Russia jails four journalists for links to Alexei Navalny anti-corruption group

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Court hands out sentences of over five years for extremism, accusing journalists of working for the late politician’s Anti-Corruption Foundation

A Russian court has convicted four journalists of extremism for working for an anti-corruption group founded by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny and sentenced them to five and a half years in prison each.

Antonina Favorskaya, Konstantin Gabov, Sergey Karelin and Artyom Kriger were found guilty of involvement with a group that had been labelled as extremist. All four had maintained their innocence, arguing they were being prosecuted for doing their jobs as journalists.

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Ex-Peru president Ollanta Humala given 15-year sentence for money laundering

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Sentenced with wife Nadine Heredia, Humala is third president of Peru imprisoned for corruption in past 20 years

A Peruvian court has sentenced former president Ollanta Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, to 15 years in prison for laundering funds received from the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht to finance Humala’s 2006 and 2011 campaigns.

The judges of the national superior court found that Humala and Heredia received several million dollars in illegal contributions for these campaigns from Odebrecht and the government of the then Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez.

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Celebrities criticize all-female rocket launch: ‘This is beyond parody’

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Amy Schumer, Olivia Wilde and Olivia Munn are among the famous names calling out the much-publicised space trip

The all-female Blue Origin rocket launch may have received plenty of glowing media coverage – but not everyone is impressed.

The stunt has drawn criticism from a number of female celebrities who were not keen on the Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin NS-31 mission, which included Katy Perry, Bezos’s fiancee Lauren Sanchez, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn and, in a twist straight out of Apple TV’s The Morning Show, CBS Mornings host Gayle King.

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Autopsies of Slain Gaza Medics Show Some Were Shot in the Head – The New York Times

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  1. Autopsies of Slain Gaza Medics Show Some Were Shot in the Head  The New York Times
  2. Report: Autopsies show some Gaza medics killed by IDF in March were shot in the head  The Times of Israel
  3. Autopsies of Gaza medics killed by Israeli troops show some shot in the head  The Seattle Times
  4. Gaza medic missing since deadly attack being detained by Israel, Red Cross says  BBC
  5. ‘Forgive me, Mama’: A Gaza mother’s agony for a son Israel killed  Al Jazeera
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Obama backs Harvard as Yale faculty members support standing up to Trump

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Harvard faces funding freeze as Yale faculty asks leadership ‘to resist and legally challenge any unlawful demands’

Barack Obama has come out in support of Harvard after the Trump administration elected to cut $2bn of its federal grants after the Ivy League school in Massachusetts rejected what it said was an attempt at “government regulation” of the university.

Meanwhile, faculty at Yale University – another prominent Ivy League institution – has asked its leadership “to resist and legally challenge any unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and … self-governance”.

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Attorney general dodges question on Trump proposal to jail US citizens in El Salvador

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Trump proposed that ‘homegrown criminals’ should be deported, an idea that experts say is clearly illegal

The US attorney general declined on Tuesday to say whether Donald Trump’s suggestion of removing US citizens to El Salvador was legal, in alarming remarks about what experts think is an obviously illegal idea.

Trump proposed the idea on Monday in the Oval Office during a visit with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, who has been accepting people deported from the US and imprisoning them in a gigantic facility notorious for human rights abuses.

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UK conference on Sudan fails to set up contact group for ceasefire talks

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Major setback for diplomatic efforts to end two years of civil war as Arab states refuse to sign joint communique

A British-led attempt to establish a contact group to facilitate ceasefire talks in Sudan fell apart on Tuesday when Arab states refused to sign a joint communique after a conference in London.

The daylong argument between Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over the communique represents a big diplomatic setback for efforts to end two years of civil war in Sudan.

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UK trade secretary to visit China with aim of reviving key joint trade commission

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Jonathan Reynold’s trip suggests government will continue its rapprochement with Beijing despite security concerns

The trade secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, will travel to Beijing to revive a key trade dialogue with China despite saying it had been naive to allow Chinese investment in sensitive sectors, the Guardian has learned.

Reynolds is scheduled to travel to China later this year for high-level talks in an effort to boost bilateral trade and investment.

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France expels 12 Algerian officials as row over alleged kidnapping escalates

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Move follows Algiers’ expulsion of diplomats, after France’s arrest of man linked to abduction of influencer Amir DZ

France has expelled 12 Algerian consular and diplomatic officials and recalled its ambassador in Algiers, the French presidency said on Tuesday, in a retaliatory measure as a spat escalates between the two countries.

“The Algerian authorities are responsible for the sudden degradation of our bilateral relations,” President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.

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How Harvard’s pushback against Trump may embolden more US resistance

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It may be a turning point in the White House’s attempt to gut allegedly liberal universities and punish law firms

It might come to be seen as the moment the “woke liberal empire” of Donald Trump’s most fevered imaginings struck back.

Harvard University, the world-renowned institution emblematic of the elitism that Trump and his coterie hold in contempt, received an extortive demand from the administration that it surrender the core of its academic freedoms – and promptly told it to get lost.

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