| Coronavirus cases continue to rise in U.S. as Trump issues reassurance Posted: 06 Mar 2020 11:25 AM PST  As more Americans have been tested for the coronavirus, the number of cases has continued to rise steadily. Yet the Trump administration has sought to portray the situation as under control.
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| Pence gently tries to correct Trump's false coronavirus testing claims Posted: 06 Mar 2020 04:41 PM PST  Friday evening found Vice President Pence in an uncommon and uncomfortable position: Having to downplay and contradict assertions made by his boss.
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| Coronavirus: Expert's worst-case scenario is 96 million infected in US with up to 500,000 dead Posted: 07 Mar 2020 02:49 PM PST  A doctor has advised hospitals to prepare for up 96 million coronavirus infections and 500,000 potential deaths as a worst-case scenario for the potential extent of the outbreak, leaked documents reveal.The documents, obtained by Business Insider, come from a presentation made during a webinar hosted by the American Hospital Association (AHA).
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| Next Democratic debate will officially be a Biden-Sanders face-off Posted: 06 Mar 2020 01:06 PM PST  It's time for the main event... before the actual main event.The Democratic National Committee announced the rules for its March 15 debate on Friday, saying only candidates with more than 20 percent of the delegates doled out so far will appear onstage. That ensures only former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will get to face off, and removes Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and her one delegate from the contest.Biden, Gabbard, and Sanders are the only candidates left in the race for the Democratic nomination. Even if Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Michael Bloomberg hadn't dropped out after Super Tuesday, their delegate totals wouldn't have met the DNC's threshold.Rules for the last two debates, which allowed any candidate with at least one delegate onstage, would've allowed Gabbard to sneak in after she met that requirement in the American Samoa. Gabbard tweeted Thursday that she looked forward to debating about foreign policy, but now will have to keep those points to herself.More stories from theweek.com China's coronavirus recovery is 'all fake,' whistleblowers and residents claim An ex-MI6 officer reportedly recruited by security contractor with Trump ties helped infiltrate a major teachers union Trump says doctors keep asking how he knows so much about the coronavirus
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| No more refills: U.S. airlines step up measures to guard against coronavirus Posted: 07 Mar 2020 11:15 AM PST |
| UK police review probe into abduction of Dubai ruler's daughter Posted: 07 Mar 2020 06:08 AM PST  British police said Saturday they were reviewing an investigation into the disappearance of the ruler of Dubai's daughter after a court found that she had been abducted by her father. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, who is vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, orchestrated the forcible return home of Sheikha Shamsa from Britain in 2000, the High Court ruled earlier this week. The finding was part of a damning judgement that also revealed the sheikh had seized Shamsa's sister Latifa, now 35, twice and returned her to Dubai.
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| Bernie's Fatal Mistake: Most Americans Don't Want Medicare For All Posted: 05 Mar 2020 07:30 PM PST  And the 'public option' isn't much better.
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| No ordinary flu: Coronavirus and the lessons of the 1918 pandemic for a world on edge Posted: 06 Mar 2020 03:01 AM PST  As cases of COVID-19 spread worldwide, one expert tells Yahoo News there's an important lesson we should learn from the deadliest pandemic in modern history: Tell the truth.
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| Netanyahu, and Israel, at an Impasse Posted: 06 Mar 2020 03:11 PM PST  Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu almost — but did not quite — win the country's third national elections within a year. Exit polls just after the end of voting showed the right-wing, nationalist, and religious parties with 60 seats in the Knesset, just shy of a 61-seat majority. Nevertheless, Netanyahu and his allies claimed a stunning victory, and speculation was rife in Israeli media that a conservative candidate from a left-wing party could be induced to jump ship and join the right-wing bloc to enable the formation of a government.As it turned out, after final votes were tallied, right-wing and religious parties achieved 58 seats, while the opposition parties received 62 seats. The result for the Right was indeed impressive, given that voters were presented with the prospect of keeping in power a prime minister indicted on corruption charges. But while enticing one opposition candidate to defect to the right may have been possible, enticing three candidates from rival parties to defect seems extremely unlikely.So, why has Netanyahu been unable to gain clear majorities in successive elections? Why has he been able to do well, but not well enough?Netanyahu's election refrain has been that he is the only candidate who can guarantee Israel's security in the volatile Middle East. This is the one area on which most Israelis more or less agree, believing that a peace deal with the Palestinians is impossible for the near future (the Trump administration's attempt notwithstanding) and that countering Iran's influence is a top national priority.The prime minister has also sought to energize his base by tying his corruption indictments to long-held right-wing suspicions that Israel's judicial system functions as a kind of "deep state" that works to the benefit of the Left. In the most serious indictment, Netanyahu is accused of offering favorable government policies to a telecommunications tycoon in exchange for more-positive coverage on a popular news website. Netanyahu regularly maintains that the positive coverage never materialized and that the supposedly favorable policies he implemented cost the tycoon a fortune.However, these arguments have failed to persuade a majority of voters to support Netanyahu. Most Jewish voters who chose opposition parties are fed up with Netanyahu's insistence on remaining in power despite the corruption charges against him. (They also note that Israel's attorney general, who brought the indictments, is