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VOL. CLXVIII . . . No. 58,195 © 2019 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2019 U(D54G1D)y+"!=!@!#!; WASHINGTON — America will get its first taste of divided government under President Trump this week when a Demo- cratic House tries to wrest control of the political agenda from Mr. Trump, who appears determined to keep the focus on border securi- ty, immigration and his “big, beau- tiful” wall. After the midterm elections ushered in the most diverse fresh- man class in history, House Demo- crats intend to put a spotlight on the issues that worked well for them during the campaign: di- minishing the influence of the wealthy and connected, expand- ing voting rights, lowering pre- scription drug costs and passing a bipartisan infrastructure bill. Mr. Trump, on the defensive and presiding over a federal gov- ernment that remains partially closed, is trying to stomp on that message. On Tuesday, as the gov- ernment shutdown was in its 11th day, Mr. Trump invited congres- sional leaders of both parties to a briefing on border security Wednesday afternoon. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday night that Mr. Trump would attend. It would be the first visit by Democratic leaders to the White House since Dec. 11, when the president told Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer he would be “proud to shut down the government for border security.” Mr. Trump appeared to make a gesture of peace ahead of Wednesday’s meeting. “Border Security and the Wall ‘thing’ and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker!” he said Tues- day on Twitter. “Let’s make a deal?” Just what deal Mr. Trump had in mind was not clear. While Ms. Pelosi has repeatedly signaled she would like to find a compro- mise that would allow the govern- ment to reopen, she has also made it clear that a wall cannot be part of any such deal, whether or not that leads to a messy start to her speakership. After Ms. Pelosi is elected speaker on Thursday, she hopes to introduce a transparency-in-gov- erning measure to portray Demo- crats as a responsible governing party and draw a contrast be- REGAINING HOUSE, DEMOCRATS PUSH TO STEER AGENDA TOP AIM: END SHUTDOWN President Puts Forth an Overture to Make an Unspecified Deal By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS Continued on Page A12 When officials at the University of Utah invited Joseph R. Biden Jr. to speak there in December, Mr. Biden’s representatives listed a number of requirements for the appearance. His booking firm, Creative Artists Agency, said the school would need to fly Mr. Biden and his aides to Salt Lake City by private plane. It would have to buy 1,000 copies of his recent memoir for distribution to the au- dience. There would be no inser- tion of the word “former” before “vice president” in social media promotions. And the speaking fee would be $100,000 — “a reduced rate,” it was explained, for col- leges and universities. But three days before the event, Mr. Biden’s aides learned that the public university would be using state funds to pay his fee. They al- ready had a policy against taking tuition dollars, and decided that accepting taxpayer dollars for such a windfall might appear just as politically distasteful. Mr. Bi- den made the trip anyway but de- clined to take a check. That costly last-minute rever- sal exposes the complicated bal- ance Mr. Biden has attempted since leaving the vice presidency two years ago: between earning substantial wealth for the first time and maintaining viability as a potential 2020 presidential con- tender. He has done so while building a network of nonprofits and aca- demic centers that are staffed by his closest strategists and advis- ers, many making six figures while working on the issues most closely identified with him. It has effectively become a campaign-in- waiting, poised to metamorphose if the 76-year-old Mr. Biden an- nounces his third bid for the presi- dency. Mr. Biden is expected to reveal his plans early this year, after con- sulting with his family over the holidays. Having skipped the 2016 race after the grueling death of his elder son, Beau, from brain can- cer, he would enter the coming Democratic contest as an early front-runner. With his political self-branding as “Middle-Class Joe,” he is seen by Democratic strategists as well equipped to make inroads into President Trump’s base of blue-collar white voters. Biden Has Set A Careful Path To a 2020 Run