BitGou: Tuesday Morning Briefing: Trump says vote on healthcare can wait until after 2020 election

Top News

President Donald Trump said he was willing to wait until after the 2020 presidential election to get Congress to vote on a new healthcare plan, giving Republicans time to develop a proposal to replace Obamacare. Trump’s vow last week that the Republican Party will be “the party of healthcare” caught his fellow Republicans off guard after the Justice Department backed a lawsuit intended to wipe out Obamacare, which has helped millions of Americans get health insurance.

Mexico will help to regulate the flow of Central American migrants passing through its territory to the United States, but the root causes behind the phenomenon must be tackled, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said. The Trump administration is intensifying measures to curb the flow of Central American asylum seekers crossing into the United States from Mexico, officials said, including sending more people back to Mexico to wait for their asylum claims to be heard by U.S. courts.

Members of the United States women’s soccer squad have told Reuters their lawsuit against the national federation alleging gender discrimination is not just about wages but also improving the sport for women participating in it at all levels.

Senator Bernie Sanders is against expanding the nine-member Supreme Court, a proposal some liberal activists have advocated to effectively reverse President Donald Trump’s appointment of conservative judges. “My worry is that the next time the Republicans are in power they will do the same thing, I think that is not the ultimate solution,” Sanders said in response to a question at a forum on Monday organized by public employee unions and other liberal groups.

The Black Hawk military helicopter flew over Iowa, giving a senior U.S. agriculture official and U.S. senator an eyeful of the flood damage below, where yellow corn from ruptured metal silos spilled out into the muddy water. And there’s nothing the U.S. government can do about the millions of bushels of damaged crops here under current laws or disaster-aid programs, U.S. Agriculture Under Secretary Bill Northey told a Reuters reporter who joined the flight.

U.S. officials told their Turkish counterparts they will not receive further shipments of F-35 related equipment needed to prepare for the arrival of the stealthy jet, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters. Marking the first concrete U.S. step to block delivery of the jet to the NATO ally in light of Ankara’s planned purchase of a Russian missile defense system.

Special Report

A group of American hackers who once worked for U.S. intelligence agencies helped the UAE spy on a BBC host, the chairman of Al Jazeera and other Arab media figures during a tense 2017 confrontation with Qatar.

World

Two weeks after a suicide bombing in Kashmir in February killed 40 Indian policemen, a Facebook user called Avi Dandiya posted a live video in which he played a recording of a call purportedly involving India’s home minister, the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and an unidentified woman. Within 24 hours, one of Facebook’s fact-checking partners in India, BOOM, exposed Dandiya’s video as fake. By the time Facebook took down the post, it had received more than 2.5 million views. The video underlines how social media companies are struggling with fake news in India despite saying they’ve taken steps to tackle the menace ahead of India’s general election, which starts on April 11.

Two Israeli researchers said they had discovered a network of hundreds of fake Twitter accounts that promoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and attacked his political rivals, a week before a national election. No direct connection had been found between the network and Netanyahu or his right-wing Likud party, said the report by the researchers, who described their work as part of a project aimed at ridding social networks of manipulative practices.

Nearly three years since the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU in a shock referendum result, British politics is in crisis and it is unclear how, when or if it will ever leave the club it first joined in 1973. British Prime Minister Theresa May will chair several hours of cabinet meetings in an attempt to plot a course out of the Brexit maelstrom as she comes under pressure to either leave the European Union without a deal or call an election.

Sponsored by Wharton Executive Education: Advanced Finance Program Immerse yourself in the Advanced Finance Program at Wharton. Take six finance programs in two years. Upon completion, gain Wharton alumni status. Learn more

Reuters Top News

@Reuters

Two @Reuters journalists have been imprisoned in Myanmar for 477 days. See full coverage: https://reut.rs/2K1gwA6

3:10 AM - 2 Apr 2019

Business

World shares perch near 6-month high, oil chases $70 a barrel

World stocks hovered just under a six-month high on Tuesday as Brent neared $70 a barrel for the first time since November, Brexit fatigue sapped sterling and the dollar shows signs of gaining strength again.

5 min read

Boeing to submit 737 MAX software upgrade 'in the coming weeks'

Boeing said it planned to submit a proposed software enhancement package for the grounded 737 MAX in “the coming weeks” after the company had previously said it planned to deliver the fix for government approval by last week.

5 Min Read

Apple, luxury brands drop China prices as VAT cuts take effect

Apple and other consumer brands lowered prices for their products in China as a cut in the country’s value-added tax (VAT) rate came into effect from April 1. Price tags for products listed on Apple’s China website were lowered on Monday morning, including a discount of up to 500 yuan ($74.44) for some of its latest iPhone models.

2 min read