Iran’s Seizure Of British Tanker ‘A Worrying Sign,’ UK Official Says – NPR
Iran’s Seizure Of British Tanker ‘A Worrying Sign,’ UK Official Says – NPR

Iranian officials are defending the seizure of British-flagged tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz near Iran’s coast on Friday.

Stena Bulk/AP


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Iranian officials are defending the seizure of British-flagged tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz near Iran’s coast on Friday.

Stena Bulk/AP

The U.K. Foreign Office is summoning the Iranian charge d’affaires following Iran’s seizure of a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday.

The Stena Impero was traveling to a port in Saudi Arabia, when, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency, the ship collided with an Iranian fishing boat. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards took control of the tanker, and Iran says the vessel and its crew will remain in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas during an investigation of the accident.

The ship had 23 crew members. Stena Bulk, the owner of the seized tanker, says the crew members are of Indian, Filipino, Russian and Latvian nationalities.

NPR’s Lauren Frayer reports that 18 of the crew members detained are Indian citizens. Indian government spokesman Raveesh Kumar said in a statement, “We are ascertaining further details on the incident. Our Mission is in touch with the Government of Iran to secure the early release and repatriation of Indian nationals.”

The tanker’s seizure is prompting alarm from Britain. Britain’s foreign minister, Jeremy Hunt, says the tanker’s seizure “shows worrying signs Iran may be choosing a dangerous path of illegal and destabilising behaviour after Gibraltar’s legal detention of oil bound for Syria.” He said Britain’s reaction will be “considered but robust.”

Hunt later tweeted he had spoken to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and expressed “extreme disappointment.” He said Zarif had assured him that Iran wanted to “deescalate” the situation. “They have behaved in the opposite way,” Hunt tweeted.

Two weeks ago, Britain’s Royal Marines seized an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar. It was carrying Iranian crude, and according to The Associated Press, Britain says it will not release the vessel unless it can prove it was not breaking European sanctions on oil shipments to Syria.

Iranian officials are defending the British tanker’s seizure. Zarif tweeted on Saturday that “unlike the piracy in the Strait of Gibraltar,” Iran’s action in the Persian Gulf served to uphold international “maritime rules.”

“It is Iran that guarantees the security of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,” Zarif continued.

Iran’s seizure of the tanker is also prompting concern across Europe and in the U.S. In a statement, France said it condemns the action by Iran and expresses its “full solidarity with the United Kingdom.” Germany released a statement calling the tanker’s seizure “unjustifiable” and for Iran to immediately release the ship and its crew.

On Friday afternoon, President Trump commented on Iran’s actions as he departed the White House, saying, “We heard it was one, we heard it was two” ships that have been seized. He added that Iran is “nothing but trouble” and affirmed the U.S.’ close alliance with the U.K.

Iran’s seizure of the tanker escalates tensions in the region. Britain, France and Germany are signatories to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Trump pulled out of last year. Under the pact, Iran agreed to curtail its nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The U.S. withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and again imposed economic sanctions on Iran.

Iran has since breached the terms of the agreement, enriching uranium past the limit set by the deal.

Last week, John Negroponte, former U.S. director of national intelligence and ambassador to the United Nations, told NPR that Iran’s breaches of the deal bring it closer to building a nuclear bomb.

“Enriching and stockpiling at levels higher than those agreed in the JCPOA [nuclear deal] would be a step toward nuclear breakout,” Negroponte said. “Iran’s newly-announced levels appear modest at the moment, but would become more concerning if there were further increases. Such steps would imply a willingness on Iran’s part to go all the way to construction of a bomb.”

The AP reports that Iran has been urging European nations to find a way around U.S. sanctions and notes Britain’s prominence in rising U.S. tensions with Iran.

One-fifth of the world’s oil supplies travel through the Strait of Hormuz, with tankers carrying crude from the Middle East to countries around the world. The waterway has been a focal point of escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

This week, the U.S. said it is sending troops and air defense missiles to Saudi Arabia. Late Friday, the United States Central Command said it is working on a “multinational maritime effort” called Operation Sentinel “to increase surveillance of and security in key waterways in the Middle East to ensure freedom of navigation in light of recent events in the Arabian Gulf region.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/07/20/743758809/u-k-fears-iran-is-taking-a-dangerous-path-after-seizure-of-tanker

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‘He always doubles down’: Inside the political crisis caused by Trump’s racist tweets – The Washington Post
‘He always doubles down’: Inside the political crisis caused by Trump’s racist tweets – The Washington Post

President Trump talks to reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House Wednesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Michael Scherer

Josh Dawsey

Ashley Parker

Seung Min Kim

July 20 at 2:43 PM

President Trump’s own top aides didn’t think he fully understood what he had done last Sunday, when he fired off a trio of racist tweets before a trip to his golf course.

After he returned to the White House, senior adviser Kellyanne Conway felt compelled to tell him why the missives were leading newscasts around the country, upsetting allies and enraging opponents. Calling on four minority congresswomen — all citizens, three born in the United States ­­— to “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came” had hit a painful historical nerve. 

Trump defended himself. He had been watching “Fox & Friends” after waking up. He wanted to elevate the congresswomen, as he had previously discussed with aides. The lawmakers — Reps. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) — were good foils, he had told his advisers, including campaign manager Brad Parscale. The president said he thought he was interjecting himself into Democratic Party politics in a good way. 

As is often the case, Trump acted alone — impulsively following his gut to the dark side of American politics, and now the country would have to pick up the pieces. The day before, on the golf course, he hadn’t brought it up. Over the coming days, dozens of friends, advisers and political allies would work behind the scenes to try to fix the mess without any public admission of error, because that was not the Trump way.


Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) arrives at the White House July 13 after golfing with President Trump. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

“He realized that part of it was not playing well,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a Trump confidant, who golfed Saturday with the president and spoke to him about it on Monday. “Well, he always doubles down. Then he adjusts.”

Like others, Graham urged Trump to reframe away from the racist notion at the core of the tweets — that only European immigrants or their descendants are entitled to criticize the country. Advisers wrote new talking points and handed him reams of opposition research on the four congresswomen. Pivot to patriotism. Focus on their ideas and behavior, not identity. Some would still see a racist agenda, the argument went, but at least it would not be so explicit. 

“The goal is to push back against them and make it not about you,” Graham said. 

The damage control did not save elected Republicans from their chronic struggle to navigate Trump’s excesses. Democrats were demanding a reckoning, a vote on the floor of the House condemning his racist remarks that would showcase their own unity and moral vision. The White House would mobilize an intense whip operation, putting Trump repeatedly on the phone, to keep his members in line. 

Then, just as many felt the firestorm was coming under control, Trump’s own supporters would set it ablaze again, with a “Send her back!” chant at a Wednesday night rally in Greenville, N.C., inspired by the president’s own words.

This account of Trump’s tweets and their aftermath is based on interviews with 26 White House aides, advisers, lawmakers and others involved in the response — most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to share behind-the-scenes details.

The political crisis was both familiar and extraordinary — engulfing every aspect of American politics, from the presidential campaign to the White House to Capitol Hill. Many in both parties, well acquainted with Trump’s history of racially charged rhetoric, were stunned at how far he had gone this time. Republicans were fearful of the potential damage but reluctant to confront or contradict Trump. The White House and the Trump campaign sought to contain the furor without alienating key supporters. Democrats finally unified after a week of squabbling to roundly condemn the president.

