| As mayor, Bernie Sanders condemned American interventionism but also defended undemocratic governments abroad Posted: 14 Mar 2020 01:00 PM PDT  Archives of Bernie Sanders's mayoral papers shed light on the foreign policy views he held at the start of his political career.
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| Hospitals prepare for the worst on coronavirus, and it's not a pretty picture Posted: 13 Mar 2020 06:16 PM PDT  Medical facilities are taking precautions to protect their staff while preparing for a spike in patients that has overwhelmed the health care systems of other countries.
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| Will coronavirus go away in the spring? Maybe — but it also might come back in fall. Posted: 14 Mar 2020 08:07 AM PDT  Flu viruses generally subside in warm weather, for reasons that aren't totally clear. Coronavirus may follow that pattern — or not.
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| When will there be a coronavirus vaccine — and who will get it first? Posted: 14 Mar 2020 09:59 AM PDT  One of the central questions for resolving the COVID-19 crisis is how long it will take to develop a vaccine.
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| Trump Sat Next to Second Mar-a-Lago Coronavirus Patient but White House Doc Won’t Test Him Posted: 14 Mar 2020 06:03 AM PDT  A second person who dined with President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort last weekend during a visit by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for COVID-19, according Trump's physician Dr. Sean Conley.The first person who interacted with the president was Fabio Wajngarten, a top communications aide to Bolsonaro who posed in photos next to Trump. A third person who was at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday for a Trump fundraiser has also tested positive but it's unclear if the person came into contact with Trump, The Washington Post reported, citing an email from Republican Party officials.The White House doctor insisted there was still no need to swab or quarantine the president. The president had earlier suggested that he would "most likely" be getting tested "fairly soon."The now toxic dinner took place last weekend when the Brazilian delegation visited the president's Florida getaway. "This evening we learned of another dinner guest, this one sharing the table with the President and White House delegation, who was symptom-free until this morning and has since tested positive for COVID-19," the statement from Conley said. "These interactions would be categorized as low risk for transmission." Conley added, citing guidelines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have laid out, "As such, there is no indication for home quarantine at this time."Conley did not name the new dinner guest, but the Brazilian embassy to the U.S. on Saturday tweeted that Ambassador Nestor Forster tested positive. "Brazil's Chargé d'Affaires Ambassador Nestor Forster has learned tonight that he has tested positive for COVID-19," the embassy wrote in a tweet. "Following medical advice, Amb. Forster will extend his self-quarantine, which he had already placed himself into as a precautionary measure, for another two weeks."As a standard measure of practice the World Health Organization has recommended that anyone coming into contact with a person testing positive for COVID-19 should self-quarantine for two weeks. Under those guidelines, the entire Mar-a-Lago staff and American delegation should isolate.The Brazilian coronavirus cluster is not the only exposure the president has had to the contagious virus. He was also potentially exposed through several people who came in contact with a person who attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, who later tested positive. Forster, Wajngarten and Bolsonaro were part of a delegation who traveled to the U.S. over the weekend and met with multiple high-level officials. The group dined at Mar-a-Lago with Trump, National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien and Trump's daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. On Sunday, the Brazilian delegation met with U.S. military Southern Command senior leaders. On Monday, the delegation met with Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) at the Hilton Miami Downtown. Scott said Thursday that he would be tested for COVID-19 and would self-quarantine for two weeks. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who attended an event with Bolsonaro and his press secretary in Miami on Monday, told The Miami Herald on Friday that he had since tested positive for COVID-19.The Miami Police Department's entire motorcycle patrol unit said they would self-quarantine after escorting the delegation around Miami.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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| Mnuchin says U.S. coronavirus aid bill cost should be significant, not huge Posted: 15 Mar 2020 07:12 AM PDT  U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday officials will have a better idea this week of the total cost of a coronavirus aid package, but predicted it will likely be "significant but not huge." Mnuchin told "Fox News Sunday" he also planned to talk to lawmakers about critical aid to airlines, as well as the hotel and cruise ship industries. The coronavirus pandemic has forced public schools, sports events and cultural and entertainment venues to close across the United States.
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| More than 3,800 passengers on a cruise ship disembarked in Miami without screening for COVID-19, despite a previous traveler testing positive days earlier Posted: 15 Mar 2020 01:31 PM PDT  "If we have it, it's going to spread throughout the country," one passenger told the Miami Herald on Sunday.
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| ISPs Raise Speeds and Suspend Data Caps in Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic Posted: 14 Mar 2020 01:19 PM PDT  As more people across the country work from home to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, some internet service providers (ISPs) are pledging to raise broadband speeds, suspend data caps...
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| Iran urges people to stay home as virus claims 113 more lives Posted: 15 Mar 2020 11:27 AM PDT  Iran on Sunday urged its citizens to stick to guidelines and stay at home to stop the new coronavirus spreading, as it announced another 113 deaths from the outbreak. People "should cancel all travel and stay at home so that we may see the situation improving in the coming days," ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said in a televised news conference. Jahanpour also reported 1,209 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections, raising the total number of confirmed infections to 13,938.
