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Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s headlines. If you’d like to receive this briefing by email, sign up here.

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Top story: McConnell plans to press on with Kavanaugh vote

The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has vowed to press ahead with a vote on Friday to progress Brett Kavanaugh’s supreme court confirmation, as senators received the FBI’s investigation of sexual assault claims made against the nominee. Kavanaugh denies the allegations. Donald Trump reiterated his support for his nominee in a tweet on Wednesday evening, calling him a “fine man” and a “great intellect”.

- ‘Plain wrong’ Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, three Republican senators whose votes are crucial to Kavanaugh’s confirmation, have expressed disgust at Trump’s public mockery of Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.

One police officer killed and six injured in Carolina shooting

Play Video 0:58 Police chief pays emotional tribute to officers after South Carolina shooting – video

Seven police officers have been shot, one fatally, in a two-hour standoff with a suspect who took children hostage at a home in Florence County, South Carolina, on Wednesday. The unnamed suspect was eventually taken into custody. At a news conference, the Florence police chief, Allen Heidler, described his dead colleague as “the bravest police officer I have ever known”.

- Officer named. The officer killed was identified by the Associated Press as Terrence Carraway, a 30-year veteran of the Florence police department.

- Hurricane Florence. The city of Florence is still recovering from the hurricane of the same name, which brought heavy flooding.

Officer who shot Laquan McDonald faces murder trial verdict

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Caught on camera: McDonald’s shooting was recorded by a dashcam. Photograph: John J. Kim/AP

The prosecution will make its closing arguments on Thursday in the murder trial of Jason Van Dyke, the white Chicago police officer who shot dead the black teenager Laquan McDonald four years ago this month. Van Dyke shot the 17-year-old 16 times as he was apparently walking away, in an incident that shocked a city where race relations had long been fraught.

- The accused. Van Dyke is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, 16 counts of aggravated battery, and one count of official misconduct. The 12-member jury includes just one black member.

‘A war on wildlife’: terrorism expert tackles illegal animal trade

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A black rhino bull killed by poachers in South Africa. The photo won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017 grand title award. Photograph: Brent Stirton/For National Geographic magazine

A former counter-terrorism expert who now leads a wildlife research institute has described illegal hunting and the destruction of wild habitat as a “horror” comparable to war and terrorism atrocities. Writing for the Guardian before a global summit to tackle the illegal wildlife trade, Dominic Jermey, the director general of the Zoological Society of London, argues that it is “a war with catastrophic impacts on people and animals”.

- Mass extinction. The devastation has accelerated dramatically in recent decades, with a 58% global decline in wildlife since 1970. Jermey said: “That’s like losing the entire [human] population of Asia from the world.”

Crib sheet

- A judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from ending protections that allow immigrants from Sudan, Haiti, Nicaragua and El Salvador to live and work legally in the US.

- The continuing rise of the dollar could spell trouble for emerging markets that have borrowed heavily against the US currency.

- The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has backed away from the administration’s previous goal of getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons before the end of Trump’s first term.

- Osaka is ending its 60-year relationship with its “sister” city, San Francisco, in protest over a statue in the US city that commemorates the so-called comfort women used by Japan in wartime.

Must-reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers almost never run for office, even at state and local levels. Illustration: Sébastien Thibault

Why are so few US politicians from the working class?

About half of Americans are working class, yet workers have never occupied more than 2% of the seats in any US Congress. Nicholas Carnes asks why candidates such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are the exception, not the rule.

Brazil’s elections: crime, corruption and a ‘tropical Trump’

The far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro leads the polls in the run-up to this weekend’s Brazil elections, perhaps the most important in the history of Latin America’s largest democracy. Tom Phillips explains why.

Female artists redress the balance at Not 30% Fair

About 60% of art graduates are women. Yet the work of female artists only 30% of galleries and museums. The Other Art Fair’s Not 30% event aims to point out and protest that imbalance by showcasing contemporary female artists.

Standing Rock activist faces prison after being shot by police

The activist Marcus Mitchell was shot in the face by a sheriff’s deputy during the Standing Rock protests in January 2017. Now Mitchell is being prosecuted in relation to the incident, while the officers involved face no repercussions. He spoke to Will Parrish.

Opinion

Women make up a third of Democrats in Congress, but just one-tenth of Republicans. That growing gender gap could damage the GOP at the midterms, and beyond, writes Geoffrey Kabaservice.

Republicans could offset the claim that they are indifferent to women’s issues if they could demonstrate a record of having elevated significant numbers of women into positions of power in Congress – but they can’t.

Sport

Lionel Messi’s Barcelona laid waste to Tottenham in a 4-2 Champions League masterclass at Wembley on Wednesday night.

After Conor McGregor’s violent outburst outside the ring in April, the UFC president, Dana White, said he was “disgusted” with the sport’s best-known fighter. Now, he’s using the incident to publicise McGregor’s forthcoming bout with Khabib Nurmagomedov.

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