| Some breaking news as we went to press today, multiple people were injured, at least three of them critically, in a shooting at a Southern California high school on Thursday morning. Elisha Fieldstadt is covering the story at NBC News. The day one rundown We learned a few things on the first day of televised impeachment hearings, and Nicholas Fandos and Michael Shear of The New York Times have highlights from day one. About that piece, Dylan Tweney says, “Whatever you may think of the NYT's political coverage, they do epic, painterly photojournalism, like this one by Erin Schaff.” 
Also at the Times, Peter Baker offers his analysis, Behind a Star Witness, Democrats Take Their Case to the Public, calling Bill Taylor the witness Democrats wished Robert Mueller had been: “calm, confident and in command of the facts as he knew them.” Meanwhile, the tireless team of Glenn Kessler and Salvador Rizzo at The Washington Post fact-checked the opening day of the Trump impeachment hearings for us. But there was at least one unexpected revelation on day one, and it had to do with a cell phone call. As Ellen Nakashima reports at The Washington Post, Ambassador George Sondland’s cellphone call to Trump from a Kyiv restaurant was a stunning breach of security, former officials say. “So Trump’s EU ambassador uses his cell to call Trump on HIS cell from the middle of Ukraine? But her emails! (By the way, this call is a HUGE problem for Trump.)” tweets Ed Greenberg. Adam Serwer points out, “This may not seem like a big deal. But the Trump base is full of people deeply concerned about mishandling of classified information, as we saw in 2016 with Clinton, and there’s little doubt they’ll abandon him now.” Meanwhile, says, David Frum, “World dictators must have hundreds of hours of Trump saying corrupt things on his unsecured phone.” A peek at the pro-Trump playbook 
You could probably already figure some of this out, but Lachlan Markay and Erin Banco of The Daily Beast spell it all out in Revealed: The Pro-Trump Playbook for Smearing U.S. Diplomats. And at the New Yorker, Susan Glasser writes about those who’ve gone Crazy for Trump: On the G.O.P. Plan to Keep Impeachment Partisan. She tweets, “The Republican playbook here is a time-honored one: delay, deny, obfuscate, and, if that fails, beg Americans to turn off the TV.” Also, she says, “I had a feeling it was going to be a long day when Devin Nunes started talking about the alleged Democratic plot to obtain ‘nude pictures of Trump’ before a single witness said a word…” Back in the Oval While all of that was going on (poor Eric Trump found it “horribly boring,” by the way), Trump and a few GOP senators met in the Oval Office with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and according to the scoop by Axios’s Jonathan Swan, Erdogan upended the meeting to play an anti-Kurd film on an iPad. Swan tweets, “Per three sources familiar - Erdoğan apparently thought he could sway these senators in the Oval by forcing them to watch an anti-Kurdish propaganda film on an iPad.” Sources also tell Swan that Erdoğan got into a heated back-and-forth with Lindsey Graham over Turkey’s recent invasion of Syria. One wonders what else went on in that meeting, because aftewards, Graham blocked a resolution that would have formally recognized the Ottoman Empire’s genocide against the Armenian people, as Jordain Carney reports at The Hill. That resolution passed the House in a 405-11 vote. More Trump news At Bloomberg Businessweek, Shawn Donnan and Jenny Leonard explain How Trump’s Trade War Went From Method to Madness. Brendan Murray calls it “Two trade reporters at the top of their game. Check out @sdonnan and @jendeben’s big read in @BW about how Trump’s strategy with China morphed from methodical to market-rattling.” “TRADE WAR STRATEGY rarely survives first contact with the enemy (just like in conventional armed conflicts),” notes John Kemp. 
