USA

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Nearly two years ago, Hurricane María exposed the raw dysfunction of Puerto Rico, collapsing long-neglected infrastructure and leaving several thousand dead on Gov. Ricardo Rosselló’s watch. Last week, two of his top former officials were arrested by the FBI on corruption charges.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facebook’s ambitious plan to create a financial eco-system based on a digital currency faces questions from lawmakers, as it’s shadowed by negative comments from President Donald Trump, his treasury secretary and the head of the Federal Reserve.

Congress begins two days of hearings Tuesday on the currency planned by Facebook, to be called Libra, starting with the Senate Banking Committee. Meanwhile, a House Judiciary subcommittee will extend its bipartisan investigation of the market power of Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Tropical Depression Barry spared New Orleans and Baton Rouge from catastrophic flooding, but even as it weakened and moved north through Arkansas, its trailing rain bands swamped parts of Louisiana with up to 17 inches (43 centimeters) of rain and transformed part of the Mississippi Delta into “an ocean.”

As of Monday evening, with the center of the storm about 105 miles (170 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock, the National Weather Service said flash flood watches remained in effect in southeast Texas through the lower Mississippi Valley.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — When President Donald Trump tweeted that four congresswomen should “go back” where they came from, Erika Almiron was reminded of the first time she heard the same comments. She was a new fourth-grader at a predominantly white Italian-Catholic school.

Since then, the daughter of immigrants from Paraguay has heard the remark dozens of times. “I was like, ‘I was born in South Philly, so what do you want me to do?’” said Almiron, now 42 and an immigrant-rights worker in Philadelphia.

UNITED STATES (AP) — Even before President Donald Trump’s racist tweets toward four Democratic congresswomen of color, Americans considered race relations in the United States to be generally bad — and said that Trump has been making them worse.

On Sunday, Trump tweeted that the congresswomen should go back to the “broken and crime infested” countries they came from, despite the fact that all are American citizens and three were born in the U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defiant in the face of widespread criticism, President Donald Trump renewed his belligerent call for four Democratic congresswomen of color to get out of the U.S. “right now,” cementing his position as the most willing U.S. leader in generations to stoke the discord that helped send him to the White House.

Content to gamble that a sizable chunk of the electorate embraces his tweets that have been widely denounced as racist, the president made clear that he has no qualms about exploiting racial divisions once again.

UNITED NATIONS, July15 (APP): A senior Pakistani diplomat has told a U.N. forum that despite economic challenges, Pakistan would continue to work towards achieving the globally agreed sustainable development goals (SDGs) aimed at ending poverty, fighting inequalities and tackling climate change through “innovative, targeted and focused” implementation strategies in all fields.

NEW YORK, Jul 15 (APP): US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, condemned President Donald Trump for telling a group of minority lawmakers to go back to where they came from, saying the “xenophobic” comments reaffirmed that Trump’s plan is about “making America white again.”

“When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ has always been about making America white again,” Pelosi said on Twitter on Sunday.

15 July 2019; AFP: Thousands of undocumented immigrants waited in uncertainty on Sunday, fearful of the nationwide raids promised by President Donald Trump, but there were no immediate signs of any large-scale operations.

Even as news media said the raids were underway, Trump added to the divisive debate on migration, suggesting on Twitter that some Democratic Congresswomen should "go back" to their countries of origin.

15 July 2019; AFP: Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, which is subject to US sanctions over concerns about its ties to the government in Beijing, is planning to make major job cuts at its US operations, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

The layoffs are expected at Huawei's US-based research and development arm, Futurewei Technologies, the paper reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the situation.