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| | | | | First Thing: Chief 9/11 plotter pleads guilty in Guantánamo Bay deal | | | In exchange for removing the death penalty as a possible punishment, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other accused pled guilty. Plus, extreme heat at the Olympics | | | | The US flag flies at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters | | Jem Bartholomew | | | Good morning. Three men accused of being involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack have agreed to plea deals at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prosecutors said. “In exchange for the removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet,” according to letters from the federal government received by relatives of 9/11 victims, first reported by the New York Times. The agreement comes more than 16 years after their prosecution for the attack began, and nearly 23 years after al-Qaida militants commandeered four commercial airliners to use as fuel-filled missiles, flying them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon. Who are the three? Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (widely seen as the lead plotter), Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash’, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi. Two of the men were tortured by their US interrogators, including subjecting Mohammed to a record 183 rounds of waterboarding. How long have they been detained by the US? Since 2003. Over the years, the case had become bogged down in lengthy pre-trial proceedings. Defense lawyers argued evidence obtained by torture rendered it unusable in legal proceedings. UAW union endorses Harris for president while Trump sparks fury by accusing her of ‘turn[ing] Black’ | | | | | Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, speaks at an event in Baltimore, Maryland, on 12 July 2024. Photograph: Dominic Gwinn/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock | | | | The 370,000-member United Auto Workers (UAW) union endorsed Kamala Harris for president on Wednesday, boosting the vice-president in the swing state of Michigan as her recently launched campaign ramps up. The UAW president, Shawn Fain, praised her record “of delivering for the working class” and said she “will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us in our war on corporate greed”. Meanwhile, Donald Trump sparked fury by accusing Harris of “turn[ing] Black”. Trump antagonized attenders at a National Association of Black Journalists event, questioning Harris’s race by saying: “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black.” Harris responded by saying it was “the same old show” and that “America deserves better”. | | | | | | | | Which way are unions lining up? Other prominent unions have switched their endorsements from Biden to Harris, but some have been slower to do so. The Teamsters, which represents 1.3 million workers in several industries, including packing and shipping, has not made an endorsement. How are Harris and Trump polling? Harris is averaging 46% compared with Trump’s 48%, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll. Two Al Jazeera reporters killed in Israeli airstrike on car in northern Gaza | | | | | Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi, who were killed in the Israeli blast, had been reporting together at the al-Shati refugee camp. Photograph: Handout | | | | Two Al Jazeera reporters were killed by an Israeli strike in northern Gaza, the satellite news network said, the latest Palestinian journalists working with the Qatari network to be killed. A 27-year-old correspondent named Ismail al-Ghoul, a cameraman named Rami al-Rifi, and a child who was not identified were killed in a blast that struck the car in which the three were traveling in Gaza City, according to the network and the emergency and ambulance service. The UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric called for a full investigation and accountability for the killings of the Al Jazeera journalists. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate and Hamas both accused Israel of assassinating the two journalists. Meanwhile, the Israeli military said on Thursday that the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza last month. It was confirmed a day after the group’s political leader was assassinated in Teheran. How many reporters have been killed in Israeli attacks? The latest deaths bring the number of journalists killed in Gaza since last October to 111, including 106 Palestinians, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Why do press freedom organizations believe the IDF has deliberately sought to silence critical reporting? An investigation by the Guardian suggests that, amid a loosening of the Israel Defense Force’s interpretation of the laws of war after the deadly Hamas-led attacks on 7 October, some within the IDF appear to have viewed journalists working in Gaza for outlets controlled by or affiliated with Hamas to be legitimate military targets. In other news … | | | | | | | | More than 100 people were arrested in London as further far-right protests took place in several cities after the stabbings of children in Southport. A 17-year-old boy has been charged with murder and attempted murder. Ukraine has received its first F-16 fighter jets from western allies, with the aim of neutralizing Russian air power. A court in Guinea found the former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara and seven other military commanders guilty of crimes against humanity, in a verdict relating to a massacre and mass rape in 2009. Stat of the day: Delta faces $500m in costs from CrowdStrike global tech outage | | | | | Delta employees look through bags awaiting reunification with their owners in the Delta Air Lines baggage claim area Los Angeles International Airport. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images | | | | Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines, says the airline is facing $500m in costs related to a global tech outage that disrupted emergency services, communications and thousands of businesses. Among airlines, Delta was by far the hardest hit by the outage, having to cancel thousands of flights, because key systems were crippled by the incident. Don’t miss this: How a loyal RSS member abandoned Hindu nationalism | | | | | A Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) camp near Pune, India. Photograph: Rafiq Maqbool/AP | | | | As a young man, Partha Banerjee was on course to become a senior member of the RSS, the organisation that has pushed Indian politics towards extreme religious nationalism. Then, after 40 years within its ranks, he quit. Why? Rahul Bhatia investigates for the long read. Climate check: Extreme ‘heat dome’ at Olympics would be ‘impossible’ without global heating | | | | | People line up to use a misting fountain on a hot afternoon in Paris, France. Photograph: Frank Franklin II/AP | | | | The “heat dome” causing scorching temperatures across western Europe and north Africa, including at the Olympics in Paris, would have been impossible without human-caused global heating, a rapid analysis has found. Scientists said the fossil-fuelled climate crisis had made temperatures 2.5C to 3.3C hotter. Continued emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide will make them even more frequent, the researchers warned. Last Thing: ‘One of the most disgusting meals I’ve ever eaten’ – testing AI recipes | | | | | Ralph Jones samples the ‘miraculous’ Sri Lankan ‘currywurst curry’. Photograph: Ralph Jones/The Guardian | | | | In the past couple of years, something disconcerting has been happening in the cookbook marketplace: entire books are springing up that have been written by AI. You can find gibberish AI recipes on YouTube as well; one channel, SuperRecipess, has 1.19 million subscribers. Ralph Jones tries them out. “The Japanese hotpot … is one of the most disgusting meals I have ever eaten,” he says. Sign up | | | | | | First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now. Get in touch If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com | |
| | | Betsy Reed | | Editor, Guardian US |
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