U.S. President Donald Trump contended Sunday that four minority Democratic congresswomen he has been feuding with are not “capable of loving our Country.”

“They should apologize to America (and Israel) for the horrible (hateful) things they have said,” Trump said on Twitter. “They are destroying the Democrat Party, but are weak & insecure people who can never destroy our great Nation!”

I don’t believe the four Congresswomen are capable of loving our Country. They should apologize to America (and Israel) for the horrible (hateful) things they have said. They are destroying the Democrat Party, but are weak & insecure people who can never destroy our great Nation!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2019

For days now, Trump has assailed Congresswomen Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayana Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, first telling them they should “go back” to their countries and “fix things” in their homelands before telling the U.S. what it ought to do. All of them are U.S. citizens, three of them by birth and Somali refugee Omar by naturalization.

Democrats and some Republicans have sharply criticized Trump’s week-old remarks and the U.S. House of Representatives condemned them as “racist,” but the U.S. leader has continued to assail the four women, all newcomers to Congress in January.

In turn, the lawmakers have attacked him, with Omar saying, “I believe he is fascist.”

The ongoing verbal warfare reverberated on the Sunday news talk television shows.

Mercedes Schlapp, a Trump campaign aide, defended the president, telling ABC News, “I have worked with President Trump for two years and he is not a racist. He is a compassionate man whose policies have focused on the minority community.”

Trump immigration adviser Stephen Miller, told Fox News that Trump’s critical remarks of U.S. policies during his 2016 campaign were made out of love for America.

But he said “there’s a huge difference” between Trump’s credo of promoting “America first” and the lawmakers’ ideology “that runs down America.”

Congressman Elijah Cummings, one of several House committee chairmen investigating Trump and his administration’s policies, told ABC he believes Trump is a racist.

“Yes, no doubt about it,” Cummings contended. “I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Cummings says the four congresswomen targeted by Trump “love their country” and want to move closer to the “more perfect union that our founding fathers talked about. When you disagree with the president, suddenly you’re a bad person.”

He concluded, “Our allegiance is not to the president. Our allegiance is to the Constitution of the United States of America and the American people.”

…

British officials are drawing up plans to target Iran with sanctions for its seizing of a British-flagged oil tanker in the Strait off Hormuz, and it may urge European Union countries to reimpose sanctions that were lifted in 2016 as part of Tehran’s agreement to curb its nuclear program.

The British government is under strong pressure from lawmakers to act decisively in the sharply escalating diplomatic quarrel between the two countries, but there’s growing domestic criticism in the House of Commons about the lack of naval protection for British tankers in the Strait.

The outgoing British Prime Minister, Theresa May, is being blamed by some parliamentarians and military officials for failing to agree to a system of joint naval patrols the U.S. was urging Britain and other European navies to establish with American forces. Downing Street took the view that if Britain joined an American-proposed “coalition off navies” it would be seen as endorsing President Donald Trump’s hard-line, sanctions-led approach to Iran, say British and U.S. officials.

British defense minister Tobias Ellwood told British broadcasters Sunday that Downing Street is is looking at imposing sanctions against Iran over the seizing of the British-flagged and Swedish-owned Stena Impero and its 23-strong crew. Sanctions could include the freezing of Iranian asset. Asked about sanctions, Ellwood said: “We are going to be looking at a series of options.”

On Sunday, too, new audio recordings were released of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Royal Navy both giving instructions to to the Britain-flagged tanker, with the Iranians ordering the vessel’s captain to change course. One Iranian officer can be heard saying, “If you obey, you will be safe.”

A British officer from the frigate HMS Montrose can be heard saying, “This is British warship F236. I reiterate, that as you are conducting transit passage in a recognized international strait, under international law your passage must not be impaired, impeded, obstructed or hampered.”

HMS Montrose was an hour away from the tanker as it was being swarmed by agile, high-speed Iranian small boats and a helicopter.

Later the British officer can be heard demanding from the Iranians in a dueling conversation to “please confirm that you are not intending to violate international law by unlawfully attempting to board the MV Stena.”

The British-registered ship’s crew is made up of Indian, Latvian, Filipino and Russian members.

As reports emerged in London of likely British retaliation, the Iranian ambassador to Britain, Hamid Baeidinejad, took to Twitter to warn the British not to escalate the quarrel. 

