| Bloomberg 'weathered the storm' during fiery Democratic debate, his campaign says Posted: 19 Feb 2020 10:02 PM PST  Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg came under heavy fire from his rivals during Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate at the Paris Casino but "weathered the storm," his senior adviser Howard Wolfson said.
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| Suspects in abduction, murder of 7-year-old Mexican girl detained Posted: 19 Feb 2020 09:52 PM PST  Mexican authorities arrested a couple believed to have kidnapped, tortured and murdered a seven year-old girl on Wednesday, days after the discovery of the victim's body sparked protests in the violence-wracked country. The suspects "were detained in a town in the State of Mexico," Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum tweeted, without giving more detail. Prosecutors on Tuesday released pictures of the two suspects -- identified as Giovana and Mario Alberto "N" -- after searching a house near the victim's home.
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| Coronavirus fears create ghost town in South Korea after church 'super-spreader' Posted: 19 Feb 2020 07:07 PM PST  SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) - The streets of South Korea's fourth-largest city were abandoned on Thursday, with residents holed up indoors after dozens of people caught the new coronavirus in what authorities described as a "super-spreading event" at a church. The deserted shopping malls and cinemas of Daegu, a city of 2.5 million people, became one of the most striking images outside China of an outbreak that international authorities are trying stop from becoming a global pandemic. In China, where the virus has killed more than 2,100 people and infected nearly 75,000, officials changed their methodology for reporting infections, creating new doubt about data they have cited as evidence their containment strategy is working.
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| Don't Sleep on Russia's Super-Fast "Avangard" Hypersonic Missile Posted: 20 Feb 2020 01:00 PM PST  It'll keep you up at night.
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| Coronavirus: CDC issues new travel notices for Hong Kong, Japan Posted: 20 Feb 2020 07:53 AM PST  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new advisories on Wednesday for travelers going to Hong Kong and Japan due to coronavirus.
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| Buttigieg attacks Bernie and Bloomberg: 'Let's put forward somebody who's actually a Democrat' Posted: 19 Feb 2020 06:58 PM PST  Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders sparred during Wednesday's debate in Las Vegas, with the former South Bend, Ind., mayor calling the Vermont senator too "polarizing" to be the Democratic nominee, and Sanders taking a jab at Buttigieg's big-money donors.
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| A Google manager has been arrested and charged with murder after his wife was reported missing in Hawaii Posted: 20 Feb 2020 02:11 PM PST  His wife, a Microsoft business program manager, was reported missing Tuesday while the Seattle couple was vacationing in Hawaii.
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| Coronavirus: Princess Cruises boss under fire for blowing kisses at ship where two have died and 3,000 have been quarantined for weeks Posted: 20 Feb 2020 01:18 PM PST  The president of Princess Cruises welcomed a coronavirus-quarantined ship by blowing kisses and making heart signs, captured on a video set to upbeat music and posted on social media the same day as reports of the deaths of two passengers had surfaced.In a video posted to the company's social media on Wednesday, Jan Swartz is seen wearing a surgical mask and forming heart hands over her head as the cruise ship finally begins to disembark after its passengers were forced to remain at a port in Yokohama, Japan for several weeks following a shipwide outbreak of the flu-like respiratory virus.
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| China says will help manage Mekong as report warns of dam danger Posted: 20 Feb 2020 06:35 AM PST  VIENTIANE/BANGKOK (Reuters) - China on Thursday said it was helping its downstream neighbors cope with a prolonged drought by releasing more water from its dams on the Mekong River, adding it would consider sharing information on hydrology to provide further assistance in the future. The statement came as a new economic report predicted that the building of dams to harness hydropower on the Mekong River would reshape the economies of five countries along the waterway, fuelling long-term inflation and dependence on China. The drought over the past year has severely hurt farming and fishing in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam, and many blame China's 11 dams on the upper Mekong - which China calls the Lancang River - as well as climate change.
