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

(Image credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

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1. Pelosi says House will proceed with articles of impeachment
2. Kerry endorses Biden for president
3. Trump lawyers ask Supreme Court to shield financial records from Congress
4. GOP Sen. Cramer blocks Armenian genocide resolution
5. 3 soldiers killed in crash of Minnesota Army National Guard helicopter
6. Saudi Aramco prices its record IPO
7. McDougal sues Fox News after host accused her of 'extortion'
8. Uber received 3,045 reports of sexual assault in U.S. last year
9. Massive transport protests bring French cities to a halt
10. WHO: Measles killed 140,000 in 2018

published 6 December 2019

1. Pelosi says House will proceed with articles of impeachment

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she would ask the Judiciary Committee to proceed with articles of impeachment against President Trump. The House Intelligence Committee this week approved a report making the case that Trump abused the powers of his office by using the possibility of a White House meeting and congressionally approved military aid as leverage to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenzky to investigate Democrats, especially former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Pelosi said given the evidence, Congress has "no choice but to act." House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) slammed Pelosi's decision, accusing her of acting "unilaterally" without concern for "facts or truth."

Former Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, describing him as "the president our country desperately needs right now." "I've never before seen the world more in need of someone who on day one can begin the incredibly hard work of putting back together the world Donald Trump has smashed apart," said Kerry, who was the 2004 Democratic nominee for president. Kerry said he likes Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) "enormously," adding he also likes former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D), but "I just think Joe is the person for the moment." In terms of advice for Biden, Kerry said, "He needs to do exactly what he's doing now." Kerry will campaign with Biden in Iowa on Friday.

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President Trump's personal attorneys, facing a Thursday deadline, have formally asked the Supreme Court to protect his financial records from a House Oversight and Reform Committee subpoena. Trump's lawyers argued that a lower court ruling in favor of the Democratic-led committee's request would set a dangerous precedent. "Under the D.C. Circuit's decision, Congress can subpoena any private records it wishes from the president on the mere assertion that it is considering legislation that might require presidents to disclose that same information," the lawyers wrote. The Supreme Court last month ordered a temporary stay of the subpoena until it decides whether to consider the appeal of the lower court ruling.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) blocked an attempt to pass a resolution by unanimous consent recognizing Turkey's Armenian genocide, Axios reported Thursday, citing two sources familiar with the matter. Axios reported that Cramer stepped in at the request of the White House to derail the effort, which was led by Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas). This is the third time the White House has directed a Republican senator to block such a resolution. The Democratic-led House has passed the symbolic resolution, but approval by the GOP-led Senate would be expected to anger Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Cramer said it wasn't "the right time" for approval because Trump just met with Erdogan at the NATO summit, but he added that he wouldn't oppose it indefinitely.

A Minnesota Army National Guard helicopter crashed on Thursday, killing all three service members on board, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said. The UH-60 Black Hawk lost communication with the control tower during a maintenance test flight, and crashed about 16 miles southwest of the Army aviation facility in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The names of the soldiers were not immediately released, but will be after the families are notified. Emergency radio calls indicated that the helicopter crew made a "mayday" call nine minutes after taking off. Search video showed what appeared to be helicopter wreckage in trees.

Saudi Aramco on Thursday priced its initial public offering of stock at the high end of its expected range. At $8.53 per share, the state-owned Saudi oil giant's IPO will be the largest in history. The pricing will let the company raise $25.6 billion, beating out the previous record of $25 billion set by Alibaba in 2014. The IPO will give the company a valuation of $1.7 trillion, easily surpassing Apple as the world's most valuable company but falling short of the $2 trillion valuation that had been targeted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Karen McDougal, a model who says she had an affair with President Trump, has filed a slander lawsuit against Fox News over comments Tucker Carlson made on his show last December. Carlson said, "Two women approached Donald Trump and threatened to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn't give them money. Now that sounds like a classic case of extortion." Carlson didn't use McDougal's name, but her picture appeared on screen later in the segment. In the lawsuit, McDougal says she did not approach Trump and threaten to ruin his career like Carlson said; she sold her story to the National Enquirer for $150,000. Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, has said he reimbursed the tabloid's publisher to keep McDougal quiet. Fox News says it will "vigorously defend Tucker Carlson against these meritless claims."

Uber reported Thursday that it received reports of 3,045 sexual assaults during U.S. rides in 2018. In an 84-page report, the ride-hailing service said there were 235 reports of rape, 280 reports of attempted rape, 1,560 reports of groping, and 970 reports of unwanted kissing. The company received 5,981 allegations over 2017 and 2018 combined. "Each of these incidents represents an individual who has undergone a horrific trauma," Tony West, Uber's chief legal officer, told NBC News. Uber said victims included drivers and riders, with passengers accused of sexual assault in 45 percent of cases. "We do 4 million rides a day," West said. "And when you're operating at that kind of scale, thankfully, 99.9 percent of those rides end with absolutely no safety incident whatsoever."

Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Paris and other major French cities on Thursday in a mass strike to protest French President Emmanuel Macron's proposed pension reforms. Protesters took over subway, bus, and train lines in demonstrations similar to those that crippled the country in 1995 to stop a previous retirement reform plan, undermining then-Prime Minister Alain Juppe. France's civil aviation directorate said that 20 percent of flights into and out of Paris and other major cities would be canceled on Friday. Most of the protests were peaceful, but police in Bordeaux fired tear gas to disperse a tense crowd in a plaza where a march of 20,000 people was supposed to end.

Measles killed 140,000 people in 2018, most of them children, as outbreaks hit all around the world, the World Health Organization said Thursday. In all, nearly 10 million people were infected. The figures for 2019 could be even worse. Provisional data in November showed that cases had tripled compared to the same period in 2018. Health officials said there was no excuse for the rising death toll given that measles can be prevented through vaccination. "The fact that any child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease like measles is frankly an outrage and a collective failure to protect the world's most vulnerable children," said the WHO's director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus. The U.S. has reported its highest number of measles cases in more than two decades this year.

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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.