rap track Prathet Ku Mee, What My Country’s Got, has fast become an anthem of dissent in Thailand, attracting more than 21m YouTube views in a week with its criticism of the country’s military junta. Hannah Ellis-Petersen reports from Bangkok.
Opinion
Angela Merkel has said she will stand down as chancellor of Germany in 2021. Her exit will leave a gaping hole in Europe’s political centre ground, writes Rafael Behr.
There is some simplistic mythologising in the admiration of Merkel as the anti-Trump figurehead for European civilisation. But the very existence of that hagiography expresses a powerful craving for stability, maturity and dignity in global affairs.
Sport
Klay Thompson scored 14 three-pointers in a single game on Monday, breaking his teammate Steph Curry’s NBA record as the Golden State Warriors trampled the Chicago Bulls 149-124.
Celebrity boycotts, half-time show controversy, Trump tweets … With three months still to go before Super Bowl LIII, the biggest game in sports has become the latest battleground in the culture wars, writes Luke O’Neil.
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