Nine days before President Trump's inauguration, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi helped arrange a clandestine meeting in the Seychelles islands between Erik Prince, the founder of the security firm Blackwater and a major Trump supporter, and a Russian close to President Vladimir Putin, in an apparent attempt to establish a backchannel conduit between Putin and Trump, several U.S., European, and Arab officials told The Washington Post.

The Abu Dhabi prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, agreed to broker the meeting because the United Arab Emirates, like the U.S., wants Russia to cool its relationship with Iran, officials said. Prince, who did not have a formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, approached al-Nahyan about setting up the meeting, saying he was an unofficial Trump envoy, The Post reports. The crown prince suggested holding it in the Seychelles for privacy. While the meeting was considered positive by the UAE and Russia, they opted not to arrange any other summits between Putin's friend, who has not been identified, and Prince because of the political risk, officials said.

Prince is the brother of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, and he regularly appeared on a radio program hosted by Stephen Bannon, Trump's chief strategist. He gave $250,000 to Trump's campaign. Blackwater became famous during the Iraq War, when guards from the firm were convicted of killing Iraqis in a public square in 2007, and Prince later sold the company. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the administration is "not aware of any meetings and Erik Prince had no role in the transition," while a testy spokesman for Prince told The Post the meeting "had nothing to do with President Trump. Why is the so-called under-resourced intelligence community messing around with surveillance of American citizens when they should be hunting terrorists?" Catherine Garcia

Democrats have rejected President Trump's offer to trade temporary protections for DREAMers and longtime legal immigrants who escaped war and natural disasters in exchange for $5.7 billion to start his proposed border wall. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says he will bring Trump's proposal up for a vote this week anyway. No details have been announced. "When we have (a plan) we will be sure to let everyone know," McConnell spokesman David Popp said Sunday.

"If [Trump] opens the government, we'll discuss whatever he offers, but hostage taking should not work," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday, stating the unified Democratic position. Democrats also say they are unwilling to trade a permanent wall for a temporary fix to a problem Trump himself created. The bill has also been derided as "amnesty" by some on the right, and without Democrats, it has almost no chance to pass in the Senate and it would be dead on arrival in the House.

This week, House Democrats are expected to pass their latest bill to reopen parts of the government closed in the 31-day-long partial shutdown. McConnell has not allowed votes on any of those measures, having "said for weeks that he has no interest in 'show votes' aimed only at forcing members to take sides after Trump rejected the Senate's earlier bipartisan bill to avert the shutdown," The Associated Press notes.

Most Senate Republicans are publicly united in opposing any bill Trump won't say he'll sign, but privately, "White House officials and GOP leaders would accept virtually any offer from Democrats to end the impasse, hoping they sell it to Trump as a 'victory' and move forward," The Washington Post reports, citing one Republican with close ties to both the administration and congressional leaders. "There is extreme consternation about how poorly the shutdown was playing out and how polling shows many Americans heaping blame on Trump." Peter Weber

Fox & Friends is ready for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's eventual death, as they showed prematurely on Monday morning's broadcast.

Ginsburg, 85, is home recovering from surgery to remove two malignant growths in her lungs. Newspapers and other news organizations prepare obituaries of notable people ahead of time, and Fox News blamed the graphic showing Ginsburg and the dates 1933-2019 on "a technical error that emanated from the graphics team." Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy also apologized, blaming a "technical error in the control room" and saying "we don't want to make it seem anything other than — that was a mistake, that was an accident. We believe she is still at home recovering from surgery."

Mondays, right? Peter Weber

If you went on social media over the weekend, you almost certainly saw a video clip of MAGA hat–wearing students from Kentucky's Covington Catholic High School in some sort of standoff with a Native American advocate and Marine Corps veteran, Nathan Phillips, after Friday's March for Life antibortion rally in Washington, D.C.

The Catholic diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High did, and they said in a joint statement Saturday that they "condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students toward Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general. ... The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion."

