First Thing: US House votes to hold Trump ex-aide Meadows in contempt

Move comes after Trump's former chief of staff ceased cooperating with panel investigating Capitol attack. Plus, Nasa spacecraft touches' the sun

Good morning.

The House of Representatives has voted to recommend criminal contempt charges against Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump, a week after he ended his cooperation with the panel investigating the Capitol insurrection.

Before he stopped cooperating, what did he hand over? Meadows turned over about 9,000 documents. Text messages also revealed that Trump's son Donald Trump Jr and three hosts on the Fox News network begged Meadows to persuade the former president to stop the insurrection.

What other evidence does the panel have? The communications and other documents that Meadows turned over represent just a small sample of the huge trove of evidence the panel has gathered.

Meanwhile, a judge has dismissed Trump's latest bid to hide tax returns from the House committee.

The deadly milestone comes as cases and hospitalisations are on the rise again in the US, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, with the new variant Omicron posing a fresh threat.

About 200 million Americans are vaccinated, or just over 60% of the population. That is well short of what scientists say is needed to keep the virus in check.