UK government should contain those domestic political forces who want to escalate existing tension between Iran and the UK well beyond the issue of ships. This is quite dangerous and unwise at a sensitive time in the region. Iran however is firm and ready for different scenarios.

— Hamid Baeidinejad (@baeidinejad) July 21, 2019

The European Union has warned the seizing of the British-flagged tanker “brings risks of further escalation.” But some European officials are critical of the British for the impounding of an Iranian tanker loaded with oil destined for Syria in the waters off Gibraltar earlier this month, saying while it was a legal seizure, it wasn’t “politically smart.”

Iran suggested the seizing of the Stena Impero was in retaliation for Britain’s detaining of the Iranian-owned Grace 1 tanker — despite initially claiming the British-flagged vessel was diverted and seized because it collided with an Iranian fishing boat. A spokesperson for Iran’s Guardian Council said “the rule of reciprocal action is well-known in international law.”

Iranian officials appeared to be trying Sunday to exploit divisions between the EU and Britain over the Gibraltar incident. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, again reiterated Tehran’s contention that the U.S. had pushed Britain into a confrontation with Iran, blaming mainly U.S. national security adviser John Bolton. 

Make no mistake:

Having failed to lure @realDonaldTrump into War of the Century, and fearing collapse of his #B_Team, @AmbJohnBolton is turning his venom against the UK in hopes of dragging it into a quagmire.

Only prudence and foresight can thwart such ploys.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) July 21, 2019

As British officials consider their next moves, a former head of the Royal Navy, Lord West, blasted Theresa May’s government, for failing to protect British tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

Writing in Britain’s Observer newspaper, he said the government should have done much more to protect British ships, arguing that those responsible were distracted by the race between Boris Johnson and the current British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt to succeed May as prime minister. That race concludes Tuesday, with Johnson seen as the probable victor.

Lord West urged the new prime minister to ignore Brexit and focus fully on the crisis or risk a descent into war.

On Saturday, Hunt, the foreign secretary, said he’d spoken to his Iranian counterpart, to express “extreme disappointment” over Iran’s actions. Hunt said the tanker had been seized in Omani waters in “clear contravention of international law”, and denounced the tanker’s detention as “totally and utterly unacceptable.”

There is growing concern in London, too, about whether Johnson is up to the task of handling the rapidly escalating crisis. A former British foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said it was a dangerous moment: “This is a critical test for the new prime minister which will put him and his team on their mettle.”

Alistair Burt, another former foreign office minister, says Johnson would already have had enough major problems to contend with, including Brexit, without the confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz. But now he will have “a fully formed international crisis sitting in the in-tray marked Iran.”

Johnson was strongly criticized for his handling when foreign secretary of the Iranian imprisonment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman and media worker for Reuters, who Iran detained, accusing her of spying. Her family say Johnson worsened her plight by misspeaking by saying she was in Iran working as a journalist, when in fact she was in the country to visit family.

…

MIAMI — American crocodiles, once headed toward extinction, are thriving at an unusual spot — the canals surrounding a South Florida nuclear plant. 

Last week, 73 crocodile hatchlings were rescued by a team of specialists at Florida Power & Light’s Turkey Point nuclear plant and dozens more are expected to emerge soon. 

Turkey Point’s 168-mile (270-kilometer) man-made canals serve as the home to several hundred crocodiles, where a team of specialists working for FPL monitors and protects them from hunting and climate change. 

From January to April, Michael Lloret, an FPL wildlife biologist and crocodile specialist, helps create nests for the creatures. Once the hatchlings are reared and left by the mother, the team captures them. They are measured and tagged with microchips to observe their development. Lloret then relocates them to increase survival rates. 

“We entice crocodiles to come in to the habitats FPL created,” Lloret said. “We clear greenery on the berms so that the crocodiles can nest. Because of rising sea levels wasting nests along the coasts, Turkey Point is important for crocodiles to continue.” 

Now ‘threatened,’ not ‘endangered’

The canals are one of three major U.S. habitats for crocodiles, where 25% of the 2,000 American crocodiles live. The FPL team has been credited for moving the classification of crocodiles on the Endangered Species Act to “threatened” from “endangered” in 2007. The team has tagged 7,000 babies since it was established in 1978. 

Temperature determines the crocodiles’ sex: the hotter it is, the more likely males are hatched. Lloret said this year’s hatchlings are male-heavy because of last month’s weather — it was the hottest June on record globally. 

