Your Monday Evening Briefing

December 2, 2019

Your Monday Evening Briefing

By victoria shannon and hiroko masuike

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

Al Drago for The New York Times

1. President Trump arrived in London. The battle over impeachment will not pause.

Mr. Trump will attend meetings during a commemoration of NATO’s 70th anniversary.

Mr. Trump had pointed words for Democrats for scheduling the House Judiciary Committee’s first public impeachment hearing for Wednesday, when he will still be out of the country.

And in a 123-page draft document, House Republicans laid out an argument to counter Democrats’ impeachment case: that Mr. Trump was acting on “valid” concerns about possible corruption involving Americans, not self-interest, when he pressed Ukraine for investigations of his Democratic rivals.

Here’s how to follow where we are in the impeachment process.

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Paulo Fridman/Bloomberg

2. The president expanded his global trade war.

He surprised Brazil and Argentina, tweeting that he would impose tariffs on their steel and aluminum. He said they had deliberately weakened their currencies, to the detriment of U.S. farmers and manufacturers.

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The tariffs would shatter previous agreements with the two, South America’s biggest economies, at a time when Argentina is in recession and Brazil confronts high unemployment and anemic growth. Above, aluminum cable in Brazil.

Both countries have become bigger suppliers to China during the trade war, rankling American officials.

Michael Reynolds/EPA, via Shutterstock

3. The Supreme Court heard arguments in its first Second Amendment case in nearly a decade.

But judging by the justices’ questions, they may not deliver a ruling of any particular consequence. Above, protesters for and against gun control outside the court.

The case challenges a New York City law — repealed after the Supreme Court granted review — that had limited residents who had “premises licenses” from transporting their guns outside their homes.

The court’s liberal side — and Chief Justice John Roberts — asked whether the law’s repeal rendered the case moot. But a lawyer for the challengers urged the justices to “send a very important signal to the lower courts” that some gun regulations are “unconstitutional, full stop.”

Andrej Isakovic/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

4. Calls for Russia to be banned from major athletic competitions are building.

The country’s manipulation of its athletes’ drug-testing data has made it impossible to know who cheated and who didn’t.

National antidoping officials argue that there is no choice but to impose a blanket ban against Russia and its athletes, which would bar them from next year’s Tokyo Olympics. Only a draconian punishment, they say, will keep the playing field even and force Russia to change its behavior.

The World Anti-Doping Agency meets next Monday.

Rick Friedman for The New York Times

5. Autumn’s winter storm.

A weather system that roared across the country from the Rockies through the Midwest is socking parts of the Northeast with up to 20 inches of snow. More than 600 flights had been canceled as of this afternoon, many of them at New York and Boston airports. Above, digging out in Andover, Mass.

To weather experts, it’s a winter storm — even though winter doesn’t officially start until Dec. 21.

They use the annual cycle of average temperatures, with the three coldest months of the calendar considered “meteorological winter.” That began on Sunday, Dec. 1.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

6. A downside of Cyber Monday: package theft.

Every day, more than 1.7 million packages are stolen or go missing across the country — more than $25 million a day in lost goods and services.

The fight is on. Shoppers are installing video cameras or getting mailboxes that can fit large packages. More stores are acting as makeshift package holding centers. And Amazon, FedEx and UPS are using technology for safer deliveries.

State lawmakers are on it, too. Under a new law in Texas, package thieves could face up to 10 years in prison. And a South Carolina bill, called the Defense Against Porch Pirates Act, would make package theft a felony.

Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times

7. It’s not just one rotten apple.

Fire blight is wiping out thousands of apple trees, spreading from the South into places like New York’s Champlain Valley and parts of Maine.

It’s caused by native bacteria that predate the introduction of apple trees to North America. Growers have long held it at bay by trimming dead branches and, in recent decades, spraying antibiotics.

But the disease is becoming resistant, some say, and it’s threatening commercial and heirloom apple varieties.

Andrea Hanks/The White House

8. In search of the real Melania Trump.

Photos released today show the festive holiday decorations at the White House: glittering greenery, the Gold Star Family tree, stars and stripes ribbons and ornaments — and the first lady hovering on the periphery.

The CNN reporter Kate Bennett, whose beat focuses on the first family, shares her theories about the mystery around Mrs. Trump in an unauthorized biography, “Free, Melania,” which comes out this week.

Among her conclusions: There are no coincidences when it comes to clothing (“each thing she does has meaning to it”), and she is not particularly close with either Ivanka Trump or Karen Pence, the vice president’s wife.

Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters

9. Exorcise those depression demons.

Walking, jogging, yoga or really any type of exercise may help ward off depression, even in those with a genetic susceptibility, a large-scale new study shows.

Physical activity “neutralized” much of the added risk for people born with a propensity for depression, it concluded.

And the public health expert Austin Frakt says that the mind has some control over pain’s intensity.

Pain, he writes, is “like a conversation between the brain and the body. And like verbal conversations, it can be heated or calm.”