Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

By remy tumin and marcus payadue

Good evening. Here's the latest.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

1. The news from Washington is moving at a breakneck pace. We'll break it down for you.

This morning, the White House released a call log that showed Mr. Trump urging the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to consider investigating former Vice President Joe Biden. Here are key takeaways from the phone call.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky met in New York during the United Nations General Assembly, above. In a late afternoon news conference, a remarkably sedate Mr. Trump pledged full transparency but called the impeachment inquiry a "hoax." Our live briefing has the full play-by-play and our White House team digested it all.

Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, sent the full whistle-blower complaint to the House Intelligence Committee, ahead of his testimony on Thursday.

Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock

2. Reaction to the developments ran across the political spectrum.

At least two 2020 candidates used the same phrase to describe the call record — "smoking gun" — while Republicans stuck to their position that Mr. Trump's demand for an inquiry into Joe Biden was not improper. "From a quid pro quo aspect, there's nothing there," said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, above.

Meanwhile, the Biden camp is looking for ways to control the story line. For Mr. Trump and his 2020 rivals, the impeachment fight is a potentially galvanizing moment for fund-raising.

Will the inquiry stall the government? Our Op-Ed columnist Frank Bruni, thinks it's a very real possibility.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

3. Climate change is severely straining the world's oceans, creating profound risks for coastal cities and food supplies, a major United Nations report warns.

The report found that rising temperatures are contributing to a drop in fish populations, while declining oxygen levels and rising acidity are putting marine ecosystems at risk. In addition, the report said, warmer waters, combined with rising sea levels, threaten to fuel more powerful tropical storms. Above, shrimpers off the coast of Louisiana.

Written by more than 100 international experts and based on more than 7,000 studies, the report represents the most extensive look to date at the effects of climate change on oceans, ice sheets, mountain snowpack and permafrost.

Samuel Corum for The New York Times

4. A new survey shows a relentless rise in the premiums and deductibles for employer-provided insurance, with low earners hit the hardest.

The average premium paid by the employer and the employee for a family plan now tops $20,000 a year, with the worker contributing about $6,000, according to the survey. Many face an annual deductible of $2,000 or more.

Jessie McCormick, above, quit her job so her income would be low enough to enroll in Medicaid, which will cover all of her medical expenses.

Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

5. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was nominated to try to form Israel's next government.

Mr. Netanyahu, above left with President Reuven Rivlin, will still face a stiff challenge: He needs to assemble a majority of at least 61 seats in Parliament and has no clear path to that number. The parties that have endorsed his bid account for 55 seats, while his opponent, Benny Gantz, won the endorsement of 54 lawmakers.

Mr. Netanyahu will now have 28 days to try to put together a coalition. If he fails, Mr. Gantz will get his own shot.

Nati Harnik/Associated Press

6. The U.S. is holding firm in global mail negotiations.

The Trump administration is threatening to pull out of the Universal Postal Union, a United Nations body that regulates international mail services, if it doesn't change rules that allow China to take advantage of lower fees available to developing countries.

Withdrawal from the union would mean "total destruction" of existing mail services to the U.S., said Bishar Hussein, the union's director general.

In other global talks, the U.S. announced a limited trade deal to open Japanese markets to American farm goods. The agreement came after a late U.S. decision to ease a tough stance on imports of Japanese cars, according to people familiar with the talks.

Ross Mantle for The New York Times

7. As thousands of workers continue to strike, General Motors has made an offer to build a new battery plant near its idled factory in Lordstown, Ohio.

But the union noted that the plan would only create a few hundred new jobs, far fewer than the 3,000 people who once worked at the G.M. plant, and that the pay would be well below the $31 an hour that many assembly workers earned.

At another beleaguered company, the chief executive of the e-cigarette maker Juul stepped down amid public outrage over teenage vaping. He was replaced by an executive from Altria, a major tobacco company that owns a 35 percent stake in Juul.

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

8. John Coltrane took a detour in 1964. Now, it's a new album.

"Blue World," culled from the sessions the saxophonist led for a film soundtrack, is a moment of looking back before he pushed even further ahead, our music critic writes. Above, Coltrane in 1959. The album is out on Friday, and is "full of his characteristic seriousness and serenity."

Separately, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced its 2019 fellows, colloquially known as "genius" grants. They include 26 artists, writers, scientists, urban designers, community activists and others who have demonstrated "extraordinary originality."

Clement Pascal for The New York Times

9. Olivia Benson has been on the case for more than 20 seasons.

This week "Law & Order: SVU" becomes the longest-running drama in prime-time history. But in some ways, the culture is just catching up to the series and its star, Mariska Hargitay. Playing the empathetic TV detective with an all-consuming drive for justice has transformed Ms. Hargitay from "actor to activist," she said.

And on "The Good Place," William Jackson Harper brings pathos and realism to his character, Chidi. It's why people relate to him, including one of our editors: "He makes anxious black nerds like me more visible, and broadens TV's notions about black masculinity."

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

10. And finally, if dogs are man's best friend, what are cats?

Aloof? Mysterious? Dare we say, transactional? Maybe not. In a series of tests in which kittens and their owners were separated and then reunited, researchers found that cats are just as strongly bonded to us as dogs or infants — vindication for cat lovers everywhere.

"The more we find out about cats," one researcher said, "the more we're seeing that they are social creatures and that social bonds are really important for them."

Have a purr-fect night.

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