New York braces for Trump’s indictment
Donald Trump is expected to arrive in New York today from his estate in Florida and head to his former home in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, before surrendering at the office of the Manhattan district attorney early tomorrow afternoon. He will then be arraigned in the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building.
The exact charges have not been unsealed yet, though they are linked to a payment made in 2016 to buy the silence of a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who says she had a brief sexual relationship with Trump in 2006. Prosecutors are expected to accuse Trump of falsifying records related to reimbursements to his former fixer, who had paid the hush money to Daniels.
Even for a city accustomed to celebrity appearances, Trump’s two-day visit is likely to be a striking spectacle. New York City officials and the police were already girding for protests near the courthouse and outside Trump Tower, where barricades lined the streets for several blocks surrounding the building.
Statement: In a television interview, Joe Tacopina, a lawyer for Trump, called the looming charges “a political persecution.” The former president has attacked the prosecution as a partisan move.
Analysis: While no one wants to be indicted, Trump in one sense finds himself in prime position under the spotlight, writes Peter Baker, our chief White House correspondent. “He has milked the moment for all it’s worth, savoring the attention as no one else in modern American politics would.”
Finland’s prime minister toppled in tight election
The Finnish leader Sanna Marin and her center-left Social Democratic Party lost a tight election yesterday to the center-right National Coalition Party, led by Petteri Orpo, which took 48 of the 200 seats. No party won a majority, and Orpo will face a tall order of pulling together a governing coalition.
The right-wing Finns Party won 46 seats, and Marin’s Social Democrats came in third, with 43 seats. The agrarian-based Center Party, which has been shrinking, won 23 seats and may be a crucial part of a new center-right coalition.
Despite Marin’s popularity and her record on issues like the war in Ukraine and NATO membership, the election turned on the economy. Orpo succeeded in arguing that Finland’s debt was too high and that public spending should be cut. In general, as in recent elections in Italy and Sweden, the vote showed a shift to the right.
Quotable: “Democracy has spoken,” Marin said after the results were in. She added: “I believe that the Social Democrats’ message was heard, and that was a values-based message. It has been a great campaign, and this is a great day because we did well. My congratulations to the National Coalition Party and Finns Party.”
For more: Finland has been ranked the happiest country on Earth for six consecutive years. But when you talk to individual Finns, the reality is a bit more complicated.
Influential Russian blogger killed in bombing
Maksim Fomin, a Russian military blogger known as Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed yesterday when a bomb exploded in a cafe in St. Petersburg, Russia, in what appeared to be one of the most high-profile attacks on a supporter of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Tatarsky was giving a public talk when the explosion ripped through a cafe, the Russian authorities said. Videos posted on social media show him receiving a small statue in his likeness onstage shortly before the explosion. At least 25 other people were injured in the blast, with 19 of them hospitalized, according to the city’s governor, Aleksandr Beglov.
Tatarsky represented a radical wing of pro-invasion bloggers and activists who backed Moscow’s war but also criticized what they saw as the flaws in the Russian Army. His death was the most significant attack on a prominent war supporter inside Russia since August, when a car bomb killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of an ultranationalist Russian supporter.
Response: Kyiv did not immediately comment on the bombing. But an adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, suggested that the attack was a sign of internal fractures in Russian society, in line with Kyiv’s usual description of acts of sabotage in Russia.
In other news from the war:
THE LATEST NEWS
Around the World
After centuries of flooding, Venice has raised sea walls to save itself from high water. They have already protected the city from catastrophic floods.
But climate change and rising seas pose a gnawing question: Will Venice one day have to cut itself off from the waters that are its lifeblood?
Lives Lived
The record industry executive Seymour Stein, who signed Madonna, the Ramones, Talking Heads and the Pretenders, has died at age 80.
SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC
A national soccer team like no other: Welcome to Sealand, a World War II naval fort whose team includes a comedian and a former Liverpool defender.
How the red-flag-filled Australian Grand Prix ended: To understand what happened in Australia, we have to go back to Britain last year.
Barcelona’s “Magic Mountain”: Barcelona’s stadium will get a $1.6 billion renovation next season. The temporary home the club will play in has a complex history.
ARTS AND IDEAS
A confronting movie
Germany is often praised for its willingness to confront the darkest moments of its history, but in recent years activists have pointed to a blank spot in the country’s culture of remembrance: From 1904 to 1908, German colonial officials systematically killed tens of thousands of people in what is now Namibia.
This atrocity is little known outside academic circles, and there are few memorials or pop cultural depictions of it. A new movie, “Measures of Men,” aims to change that. The film tells the story through the eyes of a German anthropologist who becomes complicit in the genocide. It has already been screened for lawmakers in Germany’s Parliament and will be shown in schools, too.
“Europe has done far too little to reconcile with victims,” said Lars Kraume, the director. He added: “Cinema allows us to awaken emotions, and implant images that can let you see events differently. But this is only the beginning of the discussion.”
PLAY, WATCH, EAT
What to Cook
That’s it for today’s briefing. It’s great to be back. — Natasha
P.S. News organizations, including The Times, have called for the release of Evan Gershkovich, a reporter who is being detained in Russia.
Start your week with this narrated long read about homelessness in Phoenix. And here’s Friday’s edition of “The Daily,” on Donald Trump’s indictment.
You can reach Natasha and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.
