BitGou: Thursday Morning Briefing: As Trump rewrites public health rules, Pence sees conservative agenda reborn

Politics

Under the direction of Mike Pence and other religious conservatives, the Trump administration is moving to slash funds for teen-pregnancy prevention programs, restrict abortion and strip civil protections for transgender patients. Read the full Reuters special report.

Louisiana’s Democratic governor said he would sign a bill passed earlier in the day to ban abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected. It is the latest legislation in mostly Southern and Midwest states to curb abortion rights. The Louisiana bill was approved by a 79-23 vote of the Republican-controlled Louisiana House of Representatives and had already passed in the state Senate.

In his first public comments since starting the investigation in May 2017, Special Counsel Robert Mueller said Justice Department policy prevented him from bringing charges against a sitting president or filing sealed charges, telling reporters it was “not an option we would consider.” Congressional Democrats are debating whether to try to move ahead with impeachment in the Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives, even though the Republican-controlled Senate would be unlikely to complete the process outlined in the U.S. Constitution for removing a president from office by convicting him.

President Trump said he was unaware of any effort to move the USS John S. McCain that was stationed near the site of his recent speech in Japan. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to Reuters that an initial request had been made to keep the warship out of sight during Trump’s speech but was scrapped by senior Navy officials.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Facebook’s refusal to remove a heavily edited video that attempted to make her look incoherent had convinced her the company knowingly enabled Russian election interference. “When something like Facebook says, ‘I know this is false ... - it’s a lie - but we’re showing it anyway,” Pelosi said at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. “I was giving them the benefit of the doubt on Russia... I thought it was unwittingly, but clearly they wittingly were accomplices and enablers of false information to go across Facebook.”

World

Hungarian rescue officials said there was little chance of finding survivors after a boat carrying South Korean tourists sank on the Danube in Budapest, killing at least seven people and leaving 21 people missing. The boat collided with a much larger luxury passenger boat during a rainstorm late on Wednesday near the parliament building, it capsized and sank with some 30 tourists on board. The cause of the collision was under investigation.

New Zealand unveiled a $2.5-billion spending package under a much-hyped ‘Wellbeing’ budget, prioritizing mental health and alleviating child poverty, but it expects a smaller surplus and slower economic growth over the next year. Much of the excitement around the budget, touted as a world’s first that measures broader living goals, was dampened amid a national furor over hacking accusations after details were leaked ahead of its release. The opposition has called for heads to roll over the blunder.

The United States believes Russia may be conducting low-level nuclear tests, said a U.S. intelligence official, while the head of a body monitoring a global nuclear treaty said there was no sign of such violations by Moscow. However, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said, “The United States believes that Russia probably is not adhering to its nuclear testing moratorium in a manner consistent with the ‘zero-yield’ standard.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was too ill to appear via video link from a British prison in a hearing on an extradition request from the United States, his lawyer said. The U.S. is seeking the extradition of Assange, who faces a total of 18 U.S. criminal counts and decades in prison if convicted. “He’s in fact far from well,” Assange’s lawyer told Reuters. A judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court added: “He’s not very well.”

Sponsored by IBM: Another security tool? Pass. You don’t need new tools. You need new rules. IBM Security creates a connected unified ecosystem that works better together. So, you’re more secure. Meet the new rules of security

Business

Exclusive: Tesla woes send Panasonic's U.S. solar cells to Philippines

Most of the solar cells made by Panasonic at Tesla’s New York manufacturing plant are being purchased by H.R.D. Singapore’s factories in the Philippines, a chief supplier of panels to Japanese eco-homebuilder Ichijo, two sources familiar with the arrangement said. Until now, the identity of the buyer of the Panasonic cells, which Panasonic is producing at the Tesla facility under an agreement struck in 2016, has not been published.

4 min read

China willing to meet reasonable rare earth demand from other countries

China is willing to meet reasonable demand for rare earths from other countries, but it would be unacceptable that countries using Chinese rare earths to manufacture products would turn around and suppress China, its commerce ministry said.

1 Min Read

From sky farms to lab-grown shrimp, Singapore eyes food future

Singapore is an unlikely place for a farming revolution. With tiered fish farms, vegetable plots atop office buildings and lab-grown shrimp, the island aims to beef up its own food production and rely less on imports to feed its 5.6 million people. The challenge is space.

5 min read

Hydrogen-powered flying vehicle touted as Southern California traffic tonic

Developers of a multi-rotor hover craft billed as the first flying vehicle to be powered by hydrogen fuel cells unveiled a full-scale model on Wednesday in Southern California, in a show-and-tell that raised some eyebrows but never left the ground.

4 min read