Bhinneka News Online: Wednesday Morning Briefing: Almost half of Americans still think Trump colluded with Russia

Wednesday, 27 March 2019

Wednesday Morning Briefing: Almost half of Americans still think Trump colluded with Russia - Reuters poll

Politics

Nearly half of all Americans still believe President Donald Trump worked with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after Special Counsel Robert Mueller cleared Trump of that allegation found that 48 percent of respondents said they believed “Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election,” down 6 percentage points from last week. Respondents to the poll - which you can see here - also had an appetite to learn more. They might be in luck: U.S. Attorney General William Barr plans to issue a public version of the report in a matter of weeks.

The U.S. House of Representatives failed to override President Donald Trump’s first veto yesterday, leaving in place the “national emergency” he declared last month to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall that Congress has not funded. Just 14 Republicans joined 234 Democrats in voting to override.

U.S. Senate Republicans have defeated the “Green New Deal” resolution that called to move the United States off fossil fuels. Democrats have said the plan, which is backed by most of the party’s presidential candidates, was designed to spur debate during the 2020 campaign on the problem of how to tackle climate change, not to force the party to take sides in a quick vote. But Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell forced a vote before the plan had the chance for a national debate or hearings in Congress.

World

Ukrainians look set to send a comedian with no political experience into a second round run-off against incumbent president Petro Poroshenko when they vote in Sunday’s election. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an actor who plays the role of a humble history schoolteacher who becomes president of Ukraine in a popular TV series, has tapped into an anti-establishment mood among voters in a country that has been exhausted by five years of war and decades of official corruption.

A Saudi court has resumed the trial of prominent women activists facing charges related to their human rights work and contacts with foreign journalists and diplomats. It remains to be seen if Riyadh will bend to international pressure — with the women possibly receiving acquittals or pardons — or pursue harsh sentences in a case critics say has revealed the limits of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s promises to modernize Saudi Arabia.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to indicate a date for quitting today, as the price for getting her twice-defeated Brexit deal ratified. Today is also the day parliament will take control of Brexit decision-making as lawmakers try to select an alternative from a multiple-choice list of options.

India has shot down a satellite in space with an anti-satellite missile, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailing the test as a major breakthrough in its space program. “Space is being turned into a battlefront, making counter-space capabilities critical. In this light, India’s successful 'kill' with an ASAT weapon is significant,” says Brahma Chellaney, a security expert at New Delhi’s Centre of Policy Research.

Reuters Top News

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Two @Reuters journalists have been imprisoned in Myanmar for 471 days. See full coverage: https://reut.rs/2JJqplP

1:34 am - 27 Mar 2019

Business

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Exclusive: U.S. pushes Chinese owner of Grindr to divest the dating app - sources

Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co Ltd is seeking to sell Grindr LLC, the popular gay dating app it has owned since 2016, after a U.S. government national security panel raised concerns about its ownership, according to people familiar with the matter. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has informed Kunlun that its ownership of West Hollywood, California-based Grindr constitutes a national security risk, the two sources said.

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