| Impeachment trial fallout: Trump could get his wish — to hurt Biden Posted: 22 Jan 2020 12:20 PM PST  Details about Hunter Biden could complicate life for Joe Biden — exactly what Trump was trying to do with his Ukraine scheme last summer.
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| Residents paint a picture of Epstein's life on "Pedophile Island" Posted: 22 Jan 2020 06:07 PM PST  When Epstein was convicted and serving time for procuring an underage girl in Florida for sex, word of his 13 month sentence and his alleged crimes made their way to St. Thomas.
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| The Doomsday Clock Creeps As Close to Midnight As It's Been in Decades Posted: 23 Jan 2020 12:04 PM PST  Here's the history of the countdown to apocalypse.
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| Spirit Airlines passenger: Cabin crew didn't take my groping allegation seriously Posted: 23 Jan 2020 04:46 AM PST  A Michigan college student says she was sexually assaulted on a Spirit Airlines flight, but that flight attendants treated her like an annoyance.
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| A University of Minnesota student was arrested in China and sentenced to 6 months in prison for tweeting cartoons making fun of President Xi Jingping Posted: 23 Jan 2020 06:18 AM PST  According to Chinese court documents obtained by Axios, 20-year-old Luo Daiqing was arrested after returning to Wuhan for summer break.
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| Iran Has A Lot Of Missiles And The U.S. Navy's Carriers Look Like Juicy Targets Posted: 22 Jan 2020 06:00 PM PST  Could Iran sink a carrier?
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| Islamic leaders make 'groundbreaking' visit to Auschwitz Posted: 23 Jan 2020 07:25 AM PST  Muslim religious leaders joined members of a U.S. Jewish group at Auschwitz on Thursday for what organizers described as "the most senior Islamic leadership delegation" to visit the site of a Nazi German death camp. The secretary general of the Muslim World League, Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, and the CEO of the American Jewish Committee, David Harris, led the tour to the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial in Poland.
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| Additional U.S. troops have been flown out of Iraq following Iranian missile attack Posted: 22 Jan 2020 05:53 AM PST  Additional U.S. troops have been flown out of Iraq for closer evaluation of potential concussion injuries from the Iranian missile attack of Jan. 8, U.S. defense officials said Tuesday.
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| Steyer: U.S. reparations for slavery will help 'repair the damage' Posted: 22 Jan 2020 02:52 PM PST  The billionaire presidential candidate Tom Steyer reiterated his support Wednesday for reparations for African- Americans suffering from the legacy of slavery.
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| Trump impeachment scandal emails released, moments before midnight deadline Posted: 22 Jan 2020 02:18 AM PST  The Trump administration has released a stash of heavily redacted documents about the withholding of military aid to Ukraine just two minutes before the deadline.As the Senate continued to block attempts to subpoena official records for Donald Trump's impeachment trial, 192 pages of emails were disclosed under a Freedom of Information request.
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| 16 people under observation after contact with U.S. coronavirus patient Posted: 22 Jan 2020 11:14 PM PST  The patient, a 30-year-old man, is doing well and may be released from Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington in the near future, the hospital's chief medical officer Jay Cook told a press conference. None of the people who were in close contact with the patient have displayed symptoms of the flu-like illness, said John Wiesman, secretary of health for Washington State.
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| Family attorneys say cruise line's story of toddler's death is 'physically impossible' Posted: 23 Jan 2020 12:53 PM PST  Attorneys representing Chloe Wiegand's family say a ship visit proves it's "physically impossible" for her grandfather to hold her out of the window.
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| Residents left in Wuhan — which China quarantined to stop the coronavirus — are desperately stockpiling food and fuel, leaving empty shelves and prices skyrocketing Posted: 23 Jan 2020 06:26 AM PST  China shut off the city on Thursday. One person wrote on social media: "Right now people are fighting over supplies. Soon they may just be fighting."
