Friday’s top story: President rails against ‘greatest hoax in history of politics’ at Grand Rapids rally. Plus, can the world quench China’s bottomless thirst for milk?

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

Trump wrongly claims ‘total exoneration, complete vindication’

Revelling in his first rally since Robert Mueller delivered his report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump told supporters in Michigan that “crooked journalists” had perpetuated “the single greatest hoax in the history of politics” in their coverage of the special counsel’s investigation. Calling the accusations of collusion between his campaign and Russia “ridiculous bullshit”, the president wrongly claimed “total exoneration” and “complete vindication”, singling out Democratic critics such as “little pencil-neck Adam Schiff”.

Special Olympics. Trump said on Thursday he had “overridden” his administration’s decision to cut funding for the Special Olympics, saying “I’ve been to the Special Olympics, I think it’s incredible ... We’re funding the Special Olympics.”

New York sues the Sacklers for alleged role in opioid crisis

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A protester holds up a prescription bottle of OxyContin during a demonstration against the Sackler family at the Met museum in New York. Photograph: Yana Paskova/The Guardian

New York state has joined a growing number of American communities in suing the billionaire Sackler family – the owners of Purdue Pharma, which manufactures the prescription painkiller OxyContin – for their alleged part in perpetuating the opioid epidemic that is thought to kill almost 50,000 Americans each year. The announcement on Thursday came days after Purdue agreed a $270m settlement with Oklahoma.

Tobacco money. The Smithsonian and several other US museums are facing questions over their acceptance of donations from tobacco companies, amid the furore over the Sacklers’ funding of major arts institutions.

Chaos in El Paso as border crossing reaches ‘breaking point’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Central American migrants surrender to US border patrol agents at the border fence in El Paso. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

Aid workers, churches and local government agencies in El Paso, Texas say they have been forced to step in to address a steep increase in Central American families seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border, as the surge in migrants leaves federal immigration authorities at “breaking point”. That was the assessment of US customs and border protection commissioner Kevin McAleenan, who said this week that the number of new arrivals in March is expected to reach 100,000.

New Mexico. Marissa Nuñez, a volunteer at an immigrant advocacy centre in El Paso, told the Guardian the city’s shelters were so overwhelmed by recent arrivals that some migrants had to be transported to shelters in New Mexico, 300 miles away.

Boeing faces US lawsuit over 737 crash in Ethiopia

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An Ethiopian Orthodox ceremony at the site of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, marking 12 days since the tragedy. Photograph: Jemal Countess/Getty Images

The family of a Rwandan citizen who died in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 has filed a lawsuit against Boeing in a US federal court in Chicago. Jackson Musoni was one of 157 people killed when the Boeing 737 Max crashed outside Addis Ababa on 10 March, just five months after another 737 Max, operated by Lion Air, crashed in Indonesia, killing 189. Boeing said it could not comment on the suit, which accuses the company of defectively designing the aircraft’s automated flight control system.

System update. Boeing said on Wednesday it has updated the 737 Max’s software to prevent the accidental triggering of an anti-stall system, which is believed to have repeatedly forced the aircraft’s nose lower in at least one of the disasters.

Crib sheet

UK prime minister Theresa May will on Friday try to woo more MPs to back her Brexit deal by asking them to vote only on half of it: the withdrawal agreement severing the UK’s membership of the EU. She is nevertheless expected to lose – again.

An NRA employee wrote to a Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist the day after the Parkland school shooting last year, speculating there was “more to this story”. The email exchange emerged in a defamation lawsuit against Infowars host Alex Jones.

Residents of the Embarcadero in San Francisco have raised more than $46,000 from a GoFundMe crowdfunding appeal, in order to hire a lawyer to fight the development of a homeless shelter in their wealthy neighbourhood.

Norway’s Kon-Tiki museum has said it will return thousands of historic artefacts collected on Easter Island by the explorer Thor Heyerdahl during his celebrated trans-Pacific raft expeditions in the 1950s and 1980s.

Must-reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Beto O’Rourke speaks from the roof of his car to an overflow crowd at a campaign stop in Las Vegas. Photograph: John Locher/AP

Beto seeks to prove himself in Nevada

Beto O’Rourke has stepped out of his Texas comfort zone for a frenetic tour through the early voting states, as the former congressman vies for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Lauren Gambino joined him on the road in Las Vegas.

The environmental cost of China’s milk consumption

Many people in China are congenitally lactose intolerant and historically the Chinese shunned milk, writes Felicity Lawrence. But today it is considered a symbol of a modern, affluent society, and the Communist party plans to vastly increase the country’s milk production – with potentially serious environmental consequences.

Billie Eilish: ‘I miss my childhood’

At just 17, Billie Eilish is inspiring the same fervour in her teenage fans that she once felt for Justin Bieber. “It’s not a good feeling to be in love with someone who doesn’t know you exist,” she tells Hannah Ewens. “I would sob all the time because I loved him too much.”

‘I regularly smash things up in a rage room’

Four years ago, Jahte Le felt the sudden urge to break a few glass bottles at a Toronto “rage room”. Since then he’s spent approximately CA$6,000 for the privilege of smashing up furniture and large electrical appliances as often as once a week.

Opinion

From a distance, the Brexit process certainly looks chaotic. But Simon Jenkins believes MPs in Westminster are inching towards a consensus: most likely, Brexit with a customs union – and a second referendum to validate that deal.

These two ways forward are quite separate. The one is a Brexit mandate, the other a Brexit process. They are simply the sensible compromise to the national debate of the past two years.

Sport

The American figure skater Nathan Chen won his second world championship last week, beating Japan’s two-time Olympic gold medalist Yuzuru Hanyu on his home turf in Tokyo. Their rivalry could peak at the perfect moment: the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Fernandinho, Manchester City’s most important player, according to manager Pep Guardiola, could return to the team when they travel to Fulham on Saturday. That’s one of 10 things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend.

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