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| No to ‘FISA Reform’ Posted: 14 Mar 2020 03:30 AM PDT  Thanks to Senators Rand Paul (R., Ken.) and Mike Lee (R., Utah), as well as an amen chorus of Trump loyalists in the House, the president seems poised to fulfill one of the fondest dreams of Clinton and Obama Democrats: Government policy that regards international terrorism as a mere crime, a law-enforcement issue to be managed by federal judges rather than a national-security threat from which the officials Americans elect must safeguard our country.I doubt the president realizes these ramifications of declining to reauthorize three PATRIOT Act security measures that are set to expire. Successfully camouflaging themselves as "FISA reformers," Senators Paul and Lee have steered the president toward exploiting the imminent expiration as a way of holding the FBI accountable for FISA abuse.In truth, the senators' agenda predates the Trump era, and it would do nothing to fix what's actually wrong with FISA. Their aim is to dismantle the post-9/11 intelligence-based approach to counterterrorism, a strategy prudently adopted by President Bush, who recognized that when our most immediate threat is jihadist mass-murder attacks, prevention should take precedence over prosecution. "FISA reform" is a shrewd way for them to accomplish this objective because it appeals to the president's vanity — his most destructive blind spot.See, the libertarian senators have always opposed intelligence-based counterterrorism on philosophical grounds that they root in the Constitution. They are wrong, though their sincerity is not to be doubted. As I've related over the years (see, e.g., here and here), the distortion of the Fourth Amendment Paul has long championed (and to which Lee seems adherent) bears little resemblance to the Fourth Amendment as written and originally understood. If adopted, it would be a boon to both foreign terrorists and domestic criminals.Washington's reluctance to court this potentially catastrophic outcome has long frustrated libertarians, as have the facts that jurisprudence and the terrorist threat have lined up against them. But in recent years, things have started swinging in their favor.For one thing, Paul, Lee, and their ilk have forged an alliance with progressives, who regard jihadism (er, I mean, "violent extremism") as a global law-enforcement issue, fit for management by internationally coordinated judicial processes, and who favor an extension of American constitutional protections to foreign operatives — including anti-American terrorists. In the Obama years, these strange bedfellows found an administration equally disposed against the Bush-era counterterrorism approach.Then, there was the post-9/11 record of intelligence-agency envelope-pushing and deceit that eroded public trust — e.g., the Bush administration's controversial warrantless-wiretap and forcible-interrogation programs; the Obama CIA's hacking into the Senate Intelligence Committee's computers (and falsely denying it had done so); Obama's director of national intelligence's lying to Congress about the massive collection of Americans' telephone metadata; and the blatant politicization of intelligence after the Benghazi massacre.Finally, there was the Supreme Court's 2018 Carpenter ruling, which pivoted away from seemingly settled jurisprudence that a person does not have a constitutionally cognizable privacy interest in business records that are the property of a third-party service provider. The Court's 5–4 decision in Carpenter (written by Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by the four-justice liberal bloc) held that the government needs a probable-cause judicial warrant to obtain "cell-site location information" — phone-company records that reveal a person's physical movements over a given period of time.This concatenation has already yielded results for Paul and Lee. For example, the government's telephone-metadata program, the need for which was never compellingly justified, has been mothballed. Further, many foreign-intelligence operations in which the judiciary should have no involvement have nonetheless been brought under the FISA court's supervision.Now, "FISA reform" has offered Lee and Paul the chance to accelerate their agenda's implementation. What it lacks as a means of keeping America safe, it makes up for in legerdemain.See, the president and his most ardent supporters do not actually want to overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which created the FISA court. What they want is accountability for the FISA abuses committed by American intelligence agencies in connection with the 2016 presidential election. For President Trump, all politics is personal, and this matter is the most personal of all: the FBI's exploitation of FISA powers to spy on his campaign, hamstring his administration, and fuel the Mueller investigation, all of which led to his impeachment.To describe President Trump as angry that no official involved in those 2016 hijinks has been prosecuted understates the matter. He is apoplectic, as are his most ardent supporters. Grasping this, his allies in Congress and on the airwaves grouse that "no one has been held accountable." In truth, the officials who ran the Carter Page FISA surveillance — and who deployed informants in a futile effort to ensnare Trump operatives — have been both purged and subjected to duly humiliating inspector-general reports. Yet that is not enough for the Trump camp, which wants criminal prosecutions just like the ones to which Trump-campaign officials were subjected. The president is dismayed that none have been forthcoming, despite the fact that his Justice Department has been conducting a criminal investigation for about a year.Senators Paul and Lee may be wrong about counterterrorism, but they're not dumb. They realized that if they could persuade the president that "FISA reform" was really about holding the FBI accountable for the Trump–Russia collusion shenanigans, they could achieve a major roll-back of post-9/11 counterterrorism policy — the project they were working on long before Donald Trump sought the presidency. So that's what they've done, and they've swept the president's supporters along for the ride. In their rhetoric, which has seeped into the press reporting on the matter, "FISA reform" has become a rally cry for holding the rogue FBI accountable.But here's the thing: The FBI and its intelligence-bureaucracy collaborators executed their plan by misleading the FISA court in violation of the existing FISA rules. There is no "reform" of the statutory scheme that can prevent such a thing. There is no "reform" of the statutory scheme that can hold a rogue accountable. If your objection is that being fired is not enough, and that prosecution is necessary for accountability, only an indictment can accomplish that, not a change in the law.That becomes very clear if we focus on the actual targets of what is absurdly being called "FISA reform." Notice that the "reformers" avoid talking about the three provisions that are scheduled to expire if not reauthorized by Monday (March 15). That's because they are utterly unrelated to the abuse of FISA surveillance authority that occurred in the Trump–Russia scenario — viz., the incumbent government's misrepresentations to the FISA court, which duped the judges into authorizing electronic surveillance of the opposition party's political campaign despite the lack of probable cause to believe that campaign surrogates were clandestine agents of Russia.It is important to grasp this: Real FISA reform is not on the table. Over the last several days, as negotiations in Congress have broken down, one has heard Trump supporters say, "Let FISA die," because they've been fooled into thinking that if the president signs what's inaccurately called "an extension of FISA," there will never be accountability for FBI officials who abused their authority.It is not true. Not even close.FISA surveillance (the kind to which the Trump campaign was subjected) will not die if the three provisions lapse. A failure to reauthorize them will not prevent Americans, such as Carter Page, from being falsely framed as foreign agents. The only things that will die are investigative tools that help our government monitor actual clandestine operatives, such as alien jihadists plotting against our country.As I have previously detailed, the three tools at issue are: (a) roving wiretaps, which allow agents to continue monitoring, say, a terrorist who uses burner phones to try to defeat surveillance; (b) "lone wolf" authority, which allows agents to monitor a foreigner who appears to be involved in terrorism without