Tuesday Morning Briefing: Trump defiant as lawmakers blast his 'racist' attacks on four congresswomen

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July 16, 2019 Reuters News Now Politics President Donald Trump doubled down on his attacks against four minority U.S. congresswomen and dismissed concerns that his comments were racist, prompting outrage from Democrats, who moved to condemn him in the House of Representatives. Speaking at the White House, Trump said people he described as critical of the United States should leave the country. All four of the first-term House members are U.S. citizens and all but one were born in the United States. Asked if he was concerned that some viewed his remarks as racist and that white supremacists found common cause with him, Trump said he was not. “It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me,” the U.S. president added. The Trump administration unveiled a new rule to bar almost all immigrants from applying for asylum at the southern border, requiring them to first pursue safe haven in a third country through which they had traveled on the way to the United States. Number 12,026 - better known as Marcial Artigas, 33, from Holguin, Cuba - waited nervously at a migration office at the U.S.-Mexico border as a Mexican official called out numbers from a long list of hopefuls waiting. Artigas said he was praying his number would be called next, before a new U.S. policy announced enters into force that bars almost all immigrants from applying for asylum at the country’s southern border. Trump’s campaign kicks off its efforts to woo women voters, banking that a strong economic message will energize a voting bloc that has been largely critical of his presidency. Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, will launch “Women for Trump,” a coalition dedicated to recruiting and activating women in support of the Republican president’s re-election in November 2020. Executives from tech giants Apple, Amazon.com, Facebook and Alphabet’s Google go before the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel to discuss competition in online markets. The committee is likely to discuss antitrust probes of the four companies under way at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission, as well as allegations that the companies seek to thwart nascent competitors. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris unveiled a plan to crack down on pharmaceutical companies which overcharge for prescription drugs, making her the latest 2020 White House candidate to seize on the issue. The senator from California, said her proposal would dramatically lower drug costs by allowing the federal government to set fair prices for what companies can charge and forcing them to pay rebates to consumers for medicines sold at artificially high rates. Business Two years ago Nasdaq and Citigroup announced a new blockchain system they said would make payments of private securities transactions more efficient. Nasdaq Chief Executive Adena Friedman called it “a milestone in the global financial sector.” But the companies did not move forward with the project, a person familiar with it said, because while it worked in testing, the cost to fully adopt it outweighed the benefits. lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are set to grill Facebook on its cryptocurrency plans, as the project continues to draw intense scrutiny from financial regulators and politicians across the globe. A Reuters review of 33 projects announced over the past four years and interviews with industry executives involved in them shows the technology has yet to deliver on its promise. Here are six projects, categorized by their status. China rebuffed a suggestion from Donald Trump that Beijing needs a trade deal with the United States because its economy is slowing, saying this was “totally misleading” and that both countries wanted an agreement. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China’s first-half pace was a “not bad performance” considering global economic uncertainty and slowing world growth, and in line with outside expectations. “As for United States’ so-called ‘because China’s economy is slowing so China urgently hopes to reach an agreement with the U.S. side’, this is totally misleading,” he added. autos Tesla has dropped the standard-range variants of its Model X and Model S from its product lineup and adjusted prices across its range, in a sales push that comes days after the U.S. electric vehicle maker reported record deliveries. To simplify its offerings, the automaker limited variants of its Model X sport-utility vehicle and Model S sedan to “Long Range” and the more expensive “Performance”. It also trimmed the price of its now entry-level Long Range variants. South Koreans forced to work for Japanese occupiers will seek a court order to forcibly liquidate Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ assets to compensate them, their lawyers said, risking more Japanese anger over the issue. The question of compensation for South Koreans for labor during Japan’s 1910-45 occupation of the Korean peninsula has soured the U.S. allies’ relations, which took a turn for the worse this month when Japan restricted exports of high-tech material to South Korea. The export restrictions threaten global supplies of memory chips and smartphones. World Von der Leyen lays out cards to EU lawmakers ahead of vote Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen sought to win over skeptical European socialist and liberal lawmakers to back her as European Commission president, laying out ambitious social, climate and migrant policies ahead of a crunch vote. If approved, she would make history as the European Commission’s first female leader. 4 min read North Korean nuclear envoy reported executed is alive: South Korea legislator A North Korean nuclear envoy who steered talks before a failed summit with the United States in February is alive, a South Korean legislator said, contradicting a South Korean news report that he had been executed. 2 Min Read 'More than 30' feared trapped in Mumbai building collapse An old four-storey building collapsed in India’s financial capital of Mumbai, trapping more than two dozen people in the rubble, with at least four confirmed dead, a fire department official said. 2 min read Sierra Leone school defies state ban on pregnant girls in class When Mariatu Sesay realized she was pregnant at 14, one thing scared her more than the social isolation she felt in the classroom: Sierra Leonean law banned her from attending school at all because she was expecting. 4 min read Top Stories on Reuters TV Floods in South Asia claim over 100 lives World   1:26 Italy seizes missile from neo-Nazi sympathisers World   0:50 Real news for busy people More Newsletters Reuters News Reuters TV               © 2019 Thomson Reuters. 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