Look back: National news brief May 12-19

May 18

Trump administration sets new rule to defund facilities that provide abortion services

• On May 18, the Trump administration proposed a new rule that defunds healthcare institutions that provide abortion services.
• The rule requires facilities that receive federal family planning funds to be physically separated from facilities that provide abortions. It will also ban abortion referrals.
• In other words, it will defund facilities that provide abortions or make abortion referrals.
• The new rule will mostly affect Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest family planning provider, which uses federal funds to offer services like general health care, contraceptives, HIV testing, hormone therapy for transgender patients and pregnancy tests, while also providing abortion services at the same facilities and often with the same staff.
• However, Planned Parenthood uses private money, not taxpayers’ money, for abortion services.
• If Planned Parenthood wants to continue to be federally funded, they would need to stop providing abortion services. If they don’t, they will no longer receive public funding, which would affect the majority of their other services.
• Planned Parenthood is often one of the only family planning facility for certain areas in the nation. For example, in about 103 counties, they are the only facility that provides contraceptives to women. As of 2010, 36 percent of 6.7 million American women received contraceptive care from Planned Parenthood centers. The organization also serves a majority of women from low-income families.
• Dawn Laguens, Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood said, “This is an attempt to take away women’s basic rights, period. Under this rule, people will not get the health care they need. They won’t get birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, or even general women’s health exams.”
• Read a breakdown of the implications and impacts of Trump’s new rule in this Vox article.

Cambridge Analytica files for bankruptcy

• Cambridge Analytica, the key player in this year’s Facebook privacy scandal, filed for bankruptcy.
• The political consultancy was involved with mining millions of Facebook users’ information without their consent and misused it for spreading fake news and targeted political ads. The company teamed up with President Trump’s 2016 U.S. election campaign and intended to use those user profiles to affect voter choices.
• Learn more about the Cambridge Analytica Facebook scandal by reading our previous article on this topic.

Program director of USA Gymnastics dismissed amid Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse scandal

• Rhonda Faehn, program director of USA Gymnastics Women’s Program has been ousted amid the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal. Faehn has been criticized for not responding quickly and appropriately after learning USA Gymnastics’ doctor Nassar sexually abused his patients.
• In 2015, the organization reported Nassar to the FBI five weeks after being alerted.
• After being reported, Nassar left USA Gymnastics for Michigan State University, where he continued to sexually harass his patients.
• As of today, 332 victims have stepped forward accusing Nassar. He has been sentenced to prison for up to 175 years.
• Faehn’s dismissal came days before USA Gymnastics CEO Kerry Perry was scheduled to testify before Congress.
• Several gymnasts from the national team disagreed with the decision.

May 19

Mass school shooting in Sante Fe High School in Texas, killed 10 and wounded 10

• Suspect 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, armed with a shotgun and a revolver, killed nine students and one teacher and wounded 10 in a deadly school shooting on Friday in Texas’ Santa Fe High School.
• The guns Pagourtzis used were legally owned by his father.
• Police found journals on his computers detailing plans for the attack, which included suicide. The shooter’s motivation to kill is still yet to be found.
• This is the 22nd school shooting in 2018. This week marks the 20th week into 2018, meaning the average of school shootings is more than one per week.
• Lieutenant Governor of Texas Dan Patrick proposed the reason why the shooting was able to happen was because the school has too many entrances. “Maybe we need to look to limiting the entrances and the exits to our school, so that we can have law enforcement looking into the people who come in in one or two entrances,” he said. “Had there been one single entrance possibly for every student, maybe he would have been stopped.”
• Survivors of the Parkland High School shooting in February took to Twitter to express their grievances for the Texas shooting. Senior student Liz Stout wrote, “WE SHOULD NOT HAVE THIS IN COMMON” linking a CBS video clip of an interview with a Santa Fe student survivor.