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| Racist German Shooter Exposes the Global Network of Hate Posted: 20 Feb 2020 10:08 AM PST  BERLIN—Late Wednesday night in the central German city Hanau, a gunman that police have identified as 43-year-old Tobias Rathjen opened fire at two shisha bars. They're the kind of places favored by people who enjoy a laid-back atmosphere as they puff tobacco bubbling through water-filled hookahs, and on any given evening, many of those folks may be from Turkish, Kurdish, or North African backgrounds. They're quiet places for conversation and minding your own business. Do Germans Know a Hate Crime When They See It?But Rathjen just started blowing people away. He first opened fire at a hookah bar called Midnight in the center of Hanau. He then drove five minutes away to the Arena Bar and Cafe, where he opened fire again. He killed nine and injured several others at the two locations, then fled. Police swarmed into the neighborhood. When they tracked Rathjen down and stormed his apartment at 5 a.m., they found his dead body next to that of his 72-year-old mother. Apparently he had shot her, too.Investigators also found a manifesto with racist and ultranationalist views, and the federal prosecutor is treating the case as an example of extreme-right terrorism and it is already clear the shooter was drawing on the international propaganda of hate that has inspired murderers from New Zealand to the United States. It is also apparent that, despite condemnation of the killings by the ascendant far-right German opposition party AfD, or Alternative für Deutschland, it has contributed to this country's increasingly incendiary atmosphere.Witnesses were stunned."I got a call from a colleague that there was a shooting," Can Luca Frisenna, the 24-year-old son of the owner of a convenience store next to the Arena Bar, told reporters in front the taped-off crime scene. "I drove here directly. First I thought that my father had been hit and my little brother... and then I saw both of them, they were in shock, they were crying. Everyone was shocked."Things like this do not happen in this area," Frisenna said. "It's like a film, like a prank. I can't yet believe what has happened. I think all of my colleagues, they are like my family, they cannot believe it either."Both the Midnight and the Arena have owners with Kurdish backgrounds, according to Mehmet Tanriverdi, the chairman of the Kurdische Gemeinde Deutschland, or Kurdish Community in Germany.Tanriverdi said that five of the nine victims have Kurdish backgrounds, but "They are German citizens." One witness, Kenan Kocak, told the television network station NTV, "It's very sad in particular that young people—a young lad, and a young girl about 20 or 25 years old—have died. I was there with them yesterday. Someone who worked there was also taken to the hospital. It looks very bad."The news agency ANF has identified two of the people killed as Ferhat Ünvar and Gökhan Gültekin, both young men. A week ago the killer, who described himself as a bank teller, published a video on YouTube in which he addressed "all Americans." He spoke English in a light German accent and mouthed bizarre conspiracy theories about "underground military facilities" on U.S. soil. He referred repeatedly to 9/11 as an example of the imminent threat. He said that he, for one, has been under surveillance since birth and called on American citizens to wake up and "fight now." The video appeared to have been recorded in a private apartment; a bookshelf in the background was stacked with dozens of binders. Meanwhile, Rathjen uploaded a 24-page text on his personal website. It included long sections of white supremacist, ethno-nationalist rambling. He wrote that "not everyone who owns a German passport is purebred and valuable." He talked about one German Volk—"the people" in the ethno-nationalist sense—which he describes as being the best. Otherwise there are only "destructive races." The "solution to the puzzle," he wrote (misspelling "puzzle"—is that billions of people (he named Arab countries and Israel) be "annihilated."If such demented ravings were limited to one unhinged bank teller with a gun, society might rest easy in spite of the tragedy. But they are not. Last week, police in Germany arrested 12 right-wing extremists who allegedly had been planning terror attacks on mosques across the country, inspired by those carried out in New Zealand last year. They had plans to provoke revenge attacks and bring about a "civil war," authorities said.This often is part of the global hate network's gospel. The young white supremacist who murdered nine black men and women in a Bible study group in Charleston, South Carolina, one evening in June 2015, preached much the same philosophy.Inside the Head of Dylann Roof, Jihadist for White HateRathjen also wrote about the coming "war" on his website, claiming that it would be a double blow, both against the secret organizations that he says are reading his mind, and against the "degeneration of the Volk."Right-wing extremists who turn to terror rely on apocalyptic scenarios ("civil war") to characterize their targets as a threat and thus justify their criminal acts as "self defense."Politicians from Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), now Germany's biggest opposition party, have spurred this narrative by spreading conspiracies about "ethnic replacement" and disinformation campaigns about non-existent crimewaves—as exemplified by campaign posters that accused hookah bars of being places of "rape " and "poison."For Germany's radical right, escalation is the goal. Crime levels in Germany are still at an all-time low. Right-wing terrorism aims to spread fear and potentially bring about authoritarian measures that the AfD cannot implement directly. So of course AfD politicians have condemned the terror