Flagship

Trump uses court case for campaign

Former U.S. President Donald Trump paid a surprise visit to a famed Miami restaurant after pleading “not guilty” in a federal case over his mishandling of government documents, effectively turning a legal debacle into a campaign event. As Semafor’s Shelby Talcott and Benjy Sarlin noted, footage of supporters singing “Happy Birthday” — Trump turns 77 today — offered a preview of the months to come: His campaign and legal defense “are essentially one and the same.” At the restaurant, Trump promised retaliation and described the special counsel bringing the case as a “raging lunatic.” President Joe Biden, meanwhile, reportedly ordered top aides, the national Democratic Party, and his reelection campaign to remain silent over the case.

Worries over nickel supplies

Analysts are worried about the long-term supply of nickel, which is increasingly crucial for the production of electric-vehicle batteries. For now, the mineral is in surplus as slowing economic growth has contributed to reduced demand for its main use — stainless steel. Meanwhile countries such as Indonesia, which have huge stores of nickel, have increased their smelting capacity. But as EVs proliferate, the necessary nickel supplies are in harder-to-mine places, either deep underground or below rainforest, making mining it and turning it into a usable substance environmentally unfriendly. Among EV companies, the issue is known as “the nickel pickle.”

Putin admits shortcomings

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare admission of military shortcomings, acknowledging that his forces lacked sufficient hardware to win his war in Ukraine. Speaking with so-called milbloggers, he said Russia needed more precision-guided weapons, drones, modern tanks, and anti-tank weapons. His remarks came as Kyiv pressed its counteroffensive, which analysts said had so far made limited progress in its initial week. Underscoring the costs of the war for the Kremlin, Russian officials announced a windfall tax on big companies in the hope of bridging a budget shortfall driven by increased defense expenditure and heavy restrictions on the sale of Russian oil and gas.

Conference spotlights Russia’s isolation

The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum — a once high-profile annual conference — now exhibits Russia’s growing isolation. Though Russian President Vladimir Putin will address the event, which opens today, the Western business leaders who used to attend are almost entirely absent, as are top-tier political leaders. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has angered Western leaders by blaming Ukraine in part for the war, declined an invitation. The most senior European official to attend will be Hungary’s foreign minister. “Organizers usually call SPIEF the ‘Russian Davos’,” The Bell, a Russian economics-focused outlet, noted. This year’s event, by contrast, is a “21st century Potemkin village.”

Europe faces China questions

Leaders from Taipei and Beijing are touring European capitals in the coming days, putting the region’s China policies in the spotlight. Taiwan’s foreign minister will take part in a conference in Prague that the Czech Republic’s president will also attend. It marks an unusual step as national leaders usually avoid public events with Taiwanese officials for fear of angering Chinese authorities: Beijing promptly accused European leaders hosting the Taiwanese minister of providing “stages for separatist activities.” The visit comes ahead of the Chinese premier’s tour of France and Germany this month. In a sign of growing tensions between Europe and China, Berlin is considering downgrading a summit it is holding with Beijing, according to Politico.

Iran, China, Russia push Latam ties

Iran and Venezuela want to increase trade more than sixfold, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said during a visit to Caracas, the latest sign of U.S. rivals aiming for a stronger foothold in Latin America. The region’s openness to China, in particular, has caused alarm in Washington: This week, Honduras’ president opened the country’s new embassy in Beijing, shortly after cutting ties with Taiwan, while China has built up its spying capabilities in Cuba in recent years. Last month, Moscow and Havana signed several agreements to increase trade between the two nations.

Japan fights demographic decline

Japan unveiled measures aimed at curbing the country’s plummeting population, offering incentives to families to have children while making it easier for immigrants to move there. Tokyo pledged to double childcare spending, make working arrangements more flexible, and increase payouts to households with multiple children, while also loosening skilled-migrant regulations. It’s unclear if the efforts will be successful. Countries worldwide have sought to boost sluggish birth rates with financial incentives, to no avail. And while immigration reform is one often-touted alternative, Japan faces stiff competition for migrants put off by the country’s rigid corporate culture and sluggish wage growth. “It’s not a problem of the hardware, like visa permits,” one economist told Nikkei. “It’s more about the software.”

Nigeria boat disaster kills more than 100

More than 100 people died after a boat capsized in western Nigeria. Passengers were returning from a wedding when the overloaded vessel overturned on the Niger River at around 3 a.m. local time. More than 160 people died in a 2021 accident on the same river, pointing to deeper infrastructure failures in Nigeria: The boats are used because Nigerians avoid poorly-maintained roads, particularly during the rainy season, but waterway safety regulations are lax and enforcement of laws — such as a ban on nighttime sailing — is poor. This is a situation “that is avoidable,” the head of Nigeria’s Inland Waterways Authorities told Punch, a Nigerian daily.

Soccer considers salary cap

The English Premier League is considering a de facto salary cap as part of wide-ranging efforts to maintain competitive balance. Teams are debating measures this week, and are “seriously considering” an anchoring system whereby spending limits would be a factor of the Premier League’s lowest-ranked club’s revenues, The Times of London reported. Unlike U.S. professional sports, European soccer is starkly divided between haves and have-nots, with elite clubs getting additional revenue by virtue of qualifying for upper-tier competitions while struggling teams are relegated to lower-level ones. This divide is likely to widen as new high-profile tournaments are being added to the calendar, giving already wealthy clubs opportunities for more gate and broadcast revenue.

Cormac McCarthy dies

Cormac McCarthy, a giant of American literature, died aged 89. His grim and dark novels won an array of awards, garnering critical as well as commercial acclaim. McCarthy’s early work — “bleak fables … related in tangled prose,” as The New York Times put it — received positive reviews but had comparatively few sales. He began drawing vast audiences after winning a National Book Award for All the Pretty Horses in 1992. His most famous novel, The Road, combines a brutal, dystopian setting with a tender father-son relationship. Throughout, McCarthy took a dim view of humanity, and of those who didn’t confront its darker sides. Good writers, he once said, “deal with issues of life and death.”

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• The U.K.’s COVID-19 inquiry starts to hear evidence for its first investigation.
• Lebanon’s parliament is set to convene to elect a new president.
• Our Planet II, a new series narrated by David Attenborough, drops on Netflix.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war in Sudan, and other ongoing conflicts and climate-related food crises have pushed the number of forcibly displaced people to a record 110 million, the U.N. refugee agency said. The number of displaced people increased by 19 million from 2021, the largest year-to-year jump since the U.N. began tracking the figures. More than half come from just three countries: Syria, Ukraine, and Afghanistan.

A new exhibition showcasing the work of contemporary Latin American artists uses the past to explore the present. Through paintings, sculptures, photographs, and videos, 40 creators examine colonialism and cultural heritage in Chosen Memories, showing at New York’s Museum of Modern Art until mid-September. Curator Inés Katzenstein told ARTnews the artworks “look retrospectively at the histories of colonialism, at traditions and kinships as ways to connect across times, in order to repair, and to change the present tense.”

• Kenya’s tea pickers are destroying the machines replacing them, Martin K.N Siele reported.
• Ukraine launched its long-awaited counteroffensive to regain territory. An expert who believes it just might work talked to Jay Solomon.
• Ron DeSantis’ supporters are complaining that a growing GOP field complicates his path to the White House, Shelby Talcott reported.