Today In News: June 29, 2017

Today In News:

Courtesy of TheWeek

• A scaled-back version of President Donald Trump’s travel ban took effect Thursday evening. The new rules, the product of months of legal wrangling, aren’t so much an outright ban as a tightening of already-tough visa policies affecting citizens from six Muslim-majority countries. 

• Senate Republicans wrapped up their work week in Washington Thursday without a clear deal on how to move forward on their stalled Obamacare repeal legislation.

• Senate Republican leaders considered keeping one of former President Barack Obama’s big tax increases on wealthier Americans and using the money to fatten proposed subsidies for the poor in a bid to placate moderate GOP lawmakers and salvage their struggling health care bill.

• Trump’s tweets aimed at MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski revived concerns about his views of women, drawing bipartisan howls of outrage and leaving fellow Republicans beseeching him: Stop, please just stop. In a city where civility already is in short supply and Trump is struggling for any support he can get for his proposals on health care, immigration and other controversial issues. 

• The White House offered an unapologetic defense Thursday of President Trump’s tweets attacking MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski during a contentious televised press briefing. Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was grilled over whether Trump’s inflammatory tweet was beneath the dignity of the presidency, fueled a hostile political environment and set a bad example of how women should be treated by powerful men.

• The number of medical referrals from Gaza that the PA passes on to Israel has dropped, leaving patients needing urgent care. For the two million Palestinians in the impoverished Strip, a difficult-to-obtain Israeli exit permit is required for them to leave and be treated in Israel or the occupied territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

• The state of Hawaii on Thursday filed a court challenge to the Trump administration's limitations on travelers from six Muslim-majority nations.

• China has built new military facilities on islands in the South China Sea, a move that could raise tensions with Washington, which has accused Beijing of militarizing the vital waterway. New satellite images show missile shelters and radar and communications facilities being built on the Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi Reefs in the Spratly Islands.

• U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next week at a summit in Germany that brings two world leaders whose political fortunes have become intertwined face-to-face for the first time.

• With anti-Islamic State group forces on the offensive in both the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa, Iraq’s prime minister on Thursday declared an end to the extremist group’s self-proclaimed caliphate.

• One immigration bill would strip federal dollars from self-proclaimed “sanctuary” cities that shield residents from federal immigration authorities, while a separate measure would stiffen punishments for people who re-enter the U.S. illegally. Warning of threats to public safety and national security, the Republican-led House on approved two bills to crack down on illegal immigration, a key priority for President Donald Trump.

• A man has been arrested after he tried to drive a car into a crowd in front of a mosque in the Paris suburb of Creteil.

• The United States plans to sell Taiwan $1.42bn in arms, the first such sale under the administration of President Donald Trump and a move sure to anger China, whose help the president has been seeking to rein in North Korea.