First Thing: Senate investigation into Brett Kavanaugh assault claims contained serious omissions

The 2018 investigation into the then supreme court nominee claimed there was ‘no evidence’ behind claims of sexual assault. Plus, the legacy of Jerry Springer

Good morning.

A 2018 Senate investigation that found there was “no evidence” to substantiate any of the claims of sexual assault against US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh contained serious omissions, according to information obtained by the Guardian.

The 28-page report was released by the Republican senator Chuck Grassley, the then chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. It prominently included an unfounded and unverified claim that one of Kavanaugh’s accusers – a fellow Yale graduate named Deborah Ramirez – was “likely” mistaken when she alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dormitory party because another Yale student was allegedly known for such acts.

The suggestion that Kavanaugh was the victim of mistaken identity was sent to the judiciary committee by a Colorado-based attorney named Joseph C Smith Jr, according to a non-redacted copy of a 2018 email obtained by the Guardian. Smith was a friend and former colleague of the judiciary committee’s then lead counsel, Mike Davis.

Smith was also a member of the Federalist Society, which strongly supported Kavanaugh’s supreme court nomination, and appears to have a professional relationship with the Federalist Society’s co-founder Leonard Leo, whom he thanked in the acknowledgments of his book Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State.

What do the omissions mean? The revelations raise questions about apparent efforts to downplay and discredit accusations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh and exclude evidence that supported an alleged victim’s claims.

What else has come to light since the report was written? A new documentary – an early version of which premiered at Sundance in January, but is being updated before its release – contains a never-before-heard recording of another Yale graduate, Max Stier, describing a separate alleged incident in which he said he witnessed Kavanaugh exposing himself at a party at Yale.

Russia launches deadly wave of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities

Russian cruise missiles have killed at least 12 people in the central Ukrainian cities of Uman and Dnipro, days after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy begged Ukraine’s allies for more air defence supplies.

The attacks were part of a wave of Russian missile and drone strikes in the early hours of Friday morning, the most intense bombing to hit the country in weeks.

Footage from Uman, where at least 10 people were killed, showed a building in flames and partially reduced to rubble. One missile hit a building in Dnipro, killing a woman and a child, the city’s mayor said. Most of Russia’s attacks were intercepted, with 21 out of 23 missiles shot down by the Ukrainian military. The missiles that got through were a grim reminder of why the country is so vulnerable when Moscow aims its weapons at civilian targets.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, tweeted: “Missile strikes killing innocent Ukrainians in their sleep, including a two-year-old child, is Russia’s response to all peace initiatives.”

The strikes came as Moscow, and the world, wait for Kyiv to launch a spring counteroffensive against Russian forces. On Thursday, Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg,said that almost all the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine by western allies had been delivered, putting Ukraine in a strong position to recover further ground.

Mike Pence testifies to grand jury about Donald Trump and January 6

Mike Pence testified before a federal grand jury yesterday in Washington about Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to a source familiar with the matter, a day after an appeals court rejected a last-ditch motion to block his appearance.

The former vice-president’s testimony lasted for about seven hours and took place behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors hearing evidence in the case remains uncertain.

His appearance is a moment of constitutional consequence and potential legal peril for the former president. Pence is considered a significant witness in the criminal investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith, since Trump put pressure on him to unlawfully reject electoral college votes for Joe Biden at the joint session of Congress, and was at the White House meeting with Republican lawmakers who discussed objections to Biden’s win.

The two interactions are of particular investigative interest to Smith as his office examines whether Trump sought to unlawfully obstruct the certification and defrauded the United States in seeking to overturn the 2020 election results.

What did Pence say during his testimony? We don’t know but he had privately suggested to advisers that he would provide as complete an account as possible of what took place inside and outside the White House in the weeks leading up to the 6 January Capitol attack, as well as how Trump had been told his plans could violate the law.

In other news …

A Utah district court judge will hear arguments today against a state law that reproductive rights groups say will all but ban abortion in the state when it goes into effect on May 3, despite the fact that abortion is legal in the state until 18 weeks of pregnancy.

Strikes from the air, tanks and artillery shook Sudan’s capital of Khartoum on Friday and a heavy bombardment pounded the adjacent city of Bahri, witnesses said, even though the army and a rival paramilitary force agreed to extend a truce by 72 hours.

The man who stormed on to Michigan State University’s campus and shot three students to death before killing himself bought the ammunition fired during the attack only a few hours earlier, investigators announced yesterday. The murderer had no personal or professional connection to the school.

Kansas enacted what may be the most sweeping transgender bathroom law in the US yesterday after Republican lawmakers overrode the Democratic governor’s veto of the measure. The state’s governor, Laura Kelly, had blocked the bill, suggesting it was discriminatory and would hurt the state’s ability to attract businesses.

Stat of the day: Overdose deaths in San Francisco hit 200 in three months – ‘A crying shame’

Drug-related deaths surged by 41% in San Francisco in the first quarter of this year – with one person dying of an accidental overdose every 10 hours, as the fentanyl crisis continues to ravage the US west coast. In San Francisco, 200 people died of overdoses in the past three months compared with 142 in the same months a year ago, according to reports by the city’s medical examiner. Those living on the streets were particularly hard hit – with twice as many unhoused people dying of overdoses between January and March compared with a year earlier. Fentanyl was detected in most of the deaths. The city’s minority populations were particularly hard hit. A third of the overdose victims were Black, despite Black people making up only 5% of the city’s population. “It’s a crying shame that a city as wealthy as San Francisco can’t get its act together to deal with overdose deaths,” one expert said.

Don’t miss this: Jerry Springer – the man who changed US television for better and worse

I’ll never forget the time I went to a taping of The Jerry Springer Show with two of my closest high school pals, writes Andrew Lawrence. This was back in the 1990s, when Chicago was the center of the talkshow universe and Springer and Oprah were the hottest tickets in town. My parents, bless, wouldn’t have batted an eye if I said I was going to see the queen of daytime. But the king of sleaze? Up to now they wonder how I ever got their permission. Somewhere in my childhood bedroom, the ticket is sitting in a drawer with the actual episode title – not that the show headings stopped TV Guide from calling it “the worst show in the history of television”. Despite producers’ yeoman efforts to class up the spectacle for censors, it was the same show every day: somebody cheated, somebody didn’t know and we’re all about to find out. This one was no different – and still some of the most fun I’ve ever had.

Climate check: ‘Endless record heat’ in Asia as highest April temperatures recorded

Asia is experiencing weeks of “endless record heat”, with sweltering temperatures causing school closures and surges in energy use. Record April temperatures have been recorded at monitoring stations across Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, as well as in China and South Asia. On Tuesday, four weather stations in Myanmar hit or matched record monthly temperatures, with Theinzayet, in eastern Mon state, reaching the highest, at 43C (109.4F). On Wednesday, Bago, north-east of Yangon, reached 42.2C, matching an all-time record previously recorded in May 2020 and April 2019, according to Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian. There had been “endless record heat in south-east Asia, with weeks of records falling every day,” said Herrera.

Last Thing: British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

Only three in 10 Britons think the monarchy is “very important”, the lowest proportion on record, a poll shows as the king’s coronation approaches. A survey by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) shows public support for the monarchy has fallen to a historic low. A total of 45% of respondents said either it should be abolished, was not at all important or not very important. In 2022, the year of the late queen’s platinum jubilee, 35% of respondents gave one of the same three answers. Overall, answers in 2023 displayed a drop in support for the monarchy to roughly the levels last seen in 2021. This reflects a long-term trend of declining support for the monarchy, with the new research showing the number of those answering “very important” at the lowest level since data collection began in 1983.

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