Jun 12, 2017

What's next for Preet Bharara

Andrew Harnik / AP

Preet Bharara, fired by Trump as U.S. attorney in Manhattan, came out swinging in his first televised interview since he left office, telling George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week" that "there's absolutely evidence to begin a case" for obstruction of justice against the president.

Bharara has built a big Twitter following (255,000) quickly, and clearly is motivated: He has worked with Comey and Mueller, and was at Thursday's hearing.

So might he run for office? A New York expert emails us this dope:

He doesn't live in New York City, so running for mayor would be hard. ("De Blasio's numbers among Democrats are good and don't suggest an obvious opportunity, anyway.")
Governor Cuomo has improved his numbers with Democrats and looks strong heading into '18.
Preet will be mentioned a lot for president, but he has no base. And it's not like there's a shortage of anti-Trump Democratic candidates.
The challenge for him now is to stay relevant until something opens up in '20 under a Democratic president, or to run for governor in '22.
He's off to a good start, carving out a niche as the Democratic legal anti-Trump.
"Wild card idea: Dems take the House in '18 and he becomes the Sam Dash/John Doar [Watergate committee counsels] of the impeachment committee."

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Axios

China tries to contain coronavirus, as Apple warns of earnings impact

Data: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins, the CDC, and China's NHC; Note: China refers to mainland China and the Diamond Princess is the cruise ship offshore Yokohama, Japan. Map: Danielle Alberti/Axios

As China pushes to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus — placing around 780 million people under travel restrictions, per CNN — the economic repercussions continue to be felt globally as companies like Apple warn of the impact from the lack of manufacturing and consumer demand in China.

The big picture: COVID-19 has now killed at least 1,775 people and infected more than 70,000 others, mostly in mainland China. There are some signs that new cases are growing at a slower rate now, although the World Health Organization said Monday it's "too early to tell" if this will continue.

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Ina Fried

Apple will miss quarterly earnings estimates due to coronavirus

Apple CEO Tim Cook

Apple issued a rare earnings warning on Monday, saying it would not meet quarterly revenue expectations due to the impact of the coronavirus, which will limit iPhone production and limit product demand in China.

Why it matters: Lots of companies rely on China for production, but unlike most U.S. tech companies, Apple also gets a significant chunk of its revenue from sales in China.

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Orion Rummler

America's dwindling executions

The Trump administration wants to reboot federal executions, pointing to a 16-year lapse, but Pew Research reports the government has only executed three people since 1963.

The big picture: Nearly all executions in the U.S. are done by states. Even those have been steadily dropping for two decades, per the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) — marking a downward trend for all executions in the country.

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