Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.
Top story: Oval Office speech condemned by Democrats
Despite his recent threats, Donald Trump did not use his first live Oval Office address to declare a national emergency over immigration, nor did he offer any further solution to the ongoing government shutdown. Instead, the president filled the broadcast with familiar and dubious claims about border security and illegal immigration in an attempt to drum up public support for his coveted border wall. Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer condemned the president’s speech in their televised response, with Pelosi accusing him of holding the country “hostage”.
Who pays? Among the claims in Trump’s speech was his insistence that the border wall would be paid for “indirectly” by Mexico via the new USMCA trade deal, an assertion roundly dismissed by fact-checkers.
Government closures start to bite for farmers and flyers
As the partial government shutdown nears the end of its third week, the effects are beginning to be felt across various areas of American life. Farmers awaiting emergency federal aid during the US-China trade war face further uncertainty thanks to the closure of the US agriculture department. A lack of safety inspectors and security officers has led to long lines and diminished safety at airports. And the furloughing of some 13,000 EPA workers is putting Americans’ health at risk as potentially polluted air and water goes untested.
Joshua Tree. Officials have closed Joshua Tree national park in California after a spate of vandalism and other problems, following 18 days in which the park was kept open by volunteers during the shutdown.
Mueller: Manafort shared internal polling data with Russian
Robert Mueller believes Paul Manafort, when he was Donald Trump’s presidential campaign manager, shared internal polling data on the 2016 election with the Russian consultant Konstantin Kilimnik, who is thought to have ties to Moscow’s intelligence agencies. The accusations emerged in a court filing that Manafort’s lawyers apparently failed to properly redact before it was made public on Tuesday. In the document, Manafort’s lawyers say any false statements he made to Mueller’s investigation were memory lapses, not lies.
Mystery firm. The supreme court has rejected a request from an unidentified foreign company to waive a daily $50,000 fine for defying a subpoena from Mueller’s special counsel investigation.
Trump Tower meeting. Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who attended a now-infamous June 2016 meeting with Trump aides at Trump Tower in New York, has been charged by federal prosecutors with obstruction of justice.
Markets up amid hopes of a US-China trade ceasefire
The US and China have concluded their trade talks in Beijing after negotiations were extended to a third day, raising hopes of an entente between the world’s two largest economies. Markets were up on Wednesday as Bloomberg reported that Trump is desperate to reach a deal with China to bolster a flagging stock market. Ted McKinney, the US undersecretary of agriculture for trade and foreign agricultural affairs, who is part of the US delegation, told reporters in Beijing that the discussions had gone “just fine”.
Possible breakthrough. It is thought the negotiators made progress on issues including increased access to China’s markets.
Potential obstacles. But the two nations reportedly remain divided on Trump administration demands over Chinese structural reforms to prevent the alleged theft of US technology.
Crib sheet
In a step forward for gun control advocates, House Democrats have unveiled a bill to significantly broaden background checks on gun sales, though the legislation is unlikely to pass the Republican-held Senate.
Nicolás Maduro has begun his second term as president of Venezuela following last year’s disputed elections, despite 13 of the 14 members of the Lima Group of Latin American nations saying they will not recognise his presidency.
Robert Kraft, the philanthropist and owner of the New England Patriots, has been announced as the winner of the 2019 Genesis prize, the award known as the “Jewish Nobel”.
The developers of a robotic sex toy for women have accused organisers of the International Consumer Electronics Show of gender bias after they revoked the company’s innovation award and prohibited it from showcasing the product.
Must-reads
Kehinde Wiley: why Black Lives Matter on museum walls
The painter Kehinde Wiley is best known for his portrait of Barack Obama. His most recent paintings are of African American locals in St Louis, in the style of Old Masters aristocrats. He tells Nadja Sayej the works are “a response to the museum … as a strange metaphorical divide between the culture”.
How Tehran is like ‘LA with minarets’
With its concrete sprawl and its unending traffic congestion, Iran’s capital bears an unlikely resemblance to southern California. Oliver Wainwright watches modernity and Islamic morality rub along in one of the world’s emerging megacities.
The awards season’s overlooked film performances
From Steven Yeun’s cryptic villain in the Korean mystery Burning, to Helena Howard’s remarkable debut in the title role of the experimental drama Madeline’s Madeline, Jake Nevins selects the 11 best performances of 2018 that were ignored by awards voters.
Constant cravings: is addiction on the rise?
Addiction was once a term applied only to drugs and alcohol. Now it’s everywhere: sex addiction, shopping addiction, internet addiction. Amy Fleming asks what can be done to diminish the pull of all these irrepressible cravings.
Opinion
In his Oval Office address on Tuesday, Trump said women and children at the border were being used as “human pawns”. He’s partly right, says Richard Wolffe: they’re being used as pawns by the president himself, to stoke irrational fear among Americans.
This is a very real crisis inside one man’s cranium and it’s playing out in the living rooms of a weary nation. That crisis is called reality.
Sport
The Liverpool and Egypt forward Mohamed Salah has been named African Footballer of the Year for the second time in a row at a ceremony in Dakar, Senegal.
The 2012 London Olympics were touted as the cleanest Games ever, but six years after the IOC decided to retain samples for a decade, London’s list of retrospectively failed drug tests runs to a record 116, writes Andy Bull.
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