Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Wednesday Briefing: Trump’s fourth indictment

The former president responds.
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By Natasha Frost

Writer, Briefings

Good morning. We're covering Donald Trump's response to another criminal indictment, and the psychological toll of the war in Ukraine.

Plus: European sensibilities are clashing with the whims of American tourists.

Former President Donald Trump now faces 91 felony counts in total.Jon Cherry for The New York Times

Trump responds to his fourth indictment

Donald Trump has 10 days to turn himself in, as he faces accusations that he and 18 other people orchestrated a "criminal enterprise" to reverse the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. The sweeping charges, which were brought on Monday night by a local prosecutor in Atlanta, fall under the state's racketeering statute, which was originally designed to dismantle organized crime groups.

Trump — the current front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination — now faces 91 felony counts and the possibility of standing trial in four separate cases before next year's elections. He has denounced the indictment, saying on social media that he would release an "irrefutable" report that he asserted would prove his claims of election fraud in Georgia.

While the effort is unlikely to ward off the immense and expensive legal threats he faces, it may prove popular among his political base. Trump's small-donor donations and poll numbers both picked up around his previous indictments.

Analysis: "The official Republican Party apparatus, which had been distancing itself from Trump, rallied behind him after his first indictment," said my colleague Jonathan Swan, who covers Donald Trump for The Times. But, he added, with the Georgia case, other defendants may feel less secure sticking by him — not least because presidents cannot dismiss state charges.

Soldiers described having made the mistake of trying to tough it out on their own.Nicole Tung for The New York Times

The hidden trauma of Ukraine's soldiers

Ukrainian soldiers face a crisis of wounded psyches, in addition to broken bodies. Exhausted physically and mentally, some have seen horrors on a daily basis that most civilians never encounter, and they are undergoing therapies to treat their invisible injuries.

Those involved say the mental health needs of Ukraine's troops are far greater than the available treatments and will be around for years. Soldiers described having made the mistake of trying to tough it out on their own and how they had struggled to prevent themselves from mentally revisiting their every combat move, wracked with guilt.

Among traumatized veterans, there is a common theme with enormous implications: that others cannot possibly comprehend their suffering and that they don't know how to return to a civilian world that now feels utterly alien. "You can't understand because you haven't smelled it, heard the sounds, the feeling of what it's like to kill someone," one said.

Ruble troubles: The Russian central bank issued its biggest interest-rate hike since the early weeks of the war in Ukraine, a dramatic move that underlined the scale of concern about Russia's economic stability.

In Russia: A fire and an explosion at a gas station killed at least 35 people in the Dagestan region in the south. An additional 66 people were hospitalized.

A job fair at a shopping center in Beijing in June.Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press

A dearth of Chinese economic data

The Chinese government, facing an expected seventh consecutive monthly increase in youth unemployment, has suspended release of the information. That decision could exacerbate the concerns expressed by investors and executives who say ever-tightening government control of information is making it harder to do business in China.

China's youth unemployment rate has doubled in the last four years, a period of economic volatility that began with the "zero Covid" measures imposed by Beijing that left companies wary of hiring, interrupted education for many students and made it hard to get the internships that had often led to job offers.

Related: Country Garden was China's biggest real estate developer. Now it is staring down default, facing billions of dollars in losses and $200 billion in unpaid bills.

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THE LATEST NEWS

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A Morning Read
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Brewster Kahle runs the Internet Archive, a venerable tech nonprofit. Early in the Covid pandemic, he had the notion to try to help students, researchers and general readers by making it much easier for them to rent digital books for free. This good deed backfired spectacularly.

SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC

How Sarina Wiegman manages: Examining the England head coach's techniques, mentality and evolution.

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From The Times: In remote Australian towns, Indigenous leaders like John Moriarty, the first Aboriginal Australian selected for a national soccer team, aim to use the sport to offer hope and opportunity for Indigenous children.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Thanassis Stavrakis/Associated Press

Americans in Europe

They wear shorts and flip-flops. They would like ice cubes in their drinks. And they want to know why there's no air-conditioning — and how to dry their clothes without a dryer.

With U.S. tourists returning in high numbers to Europe, some Americans are butting up against European etiquette and norms.

Savvy travelers seeking to blend in with the locals have increasingly turned to social media, particularly TikTok, for advice and commiseration. Much of the guidance will sound familiar to seasoned travelers — including one piece of standard advice for Americans: "Be less loud."

Related: As sun loungers that rent for up to $130 pop up across Greece's islands, local people have decided they won't take it lying down.

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That's it for today's briefing. Thanks for joining me. — Natasha

P.S. Explore The Times's immersive subway experience in New York City.

You can reach Natasha and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

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