10 things you need to know today: January 9, 2019

1. Trump appeals for border wall funding to end 'humanitarian crisis'

President Trump on Tuesday made a televised appeal for support for his promised border wall to end a "humanitarian crisis," but stopped short of offering concessions likely to break a stalemate with Democrats that has shut down a quarter of the federal government. In the Oval Office address — the first of his presidency — Trump said the wall is needed to stop drugs and criminal immigrants from pouring into the U.S. "How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job?" he asked. In a televised response, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York accused Trump of stoking fear and closing the government to get taxpayers to pay for a wall he promised Mexico would pay for.

The New York Times The Associated Press

2. Court document says Manafort shared polling data with Russian

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort shared 2016 presidential polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, an associate the FBI has said has ties to Russian intelligence, and lied about it to federal investigators, according to a court filing made public Tuesday. The allegation marked the first time prosecutors had accused Manafort of sharing campaign information with Russians. Manafort denied in the filing, made by his defense lawyers, that he had violated his plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team by lying about the alleged exchange of information and other matters. The filing does not clarify whether the polling information was public or how it was used, but suggests Russians could have received information from the Trump campaign that might have been useful in Moscow's effort to influence the election in Trump's favor.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The Associated Press The Washington Post

3. Erdogan snubs Bolton, calls promise of Kurds' safety 'serious mistake'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday scolded White House National Security Adviser John Bolton for promising safety for U.S.-allied Kurdish forces when American forces are withdrawn from Syria. Bolton said in Israel over the weekend that no U.S. troops would leave Syria without assurances that Turkey would not launch an offensive against the Kurds. Turkey views the Kurdish militias in Syria as terrorists allied with Kurdish insurgents within Turkey. A senior administration official said President Trump thought Erdogan had given him such a guarantee in a December phone call. Erdogan, however, refused to meet with Bolton when he arrived in Turkey to discuss the withdrawal, saying Bolton had made a "serious mistake."

NBC News

4. Russian lawyer from 2016 Trump Tower meeting charged in an unrelated case

Prosecutors have charged Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in 2016, with obstruction of justice in a federal civil case in Manhattan. Veselnitskaya is accused of secretly working with a senior Russian prosecutor while representing a client in a tax fraud case. She allegedly put together findings from the Russian government that were presented in court as being independent. The charges aren't related to the Trump Tower meeting, but back up the idea that Veselnitskaya has "deep ties" to the Russian government. She has denied working for the Kremlin, but called herself an "informant" for Russia's prosecutor general during an interview. Trump Jr. met with Veselnitskaya during his father's presidential campaign apparently in order to get damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government.

The Wall Street Journal NBC News

5. Supreme Court restores fines against firm resisting subpoena in Mueller investigation

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an unnamed foreign-government-owned corporation's effort to resist a subpoena related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling. The court's order restored a $50,000 daily fine that Chief Justice John Roberts had placed on hold until the full court could consider the matter. A lower court imposed the contempt fine, saying the laws of the unnamed "Country A" do not bar the company from complying with the subpoena. The penalty now will build up until the company turns over the information requested by Mueller's team. The corporation's lawyers plan to keep fighting the subpoena by asking the Supreme Court to rule on the merits of the secretive case, which has triggered a guessing game about what information Mueller is seeking.

CNBC The Washington Post

6. New York mayor unveils plan to fund 'health care for all'

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday unveiled a $100 million plan to provide affordable "health care for all" city residents. The "NYC Care" plan would offer public health insurance on a sliding price scale based on income to the estimated 600,000 people in the city who don't have insurance, including undocumented immigrants and low-income residents not enrolled in Medicaid. The plan is schedule to launch later this year and reach all New Yorkers by 2021. De Blasio said it would be funded through the city's public health budget, but would be cost-effective because it would reduce hospital emergency room visits by uninsured patients, and help improve public health. "It involves taking the money we're spending right now and using it a lot better," de Blasio said.

Bloomberg

7. U.S. cancer deaths dropped 27 percent over 25 years

America's cancer death rate has fallen by 27 percent over the last 25 years, according to a study by the American Cancer Society published Tuesday. The decline amounts to about 2.6 million fewer deaths. Cancer deaths in the U.S. reached their peak in 1991 and have fallen every year since, partly because of a delayed drop in lung cancer cases after many Americans stopped smoking in the 1960s. Lung cancer rates among men dropped 50 percent since 1991, and improving early detection methods has also benefited recovery chances. However, cancers associated with obesity have seen their death rates grow, and there's a growing economic gap in rates. The racial gap in cancer prognoses has narrowed since the 1990s.

CNN

8. U.N. agency grants refugee status to Saudi woman fleeing family

The United Nations refugee agency on Wednesday granted refugee status to a young Saudi woman who barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room to avoid deportation, clearing her to request asylum in Australia. The woman, 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, said she feared her relatives would kill her if she returned to them. She fled from her family in Kuwait on Saturday and boarded a flight to Bangkok, hoping to go from there to Australia, but Thai immigration officials stopped her and threatened to deport her. The Thai Immigration Bureau let her leave the airport with the U.N. agency after a two-day standoff.

The New York Times

9. Police seek DNA samples after Arizona woman in vegetative state gives birth

Arizona police on Tuesday served a search warrant seeking DNA samples from all male employees at a long-term care facility in Phoenix where a patient in a vegetative state gave birth. The company, Hacienda HealthCare, said it welcomed the testing and would continue to cooperate to "uncover the facts in this deeply disturbing, but unprecedented situation." The 29-year-old woman, who has been in a vegetative state for more than 10 years since nearly drowning, delivered the baby on Dec. 29. She is a member of the San Carlos Apache tribe, whose reservation is 134 miles east of Phoenix. On Monday, the chief executive officer of Hacienda HealthCare, Bill Timmons, resigned as new allegations of past abuse at the facility surfaced.

The Associated Press CBS News

10. Carbon emissions spiked in 2018

U.S. carbon emissions increased in 2018 for the first time in three years, resulting in the largest yearly spike since 2010. A Rhodium Group report found that the rise comes despite the fact that coal plants closed at the highest rate in three years. But industrial emissions — like those from steel and chemicals — saw a 5.7 percent rise in 2018. There was also a rise in emissions from transportation and electricity. Still, carbon dioxide emissions have fallen 11 percent since 2005. The prospect of the U.S. cutting its carbon emissions between 26 and 28 percent in the next six years, as was outlined in the 2015 Paris climate agreement that President Trump has since said he will withdraw from, now looks nearly impossible, experts say.

The New York Times