Wednesday Morning Briefing: Trump tries to calm political storm over Putin summit

u.s.-russia

President Donald Trump tried to calm a storm over his failure to hold Russia’s Putin accountable for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, saying he misspoke in a joint news conference in Helsinki.

More than half of Americans disapprove of the way Trump is handling relations with Russia, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the summit.

Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, writes about how Trump’s performance in Helsinki is eroding U.S. credibility around the world. “As a diplomat you represent your own complicated country, and all sides understand that,” writes Van Buren. “But from the secretary of state on down, credibility is a crucial tool in getting things done.”

A U.S. grand jury returned an indictment against a Russian woman yesterday, and added a charge accusing her of acting as a Russian government agent while developing ties with American citizens and infiltrating political groups.

united states

Representative Martha Roby, an Alabama Republican who spurned Trump in the 2016 presidential race, appeared headed for a decisive victory in a runoff election against a former Democrat-turned-Trump supporter.

Eight years after Apple introduced the iPad, specially designed tablets are reaching thousands of U.S. prisoners and are helping to keep their relationships alive with people outside of prison. But some advocacy groups say their charges are too high and fear they may be used to replace family visits.

world

Tesla founder Elon Musk apologized to British caver Vern Unsworth for insulting comments he made about him following the rescue of a dozen Thai schoolboys and their football coach from a cave in northern Thailand.

The 12 boys and their soccer coach waved, smiled and offered traditional “wai” greetings in their first public appearance on at a national broadcast in the northern province of Chiang Rai.

Openly gay students at India’s most elite schools, which enjoy a status similar to the Ivy League universities and are a talent breeding ground for firms like Google, have become one of the most high-profile groups challenging a colonial-era law that criminalises homosexuality.

 

Two Reuters journalists have been detained in Myanmar since Dec. 12, 2017. See our full coverage: https://reut.rs/2yPnwus

2:27 AM - July 18, 2018

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