a right-wing Netanyahu appointee.) A smaller segment of these voters are frustrated with Netanyahu's alliance with Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties, whose demands for state funding for yeshivas and refusal to allow yeshiva students to be drafted into the army are resented by secular Jews. Arab voters, meanwhile, view Netanyahu as not only corrupt but a racist who has incited hatred against the Arab public for the sake of gaining the support of Israel's far Right. As for the prime minister's claim to be essential for Israel's security, the largest opposition party, the centrist Blue and White, is headed by three generals, all former IDF chiefs of staff.The various objections to Netanyahu have led most voters to reject his premiership for close to a year. However, the opposition to Netanyahu has yet to unite around a clear vision for the country other than "anyone but Bibi." This is partly because the Israeli Left is still struggling to redefine itself after its previous support for peace deals with the Palestinians and after socialist economic policies have been rejected by large swaths of the public. Perhaps more importantly, in order to form a government, the opposition would need the backing of the Arab parties, which (as in the past) currently include lawmakers who have expressed support for terrorists. So the country is left with an opposition struggling to put forth a unifying, inspiring, and sufficiently reassuring program.Further complicating matters, parties on both the left and the right have publicly staked out positions — some won't form a government with Haredi and/or Arab parties, several won't sit with Netanyahu, etc. — that make forming a governing coalition well-nigh impossible without at least one party reneging on its promises.By Thursday, opposition parties seemed to coalesce around a possible step forward. Lawmakers have proposed a bill that would bar any Knesset member under criminal indictment from forming a government — a measure that would prevent Netanyahu from becoming prime minister. The chances that the Knesset will succeed in passing the bill are unclear, and one can be sure that Netanyahu will use every means at his disposal to fight the proposed bill's passage.If the opposition fails to oust Netanyahu, Israel may head to its fourth round of elections. That scenario would leave Netanyahu in power as caretaker prime minister — better than nothing, but still disappointing as he attempts to lead the country while fighting corruption indictments, all without a clear mandate from the public. Netanyahu's central claim, that only he can guide Israel through the vicissitudes and upheavals of the Middle East, will have been rejected.If Israel lurches to fourth elections, observers may wonder if Netanyahu's continued premiership is the result of political genius or of a deep unwillingness to admit that Israeli voters have decided his time is up.
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| A senior Chinese official was heckled while visiting Wuhan, showing how much the coronavirus has weakened the Communist Party's grip on power Posted: 06 Mar 2020 03:03 AM PST  Residents under lockdown in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus, shouted at Sun Chunlan: "Fake, fake, everything is fake."
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| Saudi Arabia 'arrests three members of royal family' Posted: 06 Mar 2020 06:07 PM PST  Three senior members of Saudi Arabia's royal family, including King Salman's brother, have been arrested and accused of plotting to overthrow the secretive kingdom's leadership. According to the Wall Street Journal, guards from the royal court detained Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al Saud, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and Prince Nawaf bin Nayef, at their homes before charging them with treason. Saudi officials are yet to respond to the reports, which appear to be part of a wider attempt by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the king's favourite son and de facto Saudi ruler, to consolidate power. A source told the Wall Street Journal that the arrests took place on Friday morning. The Crown Prince also arrested nearly a dozen senior royals in 2017, supposedly in a crackdown on corruption, after ousting Mohammed bin Nayef, who at that time was heir to the throne. Prince Mohammed is said to have alienated swathes of the ruling family since taking power, and some have questioned whether he is fit to rule after he was accused of ordering the murder of a respected journalist in Turkey who had publicly criticised him, something that he strenuously denied.
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| Elizabeth Warren endured sexism at every step of her campaign Posted: 07 Mar 2020 06:02 AM PST  She faced the impossible: be competent but not condescending, cheery but not pandering, maternal but not frumpy, smart but not haughtyA woman cannot be elected president. If that statement was not true when Elizabeth Warren announced her intent to run, on New Years Eve 2018, it has become true now. With her exit from the race, the last serious female presidential candidate has now dropped out, and what was once a historically diverse field has narrowed to two very old white men, the former vice-president Joe Biden, 77, and the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, 78. The next president, it is now assured, will be a man. Again.The bruising contest has left the party divided and rancorous, with the result being that no matter who the Democratic nominee is, he will face not only the formidable resources of a moneyed Republican opposition, but also intense internal enmity within his own party. The internal factionalism and wild hatred within the Democratic party makes either candidate, be it Biden or Sanders, much more likely to lose in November. And the advanced ages of both of the two remaining major candidates means that even if one of them wins the presidency in November, it remains a real question whether they can feasibly run for a second term. And so, win or lose, the long, contentious and often hateful Democratic primary cycle will be repeated in four years for the 2024 cycle, further fracturing and handicapping the party, no matter what.All of this could have been avoided if the media and the electorate were less blinded by cynicism, sexism and fear and more willing to see Warren for who she was – the most capable, competent and kindest candidate in the race.As a woman, the Massachusetts senator always faced an uphill battle of double standards and misogynist resentment. She had to be competent but not condescending, cheery but not pandering, maternal but not frumpy, smart but not haughty. As she rose in the polls last summer and fall, she came under the kind of scrutiny that male frontrunners are not subjected to, and faced skepticism about her claims and character that male candidates do not face.