Trump’s video from Arlington Cemetery could be illegal. And Harris’ first interview

Good morning. You are reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox and Hear to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.

Today’s top stories

A French court has indicted billionaire and Telegram founder Pavel Durov on several counts These include distributing images of child abuse, drug trafficking and failing to comply with requests from law enforcement. He is accused of operating the platform on which these crimes took place, not of committing the crimes himself. Durov co-founded the popular messaging app in 2013. The charges come days after his surprise arrest at an airport outside Paris.

• 🎧 Durov could face a prison sentence of up to ten years. This would be the harshest measure yet taken against a social media boss.says Rebecca Rosman of NPR First. Telegram users tend to find the service attractive because it offers limited control over what they can say. This has made the app a popular tool for far-right groups, terrorist organizations and criminal gangs. Investigators say Durov failed to cooperate with them, which would have helped them stop the illegal activities. He is now under judicial supervision and is not allowed to leave French territory.

Former President Donald Trump shared a TikTok video yesterday that likely violates federal law against the use of military cemeteries for campaign purposes. The video was posted after NPR reported that Trump campaign staffers had a physical altercation on Monday with an Arlington National Cemetery employee who was attempting to enforce restrictions during a memorial ceremony. Only cemetery staff are allowed to take photographs or video in the area.

• 🎧 NPR’s Stephen Fowler says the Gold Star families who invited Trump gave him permission to use a videographer and a photographer to document the emotional moment.but families don’t have the power to override the rules. NPR also learned that the family of a Green Beret whose headstone was visible in Trump’s footage had not given permission to be included. A Trump campaign representative said the Arlington staffer was “obviously suffering a mental health crisis.” JD Vance, Trump’s vice presidential nominee, said yesterday that Vice President Harris could “go to hell” over the Afghanistan withdrawal and blamed reporters for the controversy.
• ➡️ At the center of this controversy is a solemn, 14-hectare section of the cemetery. Here you can find out everything you need to know about Section 60, which includes around 900 soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Trump and many other Republican politicians continue to insist, despite a lack of evidence, that a wave of non-citizens will influence the Democrats’ election victory. It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and there is no credible evidence that this happens in significant numbers. But these false claims are being used as a pretext for measures that could create hurdles for some voters.

• 🎧 At least four Republican-led states announce new procedures and efforts to remove non-citizens from the voter rollssays NPR’s Jude Joffe-Block. She noted in her reporting that these efforts have also included eligible U.S. citizens. Maintaining voter rolls is a critical election protection measure and, under federal law, cannot be done within 90 days of an election. Advocacy groups have urged Tennessee and Alabama to stop sending letters to people they believe are noncitizens, saying it violates federal law. Tennessee later stated that people who received letters would not be removed from voter rolls. Alabama’s secretary of state told NPR that anyone who received a letter and is a citizen can vote on Election Day with proof of citizenship.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are expected to meet for a joint interview on CNN this evening. It is the first interview Harris will give since President Biden dropped out of the race in July. Republicans have accused her of trying to dodge the press to avoid difficult questions. This interview could be one of the first in which she is asked about her own policies and how she would govern differently than Biden.

From our hosts

This essay was written by Michel MartinPresenter of Morning Edition and Up First

/ Sony Classic

/

Sony Classic

We all know that there are different kinds of fame. There are people who are famous because they are important – think of presidents. Then there are people who are famous for reasons we don’t really understand (I’m thinking of certain reality show stars). And then there are people we KNOW are important – often because we’ve been told they are important – but we don’t really know why.

I am embarrassed to tell you that until recently, Paul Robeson fell into this category for me. I knew he was important because, for one thing, he appeared in every Black History Month calendar I’ve ever had. I knew his biography: athlete, actor, activist, great bass-baritone, global star. I knew he had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era because of his vocal advocacy for human rights.

But I couldn’t get a picture of him. I couldn’t really imagine him as a man doing anything important in the world, the way I could imagine, say, Rosa Parks trying to hold her nerve while staying in her seat on that bus to Montgomery, Alabama, or Marian Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial after the DAR denied her entry to Constitution Hall.

But then this summer I had the chance to see a clip of the film at an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Wow. He was magnetic. You couldn’t take your eyes off him.

And now you can see – hear – it for yourself. For the first time, all of his recordings will be available in one place in a new book and box set called Paul Robeson: Voice of Freedom. We’ll tell you about it on Morning edition. I can almost guarantee that you will say the same thing as me:

Wow.

Picture show

Michael A. McCoy for NPR /

Dozens of people from the Ukrainian diaspora gathered in Washington, DC over the weekend to walk in vyshyvankas, the country’s traditional dress. The shirts, usually made of cotton or linen, feature embroidered patterns on the front, collar and sleeves. This was done to celebrate Ukraine’s 33rd Independence Day, which marks Ukraine’s secession from the former Soviet Union. The event comes as Russia’s full-scale invasion enters its third year.

3 things you should know before your trip

/ US Marshals Service

/

US Marshals Service

1. Murder suspect Deario Wilkerson was caught after months on the run after he fellinto the lap of the authorities, so to speak. He fell through the ceiling of the building in Memphis where he was hiding.
2. Scientists say new research has revealed matching dinosaur tracks found in what are now Brazil and Cameroon. were created 120 million years ago in an area that once connected the two continents.
3. The Federal Aviation Administration has shut down SpaceX rockets; one of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket boosters failed yesterday. The groundings come as four astronauts await the launch of the historic Polaris Dawn mission in quarantine.

This newsletter was published by Susanne Nuyen.

Copyright: NPR