10 things you need to know today: September 30, 2019

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1. Trump tweets he should get to meet whistleblower as testimony looms
2. 'Winter' storm hits West just after summer's end
3. Biden campaign asks TV networks to stop booking Rudy Giuliani
4. Giuliani says he won't cooperate in House hearings unless Trump says to
5. Netanyahu coalition talks stall
6. Moscow demonstrators demand release of protesters jailed in summer crackdown
7. Former Chancellor Kurz comes out on top in Austria snap elections
8. NYPD officer dies in gunfire exchange with gang suspect
9. Fire kills 2 at Greek refugee camp near Turkey
10. Forever 21 files for bankruptcy protection

published 30 September 2019

1. Trump tweets he should get to meet whistleblower as testimony looms

President Trump fired off a barrage of tweets on Sunday saying he deserves to "meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called 'Whistleblower,' represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way." Trump also said he wanted to meet the person who gave the whistleblower information about his controversial call with Ukraine's president, saying the person "illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect, to the 'Whistleblower.' Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!" House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday that the whistleblower, who filed a complaint over concerns Trump was using his office to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden, will testify in the House "very soon."

A "winter" storm hit parts of the West with up to three feet of snow on Sunday, just a week after the end of summer. Blizzard conditions were expected to last into Monday. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock declared an emergency and described the storm as "unprecedented." The town of Browning near Glacier National Park reported 40 inches of snow. Other states affected included California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah. In addition to heavy snow, the storm brought high winds that knocked out power lines, and produced record low temperatures 30 degrees below normal in some places. Snow continued to fall near Glacier National Park, where some areas could get four feet. "You have higher terrain where you will never know how much snow fell because there is no one there to measure it," AccuWeather senior meteorologist Dan Pydynowski said.

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Former Vice President Joe Biden's presidential campaign on Sunday urged television networks and news anchors to stop giving air time to President Trump's private lawyer Rudy Giuliani, accusing him of spreading "lies" about Biden and Ukraine. Top Biden campaign advisers Anita Dunn and Kate Bedingfield wrote that Giuliani promoted "false, debunked conspiracy theories on behalf of Donald Trump." Giuliani has made numerous TV appearances in recent days claiming that when Biden was vice president he pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor to protect the business interests of Biden's son, Hunter. The Biden aides said if news shows book Giuliani they should at least give equal time for a Biden surrogate to respond. Giuliani was not immediately available for comment.

Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, said Sunday he would not cooperate with House Democrats in their impeachment inquiry unless Trump says he can. "If he decides that he wants me to testify, of course I'll testify," Giuliani said in a series of appearances on Sunday news talk shows. Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and ex-mayor of New York City, is a central figure in a whistleblower complaint about a phone call in which Trump allegedly tried to use the power of his office to get Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden. In the call, Trump urged Ukraine's president to work with Giuliani on targeting Biden and his son, Hunter, in a corruption investigation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz reportedly plan to meet on Wednesday in a late attempt to pull together a unity government. Netanyahu's conservative Likud party said it was "very disappointed" that Gantz's party was "unwilling to compromise" in Sunday morning negotiations. Gantz's party blamed Likud for the lack of progress, saying it was "sticking with its 'Netanyahu comes first' precondition." President Reuven Rivlin last week gave Netanyahu the first shot at forming a government after he and Gantz came out of parliamentary elections essentially tied and failed to reach a deal on their own to share power by taking turns as rotating prime ministers. If Wednesday's talks fail, Netanyahu could return his mandate to Rivlin, who likely would then ask Gantz to try to form a government.

More than 20,000 Russian demonstrators gathered in Moscow on Sunday and called for the release of protesters jailed in what they said was a summer crackdown on dissent. The jailed people were arrested at July rallies over the barring of opposition politicians from local elections. Some of them were sentenced to up to four years behind bars. Sunday's protesters chanted "Let them go!" and "Freedom for political prisoners." The demonstrators received authorization from the Moscow mayor's office, and no arrests were reported.

Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's conservative People's Party won Sunday's snap elections, getting more than 38 percent of the votes with nearly all ballots counted. That was up from the party's 31 percent in the last elections. Kurz's former coalition partners in the far-right Freedom Party lost ground, winning just 17.3 percent. The snap election came after Kurz's previous conservative-nationalist coalition collapsed in May over video footage that revealed then-Deputy Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache offering to exchange lucrative contracts for campaign support from a woman claiming to be a Russian oligarch's niece. Without a majority, Kurz will have to form a new coalition, possibly with the Greens and the liberal pro-business Neos party, or with the Social Democrats, which is widely considered a less likely combination.

A New York City police officer was killed Sunday while working on anti-gang duty and trying to arrest a 27-year-old suspect, police said. The officer, 33-year-old Brian Mulkeen, and the suspect both were killed in an exchange of gunfire after Mulkeen and two other officers stopped and tried to question the suspect. The man fled on foot. Mulkeen and his partner tried to catch the suspect, and Mulkeen was heard on a body-cam video saying, "He's reaching for it!" Then the gunfire erupted. The suspect died at the scene. Mulkeen, hit three times, died after being rushed to a hospital. "There is absolutely no worse moment on our job than this," Chief of Department Terence Monahan said at the hospital. "Brian was a great cop dedicated to keeping this city safe."

A fire left two people dead at a crowded refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos near Turkey on Sunday. The incident triggered a riot, with refugees and police clashing as firefighters battled the fire in an area of shipping containers used as shelters. The overcrowded Moria camp houses 12,000 people. Greece has seen a resurgence of refugee traffic in recent weeks. More than 9,000 arrived in August, the most in the three years since a deal between the European Union and Turkey to curb the migrant flow. Another 8,000 arrived in September. Nearly a million refugees, most fleeing Syria's civil war, crossed into Greece's islands from Turkey in 2015.

Budget fashion chain Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy protection on Sunday. The privately held company said it would close up to 178 of its more than 500 U.S. stores. Decisions on which stores will close are ongoing "pending the outcome of continued conversations with landlords," the company said in a statement. Forever 21 has a total of about 800 stores worldwide. It plans to close most of its stores in Asia and Europe while remaining open in Mexico and Latin America. Forever 21 became popular with teen shoppers but struggled due to the speed of its expansion, shifting consumer tastes, and the same online competition that has forced a rising number of retailers to seek bankruptcy protection or shut down completely.

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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.