Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.

Top story: ‘Invisible wall’ policies already curb immigration

As Donald Trump continues to reject possible solutions to the longest government shutdown in US history, today the Guardian takes a closer look at the issue behind it: the US-Mexico border. Our reporters travelled to five locations along the frontier to find out how the reality of border life contradicts the president’s incendiary rhetoric. Meanwhile, Amanda Holpuch explains how the Trump administration’s “invisible wall” policies have already made it harder for immigrants to enter the US.

Border billions. It remains unclear exactly how Trump intends to spend the $5.7bn he is demanding for border security. Here’s what we know about what his talk of a “wall” really means.

Theresa May faces crushing Brexit deal defeat in parliament

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Theresa May in parliament. Photograph: House of Commons/PA

The British prime minister, Theresa May, delivered an eleventh-hour plea to MPs on Monday to reconsider her Brexit deal with the EU, which is expected to suffer a crushing defeat when it goes to a “meaningful vote” in parliament on Tuesday. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is then expected to call a vote of no confidence in the government, in the hope of forcing a general election. But that vote too is expected to fail without support from backbench Conservatives, putting Corbyn under pressure to back a second Brexit referendum.

Gove’s game. Michael Gove, the UK environment secretary and a leading voice in the leave campaign during the 2016 referendum, has quoted Game of Thrones to threaten “winter is coming” if May’s deal were defeated.

Republicans condemn Steve King for ‘offensive’ comments

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Steve King at an anti-immigration rally in Washington. Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call,Inc

House Republicans formally stripped the controversial congressman Steve King of all his committee responsibilities on Monday night, following his racially charged comments in an interview with the New York Times. In the piece, published last week, the Iowa representative asked, rhetorically: “White nationalist, white supremacist, western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” Long a divisive figure within the party, King has escaped such censure in the past despite a history of such remarks.

Party of Lincoln. Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, said King’s comments were “beneath the dignity of the party of Lincoln”. King responded that McCarthy’s choice to strip him of his posts was a “political decision that ignores the truth”.

Trump plans to relax Obama-era rules for oil companies

Facebook Twitter Pinterest US Coast Guard fire boats battle the Deepwater Horizon blaze in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images

The Trump administration intends to give BP and other major oil companies more power to self-regulate their offshore drilling operations, loosening rules introduced after 2010’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, for which lax regulatory oversight was largely to blame. Despite opposition from environmental groups, the new policy is expected to allow oil firms to select third-party companies to evaluate the safety of their equipment, without approval from the government agency that oversees offshore drilling.

Wish list. A lawyer who worked to revamp the offshore oil regulator told the Guardian that the administration appeared to be following an oil industry “wish list”.

No comment. Nobody from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Impact was available to comment because the bureau’s entire press office is furloughed during the shutdown.

Crib sheet

House Democrats are expected to join the Senate in putting forward a bipartisan measure calling for an end to US military involvement in Yemen , adding to the pressure on Trump over his continued support for the Saudi Arabia regime.

Tensions are rising between China and Canada after Chinese authorities sentenced a Canadian man to death for drug smuggling, in what observers believe may be retaliation for the arrest of a senior Huawei executive in Canada in December.

Pacific Gas and Electric , the utilities firm being investigated for its role in starting November’s Camp fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history, has announced it will file for bankruptcy by the end of this month.

A small green cotton shoot is growing onboard China’s Chang’e 4 lunar lander as part of a biological growth experiment: the first time a seed has ever been germinated on the moon.

Must-reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Members of the Rwanda National Congress mourn the opposition party’s founder Patrick Karegeya in South Africa in 2014. Photograph: Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images

Who killed ‘Rwanda’s Jamal Khashoggi’?

Before he fled Rwanda to set up an opposition party in exile, Patrick Karegeya had been a close friend of President Paul Kagame. Five years ago, he was found murdered in a Johannesburg hotel room. Now an inquest will ask whether Kagame’s regime was involved. Michela Wrong reports.

The Swedish online love army

When people in Sweden grew tired of trolling, they set up a Facebook group to defend those undeservedly targeted by online abuse. The group, #jagärhär (#Iamhere), now has about 75,000 members. Makana Eyre and Martin Goillandeau spoke to its founder.

The new opposition leader challenging Maduro’s rule

Nobody outside Venezuela had heard of Juan Guaidó until last week, when the young leader of Venezuela’s opposition offered to assume the presidency from Nicolás Maduro, who has started his second term under a cloud of election fraud accusations. Joe Parkin Daniels and Mariana Zuñiga study Guaidó’s origins.

Crackdown fears haunt Xi’an’s Muslim quarter

Tourists from all over China and beyond are drawn to the ancient Muslim quarter of Xi’an, at the eastern end of the old Silk Road. But as the capital of Shaanxi province approaches “megacity” status, its Muslim community still fears persecution by Chinese authorities, as Xiaomei Chen discovers.

Opinion

Trump has vowed to keep out dark forces, both real and imagined, with a “big, beautiful” wall. But, argues Adam Gawthorpe, such a barrier would do little to solve the real problems at the border.

The idea that bricks and mortar can solve the litany of challenges that borders bring is a dangerous illusion. Hermetically sealing a nation against the outside world is neither possible or desirable.

Sport

As the Cavs proved in 2016, the best way to beat the Warriors is to beat them up, writes Devin Gordon. That’s why the imminent return from injury of Golden State’s 275lbs center DeMarcus Cousins is so crucial to their NBA championship prospects.

College Football champions Clemson University met the president for dinner on Monday evening, but with most of the White House kitchen staff furloughed during the shutdown, Trump was left to choose the menu: “McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King’s with some pizza,” he told reporters.

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