evidence tying him to a known terrorist organization; and (c) the court-authorized collection of business records — a power long unremarkably exercised by criminal investigators (and which, if reauthorized, would no longer permit intelligence agents to engage in the controversial bulk-collection of telephone metadata).As should be obvious, these three tools have nothing to do with FBI accountability. They have nothing to do with the bureau's infamous "Crossfire Hurricane" probe. Indeed, they have very little to do with FISA — and nothing to do with the Russia-related malfeasance that comes to mind when Paul, Lee, and Trump supporters rail about "FISA reform." These are PATRIOT Act provisions. Though they are being threatened under the pretext of "fixing" FISA, they were enacted nearly a quarter-century after the FISA statute. They are labeled "FISA" only because Congress happened to insert them into the FISA sections of the United States Code.These three provisions were enacted with "sunset clauses," meaning they must be periodically reauthorized by Congress. Congress has reauthorized them, repeatedly, because they help protect us from terrorist attacks. Their value is so plain to see that they should not be subject to sunset clauses at all — the clauses should have been removed, with the proviso that Congress could always amend them (as lawmakers have done with the business records provision) or even repeal them if truly egregious abuses occurred.Nevertheless, they are subject to sunset clauses, and will lapse Monday if Congress fails to act. Consequently, the political left and the Paul–Lee libertarians opportunistically seized on that deadline as a chance to demand more "reform" that would further erode intelligence-based counterterrorism — increasing the extent to which foreign counterintelligence efforts are subject to court control and made to resemble judicial proceedings.President Trump came into office promising to be tough on terrorism in a way President Obama was not. Most of his supporters are instinctively against the Obama-era counterterrorism approach, which shied away from even the word terrorism, and which mulishly denied Islamist terrorism's ideological underpinnings. Most Trump supporters do not actually think of counterterrorism as a law-enforcement issue to be managed by the same judiciary that reverses Trump's border-security and immigration-enforcement measures at every turn.So why are they backing FISA "reform"? Because they've been hoodwinked into thinking it is a way to hold the FBI accountable for the Trump–Russia caper. But it is not. Again, the only thing "letting FISA die" on Monday would accomplish is the loss of counterterrorism tools that promote national security — exactly the kind of thing Trump supporters would have sworn their candidate would never permit if elected president.The FISA reform that Senators Paul and Lee want, and that their progressive allies support, is the opposite of real FISA reform. The fundamental problem with FISA is the FISA-court system. As I've recently noted in National Review's print edition, that system transfers control of national security against foreign threats to the judicial branch, which is insulated from political accountability; the Constitution, to the contrary, assigned this duty to the political branches, which answer to the American people whose lives are at stake.The "reformers" aim further to solidify judicial authority over intelligence collection. They tell you their goal is to protect Americans from being abused the way Carter Page was; but their reforms always end up extending protections to aliens, including those who are outside the United States and should thus be considered outside the FISA court's jurisdiction. What's more, if you're worried about FBI abuses, the FISA court makes them more likely. As we saw with Page, the FBI deceived the FISA court to get its warrants; when called on the carpet, it then told everyone its surveillance must have been proper because it was green-lighted by federal judges. The bureau used the veneer of court approval as license to claim that Page — and by extension, the Trump campaign — was part of a Russian influence operation.If we really wanted to reform FISA, we would be wise get the courts out of foreign-intelligence collection and find a better way of overseeing the activities of the intelligence agencies — beefed up congressional oversight, not a secret court. And while I maintain that no act of Congress can hold rogue officials accountable (see, e.g., the Constitution's prohibition against bills of attainder), I have proposed a reform that would actually address the FBI's FISA abuse: Congress could take the foreign-counterintelligence mission away from the FBI, have the bureau stick to crime-fighting, and create a new agency to handle domestic security against foreign threats — an agency that would be subject to Justice Department supervision and congressional oversight.If we tried it my way, the nation would continue to get the security benefit of counterintelligence measures. If we try Paul's and Lee's way, we will lose that benefit and exacerbate the basic problem of judicial involvement in counterintelligence operations, all for the promise of "accountability" that these self-proclaimed "reformers" can't actually deliver.
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| Life under lockdown in Italy: A look at what might be coming to the U.S. Posted: 14 Mar 2020 08:46 AM PDT  An American living in Italy reports on what it is like during the country's stringent quarantine regulations.
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| NYC teachers 'furious' over policy to keep schools open despite coronavirus outbreak Posted: 15 Mar 2020 12:02 PM PDT  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio started rebuffing any effort to close schools last week saying, "we are going to do our damnedest to keep the schools open."
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| Trump, reversing position, says he got tested for coronavirus after all Posted: 14 Mar 2020 06:48 AM PDT  President Trump had more contact than previously known with people who have tested positive for coronavirus, but the White House said he won't be tested.
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| Saudi Arabia restricts movement, other Gulf states limit entry as coronavirus spreads Posted: 15 Mar 2020 03:43 AM PDT  RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia closed public spaces on Sunday and announced a pause in most government operations while Qatar and Oman imposed entry restrictions as Gulf Arab states broadened efforts to contain the spread of coronavirus and support their economies. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar reported new cases, raising the total number in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to 963, with no deaths reported.
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| Coronavirus: Royal Caribbean pauses operations globally, major cruise lines suspend US ships Posted: 14 Mar 2020 08:44 AM PDT  Royal Caribbean will suspend operations globally as of midnight Saturday amid the coronavirus pandemic. And it's not the only line taking action.
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| I flew on a JetBlue flight a day after one of its passengers tested positive for coronavirus — and I never felt safer on a plane Posted: 14 Mar 2020 04:51 AM PDT  Despite the coronavirus outbreak, the flight was stress-free, thanks to the overly cautious passengers and relaxed flight crew.
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| Biden wins endorsement from NEA, country's largest union Posted: 15 Mar 2020 07:14 AM PDT  The country's largest labor union is supporting Joe Biden's presidential campaign, with the National Education Association on Saturday endorsing the former vice president for the Democratic nomination over his main rival, Bernie Sanders.
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| Philippines closes off capital to fight virus Posted: 15 Mar 2020 01:15 AM PDT  Police began closing off access to the Philippines' sprawling and densely populated capital Manila on Sunday, imposing a quarantine that officials hope will curb the nation's rising number of coronavirus cases. Officers in military fatigues and armed with rifles blocked off main roads into the city of some 12 million as domestic flights to and from Manila were halted early Sunday for a month-long isolation of the capital. Mass gatherings and school at all levels have also been called off, but delays and exceptions have led public health experts to question how effective President Rodrigo Duterte's measures will be.
