| At State of the Union, Trump declines to shake hands with Pelosi Posted: 04 Feb 2020 06:35 PM PST  President Trump declined to shake hands with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at Tuesday night's State of the Union Address, which came less than two months before Democrats in the same House chamber voted to impeach him.
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| Baby tests positive for China virus just 30 hours after birth Posted: 05 Feb 2020 03:46 AM PST  A baby in China's epidemic-hit Wuhan city has been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus just 30 hours after being born, Chinese state media reported Wednesday. The official Xinhua news agency reported Monday that a baby born last week to an infected mother had tested negative. The disease is believed to have emerged in December in a Wuhan market that sold wild animals, and spread rapidly as people travelled for the Lunar New Year holiday in January.
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| An Iowa woman tried to retract her support for Pete Buttigieg after learning he's gay Posted: 04 Feb 2020 11:10 AM PST  Pete Buttigieg came out as gay in 2015. A viral video from an Iowa caucus shows how one woman reacted when she just learned about it.
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| Doomsday author Chad Daybell claims his deceased wife helped him 'reconnect' with new wife Lori Vallow Posted: 04 Feb 2020 01:39 PM PST  Weeks after his first wife died, Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow were married. He credits his deceased wife for helping him find a new one.
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| DA Says Couple Accused of Drugging and Raping Up to 1,000 Women Did No Such Thing—Ex-DA Made it All Up Posted: 04 Feb 2020 06:51 PM PST  A California prosecutor is dropping all charges against a doctor and his girlfriend, alleging that his predecessor "manufactured" allegations that the couple drugged and sexually assaulted up to 1,000 women.The stunning turn of events comes a year and a half after the case against Grant Robicheaux, an orthopedic surgeon who appeared on the TV show The Online Dating Rituals of the American Male, and substitute teacher Cerissa Riley exploded into the headlines.At the time, Orange County's then-district attorney, Tony Rackauckas, claimed the pair lured women to their Newport Beach home, knocked them unconscious, and raped them.At a press conference in September 2018, he said investigators had seized "hundreds" of incriminating videos from the couple's phones. Asked whether the number could be as a high as a thousand, Rackauckas said, "I think so."A few months later, though, Rackauckas was out of office, replaced by current DA Todd Spitzer, who eventually ordered a review of the evidence. He says he was appalled by what he found."The prior District Attorney and his chief of staff manufactured this case and repeatedly misstated the evidence to lead the public and vulnerable women to believe that these two individuals plied up to 1,000 women with drugs and alcohol in order to sexually assault them—and videotape the assaults," Spitzer said in a blistering statement."As a result of the complete case review I ordered beginning in July, we now know that there was not a single video or photograph depicting an unconscious or incapacitated woman being sexually assaulted."Rackauckas has not responded to his former rival's allegations. But Robicheaux's attorney praised the reversal."I don't want to be overly dramatic or hyperbolic, but the mere filing of this case has destroyed irreparably two lives," defense lawyer Philip Cohen told reporters."He has become persona non grata with an entire city, an entire state—and I don't want to be exaggerating—but probably an entire country."Robicheaux, 39, and Riley, 32, insisted from the start that all their liaisons were consensual. They were swingers, their attorneys argued, and the so-called victims were willing participants.They claimed Rackauckas inflated the allegations, hoping that media attention would buoy his re-election effort. And last June, unsealed transcripts of a deposition showed the ex-prosecutor thought the publicity would help him.Spitzer said that's when he assembled a team to re-evaluate the case. "A team of prosecutors with a combined 175 years of experience determined there is no provable evidence that Robicheaux and Riley committed any sexual offense," he said in a press release.The charges that will be dropped include kidnapping and rape; Robicheaux and Riley would have faced up to life in prison if convicted.At least some of the women who accused Robicheaux and Riley maintain they were assaulted.Michael Fell, an attorney for one of them, told the Los Angeles Times the decision is a betrayal of his client."For somebody to report, for them to go through what she had to go through with the police, for the district attorney's office to file criminal charges, for her to have to be patient the last two years while the case is being prosecuted, only for it to be dropped—she's going to be devastated," Fell said.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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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| Where Is the Scorpion? The Creepy Unsolved Mystery of America's Lost Nuclear Attack Submarine Posted: 04 Feb 2020 03:57 AM PST  We still don't have a good answer.
