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Former US national security advisor John Bolton admitted on television Tuesday that he has helped plan coups in other countries, while arguing that the January 6, 2021 riot in Washington fell short of such efforts.

The attack on the US Capitol was the result of then-president Donald Trump “just stumbling around from one idea to another,” Bolton told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat, not here, but, you know, other places, it takes a lot of work,” he said.

Bolton — who served as Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 to 2019 — did not specify which governments he had helped to overthrow, but while in his post, he advocated for US military intervention in Venezuela.

January 6 was “not an attack on our democracy. It’s Donald Trump looking out for Donald Trump. It’s a once in a lifetime occurrence,” said Bolton.

“Ultimately, he did unleash the rioters at the Capitol. As to that, there’s no doubt. But not to overthrow the Constitution, to buy more time, to throw the matter back to the states, to try and redo the issue,” he added.

An unabashed hawk, Bolton served in the US Departments of Justice and State during three Republican administrations, starting with Ronald Reagan’s in the 1980s.

He served as the US ambassador to the United Nations under former president George W. Bush, and for decades has been recognizable by his large white mustache. 

Bolton unrepentantly pushed for the US invasion of Iraq and has voiced support for bombing Iran and North Korea — an interventionist approach to foreign policy that put him at odds with Trump, who fired him in 2019.

Bolton’s comments on the January 6 riots came as a congressional committee works to determine whether Trump or his associates had a role in planning or encouraging the violent insurrection that left at least five people dead and 140 police officers injured.

On Tuesday, lawmakers said a tweet by then-president Trump promising a “wild” January 6 rally was seen as a “call to arms” by members of right-wing militia groups and other supporters of the president who went on to assault the US Capitol.

Los Angeles prosecutors said Tuesday they will no longer oppose the release of sealed transcripts in the statutory rape case against Roman Polanski — documents which the fugitive director has previously argued could reveal judicial misconduct.

George Gascon, the Los Angeles County district attorney, said his office had “determined it to be in the interest of justice to agree to the unsealing of these transcripts.”

“This case has been described by the courts as ‘one of the longest-running sagas in California criminal justice history,'” said Gascon in a statement. 

“For years, this office has fought the release of information that the victim and public have a right to know.”

While it is not known what exactly the transcripts contain, they include testimony by former Deputy District Attorney Roger Gunson, the first prosecutor to handle Polanski’s case.

In 1977, French-Polish director Polanski was arrested after 13-year-old Samantha Gailey accused him of plying her with drugs and champagne and forcibly sodomizing her.

Seeking to spare the child a trial, prosecutors dropped the most serious charges in a plea deal, with Polanski accepting guilt for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

He served 42 days in prison while undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

When it appeared that the judge, Laurence Rittenband, was set to reconsider and hand down a much lengthier prison sentence, Polanski fled to France, where he still resides.

The “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Chinatown” director has not returned to the United States since, and has been engaged in a decades-long cat-and-mouse game with officials seeking his extradition, before a global audience split between continuing outrage and forgiveness for his acts.

According to Gascon’s statement, Polanski first requested the transcripts be unsealed “several years ago” in order to “conduct an investigation into alleged judicial misconduct.”

Gascon also described the circumstances in which Polanski was initially treated by prosecutors as “extraordinary” and added that his office was committed to “transparency and accountability for all in the justice system.”

The Hollywood Reporter said the new request to see the transcripts came not from Polanski, but from two journalists. 

Gailey publicly forgave Polanski in 1997, and said her treatment by the press and judicial system were worse than the original crime.

She has also previously called for the transcripts to be unsealed.

But Gascon’s statement concludes: “Polanski remains a fugitive from justice and should surrender himself to the Los Angeles County Superior Court to be sentenced.”

In more recent years, Polanski — now 88 — has also been accused of other historic sex crimes by different women.

He denies the allegations, for which the statute of limitations has expired.