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| Iran Says Drone Used in Soleimani Strike Came From Kuwait Posted: 23 Jan 2020 02:49 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the U.S. drone used to kill a top Iranian general in Baghdad took off from a military base in Kuwait, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Guards' aerospace force.The Guards had detected activity from the drone and fighter jets near Baghdad airport but didn't know they were planning to target Qassem Soleimani, according to Hajizadeh. At least four military bases in the Persian Gulf were involved in the Jan. 3 operation, he said, according to the report late Wednesday.To contact the reporters on this story: Farah Elbahrawy in Dubai at felbahrawy@bloomberg.net;Golnar Motevalli in Dubai at gmotevalli@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Amy TeibelFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| School headmaster charged in fatal gold robbery in Thailand Posted: 22 Jan 2020 11:05 PM PST  An elementary school headmaster said Thursday he planned a gold shop robbery in Thailand due to personal and financial problems and apologized to the families of the three people who were killed. A 2-year-old boy was among the victims of the shooting earlier this month that caused public outrage and increased pressure for a swift arrest. Police arrested Prasitthichai Khaokaew, 38, early Wednesday and said he confessed to his crimes during interrogation.
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| See This Nuke? Meet the Most Destructive Nuclear Bomb Ever Made By Man Posted: 22 Jan 2020 07:45 AM PST  Thank god the Soviets never deployed it.
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| NYT Ed Board Member Wrote Out ‘Full Draft’ of Biden Endorsement, but Scrapped It over His ‘Normal’ Message and Lack of ‘Urgency’ Posted: 23 Jan 2020 11:27 AM PST  Kathleen Kingsbury, a deputy editorial page editor and member of The New York Times's editorial board, revealed Thursday that she wrote a full 2,000-word endorsement of Joe Biden, only for the board to reject it because "it didn't match the moment."The Times broke new ground this cycle by conducting on-the-record interviews with nine of the top candidates and airing the interviews, which have historically been off-the-record, on their documentary show The Weekly on FX.Kingsbury explained to Times columnists on the The Argument podcast how the Times editorial board arrived at its first-ever dual endorsement of Senators Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), saying that "policy prescriptions" and the "messages" drove much of the thought-process. She also dismissed concerns about electability, calling the effort to predict which candidate would be most successful in the general election a "fool's errand.""What we realized is that the party needs to have that conversation amongst itself. It's really not the role of the editorial board to determine the future of the Democratic Party," Kingsbury said.But she revealed that, following heightened tensions with Iran after President Trump's decision to kill Qasem Soleimani, she went ahead and drafted an endorsement of Biden, citing his opposition to the war in Afghanistan."Right after we had the outbreak of conflict with Iran, I sat down and I wrote an entire endorsement of Joe Biden," Klingsbury said. "I think that came from a desire on my part for the comfort of having someone who during his interviews, spoke so fluently about foreign policy, who's been in the room in some of those more difficult decision-making [moments]."In August, Biden fabricated an Afghanistan-war story about how he resisted safety concerns to travel to "godforsaken country" and honor a war hero."We can lose a vice president," he recounted at a campaign event. "We can't lose many more of these kids. Not a joke."Klingsbury then explained why the Times ultimately did not pursue Biden's endorsement, implying that Biden's campaign hasn't meaningfully grappled with the conditions that gave rise to Trump's election."Joe Biden's message simply is 'let's go back to normal, whatever normal is, right?' For a lot of Americans, 'normal' wasn't working and I think that there needs to be some recognition that at least for some portion of the American public, the government and the economic systems were failing them," she said.In an emailed statement to National Review, Kingsbury said she did not "have much to say beyond what I said on The Argument." She declined to comment on whether the board wrote any other endorsement drafts, or when it decided to scrap Biden's."Once I had a draft in hand, I realized I should return to the wisdom of my board," she explained ". . . [Biden's] message and his proposed plans don't feel like they match the urgency of the moment."
