School shooting in California  Authorities responded to a shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita yesterday around 7:30am local time. The school is about 40 miles north of Los Angeles.
Two students were killed and three other victims are in the hospital after a 16-year-old classmate opened fire with a gun from his backpack. According to reports, the shooting lasted just 16 seconds. Jonathan Lloyd and Nyree Arabian reported on the tragedy for NBC Los Angeles. Hannah Fry at the LA Times also covered the shooting, writing at the time that police were in search of the teen suspect. He was eventually found on campus with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Today we hear her side of the story  Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine is appearing before the House Intelligence Committee today in what is their second public impeachment hearing. Benjamin Siegel at ABC News wrote about what to expect from the testimony. “In his call to the president of Ukraine, Trump said Yovanovitch was ‘bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news…’ Today we hear her side of the story,” Anne Flaherty tweeted.
A source told the AP that a second US official heard the Trump call with the ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland. We all first learned about this call, which happened one day after the infamous July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, during acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor’s testimony on Wednesday. Desmond Butler, Michael Biesecker, and Matthew Lee reported on the story. “The second diplomatic staffer who overheard Trump discussing the need for Ukrainian officials to pursue ‘investigations’ is Suriya Jayanti, a foreign service officer based in Kyiv,” Jon Passantino explained. Sondland isn’t going to testify until next week but you should read John Hudson and Michael Birnbaum’s piece in the Washington Post today: Besieged on all sides, Gordon Sondland clings to power. Meanwhile, Mark Sandy, a longtime career employee at the White House Office of Management and Budget, is expected to appear to testify on Saturday, per Erica Werner at the Washington Post. He’ll be the first OMB official to testify about the Ukraine matter under oath and he’s expected to break ranks, Damian Paletta pointed out. A discrepancy in the transcript?  “Odd: The initial readout of this call in April said that Trump urged Zelensky and the Ukrainian people to ‘root out corruption,’” Politico’s Natasha Bertrand tweeted, pointing to this Oregon Public Radio piece Tamara Keith wrote three weeks ago: Trump, Ukraine And The Path To The Impeachment Inquiry: A Timeline. “But corruption isn't mentioned in this record,” Bertrand added.
Lachlan Markay agreed and follow it up with this piece in The Daily Beast: Transcript Shows WH Made Up Details of Trump’s Zelensky Call. Some context: “In April, the WH sent out a readout of Trump's Zelensky call saying POTUS addressed corruption, democratic reform, and territorial integrity. The transcript it released this morning shows that was just...made up,” Markay tweeted, adding, “Nowhere in the transcript does Trump mention or even allude to any of those issues. He does, however, complement Zelensky on the number of Ukrainian women in the Miss Universe competition.” More Trump staffers under fire BREAKING: Just as we were going to the presses on this newsletter, news came that Roger Stone, veteran political operative and longtime friend of Trump, was found guilty on all seven counts against him — five counts of lying to Congress, one count of witness tampering, and one count of obstruction of a proceeding.  After leaked emails published this week showed the depths Stephen Miller’s white nationalism, over 75 members Of Congress urged Miller: Resign From White House Now. Christopher Mathias wrote about it at HuffPost. “HuffPost asked every House member whether Miller should resign. ‘Hell yes,’ responded @RepJohnYarmuth. ‘I feel pretty secure in my belief that flaming white nationalists should have no place in the White House,’ said @RepTedLieu,” Mathias tweeted.
