Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.
Billionaire pledges his wealth to the Trump resistance
Michael Bloomberg, the multi-billionaire former New York mayor, has said he will not run for president in 2020 but instead will plough his fortune into efforts to prevent Donald Trump’s re-election. The 77-year-old, a longtime champion of liberal causes such as gun control and climate change, had threatened to run as a centrist Democrat next year. In a Bloomberg editorial, he said he was confident of beating Trump in a general election, but “clear-eyed about the difficulty of winning the Democratic nomination”.
Democratic field. Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington, and John Hickenlooper, the former Colorado governor, have joined the list of Democratic presidential hopefuls in the past week, taking the total field to 16.
Cabinet rallies behind Trudeau amid corruption scandal
The embattled Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has received a public show of support from his cabinet after a second minister resigned this week amid a simmering corruption scandal. The remaining 33 cabinet members have all pledged their support for Trudeau, and several appeared on stage with him on Monday at a campaign-style rally for his Liberal government’s climate change policy.
Bribery claims. The Treasury head, Jane Philpott, was the second minister to resign over claims that Trudeau’s aides pressured his former attorney general not to prosecute a major engineering firm accused of bribing the Libyan government.
North Korea rebuilds launch site despite promise to Trump
Even before Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un met for their second summit in Hanoi last week, North Korea had already started rebuilding a rocket launch site that was partially dismantled as a goodwill gesture following their first encounter in 2018. Satellite images of the Sohae satellite launching station at Tongchang-ri suggested several structures were undergoing restoration, threatening the credibility of Trump’s signature foreign policy success.
Sanctions threat. Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, who previously described the Hanoi summit as “unquestionably a success”, said that if the Kim regime showed no signs of giving up its nuclear program, the US would look at “ramping up” its existing, harsh sanctions on the country.
America’s schoolchildren exposed to toxic lead in water
Since the scandal over toxic water in Flint became a national concern in 2014, elevated levels of lead have been found in schools across the US from Baltimore to Portland, specifically in drinking water. Medical experts and campaigners say its toxic effects can be linked to lower IQ scores, aberrant behaviour and violence. Jessica Glenza and Oliver Milman report from Newark, New Jersey, where teachers are suing the city over the issue.
Widespread problem. Some parts of Cleveland have suffered lead exposure affecting up to 25% of children. More than half of Atlanta’s public schools were found to have elevated lead levels.
Bottled water. The Detroit school district shut off water in all of its 106 school buildings last year over fears about lead levels, and told students to switch to bottled water.
Crib sheet
The US justice department has opened a civil rights investigation into the killing of Stephon Clark, the unarmed black 22-year-old shot dead by police in Sacramento last year, after California’s attorney general declined to charge the two police officers involved.
Florida lawmakers are considering a statewide suspension of municipal laws banning single-use plastic straws, in what environmentalists say would be a step backwards for a state that “should be leading the country in environmental policy”.
Whole Foods employees have told the Guardian they have experienced widespread cuts in their working hours, negating their recent wage gains after the company – which is owned by Amazon – introduced a $15 minimum wage.
R Kelly has denied the multiple sexual abuse allegations against him in a tearful TV interview, after he was released on bail having been charged with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse, which he described as “stupid”, “not true”, and “not fair”.
Must-reads
The Battle for Baghuz – in pictures
Islamic State has been reduced to defending a single village in the eastern Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor. As Kurdish-led forces launch their final assault on Baghouz, photojournalists have been recording the hellish last days of the Isis caliphate.
Why to worry about machines reading our emotions
Machines can now allegedly identify anger, fear, disgust and sadness in the human face. Once used to try to identify terrorists in airport lines, “emotion detection” tech is now a $20bn industry – but the underlying methodology may be flawed, as Oscar Schwartz reports.
The women nurturing startups and babies at the same time
Female entrepreneurs have historically shied away from making their pregnancies public, fearful of putting off prospective investors. But a new generation of startup founders is bucking convention by proudly growing their companies alongside their babies, writes EB Boyd.
Opinion
Five years after the revolution in Ukraine known as “Maidan”, Angelina Kariakina says her country has paid a high price for a freedom that is difficult to define. But it is the small, under-reported successes that suggest it was all worth it.
Whatever international attention Ukraine gets these days tends to focus on Russian aggression, geopolitics, electoral competition or the struggle against corruption. But that misses some of the underlying transformations we are experiencing – the spread of many individual agents for change across the country.
Sport
There is growing evidence that groups such as the Proud Boys and Battalion 49 are infecting the MLS fanbase. Christian Araos asks what soccer clubs and their supporters are doing to fend off the influence of the far-right.
Real Madrid, European champions for the past three years, crashed out of the Champions League on Tuesday with a stunning 1-4 home defeat to Ajax, the climax of a week-long collapse in which the club was also knocked out of the Copa del Rey and fell even further behind in La Liga.
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