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| Republican lawmakers pan FBI Director Wray’s response to FISA abuses Posted: 05 Feb 2020 03:24 PM PST  They said the response to the Justice Department's watchdog report on the process concerning Carter Page was grossly inadequate.
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| White Wisconsin lawmaker drops Black History Month proposal Posted: 04 Feb 2020 11:49 AM PST ![White Wisconsin lawmaker drops Black History Month proposal]( "White Wisconsin lawmaker drops Black History Month proposal") State Rep. Scott Allen, a Waukesha Republican, said in a statement that "it is possible that I made incorrect assumptions." He said he would instead like to co-sponsor a separate resolution that black lawmakers authored. "The proposed resolution concentrated on the character of individuals involved in an important effort in American and Black history, the operation of the Underground Railroad," Allen said. The Wisconsin Legislature has traditionally recognized Black History Month, which runs through February, with a resolution in both the Assembly and Senate.
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| Norwegian won't issue $32,000 refund to family that canceled Asian cruise over coronavirus Posted: 05 Feb 2020 07:58 AM PST  A Maui woman said that when her family tried to cancel their upcoming Asia cruise, Norwegian wouldn't refund any of the $32,000 they'd already paid.
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| Watch: Pelosi tears Trump State of the Union speech in half Posted: 04 Feb 2020 07:59 PM PST  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reacted to Donald Trump's combative State of the Union Speech Tuesday by tearing her copy of it in half after the president concluded his remarks.
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| 'Severe' hospital bed shortage at China virus epicentre: officials Posted: 05 Feb 2020 04:01 PM PST  Authorities in China warned they faced a severe shortage of hospital beds and equipment needed to treat a growing number of patients stricken by the new coronavirus, as the death toll passed 560 on Thursday and cities far from the epicentre tightened their defences. Despite authorities building a hospital from scratch and converting public buildings to accommodate thousands of extra patients, there was still a "severe" lack of beds, said Hu Lishan, an official in Wuhan, the quarantined city where the virus first appeared -- and where doctors are now overwhelmed with cases. A growing number of cities have imposed a range of restrictions far from Hubei, as authorities battle to contain the virus.
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| Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer says he expects to leave Iowa 'with momentum' Posted: 04 Feb 2020 07:52 AM PST  Democratic presidential contender Tom Steyer on Monday said he expected to leave Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses "with momentum" that carries him later this month to Nevada and South Carolina, where he has shown more strength in opinion polls.
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| Yes, the Iowa caucus was a debacle. But Wolf Blitzer's near-meltdown on CNN won the night Posted: 04 Feb 2020 12:18 PM PST  What happened at the Iowa democratic caucus? Results are still pending. But one things's for sure: Wolf Blitzer's near-meltdown on CNN won the night.
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| Bat Soup, Anyone? How Viruses Transfer From Animals To Humans Posted: 05 Feb 2020 03:15 AM PST  Stop eating bat soup.