attack—one AfD politician wrote on Twitter, "Is this still the 'Germany in which we live well and happily' that Merkel's CDU (Conservative party) conjured up in 2017?"Four months ago, 27-year-old Stephan Balliet tried to commit a terror attack against a synagogue in the city of Halle an der Saale, and killed two bystanders. As was the case with Rathjen, he had not been known to intelligence services prior to his act of terror. Meanwhile, Stephan E., the man accused of murdering conservative politician Walter Lübcke on his front porch in June, was a neo-Nazi in the '90s, but only became active again in the past few years. The German newspaper Die Zeit reported Thursday that police found a New Right book in his apartment that propagates the same ethnic replacement theories AfD politicians have cited. In 2016, 18-year-old student David Sonboly killed nine people in Munich on the fifth anniversary of the terror attack in Norway by Anders Breivik. He had been bullied at school, but turned his resentment and fury on people simply for their appearance, claiming that refugees and immigrants were a threat to Germany's future. In 2018, reporters from the newspaper Taz uncovered a network of people (including soldiers from the German army) who were preparing "kill lists" of left-wing politicians and activists, whom they could execute on the apocalyptic "Day X."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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| As Trump Claims to Be Law of the Land, Barr's Irritation Builds Posted: 19 Feb 2020 05:20 AM PST  WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr agree on one thing at least: The president is making the attorney general's job much harder. What they don't agree on: Trump sees no reason to stop.Defying Barr's pleas, the president renewed his public attacks on law enforcement Tuesday, denouncing the prosecutors, judge and jury forewoman in the case of his longtime friend Roger Stone and defending his convicted former adviser Michael Flynn against Trump's own Justice Department.Explicitly rebuffed, Barr was left by the end of the day to consider his own future. He expressed dissatisfaction to associates, and his irritation soon fed news reports that he was considering resignation if the president continued to publicly weigh in on individual prosecutions of his own associates. But it was unclear whether that would persuade Trump to back off or only get his back up.The suggestions of resignation came at the end of a day when the president asserted his dominance over a justice system that had long sought to insulate itself from political pressures. Calling himself "the chief law enforcement officer of the country," Trump demanded a new trial for Stone, urged federal judges to address the "tremendous" abuse of the special counsel investigation of his campaign and bypassed the traditional pardon process to grant clemency to celebrity convicts recommended by his friends, allies and political donors.Trump insisted he had not directly interfered in the prosecution of advisers like Stone and Flynn but declared again that he had the power to if he wanted and that, at the very least, he planned to speak out for them. "You take a look at what's happening to these people," he told reporters. "Somebody has to stick up for the people."In doing so, Trump acknowledged that Barr was right last week when he said that the president was making it "impossible" for him to do his work. "I do make his job harder," Trump said. "I do agree with that. I think that's true."But while he praised Barr's "incredible integrity" and avowed "total confidence" in him, Trump dismissed the suggestion that he stop discussing individual cases. "Social media for me has been very important because it gives me a voice, because I don't get that voice in the press," he said. "In the media, I don't get that voice. So I'm allowed to have a voice."Even as he refused to take Barr's advice, Trump expressed no anger toward his attorney general, and some officials said he understood why Barr felt the need to complain last week to ABC News about the presidential tweets. But The Washington Post reported Tuesday night that Barr was thinking about stepping down if the president's tweets continued, a story confirmed by an administration official and seemingly aimed at an audience of one.Barr was especially irritated by the president's tweet Tuesday morning denigrating Judge Amy Berman Jackson shortly before she was to hold a conference call with lawyers in Stone's case. Trump insisted in his tweet that she order a new trial for Stone but the Justice Department then disclosed that it opposed just such a retrial, a position personally approved by Barr.The attorney general then had lunch with Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel and a longtime friend and colleague, in what officials said was a previously scheduled get-together. While Barr has been incredibly frustrated and has a limit to what he will put up with, people who know him said they doubted he would give in so quickly.An abrupt departure by Barr would roil a Justice Department on track to deliver several initiatives important to Trump, including an overhaul of the FBI, a criminal investigation into the origins of the Russia inquiry and a continuing leak investigation into James Comey, the former director of the FBI. It would also leave the president with a vacancy at the top of the Justice Department that might be hard to fill eight months before the election.Barr has taken heat from critics both inside and outside his department over what they see as the politicization of the law enforcement system. More than 1,100 former Justice Department officials have called for Barr's resignation, and a group representing the nation's federal judges scheduled an emergency telephone conference to address the president's attacks on one of their own.The Justice Department dismissed suggestions Tuesday night that Barr's departure was imminent. "Addressing Beltway rumors: The Attorney General has no plans to resign," Kerri Kupec, the department spokeswoman, wrote on Twitter. Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, retweeted Kupec's message.The president told reporters on Tuesday that Stone, an off-and-on adviser, and Flynn, a campaign adviser before serving briefly as his national security adviser, were both "treated very unfairly." He called Stone's conviction "a very, very rough thing" and said that Flynn's "life has been destroyed."Stone, who was convicted in November of seven felonies for obstructing a congressional inquiry into the Trump campaign's ties to WikiLeaks, which disseminated Democratic emails stolen by Russian agents, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his dealings with Russian officials but wants to withdraw his plea.Asked whether he was considering pardons for Stone, Flynn or Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman convicted on tax and other financial fraud charges, Trump said, "I'm not even thinking about that." But aides said he had broached the idea, and critics said Tuesday's pardons and commutations for convicted political figures like Rod Blagojevich and Bernard Kerik sent a clear message to the president's associates that he may yet clear them."The real test will be, what does this president do with Stone, Manafort and others who are directly connected to him and who have the ability to provide information that is harmful to him?" said Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under President Barack Obama.On Twitter, Trump cited a "Fox & Friends" legal analyst, Andrew Napolitano, who has insisted that the president "has every right" to intervene in a criminal case. He quoted Napolitano's calls for Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to reconsider Stone's case."Judge Jackson now has a request for a new trial based on the unambiguous & self outed bias of the foreperson," Trump tweeted, quoting Napolitano.Jackson ruled Tuesday morning that Stone's sentencing would go forward as planned Thursday despite last-ditch motions by his defense lawyers. She said she would allow the defense to file an amended motion for a new trial, give the government a chance to respond with its own filing and schedule a hearing if warranted. Defense lawyers argue that juror misconduct led to an unfair trial.The handling of Stone's case has generated tumult throughout the Justice Department and grabbed the attention of Washington's broader legal establishment. After Barr scrapped the original sentencing recommendation in favor of a lighter one, the four career prosecutors handling the matter withdrew from the case, and one resigned from the department entirely.As the president has repeatedly pointed out, two of the four prosecutors had worked for the special counsel, Robert Mueller, whose investigation of Russia's interference in the 2016 election dogged Trump for two years. The president attacked Mueller's team anew Tuesday, saying if he were not president, he would sue it.The president said he had not intervened in Stone's case, evidently making a distinction between his public commentaries and explicit orders, but added that he had the power to do so if he wanted. "Just so you understand, I chose not to be involved," he said. "I'm allowed to be totally involved. I'm actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country."Republican congressional leaders defended Barr. "Suggestions from outside groups that the attorney general has fallen short of the responsibilities of his office are unfounded," Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California said in a joint statement.Trump's attacks on Jackson generated alarms in the judiciary. The Federal Judges Association, a voluntary organization, scheduled an emergency telephone conference for this week. Judge Cynthia Rufe of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania told USA Today that the group wanted to discuss "plenty of issues that we are concerned about."Trump countered that the judges should instead investigate misconduct in the Mueller investigation. "I hope the Federal Judges Association will discuss the tremendous FISA Court abuse that has taken place with respect to the Mueller Investigation Scam, including the forging of documents and knowingly using the fake and totally discredited Dossier before the Court," he wrote on Twitter.The role of Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani in another politically fraught matter before the Justice Department has also come under scrutiny.Barr said last week that the department had an "intake process" for information from Ukraine, prompting complaints that law enforcement officials were giving Giuliani special treatment because he has said he turned over evidence against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, about their dealings in Ukraine.Giuliani led the campaign to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into Biden and other Democrats, a campaign that ultimately led the House to impeach Trump for abuse of power; he was acquitted this month in a Senate trial.The department routes all Ukraine matters through a central process, not to circumvent channels but to avoid duplicating efforts, Stephen Boyd, an assistant attorney general, clarified on Tuesday. The U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, Richard Donoghue, oversees the process, and his counterpart in Pittsburgh, Scott Brady, accepts any unsolicited information from the public, including from Giuliani, Boyd wrote in a letter to Congress.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| India's Military Is Quite Deadly (China and Pakistan Should Worry) Posted: 19 Feb 2020 04:44 AM PST  Missiles, carriers, and more.
