We’re covering today’s testimony in the impeachment investigation, a shooting at a high school in Southern California, and the brawl that erupted at last night’s Browns-Steelers game.
By Chris Stanford
Marie Yovanovitch after speaking privately to impeachment investigators in Washington last month. Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
Day Two of the impeachment hearings
Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, is set to testify publicly today about the campaign led by Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, that led to her abrupt ouster in May.
She will be the sole witness at a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee starting at 9 a.m. Eastern. The Times will stream her appearance live, and our reporters will provide real-time context and analysis. Here’s what to expect.
Another angle: Also on Thursday, an official at the Office of Management and Budget appeared poised to defy orders and cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. The office played a crucial role in holding up $391 million in security aid to Ukraine.
Students waiting to be reunited with their parents after the shooting in Santa Clarita, Calif., on Thursday. David Walter Banks for The New York Times
The ‘sad reality’ of another school shooting
Investigators were searching for a motive after the police said a 16-year-old boy pulled a pistol from his backpack and fatally shot two fellow students at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, Calif., on Thursday. Three others were wounded.
The suspect shot himself and was reportedly in grave condition. Thursday was his birthday, the police said.
The details: Three off-duty law enforcement officers had just dropped off their children at the school and were effectively the first to respond. Here’s what else we know about the shooting, the gunman and the victims.
Quotable: “Kids today, they never call, so you get this call, and you automatically wonder what it’s going to be,” said a man whose son is a sophomore at Saugus.
Russia hampers U.N. inquiry in Syria
A United Nations investigation into aerial bombings of hospitals in rebel areas — possible war crimes — has accumulated evidence that the Syrian government’s Russian allies were responsible for at least some.
But the scope of the study has so far been limited to seven sites among the many targeted, according to a document seen by The Times.
And diplomats say Moscow has been pressing the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, not to release the conclusions.
Times investigation: Our video team pored through witness accounts and videos, time-coded cockpit recordings of Russian pilots, plane spotter logs and security camera footage to show that one of the hospitals — an underground facility that The Times found had been bombed by Russian pilots at least once before — was bombed by the Russians again last week.
A weird, low-wage world, run by Amazon
Since 2005, a digital marketplace called Mechanical Turk has offered the chance to earn small amounts of money performing simple tasks, such as transcribing an invoice or labeling photographs.
A Times reporter spent several weeks as a “turker,” doing tasks on the Amazon-run site to learn more about “crowdwork.” He earned 97 cents an hour. (His article also offers the chance to try turking yourself.)
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Citizenship ruling: An American-born woman who joined the Islamic State in 2014 and says she wants to return to her family in Alabama is not a U.S. citizen, a judge ruled.
Snapshot: Above, llamas at a nursing home in Stockdale, Texas. The animals are becoming more common in therapeutic settings, where they help ease stress. “For some people, dogs are a little too much,” said one breeder.
N.F.L. brawl:Thursday night’s game ended with three ejections after Myles Garrett, a defensive player for the Cleveland Browns, pulled off the helmet of the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph and swung it at his head.
News quiz: Did you follow the headlines this week? Test yourself.
Modern Love: In this week’s column, a woman reflects on a forgotten shirt and the everyday challenges to a marriage.
What we’re watching: This Vice documentary about China’s vast network of Muslim detention camps, where members of the country’s Uighur minority are forced to adopt Chinese customs. Melina Delkic, on the briefings team, calls it “a powerful look at forced assimilation.”
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Now, a break from the news
Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.
Watch: The third season of “The Crown” arrives on Netflix on Sunday, introducing a new cast — including Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II — to bring the royals into midlife. Read our review.
Read: A layperson’s guide to the human body, by Bill Bryson, is among nine new books we recommend this week.
Smarter Living: Renewable energy can’t always meet demand during peak hours. You can help by shifting some usage — setting your washing machine to run overnight, say.
And now for the Back Story on …
How to say ‘Kiev’
The impeachment hearings this week spawned a linguistic detour: How is the name of Ukraine’s capital pronounced?