> As she rose in the polls last summer and fall, she came under the kind of scrutiny that male frontrunners are not subjected toThis is the fate of a lot of women who come close to attaining power, and empirical data backs up the phenomenon: writing in the Washington Post, the Cornell philosopher Kate Manne cited a 2010 Harvard study that found that women are viewed more negatively simply by seeking office. "Voters view male and female politicians as equally power-seeking, but respond to them quite differently," Manne writes. "Men who seek power were viewed as stronger and tougher, while power-seeking women provoked feelings of disgust and contempt."As a result, all of Warren's virtues were recast as vices in the public eye. Her impressive credentials and superlative intellect became out-of-touch elitism. Her joyousness and enthusiasm were cast as somehow both insincerely pandering and cringingly over-earnest. This kind of transformation of neutral or positive character traits into negative ones is not something that happens to men in similar positions. Sanders can aestheticize his practiced cantankerousness for laughs and sympathy without anyone asking if its a put-on. Biden can use slang from the 1930s without anyone ever questioning whether the ostentatious folksiness of his "no malarkey" messaging might be just a tad affected. But for Warren, every smile was interpreted as a sign of concealed hatred, of secret, nefarious motives.Her policy efforts, too, were cast as a repudiation of her principles rather than as steps toward realizing them. Her attempt to transform Medicare for All from a symbolic rallying cry into a substantive, workable and affordable policy change that can be made in our time brought, paradoxically, accusations that she was less serious about the policy for trying to make it a reality. Her plans to break up tech monopolies, repair the damage to black wealth done by historic redlining policies and reshape massive federal spending projects to make them environmentally sustainable were all cast as signs of duplicity and lack of commitment to her stated values. Meanwhile, male candidates who did not have substantive plans to implement such policies were believed, largely uncritically, when they told the public that they would put them in place.In this race, men's statements – about who they are, what they value, what they would do as president – have largely been taken at face value, even when male candidates have made false or exaggerated claims or contradicted themselves. But Elizabeth Warren was never given the benefit of the doubt. Her flaws and missteps were magnified, and interpreted in ways disproportionate to their significance, while comparatively greater mistakes by male rivals were all but ignored. When she referred to her father as having worked as a janitor, a days–long news cycle asked why, if he was really a janitor, her brother had once referred to him as a "maintenance man". That these are effectively the same did not matter: the irrelevant non-story was interpreted as a sign of her constitutional untrustworthiness.Warren was said to be not really running for president, but running as a spoiler; not really happy to meet voters, but shamelessly pretending with her long selfie lines; not really committed to economic inequality, but merely devoting her life to it as some sort of long con. None of these accusations made much logical sense, but that didn't matter, because they were backed up by the force of feeling – a very strong feeling, held by many men and women alike, that a woman seeking power and status just can't be trusted.The epistemic philosopher Miranda Fricker calls this tendency to disbelieve women, and to believe powerful men, "testimonial injustice": the harm done to speakers when prejudiced listeners discount their credibility. Women face testimonial injustice in particular when they challenge or contradict men, as cultural tropes that depict women as conniving, scheming, and selfish can be mustered to make her seem less credible, him more believable. Fricker doesn't apply her concept of testimonial injustice to gender conflict exclusively, but it is an obstacle that many women recount in their own experiences of gendered injustice: the sense that they cannot be believed, that they cannot achieve equal credibility and moral footing with men in the minds of their peers, that they will always be assumed to be either stupid or dishonest. Branded as dishonest even as she told the truth, duplicitous even as she kept her promises, Warren faced testimonial injustice on a huge scale, and it ultimately doomed her campaign.Which brings us to the real moment, I think, that effectively killed Warren's chances at the presidency: not the botched communications rollout of her Medicare for All plan, as many pundits have said, but her conflict with Sanders. In January, CNN reported that Warren and Sanders had met privately in late 2018 before announcing their candidacies, and that Warren had told close associates afterwards that Sanders had said something rude, inconsiderate and sexist to her: that he did not think a woman could defeat Donald Trump. Sanders says that's not what he meant, but the two candidates' accounts of the conversation are not incompatible. When Warren confirmed the report, the story both pointed to the troublesome misogyny of Sanders supporters and incited it: they began a gruesome, hateful and organized attack against Warren and her supporters. They called her a liar. They called her a snake, and made excessive use of the snake emoji. The online conversation veered from the typical competitive snarkiness into something darker and more hateful. Many of the things Sanders supporters said in response to this incident were deeply sexist and deeply cruel. A few of the things they said were threatening.In the aftermath, it became difficult, if not impossible, to say that you believed Warren about the conversation: any public statement of support for her or belief in her account was met with fierce harassment. Perhaps this is why few of them were made. The public consensus quickly became that she was lying about the conversation with Sanders, and that he was not lying. It is plausible, to me, to think that a white man in his late 70s, comfortable in his privilege and out of touch with his time, said something condescending and sexist to a woman in private. I find Warren's account more plausible than the alternative offered by Sanders' supporters, that a woman invented the story and leaked it to hurt an innocent man. But to those that make it, the feasibility of the accusation is not important. What is important, again, is that the accusation is backed up by feeling, the feeling that Warren owes something to this man, that she betrayed him, that she can't be trusted.