Because hatchlings released are at the bottom of the food chain, only a small fraction of them survive to be adults. Lloret said they at least have a fighting chance at Turkey Point, away from humans who hunted them to near-extinction out of greed and fear, even though attacks are rare. Only one crocodile attack has ever been recorded in the U.S. — a couple were both bitten while swimming in a South Florida canal in 2014, but both survived. 

“American crocodiles have a bad reputation, when they are just trying to survive,” Lloret said. “They are shy and want nothing to do with us. Humans are too big to be on their menu.” 

…

TOKYO — Japanese voters cast ballots Sunday in an upper house election, with Shinzo Abe’s ruling bloc looking to protect its majority and keep on track plans to amend the country’s pacifist constitution. 
 
Abe, 64, who is on course to become Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, is also hoping to shore up his mandate ahead of a crucial consumption tax hike later this year, along with trade negotiations with Washington. 
 
Opinion polls suggest his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partner Komeito are likely to win a majority, mostly because of a lackluster opposition. 
 
Sunday’s vote is for half the seats in the House of Councilors — the less powerful house of parliament — and polling stations across the country open at 7 a.m. (2200 GMT Saturday). 
 
The vote outcome is expected to become clear shortly after the polls close at 8 p.m., with pollsters suggesting turnout could be lower than 50 percent,  significantly less than usual. 

‘Disarray’ in opposition camp
 
Abe’s ruling coalition is forecast to win a solid majority of the 124 seats contested in the election, according to pre-election surveys. 
 
The two parties control 70 seats in the half of the chamber that is not being contested, meaning the projections put them on track to maintain their overall majority in the body. 
 
“Abe’s strength is largely based on passive support resulting from disarray in the opposition camp and a lack of rivals,” Shinichi Nishikawa, professor of political science at Meiji University in Tokyo, told AFP. 
 

A win means Abe should be able to stay in power until November, when he will break the service record of Taro Katsura, a revered politician who served three times as premier between 1901 and 1913. 
 
During campaigns, Abe’s ruling coalition has sought to win voter support for a rise in the nation’s consumption tax to 10 percent later this year as part of efforts to ease swelling social security costs in the “ultra-aged” country. 
 
Abe is also hoping that his coalition and a loose group of conservatives from smaller opposition parties can grab a two-thirds majority in the upper house, giving him the support to move ahead with plans to amend the constitution’s provisions on the military. 
 
“This is an election to decide whether to pick parties who take responsibility for firm discussions on the constitution,” Abe told voters in a campaign speech earlier this month. 

Self-defense provisions
 
Abe vowed to “clearly stipulate the role of the Self-Defense Forces in the constitution,” which prohibits Japan from waging war and maintaining a military. 
 
The provisions, imposed by the U.S. forces after World War II, are popular in the public at large, but reviled by nationalists like Abe, who see them as outdated and punitive. 
 
Local media predict that forces in favor of revising the constitution, led by Abe’s LDP, are likely to win close to 85 of the seats being contested, giving them a “supermajority” in the chamber. 
 
“Since the ruling coalition is widely expected to win the election, attention is now focused on whether the pro-revision forces can win a two-thirds majority,” Nishikawa said. 
 
But even if Abe secures it, any constitutional revision also requires approval in a national referendum, a result that is far from guaranteed. 

…

ABUJA — Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari condemns the killing of 37 people by bandits in the northwestern state of Sokoto, his spokesman said Saturday in a statement. 

Armed gangs have killed hundreds of people in northwest Nigeria this year and forced at least 20,000 to flee to neighboring Niger, adding to security problems in a country also struggling with an Islamist insurgency in the northeast and clashes between farmers and herders in central states. 

“President Muhammadu Buhari strongly condemns the killing of 37 innocent people by bandits in the Goronyo Local Government Area of Sokoto State,” the presidency said in the statement. 

Local media said the attacks took place late Friday. 

Troops have been deployed to the areas hit in the latest flashpoint, the presidency statement said. Military and police have been dispatched to tackle criminal gangs blamed for a spate of killings and kidnappings over the last year. 

Buhari, a former military ruler, began his second four-year term in May after winning a presidential election in February. 

