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This is our daily newsletter Worldcrunch Today, a rapid tour of the news of the day from the world's best journalism sources, regardless of language or geography.

🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• Donald Trump pleads not guilty in court: Former U.S. President Donald Trump pleaded “not guilty” to four criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots. The Republican frontrunner for the 2024 elections will be released on very minimal conditions until the next hearing, set for Aug. 28 — just five days after the first Republican presidential primary debate. Trump faces four counts of fraud, conspiracy and obstruction, with the most serious charge carrying a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

• Russia-Ukraine update: Ukraine’s intelligence services claim to have put the Russian Black Sea fleet vessel Olenegorsky Gornyak out of action, after carrying an overnight drone attack on the Novorossiysk naval base. An unverified video shows a Russian Navy ship being towed back to the naval base after suffering a serious breach. Meanwhile, the city of Berdiansk in southeastern Ukraine was the target of a series of overnight Russian drone strikes. Russia also announced it was doubling its 2023 defense spending to more than $100 billion, a third of all public expenditure, as the costs of war place a growing strain on Moscow’s finances.

• Alexei Navalny awaits new verdict: As a new trial opens in the high security prison where he is currently detained, Putin critic Alexei Navalny faces up to 20 additional years in a “special regime colony.” Navalny is already serving nine years for another conviction, but prosecutors have called to extend his sentence if he is found guilty of “extremism.”

• Pro-coup protests in Niger as Biden calls for president’s release: Hundreds of people reportedly gathered in Niamey, Niger’s capital city, to express their support for last week’s coup. The country’s new junta announced on state TV it was severing all military ties with France, which still has some 1,500 troops in Niger fighting armed groups in the Sahel. Ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, who has been held captive by the junta since the coup, published an opinion piece in the Washington Post, urging for the U.S. and partners to help. American President Joe Biden called for the immediate release of Bazoum and his family, while a coalition of West African countries threatened to use force if he was not freed and reinstated within the next two days.

• Denmark tightens border control: Danish authorities have announced a tightening of border controls until Aug. 10, after a wave of far-right-led protests have “affected the current security situation,” said Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard. Over the past few months, protests, that included the public burning and damaging of Korans in Denmark and Sweden, have led representatives from Muslim countries and beyond to demand that governments ban such acts.

• Bus crash kills 18 in Mexico: At least 18 people died and 23 were injured in a bus crash in western Mexico. The vehicle, carrying around 42 passengers and heading to the north border town of Tijuana, plunged off a highway into a ravine. The bus driver, suspected of speeding, has been detained by the police. Most of the passengers were foreigners, with some heading north to try and cross the U.S. border, according to local authorities.

• Italian art v. stupid tourists, continued: A group of young German tourists have been accused of toppling and damaging a 150-year-old statue at a villa in northern Italy. Posing for photos meant to be posted on social media, two members of the group climbed into a fountain to “hug” the statue while another pushed it with a stick, causing the sculpture to crash to the ground. “Domina,” by Italian artist Enrico Butti, is valued at €200,000, according to the property’s manager who lodged a complaint against the 17 people renting the villa.

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

Casablanca-based daily Le Matin celebrates the country’s women’s football team after Morocco made history: By beating Colombia, they qualified for the last 16 of the FIFA Women’s World Cup — in the team’s first-ever appearance at the event. Meanwhile, the tearful front pages lamented the surprise knock-out of two-time champion Germany. The tournament, held in Australia and New Zealand, lasts for another two weeks, with the final set to take place on Aug. 20.

#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS

43,000

South Korea is holding its first World Scout Jamboree since the pandemic — one of the world's largest outdoor educational events for young people, with more than 43,000 participants (most of them aged between 14 and 18) gathering in Buan, South Korea. But amid the current heatwave, this huge Scouts’ meeting has taken an unfortunate turn, with nearly 700 participants already fallen ill as a result of the heat and rising temperatures.

📰 STORY OF THE DAY

Free curls in Cuba: An Afro hairstyle revival of identity and politics — and fashion

In the island nation, Rizo Libre (free curl) seeks to rescue Afro-descendant roots on the island, reports Rachel Pereda in Cuba's independent news outlet El Toque.

✊ During the 1960s and the Black Power movement in the United States, embracing Afro hair became a symbol of resistance, an act to rescue Black self-determination and "Blackness as an identity." In Cuba, at least in the last decade, this self-determination has also been promoted by initiatives that seek female empowerment and fight against racial discrimination against Black people. Rizo Libre, or "free curl," is one initiative that seeks to rescue Afro-descendant roots on the island.

💇 For Yadira Rachel Vargas, the creator of Rizo Libre, the initiative wants to break stereotypes and achieve freedom for women to be proudly Afro. Since 2016 Yadira has been proudly wearing her natural hair, and three years later she began to study hair characteristics and needs. "Basically I consumed the content published by the Colombian stylist and influencer Cirle Tatisy and similar Brazilian stylists. In Cuba, I followed the content on hair care, definition techniques and cosmetic products for styling Afro-curly hair," she says.

✍️ Only 10 days after the birth of her second child, Yadira decided that she would start styling hair professionally. Rizo Libre became her third child. For her, each client is a fascinating world. “Listening to them talk while they wait for their crown to shine is the opportunity to know the place that their Afro identity occupies in their lives. For this reason, in addition to making posts in social media of the hairstyles, I write texts to reflect on the paradigms of beauty, the vindication of type four hair textures, which are full-fledged Afro hair and also other issues related to motherhood.”

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO

➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED

📣 VERBATIM

“If [the coup] succeeds, it will have devastating consequences for our country, our region and the entire world.”

— In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum spoke out against the recent military coup. The ousted leader says he is being held hostage by the military junta and is calling on the U.S. and the international community to “help us restore our constitutional order.” The coup in Niger is the latest in a series of military takeovers in West Africa that have toppled governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea. The ensuing political upheaval has caused tensions throughout the region and beyond — most notably with former colonial power France.

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