> What happened to Elizabeth Warren is proof that women's lives are still constrained and narrowed by sexism, that women's talents and ambitions still matter less than men'sMany people believed Warren was lying when she said that Sanders told her a woman couldn't be president, and in politics, what gets believed is effectively indistinguishable from the truth, whether or not it has any bearing on fact. Maybe this is why powerful men, given so much credibility and so much benefit of the doubt, seem to have a strange power of pronouncement. They declare that a woman is deceitful and people stop trusting her; they declare that a woman is unelectable and people stop imagining the country she would shape; they say, even allegedly, even third-hand, that a woman can't beat Trump, and people nod along, believing. And then they vote for a man.Warren events became famous for the selfie lines, the sometimes hours-long rally-after-the-rally in which waiting voters and supporters could chat with campaign reps about the candidate, talk to one another about the issues they cared about and ultimately get a picture with Warren herself. By the time she dropped out, Warren had taken more than 100,000 of these pictures. The events developed a particular ritual, and one aspect was what Warren did when she met a small girl: she would kneel down to the child's eye level and offer her a pinkie promise. "I'm running for president, because that's what girls do," she would tell them, and then ask them to remember.The message to the children was that women can do anything, that when they grow up their talents won't be ignored, their intelligence won't be mocked, their horizons won't be narrowed because of their sex. But if anything, Elizabeth Warren's candidacy proved that this is not true. There is no way for a woman to be enough to overcome misogyny – there is no amount of smart she can be, there is no amount of good she can be, there is no point at which she will be so overpoweringly hardworking and so obviously qualified that people who do not want women to have positions of prominence and authority will have to give her one anyway. What happened to Elizabeth Warren is proof that women's lives are still constrained and narrowed by sexism, that women's talents and ambitions still matter less than men's.I don't think that Elizabeth Warren lied very much during this campaign. I don't think she lied about her principles, or her policy agenda, or about Bernie Sanders. If she ever lied, it was to those little girls. * Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
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| Human remains believed to be missing Tennessee toddler Evelyn Boswell found Posted: 07 Mar 2020 01:41 PM PST  Authorities have found remains they believe belong to Evelyn Boswell, a 15-month-old girl from Tennessee who was reportedly last seen late last year.
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| A 5-story hotel used for coronavirus quarantine collapsed in China. People are demanding an investigation. Posted: 07 Mar 2020 09:16 AM PST  While new cases appear to be slowing in China, the country is still reeling from fallout and criticism over its response to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.That was on full display Saturday when a five-story hotel in Quanzhou, China, used to quarantine people potentially exposed to COVID-19 after traveling to the epicenter, Hubei province, collapsed Saturday, reportedly trapping around 70 people. It is not clear if anyone has died, but Reuters reports 34 people have been rescued in the hours after the hotel collapsed.A woman staying under quarantine at another hotel said she tried contacting her relatives who were in the hotel and are reportedly healthy, but has not yet been able to reach them. She said she's "very worried."Some people are reportedly demanding an investigation into how the hotel collapsed, the reason for which is not currently known. But, either way, the incident will likely do little to quell anger directed at Beijing from China's citizenry over how the government has handled the COVID-19 outbreak from the beginning. Read more at Reuters.More stories from theweek.com China's coronavirus recovery is 'all fake,' whistleblowers and residents claim An ex-MI6 officer reportedly recruited by security contractor with Trump ties helped infiltrate a major teachers union Trump says doctors keep asking how he knows so much about the coronavirus
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| U.S. sending military police to two border crossings in Texas and California Posted: 06 Mar 2020 12:02 PM PST  The U.S. government says it is sending 160 military police and engineers to two official border crossings to deal with asylum seekers in case a federal appeals court strikes down one of the Trump administration's key policies.
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| As demand crunch deepens, how far can oil plummet? Posted: 07 Mar 2020 07:31 AM PST  Oil prices have plummeted by more than 30 percent since the start of the year but for producers the worst may be yet to come, warn experts, as the coronavirus epidemic weighs heavily on demand. The OPEC cartel of oil-producing countries and its allies failed to reach a deal on production cuts Friday, after Moscow refused to tighten supply to counter the effects of the outbreak, sending oil prices tumbling. OPEC nations -- led by the world's third-largest oil producer Saudi Arabia -- had agreed the day before to recommend "a further adjustment of 1.5 million barrels per day until 30 June 2020."
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| 'Zero-empathy' Trump shows lack of emotion when told about 8-year-old boy's family being killed in tornado Posted: 06 Mar 2020 03:04 PM PST  Donald Trump has been filmed showing "zero empathy" for an 8-year-old boy during a meeting with families of Tennessee tornado victims.The US president met with the families on Friday in the town of Cookeville as part of a trip to see the devastation caused by this week's tornadoes.
