默默新聞08

2019年11月4日星期一

Your Monday Evening Briefing

November 4, 2019

Your Monday Evening Briefing

By victoria shannon and hiroko masuike

Good evening. Here's the latest.

Jason Andrew for The New York Times

1. A year from the presidential election, the race is tight in the battleground states.

President Trump trails Joe Biden, above campaigning in Virginia on Sunday, by almost nine points in a national polling average. But the story in the battleground states of 2016 is quite different.

Surveys from The New York Times Upshot and Siena College show Mr. Trump remains highly competitive in the six states likeliest to decide his re-election: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina.

There, he trails Mr. Biden by an average of two points among registered voters, a difference that could be attributed to statistical error. He leads Elizabeth Warren and is deadlocked with Bernie Sanders among registered voters in the surveys.

Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

2. But Mr. Trump faces many obstacles before then — not least the impeachment inquiry.

Today, House investigators began releasing closed-door witness testimony for the first time, including from Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, pictured above after testifying last month.

The release came as a new batch of witnesses refused to appear before investigators. Our reporters are excerpting and analyzing the transcripts.

As if that weren't enough, the writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused the president of attacking her in a dressing room in the 1990s, sued him for defamation for saying she had lied about the incident.

And a federal appeals panel said Mr. Trump's accounting firm had to comply with a subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney for eight years of his tax returns. A Trump lawyer said he would appeal to the Supreme Court.

Separately, the Justice Department is trying to unearth the identity of the Trump administration official who denounced the president in a New York Times Op-Ed last year under the byline Anonymous, demanding information from the publisher of the official's upcoming book.

Marian Carrasquero for The New York Times

3. U.S. businesses and households are out of sync. It won't last.

Consumers, responsible for 70 percent of the country's economic activity, are engaged in a spendathon. Businesses, chastened by doubt and uncertainty, are not. That leaves consumer spending as pretty much the only thing driving the nation's growth.

But business and consumer outlooks can diverge for only so long, economists say.

Companies that are wary often pull back on spending, hiring and pay increases. Those moves can push up the unemployment rate, hold down wages and worry consumers, who in turn become more cautious about spending.

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

4. Can the Paris Agreement on climate change survive without the U.S.?

The Trump administration today began a yearlong countdown to the American exit from the U.N. accord, under which nearly 200 nations pledged to cut greenhouse emissions and help poor countries cope with the effects of a warming planet.

The agreement's negotiators say they are hoping to safeguard the deal's longevity without the U.S. "We are preparing for Plan B," France's climate change ambassador said.

The accord will need other major polluters like China and India to step up. China, now the largest emitter of planet-warming pollutants, has made significant promises, but Beijing's ability to deliver is still in question.

Federico Rios Escobar for The New York Times

5. She was supposed to get Alzheimer's in her 40s. She didn't.

Researchers say a Colombian woman genetically predisposed to get the disease was found to have a rare mutation that protected her from dementia. She experienced no cognitive decline at all until her 70s.

The finding, which emerged from decades of studies by the groundbreaking Colombian researcher Dr. Francisco Lopera, above, could change the scientific understanding of Alzheimer's and possibly inspire treatments.

Jason Henry for The New York Times

6. Apple will give $2.5 billion to help ease California's housing crisis.

The iPhone maker is the latest tech giant — after Facebook, Google and Microsoft — to address a problem that its growth helped to create.

Since 2005, California has added only 308 housing units for every 1,000 new residents. As a result, housing prices have soared beyond the reach of many people. Above, a housing development in Palo Alto.

Apple's funds will go toward low-cost loans and grants, as well as to help first-time home buyers and the homeless.

Pete Marovich for The New York Times

7. A.O.C. backed down on blocking Twitter critics.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, above, a New York Democrat who uses her social media savvy to champion her progressive policies, apologized to a former Brooklyn official who sued her for blocking him on Twitter.

The former official, Dov Hikind, filed the suit after a federal appeals panel ruled that President Trump had violated the Constitution when he blocked his critics from following him on Twitter.

The apology by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was part of a settlement in the case, announced a day before she was scheduled to testify.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

8. A 42-year-old spacecraft is still sending us data about the sun.

Launched when Jimmy Carter was president, Voyager 2 was designed to last four years. Scientists reported today details of the probe's observations in interstellar space, and how that data differs from its twin, Voyager 1, which is also still functioning. Above, an archival photo of the test model of Voyager 2.

Once the Voyagers go offline, one scientist said, "that's kind of it" for information from beyond our solar system.

In other space news, Boeing's Starliner commercial spacecraft successfully touched down after a test of its safety system.

Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters

9. Yet another hacking threat to our homes.

A simple laser pointer, or even a flashlight, can take over Alexa, Google Home or Siri, researchers said today.

Researchers used focused light to manipulate the device's microphones, enabling them to hijack any digital smart system attached to the voice-controlled assistants. The intrusion could, for example, let them switch lights on and off, make online purchases, open a smart-locked front door and even remotely start a car.

"This opens up an entirely new class of vulnerabilities," said one of the scientists.

Adam McCauley

10. And finally, your secret consumer score.

Little-known companies are hoarding your online transaction data and selling the details to clients.

Our reporter requested her own: "More than 400 pages long, it contained all the messages I'd ever sent to hosts on Airbnb; years of Yelp delivery orders; a log of every time I'd opened the Coinbase app on my iPhone."

Here's how to get a copy of what they have on you. But beware: Just because the companies promise they'll send your data doesn't mean they actually will.

Have a private night.

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On Politics With Lisa Lerer: Enter the Arena

View in browser|nytimes.com

November 4, 2019

By Lisa Lerer

Politics Newsletter Writer

Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. I'm Lisa Lerer, your host, bringing you a dispatch from my weekend reporting trip to Iowa.

