Your Thursday Briefing

Developments on Trump legal cases

A federal appeals court ruled that a lawyer representing Donald Trump in an inquiry into his handling of classified materials had to answer a grand jury’s questions and give prosecutors a trove of documents related to his legal work for Trump. The ruling came after Trump sought an order to stop the lawyer, Evan Corcoran, from handing over documents to investigators.

A separate legal proceeding involving Trump — the Manhattan district attorney’s consideration of whether to seek an indictment of the former president on charges related to a hush-money payment to a porn actress — remained unresolved. The grand jury did not meet yesterday, meaning that any indictment would come today at the earliest.

The classified materials litigation centers on whether prosecutors can force Corcoran to provide information about who knew what about the continued presence of classified material at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s residence and private club in Florida, after the government had demanded its return last spring.

Details: The case involves a balancing act between attorney-client privilege, which generally protects lawyers from divulging communications with their clients to the government, and a special provision allowing prosecutors to break through attorney-client privilege when they believe that legal advice or legal services have been used in furthering a crime.

Volodymyr Zelensky’s morale-boosting trip to Bakhmut

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, made a rare trip near the front line, personally thanking soldiers who have been fighting in the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut. The trip came as air and seaborne drones attacked the Russian-occupied peninsula of Crimea and a Russian missile ripped into an apartment complex in Zaporizhzhia, killing at least one person.

Both Zelensky and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, are seeking to solidify alliances and secure help for the fight ahead. Both sides are expected to mount offensives. China will continue to buffer Western sanctions imposed on Russia, and Ukraine’s allies promised more help, including a $15.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

In Crimea, the Russia-appointed governor, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said after the attack there that three drones had been destroyed and that Russian ships were not damaged. It was the second straight day that drones were reported to have targeted the peninsula. It was not clear who was behind the drones. Ukraine rarely takes responsibility for attacks in territory claimed by Russia.

Boris Johnson denies lying to lawmakers

Boris Johnson, the former British prime minister, yesterday denied lying to Parliament but struggled to justify certain statements he had made about lockdown-breaching parties held in Downing Street. The scandal was one among many that contributed to his downfall as prime minister last year.

Over a three-hour hearing, Johnson went from defiance — stressing that he had grounds to believe what he said was true at the time — to testiness, as members of the privileges committee in the House of Commons lobbied him with pointed questions. Toward the end of the session, Johnson said that for the committee to conclude that he had deliberately lied would be both unfair and wrong.

His appearance was a vivid reminder of the drama that engulfed and ultimately helped wreck his leadership during a period of extraordinary turmoil in British politics. Johnson was followed as prime minister by Liz Truss, who lasted only six weeks before resigning last fall. She was succeeded by Rishi Sunak, the current prime minister.

Ramifications: Lying to Parliament is a significant transgression and carries the possibility of suspension or worse. If Johnson is suspended for 10 days or more, there could be a vote in his constituency, Uxbridge, on whether to keep him as a representative. Losing such a vote, and his seat in Parliament, would end Johnson’s prospects of a political comeback anytime soon.

British politics: Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a key component of a long-awaited deal on Northern Ireland trade rules, a victory for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, as he tries to resolve one of the most vexing legacies of Britain’s exit from the E.U.

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For The Times Magazine, the writer Jon Mooallem entered into the fray. The fruit fight was at times bloodthirsty and vicious, he writes, yet the fighters displayed “a deranged-seeming but euphoric sense of abandon and belonging — a freedom that was easy to envy but difficult to understand.”

SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC

A most ferocious derby: De Klassieker is a rivalry that has turned so violent that fans from the visiting team are banned from attending.

The race to buy United: Bidders for Manchester United are running out of time to make an offer. Among their considerations is the club’s significant debt, which sits at over $800 million.

How an F1 safety car shaped the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix: The choice to send out a safety car effectively neutralized the race and hastened Max Verstappen’s climb through the field.

As southeastern Africa begins to recover from Cyclone Freddy, scientists are examining whether the storm could be a sign of things to come on a warming planet.

Cyclone Freddy lashed three countries, hitting Madagascar and Mozambique twice. When the storm moved inland last week, heavy rain and mudslides devastated Malawi, killing 438 people.

The storm was remarkable for a couple of reasons. One is longevity. The cyclone lasted 36 days, by one measure, and underwent rapid intensification cycles at least seven times, quickly waning and then intensifying. Freddy is now the longest-lasting tropical cyclone in the Southern Hemisphere, and experts are working to determine whether it is also the longest storm in recorded history.

Freddy was also remarkable for its range. The storm traveled more than 4,000 miles from the northern coast of Australia to the southeast coast of Africa.

Understanding the links between climate change and individual storms requires complex research, but scientists know in general that global warming is leading to bigger, wetter storms.

“A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture,” said Anne-Claire Fontan, who studies tropical cyclones at the World Meteorological Organization. “We expect that tropical cyclones will bring more intense rainfall.” — Lynsey Chutel, a Briefings writer in Johannesburg

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