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| California Needs Housing — and Won’t Get It Posted: 05 Feb 2020 03:30 AM PST  Anyone wondering how sclerotic and ungovernable California has become need look no further than the failure last week of an incredibly modest attempt to reform the state's archaic housing regulations.California is in the midst of an enormous crisis of affordable housing. The median home price in the state now exceeds $500,000, while the median rent for a two‐bedroom apartment tops $1,800 per month, nearly 55 percent higher than the national median. In cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, average rent exceeds $2,500 per month. Less than a third of Californians can afford the median house cost, while more than half face rents that economists consider unaffordable as a portion of their incomes.The high cost of housing is largely a function of high demand and low supply. Estimates show that California needs 3.5 million housing units by 2025 just to meet current needs. Yet the state has the nation's second-lowest rate of housing starts.The lack of affordable housing has led to an explosion of homelessness. There are an estimated 130,000 homeless people in the state, including around 28,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area and 60,000 in Los Angeles County alone. But even often overlooked cities such as San Diego have homeless populations in excess of 8,000. By some calculations, more than 47 percent of all unhoused homeless people in America reside in California.While many of California's homeless suffer from drug, alcohol, and mental-health problems, many more are driven to the streets by the cost of housing. By some estimates, as much as two-thirds of the state's homeless problem can be traced to housing costs.Last week California lawmakers had the opportunity to take the tiniest of baby steps toward dealing with the crisis. The Housing Accountability Act, SB50, would have allowed the construction of multi-family housing in some neighborhoods near mass transit that were previously zoned exclusively for single-family housing. They failed.It is important to understand that this bill was already the weakest of weak teas, especially after it went through many changes. In a state where 50 to 75 percent of residential property is zoned single-family only, it would have opened up barely anything. And it would have done almost nothing to deal with the suffocating weight of environmental, labor, and other regulations that have driven up construction costs. For example, environmental laws alone have driven up prices by nearly 10 percent, and prevailing-wage laws are estimated to raise median housing costs by $42,900 to $79,000. Still, it was a recognition of reality: The only way to deal with a housing shortage is to build more housing.But even this minimal step was rejected by many state legislators and special interests. Caught between a coalition of anti-growth environmentalists and wealthy NIMBYs, pro-housing legislators could not overcome the power of the status quo. After all, the homeless and the poor, who suffer most from high housing costs, are a lot less likely to vote than those who want to keep low-income housing out of their neighborhood.Pro-housing legislators have vowed to keep up the fight, but unless Californians begin to face up to the basic laws of economics -- such as supply and demand -- the future of the Golden State looks grim.
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| A second cruise ship has been quarantined over coronavirus scare Posted: 05 Feb 2020 10:51 AM PST  The Diamond Princess, quarantined in a Hong Kong port, was carrying three passengers who tested positive for the virus.
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| Kansas no longer fighting claims of wrongly convicted man Posted: 04 Feb 2020 02:32 PM PST  Kansas is dropping its fight against the compensation claim from a man who spent 23 years in prison for a double homicide before a judge vacated convictions that were secured even though no physical evidence or motive tied him to the crimes, the state's attorney general said Tuesday. Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in an Associated Press interview that his office made the decision after reviewing 900 pages of documents from Lamonte McIntyre's attorney that had not been provided to it previously. Schmidt said his office will work with McIntyre's attorney on a settlement to present to a Shawnee County District Court judge.
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| Donald Trump celebrates impeachment acquittal by taunting Democrats with video Posted: 05 Feb 2020 04:58 PM PST  President Donald Trump celebrated his acquittal on two articles of impeachment by taunting Democrats with a video on Twitter.
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| Modi vows 'grand' Hindu temple at flashpoint site Posted: 04 Feb 2020 04:18 PM PST  The construction of a grand Hindu temple at holy site bitterly contested with Muslims moved a step closer Wednesday when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said a trust had been finalised to oversee the project. The razing of a mosque at Ayodhya by a huge crowd of Hindu zealots almost 30 years ago unleashed some of the country's worst sectarian violence since independence, with more than 2,000 people killed. After a decades-long legal battle, India's highest court ruled in November that the land in northern India should be managed by a trust to oversee the construction of a temple.
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| Trump Jr shares bogus legal interpretation that Nancy Pelosi broke law by tearing up SOTU speech Posted: 05 Feb 2020 12:20 PM PST  Donald Trump Jr has lent his name and voice to a bogus interpretation of US law that has been used to argue that Nancy Pelosi could be removed from office for tearing up her copy of the president's State of the Union speech.The supposed legal interpretation that her destruction of the document is a crime punishable with jail time was seen online shortly after Ms Pelosi's dramatic move, and promoted by figures like the leader of the far-right group Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk.