And at key moments, there were attempts to pretend it hadn’t happened at all. When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) talked to Trump on Sunday and Monday about ongoing budget negotiations, the tweets never even came up, according to a person familiar with the conversations.

In the end, Trump succeeded in at least one respect. Just a few days earlier, he had publicly pined for the days when he could put out a tweet that took off “like a rocket.” Now he had done it again. Americans had to choose sides, and he had drawn the dividing line. 

When Trump woke up to tweet on July 14, the nation’s leadership was scattered, its attention focused elsewhere.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was out of state. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had flown back home to San Francisco. The leaders of the House Republican caucus, Reps. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Steve Scalise (La.), were at a fundraising retreat at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Pennsylvania.

Of the group, only Pelosi, who sleeps just a handful of hours most nights, acted quickly. Trump’s tweets landed about 4:30 a.m. on the West Coast. Within three hours, just as Trump was arriving at his Virginia golf club, she had condemned his words on Twitter, calling out the racial tone directly, saying Trump’s “plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ has always been about making America white again.”  

Trump’s eruption gave her a chance to move beyond an irritating, and increasingly personal, split with the four congresswomen. They had been furious when Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic caucus declined to follow their guidance on a recent immigration funding vote. Now they were united.


From left, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) respond at a Monday news conference to racist remarks directed at them by President Trump. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

At a joint news conference by the four lawmakers late Monday, Omar said Trump’s tweets represented “the agenda of white nationalists.”

Democratic candidates for president reacted quickly with outrage and offered support for the embattled House lawmakers.

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.), the child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, told her campaign staff that she had been targeted by the same “go home” attack. In an emotional response at an Iowa event Tuesday, Harris said Trump had “defiled” his office and “it has to stop.”

“I am going to tell you what my mother told me: ‘Don’t you ever let anyone tell you who you are. You tell them who you are. Period,’ ” Harris said, growing visibly angry as she spoke. “We are Americans, and we will speak with the authority of that voice.”

Trump’s own campaign, by contrast, was caught off guard by the tweets and didn’t know initially how to respond. Top aides had been bragging about their ability to fundraise and capitalize on social media advertising when the president blew up a news cycle. But they placed no Facebook ads to ride this wave. The Republican National Committee was silent for more than a day. No one wanted to touch it, advisers said.

“People have been through so many of these with him,” said one Republican involved in the fight.

Cliff Sims, a former West Wing aide to Trump, explained the mentality that still governs the building. “The people who thrive and survive over the long-term are the ones who are okay with going where the president leads,” he said.

But as the workweek began, it became clear that the uproar could not be ignored. A person involved in the president’s fundraising effort said many donors were dismayed by the comments — but that there was scant desire to back away from the president publicly. 

“You put your head up, and you get it cut off,” this person said. “And then everyone remembers you weren’t loyal when this blows over.” 


President Trump holds up a paper with tweets about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) as he speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Many Republican lawmakers demurred or tried to find a middle ground, avoiding direct criticism of Trump while nonetheless expressing face-saving dissatisfaction. “We should focus on ways to bring people together,” said Sen. Cory Gardner, who faces a tough reelection race next year in Colorado. 

[The complete list of GOP lawmakers reacting to Trump’s ‘go back’ tweet]

Inside the weekly Republican lunch on Tuesday, GOP leaders tried to avoid direct references to Trump’s racist comments. McConnell repeated a phrase famously uttered by the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, a figure he reveres: “I attack ideas. I don’t attack people.”


Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

One effusive Trump ally, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), spoke up in defense of Trump inside the lunch, ticking off a litany of conservative grievances against the left, such as their attacks against immigration enforcement and comments perceived as anti-Semitic. 

“Let’s not lose sight of, frankly, the radical views that are coming out of the House,” Daines said in an interview, describing his message to the other Republican senators. 

Still, other GOP senators were uneasy. At a minimum, it was “dumb politics,” said one senior GOP senator, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid about the president’s tweet. 

Two of the harshest Republican pushbacks came, tellingly, from the only two elected black Republicans serving in Congress. Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) called the tweets “racially offensive.” 

“There is no room in America for racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and hate,” said Rep. Will Hurd (Tex.). 

By midday Monday, the Republican battle to minimize the damage was unfolding on two fronts. The first was an effort to get Trump to shift his message, without admitting a mistake. The goal, said one senior White House aide, was to “get the message back to a place where we could defend the president.”

The idea was to argue that the four congresswomen hated America and were welcome to leave for that reason. There were other lines of attack as well. Omar had been condemned earlier in the year for a series of comments criticizing support for Israel that many Democrats considered anti-Semitic. Pressley had seemed to suggest a racial litmus test for politics, saying Democrats don’t need “any more black faces that don’t want to be a black voice.” 

Privately, allies of the president said there was advantage in elevating “The Squad,” a term the lawmakers had adopted for themselves that Republicans have derided. They hoped to use the feud to portray reelecting the president as the patriotic thing to do.

“We’re talking about four congresswomen that have pretty extreme views,” Graham said. “If that’s the face of the Democratic Party we’re in pretty good shape.”

On Capitol Hill, Republican leaders settled on a similar way to frame the disaster. 

“I want to make absolutely clear that our opposition to our socialist colleagues has absolutely nothing to do with their gender, with their religion, or with their race,” said Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), chair of the House Republican Conference. 


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Democrats, by now, were focused on making sure the nation did not forget Trump’s original message. Pelosi had begun working on a resolution of disapproval Sunday night in conversations with Reps. Jamie B. Raskin (Md.) and Tom Malinowski (N.J.). They had already introduced a resolution in April condemning white-supremacist terrorism, which was now repurposed.

But first they had to manage an unruly caucus, which began to jockey over the resolution’s language. At least one member pushed for a more aggressive resolution that would censure Trump. Another proposed inserting language commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. 

The White House vote-counters initially feared as many as 50 Republicans might defect to support the resolution, and Trump ordered an all-hands White House effort to keep the GOP caucus together. White House aides told allies on the Hill that it was okay to criticize Trump, as long as they didn’t vote with Democrats.

Trump was obsessed with the vote tally and received regular briefings. Aides fed him a constant stream of lawmaker reactions and put him on the phone himself with several lawmakers. He told his team to tell any wafflers that he loves America and that they needed to pick sides. Trump called McCarthy to cancel an immigration meeting planned at the White House on Tuesday. 

“Stay there and fight,” he told McCarthy.

Vice President Pence also worked the phones, telling Republican members not to fall for a Democratic trap.

In the end, only four Republicans broke ranks, including Hurd. Key members from districts where Trump’s “go home” message would play terribly stuck with the president. They included two members from New York, John Katko and Elise Stefanik, and Mario Diaz-Balart, the son of Cuban immigrants, whose Florida district is 76 percent Hispanic. 

“A statement does not make one racist,” he told reporters.

While they lobbied in private, Republican leaders also began looking for a way to regain the narrative in public, at least in a way that could play with the conservative base.

When Pelosi came to the floor to read the words of the resolution, calling Trump’s comments racist — not Trump himself, despite what Diaz-Balart argued — Republicans saw an opening. 

Their vehicle was an obscure text, Thomas Jefferson’s Manual of Parliamentary Practice, a rule book that had governed the House floor since 1837. Based on old British traditions of respecting the king, an updated version of the manual specifically said the president could not be accused of making a racist statement, regardless of the accuracy of the allegation.

Emanuel Cleaver II — a United Methodist pastor and respected figure in the caucus — was up on the dais, tasked specifically by Pelosi to manage the debate. The chamber seemed close to finishing without incident when Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.) stood up to ask that Pelosi’s words be struck from the record by the parliamentarian.


Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Flashing through the Missouri congressman’s mind as he grew frustrated with Republican maneuvers were times he had been subjected to the same racist trope the president had tweeted, he said in an interview.

“I’m sick of this mess,” Cleaver recalled thinking. “In theology, we say the devil has two favorite tools: disunity and division . . . I see people running around, the devil running around here, having fun . . . I’m just thinking he’s just having a ball and using people to get delight.”

So, Cleaver announced, “I abandon the chair,” dropped the gavel and abruptly left the dais. 

It didn’t matter that the president himself had said Pelosi’s response to him was “racist” just a day earlier, or that House rules still allowed the sentiment to be passed into law. Republicans finally had a way to cast themselves as the victims of an out-of-control Democratic leadership.

“Democrats are just so blinded by their hatred of the president that they use every single tool at their disposal to harass him,” said Chris Pack, communications director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “And it’s getting really pathetic.” 

‘We find a way’


President Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Greenville, N.C., Wednesday. (Gerry Broome/AP)

By the time Trump landed in Greenville, N.C., on Wednesday evening, the mood had lifted in the White House and Republicans believed the worst was behind them. A White House aide urged the traveling press pool to be sure to “tune in” to the rally, implying it was not something they would want to miss. 

“You can take issue with his tactics,” said Josh Holmes, a close adviser to McConnell. “But the reality is that there is no political figure in memory who consistently saddles his opponents with unwinnable arguments quite like President Trump.” 

But the nuance of Trump’s shifts all week had been lost on many in the crowd of thousands at the East Carolina University auditorium. Midway through his speech, as he recounted his denunciation of Omar’s record, the crowd began to chant “Send her back!,” a paraphrase of his own tweeted “go back.”

He paused for about 13 seconds to let the chants wash over him. 

Back in Washington, and even for some Republicans in the room, it was a nightmare scenario suggesting that the nativism at the heart of Trump’s Sunday tweet — that nonwhite citizens had less claim on the country — would soon become a fixture of the campaign. 

The following morning, Republican leaders, including McCarthy and Cheney, huddled at the vice president’s residence to figure out how to deal with the danger of the chant catching on. Pence agreed to take the matter to the president.  

Matt Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group that had hosted Trump at its convention in April, also spoke out. The chants, he wrote on Twitter, were “vile” and “have no place in our society.”


Press secretary Stephanie Grisham, left, listens during a photo opportunity at the White House Thursday. President Trump said he wished his supporters had not chanted “Send her back!” in reference to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) during a political rally Wednesday in North Carolina. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Others in the White House began to reconsider the emerging strategy of using Omar’s own record as a rallying cry for the base.

Trump agreed to say the chants were wrong — but few thought that would be the end of it.

Indeed, by Friday, he was attacking the four lawmakers again, suggesting that no criticism of the country should be tolerated and praising the rally chanters he had distanced himself from just a day earlier. “Those are incredible people. Those are incredible patriots,” he said.

There was little sign, in other words, that Trump had been cowed by the week’s experience.

At one point during the North Carolina rally, the president mused about Pressley’s remarks on race, which he characterized as thinking “that people with the same skin color all need to think the same.”

“And just this week — can you imagine if I said that? It would be over, right?” Trump continued. “ . . . But we would find a way to survive, right? We always do. Here we are. Here we are. We find a way. Got to always find a way.”

Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/he-always-doubles-down-inside-the-political-crisis-caused-by-trumps-racist-tweets/2019/07/20/b342184c-aa2e-11e9-86dd-d7f0e60391e9_story.html

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"Send her back": Trump reverses course and backs supporters who chanted racist remarks – CBS News
"Send her back": Trump reverses course and backs supporters who chanted racist remarks – CBS News

Less than 24 hours after attempting to disavow supporters who chanted “send her back” at his North Carolina rally this week, President Trump reversed course and took their side. “As you know, those are incredible people…those are incredible patriots,” the president said Friday.

The chant was widely seen as a racist attack on Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is originally from Somalia but is now an American citizen. After first lady Melania Trump, the president’s daughter Ivanka, and several republican lawmakers expressed their concerns about the ugly scene, the president offered a tepid rebuke.

“I disagree with it, by the way,” Mr. Trump said. “But it was quite a chant and I felt a little bit badly about it.”

But less than a day later, he was back to blaming Omar. “You know what I’m unhappy with? I’m unhappy with the fact that a congresswoman can hate our country,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m unhappy with the fact that a congresswoman can say anti-Semitic things.”

The president seems to see political advantage in his feud with the four democratic congresswomen known as “The Squad” — especially Omar, who has been particularly outspoken.

Omar was defiant when she returned to Minnesota on Thursday, saying that as an immigrant in Congress, she’s the president’s “nightmare.”  

“We are going to continue to be a nightmare to this president because his policies are a nightmare to us!” Omar said. “We are not deterred. We are not frightened. We are ready!” 

That comment appeared to have gotten under the president’s skin.   

“I’m unhappy when a congresswoman goes and says, ‘I’m gonna be the president’s nightmare,'” Mr. Trump said. “She’s gonna be the president’s nightmare. She’s lucky to be where she is, let me tell you.”

The president continues to argue that it’s not OK for these congresswomen to criticize the country or his policies. When asked why it was OK for him to repeatedly call the U.S. “a laughingstock” or its foreign policy “stupid” before he was elected, Mr. Trump responded by saying, “This is the best country in the world.” 

Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/send-her-back-trump-reverses-course-backs-supporters-racist-rally-chant-2019-07-20/

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Searing heat across nation, reaching 100 degrees in some spots, takes its toll on events and roads – USA TODAY
Searing heat across nation, reaching 100 degrees in some spots, takes its toll on events and roads – USA TODAY
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As the temperatures start to heat up, make sure you are staying safe.
USA TODAY

A relentless heat wave gripped the country from the central states to the East Coast Saturday, prompting cancellation of the New York City Triathlon and producing cracked and buckled roads in some Plains states. Some East Coast cities braced for temperatures in the triple digits.

As the stifling heat — expected to affect 200 million people — settled in for at least a fifth day, the National Weather Service issued an Excessive Heat Warnings and Heat Advisory from parts of the  Texas Panhandle  to the Ohio Valley, around the Great Lakes, parts of the Mid-Atlantic and in the Northeast.

An Excessive Heat Warning is issued when the combination of heat and humidity is expected to make it feel like it is 105 degrees or greater.

Daytime temperatures in the mid to upper 90s or higher plus high humidity will result in heat indices as high as 115 for some, forecasters said. 

Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York and Boston were bracing for weekend temperatures in the triple digits. New York City and Baltimore were under a Code Red Extreme Heat Alert that is expected to continue through Sunday. 

“It’s been since July of 2012 that Chicago and Philadelphia both hit 100 degrees, and Washington, D.C., hasn’t hit 100 since August of 2016,” says AccuWeather Meteorologist Danielle Knittle.

In addition, forecasters warned that overnight temperatures were not likely to fall far enough to bring relief, pariticularly in larger cities, like  Chicago, St. Louis and New York City.

Cities in Vermont and New Hampshire opened shelters where people could cool off.

The high heat took its toll across the country:

♦In New York City, officials canceled Sunday’s New York City Triathlon. Likewise, Mayor Bill De Blasio scrapped the two-day outdoor OZY Fest in Central Park featuring soccer star Megan Rapinoe, musician John Legend and “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah.

