US News

• A St. Louis police officer has been charged with second-degree assault for shooting a woman instead of tasing her. [Link]
• Some Utah jails are charging over $11 for a 15-minute phone call. The high rate makes it difficult for prisoners to stay in contact with their families. Prisons make money off the phone calls. [Link]
• Illinois’ governor announces a plan to legalize marijuana and expunge some marijuana convictions. [Link]

Russiagate

• Michael Tracey interviews the Trump Tower meeting organizer Rob Goldstone. Goldstone explains how this was not a conspiracy to steal the election. [Link]
• The FBI sent an undercover investigator to meet with Papadopoulos when he was a member of the Trump campaign. [Link]
• Peter Van Buren’s 15 questions for Mueller. [Link]

North Korea

• Tim Shorrock breaks down the connections between the group that broke into the North Korean embassy in Madrid and the US government. [Link]
• The UN reports that North Korea is facing severe food shortages following a bad harvest. [Link]

Myanmar

• The Myanmar government killed six and rounded up 275 people in the Rakhine state. Rakhine is where the Myanmar army carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya. [Link]

Afghanistan

• The US ends a program that trains Afghan pilots in the US because many of the Afghans went AWOL. [Link]
• The Taliban put out a statement that claims talks with the US are closing in on a timeline for the exit of foreign troops. [Link]
• The SIGAR says critical data on tracking who controls each district is no longer available. [Link]

Africa

• Nearly 400 have died since the battle for Tripoli started four weeks ago. Frontlines have remained near the former international airport south of the city. [Link]
• The Islamic State killed ten soldiers in Nigeria. [Link]
• The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in the Congo has killed nearly 1,000. Efforts to contain the outbreak has been limited by over 100 attacks on medical facilities since January. [Link]