Your Monday Evening Briefing

January 27, 2020

Your Monday Evening Briefing

By victoria shannon and hiroko masuike

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

1. New Trump revelations shook Washington.

Republicans are in disarray over details that emerged from the draft of a book written by President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton.

Part of the account dovetails with a central aspect of the impeachment case: that the president wanted to continue freezing security aid to Ukraine until he got help with investigations into Democrats. Mr. Trump denied telling Mr. Bolton that. Here are five takeaways from Mr. Bolton’s book.

In the impeachment trial, Mr. Trump’s legal team — including Ken Starr, arriving above — ignored the Bolton account entirely and doubled down on claims that the president had withheld aid to Ukraine only because he was concerned about corruption there.

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Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

2. Five cases of a new coronavirus first identified in China were confirmed in the U.S., and scores of other possible cases are being evaluated.

The virus has infected nearly 3,000 people worldwide, with the vast majority in China, where the death toll reached 81. Above, visitors in Beijing today took precautions.

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Global economic fears are rising, and markets are shaking. The S&P 500 fell 1.6 percent, with shares of airlines and companies dependent on tourism from China particularly hard hit.

The outbreak began in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in central China, where anger over the government response has flooded social media. The sheer volume of criticism and the ways that critics dodge censors are testing Beijing’s ability to control the narrative.

Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

3. When Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crashed, the fog was so heavy people reported having trouble driving.

Besides the basketball star and his 13-year-old daughter, the victims included a baseball coach, a veteran pilot, teenage girls and their parents. Here is what we know about them.

The helicopter went down in rough terrain about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, en route from Orange County, Calif., where the Bryant family lives, to Bryant’s youth basketball academy. The L.A. County medical examiner said it could take days to recover the bodies.

We’ll be watching a news conference called by the National Transportation Safety Board at 7 p.m. Eastern.

J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

4. The Supreme Court gave a green light to stricter rules on green cards.

The court’s conservative justices, 5-4, let the Trump administration move forward with plans to deny permanent legal status to immigrants thought to be more likely to make even minor use of public benefits like Medicaid, food stamps and housing vouchers.

Their brief order gave no reasons for lifting preliminary injunctions that had blocked the new program. Challenges to the program will continue to move forward in courts around the nation.

The court seems to expect to make a decision on the substance of the policy in the future. “The routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion.

Jordan Gale for The New York Times

5. Why do the polls diverge so much on Joe Biden?

A week before the Iowa caucuses, Senator Bernie Sanders has the lead in the latest state survey — but the former vice president is ahead in national polling.

Our Upshot correspondent explains: Many of Mr. Biden’s supporters are among the most consistent voters. But consistent voters seem uninterested in attending caucuses. And caucuses have an outsized pull on those who do not vote regularly. Above, Mr. Biden in Cedar Falls, Iowa, today.

Many traditional Iowa Democrats appear to be split between Mr. Sanders’s four leading competitors or are unsure altogether about who to rally behind — which could open the door for Mr. Sanders to win with a modest plurality.

Calla Kessler/The New York Times

6. President Trump’s Mideast peace plan is due Tuesday.

Mr. Trump, appearing in Washington alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, said the long-awaited plan would be “the closest we’ve ever come” to an agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.

That notion was almost unanimously rejected by analysts and foreign diplomats who saw the plan as heavily weighted in favor of Israel. Details were not disclosed.

Many analysts said the plan was relevant mainly for its impact on the embattled Mr. Netanyahu in Israel’s March 2 election and as a distraction from Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial. Mr. Netanyahu’s opponent in the coming election, Benny Gantz, also met with Mr. Trump.

Erik Freeland for The New York Times

7. Need a break from the news? Maybe it’s time to get out of town.

Let our travel writers show you the environmental dichotomy that the Everglades of Florida has become, and demonstrate that the dreamlike beauty of Zanzibar is more than blindingly white beaches.

Oops. Even our travel news has a hard edge: Travel providers now use software to re-price their offerings, sometimes dozens of times a day, putting buyers at a big disadvantage.

8. A graphic novel scored the prestigious Newbery Award for children’s literature. It was a first.

“New Kid,” by the writer and illustrator Jerry Craft, is about a 12-year-old named Jordan who dreams of going to art school instead of the prestigious private school his parents has enrolled him in, where he is one of the few students of color.

And “The Undefeated,” an ode to African-American accomplishments written by Kwame Alexander and illustrated by Kadir Nelson, won the Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children.

Dave Hunt/EPA, via Shutterstock

9. Live, from Melbourne.

The Australian Open quarterfinals will be shown in real time for U.S. audiences starting at 9 p.m. Eastern tonight on ESPN.

Third-seeded Roger Federer plays Tennys Sandgren, while Novak Djokovic, the second seed, takes on Milos Raonic. Ashleigh Barty, above after winning on Sunday, is No. 1 among women as she faces Petra Kvitova, and Sofia Kenin is matched with Ons Jabeur, the first Arab woman to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinals.

Here’s who they are and how they got there.

Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated Press

10. Before Billie Eilish won her Grammys, the 18-year-old won the red carpet.

That’s the assessment of our chief fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman. “She was happy to dress up,” our critic wrote. “Just on her own terms.” Here are some other red-carpet moments.

As for the awards themselves, fresh young innovators — including Tyler, the Creator; Lizzo and Rosalía — made a strong, welcome showing, says our pop music critic Jon Caramanica.

Here is our take on the best and the worst of the Grammys.

Have a winning night.

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