American toy manufacturer Mattel has unveiled new specialty Barbie dolls modeled after the famous English primatologist Jane Goodall and her beloved research specimen, a chimpanzee named David Greybeard.

The Goodall doll, which Mattel says will be partly made with recycled plastic, sports the researcher’s classic beige collared shirt and shorts, as well as a pair of binoculars and a blue notebook.

David Greybeard was the chimpanzee on whom Goodall wrote her initial research papers, which documented for the first time the species’ usage of tools. 

“I’d been suggesting it for a long time that girls don’t want just to be film stars and things like that,” said Goodall in a promotional video.

“Many of them, like me, want to be in the out in nature studying animals.”

The new Barbie is the latest in a series of dolls Mattel has dedicated to feminist or other inspirational icons.

Before Goodall, the toy-maker had produced dolls modeled off tennis star Naomi Osaka, the co-creator of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine, Sarah Gilbert, and an anonymous female “robotics engineer.”

“My heroes, my models were Tarzan, Dr. Dolittle,” said Goodall.

“There weren’t women doing the kind of things I wanted to do… so in all my dreams, I was a man.”

To all the little girls who like her would like to be changemakers, the primatologist recommends to “go for a walk in nature, learn to love it and then protect it.”

The James Webb Space Telescope’s first images aren’t just breathtaking — they contain a wealth of scientific insights and clues that researchers are eager to pursue. 

Here are some of the things scientists now hope to learn.

– Into the deep – 

Webb’s first image, released Monday, delivered the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe so far, “Webb’s First Deep Field.”

The white circles and ellipses are from the galaxy cluster in the foreground called SMACS 0723, as it appeared more than 4.6 billion years ago — roughly when our Sun formed too. 

The reddish arcs are from light from ancient galaxies that has traveled more than 13 billion years, bending around the foreground cluster, which acts as a gravitational lens.

NASA astrophysicist Amber Straughn said she was struck by “the astounding detail that you can see in some of these galaxies.” 

“They just pop out! There is so much more detail, it’s like seeing in high-def.” 

Plus, added NASA astrophysicist Jane Rigby, the image can teach us more about mysterious dark matter, which is thought to comprise 85 percent of matter in the universe — and is the main cause of the cosmic magnifying effect. 

The composite image, which required a 12.5 hour exposure time, is considered a practice run. Given longer exposure time, Webb should break all-time distance records by gazing back to the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago.

– The hunt for habitable planets – 

Webb captured the signature of water, along with previously undetected evidence of clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, puffy gas giant planet called WASP-96 b that orbits a distant star like our Sun. 

The telescope achieved this by analyzing starlight filtered through the planet’s atmosphere as it moves across the star, to the unfiltered starlight detected when the planet is beside the star — a technique called spectroscopy that no other instrument can do at the same detail. 

WASP-96 b is one of more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets in the Milky Way. But what really excites astronomers is the prospect of pointing Webb at smaller, rocky worlds, like our own Earth, to search for atmospheres and bodies of liquid water that could support life. 

– Death of a star –   

Webb’s cameras captured a stellar graveyard, in the Southern Ring Nebula, revealing the dim, dying star at its center in clear detail for the first time, and showing that it is cloaked in dust.

Astronomers will use Webb to delve deeper into specifics about “planetary nebulae” like these, which spew out clouds of gas and dust.

These nebulae will eventually also lead to rebirth.

The gas and cloud ejection stops after some tens of thousands of years, and once the material is scattered in space, new stars can form.

– A cosmic dance – 

Stephan’s Quintet, a grouping of five galaxies, is located in the constellation Pegasus.

Webb was able to pierce through the clouds of dust and gas at the center of the galaxy to glean new insights, such as the velocity and composition of outflows of gas near its supermassive black hole. 

Four of the galaxies are close together and locked in a “cosmic dance” of repeated close encounters.

By studying it, “you learn how the galaxies collide and merge,” said cosmologist John Mather, adding our own Milky Way was probably assembled out of 1,000 smaller galaxies. 

