First Thing: turning point for Trump as business and CFO indicted

The Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg have reportedly been charged in a tax investigation. Plus, Britney Spears was denied her conservatorship request

Good morning.

The Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, have reportedly been charged in a tax-related investigation following a three-year investigation into Donald Trump’s company.

The reported indictment, by a grand jury in Manhattan, is expected to be unsealed on Thursday afternoon after a court appearance by Weisselberg and lawyers for the Trump Organization, according to the New York Times. It is expected to involve alleged tax violations in relation to benefits the company gave to top executives.

Although no charges are expected to be brought against Trump, it marks a significant turning point for the former president and a severe blow to his family business.

Could there be more charges? New York prosecutors are still investigating allegations of “hush money” paid to women who say they had sexual relations with Trump and real-estate price manipulation claims, writes Dominic Rushe.

The charges could block Trump’s apparent political ambitions. He recently started a series of campaign-style rallies and appears to be preparing for another presidential run in 2024.

Prosecutors have been pressing Weisselberg, 73, to cooperate with the investigation but have not had much success so far. Jennifer Weisselberg, the ex-wife of Allen Weisselberg’s son Barry, told the New York Times Trump and Weisselberg “are like Batman and Robin”.

Britney Spears’ request to remove her father from her conservatorship has been denied by a judge

A court filing has revealed that a judge has denied Britney Spears’ request to remove her father Jamie from overseeing her conservatorship.

It comes a week after Britney Spears delivered dramatic testimony in a Los Angeles court in which she called the conservatorship “abusive”.

In court filings Spears requested that a private wealth management firm, the Bessemer Trust, be appointed as “sole conservator” of her estate.

But documents show that Judge Brenda Penny refused her request, instead appointing the trust as co-conservator.

Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction has been overturned by a court in Pennsylvania

Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction has been overturned by a Pennsylvania court after serving two years of his prison sentence.

The actor had vowed to serve all 10 years of a three- to 10-year sentence rather than acknowledge any remorse. But his conviction was overturned on Wednesday after Pennsylvania’s highest court found an agreement with a previous prosecutor preventing him from being charged.

He was subsequently released and returned to his home.

His release has been widely condemned, drawing shock and anger. E Jean Carroll, the advice columnist who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault, tweeted:

THIS is why women do not come forward.https://t.co/6WXe4UmWXt

Bill Cosby’s release is exactly why rape survivors don’t come forward, writes Moira Donegan.

Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defense secretary, has died aged 88

Donald Rumsfeld, who was US defense secretary twice and a key architect of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has died aged 88.

The Republican, who served under the presidents Gerald Ford and George W Bush, died in Taos, New Mexico, surrounded by his family, they said on Wednesday.

Bush led tributes to Rumsfeld, whom he described as “a man of intelligence, integrity, and almost inexhaustible energy”.

Rumsfeld took the US military into the Iraq war with a business approach to planning that had disastrous consequences, writes Harold Jackson in the former defense secretary’s obituary.

History is unlikely to forgive his Iraq warmongering, writes Julian Borger, the Guardian’s world affairs editor.

In other news…

A First Nations community in western Canada has discovered the remains of nearly 200 people at a former residential school – the third such discovery in weeks. The Lower Kootenay Band said a radar had revealed 182 human remains at St Eugene’s Mission residential school, near Cranbrook in British Columbia. It comes amid calls to cancel this year’s Canada Day, usually celebrated on 1 July.

The Smallville actor Allison Mack has been sentenced to three years in prison on charges she manipulated women into becoming sexual “slaves” for the cult-like group Nxivm’s spiritual leader. She had previously pleaded guilty to the charges. At her sentencing in Brooklyn federal court she renounced Nxivm’s leader, Keith Raniere.

A non-fungible token (NFT) of the original source code for the world wide web written by Tim Berners-Lee has sold for $5.4m at auction. The NFT, sold in an online auction at Sotheby’s, was created by the British scientist, invented the world wide web in 1989, this year.

Nancy Pelosi has indicated that she will take a hard line if Republicans try to block the House speaker’s recently announced select committee into the 6 January attack on the Capitol. The committee, passed in the House on Wednesday largely along party lines, will have eight members appointed by Democrats and four by Republicans and broad subpoena power.

Stat of the day: 97% of Klamath Basin salmon from a sample captured in early May were infected with the C shasta, a parasite that kills salmon en masse

Meanwhile, 70% of the salmon found in traps by the Yurok tribe in the first two weeks of May were dead. Salmon in the Klamath Basin, on the border between California and Oregon, contend with poor water quality, slow-moving water and high water temperatures, write Jeremy Deaton and Briana Flin.

Don’t miss this: Is the age of casual hugging over?

To many, the hug used to be a ubiquitous feature of day-to-day life. But since the pandemic, etiquette around embracing others has changed, writes the enthusiastic hugger Adrienne Matei, who plans to return to hugging when it’s safe to do so but plans to ask for permission first. “Rather than barrel into embraces, I’ll first be asking if it’s OK. Boundary-setting is only awkward if we make it awkward.”

Last Thing: Scientists have found the cure for a bad night’s sleep

After a bad night’s sleep, strenuous exercise is unlikely to be top of the to-do list. But an 11-year study of 380,055 people, published by the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that exercising (150 minutes of brisk walking or 75 minutes of running a week) can counteract the negative effects of poor sleep, which can shorten lives. “Poor sleep has been linked with metabolic effects such as disturbed glucose control,” said Prof Mark Hamer, one of the authors of the study. “We know physical activity has favourable effects on many metabolic pathways.”

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