Ocasio-Cortez condemns ‘disgusting’ media publishing fake nude ... Billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer will not run for President ... First Dreamer Rhodes scholar fears being barred from US

Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.

Top story: White House meeting a ‘waste of time’, president says

Donald Trump walked out of a crunch White House meeting with Democratic congressional leaders on Wednesday, after being told they would still not accede to his demands to fund a border wall. Trump later tweeted that the meeting was a “total waste of time”, while the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, described the president’s behaviour as a “temper tantrum”. The partial government shutdown, caused by the impasse over the border wall, is fast approaching a fourth week with no end in sight.

Affordable housing. Among the Americans affected by the shutdown are those with disabilities who fear homelessness after the Department of Housing and Urban Development furloughed most of its staff, leaving the government unable to guarantee payments to landlords.

Fire warning. California lawmakers are baffled by the president’s latest threat to cut wildfire relief funds over his previously debunked claim that recent blazes were caused by poor “forest management”.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemns ‘disgusting’ media publishing fake nude

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the controversy showed ‘women in leadership face more scrutiny’. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has sharply criticised conservative media for its coverage of women in politics after the Daily Caller published a fake image of the freshman congresswoman in a bathtub. The rightwing website posted the photo of a woman’s feet claiming “some people” had described it as “a nude selfie of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez”. The rising Democratic star, who has been the subject of repeated Republican attacks, said the incident showed “women in leadership face more scrutiny”.

Doorstepping. Ocasio-Cortez, in a tweet, also claimed a reporter from the Daily Mail had turned up at the homes of her boyfriend and relatives, “offering them cash for ‘stories’”.

Billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer will not run for president

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tom Steyer said at an event in Iowa that he would spend a further $40m on his effort to see Trump impeached. Photograph: Matthew Putney/Reuters

The outspoken progressive billionaire, Tom Steyer, a major Democratic donor who has been widely touted as a possible 2020 candidate, travelled to Iowa this week to announce he would not in fact be running for president. Steyer, who lives in San Francisco and amassed his fortune as a hedge fund manager, said at an event in Des Moines on Wednesday that he would instead focus on his continuing efforts to see Trump impeached, committing a further $40m to his political organisation, Need to Impeach.

Impeachment proceedings. Need to Impeach has already built an impressive email list of more than 6 million supporters apparently committed to removing Trump from office.

First Dreamer Rhodes scholar fears being barred from US

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jin Park at Harvard in 2018. Photograph: Charles Krupa/AP

The first Dreamer to be awarded the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship fears he won’t be allowed back to the US after completing his studies in the UK. Jin Park arrived in the US from South Korea with his family when he was seven. Now 22, he graduated from Harvard last month with a degree in molecular and cellular biology and hopes to enrol at the University of Oxford in the autumn to study migration and political theory.

Policy change. As an immigrant on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields young people brought to the country illegally as children from deportation, Jin was initially deemed ineligible for the Rhodes scholarship, but the organisation changed its policy to accommodate him.

Crib sheet

Riot police have been deployed in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo , amid fears of violence after Felix Tshisekedi, an opposition leader, was declared the surprise winner of the country’s presidential election.

Charities in Canada are rethinking the design of their large donation bins after a homeless woman became the eighth Canadian since 2015 to die after getting stuck inside one.

A judge has dismissed a sexual harassment claim made against Harvey Weinstein by the actor Ashley Judd, but said Judd could proceed with a defamation claim against the disgraced producer, whom she claims smeared her reputation after she refused his advances.

Three alleged members of a Berlin crime family and a museum security guard will go on trial in Germany on Thursday, accused of the heist of a 100kg, solid gold coin worth more than $4m from the city’s Bode Museum.

Listen to Today in Focus: El Salvador’s abortion ban on trial

El Salvador’s strict abortion laws have been under scrutiny since a 20-year-old woman was charged with attempted murder last year, after giving birth to her rapist’s baby. On today’s podcast, human rights lawyer Paula Avila-Guillen and the Guardian’s Nina Lakhani examine the surprise verdict in a shocking case.

Must-reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Before we set about fighting populism, we first must identify what we mean by the term. Illustration: Shonagh Rae

The battle to define populism

There is no shortage of prominent voices warning of the dangers of populism. But before we take steps to fight it, writes Peter C Baker, we must define precisely what populism means, to avoid its very existence being dismissed as simply a centrist fairytale.

The man who shut himself in the dark for $100,000

Last September at a card table in Vegas, the professional poker player Rich Alati bet a rival $100,000 that he could spend 30 whole days alone in a pitch-black room. What he didn’t bet on were the hallucinations, he tells Kristin Doerer.

The Nazi salute picture that divided a Wisconsin town

When dozens of male students at a rural Wisconsin high school were photographed making a Nazi salute, the image went viral. Now the town is split between those who condemn the boys, and those who say they have been victimised for a harmless prank. Chris McGreal reports from Baraboo.

Putin on stage in ‘the most dangerous play of the season’

A new play by one of the writers of House of Cards portrays the power struggle between Vladimir Putin and the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky after the collapse of the USSR. The actor Christopher Geary tells David Smith why he must “find the humanity” in Putin.

Opinion

Just one week after his inauguration, Brazil’s controversial new president Jair Bolsonaro is already damaging his country and threatening the wider world, writes Eliane Brum.

It’s not simply a peripheral nation with a pathetic leader. Brazil has become the apocalyptic vanguard that signals how radical this moment is – one with the power to worsen the climate crisis at top speed and blight the entire planet.

Sport

The Burton Albion manager, Nigel Clough, managed to retain his sense of humour on Wednesday night, despite his team’s crushing 9-0 defeat by Manchester City in the Carabao Cup.

A 90-year-old cyclist who was stripped of his world record following a failed drugs test – most likely caused by contaminated meat – has said the US anti-doping agency are “wasting their time” testing elderly riders.

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