Friday Morning Briefing: Trump impeachment trial opens as watchdog faults White House on Ukraine

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The Senate impeachment trial on whether to remove U.S. President Donald Trump from office formally began even as a congressional watchdog found that the White House broke the law by withholding security aid for Ukraine approved by Congress. The assessment from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office was a setback for Trump, but it was unclear if it would figure in his trial in the Republican-led Senate.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders has been steadily climbing in popularity this year and is now tied with former Vice President Joe Biden for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination among registered voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national poll. The online poll, released Thursday, shows that 20% of registered Democrats and independents said they would back Sanders over 11 other candidates to run in the general election against President Donald Trump.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a prayers sermon that Iran’s missile strikes on U.S. targets in Iraq showed it had divine support in delivering a “slap on the face” to a world power. Making the main weekly sermon in Tehran for the first time since 2012, with Iran and its clerical rulers under pressure at home and abroad, Khamenei also said that U.S. sanctions imposed in a row over its nuclear program would not make Iran yield.

The Pentagon has received a request from within the Trump administration to build roughly 270 miles of wall on the border with Mexico and is evaluating its cost and viability, a senior Defense Department official said on Thursday. The disclosure of the request by the Department of Homeland Security sets up another showdown with Democrats in Congress, who oppose President Donald Trump’s past diversion of billions of dollars in military spending to bolster security on the border.

Some 170 people who have spent time in Yosemite National Park in recent weeks have suffered from a gastrointestinal ailment “consistent with norovirus” and two have been diagnosed with the illness, park officials said. Most of those who became ill spent time in Yosemite Valley during or around the first week in January, park spokesman Scott Gediman said, while the number of new cases reported has declined in the past several days.

World

Intense thunderstorms with heavy rains dampened bushfires on Australia’s east coast on Friday to the relief of exhausted firefighters, and farmers battling years of drought. Australia, famous for its pristine beaches and wildlife, has been fighting bushfires since September, with fires killing 29 people and millions of animals, and destroying more than 2,500 homes while razing an area roughly a third the size of Germany.

Ukraine’s prime minister Oleksiy Honcharuk submitted his resignation after an audio recording suggested he had criticized the president, but then appeared to suggest in comments to Reuters that he might stay in his job. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will consider the resignation letter later on Friday, the president’s office said. Speculation over Honcharuk’s position has grown this week after a recording of a man discussing Zelenskiy’s purported lack of knowledge of economics was circulated on messaging channel.

Germany’s population reached a record high of 83.2 million people last year thanks to migration but it grew at the slowest pace since 2012, the statistics office as Europe’s largest economy experiences a chronic birth deficit. Germany has one of the oldest populations in the world and has recorded more deaths than births ever since 1972. The aging population is a challenge for the country’s public pension system and is causing headaches for companies eager to hire skilled workers.

Thousands of residents under orders to evacuate from a town near the Philippine volcano Taal were allowed to briefly visit homes to rescue their animals and recover some possessions, taking advantage of what appeared to be waning activity. Daniel Reyes, mayor of the Agoncillo town inside the danger zone of the 311 meter volcano, said he allowed around 3,000 residents to check their properties and retrieve animals, clothes and other possessions.

Business

China posts weakest growth in 29 years as trade war bites, but ends 2019 on better note

China’s economic growth cooled to its weakest in nearly 30 years in 2019 amid a bruising trade war with the United States, and more stimulus is expected this year as Beijing tries to boost sluggish investment and demand.

6 min read

Which company just hit $1 trillion? Google it.

As Google-parent Alphabet Inc became on Thursday the fourth U.S. company to top a market value of more than $1 trillion, some funds holding its shares are wondering whether now is the time to cash in on the stock’s extraordinary gains.

4 min read

Fiat Chrysler and Foxconn plan Chinese electric vehicle joint venture

Italian-American automaker Fiat Chrysler and the parent of iPhone assembler Foxconn plan to set up a joint venture to build electric cars and develop internet-connected vehicles, the two groups said.

3 min read

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