Bedugul Coffee: Friday Morning Briefing: Trump invites Putin to Washington despite Helsinki uproar

Highlights

President Donald Trump has invited Putin to Washington this autumn, a daring rebuttal to the torrent of criticism in the United States over Trump’s failure to publicly confront the Russian president at their first summit for Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 election.

With outrage over the Helsinki summit plus revived talk of a Democratic wave in November’s congressional elections, Republicans at a conference in Texas this week had reason to feel downcast, even panicky. Instead, party officials voiced optimism about maintaining control of both the Senate and House of Representatives this autumn.

Lawyers and immigrant advocates working in south Texas this week reported widespread disarray as the federal government scrambled to meet a court-imposed deadline of July 26 for reunifying families separated by immigration officials under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” measures.

Trump’s comments that a strong dollar “puts us at a disadvantage” caused an instant fall in the greenback yesterday and marked another example of the U.S. president commenting directly - and sometimes contradictorily - on the country’s currency.

Jamie McGreever

@ReutersJamie

Trump shoots from the hip on the dollar and Fed, territory most presidents in the modern era usually avoided. Nice graphic from @SaqibReports on Trump's often contradictory dollar comments. https://reut.rs/2O2TNBC

10:39 AM - July 20, 2018

World

Facebook’s WhatsApp is rolling out a global test measure to rein in messages forwarded by users, the messaging app said, after the spread of rumors led to several killings in India and sparked calls for action from authorities.

A South Korean court sentenced former president Park Geun-hye to eight more years in prison after finding her guilty on charges of causing loss of government funds and interfering in a 2016 parliamentary election.

In spite of Trump's claims that Islamic State has been defeated, the militant group is reconstituting itself in parts of Iraq, writes Geneive Abdo for Reuters Commentary. "This reality runs counter to the prevailing view in Washington – a narrative Trump has advanced – that IS has been ousted from Iraq."

A major cyberattack on Singapore’s government health database stole the personal information of about 1.5 million people, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Nadine Awadalla

@nadine_awadalla

Today they opened the mysterious black #sarcophagus everyone went nuts over and we got this gem of a quote: “We’ve opened it and, thank God, the world has not fallen into darkness, I was the first to put my whole head inside the sarcophagus... & I am fine” https://reut.rs/2zR3xM8

9:37 PM - July 19, 2018

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