Yuri Shevchuk, a lecturer in Ukrainian at Columbia University, said Ukrainians stressed the first vowel, and pronounced it like the “i” in the word “kid.” The second vowel sounds like the “ee” sound in “keel,” and the “v” is also pronounced like the end of the word “low.” (It’s a bit hard to describe; there is an audio clip here.)
Evening can be beautiful in the Ukrainian capital, however you pronounce its name. Lena Mucha for The New York Times
In Russian, Kiev sounds more like “KEY-ev.” But U.S. State Department employees generally try to pronounce it the Ukrainian way — though at some points on Wednesday it sounded more like “keev,” with the long “ee” pronounced as a single syllable.
There is also a debate over how to spell the city’s name in English. The official State Department biography of George Kent, who testified on Wednesday, spells it Kyiv, which reflects the transliteration from Ukrainian. (The Times still uses Kiev, the transliteration from Russian.)
Dr. Shevchuk noted that, according to legend, the city was founded by a set of siblings around the sixth century and named for the eldest brother, Kyi.
That’s it for this briefing. I’ll be away until Nov. 26, but I leave you in the capable hands of my colleague Mike Ives.
See you next time.
— Chris
Thank you Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford provided the break from the news. Karen Zraick wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.
The top United Nations official dealing with "human rights," Chilean socialist Michelle Bachelet, is embroiled in a massive Latin American corruption scandal involving a powerful international network of communists and crony tycoons. Among other charges, Bachelet was accused of accepting bribe money from a major company during her successful 2013 presidential campaign. The firm in question, meanwhile, was involved in looting taxpayers to finance communist revolution and socialist political candidates across the region. The implications are enormous. Despite her denials, calls for Bachelet to resign her UN post and face justice are growing louder.
The scandal threatening to engulf the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Bachelet, and even the UN itself, first came to light with the testimony of Leo Pinheiro, the ex-president of Brazilian civil engineering firm OAS. As part of a plea bargain with Brazilian prosecutors, Pinheiro, who was convicted of multiple crimes in 2015, revealed that he had funneled money into Bachelet's presidential campaign. The money was transferred to the radical Chilean politician-turned UN bigwig on orders from then-Brazilian President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, Pinheiro revealed in his agreement, as first reported by a major Brazilian newspaper known as Folha de São Paulo.
That much has all been reported in the American media, albeit on the back pages of major newspapers. What has not been reported, though, is much more important to understanding the enormity of the scandal. Lula, who ordered that the bribe money be transferred to Bachelet, was one of the founders of the Latin American communist network known as the Foro de São Paulo (FSP, or São Paulo Forum in English). Other co-founders included mass-murdering dictator Fidel Castro, the Marxist narco-terror group known as the FARC in Colombia, and the mass-murdering Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The goal of the FSP, according to its own documents, is to build in Latin America what was lost in Eastern Europe — communist slavery.
The ex-Brazilian president at the center of it all is now in jail for his crimes as Brazil undergoes a counter-revolution. But he will not be the last to end up behind bars.
After decades of playing defense, conservative forces in Latin America are finally finding their ground in combating the criminal conspiracy seeking to enslave their nations under communism. In his speech last week at the UN General Assembly, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is leading the fight against the communist conspirators in Brazil, blasted the network. "The São Paulo Forum [Foro de Sao Paulo], a criminal organization created in 1990 by Fidel Castro, Lula and Hugo Chávez to spread and implement socialism in Latin America, is still alive and has to be fought," he explained, shining light on the dangerous organization that has thrived by remaining obscure and out of the spotlight.
Now, thanks to the infamous "Lava Jato" (Car Wash) investigation in Brazil, however, the whole criminal network is being unraveled. Numerous senior officials and "businesmen" in Brazil and other Latin American nations have already been jailed for their role in the schemes. And now, Bachelet may be the next to go down as authorities in Chile and beyond investigate. Of course, Bachelet denies the charges, falsely telling Chile's 24 Horas TV channel last week that she "never had any link with OAS or any other company." Establishment media outlets around the world such as the Associated Press are working desperately to downplay the scandal and to minimize the enormous implications, too.