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| Buttigieg hits Bloomberg and Sanders in 1 swoop: 'Let's put forth someone who is actually a Democrat' Posted: 19 Feb 2020 06:40 PM PST  Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg started Wednesday's Democratic debate in Nevada with a direct hit on two candidates at once.If the party doesn't "wake up" before Super Tuesday, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will likely be the only candidates left in the race, Buttigieg said. "Most Americans don't see where they fit" between those two candidates, seeing as "one wants to burn this party down" and the other "wants to buy this party out ... Let's put forward somebody who's actually a Democrat," Buttigieg said to a roaring crowd, pointing out how Sanders isn't actually a Democrat and Bloomberg just became one a little over a year ago. Sanders countered by pointing out that Buttigieg has a few dozen billionaires supporting his campaign.> WATCH: Buttigieg on Sanders and Bloomberg: "Let's put forth someone who is actually a Democrat." - @NBCNewsNOW DemDebate pic.twitter.com/rrRZEP7Pbi> > — NBC News (@NBCNews) February 20, 2020Buttigieg later piled on to questions about people who claim to be Sanders' supporters attacking a culinary union that questioned his health care proposals. Sanders disavowed anyone who is attacking union leaders and suggested disinformation campaigns like what happened in 2016 could be at play. Buttigieg fired back with a signature one-liner, saying leadership "is about how you inspire people to act."More stories from theweek.com House leaders reportedly learned Russia was trying to get Trump re-elected — and Trump was angry about it The growing crisis in cosmology Mike Bloomberg is not the lesser of two evils
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| Four things to know about Pope Pius XII's archives Posted: 20 Feb 2020 08:04 AM PST  The March 2 unsealing of the archives of Pope Pius XII, the controversial World War II-era pontiff, whose papacy lasted from 1939 to 1958, has been awaited for decades by Jewish groups and historians. The controversy over Pius XII hinges on whether the head of the Catholic Church, a former diplomat of the Holy See in Germany, remained too silent during the Holocaust, never publicly condemning the Nazis. The most sensitive archives, comprising the World War II period, have already been largely published by the Vatican.
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| The Mormon Church's secretive $100 billion fund revealed huge stakes in Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Here are its 10 biggest holdings. Posted: 19 Feb 2020 09:04 AM PST  Ensign Peak Advisors, the investing arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spilled the beans on its $40 billion stock portfolio.
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| US military truck caught on camera ramming Russian jeep off the road in Syria Posted: 20 Feb 2020 08:50 AM PST  A video circulating on Twitter shows US military forces in Syria running a Russian military vehicle off the road.
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| Former Mexico President Pena Nieto investigated in corruption probe: report Posted: 19 Feb 2020 04:33 PM PST  Mexican law enforcement authorities are investigating a former president, Enrique Pena Nieto, as part of an inquiry into corruption, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Pena Nieto has become embroiled in the investigation of Emilio Lozoya, the former chief executive of Mexico's state oil firm Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. Lozoya is accused of corruption related to a wide-ranging bribery and money-laundering case involving Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht SA. Lozoya, who was arrested in Spain last week, has denied wrongdoing.
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| Trump Stews Over McCabe But Is Wary of Driving Barr to Resign Posted: 20 Feb 2020 03:08 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump was surprised and angered by the Justice Department's decision not to charge Andrew McCabe with crimes, but the president is wary of acting against the former deputy FBI director out of concern he might push Attorney General William Barr to resign, according to people familiar with the matter.The Justice Department gave the White House no advance notice of its decision on McCabe, meaning Trump found out along with the public when it was announced on Tuesday, three of the people said. That created fresh point of potential tension between Trump and Barr, who has publicly criticized Trump's tweets about criminal cases DOJ is pursuing and has privately told associates he may quit.The president is weighing his options to respond to the Justice Department's non-prosecution decision on McCabe, but it isn't clear he can do anything, the people said. He is aware that he should proceed delicately, given Barr's position, they said.The people asked not to be identified discussing the president's private deliberations. The White House and Justice Department communications staff declined to comment.Trump's frustration with McCabe's case is related to his concern about the Justice Department's prosecution of his friend and former associate Roger Stone, who was sentenced Thursday to more than three years in prison for lying to Congress and threatening a witness in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump believes the justice system is applying a double standard to political cases, with his allies receiving far harsher treatment than his opponents.Trump could order Barr or FBI Director Christopher Wray to open an investigation into McCabe, although they'd be under no obligation to comply. Such a move might force them to resign.Barr said in a Feb. 13 interview with ABC News that he wouldn't carry out such an order. "If he were to say go investigate somebody because -- and you sense it's because they're a political opponent -- then the attorney general shouldn't carry that out, wouldn't carry that out," he said.Wray recently testified before the House Judiciary Committee that he has never been asked to open an improper investigation.Trump publicly bemoaned the McCabe situation on Thursday, tweeting a remark from a Fox News guest that the decision to not prosecute was "utterly inexplicable." Shortly after, speaking in Las Vegas, he linked the cases of Stone and McCabe."What happened to him is unbelievable," Trump said of Stone. "They said he lied, but other people lied too." He went on to cite McCabe along with former FBI director James Comey."Comey lied, McCabe lied, Lisa Page lied, her lover, Strzok, Peter Strzok, lied," Trump said, referring to a former FBI attorney and agent. He left open the possibility of an eventual Stone pardon."I'm going to watch the process, I'm going to watch it very closely, and at some point I'll make a determination. But Roger Stone and everybody has to be treated fairly, and this has not been a fair process," Trump said."I'm here to make a fair system," Trump said.Barr complained in the ABC interview that Trump's public remarks on the cases made his job "impossible." But he has also ordered a review of the prosecution of former Trump adviser Michael Flynn, the latest politically sensitive intervention into a case with a defendant linked to the president."I do make his job harder, I do agree with that, I think that's true," Trump said earlier this week after he was asked about Barr's remarks. "He's a very straight shooter, we have a great attorney general, and he's working very hard. And he's working against a lot of people that don't want to see good things happen, in my opinion."But he said his social media posts would continue. "In the media, I don't get that voice. So I'm allowed to have a voice," he said.\--With assistance from Josh Wingrove.To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net;Chris Strohm in Washington at cstrohm1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Justin BlumFor 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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| Coronavirus is Spreading Rapidly in China (And One Minority Group Is Under Serious Threat) Posted: 20 Feb 2020 02:12 PM PST  If the Chinese government cannot or does not curb the transmission of the novel coronavirus in Xinjiang, it's possible that it will evolve, as the influenza virus did in 1918, to become even more dangerous to humans
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| 2 women killed when Mercedes-Benz falls off Florida ferry; Coast Guard investigating Posted: 20 Feb 2020 09:13 AM PST  The bodies of two women were discovered in a car that rolled off a ferry into a deep shipping channel off the coast of South Florida.
