The Sunday Subject – August 6, 2023

Donald Trump was charged with trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump was charged with four federal counts related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and involvement in the January 6 insurrection. The indictment accuses the former president of “conspiracy to impair, obstruct and defeat the federal government function through dishonesty, fraud and deceit.” To date, these are the most serious criminal charges that Trump faces.

The gunman who murdered 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue was sentenced to death.

The 2018 massacre was the worst anti-Semitic attack in American history. “Returning a sentence of death is not a decision that comes easy, but we must hold accountable those who wish to commit such terrible acts of antisemitism, hate, and violence,” said the family of Rose Mallinger, one of the victims. “May we always remember those who were taken too soon – Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Daniel Stein, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Irving Younger, Melvin Wax, and Rose Mallinger. May their memories be for a blessing.”

France began evacuating its citizens from Niger amid fierce anti-French sentiment following last week’s military coup.

America and Britain also ordered the evacuation of some staff from their embassies. Prior to the coup, Niger was the West’s strongest ally in the Sahel in combating jihadist violence in Africa. ECOWAS, a regional bloc in West Africa, threatened to take military action if deposed democratically-elected president Mohamed Bazoum was not reinstated. Burkina Faso and Mali, two neighbors that have also had recent military coups, said that they would consider an attack on Niger to be an attack on their countries too.