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| Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow says he'd advise the president not to attend his impeachment trial Posted: 22 Jan 2020 05:45 PM PST  President Trump may "love" the idea of attending his Senate impeachment trial, but his lawyer Jay Sekulow thinks he needs to sit this one out.While in Davos on Wednesday morning, Trump told reporters he thinks it would be great to watch the trial in person, sitting "right in the front row" so he can "stare into their corrupt faces." When asked about Trump's comments, Sekulow responded, "His counsel might recommend against that. That's not the way it works. Presidents don't do that."Like the House managers, Trump's defense lawyers will have 24 hours over three days to argue their case. Sekulow said he doesn't yet know how much time they will use. "When you're in a proceeding like this, you have to be flexible, you have to be fluid," he added. "We're doing that."More stories from theweek.com Democrats walked right into Mitch McConnell's trap 5 brutally funny cartoons about Mitch McConnell's impeachment rules Virologist who helped identify SARS on coronavirus outbreak: 'This time I'm scared'
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| Smugglers tried to bring 3,700 invasive crabs through the Port of Cincinnati Posted: 23 Jan 2020 02:21 PM PST  Mitten crabs are a delicacy in Asia and sell for about $50 each in the United States, officials say. They are considered an invasive species.
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| U.S. deports Honduran family with sick kids to Guatemala Posted: 21 Jan 2020 08:25 PM PST  Advocates, citing the children's recent hospitalization, mounted an unsuccessful legal challenge to stop the deportation — which took place Tuesday
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| Australia mourns U.S. firefighters as probe into plane crash begins Posted: 23 Jan 2020 01:17 PM PST  MELBOURNE/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Firefighters in Australia held a minute's silence on Friday for three U.S. colleagues killed in a plane crash as investigators began scouring the accident site in remote bushland. The premier of New South Wales (NSW) state, where the C-130 Hercules crashed while on a mission to dump retardant on a huge wildfire, ordered that flags on official buildings be flown at half-mast as a mark of respect. "We will forever be indebted to the enormous contribution and indeed the ultimate sacrifice that's been paid as a result of these extraordinary individuals doing a remarkable job," NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said at a farewell near Sydney airport for 32 U.S. firefighters who were returning home after weeks on duty on Australia.
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| Man in Mexico Now Ill After Visiting Coronavirus Ground Zero Posted: 22 Jan 2020 02:24 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- A man who fell ill in Mexico on Monday following a December trip to Wuhan, China, is under observation as a potential case of the coronavirus, the respiratory virus that has killed at least 17 people worldwide.The 57-year-old molecular biology professor works for the Instituto Politecnico Nacional university in the city of Reynosa, which borders with the U.S. The man returned to Mexico on Jan. 10 through a Mexico City airport and then flew to the state of Tamaulipas, Mexican authorities said.Tamaulipas State Health Minister Gloria Molina said in a radio interview that the man immediately reported his situation to authorities after feeling sick. He is now in his home under monitoring to prevent any potential spread. His test results are expected on Thursday, Mexico's chief epidemiologist Jose Luis Alomia said in a press conference Wednesday afternoon.Molina said the man also had layovers at the border city of Tijuana when he left and returned to Mexico, according to journalist Joaquin Lopez Doriga's news site.Link: China Seeks to Contain Virus as Death Toll Jumps to 17Earlier on Wednesday, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that a second possible case in Mexico had been ruled out. "The coronavirus is being looked into. If we have more information we will release it later today," he said.Mexico plans to inform daily on the latests developments of the virus around the world. A preventive travel recommendation is in place for the country and passengers arriving from international ports will be checked for any symptoms, Alomia said.Separately, Colombian authorities are also evaluating whether a Chinese man with a respiratory illness, who traveled to Colombia from Turkey, has the same virus, according to Blu, a Bogota-based radio station. The country's health ministry declined to comment.The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he needs to consider all evidence before deciding if the coronavirus that emerged from Wuhan is an international health emergency.(Adds Alomia comments in paragraphs 3 and 6, and WHO comments in last paragraph)To contact the reporters on this story: Cyntia Barrera Diaz in Mexico City at cbarrerad@bloomberg.net;Lorena Rios in Mexico City at lriost@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ney Hayashi at ncruz4@bloomberg.net, Dale QuinnFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| World airports taking precautions after China virus ourbreak Posted: 23 Jan 2020 02:56 AM PST  Airports around the world have begun taking precautions to deal with an anticipated influx of Chinese tourists taking Lunar New Year holidays, just as the outbreak of a pneumonia-like virus in China has prompted officials there to take drastic measures to prevent its spread. Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest for international travel, announced on Thursday that, following government guidance, all passengers arriving on direct flights from China will receive thermal screening at the gate upon arrival and be provided with informational brochures. The screening at the airport, home to Emirates airline, will be conducted at secured, closed gates by teams from the Dubai Health Authority and the Airport Medical Center, Dubai Airports said in a statement provided to The Associated Press.