Jamelle Bouie also addressed Stephen Miller’s Sinister Syllabus via an opinion piece in the New York Times. “These emails show that Miller’s views flow from his commitment to racist exclusion and the protection of a white demographic majority.” “The Republican Party will tolerate and even defend this, as they continue to do so for this President,” Brian Murphy pointed out. Elsewhere, “the federal investigation of Rudy Giuliani is wider than was previously known, covering possible campaign finance violations, foreign bribery and a failure to register as a foreign agent,” David Joachim alerted. He’s referring to a piece by Chris Strohm, Jordan Fabian at Bloomberg which says Giuliani Faces U.S. Probe on Campaign Finance and Lobbying Breaches. Immoral and illegal According to Jennifer Bendery at HuffPost, the Senate Confirmed Wildly Problematic Trump Court Pick Steven Menashi as a lifetime federal judge. On Twitter, Bendery laid it out in the clearest terms: “He’s never tried a case. He condemned women’s rights and diversity. He refused to answer senators’ questions. He may be tied up in Trump's Ukraine scandal. Senate Republicans just confirmed Steven Menashi to be a lifetime federal judge anyway.” And on the matter of immigration, asylum officers have started rebelling against Trump immigration policies they say are immoral and illegal, according to Molly O'Toole at the LA Times. How's Trump's business doing? (You remember, the one he didn't divest before taking office?) From the Washington Post, Jonathan O'Connell and David Fahrenthold report on marketing materials that show Trump’s Washington hotel has fallen behind competitors, with rooms running nearly half empty. “Trump’s D.C. hotel has attracted heads of state, @tmobile execs, and *$2.4 millions* from GOP fundraisers. But it ain't enough,” Fahrenthold tweeted. Over at the President’s Doral golf course in Florida, Fahrenthold (on the Trump property beat) along with Michael Scherer report that the RNC will hold its winter meetings at that Trump resort, which you’ll remember was previously considered for the G-7 summit. There’s still an election going on Since there is, Ryan Grim at The Intercept published this piece about The Problem With Pete Buttigieg’s “Douglass Plan” for Black America. “Pete Buttigieg touted 3 major South Carolina supporters of his Douglass Plan for Black America. They were ‘alarmed’ when they saw it,” Grim said. As Michael Bloomberg continues debating a possible 2020 run of his own, Shane Goldmacher at the New York Times uncovered that the billionaire former New York City mayor Will Spend $100 Million on an Anti-Trump Online Ad Blitz. “Here’s the twist: This set of ads will not feature Bloomberg, his advisers say.” Russia, Korea, and the rest of the world “Four weeks ago, the @nytimes proved that the Russian Air Force bombed 4 Syrian hospitals in 12 hours. Last week, we got word that they struck one of the hospitals again. It seemed too outrageous to be true, but we proved it,” Christiaan Triebert announced. Here’s the corresponding story — We Proved Russian Pilots Bombed a Hospital. Then They Did It Again — which Evan Hill, Malachy Browne, and Dmitriy Khavin also worked on at the New York Times. CNN’s Nicole Gaouette draws attention to Trump hiking the price tag for US forces in Korea almost 500% as Seoul questioned their two countries’ alliance. There’s also this from Greg Epstein: “‘Are you guys mercenaries now? Is this a business arrangement?’ ‘They're beside themselves,’ the aide said, ‘but [Trump is] the commander in chief, so they're in a box.’ Putin really outdid himself with this one.” Gianluca Mezzofiore had news at CNN about how the Italian council was flooded immediately after rejecting measures on climate change. “i c u @ god,” Fiza Pirani called out. ➡️➡️➡️We now turn our attention to Indiana, where three judges ( Andrew Adams, Sabrina Bell, and Bradley Jacobs) have been Suspended After A White Castle Brawl That Ended In Gunshots. Laurel Wamsley wrote that story for NPR. Conrad Wilson had the only reasonable reaction: “WHAT!” Weekend reads  “I wanted to learn why a beloved science fiction writer fell into obscurity after his death. I didn’t expect that I would help bring his books back to life,” Isaac Butler admitted. His article — John M. Ford’s books are being republished, but how did he fall into obscurity? — is now up on Slate. “I’m excited to read that John M. Ford will be back in print, but it is very odd to learn that I could have sold this for over $200 just a few years ago,” Ben O'Connell wrote.
Eliza Shapiro at the New York Times investigated Why White Parents Were at the Front of the Line for the School Tour. She called it: “One Weird Trick to Get Your Kid Into an Elite NYC School.” But it’s not a weird trick at all. Shapiro wrote that, “Parents who pay $200 for a newsletter compiled by a local admissions consultant know that they should arrive hours ahead of the scheduled start time for school tours” at New York City’s top public high schools. Elizabeth Sile admitted that “this article is all just too much.” Josh Gold added, “Reading this great story after scheduling out some more K tours. Not just a HS admissions problem.” And finally, spend a bit of time with Wall Street Journal story from Kirsten Grind, Sam Schechner, Robert McMillan, and John West about How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results. “Blacklisting websites. Favoring big businesses. Editing autofill responses. This is how Google engineers what you find online,” Bradley Hope tweeted. “Think Google interferes in search results? You have no idea…” Matthew Rose added rather ominously. | 
Yesterday, we asked: What celebrity has granted the most Make-A-Wish Foundation wishes?
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