After that clip went viral on Saturday, on Sunday "the nation picked apart footage from dozens of cellphones that recorded the incident," The Associated Press notes, and the student featured in the viral clip, Nick Sandmann, released a statement explaining his side of the story. He said Phillips approached him, and "I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation." He added that he is now "being called every name in the book, including a racist, and I will not stand for this mob-like character assassination of my family's name." Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said the "honorable and tolerant students of Covington Catholic School" learned "a brutal lesson in the unjust court of public opinion and social media mobs."

Phillips told the Detroit Free Press that he stepped in to defuse a brewing brawl between the crowd of about 100 Covington students and a handful of confrontational men from a religious group called the Black Hebrew Israelites. "I'm a Marine Corps veteran and I know what that mob mentality can be like," he said. "I mean, it was that ugly." He said some Covington students started shouting "Build the Wall" and insulting Native Americans. Marcus Frejo, a member of the Pawnee and Seminole tribes, told The Associated Press that he and Phillips approached the Covington students in part because one of their school cheers was a haka, or war dance of New Zealand's Maori people, and they thought it was mocking. Some students are seen doing a "tomahawk chop."

When you watch the nearly 2-hour video of the incident and what led up to it, says Jorge L. Ortiz at USA Today, "the fuller video would seem to assign more blame on a small group of Black Hebrew Israelites," who hurled insults first at Phillips and other Indigenous Peoples March participants then called the Covington students "crackers" and disparaged Catholicism and President Trump, among other aspersions. Peter Weber

On Sunday night and early Monday, North and South America witnessed the only total lunar eclipse until 2021, and it had the added bonus of being a so-called supermoon, where the moon appears bigger and brighter than normal due to the Earth's position. If you were asleep or had overcast weather, here's what you missed.

The eclipse was also called a blood moon because of its reddish color and a wolf moon, the Native American term for the first full moon in January, as BBC News explains.

The show, which went on for three hours — totality, or the full eclipse, lasted about one hour — was visible throughout North and South America and parts of Europe, weather permitting. Peter Weber

On Monday morning, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) announced that she's running for president in 2020, joining fellow Senate Democrats Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) in a crowded early field for the Democratic nomination. Harris, 54, made her announcement in a video posted online and also on ABC's Good Morning America.

"The future of our country depends on you and millions of others lifting our voices to fight for our American values," Harris said in her video. "That's why I'm running for president of the United States." She will more formally kick off her campaign in Oakland, California, next Sunday. Elected to the Senate in 2016, Harris was California's attorney general and before that, a district attorney. Harris — the daughter of a father who immigrated from Jamaica and mother who immigrated from India — would be the first woman, first Asian-American, and first black woman to be elected president. "Let's be honest, it's going to be ugly," Harris told MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski in December. "When you break things, it is painful. And you get cut. And you bleed."

Harris, who was raised by her mother after her parents' divorce, grew up attending a Hindu temple and black Baptist church, The Washington Post notes, and she attended the historically black Howard University before getting her law degree from the University of California Hastings College of the Law. Peter Weber

The New England Patriots beat the Kansas City Chiefs in a 37-31 overtime stunner on Sunday to win the AFC championship and send them back to their third straight Super Bowl appearance, and the ninth for the combination of quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick. "Overtime, on the road against a great team," Brady said after the game. "They had no quit. Neither did we. We played our best football at the end. I don't know, man, I'm tired. That was a hell of a game."

Their Super Bowl LIII rivals Feb. 3 will be the Los Angeles Rams, who beat the New Orleans Saints 26-23, also in overtime. This will be the Rams' first Super Bowl appearance since 2002, when they were still based in St. Louis. The Patriots will be the third franchise to play in three consecutive Super Bowls, and Brady, at 41, was already the oldest quarterback to play in the NFL's championship game. Rams quarterback Jared Goff is 24. Rams coach Sean McVay is 32, making him the youngest head coach in Super Bowl history; Belichick is 66. Peter Weber