Morning Update: When That One Friend Comes To Visit

The view from the UK

President Donald Trump is in the UK for a state visit that comes as the British government is in disarray. Theresa May will step down as Tory leader at the end of the week but remains prime minister until her party chooses a successor. Here’s what you need to know:

👉 Boris Johnson is the overwhelming favourite to become the next Tory leader, and PM.. But when he was the UK’s foreign secretary, he was at times woefully unprepared for the job.

👉 The Tory leadership battle was meant to be a “clean” campaign, so candidates didn’t spend the race cutting each other down, and by extension the party. The pledge of goodwill lasted all of five minutes.

👉 Trump’s visit will be met with protesters who want to send a message about the spread of Trumpism. The organizers of the protests fear that Brits are distracted by Brexit. Even I am distracted by Brexit.

👉 Trump will not be meeting with the Duchess of Sussex. In a 2016 interview, Meghan Markle called Trump a misogynist. When Trump was asked about it on the eve of the trip, he said “I didn’t know that she was nasty.”

👉 And finally, Trump called Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, a “stone cold loser” minutes before his plane landed in the UK. It is, still, only Monday.

12 people were killed at a city government building in Virginia

A dozen people were killed and four others injured after a city employee opened fire at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center on Friday afternoon.

According to police, the public utilities employee entered Building 2 and “began to indiscriminately fire upon all the victims.”

Authorities have not speculated on the motive of the gunman, but said the employee resigned on the morning of the shooting. He was not facing termination at the time of the attack, nor was he facing any disciplinary action.

Officials are still working on identifying the victims and notifying their families.

SNAPSHOTS

Today is Apple’s WWDC 2019 conference. You can expect a bevy of new announcements, including the long-awaited breakup of iTunes into smaller Music, TV, and Podcasts apps. Here’s everything we’re watching for.

Trump made history on Friday by becoming the first Republican president to acknowledge LGBT Pride month. The acknowledgement comes as his administration works to undo and attack the civil rights of LGBT people.

Immigrants in El Paso were held in dangerously overcrowded, standing-room only cells. Inspectors from a government watchdog group found immigrants also had limited access to showers and clean clothing, with some wearing soiled clothing for days or weeks.

An Oklahoma mom has been charged with making her 10-year-old daughter get unnecessary medical treatment. Alisha Newman is facing possible jail time over lying to doctors in six different states about her daughter’s medical condition in what’s suspected of being a case of so-called Munchausen by proxy.

Robert Pattinson is lined up to play The Batman. Pattinson is in negotiations to play Bruce Wayne in the next reboot of the DC Comics superhero. The film will be written and directed by Matt Reeves (War for the Planet of the Apes). A true glow-up for Cedric Diggory.

For women trying to get an abortion in Alabama, “the system is designed to humiliate you”

In 2017, five clinics performed abortions in Alabama, down from about 20 in the 1990s. There are now three, shouldering an increasingly heavy patient load.

Multiple US states have introduced or passed new restrictions on abortion in the last few weeks. Nearly all the bills will be challenged in court — and that’s the point. Anti-abortion activists anticipate the fight will go to the Supreme Court with its conservative majority — and activists see a chance to overturn Roe v. Wade.

But before the fight gets that far, the reality on the ground for women seeking abortions is already stark. According to a recent study, about 90% of counties in the US do not have an abortion provider.

Read Brianna Sacks’ eye-opening feature on abortion access in Alabama. This quote stuck with me: “People across the US are like, ‘How did we get here?’ and we’re like, ‘Where have you been?’”

We now return to the International Where Do You Keep Your Laundry Machine debate

Some time ago, we explored why the British are correct, that laundry machines belong in the kitchen, since many British homes don’t have enough space for a ~laundry room~.

This was eventually verified by hard data: 67% of respondents to a YouGov poll in the UK said that, yes, the kitchen is the right home for laundry.

Now an entry from Germany has reignited the debate as the Germans — true to form and on-brand — have offered a more logical solution: the bathroom. In fact, Germans are having a great time wondering why on earth would laundry belong where you make your food. They… have a point. Please enjoy the raging Twitter conversation.