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| Love in the time of the coronavirus: Do you turn your back when someone offers you a hand, a kiss or a hug? Posted: 06 Mar 2020 05:01 AM PST  Editor's note: The toll of the coronavirus grows, with California under a state of emergency, and more than 150 cases and 11 deaths reported in the U.S.. Also, more than 300 million school children worldwide are facing closures of their schools. What does this mean for you in your personal life? We asked Brian Labus, professor of public health at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, about what kinds of physical contact are safe while COVID-19 is spreading.We are exposed to numerous viruses from our day-to-day interactions with other people all the time. However, our risk of being infected by a simple greeting usually isn't in the forefront of our minds. The spread of COVID-19 has changed that. Conferences have banned handshakes, churches have changed their worship services, and even politicians have changed the way they greet each other. But what's the risk in a simple hug or a handshake?If someone's hand is covered in virus because they coughed into it right before they shook your hand, it is no different than handling their dirty tissue. Your hand is now contaminated, and if you absentmindedly rub your eye or touch your mouth, you have potentially just infected yourself. You are relying on other people to wash their hands in order to protect you, but we know that people are terrible about hand-washing, even after using the bathroom. The simple fact is that we put ourselves at some risk of infection every time we interact with other humans. So what should you do if a stranger extends their hand to greet you or a friend tries to hug you? Pulling your hand away from that potential big sale or recoiling in shock from your friend's embrace is probably not the best approach. It's about balancing the risk of infection with the negative consequences of breaching social etiquette. Health experts around the world have been recommending that people reduce unnecessary physical contact with other people, such as shaking hands or kissing on the cheek. Even the French have recommended no cheek kissing. You can still greet each people warmly and politely without touching them, by bumping elbows or fists, tapping feet (the "Wuhan shake" popular on social media), simply waving hi, or one of the many other creative suggestions that are popping up online. This isn't about making extreme changes to our social interactions; it's about taking simple steps to help reduce your risk of disease. The other important step in protecting yourself is to frequently wash your hands or use hand sanitizer if soap and water are not readily available. This is a critical part of protecting yourself, as you can't introduce a virus into your mucous membranes if you have removed it from your hands. As this outbreak progresses, maybe we will see the refusal to shake hands not as a snub, but as an expression of genuine concern for each others' health. If you are worried about offending someone by using hand sanitizer after shaking someone's hand, offer them some of your sanitizer as well. Change the conversation and help make having clean hands something that not only important to you, but socially desirable as well. [You're smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation's authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Why hand-washing really is as important as doctors say * You (and most of the millions of holiday travelers you encounter) are washing your hands wrongBrian Labus previously received funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
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| See These Missiles? This Is How North Korea Could Attack with Nearly 'No Warning' Posted: 06 Mar 2020 01:30 AM PST  Not nuclear weapons.
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| Elon Musk is showering Bernie Sanders with memes since his own favorite Democratic candidate Andrew Yang dropped out of the race Posted: 07 Mar 2020 02:00 AM PST  Musk has not openly endorsed Sanders and the memes give little insight into whether he supports the Vermont senator.
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| Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Trevor Noah praise Warren, bury her presidential run Posted: 06 Mar 2020 12:28 AM PST  With Sen. Elizabeth Warren's departure from the Democratic presidential race, "we're getting a clearer picture of America's future -- and it looks a lot like America's past," Stephen Colbert said on Thursday's Late Show. "The one-time frontrunner, Warren made the classic campaign mistake of being able to finish a coherent sentence -- and not having a penis." Her departure is "further proof that American cannot have nice things," he said. "She had a plan for everything -- a health care plan, an immigration plan, a student loan plan, and her most popular plan of all: kneecapping Michael Bloomberg with a croquet mallet."Still, "despite her best effort, that Democratic road still has just two lanes -- and two drivers who probably should have their keys taken away," Colbert said. He played Warren's thoughts on sexism in the race, acted out Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders courting her endorsement, and played a clip of Warren's dog stealing a snack: "Yes, it's your burrito, but Bailey has a plan for that.""Who is Elizabeth Warren gonna endorse, Biden or Bernie?" Trevor Noah asked at The Daily Show. "Is she gonna swipe right or far left?" But "Warren has a good point" about sexism, he said. "A woman addressing sexism, or ignoring it, while running for president is either going to be seen as a whiner or living on another planet. Which is unfair, especially since the president is already a whiner who lives on another planet. And whether you think sexism played a role or not, you have to admit it's pretty strange that a race that started with a broad tapestry of candidates is now basically down to two old white men."Yes, in spite of Warren's "experience, her track record, and her skills in the debates, American voters ultimately decided she just didn't have what they were looking for in a president -- which is a penis," Jimmy Kimmel said on Kimmel Live. "It's hard to argue sexism didn't play some part, and not just direct sexism. ... It's second-hand sexism." With the race down to Bernie and Biden, he said, "basically, it's like when you're trying to choose which type of Breyer's vanilla to get at the supermarket, and they've got the the natural, the homemade, and the extra creamy. Which flavor will beat that chunky monkey in the Oval Office? I guess we'll find out." Watch below. More stories from theweek.com China's coronavirus recovery is 'all fake,' whistleblowers and residents claim An ex-MI6 officer reportedly recruited by security contractor with Trump ties helped infiltrate a major teachers union Trump says doctors keep asking how he knows so much about the coronavirus
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| Virginia lawmakers send 'historic' energy bill to governor Posted: 06 Mar 2020 10:37 AM PST  Virginia lawmakers gave final passage Friday to a sweeping energy bill that would overhaul how the state's utilities generate electricity, a measure environmental groups and other renewable energy advocates considered a historic step toward addressing climate change. The state Senate advanced the Virginia Clean Economy Act on a vote of 22-17, sending the bill to Gov. Ralph Northam a day after the House passed it. "Today, the Virginia Senate finalized what would have been impossible just a year ago: comprehensive legislation that gets us to 100 percent clean electricity and zero carbon emissions," Michael Town, executive director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, said in a statement.
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| China may soon lift quarantine on virus-hit Hubei province: official Posted: 06 Mar 2020 02:59 AM PST  China may soon lift the quarantine imposed on the province at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak which has been under lockdown for more than a month, a senior government official hinted Friday. Asked about the draconian measures taken in central Hubei province to contain the spread of the virus, Ding Xiangyang, deputy secretary-general of China's State Council, told journalists "the day everyone is waiting for will not be too far away". Some 56 million people in Hubei have been effectively quarantined since late January, to stop the virus from spreading across the country when people returned to work from their hometowns after the extended Lunar New Year break.