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| NBC's Chuck Todd: Joe Biden 'may have dodged a bullet' in Iowa Posted: 04 Feb 2020 05:01 AM PST  Did former Vice President Joe Biden just narrowly avoid disaster in Iowa?NBC News' Chuck Todd thinks so, speculating on Tuesday morning that last night's catastrophic Iowa caucuses, results from which have still yet to be reported amid technical glitches, may have helped Biden more than anyone else."All indications are that Joe Biden was sitting somewhere in the third or fourth range with the first alignment ... it's very possible that once they do the delegate reallocation, he was going to be in fourth," Todd observed, adding "our entrance polls indicate that there was a real possibility of that."Given that Biden was able to head out of Iowa and onto New Hampshire without embarrassingly coming in fourth place Monday night, Todd observed, "Joe Biden may have dodged a bullet." On the other hand, Todd argued former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg may have been hurt the most by the delays, as it "appears that he may have been the one that could have won on the second realignment."Other pundits made similar observations about Biden, with Politico also declaring him "the biggest 'winner,'" noting the "questions surrounding the vote-counting served to obscure a potentially poor performance" by him. As the campaigns quickly moved on to New Hampshire, Politico observes Biden, in particular, "couldn't get out of Iowa fast enough." > "The person who benefited the most from this glitch might've been Joe Biden… Then you look at Pete Buttigieg, who may have been the person hurt the most here," @chucktodd explains. pic.twitter.com/V3vd5F3idi> > -- TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 4, 2020More stories from theweek.com Trump just won the Iowa Democratic caucuses Should financial markets be freaked out by coronavirus? America is doing so much better than you think
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| A pregnant mother infected with the coronavirus gave birth, and her baby tested positive 30 hours later Posted: 05 Feb 2020 01:53 PM PST  The new coronavirus has infected very few children. However, a children's hospital in Wuhan reported that a day-old infant tested positive.
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| A Catholic Polish midwife who delivered 3,000 babies at Auschwitz remembered 75 years after camp's liberation Posted: 05 Feb 2020 08:11 AM PST  An estimated 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered at Auschwitz. That included newborns who were killed by drowning or lethal injection.
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| Man charged with breaking into nursing home, killing patient Posted: 04 Feb 2020 12:55 PM PST  William Hawkins, 47, is charged with first-degree murder for the Jan. 5 slaying of Robert Morell, who was suffocated with a pillow as he slept by an intruder at the Tiffany Hall Nursing & Rehab Center in Port St. Lucie. According to a redacted police arrest report, Hawkins quickly became the prime suspect because he was on Morell's visitor list and matched the description of the man employees saw fleeing the room after being spotted on top of Morell shortly after midnight. Detectives learned that Morell's 57-year-old girlfriend of 15 years had called the nursing home hours before the slaying, telling employees to not let Hawkins into the home because she feared he would hurt Morell.
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| Trump's trial is over but the final verdict is not yet in Posted: 05 Feb 2020 01:37 PM PST  President Donald Trump's impeachment trial ended on Wednesday with a conclusion that was unsurprising – his acquittal. Opinion polls during the impeachment proceedings suggested little political harm to Trump - opinions among Republicans and Democrats were largely entrenched from the outset. November is also when Republican Party lawmakers in the U.S. Congress, especially those in districts and states that are a toss-up, may learn the political costs of erecting a human wall to block efforts to remove Trump from the Oval Office.