Understanding the black hole better will also give us greater insights into Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, which is shrouded in dust.

– Stellar nursey – 

Perhaps the most beautiful image is that of the “Cosmic Cliffs” from the Carina Nebula, a stellar nursery.

Here, for the first time, Webb has revealed previously invisible regions of star formation, which will tell us more about why stars form with certain mass, and what determines the number that form in a certain region.

They may look like mountains, but the tallest of the craggy peaks are seven light years high, and the yellow structures are made from huge hydrocarbon molecules, said Webb project scientist Klaus Pontoppidan.

In addition to being the stuff of stars, nebular material could also be where we come from.

“This may be the way that the universe is transporting carbon, the carbon that we’re made of, to planets that may be habitable for life,” he said.

– The great unknown – 

Perhaps most exciting of all is journeying into the unknown, said Straughn. 

Hubble played a key role in discovering that dark energy is causing the universe to expand at an ever-growing rate, “so it’s hard to imagine what we might learn with this 100 times more powerful instrument.”

Twitter on Tuesday sued Elon Musk for breaching the $44 billion contract he signed to buy the tech firm, calling his exit strategy “a model of hypocrisy,” court documents showed.

The suit filed in the US state of Delaware urges the court to order the billionaire to complete his deal to buy Twitter, arguing that no financial penalty could repair the damage he has caused.

“Musk’s conduct simply confirms that he wants to escape the binding contract he freely signed, and to damage Twitter in the process,” the lawsuit contended. “Twitter has suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable harm as a result of defendants’ breaches.”

The social media company’s shares edged up slightly in after-market trading when the news broke.

Legal experts and market analysts see Twitter as having a strong upper hand heading into court, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors.

“This will be a Game of Thrones battle in court with the fake account/bot issue front and center, but ultimately Twitter’s board is holding Musk’s feet to the fire to finish the deal at the agreed upon price,” Ives said.

“Overall this has been a black eye for Musk and horror movie for Twitter (and its employees) with no winners since the soap opera began in April.”

After weeks of threats, Musk last week pulled the plug on the deal, accusing Twitter of “misleading” statements about the number of fake accounts, according to a letter from his lawyers included in a US securities filing.

In his first public remarks since the announcement, Musk took to Twitter over the weekend to troll the company after it said it would sue to enforce the deal.

“They said I couldn’t buy Twitter. Then they wouldn’t disclose bot info. Now they want to force me to buy Twitter in court. Now they have to disclose bot info in court,” he wrote in a tweet, with included pictures of Musk laughing with glee.

The termination of the takeover agreement sets the stage for a potentially lengthy court battle with Twitter, which initially had opposed a transaction with the unpredictable billionaire entrepreneur.

Twitter has defended its fake account oversight and has vowed to force Musk to complete the deal, which contained a $1 billion breakup fee.

– ‘Bent over backwards’ –

The social network says the number of fake accounts is less than five percent, a figure challenged by Musk, who says he believes the percentage is much higher.

“Twitter has bent over backwards to provide Musk the information he has requested, including, most notably, the full ‘firehose’ data set that he has been mining for weeks,” the lawsuit said.

“From the outset, defendants’ information requests were designed to try to tank the deal.”

Musk made his unsolicited bid to buy Twitter without asking for estimates regarding spam or fake accounts, and even sweetened his offer to the board by withdrawing a diligence condition, the lawsuit said.

The way Musk used a large chunk of his Tesla shares to back financing for the deal meant that if stock in the electric car maker declined, be would have to pony up or sell more of it, according to the suit.

“Not only were there no financing or diligence conditions, but Musk had already secured debt commitments that together with his personal equity commitment would suffice to fund the purchase,” it said.

Musk’s ability to terminate the deal to buy Twitter before the “drop-dead” date of October 24 of this year is extremely limited, and closing is subject to little more than approval of Twitter shareholders and regulatory approvals, the suit added.