During his campaign he vowed to improve security but — against the backdrop of the northwest’s wave of banditry, high-profile kidnappings nationwide and attacks by Islamist insurgents — he has reiterated that it remains a priority. 

…

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan meets with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday in the White House. VOA’s Aman Azhar spoke to experts and Pakistani residents in United States about their expectations for the visit and filed this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.

…

PANAMA CITY — Panama on Saturday became the first Central American nation to ban single-use plastic bags to try to curb pollution on its beaches and help tackle what the United Nations has identified as one of the world’s biggest environmental challenges. 

The isthmus nation of roughly 4 million people joined more than 60 other countries that have totally or partially banned single-use plastic bags, or have introduced taxes to dissuade their use, including Chile and Colombia in the region. 

Supermarkets, pharmacies and retailers in Panama must stop using traditional polyethylene plastic bags immediately, while wholesale stores will have until 2020 to conform to the policy approved in 2018. Fines can be applied for non-compliance but there are exceptions for the use of plastic bags for sanitary reasons, such as with raw food. 

On the streets of Panama City, signs with the phrase “less bags, more life” reminded passers-by that the measure had gone into effect. 

“This seems like a good measure because you avoid continuing to pollute the streets and the community,” said Victoria Gomez, 42, a secretary in downtown Panama City. 

Birds, turtles, seals, whales and fish often become entangled in or ingest the remnants of plastic bags in Latin America, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. Along Panama’s coast, it is common to see plastic waste littering 
beaches, especially near populated areas. 

Given projected growth in consumption, without new anti-pollution policies, oceans are expected by 2050 to contain more plastics than fish by weight, according to the New Plastics Economy report published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in 2016. 

The report also found that the entire plastics industry would consume 20% of total oil production by then. 

…

Many victims of an arson attack on an animation studio in the western Japanese city of Kyoto were young with bright futures, some joining only in April, the company president said Saturday, as the death told climbed to 34.

Thursday’s attack on Kyoto Animation, famous in Japan and overseas for its series and movies, was the worst mass killing in two decades in a country with some of the world’s lowest crime rates.

Company president Hideaki Hatta said many of the victims were young women.

“Some of them joined us just in April. And on the eighth of July, I gave them a small, but their first, bonus,” he said. “People who had a promising future lost their lives. I don’t know what to say. Rather than feeling anger, I just don’t have words,” Hatta said.

Fifteen of the victims were in their 20s and 11 were in their 30s, public broadcaster NHK said. Six were in their 40s and one was at least 60. The age of the latest victim, a man who died in hospital, was not known. The names of the victims have not been disclosed.

The studio had about 160 employees with an average age of 33, according to its website.

Police have confirmed the identity of the suspect as Shinji Aoba, but have declined to comment further.

Aoba had been convicted of robbery and carried out the attack because he believed his novel had been plagiarized, NHK and other media have said.

But Hatta said he had no idea about any plagiarism claim, adding he had not seen any correspondence from the suspect.

Police have not arrested Aoba, as he is being treated for heavy burns, NHK said, although police have taken the unusual step of releasing his name.

Two days after the fire, animation fans gathered near the burned studio to add to a growing pile of flowers, drinks and other offerings.

Bing Xie, 25, a Chinese student at Kyoto University, said she could not forgive the arsonist.

“The criminal who does this seems to have been mentally disturbed, but I can’t forgive him. The young people at Kyoto Animation were beautiful and warm and it is hard to accept they are gone.”

Police guarded the site as investigators, some on the roof near where many died in a connecting stairwell, examined the blackened building. The smell of smoke lingered over the quiet suburban neighborhood.

Hatta said the building needed to be torn down because it was so badly damaged.

Tributes to the victims lit up social media, with world leaders and Apple Inc.’s chief executive offering condolences. The hashtag #PrayforKyoAni, as the studio is known among fans, has become popular.
 

…

Officials in Hawaii said Friday that they will not call up additional National Guard troops or use force on peaceful telescope protesters blocking access to the state’s highest peak.

Gov. David Ige said that his priority is to keep everyone in the community safe, including the activists at the base of Mauna Kea. The 80 guard members on the Big Island since the start of the protests will remain, state officials said.

“We will not be utilizing tear gas, as some of the rumors have been (saying),” Ige said. “We are looking for the best way forward without hurting anyone.”

The governor said last week that National Guard units would be used to transport personnel and equipment as well as to enforce road closures.