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| Sanders 'socialism' represents a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party Posted: 20 Feb 2020 07:07 AM PST  If the election comes down to debating whether Sanders better fits the definition of a socialist or communist, Trump has nothing to worry about.
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| Apple has been granted a temporary restraining order against a man it says has been stalking Tim Cook Posted: 20 Feb 2020 02:26 PM PST  Apple alleged the man has been harassing Tim Cook, and has shown up at his house in Palo Alto twice, once with champagne and flowers.
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| Putin hails US for helping prevent terror attack in Russia Posted: 20 Feb 2020 08:41 AM PST  Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Thursday hailed the FBI for sharing information that helped thwart a terror attack by adherents of the Islamic State group in St. Petersburg during the New Year holidays. The FSB in December announced the detention of two Russian men who confessed to plotting the terror attacks in St. Petersburg.
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| New U.S. Navy Virginia-Class Attack Submarines Will Carry Hypersonic Missiles Posted: 19 Feb 2020 03:58 PM PST  The U.S. Navy has confirmed that the Block V version of its Virginia-class attack submarines will be the first vessels in the fleet to carry a new hypersonic missile the service is developing.
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| Virus Surge in Japan Risks Undoing Abe’s Efforts to Woo China Posted: 20 Feb 2020 05:08 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has so far managed to keep the coronavirus outbreak from damaging his hard-won relationship with China. That's getting even more difficult with each new case confirmed in Japan.Abe has taken a softer approach to China over the virus than the Trump administration, winning Tokyo praise in Beijing. That chimes with his efforts to nurse Japan's relationship with its giant neighbor and biggest trading partner back to health since he took office in 2012 amid the worst crisis in decades.Unlike others including the U.S., Australia and Singapore, Abe's government has avoided a blanket ban on visitors from its neighbor, instead restricting entry from just two provinces. While acting quickly to evacuate its citizens from the virus epicenter of Hubei, Japan also used the planes to fly in aid packages for China.That's contrasted with Japan's counterparts in the U.S., who have questioned China's commitment to transparency during the crisis -- leading to bickering between the two sides. China is also keen to keep ties strong with Abe amid a painful trade war with the U.S. that has battered its economy."Japan's attitude has been very helpful for China," said Noriyuki Kawamura, a professor at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies. "China's initial response to the virus was insufficient. The question is what Japan will do when those problems are exposed. Will it criticize China or close its eyes?"China has shown its appreciation for Japan's approach, marking an unusual interlude in a relationship between Asia's two biggest economies long rocked by disagreements over history and territory. Personal touches like a fragment of ancient Chinese poetry attached to aid packages from a Japanese group and a video of a Tokyo-based ballet troupe singing the Chinese national anthem won widespread praise on Chinese social media.But as coronavirus infections rise in Japan, Abe is likely to find his position harder to maintain, especially given that an earlier alert from China could have slowed the spread of the disease. Before global warning flags were raised, thousands of Chinese tourists visited all parts of Japan and have since been linked to cases of virus transmission. Three people have so far died of the infection in Japan.'Cherry Trees Bloom'Chinese visitors to Japan in January rose 22.6% from a year ago, data released Wednesday showed. Even though infection numbers in China grew dramatically in late January, Abe's government only banned entry from Hubei province on Feb 1.While the virus outbreak initially provided an opportunity for Japan to show solidarity, it's likely to interfere with Abe's plans for a state visit by President Xi Jinping, meant to crown the seven-year slog to restore relations. Japanese officials have repeatedly said there's no change to the plan to treat Xi with full state honors "when the cherry trees bloom" in early April, but both sides may find the trip harder to manage.The virus also appears to be eating away Abe's long-solid voter support. A poll published this week by the conservative Yomiuri newspaper, which generally backs Abe, showed 52% of respondents were dissatisfied with the way the government has