Your Friday Evening Briefing

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SEPTEMBER 27, 2019

Your Friday Evening Briefing

By remy tumin and marcus payadue

Good evening. Here's the latest.

Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

1. House Democrats issued their first subpoena in the impeachment inquiry, requesting documents from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The request pointed to an aggressive strategy on the part of House Democrats to pressure the Trump administration to furnish crucial information surrounding President Trump's dealings with Ukraine. Democrats have said the first hearing on the matter could happen as early as next week.

Meanwhile, the N.R.A. chief Wayne LaPierre met with Mr. Trump to discuss how the group could offer financial support for the president's defense, but asked that he "stop the games" on gun control.

The Times editorial board came out in support of an impeachment inquiry. James Bennet, the editorial page editor, explained what exactly the board is, and how it came to its decision.

Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

2. Ukraine has found itself once again at the center of a scandal.

The country became a "battlefield" between Russia and the West when it declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and it has long attracted adventurers and carpetbaggers who return home with "legacies, memories and skeletons for their closets," a Harvard historian said.

And the Russian government, for its part, would rather stay out of the impeachment fight. The Kremlin said it hoped the contents of Mr. Trump's phone conversations with President Vladimir Putin — 11 in the past three years — would not be made public.

Need a refresher in where things stand? Here's a roundup of our coverage on the whistle-blower complaint and impeachment inquiry.

The New York Times

3. Puerto Rico has announced a plan to resolve its historic bankruptcy by cutting 33 percent of its debt.

The proposal, which came after years of wrangling and an act of Congress, would slash $129 billion in debts to about $86 billion. If it survives the challenges ahead, the plan could be a model for how states that struggle with debt, particularly from pensions, deal with their financial problems.

In other business news, six months after Wells Fargo's chief executive abruptly quit, Charles Scharf, an industry veteran, was named to run the scandal-plagued bank.

Eric Gay/Associated Press

4. A federal judge rejected the Trump administration's plan to allow extended detention for migrant children. Above, immigrants seeking asylum in Dilley, Tex.

The new regulations were part of a wider campaign by the administration to discourage families from illegally entering the U.S. But the judge ruled that the regulations were in conflict with a decades-old agreement that put strict limits on the incarceration of migrant children.

Demetrius Freeman/Reuters

5. At least 18 transgender people — most of them women of color — have been killed in the U.S. this year. The American Medical Association has declared an epidemic.

The killings this year follow at least 26 recorded last year by the Human Rights Campaign. The wave of violence has heightened alarm among communities already familiar with looming threats to their safety. Above, transgender rights activists in New York in May.

"It's always in the forefront of our minds, when we're leaving home, going to work, going to school," said Kayla Gore, who lives in Memphis.

Rachel Papo for The New York Times

6. There's a new man on horseback in Times Square.

"Rumors of War" was inspired by the statues of Confederate generals in Richmond, Va. Only this time the rider is a young African-American man in modern streetwear. The artist behind the sculpture is Kehinde Wiley, who is best known for painting Barack Obama's presidential portrait.

We also looked at a situation unfolding at the University of Alabama, where a black dean resigned after old tweets were recirculated. The move prompted a reckoning over the university's racist past.

Landon Speers for The New York Times

7. This weekend is Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and we have a story about an improbable relic: a shofar that defied the Nazis.

The ram's horn trumpet, which is traditionally blown to welcome the High Holy Days, belonged to a prisoner at Auschwitz who was able to sound the horn on Rosh Hashana in 1944 without detection by guards, according to the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.

"If it's one thing I know from all the thousands of survivors I interviewed," she said, "it's that the impossible was possible, both to the bad and the good."

In Opinion, a rabbi writes about finding deeper meaning in the holiday when he visits the Lithuanian city where his grandfather was saved from the Holocaust.

Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

8. Why would baseball players need a football helmet, a banana peel or shaving cream? To break in their gloves, of course.

Despite plenty of technology in the game, old-school techniques still reign in the quest for "fits like a glove" status. The Mets, who were officially eliminated from playoff contention this week, told us about their approach (including running over a glove with a truck). Above, infielder Todd Frazier.

As the regular season wraps up this weekend, our baseball columnist offers his opinion on the players and managers who deserve top honors.

Sesame Street

9. It isn't easy to remake the alphabet song over and over. And yet, "Sesame Street" has been doing that for 50 years.

We spoke with Sesame's music director, writers and Muppets about the challenge of keeping things fresh. We even talked to Usher, above, who put his own spin on the song by deconstructing it with beat-boxing and handclaps.

This week, our Parenting team took on the dicey topic of stuffed animals: Yes, they're as dirty as you feared. Here's some easy advice on how to clean them up like new.

Olaf Otto Becker for The New York Times

10. And finally, a touch of wanderlust.

Humans can hardly survive anywhere — poles will freeze us, deserts dry us into leather, oceans drown us — and yet, we still want to go everywhere.

What is it that makes us want to see the unseen? We sent photographers to the extremities of the earth, from remote caves in Borneo, above, to the sublime desolation of Namibia's skeleton coast, to find out for The Times Magazine's annual Voyages issue.

Happy travels.

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