Keen Watch on Money, and a Staff in Place By KEVIN SACK and ALEXANDER BURNS Joseph R. Biden Jr., 76, has built a campaign-in-waiting. MADDIE McGARVEY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page A13 LAUREL, Md. — Thirty-three minutes into the new year, scien- tists, engineers and well-wishers here at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory celebrated the moment that NASA’s New Ho- rizons spacecraft made its closest approach to a small, icy world nicknamed Ultima Thule. Almost 10 hours later, the New Horizons team finally received confirmation that the spacecraft had executed its planned observa- tions flawlessly. In the days and months to come, the mission’s sci- entists expect to receive pictures of Ultima Thule and scientific data that could lead to discoveries about the origins of the sun and the planets. That is the latest triumph in a journey that started in 2006, when the spacecraft launched on a mis- sion to explore Pluto. Thirteen years and more than four billion miles later, New Horizons has pro- vided humanity’s first glimpse of a distant fragment that could be un- changed from the solar system’s earliest days. Ultima Thule, the name that the mission team selected for the ob- ject from more than 34,000 sug- gestions from the public, means “beyond the borders of the known world.” (Thule is pronounced “TOO-lee.”) During the flyby, at a distance of about 2,200 miles, the spacecraft was out of communication with Earth because it was busy making scientific observations. Only hours later did New Horizons turn its antenna toward home. Then, it sent a 15-minute update, confirm- ing it had survived the flyby. The message took six hours to travel the 4.1 billion miles at the speed of light to Earth. Future transmis- sions are expected to convey new pictures and readings from the flyby. At 10:31 a.m., the operations center at Johns Hopkins, which runs the mission for NASA, con- 4 Billion Miles Out, a Step Toward Cosmic Truths By KENNETH CHANG S. Alan Stern of NASA, center, with revelers on Tuesday after New Horizons neared Ultima Thule at the edge of the solar system. MATT ROTH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES NASA Spacecraft Gets Photos of Icy World Full of Mysteries Continued on Page A14 After an unexpectedly bad year for the stock market, investors are looking for clues about what 2019 will bring. The hope on Wall Street is that the underlying economy of the United States is sound, that the re- cent selling will burn itself out and that stocks will resume their record-setting climb. But the risk is that the plunge, the worst annu- al decline in a decade, could be the start of something more sinister. The forces that pushed the S&P 500 down 6.2 percent in 2018 are still in place. The economy is still doing well, but it does not appear to be as strong as it once was. President Trump is lashing out at the Federal Reserve, and the cen- tral bank’s interest-rate increases pose a risk to corporate profits and investors’ appetite for stocks. America’s trade war with China continues, and the technology gi- ants that dominate the stock mar- ket face heightened scrutiny about their business practices. As investors try to gauge the se- riousness of these risks, stocks could lurch in different directions at each new event. A meeting of the Fed later this month, an earn- ings report in February or a trade- negotiation deadline in March could all prove to be catalysts for a big rise or fall. But Wall Street’s top stock pick- ers are still expecting gains this year, even if they’re not quite as boisterous in their predictions as they once were. “It could get more frightening before it gets better,” said James Paulsen, chief investment strat- egist at the research firm Leuthold Group. “But I think we Investors See Pitfalls in 2019 After a Plunge By PETER EAVIS Continued on Page A15 WASHINGTON — In the mid- dle of his crowded dinner in Buenos Aires with President Xi Jinping of China, President Trump leaned across the table, pointed to Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representa- tive whose skepticism of China runs deep, and declared, “That’s my negotiator!” He then turned to Peter Navarro, his even more hawkish trade adviser, adding, “And that’s my tough guy!” according to aides with knowledge of the exchange. Now, with talks between China and the United States set to begin this week in Beijing, Mr. Lighthi- zer, aided by Mr. Navarro, faces the assignment of a lifetime: rede- fining the