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| Body of baby girl found in LA park bathroom Posted: 06 Mar 2020 11:33 AM PST  The dead body of a baby girl has been found in a Pasadena park public bathroom, police announced on Friday.Maintenance staff discovered the body while preparing to clean the restrooms at around 10pm on Thursday, according to the report.
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| Exclusive: U.S. considers discouraging some travelers from cruises - sources Posted: 06 Mar 2020 08:20 AM PST  The United States is considering ways to discourage U.S. travelers from taking cruises as part of a broader Trump administration effort to limit the spread of coronavirus, according to four officials familiar with the situation. The discussions were taking place ahead of a meeting this weekend between Vice President Mike Pence, who is in charge of leading the U.S. response to the coronavirus, and the cruise industry. The administration could advise some or all U.S. travelers to temporarily avoid taking cruises in the face of a growing number of coronavirus cases on cruise ships or potentially impose travel restrictions related to cruises, officials said.
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| Tanker War: Can America's Navy SEALs Stop Iran's Attacks On Oil Shipping? Posted: 05 Mar 2020 08:00 PM PST  Tensions have not subsided.
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| Bloomberg Staffers Claim Campaign ‘Was a Grift,’ Admit to Canvassing for Other Campaigns Posted: 06 Mar 2020 09:08 AM PST  Staffers for former New York city mayor Mike Bloomberg's failed presidential campaign have described how the campaign imploded after Bloomberg's Nevada debate performance, and detailed how Bloomberg's vast campaign resources were taken advantage of."Most people knew this was a grift," a campaign official told The Nation's Ken Klippenstein — who reported extensively on Bloomberg throughout the campaign. Staff pointed to the debate as the moment of implosion, after Elizabeth Warren slammed Bloomberg as "a billionaire who calls women 'fat broads' and 'horse-faced lesbians,'" and challenged him over his multiple non-disclosure agreements stemming from sexual harassment claims."The day after when we made calls people were like, 'Oh yeah, I was thinking about him, but I'm not really sure anymore,'" a staffer said."Ever since the first debate all of us faced a ton of hostility" a field organizer added. "I once had a woman chase me back to my car demanding that I say you can't buy the presidency."Despite paying his staff the best salaries and providing amenities — like free housing and meals and new iPhones — Bloomberg lacked loyalty and enthusiasm among his employees."At our first office meeting, my [director] said, 'We don't need to canvass. We can just make calls, right guys?' And everyone was like, 'Yeah, that's sensible,'" an official said.Staffers also admitted to siphoning away resources from the campaign to serve their own interests, with Bloomberg's organizers in San Diego reportedly using Bloomberg's funds for other local campaigns."I would actively canvass for Bernie when I was supposed to be canvassing for Mike. I know of at least one team of 'volunteers' that was entirely fabricated by the organizers who had to hit their goals. It was easy enough to fudge the data to make it look like real people put in real volunteer work, when in reality Mike was getting nothing out of it," one person said.Others detailed how Bloomberg's social media campaign — which included paying $2,500 a month in exchange for staffers to text personal contacts and post daily on social media about Bloomberg — was so lackluster that accounts would be flagged as spam and suspended for copying and pasting campaign talking points.
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| Inside the Pyramid of Djoser — the world's oldest still-standing stone building — that reopened after 14 years of restoration Posted: 07 Mar 2020 09:03 AM PST  After 14 years, the oldest pyramid in the world, known as the Pyramid of Djoser, has reopened. Here's what it's like inside.
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| Canada declares coronavirus outbreak at long-term care home Posted: 07 Mar 2020 03:11 PM PST  Canadian officials on Saturday declared an outbreak of the new coronavirus at a long-term care home in North Vancouver after health officials said two elderly residents were diagnosed with the illness. Dr. Bonnie Henry, the British Columbia provincial health officer, said the two new cases follow an earlier confirmation of COVID-19 in a care worker at the Lynn Valley Care Centre.
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| China exports plunge on coronavirus epidemic Posted: 06 Mar 2020 11:02 PM PST  China's exports plummeted in the first two months of this year on the back of a coronavirus epidemic that forced businesses to suspend operations, disrupting the world's supply chains. Exports fell 17.2 percent from a year ago, the biggest drop since February 2019 during the trade war with the United States, and imports dropped 4 percent, according to customs data released Saturday. Coronavirus cases were first reported last December in Wuhan, in China's central Hubei province, prompting a lockdown of the key industrial region with some 56 million people, from late January.
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| McDonald’s worker arrested after allegedly smashing coffee pot on customer’s head Posted: 06 Mar 2020 11:39 AM PST  The incident reportedly took place after verbal dispute at the drive-thru window.
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| Trump economic adviser says coronavirus is contained and people should stay at work Posted: 06 Mar 2020 11:55 AM PST  Donald Trump's top economic adviser has acknowledged that officials "don't actually know what the magnitude" of the coronavirus is going to be amid a global outbreak — while stressing that Americans should continue to work.Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC's Squawk on the Street that Americans should remain calm as the death toll from the virus surpasses 3,400 worldwide, with at least 250 cases confirmed across the country.
