Your Monday Evening Briefing

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October 28, 2019

Your Monday Evening Briefing

By victoria shannon and hiroko masuike

Good evening. Here's the latest.

Kyle Grillot for The New York Times

1. Californians are increasingly using the word "apocalypse" to describe the raging wildfires, evacuation orders, forced power outages and worsening air conditions tormenting the state.

Above, the 405 in Los Angeles, the nation's busiest highway, after a brush fire swept hundreds of acres. Schools closed and evacuations were ordered.

To the north, the huge Kincade fire spread in Sonoma County, where about 180,000 people have been ordered to leave. Thousands of firefighters are in full battle mode, but the fire has burned an area nearly twice the size of the city of San Francisco, destroying nearly 100 buildings.

Maps of the fires, evacuation zones and power outages are here.

Al Drago for The New York Times

2. Democrats decided to put the impeachment inquiry to a House vote.

The leaders said the vote will come Thursday, describing the vote to "affirm" the inquiry as necessary to remove a frequently cited White House rationale for not cooperating.

"We are taking this step to eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote.

The inquiry is moving higher into the chain of command, and facing greater complications. Above, Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman today, when a former deputy national security adviser and one of Mr. Trump's "closest confidential" advisers failed to show up despite a subpoena.

At least five witnesses are scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill this week.

Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

3. In Chicago, President Trump reveled in the success of the raid that killed the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, while taking jabs at his predecessors, his host city and its police chief.

Protesters jabbed back, gathering by the thousands outside the Trump skyscraper on the Chicago River.

Intelligence from the raid could reveal a trove of information about the Islamic State, but officials cautioned that the knowledge was unlikely to generate leads for quick follow-up strikes.

Their suspicion underscores analysts' view that the world's most wanted terrorist no longer exercised direct operational control over the group.

4. The S&P 500 is up 21 percent this year.

The broad-based gauge hit a record high today, exceeding a mark set in July and building on a three-week run fueled by hopes for a trade deal with China and another cut in interest rates.

Still, analysts say recent market highs have been met with little obvious euphoria from Wall Street, as the trade talks can always be upended, economic growth has been slowing, and corporate confidence has fallen sharply.

Separately, Google's parent said its profits fell 23 percent after a sharp increase in spending for research and development. Its revenue, however, rose 20 percent to $40.5 billion for the third quarter.

Thibault Camus/Associated Press

5. "Free speech and paid speech are not the same thing."

That's from a letter signed by more than 250 Facebook employees. Aimed at the company's top executives, it denounces the recent decision to let politicians use the platform to post any claims they want — even false ones — in ads.

Though the number is a fraction of Facebook's 35,000-plus work force, the signatures are a sign of internal resistance in line with criticism from presidential candidates, lawmakers and civil rights groups. "Misinformation affects us all," says the letter, which you can read in full here.

"We remain committed to not censoring political speech," a spokeswoman said in response.

Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

6. Will Disney Plus be video streaming's 400-pound gorilla?

When it arrives next month to take on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Apple, AT&T and others, Disney Plus will have a marketing armada behind it.

Consider: Its Florida theme park has more buses than the city of St. Louis. Its cruise line carries more than 12,000 passengers at any given moment. Its retail locations number in the hundreds. It owns ABC. And its social media accounts (including Tinker Bell's) have more than a billion followers. Above, Disney's Expo in Anaheim in August.

They're all being drafted to plug the new $7-a-month service. "It's mind-boggling what this company can do," a Disney executive said.

Library of Congress

7. A pattern of immigrant success.

New research shows that children of poor newcomers to the U.S. — millions from the 1880s onward — have had greater success climbing the economic ladder than poor children born here. Our report from The Upshot shows the countries of origin and their relative gains.

The finding that those who arrive in poverty often escape it challenges several arguments central to the current debate over immigration. Above, Ellis Island, 1912.

The short-term perspective of politicians might "underestimate the long-run success of immigrants," said one of the paper's authors, who are historians at Princeton, Stanford and the University of California. "By the second generation, they are doing quite well."

David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

8. "The most magical marinade ingredient I've ever encountered."

That's how our food columnist J. Kenji López-Alt describes a simple ingredient that's no doubt already in your fridge: mayonnaise.

A mayo-based marinade smeared across a piece of meat actually stays there, letting you grill as hot as you like without risk of burning. And mayo'ed beef, chicken or fish can be cooked with no extra oil.

He has words of comfort for those struggling with their gag reflex: "Mayo-marinated meats don't taste like mayo once they are cooked."

Christopher Millette/Erie Times-News, via Associated Press

9. The real danger on Halloween isn't the candy.

Studies show that almost all those scary accounts of candy poisoning by strangers have been hoaxes or scares that lack substantiation.

A rise in pedestrian fatalities, however, is real.

A study in JAMA Pediatrics this year found that the average Halloween resulted in four additional pedestrian deaths compared with other nights. For 4- to 8-year-olds, the rate was 10 times as high.

Eye of Science/Science Source

10. And finally, vampires may get all the attention this time of year, but other bloodsuckers are just as compelling, like the black fly above.

Or leeches, which are approved by the U.S. government as a medical device and are still used in some surgeries to drain excess blood. Dried leeches can be ground into a powder that Chinese tradition says has a variety of medicinal benefits.

They're not the only bloodthirsty animals. We took a leaf from "Bloodsuckers: Legends to Leeches," an exhibition that opens Nov. 16 at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and collected some remarkably repulsive images.

Have a none-too-weird evening.

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