been handling the outbreak. His support rate dropped in all three media surveys published Monday.Japan's Abe Arrives in China Vowing to Lift Ties to 'New Level'The opposition Democratic Party for the People has called for a ban on all foreigners visiting from China. Former premier Yukio Hatoyama's Twitter announcement that an organization he heads had donated a million masks to China was met with a barrage of online criticism amid a serious shortage of such items in Japan.Clampdown coming?Some in Abe's own ruling Liberal Democratic Party oppose Xi's state visit, partly because of the ongoing incursions by Chinese ships into what Japan sees as its territorial waters around disputed East China Sea islands.Japan Needs to Do More to Fix China's Image Problem, Xi SaysAn annual poll by think tank Genron NPO published in October found 46% of Chinese had a favorable impression of Japan, the highest since the survey began in 2005, as more tourists experience the country for themselves. Nearly 10 million Chinese visited Japan last year.Almost 85% of Japanese respondents to the same poll said they had an unfavorable impression of China. By contrast, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying said gratitude would bring the two peoples together."Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the Japanese government and people have expressed sympathy, understanding and support to us," she told reporters Feb. 4. "What the virus has done is cruel and will not last. What the people have done is touching and will be remembered forever."She later tweeted in Japanese about China sending testing kits to its neighbor, saying "there are no borders in the fight against the virus."Skeptics point out that there are still deep divisions between the neighbors, including over Japanese citizens detained in China and restrictions on Muslims in the western region of Xinjiang. The territorial dispute over East China Sea islands that brought them close to a military clash in 2012-13 is no nearer resolution."Neither side has reduced its number of patrols close to the islands," said Tsai Hsi-hsun, director of Tamkang University's Graduate Institute of Japanese Political and Economic Studies in Taiwan. "They still don't trust each other in terms of national security and that distrust is deeply ingrained on both sides even though, on the surface, the relationship looks better."(Updates with China spokesperson comment)\--With assistance from Samson Ellis.To contact the reporters on this story: Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo at ireynolds1@bloomberg.net;Dandan Li in Beijing at dli395@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Jon HerskovitzFor 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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| Bloomberg Paying Staffers $2,500 Per Month to Text Their Contacts, Back Him on Social Media Posted: 19 Feb 2020 10:02 AM PST  Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg's campaign is hiring hundreds of staffers to text their contacts about the candidate and to regularly post positive messages about the campaign on social media.Each of the staffers, referred to as "deputy digital organizers," will be paid $2,500 a month in exchange for working roughly 20 to 30 hours a week. The staffers must text all of their personal contacts about Bloomberg at least once a week, and to post on social media daily."The Fight for Equal Rights Has Been One of the Great Fights of Mike's Life," reads a suggested message prompt from campaign documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal. The message refers to Bloomberg's support of same-sex marriage."We are meeting voters everywhere on any platform that they consume their news," a campaign spokesperson told the Journal. "One of the most effective ways of reaching voters is by activating their friends and network to encourage them to support Mike for president."The campaign plans to hire around 500 "deputy digital organizers" in California and expand the effort nationwide if it proves successful.The California Primary will take place on super Tuesday, March 3. Bloomberg, who entered the Democratic primary race late, is skipping the first four early state primaries and will only be on the ballot from super Tuesday onward. He will appear in a primary debate for the first time on Wednesday in Las Vegas, Nev., even though he is not on the ballot in Nevada.Bloomberg has spent well over $300 million of his own multi-billion dollar fortune on his campaign, dwarfing expenses by other candidates.
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| Pete Buttigieg quips he's 'a Microsoft Word guy' during Democratic debate and attracts instant Clippy comparisons Posted: 20 Feb 2020 08:06 AM PST  Democratic presidential candidate Buttigieg has revealed an affinity for Microsoft's famous word processor.
