On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee released 2,500 pages of interview transcripts and documents about the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting between top Trump campaign officials and Russians promising "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. Not all of the witnesses were super helpful — Donald Trump Jr. said "I don't know" at least 72 times, "I don't recall" or "can't recall" 67 times, and "I don't/can't remember" 25 times. But Rob Goldstone, the British producer who helped set up the meeting, was quite loquacious.
Goldstone acted as an intermediary between the Trumps, his client Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, and Agalarov's father, billionaire developer Aras Agalarov, who worked with Trump to stage the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013. Goldstone's testimony, say Michael Isikoff and Dylan Stableford at Yahoo News, shows "that the relationship between Trump and Agalarov was far cozier than previously known, helping to explain why top Trump campaign aides jumped at the chance to meet — at Agalarov's request — with the visiting Russians" on June 9.
By all accounts, that meeting was a bust. But the day after the meeting, Goldstone emailed Trump's secretary, Rhona Graff, with a "delivery question": "Emin and Aras have a fairly sizable birthday gift for Mr. Trump and I would like to know exactly how and where we should deliver it on Tuesday." The gift, Goldstone later explained, was a large painting.
But Aras Agalarov was unable to give Trump what he really craved: a meeting with Russia President Vladimir Putin, Goldstone said. Paula Shugart, president of Miss Universe, saw the problem as soon as Agalarov and Trump settled on Moscow for the 2013 pageant. "Oh God, he's going to want to meet Putin," Goldstone recalls Shugart saying. Trump was so insistent on meeting Putin that it became what Goldstone called "the gorilla in the room" during the Moscow trip. You can read more about that missed connection, and Trump's consolation prize, at The Washington Post or in Goldstone's transcript. Peter Weber
Since Wednesday, thousands of demonstrators have filled the streets of Budapest at night, protesting against Viktor Orban, the country's right-wing nationalist prime minister, and new laws ushered in by his Fidesz party.
Sunday's protest was the largest, with at least 10,000 people gathering to walk from Heroes' Square to parliament. During the spring election, Fidesz received 49 percent of the popular vote, but the party changed the rules so its lawmakers control two-thirds of the parliament. On Wednesday, Fidesz lawmakers approved a measure that critics have dubbed the "slave law," which lets employers ask staffers to work up to 400 hours in overtime every year. Under the law, the payments could be postponed for up to three years.
Even Orban's own supporters don't agree with the law, with a new Republikon Institute poll showing that 63 percent disapprove. The protests are being organized by unions, students, and opposition parties. In addition to the law being changed, these demonstrators are calling for a free press and an independent judiciary. The protesters have been peaceful, Reuters reports, but police officers still fired tear gas into the crowd on Sunday night. Catherine Garcia
Janet Fein celebrated her retirement at age 77 by going back to college.
In 2012, Fein retired from her job as a secretary at an orthopedic hospital in Dallas, and immediately enrolled in classes at the University of Texas at Dallas. "I didn't have anything to do in retirement and I didn't think that playing bingo was up to my speed," she told The Associated Press. Fein, now 84, loved writing papers and doing homework, and didn't let anything get in her way — she kept up with everything even as she moved into an assisted living facility and had to start using a walker and oxygen tank.
This week, Fein will receive her bachelor's degree in sociology. Through a state program, Texans 65 and older can take up to six credits per semester at a public university for free, and last year, about 2,000 people participated, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board said. Fein believes in the importance of learning — after raising her five kids, she took classes for 20 years and received her associate's degree in 1995 — and has inspired one of her caregivers, Renee Brown, to go back to school at 53 to become a licensed vocational nurse. "She said, 'Renee, you can do it. If I can do it you can do it and you will feel so good about it,'" Brown told AP. Catherine Garcia
Colin Kroll, the co-founder of Vine and HQ Trivia, was found dead Sunday inside his New York City apartment. He was 34.
Kroll was discovered by police officers after his girlfriend called and asked for a wellness check, CNN reports. The cause of death has not yet been determined.
HQ Trivia, a trivia game app, was launched in 2017. Kroll became CEO of HQ Trivia's parent company, Intermedia Labs, earlier this year after his business partner Rus Yusupov was forced out, Recode reports. Recently, Kroll was accused by an HQ Trivia employee of "inappropriate and unprofessional behavior;" the matter was investigated and "yielded no concerns," the company told Recode. Catherine Garcia
A new report prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee, the first to study millions of posts from the 2016 presidential campaign provided by Facebook, Twitter, and Google, says that Russians working at the Internet Research Agency posted on every major social media platform photos, videos, and messages to help get President Trump elected, and continued the effort to support him once in office, The Washington Post reports.
The Post obtained a draft of the report, compiled by Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project. Researchers found that at certain points, like during presidential debates, disinformation campaigns ramped up, with different groups receiving targeted messages: for example, conservatives saw posts about gun rights, while black voters saw false information about how to vote.
"What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party — and specifically Donald Trump," the report says. "Trump is mentioned most in campaigns targeting conservatives and right-wing voters, where the messaging encouraged those groups to support his campaign. The main groups that could challenge Trump were then provided messaging that sought to confuse, distract, and ultimately discourage members from voting."
The tech companies were all extremely slow to realize what was going on, the report says, even though the Russians slipped up several times, like paying for ads with rubles. Social media, the report states, went from a "natural infrastructure for sharing collective grievances and coordinating civic engagement to being a computational tool for social control, manipulated by canny political consultants and available to politicians in democracies and dictatorships alike." Read more about the report at The Washington Post. Catherine Garcia
More than 40 people, including several children, were injured on Sunday evening when an explosion destroyed a restaurant in Sapporo, Japan.
The blast caused a fire to break out in the restaurant, and shattered the windows in a nearby apartment building. Debris also fell on several cars parked on the street.
Police said the cause of the explosion, which took place in the Hiragishi district, is under investigation. One witness told NHK he smelled gas after hearing the explosion. Catherine Garcia