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| 'Australia Should Be Ashamed' After More Than 40 Koalas Killed on Logging Site Posted: 04 Feb 2020 12:57 PM PST  30 koalas were euthanized after being found injured among the felled trees
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| When it comes to climate hypocrisy, Canada's leaders have reached a new low Posted: 05 Feb 2020 02:30 AM PST  A territory that has 0.5% of the Earth's population plans to use up nearly a third of the planet's remaining carbon budget Americans elected Donald Trump, who insisted climate change was a hoax – so it's no surprise that since taking office he's been all-in for the fossil fuel industry. There's no sense despairing; the energy is better spent fighting to remove him from office.Canada, on the other hand, elected a government that believes the climate crisis is real and dangerous – and with good reason, since the nation's Arctic territories give it a front-row seat to the fastest warming on Earth. Yet the country's leaders seem likely in the next few weeks to approve a vast new tar sands mine which will pour carbon into the atmosphere through the 2060s. They know – yet they can't bring themselves to act on the knowledge. Now that is cause for despair.The Teck mine would be the biggest tar sands mine yet: 113 square miles of petroleum mining, located just 16 miles from the border of Wood Buffalo national park. A federal panel approved the mine despite conceding that it would likely be harmful to the environment and to the land culture of Indigenous people. These giant tar sands mines (easily visible on Google Earth) are already among the biggest scars humans have ever carved on the planet's surface. But Canadian authorities ruled that the mine was nonetheless in the "public interest".Here's how Justin Trudeau, recently re-elected as Canada's prime minister, put it in a speech to cheering Texas oilmen a couple of years ago: "No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave them there." That is to say, Canada, which is 0.5% of the planet's population, plans to use up nearly a third of the planet's remaining carbon budget. Ottawa hides all this behind a series of pledges about "net-zero emissions by 2050" and so on, but they are empty promises. In the here-and-now they can't rein themselves in. There's oil in the ground and it must come out.This is painfully hard to watch because it comes as the planet has supposedly reached a turning point. A series of remarkable young people (including Canadians such as Autumn Peltier) have captured the imagination of people around the world; scientists have issued ever sterner warnings; and the images of climate destruction show up in every newspaper. Canadians can see the Australian blazes on television; they should bring back memories of the devastating forest fires that forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray, in the heart of the tar sands complex, less than four years ago.The only rational response would be to immediately stop the expansion of new fossil fuel projects. It's true that we can't get off oil and gas immediately; for the moment, oil wells continue to pump. But the Teck Frontier proposal is predicated on the idea that we'll still need vast quantities of oil in 2066, when Greta Thunberg is about to hit retirement age. If an alcoholic assured you he was taking his condition very seriously, but also laying in a 40-year store of bourbon, you'd be entitled to doubt his sincerity, or at least to note his confusion. Oil has addled the Canadian ability to do basic math: more does not equal less, and 2066 is not any time soon. An emergency means you act now.In fairness, Canada has company here. For every territory making a sincere effort to kick fossil fuels (California, Scotland) there are other capitals just as paralyzed as Ottawa. Australia's fires creep ever closer to the seat of government in Canberra, yet the prime minister, Scott Morrison, can't seem to imagine any future for his nation other than mining more coal. Australia and Canada are both rich nations, their people highly educated, but they seem unable to control the zombie momentum of fossil fuels.There's obviously something hideous about watching the Trumps and the Putins of the world gleefully shred our future. But it's disturbing in a different way to watch leaders pretend to care – a kind of gaslighting that can reduce you to numb nihilism. Trudeau, for all his charms, doesn't get to have it both ways: if you can't bring yourself to stop a brand-new tar sands mine then you're not a climate leader. * Bill McKibben is an author and Schumann distinguished scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College, Vermont. His most recent book is Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
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| In challenging China’s claims in the South China Sea, the US Navy is getting more assertive Posted: 05 Feb 2020 09:32 AM PST  Last year saw an uptick in U.S. freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea.
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| What is causing the mysterious giant 'ice rings' in Siberia? Posted: 05 Feb 2020 11:05 AM PST  Strange ice rings in Siberia's Lake Baikal have puzzled scientists for decades, but now the mystery apparently has been solved.
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| The Kurdish Tragedy: What America Can Learn From Its Foreign Policy Fumbles in Iraq Posted: 05 Feb 2020 10:12 AM PST  As bitter of a pill it is to swallow in watching a good and reliable partner fall under the thumb of hostile actors, policymakers and foreign policy experts can avoid future calamities by developing realistic and deliberative long-term strategies that support America's diplomats and armed forces serving as the instruments of that policy.
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| CNN’s Van Jones worries Trump’s address will win over black voters Posted: 05 Feb 2020 12:24 PM PST  CNN analyst Van Jones warned fellow Democrats on Tuesday that Trump's criminal justice reform policies and prioritization of funding for historically black colleges could win over black voters.
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| Ten more on cruise ship off Japan have new coronavirus Posted: 05 Feb 2020 05:09 PM PST  Ten more people on a cruise ship off Japan's coast have tested positive for the new coronavirus, the health minister said Thursday, raising the number of infections detected on the boat to 20. Japanese authorities have tested 273 people among the approximately 3,700 passengers and crew on the ship after a man who got off the boat last month in Hong Kong was diagnosed with the new strain. "Now we have 71 more test results, of which 10 are positive for the new coronavirus," he added.