De Blasio also  directed owners of office buildings over 100 feet tall to set thermostats to 78 degrees Fahrenheit through Sunday to conserve energy.

•In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, traffic was back up along I-229 after a large section of road buckled under the heat. Traffic on the Interstate 229 southbound lanes was backed up Friday afternoon because a large portion of road buckled under the heat.

•In south-central Kansas, around Wichita, two roads also cracked this week as temperatures reached 100 degrees and higher.

“The buckling is essentially caused by concrete, which is more rigid than asphalt, expanding to the point it breaks open at a weak point during hot weather,” said Tim Potter, a Kansas Department of Transportation spokesman, The Wichita Eagle reported. “Sometimes, the pressure can cause concrete to explode into the air. The problem also can occur when asphalt is laid over concrete. The dark asphalt absorbs heat and can add to the pressure.”

•Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers declared a state of emergency after two fires broke out at electric substations in Madison, WISC reported. He said he issued the declaration to “provide support during the large power outage that is exacerbated by the extreme heat wave affecting the area.”

The Weather Channel offers a bit of good news after the weekend: A dip in the jet stream will spread from the upper Midwest on Sunday to the East Coast by Monday,ushering in cooler, drier air to much of the Plains, Midwest and East.

Contributing: Associated Press

The heat goes on:: Nights will provide little relief during brutal heat wave

‘Breaking’ the heat index: US heat waves to skyrocket as globe warms, study suggests

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Destinee Lucas, 6, of Aliquippa, Pa., rides a wave at the pool at Settlers Cabin Park, Thursday, July 18, 2019, in Robinson, Pa. Communities nationwide are bracing for a record-breaking heatwave that’s already roasting much of the U.S. to continue through the weekend. Alexandra Wimley, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP
Mya Jones, left, 12, and her cousin Alexis Carlen, 13, keep cool on a tubes floating around the Endless River at Raging Rivers Waterpark in Grafton, Ill., on Wednesday, July 17, 2019. An excessive heat warning has been issued for St. Louis through Saturday night. David Carson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP
Jaxon Claymore, 8, left, and his older brother Jalen, 9, battle each other with large water guns in the hot mid-day sun in front of their apartment building on Wednesday, July 17, 2019, Bismarck, N.D. The pair say they compete against one another at home and in school to see who is the best in sports from running, throwing and strength. The weather forecast for the area calls for temperatures in the 80s with little chance of rain for the next several days. Mike McCleary, The Bismarck Tribune via AP

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/20/heat-wave-temps-near-100-degrees-events-canceled-roads-buckle/1784877001/

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Megan Rapinoe calls Trump’s racist tweets ‘disgusting’ – CNN
Megan Rapinoe calls Trump’s racist tweets ‘disgusting’ – CNN
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    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/20/politics/megan-rapinoe-trump-comment-disgusting/index.html

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    Is This a Transcript from a Radio Interview with US Rep. Ocasio-Cortez? – Snopes.com
    Is This a Transcript from a Radio Interview with US Rep. Ocasio-Cortez? – Snopes.com

    A July 2019 social media meme presented a transcript of a brief excerpt from a radio interview with U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in a way seemingly calculated to make the Congresswoman seem as inarticulate as possible:

    In a literal sense, this meme does reflect the words actually spoken by Ocasio-Cortez during the course of an hour-long interview for the The New Yorker Radio Hour on July 5, 2019. But the meme transcribes those words in a way that makes the speaker seem almost incoherent, through a number of techniques:

    • It reproduces a very short segment of a lengthy interview in a form completely devoid of any context, so those who view the meme have no idea what the speaker was referring to in the quoted passage.
    • It lacks any reference to, or explanation of, the discussion that immediately preceded the quoted passage, something that would ordinarily help enable the reader to understand what the speaker meant.
    • It completely omits any punctuation reflecting the cadence and inflections used by the speaker, which are often vital to understanding oral speech when represented in written form.

    The context of the quoted passage was Ocasio-Cortez’s answer, in response to an interview question, about why she had declined an offered seat on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. She said she had wanted the committee to agree to adhere to certain standards (e.g., commit to a mission of drafting climate change legislation by 2020, having subpoena powers, seating only members who did not take fossil fuel money). Because those standards were not met, she explained, she felt the committee was “compromised” and therefore was not one she wished to sit on.

    Below we have transcribed the portion of the interview included in the meme, but we have punctuated it to better reflect Ocasio-Cortez’s actual speech pattern, and we have added brief bits of contextual references in brackets that would have been understood by persons who had been listening to the full interview up to that point:

    Because given that none of those standards [that I advocated for] were met, sitting on that committee, I would have to own anything — I would [have to] take responsibility for anything that comes out of that committee. And when the actual, in my opinion, structure of [the committee] is compromised in very deep ways, you know it’s not … I don’t think it was like, “I’m going to take my ball and go home” — it’s, “We have a select committee whose mission I was uncertain on, [and] whose members take fossil fuel money.” You know [my decision was] beyond just a mere disagreement [with the committee’s mission]. I think there’s a structural problem with [the committee] …”

    Source Article from https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/radio-interview-ocasio-cortez/

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    Trump met Yazidi, Uighur, and Rohingya refugees. He seemed to learn about their crises for first time. – Vox.com
    Trump met Yazidi, Uighur, and Rohingya refugees. He seemed to learn about their crises for first time. – Vox.com

    In a meeting with victims of religious persecution on Wednesday, President Donald Trump repeatedly appeared to be unaware of many of the world’s most pressing humanitarian crises.

    Trump met with more than two dozen survivors of religious conflict, a few of whom told their stories — and made impassioned entreaties for aid — directly to the president. As he asked questions of his guests, the president seemed to reveal a stark lack of familiarity with the fundamental details of problems faced by Rohingya in Myanmar, Uighurs in China, and Yazidis in Iraq — groups in crisis that his own administration has established positions and policies on.

    On multiple occasions, Trump asked refugees among the group where the conflicts they were fleeing were taking place.

    Mohib Ullah, a Rohingya man who had escaped violence in Myanmar, explained that he was staying in a refugee camp in neighboring Bangladesh and asked the president what his plans are to help his beleaguered people. Trump replied by asking, “And where is that, exactly? Where?”

    It was unclear if Trump was referring to the country that Ullah had fled or was staying in, but Ullah repeated that he was staying in Bangladesh, and Sam Brownback, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, attempted to intervene by explaining that Bangladesh is “next to Burma [an older term for Myanmar]” and that “the Rohingya have been run out.”

    The president replied, “Thank you, appreciate it,” and moved on without ever answering Ullah’s question.

    The Trump administration’s official position is that Myanmar has engaged in “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya, a long-persecuted Muslim minority group, and it has imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on its military leaders for their human rights abuses.

    In fact, just one day before Trump’s meeting, the administration announced new sanctions barring military leaders from Myanmar from entering the US because of their extrajudicial killings of Rohingya. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the new sanctions were being levied because he and the rest of the administration “remain concerned that the Burmese government has taken no actions to hold accountable those responsible for human rights violations and abuses, and there are continued reports of the Burmese military committing human rights violations and abuses throughout the country.”

    Trump, however, did not mention these sanctions to Ullah, and based on his questions, did not appear to be overly familiar with the conflict between the Rohingya and the government and military of Myanmar in the first place.

    Trump also seemed almost entirely unacquainted with the oppression of Uighurs, China’s predominantly Muslim minority.

    When Jewher Ilham, a Uighur woman, said that millions of her people have been locked up in “concentration camps” and that she hadn’t seen her detained father since 2013, Trump again replied as if he was hearing about the crisis for the first time.