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| He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them Posted: 14 Mar 2020 09:21 AM PDT  On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver SUV to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tennessee, they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from "little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods," his brother said. "The major metro areas were cleaned out."Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, "it was crazy money." To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic.The next day, Amazon pulled his items and thousands of other listings for sanitizer, wipes and face masks. The company suspended some of the sellers behind the listings and warned many others that if they kept running up prices, they'd lose their accounts. EBay soon followed with even stricter measures, prohibiting any U.S. sales of masks or sanitizer.Now, while millions of people search in vain for hand sanitizer to protect themselves from the spread of the coronavirus, Colvin is sitting on 17,700 bottles of the stuff with little idea where to sell them."It's been a huge amount of whiplash," he said. "From being in a situation where what I've got coming and going could potentially put my family in a really good place financially to 'What the heck am I going to do with all of this?'"Colvin is one of probably thousands of sellers who have amassed stockpiles of hand sanitizer and crucial respirator masks that many hospitals are now rationing, according to interviews with eight Amazon sellers and posts in private Facebook and Telegram groups from dozens more. Amazon said it had recently removed hundreds of thousands of listings and suspended thousands of sellers' accounts for price gouging related to the coronavirus.Amazon, eBay, Walmart and other online-commerce platforms are trying to stop their sellers from making excessive profits from a public health crisis. While the companies aimed to discourage people from hoarding such products and jacking up their prices, many sellers had already cleared out their local stores and started selling the goods online.Now both the physical and digital shelves are nearly empty.Mikeala Kozlowski, a nurse in Dudley, Massachusetts, has been searching for hand sanitizer since before she gave birth to her first child, Nora, on March 5. When she searched stores, which were sold out, she skipped getting gas to avoid handling the pump. And when she checked Amazon, she couldn't find it for less than $50."You're being selfish, hoarding resources for your own personal gain," she said of the sellers.Sites like Amazon and eBay have given rise to a growing industry of independent sellers who snatch up discounted or hard-to-find items in stores to post online and sell around the world.These sellers call it retail arbitrage, a 21st-century career that has adults buying up everything from limited-run cereals to Fingerling Monkeys, a once hot toy. The bargain hunters look for anything they can sell at a sharp markup. In recent weeks, they found perhaps their biggest opportunity: a pandemic.As they watched the list of Amazon's most popular searches crowd with terms like "Purell," "N95 mask" and "Clorox wipes," sellers said, they did what they had learned to do: Suck up supply and sell it for what the market would bear.Initially, the strategy worked. For several weeks, prices soared for some of the top results to searches for sanitizer, masks and wipes on Amazon, according to a New York Times analysis of historical prices from Jungle Scout, which tracks data for Amazon sellers. The data shows that both Amazon and third-party sellers like Colvin increased their prices, which then mostly dropped when Amazon took action against price gouging this month.At the high prices, people still bought the products en masse, and Amazon took a cut of roughly 15% and eBay roughly 10%, depending on the price and the seller.Then the companies, pressured by growing criticism from regulators and customers, cracked down. After the measures last week, Amazon went further Wednesday, restricting sales of any coronavirus-related products from certain sellers."Price gouging is a clear violation of our policies, unethical, and in some areas, illegal," Amazon said in a statement. "In addition to terminating these third party accounts, we welcome the opportunity to work directly with states attorneys general to prosecute bad actors."Colvin, 36, a former Air Force technical sergeant, said he started selling on Amazon in 2015, developing it into a six-figure career by selling Nike shoes and pet toys, and by following trends.In early February, as headlines announced the coronavirus' spread in China, Colvin spotted a chance to capitalize. A nearby liquidation firm was selling 2,000 "pandemic packs," leftovers from a defunct company. Each came with 50 face masks, four small bottles of hand sanitizer and a thermometer. The price was $5 a pack. Colvin haggled it to $3.50 and bought them all.He quickly sold all 2,000 of the 50-packs of masks on eBay, pricing them from $40 to $50 each, and sometimes higher. He declined to disclose his profit on the record but said it was substantial.The success stoked his appetite. When he saw the panicked public starting to pounce on sanitizer and wipes, he and his brother set out to stock up.Elsewhere, other Amazon sellers were doing the same.Chris Anderson, an Amazon seller in central Pennsylvania, said he and a friend had driven around Ohio, buying about 10,000 masks from stores. He used coupons to buy packs of 10 for around $15 each and resold them for $40 to $50. After Amazon's cut and other costs, he estimates, he made a $25,000 profit.Anderson is now holding 500 packs of antibacterial wipes after Amazon blocked him from selling them for $19 each, up from $16 weeks earlier. He bought the packs for $3 each.Eric, a truck driver from Ohio who spoke on condition that his surname not be published because he feared Amazon would retaliate, said he had also collected about 10,000 masks at stores. He bought each 10-pack for about $20 and sold most for roughly $80 each, although some he priced at $125."Even at $125 a box, they were selling almost instantly," he said. "It was mind-blowing as far as what you could charge."He estimates he made $35,000 to $40,000 in profit.Now he has 1,000 more masks on order, but he's not sure what to do with them. He said Amazon had been vague about what constituted price gouging, scaring away sellers who don't want to risk losing their ability to sell on its site.To regulators and many others, the sellers are sitting on a stockpile of medical supplies during a pandemic. The attorney general's offices in California, Washington and New York are all investigating price gouging related to the coronavirus. California's price-gouging law bars sellers from increasing prices by more than 10 percent after officials declare an emergency. New York's law prohibits sellers from charging an "unconscionably excessive price" during emergencies.An official at the Washington attorney general's office said the agency believed it could apply the state's consumer-protection law to sue platforms or sellers, even if they aren't in Washington, as long as they were trying to sell to Washington residents.Colvin does not believe he was price gouging. While he charged $20 on Amazon for two bottles of Purell that retail for $1 each, he said people forget that his price includes his labor, Amazon's fees and about $10 in shipping. (Alcohol-based sanitizer is pricey to ship because officials consider it a hazardous material.)Current price-gouging laws "are not built for today's day and age," Colvin said. "They're built for Billy Bob's gas station doubling the amount he charges for gas during a hurricane."He added, "Just because it cost me $2 in the store doesn't mean it's not going to cost me $16 to get it to your door."But what about the morality of hoarding products that can prevent the spread of the virus, just to turn a profit?Colvin said he was simply fixing "inefficiencies in the marketplace." Some areas of the country need these products more than others, and he's helping send the supply toward the demand."There's a crushing overwhelming demand in certain cities right now," he said. "The Dollar General in the middle of nowhere outside of Lexington, Kentucky, doesn't have that."He thought about it more."I honestly feel like it's a public service," he added. "I'm being paid for my public service."As for his stockpile, Colvin said he would now probably try to sell it locally."If I can make a slight profit, that's fine," he said. "But I'm not looking to be in a situation where I make the front page of the news for being that guy who hoarded 20,000 bottles of sanitizer that I'm selling for 20 times what they cost me."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| New York City teachers threaten mass ‘sickout’ as schools stay open amid coronavirus Posted: 15 Mar 2020 08:35 AM PDT  School districts in more than a dozen states have shut down as New York keeps them open, prompting backlash from teachers unionsA growing revolt by teachers raised the prospect of a mass "sickout" in New York City classrooms on Monday, even as Mayor Bill de Blasio continued to defend his controversial decision to keep schools open.Entire school districts in more than a dozen states have shut down operations for more than 15 million students until the coronavirus crisis has passed. Just over the Hudson river from New York the city of Hoboken, in New Jersey, has gone so far as to enforce an overnight curfew.But New York remains an anomaly, prompting a backlash from teachers unions who have attacked the decision as "irresponsible".De Blasio, however, remains determined to keep classes in session for the school district's million students."My blunt fear is if the schools shut down they will be done for the year, done for the school year, maybe even for the calendar year," he said on CNN's State of the Union."So I'm very reticent to shut down schools for a variety of reasons, not just that it's where a lot of kids get their only good meals, but they get adult supervision, especially teenagers who otherwise would be out on the streets. There's health and safety ramifications to that."Those first responders, those healthcare workers who depend on the schools, they can get to work and we need those workers desperately."De Blasio said he believed the crisis could last at least six months, and the situation was escalating daily."Because of community spread [coronavirus] is clearly widespread already in New York City and will continue to grow," he said."We had 25 confirmed cases on Monday, we have 269 this morning and that'll grow today, we'll clearly have a thousand cases probably not too far into next week. That doesn't mean people should be overwhelmed. It means people have to be smart about listening to guidance from healthcare professionals."The mayor did concede, however, that schools could close quickly if he felt the situation warranted it."It is literally a day-to-day reality. If we can keep our schools open we will, if at any point we feel it doesn't make sense we will make a move," he said, adding that preparations were in hand to care for the children of essential workers."A variety of contingencies are being set up. They are far from perfect, let's be clear, the distance and difference between a functioning school system program for a million kids versus creating alternative centers feeding kids of healthcare workers, that kind of thing."De Blasio's stance has angered teachers in the nation's largest school district, who have watched a steady stream of classroom closures in other sizeable districts, including Los Angeles, Boston and entire states including Florida.Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which represents about 150,000 educators in New York city schools, said De Blasio's failure to fall in line risked students' health."Because of his irresponsible decision to keep the public schools open, Mayor Bill de Blasio can no longer assure the health and safety of our students and school communities," Mulgrew said in an email to parents."We have a small window of time to contain the coronavirus before it penetrates into our communities and overwhelms our healthcare system's capacity to safely care for all the New Yorkers who may become gravely ill."The Movement of Rank and File Educators, a faction of the UFT, has urged its members to call in sick on Monday as a protest."Transmission is clearly already happening in the schools and the sooner it stops the fewer people will die," the group said in a statement. The faction has sent out several tweets with the hashtag "sickout", one stating that: "If de Blasio won't closenycpublicschools to protect students and their families, teachers will."Some parents have taken the decision to keep their children home. "It would be a hardship if they closed the schools, but I think it's a necessary one we need to take in the space of this emergency," said Anna Gold, who pulled her third-grader and kindergartner out of public schools in Brooklyn.In contrast to New York's relative freedoms, meanwhile, neighboring Hoboken has imposed a 10pm to 5am curfew on residents to try to keep coronavirus at bay.Mayor Ravi S Bhalla announced on Saturday night that exceptions would be made for emergencies and people required to work, adding that restaurants can only offer takeout and delivery services. * Material from the Associated Press was included in this report
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| Accused baby killer says police illegally lifted her DNA from her trash Posted: 14 Mar 2020 02:34 AM PDT  Theresa Bentaas is fighting a murder charge by saying police should not have taken DNA from her garbage without a warrant.
