Your Monday Evening News Briefing: Kavanaugh, Rosenstein, Cosby
|
Version 5 of 7. (Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Judge Brett Kavanaugh vowed to fight “smears,” after a second allegation of sexual impropriety emerged against him, and said he would not “be intimidated into withdrawing” from his Supreme Court nomination. Read his letter to senior lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Above, a protest outside the court. President Trump told reporters that he would back Judge Kavanaugh “all the way,” and Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, declared that the Senate would move forward with a planned hearing on Thursday and a vote on the nomination. _____ 2. Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, will meet with President Trump on Thursday to discuss his fate, following a Times report that he had discussed secretly taping the president and invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office. Mr. Rosenstein has said privately that he was thinking of quitting. We have the inside story of a chaotic day that began with his expectation of being fired, but ended with him still in his job. Above, Mr. Rosenstein after meeting with John Kelly, the White House chief of staff. Mr. Rosenstein oversees the special counsel’s Russia investigation and has often found himself on the receiving end of Mr. Trump’s anger and frustration with the Justice Department. His departure could pave the way for the president to then get rid of Robert Mueller, the special counsel. _____ 3. President Trump is scheduled to address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. The U.S. remains the biggest single financial contributor to the U.N. But the Trump administration has pursued increasingly isolationist, America First policies, a theme that will most likely factor in the president’s speech. At the same time, President Trump’s advisers are working quietly in the background to ensure he isn’t too enthusiastic about engaging with adversaries. _____ 4. U.S. tariffs on an additional $200 billion in Chinese imports took effect on Monday. As the trade war intensifies, manufacturers are under increasing pressure to move their factories out of China, to countries like Cambodia, above. But that’s easier said than done. China boasts a reliable work force, top-notch infrastructure and a strong supplier base for components of many products, from zippers to digital chips. “Where Cambodia sits now is where China was 25 years ago,” one manufacturer said. _____ 5. The key takeaway from a deal between China and the Vatican over the weekend: It appears to be a Communist Party attempt to control the spread of Christianity, which has about 60 million Chinese adherents. (Above, Palm Sunday in Hebei Province.) Under the agreement signed on Saturday, Pope Francis recognized the legitimacy of seven bishops appointed by Beijing in exchange for a say in how future Chinese bishops are named. “We’re at a turning point,” one expert said. “The administration feels that the government had been too lax in the past and now wants to increase the pressure.” _____ 6. We visited the British Virgin Islands, which are still struggling to recover after Hurricanes Irma and Maria thrashed them a year ago. The Category 5 storms destroyed large swaths of housing and crippled tourism, the economic lifeblood of the Caribbean. Many residents see the storms as signs of what’s to come: They know these vulnerable and isolated islands are at the forefront of climate change. _____ 7. Bill Cosby, convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his home near Philadelphia 14 years ago, was in court for the first day of his sentencing hearing. Also in the courtroom were at least six other women who have accused Mr. Cosby, once one of the world’s best-known entertainers, of similar acts of sexual abuse. Mr. Cosby, 81, is facing a prison term of 10 years each for convictions on three counts of aggravated indecent assault. _____ 8. SiriusXM, the satellite radio provider, said that it would acquire Pandora Media for $3.5 billion, giving consumers a choice of listening to digital audio with or without ads. The acquisition will let Sirius try to keep listeners who sample the service but do not want to subscribe by moving them to Pandora’s free ads-based model, SiriusXM’s chief executive said. _____ 9. On an extended photo safari deep in space, NASA’s new satellite TESS (short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) is busily snapping and transmitting images in its quest to find planets outside our solar system. Above, an artist’s rendering. On Monday, NASA astronomers released TESS’s first images, a swath of the Southern Sky showing stars, constellations and two nearby galaxies. Is there life out there? So far, TESS has identified 73 stars that might harbor exoplanets, most of them previously unknown to astronomers. _____ 10. Finally, what happens when you mix glittery false eyelashes, fabulous hair, vampish entertainment and straight people? To put it another way: Can drag survive the internet? In the latest episode of the video series “Internetting With Amanda Hess,” Shane O’Neill, the show’s producer, looks at the surprising ways a queer subculture has gone mainstream. Have a great night. _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing. Sign up here to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning. 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. |