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| 1 Killed, 7 Wounded, Including 9-Year-Old, in Shooting in Downtown Seattle. Here's What to Know Posted: 22 Jan 2020 06:28 PM PST  The shooting is the third in Seattle in two days
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| Oklahoma zookeeper sentenced to 22 years in murder-for-hire plot Posted: 22 Jan 2020 01:28 PM PST  A former Oklahoma zookeeper and one-time candidate for governor was sentenced Wednesday to 22 years in prison for his role in a murder-for-hire plot and violating federal wildlife laws.
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| Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said a US-Iran war would be a 'disaster' and questioned the sanity of those who recommend conflicts Posted: 22 Jan 2020 01:27 PM PST  "There's no way — no sane mind should ever think of another conflict," Khan said.
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| Russia, China, and Iran Would Love to Take Out a Nuclear Aircraft Carrier. Here's Why They Can't. Posted: 22 Jan 2020 09:30 PM PST  The beasts are more survivable than they seem.
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| Family of Kristin Smart, who went missing in 1996, now says there's no news coming soon Posted: 23 Jan 2020 05:15 AM PST  Kristin Smart's mother said she was contacted by a former FBI agent, but there is no timeline for an announcement in her case, the family later said.
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| Trevor Noah Destroys Alan Dershowitz’s Impeachment Hypocrisy Posted: 21 Jan 2020 06:14 PM PST  On the first day of the Senate impeachment trial, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah took a look at the "insane" legal team that President Trump put together to defend him. Not only does it include Ken Starr, who ran the investigation that led to Bill Clinton's impeachment but also Alan Dershowitz who famously defended O.J. Simpson. (Both men also defended the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.) "These lawyers are perfect for Trump," Noah said, "because they have experience with super-guilty people and super-horny presidents." And while Trump's defense is planning to argue that he should not be removed from office because the articles of impeachment do not constitute "criminal" acts, Dershowitz specifically argued the opposite during the Clinton trial. "It certainly doesn't have to be a crime," he said in 1999, "if you have someone who completely corrupts the office of president." Stephen Colbert Spends MLK Day Mocking Melania Trump: She Wants to Be 'Free at Last'Bill Maher Warns of 'Civil War' If Democrats Don't Embrace Trump Supporters"Yes, it turns out that over the past 20 years, Alan Dershowitz's legal opinions have changed as much as his hairstyles," the host joked in response. "Because you see, right now he's saying 'abuse of power' is not an impeachable offense, but back in the '90s he says it was." But even more infuriating to Noah was the way Dershowitz tried to defend his evolving views to CNN's Anderson Cooper. Instead of admitting he was "wrong" back then, he simply says he's "much more correct" now. "Wait, what?!" Noah asked. "That is one of the most original lines I have ever heard in my life." Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Hillary Clinton is done trying to be liked Posted: 23 Jan 2020 03:41 AM PST  These days, her statements are unvarnished and resentful. To the voters who hate her, she seems comfortable letting them know that she hates them, tooIn the months after the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton went into the woods. They became almost comic, the sightings of her that would pop up on social media, as the woman who had exercised uncommon influence over American political life, who had in fact won the popular vote and nearly became president, reduced to a soul-searching wanderer in the wilderness, wearing fleece and wondering what went wrong. People asked her for selfies in public locales whose mundanity stood in contrast to her former power. Here she was, the woman who had watched Osama bin Laden die in real time, who had led one of the first major fights for healthcare reform, who had sat with presidents and prime ministers and extracted from them commitments to do things that they did not want to do. Here she was, once one of the world's most powerful people, walking on a low-altitude beginners' hiking trail. Here she was, the former senator and secretary of state and very nearly the first female president, in a supermarket outside her tony suburb, posing with a fan in front of a stack of organic apples.There was a degree of schadenfreude in the sharing of these pictures