His norm-defying conduct has come as little surprise to watchers of the Tesla and SpaceX chief after years of statements that flout or test convention and sometimes provoke a crackdown from regulators.

While Twitter has asked the court to enforce the deal, the company’s legal action could yield a variety of outcomes.

“There are a range of possibilities that can come from the Delaware court including settlement, breakup fee paid, deal enforced, and a myriad of other outcomes,” analyst Ives wrote.

Members of right-wing militia groups and other supporters of Donald Trump staged the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol after a tweet from the former president seen as a “call to arms,” lawmakers said Tuesday.

Representative Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House committee investigating the attack on Congress, meanwhile said that the 76-year-old Trump had recently attempted to contact a committee witness.

The witness, who was not identified, did not take the call from Trump and alerted their lawyer, Cheney said, adding that the committee has “supplied that information to the Department of Justice.”

During its seventh televised public hearing, the House committee made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans examined the impact of a tweet that Trump sent on December 19, 2020 urging his supporters to descend on Washington on January 6 for a rally he promised would be “wild.”

The tweet was sent a little more than an hour after Trump met at the White House with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former general Mike Flynn, and Sidney Powell, another attorney, for a strategy meeting that one aide described as “unhinged.”

Committee member Jamie Raskin said that Trump’s “1:42 am tweet electrified and galvanized his supporters, especially the dangerous extremists in the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and other racist and white nationalist groups spoiling for a fight against the government.”

Members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers stormed Congress on January 6 along with thousands of other Trump loyalists in an attempt to block certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory, which Trump falsely claims was marred by fraud.

Representative Stephanie Murphy, another committee member, said the tweet “served as a call to action, and in some cases as a call to arms, for many of president Trump’s most loyal supporters.”

The committee said two of Trump’s closest backers, Flynn and political consultant Roger Stone, had connections to the Oath Keepers.

– ‘Deliberate strategy’ –

The committee also said the march to the Capitol was planned in advance but that Trump decided not to announce it until the speech he made to supporters on the morning of January 6 near the White House.

“The evidence confirms that this was not a spontaneous call to action, but rather was a deliberate strategy decided upon in advance by the president,” Murphy said.

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified at a previous hearing that the president had intended to go to the Capitol himself but was prevented from doing so by Secret Service agents.

The committee is trying to determine whether Trump or his associates had a role in planning or encouraging the violent insurrection and has subpoenaed numerous advisors and aides to the former president.

It played the first videotaped excerpts on Tuesday from closed-door testimony last week by former White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

In his testimony, Cipollone said he agreed there was no evidence of significant election fraud and that Trump should have conceded to Biden.

The committee also heard from two witnesses, Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the Oath Keepers, and Stephen Ayres, an Ohio man who joined the mob storming the Capitol.

Van Tatenhove said the Oath Keepers were a “dangerous organization” who believed their allegiance to Trump would give them “legitimacy” as a paramilitary outfit.

Ayres told the committee that he came to Washington because “the president got everybody riled up,” but that he no longer believed his claims that the election was “stolen.”

– More than 850 arrests –

More than 850 people have been arrested in connection with the attack on Congress.

Five members of the Proud Boys were indicted in June on seditious conspiracy charges and 11 members of the Oath Keepers face the same charges, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

The assault on the Capitol left at least five people dead and 140 police officers injured.

Trump was impeached for a historic second time by the House of Representatives after the riot — he was charged with inciting an insurrection — but was acquitted by the Senate.

In a statement Tuesday on the Truth Social platform, Trump, who has been hinting at running for the White House again in 2024, denounced the committee as “Political Hacks and Thugs.”

“Have you seen them before?” he asked. “Yes, they are essentially the same lunatics that drove the Country ‘crazy’ with their lies and made up stories.”

The US Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the federal agency overseeing gun regulations, which had lacked a permanent director for over seven years.

Steve Dettelbach, 56, will now become the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), following a series of deadly mass shootings that have shaken the country.

