Trump's Georgia indictment and all about the viral song 'Rich Man in Richmond': Morning Rundown

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Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants are charged in Georgia for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Looters and land speculators target Maui. And, have you heard? There's a new conservative anthem.

Here’s what to know today.

Trump and his allies indicted over efforts to overturn 2020 election in Georgia

Former President Donald Trump and 18 of his top allies have been charged with racketeering in their efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

The 41-count indictment from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office charged the former president with felony racketeering and numerous conspiracy charges, court filings show. It’s the fourth time Trump has been indicted in the past four and a half months and the second time he’s been charged with trying to interfere with the election in the past two weeks.

Among the defendants are his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and a former top Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark.

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Arrest warrants have been issued for Trump and his co-defendants in light of the indictment, and they have until next Friday to voluntarily turn themselves in.

Read the full story for more details from the indictment and a look at what happens next. Follow our live blog for the latest updates.

Looters and land speculators seize on Lahaina

Bryan Sizemore said he has had to chase off several looters at gunpoint from his business in Lahaina, a town on the western edge of Maui. In his view, they’re “trying to get across the island to where there is more aid,” but before they get there, they’re desperate for gas and other scarce items.

Meanwhile, other wildfire survivors in Maui say they are getting calls from real estate investors seeking to buy up what remains of their island homes and property, leading one resident to declare on national TV, “Lahaina is not for sale.”

The death toll in the devastating wildfires in Hawaii rose yesterday to 99 people, with authorities still searching through the rubble for more bodies. While FEMA has provided resources to Maui County, the time it takes for items to reach the island has left some residents feeling like there’s a delay in resources. Follow our live blog.

‘Blind Side’ football star calls his storybook adoption a lie

Michael Oher with Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy prior to an Ole Miss game in 2008. (Matthew Sharpe / Getty Images file)
Michael Oher with Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy prior to an Ole Miss game in 2008. (Matthew Sharpe / Getty Images file)

Michael Oher’s story of making it to the NFL after being rescued from a rough life by a compassionate couple, glorified in the book and movie “The Blind Side,” was actually a lie, according to a new court filing. Instead of a fairytale adoption, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy tricked Oher into a conservatorship and cut him out of lucrative rights to his name, likeness and life story, Oher alleges in a new petition to end the conservatorship.

The Tuohys negotiated a deal with 20th Century Fox that left Oher without any payment, while the Tuohy family got $225,000 and 2.5% of “The Blind Side’s” net proceeds, the petition states. The film has grossed over $300 million. The Tuohy’s saw Oher as “a gullible young man whose athletic talent could be exploited,” the petition states.

Los Angeles police detail tactics in ‘flash rob’ thefts

When about 50 people swarmed a Los Angeles mall over the weekend and fled with items totaling about $300,000, they could have been following orders from organized crime or gang members, police said. The people committing these flash-rob-style thefts, as they’ve been labeled, may be the same people, “over and over again,” Deputy Los Angeles Police Chief Alan Hamilton said. The thieves usually already know what they’re going to steal, and they know how they’re going to offload the merchandise afterward, he said.

There have been no arrests in Saturday’s robbery at a Nordstrom shop at the Westfield Topanga Mall in Woodland Hills, where thieves made off with high-end clothing and handbags.

The hottest July ‘by a long shot’

Earth had its hottest July in 174 years of record keeping — and likely its warmest-ever month — according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. To put it into perspective, “it’s very likely that July 2023 was hotter than any month in any year since at least 1850,” NOAA’s chief scientist said.

The data released yesterday also show that last month was the fourth consecutive month that global ocean surface temperatures hit a record high. The series of broken weather records has been worrying climate experts in recent months. And with an El Niño weather pattern settling in, next year’s outlook isn’t expected to bring much relief.

Today’s Talker: The latest viral conservative anthem is…

Oliver Anthony performs
Oliver Anthony performs

… “Rich Men of North Richmond,” a song by a previously off-the-grid farmer named Oliver Anthony that was released last week on YouTube. In just a few days, the song has shot to the top of the U.S. Apple Music and iTunes Country charts and racked up millions of views. The lyrics are a soulful expression of working-class frustrations and tear into wealthy Washington elites. So it didn’t take long for a few notable conservative lawmakers to publicly praise the tune.

Politics in Brief

Trump hush money case: New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the hush money criminal case against Donald Trump, has refused to recuse himself following an effort by Trump’s attorneys to get him to give the case to another jurist for the trial.

Justice Department: The FBI and Philadelphia law enforcement officials announced a case against a 17-year-old who they say supported Islamic extremists and purchased materials that could be used to make bombs.

Musicians Svitlana Siemieikina and Kristina Spitsina. (Yulia Bielashkova)
Musicians Svitlana Siemieikina and Kristina Spitsina. (Yulia Bielashkova)

Staff Pick: Busking one moment. Dead another.

Just before a Russian airstrike on a residential area of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, last week, Svitlana Siemieikina, 18, and Kristina Spitsyna, 21, stood next to each other, singing in the city’s streets. Now, they’re buried side-by-side after they were killed in the airstrike. Videos purportedly shot hours before the attack then surfaced online, triggering an outpouring of grief. This story poignantly captures a nation in mourning, two families’s grief and two girls’ love of music. — Elizabeth Robinson, newsletter editor

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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com