    “Where is that? Where is that in China?” he asked.

    After Ilham explained that Uighurs live in western China in the Xinjiang province, Trump proceeded to ask her how long her father had been gone, even though Ilham had told him in her introduction.

    After a brief back-and-forth about how often Ilham communicated with her father, Trump declared, “That’s tough stuff,” and moved on.

    China treats its entire Uighur population as a national security threat and has established one of the most high-tech and invasive surveillance regimes in the world to regulate it. The Pentagon has described the mass detainment of Uighurs as “concentration camps,” and they have been a major point of tension between the US and China as they navigate trade talks — Chinese President Xi Jinping has reportedly asked the US remain silent on the camps should the Trump administration like its trade talks to with China to be successful.

    The president also had an awkward exchange with Nadia Murad, a Yazidi refugee from Iraq who escaped captivity by ISIS. Trump again did not appear to pay close attention to her testimony, asking Murad where her family members were right after she’d told the president they had been killed.

    Trump tried to steer the conversation toward the topic of ISIS no longer being in Sinjar, a town that has long been the home to the Yazidi ethnic and religious minority, but Murad explained that ISIS wasn’t the issue. Instead, she explained Yazidi refugees are afraid to return because of security and political concerns.

    “Now there is no ISIS, but we cannot go back because Kurdish government and the Iraqi government, they are fighting each other who will control my area,” she said. “And we cannot go back, if we cannot protect our dignity, our family.”

    “But now ISIS is gone. Now it’s Kurdish and who?” Trump asked.

    Murad again explained that security forces are of concern to her people. There have been reports of skirmishes in the Yazidi homeland as the Iraqi government works to retake control from militias and the remnants of US-backed Kurdish forces.

    After Murad elaborated on safety concerns, Trump pivoted, asking her about the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in 2018 — Murad was given the prize for her advocacy for the Yazidis. The group was attacked by ISIS in 2014; several thousand were killed, and more than 3,000 others were taken as slaves, including sex slaves.

    The activist told the president she was given the prize for speaking out about her time as a slave, and her escape from bondage, as well as her work on behalf of the thousands of Yazidi women raped by ISIS troops.

    “Let me look; we’re going to look,” Trump responded.

    Ultimately the timing of the meeting, intended to project an image of the Trump administration’s dedication to protecting refugees persecuted for their religions, was rather ironic. Immediately afterwards, the president attended a rally and whipped up xenophobic anger at perhaps the most prominent refugee in American politics, herself a US religious minority. And the next day, Politico reported that security officials in the Trump administration are considering cutting refugee admissions “to nearly zero” next year.

    Source Article from https://www.vox.com/2019/7/20/20701802/donald-trump-nadia-murad-yazidi-uighur-rohingya-refugees-iraq-china-myanmar

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    Iran news: U.K. warns of "serious consequences" if British tanker isn’t released by Iran – CBS News
    Iran news: U.K. warns of "serious consequences" if British tanker isn’t released by Iran – CBS News
    David Martin

    David Martin is CBS News’ National Security Correspondent.

    Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-news-uk-warns-of-serious-consequences-if-british-tanker-is-not-released-strait-of-hormuz-2019-07-20/

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    Heat wave descends on the US: Live updates – CNN
    Heat wave descends on the US: Live updates – CNN

    Officials are urging people to conserve energy during this weekend’s heat wave.

    New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Friday that the heat emergency declared Thursday, and calls for energy rationing this weekend, are out of an “abundance of caution.”

    The mayor signed an executive order directing office buildings 100 feet or taller to set their thermostats to 78 degrees to conserve energy, and is asking New Yorkers to do the same in their homes.

    Speaking with host Brian Lehrer on radio station WNYC, de Blasio said utility company Con Edison has not given him “good enough answers” on the reason for New York’s power outage last weekend, but told him overload was not it. He said the company told him an overload is not predicted for this weekend, but residents should cut back just to be sure.

    The president of Con Edison in New York, Tim Cawley, agreed with the importance of conserving energy.

    It’s not just New York: About 185 million people are under a heat watch, warning or advisory as of Friday morning.

    The heat warnings cover a large swath of the Midwest, including Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland and Omaha, as well as parts of the East Coast, including New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, DC.

    Here’s how to maximize your energy efficiency, according to National Grid:

    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/heat-wave-july-2019/index.html

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    The Ilhan Omar marriage story isn’t ‘baseless,’ but it doesn’t help that Trump alt-right hacks hijacked it – Washington Examiner
    The Ilhan Omar marriage story isn’t ‘baseless,’ but it doesn’t help that Trump alt-right hacks hijacked it – Washington Examiner

    As a far left-wing congresswoman who’s endorsed policies despised by most of the public, Ilhan Omar was bound to prove polarizing. As the first-ever Muslim member of Congress to wear a hijab on the House floor, she would inevitably rile up the racists that lurk among the rocks of society. But we can ignore for a moment most of her flaws and the bad intent behind some of her critics to focus on one factual matter she refuses to address.

    There is evidence that she entered a sham marriage, committed federal and state tax fraud, and lied about it. There is also compelling, if not yet undeniable evidence, that she perjured herself.

    Whether a Republican or Democrat, a sitting member of Congress entering a sham marriage, committing multiple crimes to cover it up, and lying to the public to do so would render them unelectable in any sane world.

    But Omar has been protected from this story by two forces. One is a media that leans left and is terrified of a story that touches on immigration, faith, and marriage. The second is President Trump, who has chosen to broach this issue in the most ham-fisted, blockheaded manner.

    “Well,” the president said as an afterthought this weekend. “There’s a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother.”

    And boom goes the news cycle.

    In a standard reaction, Will Sommer at the Daily Beast deemed the entire Omar story, not just the “brother” allegations but also the charge of a sham marriage, “baseless” and “Pizzagate-levels of delusion.”

    Sommer is wrong. But he’s smart enough to know that crackpots who compare Twitter bans and verification losses to the literal Holocaust and Trump himself have tainted the waters so deeply that a complicit media cartel can willfully ignore a story that, of right, is a scandal.

    Sommer highlights the corrupt seeds of the story. The problem, Sommer correctly notes, is that the story wasn’t borne of any actual reporting at all. Instead, Scott Johnson of PowerLine Blog simply reshared an anonymous post on SomaliSpot, a Somali-style Reddit iteration, without corroborating any of the information. That’s the sort of thing you’d expect from Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s enemies, not from journalists.

    Then local Minnesota news site Alpha News did compelling objective reporting into ample social media posts that suggest that Omar and her former husband Ahmed Elmi — the one accused of being her brother — kept in contact after she swore they were incommunicado.

    The rest of the Minnesota media ignored the story, even after Alpha News laid out a trail other reporters could follow. But then anti-Muslim activists like Laura Loomer and Brigitte Gabriel jumped on the story, effectively handing the press a blank check to write it off as a vast right-wing conspiracy.

    But then more evidence popped up, and it was harder to ignore.

    Two pieces of critical evidence recently emerged: first that Omar jointly filed taxes with her current husband Ahmed Hirsi while married to Elmi, and next that her campaign team had shut down a reporter inquiring into the matter of her marriages in 2016. Then, it became a matter of national news concern. The Star Tribune addressed this, and the Washington Examiner investigated it. The evidence we found was overwhelming, at least insofar as it indicates that for some reason, whatever it may be, Omar is covering up the intention of her marriage from 2009 to 2011.

