Your Wednesday Briefing – The New York Times

Trump pleads not guilty

Donald Trump pleaded not guilty in federal court in Miami yesterday to criminal charges that he risked disclosure of defense secrets and obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim classified documents he took while leaving office. The former president was booked but not handcuffed, and he did not have to submit to a mug shot.

His personal aide Walt Nauta, who is charged with lying to investigators and scheming with Trump to conceal boxes containing classified documents, also appeared before the magistrate judge but did not enter a plea. A lawyer for Nauta asked for a two-week extension because he needed a local lawyer to sponsor him.

Trump was represented in court by Christopher Kise, a former Florida solicitor general, and Todd Blanche, a prominent New York defense lawyer. His legal team has been in flux since two other lawyers representing him resigned shortly after the indictment was made public. Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought the charges, also attended the hearing.

The 2024 race: The charges do not bar Trump from running for president. He currently leads an increasingly crowded Republican field.

Next steps: A trial could be months away, according to our Washington correspondent Charlie Savage. However, he added, “we think the Justice Department is going to try to get this over with as quickly as possible, hopefully before the Republican presidential primary.” Trump may try to delay the trial until after the U.S. elections in November of next year.

Claims: Hours after leaving the court, Trump defended his conduct with a string of familiar falsehoods. Here’s a fact check.

Russian forces strike back against Ukraine

Russian air forces and artillery weapons struck back yesterday against advancing Ukrainian troops, hammering them in the area of several southern villages that the Ukrainian Army had retaken over the past week in the opening phase of Kyiv’s counteroffensive. The attack reduced one village to ruins.

After claiming to recapture a series of farming villages over the weekend, Ukraine’s military announced only minimal gains yesterday, and the Russian attack on Ukraine’s vanguard suggested Kyiv’s troops faced a dangerous problem ahead. Separately, a Russian missile strike killed at least 11 people in Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, which is about 100 miles from the eastern front line.

Conflicting claims made it difficult to assess the situation on the battlefield, but Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, acknowledged that his forces had suffered some losses this month, including 54 tanks. He denied Ukraine’s assertions of progress on the battlefield.

Plans: Putin equivocated on the question of whether he might order another mobilization like the one last fall that brought some 300,000 men into duty and drove tens of thousands of others to flee. He said that he was aware of calls for another major draft, but added that “there was no such need today.”

At least 103 killed in Nigerian boat accident

More than 100 people died, including many who were returning from a wedding ceremony, after a river boat transporting them capsized in Nigeria early Monday morning, according to residents and the local police.

The boat, which was sailing along the Niger River in the western state of Kwara, “capsized in complete darkness and it wasn’t until hours later that we were alerted,” said Okasanmi Ajayi, a police spokesman. More than 100 people had been rescued and the search was continuing, he said, but the authorities had yet to determine the cause of the accident.

River boat accidents are a recurring issue in Nigeria, where overloading, lax safety regulations, poor maintenance and the absence of life jackets often lead to deaths. Nighttime sailing is outlawed, but the ban remains poorly enforced.

Geography: The 2,600-mile-long Niger, the main river in West Africa, is a key regional trade route. It is Africa’s third longest river, after the Nile and the Congo.

THE LATEST NEWS

Around the World

Tens of thousands of Indian women have been abandoned by husbands working abroad, trapping many of them in their in-laws’ homes in accordance with local customs, even for decades.

Some women who have been left behind by husbands are victims of the unfulfilled promises of changing circumstances. Others have been subjected to outright deceit, their families defrauded of dowries, honeymoon expenses and visa payments.

Lives Lived

Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning bard of the American West, who wrote “All the Pretty Horses” and “The Road,” has died at 89. Here’s a guide to his work.

SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC

Explaining the English Football League towel ban: A closer look at the change voted in by the clubs and how it will affect the 2023-24 season.

Flash, glamour, V.I.P.s: How Las Vegas landed an F1 Grand Prix.

From The Times: A battle of words has erupted between the soccer club Paris St.-Germain and its French star, Kylian Mbappé, after he said that he wouldn’t extend his contract.

LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION

Peruse an old magazine

To truly understand the past, pick up a print issue of an old magazine, preferably more than 20 years old, and read it cover to cover, Brian Dillon writes for The Times Magazine.

“Old magazines are cheap time machines, archaeologies of collective desire,” Brian writes, recalling the reads of his adolescence in Dublin of mostly British magazines about music, fashion, art and literature. These, he recalls, he relied upon “to keep me informed, and furnish my dreams.”

You may find the fashion, ideas, images and vocabulary somehow at odds with what you expected or remembered of that age. Ideally, writes Brian, you will get the sense that “the past is never the past of present cliché, any more than our present is purely itself, entirely made of the self-celebrating now.”

For more: Take an instant trip down memory lane with the June 14, 1983, edition of The New York Times.

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

P.S. The word “mojojoy” appeared for the first time in The Times this week, in a story about how four children survived a plane crash, and several weeks, in the Colombian jungle.

“The Daily” is about a reckoning in the top U.S. food awards.

You can reach Natasha and the team at [email protected].