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| Tennessee inmate indicted in death of prisons administrator Posted: 04 Feb 2020 10:02 AM PST  A Tennessee inmate accused of killing a corrections administrator and escaping prison on a tractor has been indicted on charges including premeditated murder and rape. Watson, 44, was on regular lawn care duties at West Tennessee State Penitentiary near Henning when he sexually assaulted and killed corrections administrator Debra Johnson, 64, at her home on the prison grounds that morning, authorities said.
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| Outrage over Trump giving Rush Limbaugh same medal awarded to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr Posted: 05 Feb 2020 07:55 AM PST  Donald Trump has been roundly condemned by critics for giving the controversial conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh one of the highest civilian awards in the country in the middle of his State of the Union address.Mr Trump announced his decision to award Mr Limbaugh with the Presidential Medal of Freedom during his speech on Tuesday night, having Melania Trump present the medal and place it on the outspoken supporter of the president.
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| Wuhan is scrambling to fill 11 sports centers, exhibition halls, and other local venues with over 10,000 beds to create makeshift coronavirus hospitals Posted: 04 Feb 2020 05:42 PM PST  The epicenter of the viral outbreak is converting local facilities into hospitals with over 10,000 beds. See what these makeshift hospitals look like.
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| Baby tests positive for coronavirus 30 hours after birth Posted: 05 Feb 2020 03:00 AM PST  The mother tested positive for coronavirus when she was pregnant, said doctors in Wuhan, China.
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| Joe Biden flopped in Iowa. And so did the Democratic party's reputation Posted: 04 Feb 2020 12:00 AM PST  The apparent malfunctioning of a new app, meant to transmit vote totals, threw the Iowa caucus in disarray. And this benefited some more than others If you're the type of person who thinks the Democratic party is a creaking, incompetent entity whose leadership needs overthrowing, the Iowa caucuses certainly validated your point of view. None of us knew who would win, but we had at least expected a result. We didn't get one, at least not on caucus night. State Democratic party officials announced that due to "quality control" issues, release of the result would be indefinitely delayed. On a conference call with representatives of the candidates, party officials hung up the phone when asked when the totals would be released.So what do we know? Well, one thing we can say confidently is that "frontrunner" Joe Biden flopped. There were places where Biden didn't even meet the 15% threshold needed to maintain viability from the first round to the second round – at one caucus site, the attorney general of Iowa had to switch from Biden to Buttigieg when Biden was disqualified. It explains why Biden's surrogate John Kerry was heard on the phone the other day asking whether it would be possible for him to enter the race at the last minute to save the Democratic party from being conquered by Sanders.Internal numbers released by the Sanders campaign, showing results from 40% of caucus sites, showed Sanders winning with approximately 30% of the vote, Pete Buttigieg coming in second with 25%, Elizabeth Warren third with 21%, and Joe Biden a very distant fourth with 12%. If those numbers match the ultimate totals, they are great for Sanders and absolutely horrific for Biden. Sanders will have kicked the crap out of the frontrunner, Barack Obama's former vice-president and the man most favored to win the nomination. It would be a stunning upset.But Biden caught a lucky break. With the party not releasing the actual result, his campaign sent a letter demanding that the result be suppressed until such time as the "quality control issues" were resolved. If it takes long enough to get the official count, Biden may hope that Iowa is old news, or that the issues surrounding the caucus are discussed far more than the actual result. (That's one reason we need to make sure we don't get bogged down too much in talking about the procedural issues rather than the actual outcome.)So what went wrong? It's still not quite clear, though there were reports that a special app used to transmit vote totals had malfunctioned. Questions were immediately raised about who built the app and how it had been deployed. Ironically, it was introduced in order to "get results out to the public quicker" and had been "hastily put together" over the last two months. There had been