Tuesday’s top story: US sends additional troops to Middle East after ‘hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups’. Plus, Facebook launches its own cryptocurrency amid privacy fears

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Good morning, I’m Mattha Busby with today’s essential stories.

US sends troops after ‘hostile behavior’ by Iran

In a further heightening of tensions between the two nations, the US is to deploy an additional 1,000 troops to the Middle East in response to “hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups”, Patrick Shanahan, the acting defence secretary, announced on Monday, adding that the US “does not seek conflict with Iran”. Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, said on Tuesday that Tehran “will not wage war against any nation” and “those facing us are a group of politicians with little experience”. Last week, Washington blamed Iran for attacks on two oil tankers, more than a year after Donald Trump announced the US was withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal and restoring economic sanctions.

Nuclear diplomacy. Iran said it would soon exceed limits on how much enriched uranium it has stockpiled, breaching the nuclear deal. Tehran is said to have maintained the terms until now, despite Trump’s withdrawal.

Facebook launches cryptocurrency that could upend banking

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trust in Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is at a low ebb. Photograph: Tony Avelar/AP

Libra, the zodiac sign symbolized by a set of scales and associated with fairness, is the name of Facebook’s new digital currency, which will connect millions who do not have access to traditional banking platforms. However, privacy concerns have already been raised and trust in the social media network is at a low ebb, with the company facing a $5bn fine from the US Federal Trade Commission in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

2.4 billion. That is how many Facebook users who should be able to exchange dollars and other currencies into digital coins, which can then be used to make purchases on the internet and in shops, or to transfer money.

Trump trails Democratic rivals as 2020 campaign begins

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump campaigns in Florida in 2016. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Donald Trump will formally get his re-election campaign under way today amid a ferocious backlash against his presidency, with polls appearing to favour many of his possible Democratic opponents – though history urges caution in forecasting results. More than 16 months out from election day in November 2020, Trump will hold a rally at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida. Democrats will look to challenge proceedings, staging a counter-rally outside the stadium featuring speeches from locals who say they have personally borne the brunt of the president’s policies.

Ratings. Polls have Trump well behind Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, while his own polling also has him trailing Biden in several battleground states, prompting a reported severing of links with three pollsters.

Mohamed Morsi, ousted president of Egypt, dies in court

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mohamed Morsi, wearing a red uniform, gestures from behind bars during his trial in Cairo in 2014. Photograph: Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images

Egypt’s first democratically elected civilian president, Mohamed Morsi, 67, has died after collapsing during a court session from inside the defendants’ “cage”, almost six years after he was forced from power in a violent coup. Morsi, a senior figure in the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, had allegedly spied for the Palestinian Islamist organisation Hamas and was attending court on espionage charges on Monday.

Cause of death. This is being investigated. State media say there were “no visible, recent external injuries on the body of the deceased”, but the Brotherhood claim he was “assassinated” by poor prison conditions.

Crib sheet

A photograph of rapidly melting ice in Greenland showing dogs seeming to walk on water has laid bare the climate catastrophe and presented a striking challenge for research teams retrieving equipment.

Infowars host Alex Jones sent documents including files with images of child sexual abuse to the lawyers of relatives of some Sandy Hook school shooting victims, it has been claimed. Jones denied the allegations.

Brazilian rappers in Make America Great Again hats are providing the soundtrack to Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right presidency, saying he promotes values they believe in despite recognising they have “elected a meme”.

A survey of 21 “advanced economies” has found the US is the only one not to guarantee paid vacation time, with about one in four Americans in the “no vacation nation” getting no paid holiday at all.

Must-reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Inside ReTuna, where everything on sale is secondhand or recycled. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

How a Swedish town became the world capital of recycling

Welcome to Eskilstuna, an hour from Stockholm. A former steel-producing town that fell on hard times through deindustrialisation has reinvented itself with a number of green initiatives. Here, at the mall, everything is second-hand or recycled, and since the scheme began, there has been zero domestic waste sent to landfill.

Trump interest fast-tracks ketamine-derived antidepressant

The president has been touting its benefits and offering to help the Department of Veterans Affairs purchase the breakthrough medicine which, used as a spray, is said to be able to help avert suicidal thoughts, but serious questions remain over its efficacy, as it emerges Trump has links to people involved in the development of the drug.

Documentary on anti-LGBT witch-hunt reveals postwar state homophobia

In 2009, the recently elected president, Barack Obama, reversed a Bush administration policy and signed a UN declaration calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, as laws strengthening LGBT rights passed. Fast forward 10 years, and homophobes in the US are emboldened, giving this film fresh, yet troubling, relevancy.

How gerrymandering paved the way for anti-abortion laws in the US

Republican-controlled legislatures in Alabama, Georgia and Ohio all recently passed laws that would outlaw abortion in most cases, flying in the face of public polls in those states that show a majority prefer to keep abortion legal. However, thanks to changes in political boundaries, the legislators in question do not seem concerned about getting their comeuppance in 2020 – galvanising them to push through ever more extreme laws.

Opinion

Support for the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren is surging as she talks up an ultra-millionaire tax, student debt cancellation and breaking up big tech, and discusses reproductive rights, vaccines and the opioid crisis. Her ambitious ideas are setting her apart from the field, writes Jill Priluck.

Rather than condescend to voters, like most politicians, Warren has treated voters as adults, smart enough to handle her wonky style of campaigning. Instead of spoon-feeding prospective voters soundbites, Warren is giving them heaps to digest.

Sport

Nigeria cry foul after a double-taken, VAR-awarded penalty in their 1-0 defeat to France leaves their third-place hopes in the balance, with the referee strictly, but correctly, enforcing the rule that the keeper must be on the goal line when the spot kick is taken.

The Canadian Olympic gold medallist couple, ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, chat about how they maintain a professional relationship while ignoring fan fiction.

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