If you’re a journalist stranded in Vietnam, an Amtrak passenger stranded on a train or a former Trump lawyer stranded in a nightmare of your own making, you’ll certainly resonate with today’s Short List. It’s Ashley Shaffer with today’s most talked-about stories.

But first: Remind me to stop liking my own posts on social media because it’s weirding everybody out, according to these new rules of communicating in the digital era.

Four thousand-plus migrant children say they were abused

Thousands of migrant children who crossed the southern border into the U.S. reported they were sexually assaulted while in government custody, according to Department of Health and Human Services documents released Tuesday. In the past four years, 4,556 children said they were sexually assaulted while in the care of Health & Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which takes custody of unaccompanied minors who cross the southern border alone and those separated from their families. The data show the majority of the alleged assaults were carried out by other minors in custody, but at least 178 were carried out by staff. The allegations go back to 2015. 

House blocks Trump’s emergency declaration. Now what? 

The House voted to block President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency along the southern border on Tuesday, but Democrats didn’t win enough support from Republicans to overcome Trump’s threatened veto. The measure now goes to Senate. Trump declared an emergency this month after Congress sent the president a bipartisan funding bill that failed to meet his $5.7 billion demand for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats have said the declaration is unconstitutional and are using a provision from the National Emergencies Act to try to halt the president. If the resolution passes both houses, Trump could still veto it.

Kim Jong Un gave U.S. journalists the boot

One hotel’s not big enough for American journalists and Kim Jong Un. Kim and his team pulled a fast one on the White House, forcing them to relocate the media’s press filing center from the hotel where the North Korean leader is staying. Television crews that spent weeks setting up equipment and establishing camera positions scrambled in the hours ahead of Trump’s arrival to meet Kim at the nuclear summit meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam. The two world leaders, who’ve threatened each other with nuclear annihilation in the past, are set to convene Wednesday. Few details about their agenda have been released, but it’s a safe bet that much of the discussion will center on their denuclearization agreement.

Real quick

• Nearly 200 passengers were stranded for more than 24 hours on an Amtrak train that hit a downed tree in Oregon.
• A 21-year-old tweeted lies about Robert Mueller and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. People believed them. Now, he’s eyeing the 2020 election.
• Holiday Inn, a.k.a. retirement home? A man in Texas plans to skip a nursing home and check into a Holiday Inn to live his “golden age” – and save money.
• A Florida health department complaint exposed a human trafficking ring and led to charges against Robert Kraft.
• Chicagoans are casting ballots for mayor in one of the most competitive races in city history. But don’t expect a winner on Tuesday.

Cohen’s about to tell on Trump

Michael Cohen once said he’d “take a bullet” for Trump. Today, he met behind closed doors with a Senate committee planning to accuse the president of ‘criminal conduct,’ according to a source familiar with the testimony. Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and confidant, pleaded guilty to several charges including for paying hush money to women who said they slept with Trump and for lying to Congress about negotiations for a Trump Tower in Russia. The question looming over his testimony: Did the president participate in those crimes? Trump, of course, has said he was not involved. Cohen’s also scheduled to testify for the first time publicly on Wednesday (and yes, it will be televised). 

She says Trump kissed without consent. Now she’s suing.

A former staffer on Trump’s 2016 campaign says he kissed her “on the lips” without consent two months before the general election, and now she’s suing. A lawsuit filed Monday says Trump kissed Alva Johnson on his way out of one of the campaign’s RVs at a Florida work event. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called the allegation “absurd on its face” and said Johnson’s description of events contradicts “multiple highly credible eye witness accounts.” Three Trump supporters who were present, including then-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, told The Washington Post they did not witness the alleged incident.

This is a compilation of stories from across the USA TODAY Network. Want The Short List straight to your inbox? Sign up, and tell your friends.