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| What's included in the coronavirus response package? Posted: 13 Mar 2020 10:37 PM PDT  The House passed a sweeping coronavirus relief bill that includes free testing and paid sick leave.
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| British cruise ship in limbo near Bahamas: 5 people test positive for coronavirus, 40 more have symptoms Posted: 15 Mar 2020 11:43 AM PDT  One passenger and four crew members on a British cruise ship have coronavirus; 40 more have symptoms. The Braemar remains in limbo off the Bahamas.
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| Pope goes on Roman walkabout, prays for end to pandemic Posted: 15 Mar 2020 07:14 AM PDT  Pope Francis left the Vatican to make a surprise visit Sunday to two churches in Rome to pray for the end of the coronavirus pandemic — a move that came even as Italian health authorities insisted people stay home as much as possible to limit contagion in the heart of Europe's outbreak. Francis who recently had a cold, headed first to a Rome basilica, St. Mary Major, where he often stops to give thanks after returning from trips abroad. There he prayed before an icon of the Virgin Mary dedicated to the "salvation of the Roman people."
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| Saudi Arabia is starting a reckless oil war with Russia — but the US is also a target Posted: 14 Mar 2020 06:30 AM PDT  Opinion: The US has shown a lot of deference to Saudi Arabia. That should change, argues Defense Priorities senior fellow Enea Gjoza.
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| Israel president to ask Gantz to form government from Monday Posted: 15 Mar 2020 04:40 PM PDT  Israel's president on Sunday tapped ex-military chief Benny Gantz to form a government, calling for an end to a year of political stalemate to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic. Reuven Rivlin's announcement marked a setback for right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but did not necessarily spell the end of his tenure, the longest in Israeli history. Gantz on Sunday secured recommendations to lead a government from 61 lawmakers in the 120-seat Knesset, or parliament, in the wake of a March 2 election -- the third national poll in less than a year.
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| Coronavirus: PM urges industry to help make NHS ventilators Posted: 15 Mar 2020 05:04 PM PDT  Boris Johnson is to ask engineering firms to shift production lines to build the life-saving equipment.
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| U.S. Screening Snarls Travel; Airlines Cut Flights: Virus Update Posted: 15 Mar 2020 01:17 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Airlines are halting flights, and other business are grinding to a stop. People around the the world face more draconian restrictions on gatherings and travel.Europe now reports more daily coronavirus cases than China did at its peak in February. Cases jumped 20% in the U.K., which faced criticism for its approach to the virus. Currencies seem headed for more volatile swings after a turbulent week, early trading shows. New Zealand's central bank slashed its benchmark rate.Key Developments:Cases top 164,000 worldwide, as deaths exceed 6,400Italy adds 368 deaths in one day, raising total to 1,809The U.S. totals 3,125 cases and 61 deathsIreland asks pubs to closeFrance tightens controls at German borderSubscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloomberg's Prognosis team here.Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus and here for maps and charts. For analysis of the impact from Bloomberg Economics, click here. To see the impact on oil and commodities demand, click here.Ohio Shuts Bars, Restaurants (3:50 p.m. NY)Ohio is closing all bars and restaurants indefinitely after reports of crowds still gathering as St. Patrick's Day faces the limitations imposed by the spread of coronavirus. Carry-outs and delivery will still be allowed, Governor Mike DeWine announced at a press conference in Columbus."This is a very, very crucial time," DeWine said. "Delay means more people will die."Travel Limits Roil Airports (3:15 p.m. NY)Chicago's O'Hare International Airport was among facilities overwhelmed this weekend with passengers, including many coming from Europe, who faced new screening measures.As pictures of lines and stories from travelers were shared on social media, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said the White House failed to prepare for the influx of returning passengers in response to President Donald Trump's new travel restrictions.New Zealand Cuts Rates (3 p.m. NY)The New Zealand central bank slashed its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points as strict border controls look set to tip the economy into recession. In an emergency move, the Reserve Bank cut its cash rate to 0.25% from 1% and said it will remain there for at least the next 12 months.U.S. Airlines Slash Flights (2:50 p.m. NY)American Airlines will slash long-haul international flights by 75% through early May as demand collapses and governments impose restrictions to slow the virus's spread. Delta Air Lines further cut its international flights. United Airlines earlier said it would cut April domestic capacity 10% and international 20%, but warned additional reductions could follow.D.C. Shuts Night Clubs (2:20 p.m. NY)Washington, D.C., ordered nightclubs and multi-purpose facilities to close and told restaurants to remove bar seats and stop serving patrons who are standing. The district also limited indoor gatherings to 250 people. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said restaurants and bars must set tables and booths to ensure patrons are at least six feet apart.South Africa Declares Disaster (2 p.m. NY)South Africa declared a national state of disaster, closed 35 ports of entry, banned gatherings of more than 100 people and shut schools starting the middle of this week. Flights will be halted from Italy, Iran, the U.S., U.K. and South Korea, the government said.President Cyril Ramaphosa in a televised speech discouraged citizens from non-essential domestic travel.N.Y. May Be 'Overwhelmed' (1:45 p.m. NY)New York Governor Andrew Cuomo warned that the state's health-care system is about to be "overwhelmed," but he stopped short of ordering schools or businesses to close.Instead, he asked companies to close voluntarily and let employees work from home. Schools will remain open, he said, because many families rely on them for food and child care.New York has 729 cases -- the most in the U.S. -- with three deaths.Ireland Asks Pubs to Close (1:40 p.m. NY)The Irish government asked pubs to close for at least two weeks after video of bars jammed with drinkers in defiance of guidelines appeared on social media. Industry groups say it's impossible to police social-distancing guidelines.The government also pleaded with citizens not to replace pub visits with house parties.Europe Outpacing China at Peak (1:30 p.m. NY)Europe is reporting more new cases each day than China did when the disease peaked in that country, the head of the World Health Organization said. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said canceling sporting events can help slow the spread.The situation will worsen in many countries before it improves, said Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO epidemiologist. While the situation is improving in Asia, countries where the disease has peaked could experience relapses, she said.SAS Idles 90% of Staff (1:15 p.m. NY)Scandinavian airline SAS AB is idling up to 10,000 employees, or 90% of staff, to cope with fallout from the coronavirus and related government measures that have restricted international air travel.The airline will also cancel most flights staerting Monday, according to a statement. SAS said it will maintain certain routes in order to enable flights to return from various destinations.Dutch Schools, Bars to Close (1:15 p.m. NY)The Dutch government ordered schools, gyms, restaurants and bars to close until April 6. Suspending classes puts the Netherlands in line with most other European countries, though it's a reversal from Prime Minister Mark Rutte's insistence last week that schools will stay open.Manhattan Project Approach Urged (12:20 p.m. NY)U.S. hospitals are preparing for a surge in patients as testing becomes more prevalent, revealing the extent of Covid-19's spread, which led one administrator to urge more action."We need to think about this in almost like a war-like stance," Peter Slavin, president of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."He urged the government to wage a Manhattan Project-type effort, as it did in World War II on the atomic bomb, to spur the health-care industry to make more surgical masks, eye protection gear and gowns.Portugal Limits Crowds (12:10 p.m. NY)Portugal is banning events with more than 100 people, Internal Administration Minister Eduardo Cabrita said in a broadcast on SIC Noticias. The government had already blocked events with more than 1,000 people.U.K. Cases Rise 20% (11:43 a.m. NY)The U.K. said 1,372 people have tested positive for coronavirus, up from 1,140 a day earlier. An additional 14 deaths brings the total to 35. Health Secretary Matt Hancock defended the government, which hasn't closed schools or halted mass gatherings as have many other nations.Hash tags including CloseTheSchoolsNow and lockusdown were trending on Twitter in the U.K. Sunday. People over age 70 will be asked to stay home in "the coming weeks," Hancock told Sky News.Health Insurers Drop Copays (11:20 a.m. NY)U.S. health insurers are dropping coronavirus testing copayments and requirements that treatments be approved in advance. The America's Health Insurance Plans trade group posted details of the emergency steps taken related to Covid-19. Insurers include Aetna, Anthem, the 36 Blue Cross Blue Shield Association plans, Cigna, and Humana.Kroger Offers Paid Time Off (10:55 a.m. NY)The Kroger Co. will allow paid time off for workers who have Covid-19 or are placed under mandatory quarantine, it said in a statement. Two employees -- in Colorado and Washington state -- tested positive. The grocer said it is seeking workers for immediate positions in stores, manufacturing plants and distribution centers.Nike Shuts Stores for 2 Weeks (10:45 a.m. NY)Nike Inc. will close all U.S. and western Europe retail stores through March 27 to help slow the outbreak. The closures, which include Canada, Australia and New Zealand, will take effect Monday. Nike will continue to pay employees during the shutdown, the company said.The company said Nike-owned stores in South Korea, Japan and most of China -- which were closed in February -- are currently open.Europe Cases Surge (9:09 a.m. NY)Spain's diagnosed cases of the coronavirus jumped 35% to 7,753 on Sunday and the death toll more than doubled to 288, the Health Ministry said. In Switzerland, 2,200 cases marked a 62% increase. The number of deaths in the Netherlands rose by eight to 20, while confirmed cases increased by 176 to 1,135, according to a daily update from the RIVM National Institute for Public Health and the Environment on Sunday. Several countries cautioned that fewer tests are being performed as more people fall ill.Mnuchin Sees No Recession (9:03 a.m. NY)Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he doesn't expect the coronavirus pandemic to tip the U.S. economy into recession, even though growth will slow. "Later in the year, obviously the economic activity will pick up as we confront this virus," Mnuchin said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."Goldman Confirms Cases (9 a.m. NY)Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has confirmed to staff its first two cases of coronavirus as the Wall Street bank steps up plans to split up teams and allow more employees to work from home.In a memo seen by Bloomberg News, Goldman Sachs told staff that it had received confirmation that an employee from its London office who was off sick with suspected coronavirus had tested positive and was at home in isolation. The other case is in Sydney.Ski Resorts Shut (7:50 a.m. NY)Vail said it will halt all of its North American resorts from March 15-22 and "use that time to reassess our approach for the rest of the season," the company said in a statement. Alterra Mountain Co., which operates resorts including Steamboat and Winter Park in Colorado, Squaw Valley in California and Vermont's Sugarbush, said it will suspend operations from today until further notice.Iran Deaths Leap (7:45 a.m. NY)Iran's deaths from the virus rose to 724 over the past 24 hours, with 113 new fatalities reported since yesterday. Total confirmed cases now stand at 13,938, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said in a statement on state TV.Singapore Says U.K. Cases to Surge (7:18 a.m. NY)The U.K. and Switzerland are effectively not trying to combat the coronavirus and cases are likely to surge in the coming weeks, a Singapore minister said. "These countries have abandoned any measure to contain or restrain the virus," Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong said at a press briefing Sunday.The city-state said Sunday it added 14 new cases, the biggest one-day jump.France Limits Domestic Travel (7 a.m. NY)France will gradually reduce domestic transport links by air, rail and bus in a bid to limit travel and fight the coronavirus epidemic. The move comes a day after the government closed restaurants, cafes and non-essential stores.European Cases Climb (6:30 a.m. NY)Belgium's health ministry reported 197 new cases on Sunday, bringing the total of confirmed infections to 886. Finland, which has implemented tighter testing criteria, had 240 cases. Poland's cases rose 63% from Friday to 111 cases of coronavirus and three deaths. The count is rising as the nation is now testing all those who are in quarantine. Full border controls are in place as of today, and cafes, restaurants and shopping malls are closed. Slovakia reported 54 cases, an increase of 10.Austria Bans All Gatherings (6 a.m. NY)Austria's chancellor said the country is widening restrictions to ban all public gatherings of more than five people. "We're aware those are massive restrictions but they are necessary," Sebastian Kurz said on Twitter. Austrians are asked to isolate themselves and have no social contact outside their households. The number of confirmed cases jumped to 800 on Sunday, from 602 on Saturday. In neighboring Slovenia, public transportation has been temporarily shut down.EU Medical Exports Eased (6 a.m. NY)Germany and France will lift restrictions on the export of medical equipment, allowing for deliveries to Italy, the EU commissioner for the internal market said. Germany will send 1 million masks to Italy.\--With assistance from Boris Groendahl, Yudith Ho, Thomas Penny, Tara Patel, Golnar Motevalli, Harry Wilson, Macarena Munoz, Thomas Mulier, Joost Akkermans and Hanna Hoikkala.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Steve Geimann in Washington at sgeimann@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Ian Fisher, Linus ChuaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Puerto Rico imposes curfew, early closings to contain coronavirus spread Posted: 15 Mar 2020 10:43 AM PDT  Puerto Rico has confirmed five cases of coronavirus, but there are at least 17 other suspected cases.
