Donald Trump, Pearl Harbor, France: Your Thursday Briefing

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Good morning.

We’re covering testimony in the House’s impeachment inquiry, a deadly shooting at Pearl Harbor, and today’s general strike in France.

A president challenged at home and abroad

After cutting short a trip to London, where other world leaders appeared to mock him, President Trump is back in Washington, where he faces the likelihood of impeachment by Christmas. Read more from our chief White House correspondent.

U.S. will cut food stamps for 700,000

The Trump administration finalized a rule on Wednesday that would remove hundreds of thousands of people from the federal food-stamp program by strictly enforcing work requirements.

Arguing that assistance to unemployed, able-bodied adults was not necessary in a strong economy, the administration would press states to impose work requirements that governors had been allowed to waive.

The rule, effective on April 1, is expected to save nearly $5.5 billion over five years.

Another angle: Attorney General William Barr warned that communities must defer to the police or risk losing protection. “They have to start showing, more than they do, the respect and support that law enforcement deserves,” he said.

A liberal idea to spur the economy: raise taxes

Elizabeth Warren is leading a push against the long-held view that higher taxes slow economic growth.

She and other Democratic presidential candidates say their plans to tax the rich and spend on the poor and the middle class would accelerate growth, not impede it. Many experts, and classic economic models, disagree.

Why it matters: These proposals could upend traditional Democratic policymaking the way supply-side conservatives changed Republicans’ views four decades ago. Supply-siders contended that tax cuts could reduce government debt by stimulating economic growth, even without spending cuts.

A picture of the C.I.A.’s torture program

Newly released drawings by Abu Zubaydah, a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, show the “enhanced interrogation” techniques that he says were used on him at a C.I.A. site in Thailand in 2002.

The techniques, now outlawed, were approved by President George W. Bush’s administration and used in secret overseas prisons after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The details: The illustrations were drawn this year for inclusion in a report titled “How America Tortures,” by a professor at Seton Hall University who has served as Mr. Zubaydah’s lawyer, and some of his students. Read the report here.

Background: The interrogation program was set up for Mr. Zubaydah, who was mistakenly believed to be a top lieutenant in Al Qaeda. Subsequent analysis found that while he was a jihadist, he had known nothing beforehand about the 9/11 attacks. He has never been charged with a crime.

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil promised to open the world’s largest rainforest to industry and scale back its protections. New figures show his government is succeeding: More than 3,700 square miles were razed in the past year, the largest loss in a decade.

Using video and photographs, The Times documented the scale of deforestation in the first year of Mr. Bolsonaro’s presidency.

Here’s what else is happening

Pearl Harbor shooting: A U.S. sailor fatally shot two workers at the military base in Hawaii and wounded another before killing himself, the authorities said.

Strike in France: Nationwide protests against changes to the pension system threaten to bring the country to a standstill today. Here are the latest updates.

Growing missile threat: Iran is using violence in Iraq as cover to build a hidden arsenal of short-range ballistic rockets inside its neighbor, according to U.S. officials.

Snapshot: Above, an image from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. Scientists have released the spacecraft’s first batch of findings, which show that the dynamics of our sun are even stranger than imagined.

In memoriam: Josie Rubio, an editor and writer, chronicled her life with cancer in a long-running blog and wrote a widely read essay in The Times last year about dating while terminally ill. She died on Tuesday at 42.

Late-night comedy: The hosts couldn’t get enough of the video of world leaders talking about President Trump. “And now the bombing of Canada begins,” Jimmy Kimmel said.

What we’re reading: The Daily Suffragist on Twitter. Our reporter Jennifer Schuessler says: “Love this account, which gives a concise daily snapshot from the history of the women’s suffrage movement.” And of notable women, too, like a 21-year-old who publicly dressed down Abraham Lincoln in 1864 for inadequately protecting former slaves.

Cook: Thai-inspired chicken meatball soup is reviving and cozy.

Watch: The rise of streaming platforms has disrupted the movies, but our critics still found lots to like. They named their top 10 films of the year. (You can find all of our best-of-2019 lists here.)

Read: “Criss Cross,” the 27th book in James Patterson’s Alex Cross series, is new this week on our hardcover fiction and combined print and e-book fiction best-seller lists.

Smarter Living: Round? Square? An odd shape? Here’s how to beautifully wrap any gift.

And now for the Back Story on …

The opioid crisis, photograph by photograph

This week, The Times published a different kind of story about opioid abuse, drawing from the pages of an Ohio high school yearbook to describe the human toll.

We asked Dan Levin, the reporter who wrote the story, about the months he spent tracking down members of the Class of 2000 and conducting sometimes heartbreaking interviews.

“I was honored that people were willing to talk with me about these very intimate details of their lives, in incredibly nuanced ways,” Dan said.

“It’s almost something out of a Stephen King story,” he said. “You have this small town and a dark force that clandestinely creeps in. It’s not vampires, it’s not supernatural, but it’s just as horrific.”

For many of the former students, he said, “There was a feeling that, had they only been a few years older, they would have been spared. One had a brother, four or five years older. He’d grown up before opioids hit — he was lucky enough to escape.”

And he noticed how the reporting had changed him: “Since working on this, when I see people who are struggling with drugs, on the street, I think to myself, there’s probably a yearbook with them smiling.”

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Chris

Thank you
Mark Josephson, Eleanor Stanford and Chris Harcum provided the break from the news. You can reach the team at [email protected].

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Today’s episode is about the U.S. effort to close its education gap with the rest of the world.
• Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Violinist’s stroke (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.
• Apple Podcasts included “The Daily” and “1619” on its list of favorite podcasts of 2019.