security concerns from the start, and when NPR questioned the state party chairman, he "declined to provide more details about which company or companies designed the app, or about what specific measures have been put in place to guarantee the system's security". Ironically, it was apparently developed by a firm literally called "Shadow", partly funded by the Pete Buttigieg campaign.If you're a Sanders supporter, you have reason to be suspicious. We had already seen the Des Moines Register suppress the results of its "gold standard" poll on the eve of the election, after a complaint from Buttigieg. And with 0% of caucus results in, Buttigieg declared himself "victorious", praising the "incredible result" and saying Iowa had "shocked the nation". The only thing that had shocked the nation at this point was Iowa's total inability to perform the relatively simple task of counting people's votes. But Buttigieg, good McKinseyite that he is, was getting a head start on deploying the PR spin.For Sanders supporters, being denied a rightful victory in Iowa gives feelings of déjà vu. In 2016, Sanders may well have won Iowa, possibly by a lot, but the state party did not release the vote totals. Instead, it only released delegate numbers, which showed Bernie narrowly losing the state "701-697" to Hillary Clinton. The delegate numbers are calculated strangely (this time around, in one precinct, Sanders beat Buttigieg 111 votes to 47 votes in the "first alignment" but both ended up with two delegates). If the vote totals had been known in 2016, it might have been clear Bernie had won. With his New Hampshire victory shortly after, Clinton would have been seen as losing the race, and the whole election might have turned out differently. That's why, this time around, the Sanders campaign ensured that the vote totals would be released (and took a count of its own for good measure). This time, if he wins, everyone will know … eventually.Despite the chaos, certain aspects of the Iowa caucus were inspiring. For the first time, a caucus was held in a mosque, and hundreds of Muslims and non-Muslims came together to vote for Bernie. In the first caucus of the day, immigrant pork plant workers, whose evening shifts prevented them from joining the main event, came out early to line up for Bernie. Internationally based Iowans caucused around the world, including in Scotland and Tblisi, Georgia. The Iowa caucus might seem like a good illustration of the dysfunction in American democracy, but some of its participatory elements are beautiful. It would be a shame if the lively, communal caucus system disappeared entirely in favor of secret ballots in voting booths, as some were already recommending as the vote-counting mess unfolded.If the Sanders team's count is close to accurate (bear in mind, it was only 40% of caucus sites), he had the night he needed to have. The progressive vote is still being split between Sanders and Warren, but at least Biden hasn't managed to capitalize on that so far. The good news for Sanders is that, even if Buttigieg does unexpectedly well, Mayor Pete is destined to struggle as the campaign moves toward more racially diverse states. But all of the results remain speculative, since the Iowa Democratic party seemed determined to prove that we need a political revolution that overthrows the party establishment. * Nathan Robinson is a Guardian US columnist. He is the editor of Current Affairs
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| Bodies of two U.S. firefighters killed in Australia sent home Posted: 05 Feb 2020 12:35 AM PST  The bodies of two U.S. firefighters killed battling Australian blazes were sent home on Wednesday in emotional ceremonies attended by officials and relatives. Mourners gathered on the tarmac at Sydney Airport to see off Captain Ian H. McBeth, 44, of Great Falls, Montana, and First Officer Paul Clyde Hudson, 42, of Buckeye, Arizona, as their flag-draped caskets were lifted into aircraft for the journey home. The men and a third American, flight engineer Rick A. DeMorgan Jr, 43, of Navarre, Florida, were killed in a plane crash in remote bushland while battling fires on Jan. 23, in one of the deadliest days of Australia's most destructive bushfire season in a generation.
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| The Surprising Threat to America (No, Not Russia, China or Iran) Posted: 03 Feb 2020 09:00 PM PST  It comes from within.
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| The controversial YouTuber who faked his girlfriend's death has been arrested on a charge of assault with a weapon Posted: 04 Feb 2020 03:10 PM PST  Jason Ethier, also known as ImJayStation, is expected to appear in court next month. He recently gained attention for faking his girlfriend's death.
