默默新聞08

2019年12月5日星期四

December 5, 2019

Your Thursday Evening Briefing

By remy tumin and marcus payadue

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

1. “The president leaves us no choice.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked the House Judiciary Committee to draft impeachment articles against President Trump, setting the stage for a full vote by Christmas. Two months of investigation, she said, made it clear that Mr. Trump had violated his oath of office by pressing a foreign power for help in the 2020 election.

“His wrongdoing strikes at the very heart of our Constitution,” Ms. Pelosi said in a somber formal address. Then, at a news conference, she took on a reporter for a conservative network who asked if she “hated” Mr. Trump, saying “don’t mess with me,” and adding that she prayed for the president every day.

The Judiciary Committee is expected to begin publicly debating and voting on the articles of impeachment by the end of next week.

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Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

2. Strikes against changes to France’s pension system brought parts of the country to a grinding halt.

In one of the largest demonstrations France has seen in recent years, workers staged walkouts and joined protests opposing President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to overhaul a byzantine system of 42 individual pension plans headed toward a $19 billion deficit.

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Trains, subways and buses were canceled, many schools were closed, and thousands were forced to stay home from work across the country.

Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

3. Uber released its first report detailing unsafe incidents in the U.S. The numbers are stark.

In 2018, 58 people were killed in crashes during Uber trips; nine people were murdered, and 3,045 people were sexually assaulted. The numbers represented a fraction — just 0.0003 percent — of Uber’s 1.3 billion rides in the U.S. last year.

Separately, 19 people sued Lyft this week for failing to prevent drivers from sexually assaulting them, then ignoring their complaints.

Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters

4. Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, set its initial share price at a level that is expected to make it the biggest I.P.O. ever. Above, Aramco’s chairman and chief executive last month.

The price is 32 riyals a share, or about $8.53. It plans to sell three billion shares — about 1.5 percent of Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, and also one of the most valuable.

That sets Aramco’s value at $1.7 trillion, short of the Saudi royal family’s hopes for a valuation close to $2 trillion.

Calla Kessler/The New York Times

5. Joe Biden got the endorsement of John Kerry, the former secretary of state, in the 2020 Democratic primary.

But there might be more headlines about a heated confrontation between Mr. Biden and a voter who started by saying Mr. Biden was “too old for the job” of president. Mr. Biden suggested a push-up contest.

Then the voter falsely claimed that Mr. Biden had “sent” his son to work in Ukraine and accused him of “selling access to the president.” Mr. Biden shot back, calling him a “damn liar.”

The confrontation comes before what is likely to be an entirely white roster for the Dec. 19 Democratic debate. That’s prompting a reckoning over diversity, fairness and representation in the primary process.

Event Horizon Telescope, via National Science Foundation

6. Twenty-two things happened for the first time in 2019.

Remember when scientists released the first-ever image of a black hole, above, forcing our brains to comprehend what a galaxy 55 million light-years away from Earth looks like?

Among the other landmarks: Rihanna was named the first woman of color to head a fashion house at LVMH, Saudi Arabia opened up for tourism, two new species of dinosaurs were discovered, researchers eliminated H.I.V. from infected mice, and Queen Elizabeth II joined Instagram.

Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

7. Deforestation in the Amazon has soared under President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.

New data from Brazil’s space agency reported that in one year, more than 3,700 square miles of the rain forest, an important buffer against climate change, had been razed. It’s the highest loss in Brazilian rainforest in a decade — and stark evidence of just how badly the Amazon has fared under Mr. Bolsonaro.

And as humans increasingly fracture habitats, a new study shows that species in places with histories of disturbances are proving more resilient than those that have long had stable habits.

iStock/Getty

8. Two noteworthy scientific studies.

Black women who regularly used permanent dyes to color their hair were 60 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than black women who did not report using dye, according to an analysis published this week in The International Journal of Cancer. Experts caution that much more study is needed.

And nearly one-third of high school students reported using a tobacco product recently, evidence that concerns over nicotine addiction among teenagers are not limited to e-cigarettes.

Victoria Jones/Press Association, via Associated Press

9. “It’s a present from Norway, and it’s dead.”

The Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square is the talk of London this season — and not in a good way. The 79-foot fir, an annual gift from the people of Oslo as a sign of gratitude for Britain’s help during World War II, is looking a little … frail.

More cheerily, a new crop of albums has arrived that offers fresh (or retrofitted) takes on seasonal songs and sentiments. Our music critics rounded up their favorites.

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

10. And finally, more books to add to your nightstand.

The Times’s staff critics picked their top choices for best fiction and nonfiction works of the year, and the editors of our weekly Book Review have their favorite titles, too. (The critics select from only those books they reviewed for The Times.)