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| The Genius Logic Behind Iran's Attack On Saudi Arabia's Oil Facilities Posted: 06 Mar 2020 05:17 AM PST  Avoid war by attacking?
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| Trump says he'd rather keep people on cruise ship to keep numbers down Posted: 06 Mar 2020 04:29 PM PST  While at the CDC, President Trump said that he didn't want people to leave the cruise ship that's currently being quarantined because the number of infected people with coronavirus in the U.S. would likely go up.
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| An Italian cruise ship was turned away from ports in Malaysia and Thailand even though it has no cases of coronavirus on board Posted: 07 Mar 2020 04:06 AM PST  Phuket, Thailand, and Penang, Malaysia, both barred the Costa Fortuna. Cruise travel has become a nightmare for many as the coronavirus spreads.
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| Bernie Sanders plots new strategy to foil Biden and take charge of 2020 race Posted: 06 Mar 2020 11:30 PM PST  Campaign to sharpen midwest focus, increase attacks on Biden and make fresh appeals to black voters in tactical 'reset'Bernie Sanders is giving his presidential campaign a "reset" as he goes head-to-head for the Democratic presidential nomination with Joe Biden, amid signs that the political revolution he hoped to ignite through a surge in voter turnout of young and marginalised Americans is failing to catch fire.The Sanders campaign is seeking to reboot following disappointing results on Super Tuesday, which saw Biden prevail in 10 of the 14 states holding primary elections. In the wake of the surprising setback, the US senator from Vermont is repurposing his insurgent pitch for the White House on several fronts.They include a renewed push for dominance in the midwest before a crucial primary in Michigan on Tuesday. Sanders is also discarding his aversion to negative political campaigning and sharpening his attacks on Biden, running TV attack adds over the former vice-president's record of supporting social security cuts and free trade agreements, which could be particularly damaging in the midwestern states.In addition, the campaign is scrambling to make fresh appeals to African American and older voters, electoral groups that both came out heavily for Biden on Super Tuesday, when he swept the south and won 10 of the 14 states at stake.The Sanders team signalled that it was shifting focus to the midwest when it canceled a planned rally in Mississippi. Instead, the candidate headed to Michigan for an event on Friday night, while Biden will rally in Jackson, Mississippi, on Sunday.The shift north by Sanders for the weekend was a tacit acceptance that Biden now has a stranglehold on southern states, propelled by his popularity among black voters. It was also recognition of the high stakes of the primary in Michigan, with its rich pickings of 125 delegates out of the 1,991 needed to win the nomination.And on Friday, the Associated Press officially declared Biden the winner of Super Tuesday, denying Sanders the runaway victory many critics feared.The AP announced it has allocated more than 92% of the 1,344 delegates that were up for grabs on 3 March, and Biden has such a commanding lead that Sanders cannot catch up and snatch a Super Tuesday lead as the remaining votes from that day's 14 state primaries are counted.Sanders now sees Michigan as a chance to regain his stride after the knocks of Super Tuesday, having beaten Hillary Clinton there in 2016. He hopes that his focus on policies appealing to working-class Americans, such as a federal $15 minimum wage, will play well not only in that state but across the rust belt in Illinois and Ohio, which hold their primaries on 17 March."Michigan is an enormously important state," Sanders said in a post-Super Tuesday press briefing in his home town of Burlington, Vermont. "The people of Michigan were devastated by trade agreements which I vigorously opposed and Joe Biden supported."No matter how much of a bounce he enjoys in Michigan, Sanders faces threats as the race enters its next punishing phase. In particular, the Super Tuesday results exposed a fundamental failure to expand the Democratic base by bringing in millions of new voters.Sanders was in a reflective mood after the Super Tuesday result. "It is not easy trying to bring in people who have not been involved in the political process," he said. "Have we been as successful as I would hope in bringing young people in? The answer is no."John Della Volpe, the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School's institute of politics, whose researchers has been studying the youth vote since 2000, reviewed exit polls from 12 of the most competitive elections. While turnout overall was up in all of the 12 states compared with 2016, the pattern for young people aged 18 to 29 – the very core of the Sanders revolutionary army – told a different story.In four of the states youth turnout increased, handsomely in the cases of Iowa (36%) and Virginia (38%). But in two states youth turnout was flat, and in six states it actually declined, as much as 18% in New Hampshire and 20% in Texas.By contrast, voter turnout for older voters who tend to favor Biden increased in all but one of the 12 states. In South Carolina, where Biden's campaign was rocket-launched with a landslide victory last Saturday, the projected turnout of voters aged 65 and older increased 124% – the very surge that Sanders had dreamt about for younger voters yet failed to deliver."For any candidate to be the nominee of the Democratic party they have to build a broad and diverse coalition across gender, race, age and educational levels," Della Volpe told the Guardian. "It's terrific that Bernie Sanders is building such a great relationship with young voters, but he needs to maximise that support and then expand beyond it, and that's not what we are seeing."Sanders partially blamed his difficulties in mobilising a wider coalition of support on his enemies in the "corporate media" and "establishment politics". As he told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC: "One of the problems we have is that people say, 'Bernie is an extremist'. There is nothing we are fighting for which is extreme. It is what the American people want."But there is danger for Sanders here too. By doubling down on his attacks on the media and the "Democratic establishment" he risks reinforcing the stereotype of himself as a grievance-ridden politician promoted by that same media