First Thing: Trump says he’ll seek ‘long-term’ control of DC police

President hints at targeting other cities’ police. Trump also relaxes rocket launch rules, which may aid Musk and Bezos

Good morning.

Donald Trump has said he plans to ask Congress for “long-term” control of Washington DC’s police department and signaled that he expects other US cities to change their laws in response to his deployment of national guard troops and federal agents into the capital.

In an unprecedented move, Trump this week invoked a clause that allows a 30-day federal takeover of the police department, but will need Congress’s permission to extend it beyond this timeframe. Despite Congress being out of session, the president said he expected to propose the legislation “very quickly”, before alluding to other plans to secure the extension, saying: “If it’s a national emergency, we can do it without Congress”.

“We’re going to go for statutes in DC and then ultimately for the rest of the country, where that’s not going to be allowed,” Trump said, singling out Democrat-led cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

• Why the takeover? The administration argues it’s necessary to fight what Trump has called an “out of control” crime problem – a crisis that the city’s leaders say does not exist. More on that below.

Putin faces ‘very severe consequences’ if no Ukraine truce agreed, Trump says

Vladimir Putin will face “very severe consequences” unless he agrees to a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine when he meets with Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday, the president has said.

Trump said that if the summit went well, he would push for a second meeting which would include Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, adding that he “would like to do it almost immediately” but gave no concrete timeframe.

He made the comments after a call with Zelenksyy and other European leaders, in which he reassured them that a truce was his priority and he would not make any territorial concessions without Kyiv’s full involvement.

• What are European leaders calling for? The UK, France and Germany have repeatedly said negotiations can only begin in earnest with a ceasefire in place. They called for Russia to face further sanctions if it does not agree to a truce at the summit.

Over 115 scholars condemn cancellation of Harvard journal issue on Palestine

More than 115 scholars have condemned the cancellation of an entire issue of a prestigious academic journal dedicated to Palestine by a Harvard University publisher as “censorship”.

In an open letter published Thursday, they condemned the sudden cancellation of a special issue of the Harvard Educational Review – which was first revealed by the Guardian in July – as an “attempt to silence the academic examination of the genocide, starvation and dehumanisation of Palestinian people by the state of Israel and its allies”.

• Why was it canceled? The journal’s publisher acknowledged to editors that it was seeking legal reviews out of concern that the publication would trigger antisemitism claims, according to an editor.

In other news …

• Donald Trump has signed an executive order that aims to downgrade environmental rules for commercial spaceship companies, in a move that appears to benefit Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

• The father of a New Zealand woman who has been detained by US immigration authorities for three weeks with her six-year-old son is hopeful they will be freed this week.

• Israeli strikes on a Tehran prison in June killed scores of inmates, visitors and staff in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) has labeled an “apparent war crime”.

Stat of the day: Agricultural production will need to grow by about 50% by 2050 to feed population

In order to feed a growing human population, agricultural output will need to rise by 50% in the next 25 years, the journalist Michael Grunwald estimates in his new book, We Are Eating the Earth. Doing this without wiping out biodiversity and ramping up global heating will be a momentous challenge. “Feeding the world without frying it” looks to be even tougher than ending the age of fossil fuels, Grunwald argues.

Don’t miss this: Trump’s DC takeover harkens back to a dark incident 33 years ago – when crime was far worse

In 1992, the death of a staffer for Senator Richard Shelby led the senator to introduce legislation to legalize the death penalty. The incident has similar qualities to the events leading up to Donald Trump’s decision to take over Washington DC and deploy the national guard, after a Doge staffer was assaulted. But there’s a big difference between DC then and now. Violent crime is at a 30-year low: in 1991, it had recorded 482 murders, earning it infamy as the US’s murder capital. By contrast, there were 187 homicides in 2024 and the city looks set to record a lower number this year. Fred Frommer examines the period in the district’s history.

Climate check: Deadly Nordic heatwave supercharged by climate crisis, scientists say

“No country is safe from climate change”, scientists have warned after Nordic countries endured a dangerous heatwave in July. Despite their typically cool climates, Norway, Sweden and Finland were hit with soaring temperatures last month, including a record run of 22 days above 86C in Finland. In 2018, during the region’s last major heatwave, 750 people died prematurely in Sweden alone, and scientists expect to see a similar toll once the data is processed.

Last Thing: Driven by ‘nonsensical dream logic’, And Just Like That rewrote the rules of TV

After three bizarre seasons, And Just Like That says it is finally wrapping up. The critically panned Sex and the City’s spin-off was characterized by incoherence, with some viewers wondering if it had secretly been written by artificial intelligence. Despite functioning more like “content” than TV, writer Lara Williams admits she was drawn to its anaesthetizing lull: “And when it comes back, as I’m almost certain it will, I will feel much the same about it as Donald Trump does about Coca-Cola: I’ll still keep drinking that garbage.”

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