10 things you need to know today: November 26, 2019

1. Court rules McGahn must honor House subpoena

A federal judge ruled Monday that former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn has to comply with a House subpoena to testify before lawmakers investigating whether President Trump tried to obstruct former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The White House argued that McGahn is "absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony" about his work for Trump. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson rejected that claim. "Presidents are not kings," the judge wrote. The Justice Department said it would appeal. McGahn's lawyer said McGahn "will comply with Judge Jackson's decision unless it is stayed pending appeal." The case could lead to forced testimony by numerous officials in the House impeachment inquiry, including national security officials. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton has indicated he has significant information on the Ukraine affair.

The Washington Post The New York Times

2. Schiff says impeachment inquiry report due in early December

House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Monday that the panels involved in the impeachment inquiry against President Trump would send a report to the House Judiciary Committee early next month. Schiff said the report would include a list of White House refusals to cooperate with the investigation into whether Trump abused his power to pressure Ukraine into investigating his political rivals, noting that the failure to cooperate could result in a separate article of impeachment for obstruction of Congress. "A dozen witnesses followed President Trump's order to defy lawful subpoenas, and the White House, State Department, Department of Defense, Office of Management and Budget, and Department of Energy have provided no documents in response to subpoenas," Schiff wrote in a letter to members of Congress. Schiff's committee has just completed two weeks of public hearings after weeks of closed-door depositions.

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Reuters

3. Esper: Trump gave order for Gallagher to keep SEAL status

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday that President Trump ordered him to let Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher keep his Trident pin, meaning he could retire as a Navy SEAL. Gallagher was acquitted of murdering a wounded Islamic State prisoner but convicted for posing in a photo with the ISIS fighter's corpse. A Trident review board was examining Gallagher's status, but Trump's order put the matter to rest. Esper also addressed his decision to oust Navy Secretary Richard Spencer on Sunday, saying he was "flabbergasted" to learn that Spencer had sidestepped proper channels to negotiate directly with the White House on a deal to let Gallagher retire as a member of the elite commando force.

NPR CNN

4. Argentine court sentences 2 priests for sexually abusing deaf children

A court in Mendoza, Argentina, on Monday found two priests guilty of sexually abusing deaf children at a Catholic-run school. The three-judge panel sentenced the Rev. Nicola Corradi to 42 years and the Rev. Horacio Corbacho to 45 years for the abuse at the Antonio Provolo Institute for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Children in the northwestern Argentina municipality of Lujan de Cuyo. Corradi, who is Italian, is 83 and is expected to be held under house arrest because of his age. Corbacho, an Argentine, will be held in a Mendoza prison, as will gardener Armando Gomez, who was sentenced to 18 years in the case. The case has shaken the church in the homeland of Pope Francis. "Thank God there has been justice and peace for the victims," said Dante Simon, one of two Argentine priests the Vatican sent to the South American nation to investigate the case.

The Associated Press

5. Global greenhouse gas levels reach new record

The United Nations' World Meteorological Organization said Monday that globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide reached a record-breaking 407.8 parts per million in 2018. That surpassed the previous high, which was set the year before. "There is no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline, in greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere despite all the commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, adding that the last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of carbon dioxide was 3-5 million years ago. Executive Director of the U.N. Environment Program Inger Andersen said the WMO's findings "point us in a clear direction" of "radical transformations" or we will "face the consequences" of climate change.

World Meteorological Organization

6. Supreme Court declines to review murder case covered in Serial podcast

The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a request to review the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, whose case was the subject of the first season of the hit podcast Serial and a four-part HBO documentary. Syed's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to reverse the Maryland Court of Appeals' August decision against granting a new trial for Syed, who is serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. Syed's legal team argued that he deserved a new trial because his trial attorney, now dead, was ineffective and failed to pursue an alibi witness. The Serial podcast in 2014 examined whether Syed received a fair trial, while the HBO documentary, The Case Against Adnan Syed, looked at DNA tests, which found nobody else's DNA on Lee's body.

The New York Times

7. Charles Schwab agrees to buy TD Ameritrade

Charles Schwab Corp. on Monday reached a deal to buy TD Ameritrade for $26 billion in an acquisition that creates a giant brokerage with $5 trillion in assets under management. Analysts expect the purchase to force smaller rivals to seek their own mergers to compete in an industry already shaken by price wars. Schwab, a pioneer in low-cost investing, has been on the front lines, last month becoming the first major brokerage to eliminate commissions. Fidelity Investments, E*Trade, and TD Ameritrade then matched the move. "In a low, or no fees world ... the pressure will be on other financial services rivals to try to keep up, or to gain further scale themselves," Bankrate.com senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick said.

Reuters

8. Stocks rebound from last week's losses to set new records

U.S. stocks jumped to record highs on Monday on mounting indications that the U.S. and China are nearing a "phase one" deal to end their trade war. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.7 percent to close at a record. The S&P 500 gained 0.8 percent, also hitting an all-time high. The Nasdaq had the biggest day, rising by 1.3 percent and closing at a record level. President Trump noted the records and tweeted: "Enjoy!" Monday's gains came after several rough days last week when all three of the main U.S. indexes snapped multi-week winning streaks as expectations of a trade deal weakened. U.S. stock futures were flat early Tuesday as investors continued to monitor the trade dispute.

CNBC

9. Supreme Court blocks immediate release of Trump financial records

The Supreme Court on Monday temporarily blocked the House from obtaining President Trump's financial records while the court considers whether to review the case. A lower court ruled that the House should be allowed to see the documents, which the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed from Trump's accounting firm, Mazars USA, in mid-April. Trump's lawyers argue he is immune from such an investigation while in office. "This is a significant separation-of-powers clash between the president and Congress," Trump's personal lawyer William Consovoy said in a filing with the court. The Supreme Court gave Trump's lawyers until Dec. 5 to file a formal petition explaining why the court should review the full case. Another ruling in favor of a New York prosecutor seeking Trump's tax returns also is on hold.

The Washington Post

10. Thieves pull off billion-dollar heist at German palace

Thieves broke into a German state museum in Dresden's Royal Palace on Monday and stole 18th-century jewelry in what German media described as the biggest art theft since World War II. The thieves got into the palace's Green Vault, which houses 4,000 pieces of antique jewelry, after a fire at an electrical distribution point knocked out the museum's alarm and lights. Still, a security camera captured images of two men smashing a window, cutting through a fence, and breaking the glass of a display case. German media reported that the thieves took jewels possibly worth more than $1 billion, but the director of Dresden's state art collections, Marion Ackermann, said it was impossible to estimate the stolen items' value "because it is impossible to sell."

The Guardian