10 things you need to know today: February 6, 2019

Trump gives the State of the Union speech

(Image credit: Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)

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1. Trump calls for unity in State of the Union address
2. Pope Francis acknowledges priests have sexually abused nuns
3. Alabama attorney general says officer who killed E.J. Bradford won't be charged
4. Senators question judicial nominee's writings on date rape
5. Former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias accused of sexual assault
6. U.S. says 2018 foreign meddling had no impact on election systems
7. Trump, Kim to hold second summit in late February
8. Russia sentences Jehovah's Witness to 6 years in key test case
9. Cold Pursuit red-carpet premiere event canceled after Liam Neeson race comment
10. Academy confirms there will be no Oscars host

published 6 February 2019

1. Trump calls for unity in State of the Union address

President Trump delivered his State of the Union address Tuesday night, calling for bipartisan cooperation in his first address to a split Congress. "An economic miracle is taking place in the United States — and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous partisan investigations," Trump said. He vowed to build his long-promised border wall and urged Congress to fund it, calling the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border "an urgent national crisis." Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost her bid to become Georgia's first black governor, said in the official Democratic response that the government shutdown was a harmful "stunt" engineered by Trump over his wall. "America is made stronger by the presence of immigrants, not walls," she said.

Pope Francis on Tuesday for the first time publicly acknowledged the scandal of sexual abuse of nuns by priests and bishops. "It's not that everyone does this, but there have been priests and bishops who have," he told reporters while flying from the United Arab Emirates to Rome. "And I think that it's continuing because it's not like once you realize it that it stops. It continues. And for some time we've been working on it. Should we do something more? Yes. Is there the will? Yes. But it's a path that we have already begun." In November, the International Union of Superiors General said there is a "culture of silence and secrecy" that keeps nuns from reporting their abuse, and urged them to come forward and speak with their superiors and law enforcement.

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Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced Tuesday that the police officer who fatally shot 21-year-old Emantic "E.J." Bradford Jr. at a mall outside of Birmingham last Thanksgiving will not face charges. Marshall said his investigation found that the officer, identified only as Officer 1 in the report, did not commit a crime because he mistakenly believed Bradford, a black veteran licensed to carry a gun, was the gunman who had fired shots earlier in the Riverchase Galleria mall, and "reasonably exercised his official powers, duties, or functions when he shot" Bradford. The earlier shooting left two bystanders injured. Bradford's father called the attorney general "a coward" for clearing the officer.

Both Republican and Democratic senators on Tuesday grilled Neomi Rao, President Trump's nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the federal appeals court in Washington, about her controversial past writings. Rao faced particularly intense questioning about columns she wrote as a Yale undergraduate that suggested victims sometimes shared responsibility for date rape. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who recently disclosed she was sexually assaulted while in college, said in the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing that Rao's writings from the 1990s on date rape "do give me pause." Rao said she now cringes "at some of the language I used" in the columns, saying she likes to think she has "matured as a thinker, writer, and a person," and that "nobody should blame the victim."

Antinuclear activist Alexandra Arce von Herold has filed a criminal complaint with prosecutors accusing Nobel laureate and former Costa Rica President Oscar Arias Sanchez of sexually assaulting her four years ago. Arce, who also is a psychiatrist, gave a statement under penalty of perjury saying that she met with Arias at his house to discuss an upcoming event, and he came up behind her and grabbed her breasts and penetrated her with his fingers. She said she left, distraught. Arias said in a statement distributed by his lawyer that he was innocent. "I deny categorically the accusations made against me," he said. "I have never acted in a way that disrespected the will of any woman."

State Department and Homeland Security officials said Tuesday that foreign actors did not appear to have had a significant impact on computer systems, electronic voting machines, and other equipment in the November 2018 congressional elections. In a joint statement, the two departments said political campaigns were not significantly affected last year, either. Before the November balloting, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials warned that foreigners were continuing their efforts to influence U.S. elections, and federal prosecutors charged a Russian national with involvement in a Moscow-backed plot to do so.

President Trump announced Tuesday that he will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam on Feb. 27 and 28. Trump said his first meeting with Kim last June in Singapore had opened a path for peace, and he said their second face-to-face would focus on coming up with a concrete plan for getting North Korea to denuclearize. U.S. intelligence chiefs testified to Congress recently that they believed North Korea would never relinquish all of its nuclear weapons because it sees them as vital to its survival, but Trump sharply disagreed with them, saying he and Kim were making progress.

A Russian court on Wednesday found a Jehovah's Witness from Denmark guilty of organizing activities for a banned extremist organization, and sentenced him to six years in prison. The man, Dennis Christensen, was arrested by armed police at a May 2017 prayer meeting in Oryol, about 200 miles south of Moscow. Christensen, a 46-year-old builder, had pleaded not guilty in the case, which Western governments have framed as a test case for religious freedom in Russia. The Jehovah's Witnesses, headquartered in the U.S., have come under pressure in Russia. Scholars in the Orthodox Church, which is championed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, have accused Jehovah's Witnesses of adhering to a dangerous foreign sect that erodes state institutions and traditional values, which members of the religion deny.

Organizers on Tuesday canceled the red-carpet event for the U.S. premiere of Cold Pursuit, a revenge thriller starring Liam Neeson. The move came as Neeson faced a backlash for telling a story about once wanting to arbitrarily murder a black person when he found out his friend was allegedly raped by a black man. He first told the account to The Independent, then repeated it on Good Morning America, insisting that he is "not racist." Neeson said he was shocked by his "primal urge to lash out" nearly 40 years ago, but said he "definitely" would have had the same reaction if the alleged perpetrator was white.

The 2019 Oscars will officially not have a host. A spokesperson for the Academy confirmed this following weeks of reports that no one would be hired to replace Kevin Hart, who was originally tapped for the gig but stepped down in December when old homophobic tweets and jokes of his were resurfaced. This year's show will, therefore, be the first Oscars without a host in 30 years. At a luncheon for nominees Monday, producers Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss did not address the hosting controversy, but a line-up of presenters was announced Monday that includes Jennifer Lopez, Awkwafina, Chris Evans, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Whoopi Goldberg, Brie Larson, and Constance Wu.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.