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| Exclusive: Myanmar set to be placed on global money laundering watchlist - sources Posted: 19 Feb 2020 02:05 AM PST  Myanmar is set to be placed on a watchlist by a global finance watchdog this week, amid concerns of money-laundering by transnational drug traffickers and weak regulation of its financial system, two sources familiar with deliberations said. A decision to put Myanmar on the "grey list" by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) would mean the inter-governmental body had found "strategic deficiencies" in the country's ability to counter money-laundering and terrorism financing. Kyaw Win Thein, the head of Myanmar's Financial Intelligence Unit who is attending the FATF meeting in Paris this week, told Reuters that Myanmar "is not on the grey list so far".
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| Two women drown after car rolls off ferry from Miami’s exclusive Fisher Island Posted: 19 Feb 2020 12:08 PM PST  Two women died after the car they were in rolled off a ferry and sank between Miami Beach, Florida, and the exclusive enclave of Fisher Island.It is unclear how the blue 2019 Mercedes-Benz came to fall from the ferry at approximately 5pm on Tuesday.
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| Trump ignores outcry and tweets on ally's court sentencing Posted: 20 Feb 2020 08:13 AM PST  President Donald Trump on Thursday brazenly ignored his attorney general's plea to stop tweeting about ongoing court cases, again expressing displeasure with how his longtime ally Roger Stone is being treated in court. The president questioned the "fairness" in a tweet to his nearly 73 million followers, right as a Washington, DC, federal judge was opening Stone's sentencing hearing. Stone was convicted in November of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House of Representatives investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to cheat in the 2016 election.
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| The Vietcong Proved That America's Enemies Don't Need Missiles To 'Sink' An Aircraft Carrier Posted: 20 Feb 2020 12:00 AM PST  Naval vessels often have a mystique about them, but they are vulnerable to attack.
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| Pompeo says 'mature, responsible countries' don't 'restrict speech' after China expels reporters Posted: 19 Feb 2020 10:35 AM PST  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is condemning China for its decision to expel three reporters from The Wall Street Journal from the country."Mature, responsible countries understand that a free press reports facts and expresses opinions," Pompeo said in a statement on Wednesday. "The correct response is to present counter arguments, not restrict speech."This came after China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said three journalists from the Journal would have their credentials revoked over the paper's recent headline, "China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia," The New York Times reports. The reporters weren't actually involved with the article, which was an opinion piece, but Beijing called the story "racist" and "malicious." The journalists, two of whom are American and one of whom is Australian, have been ordered to leave China within five days, although the Times notes it's not clear if that's possible, as one of is currently in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus.Journal editor Matt Murray called China's actions "harsh and unprecedented," saying the paper "will continue in the coming days to push for this action to be reversed." The Foreign Correspondents' Club also called the expulsion "an extreme and obvious attempt by the Chinese authorities to intimidate foreign news organizations." The Journal noted this is "the first time in the post-Mao era that the Chinese government has expelled multiple journalists from one international news organization at the same time."Pompeo's condemnation came after he warned African countries in a speech Wednesday to "be wary of authoritarian regimes and their empty promises" in an apparent swipe at China. The State Department also told China Tuesday that five major Chinese news outlets will be treated as foreign state operatives by the United States going forward.More stories from theweek.com The growing crisis in cosmology The Democrats gave Mike Bloomberg what he deserved A deluge of new, belated Baby Yoda merchandise is on the way
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| Former Australian PM suspected pilot of mass-murder mission in MH370 tragedy Posted: 19 Feb 2020 11:30 AM PST  Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said the "top levels" of the Malaysian government long suspected that the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 almost six years ago was a mass murder-suicide by the pilot.
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| Family of man killed by trooper seeking more than $10M Posted: 20 Feb 2020 08:38 AM PST  Relatives of a black Connecticut man killed by a state trooper are seeking more than $10 million in wrongful death damages from state and local police, according to legal notices filed Thursday. Lawyers for the family of Mubarak Soulemane, 19, asked the state claims commissioner for permission to sue the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and top state police officials including Public Safety Commissioner James Rovella for $10 million. West Haven's counsel, Lee Tiernan, said the town's policy is not to comment on pending litigation.
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| No, you step aside: Democratic competitors 'shocked' by Bloomberg suggesting they leave the race Posted: 20 Feb 2020 03:17 PM PST  Michael Bloomberg's Democratic competitors don't think much of his suggestion that they leave the race to him and Bernie Sanders.
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| Mexican President Lopez Obrador says unaware of probe into ex-President Pena Nieto Posted: 20 Feb 2020 07:22 AM PST  Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday said he is not aware of an investigation into his predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto, after a media report that law enforcement authorities are probing the former leader. "There is no investigation that I know of against the former president Pena Nieto," Lopez Obrador said in his daily morning press conference.
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| 8 Statement-Making Cabinets to Make Any Room Posted: 20 Feb 2020 05:00 AM PST |
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