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Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.
1. A Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Donald Trump.
The vote to indict Trump, which happened this afternoon, according to five people with knowledge of the matter, is the product of a nearly five-year investigation into his role in paying hush money to a porn star. The charges will shake up the 2024 presidential race and forever mark him as the nation’s first former president to face criminal charges.
The indictment, filed under seal by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, will most likely be announced in the coming days. By then, prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, will have asked Trump to surrender and to face arraignment.
The specific charges remain unknown for now. But Bragg’s prosecutors have zeroed in on a hush-money payment and false records created by Trump’s company. A conviction is not a sure thing: An attempt to combine a charge relating to the false records with an election violation relating to the hush-money payment would be based on a legal theory that has yet to be evaluated by judges. A court could throw out or limit the charges.
Trump has consistently denied all wrongdoing and attacked Bragg, a Democrat, accusing him of leading a politically motivated prosecution.
2. It could be several days before Trump is arrested.
Lawyers for the former president have said that Trump will surrender to face the charges and fly from his Florida estate to New York for the arraignment.
But the unprecedented arrest of a former commander in chief will be anything but routine. Accommodations may be made for Trump: While it is standard for defendants arrested on felony charges to be handcuffed, it is unclear whether an exception will be made for the former president because of his status.
After Trump is arraigned, he is almost certain to be released on his own recognizance because the indictment will most likely contain only nonviolent felony charges; under New York law, prosecutors cannot request bail in such cases.
Trump was at Mar-a-Lago absorbing this information, according to aides. Trump aides were caught off guard by this happening today, according to several people close to the former president.
For more: Here is a timeline of the events leading up to the grand jury vote.
3. The grand jury’s vote threw the 2024 race for the G.O.P. presidential nomination into uncertain territory.
Any indictment or conviction would not bar Trump from running for office. However, the criminal accusations will pose a significant question: Can Trump rally his supporters despite the legal scrutiny?
For decades, the former president has avoided criminal charges despite persistent scrutiny and repeated investigations, creating an aura of legal invincibility that the vote to indict now threatens to puncture.
Trump plans to use the charges as part of a campaign strategy to rile up his base. But for all of his bravado about looking forward to a perp walk, the reality is that he has feared an indictment for more than 40 years.
In addition to the case in Manhattan, Trump’s actions surrounding his 2020 electoral defeat are the focus of investigations both in Georgia and at the federal level. The prosecutor in Georgia is now in the final stages of its inquiry into Trump’s attempts to reverse the election results in that state.
4. Russia detained an American journalist, accusing him of espionage.
Russia announced the arrest of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, signifying a new escalation in Moscow’s tensions with the U.S. It is believed to be the first time an American reporter has been held on espionage charges there since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Gershkovich, who is 31, grew up in Princeton, N.J., as a child of Soviet émigrés. Russian officials said that he was detained in Yekaterinburg, a city about 900 miles east of Moscow, and that he was “suspected of spying in the interests of the American government.”
The Journal strongly rejected the accusations and said it would seek Gershkovich’s immediate release. The White House also condemned the arrest. In some past espionage cases, Russia detained foreigners to instigate prisoner exchanges with the West.
In related news, Finland won final approval to join NATO, a major shift in the balance of power between the West and Russia that was set off by the war in Ukraine.
5. Nine U.S. soldiers were killed after two Army helicopters collided over Kentucky.
The crash between two HH-60 Black Hawk assault helicopters occurred late last night during a training mission near Fort Campbell, an Army base along the Kentucky-Tennessee border. An official said the Army did not yet know what caused the collision.
All of the soldiers onboard the two helicopters were killed, the official said, declining to provide details about any of the soldiers until their families were notified.
6. In the Middle East, A.I. technologies have become part of everyday policing.
Mass surveillance has long been used in China. But now, as advances in artificial intelligence, drones and facial recognition have expanded the potential reach of law enforcement, countries like the United Arab Emirates have ramped up their adoption of next-generation security tools.
In related news, many publishers are worried that A.I. chatbots will cause fewer people to click through to their sites, cutting into their revenues.
For more, here are six things that A.I. is already good at.
7. The largest U.S. cities saw an influx of immigrants, but many fell in population.
The number of immigrants nearly tripled in the nation’s 20 most populous counties from 2021 to 2022, as immigration returned to prepandemic levels, new census data showed. But Los Angeles, Brooklyn and Queens all lost residents, while Phoenix, Houston and Tampa grew in population.
Bucking the trend was Manhattan. The borough added 17,472 residents in 2022, after a loss of nearly 100,000 the previous year — the biggest improvement in the nation.
8. It’s opening day of the Major League Baseball season.
For the first time since 1968, every team is starting its season on the same day. And for the first time in the history of the M.L.B., there is now an on-field clock that essentially requires the game to speed up.
The pitch clock — which allows just 15 seconds per pitch with no one on base — is the most important of several new rules that are expected to significantly change the game. Here’s what we are watching today.
For more: My colleague Michael Schmidt explained on “The Daily” why baseball was trying to save itself from the tyranny of the home run.
Also, it’s a weird and stressful time to be a baseball umpire. Here’s what it’s like.
9. What to do tonight:
Cook: For the crispiest tofu, give it the Milanese treatment.
Watch: “Tetris,” a film about the classic video game, is clever and surprisingly entertaining.
Listen: Here’s what it sounds like when plants are in distress.
Trim: Now might be the time to make a statement with your hair.
Work out: Exercise may help counteract the toll of poor sleep.
Hunt: Which Manhattan studio would you buy with a $600,000 budget?
Play: Today’s Spelling Bee, Wordle and Mini Crossword. For more, find all our games here.
10. And finally, a Mexican grandmother who became an online sensation.
Less than four years ago, Ángela Garfias Vázquez — who goes by Doña Ángela or Mrs. Ángela — began posting cooking videos on YouTube, showing off recipes for gorditas, stuffed peppers and chicken stew. Since then, her channel has accumulated 437 million views, making her among the most watched cooks in the world.
Mrs. Ángela’s fans say that her appeal lies in her grandmotherly aura, which particularly enchants people of Latin American descent who see in her their abuelas, or grandmothers. The range of Mrs. Ángela’s seasonal dishes, experts said, highlights the persistence it takes to feed a family for decades in the countryside, as she most likely has in her rustic home in Michoacan.
Have a tasty night.
Brent Lewis compiled photos for this briefing.
Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.
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