    It’s easy for the media to abdicate their responsibility to investigate this story by pointing to Trump’s handling of it, or the conspiracy theorists who have attached themselves to it, but the story is anything but baseless. Reporters actually willing to fight fires of elected officials lying through their teeth to the public will work to find out why.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-ilhan-omar-marriage-story-isnt-baseless-but-it-doesnt-help-that-trump-alt-right-hacks-hijacked-it

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    Floundering NRA struggles to maintain its 2016 influence in 2020 race – CNN
    Floundering NRA struggles to maintain its 2016 influence in 2020 race – CNN

    Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/19/politics/nra-2020-campaign/index.html

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    A Yazidi woman from Iraq told Trump that ISIS killed her family. ‘Where are they now?’ he asked. – The Washington Post
    A Yazidi woman from Iraq told Trump that ISIS killed her family. ‘Where are they now?’ he asked. – The Washington Post

    Colby Itkowitz

    July 19 at 11:58 AM

    When President Trump this week met human rights activist Nadia Murad, an Iraqi who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for speaking out about her agonizing torture and rape while in Islamic State captivity, he seemed unaware of her story and the plight ofher Yazidi ethnic minority.

    For several minutes in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Murad stood beside a seated Trump, who mostly avoided eye contact with Murad, and implored the president to help her community return to Iraq. She explained that the Islamic State, or ISIS, may be gone but that Iraqis and Kurds are fighting for control over Yazidi lands.

    “If I cannot go to my home and live in a safe place and get my dignity back, this is not about ISIS,” she said, her voice breaking. “It’s about I’m in danger. My people cannot go back.”

    Murad, who lives in Germany, told Trump that she never wanted to be a refu­gee but that ISIS murdered her mother and six brothers.

    “Where are they now?” Trump asked.

    “They killed them,” she repeated. “They are in the mass grave in Sinjar, and I’m still fighting just to live in safety.”


    Human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Nadia Murad, a member of Iraq’s Yazidi community, speaks to President Trump on July 17, 2019, during a White House meeting with victims of religious persecution. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

    “I know the area very well that you’re talking about,” Trump responded.

    [Opinion: I am a survivor of Islamic State violence. Don’t forget us.]

    Trump’s meeting — which drew widespread criticism because of its awkward moments — included nearly two dozen foreigners who, like Murad, had suffered religious persecution in their home countries. They included a Jewish Holocaust survivor, a Tibetan from China and a Rohingya Muslim from Myanmar.

    Trump told Murad he would look into it “very strongly.” As she started to back away, Trump said: “And you had the Nobel Prize. That’s incredible. They gave it to you for what reason?”

    “For what reason?” Murad replied. “For, after all this happened to me, I didn’t give up. I made it clear to everyone that ISIS raped thousands of Yazidi women.” She told him she was the first woman to get out and speak publicly about what was happening.

    “Oh, really, is that right?” Trump said, his voice notably more upbeat. “So you escaped.”

    “I escaped, but I don’t have my freedom yet,” she said.

    Trump has said that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on Syria and North Korea and has lamented that President Barack Obama received the honor during his first year in office.

    In the same meeting, the president also seemed not to know that Rohingya refugees had fled violence in Myanmar, also known as Burma. In a confusing exchange, a Rohingya man, Mohib Ullah, told Trump that his people wanted to “go back home as quickly as possible” — an apparent reference to western Myanmar — and asked the president what the plan was to help them.

    “And where is that, exactly?” the president asked.

    “Bangladesh refugee camp,” Mohib Ullah answered, referring to where thousands of Rohingya have fled to escape persecution by security forces in Myanmar.

    Sam Brownback, a former Republican governor of Kansas who is now U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom, interjected, “That is right next to Burma.”

    “I see,” Trump said.

    Before a military crackdown that began in 2015 and intensified two years later, an estimated 1 million Rohingya people lived in Rakhine state, on Myanmar’s western coast. Hundreds of thousands have since fled to neighboring Bangladesh, where they have been living in squalid camps in the southeastern part of that country.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-yazidi-woman-from-iraq-told-trump-that-isis-killed-her-family-where-are-they-now-he-asked/2019/07/19/cc0c83e0-aa2d-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html

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    Biden blames Trump for racist remark by 7-year-old son of Biden event organizer – Washington Examiner
    Biden blames Trump for racist remark by 7-year-old son of Biden event organizer – Washington Examiner

    Joe Biden said children are beginning to make racist remarks because of President Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric toward immigrants and minority lawmakers.

    Biden, speaking at a fundraiser near Los Angeles on Friday night, said there’s not enough attention being paid to Trump’s effect on children, according to a pool report from the event.

    He recalled that a man who hosted an event for him told him his 7-year-old son had been negatively influenced by Trump and asked why Spanish people were on a beach they were visiting.

    “Our children are listening,” Biden said.

    Trump created a whirlwind of backlash last weekend when he told four Democratic congresswomen of color they should “go back” to their home countries if they are unhappy with the status of the United States, though only one of the women was born outside the U.S.

    On Wednesday, a crowd at his campaign rally in North Carolina chanted “send her back” after he criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali-born American citizen from Minnesota.

    He claimed a day later he did not approve of the chant and tried to stop it, but video shows the president allowing it to go on for about 13 seconds before he moved on with his speech.

    Trump appeared to walk back his disavowal on Friday, defending those who chanted as “incredible patriots.”

    “This guy is more George Wallace than George Washington,” Biden said of Trump, comparing the president to the segregationist.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/biden-blames-trump-for-racist-remark-by-7-year-old-son-of-biden-event-organizer

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    What’s Really In Joe Biden’s Health Plan For America : Shots – Health News – NPR
    What’s Really In Joe Biden’s Health Plan For America : Shots – Health News – NPR

    Opponents running to Joe Biden’s left say his health plan for America merely “tinkers around the edges” of the Affordable Care Act. But a close read reveals some initiatives in Biden’s plan that are so expansive they might have trouble passing even a Congress held by Democrats.

    Justin Sullivan/Getty Images


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    Opponents running to Joe Biden’s left say his health plan for America merely “tinkers around the edges” of the Affordable Care Act. But a close read reveals some initiatives in Biden’s plan that are so expansive they might have trouble passing even a Congress held by Democrats.

    Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    The headlines about presidential candidate Joe Biden’s new health care plan called it “a nod to the past” and “Affordable Care Act 2.0.” That mostly refers to the fact that the former vice president has specifically repudiated many of his Democratic rivals’ calls for a “Medicare for All” system, and instead sought to build his plan on the ACA’s framework.

    Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of Biden’s opponents in the primary race and the key proponent of the Medicare for All option, has criticized Biden’s proposal, complaining that it is just “tinkering around the edges” of a broken health care system.

    Still, the proposal put forward by Biden earlier this week is much more ambitious than Obamacare – and despite its incremental label, would make some very controversial changes.

    “I would call it radically incremental,” says Chris Jennings, a political health strategist who worked for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and who has consulted with several of the current Democratic candidates.

    Republicans who object to other candidates’ Medicare for All plans find Biden’s alternative just as displeasing.

    “No matter how much Biden wants to draw distinctions between his proposals and single-payer, his plan looks suspiciously like “SandersCare Lite,” writes former congressional aide and conservative commentator Chris Jacobs in a column for The Federalist.

    Biden’s plan is built on the idea of expanding the ACA to reduce costs for patients and consumers — similar to what Hillary Clinton campaigned on in 2016. It would do things Democrats have called for repeatedly since the ACA was passed. Among Biden’s proposals is a provision that would “uncap” federal help to pay for health insurance premiums — assistance now available only to those with incomes that are 400% of the poverty level, or about $50,000 for an individual.