of Clinton during the months following the 2016 presidential election. Even those most alert to the coming dangers and needless suffering that would be imposed by a Donald Trump presidency seemed a bit giddy at how far she had fallen, relieved to see her knocked from her perch of power. Much of the hate, of course, came from Republicans, people who resented the moments of her political career, fleeting and sporadic as they were, that seemed aimed at reducing the suffering of working people, or inching the nation towards justice. The rest of the hate came from liberals and leftists, people who had voted for Clinton in 2016 begrudgingly or with reserve, who considered their support of her against Trump as a kind of harm reduction.Some of the left's hostility to her was revived this week when an excerpt from an interview she conducted for a new Netflix documentary series, Hillary, was released by the Hollywood Reporter. In the interview, Clinton offers commentary on perhaps the one person in American political life it is most dangerous for her to comment on: her 2016 Democratic primary rival, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. She said that "nobody likes him" in Washington. She said he has accomplished little in his career. She said that other politicians are disinclined to work with him.All of this may or may not be true, but it's not clear why Clinton would say it. If these comments were meant to harm Sanders' chances of winning the Democratic primary, they are more likely to do the opposite. Sanders' own pitch to voters relies heavily on his outsider status in Washington, and tends to aestheticize his grumpy temperament as a sign of integrity. Many voters, alienated by Washington, will hear that a candidate is disliked there and think: good. Disapproval from Clinton may itself be seen as a virtue from a certain class of liberal voters, among whom her reputation is not good.Because though she is hated passionately and without reserve on the right, the Democratic party and those roughly aligned with it rightly have at best a very ambivalent relationship toward Hillary. Ambivalence might be the most that she deserves. Her political career was long, and over her three decades of activity in national politics she was frequently on the wrong side of history. Many of her positions seemed motivated more by political convenience than by principle. She was too cozy with corporate interests as a senator, and she was too comfortable with military intervention as secretary of state. She seemed inscrutable; it was difficult to know what she really thought, perhaps because so many people who interpreted her career as pundits and commentators insisted that what she said was never what she really meant.Over these decades, Clinton became an avatar of the Democratic party's worst impulses: its frightened run to the center during the 90s and 2000s, its comfort with compromise and acquiescence, its elites' preoccupation with convention and procedure at the expense of taking important moral stands or being accountable to its base. Hillary became a symbol of corruption, centrism and cynicism. At times, she really deserved it.> This is what is so maddening: she makes it clear sexism can happen to women who are also bad people, or who have made bad choicesAt other times, she didn't. It is impossible to deny the reality that Clinton, as an uncommonly powerful woman, was also the object of tremendous sexist vitriol, a passionate fixation on her that animated even the legitimate grievances against her with an intensity unseen in critiques of similar male politicians. The media fixated on her thick ankles, and then they fixated on her masculine pantsuits. It became a common party joke to make strange and morbid speculations about her sex life. Her personal virtues were interpreted as suspicious: intelligence morphed into cunning, determination became ambition, resolve morphed into stubbornness, care and studiousness became dishonesty and scheming. Among the most fixated and rancorous of her critics, even valid complaints about her seem undergirded with a passion that is more psychological than moral.This is what is so maddening about Hillary Clinton: she makes it clear that sexism can happen to women who are also bad people, or who have made bad choices. She makes it clear that righteous anger can also contain misogynist contempt. She makes it clear that sexist double standards often mean not only that good women are held unfairly responsible, but that bad women are held responsible where bad men are not. The role of sexism in our reactions to Clinton is complex, as complex as the messy reality that all of us who have been wronged have in fact done wrong