Ige said Friday no more troops would be called in to the Big Island, but he stopped short of removing an emergency proclamation that he enacted Wednesday. The emergency order broadened the state’s authority to remove protesters from the mountain, including the use of National Guard for security.

Big Island Mayor Harry Kim, who met with Ige Friday morning as about 800 to 1,200 activists gathered on the mountain, said he hopes the protesters and state officials will take some time to discuss a better way forward.

“We all need to step back a little bit,” Kim said. “This is still our home, this is still our family. On both sides.”

Presidential candidates comment

The move comes after some notable politicians weighed in on the issue Friday.

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii followed fellow Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in supporting protesters.

She said in a statement that Ige should withdraw the emergency declaration and sit down with protesters to find a peaceful way forward.

“Trust must be earned — it is wrong that state leaders have approved the development of a new telescope on a new site on Mauna Kea, without first ensuring the timely removal of decommissioned facilities along with full restoration of those sites,” Gabbard said. “This failure and a history of broken promises has resulted in the standoff that we are seeing today.”

Earlier in the day, Sanders said in a tweet that has since been deleted: “We must guarantee native people’s right to self-determination and their right to protest. I stand with Native Hawaiians who are peacefully demonstrating to protect their sacred mountain of Mauna Kea.”

Sanders’ campaign didn’t immediately respond to an email asking why the tweet was deleted.

Protesters brace for arrests

Protest leader Kaho’okahi Kanuha said protesters have been bracing for law enforcement to show up in force ever since the governor signed the emergency proclamation. That was the day officers arrested 34 protesters.

…

The Trump administration has told federally funded family planning clinics it is considering a delay in enforcing a controversial rule that bars them from referring women for abortions. That comes after clinics had vowed defiance.

Two people attending meetings this week between the Department of Health and Human Services and clinic representatives told The Associated Press that officials said the clinics should be given more time to comply with the rule’s new requirements. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly before any decision has been announced.

HHS said Friday that its policy has not changed.

Rule announced, to take effect immediately

On Monday, agency officials announced that the government would immediately begin enforcing the rule, catching the clinics off-guard and prompting an outcry. Planned Parenthood said its 400 clinics would defy the requirement. Some states, including Illinois and Maryland, backed the clinics. The family planning program serves about 4 million women a year, and many low-income women get basic health care from the clinics.

The administration’s abortion restrictions, cheered by social and religious conservatives, are being challenged in court by groups representing the clinics, several states, and the American Medical Association. The litigation is still in its early stages. An enforcement pause may allow for a clearer indication of where the court cases are headed.

The people who spoke to AP said that HHS Office of Population Affairs Director Diane Foley told representatives of the clinics the administration is considering rewinding the clock on enforcement. Instead of requiring immediate compliance, the administration would issue a new timetable and start the process at that point.

Some requirements would be effective in 60 days, others in 120 days, and others would take effect next year.

The clinics had complained to HHS that the agency gave them no guidance on how to comply with the new restrictions, while expecting them to do so immediately.

No abortion referrals

The rule bars the family planning clinics from referring women for abortions. Abortion could still be discussed with patients, but only physicians or clinicians with advanced training could have those conversations. All pregnant patients would have to be referred for prenatal care, whether or not they request it. Minors would be encouraged to involve their parents in family planning decisions.

Under the rule, facilities that provide family planning services as well as abortions would have to strictly separate finances and physical space.

Known as Title X, the family-planning program funds a network of clinics, many operated by Planned Parenthood affiliates. The clinics also provide basic health services, including screening for cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. The program distributes about $260 million a year in grants to clinics, and those funds cannot be used to pay for abortions.

The family planning rule is part of a series of Trump administration efforts to remake government policy on reproductive health to please conservatives who are a key part of its political base.

Other regulations tangled up in court would allow employers to opt out of offering free birth control to women workers on the basis of religious or moral objections, and grant health care professionals wider leeway to opt out of procedures that offend their religious or moral scruples.

Legal procedure

Abortion is a legal medical procedure, but federal laws prohibit the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman.

Planned Parenthood is also the nation’s leading abortion provider, and abortion opponents see the family-planning money as a subsidy, even if federal funds cannot be used to pay for abortions.

Planned Parenthood is in the midst of a leadership upheaval, after its board abruptly ousted the organization’s president this week.

