Trump Foundation, Russia, Yemen: Your Friday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/briefing/trump-foundation-russia-yemen.html

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Good morning.

Investigations rattle Washington, Russia tackles its xenophobia and Hungary convicts human smugglers. Here’s the latest:

• Two major investigations grabbed U.S. headlines.

A Justice Department report concluded that James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, was “insubordinate” in his unorthodox handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election. Here are the highlights of the 500-page report.

Mr. Comey, in an Op-Ed, disputed some of the report’s conclusions, but embraced it overall as “good for the F.B.I.” Above, Mr. Comey testifying on Capitol Hill last year.

And the New York State attorney general’s office filed a scathingly worded lawsuit against Mr. Trump’s charitable foundation, accusing it and the Trump family of sweeping violations of campaign finance laws, self-dealing and illegal coordination with the presidential campaign.

Mr. Trump reacted with vitriol, calling the civil suit an attempt by “sleazy New York Democrats” to damage him. Here are the basics of the case.

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• Soccer, and propaganda.

We’re following every game and every angle of the World Cup as it unfolds in Russia.

As our columnist writes, the tournament is about Russia “proving to its people as much as to its rivals that it can deliver the world’s most-watched sporting spectacle.”

In recent weeks, Russia has tried to tame its habitual xenophobia in anticipation of the 500,000 foreign soccer fans descending on the country. (It even organized a class on how to smile.)

Not everyone got the memo. One member of Parliament cautioned Russian women against sleeping with foreign men, adding that if the urge proved too strong, they should at least choose a man of the same race. Another warned against hugging visitors from other continents — diseases, you know.

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• A painful anniversary.

Al Manaar mosque, a 10-minute walk from Grenfell Tower in London, became the center of relief efforts when a fire at the tower killed more than 70 people a year ago.

Our reporter visited the mosque, where survivors and relatives of those who died worship, as the community prepares for a somber Eid al-Fitr marking the end of Ramadan.

“The more they are not reminded of the tragedy, the better it is for them,” said the mosque’s director.

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• In Yemen, the city of Al Hudaydah came under intense attack for a second day, in the largest battle of the country’s yearslong civil war.

A Saudi-led coalition pounded the city, trying to take the port from Houthi rebels. Our explainer untangles the complex war, and we have a video about the blockade starving the country. Above, Yemeni forces firing on Houthi positions on Thursday outside Al Hudaydah.

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• Let them eat on fancy plates.

President Emmanuel Macron of France dislikes being called “president of the rich,” but the new handmade dishes he has ordered (costing more than $58,000) may not help, particularly at a time when he’s being criticized for complaining about the expense of French welfare. (Above, the president at a state dinner in March.)

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank’s Governing Council outlined a road map for ending the stimulus program known as its quantitative easing by the end of the year, a major step toward winding down the post-debt-crisis life support for the eurozone economy. In essence, the bank is declaring the region cured, or at least strong enough to stand on its own, our Frankfurt correspondent writes.

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• A design contest for personal flying machines has attracted more than 100 entries, including ones that look like motorcycles with propellers and giant airboats. Next: actually building one.

• Apple plans to close a loophole that let the authorities hack into iPhones, fueling debates over security versus privacy.

• We’re on the cusp of a world in which technology will make many of today’s jobs obsolete, experts say. If robots take our jobs, what should the government do?

• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• A Hungarian court convicted a group of smugglers for their role in the deaths in 2015 of 71 migrants who had been locked in a truck and abandoned beside a highway in Austria. The horror became a turning point in the E.U.’s disorganized response to the refugee crisis. Above, a defendant after the verdict. [The New York Times]

• Italian prosecutors dropped a sexual harassment case against the former head of the Italian soccer federation, concluding that his 53-year-old accuser was too old to have been distressed by his advances. [The New York Times]

• North Korean state TV showed video of President Trump saluting a North Korean general. The awkward encounter stirred debate over military and diplomatic protocol. [The New York Times]

• A former Walmart in Texas has become the nation’s largest shelter for migrant children — a warehouse for more than 1,500 boys, aged 10 to 17, caught illegally crossing the border. [The New York Times]

• The French authorities charged two men suspected of planning a terrorist attack in the name of the Islamic State. [Associated Press]

• Britain said it would relax immigration rules for foreign doctors and nurses to help ease staffing shortages in the country’s National Health Service. [BBC]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

• Recipe of the day: Lemon sweet rolls are a perfect project for the weekend.

• The dangers of belly fat may be worse than you know.

• Simple tips to improve your Wi-Fi security at home.

• Albert Einstein’s travel diaries, kept during an international tour of China, Japan and other countries in the 1920s, include some unsettling stereotyping.

• Traces of a Jewish past can be found across the Middle East and North Africa and in Central and South Asia. “It’s in synagogues and cemeteries, in the facades of old buildings, in language, food and the memories of those who left. You just need to know where to look,” our writer finds.

• And a best seller returns after 18 years. “Kitchen Confidential,” a memoir by Anthony Bourdain, who died last week, is No. 1 on both our paperback nonfiction best-seller list and our combined print and e-book nonfiction one. Find all our best-seller lists here.

“Man, woman or child, Ella is the greatest,” Bing Crosby once said.

Ella Fitzgerald, who died on this day in 1996 at the age of 79, began her journey to stardom by winning a talent contest as a teenager.

She had originally intended to dance, but stage fright made her decide to sing instead.

The “First Lady of Song” spent more than 60 years in the limelight, working with more musical legends than we can count. She won 13 Grammy Awards and received a National Medal of Arts.

With a range of nearly three octaves, she relished big band, jazz, bebop, scat and swing. She is perhaps best known for her Song Books of the ’50s and ’60s: eight albums, each dedicated to the likes of Duke Ellington, Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hart.

But her young life was filled with hardship.

Her mother died when she was 15 years old. She ran away from an abusive stepfather and had a spell in a reformatory where beatings were common. She was living hand-to-mouth in 1934 when she won that crucial amateur competition.

As she received an honorary doctorate at Yale, she said, “Not bad for someone who only studied music to get that half-credit in high school.”

Anna Schaverien wrote today’s Back Story.

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