Our critic-at-large Wesley Morris also offered his thoughts on the best performances of the year, including gymnast Katelyn Ohashi’s magnificent floor routine, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Andrew Scott on “Fleabag” and an overcrowded train platform full of strangers all belting “Dancing on My Own.”

Have a best-of-the-best evening.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

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Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.

What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

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On Politics: Can Money Buy Bloomberg Love?

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December 5, 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.

I’m going to start this newsletter tonight with perhaps the most obvious statement about politics ever written.

Money matters.

Just ask Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana or Senator Kamala Harris of California or any of the dozen other candidates who have already dropped out of the presidential race.

But for the man with the most money in the contest, the question is not whether money matters but whether it matters enough.

As we’ve written before, Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, is pursuing a highly unconventional approach in his campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Basically, his effort revolves around advertising. And a lot of it.

As Nick Corasaniti detailed for us last week, Mr. Bloomberg dropped more than $30 million on his first week’s worth of television ads across the country. It was the most expensive week for a presidential candidate in a primary election in United States history. He spent more in just four markets than the entire rest of the field spent that week combined.

On Monday, Advertising Analytics, an ad tracking firm, reported that Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign had spent $54.2 million on digital, broadcast and cable ads since he started advertising — two weeks ago.

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Mr. Bloomberg is doing some on-the-ground campaigning, too. Today he visited Aurora, Colo., the site of a 2012 mass shooting at a movie theater, to unveil a sweeping gun control agenda.

But the scale of his advertising effort has become a flash point in the race, attracting a flood of criticism from rivals who argue that Mr. Bloomberg is benefiting from a political system — and party — that makes it far too easy for billionaires to buy their way into the contest.

Last night, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts went on Mr. Bloomberg’s own television network to make the case against him.

“I don’t believe that elections ought to be for sale,” she said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “And I don’t think as a Democratic Party that we should say that the only way you’re going to get elected, the only way you’re going to be our nominee, is either if you are a billionaire or if you’re sucking up to billionaires.”

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But could Mr. Bloomberg’s unorthodox effort actually, well, work? To answer that question, I called up Lynn Vavreck, a political scientist at U.C.L.A. (and a contributor to The Upshot here at The New York Times).

All the academic research, conducted with different methods, on different races and in different years, comes up with the same results, she said: There is an impact from political ads. But it’s small. And short-lived.

As soon as a candidate matches a rival on ad spending, any advantage tends to disappear, Professor Vavreck said. The benefit is not all that sizable, anyhow, perhaps a couple of points in the polls.

Professor Vavreck cites a study she conducted of the 2012 presidential election, in which she found that while ads had an effect on voter attitudes, the impact was small and disappeared within a week.

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Of course, no one has spent the way Mr. Bloomberg can, so there isn’t a perfect test case for his approach. But Professor Vavreck is doubtful that he’ll find much success, unless the advertising leads to significant amounts of media coverage and is matched with a robust traditional campaign operation.

“Can he stay home, do nothing else, buy $50 million in advertising and win the primary? The answer is that it’s highly unlikely,” she said. “There are lots of people who spend a lot of money. You can’t buy these things.”

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.

The week in impeachment

With the impeachment inquiry racing ahead, it can be hard to keep track of the daily stream of developments. So our colleagues from the Impeachment Briefing newsletter have generously volunteered to catch us up every Thursday on what has happened during the week.

The investigation moved to a new phase. After weeks of testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, the Judiciary Committee took over the case this week. The panel, led by Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, is responsible for reviewing the evidence and writing up the formal articles of impeachment.
Democrats and Republicans released reports. The reports presented evidence collected during the Intelligence Committee’s investigation, with each side reaching its own conclusion: Republicans did not concede a single point of wrongdoing by President Trump, while Democrats made a vigorous case that Mr. Trump had sought to pressure Ukraine to interfere in the next election.
Constitutional scholars weighed in. In the Judiciary Committee’s first hearing, four legal experts explained the historical and constitutional basis for impeachment. Three experts brought in by Democrats said that evidence of Mr. Trump’s efforts clearly met the definition of an impeachable abuse of power; a fourth expert, invited by Republicans, disagreed.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for articles of impeachment. At a news conference on Thursday morning, Ms. Pelosi said she would ask the chairmen of the House committees to begin drafting articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump. Democrats hope to bring the articles for a full House vote before Christmas.

You can sign up for the Impeachment Briefing newsletter here.

WHAT TO READ TONIGHT

Kathryn Gamble for The New York Times

Do Democrats Really Want an All-White Field in 2020? Cory Booker Hopes Not.

As the party reckons with the likelihood of an all-white candidate lineup for the December debate, Mr. Booker and Julián Castro see fund-raising gains.

By Nick Corasaniti, Jennifer Medina and Lisa Lerer