Did Trump commit treason in Helsinki?

Human stories from a world in conflict. No Images? [Click here]( — July 20, 2018 — This week was all about Helsinki. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met one-on-one there on Monday amid an ongoing US investigation into Russian election meddling that Trump continues to call a "witch hunt." The reviews of Trump's summit performance were, to put a positive spin on it, mixed. Plus, we go to Ukraine, where we meet women rebuilding their families' lives after fleeing conflict. And conditions are getting scary in Nicaragua. Death squads have returned to Nicaragua Over the past three months in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega's government of "reconciliation and national unity" has killed more than 300 people, injured thousands and abducted and disappeared hundreds more. Sandinista "death caravans" of hooded police and government paramilitaries have raided towns, firing battlefield weapons at unarmed protesters, dragging people from their homes, torching buildings and leaving dead bodies in the street. "This is more Goebbels than Orwell," said famed Nicaraguan author and former Sandinista revolutionary Gioconda Belli. [Learn more >]( 'Step by step, piece by piece' More than one million people have abandoned their homes in eastern Ukraine and more than 10,000 people have died since the conflict began in 2014. Who's leading these displaced families to safety? Often it's women. They "do better" than men at managing life after conflict, says one nonprofit in Kiev that helps families rebuild. [Learn more >]( High crimes and misdemeanors? The reaction came fast and fierce. And it wasn’t just from Democratic Party supporters or liberal news outlets. Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, called President Donald Trump’s news conference with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin a “disgrace.” Mike Rogers, a former member of Congress from Michigan, US Army officer and FBI official, called it a “betrayal.” The former CIA director John Brennan even used the T-word. "It was nothing short of treasonous," he tweeted. Is that a fair word to be throwing around? We spoke to legal experts to find out. [Learn more >]( Germany's delicate balancing act In the age of Trump and Putin, some Germans worry that the nation's decades-long balancing act between East and West might come tumbling down, leaving them — and Europe — reeling from the fallout. [Learn more >]( BuzzFeed News [American conservatives played a secret role in the Macedonian fake news boom ahead of 2016]( An investigation reveals that the fake news sites that flourished in Macedonia in 2016 weren’t just the work of local teens — and that security agencies are probing possible connections to Russia. The Texas Tribune [Immigrant infants too young to talk called into court to defend themselves]( The Trump administration has summoned at least 70 infants to immigration court for their own deportation proceedings since Oct. 1, according to Justice Department data. The New York Times [Why New Zealand is furious about Australia’s deportation policy]( New Zealanders are now the largest group inside Australian immigration detention centers, straining one of the world’s closest bilateral relationships. And questions of race and fairness are intensifying: Of those sent back to New Zealand from January 2015 to this past April, at least 60 percent were Maori or Pacific Islander. Rolling Stone [How to survive America’s kill list]( When a US citizen heard he was on his own country’s drone target list, he wasn’t sure he believed it. After five near-misses, he does — and is suing the United States to contest his own execution. The Washington Post [ISIS is making a comeback in Iraq just months after Baghdad declared victory]( The Islamic State is creeping back into parts of central Iraq just seven months after the government declared victory in the war against the group, embarking on a wave of kidnappings, assassinations and bombings that have raised fears that a new cycle of insurgency is starting again. The Intercept [What Mueller’s latest indictment reveals about Russian and US spycraft]( Last week, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as part of his investigation into interference with the 2016 presidential election, charged 12 Russian military intelligence officers with conducting “large-scale cyber operations to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election.” The indictment contains a surprising amount of technical information about alleged Russian cyberattacks against a range of US political targets. The Associated Press [Under Assad’s grip, uneasy co-existence with Syria ex-rebels]( As the Syrian government reasserts control over opposition strongholds, some rebels have handed over their weapons and agreed to a surrender deal that would allow them to stay in their hometowns. Now, co-existence between the Syrian military and former rebel fighters is the new reality. 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