| I’m back from some time off. We’re covering the U.S.’s renewed fight against ISIS in Syria, a fresh warning from the United Nations about climate change, and a deadly earthquake in Albania. |
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 By Chris Stanford |
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| The decision means that the former White House counsel Donald McGahn must testify before House impeachment investigators about President Trump’s efforts to obstruct Robert Mueller’s inquiry. |
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| The Justice Department said it would appeal the ruling, which could have broader consequences for the impeachment inquiry. John Bolton, the former national security adviser, wants a judge to decide whether a congressional subpoena for his testimony is constitutionally valid. |
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| The Daily: Today’s episode is about the discredited theory that Ukraine, not Russia, tried to influence the 2016 elections. |
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| The operation, which involves Syrian Kurdish partners, comes after a lull of several weeks after the death of the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, last month. |
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| Another angle: The president said his refusal to let the Navy oust Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher from the SEALs showed that he was sticking up for “warriors.” The dispute led to the firing of the Navy secretary, Richard Spencer. |
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| An Amazon warehouse in Eastvale, Calif. Philip Cheung for The New York Times |
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| A coalition of about three dozen groups involved in issues like digital surveillance, antitrust and working conditions in warehouses is trying to rein in the company, which is projected to have $238 billion in sales this year. |
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| The formation of the coalition, called Athena, comes as a separate report released today examines the effects of Amazon’s warehouses on local economies. |
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| The details: The report, which was underwritten by a group representing labor unions, calculated that a little over half of Amazon warehouse workers in Southern California live in substandard housing. |
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| Alfred Chestnut hugged his mother after being freed from prison in Baltimore on Monday. Todd Kimmelman/Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project |
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| Three men who were arrested in 1983 and found guilty of murdering a 14-year-old boy in Baltimore were released on Monday after prosecutors announced that the convictions had been in error and that another teenager had been the real killer. |
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| Alfred Chestnut, Andrew Stewart and Ransom Watkins were high school students when they were convicted. Now in their 50s, they had always insisted that they were innocent. |
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| Background: In examining old cases, the Baltimore authorities found numerous errors in the investigation. It has become increasingly common for prosecutors’ offices around the country to re-examine convictions when evidence suggests that an error might have been made. |
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| Quotable: “Today isn’t a victory,” said Marilyn Mosby, the state’s attorney. “Today it’s a tragedy that these men had 36 years of their lives stolen.” |
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| Bryan Denton for The New York Times |
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| Over the past century in India, the number of days with very heavy rains has increased. At the same time, dry spells in between have gotten longer. |
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| PAID POST: A MESSAGE FROM PEARSON | | The limit does not exist | | The talent-driven economy demands a redesign of learning. If we want to get to the cure for cancer or answers to climate change, we need more data analysts, engineers, doctors, and scientists. We need to find workers for the 2.4 million unfilled STEM jobs we have now. And almost all STEM majors require Calculus, and almost one-third of students drop or fail it. Meet Aida - the first AI calculus tutor. | | MEET AIDA |
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| Pollution warning: Countries have failed to halt the rise of greenhouse gas emissions despite repeated warnings from scientists, according to a report released today by the United Nations. China and the U.S., the world’s biggest polluters, expanded their carbon footprints last year. |
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| Kevin M. Gill/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS |
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| Snapshot: Above, the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, which is caused by a giant storm, has become smaller in recent decades. But scientists said on Monday that it was unlikely to disappear. |
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| Late-night comedy: The hosts noted the White House visit by Conan, the military dog who participated in the raid that killed the Islamic State’s leader: “When Trump said, ‘Sit, stay and rollover,’ every Republican in Congress started doing it,” Jimmy Fallon said. |
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| What we’re reading: This essay in Logic magazine by an engineer at Microsoft. “It’s about how tech companies are selling cloud/A.I. services to the fossil fuel industry while publicly pledging to address the climate crisis,” writes Kevin Roose, our technology columnist. |
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| David Malosh for The New York Times |
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| Americans like to fondly remember a time when Christmas marketing didn’t begin until after Thanksgiving. But since at least the 1940s, the timing of Thanksgiving in the U.S. was specifically intended to kick off a national shopping spree. |
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| The annual Macy?s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1951. The New York Times |
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| The move caused an uproar — especially among fans of college football, who were used to playing their big games on Thanksgiving and had planned for the later date. |
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| In the end, Mr. Roosevelt and Congress in 1941 formalized Thanksgiving for the fourth Thursday of the month, where it remains. |
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| This year, Thanksgiving’s relatively late arrival — this Thursday — is causing some trepidation in the $3.6 trillion U.S. retail industry. Retailers, who live and die by their holiday results and are struggling with shrinking profits and Amazon’s dominance, need every day of post-Thanksgiving shopping they can get. |
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| That’s it for this briefing. See you next time. |
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Thank you
Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford provided the break from the news. Michael Corkery, a business reporter, wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com. |
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P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Today’s episode is about the conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. election.
• Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Mount where Moses received the Ten Commandments (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.
• This year, The Times will publish 15 books, including “The 1619 Project,” with nine different publishers. |
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