10 things you need to know today: July 16, 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a press conference

(Image credit: Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)

Jump to category:

1. Democratic congresswomen fire back at Trump's 'racist' remarks
2. Trump administration to enforce new abortion restrictions
3. Two sex-abuse accusers urge judge to deny Epstein bail
4. Pelosi says no debt-ceiling hike without budget deal
5. Trump issues asylum rule to thwart Central American asylum seekers
6. White House tells Kellyanne Conway to defy House subpoena
7. Fields gets another life term for deadly Charlottesville car attack
8. Democrats request DeVos' work emails handled on private account
9. Deadly floods in South Asia displace millions
10. North Korea says U.S.-South Korea military drills put nuclear talks at risk

published 16 July 2019

1. Democratic congresswomen fire back at Trump's 'racist' remarks

The four Democratic congresswomen President Trump targeted in "racist" remarks pushed back Monday, saying Trump's comments were part of a pattern of bigotry he is using to divide Americans. "He's launching a blatantly racist attack on four duly elected members of the United States House of Representatives, all of whom are women of color," said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), as the other minority lawmakers — Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — stood beside her. "This is the agenda of white nationalists." Trump, who said the Democratic lawmakers should "go back" to the "crime infested places from which they came," doubled down, saying the progressive women "hate our country" and should leave if they are not happy with it.

The Trump administration said Monday that taxpayer-funded family planning clinics must immediately stop referring women for abortions. The Health and Human Services Department said it had formally notified clinics it would start enforcing the ban, as well as a requirement for clinics to have separate finances from abortion providers. Religious conservatives praised the move. Medical groups and women's rights organizations criticized it. The rule is widely interpreted as an attack against Planned Parenthood, which provides taxpayer-funded family planning services and health care to low-income women, and abortions to women paying separately. Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen said "our doors are still open" as the group and others challenge the rule in court.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Two women who say financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused them when they were minors urged a judge on Monday to reject his request to be released on bail. Epstein, 66, was arrested about a week ago on charges of sexually abusing dozens of girls from 2002 to 2005. One of the women, Annie Farmer, said Epstein flew her to New Mexico after meeting her in New York. "He was inappropriate with me," she said. The other woman, Courtney Wild, said Epstein abused her in Palm Beach, Florida, beginning when she was 14. "He is a scary person to have walking the street," she told U.S. District Judge Richard Berman. The judge said he would decide Thursday whether Epstein will be able to be released on bail.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday that the House would not raise the debt ceiling unless the move is part of a budget deal. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters that Congress will have to raise the debt ceiling before its August recess if there is no budget deal before then. Otherwise, he said, the federal government won't have enough money to pay all of its bills. Lawmakers have until the end of September to hammer out a budget deal, as that's when funding for several agencies is scheduled to run out. The Treasury Department can only issue debt up to the limit set by Congress. Since President Trump's inauguration, total government debt has increased by about $3 trillion, to more than $22 trillion.

The Trump administration on Monday announced new restrictive rules that would effectively bar Central American migrants from requesting asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. Under the new rule, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans would have to apply for and be denied asylum in countries they pass through on the way to the U.S. in order to be eligible to apply for asylum in the U.S. The Trump administration is using the rules as part of an effort to confront a surge of migrants from Central America currently overwhelming border officials. Many Africans, Cubans, and Haitians who try to reach the border by traveling to Mexico also would be barred from making asylum claims in the U.S. A court challenge is expected.

President Trump has directed White House counselor Kellyanne Conway to defy a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in a letter on Monday. The decision was made "to protect the prerogatives of the Office of the President," Cipollone wrote, citing constitutional immunity. Conway had been asked to testify before the committee after a government watchdog found that she repeatedly violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in political activity during work hours or on the job. "We're not requiring her to testify about advice she gave the president or about the White House policy decisions," Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the committee's chair, said Monday. "We are requiring her to testify before Congress about her multiple violations of federal law."

James Alex Fields on Monday was sentenced to life plus 419 years in prison for ramming his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing Heather Heyer. The sentence on state charges was on top of another life sentence Fields received on federal charges related to the same violence. The jury's recommendation was announced in December after Fields was convicted of first-degree murder and other charges related to injuries suffered by other counter-protesters. "Mr. Fields, you had choices. We all have choices," Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore said. "You made the wrong ones and you caused great harm."

The Democrat-led House Oversight and Reform Committee on Monday sent a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos requesting copies of emails concerning official government business that she has sent or received from private email accounts. In the letter, committee Chair Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) gave DeVos until July 29 to produce the documents. Department of Education Press Secretary Liz Hill said in a statement that an internal Education Department watchdog had already "done a thorough report on this issue." The watchdog said in a May report that DeVos sometimes used personal accounts for government business and sometimes failed to save the messages properly. "This is nothing more than political grandstanding," Hill said.

More than 100 people have been killed in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh as heavy rains caused widespread flooding and landslides. Millions of people have been displaced, including 4.3 million in the Indian states of Assam and Bihar. It is the beginning of monsoon season, and the rain started on Thursday, leaving roads and railroad tracks underwater. Some parts of Nepal saw an estimated 16 inches of rain in the last few days, and in Bangladesh, officials are keeping an eye on swollen rivers that flow into the country from India. During the 2017 monsoon season, at least 800 people were killed in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, with countless crops and homes destroyed.

North Korea said Tuesday that the U.S. will put talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to denuclearize at risk if it goes ahead with summer military exercises with South Korea. The North Korean Foreign Ministry said the U.S. is continuing a pattern of "unilaterally reneging on its commitments" to North Korea, so Pyongyang has to reconsider its own commitments to discontinue missile and nuclear weapons tests while talks continue. President Trump last month tried to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to resume talks on giving up his nuclear weapons by arranging a spur-of-the-moment meeting with Kim on the border between the two Koreas that resulted in an agreement to restart working-level talks that had been on hold since the collapse of their second summit in February.

Explore More

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.