2.5: Spain’s former national Women’s soccer coach, Luis Rubiales, went on trial Monday over the forced kiss he gave star player Jenni Hermoso on live television after the team won the Women’s World Cup in 2023. Prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of 2.5 years not only for the kiss itself, but for Rubiales’ subsequent attempts to force Hermoso to downplay the incident amid public outrage.
7: A blast at a Moscow residential building located 7 miles from the Kremlin killedArmen Sargsyan, the leader of a pro-Russian paramilitary group operating in Eastern Ukraine. Ukraine has not commented on the incident but Sargsyan has been wanted since 2014 for murders committed in Kyiv. Ukraine is believed to be the author of several assassinations of high profile Russian security figures in and around Moscow in recent months.
$50 million: The Democrats are pivoting (back) to the working class. The leading SuperPac that supports the party has created a $50 million “Win them Back” fund to better appeal to Americans without college degrees ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The working class used to be a bulwark of Democratic support but Trump’s economic nationalism message and attacks on “wokism” have helped him to forge an increasingly multi-racial working class coalition.
2: Going once, going twice… gone! Sotheby’s is closing down its ecommerce business in China after barely two years. The famed auction house had bet on the wisdom of creating an online market in China, which for decades has been one of the biggest drivers of global demand for high end luxury goods and elite art. But interest turned out to be weaker than expected, and after Sotheby’s overall auction sales dropped by nearly 25% in 2024, the company brought down the gavel on its China ecommerce business.