ourselves. But complexity is something our political media, in particular, are ill-equipped to describe. Clinton's example requires us to hold multiple inconvenient, contradictory thoughts in our minds at the same time: that sexism can be unjust even when it is directed at women who are themselves perpetrators of injustice; that sometimes bigotry is wielded even against people who are not impeccable or particularly deserving of sympathy. But even when its targets are unlikable, sexism, still, is wrong.For her part, Clinton has turned into another kind of figure that our culture has difficulty parsing: a woman who is not just old, but old and angry. Her long career was punctuated with humiliations: the defeat of her healthcare reform effort, her husband's public affairs, her loss of the 2008 presidential primary. And it was capped with the greatest humiliation of all: her loss, on a constitutional technicality, to a racist, sexist, boorish man, who outmatched even her in cynicism but possessed none of her intellect. She is angry at these humiliations, and she seems committed to her anger, directing it unhelpfully at some of the wrong people, uselessly at some of the right ones.Still, there is something disarming about this version of Hillary, even as she kicks dirt bitterly at an old rival, and throws destructive bombs into the political conversation. The woman who has given interviews since the 2016 election is vulnerable, angry, resentful and tired, nothing at all like the consultant-polished entity she was before, speaking in vague, noncommittal terms that were so rigorously inoffensive that they hardly had any content. Now that her political career is over and she is no longer seeking power, the aura of suspicion and dishonesty about her has dissipated, and people no longer reflexively disbelieve her. Her statements are unvarnished, sometimes even frankly resentful. She says the kind of thing that would be disastrous if she were actually in power. To the voters who hate her, she seems comfortable letting them know that she hates them, too. For better and frequently for worse, Clinton has shed the pretense of trying to be liked. Finally, we feel sure she's saying what she means. * Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
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| These 9 Dining Chairs Are Sculptural, Surprising, and Downright Sleek Posted: 23 Jan 2020 05:00 AM PST |
| Texas student who traveled to China being tested for possible coronavirus Posted: 23 Jan 2020 01:58 PM PST  The first U.S. case was diagnosed in Washington state. "The patient is being isolated at home in accordance with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the investigation continues to determine whether this is a case of novel coronavirus," the health officials said.
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| Turkey Slams Greece for ‘Illegally’ Arming 16 Aegean Islands Posted: 23 Jan 2020 12:09 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar asked Greece to demilitarize 16 Aegean islands near Turkey he claims were illegally armed, in a move that may exacerbate strains in the countries' relations."We expect Greece to act in line with international law and the agreements it has signed," state-run Anadolu Agency cited Akar as saying in Ankara on Wednesday.The two neighbors are already at loggerheads over offshore natural-gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. Tensions over conflicting claims have escalated since Turkey and Libya signed a contentious agreement last year that delineates maritime borders and affirms claims of sovereignty over areas of the Mediterranean.Turkey's claims could make it more difficult and costly to build a planned natural-gas pipeline that could link the eastern Mediterranean basin with European markets through Cyprus, Greece and Italy.Greece and Turkey, both NATO members, came close to conflict in 1996 over a pair of uninhabited islets in the Aegean.To contact the reporter on this story: Cagan Koc in Istanbul at ckoc2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Paul AbelskyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| 'Haters gonna hate & deniers will deny': Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defends Greta Thunberg after Steven Mnuchin dissed the activist Posted: 23 Jan 2020 08:30 AM PST  "If you don't have an economics degree like Greta, they'll mock you for not having one. If you DO have one, as I do, they'll claim it's illegitimate."
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| Ok, 'Boomer': This Is the Deadliest Submarine Monster Lurking the Deep Posted: 22 Jan 2020 10:54 PM PST  Ballistic missile submarines—or as sailors call them, 'boomers.'
