Monday Morning Briefing

View in Browser
logo-reuters-news-now

 

Tennis - French Open - Roland Garros, Paris, France - June 11, 2017 Spain's Rafael Nadal celebrates with the trophy after winning the final against Switzerland's Stan Wawrinka Reuters / Christian Hartmann

 


Washington

 

The attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia plan to file a lawsuit today alleging that foreign payments to President Donald Trump's businesses violate the U.S. constitution, according to a source familiar with the situation. Trump already faces a similar lawsuit that was brought in January by plaintiffs including a ethics non-profit group, but this lawsuit has a better chance in court as the first government action against the allegations that Trump violated the constitution's emoluments clause.

 

Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara revealed that he received a handful of "unusual" phone calls from Donald Trump after the November election that made him feel uncomfortable, and said he was fired after declining to take the third call. Speaking on ABC News' "This Week" in his first televised interview since Trump fired him in March as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Bharara said he believed Trump's calls to him violated the usual boundaries between the executive branch and independent criminal investigators.

 


Business

 

German grocery chain Aldi said it would invest $3.4 billion to expand its U.S. store base to 2,500 by 2022, raising the stakes for rivals caught in a price war.

 

General Electric named John Flannery chief executive of the company. Jeff Immelt would remain chairman of the board through Dec. 31, GE said in a statement. Flannery is currently president and CEO of GE Healthcare.

 

Technology stocks fell across Europe and Asia after the worst day for Apple shares in more than a year, while the euro and its bonds rallied after a bumper weekend for pro-EU and pro-business politics in France and Italy.

 


Russia

 

Police detained Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the entrance of his home on Monday, just before an unsanctioned rally he was going to hold in central Moscow, but the protest will still go ahead, his wife said on Twitter. Electricity in Navalny's office was switched off, his spokeswoman said in a separate Twitter message. A live Internet feed running from Navalny's office went off air.

 

The annual Pride Parade is replaced with a Resist March as members of the LGBT community protest President Donald Trump in West Hollywood, California, U.S. June 11, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake 

 


Nuclear power

 

About 200 nuclear reactors around the world will be shut down over the next quarter century, mostly in Europe, according to the International Energy Agency. Companies that specialize in the massively complex and dangerous job of dismantling plants are increasingly deploying robots - and turning away from humans - to do this work, presenting engineering challenges as well as a rare area of revenue growth for decommissioning services.

 


U.S.

 

Protesters held rallies across the United States on Saturday to denounce sharia law, the Islamic legal and moral code that organizers say poses a threat to American freedoms, but critics believe anti-Muslim hatred is behind the condemnation.

 


Airlines

 

A China Eastern flight bound for Shanghai landed safely in Sydney after a mid-air emergency, an airline spokeswoman said. Pictures showed a gaping hole in the casing of one of its engines.

 


Philippines

 

On his Facebook profile page Omarkhayam Romato Maute describes himself as a "Walking Time-Bomb." When a band of militants led by Omarkhayam and one of his brothers overran a town in the southern Philippines on May 23, festooning its alleyways with the black banners of Islamic State, the Facebook description seemed appropriate. Governments across Southeast Asia had been bracing for the time when Islamic State, on a back foot in Iraq and Syria, would look to establish a 'caliphate' in Southeast Asia and become a terrifying threat to the region.