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| Advocates demand focus on immigration at Sunday's debate Posted: 15 Mar 2020 01:14 PM PDT |
| N.J. city announces night curfew, restricts service in bars, restaurants due to virus Posted: 15 Mar 2020 08:01 AM PDT  The city of Hoboken, N.J., on Saturday announced a night curfew starting March 16 and ordered all bars and restaurants to conduct only delivery services amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
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| Greece bans all transport links with Albania, North Macedonia, Spain flights Posted: 15 Mar 2020 05:21 AM PDT  Greece said it would ban road and sea routes, as well as flights, to Albania and North Macedonia on Sunday, as well as banning flights to and from Spain to stem the spread of coronavirus. Only cargo and citizens who live in Greece will be allowed to travel to and from Albania and North Macedonia, authorities said. Athens also extended travel restrictions to Italy, saying it was banning passenger ship routes to and from the neighboring country, while no cruise ships will be allowed to dock at Greek ports.
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| 3 human traffickers sentenced to 125 years in death of Syrian boy Posted: 14 Mar 2020 02:36 AM PDT  The lifeless body of three-year-old Aylan on a beach in Turkey was captured in a photograph that symbolized the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis.
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| 'A new phase': US health officials pledge to ramp up nationwide coronavirus testing beginning this week Posted: 15 Mar 2020 04:55 PM PDT  Health officials said Sunday they are planning to ramp up coronavirus testing by tens of thousands of additional people a week beginning this week.
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| Putin signs Russia's constitutional reform law Posted: 14 Mar 2020 10:00 AM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed the package of constitutional reforms he had proposed, including a clause giving him an option to run for two more terms. The Kremlin has published the 68-page law spelling out the constitutional reforms on the official website. Putin's signature triggers a special procedure for the package, which differs from the way laws usually go into effect.
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| Rate cuts: US goes to almost zero and launches huge stimulus programme Posted: 15 Mar 2020 05:39 PM PDT  The move to combat the impact of coronavirus is a co-ordinated action with Europe, Japan and Canada.
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| Venezuela to Cancel More Flights, Announce Quarantine on Sunday Posted: 14 Mar 2020 06:15 PM PDT |
| Several African nations roll out measures to fight virus Posted: 15 Mar 2020 11:47 AM PDT  Several African countries have announced sweeping restrictions to try to contain the steady spread of the coronavirus, which has reached at least 25 of Africa's 54 countries. South Africa, Kenya, Senegal and Mauritania are among the countries that have imposed travel restrictions and closed schools. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster.
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| Biotech company fighting coronavirus shoots down the idea of reportedly giving US exclusive rights to vaccine Posted: 15 Mar 2020 02:47 PM PDT  The company said it has been in contact with many organizations and global authorities, but denied "rumors of an acquisition."
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| Biden leads Sanders by 2-to-1 among Democratic primary voters Posted: 15 Mar 2020 06:04 AM PDT  The former vice president also holds a 9-point edge in a one-on-one contest with Trump, according to a new NBC News/WSJ survey.
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| South Korea designates regions hit hardest by coronavirus as disaster zones Posted: 14 Mar 2020 06:18 PM PDT  South Korea on Sunday reported 76 new coronavirus cases and three deaths, marking the first time in over three weeks that new cases have dropped to double-digits, as President Moon Jae-in declared the hardest hit provinces "special disaster zones". It is the first time South Korea has declared a region a disaster zone from an infectious disease and under the status the government can subsidize up to 50% of restoration expenses and exempt residents from taxes and utility payments. South Korea, which has the highest number of cases in Asia after China, now has a total to 8,162 confirmed infections and 75 deaths, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said (KCDC).
