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BBC News with Sue Montgomery.
President Trump has filed a lawsuit against two journalists from The Wall Street Journal, as well as the paper's owner, Rupert Murdoch. He accuses them of libel and slander for a report on an alleged vulgar birthday letter, one sent by Mr. Trump to his then-friend, the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The president denies writing the letter. The BBC's Arunade Mukherjee has more. I think the story is gonna play out on two levels. One is the legal level and one is the political level. You've seen the murmurs and the indications on the political level already over the past one week and even beyond that, you know, the kind of pressure that Donald Trump and his administration has been under, not just from his political critics or opponents, but also from members of his own party and especially those who are associated with his Make America Great campaign, who've been repeatedly demanding greater transparency when it comes to this issue. But legally, you know, it's also going to be a lengthy process because the attorney general has to make a case in court that these grand jury testimonies or transcripts have to be released in public interest. A Brazilian judge has ordered the former President Jair Bolsonaro to wear a monitoring device and put him under curfew to stop him fleeing the country while on trial. The BBC's Leandro Prazeres is in Brasilia. The main reason behind the court decision was that Mr. Bolsonaro has allegedly engaged in an international campaign to persuade the U.S. government to put pressure on Brazil's Supreme Court. The goal would be to put a halt on the trial that Mr. Bolsonaro is facing here in Brazil, a case that could potentially send him to jail for more than four decades, actually. The Syrian authorities say they'll deploy a dedicated force to end sectarian clashes between Muslim Bedouin tribesmen and members of the Druze religious minority. Tribal fighters have been traveling to the largely Druze city of Suwayda, where fighting has been reported. Jon Donnison reports. Hundreds of people are reported to have been killed since Sunday in clashes between local Bedouin tribesmen and members of the minority Druze community. Local people around Suwayda have described bodies being strewn in the streets, as well as summary executions. The Syrian army's intervention earlier this week alongside the Bedouin saw the number of casualties rise. It also led Israel to intervene, striking Syrian government targets around Damascus. Israel has a large Druze population, including in the occupied Golan Heights, which borders Syria. Doctors in southern Gaza say medical facilities are receiving an unprecedented number of starving Palestinians. The director of the Kuwaiti Field Hospital said patients were arriving with acute malnutrition. Gaza's civil defense agency said nine aid seekers were killed by Israeli gunfire on Friday. BBC News. A group of more than 250 Venezuelan men accused by the United States of gang crimes and deported to El Salvador have been sent home to Venezuela. In exchange, ten Americans held in Venezuela have been released. Here's Will Grant. In total, 252 Venezuelans have been held at the CECOT maximum security prison since they were deported to El Salvador in March. Removed from the United States under a little-used 18th century law, the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, the men always maintained they were not members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, as was claimed by the Trump administration. Now, four months later, the prisoners are on their way back to Caracas. In return, the Venezuelan government has released ten Americans back to U.S. custody. It brings to an end an extremely controversial episode of the Trump administration's harsher immigration enforcement laws. The British government has placed sanctions on a number of Russian military intelligence units and named individuals. It accuses of hybrid operations to destabilize Europe and elsewhere. It's Britain's biggest such move for seven years since the retaliations that followed a failed plot to kill a Russian double agent with the nerve agent Novichok. At least three police officers have been killed in an explosion at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles. The exact cause of the explosion remains unclear. U.S. media report that members of the bomb squad, who are based at the site, were handling explosives when the detonation occurred. The British conductor Roger Norrington has died aged 91. He was a leading advocate of musical authenticity, using period instruments for 18th and 19th century classical music and conducting many pieces at the faster speeds the composers intended. That won him particular praise in works such as Beethoven's symphonies. BBC News. |