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| Grassley Expands Probe into DoD Contracts Awarded to Stefan Halper over Spying Concerns Posted: 23 Jan 2020 12:05 PM PST  Senator Chuck Grassley announced an expanded probe Wednesday into the Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment (ONA) and its awarding of defense contracts to Stefan Halper, in order to see whether ONA illicitly authorized funds for the former professor to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign.Halper, an FBI source who met with and recorded Trump associates Carter Page, Sam Clovis, and George Papadopoulos, according to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's December report, has been awarded more than $1 million in contracts by ONA since 2012.Grassley points to several contracts awarded to Halper in a letter to James Baker, the director of ONA, as examples "that clearly indicate weak or non-existent internal controls."Evaluators raised "several weaknesses," including a lack of substance, in a 2012 contract proposal by Halper that were ultimately ignored. For a 2015 proposal, Halper listed a Russian intelligence official as an adviser, who was then cited by Christopher Steele as source for his now-infamous dossier.Halper's last contract, awarded in September 2016, mentions "unknown third parties" paying for Halper's trip to Japan to interview "former high-level U.S. and foreign government officials," but Grassley points out that the IG later found none of Halper's 348 footnotes in the subsequent study cited any interviews.Halper also contacted Papadopoulos in September 2016 and offered $3,000 for him to write a policy paper on the natural-gas market in the Mediterranean."Given Professor Halper's intelligence connections and government funding, it is reasonable to ask whether he used any taxpayer money in his attempt to recruit Trump campaign officials as sources," Grassley hypothesizes.The Iowa Senator concludes his letter by asking for a list of every contract ONA has issued over the last five years to review the consistency of its decision-making."The fact that taxpayer money was used to support these projects calls into question ONA's ability to be a proper steward of the people's money and whether ONA has acted consistent with its mission and purpose," Grassley writes.
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| Protester interrupts Trump impeachment trial Posted: 22 Jan 2020 04:29 PM PST  A protester interrupted House Manager Hakeem Jeffries during Wednesday evening's impeachment trial.
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| Welp, Scientists Found 28 New Virus Groups in a Melting Glacier Posted: 23 Jan 2020 11:06 AM PST  This is how the world ends.
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| Rep. Ilhan Omar launches reelection bid with big advantages Posted: 23 Jan 2020 10:59 AM PST  Rep. Ilhan Omar's congressional career got off to a rocky start just a year ago, with her provocative remarks on Israel and Jews stirring anger across the country and raising speculation that some other Minnesota Democrat might step forward to challenge her in 2020. Omar was kicking off her reelection campaign Thursday night with a massive bank account and no challengers who pose a serious threat from either party. In an overwhelmingly Democratic district that where Omar took 78% of the vote in 2018, University of Minnesota political scientist Larry Jacobs gives her opponents no chance.
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| 'End of the world': Wuhan a ghost town under quarantine Posted: 23 Jan 2020 07:48 AM PST  Wuhan residents called for help and shared worries of food shortages Thursday, with streets in the virus-hit central Chinese city left deserted after it was put on lockdown. After he bought some, the person behind him in the queue bought the remaining stock in the shop.
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| The shadow of SARS: China learned the hard way how to handle an epidemic Posted: 22 Jan 2020 01:59 AM PST  The emergence of a new virus in central China has brought back painful memories of another virulent respiratory disease that wreaked worldwide havoc and left the country's health authorities struggling to rebuild public trust. Now, nearly 17 years later, government officials insist they have learned from past mistakes as they try to contain the latest deadly viral pneumonia strain, which has infected 440 people, mostly in Wuhan city, and killed nine since it was first identified at the end of last month. Liu Heng, an adviser to China's cabinet said it took the country about four or five months to announce the SARS outbreak to the public, and this time it had taken less than a month.