The former federal prosecutor was narrowly confirmed with the support of 48 senators, including two Republicans, against 46 opposed. 

He will oversee the ATF’s 5,000 employees, half of whom are ballistics specialists who investigate gun crimes. The agency is also tasked with regulating the nation’s firearms industry, making it a perennial enemy of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA).

“After years of obstruction by the gun lobby, the Senate has finally confirmed a permanent director to lead the ATF,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

“While certainly not a panacea to the gun violence epidemic plaguing our nation, having Mr Dettelbach at the helm of the ATF will ensure the feds have all hands on deck in the fight to stop gun trafficking, prevent illegal possession of firearms, and make sure our kids can’t get their hands on dangerous weapons,” he added.

According to the Gun Violence Archive website, more than 23,300 people have been killed by firearms in the United States so far this year, including nearly 12,800 who died by suicide.

Biden, a Democrat, had previously nominated former ATF agent David Chipman, a gun control advocate, to be the agency’s director.

But the president had to withdraw his nomination last September, after Chipman did not gain the support of all Democrats in the Senate. This backpedaling was seen as a sign that the NRA — which vocally opposed Chipman’s appointment — still wields significant influence in the US capital.

“Succession” led the way in Tuesday’s Emmy nominations, which saw the Television Academy’s 20,000 voters sift through record submissions as production ramped back up from the start of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Here are five takeaways from the announcement of the nominees for the 74th Emmy Awards:

– No love for ‘Yellowstone’ –

Soapy neo-Western “Yellowstone” stars Kevin Costner, racked up a whopping 11 million views for its fourth season premiere… and yet failed to land a single Emmy nomination.

In fact, it has only ever earned one Emmy nomination, for a minor technical category last year.

Academy voters appear to have been put off by the show’s slot on Paramount’s relatively small cable network, or its ostensible conservative leanings — though “Yellowstone” has recently soared in popularity along the liberal US coasts too.

– Chappelle gets nod despite controversy –

Comedian Dave Chappelle has attracted controversy over jokes criticized as transphobic, notably in last year’s Netflix special “The Closer.”

Protesters gathered outside the streaming giant’s Los Angeles premises in October, accusing Netflix of profiting from hate speech with the show, in which Chappelle asserts that “gender is a fact.”

In May, Chappelle was attacked on-stage by an audience member while finishing a set during the “Netflix Is A Joke” comedy festival at the Hollywood Bowl.

None of that dissuaded Emmy voters, who nominated “The Closer” for best pre-recorded variety special.

– Women make gains –

Tuesday’s nominations saw gains for women, who have traditionally been under-represented in directing, writing and technical fields at the Emmys and other entertainment award galas. 

Almost half of the directors nominated in scripted categories were women, including Amy Poehler for documentary “Lucy and Desi,” and “Succession” helmer Lorene Scafaria in the best drama category.

Women received almost 40 percent of scripted writing nominations.

– Posthumous nods for Boseman, Walter –

“Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman died in August 2020 after battling colon cancer — a diagnosis he never publicly discussed.

Last year, he narrowly missed out to Anthony Hopkins on a posthumous Oscar, for best actor in blues drama “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” 

This year’s Emmys likely represent a final chance at awards glory for the late star, who earned a nomination for voicing a version of his “Black Panther” character in Marvel’s animated series “What If…?”

Former “Arrested Development” star Jessica Walter also earned a posthumous nomination for her voice-over work in “Archer.”

– Obama v Abdul-Jabbar? –

Award shows frequently find creative ways to nominate big names from beyond the traditional entertainment ranks, and this year’s best narrator Emmy category is no exception.

It includes veteran naturalist David Attenborough (“The Mating Game”) and Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o (“Serengeti II.”)

More unusually, it pits basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (“Black Patriots: Heroes Of The Civil War”) against former US president Barack Obama (“Our Great National Parks.”)

Obama will find out in September if he can add an Emmy to his Nobel Peace Prize… and two Grammy Awards.