Thursday briefing: Putin wanted Clinton to win, says Trump

Donald Trump has claimed that Vladimir Putin wanted Hillary Clinton to win the US election as he sought yet again to quell the storm over his campaign links to Russia that threatens to engulf his presidency. In an interview with veteran Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, Trump defended his embattled son over allegations of improper election campaign dealings, dismissing it as a “witch-hunt”.

And claiming that although he got on “very, very well” with Putin, Trump said the Russian president wanted Clinton to win because she would not have “made the US military stronger” or “opened up” the world energy market with more coal production and fracking. “There are many things that I do that are the exact opposite of what he (Putin) would want,” said Trump, who flew to Paris overnight for a state visit and meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron. The handshake should be fun.

Trump might be glad for a little respite from the storm back home where Democrats are calling for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to be stripped of his security clearance after it emerged that he failed to disclose his attendance at the now-notorious meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Labour puts PM ‘on notice’ – Theresa May faces a humiliating parliamentary Brexit defeat over the “great repeal bill” after Labour said it would vote against the legislation without significant concessions. As MPs prepare for the publication of the bill today, Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, said he was putting the prime minister “on notice” and demanded changes on matters from parliamentary scrutiny to workers’ rights. A withdrawal of Labour support for the bill would leave the government vulnerable to defeat if backbench Tory MPs were to rebel and vote against it.

May’s woes continued to pile up as the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier issued a warning to the UK that “the clock is ticking” on the two-year negotiation process and the head of the government’s public spending watchdog, Amyas Morse, suggested that the government’s approach to Brexit could fall apart “like a chocolate orange”.

Great spot – Nasa has released stunning images of Jupiter’s great red spot, the huge storm that has been raging on the planet for hundreds of years. The Juno probe passed as close as 3,500km above the planet to photograph its famous feature and beam back raw data that Nasa has shared with scientists and the public. It is hoped that the mission can discover more about the the makeup of the planet, from its magnetic field to its radiation environment, and what fuels the red spot.

 Pictures of jupiter’s great red spot taken by the Juno space probe. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Power surge – The expected sharp growth in electric vehicles on our roads could cause a demand for electricity to jump by 8GW by 2030, according to National Grid. The number of plug-in vehicles could reach 9m by 2030, up from around 90,000 today, said the company, which runs the UK’s national transmission networks for electricity and gas. The extra power demand would be more than double the output of the 3.2GW capacity of the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.

In the ruins of Mosul – Although the Iraqi prime minister has declared the battle for Mosul to be over, emaciated figures continue to emerge from basements and tunnels in the city as troops go from building to building to make sure that every jihadi – and their families – have been flushed out, writes our reporter, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. His dispatch describes a city in almost-complete ruin after an eight-month battle to the death in which no prisoners were taken. Even now, Isis fighters, many of them hopelessly wounded, lie in wait for soldiers to detonate suicide vests.

Monkey business – British freelance photographer David Slater thought he had attained financial security when he coaxed Indonesian monkeys into taking selfies which became a worldwide sensation. But six years later he claims to be broke as a court in San Francisco heard an appeal on Wednesday in the case brought by animal rights group Peta that the animals have the copyright. One of the points at issue, Slater notes, is that Peta may not be suing on behalf of the right monkey.

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