Leana Wen, a physician, had sought to reposition Planned Parenthood as a health care provider. In her resignation letter, she said the organization’s board has determined the top priority should be to “double down on abortion rights advocacy.”
 

…

In the Spanish colonial fortress that serves as his official residence, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello is under siege.

Motorcyclists, celebrities, horse enthusiasts and hundreds of thousands of ordinary Puerto Ricans have swarmed outside La Fortaleza (The Fort) in Old San Juan this week, demanding Rossello resign over a series of leaked online chats insulting women, political opponents and even victims of Hurricane Maria. 

Rossello, the telegenic 40-year-old son of a former governor, has dropped his normally intense rhythm of public appearances and gone into relatively long periods of near-silence in the media, intensifying questions about his future.

For much of his 2½ years in office, Rossello has given three or four lengthy news conferences a week, comfortably fielding question after question in Spanish and English from the local and international press. And that’s on top of public appearances, one-on-one interviews and televised meetings with visiting politicians and members of his administration. 

But since July 11, when Rossello cut short a family vacation in France and returned home to face the first signs of what has become an island-wide movement to oust him, the governor has made four appearances, all but one in highly controlled situations. 

New protests began Friday afternoon, with unionized workers organizing a march to La Fortaleza from the nearby waterfront. 

Horseback riders join the march

Horseback riders joined them with a self-declared cavalry march, while hundreds of other people came from around the city and surrounding areas.  A string of smaller events was on the agenda across the island over the weekend, followed by what many expected to be a massive protest on Monday. 

The chorus calling for Rossello’s resignation was joined Friday by Puerto Rico’s non-voting member of Congress, Jenniffer Gonzalez; U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida; and New York Congresswomen Nydia Velazquez and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. 

The crisis has even cut back Rossello’s affable online presence. The governor normally started every day by tweeting “Good morning!” to his followers around 5 a.m. The last such bright-and-early message came on July 8. The tweets from his account have dwindled to a trickle since then, and each one is met by a flood of often-abusive responses from Puerto Ricans demanding he resign. 

Rossello’s secretary of public affairs, Anthony Maceira, told reporters Friday that the governor was in La Fortaleza working on signing laws and filling posts emptied by the resignations of fellow members of the leaked chat group. 

Political party meeting planned

The head of Rossello’s pro-statehood political party said a meeting of its directors had been convened for coming days, although the agenda was not disclosed beyond “addressing every one of the complaints of our colleagues.” 

Rossello offered a press conference on July 11 to address the arrest of two of his former department heads on federal corruption charges. He also asked the people of Puerto Rico to forgive him for a profanity-laced and at times misogynistic online chat with nine other male members of his administration, short selections of which had leaked to local media. Two days later, at least 889 pages of the chat were published by Puerto Rico’s award-winning Center for Investigative Journalism, and things got much, much worse for Rossello. 

In the chats on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, Rossello calls one New York female politician of Puerto Rican background a “whore,” describes another as a “daughter of a bitch” and makes fun of an obese man he posed with in a photo. The chat also contains vulgar references to Puerto Rican star Ricky Martin’s homosexuality and a series of emojis of a raised middle finger directed at a federal control board overseeing the island’s finances.

Asks for forgiveness

The next day, Sunday, Rossello appeared in a San Juan church and asked the congregation for forgiveness, without informing the press. The church broadcasts its services online, however, and his remarks became public. On Monday, July 15, Rossello gave a notably non-confrontational interview to a salsa music radio station. The governor’s spokesman said the questions had been “negotiated” between Rossello’s press team and the station. That night, thousands swarmed Old San Juan to demand his resignation.

On July 16, Rossello held a press conference and faced aggressive questioning about the chat scandal and the corruption arrests. Later that day, an ally tweeted a photo of Rossello embracing Wilfredo Santiago, an obese man whom the governor had mocked in one of the most infamous sections of the chat. 

Since then, it’s been silence. There have been a handful of tweets, press releases and statements, some saying he won’t resign but mostly about purportedly routine meetings of administration officials.

His official spokespeople aren’t answering many questions, and even his whereabouts are mostly unknown.  

Raised in the public eye

Rossello was raised in the public eye, as the youngest son of Pedro Rossello, who served as governor from 1993 to 2001. One of Puerto Rico’s most charismatic and controversial governors, the elder Rossello launched a string of large-scale infrastructure projects that swelled the public debt and ensuing bankruptcy that his son has inherited. 

