Anger after Trump’s secret flight swap appears to offer up staff and media as decoys | First Thing
Good morning.
Democrats have called for a congressional briefing after a charade in which Donald Trump was secretly spirited into a different plane than the one the public and press believed he was travelling on.
Ukraine’s strikes on Russia’s Wildberries ‘aren’t about the front line’
Many have compared Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, to Amazon, and some claim that, as in the case of the US company, shopping on its website or app feels addictive.
Clacton by-election: Farage may win the town, but can he win the country?
As Reform UK is beset by financial scandals, the populist party’s rise is in doubt.
Several polls have shown it lagging behind the governing Labour Party, while electorally, it has been defeated in by-elections in Makerfield and Gorton and Denton and in the race last month for mayor of Greater Manchester.
Taiwan’s Foxconn reports 35 percent rise in profit on AI demand
World’s largest contract electronics maker forecasts strong growth in 2026 amid AI boom.
Taiwan’s tech titan Foxconn has reported a forecast-busting second-quarter net profit, as exploding demand for artificial intelligence servers needed in data centres powers the company’s growth.
Trump says his decoy plane faced ‘greater risk’ in secret flight change
The swap, which happened after the NATO summit on July 8, wasn’t disclosed until this week.
United States President Donald Trump has confirmed that he secretly swapped planes due to a security threat after a NATO summit in Turkiye last month, and say he actually faced a “greater risk” on the decoy plane.
Trump's secret plane swap highlights personal stakes of Iran war
"I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well, I got him first."
That was President Donald Trump's observation, made to ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl, in a phone conversation the day after he launched the US military campaign against Iran in February.
Children as young as nine hurt in growing number of e-scooter crashes
Most of the incidents in Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield involved private e-scooters, often on public roads, pavements or footpaths, despite that being illegal.
Private e-scooters are meant only for use on private land, with the owner's permission.
Assam: How a 97-year-old escaped deadly Indian floods on a banana log raft
A woman wades through floodwaters outside her inundated house at a village in Assam's Sivasagar 
Image source, AFP via Getty Images
Sun-tanned cauliflowers and knobbly spuds - the heatwave veg that's good to eat
Image source, Oddbox
ByAlex Daniel
Business reporter
Would you buy a cauliflower that looks like it's been sunburnt or a cucumber that's curled back on itself?
Fifty police chiefs call for PM to prevent early release of PC Harper's killers
The police chiefs from Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland also called for greater consideration of victims when prisoners have their sentences altered - such as with the government's early release scheme, which was designed to reduce prison overcrowding.