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New Trump indictment, chance Israeli rescue and celebrity Ponzi conviction

 
Today's NATIONAL story

Trump hit with revised charges, cemetery complaint

What happened
Special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday filed a revised indictment that a new grand jury handed down accusing Donald Trump of plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss. The superseding indictment "reflects the government's efforts to respect and implement" the Supreme Court's ruling in July that granted Trump broad immunity for official acts as president, Smith's office said. Separately, Arlington National Cemetery confirmed that an "incident" had taken place during Trump's visit on Monday, and "a report was filed."

Who said what
Smith "isn't acting too rattled" by the Supreme Court's immunity decision, David Graham said at The Atlantic. His new indictment is a "little more concise and changes some language, but it keeps the same four felony charges and most of the same evidence" while removing all references to Trump's "attempt to involve the Justice Department in his subversion" and excising his conversations with federal officials.

The Arlington "incident" involved a "verbal and physical altercation" between two Trump campaign staffers and a cemetery official who tried to stop them from "filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried," NPR said. Without addressing specifics, Arlington said "all participants" had been advised beforehand that "federal law prohibits political campaigns or election-related activities" inside the cemetery, including photographers supporting a "partisan political candidate's campaign." Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said "there was no physical altercation as described" but an "individual clearly suffering from a mental health episode decided to physically block" Trump's team.

What next?
Smith's team and Trump's lawyers have until Friday to "propose next steps to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan" before a Sept. 5 hearing, Politico said. Even if Chutkan agrees that Smith's revisions pass muster, "any decision she makes will likely be subject to appeal," The Atlantic's Graham said, so the fate of this case, too, rests with the outcome of the presidential election. 

 
 
Today's international story

Israel rescues unguarded hostage in Gaza tunnel

What happened
Israeli naval commandos exploring Hamas' tunnel network under Gaza on Tuesday found and rescued one of the Israelis taken hostage in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a 52-year-old Bedouin Arab, was discovered alone and without Hamas guards, Israeli officials said.

Who said what
"Suddenly, I heard someone speaking Hebrew outside the door, I couldn't believe it," Alkadi told Israeli President Issac Herzog from the hospital. "Work 24 hours, don't sleep until" the other hostages are home. Israel says just over 100 hostages remain in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead. Alkadi is the eighth one rescued alive. Israel accidentally killed three hostages in December, mistaking them for Hamas militants.

Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari described Alkadi's rescue as part of a "complex and brave" operation, based on "precise intelligence." But two senior Israeli officials told The New York Times that commandos searching the tunnel were surprised to stumble upon Alkadi. They initially thought he was a "terrorist or somebody else," Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, a former deputy commander of Israel's Gaza division, told The Washington Post. "Luckily they didn't shoot him."

What next?
Israeli security officials and hostage families "say a cease-fire deal is needed to free most of those who are still being held and that time is running out," The Wall Street Journal said. 

 
 
Today's LEGAL Story

Celebrity lawyer Tom Girardi convicted of fraud

What happened
High-profile former attorney Tom Girardi was found guilty Tuesday on four counts of wire fraud tied to a decade-long Ponzi scheme in which he stole tens of millions of dollars from his clients' settlement payments. Girardi, 85, was part of the legal team depicted in the 2000 film "Erin Brockovich," and his lavish lifestyle with now-estranged wife Erika Jayne was featured prominently on Bravo's "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills." He was disbarred in 2022.

Who said what
Girardi "built celebrity status and lured in victims by falsely portraying himself as a 'Champion of Justice,'" U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said. "In reality, he was a Robin Hood–in-reverse." During the trial, prosecutors "elicited emotional testimony" from a number of Girardi's former clients, the Los Angeles Times said, "including a burn victim and a widow whose husband died in a boating accident." Girardi's attorneys tried to shift blame to his firm's longtime chief financial officer, Chris Kamon.

Girardi was also accused of having "diverted more than $25 million" from his firm to pay expenses associated with Jayne's entertainment career, NBC News said, even as his legal troubles became "a central storyline for her in recent seasons" of the popular reality series.

What next?
Girardi faces up to 80 years in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 6. He is also set to stand trial next year in Chicago for allegedly stealing $3 million from families of victims of a 2018 passenger jet crash.

 
 

It's not all bad

Humpback whales make and use tools to hunt in a "wholly unique" approach that allows them to "capture up to seven times more prey in a single feeding dive without using extra energy," The Independent said. Researchers already knew humpbacks used "bubble nets" to hunt, but a new study of whales near Alaska found they "actively control details" like the "depth of the net and spacing between bubbles." This "behavioral flexibility and ingenuity" serves whales well, study co-author Andy Szabo said.

 
 
Under the radar

Compared with the number of hospital births in the United States, home births are still relatively low. Still, over the past seven years the rate of planned home births has increased by 60% to nearly 2% of all births. There were 46,918 U.S. home births recorded in 2023, the highest number in three decades and up from 29,592 in 2016, according to a recent analysis published in the Journal of Perinatal Medicine. 

The analysts found that much of the rise "stems from women's desire to take back control over their births," said National Geographic. Other women want to avoid unnecessary medical interventions or a Cesarean section, the Journal of Perinatal Medicine review said. For Black women in particular, a home birth could be a welcome alternative in a country where they are three times more likely to die during childbirth than white women.

Saving money is not a top reason. On average, home births can cost about $4,650, according to one study, but the price varies and can be much higher. Some insurers cover some of the costs of home birth, but many do not have midwives in their network. 

Having a home birth was "fun, slightly chaotic, euphoric and tough," new mother Asia Dessert told National Geographic. She was able to finance her $7,000 home birth with the help of a nonprofit called The Victoria Project. And while she hopes to inspire her friends to follow suit, "home birth is inaccessible to most people I know because of the money."

 
 
On this day

August 28, 1955

Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago, was lynched in Mississippi after being accused of wolf-whistling at a white woman. Till's death and the image of his mutilated corpse became a major catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. In 2022, Congress passed the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act, making lynching a federal hate crime punishable by 30 years in prison.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

As Donald Trump "faces new indictment," Kamala Harris' "tax cuts, increases take shape," The Wall Street Journal says on Wednesday's front page. On the campaign trail, "Harris praised for visiting Georgia beyond Atlanta," while "Trump promises to limit federal scrutiny of police," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says. Recent election results may "signal the end of Moms for Liberty," the Tampa Bay Times says, as Florida "school board primary losses, inflammatory rhetoric and high-profile controversies" diminish the conservative group's national "brand."

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Playing to the dark side

Darth Vader's theme song was blasted from a German warship as it made its way up the Thames in London last week. There was "no deeper message" to the vessel commander playing John Williams's famous "Imperial March" through a city Berlin tried to conquer 80 years earlier, a spokesperson for the German Navy told The Telegraph. The commander is simply a "big 'Star Wars' fan" who "chooses a different Williams tune whenever his ship is visiting a foreign harbor," Germany's London Embassy confirmed.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Emily Elconin / Getty Images; Menahem Kahana / AFP via Getty Images; Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images