THE BIG STORY

Republican senators blocked witnesses at the impeachment trial, and now say there’s nothing new

House Democrats laid out the evidence that President Donald Trump abused his office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rival. Some Republican senators found this narrative to be old news.

For months, Republican senators declined to answer reporters’ questions about the impeachment inquiry by saying they were waiting for the issue to come before the Senate. But now that the trial is underway, some are saying there’s nothing new to discuss.

It’s a particularly bold claim for Republicans — Democrats spent Tuesday repeatedly asking the Senate to subpoena new witnesses and documents, and Republicans spent the same day voting down each request.

A small group of Republicans — including senators Susan Collins and Mitt Romney — have said they are open to hearing from witnesses but not until later in the trial.

Impeachment Today

Once upon a time in Ukraine. The House impeachment managers used day four of the Senate trial to tell the tale of Donald the Avaricious and his plot to abuse his powers by pressuring Ukraine. Listen and subscribe.

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

China has quarantined the city at the center of the coronavirus outbreak

Wuhan is a city that is home to 11 million people. It’s also at the center of a new virus outbreak. Chinese officials have enacted a new travel ban on the city’s residents.

The coronavirus has infected more than 600 people and killed 17 since Dec. 31, 2019, according to Chinese state television reports.

Infected travelers have also been detected in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan. The first US case, in Washington state, was announced on Tuesday.

The World Health Organization’s director-general praised China’s government for putting the travel ban in place.

We’ve collected some photos of what it’s like inside the locked-down city.

Getty Images

SNAPSHOTS

Three US residents died when a water-bombing plane crashed while fighting the Australia bushfires. The aircraft crashed while water-bombing fires on a dangerously hot day in Australia. Three Australian volunteer firefighters have already died this bushfire season. This accident brings the total death toll to 32.

As Australia burned, climate change denialism got a boost on Facebook. Experts have linked the vast scale of Australia's bushfires to climate change. Yet untrue or misleading theories gained traction online that blamed the fires on arsonists, or lasers designed to clear a path for a high-speed railway. Facebook is doing little to stop their spread.

Jeff Bezos got a shady link from the Saudi Crown Prince and was hacked, UN experts said. A forensic analysis of the Amazon CEO's phone assessed with “medium to high confidence” that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman deployed digital spyware to surveil Bezos’ iPhone in response to reporting by the Washington Post, which Bezos owns.

Rapper Juice Wrld died of an accidental overdose, officials said. The up-and-coming rapper, legal name Jarad Higgins, died in December after a medical emergency. The medical examiner’s office said Higgins died “as a result of oxycodone and codeine toxicity” and that the manner of his death was an accident.

A Poshmark reseller somehow got her hands on a major fashion influencer’s unreleased clothing and drama ensued. Panicked DMs. Confusing emails. And an allegedly harmonious ending. This saga has it all. I would watch a film adaptation.

SOMETHING IN THE WATER

People in 43 US cities are drinking toxic “forever chemicals” in their tap water, tests show

The long-lived "fluorinated" PFAS chemicals (short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) have emerged in the last decade as a wider pollution concern because of some evidence of links to cancer and lowered fertility.

They’re back in focus after the release of Dark Waters, a 2019 film about pollution from a DuPont facility in West Virginia.

An environmental group reported that an independent study found that dozens of cities in the US — including Miami, Philadelphia, and New Orleans — have the toxic “forever chemicals” in their drinking water.

The study detected PFAS chemicals in 43 of 44 cities tested last year, and points to a more widespread problem.

The only place they tested that didn't have PFAS contamination was Meridian, Mississippi, which gets its water from a 600-foot-deep well.

A CUTE INTRUDER

This woman’s office was trashed by an extremely cute possum, and honestly, it looks sorry about it

Bree Blakeman, a research fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra, assumed someone had broken into her office. That’s how trashed it was.

Looking around to see what else was damaged or stolen, Blakeman realized she wasn't alone. She saw the intruder, a common Australian brushtail possum, which had made its way into the office through the roof.

She snapped a photo of the li’l destroyer, who looked extremely sorry for the inconvenience. Of course the story went viral, because look at the apologetic possum:

Wishing you a day grounded in gratitude,

Elamin