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| The Worst of Times for Airlines Could End up Being the Best of Times for Passengers Posted: 15 Mar 2020 01:59 AM PDT  Warren Buffet once quipped that the airline business was such a lousy investment that somebody should have shot down the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk to save the world a lot of money.For years "the sage of Omaha" followed his own advice and held off from investing in airlines. And then, in 2016, he changed his mind.By the end of last year, his investment vehicle, Berkshire Hathaway, owned more than 8 percent of each of the four main U.S. airlines, Delta, United, American, and Southwest.As late as last month Buffet bought another $45 million in Delta stock after the price fell 20 percent as a result of the novel coronavirus—he obviously misjudged how bad it was going to get.On Friday Delta cut 40 percent of its flights, ending all flights to Europe for the next month and parking 300 airplanes. The Delta CEO, Ed Bastion, waiving his own salary for six months, said, "The speed of the demand fall-off is unlike anything we've seen—and we've seen a lot in our business."Now Buffet's airline holdings have lost more than a third in value, falling to around $6.3 billionThe stress test hitting the world's airlines has no precedent in its severity.So here are two things to look for:Who is going to take the worst hits and what will the eventual outcome look like?In the short term it's wise to look at what Alan Joyce, the head of the Australian airline Qantas, said: "It's survival of the fittest."In fact, Buffet's change of heart about airlines is a clue to how some of the fittest got that way. Behind their strength is a single tool: yield management.The whole art of running an airline is matching the capacity—the number of seats available on a route over 24 hours—with the demand. Over the last decade smart algorithms have enabled managers to keep jiggling prices on each seat according to demand to maximize profits almost right up to boarding time.Given that degree of precision, and the consolidation of the U.S. airline market, where the four major carriers that Buffet invested in control 80 percent of the flights, the fittest and therefore likeliest to survive are right here in America.The weakest are mostly in Asia. One of the worst hit is Cathay Pacific, based in Hong Kong. They suffered the effect of a double-whammy: months of anti-government street protests and then the virus. The airline has just cut its capacity by 65 percent and expects a huge loss in the first half of 2020.In Europe there has already been one failure, the British short-haul airline Flybe, which the British government refused to bail out, and—as previously reported in The Daily Beast—Norwegian, Europe's third largest budget airline, needs another large cash injection to stay flying. The two top budget airlines, Ryanair and easyJet, are in a far stronger position.But in Europe the elephant in the room is British Airways. Its CEO, Alex Cruz, sent out a message to his employees starkly headed "The Survival of British Airways." He said that they faced "a crisis of global proportions like no other we have known."The truth is that British Airways has a problem that none of the big American airlines face—and it's one that the Americans deliberately avoided.Although British Airways is a worldwide premium brand it is actually part of a conglomerate, the International Airline Group, that combines Iberia, the Spanish national airline; Vueling, a budget airline based in Barcelona; Aer Lingus, the Irish airline; and LEVEL, a low-cost transatlantic carrier based in Paris.This is a mixture of business models that the American airline chiefs have deliberately stayed away from. It combines the legacy name, British Airways, a business with traditionally high profit margins, with others with far less brand value that are in intensely competitive markets where profits are elusive. Vueling, for example, swung from a loss of 11 million Euros in 2017 to a profit of five million Euros in 2018. Aer Lingus has had a similarly erratic record.As a result, automated capacity management, the magic sauce that transformed the profits of American airlines and gives them a vital resilience now, doesn't work when a legacy international market is locked in company with more precarious markets that become even more precarious in a crisis like this one. The weak drain away the profits of the strong.And this is where, for American travelers, the outcome beyond the crisis gets really interesting.By far the most profitable route for British Airways is across the pond, between London and New York. It's known as the billion dollar route because it is the only one of the airline's routes to produce as much as $1.15 billion in annual profits. And nearly a third of the seats are in business and first, by far the most lucrative. With the new ban on flights from Britain to the U.S. this gusher is now shut down.All the airlines flying the Atlantic, from Europe and the U.S., make good money because the fares reflect what is, in essence, a fixed market—fixed not by a cartel but by limited airport capacity. Throughout the main European hubs—London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam's Schiphol, and Paris—there is a shortage of gates so acute that the market in gates has become a kind of casino for high rollers.So it's a fair bet that, given the extreme effects of the current meltdown of airline finances, that once the coronavirus pandemic is over, the airlines will be so keen to duke it out to get their transatlantic routes back to profit—particularly to win back business travelers who have had to learn teleconferencing—that there will, for a while at least, be a bonanza of bargains for passengers.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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| 'We're not being quarantined. We're being detained.' Americans stuck in Cambodia amid pandemic Posted: 15 Mar 2020 02:53 PM PDT  When Ryan Knapp and his wife booked a cruise along the Mekong Delta, they thought it would be a dream trip. But it has turned into a nightmare.
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| White House says Trump won’t be tested for virus after all Posted: 14 Mar 2020 07:51 AM PDT  The White House on Friday night said President Trump will not be tested for coronavirus, even as it disclosed that another person he hosted at his Mar-a-Lago resort last weekend has since tested positive for the virus.
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| Fauci Says Americans Must be Prepared to Hunker Down More Posted: 15 Mar 2020 10:02 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Americans must be ready to take more drastic steps to slow the march of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., Dr. Anthony Fauci said as he made the rounds of major Sunday talk shows."Americans should be prepared that they are going to have to hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."Asked if he would prefer some kind of 14-day national shutdown to "flatten the curve" of Covid-19 spread, Fauci said -- in one of five interviews on Sunday talk shows -- "I would prefer as much as we possibly could."On "Fox News Sunday," though, the veteran infectious diseases specialist didn't endorse a nationwide shutdown. "Stringent mitigation and containment" measures will help the U.S. avoid getting to where Italy is now, he said.Fauci was asked on CNN's "State of the Union" if hundreds of thousands of Americans could die from the Covid-19 virus.'Be Realistic'"It's possible because, when you do a model, you have a worst-case scenario, the best-case scenario, and the reality is, how you react to that will depend where you're going to be on that curve," he said."It sometimes gets taken out of context, but we have to be realistic and honest," he said. "It is possible. Our job, our challenge is to try and make that not happen."Confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. have reached 2,893, with 60 confirmed deaths. Italy has logged over 21,000 cases and 1,809 deaths as of Sunday -- an increase of 368 fatalities in the past day.Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said some hospitals are preparing for worst-case scenarios."There's no question the steps right now are changing the course of the epidemic," said Gottlieb, now a special partner at New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm that invests in the health-care and biotech sectors. "We're impacting this, but we need to do much more."On ABC's "This Week," Fauci said domestic travel restrictions are not likely in the immediate future but are possible as the U.S. refines its response.Clusters of Cases"Travel restrictions within the country have not been seriously discussed," said Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force. He added that the Trump administration is "open minded" about potential steps.Asked if cities like Seattle and New Rochelle, New York, should be on lockdown given the high number of confirmed cases there, Gottlieb said it was a question of rights."I don't think we can quarantine a U.S. city, lock it down, and deny people their liberty in this country," he said. But by doing things like closing restaurants and preventing large gatherings, "there's no place to go; people stay home."Fauci said he was "absolutely" confident the federal government is doing what it needs to contain the Covid-19 outbreak."If it looks like you're overreacting, you're probably doing the right thing," Fauci, 79, said on "Face the Nation." "Right now, myself personally, I wouldn't go to a restaurant. I just wouldn't, because I don't want to be in a crowded place."Members of the task force are scheduled to brief the media later on Sunday.(Updates with Scott Gottlieb comments from ninth paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Ros Krasny in Washington at rkrasny1@bloomberg.net;Tom Schoenberg in Washington at tschoenberg@bloomberg.net;Hailey Waller in New York at hwaller@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| US Hispanic Catholics are future, but priest numbers dismal Posted: 14 Mar 2020 06:02 AM PDT  Maria Chavira, a senior administrator in the Diocese of Phoenix, says Spanish-speaking Catholic parishes in her area are "bursting at the seams" and celebrates the emergence of Hispanics as the largest ethnic component of the church nationwide. Throughout the Southwest, where the surge has been dramatic, Roman Catholic leaders are excited by the possibilities — and well aware of daunting challenges. In the Phoenix diocese, there are than 700,000 Hispanics out of a total of 1.2 million Catholics.
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| A third person who visited Trump's Mar-a-Lago club over the weekend has reportedly tested positive for coronavirus Posted: 13 Mar 2020 08:41 PM PDT  Brazil's Chargé d'Affaires Ambassador Nestor Forster became the third person who visited Mar-a-Lago to test positive for the novel coronavirus.
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