June 9 top stories
It is June 9. Here are today's top stories.
Trump indicted in classified documents case
On Thursday night, Donald Trump said he was indicted over the classified documents case and is summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in Miami on Tuesday afternoon.
Trump criticized the charges, saying he is an innocent man and that the charges are election interference from the Biden administration.
There is a seven-count indictment filed in federal court naming Trump as a criminal defendant. The charges include willful retention of national defense secrets and obstruction of justice and conspiracy. The indictment is still sealed, so we don’t have all the details.
To go back in time, a few months after Trump left the White House in 2021, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) reached out to Trump to ask him for an array of missing documents from his time as president. The NARA did not feel that Trump was very cooperative and became frustrated.
In January 2022, after a year, NARA was able to retrieve 15 boxes of documents from Trump’s time as president from Mar-a-Lago. But the NARA felt there may be more out there, so they asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate whether Trump violated a federal law, the Presidential Records Act, that requires all presidents to turn over documents after the end of their terms.
In May 2022, the DOJ subpoenaed Trump to demand he hands over all documents with classification markings that he still had with him at Mar-a-Lago. A month later, in June, the DOJ visited Mar-a-Lago to pick up the documents based on the subpoena. After that, a Trump attorney signed a sworn statement saying there are no more classified documents at the resort.
But clearly, the DOJ believed that Trump was not being truthful because in August 2022, federal agents raided Mar-a-Lago and they found over 100 classified documents at the property that should have been already handed over. So this is where the obstruction of justice comes into the picture — apparently, the DOJ believes that Trump tried to hide or mislead federal investigators from finding additional documents.
Today news reports said an aide to Trump was indicted. His name is Walt Nauta. He helped to move boxes of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago before the raid.
The federal judge who is overseeing this case is Aileen Cannon, who was herself appointed during the Trump administration. She is already known to many for her role last year in trying to appoint a special master to review documents that were seized at Mar-a-Lago. An appeals court eventually overturned the special master’s role. So we could say that Cannon is a “Trump-friendly” judge.
Trump is now facing two different criminal cases as he is starting his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, one in New York and another in Florida.
New airplane seat concept for wheelchair users
There is a new airplane seat concept for wheelchair users that would allow them to stay in their own chairs throughout a flight. The concept, designed by Delta Flight Products, allows a plane seat to be folded up so a wheelchair can be docked in place.
A wheelchair user named Cory Lee, who loves to travel around the world, said he is excited about the idea because currently, he has to deal with airline staff lifting him into a different wheelchair that can fit in a plane and then lifting him again into a plane seat.
Wheelchair users also have complained about how airlines damage their powered chairs during the process of loading it into the cargo compartment. With this new concept, wheelchair users won’t have to worry about that.
If a plane has no wheelchair users, the seat can be unfolded and anyone can use it just like any other seat on the plane.
Delta Flight Products said they hope to roll out the concept in the real world in less than two years.
Supreme Court sides with Jack Daniel’s in trademark dispute
The Supreme Court unanimously sided with Jack Daniel’s, the whiskey company, in its dispute with a company that sells a dog toy that looks just like a Jack Daniel’s bottle, but with the humorous name, “Bad Spaniels.”
The whiskey company sued the dog toy company alleging a violation of federal trademark law and said the dog product could damage Jack Daniel’s reputation because customers may think that the whisky company also made the dog toys.
The dog toy company said it was only a parody and that they were protected by first amendment rights, but the Supreme Court sided with the whiskey company, saying it is not appropriate for a company to use a trademark (symbol/design) of another company as their own trademark.
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Updates on Canadian wildfires
Reuters reported that in Quebec, Canada, over 12,000 people had to evacuate their homes due to the threat of wildfires. An official said there are about 132 fires that are actively burning, down from 150 on Wednesday.
Officials believe the wildfires in Quebec were sparked by lightning. The weather has been dry and hot lately so it has caused the wildfires to burn faster, hotter, and bigger. There are also wildfires in western Canada.
The smoke from the wildfires has spread all over the eastern coast of the U.S. and caused air quality warnings.
A climate expert told CBS News that climate change is a big factor because spring is coming weeks earlier and fall is coming weeks later.
Reuters said the U.S. has sent hundreds of firefighters to Canada to help and that many other countries around the world have also sent firefighters and resources to Canada.
GM and Ford to use Tesla’s charging standard for EVs
General Motors (GM) and Ford said they would adopt the electric charging standard used by Tesla in the future. Currently, there are different types of charging ports that make it more complicated for electric vehicle users to figure out where they can navigate.
Compare that with gasoline vehicles — it doesn’t matter if you’re driving a Chevy or a Dodge — all gas stations work.
Ford announced last month that starting in 2025, its EVs would switch to Tesla’s NACS ports. Yesterday, GM announced they would do the same thing. Ford and GM said they would provide adapters for their EV customers so they can use Tesla’s chargers in 2024.
What this means is that electric vehicle customers, at least from 2025 and on, can have fewer worries about whether a charging station is compatible with their vehicle.
Axios said about 7% of new car sales today are EVs.
That is all the top stories for today. Have a nice weekend and stay with the light.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/08/trump-classified-documents-mar-a-lago/
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-indictment-classified-documents-06-09-23/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/politics/walt-nauta-trump-indicted/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/travel/delta-flight-products-wheelchair-airplane-seat-design/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/politics/jack-daniels-bad-spaniels-supreme-court/index.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-did-the-wildfires-in-canada-start-cause-nova-scotia-quebec/
https://www.motortrend.com/news/general-motors-tesla-nacs-ev-charging-port/