and Democratic establishment."That rhetoric, in my view, signals to voters that he's a factional candidate," said Mark Longabaugh, a Democratic strategist who advised Sanders in 2016 but is unaligned in 2020. He said such critiques distract from his core economic message, which remains popular with Democrats and independent voters alike."There's Bernie Sanders on message and Bernie Sanders off message," Longabaugh said. "One can win and the other is going to stay at 25%."Behind the scenes, there are indications that the Sanders camp are attempting to address the candidate's weakness in the two demographic groups that have flocked to Biden – older voters and African Americans. Sanders' campaign co-chair, Ro Khanna, told Politico it would be emphasising healthcare issues for seniors as one way to focus in on the high-voting over 65s.With black voters, the latest Sanders advert to be broadcast in Florida raised eyebrows as it consists of a series of clips of Barack Obama praising him as a politician of "great authenticity, great passion". For Sanders to look to Obama to rescue his fortunes has an air of desperation, given that Biden's overwhelming popularity among African Americans is largely due to his role as Obama's vice-president.> Sometimes the safest choice is also the riskiest choice. John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore were all safe choices> > Rebecca KatzBut then, the figures do look desperate. Exit polls from Super Tuesday showed Biden trouncing Sanders with black voters by 41 percentage points. In Alabama that disparity rose to 63 points.Biden built his firewall with black voters in South Carolina based on the endorsement of the influential congressman Jim Clyburn. Sanders' defeat there was compounded with the embarrassing disclosure that he hadn't even asked Clyburn to back him.There is hope in inroads made with Latino voters, which helped Sanders clinch California, the biggest delegate prize of any state. In the coming weeks, he will rely on that support to remain competitive in states like Arizona, New York and New Jersey.But he is struggling in Florida, where his comments on 60 Minutes praising Fidel Castro's literacy program in Cuba has apparently hurt his standing with the state's Latinos. The most recent Florida poll taken on 4 March has Biden soaring to 61% with Sanders languishing at 12%.Against such deeply worrying indicators for Sanders, progressives warn that the lessons of the past are once again being ignored. Rebecca Katz, a Democratic strategist who works with progressive candidates, dismissed the idea that Sanders is the risky option in the 2020 race."Sometimes the safest choice is also the riskiest choice," she said. "Remember that John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore were all safe choices."
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| Sacked DR Congo general died by 'hanging': president Posted: 07 Mar 2020 02:58 AM PST  DR Congo's sacked former deputy chief of military intelligence, who was under European Union sanctions, died by hanging, President Felix Tshisekedi said Saturday. Delphin Kahimbi, 50, a close associate of former president Joseph Kabila, had died of a heart attack on February 28 at home in Kinshasa, his wife and media reports said. Tshisekedi ordered a probe into the death, and the preliminary findings were made public on Saturday after a cabinet meeting.
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| 82-year-old with record of bank robberies convicted again Posted: 06 Mar 2020 01:39 PM PST  An 82-year-old man who spent most of his adult life behind bars for robbing banks was convicted again for carrying out an armed heist at an Arizona credit union as he struggled to adjust to life outside prison. Robert Francis Krebs faces a maximum 25 years in prison after a jury found him guilty Wednesday of armed bank robbery. The January 2018 holdup in Tucson came about seven months after he was released from prison.
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| 'We're gearing up for something extremely significant': Top hospitals across the US told us how they're preparing for the coronavirus outbreak Posted: 07 Mar 2020 05:12 AM PST  "We've not yet seen an epidemic or pandemic in our lifetimes of this size and scope."
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| China Hates India's Fast and Sneaky Brahmos Missiles Posted: 06 Mar 2020 12:00 PM PST  No way to counter it?
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| Boeing receives blame for crashes from U.S., Ethiopia investigators Posted: 07 Mar 2020 05:16 AM PST  Nearly a year after a Boeing 737 MAX airplane crashed into an open field shortly after takeoff in Ethiopia, House investigators released a report Friday blaming Boeing's engineering mistakes and "culture of concealment," as well as the Federal Aviation Administration's "grossly insufficient" oversight of the production of the aircraft for the tragedy. The report also applied to an earlier 737 MAX crash in Indonesia, which combined with the Ethiopian Airlines flight killed 346 people.The report highlighted the fact that Boeing avoided putting pilots through necessary training protocols and removed key references about the plane's flight control system — which is believed to be the main cause of the crashes — from official manuals during the FAA certification process for the MAX model, even after the Indonesia crash. The aircraft has been grounded for months and saw its production halt in January.Despite accusing Boeing of withholding information from the FAA, the report still chastised the agency for failing "to identify key safety problems," although some Republican lawmakers pushed back against criticism of the FAA's approval process, arguing the report was rushed and led to premature conclusions.Meanwhile, a draft report from Ethiopian investigators reportedly blamed the plane's design for last year's fatal crash, though it did little to acknowledge the possible role of Ethiopian Airlines and its flight crew. That lies in contrast to Indonesia's report last October which cited errors by Lion Air's workers and crew while also faulting Boeing's software. Read more at Reuters and The Wall Street Journal.More stories from theweek.com China's coronavirus recovery is 'all fake,' whistleblowers and residents claim An ex-MI6 officer reportedly recruited by security contractor with Trump ties helped infiltrate a major teachers union Trump says doctors keep asking how he knows so much about the coronavirus
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