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Paris Accord, Iran, Parliament: Your Tuesday Briefing

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Good morning.

We’re covering a scramble to save the Paris climate accord, more nuclear activity in Iran, and a new speaker for the House of Commons.


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On the day President Trump began formally withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris accord, he attended a Keep America Great Rally in Lexington, Ky.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Trump officially notified the U.N. on Monday that the U.S. would be leaving the global climate agreement, leaving diplomats to plot a way forward without the world’s largest economy.

The notification letter to the U.N. set off a yearlong process that would officially pull the U.S. out a day after the 2020 presidential election. Even if a climate-friendly Democratic candidate wins the White House, re-entry wouldn’t necessarily be a smooth process.

Rationale: Mr. Trump, who has mocked climate science as a hoax, holds that the accord would cripple growth and intrude on U.S. sovereignty.

Resistance: Environmentalists are pressing U.S. states, cities and businesses to cut emissions and move to renewable energy, and hundreds of local governments and businesses have made pledges under a movement called We Are Still In. And some Democratic presidential candidates had harsh words for the withdrawal, a position that could appeal strongly to younger voters.

Global strategy: Nearly 200 countries signed the accord to slash greenhouse gas emissions and help poor countries cope with climate disruptions. Making the arrangement work without the U.S. would require new efforts by major polluters like China and India, whose capital is currently swamped with poisonous air.


The country said on Monday that it had started using a new set of advanced centrifuges — a move that crosses yet another limit of the 2015 nuclear agreement and brings Iran closer to being able to build a nuclear bomb.

The Iranian government reiterated that it would reverse course if European leaders found a way to ease the impact of American sanctions on Iran.

Context: The 2015 agreement limited Iran to using about 5,000 older centrifuges at its main nuclear development facility. It also restricted Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile to a maximum of 660 pounds.

But Iran has deliberately defied the nuclear agreement since President Trump’s withdrawal from the deal last year. Since this summer, Iran has installed 60 advanced centrifuges, with plans to add more, and has broken that 660-pound cap.


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Closed-door hearings before House impeachment investigators have been taking place in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, on Capitol Hill. Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

The U.S. House committees leading the impeachment inquiry into President Trump have begun opening their proceedings to the public.

On Monday, they released transcripts of hours of closed-door testimony from two witnesses about the activities of the Trump administration or Trump associates related to Ukraine: Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and Michael McKinley, a top diplomat who stepped down last month as an adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The testimony: Ms. Yovanovitch detailed what she knew of attempts by Mr. Trump’s private lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his allies to work with the former Ukrainian prosecutor general to “do things, including to me,” and said she felt threatened. Read her full testimony.

Mr. McKinley said he had resigned because, in his estimation, the State Department was being used to dig up dirt on the president’s political opponent. Read his full testimony.

Our reporters singled out key passages.

What’s next? The investigation is moving rapidly. Two more transcripts are expected to be released today, including one for the testimony of Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union. Public hearings could begin as early as next week.

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Credit...Jessica Taylor/House of Commons, via Associated Press

As tradition dictates, Lindsay Hoyle was dragged to the speaker’s chair in a ceremony designed to display his reluctance to assume the position. In fact, the opposition lawmaker had waged a long, hard battle for one of the most coveted posts in British politics.

And the 62-year-old is almost certain to be less flamboyant than his predecessor, John Bercow.

Vietnam: State media reported that the police arrested eight people on Monday in connection with the deaths of 39 people, said to be Vietnamese, who were found in a truck in England last month. Authorities are still working to identify the victims.

British Parliament: Eighteen female lawmakers said they were not seeking re-election, with some citing a wave of online — and offline — abuse and a culture of intimidation. Women who plan to run also noted rising threats.

Norway: The country deported an American white nationalist who was headed to a far-right conference in Oslo over the weekend. In his writings, he expressed “respect” for the trial appearances of Anders Behring Breivik, a far-right extremist who killed 77 people in 2011.

Turkey: A Turkish court sentenced two journalists, Ahmet Altan and Nazli Ilicak, on charges of aiding a terrorist group, but then released them on the basis of time served from another case against them that is winding through the system. The country is under intense E.U. pressure to improve its judicial record toward dissidents, journalists, lawyers and political figures.

Apple: The company has committed $2.5 billion to help address the housing crisis in California, a problem it and other tech firms helped create. The money will go to affordable housing investment and to help first-time home buyers find mortgages.

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Credit...Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters

Snapshot: Above, demonstrators blocked Sanak Bridge in Baghdad on Monday. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets to protest corruption, unemployment and other grievances with the government. They are also raging against a foreign occupier — not the U.S. this time, but Iran.

From Opinion: Among our most-read articles in the last 24 hours is Frank Bruni’s column on participating in a daunting medical trial for his vision impairment. “While you have no control over much of what befalls you,” he writes, “you have plenty of control over your perspective on it, your attitude about it.”

Dumfries House: The Scottish headquarters of one of Prince Charles’s charities is returning several paintings lent by James Stunt, the bankrupt ex-husband of the Formula 1 heiress Petra Ecclestone. An American forger has acknowledged painting the works in the styles of Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí.

Martin Scorsese: In an Op-Ed, the director explains why he told the British film magazine Empire that Marvel superhero movies are “not cinema.”

What we’re reading: This excerpt on Grub Street from a new book by the restaurant critic Adam Platt. Steven Erlanger, our chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe, calls it “a lovely, funny memoir of his family and their relationship with food (and drink).”

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Credit...David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Cook: This recipe for braised chicken with chickpeas has the flavors of a long-simmered tagine, but cooks in a fraction of the time. (Our Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter has more recommendations.)

Watch: A new streaming platform is coming this month — Apple TV Plus, which brings several new original series to more than 100 countries.

Read: In some ways, Edith Wharton’s classic novel “The Age of Innocence” feels more current than ever. Elif Batuman explains.

Smarter Living: Most people see only a fraction of what big museums have to offer. If you’re visiting one, you’ll need a plan to make sure you get the best experience.

The Times’s deep dive into President Trump’s use of Twitter has been immensely popular with readers since we published it on our website and apps on Saturday morning.

It was also a special section in our Sunday newspaper. Together, the three stories in the package come to about 9,800 words.

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Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

The project has drawn hundreds of reader comments. We’re particularly grateful to Neil from the Boston metro area, who posted that he had been inspired to pay for “a recurring monthly subscription donation to provide NYT’s real news to schools.”

The idea for the investigation came in July, when Mr. Trump tweeted that four Democratic congresswomen critical of him hated the U.S. and later added that they should “go back” to where they came from.

Our executive editor, Dean Baquet — who has also been a national correspondent, Washington bureau chief and managing editor at The Times — wondered what else could be found on Mr. Trump’s Twitter account.

A team spent months analyzing more than 11,000 of his presidential tweets. “The fact is,” said one of the editors on the project, “this is how he works. This is how he communicates.”


That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Andrea (@AKannapell, but this one doesn’t tweet much)


Thank you
To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. Melina Delkic, on the Briefings team, wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is on the Democratic presidential race in Iowa.
• Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Santa’s little helper (three letters). You can find all our puzzles here.
• Compared with a typical Monday, the annual post-New York City Marathon edition of The Times sees a bump in retail sales of almost 50 percent locally.

Andrea Kannapell leads the international team that produces the Morning, Evening and Weekend Briefings. More about Andrea Kannapell

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