    Under Biden’s plan, no one would be required to pay more than 8.5 percent of their income toward health insurance premiums.

    But it includes several proposals that Congress has failed repeatedly to enact, including some that were part of the original debate over the ACA. Plus, Biden’s plan has some initiatives that are so expansive, it is hard to imagine them passing Congress — even if Democrats sweep the presidency and both houses of Congress in 2020.

    Here are some of the more controversial pieces of the Biden health plan:

    Public option

    Although many of the Democratic presidential candidates have expressed varying degrees of support for a Medicare for All plan, nearly all have also endorsed creating a government-sponsored health plan, known colloquially as a “public option,” that would be available to people who buy their own health insurance. That eligible group would include anyone who doesn’t get insurance through their job or who doesn’t qualify for other government programs, like Medicare or Medicaid.

    A public option was included in the version of the ACA that passed the House in 2009. But its proponents could not muster the 60 votes needed to pass that option in the Senate over GOP objections — even though the Democrats had 60 votes at the time.

    Biden’s public option, however, would be available to many more people than the 20 million or so who are now in the individual insurance market. According to the document put out by the campaign, this public option also would be available to those who don’t like or can’t afford their employer insurance, and to small businesses.

    Most controversial, though, is that the 2.5 million people currently ineligible for either Medicaid or private insurance subsidies because their states have chosen not to expand Medicaid would be automatically enrolled in Biden’s public option, at no cost to them or the states where they live. Also included automatically in the public option would be another 2 million people with low incomes who currently are eligible for ACA coverage subsidies – and who would also be eligible for expanded Medicaid.

    That part of Biden’s proposal has prompted charges that the 14 states that have so far chosen not to expand Medicaid would save money, compared with those that have already expanded the program, because expansion states have to pay 10% of the cost of that new population.

    Jennings, the Democratic health strategist, argues that extra charge to states that previously expanded Medicaid would be unavoidable under Biden’s plan, because people with low incomes in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid need coverage most. “If you’re not going to have everyone get a plan right away, you need to make sure those who are most vulnerable do,” Jennings says.

    Abortion

    The Biden plan calls for eliminating the “Hyde Amendment,” an annual rider to the spending bill for the Department of Health and Human Services that forbids the use of federal funds to pay for most abortions. Biden recently ran into some difficulty when his position on the Hyde ammendment was unclear.

    Beyond that, Biden’s plan also directly calls for the federal government to fund some abortions. “[T]he public option will cover contraception and a woman’s constitutional right to choose,” his plan says.

    In 2010, the Affordable Care Act very nearly failed to become law after an intraparty fight between Democrats who supported and opposed federal funding for abortions. Abortion opponents wanted firm guarantees in permanent law that no federal funds would ever be used for abortion; abortion-rights supporters called that a deal breaker. Eventually a shaky compromise was reached.

    And while it is true that there are now far fewer Democrats in Congress who oppose abortion than there were in 2010, the idea of even a Democratic-controlled Congress voting for federal abortion funding seems far-fetched. The current Democratic-led House has declined even to include a repeal of the Hyde Amendment in this year’s HHS spending bill, because it could not get through the GOP-controlled Senate or get signed by President Trump.

    Undocumented immigrants

    When Obama said in a speech to Congress in September 2009 that people not in the U.S. legally would be ineligible for federal help with their purchase of health insurance under the ACA, it prompted the infamous “You lie!” shout from Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C..

    Today, all the Democratic candidates say they would provide coverage to undocumented residents. There is no mention of them specifically in the plan posted on Biden’s website, although a Biden campaign official told Politico this week that people in the U.S. who are undocumented would be able to purchase plans on the health insurance exchanges, but would not qualify for subsidies.

    Still, in his speech unveiling the plan at an AARP-sponsored candidate forum in Iowa, Biden did not address this issue of immigrants’ health care. He said only that his plan would expand funding for community health centers, which serve patients regardless of their ability to pay or their immigration status, and that people in the U.S. without legal authority would be able to obtain coverage in emergencies. That is already law.

    Source Article from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/07/20/743248732/radical-or-incremental-whats-really-in-joe-bidens-health-plan

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    Iran says it has captured a British-flagged oil tanker: Live updates – CNN
    Iran says it has captured a British-flagged oil tanker: Live updates – CNN

    The seizure of the British-flagged Stena Impero tanker is yet another in an accelerating series of recent maritime episodes involving Iran.

    Here’s a look at the most significant:

    MAY 8, 2018

    NOVEMBER 5, 2018

    APRIL 8, 2019

    JUNE 2019

    JUNE 20, 2019

    JUNE 24, 2019

    JULY 1, 2019

    JULY 4, 2019

    JULY 10, 2019

    JULY 14, 2019

    JULY 18, 2019

    JULY 19, 2019

    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/iran-british-tanker-july-2019/index.html

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    Michelle Obama Seemingly References Donald Trump’s Racist Comments – PEOPLE.com
    Michelle Obama Seemingly References Donald Trump’s Racist Comments – PEOPLE.com

    Michelle Obama is seemingly weighing in on the controversy around President Donald Trump‘s racist remarks.

    Close to one week after the president shared several offensive tweets about the four congresswomen of color, the former first lady, 55, provided her own input about what makes America so special in a message on Twitter.

    Appearing to defend the four politicians — Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — Michelle reminded her followers that the U.S. was for everyone, not just those who were born here.

    “What truly makes our country great is its diversity,” she tweeted Friday. “I’ve seen that beauty in so many ways over the years. Whether we are born here or seek refuge here, there’s a place for us all.”

    “We must remember it’s not my America or your America,” she added. “It’s our America.”

    Though he hasn’t commented on the controversy, former President Barack Obama showed his support for his wife’s sentiments by retweeting her message.

    RELATED: Meet ‘The Squad’: The Four Democratic Congresswomen of Color Trump Blasted in Racist Tweets

    Michelle’s message seems to allude to Trump’s initial tweets from Sunday where he ripped into the four lawmakers, known as the “Squad”, and told them to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came” despite the majority of the women being born in America.

    The representatives, who support progressive policies such as Medicare-for-all and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, regularly criticize the president’s administration and have called for his impeachment.

    Things escalated on Wednesday night when Trump supporters began a “send her back” chant while the president, 73, was speaking about Omar, one of the first Muslims to be elected to Congress, at a rally in North Carolina.

    RELATED: Trump Slammed as ‘Racist-in-Chief’ After He Tweets About Congresswomen of Color

    Omar, who was born in Somalia but is a naturalized U.S. citizen, later made it clear that she was not intimidated by their hurtful words and responded to the situation on Twitter.

    “I am where I belong, at the people’s house and you’re just gonna have to deal!” the Minnesota politician, 37, stated on Wednesday evening, alongside a photo of herself wearing a hijab as she sits on the House floor.

    In a separate tweet, Omar showed her resilience, yet again, and quoted Maya Angelou. “You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise,” she wrote.

    A day after the disheartening incident, Trump spoke to reporters and claimed that he did not agree with the chant and even tried to stop it, despite video showing otherwise.

    RELATED: Donald Trump, Who Stood Silent During ‘Send Her Back’ Chant at Rally, Now Says He Was ‘Not Happy’

    “I was not happy with it. I disagree with it. I didn’t say that, they did,” he told reporters from the White House. “It was quite a chant…I felt a little bit badly about it.”