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| Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific asks all staff to take unpaid leave Posted: 05 Feb 2020 12:44 AM PST  Hong Kong's flagship carrier Cathay Pacific is asking its entire workforce to take up to three weeks of unpaid leave, its CEO announced Wednesday, as the airline faces a crisis in the wake of the new coronavirus outbreak. The request lays bare desperate times at Cathay, which was hammered last year by months of political chaos and protests in Hong Kong and is now being further hurt by the fallout from the virus outbreak. In a video message to the company's 27,000 employees, airline boss Augustus Tang said they were being asked to take up to three weeks leave with no pay between March and June.
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| Republicans slam president while defending their expected acquittal of Trump at his Senate trial Posted: 04 Feb 2020 09:26 AM PST  Leading Republicans took to the talk show circuit Sunday to defend their expected acquittal of President Trump at his Senate trial this week — despite offering sharp criticism of his role in the Ukraine scandal.
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| Impeachment done, Pelosi unburdens herself about Trump Posted: 05 Feb 2020 01:37 PM PST  President Donald Trump was gone, the House lights were dimming, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi looked up to her friends and family in the gallery overhead. The moment showcased Pelosi's sharper, less-restrained approach to the nation's 45th president at the bitter end of the impeachment saga she led.
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| Man arrested on capital murder charge in fatal shooting of two women in Texas campus dormitory Posted: 04 Feb 2020 06:37 PM PST  A man was arrested Tuesday in connection with a double murder that police say appeared to target his ex-girlfriend in a campus dormitory.
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| James Carville Rages Over State of Democratic Party: ‘I’m Scared to Death!’ Posted: 04 Feb 2020 06:12 PM PST  Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville sounded the alarm bells on Tuesday night over what he described as the Democratic Party turning into an "ideological cult," specifically singling out would-be presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.In the wake of Monday night's chaotic Iowa Democratic caucus that featured delayed vote results due to a faulty app, Carville appeared on MSNBC to warn that regardless of the final tallies, the Dems appear to be in big trouble."The polling averages have not been very good the last 10 days," he sighed. "And I've seen some pretty good polls that show enthusiasm among Democrats is not as high as we would like it. So there's something as people are watching this process that is concerning."Saying the party needs to "wake up and make sure that we talk about things that are relevant to people," the former Clinton adviser grumbled that he is "not very impressed" with the Democratic field and suggested DNC chair Tom Perez should be canned.After complaining that the campaigns "have to be more relevant," Carville—who is backing longshot presidential hopeful Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO)— was asked if he would get behind Sanders if the progressive senator ended up getting the nomination."Well, I'll get behind him. I have no choice," an unenthused Carville replied. "But look at the British Labour Party. We're like talking about people voting from jail cells. We're talking about not having a border. I mean, come on, people."He continued to rail against Sanders' policy positions, describing the independent Vermont lawmaker as being for "open borders" and stressing that he doesn't want the "Democratic Party of the United States to be the Labour Party of the United Kingdom," something he's told The Daily Beast before.Carville would go on to exclaim that Democrats need to be more concerned about taking power back in Washington, repeatedly stating that only 18 percent of the population controls 52 Senate seats. "It matters who the candidate is, it matters what a party chooses to talk about!" Carville shouted. "I'm 75 years old. Why am I here doing this? Because I am scared to death, that's why! Let's get relevant here, people, for sure.""I just love you," former Democratic senator and current MSNBC contributor Claire McCaskill cooed in response.Carville, meanwhile, went on to make his case that the party was leaning towards a centrist candidate over a liberal one, wondering out loud: "Do we want to be an ideological cult? Or do we want to have a majoritarian instinct to have the majority party?""You and I know that 18 percent of the country elects 52 senators," he continued, addressing McCaskill. "The urban core is not gonna get it done. What we need is power! Do you understand? That's what this is about."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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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| High school principal placed on leave for saying 'karma caught up' with Kobe Bryant Posted: 05 Feb 2020 12:56 PM PST  A high school principal apologised publicly for a Facebook post she wrote insinuating that Kobe Bryant deserved to die in the helicopter crash that killed him, his daughter and seven others. The principal was placed on administrative leave Tuesday.Liza Sejkora, the principal at Camas High School in Camas, Washington, apologised for a post she made to Facebook that said: "Not gonna lie. Seems to me that karma caught up with a rapist today."
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