Known widely as Ricky, the younger Rossello started his political career in his father’s pro-statehood New Progressive Party. Trained in biomechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Michigan and Duke University, he launched his campaign for governor in 2015 with little previous history of public service. 

Deflecting questions about whether he owed his success to his connections, Rossello portrayed himself as an affable technocrat with solutions to Puerto Rico’s debt and crumbling infrastructure, and by less than 3% of the total votes cast defeated David Bernier of the Popular Democratic Party, which advocates greater Puerto Rican autonomy from the mainland United States. 

Until now, Rossello’s greatest challenge was Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm that struck Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, 2017, destroying the island’s power and communications systems. Rossello came under heavy criticism for mismanaging the crisis, particularly for understating the deaths from the storm. While some of his deputies were vilified, Rossello seemed to emerge relatively unscathed, perhaps because of his friendly and non-confrontational manner with critics, opponents and journalists alike.  

Shares family pictures online

The father of two young children, he often posts their photos online, along with images of his wife and their two rescue dogs, a Siberian husky and a Yorkshire terrier. Rossello once halted a press conference to help local journalists move their equipment out of the rain. 

Among the greatest shocks of the leaked chats for many Puerto Ricans was the puncturing of that image of low-key charm by the gross misogyny of online conversations.  

“He was making an effort, carrying out his governor’s role,” said Jessica Castro, a 38-year-old San Juan resident attending a Friday evening protest with her family. “He was mocking everyone behind their backs, the people who believed in him. People are really disillusioned. He’s got to go.”

…

The Trump administration is considering more dramatic cuts to the U.S. refugee program, with one official suggesting the White House not allow any refugees into the country in the coming fiscal year.

In a Politico report released Thursday, government officials from several federal agencies attended a meeting last week and discussed several options that included a ceiling of 10,000 — well below the current refugee ceiling of 30,000, which is already an all-time low for the program.

The U.S. resettled 23,190 refugees since the beginning of fiscal 2019 last October. With 2½ months remaining until the count resets, the U.S. is on track to fall short of this year’s cap, according to U.S. State Department data.

Since the so-called “refugee ceiling” is an upper limit, and not a quota, the government is not required to meet the annual admissions number.

Multiple figures

Scott Arbeiter, president of World Relief, one of the primary refugee resettlement nongovernmental organizations in the U.S., said he has heard multiple figures proposed for the coming fiscal year, all well below the program’s historical annual threshold of around 60,000 to 70,000.

In President Barack Obama’s last year two years in office, his administration made a concerted effort to increase the number of admitted refugees, with a particular focus on Syrians fleeing conflict and persecution.

And since the U.S. president is the one who ultimately makes the final decision when it comes to the number of refugee admissions, President Donald Trump has leeway to further reduce the total allowed.

“The president hasn’t made an actual decision, that won’t happen till October. But I suspect they’re testing the waters a bit to see if, in fact, the public will respond to this, and if there will be any public outrage,” Arbeiter told VOA. “So it is a proposed number, it is not a final number, but a number anywhere between zero, and we’ve heard 3,000, 7,000 10,000, but anywhere in that range, what it effectively does is it closes the door on refugees, and effectively constitutes a total ban on refugees.”

Earlier ban attempts

Trump repeatedly attempted a ban on refugees with multiple executive orders on travel during his first year in office, citing “national security” concerns.

Those worries, however, were not substantiated by data and no scientific study demonstrates a correlation between refugee admissions and elevated crime or security risks.

Each year, the president makes an annual determination, after appropriate consultation with Congress, regarding the refugee admissions ceiling for the following fiscal year. That determination is expected to be made before the start of fiscal 2020 on Oct. 1, 2019.

The U.S. State Department is one of the leading agencies involved in the deliberation process with the White House over refugee admissions. In an emailed statement Friday, a spokesperson reiterated the president makes the decision on the ceiling every year “after appropriate consultation with Congress.”

Beyond that, however, the spokesperson said the State Department would “not discuss internal and interagency deliberations or communications involved in such deliberations.”

Last year, however, the White House was criticized by members of Congress after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the fiscal 2019 cap would be 30,000, before the legally required meetings with Capitol Hill lawmakers happened.
 

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