    Trump also said he “started speaking very quickly” in order to cut his supporters short, though video showed he stopped speaking for more than 10 seconds as attendees chanted.

    He has continued to defend his inflammatory remarks, instead, pointing to what he says is “vile” rhetoric on the part of the four congresswomen, whom he said “hate” America.

    RELATED: The Political Figures Who Have Denounced Trump’s Racist Tweets Against Congresswomen of Color

    On Tuesday, hours before the House of Representatives took the rare step of formally condemning his tweets, Trump tweeted, “I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!”

    When asked by a reporter on Thursday whether the crowd was not just echoing what Trump had said in his tweets, the president responded, “Well, if you examine it, I don’t think you’ll find that.”

    He also previously said the backlash “doesn’t concern me, because many people agree with me. All I’m saying is if they want to leave, they can leave now.”

      Source Article from https://people.com/politics/michelle-obama-seemingly-references-trumps-racist-comments/

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      Iran seizes two British tankers and makes a huge mistake – Washington Examiner
      Iran seizes two British tankers and makes a huge mistake – Washington Examiner

      There will be furious embarrassment in the British government this evening over Iran’s seizure of two British oil tankers today. One of those tankers is British-flagged, and the other is British-owned.

      Still, Iran has made a strategic miscalculation here.

      Acting against the British while the U.K. and Iranian foreign ministers were seeking compromise over Britain’s recent seizure of an Iranian tanker, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have further isolated Iran on the international stage. With a multinational naval task force for tanker escorts likely to be announced next week, the Iranians are increasingly outgunned and diplomatically isolated. Losing a drone to a U.S. warship on Thursday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is also now aware of American red lines against threats to U.S. life.

      But none of that will distract from London’s embarrassment.

      Britain was well aware that this kind of Iranian aggression was likely. Deploying an advanced warship to the Persian Gulf, the U.K. expected to deter Iran. That calculation has clearly failed in quite spectacular fashion. The military options to retake these tankers are also weak. While Britain’s Special Boat Service special forces unit has an advanced maritime counter-terrorism capability, recovering tankers now in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps port would be an extraordinary challenge.

      That said, Iran’s action here presents two problems for Tehran.

      First, it will encourage Britain to support the U.S. sanctions pressure campaign against Iran. With a new British prime minister entering office next week, the U.K. will want to regain the initiative here against appearing weak. But Iran’s action also makes it likelier that France and Germany will adopt a tougher stance against it. Those nations have pursued an appeasement strategy until now, but they will view Iran’s escalated endangerment of global energy supplies as intolerable.

      Ultimately, then, Iran is heading for more economic damage. These seizures might make the hard-liners feel good, but they’ve made a big mistake.

      Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/iran-seizes-two-british-tankers-and-makes-a-huge-mistake

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      Donald Trump defends rally crowd that chanted ‘send her back,’ calling them ‘incredible patriots’ – USA TODAY
      Donald Trump defends rally crowd that chanted ‘send her back,’ calling them ‘incredible patriots’ – USA TODAY

      At his North Carolina rally, President Donald Trump highlighted past statements the “Squad” have made criticizing his administration’s policies.
      USA TODAY

      Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/19/donald-trump-defends-rally-crowd-patriots-despite-chants/1781499001/

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      Michelle Obama seemingly swipes at Trump amid ‘send her back’ controversy – Fox News
      Michelle Obama seemingly swipes at Trump amid ‘send her back’ controversy – Fox News
      Video

      Trump addresses Democratic congresswomen, tensions with Iran

      President Trump answers question from the press outside of the White House.

      Former First Lady Michelle Obama has seemingly taken a shot at President Trump amid his ongoing feud with four progressive congresswomen, saying “there’s a place” for natural-born citizens and refugees alike.

      Tensions escalated this week when the president blasted the Democratic “squad,” Reps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., suggesting on Twitter that they “go back” to the countries they came. All four women are U.S. citizens, with Omar being the only one who was born outside of the U.S.

      After exchanging several barbs during the week, Trump continued his attacks during Wednesday’s rally, during which a “send her back” chant aimed at Omar broke out from his supporters.

      On Friday, the former first lady tweeted what seemed to be a rebuke of the remarks — while stopping short of mentioning the president directly.

      MICHELLE OBAMA: THE NIGHT BEFORE TRUMP’S INAUGURATION WAS ‘VERY EMOTIONAL’

      Video

      “What truly makes our country great is its diversity,” Mrs. Obama tweeted. “I’ve seen that beauty in so many ways over the years. Whether we are born here or seek refuge here, there’s a place for us all. We must remember it’s not my America or your America. It’s our America.”

      Her husband, former President Barack Obama, has not commented in on the feud.

      While the Obamas have largely avoided weighing in on political matters since leaving the White House, Friday’s comments are not the first time the former first lady has seemingly tweaked Trump.

      “The leader of the free world with a tweet can start a war, can crush an economy, can change the future of our children,” she told Gayle King of CBS News at the Essence Festival in New Orleans earlier this month.

      CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

      She added the next president needs to have “deep seriousness and focus” and operate “with a clear base of facts and ideas.” She also said she thinks her husband sometimes made the presidency look easy.

      “I guess it’s kind of like if the black guy can do it, anybody can do it — and that’s not true. It’s a hard job.”

      Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/michelle-obama-trump-ocasio-cortez-ilhan-omar

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      Impeachment committee forms in Puerto Rico as protesters call for Gov. Rosselló to resign – CNN
      Impeachment committee forms in Puerto Rico as protesters call for Gov. Rosselló to resign – CNN

      Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

      Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/19/us/puerto-rico-protests-friday/index.html

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      ‘Uncontrollable’ Jeffrey Epstein: 5 Takeaways From Judge’s Bail Decision – The New York Times
      ‘Uncontrollable’ Jeffrey Epstein: 5 Takeaways From Judge’s Bail Decision – The New York Times

      Mr. Epstein’s assets also included $56 million in cash and more than $300 million in securities and other financial instruments. Prosecutors also said his sex registration documentation (stemming from his 2008 guilty plea in Florida) listed no fewer than 15 motor vehicles, including seven Chevrolet Suburbans, a cargo van, a Range Rover, a Mercedes-Benz sedan, a Cadillac Escalade and a Hummer.

      Then there was a safe that the authorities said they searched in Mr. Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan, in which they found more than $70,000 in cash, 48 loose diamonds ranging in size from approximately one to 2.38 carats, and a large diamond ring.

      The judge concluded that Mr. Epstein was “a serious risk of flight” and “no conditions can be set that will reasonably assure his appearance at trial.”

      Inside that safe, the authorities also found an Austrian passport bearing Mr. Epstein’s photograph but another person’s name, the judge noted. The judge’s opinion made it clear that prosecutors and Mr. Epstein’s lawyers disagreed sharply over the passport’s significance.

      Prosecutors said the passport showed Mr. Epstein knew how to obtain false travel documents or assume other identities.

      Defense lawyers told the judge that Mr. Epstein, whom they described as “an affluent member of the Jewish faith,” acquired the passport in the 1980s “when hijackings were prevalent,” in connection with Middle East travel. The passport expired 32 years ago, the defense wrote, and “was for personal protection in the event of travel to dangerous areas, only to be presented to potential kidnappers, hijackers or terrorists should violent episodes occur.”

      In the back and forth, prosecutors noted that the passport included numerous stamps showing it was used to enter France, Spain, Britain and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. The defense said Mr. Epstein was given the passport by a friend, the trips were not his and he had never used it.

      Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-bail-decision.html

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