Good morning.
Mikhail Gorbachev has been hailed as “one of the greatest figures of the 20th century” in a flood of tributes from across the world after his death, aged 91, on Tuesday.
Universally credited with ending the cold war, Gorbachev won the Nobel peace prize in 1990. Recent reports suggested he had a kidney ailment.
President Joe Biden led the tributes nby saying the former Soviet leader was a man of “remarkable vision”, who risked his career to achieve the “different future” that he had the imagination to see was possible.
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said Gorbachev was a “one-of-a kind statesman who changed the course of history”.
One of the great pragmatists of modern Russian history. “Compared with the crony capitalism and chaotic collapse of public services that marked the first years of post-communism in Russia, his goals seem admirable,” writes Jonathan Steele in the Guardian’s obituary.
FBI searched Trump home over ‘likely’ efforts to hide classified files
The justice department has said in a court filing that Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was searched by the FBI after it established there was probably an effort to conceal classified documents in defiance of a subpoena and despite his lawyers suggesting otherwise.
“Efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the justice department alleged in the 36-page filing, which said FBI agents recovered three classified documents from desks inside Trump’s office and additional classified files from a storage room.
In June, a lawyer for the former president gave the government a single Redweld legal envelope, double-taped, that contained documents removed from the White House and said there were no other records elsewhere at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump’s former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway does not think Republicans should move on from him: “Anytime Democrats tell you which Republican should be your nominee, run in the other direction.”
UN expert warns US to protect LGBTQ+ civil rights
Some US state governments are steadily undermining and eliminating lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse people’s civil rights, a United Nations expert has said.
Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the organization’s independent expert on protection against gender- and sexual orientation-based violence and discrimination, urged the Biden White House to strengthen protective measures for LGBTQ+ communities.
Could the right to same-sex marriage be overturned? That’s what the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas suggested recently as he called on the highest court to reconsider the matter, after the elimination of nationwide abortion rights
Jackson, Mississippi, pumps fails, leaving residents without drinking water
Pumps at the main water treatment plant have failed in the Mississippi capital, Jackson, and residents will be without reliable drinking water indefinitely, according to officials.
The emergency distribution of bottled water and tanker trucks for 180,000 people is under way after the flooding of the Pearl River. The Mississippi governor, Tate Reeves, said the city-run water treatment plant had been poorly operated and understaffed for years.
Inhabitants of Jackson, which is more than 80% Black or African American, have been urged not to drink tap water. “In too many cases, it is raw water from the reservoir being pushed through the pipes,” Reeves said.
In other news …
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro faces detailed allegations that between 1990 and 2022 his clan used cash to pay for more than 50 properties worth millions of dollars in a method often employed as a means of laundering illegally obtained resources.
Australia’s net foreign migration will not fully recover for two years as the country faces an overall loss of more than 600,000 people owing largely to its response to the pandemic, a thinktank has warned while urging the government to raise migration and clear visa backlogs.
Motorists in Malawi are having to rely on fuel smuggled in from neighbouring Mozambique as pumps across the country run dry. The country is grappling with a shortage of foreign exchange currency, leaving the government struggling to pay for petrol imports.
An unmanned US sea drone was released by an Iranian warship attempting to tow it away in the Gulf after it was approach by a US navy warship and helicopter, according to officials.
Stat of the day: 1 million animals have died in Pakistan floods
The prime minister of Pakistan has detailed the latest toll from devastating climate crisis-linked flooding in his country as the government criticised the west for its use of fossil fuels. “More than 1m houses are damaged or destroyed,” said Shehbaz Sharif. “Seventy-two districts of Pakistan are in calamity and all four corners of Pakistan are underwater and more than 3,500km [2,175 miles] of roads have been washed away. Around 1 million animals have died.”
Don’t miss this: ‘People are tired of being ignored while the rich get richer,’ says Bernie Sanders
As he backs a new campaign in Britain launched to fight the country’s escalating cost of living crisis, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders speaks to Owen Jones before an appearance at a London rally today. “People are sick and tired of often working longer hours for low wages; sick and tired of their kids having a lower standard of living than them; and they’re sick and tired of billionaires getting richer and richer while they fall behind,” he says.
“Why, with all this new tech out there, are they not seeing an improved standard of living? Why not more equality, rather than less equality? Why are living standards deteriorating, not improving?”
Climate check: climate crisis forces China to ration electricity
Power restrictions are being imposed across China, including in the financial centre Shanghai, as the country grapples with shortages caused by serious droughts that have caused water levels in some rivers to drop to historical lows. This has caused hydropower plants to only producing half the energy they were generating this time last year.
“We barely made it through the Covid restrictions earlier this year and now we’re being hit by a power shortage,” said a restaurant owner in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, which has been rationing power. “We’ve been eagerly looking forward to July and August, which are usually the high season for us, but it all seems to be just a pipe dream now.”
Last Thing: one man’s fight against Singapore’s gay sex law
Tan Eng Hong, who was arrested under a Singaporean law banning gay male sex and went on to challenge its constitutionality over the last 12 years, reflects on a landmark moment for gay rights after the measure was scheduled to be repealed last month. “I thought I would die before I could hear this,” he says. “It doesn’t only affect me, it affects the whole community.”
He took his case to some of the highest courts in the country after filing a lawsuit. His case eventually led to a ruling by the court of appeal that a person has legal standing to challenge legislation for being in violation of their constitutional rights in a verdict that commentators said “opened the doors to all the subsequent challenges”. After the repealing of the law, Hong said “more people will accept and learn to accept LGBTQ people as they are”.
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