SPEEDY TRIAL: The two co-defendants of Donald Trump in the Georgia election-interference case who asked for a speedy trial, and to be separated from each other, will go to trial together on Oct. 23rd the judge in the case ruled yesterday. Lawyers for Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro had argued yesterday that their cases are not connected by their actions, but the overall indictment against 19 people charges that they were all part of a larger scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

  The prosecution said it may call as many as 150 witnesses, indicating the trial might take months.

  Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had originally hoped to try all 19 defendants together, including Trump. Five of the 19 are asking to be tried in federal rather than state court, claiming that they were acting under their federal responsibilities when they sought to reverse the election results for Trump. 

MANHUNT: The Pennsylvania prison from which convicted murderer Danelo Cavalcante escaped released a stunning video showing how he got over the wall.

  Just a week ago, while a basketball game was going on in the exercise yard, Cavalcante crab-walked up two parallel walls with his hands on one wall and his feet on the other climbing to the roof.

  He then went through two lines of razor wire and scaled a fence to get off the prison grounds. 

  Cavalcante, 34, was convicted on Aug. 16th of stabbing his former girlfriend, Deborah Brandao, nearly 40 times, killing her in front of her children. He was sentenced to life in prison.

SHUT THE TAPS: In an aggressive move to protect federal land, the Biden administration announced yesterday that it will bar oil and gas drilling on 13 million acres of pristine wilderness in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and cancel drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

  At the same time, the administration does not plan to stop the $8 billion Willow oil drilling project in the same vicinity, which President Biden approved this year. Environmentalists were infuriated about the approval after Biden had campaigned for president on a promise of “no new drilling, period” on federal lands and waters.

THE WAR ROOM: A Russian missile killed 16 people including a child when it struck a market in a small town in the eastern Donetsk region. At least 28 were reported to be wounded. A Ukrainian official said, “Russian troops are terrorists who will not be forgiven and will not be left in peace. There will be a just retribution for everything.” 

ORANGE ALERT: Donald Trump lost another one yesterday.

  The federal judge in writer E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation lawsuit against the former president said the case had already been decided by the facts against Trump in the first defamation case and the only purpose of a trial is to determine damages.

  Carroll accused Trump of defamation after he denied raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. She won a $5 million judgment against him last May in the trial of her first lawsuit based on Trump’s statement that he didn’t rape her, didn’t know her, and that she wasn’t his “type.”

  Carroll filed her second lawsuit against Trump last November, renewing her claim of defamation and adding an accusation of a battery under the New York Adult Survivors Act. 

ABORTION INCREASES: Legal abortions appear to have increased in the US in the first six months of the year compared with 2020 as states with more liberal abortion laws absorbed patients traveling from states with tight restrictions and bans on the procedure.

  The research comes from the Guttmacher Institute, giving a statistical view of legal abortion since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision last year overturned the nationwide right to abortion. 

THE SPIN RACK: The special counsel investigating Hunter Biden said yesterday that he plans to indict the president’s son on a gun charge before the end of the month.  The younger Biden could be on trial as his father runs for re-election. He’s likely to be accused of lying on a federal form when he bought a pistol in 2018 and said he was not using drugs at the time. Hunter Biden previously had reached a deal that would have skipped a gun charge. — Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled to decriminalized abortion yesterday, calling the ban on the procedure “unconstitutional” and making it legally accessible in all federal health institutions across the country. It’s a big move for a predominantly Catholic country of 130 million people.  — HBO announced that “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” the monthly sports newsmagazine, is coming to an end at the end of this season after a run of 29 years. 

BELOW THE FOLD: The US Open tennis championship in Forest Hills, NY has reached the semi-finals, but millions of tennis fans can’t watch it because of a spat between Spectrum and The Walt Disney Company which has pulled Disney-owned ESPN from the television service. Even Daniil Medvedev, the Russian champion who’s made the final four, has been unable to watch the other matches in his hotel room.

  You don’t have to get into the details, but Disney and Charter, which owns Spectrum, have been unable to reach a new contract deal so Disney pulled its popular sports channel. It’s about money, but Disney just wants everyone to be in the happiest place on earth.

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