Justin Elliott, Jeff Ernsthausen and Kyle Edwards of ProPublica found out that A Trump Tax Break To Help The Poor Went To a Rich GOP Donor’s Superyacht Marina. As Jesse Eisinger says, “This is the real Florida Man story: Rich guy lobbies, gets giant Trump tax break for his superyacht marina.” “So. Much. Winning,” as Ken Ward says. Kara Scannell and Gloria Borger of CNN provide an inside look at the investor pitch for Trump’s DC hotel: “The hotel’s biggest selling point though, according to a copy of the brochure seen by CNN, is the one thing that the Trump family insists it didn’t take advantage of: profiting off foreign governments.” But “Hello!” tweets Jennifer Taub, of the news that a federal appeals court has ruled Congress can seek eight years of Trump’s tax records. Ann E. Marimow has the details at The Washington Post. A fantastic, hopeful story Oh let us please move on to a different subject, and this is a good one: As Ben Doherty reports at The Guardian, Kurdish Iranian refugee and journalist Behrouz Boochani – a multiple award-winner for documenting life in Australia’s offshore detention system — is free in New Zealand. Josh Butler calls it “Incredible news. Congratulations @BehrouzBoochani. An absolute shame that Australia did not welcome him with open arms. Good luck my friend.” For the full story — “a fantastic, hopeful story,” as David Munk tweets — read Doherty’s Guardian piece on the long flight to freedom: how refugee Behrouz Boochani finally left his island jail behind. “It’s unimaginable to most of us who live lives of comfort and freedom what so many others have to endure. Am so moved by this story, but also, so deeply ashamed,” says Josephine Tovey. Deval Patrick makes it official Benjamin Swasey links to the Deval Patrick Announcement Video. The former Massachusetts governor, who’s launching his 2020 presidential bid in New Hampshire today, also spoke with Matt Stout and Victoria McGrane of the Boston Globe, telling them ‘I feel I have something to offer.’ Rick Klein highlights, “Patrick is IN and says he talked to Obama Wednesday: ‘If I felt like the voters had settled or folks had made up their minds or that there wasn’t a way to put together the resources in terms of talent and money at this stage, I wouldn’t do it.’” Patrick also acknowledged, “This is a Hail Mary from two stadiums over.” Bloomberg’s history Another potential late entrant into the race is Michael Bloomberg, and as Michael M. Grynbaum points out in a new piece for The New York Times, Michael Bloomberg Has a History of Demeaning Comments About Women. For the record, “Gawker wrote this in 2016,” tweets Anna Merlan. Stephanie Grace adds that she “knew someone who worked for him long ago, so have been waiting for this to become an issue.” “Not going to be the nominee,” thinks Eric Alterman. 
“Today in Women In Business: Ken Fisher is exposed for making women staffers appear in pro Ken Fisher ads by Bloomberg…whose proprietor is the subject of a NYT story about his bad bad opinions on the subject of women.” In addition to that Times story by Grynbaum, Janine Gibson links to Sabrina Willmer’s Bloomberg piece, which reveals Fisher Investments asked female employees if they would pose for a group picture showing their support for founder Ken Fisher. Not all were happy about it. And as Caleb Melby points out, “Every single installment from @swillmer on Ken Fisher is more crazy than the last.” Bless their hearts Meanwhile, “smash that unmute button,” tweets Thomas W. Franck because Elizabeth Warren has bought CNBC commercial time to blast billionaires in a fiery new campaign ad, reports CNBC’s Brian Schwartz. As you’d expect, they’re taking it well. “In my opinion she represents the worst in politicians as she’s trying to demonize wealthy people because there are more poor people then wealthy people,” [Leon] Cooperman told CNBC in a later interview. “As far as the accusations of insider trading, I won the case. She’s disgraceful. She doesn’t know who the f--- she’s tweeting. I gave away more in the year than she has in her whole f----ing lifetime.” And that’s why Sebastian Murdock is “Becoming more and more convinced that billionaire Leon Cooperman is actually campaigning for Warren.” That odd apology “And you may ask yourself, well, how did we get here?” tweets Mark Caro. As Patrick LaForge puts it, “The National desk got to the bottom of the Northwestern college paper’s odd apology for old fashioned reporting this week.” For their piece, News or ‘Trauma Porn’? Student Journalists Face