While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, June 29
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Trump wanted to join Capitol riot, tried to grab limo wheel
Donald Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of his presidential limousine on Jan 6, 2021, when his security detail declined to take him to the US Capitol where his supporters were rioting, a former aide testified on Tuesday.
The then-president dismissed concerns that some supporters gathered for his fiery speech outside the White House that day carried AR-15-style rifles, instead asking security to stop screening attendees with magnetometers so the crowd would look larger, the aide testified.
“Take the effing mags away; they’re not here to hurt me,” Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Trump’s then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, quoted Trump as saying that morning.
Trump struggled with Secret Service agents who insisted he return to the White House rather than join supporters storming the Capitol where Congress was meeting to certify his rival Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory, Hutchinson testified.
Finland, Sweden closer to joining Nato with Turkey deal
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (centre) shakes hands with Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, during the Nato summit in Madrid, Spain.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Finland and Sweden took a major step on their way to Nato membership after Turkey dropped its opposition to their bids, all but ensuring the military alliance’s expansion on Russia’s doorstep.
The move “sends a very clear message to President Putin that Nato’s door is open,” Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at the start of an alliance summit in Madrid.
“He wanted less Nato, now President Putin is getting more Nato, on his borders. So what he gets is the opposite of what he actually demanded.”
Zelensky calls on UN to visit site of Ukraine mall strike
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the United Nations to visit the site of a missile strike on a shopping mall in the city of Kremenchuk, as he addressed the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
Speaking by video from Kyiv and clad in a trademark olive green shirt, the Ukrainian leader also called on members of the Council - including Russia - to hold a minute's silence for those killed in the war so far.
"I suggest the United Nations send either a special representative, or the secretary-general of the United Nations... so the UN could independently find out information and see that this indeed was a Russian missile strike," Zelensky said of Monday's attack, in which at least 18 people were killed.
US boy, 8, shoots dead baby girl with father's gun
A worker holds a pistol at a gun store in Florida.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
An eight-year-old boy shot dead a baby and wounded her toddler sister while playing with his father's gun in Florida, police said.
The father, 45-year-old Roderick Randall, was arrested and charged him with culpable negligence, unlawful possession of a firearm and concealment of evidence, Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said.
The tragedy - all too common in a country awash with firearms - took place in a motel where Randall, who has a criminal record that forbade him from owning a gun, met with his girlfriend.
Nadal overcomes scare to reach Wimbledon second round
Spain's Rafael Nadal celebrates after winning his first round match against Argentina's Francisco Cerundolo.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Rafael Nadal overcame a scare in his Wimbledon opener on Tuesday, fighting back from dropping the third set and falling a break down in the fourth to eventually see off Argentina's Francisco Cerundolo.
Second seed Nadal, playing on grass for the first time since his 2019 Wimbledon semi-final loss to Roger Federer, triumphed 6-4, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 over 41st-ranked Cerundolo, who was making his All England Club debut.
But the 36-year-old Spaniard, who has already captured the Australian and French Opens this year to stand halfway to the first mens's calendar Slam since 1969, did it the hard way.
