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: Trump says Saudis treated as ‘guilty until proven innocent’
Donald Trump has defended Saudi Arabia amid mounting international opprobrium over the suspected murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Comparing the case to the sexual assault claims made against Brett Kavanaugh, Trump told the Associated Press: “Here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty until proven innocent. I don’t like that.” The affair has spotlighted the Trump administration’s close ties to the Saudi regime, and specifically to the controversial crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
- Talks in Turkey. After talks in Riyadh on Tuesday, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is in Turkey to meet President Erdoğan as Turkish officials have leaked gory details of what they claim are audio recordings of his brutal murder and dismemberment in the Saudi consulate.
- Freewheeling. In the same interview, Trump said his former attorney Michael Cohen had lied about payments to the porn actor Stormy Daniels and said he would not take the blame if Republicans lost the House of Representatives at the November midterms.
Soaring US-China tensions stoke a ‘new cold war’
With the gloves coming off for a US-China trade war, tensions between the two superpowers have escalated on several other fronts, report Julian Borger in Washington and Lily Kuo in Beijing. In recent weeks, the USS Decatur and a Chinese warship came within yards of a collision in the South China Sea, while a senior Chinese intelligence official fell victim to an FBI sting in Belgium. The Chinese have accused the Trump administration of stoking “a new cold war”, which threatens to turn hot.
- Election meddling. With little or no evidence, Donald Trump and the vice-president, Mike Pence, have accused the Chinese of attempting to meddle in the midterms, with Pence alleging “an unprecedented effort [by China] to influence American public opinion”.
Democrats’ midterm momentum slowed by ‘Kavanaugh bump’
Democrats in West Virginia believed they were in with a better-than-average chance of reclaiming the state legislature in November, while Democratic Senator Joe Manchin also seemed confident of keeping his seat in the deep-red state. Until, that is, the Kavanaugh controversy recharged the Republican campaign, as Chris McGreal reports from Summersville.
- New playbook. In Wisconsin, Gary Younge asks whether liberal enthusiasm or Republican satisfaction will prove the deciding factor at the ballot box.
Spoiler alert: The Conners return, without Roseanne
The best-known blue-collar family on US TV has returned without its matriarch. The Conners premiered on ABC on Tuesday with the same cast as its predecessor, Roseanne – aside from its original creator and star, Roseanne Barr, who was fired in May following a racist tweet. Tuesday’s episode revealed the fate of her character, Roseanne Conner, who died of an opioid overdose. In a statement, Barr said the storyline “lent an unnecessary grim and morbid dimension to an otherwise happy family show”.
- Conner man. The Conners has turned Roseanne’s absence into a feature, not a flaw, says reviewer Zach Vasquez – and made wise use of Goodman’s dramatic chops.
Crib sheet
- Dennis Hof, the Las Vegas pimp who featured in the HBO series Cathouse and was running for a seat in the Nevada state legislature, has been found dead hours after his 72nd birthday party.
- Quebec’s new ruling party, the nationalist Coalition Avenir Québec, has proposed a ban on the wearing of hijabs and other religious symbols by any public employees.
- Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, has criticised Twitter boss Jack Dorsey and other San Francisco billionaires for failing to combat inequality and homelessness in their home city.
- The Vice writer who tricked TripAdvisor into making his garden shed the top-rated restaurant in London sent fake versions of himself to appear in TV and radio interviews around the world.
Must-reads
Ann Coulter thinks the left has ‘lost its mind’. Should we listen?
The bestselling author Ann Coulter has made a career out of revving up the right, to the revulsion of the left. She gives J Oliver Conroy her advice for Democrats on how to defeat Donald Trump.
Could climate change be stopped with carbon capture technology?
As the prospects of halting catastrophic climate change grow slimmer by the year, Emily Holden asks whether costly carbon-capture technology could hold the key to a cooler future.
The prisoners using art to challenge the for-profit justice system
A new exhibition focuses on the companies turning a profit from the mass incarceration industry, and the “commercialisation of criminal justice”, with artworks created by inmates.
Smiling really does make you happier – under certain conditions
Fritz Strack’s famous 1988 study found that smiling made people happier – until another study debunked his theory. Christopher Paley revisits the results and finds Strack was at least half right.
Opinion
The new film First Man celebrates the brave pioneers of space exploration in an age of collectivist endeavour. Today’s billionaire space race will not be remembered so fondly, says John Harris.
While the idea of state-led space travel may yet be decisively revived by China, the new space race in the west is something almost surreally different: a competition between rich, often knowingly “flamboyant” entrepreneurs, whose motivations are open to speculation.
Sport
Mary Bono, the interim CEO of USA Gymnastics, has resigned just four days into the job, following criticism from the Olympic champion Simone Biles. Beau Dure says the organisation needs a leader who will put its athletes first.
The USA’s friendlies against Colombia and Peru provide plenty of talking points ahead of the long slog to World Cup 2022. Not least, who will score the goals now Clint Dempsey is gone?
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