Blowback on Campus, Julie Bosman, Mitch Smith and Kate Taylor of The New York Times talked to students at Northwestern and Harvard, and as Bosman tweets, “Every student I talked to, whether journalist or activist, was genuinely grappling with questions of fairness and responsibility and ethics.” She adds, “I might have gasped in horror when I first read the Daily Northwestern’s statement of apology for its reporting. Now I know that the situation was way more complicated than it first appeared.” Tanzina Vega argues, “Empathy is very important in journalism, but so is the ability to cover a *public* protest.” Meanwhile, Joshua Benton notes, “One underexamined piece of this Northwestern business is that protesters used to *need* media coverage a lot more than they do today. They can create their own images, their own coverage, their own media. So saying ‘no’ to reporters has less downside.” McClatchy’s financial distress Troubling news from McClatchy, which says it’s facing a serious liquidity crunch and is seeking to have the government take over its pension fund, reports Lukas Alpert of The Wall Street Journal. The 162-year-old company is the nation’s third-largest newspaper publisher and publishes 30 newspapers around the country. Poynter’s Rick Edmonds writes that “[a]n appeal to federal pension guaranty authorities for relief may not be successful. Given that possibility, the company has retained financial and legal advisers to explore options. Typically that is a first step toward a company exploring the possibility of a sale.” But McCatchy family directors have resisted seeking bankruptcy protection or selling in the past. Scary stuff “A toxic slick of algae and bacteria coated some 620 square miles of Lake Erie’s surface this year. The slime weighed around 46,000 metric tons. @_TonyBriscoe has made the Great Lakes his beat - because this resource represents the region's future.” David Jackson links to Tony Briscoe’s reporting at the Chicago Tribune, which reveals, Climate change is making Lake Erie’s toxic algae blooms worse. The shallowest Great Lake provides drinking water for more people than any other. But “While countries across the globe face drought and water insecurity, it’s a bitter irony that some communities sitting on the edge of the planet’s largest system of freshwater — more than 11 million people depend on Lake Erie for drinking water — are compelled to buy bottled water,” writes Briscoe. John Keilman shares, “Reading this story, I said ‘Geez!’ and ‘Oh my God!’ more times than I could count. Scary stuff.” Terrorizing the poor in Venezuela Don’t miss this Reuters Investigates Special Report by Angus Berwick and Sarah Kinosian, Elite police force spreads terror in the barrios of Venezuela. Tweets Berwick, “My latest: @skinosian & I spent months investigating killings committed by Venezuela's FAES special police. We spoke to over 100 witnesses and cops & obtained troves of data and the first video evidence to show how Maduro uses the FAES to retain control.” As Rodrigo Campos notes, “The new reporting provides the deepest insight yet into the methods used by the force to snuff out perceived threats to @NicolasMaduro’s increasingly authoritarian rule.” And Hannah Dreier says it’s “An important piece of the puzzle for folks wondering why Venezuelans don't rise up like protesters have in Bolivia and Puerto Rico: Police task forces that increasingly look like death squads keep tight control over the most restive neighborhoods.” This whole thing is truly amazing btw 
Let’s wrap things up today with an unusual and, it turns out, terrific pairing. As Ramin Setoodeh explains, “One of the highlights of @Variety #ActorsonActors was when we heard that Robert Pattinson was a fan of #Hustlers and wanted to be paired with @JLo. She quickly said yes. And what followed was a magical conversation about taking risks, Batman and ballet.” Just try to resist that set-up. Head over to Variety for Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lopez on Batman, ‘Hustlers’ and ‘The Lighthouse,’ by Setoodeh. Finding out that Pattinson says, “I think there’s a ballerina inside me,” Esther Zuckerman shares, “I'm...not ok.” Also be sure to read Pattinson’s excellent take on Method acting. As Laura Bradley says, “this whole thing is truly amazing btw, read it all!” But be careful out there, folks. “ouch I think I just cut myself on JLo’s cheekbones,” tweets Leigh Munsil. | 
Today’s featured journalist is Bangalore-based 
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