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| Apple met with Ukraine's foreign minister at Davos and it looks like they discussed Apple's controversial decision to alter its maps to please Russia Posted: 23 Jan 2020 03:08 AM PST  In November 2019, Apple changed the maps on its apps to show Crimea as part of Russia, after it was annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
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| 'His intention was to kill everyone in the home except himself': Utah boy, 16, charged with killing mother, 3 siblings Posted: 23 Jan 2020 06:50 AM PST  A 16-year-old boy was charged Wednesday after being accused of carrying out what appears to be the worst mass shooting in Utah in 13 years.
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| Brexit Bulletin: Law of the Land Posted: 23 Jan 2020 08:27 AM PST  Days to Brexit: 8(Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to get the Brexit Bulletin in your inbox every weekday.What's Happening? The Withdrawal Agreement Bill received royal assent, making Brexit on Jan. 31 a matter of U.K. law.Seventeen words brought an end to the British side of this phase of the Brexit saga. In a statement to the House of Commons, Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans delivered the news to listening lawmakers: "Her Majesty has signified her royal assent to the following act: European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020."Royal assent brings to a close the crisis that paralyzed U.K. politics after the country voted to leave the European Union in June 2016. Former Prime Minister Theresa May failed to get her version of the deal through the House of Commons after reaching an agreement with the EU in November 2018. Her successor, Boris Johnson, succeeded only after winning a large majority in last month's general election.With the U.K. due to slip out of the EU at 11 p.m. London time next Friday, all that remains is for the European Parliament to rubber-stamp the deal. That was due to move a step closer on Thursday afternoon via a vote of the assembly's constitutional affairs committee, a group of the parliament's most influential members. The panel was expected to nod the deal through.The full EU parliament, which officially has a veto over the deal, will vote on Jan. 29. It will almost certainly follow the committee's lead. The U.K. is scheduled to leave the EU two days later.Beyond BrexitClimate activist Greta Thunberg should go back to school and study economics, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. These billionaires made their fortunes by trying to stop climate change. The £200 million ($262 million) London mansion bought by Cheung Cheung Kie earlier this month isn't even his most valuable property.Brexit in BriefRule Makers | U.K. financiers are asking the government to revamp regulations to attract global business after Brexit. Watchdogs should have the power "to make the U.K. a better place to do business" through a new mandate to support London's financial hub against rivals, according to the International Regulatory Strategy Group, a panel backed by the City of London.Diverging Views | Speaking at Davos on Thursday morning, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid tried to reassure business over Britain's post-Brexit ties with the EU. "We won't diverge just for the sake of it," he said. That's despite telling the Financial Times last week that "there will not be alignment" with EU rules after Brexit.Off-Piste? | Did Javid speak out of turn at Davos when he said that talks for a U.K.-EU trade deal will take priority over any agreement with the U.S.? Today's Bloomberg Westminster podcast discusses his motivations.Time Is Tight | The clock is ticking for the EU and the U.K. to hammer out a trade deal by the end of the year, according to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. "It's an awfully short amount of time so I hope that coming next summer, June, July, that Boris Johnson will at least contemplate extending, if necessary, this transition phase," Rutte said in a Bloomberg TV interview in Davos. "I'm Still Here" | Steve Bray, otherwise known as the "Stop Brexit Guy" was a fixture outside Westminster during the height of the U.K.'s Brexit tension, often disrupting live TV interviews. On Thursday he took his protest to Brussels, joining a small rally outside the European Parliament, the Brussels Times reports. "I came to Brussels just to visit this parliament," the Times reported him as saying. "I'm still here because I still care."Want to keep up with Brexit?You can follow us @Brexit on Twitter, and listen to Bloomberg Westminster every weekday. It's live at midday on Bloomberg Radio and is available as a podcast too. Share the Brexit Bulletin: Colleagues, friends and family can sign up here. For full EU coverage, try the Brussels Edition.For even more: Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access for our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close.To contact the authors of this story: Thomas Penny in London at tpenny@bloomberg.netIan Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Adam Blenford at ablenford@bloomberg.net, Chris KayFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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