Evening Briefing: Pelosi threatens impeachment

January 8, 2021

Your Friday Evening Briefing

By Remy Tumin and Jeremiah M. Bogert, Jr.

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

1. A year ago this week, House Democrats were preparing articles of impeachment against President Trump. They are on the verge of doing so yet again.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House could move to impeach Mr. Trump over his role in inciting a violent mob attack on the Capitol if he did not resign “immediately,” calling Mr. Trump’s actions a “horrific assault on our democracy.”

The House could vote on impeachment next week, with a handful of Republicans offering potential support. Impeachment could bar Mr. Trump from ever holding federal office again. No president has ever been impeached twice or in his waning days in office, and none has ever been convicted. Here is what we know about how the process might work.

Ms. Pelosi also called Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to discuss how to limit Mr. Trump’s access to the nation’s nuclear codes.

During an appearance in Wilmington, Del., President-elect Joe Biden sidestepped the issue, saying that “what the Congress decides to do is for them to decide.” But Mr. Biden said it was a “good thing” that Mr. Trump announced that he would not attend the inauguration.

Mr. Trump’s Twitter days are over: The platform said it permanently suspended the president’s account, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.”

Continue reading the main story

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

2. Flags are flying at half-staff on Capitol Hill to honor Brian Sicknick, a U.S. Capitol Police officer who died from injuries sustained during the pro-Trump mob attack.

Officer Sicknick’s death brings the death toll from Wednesday’s mayhem to five. Federal law enforcement officials have charged at least five people from the siege, including a West Virginia lawmaker and a man who broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and posed at her desk.

Continue reading the main story

Hundreds of prosecutors and F.B.I. agents have been assigned to work on the investigation and are pursuing dozens of cases, the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington said.

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

3. Just as Georgia elected the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Black descendant of sharecroppers, and Jon Ossoff, a young Jewish filmmaker, to be U.S. senators, the riot on Capitol Hill magnified a jarring juxtaposition: Whose democracy is it?

“The intentions of the president’s supporters struck at an idea at the core of the American experiment,” Astead Herndon, a Times reporter, writes in an analysis, “that, in time, the country’s commitment to democracy will overtake its history of intolerance.”

These are the rioters who heeded Mr. Trump’s call and stormed the Capitol, a largely white crowd that included infamous white supremacists and conspiracy theorists.

Times journalists were there as the halls of Congress were breached. Erin Schaff, a staff photographer, was thrown to the floor and stripped of one of her cameras; Emily Cochrane, a congressional reporter, sent a few “I love you” texts just in case.

Andrew West/The News-Press, via Reuters

4. President-elect Joe Biden plans to release nearly all available vaccine doses in an attempt to speed up the sluggish effort.

The move is a sharp break from the Trump administration’s practice of holding back roughly half of its supply to ensure that those already vaccinated receive second booster doses, which are required with both of the vaccines that have emergency approval.

Around the country, vaccine distribution efforts have proceeded at a trickle. As of Thursday, the Trump administration had shipped more than 21 million vaccine doses, yet only 5.9 million people had received them. Above, an early morning line to get vaccinated in Fort Myers, Fla.

Some states, like California, Florida, Texas and Louisiana, are diverging from carefully thought-out federal guidelines on which groups to immunize first to avoid having vaccines sitting in freezers or ending up in the garbage.

Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock

5. The need for vaccines is greater than ever: Thursday was America’s worst day of the pandemic, with more than 4,100 deaths and over 280,000 new cases. Above, Los Angeles.

“We believe things will get worse as we get into January,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease specialist. With hopes buoyed by the arrival of vaccines, and then dimmed by the delays in rolling them out, Dr. Fauci urged Americans to be patient.

In Europe, the executive arm of the European Union secured an additional 300 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine — an apparent response to growing criticism that the bloc had not ordered enough.

Ella Koeze

6. The December job report was awful, sending the already sputtering economic rebound into reverse.

The U.S. lost 140,000 jobs last month, the first drop in employment since April. The December losses were heavily concentrated in leisure and hospitality businesses, which have been hit especially hard by the pandemic. The industry cut nearly half a million jobs in December, while sectors less exposed to the pandemic continued to add workers.

But, our Upshot reporter writes, the economy has a clear path to health. Among the reasons for optimism: the prospect of widespread vaccination and a Democrat-controlled Congress that is more open to stimulus spending.

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

7. Last year effectively tied 2016 as the hottest year on record, European climate researchers said.

The global average temperature in 2020 was about 2.25 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average from 1850 to 1900, data indicates, serving as “a reminder that temperatures are changing and will continue to change if we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions,” one scientist said. Above, the shrinking Longyearbreen glacier in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.

Some regions experienced exceptional warming. For a second year in a row, Europe had its warmest year ever and experienced deadly heat waves. Temperatures across North America were above average as well. The warming played a critical role in widespread drought that affected most of the western half of the U.S. and wildfires that ravaged California and Colorado.

Jay Laprete/Associated Press

8. The N.F.L. playoffs start this weekend. No one is exactly sure how they will pan out.

With an expanded 14-team field, consecutive triple-headers this weekend could compound the craziness of the season. And we’re still four and a half weeks from the Super Bowl, which is scheduled to be held on Feb. 7 in Tampa, Fla. Here are the Times’ picks for the wild-card round.

Titans running back Derrick Henry, above, is a nearly unstoppable force, and the Ravens have looked nearly unbeatable over the season’s final five weeks, making Sunday’s wild-card game one to watch.

And if you need to catch up on the season, our reporters have you covered.

Grant Hindsley for The New York Times

9. The sperm kings of America are exhausted, and in demand.

The pandemic is creating a shortage of sperm, sperm banks and fertility clinics said. Men have stopped going in as much to donate, even as the number of people seeking in vitro fertilization has stayed steady or even increased.

Now, some donors are going direct to customers — like those meeting with prospective mothers-to-be in Airbnbs for an afternoon handoff — and Facebook groups with tens of thousands of members have sprung up.

“The reason I know this at all is simple enough,” The Times’s Nellie Bowles writes. “I am 32 years old, partnered to a woman, stuck at home and in the market for the finest sperm I can get.”

Will Lopez Flores

10. And finally, a different “52 Places to Go.”

The Times usually publishes its annual travel feature right about now, a visually rich list of worthy destinations for the coming year. But, of course, the pandemic has changed that. This year’s list hits closer to home: We’re calling it “52 Places to Love.”

Instead of turning to reporters and photographers, The Times asked readers to tell us about their favorite places — near or far — and share photos. Their responses included Huanchaco, Peru, above; a town in Wales called Mumbles; Montana’s “Golden Triangle”; and Hokkaido, Japan, which has an entire weather forecast devoted to the changing leaves

Take a look. Maybe you’ll find a new place to love.

Have an inquisitive weekend.

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

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.

Continue reading the main story