Photo Illustration by Sasha Portis; left, Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times; Eric Thayer/Reuters

Democrats put on quite a show Friday night in Des Moines at their Liberty & Justice Celebration, a 13-candidate event considered the start of the final, three-month sprint to the Iowa caucuses.

There were smoke machines! Spotlights! A runway! And, of course, thundersticks!

Is this W.W.E.? No, it's the Iowa Democratic Party's annual dinner.

Somehow, amid the shouts of the booming announcer and the migraine-inducing glare of thousands of glow sticks, it became clear to me that the race has entered a new phase.

There has been no defining moment. No devastating gaffe. But over the past few weeks, the race in Iowa has begun to take a very different form than it had when the candidates sweated through the state fair just three months ago.

For months, this was a contest between two of the biggest boldface names in Democratic politics — former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Now, the number of leading contenders has essentially doubled, creating a four-way race with Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders, yes, but also with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. A New York Times/Siena College poll of likely caucusgoers taken last week showed those four candidates knotted at the top of the field.

As I wrote with my colleague Reid Epstein over the weekend, the energy seems to be with the two fresher faces, who used the dinner as a display of organizational force.

Mr. Buttigieg, helped by a cheering section of around 1,000 superfans who flew in from across the country to attend the dinner, cast himself as the heir to President Barack Obama's political legacy in his remarks — a direct shot at one of Mr. Biden's central arguments.

Ms. Warren used her speech to debut a new line of attack against Mr. Biden, Mr. Buttigieg and her other centrist rivals. "Anyone who comes on this stage and tells you to dream small and give up early is not going to lead our party to victory," she said.

The attack underscored how questions about her "Medicare for all" plan have become central to this race. The Friday release of Ms. Warren's long-awaited, $20.5 trillion proposal explaining how she would fund the program prompted a new series of attacks over the weekend about the plan's specifics and whether she is being honest about the price tag.

Her campaign plans to release a proposal detailing how she would manage the transition from private health insurance plans to universal government-run health coverage. But the questions are likely to trail her for the foreseeable future.

Also worth noting from this weekend: The supersized field has finally begun shrinking to merely pleasantly plump. Former Representative Beto O'Rourke of Texas dropped out on Friday night, and rumors abound of other exits that could be coming soon.

Of course, not everything has changed. As has been the case since the start of this crowded contest, most of the field has found it all but impossible to break out of the single digits in polling.

At the dinner, Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota delivered strong performances — to a half-empty room. (Both had the unlucky draw of speaking toward the end of the five-hour program.)

And they had it far better than some of the candidates who followed. Former Representative John Delaney of Maryland was introduced with photos of Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana on the screens. And Mr. Bullock delivered the final address of the event — after being announced as Mr. Booker.

Warren rattles Wall Street

Want more about Ms. Warren? Check out this story I wrote for the paper today with the ace business reporter Kate Kelly.

We dive into the fury that her rise in the polls has ignited on Wall Street, where money mangers, investors and bankers are contemplating voting for President Trump, threatening to leave the country and loudly predicting a double-digit dive in the market if Ms. Warren is elected.

Ms. Warren and her campaign see their rage as more beneficial than any monetary contribution. The joke making the rounds among Democrats on Wall Street is that every time a banker complains, Ms. Warren gets another thousand votes in Iowa.

Drop us a line!

We want to hear from our readers. Have a question? We'll try to answer it. Have a comment? We're all ears. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

Tomorrow is Election Day. Here's a key state to watch.

A get-out-the-vote message in Midlothian, Va.Emma Howells for The New York Times

As several states go to the polls, we'll have live results on NYTimes.com and in the NYTimes app on Tuesday night. Here's a cheat sheet from our colleague Trip Gabriel:

Three states have particularly consequential elections on Tuesday. Kentucky and Mississippi are choosing governors in unexpectedly competitive races. But perhaps the biggest attraction is in Virginia, where control of the state legislature is up for grabs. Two years ago, the majority in the state's House of Delegates turned on a random drawing to settle a tied race.

If Democrats reverse the slim majorities that Republicans hold in both chambers — as polling and a court-ordered new map of key districts suggest is likely — it will cap off a decade-long evolution of a Southern state, the former seat of the Confederacy, into a progressive bastion.

With a sitting Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, new Democratic majorities in the legislature would be expected to advance liberal priorities on gun restrictions, the minimum wage, health care and civil rights protections for women and L.G.B.T. people. Perhaps most important to Democrats, unified control of state government would put the party in charge of mapping new voting districts in 2021.

Virginia, which holds elections every year, has been at the forefront of a national revolt against President Trump among suburban voters since 2017.

Tuesday night's returns are certain to be interpreted as a report card on Mr. Trump ahead of 2020. But Virginia is not an ideal presidential bellwether. Republicans have not won a statewide election there since 2009.

These elections, like local elections everywhere now, are a kind of referendum on the president; but the simple toting up of W's and L's will not be especially meaningful. More telling will be the intensity of both parties' voters. Look for the margins of victory or loss, and the overall turnout, which nonpartisan analysts think will be in the mid-40s.

WHAT TO READ TONIGHT

The New York Times

One Year From Election, Trump Trails Biden but Leads Warren in Battlegrounds

Signs that the president's advantage in the Electoral College has persisted or even increased since 2016.

By Nate Cohn

Adam McCauley

I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score. Now You Can Get Yours, Too.

Little-known companies are amassing your data — like food orders and Airbnb messages — and selling the analysis to clients. Here's how to get a copy of what they have on you.

By Kashmir Hill