Top story: Day of reckoning for key Trump associates
Good morning, I’m Warren Murray. Let’s dive straight in.
In a double blow to Donald Trump his onetime campaign manager, Paul Manafort, has been found guilty of extensive fraud – while his former lawyer Michael Cohen has admitted he was directed to make payments on Trump’s behalf to two women over alleged sexual affairs.
Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges stemming from payments Cohen made to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels and the former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Lanny Davis, Cohen’s lawyer, said: “If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?” Cohen also pleaded guilty to fraud concerning unpaid taxes and undeclared debt.
Manafort, 69, was convicted of tax fraud, bank fraud and failure to report a foreign bank account. Prosecutors said Manafort lied to banks in seeking personal loans and lied to the Internal Revenue Service in reporting income related to his political consulting work in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Both men are yet to be sentenced but Cohen could face years in jail, while the charges against Manafort carry a maximum of several decades. Their guilt brings to five the tally of former Trump advisers who have pleaded to or been found guilty of crimes in Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation. Mueller has also secured guilty pleas from a California man and a London-based lawyer, and his team has indicted 26 Russian nationals and three Russian companies.
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Brexit marathon starts now – The UK and the EU have agreed to hold “continuous” talks in a bid to break the Brexit deadlock. “The negotiations are now entering the final stage,” said Michel Barnier, the EU’s Brexit negotiator. Britain’s fairly new Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, set the goal of making a deal in October but Barnier predicted it would be “certainly not later than the beginning of November”. Senior UK and EU officials will gather on Wednesday to continue talks, of which Raab and Barnier will take stock next week. Surprisingly, banking has made it on to a list of sectors that are to be told to brace for a no-deal Brexit. Ministers had hoped to keep that one quiet for the moment. The first impact papers for various sectors of the economy are to be published on Thursday.
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Midweek catch-up – Here is where things are at …
> The actor Asia Argento has denied allegations of sexual assault that led to a payout to her former co-star Jimmy Bennett. Argento says her late partner Anthony Bourdain gave him $380,000 out of compassion and to avoid “negative publicity”.
> Eighteen Windrush generation people are to receive an apology from Sajid Javid, the home secretary, over their treatment. But it is estimated up to 164 people may have been wrongly removed or detained.
> Australia’s prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, may have managed to hang on to his job yesterday. But his rival, Peter Dutton, has confirmed he is trying to secure enough support for a second challenge.
> The US has deported its last known Nazi fugitive. Jakiw Palij arrived in the US after the war claiming to be a Polish farmer. Two decades ago he was identified as a member of Hitler’s SS. He is now aged 95 and his fate back in Germany is unclear.
> After Prue Leith from Bake Off said children should learn to cook at school, here are Mina Holland’s suggestions – pasta, stir-fry, soup, roast chicken and more.
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Travel misery – The three-day closure of London Euston, one of Britain’s busiest rail stations, headlines the list of transport disruptions over the August bank holiday weekend. Most direct Virgin trains between London and the north-west will be cancelled, with reduced services ending at Milton Keynes. Work will also cause disruption in the Midlands, with buses replacing some trains to Birmingham international airport, and around Derby. Passengers on Northern Rail will see additional disruption due to a 24-hour strike. The AA predicts about 15 million drivers will take leisure journeys from Friday to Monday, with routes to the south-west and the coast expected to be the most crowded, and congestion possible around music festivals including Reading, Leeds and Creamfields in Cheshire.
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‘Inauthentic behaviour’ – Facebook has removed 652 fake accounts and pages with ties to Russia and Iran attempting to exert political influence in the US, UK, Middle East and Latin America. Many of them were Facebook and Instagram accounts that were discovered to have ties to Iranian state media. Others were linked to Russian military agencies, including some removed before the 2016 US election, with their recent activity focused on spreading pro-Russia messaging relating to Syria and Ukraine. Facebook said it had briefed the US and UK governments.
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Anger management – When you’re steaming mad, counting to 90 can help. Our Shortcuts column offers this suggestion and three other ways to part the red mist.
Lunchtime read: Vision of the future a thing of the past
The Futuro was supposed to revolutionise the way we lived – and unlike the flying car in everyone’s backyard it actually existed. A colourful elliptical cabin, it was dreamed up by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen and nicknamed the Flying Saucer or the UFO House.
Of the 100 or so made, only 68 and a half remain. A Yorkshire plastics company tried but failed to commercialise the design. One that found its way to South Africa is now London-based, and gets shipped around for exhibitions and events. One went to a strip club in Florida; half of one is bolted to the side of a building in Frankfurt; and others are on show in museums. Suuronen steadily went broke, and died of cancer in 2013. “He never lost his vivid, creative mind and his lust for creating something more for the world,” says his daughter Sari.
Sport
Jos Buttler finally made the point that talent will eventually tell after he scored a maiden Test hundred against India – although his milestone, which he said he feared would never come, is unlikely to help England stave off defeat at Trent Bridge.
The escalating club versus country row over Danny Cipriani has taken a new twist with the RFU ignoring calls by the players’ union to drop its case against the England fly-half. Johanna Konta, the only British woman with direct entry into the main draw of next week’s US Open, has withdrawn from the Connecticut Open in New Haven due to a viral illness. The interim Argentina manager, Lionel Scaloni, has refused to say whether Lionel Messi will represent his country again. And Donald Trump has launched yet another attack on NFL players who have knelt during the national anthem, although the numbers suggest his criticism may be off the mark.
Business
Asian shares have been mixed, as some markets were cheered by bullish sentiments on Wall Street where the S&P 500 index briefly traded at an all-time high on Tuesday. But the latest development to cloud the horizon was Trump’s comments to a rally overnight that “We’re going to put a 25% tax on every car that comes from the European Union into the United States.” Sterling has been trading at $1.29 and €1.115 overnight.
The papers
The Guardian’s splash is the Windrush story, while the main picture spot is dedicated to the break-up of sea ice in the Arctic. Health stories feature on the front pages of the i – “New prostate treatment approved on the NHS” – and the Express – “Wonder drug extends life for cancer patients”.
The FT has “Record July surplus spells relief for Hammond on NHS pledges” and the Times leads with “Trump told me to break election law, says ex-aide”. The Telegraph has “Ex-criminal magistrates ‘would boost diversity’” and the Mail leads with “What does it take to get locked up?” The Sun’s splash is about Nazi role-play at a stately home, under the headline “Don’t mansion the war” and the Mirror’s top story is “The end of puppy farming”.
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