10 things you need to know today: January 28, 2019

1. Trump says another shutdown possible as wall deal unlikely

President Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday that he thinks there's only a 50-50 chance lawmakers will reach a deal to fund a border wall, and another shutdown is "certainly an option." Under the deal that ended the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history on Friday, 17 congressional negotiators have three weeks to reach an agreement on border security. Trump told the Journal he doubts he'll sign any bill that does not give him at least $5.7 billion for the wall, which Democrats oppose. Trump said he would use emergency powers if necessary to get a barrier up. Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that Trump would find ways to secure the U.S.-Mexico border "with or without Congress."

The Wall Street Journal The Washington Post

2. Kamala Harris kicks off 2020 campaign with 20,000-person rally

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) formally launched her presidential campaign on Sunday with a rally before a hometown crowd of 20,000 people in Oakland. Harris, a former California attorney general, told her supporters that she would address growing concerns about the direction of the country, calling out the Trump administration for "bullying and attacking a free press," and putting "children in cages" at the border. "I am not perfect," Harris said. "But I will always speak with decency and moral clarity and treat all people with dignity and respect. I will lead with integrity and I will speak the truth." Harris is one of a half-dozen Democrats who have already emerged as candidates in the race for the Democratic nomination to challenge President Trump in 2020.

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Politico

3. Federal agencies affected by shutdown reopen

Federal agencies that were affected by the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history spent the weekend preparing to reopen on Monday and start getting missed paychecks to their workers later in the week. About 800,000 government employees were furloughed or had to work without pay for the five weeks of the shutdown, which was caused by President Trump's insistence on $5.7 billion for a wall on the Mexican border. He didn't get it, but warned that the government could shut down again or he could declare a national emergency to get the wall built if Republicans and Democrats don't agree on a long-term spending bill that includes money for the wall before the current stopgap spending measure runs out in three weeks.

Reuters

4. Roger Stone opens door to cooperating with Mueller

Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to President Trump, declined on Sunday to rule out cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. "If there's wrongdoing by other people in the campaign that I know about, which I know of none, but if there is I would certainly testify honestly," Stone told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on This Week. "I'd also testify honestly about any other matter, including any communications with the president ... there is certainly no conspiracy with Russia." Stone was arrested in a Friday raid on charges of lying to Congress about his effort to get hold of Russia-hacked Democratic emails obtained by WikiLeaks. Stone says he's innocent. Stone associate Jerome Corsi said some of the information in the indictment is accurate.

ABC News CNN

5. Poll: Shutdown deepens feeling U.S. is on 'wrong track'

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday found that the feeling among Americans who believe the nation is "off on the wrong track" has deepened through the partial federal government shutdown that just ended. Sixty-three percent of respondents said the country is on the wrong track, compared to 28 percent who said it was "headed in the right direction." Before the shutdown in December, the figures in the same poll were 56 percent to 33 percent. By a margin of 50 percent to 37 percent, more respondents blamed President Trump than Democrats in Congress for the problem. Unlike some other recent national polls, the new survey did not show a drop in Trump's overall approval rating, with 43 percent approving and 54 percent disapproving.

CNBC

6. Louisiana man accused of killing 5 arrested in Virginia

A Louisiana man, 21-year-old Dakota Theriot, was caught after a multi-state manhunt on Sunday and arrested for the murders of five people, including his parents, his girlfriend, her father, and her brother. Theriot reportedly killed his girlfriend, 20-year-old Summer Earnest; her father, Billy Earnest, 43; and her younger brother, Tanner Earnest, 17, at their Louisiana home, where he had been staying. Investigators said he then drove to his parents' trailer and shot them. His father identified him as the shooter before dying of his wounds. Police said Theriot then drove more than 1,000 miles to Richmond County, Virginia, where he was arrested.

The Washington Post

7. Trump administration lifts sanctions on firms linked to Russian oligarch

The Trump administration on Sunday lifted sanctions on aluminum giant Rusal and other Russian firms linked to oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The move came despite a push by Democrats and some Republicans in Congress to maintain the sanctions, but President Trump and most of his fellow Republicans managed to overcome the opposition. The sanctions were imposed in April as punishment for Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea, meddling in U.S. elections, and support for Syria in its civil war. Lawmakers who wanted to keep the measures in place said Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, still had too much control over the companies to justify easing the sanctions. The Treasury Department said the companies had reduced Deripaska's influence, and agreed to "unprecedented transparency."

Reuters

8. Trump's company fires undocumented workers

A human resource executive from Trump corporate headquarters last week fired a dozen longtime employees at Trump National Golf Club in Westchester, N.Y., because they were undocumented immigrants, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported Sunday, citing interviews with the workers and their attorney. Some of the workers had won employee-of-the-month awards, or were trusted enough to hold onto the keys to the weekend home of Eric Trump, one of Trump's sons now leading the family real-estate business. All of them were from Latin America, and they were told that the immigration documents they submitted years ago were fake. The New York Times had revealed in a report late last year that a Trump club in New Jersey had employed undocumented immigrants. They were subsequently fired, too.

The New York Times The Washington Post

9. Polar vortex to bring coldest temperatures in decades to parts of northern U.S.

A blast of frigid arctic air is forecast to hit the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes by the middle of the week. Temperatures will plunge by as much as 40 degrees below normal in some areas affected by the polar vortex that is breaking away and heading south. "Wind chills ... should be the coldest since the mid-1990s in parts of the eastern Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and northern Illinois," tweeted the National Weather Service. Parts of northern Minnesota could see temperatures as low as minus-30 and wind chills as low as minus-60 on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Extreme cold is expected to cover a much larger area Tuesday through Thursday. "There's no mild way of saying it. Brutal cold is coming," the National Weather Service office serving Chicago tweeted.

The Washington Post

10. Black Panther, Glenn Close, Rami Malek win SAG Awards

At the 25th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday night, Black Panther won the award for best film ensemble cast, with This Is Us taking home the award for TV drama ensemble and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel for TV comedy ensemble. It was a big night for Mrs. Maisel; Rachel Brosnahan won outstanding performance by a female actor in a comedy series and Tony Shalhoub was awarded outstanding performance by a male actor in a comedy. On the movie side, Bohemian Rhapsody's Rami Malek won outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role, while The Wife's Glenn Close won outstanding performance by a female actor in a leading role.

The Hollywood Reporter