But the allegations are serious. So serious, in fact, that they have sparked calls by prominent lawmakers and officials in Bachelet's native Chile for the controversial UN leader to return home to face justice. Leaders from the ruling party in Chile, known as "National Renewal," for instance, said this was a "really serious situation." "This same company has been recognized illegally financing politics in numerous countries," said National Renewal's Mario Desbordes, who argued that the negotiations for the illegal bribe money from Brazil "must have been carried out at the highest level of the campaign environment."
Meanwhile, a member of the Chilean commission investigating the OAS role in all of this, Juan Antonio Coloma, warned that the company is known for its corruption and is "dedicated to financing left-wing candidates." Another major company involved in the mushrooming scandal, Odebrecht, also has a long history of financing socialist and communist politicians and movements. The scheme went like this: The major government contractors formed an alliance, conspired with state-owned firms to fix prices on projects above what they would really cost, then the loot off the top would be recycled back to communist politicians, criminals, "businessmen," and terrorists involved in the communist network.
Conservative presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast, a longtime Chilean lawmaker, went even further than other Chilean leaders. To start with, he demanded that Bachelet leave her UN job (and the diplomatic immunity it provides) so she can answer to Chilean authorities. "If true, the $100 million OAS paid to Michelle Bachelet would be the biggest corruption scandal that affects a President of Chile in our history," he said on Twitter. "We have the right and duty to investigate thoroughly. Bachelet has to answer."
Kast, a popular conservative leader who may become Chile's next president, said the UN "human rights" boss must come back to Chile promptly. "Michelle Bachelet must resign her position and come to face Chilean justice," he said in a separate Twitter post. "If the truth is proven, she must be judged and pay for her crimes with jail time, just like all the other Latin American presidents who were bought by OAS." Aside from Lula, Kast was also referring to late Peruvian president Alan GarcÃa, another Marxist operative who reportedly killed himself to avoid justice in the case as police surrounded his home.
Graziano, who worked hard to have journalists jailed for exposing his crimes, also gave former Peruvian First Lady Nadine Heredia a job with diplomatic immunity. The goal, it seems, was to protect her from Peruvian prosecutors. Among other crimes, she was charged with major corruption, usurpation of power, and money laundering for her role in helping to funnel some $150 million stolen from Brazilian taxpayers by the Lula regime into her totalitarian husband's political campaign for president. Graziano has now been replaced at the FAO with another communist, Qu Dongyu of China's Communist Party. He reportedly secured the job with bribes and threats, according to diplomats cited in the press, ensuring that his predecessor's criminal activity remains sealed.
While Bachelet has denied the charges and appears to be hoping the scandal will fade, her minions in Chile are rallying around her and doing everything possible to protect her. Radical Party leader Carlos Maldonado, who served as justice minister in Bachelet's government, for instance, claimed Bachelet was "totally honest" and "is a person who is not interested in money or power." Right. Maldonado recognized that there would have to be a thorough investigation and that those involved in Bachelet's campaign would have to account for what happened. However, that is "something that is totally separate from the role of the ex-president."
With communist criminals at the UN hiding from justice behind diplomatic immunity, it is past time for some major changes. In truth, the immunity was never supposed to be blanket protection from the law. It was supposed to be for legitimate acts carried out in the line of duty. Unless Bachelet's legitimate duties included participating in a criminal conspiracy involving mass murderers and thieves to fleece the public and enslave Latin America, she should not be allowed to escape accountability. It is time for the U.S. Congress and President Trump to get to the bottom of this too — especially since American taxpayers are subsidizing the whole grotesque spectacle that is the UN. Justice and the liberties of countless millions across Latin America and beyond hang in the balance.