trade relationship be- tween the world’s two largest economies by Mr. Trump’s March 2 deadline to reach an agreement. And he must do it in a way that tilts the balance of power toward the United States. His approach will have significant ramifications for American companies, workers and consumers whose fortunes, whether Mr. Trump likes it or not, are increasingly tied to China. First, however, Mr. Lighthizer will need to keep a mercurial pres- ident from wavering in the face of queasy financial markets, which have suffered their steepest annu- al decline since 2008. Despite his declaration that trade wars are “easy to win” and his recent boast that he is a “Tariff Man,” Mr. Trump is increasingly eager to reach a deal that will help calm the markets, which he views as a poli- Trump Asks Trade Warrior to Seek China Peace By GLENN THRUSH Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, is wary of “empty promises” by China. FRANCOIS WALSCHAERTS/REUTERS Continued on Page A11 Nearly two years into his presidency and more than six months after his historic summit meeting with Kim Jong-un of North Korea, Presi- dent Trump finds himself essentially back where he was at the beginning in achieving the ambitious goal of getting Mr. Kim to relinquish his nuclear arsenal. That was the essential mes- sage of Mr. Kim’s annual New Year’s televised speech, where he reiterated that international sanctions must be lifted before North Korea will give up a single weapon, dismantle a single mis- sile site or stop producing nucle- ar material. The list of recent North Korean demands was a clear indicator of how the summit meeting in Singapore last June altered the optics of the relationship more than the reality. Those demands were very familiar from past confrontations: that all joint military training between the United States and South Korea be stopped, that American nucle- ar and military capability within easy reach of the North be with- drawn, and that a peace treaty ending the Korean War be com- pleted. “It’s fair to say that not much has changed, although we now have more clarity regarding North Korea’s bottom line,” Ev- ans J.R. Revere, a veteran Amer- ican diplomat and former presi- dent of the Korea Society, wrote in an email. Kim’s Speech Shows Trump Is Back at Square 1 By DAVID E. SANGER NEWS ANALYSIS Continued on Page A7 Roger Federer and Serena Williams had a blast squaring off for the first time in a mixed doubles match at the Hopman Cup in Perth, Australia. PAGE B5 SPORTSWEDNESDAY B5-8 Greatest vs. Greatest Los Angeles, above, and other West Coast cities spend big on transit, while Northeast subways fall apart. PAGE A16 NEW YORK A16-17, 20 East Coast Feels Train Envy President Jair Bolsonaro, steering his nation to the right, said Brazilians were “being freed from socialism.” PAGE A4 INTERNATIONAL A4-9 Brazil Swears In New Leader A show about Frida Kahlo. A live “Great Gatsby” marathon. “Fleabag” takes the stage. Those are just a few of the events that our critics are looking forward to as the new year unfolds. PAGE C5 ARTS C1-7 What We’re Eager to See Cities are vying to use technology to guide services. But the race toward “smart cities” is raising worries about privacy. PAGE A10 NATIONAL A10-15 Erasing Potholes and Privacy Pedestrian deaths, most of the traffic fatalities in the city, rose in 2018, even as the overall tally dropped. PAGE A16 Dodging Traffic Danger A day after Taiwan’s peaceful overtures, Xi Jinping stressed unification and said force was an option. PAGE A8 China Talks Tough on Taiwan At a New Year’s Eve gala premiere at the Met, Anna Netrebko and Anita Rachvelishvili led a cast that gave Cilea’s “Adriana Lecouvreur” all the help it needed to soar. PAGE C1 Opera Bristling With Passion Hillary Frank PAGE A19 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19 Tech insiders worry proposed export curbs could stunt the artificial intelli- gence industry in the U.S. PAGE B1 BUSINESS B1-4 Fears of Short-Circuiting A.I. VICTIMS The shutdown leaves food, medicine and pay in doubt for Native Americans. PAGE A12 In the race to find content for the grow- ing wave of streaming, studios are scooping up hit podcasts. PAGE B1 Hollywood Vies for Podcasts RIVALRY RENEWED Mitt Romney, set to join Congress, criticized the president in an op-ed. PAGE A14 Late Edition Today, sunshine and clouds, less wind, colder, high 38. Tonight, in- creasing clouds, rain toward dawn, low 33. Tomorrow, clouds breaking, high 45. Weather map, Page C8. $3.00
